From megalith!overlord@uunet.UU.NET Fri Jan 7 11:58:32 1994 Received: from relay2.UU.NET by toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (4.1/UCD.CS.2.4) id AA05690; Fri, 7 Jan 94 11:58:26 PST Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA10691; Fri, 7 Jan 94 14:58:20 -0500 Received: from megalith.UUCP by uucp5.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 145642.197; Fri, 7 Jan 1994 14:56:42 EST Received: by megalith.miami.fl.us (V1.16.20/w5, Dec 29 1993, 21:22:55) id <04pp@megalith.miami.fl.us>; Fri, 7 Jan 94 12:49:52 EST -0500 Date: Fri, 7 Jan 94 12:49:52 EST -0500 Message-Id: <9401071248.04po@megalith.miami.fl.us> Sender: errors@megalith.miami.fl.us Errors-To: errors@megalith.miami.fl.us Warnings-To: warnings@megalith.miami.fl.us Return-Path: errors@megalith.miami.fl.us Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Reply-To: fnf@cygnus.com (Fred Fish) Message-Number: 656 Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.announce Message-Id: From: fnf@cygnus.com (Fred Fish) (CSAA) To: announce@megalith.miami.fl.us Subject: Updated CDROM info Status: RO G E N E R A L C D - R O M I N F O R M A T I O N Jan 5, 1994 -------- OVERVIEW -------- This document provides general information about my CD-ROM series, including CD-ROMs that are in production and ones that are planned for the future. It includes all necessary details for ordering CD-ROMs and a sample order form at the end. There are two CD-ROM series that are intended to meet significantly different needs, and a one-time CD-ROM production that will contain the entire contents of my floppy disk distribution once I reach disk 1000. ------------------------ WHY CD-ROM DISTRIBUTIONS ------------------------ == More Cost Effective == It is simply far more cost effective, both for me and for the library subscribers, to distribute the library on CD-ROMs than on floppy disks. The current cost of a subscription to the floppy distribution averages about $40 per month for less than 12Mb of new material per month. A CD-ROM distribution is expected to average about $20 per month for 50-150Mb of new material per month, assuming there actually is that much available. I.E. I expect to be able to supply almost an order of magnitude more new material at about half the average cost of a floppy subscription during the same period. == Multiple Distribution Formats == With the floppy distributions, the name of the game is sometimes to see just how much material can be crammed onto a single floppy. There is almost always a tradeoff between the convenience of having the material in unarchived format and the desire to get as much material as possible into a new release, or to make something fit on a single floppy. A significant amount of time actually goes into juggling things around until a set of 10 floppies achieves the desired density of 95-100% full. With a CD-ROM distribution, we get the best of both worlds. Given a vastly larger amount of space, the new material can be distributed directly in two forms: an unarchived (ready-to-run) form, and an archived (BBS-ready) form, on the same media. This is how the Freshfish CD-ROM is organized. The archival CD-ROMs that are scheduled for release after each third Freshfish CD-ROM will eventually contain only the BBS-ready form of new material from as many previous Freshfish CD-ROMs as will fit on a single CD-ROM. ------------------------------------- COORDINATION WITH FLOPPY DISTRIBUTION ------------------------------------- == Timing of Floppy Releases == For the past several years, I've released floppy disks in batches of 10, with a new batch being released about every 2 to 6 weeks. Beginning with the first Freshfish CD-ROM, the release of floppy disks has been tied to the release of the CD-ROM master to production. It is expected that when each new Freshfish CD-ROM is released there will be 15-25 floppy disks that are released at the same time, the contents of which will make up some fraction of the new material that is included on the Freshfish CD-ROM. Note that not all the new material will be contained on the floppy disks; the only way to get all the new material is via the CD-ROM. == Migration to CD-ROM Only Distributions == Once the library reaches disk 1000, there will be no more floppy releases and the library will move to CD-ROM only. Part of the reason for delaying the move to CD-ROM and running both distributions in parallel is to allow people time to acquire CD-ROM drives, and part of the reason is that it would be a shame to get this close to disk 1000 and not reach it. After the release of disk 1000, there will be a CD-ROM (or set of CD-ROMs) containing the contents of the entire floppy library (see below). --------------------------- ORGANIZATION OF THE CD-ROMs --------------------------- == The Freshfish CD-ROM == The Freshfish CD-ROM