Welcome to CDPD4, volume 4 of Almathera's CDPD Public Domain Library. For this CDPD edition, we've tried to cover the areas that we've not hit with previous CDPD discs. Here's a quick breakdown: Fish: Disks 891 to 1000 - the last of the floppy distribution, with the KingFisher catalog system and indexes for all previous CDPDs. Text: Amiga-relevant documentation, magazines, another batch of classic novels, Internet guides and documentation, the most important UseNet feeds, and more. Raytracing: A host of datafiles for the popular Imagine rendering software, as well as a cross-section of the very best raytraced art and animations, plus a ready-to-go freely distributable 'trace package called Persistance Of Vision. Music: We're immensely proud to have the COMPLETE run of AM/FM music diskmag PLUS the entire collection of sampledisks and specials, for the very best in Amiga MIDI and music. Exclusively on CDPD4! Networking: All you need to get your Amiga talking to the outside world. TCP/IP, SLIP and UUCP complete installations with full E-Mail, FTP, Telnet and UseNet News, and all the support utilities you need to fine-tune your system. Plus, full ParNet and SerNet support, with enhanced VideoCreator startup. Utilities: The utilities you NEED, and the best of the rest, ready-to-go, in a logical layout. DTP Fonts: Hundreds of shareware, freeware and PD Postscript and bitmap fonts, for use with DTP and art packages. GNU C Compiler: GCC 2.5.8 - the complete ready-to-run package. Compiles C and C++ code, and has a bunch of Unix-style utilities included. With the official licenced CBM Includes and tools. Be warned: GCC is a 'killer' application, and really requires over 3 megabytes of RAM to run. Also note that the CBM Includes and developer tools residing in os-include, os-lib and CBM/ are licenced from Commodore and can't be redistributed from this CD. PasTeX: A complete 'TeX' typesetting system, with frontend editor, and previewer. A de facto standard in the serious software world. Ready to go from CD, however 2 megabytes of RAM is a sensible minimum, as TeXxing is a large-scale job. E: A complete installation of what is rapidly becoming a popular easy-to-learn programming language. The full compiler, with much documentation, example code and programs, online guides and tutorials. With many of these items, a knowledge of the Shell and AmigaDOS is a great asset. Use of the Shell, WorkBench and AmigaDOS are all documented in your system manuals as supplied with your machine. Learning about these makes life with your Amiga infinitely less frustrating. A lot of the larger items require various assignments and environment variables to be set before they can be used - watch for the QuickInstall icons, these set up all you need to get a package up. The Shell-StartUP is 'intelligent' in that it checks for any QuickInstall-ed packages and adds them into the path, so you can work from the RAMDisk with ease. Most of the major packages on this CD have a Shell in the drawer, to save wading through directories. When normally booted, CDPD4 supports networking through ParNet and SerNet over DNet, to hook up the CD machine to another Amiga. There's scripts to start each of these processes on the disk, each with its own icon. ParNet requires a ParNet lead and a machine running ParNet on the other end of the link, and SerNet over DNet requires a machine runnning SerNet and DNet with a null-modem cable connecting the two machines. You also need ParNet or SerNet installed on the other Amiga. Both networking systems are compatible with all versions of KickStart, and will work on CD남 and CDTV as long as you've got the requisite hardware connections. ParNet is easy to start up - SerNet is a little more complex. To start SerNet up, click on TurboSerNet-StartUP. DNet's own window will open up, offering a menu selection of Quit, SendBreak and Start DNet, via the right mouse button. SendBreak clears the serial line, for setting up the connection, and Start DNet kicks the whole thing off. If DNet connects to the remote machine, SerNet will then be mounted as the device SNET: All serial preferences for the various KickStarts on this CD have been set at the fastest reliable configuration for DNet - 31250 baud, no parity, XOn/XOff, 8 data bits read/write and 1 start/stop bit for normal SerNet. TurboSerNet runs at 31250. Set the remote machine's serial preferences to match this to achieve the correct DNet setup. Followers of CD남 networking will probably know that our CDPD1 remake was set up to run at 19200 baud. 31250 checks out fine on a 68000-based machine acting as the remote Amiga, so I elected to ditch the 19.2k support. Who'd run a slow link when they can run fast? I also got rid of the chat windows that open up on the original SerNet, to save time. were the first