Floppyshop - DTP+ Graphics CD-ROM
Floppyshop are pleased to announce the forthcoming release of DTP+, the first of our new range of CD-ROM products for the Atari range of computers. This quality product is the culmination of several months' work and has come about as the result of a massive collaborative effort between Floppyshop, John Weller (Mr DTP himself!), countless Shareware authors and several of the leading companies and individuals operating in the Atari market. It is this combined effort which has resulted in a single CD-ROM which is undoubtedly the DTP and Graphics enthusiast's dream. Lets look at what's on offer.
So what is it?
DTP+Graphics is a collection of fonts, clip art, DTP support programs, printer drivers, printer utilities, word processors, image processing packages, vector graphics packages, all popular non-commercial graphics packages, demos of DTP related commercial programs and more besides. It includes everything you need to enhance you existing Desktop Publishing and Computer Graphics setup, regardless of which package you use. In fact, much of the contents are generic and can be used with more than one application. In addition, there's a small section with a number of useful bits and pieces designed to enhance the use of your computer in general. Over 90% of the contents are in English and there's an easy to use catalogue which gives an overview of each and every program on the CD along with the full directory path to the relevant program/file. Finding things just couldn't be easier and everything is uncompressed and ready to run so there's no time wasted dearchiving or space occupied on your hard drive, almost everything runs direct from the CD.
Fonts
Wasn't it all the rage when Compo brought out their 500 Fonts CD-ROM? So you thought that 500 fonts for 50 pounds was a bargain? Well here's news for you, the fonts section (and it's ONLY one section) of Floppyshop's DTP+Graphics contains over 3,600 fonts for all popular Atari packages. There are 14 types of fonts with the largest collections being Calamus (almost 1200), True Type (almost 500), PostScript (over 400), GDOS (about 450), Signum (over 200) and Fontkit (over 150). Of course there's PageStream, Publishing Parner, That's Write and Degas fonts too. Yes, EVERY font in our collection to date! This includes the prestigious Oxieware and Bournemouth CFN collections (semi-professional fonts released as PD) and a PostScript version of the Bournemouth collection. These high quality fonts make up around 50% of the Calamus and PostScript collections and would cost around 80 pounds alone even at PD prices!
CLIP ART
It is said that picture paints a thousand words and there's nothing to beat a pertinent graphic to add a bit of class to an otherwise dull flyer, poster, newsletter or magazine. Well we've done it again. There's over 8,000 clips included in our Clip Art section on DTP+Graphics! We've weeded out the duplicates and categorised everything into logical sections for ease of use. As you would expect, IMG accounts for the lion's share (over 5400 items!) and has been split into 84 main subject headings and several sub-headings besides. Included here are complete collections by Stan Otterburn and John Weller (these are astounding) and others. Other bitmapped graphics include over 160 GIF images (256 colour), over 1000 PCX clips split into 24 categories and a few hundred Degas and Tiny clips. As for vector clip art, DTP+Graphics contains almost 800 clips in GEM Metafile format and over 200 Calamus CVGs.
DTP SUPPORT UTILITIES
These have mostly originated from our various DTP support disks. There's everything imaginable to enhance the use of Calamus, PageStream, Publishing Partner and Timeworks. There's also several utilities aimed at GDOS and SpeedoGDOS users as well as useful file templates for Calamus, PageStream, Publishing Partner and Atari Works. Also in this section are demo versions of the top DTP sections, including DA's Layout TC v6.1 and Calamus 96, both 'hot off the presses'.
FONT EDITORS
Includes GEMFED for designing GDOS and Degas fonts, font editors for Publishing Partner and PageStream, Fontedit - the forerunner to FaST Club's Fontkit/Fontkit Plus, specialised font designers for creating downloadable fonts for Star and HP printers, and more...
PRINTER DRIVERS
Almost 300 printer drivers for just about every imaginable printer type (including the SLM804!) and application. The majority are for First Word/Wordplus (some other applications can also use these drivers) but there's also a good selection of SpeedoGDOS drivers, most notable amongst these are 600/720 dpi drivers for the newer Epson, Hewlett Packard and Canon models. There are HP drivers for near enough every application ever written!
