Awaiting CD-ROM's under the tree? A nice fruitcake might be better
Article Abstract:
Maxis' $35 Marty and the Trouble with Cheese children's educational software, Encyclopaedia Britannica's Britannica CD 2.0 electronic reference and Mindscape's $40 Doonesbury Flashbacks: 25 Years of Serious Fun illustrate the shortcomings of CD-ROMs. Over 30% of CD-ROMs are returned because they will not work with systems owned by the purchasers. Marty and the Trouble with Cheese comes with a microphone, but installation is difficult and performance fitful. Britannica's installation is also clumsy, requiring users to install a parallel-port device before running the program. Its content is lackluster, with hypertext links marked with the word 'index,' instead of being highlighted. Not a single audio or video clip appears on the disc. The Doonesbury CD offers a broad overview of changing cultural and political landscapes, but is suffers from a poor search engine, a clumsy interface and poor reproduction quality for the comic strips.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1995
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Second acts often disappointing
Article Abstract:
Disney Interactive's $35 Toy Story Animated Storybook children's educational software fails to provide nearly the level of quality and excitement that the Disney movie offered viewers. Toy Story employs only 256 colors, is replete with technical glitches, offers only about 15 different scenes from the film and includes only a few games. IBM's $35 Jungle Book CD-ROM is ostensibly based on characters from Rudyard Kipling's book, but the electronic book derives most of its value from screen perspectives and voice recognition features. Pulse Entertainment's $50 Bad Mojo adventure game portrays the players as cockroaches hoping to regain their humanity, but the game does not always provide the appropriate clues necessary to resolve the game's conflicts. Headbone Interactive's $30 Elroy Hits the Pavement children's game improves upon the original Elroy Goes Bugzerk in terms of its interface and overall programming.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1996
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Children's software gets inflated grades
Article Abstract:
Newsweek's $30 Parent's Guide to Children's Software 96 CD-ROM awards even even the least deserving CD-ROMs high grades as it strives to rate children's software. A book of reviews is accompanied by a CD-ROM which contains interactive reviews of the titles. The demonstrations on the CD-ROM do give some indication of what the full-length programs would be like, although new releases of software will soon make the disk out of date. Living Books' $40 Dr. Seuss's ABC CD-ROM is not as good as the book, but it offers the first real effort to translate Dr. Seuss to the computer screen. The CD expands the book with material aimed at teaching the alphabet. Clicking on objects or letters and words starts amusing antics, although users cannot interrupt the action and must wait until it is over. The music portions may be played on a regular CD player. Wide black borders and slow-turning pages are irksome.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1995
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: Zip drive revives a maker of storage devices. A new drive for portable storage. New ways to store backup copies to celebrate file clean up month
- Abstracts: Reports of the death of the Internet have been greatly exaggerated. New estimates in old debate on Internet use. (Nielsen Media Research survey) (Internet
- Abstracts: For Digital, a tunnel at the end of the light. Digital stock up as earnings rise despite slump for PC's. Digital is seen hiring I.B.M. PC executive; company seeks to move to top of the industry
- Abstracts: Apple Computer earnings fell 47.6% in latest period. Compaq to acquire Tandem, big-systems maker. Tandem posts drop of 72% in net income; executive shakeup at computer maker