ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER JANUARY 1992 Review of "DISK O' PYRATES" By: Andy Frueh, Lima UG Ken Gilliland strikes again, or so it would seem, with Asgard's offering "Disk O' Pyrates." For the sake of common interest, no, that is not actually a mis-spelling. Nor is it meant to deter people from thinking it is a disk of pirated software. The reason for the spelling "PYRATES" is that the author chose to spell it as it would've been in old English times. Some of you may remember "Disk of Dinosaurs" also by Gilliland. It is a two disk set full of dinosaur pictures and great animation sequences. There was also a "hunting licence", prehistoric backdrops and a dinosaur font. All in all, it was definately worth the $9.95 price and was well advertised. Not to say that "Pyrates" is no good. Far from it. You get four disks for $9.95 as well. However, I feel that the advertising may be a tad misleading. Definately if all you want is pictures, this is THE package for you, otherwise, I suggest actually looking at a copy before you buy it. "OK Frueh, what's the problem THIS time?" Well, before I turn this into a negative review, let me state what I love about this package. First of all, the artwork is superb. All of it is claimed to be hand drawn. That surprised me. It's so good it LOOKS like it was digitized. Some of it may be too dark or contain too much black to print into a small sized picture, so you may want to balloon the pictures up a tad. Included are several "Pyrates in action" type scenes, different flags of different captains, a neat diagram of a Twenty gun ship (I assume that it was the standard pirate vessal), and also includes some neat borders and an old English font. There are also several smaller instances, and a converter program that takes the instances and turns them into a runable Extended BASIC program. How about the animation? Well there are two of them. One features a crewmen who is left to die on an island, the other is just a typical wild rum drinking, gun shooting pirate. I think the man on the island is done up a little better, but both are incredible. There are more realistic than the cartoon style of "Dinosaurs", but again are very well done. The fact that these can be done on a machine first thought of in around 1978 and with 32K of memory is incredible! Sore points? One of my biggest beefs is with the manual. Frankly, it was a little thin, but then again, extensive documentation isn't necessary. However, there is on page where the Zerox machine didn't reproduce the first column of letters. It is hard to follow a manual when you can't see the first character of every line. Also, the advertising suggests I will be getting a "veritable cornucopia of...Pyrate games, Pyrate music..." Wrong. You get one game and one song. Hardly a cornucopia. The music is "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" by Xavier Atencio and George Burns. Authentic pyrate music? But it IS GOOD music. I would've liked another song. The only sore point with the music itself is that I couldn't follow it very well to "sing along." Words are printed on the screen, but often not in rythm to the music. The game is a rehash of an old BASIC (I think) game, "Treasure Island." The game as it was first released wasn't really great. Ken Gilliland did a good job at improving it, but it's still the same game. Again, one game is not a cornucopia. It's not even assembly. So does this reviewer think that this is worth the price? How can any four disk package of anything not be worth $9.95? The artwork is purely wonderful. True, the other aspects of the package are a little skimpy, but worth the price you pay. Of course, hardcore Pirate affecianados will eat this up. From an entertainment standpoint, the value is shaky. I was disappointed with the "game" and "music". From an education standpoint, it has got the be the best (maybe the only) source of Pirate information I have ever seen on the TI, or any other computer. The 100% accurate, factual information makes good reading, and the inclusion of the "Pyrates Code" is neat. "Disk O' Pyrates" is just one of those cases where the advertising isn't false, but a little misleading. If you know in advance what you are getting, this package really won't disappoint you. //////////////////////////// A Second Opinion of DISK O' PYRATES by Charles Good: Lima UG. Andy Frueh's main complaints about DISK O' PYRATES relate to Asgard's promotional advertising and the documentation that comes with the disks. Since Andy wrote his review, Ken Gilliland has been selling his software under the name NOTUNG SOFTWARE. Asgard is no longer in the picture, nor are Asgard's past advertising claims. I showed the latest documentation to Andy in November 1991 and he was really impressed. I think DISK O' PYRATES is one of the best bargains in the TI software marketplace. Look what you get: --4 disks, FULL of stuff! --8 pyrate pictures in TI Artist format. --A couple of TIA fonts. --A reasonably entertaining game. --A pyrate song. --Some VERY imaginative animated graphic sequences containing additional TIA pictures. --A REALLY USEFUL software utility: an instance converter that transforms any instance into a mergable XB subroutine that can display the instance on screen from within an XB program. Our user group's software library has lots of disks full of instances. However if you don't own TI ARTIST there is little you can do with all this free artwork, UNLESS you have the DISK O' PYRATES instance converter. --A scholarly on screen textbook about pyrates. That's right, I said "scholarly". The author has done a lot of searching in libraries to dig up the history of pyrates in general and the specific pyrates that are described in the text files that are part of DISK OF PYRATES. The extensive on screen text segments are interesting, informative, and sometimes gruesome. All library sources are cited in the documentation. DISK OF PYRATES is a labor of love and a 100% TI99/4A product. It is a labor of love in the sense that Ken did a supurb job researching his subject. I am an academic myself, and I recognize good scholarship. It is a 100% 99/4A product in the sense that there are no other computers involved anywhere in the creation of or production of the DISK OF PYRATES disks and documentation booklet. All the artwork is hand drawn by Ken, not digitized from other sources. Converting Ken's art into TI disk formats and the composition and printing of the documentation booklet (which is excellent) was all done with the TI software listed at the end of the documentation booklet. Where else can you get so much for just $10 + shipping? Notung Software 7647 McGroarty St. Tujunga, CA 91042 .PL 1