                                Encarta '95
                        Review by William M Frazier

        The stork recently arrived and that new bundle of joy is wailing in
the crib. You haven't slept more than 3 hours straight in a week. It's early
afternoon, baby's been fed, and you decide to rest for just an hour of two.
Then the phone rings. The party on the other end starts his pitch, telling
you what a wonderful investment in your child's future a new set of
encyclopedias would make. John Fitzgerald Kennedy once stated, "In a time of
turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power."
But an $800 set of encyclopedias for a one month old child really won't help
its search for knowledge nor its future.
        The problem with print encyclopedias is that after the first year
they become obsolete. The salesperson will tell you not to worry, that for
just $40 or $50 you can purchase a supplement each year. By the time the
child reaches the age of 10 or 11, when an encyclopedia might be of use, it
will have to find the subject in the original books, then browse each yearly
supplement to see if anything has changed since the encyclopedia was
originally printed. A cost effective alternative might be one of a number of
electronic encyclopedias available in CD-ROM format. The latest, MicroSoft's
Encarta '95, is an excellent product, and costs just $95 at most retail
outlets. You can purchase a new version every two or three years and
probably never spend as much as you would for a single, traditional, printed
set.
        Encarta has all the elements of a conventional encyclopedia. What
sets it apart from the others and makes it exceptional is the inclusion of
audio and video clips that supplement many of the subjects. For instance, if
you want to study the recent history of Bosnia, you simply select the Find
option and type BOSNIA. When the subject appears, you will find that
interactive audio makes your research come alive. City names, which always
seem to contain too many consonants, are pronounced for you. Another clip
plays traditional Bosnian folk music.
        Installation follows the usual format, run the setup program on the
CD-ROM, answer the dialog boxes, and watch it copy a few files to your hard
drive. Encarta will consume about 3.5 MB of hard drive space. The
documentation supplied with the program is sparse, but adequate. A small 26
page User Guide is enclosed in the CD-ROM jewel case. There is also a Quick
Reference card. On-line help is good, giving you the necessary directions on
how to navigate through the program.
        Although Encarta is fundamentally an encyclopedia, the Multimedia
aspect is emphasized throughout. The encyclopedia contains over 26,000
articles. There are over nine hours of sound, including many foreign
languages, music, natural sounds, and historic speeches. Thousands of
photos, illustrations, and maps visually augment many of the articles.
        The inability to search for, and find a specific article or subject
has been the downfall of many CD-ROM format encyclopedias. MicroSoft has
designed a new search tool called The Pinpointer to solve this problem. The
Pinpointer allows you to search for a subject by word, period of time,
media, category, and place. Using The Pinpointer, you can progressively
narrow your search till you discover exactly what you are seeking. My
favorite improvement in Encarta is the new fly-out menus, similar to those
introduced by The Corel Corp. in Corel Draw V5.0. Fly-out menus reduce
screen clutter and make navigating Encarta much easier for the novice user.
        I did find a couple of problems, although they may be hardware
specific and not the problem of Encarta. Selecting the browse tool would
cause a GPF when I accessed it. The culprit was the video driver I was
using, which had a resolution of 600 by 480 by 64K colors.. When I switched
to 256 color driver the problem went away. A problem I was unable to solve
involved the MIDI Mapper. MIDI works fine on my machine when used with
professional MIDI programs, such as Master Tracks Pro, but would not work at
all with Encarta.
        Encarta also contains a rudimentary game called Mindmaze. The game
has the appearance of a Mid-Evil castle arranged as a maze. To pass through
the various doors you must answer a question, given in a multiple choice
format. The characters arrayed in the various rooms of the castle refer to a
mysterious curse afflicting the castle and its residents. You are expected
to remove the curse. After a couple hours of answering questions and
wandering about, your motivation wanes. Unless you enjoy answering multiple
choice questions, to no apparent purpose, the game will not hold your
interest for long.
        The primary purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide accurate, easy
to find, information at a reasonable price. Judged by these standards,
Encarta '95 is an excellent value. The sound and video clips included with
the program make Encarta a must buy.

System requirements: 386 SX or higher,  4 MB of RAM, 3.5 MB of Hard Drive
space,  CD-ROM & audio board,  SVGA-256 color monitor.

MSRP:  $99.95

                           MicroSoft Corporation
                              1 MicroSoft Way
                           Redmond, WA 98052-6393
                               (800)-426-9400

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