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Interview with 'The Datastream'
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i) What made you decide to start an Arc P.D. Library?

We didn't decide to start an Arc PD library as such, rather the
opportunity arose for us to take over The DataStream from John
Nicholas and Chris Dawson. Andy and I had discussed starting a
library earlier but had never been that serious about it.


ii) What are your views on the Arc scene at the moment?

The Arc scene started off fairly promising - numerous demo groups
such as BIA, ARMageddon, Arc Angels etc. but many of them have
moved on to commercial projects, leaving a new 'inexperienced' group
of coders who are still 'learning' their trade. On the utilities side
of things, the Arc seems to be flourishing - Translator and PackDIR
(John Kortink) to Supergram from William Tunstall-Pedoe and the soon
to be released Quantum Tracker supposedly superior to Digital
Symphony.


iii) Why did you decide on using !Magpie instead of a Homegrown
program for your Disc-Catalogue?

We decided to use Magpie as it allowed us to produce a better looking
catalogue with pictures and sound, and to produce a much more
organised catalogue. First of all we had to organise the 500 discs of
PD software (which contained many duplications), and then type in
every description into Magpie. In eighteen months we have received
three 'complaints' about Magpie (two from BBS owners who prefer long
text files and one from AMF, who also preferred long text files) and
numerous complements.


iv) What is your all time Top 10 of P.D. Software

1. Son Of Gyrinus 3.6 by Tom Cooper, GG-023
2. Tertis by SICK, GG-026
3. PackDIR by John Kortink, UU-003
4. Translator by John Kortink, UG-002
5. Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, UG-007
6. Cubitos from Software Evolutions, DA-023
7. BlakHole2 (Dustbin) from Fat German, UU-005
8. SampConv by Matthew Farrow, US-001
9. DinoSaw by Tom Cooper, GG-053
10. TurboCopy by John Reed, UU-006


v) What do you think the future holds for 'The DataStream'?

In just under 18 months we have seen turnover nearly triple, our
catalogue has grown from around 500 discs to approaching 900 discs.
More and more Arcs are being sold, more coders are producing games,
demos, utilities (some bad but many excellent). If Acorn 'get it
right' then the only way is up..

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