In the 1990s, the internet was smaller, slower, and harder to search. If you wanted to learn basic facts about a topic, what would you do? You could get a physical encyclopedia. Thankfully, there was one more option.
What Ever Happened to Microsoft Encarta? Encyclopedia on a CD-ROM
- Thread starter Amir Shoam
- Start date
NintPlayBox
Posts: 173 +227
"many remember Encarta and its competitors for making them realize that encyclopedias could be just as fun as games."
I'm sure one of them that would never forget Encarta and its fun ways.
I'm sure one of them that would never forget Encarta and its fun ways.
DSirius
Posts: 788 +1,613
Another great article, thank you for this nice computer travel into history of knowledge.
Encarta was my google without internet back then, I was using it on daily basis especially the map and eventually could memorize the majority of famous cities around the world.
with internet the memory has gone.
with AI the brain will ....
with internet the memory has gone.
with AI the brain will ....
DubiousFishHook
Posts: 78 +49
Didn't use it much but I was thinking about Encarta as late as last month & missing it, beats wikipedia which has so much useless nonsensical content its absurd.
I remember Encarta. Encyclopedias, including Encarta and other books such as Children's Encyclopedia are what inspired me as a young boy and led me towards a profession in the sciences and engineering. I used Encarta and other sources when writing term papers and research papers... long before the rise of ChatGPT!
mgwerner
Posts: 242 +393
Somewhere around 2004, you were able to download all of Wikipedia in a batch of files with an executable that would combine and install it on your computer. I tried it a couple of times, and noticed then that some of the articles were changing. That's when I went back to my hard copy set of Britannica - physical books on your shelf cannot be edited.
Wiki is fine when I want to look up that song that was a hit in the Summer of '77, or who was the star of that show about little robots in a space greenhouse - pop culture stuff. For serious reference, not so much.
Wiki is fine when I want to look up that song that was a hit in the Summer of '77, or who was the star of that show about little robots in a space greenhouse - pop culture stuff. For serious reference, not so much.
Ooohh!! I still have my discs with Encarta 98!!
and I still use the graphing calculator that came with Microsoft Student 2007 (as a portable)
and I still use the graphing calculator that came with Microsoft Student 2007 (as a portable)
Last edited:
indeed. Wikipedia is becoming more and more a means of propaganda, manipulation and biases (many hidden) in many articles and topics, fundamentally those that have the slightest glimpse or relationship with any political or socio-economic issue, in addition to many historical ones.
starting with the policy of "reputable sources", and the ultra-selectivity to convenience (according to the biases of the so-called editors) leads to these biases and manipulation being transferred to Wikipedia as "facts".
and the editors!!! OMG, the level of fascism and extreme application of their biases, interests (their own or third parties), their activism declared many times by some of them (even more biased)
just seeing how plain lies are quasi-eternalized by things like the above is disgusting
For this reason, apart from some technical-scientific things (be careful) and pop culture, or some historical things (be very careful), everything else is almost rubbish, even more so much that has to do with the last 20-30 years.
Last edited:
Sure, you'll get *****s trying to pass their beliefs as facts, but they're quickly weeded out. They're also usually the ones complaining about the editors. You have identified the biggest problem with hardcopy encyclopaedias though, they can't be updated when better information comes out. They're also a pain to search through. I have a full set of Britannica but I haven't looked at any of it since Wikipedia took over. In a world that changes so rapidly, why would you want information that's 20 years out of date? They do look pretty on the bookshelf though.
mgwerner
Posts: 242 +393
Not exactly true, as when I purchased my set of Britannica - indeed, pretty on the shelf - I got 10 years of updates. Those pages are stuck in the volumes where the original article lies.
Also, I do not equate "new" knowledge with "better" knowledge. Too many instances of junk science creeping into what were once impersonal facts. The whole point of a published and bound book being immutable is just that.
Wiki is great for some things, but can never be used as a source in any serious research. The bibliography with technical articles is a time-saver!
Interesting, I didn't realise they did updates. My Britannica set belonged to my grandfather and was printed in the 1920's so I suspect the updates no longer apply. They are beautiful books, leather bound, with the painted illustrations protected by a form of tissue paper. Unfortunately most of the universe hadn't been discovered when it was printed, DNA hadn't been heard of and people used slide rules rather than computers. Obviously this is an extreme example but it's a sliding scale of irrelevance and applies just as much to Encarta as it does to an encyclopaedia printed 10 years ago.
StrikerRocket
Posts: 226 +186
Oh yeah, I remember Encarta fondly! What fun did I have just reading random stuff and learning and discovering many things in the process! That was a great software from MS! Really loved it and was sad when it was discontinued.
Qaroline
Posts: 18 +10
I loved Encarta, I didn't had internet at home until my senior high school year but I did had a computer and Encarta '05 and it really helped me, I used to basically copy pictures from it to insert them into my essays and homework... but not too much as it all had to fit a 3.5" diskette!
I remember writing about electricity for my science class and used an Encarta GIF about how electrons move through conductors, it was a sick presentation that day, and I had built the same 'experiment' as shown in the GIF, namely a pair of AA batteries, wires, a switch and a tiny light bulb.
I remember writing about electricity for my science class and used an Encarta GIF about how electrons move through conductors, it was a sick presentation that day, and I had built the same 'experiment' as shown in the GIF, namely a pair of AA batteries, wires, a switch and a tiny light bulb.
You still can, though you need to get the exe separately. WikiTaxi is an example of one such program. Wikipedia is large enough today that the text version alone is somewhere around 15 GB (though I last updated my offline copy in 2020 I think, so the size may be larger now), with media I don't know how many terabytes it its.
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
The Best Handheld Gaming Consoles- MarkHughes replied
