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I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

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Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#121

Post by rchaud »

I grabbed a copy of Encarta '97 at a street market in Kuala Lumpur for all of $3. I was 11 and it blew my mind how much info there was in it. Despite also buying FIFA '97 at shop, I looked forward to coming home from school and firing up a new article. They had a audio and video too!

It's hard to explain just how incredible it was to have this info all in one place in the pre-internet age. Even today, I'd say having this kind of validated information as an integrated product offers a superior way to learn compared to Googling random articles and watching ad-ridden Youtube videos.

Maybe this is the 2020-itis talking, but I can't imagine watching the moon landing or MLK's speech online without mentally preparing myself for the rudeness and straight up lunacy in the comments section.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#123

Post by rchaud »

cookiecaper wrote: post #94
thdrdt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss the state of development from that time. I was developing multimedia CD content with software like Director and Authorware[1]. We had a project and when it was released the project was clearly done. Today projects don't finish because continuous integration is a never ending story. [1] I also miss this kinds of visual programming sometimes. Authorware was very underrated imho.

I'm not familiar with Authorware specifically, but there's a whole lost world where computing was extremely rich in visuality, dynamism, and play, and the striking thing is that these qualities were expected to enhance peoples' useful output. Some of the early Smalltalk demos exhibit this beautifully, and they're from the 70s. It almost feels like the era of "rich media" embodied by Encarta, "animated storybooks", et…

I too mourn the loss of the "interactive web" for want of a better phrase. Computer programs like Encarta used to be fun to explore and interact with. The same can be said of many '90s and '00s sites that would feature Easter eggs, or a unique method of navigation.

Bring any of this up today, and you'll immediately be met with a barrage of critiques about Flash security, or UX dogma like "Users prefer to scroll, not click around or hover on stuff."

The end result is the soulless, identikit web we have today, where the only things that display motion are the banner ads. We navigate through websites by scrolling alone, as though we were using a microfiche machine to read a newspaper from 1920.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#124

Post by crazygringo »

asiachick wrote: post #82

I 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

Wikipedia certainly does have animations and videos. Here's a list of literally every article with a video, there are over 5,000 of them at least:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_containing_v...

For comparison, Encarta had "over 300 videos".

And while it's not interactive, there are definitely animations on Wikipedia to help understand concepts, like the top of the article on pi shows a circle unrolling:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

As for truly interactive explanations... I'm not sure there's really any kind of technological standard for that right now that people could collaboratively edit. At least not in the way JPEG and SVG are available to everyone. Do you have any suggestions?

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#125

Post by Dirlewanger »

asiachick wrote: post #82

I 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

>a 25yr old website

Yeah, that's a feature. I like that. No bloated JS framework taking 10 seconds to load, no obnoxious whitespace, minimal changes to the desktop experience when they implemented mobile. I admit they're a little slow to implement quality-of-life things (the hover-over preview being one of them). I also think link rot is a real problem too. Even though it's not necessarily their domain, I think Wikipedia should attempt to do something.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#127

Post by asdfman123 »

rchaud wrote: post #121

I grabbed a copy of Encarta '97 at a street market in Kuala Lumpur for all of $3. I was 11 and it blew my mind how much info there was in it. Despite also buying FIFA '97 at shop, I looked forward to coming home from school and firing up a new article. They had a audio and video too! It's hard to explain just how incredible it was to have this info all in one place in the pre-internet age. Even today, I'd say having…

I had a similar experience with Encarta at a similar age -- in the US, in perhaps in a far more privileged environment -- but it hit me the same way.

Encarta was great because it curated and presented information intentionally. Everything was in one place. You didn't get lost in rabbit holes or overwhelmed by information overload. You didn't get distracted by Instagram.

It's so obvious that it barely needs to be said, but giving a kid a well-crafted learning experience is better than just throwing them into the deep end of the internet.

I remember in elementary school some student asked why race cars make that distinct zooming noise as they race past. The teacher didn't know, but I was able to go to the front of the class and explain the Doppler effect based on an interactive lesson I had watched on MS Encarta.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#128

Post by redwall_hp »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #91
Aardwolf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, to me the term "multimedia PC" already sounded outdated from the start, similar to the "a CD ROM can contain a whole library shelf worth of data" hype. I just thought like, this 386 PC could make sound and graphics and games. This Pentium can do it too, granted with more colors and a CD ROM drive and a fancy "where do you want to go today" movie, but does that warrant all this hype of being called "multimedia"?…

I see your multimedia PC, and raise you an "information superhighway". That sounded cringey from the start.

Not as cringeworthy as Bill Gates' book in the 90s opting to entirely use that term, abbreviating it to "the Highway," and outright refusing to say "Internet."

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#129

Post by wishysgb »

29athrowaway wrote: post #20
jxf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the value of Encarta was in the human curation of what was interesting. Wikipedia includes (by necessity) everything — but an encyclopedia would probably devote more space to (say) Nigerian history than to (say) the in-game statistics of all ~1,000 Pokémon.

Some people call this phenomenon "wikigroaning": "the art of highlighting Wikipedia's bias toward things that don't matter". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikigroaning https://www.somethingawful.com/news/wikigroaning/

I just don't get why doesn't it matter . for what it is Pokemon is a game and in some ways a form of art, and since many humans are interested in it deeply that means that it is important to them. I think it is important human knowledge, there is no need to be elitest about it.
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