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I Miss Microsoft Encarta

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Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#321

Post by fallensatan »

joblessjunkie wrote: post #205

Encarta was part of my first job out of university. I worked in Microsoft's Multimedia Division, tasked with creating the first video and audio drivers for Windows. IIRC the BMP, WAV, and AVI file formats all came from this team at about this time. In the summer of '91, I was tasked with assembling a 386 PC with an early CD-ROM drive to demo an early build of Encarta at a trade show. It was a lot of effort to find a…

I just want to thank you for your work on Encarta. It was the first _real software_ I interacted with in my teen years; it fascinated me a lot back then and I believe it’s part of the reason I’m in software industry. Thank you.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#322

Post by baroffoos »

cpach wrote: post #105
sureste wrote: post #56

The thing about Encarta to me is that it felt so much more interactive than what we have today. Nowadays we read a Wikipedia article or watch a Youtube video on a topic but never interact with the content. It's all very passive. I was a child during the heyday of Encarta and I remember I had it and a few other specialized encyclopedias (one about animals, one about sea life, one about dinosaurs!!) and they were all i…

I never mess interactivity when browsing Wikipedia. I love that WP is text-based, so that I can read it in my own preferred tempo. I rarely watch videos since to me they always feel too slow compared to reading text. I understand on an intellectual level that Youtube is a great platform that provide lots of value and entertainment to lots of people, but I never feel that greatness since it’s not something that I pers…

The one place where I found videos were hugely better was blender tutorial videos. The program has countless features and shortcuts and is hugely visual. The video just helps you capture as much of that information as possible as well as showing you the typical workflow of a pro.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#323

Post by cptaj »

fallensatan wrote: post #321
joblessjunkie wrote: post #205

Encarta was part of my first job out of university. I worked in Microsoft's Multimedia Division, tasked with creating the first video and audio drivers for Windows. IIRC the BMP, WAV, and AVI file formats all came from this team at about this time. In the summer of '91, I was tasked with assembling a 386 PC with an early CD-ROM drive to demo an early build of Encarta at a trade show. It was a lot of effort to find a…

I just want to thank you for your work on Encarta. It was the first _real software_ I interacted with in my teen years; it fascinated me a lot back then and I believe it’s part of the reason I’m in software industry. Thank you.

I definitely poured hours into Encarta as well. I was already a big fan of computers but I do wonder how much of an impact Encarta had on me. It definitely built up that early browsing habit that translated so seamlessly into the web.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#324

Post by tr33house »

Good memories: songs like "take me back to Jamaica where I belong" and "my brothers do it best in my mother's TV"

Encarta was really one of the few ways I got to learn about the world before we had internet in our home (this was around 05 when we were living in E Africa). Thank you to everyone that made it happen

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#325

Post by inflatableDodo »

"Most folks at Microsoft don't realize that Encarta exists and is used TODAY all over the developing world on disconnected or occasionally connected computers. (Perhaps Microsoft could make the final version of Encarta available for a free final download so that we might avoid downloading illegal or malware infested versions?)"

Give it to Wikipedia gratis, then they can make Encarta the Wikipedia entry for Encarta.

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#326

Post by snoshy »

joblessjunkie wrote: post #267
akgoel wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This basically sounds like WinHelp, which was a compiled format of RTF, prior to the availability of HTML.

It was in fact exactly that. The WinHelp team got folded into our group, and then WinHelp became something of an orphaned project for a while (or maybe forever?).

Not to stray too far from the subject, and you clearly have some valuable ability to improvise in tough engineering requirements. Where did you end up?

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#328

Post by 77pt77 »

isostatic wrote: post #231
aksss wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the hours-long rabbit hole thing didn’t start with Encarta :D But you still would have been considered a geek of the highest order doing it with Encarta. Wiki first popularized the experience.

The deepest rabbit hole I tend to find is tvtropes. Start at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DownTheRabbitHol... and before I know it time has gone.

Tvtropes should come with a warning

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#329

Post by Retric »

scarface74 wrote: post #318
Retric wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling the iPad touch an iPad in name only is disingenuous. It’s 1/2 the price of the original and has more space etc. As to falling off a cliff, they sold significantly more iPods in 09, 10, and 11 than 06. They even sold more than 3x as many iPods in 2014 than 2004. Apples watch is still a watch even if it does a lot of other things. Microsoft never ported Encarta functionality to anything after 09, it just died.

2008 was peak iPod and they started declining after that. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quart... Note FYQ1 is calendar quarter 4.

As a brand sure, but the iPhone has been a fair replacement for many people. I mean digital camera sales have dropped 84% since 2010, but if anything people are taking far more photos now.

For most people cellphones have mostly replaced watches, digital cameras, keychain flashlights, and MP3 players not because they are awesome at it but because having slightly better but largely redundant devices is not worth it. https://www.statista.com/chart/5782/digital-camera-shipments...

Re: I Miss Microsoft Encarta

#330

Post by wingerlang »

snoshy wrote: post #326
joblessjunkie wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was in fact exactly that. The WinHelp team got folded into our group, and then WinHelp became something of an orphaned project for a while (or maybe forever?).

Not to stray too far from the subject, and you clearly have some valuable ability to improvise in tough engineering requirements. Where did you end up?

Hopefully his username is not an indication.
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