Phase 2

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Wrap

Text File | 1995-08-25 | 8.0 KB | 202 lines

___ ___ ___ ___ | | | | | | | |\ /| | | | | | | | | | \/ | | | | |-- | | | | | | |-- | /\ | | | | | | | | | |/ \| |___ |___ |___ |___| | | |___ to Phase2 of the EMC PD/Shareware Collection Please take the time to read this text file. It explains what we at EMC feel about the current CD market and why we decided to develop this CD series. Firstly, let us take this opportunity to thank you for purchasing this CD. We sincerely hope that you enjoy using it. We would welcome any constructive feedback that you would like to offer us. Unlike some other companies, we actually care what you, our customer, think and feel about our products. This CD represents many years of devotion and hard work. E.M.Computergraphic has the largest Amiga specific PD and Shareware collection of top quality DTP and DTV software on the Amiga. The EMC collection of software has been highly praised throughout the industry and has won several top software awards including The 1992 Amiga Shopper Top Typeface award and the coveted Camcorder User Gold Award. We have seen almost every CD title in existence and sadly, the general trend appears to be "shovel as much data on as possible and to hell with the quality" The majority of these CDs are developed as multi platform CDs and while this may advantageous for the company selling them, the end user on the Amiga is faced with a CD containing a high proportion of files that he probably can't even use. So what is left?... A CD containing loads of very badly organised directories filled with low quality (in some cases utterly pathetic) graphics that are poorly cropped, far too small to be of any use and possibly even in the wrong resolution. The user then looks in the font directories and finds... A massive task on his hands...he has hundreds of fonts and no way of knowing what he's got! He is forced into loading every individual font into a DTP program, before he can actually see it! Then he quite possibly discovers that most of the fonts even have missing and/or corrupt files! A few of these so called CD developers even get away with copying data from their old CDs to new ones and releasing the new CD as "Professional" We could go on and on and on... ...but why bore you with something we're sure you already know? We genuinely feel that the current situation stinks and with this series of CDs we at EMC are aiming to set the standards on which all CDs on the Amiga will be judged. A big claim you say? Well folks! the contents and layout of this CD should convince even the most sceptical of you out there! We could have quite literally "dumped" our floppy disk collection onto hard drive, in no particular order, and copied it's contents straight to CD...and we sincerely feel that we would have still sold the CDs in large numbers. This approach is evidently used by the so called "big boys" in the CD industry. The result...a CD that is CRAP!. These CDs are advertised with promises of sheer quality and their titles include such words as "Professional" "The Best" etc.. How many of you have bought CDs like this? We'll bet that you'll wholeheartedly agree with what we are saying! We have devoted almost three months purely into developing these CDs and to be perfectly honest...We are happy with the results of our efforts. Here is a quick list of the things that will make these CDs stand out from the crowd... 1. You won't find DMS or LHA files! These files are usually created to pad a CD out! Some developers of "Professional" CDs we have seen have even adopted new (and ingenious methods) to pad disks out...the best padding example we have seen so far is the creation of large directories of CG fonts for Professional Page v3+. These directories don't include the .ATC CG font file (a miniscule 516 byte file). Then these developers (?!) create a "Clone" directory of exaclty the same fonts for use with Pagesetter2 and Professional Page versions prior to v3 and include the 516 byte .ATC file. Furthermore, these CDs also include .DMS AND .LHA archive files of both directories! The advertising for these CDs usually goes something like this... "The Biggest and Best CD ever...This CD contains over 600 Megabytes of fonts" Technically the CD does contain over 600 megabytes of fonts... but...THEY ARE THE SAME FONTS! 2. You will see that we have even gone to the trouble of creating our own icons. These include the text and preview icons. We agree that they aren't really anything special but at least we don't rip other people's icons off! One company has already decided to rip off our "text" icon and use it on their CDs. a) Can't these guys create their own?! b) Maybe they don't know how?! c) Maybe these guys are too interested in spending their time creating poor quality and sub standard CD's and ripping off their customers! 3. On this CD you will find that every single font, regardless of it's format, has it's own IFF preview screen. This enables you to literally "SEE" the font without having to go through the process of loading it into an application beforehand. Who else has bothered to do this? 4. To increase your productivity...a series of typeface books are being launched along with each CD, giving you the option to get a, very reasonably priced, hard copy of every font available to you. (Details of these books should have accompanied this CD) Who else has bothered to do this? 5. The clipart directories on this CD contain FULLY sorted graphics that have been individually cropped and scaled. You will also see that each directory and sub directory includes a thumbnail IFF index screen, regardless of image format, detailing every piece of clipart in that particular directory! Who else has bothered to do this? 6. The Image directories on this CD contain FULLY sorted graphics that have been converted to 256 colour IFF, 16 colour IFF and HAM interlace. You will also see that each directory and sub directory includes a thumbnail IFF index screen. Who else has bothered to do this? 7. The index screens, mentioned in items 5 and 6 above, are all called "-Index" this is intentioanl and intended for users of programs such as the excellent Directory Opus. The "-" prefix causes Directory Opus to place the index file at the top of the file list, this eliminates the need for the user to scroll down large directory listing to find the Index picture file. A Quick word on Shapshotting We have snapshotted all icons (directory, preview, text etc.) using the default Amiga Topaz 8 font as the font for the Workbench, System & Screen preference settings. If windows and/or icons open up too close together, to far apart or in strange places, it's probably because you are using a none standard font. Lastly, we like to give you a polite warning. You will probably find that a whole host of "NEW???" CDs will be released soon after the launch of the EMC Phase1, Phase2 and Phase3 CD disks. These "NEW???" CDs will contain, surprisingly enough, Fonts, Clipart and Images. Please don't fall into the trap of buying duplicate material. We can guarantee that our CDs will be used as a basis for forthcoming CD titles by other companies. A word of caution... If it doesn't say EMC on the CD you don't really know what you're getting... If you have already purchased a CD from an advert or company claiming that the CD was "Professional" "The Ultimate" etc. only to find that it would have been best described as PATHETIC you will fully appreciate what we are talking about! Please remember, if the CD looks interesting, you would be best advised to... WAIT FOR A POSITIVE MAGAZINE REVIEW BEFORE YOU BUY IT! Best regards, Errol (and all the guys involved with this CD's production)