is designed to meet the needs of users who want copies of new releases of material as soon as practical with a CD-ROM distribution. Depending upon when the material was received in the CD-ROM production cycle, and the time to go from CD-ROM master to production CD-ROMs, there should be an average latency of about three to six weeks between receiving new material and its availability on a Freshfish CD-ROM. As of 5-Jan-94 two Freshfish CD-ROMs have been produced, the Oct-93 and the Dec-93 CD-ROMs. Limited quantities of the Oct-93 CD-ROM are still available. The Dec-93 CD-ROM is just now going into production, and work is starting on the Feb-94 CD-ROM. Since there is not enough new material of sufficient quality released every couple of months to fill a CD-ROM (or enough time to organize it if it was available), I include some other material on the Freshfish CD-ROM to make effective use of the available space. Each Freshfish CD-ROM is organized into several different sections: o A overview section containing information about the library, this particular CD-ROM, hot breaking news, etc. o A section containing material that is newly released with this CD-ROM, in ready-to-run (unarchived) form. o A section containing material that is newly released with this CD-ROM, in BBS-ready (archived) form. o A section containing installed versions of popular tools that are anticipated to be released in updated form on each CD-ROM. By leaving the CD-ROM mounted, you can potentially free up several hundred megabytes of hard disk space to use for other purposes. Of course the tools can still be copied from the CD-ROM to a hard drive if you prefer the faster access speed of the hard drive or don't wish to leave the CD-ROM mounted all the time. If this section gets too large, it may be split off onto a separate tools CD-ROM. o A "filler" section. Whatever space remains after putting everything else on the CD-ROM will be filled with selected material from a previous CD-ROM or from the floppy based library distributions. This may or may not include all the new material from the previous CD-ROM, depending upon space available. The intention is that users will be able to order every other Freshfish CD-ROM (at least in the beginning) and because of the overlap, not miss any new material. == The Archival CD-ROM == This CD-ROM is intended to meet the needs of users who prefer to get their doses of new material in larger chunks over longer intervals. It also provides a way for BBS operators to have the maximal amount of recently released new material online using a single CD-ROM. Eventually all of the material on the Archival CD-ROMs will be in the BBS-ready format. The current plans are for an Archival CD-ROM to be produced after every third Freshfish CD-ROM, containing all the new material from each of the previous Freshfish CD-ROMs, up to the limit of available previous Freshfish CD-ROMs or reaching the maximum capacity of a CD-ROM, whichever comes first. For the first several Archival CD-ROMs there will probably not be enough older CD-ROM material to fill it up, so material will probably be included from the floppy distribution, starting with the latest disk and working backwards until the CD-ROM is full. The first Archival CD-ROM should be available shortly after the release of the February Freshfish CD-ROM, which would put its release date in early March. It will contain all the new material from the Oct-93, Dec-93, and Feb-94 Freshfish CD-ROMs. The remaining space will be filled with archives of the floppy distribution, as described above. I need to come up with a more descriptive name for this CD-ROM series, hopefully one that is as cute and appropriate as the "Freshfish" name for the CD-ROMs which bring you the "freshest available Fish". I've already ruled out "RipeFish", "CannedFish", etc, so please don't suggest those. == The 1000 Floppy CD-ROM == Once the floppy distribution reaches 1000 disks, I will produce a CD-ROM (or CD-ROM set) containing the entire contents of the floppy library. I am currently at disk 950 in the floppy distribution. Between now and the release of the February Freshfish CD-ROM, I am going to attempt to organize another 25 floppy disks to be released concurrent with the February Freshfish CD-ROM, and then do the final 25 disks to be released concurrent with the April Freshfish CD-ROM, about the middle of April. The 1000 disk CD-ROM should be available before the end of April. Many people have asked for details about how the 1000 disk archive CD-ROM will be organized. My current thinking on this is to do two different versions, one that consists of a single CD-ROM with everything in archived (BBS-ready) form, and the other that consists of a two CD-ROM set with everything in unarchived (ready-to-run) form. Each of them will be the same price ($19.95), and