## Description
_Minerva II Shareware CD Rom_ is one in a series of UK shareware compilation
CDs.
At the time this CD was produced the internet was developed but it was still
strange and new and a bit scary. It was also expensive as users paid for their
internet access by the minute via their phone bill and modem speeds were very
slow. This created a niche market bringing the internet to people on a CD
which companies like Software 2010 did successfully in the US.
This disc contains files dates between 1980 and 1992 with just one file dated
1993. The majority of files, over six and a half thousand, are archived in
.arj format with less than thirty using the .zip extension so common today.
With the CD inserted the user swaps to the drive and enters ‘GO’, this brings
up the menu and with it the file base viewer. The CD contains all kinds of
software and utilities in one hundred and five separate categories, here the
user will find everything from a pilots log book to a dentists assistant, from
bible studies to word processing and, of course, games for both Bulletin
Boards, DOS and Windows 3. The categories of interest to gamers are:
* 35: Adventure Games. Thirty-one games including, Colossal Cave \- 551 point version, Floor 13, and NetHack version 3.0j
* 36: Arcade Style Games. Eighty-six games including, Paganitzu, Robomaze III, Xmas Lemmings and multiple clones of Tetris and Star Trek
* 37: Board Games. Forty files the majority of which are new tile sets for Mah Jong
* 38: Dice & Card Games. Sixteen games including six different blackjack games and five different poker games
* 39: Flight Simulator & ATF files. Over one hundred files including additional scenery, planes, scenarios and utilities for use with Flight Simulator versions up to Microsoft Flight Simulator (v4.0)
* 40: Jack Nicklaus Golf Courses. Over one hundred additional courses.
* 41: Games – for Children. Fifteen simple educational games teaching basic spelling and math
* 42: General Games. Just under forty files including, BassTour and many additional lakes, a couple of baseball management games, some light-cycle games and add-ons for SimCity including utilities and pre-made cities
* 43: Word/Puzzle Games. Forty-four files of crossword puzzles and anagram solvers with a couple of hangman games and a set of crossword dictionary files
* 82: Win3 Games. Over one hundred and twenty files containing a bit of everything, mazes, shooters, crosswords, tetris, blackjack and cards. Includes Castle of the Winds, a port of GNU Chess, Hyperoid and more. Though it contains WIN 3 games _Minerva !!_ is not a Windows CD, the menu system and installer run in a DOS window.
* 99: Door Programs. A mixture of games and utilities. Games include Land of the Barons, Arm of the Dragon, Chain Reaction, Dollar Mania Slot Machine, and many more in its one hundred and eighty-one files
Minerva II Shareware CD Rom