Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!IRO.UMontreal.CA!martin
From: martin@IRO.UMontreal.CA (Daniel Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: CDTV FRED FISH (long)
Keywords: Poll, Not the time yet
Message-ID: <1990Aug3.044002.18170@IRO.UMontreal.CA>
Date: 3 Aug 90 04:40:02 GMT
References: <1827@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> <104482@convex.convex.com> <1-7$V$+@masalla.fulcrum.bt.co.uk> <5508@uwm.edu> <26477@snow-white.udel.EDU> <26b8e0d4.6390@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>
Sender: news@IRO.UMontreal.CA
Reply-To: martin@kovic.UUCP (Daniel Martin)
Organization: Universite de Montreal
Lines: 63

[-]
   G'day,

   The idea of a CD-ROM containing all the fish programs is at first 
glance excellent.  

   The main advantage, is the cost of producing a CD.  The master cost
less than 3000$, and each copies less than 5$ each, if produced in quantity.
The CD-ROM readers are also cheap nowadays.  

   Other 'better' technology are now available, but not yet standard.
We have here at udem WORMs, videodiscs, floptical (the NeXT ones), all connected
to our amigas.  How many can say the same, I wonder.  To produce an archive like
this, you need a market here and now, with standard, available and cheap 
technologies.

   One problem with CD-ROM, is that they are read only.  The moment you
produce the disc, it's already out of date.  And since the whole library
of fish disc is not enough to fill it yet, you can't publish update discs
each months...  So to be up to date, you have to go back to your old ftp 
habits until the next disc.

   Of course you can fill the disc with commercial stuff, magazines, reviews,
demos, pub, images, and of course usenet comp.sys.amiga.* articles, etc.  I
wonder if there is more than 600megs of stuff produced each 3 moths.  And I
wonder if user would really care to consult that amount of information (see
Information Anxiety, by R.S. Wurman, Doubleday, 1989, for a good view on
that).

   In medical field, you can subscribe yearly to a CD-ROM club.  All articles 
submitted in the field is written on CDs.  They are published each 3 months
and contains *all* articles submitted since the last disc published.  That 
means when you receive a new disc, you can discard the previous one since it
contains it's info plus the new ones.  When the disc is filled, you keep
it, since it become a filled archive.  With yearly fee (around 700$), all discs
are sold in advance, and 3 months update seem fair.

   It is a bit early for users to start on this project since CD-ROMs are 
not common in the Amiga world yet.  What are the exact cost of Commodore's 
CD-ROM drives and are they easily hookable on the Amiga family?  (I know the 
CDTV is a strip down A500, but your never sure...).  Will they ship the drives 
with A3000?  Will they create the market???  Are they ready to invest in
this?

   I would say we have the means and the knowledge to do it at our lab here,
but there is no market yet.  To go on with this project, you need 100 users at
say 30$ per discs (prepaid) before doing it.  I really doubt that that many
people have an interest >and< the CD-ROM.  

   Just for fun, send me mail if you want a Fish Archive disc AND have a CD-ROM
hooked up to your amiga.  Would you be interested in a yearly subscription
consisting of 1 disc per 3 months of new Fish archives, news from the 
comp.sys.amiga.* and perhaps PD demo & third party for say 200$ a year?
I'm very interested to see how many answer I'll get.  I'll summarize the
to the net.

   Daniel.

--
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