to implement SerNet, and hey, look, everyone else is doing it. So, time to up the stakes. Double speed and no chatwindows. We can spot people lifting this 'un ;-> CD남 users: If you want to start up Almathera's VideoCreator once SerNet is up, click on the relevant icon in VCStartUP on the Almathera SerNet disk. Then click on QuickVC, and insert the VideoCreator CD at the request for volume 'VC'. For the impatient or memory-hungry ;->, there's also a VCTurboSerNetFAASTStartup option if you hold down the blue button on the CD남 when the title screen appears. Then proceed as instructed - it's similar to the above. More configuration: To change the default text reader , look in the 'expand' drawer. Also, if you want to add your own startup customisations as the CD boots up, put 'em on a disk named "CDPD-Custom" with the calling script named "CD-Environment" in the s/ directory. And there's no automatic reset that usually happens when you boot from CD, meaning you can start the network system, eject the CD, insert another, and remote access it. And some answers to a few questions that we repeatedly get asked: The A570 SCSI adaptor is virtually impossible to get hold of. No chance. VideoCreator WON'T run over ParNet from a CDTV to an A1200. Copy protection, also uses direct CD drive control. SerNet DOESN'T allow the remote machine's RAM to be used locally. Neither does ParNet. AmiCDROM is currently the best CD-ROM device driver to use with the Amiga. Those cheap Mac 300 drives work fine with Amigas. They're standard SCSI drives. CDTV RAM expansion: Only thing that will do the job currently is the MegaChip - expensive, difficult to fit, and can break your Agnus socket in the process. The 2.0 ROMS are not available either. Zappo PCMCIA CD-ROM drive and standard SCSI CD-ROM drive. Most flexible if you're gonna move drives and tapestreamers and CD-RMO between a variety of machines. ParNet a CDTV to the A1200. Very popular , but won't do CD남 games that use the CD drivers And thatsaboutit. Relax and enjoy your CD. Chill. Weulb. THP / Almathera. ----------------------------------------------- And now, the plug: ----------------------------------------------- Almathera Systems Ltd is a multimedia production company based near Croydon specialising in CDTV & PC CD-ROM Title production. Contact us for all your Amiga or CDTV needs. Almathera Systems Ltd 1st Floor, Southerton House Boundary Business Court 92-94 Church Road Mitcham Surrey CR4 3TD England Tel. : (081) 687 0040 Fax. : (081) 687 0490 And for the last time, ze creditZ! THP: Trials, tribulations, pain, endurance. '4 put me thru this lot. Jolyon Ralph: The original multiOS handling. Still hasn't killed me, much to the amazement of all round 'ere. Mark Tipper: Artwork and design this time round. We've finally got him a Mac and Quark. What takes a day on an A4000/40 with 16 megs and ProPage now takes an hour on Quark. Somebody's in trouble. Syz: For letting me network the flat within an inch of its life, and putting up with the insane hours I did to get this disc out. Dan Barrett: BLAZEMONGER: The blood is life. 17-Bit and GTS: Fish at the last moment. And the first moment. Mick Bromley: Great help with the Imagine section. Cheers. Georg Hessman: For all the effort on PasTeX and the CD version of. It. Bj0rn Lynne: Audio accompaniment for getting through the 4-5am slot when the Netlink crashes again. Check out Hobbits and Spaceships. Andreas Tetzner, Bill Clarke, Richard Smedley: Utilities, suggestions with the SerNet hardware, and exernal bootcontrol. Thanks for the input, guys. Also, thanks to everyone who sent stuff in for the CDs. If it's not on this CD, there's a strong chance it'll be on future releases. We store everything. ----------------------------------------------- ALSO AVAILABLE FOR CDTV/CD32 ----------------------------------------------- CDPD1: Fish 1 to 660, a bunch of great music modules, and network support for ParNet and SerNet. CDPD2: More Fish disks (660-760), Scope Disks (1-220), JAM Disks, AB20 Archive software and much more - 600Mb of Public Domain software for the Amiga. CDPD3: Fish disks 760-890, Clipart, Fonts, books, utilities, applications and much more. Demo CD 1: 1000 Music modules, PD Animations, graphics, games, etc. Demo CD 2: 100 PD/Shareware games, 2000 Music Modules, 24-bit graphic files and much much more. 17-Bit Collection: Double CD containing over 1,700 discs of quality public domain, including demos, games, utilities, applications and more. 17-Bit Continuation: Single disk containing over 700 more disks of the 17-Bit library from 1993. Euroscene 1: 620 Megabytes of WaReZ including the best demos, music and graphics for the Amiga. Ideal for BBS Systems. And please phone for information on ordering these discs or for information on other products we publish.