OPTEXT: Government Publications on CD‐ROM

Video Laser Systems's (VLS) OPTEXT is, in many ways, a harbinger of things to come. It is one of the first products to use the High Sierra Group's standard for the compact disk (CD) data format, and in so doing employs CD technology to make an otherwise awkward and imposing source eminently accessible. It is so successful that it can reasonably be said to obviate use of the paper version of the Code of Federal Regulations. At the same time, it will force us to scrutinize our choice of optimal hardware configurations, while giving us an indication of idiosyncrasies that we can expect to encounter in the burgeoning CD market.