people that order (or have preordered) the CD-ROM will be asked to select which version they want. The BBS-ready version will contain archives on a per-floppy-directory basis. That is, each of the main directories on a floppy will be put in a separate archive, and the "overhead files" such as the contents of the :c directory and the usual "readme" files, will be put in yet another archive. To reconstruct a disk all that will be necessary is to format the floppy, and then unarchive each of the archives in the root directory of that floppy. A CRC list will be provided for each disk, for validation that the reconstruction was successful. A tool will be provided that handles all the details of this process, and makes reconstruction of floppies as simple and painless as possible. -------------------- ORDERING INFORMATION -------------------- == Per CD-ROM Price == Currently all CD-ROMs are priced at $19.95 plus shipping and handling, when ordered directly from me. The suggested retail price for copies purchased through dealers and other distributers is $29.95. You can preorder as many disks as you would like. Should it become necessary to adjust the prices at a future date, customers with existing accounts at the time of a rate change will always receive the lowest available rate, either the rate in affect at the time of the order or the rate at the time of shipment, whichever is lower. So order now at $19.95 and always get the best rate. == Shipping and Handling Charges == Shipping and handling is $3 per package of up to 4 CD-ROMs for first class mail shipments within the USA, or airmail shipments to Canada or Mexico. For all other destinations, shipping and handling is $5 per package of up to 4 CD-ROMs and is done via small packet airmail. Special arrangements such as Federal Express are available for a $25 special handling fee per shipment, plus actual shipping charges. For orders of multiple copies of CD-ROMs, such that more than one CD-ROM would be shipped in a single package (ordering 6 copies of each Freshfish CD-ROM for example), use $3 or $5 per set, or partial set, of 4 CD-ROMs as follows: Total CD-ROMs USA, Canada in package or Mexico Other ------------- ----------- ------ 1-4 $3 $5 5-8 $6 $10 9-12 $9 $15 13-16 $12 $20 etc... == Address For Ordering == You can order CD-ROMs using the same address as for the floppy distribution. Note that my address has changed recently. The new address is: Amiga Library Services 610 N. Alma School Road, Suite 18 Chandler, AZ 85224-3687 USA Orders can be FAX'd to: (602) 917-0917 (FAX only, no phone orders via voice) Payment can be made via: o cash (suggest registered mail) o check, money order, international bank draft (payable in U.S. dollars) o credit card (VISA or MasterCard). Be sure to state in your order which CD-ROMs you want and include the appropriate shipping and handling as indicated above. As with the floppy distributions, funds not immediately used will go into an escrow account (fully refundable at any time), to be charged against as CD-ROMs are shipped. If you already have an account for the floppy distribution, you can transfer to the CD-ROM account, and automatically switch over to the CD-ROM distribution, by simply notifying me that this is what you'd like to do. == Credit Card Orders == If you order with a credit card, please include a statement with your order that you agree to have the charge made to your card before delivery of the CD-ROMs, subject to full refund on demand of any unused portion. If you FAX in an order to be paid via credit card, please sign it somewhere. ---------------------------------------- REDISTRIBUTION and COMPILATION COPYRIGHT ---------------------------------------- == Free Redistribution Will Continue == The main focus of the library will be to continue to supply freely redistributable software. That is, if a user wishes to take something off of the CD-ROM and distribute it directly to other users, or make it available for electronic access, no permission is needed from me to do so. There may however be a small number of files on the CD-ROM which are not distributable, if they are licensed from third parties to make the CD-ROM more usable. For example, this might include all the necessary files from Commodore to make the CD-ROM usable in a CDTV or CD32, or it might include all the Amiga header files to make gcc more usable. There will be a list of all files on each CD-ROM that fall into this category. People wishing to redistribute material from a CD-ROM will be responsible for sanitizing these files out of their redistribution. == Compilation Copyright == I struggled quite a while with this issue. I've always explicitly disclaimed a compilation copyright on the floppy distribution, mostly to make it simple for users to redistribute complete floppies, or the collection as