PRINTER UTILITIES
Printer controllers/command senders, screen dump utilities and other useful utilities for use with the Canon BJ300, NEC Pinwriters, Panasonic KX-P series, Epson LQs, Star NL series and others.
WORD PROCESSORS
Word processors, text editors, spell checkers and dictionary listings. All the popular packages are here along with demo versions of commercial ones.
GRAPHIC PROGRAMS
This section comprises of over 120 Mb of graphics related programs and associated data files. There's traditional art packages, image processors, graphic conversion utilities, image viewers, animation packages, image printing utilities, vector graphics editors, 3D packages, a massive raytracing sub-section, graphics tutorials, fractal generators (including landscape generators), stereogram creators and much more. Just about every non-commercial package worth talking about is included here. There's even a Falcon specific sub-section with around 20Mb of graphics related material for use exclusively on that machine (a sizable proportion of the software in the general graphics section is also Falcon compatible).
COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN
All the popular non-commercial CAD packages are on the CD along with demo versions of the commercial ones.
PICTURES
OK, so nobody buys a CD specifically for images but there was enough space left to include around 2,500 images in Degas, NEO, Tiny, Spectrum 512, IFF, EZA, GIF, PCS and JPEG formats. This includes a special collection of over 500 astounding JPEGs of photographs taken by professional photographer Nigel Scott.
ANIMATIONS
As with pictures you would not buy a CD specifically for animations. The space was available so why not fill it with quality! There are ninety of the best FLI animations included on DTP+Graphics. These are all 256 colour animations but can be easily viewed in any almost any resolution (including monochrome) using Brainstorm's Movie100 animation player which is of course included.
OTHER SOFTWARE
This includes useful software for any Atari. These programs are not DTP or Graphics related but are virtually indispensable once you've tried them out. There's also a small Floppyshop section with demo versions of all our commercial products as well as full versions of the DegasArt tutorial (parts 1, 2, & 3), Family Roots v1 (the forerunner to our popular genealogy program) and the registered version of Xlator, a very capable German to English translation program. Last but not least is an exclusive release of the full version of the Edith Professional text editor on DTP+Graphics. This quality product is almost impossible to obtain nowadays but it's included free with DTP+Graphics.
So How Much Does It Cost?...
Despite the length of this description, we've missed out a lot! The disk has a full 650Mb compliment of data. This is not a half filled CD! There's neither time nor space to feature everything on the CD. Even at today's bargain basement PD disk prices it would cost you around 1200 pounds to amass a collection like this! Relax, we're not going to charge a horrendously high price . If we were asking 50 pounds for the fonts alone, we think it would be worth it! Or what about 20 pounds for the Clip Art alone? No chance, this unique compilation of DTP+Graphics plus much more, costs just 35 pounds + P&P (UK 2 pounds, Europe 3 pounds, rest of world 4 pounds). Payment acceptable by UK cheque/PO or credit card. Overseas customers not paying by credit card can pay by Eurocheque, Post Giro, Canadian Postal Order, International Money Order (all in pounds Sterling please) or with a cheque drawn on a UK bank.
Special Offer
DTP+Graphics will be released on 26th April at the Birmingham Atari Show. We will have limited stock with us at both the Birmingham and London Shows (but will bring along more if pre-ordered) so please pre-order now to reserve your copy. Tell us which event you will be attending and we will take your copy with us. All orders recieved by 21st April 1997 qualify for a ｣5 reduction. Those of you collecting your copy at the Atari Shows can also disregard the P&P charge. If you cannot make it to the Atari Shows, you can still take advantage of the pre-launch price (P&P WILL apply in this instance!) and your order will be sent out on or before Monday 5th May.
Floppyshop, PO Box 273, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. AB15 8GJ.
Tel: 01224 586208 (Intl +44 1224 312756)
email: sdelaney@steil.wintermute.co.uk