Games Cd-rom With 2500 Titles
The Age
Monday October 25, 1993
WALNUT Creek CDROM has released a CD-ROM dedicated to games and with the BBS operator in mind.
Enter the Giga Games CD-ROM. Containing over 2500 programs and about 20,000 files (counting each of the archived files as one file), this disc is sure to provide hours of enjoyment.
Make that days, not hours, for you are unlikely to plough through the entire disc, but you'll have fun with the games and kids might learn something from the educational software.
Windows and MS-DOS games have their own directories, further grouped by category. An entire subdirectory is dedicated to BBS ``door" games _ those designed to be played on a BBS, sometimes by multiple players.
Games seem to concentrate on nuclear strikes, aliens, ghosts, catacombs, and the like, yet there are less malevolent board and strategy games as well. BBS operators will appreciate the prepared lists of files and their descriptions for packages such as RBBS, Opus, Maximus, SuperBBS, WildCat, Remote Access, and others.
There are modem games, whereby you can play against a friend over a modem. Such games include aerial dogfights, tank battles, chess, arcade games, and word games.
The educational offerings include Latin, Spanish, chemistry, a planetarium, assorted MS-DOS tutorials, Kanji flash cards, and others.
You can obtain your personality profile using a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator; get a psychology profile with the Keirsey Temperament Sorter; or, as a last resort, use a program designed for ``exhaustive diagnosis of mental disorders."
Walnut Creek CDROM can be contacted by telephone on 00111510 6740783 or on the Internet at info(AT)cdrom.com.
CommWorks Each week the on-line enthusiast is tempted with yet another program to end all communications programs. It gets very confusing after a while, for we are creatures of habit.
Traveling Software, the makers of LapLink (the PC-to-PC file transfer program), released a ``five-in-one" package called CommWorks for Windows, which you will need to order from America.
TS Fax is a fax program that enables you to send or receive faxes, and includes features such as delayed transmission and broadcasts. TS Online is a communications program with a scripting language and dialling directory. LapLink Remote Access provides access to remote printers and data from remote PCs. LapLink Alert gives an audible or visual alarm when a file on your shared PC is added, changed or deleted. LapLink V is a DOS program for copying files between PCs.
If you belong to a user group, ask for the special price of $US39.95 plus shipping, which expires on 30 November. You'll need to send a fax to 001112064856786 to order.
Traveling Software also stocks some useful accessories for the traveller. The $US49.95 Road Warrior Toolkit has everything needed to dismantle a hotel telephone so that you can connect your modem to it.
Would I switch to this program? Probably not, but then I have no need for a PC-to-PC file transfer program. I like the ability to scroll back in a buffer so that I can review something that has gone off the screen. I don't own a fax/data modem yet, so that feature is wasted on me. As they say on the wires, ``your mileage may vary."
Internet for Dummies For a lighthearted look at the Internet, watch out for the bi-weekly `Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet' in the newsgroup entitled news.newusers.questions and some others. Its German origins adds some unintended humor. The author is Joerg Heitkoetter, who can be contacted on the Internet at joke(AT)ls11.informatik.uni-dortmund.de.
Electronic magazine John Labovitz (at johnl(AT)netcom.com) produces a periodical list of electronic magazines, known as ``zines". They are slightly offbeat, sometimes irreverent, and often published by one person. Contact the author for a copy.
Kiwis on CompuServe The CompuServe Pacific forum (Go PACFORUM) covers Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific nations. Kiwis and others interested in New Zealand should visit Section 2, known as NZ Chat and NZPCA. It is hosted by the Wellington-based NZ Personal Computer Association. A weekly news file is compiled and made available each Monday night.
Sports news is also included.
If you have a topic that you would like to read about, please contact me at 72662,377 on CIS or via the Internet at 72662.377(AT)compuserve.com.
© 1993 The Age