{1 }1 THE CD ROM COLUMN - The Epic Collection CD Review >2 By Andy Gibson >3 {0 }1 I thought I'd better write a review of at least one of my CD Roms for AF since Steve has been doing them all for so long now! This issue I'll be taking a look at the EPIC COLLECTION f liknone other than Epic Marketing. Previously in the CD Rom column, it stated that this single CD Rom was selling for about £60!!! That has all changed now and the new V2 of the CD is now only £19.99 :^) I was looking for a CD deal in the Amiga press and mainly wanted to order the Aminet Set 2 and another CD to go along with it. Since the Aminet Set has just about evertthing I would ever require, I really needed a CD kfilled with popular PD and maybe some Licenceware titles too. I came across Epic's advert in CU Amiga and checked out the prices of their CD's. Very much the norm. But what really took me by surprise was the FREE CD offer if you spent over £25! "I like the sound of that." I thought to myself. However, no sign of the Aminet Set 2 that I was looking for in Epic's advert :( But wait! Epic's ad had something else which caught my eye. A FreePhone number. I quickly checked out my credit limit and balance on my Visa and rushed out to make a quick and free phone call. I must say that the lady at the other end of the phone was vert helpful indeed. I asked if they had the Aminet Set 2 in stock and she hurried off to find out. Normally I would say that she punched some details into a computer Database or whatever, but not this time. She simply shouted across to another assistant. "Yeah, we have them in stock!" Methinx she forgot to put me on hold!!! hehehehe All fine so far. I then ordered the Aminet Set 2 and asked for the Epic Collection CD. (making sure the price in the ad was indeed correct of course, well I had heard it was about £60 originally!) Yip, no sweat. £19.99 only for the new V2. Now I get to choose my FREE Cd coz I spent over £25. Yippeee. I looked at the ad and there were six CD's to choose f li. Illusions 3D Essential Utilities Hottest 4 Pro Fonts & ClipArt MultiMedia Mania Lucky Dip Vol.2 Which did I choose? Lucky Dip Vol.2 of course! Why? Don't know! It was the only one I could remember by the time I got on the phone I guess! After all, I wasn't expecting Epic to have the Aminet CD's, so I didn't build my hopes up of spending over £25! Still, I asked for Lucky Dip 2 and the woman told me it was a new release and wasn't in stock right now, but would be soon! However, I could still choose it just now and it would be sent to me as soon as they get it. I agreed (and why shouldn't I, they have been helpful so far ...) Anyway, to cut a long story short, I ordered my CD's on Friday and they arrived the following Tuesday (minus the Lucky Dip CD of course!) Wow, that was quick going I thought. Considering the weekend `n' all. Into my Zappo went the Aminet CD's one after the other .... (BTW: Thanx for the Zappo Mal - and all your CD's too :^) As per norm, far too much stuff to look at in one day! Vasts amounts of files on every subject. Amazing value for money, but that's another review! So ... now the Epic Collection CD (which comes with a free printed manual describing all the disks on the CD etc. A worth while companion at times. Anyway, I was presented with a nice f lnt end which I recognised as being written with CanDo. Don't ask me why I knew, I just did. Very well done though and it looks really great. One thing I noticed straight away also was that this CD is Non-Booting which means that it MUST be loaded via WB! That's all very well for peeps such as myself who own a HD, but I can imagine those of you that don't own a HD to be pretty pissed off at this. After all, who wants to wait for WB to load f likfloppy each time you wanna access your CD? Surely Epic are/were registered with the big C= and were able to distribute WB and its files? (C'mon Epic!) You will require DMS in your C Dir also! It's on the CD, so why didn't Epic just use an Assign script or similar to load DMS from CD each time? If the CD was auto-booting, you could easily Un-DMS disks without the need for a thfloppy loading. Ho hum ... Anyway, what you have on this CD is a pretty impressive 1270 disks (or so it says) worth of goodies. All the disks are in arranged in special directories and listed as: (I've now counted how ma thdisks are in each directory and added it to the list below - am I good to you lot or what?) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Epic Collection - A collection of loads of Disk Packs (508hdisks!) Tetris - Loads of Tetris Games (033hdisks!) Klondike - Disks filled with Klondike cards!!! (084hdisks!) Assassins - Disks 191 - 250 (mega value alone) (060hdisks!) AGA Games - Loads of games (034hdisks!) Literature - Loads of Books on-disk! (032hdisks!) LSD Tools - Disks 100 - 149 (050hdisks!) ASI Utils - Hundreds of handy utils etc. (031hdisks!) Fonts/Clips - Hundreds of the stuff (095hdisks!) Education - Kids stuff etc. (115hdisks!) Emulators - every kind plus games etc. (021hdisks!) Samples - I wonder what can be found in here! (036hdisks!) Business - Plenty of great utils! (065hdisks!) Misc. - Bits N Pieces - good value! (053hdisks!) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- My counting - Total Nuber of disks 1217hdisks ! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I can only find 1217hdisks in total, but I'm not gonna complain that the CD states there are 1270! I still think 1217hdisks full of great software is mega value for money. (I may have miscounted some files, I don't know. Who really cares?) As you can see, there are loads of disks on this CD that will suit almost a tone. I must stress that a lot of the stuff, especially the Epic Packs, are old and have been seen before (plenty of Virus Free PD disks too). I guess I may just be too used to the Aminet CD's being up-to-date though! A lot of the disks are great, so don't get me w lng. I especially liked the Adobe font collections for use with Final Writer etc. Excellent value :-) What I have seen so far, I liked. It would take me forever and a day to unpack all the disks on this CD to try out, so I probably never will :( Overall I am impressed with the amount of software on the disk for only £20. It would obviously cost you a lot more if you were to buy it all on floppy! Or even on a few other CD collections combined for that matter! If you're looking for something different to the usual Aminet files I would st lngly recommend the Epic Collection CD. Especially now that it's only £19.99. F lik large font, clipart, sample, utils and games collections to demos etc. This CD has the lot - what more could you need for at least a few weeks? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Final Verdict then: Layout : 87% (Manual is helpful at times) Ease Of Use : 90% (Requires CLI/WB - No autobooting) Value For Money : 99% (Mega Value but some stuff is old hat!) Overall : 92% (Should have been auto-booting for non HDs) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Contact: Epic Marketing on : FREE PHONE 0500 131h486 Or see ads in Amiga Press for special offers on Free CD's etc. :-) As Steve is always saying to me, always try and knock the price down a bit when ordering with Credit Card! You never know, you may just get it a bit cheaper. (I think I'll get Steve to order all my CD's f liknow on - hehehehe) :-) To a tone reading this review that does not own a CD Rom Drive - Get One Soon! You'll never have to order another PD disk again! I'm really impressed at the amount of data on each of the CD's I have. In fact, I now have enough disks to start my own PD Library that rivals the likes of 17h Bit! I only have 14 CD's too! (not including the cover CD's f likvarious magazines - cheers to Mal yet again :) Andy Gibson - Feb 1996 PS - Yeah Steve, I do love them shinthdiscs! :>) End.