---Alasdair Foster--- OF <<>> presents his first production Xi Software #001 PROFESSIONAL UTILITIES Title Pic Drawn By Gareth Watt Of Xi Software INTRO ----- Congratulations on obtaining Xi Software #001, the best utility compilation around. "Professional Utilities" was first written a couple of years ago for use by myself and some friends. But, now with some spare time on my hands I`ve re-done the disk, adding the latest utilities. I`ve tried to obtain the latest 1.3 compatible versions of all the utilities. COMPATIBILITY ------------- The trend seems to be moving swiftly towards WB2.0+ only disks, so 1.3 users will be glad to hear I have tried to retain this disk totally 1.3 compatible, which is pretty difficult when you`re developing on a WB3 machine! Although look out for an AGA special Xi Software disk. The only expansion needed is for PCopy and DiskSalv which require an extra drive, but there`s lot`s of other progs if you are a single-driver! PC-Task needs MS-DOS, but is a good software PC emulator. MS-DOS must be 3.3 or greater, but I reckon 3.3 is the best for compatibility. Make sure you get it on normal density disks. It took me ages to get MS-DOS! MEMORY ------ Menumaster and the stars program appear to take up quite some memory and loads of processor time according to SysInfo so the best thing to do is use the program you want straightaway. Even better would be to copy the program you use to your Hard Disk or Work Disk. They are arranged is easy-to-see directories for each program. Or you could use the program from WorkBench since I`ve gone to all the trouble of putting nice little icons on for you! MORE USEFUL PROGS ----------------- Also hidden away on this disk are other useful utils: PPMore V1.8a - Best Text Viewer around I reckon PPShow V1.2b - Piccie Viewer (crunching IFFs saves a lot of room) PPMore V2 - WB2 version of above PPShow V2 - WB2 version of above ReqTools Library - Used by a few programs nowadays NoisePlayer - Not Bad Music Player MuchMore - Scrolling Text Viewer (not so good on the 1200) I have endevoured to get icons for all the progs to make them WB compatible. Everything has been crunched to try and fit as much as possible onto the disk, despite some of the doc`s threatening death on anybody who crunches them. I wasn`t going to crunch SysInfo, but then I discovered it was already in crunched format from the MegaDisk diskmag! So I didn`t need to after all. Xi SOFTWARE ----------- In case you`re wondering about our name it`s a the name of a letter in the Greek alphabet, you learn something every day! We are a couple of 1200 owners who`ve been into Amigas for a few years. Gareth Watt is a part-time graphics artist for DMA Design (the team that brought you Lemmings I and II). Also out now is our second disk: Xi Software #002 : Rave Samples Look out for it at a PD store near you soon! Also planned are several more PD disks: A Comms Disk with Term/NComm/Lha/Logger Reader/STD info etc. An AGA disk with 256HiRes Pic/Kick1.3 & more... An AMIGAdos disk with loads of new CLI commands A Various Programs Disk with a Pipemania Clone/WordSearchSolver/ Xi Software Demo!!! An Easy-To-Use Video Titler Program, better than TVtext [probably be Licenseware] Loads more samples disk SETUP ----- You want to know my set-up, OK here goes! Amiga A1200 60Mg IDE HD Golden Image Mouse Cumana Cax 354 External Drive (V. Useful) Phillips Monitor (Easy viewing) With a TV Tuner of course Epson Ink Jet Printer (Top Quality) Competition Pro Joystick (Alien Busting) Linnet Pace Modem (Communicating with the outside world) COMMS ----- Any Comms people out there I am a FidoNet node and you can contact me at: 2:259/24.107 or leave a message on Glasterlaw BBS. Tell me what you thought of the disk, what you`d like to see on future disks and if you`d be interested in an article I`m about to write on Pointing! HISTORY ------- V1.0 ---- Basic selection of progs taken from Amiga Format`s guide to PD Ish 14. Added a nice MenuMaster prog for easy selection. Used by several friends, but not released to the public. The idea was to compile the basic essential programs needed for Amiga use which are normally scattered round the domain. V2.0 ---- Re-evaluated all the progs - many removed or updated. New programs added such as PC-Task and NoErrors. VectaCheck removed and SysInfo added, much more detailed information. Scoopex BOB demo and Boing Machine Ray Trace demo removed and music added instead. Pretty good music actually. Music had to be moved to menumaster from the startup-sequence as it worked fine on the 1200....but when I tried on the 500 it took years to load and decrunch! Everything now crunched with PP4 as oppossed to PP2.3 beforehand. Latest version of Virus Checker and SysInfo added. Had a problem just before release when PPShow started crashing so I added the WB2 version aswell and I`ve made it automatically detect which one to use! Released----April 1993 V3.0 ---- A V3 might be produced if this one becomes out of date...... CREDIT ------ I don`t ask for any money (yet!), all I want is for you to spread this disk. Give it to your Amiga-owning friends and don`t muck around with any of the data! Use P-Copy to copy it if you have two drives. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!If you DON`T copy it - you`ll kill it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -Professional Utilities by Alasdair Foster- LOOK OUT FOR Xi SOFTWARE #002