As part of Fred Fish's move away from floppy disks, a series of regular CD-ROMs was introduced. Now that Fred no longer personally compiles the disk series, it is the most frequent source for their archives from Amiga Library Services.
Volume 10 features the most recent 100 Fish disks (1001-1100), which will bring GoldFish 1 (the 2 CD set with the first 1000) owners up to date. It also rings in three times as much "new material", freely redistributable software in the Aminet hierarchy. The "useful" directory, some 130 megs of it, includes licensed Commodore include files and classic, essential software titles. The remaining 300+ megs are taken up with GNU development tools and extensive source code. Searching the Fish library of discs is supported by the included KingFisher archives.
In other words, the same array the Fish discs normally bring.
A welcome change has come in the user interface, however. Perhaps taking a cue from the Aminet discs, FreshFish 10 has an AmigaGuide-driven menu system for searching and accessing the entire disk, with configurable preferences for handling the myriad filetypes the disk contains. An installation utility helps you set the proper viewers to the different image, text, and sound types you will encounter. The menu system makes use of ixemul.library, which the installer is happy to provide you with.
The CD is still the single best source for Amiga development tools, particularly with no CATS-like organization churning out CDs for the hungry programmers out there. However, this will be changing, as will the "useful" directory. These will apparently be spun off to a new series of CD-ROMs, turning FreshFish into a disc with, well, more fresh fish- a greater focus on newly available Amiga software.
Those with slow machines, or those who simply hate LHA archives, will be heartened to know that most of the non-Fish disk software is in dearchived form, ready to be copied directly off the CD. This certainly goes a long way to assist in certain decisions, since rather than dearchiving an 800k utility simply to get at the documentation to find out what it does, you have the doc file waiting for your beady little eyes to peruse. In addition, much of the software has the .pi file for BBS descriptions, saving sysops hassle and saving users confusion. After all, it's not easy to figure out what EC90-126.6.jpg is unless the .pi file tells you it's the STS-31 space shuttle, after landing.
Fred Fish continues to deliver a large quantity of important Amiga resources (647 megs, all told) at a very reasonable cost ($20, or $15 if you buy a one-year subscription for $60 total.) Unless you have so many CDs you decorate the walls with them, FreshFish 10 should be a serious consideration to keep your library current.