@PeterPiers, I’m curious–do you happen to have Birth of the Phoenix by Ambrosine (the one mentioned on the CAT wiki page–presumably a different game from Birth of the Phoenix by Paul L. Berker)? I looked in your collection and didn’t see it, but possibly I wasn’t looking in the right folders. Or maybe it’s not technically freeware?
Heya!
“Birth of the Phoenix” sounded extremely familiar - and when I saw that it was a demo packaged with CAT, I realised why. 
I dabbled a bit in CAT, as in many other systems.
Thanks for pointing that out. I’d missed a few CAT games, and the page http://www.webring.org/l/rd?ring=textadventurecre;id=3;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.staining.fslife.co.uk%2Findex.htm set me straight. I’m likely to still be missing some games, but I’m always on the lookout.
It being part of the CAT demo games, it will be in the http://www.staining.fslife.co.uk/catv289.zip file.
Now, I don’t know whether this DEMO thing is actually a demo for the FULL game, or whether it is a “demo for CAT’s abilities”. Regardless, I think it IS the same gamea s Paul Berker, as this is a port of an older game, see http://www.syntax2000.co.uk/issues/83/birth.rev.txt.
I do have an ADRIFT version of the game, though. Check my collection, under ADRIFT V5.
I’ve also procured an Apple II version which I did not have (https://archive.org/details/a2_Birth_Of_The_Phoenix_1981_Phoenix_Software_Global_Thermonuclear_War_19xx__b_Hitc , you can get the torrent for it) and which I’ll be adding to my collection.
So, on the whole, if the program in CAT is merely the demo to something bigger, I’m not all that desperate to find it, as it’s only a port and I already have one of those. Granted, it seems to be a port that adds something, but really low priority.
Thanks for alerting me about this!
Was this supposed to have been a PM? Did I reply in such a way that it was no longer a PM? I’m confused…
Thanks for the info! No, it wasn’t a PM. I thought I’d post publicly in case anyone else had info to share too. From a little bit of searching I had gotten the impression that not a lot is known about this game (or this port, rather) since it doesn’t even show up on IFDB, and its entry on ifreviews said the release year was unknown, and Paul Berker is not on IFWiki.
Do you often come across games that are not on IFDB, and if so, do you ever add them? (I’m not asking you to add it–I’m just curious how these things are done.)
I considered it at one time.
Then I realised how much crap I collect. Seriously. I grab whatever gets published, but a lot of that is stuff that people don’t want to see published a month after it’s done. Especially the Twine and Quest games. Ooh boy. The ones in Playfic, ditto, though I don’t get all of THOSE - only the ones that seem to have a modicum of effort (my main rule of thumb is, if it doesn’t even have a “end the story” in there somewhere, it needs to be brilliant for me to collect).
And some of the stuff is… specialised. Like AIF. Adding an entry to someone else’s game, when that entry contains a very graphic cover image (British Fox 2) or is about underage incest (Sibling Seduction, currently on PENDING, an Adrift game which actually seems to have been removed from the Adrift page a short time later so I’m lucky in that I have something rare, but it’s a bit like saying "Look at me, I’ve got my dog’s first turd, isn’t it special?)…
So I considered it, yes. When I started, I meant to complete the missing IFDB entries from my collection. Now I don’t think that’s wise - I’d have to pick and choose, and if I’m going to pick and choose I am going to, ultimately, leave some blank spaces myself.
I mean, when all’s said and done, who the heck am I to say that British Fox 2 and Sibling Seduction have no place in IFDB? I make no judgements in my collection; why start making them elsewhere?
No, I’m much more comfortable having a warehouse of a collection. Think of it as IKEA - you look up the game on IFDB, you download it from my collection… or you can go warehouse-spelunking and see the stuff that doesn’t make it into the catalog. 
Yeah, I can see how it’d be awkward to have to decide which games belong on IFDB and which ones don’t.