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I Miss Microsoft Encarta

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Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#21

Post by momokoko »

groundlogic wrote: post #2

Obviously this is pure nostalgia. Wikipedia + Google is superior in pretty much all imaginable ways. And available to people "in the developing world". (I don't really get why Scott included that part. The number of people who have access to a PC with a Microsoft Encarta CD-ROM and also don't have web access via their phones.. my guess is that the total number is about 17, globally.) That said, nostalgia is fun somet…

I would strongly disagree in this case. Wikipedia can be very opinionated and holds bias towards fringe information that has a niche passionate base of followers.

Google provides very shallow info and bites that give rise to information that is clever as opposed to well thought out.

I do not want to infer that they are bad resources, but I would argue that they are significantly lacking in the department of balanced, curated and well thought out information.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#22

Post by abhinavsharma »

The period of time before the infiniteness of the internet but after CD-ROMs could pack lots of information was fascinating to grow up in. You had lots of curiosity but still limited access to information so you deeply explored stuff.

Add to that, something like Encarta was curated by opinionated editors (whether or not you agree with them is different from the fact that the nature of content is different when it isn't trying to find consensus amongst absolutely everyone) and did not survive based on advertising as most internet content does today.

That set of factors made for a very different world of reading than today.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#24

Post by martin-adams »

I was lucky to have Encarta at home when in school. I remember one kid complaining that I did well in a homework assignment because I had Encarta and the science teacher simply said he can't stop someone from using it to learn.

It's nice that knowledge has become widely accessible with the Internet. The hard part I find now is knowing how to learn with so much access to information.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#25

Post by NikolaNovak »

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…

Oh no, I've been looking for "modern Encarta" for years, in particular something that would easily show me different regions coloured by statistics and criteria - the ability to pick part of the earth, and then colour selected regions by economy, or productivity, or politics, or whatever, was phenomenal. Tablets _should_ be such a natural device for an educational geography product; but with free Google Maps + Wikipedia, nobody seems to be trying (at least I cannot find anything useful in my once-yearly attempts).

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#26

Post by throwaway156503 »

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…

Consider sharing this sort of content anyway! Even for younger audiences, it's really cool to be exposed to new-to-you things.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#27

Post by asdfman123 »

groundlogic wrote: post #2

Obviously this is pure nostalgia. Wikipedia + Google is superior in pretty much all imaginable ways. And available to people "in the developing world". (I don't really get why Scott included that part. The number of people who have access to a PC with a Microsoft Encarta CD-ROM and also don't have web access via their phones.. my guess is that the total number is about 17, globally.) That said, nostalgia is fun somet…

For a kid growing up, Encarta was far superior to anything Wikipedia offers today.

Sure, Wikipedia wins in sheer volume but that's it. Encarta was a well curated collection of knowledge that was consistent and perfectly suited for its audience.

More is not always better.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#28

Post by cptskippy »

I remember in the late 80s and early 90s during the summers when it was too hot to be outside, we'd sit in the den watching PBS with a World Book Encyclopedia tome in our lap just flipping through the pages.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#29

Post by rchaud »

I had Encarta '97 as an 11yo, purchased at a Malaysian street vendor market for probably all of 3 bucks. It felt incredible to have that much knowledge available for almost no money. And it wasn't just boring text like the paper versions, there were videos too!

There was point in time where that truly felt like the future. Considering that we're now in the age of autoplaying, monetized "content" video nearly everywhere you go, it was nice to have only "primary source" video, aka stuff like the moon landing, or the MLK speech, instead of some nobody warbling on about its importance while splicing in stills of said video because they don't want to be in violation of the copyright.

The concept of finite, structured and bounded content is also extremely powerful in this era of overwhelming data, much of which rehashed and warmed over by various publications not to mention utterly infested with ads.

The concept of spending hours down a Wikipedia rabbit hole is not new, and it's one of the reasons I donate annually. But it first started with Encarta, and it's offline-only format has grown to be only more valuable as time goes on.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#30

Post by jszymborski »

groundlogic wrote: post #2

Obviously this is pure nostalgia. Wikipedia + Google is superior in pretty much all imaginable ways. And available to people "in the developing world". (I don't really get why Scott included that part. The number of people who have access to a PC with a Microsoft Encarta CD-ROM and also don't have web access via their phones.. my guess is that the total number is about 17, globally.) That said, nostalgia is fun somet…

Undoubtedly there is a healthy dose of nostalgia, however there's a lot to learn here.

Wikipedia is unbeatable for breadth and depth, but there's a lot to be said for curation.

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