My rural primary school got a Pentium PC with Encarta in 1996. It was placed in the library. I remember Encarta was on like 5 CDs, which the librarian kept under lock and key. You had to put your name down to book a 30 minute slot to use the PC, and take out the Encarta CDs on loan. It was a mission, and the whole time the librarian, a stern-faced woman in her mid 40s, would be standing behind you, arms folded, watching you warily lest you misused or damaged the sacred Encarta CDs. Fun times.
I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
81–90 of 202 posts
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#82I don't know if miss Encarta but it does point out that in some ways Wikipedia feels like a step backward. Sure, wikipedia has more topics but where's a video? Where's the interactive explanations? Wikipedia feels like a 25yr old website. I know some people like that but it feels like a missed opportunity and stagnation to me
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#83I also remember the CD-ROM era (and before that). It was also the time when software just worked. There was no other way. The content on those CDs was permanent. Software rarely needed an updated, it didn't called home with telemetry and it didn't needed a constant internet connection to work. There wasn't subscription models for most of the software. So you want to do some 3D renderings? Just install this CD with 3D…
You clearly never had to set up a sound card for a DOS game (oh the joys of autoexec.bat) or had to install your own networking drivers just to get TCP/IP support.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#84I spent a whole lot of time in my collage reading random articles from the hardbound volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica. That was the first exposure I had to high-quality information about the world on an incredible variety of topics. It was such a great feeling sitting in a beautiful library surrounded by books in silence isolated from the chaotic and noisy world outside. I get that now all information we can possib…
I've noticed that all Americans (and probably all English speaking countries) knows the animal Aardvark. Here in Denmark few do (where its called Jordsvin - Earthhog)- I speculate that the reason is, that English encyclopedias would mention it on the first page of the first volume and probably with a picture given its somewhat peculiar looks, and can't help to think that the Aardvark might be forgotten, now that few…
We got the aardvark and the danes got aalborg aquavit. Skol!
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#85That whole period of the PC industry where 'multimedia' became mainstream was pretty magical. I know the Amiga was well ahead of the PC ecosystem for a long time in capability but it never hit schools (at least where I grew up in South Australia) like PCs did. So with the emergence of VGA and Super VGA, widespread availability (and relative affordability) of 486 DX class PCs, Soundblasters and Optical Drives, the PC…
I remember when my dad bought us a copy of Encarta, I think around 2001. It had a click-and-drag Streetview style walkthrough of historical sites, including, iirc, the Great Pyramids.
I thought that was the most incredible thing ever. I remember getting my friends over after school and absolutely blowing their minds.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#86Mind Maze was a great excuse to play games at school!
I loved playing mind maze!! Countless hours I spent playing that game at my friend's house
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#87I don't know if miss Encarta but it does point out that in some ways Wikipedia feels like a step backward. Sure, wikipedia has more topics but where's a video? Where's the interactive explanations? Wikipedia feels like a 25yr old website. I know some people like that but it feels like a missed opportunity and stagnation to me
That's way more effort than writing some text. That kind of content doesn't make itself for free.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#88I also remember the CD-ROM era (and before that). It was also the time when software just worked. There was no other way. The content on those CDs was permanent. Software rarely needed an updated, it didn't called home with telemetry and it didn't needed a constant internet connection to work. There wasn't subscription models for most of the software. So you want to do some 3D renderings? Just install this CD with 3D…
> It was also the time when software just worked. I don't remember this at all! I remember monkeying around with config.sys and autoexec.bat setting env variables and loading drivers all so I could play some game I downloaded from a BBS. You had to constantly switch back from Windows to DOS depending on what application you were using. for ease of use. By contrast, in today's world you can go on an app store (windows…
I would expect that for most people the time period where there was overlap between config.sys tinkering, Windows, and BBS was pretty small. And likely even less overlap with the era where "3D Studio was on a CDROM".
And to be honest I have always found these stories of "ohmygod I need one extra K of unfragmented low memory, time to tinker with config.sys again" way overblown. I would just do this selective boot thingie that was introduced with some DOS version and period. By the time memmaker was introduced, I don't remember ever needing to use it at all.
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#89I remember we had something like "Encarta 98" (was that a thing?) on my dads computer. It was a family computer and my brother and me were sitting in front of it, watching videos and reading all the stuff in there and whatnot. I always dreamed that school was like this. Hasn't happened until today, which is sad.
My Dad was too cheap for Encarta. We had a shareware version called something like Infopedia. I remember doing a homework project at a friend's house and being quite jealous of the proper version!
I think we had a pirated copy from some buddy, too... :-D
Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)
#90I also remember the CD-ROM era (and before that). It was also the time when software just worked. There was no other way. The content on those CDs was permanent. Software rarely needed an updated, it didn't called home with telemetry and it didn't needed a constant internet connection to work. There wasn't subscription models for most of the software. So you want to do some 3D renderings? Just install this CD with 3D…
If I could edit my own comment I would add:
Is not that it was easy, or that programs weren't buggy. As read in other comments: autoexec.bat settings, sound card problems, network drivers and a bunch of software that had severe errors. I remember those too!
Because of that I would also correct "It was also the time when software just worked" with "It was also the time when software needed to correctly work at launch".
It was the mindset. Software that worked (99%?) fine from the first installation. The "I'll fix it later" wasn't contemplated or allowed.
Like a Sega Megadrive cartridge, it had to work. It's ok if you want to write "I remember that X game that crashed when...", but you know what I mean.
All that without needing updates, nor phoning home to check which buttons I press most, or requiring me to pay for that extra feature that is already there, already installed, but it will work just for one year.
Now the mentality is close to half-baked-I-must-fix-it-later, pay-me-for-life releases.