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Review Kickstart Archives

Description: from GFX-BASE

Categories: [EN] Eng_Reviews

Link to this article: Select all

[url=https://www.amigafuture.de/app.php/kb/viewarticle?a=376&sid=9551fe389d5caf7ffcd91144dc42a18f]Artikeldatenbank - Review Kickstart Archives[/url]

What are "Kickstart Archives"

The introduction on the Kickstart-CD-ROMs explains that Thomas Unger's Kickstart Archives are a "compilation of living and expired AMIGA related web sites in both English and German language about the history from Amiga and Commodore, famous persons, Amiga models and clones, the AmigaOS, peripherials, the Amiga Patent Story and additional material on cd-rom. The web sites are republished on cd-rom with permission of their authors.".

Quality CD-ROMs

Well, from this description you can already guess that this review was quite difficult to write as there is really so much to discover here: 2 CD-ROMs packed full with interesting and rare websites, images, videos and much more. Most websites that have been carefully collected on the Kickstart Archives are english, but there are also lots of german ones - so if you understand at least one of the two languages you are going to enjoy this compilation. The Kickstart Archives is a 2 CD-set that is shipped in Europe with a cover and 2 Quality-CD-ROMs in a plastic-case (a jewel case increases weight and postage), in Germany the CD-ROMs are shipped in a slimline-jewel-case.

Browser and Operating Systems

The CD-ROMs have been created by Thomas Unger on Amiga using MakeCD. This doesn't mean, that you can only make use of them on an Amiga. The Kickstart Archives are a collection of websites so you can view them on every Operating System with a decent browser. There is only one advantage when using Windows: A networked PC can be used for creating a index-file for a searchengine, which does also not work on Amiga browsers due to their weak javascript interpretation (so using Internet Explorer is recommended in this case). Other than that you can fully enjoy this collection with any Amiga browser. The menu makes use of CSS but also looks very good and clean on Amiga browser and I guess the most of the webpages that you will discover on the CD-ROMs are all completely made on Amiga and tested with Amiga browsers.

First impressions

On both CD-ROMs there's a file called "index.html" which you have to doubleclick (if it does not work, start a browser and open it there or simply drag the index file into the browser-window). Next you will presented with a blue page that looks very similiar to the Amiga Workbench 1.3 (the good old days!) and provides you with informations regarding content and legal notes. On TKA Vol.1 there is also a link to some great tutorials (containing the "AMIGA TROUBLESHOOTING and FIXES" pages). Another link points you to the Kickstart Archives menu, which is designed simple and clean, giving you a very good overview of the content inside by adding extra-info like language (presented by a flag icon) and a short description (see a little piece of the menu in the screenshot on the right).

What's inside?

When searching and looking through all those pages one could easily get completely lost - and this is wonderful! You really dive deep into the world of Amiga: official and unoffical documents regarding the Amiga history, the Amiga-patent story revealed, interviews with famous Amiga persons like Carl Sassenrath or Dave Haynie aswell as a bio of Jay Miner. There are very detailed sites available where you can have a look at every Amiga machine that has been released or planned (like the Boxer). Another section on the Kickstart Archives is dedicated to Amiga clones like the "Chinese Amiga" REC WonderTV or the A/BOX by phase5 and emulators. Of course you will also find Gregory Donner's Workbench Nostalgia pages (read an GFX-BASE interview with Gregory here), an AmigaDOS reference manual, a huge area covering Amiga peripherals (including the "Big Book of Amiga Hardware"), there's a support-section featuring A1200 Hardware FAQs, troubleshooting guides and much more.

Last but not least there's also lots of entertaining stuff like a page explaining the background of the famous "Juggler" animation, which has been converted in AVI format and is of course also available on that page. If you like watching videos you should definitely have a look at the "Amiga Marketing Efforts" website. There you can watch some old TV-commercials in MPG-format presenting the Amiga500 or just have a look at all those scanned images of advertising material and brochures by Amiga's mother company and 3rd parties promoting Amiga related material like pOS - very amusing (see screenshot below)! But the Kickstart Archives are also very useful as you will not only find lots of FAQs, troubleshooter-guides, tutorials, the complete "Big Book of Amiga Hardware" but also a collection of setup disks as well as user´s manuals, service manuals and schematics in pdf file format.

Overall

TKA does not mean hours, not days, but weeks (maybe even months?) of entertainment and enjoyment. No matter if you are a die-hard Amiga fan or have used an A500 in the good old days. The balance between nostalgia, edu- and entertainment aswell as useful stuff for active Amiga fans is just perfect. The compilation also contains extremely rare websites, that are not available anymore on the web (except for Googles cache maybe). Not only for this reason owning the Kickstart Archives should be a must for every Amiga and ex-Amiga user - in fact it documents a very important stage in Computer history. What are you waiting for, 10 EURO is more than fair for this excellent product, that Thomas Unger carefully has composed here with lots of love and focus on detail.

Score: 10/10

Available from: home.arcor.de/kickstart/
(thanx to Thomas Unger for sending us a test version).

reviewer:Richard Kapp