a whole. It would not have been feasible to have a single source for the floppy based distribution and have the library achieve the popularity that it has today. However, CD-ROMs change the entire picture. It is anticipated that there will eventually be almost an order of magnitude more time and effort put into acquiring and organizing the material on each month's CD-ROM, than what goes into the current floppy distribution. This is mostly because it is anticipated that there will eventually be an order of magnitude more material to organize. So instead of 50 hours or so of work spread out over several weeks to organize the material on 10 floppy disks, it takes several people, working the equivalent of a full time job, several weeks to produce each CD-ROM. As with the floppy distribution, a significant percentage of the cost of each CD-ROM goes towards compensating various people for this labor. There are also significantly higher fixed monthly costs associated with maintaining or contracting for the necessary equipment and software to produce CD-ROMs. In short, CD-ROMs bring a slightly more commercial flavor to the library (at least at the point of origin) than what has been traditional in the past for the floppy based distribution. However I will always strive to keep costs down and produce a CD-ROM that is an excellent value for the price. I hope the user community will understand the need for this change. For these reasons, I have decided that all CD-ROMs will have a compilation copyright, but the only restriction will be that they cannot be "cloned" and the material redistributed on CD-ROM or similarly priced optical media without prior permission, nor can they be used as the basis for generating a substantially similar CD-ROM distribution. There are of course no restrictions on mounting the CD-ROM and making its contents widely available for electronic distribution, copying the entire contents of the CD-ROM to non-optical media such as hard drives or tape, or copying any of the contents to media of much smaller capacity like floppy disks. --------------------------- CD32 and CDTV COMPATIBILITY --------------------------- All the necessary files are included on the CD-ROM to allow them to boot on a CDTV or CD32. Each CD-ROM is also set up to start parnet running when it is booted on a CDTV or CD32. This allows uses with appropriate software and cabling to use a CDTV as a slow external CD-ROM drive. ============================================================================ Name and ____________________________________________________________ Address ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Phone Numbers: Home: ________________________ Work: _______________________ (optional) FAX: ________________________ Email Address: ____________________________________________________________ ============================================================================ DESCRIPTION QUANT UNIT COST TOTAL Freshfish CD-ROM(s); ______ each release _____ * $19.95 = _______ Start with: [ ] next [ ] other:_______________ Archival CD-ROM(s) _____ * $19.95 = _______ (available starting early March 1994) 1000 floppy disk archival CD-ROM _____ * $19.95 = _______ (available April 1994) SUB-TOTAL => _________ Add $3 per CD-ROM for shipping and handling if within USA, Canada, or Mexico. => +_______ Add $5 per CD-ROM for other destinations (sent airmail). TOTAL => _________ ============================================================================ SELECT PAYMENT METHOD DESIRED: [] Cash, check, money order, or international bank draft enclosed. (Must be payable in U.S. dollars) [] VISA or Full Name on Card: ____________________________________________________ Amount to Charge: $__________ I understand that the total amount shown above will be charged to the above described account upon receipt of order, and that in the event that not all of the requested CD-ROMs are received in a timely manner, any unused portion will be fully refundable upon demand. Sign Here: __________________________________________ ============================================================================ Send or FAX your completed order to: Amiga Library Services 610 N. Alma School Road, Suite 18 FAX: (602) 917-0917 Chandler, AZ 85224-3687 (no voice phone orders, FAX only) USA ============================================================================ -- Read all administrative posts before putting your post up. Mailing list: announce-request@cs.ucdavis.edu. Comments to CSAA@megalith.miami.fl.us. MAIL ALL COMP.SYS.AMIGA.ANNOUNCE ANNOUNCEMENTS TO announce@cs.ucdavis.edu. ==================================================================== This is part of a mailing list gateway maintained by Carlos Amezaga. Bugs, Comments, Subscribes and UnSubcribes should be sent to announce-request@cs.ucdavis.edu.