Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!van-bc! From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: FRED FISH CD ROM? Message-ID: <1843@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> Date: 3 Aug 90 17:01:24 GMT Lines: 62 Return-Path: To: van-bc!rnews In , mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) writes: > >The point of the CD-ROM is that it will hold the _entire_ Fish >collection (twice, even?). Pruning it based on quality for a CD-rom >isn't applicable. Doing "Gold Fish" (stolen name) that have your "best >of the Fish disks" on them is something different. Heartily agreed! One thing though; for maximum utility, a CD-ROM containing the Fish disks should be indexed, cross indexed, and cross-cross indexed; the more indexes the better. With appropriate software and an appropriate index, you should be able to find references to any word in any file on any disk, discounting some words, such as 'the', 'and', 'in', etc. Imagine being able to search for example code using system call names, keywords that are likely to appear in comments or READMEs, using logical AND or OR to qualify the search. While an index could easily take up as much or more space as the data, I feel that it would be well worth it, even if it meant splitting the entire current collection into 2 CD-ROMs. >Later, when we get to Fish disk #700 or so, it might do to prune >antique versions of the software. But I'd be loathe to prune any old >versions before it was necessary, as the new versions may have bugs >that break vital features for a few users. Absolutely. With CD-ROM, there is no need to prune. All versions of any given piece of code might be useful to someone, if for no other reason than to show what has been changed, and how a problem routine was rewritten. It has been said that the CD-ROM field is currently in a 'chicken-and-egg' situation, and to some degree that is true. Fortunately, this is changing, and will continue to change rapidly. Current drive prices, from mail order outlets, have dropped to under $800 (and I may even be out of date on that). Sun Microsystems is now bundling a CD-ROM drive with all SPARCservers, and an external SCSI CD-ROM unit can be purchased from them for about $1000, including case and power supply. Sun will, in the forseeable future, use CD-ROM for distribution of all OS updates. Apple is getting into it heavily, and so on. Looking at the market, it looks like a CD-ROM drive in a reasonable price range (say, under $500), and an indexed Fish disk collection would sell fairly well, to developers, user groups, and dealers. Developers because it would be a near priceless resource for example source code, user groups because it would be easy to distribute Fish disks to members, and dealers because it would serve as a draw to get people into the store. Could the initial market serve to make it worthwhile? I think so, and I hope CBM thinks so too, and that it will spur them to bring out a low cost drive, and to support any efforts to provide software for it. Heck, if I could buy an indexed Fish CD-ROM right now, at anywhere under $50, I would do it in an instant, just on the speculation that there will be a CD-ROm drive in my future. A retail price of $50 should net a profit for the work required to do the index and search software, leaving the Fish contents as close to free as the spirit of the collection demands. -larry -- Sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+