ScuzzBlog: Diaries September 2020
Entry 13th September 2020: Post 1: The pain of PD - Newport Business Supplies.
The pain of PD - Newport Business Supplies.
I receive a number of requests for PD disk. Those asking for disks
often are trying to build collections of a specific public domain
disk collection. Here is the problem ' not gonna happen '. The
only way to build a complete collection is to contact the owner
of the public domain and see if they still have a back-up of all
the disks.
There were literally thousands and thousands and thousands of
PD disks created. Just look at the long lists of disks printed in
the pages of any Amiga magazine. Further, the catalogues that were
issued have endless lists covering a range of subjects from games
and utilities to demo disks and magazine disks.
Most people that purchased disks did so cus they needed a font,
application, clip-art or support software for their system. Disks
were often obtained for very specific needs, and so a typical
Amiga user may have only a dozen or so disks in their collection.
I would doubt very much that anyone ever collected whole sets.
From my experiences collecting I have come across very few large
collections of PD disks.
I was recently asked about the NBS PD disks of which I have 50.
When you look at the labels you can see that the numbers under
each heading was in the hundreds. The catalogue I have has a
separate range of headings which is broken down even further for
different Workbench types. It kinda is endless.
So when someone sets about trying to build a PD set I would
suggest they step back a bit and appreciate the magnitude of the
problems. Lots of PD houses covered exactly the same disks and so
the best solution would be to obtain a set of the 17BiT Software
collection on CD and trust me you will have covered most of the
disks in any of the collections.
Whilst I am happy to provide the odd disk to someone wanting to
rebuild their peripheral or failed cover disk, I am unwilling
to simply copy on batch whole clutches of disks. I have no way
of validating the authenticity of the request or the legality
of issuing disks. So I refuse to do this. Sorry.I carry the notice
on the website so it should not come as a surprise.
Collecting PD disks, whilst admirable, should be treated very
much as it was in the day... a casual activity involving a few
disks. Any ambition to rebuild whole collections is pointless.
The disks have long gone as has the community that used them.
In truth the only folk that may have disks are those who are
either related to the PD house or someone who knew someone that
owned a PD house.
There are numbers of PD collections on CD. I have quite a few.
They do come up on Ebay, you just have to keep your eyes out for
them.
One last thing. PD disks on the whole are pretty dull things. I
have thousands of them. For me I preferred Anglia cus they always
wrote what was on the disks .. ON THE BLOODY DISK.
You don't have to be CRAZY to collect PD disks, but it sure helps.
The pain of PD - Newport Business Supplies.
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