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            PD LIBRARIES - BLESSING OR CURSE FOR THE GAMERS ON ATARI?!
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The idea to write down the following lines came up to my mind as I digged out my
old  collection of  ST Format and  ST Computer magazines. There I stumbled again
over a lot of reviews  and adverts for public domain, independent or licenceware
games that aren't available on the internet.

While the  Public Domain Libraries (short PDL) were slowly  dying out in Germany
in the  nineties they were  very strong in the  UK even in the late nineties but
they had a lot of stuff on their disx that was and today also is hard to get for
free really. Not  only the fact to  spend a lot of  money for orders from the UK
hold me back from buying those disx, since I stopped that long times ago here in
Germany as well since the disx of the most important german PD service, PD POOL,
were damn expensive with 8 DM for one single disk, no also the fact that I don't
see the point to give my money to some people for freeware...

Unfortunately it seems that they  had a lot of exclusive  stuff then or at least
that they always got some stuff that wasn't  spreaded right and today I think it
could maybe have been  better to buy the  one or  other disk since it seems that
not only many of the PDL's vanished, nope, also big  parts of the stuff they had
on their disx seems to be vanished from the  screen and not available for public
anymore.

A big  drawback in  my eyes is  the fact  that those  PD librairies  closed down
without making  their stocks  public. Furthermore  those licenceware games never
had that big  attraction to crackers, furthermore they mostly mustn't be cracked
at all and so the "illegal" scene  didn't took care about that semi professional
game market. At last in  the late nineties  the compact  makers took a look onto
this scene and  saved a few  games on  their  compiles, but  after all  far from
being  complete. And... unfortunately, that late  compact makers scene was again
mainly UK based and didn't had the possibility to get their hands onto the stuff
released in Germany, not to speak about France!

So the games of the german POOLWARE label are maybe vanished completely, if, yes
if none of the owners of the sold copies are thinking about  making them public,
sine POOLWARE vanished  from the screen with the shrinking Atari scene, and with
it games  like "Fox Brothers" (jump'n'run), "Road Fighter" (beat'em'up) or  also
"Magic Quest" (jump'n'run)  vanished, while  others  somehow were  spreaded much
better and even matched it to jump  over the british  channel  to be released on
UK PDL's  and, in  the  end, founding  their  way  to  UK compact disx  or other
sources...  just  like "Arcan" (rpg),  "Psycho Pig 2"  (jump'n'run)  or "Ceasar"
(strategical).

A very similar problem comes up with the french ST MAG PD series that was mainly
distributed online via some kind of little internet or something. There you were
able to leech the programs for a small fee, but you could get them on disk via a
copy service as well. Unfortunately that  net was only  available at France only
and you couldn't connect to it from foreign countries. Knowing the fact that the
french ST scene was damn strong in the past and seeing parts of french PD lists,
giving me a little idea how much software is lost there, esp. since the froggies
often created softwares in their mother tongue  and so the stuff  was never much
spreaded  over the french  frontiers... Last  but not least  the very few french
ftp  servers, that at  least offered  a part of those  softwares, lip6 and cnam,
closed  down as well and so it is quite difficult to get french independent soft
at all, and I know that there are still some freaks out there...

But I wont go on further with mourning about the PDL's here. Apart from the fact
that they  died with their  software collections, they are also a part of the ST
scene, that was some kind of  motor since as the commercial games development on
the Atari's broke  down, they were still  possible to  offer quite good stuff on
their catalogues, wanting more or less money but with the point that  authors of
licensed games, got money as well, what  they surely  didn't have  if they would
have released their games by their own.

And... hehe, the  knowledge that there  are such seldom softwares around, surely
holds the one or other back on  the ST... If we all would have gotten  the stuff
already, there wouldn't be something  around that  we wanted to  get, that is so
surrounded by a shimering light...

Anyway. If you got hold of such seldom games (still  wanting some titles? So get
those: "Bludgeon 2", "Demon" & "Demon 2", "The Curse  Of  Azriel"...), so please
remember this article and  save them for the future in making them public to the
rest of the ST scene, we have lost too much softwares in the past...

_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_o8/2k2_