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I Miss Microsoft Encarta

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Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#151

Post by smacktoward »

tasogare wrote: post #125
smacktoward wrote: post #60

I would also add that I miss Microsoft Cinemania ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Cinemania ), which was to IMDB what Encarta was to Wikipedia. The sad bit is that in some ways Cinemania in 1997 was superior to IMDB as it is today . IMDB is more comprehensive, but Cinemania was better designed and more fun to just browse through.

I have the one on musical instruments: https://archive.org/details/microsoft-musical-instruments . Spend hours in it even if I wasn't that interested by music.

I didn't even know that had existed! MS really did have a fascinating CD-ROM portfolio back in the day.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#152

Post by pkaye »

nickthegreek wrote: post #90
shortformblog wrote: post #37

Encarta is a great example of Microsoft winning a market, and after it was defeated, letting it fade out. Wikipedia in some ways beat it, but the interactivity elements of Encarta make it something that you kind of wish had a more direct role in the modern day. I wrote about this topic a few years ago ( https://tedium.co/2017/07/13/who-killed-the-encyclopedia/ ), and it led a former CEO of Encyclopaedia Britannica to…

I remember getting Encarta 95 back when it first came out (I was 14 at the time) and the interactive elements and audio clips blew my mind. It changed how I thought about information and got me that much more invested in learning technology. Literally a week after getting Encarta a door to door encyclopedia salesmen came to our house and I showed him why I did not need his books. You could see the look of terror in h…

My parents got us a full blown Encyclopedia Britannica book set in the 80s. Probably cost $1000 which was difficult by how much they made. But they paid it down monthly. I used to have loads of fun thumbing through those books. There were a few index books where you looked up a topic and it would refer you to a page in one of the other books. Closest thing to the internet back then.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#153

Post by daveslash »

atonse wrote: post #5

Not Encarta but I remember a CD ROM we got about the San Diego Zoo with our Packard Bell computer in 1994. Boy, my brother and I learned too much about Aardvarks (because they were the first item on the list).

I had access to Encarta on my grandparents' computer when it came bundled with their Windows 95 computer, but in my home I had Undersea Adventure, which came bundled with our Win 3.1 machine. Man, I learned a lot about sharks and nudibranchs.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#154

Post by ticmasta »

ksec wrote: post #135
shortformblog wrote: post #37

Encarta is a great example of Microsoft winning a market, and after it was defeated, letting it fade out. Wikipedia in some ways beat it, but the interactivity elements of Encarta make it something that you kind of wish had a more direct role in the modern day. I wrote about this topic a few years ago ( https://tedium.co/2017/07/13/who-killed-the-encyclopedia/ ), and it led a former CEO of Encyclopaedia Britannica to…

I see it as a Free Vs Paid Model, Wiki is Free, and it is good enough for most use cases. Encarta had a lot of licensing, and I doubt any of that will ever be free, but the quality of those articles inside Encarta or Britannica in many ways are still way ahead of Wiki.

I think it goes even beyond paid vs free; the wiki model of knowledgeable, caring volunteers doing all this work for free seemed pretty crazy to all but a very few. Curated collections like Encarta and encyclopedias also tended to have very cursory entries for all but the broadest and market-focused topics. IMO a biased article is better than no information at all. In the very least it gives us a starting point for discovery, discussion and improvement. Most of what we today take for granted started with a pretty one-sided viewpoint that gained attention and inclusiveness.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#155

Post by ticmasta »

lttlrck wrote: post #142
cortesoft wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me think about when I used to go to the MacWorld convention in San Francisco as a kid in the early 90's. My mom would take me out of school every year to go (just for the expo hall, we didn't have enough money to actually go to the conference). I was just overwhelmed by all the different software on offer, and would load up my bag with free samples and spec sheets for software I had no legitimate need for…

Same for me with magazines. I’d read them cover to cover, even Computer Shopper which was mostly ads! It gave great breadth of knowledge and it was genuinely interesting because they had to be informative. I devoured them all. I miss that.

those ads in computer shopper where how you learned what was coming into your price bracket in the next 1-2 years. You saw an external 8x (!) speed CD burner and knew you'd be able to afford one within ~18 months.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#158

Post by ghaff »

pkaye wrote: post #152
nickthegreek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember getting Encarta 95 back when it first came out (I was 14 at the time) and the interactive elements and audio clips blew my mind. It changed how I thought about information and got me that much more invested in learning technology. Literally a week after getting Encarta a door to door encyclopedia salesmen came to our house and I showed him why I did not need his books. You could see the look of terror in h…

My parents got us a full blown Encyclopedia Britannica book set in the 80s. Probably cost $1000 which was difficult by how much they made. But they paid it down monthly. I used to have loads of fun thumbing through those books. There were a few index books where you looked up a topic and it would refer you to a page in one of the other books. Closest thing to the internet back then.

I had a World Book and then an Encyclopedia Britannica growing up. They gave me many many hours of pleasure. (I still have the Britannica in my garage. I've cleaned out a lot of things over the years but I can't bring myself to toss that.)

And, yes, I seem to recall the price was something in the $500-$1000 ballpark. Which was definitely a lot of money in the early 70s(?) when I got it--and, yes, the salesman came to the house.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#160

Post by gnulinux »

GordonS wrote: post #3

I was going to submit this earlier today, but I thought "nah, nobody else on HN is going to be old enough to remember Encarta" :) I remember when our family first got Encarta, and I spent hour after hour reading and marvelling about how all this information could be so easily accessible! I think we had a 14k dial-up Internet connection at the time, and the web was barely getting started - I really had no idea how thi…

22 here and I remember Encarta very fondly. I did not use it very often as back then paperback encyclopedias were still a "thing" and Wikipedia was pretty ok too; but I definitely reading about random physicists in Encarta. It was fun!
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