- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
In 1985, shortly after the release of Windows 1.0, Bill Gates set Min Lee on a mission to find a partner for a digital encyclopedia product that would serve as a reference companion to Microsoft’s productivity applications. Lee then approached Britannica, the undisputed leader in the encyclopedia market, who’d recently released a new version of the fifteenth edition of their encyclopedia. Microsoft proposed a partnership to produce a multimedia CD-ROM version of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In exchange for non-exclusive rights to Britannica’s text, Microsoft would pay Britannica a royalty on each copy of the CD-ROM product sold. Britannica immediately declined Lee’s proposal.
- jlow (he/him) ( @jlow@beehaw.org ) 14•11 months ago
Aww, so nostalgic, that was one of the first things we did on a PC as children. Listening to many nations anthems in terible midi quality __
There seem to be quite a few up on archive.org:
- Moonrise2473 ( @Moonrise2473@feddit.it ) 13•11 months ago
Now I remember . I can’t believe that I once asked for Microsoft Encarta for a birthday
- everett ( @everett@lemmy.ml ) 4•11 months ago
I’ve got a dorkier story: I asked for speech dictation software.
- VCTRN ( @victron@programming.dev ) English4•11 months ago
Jfc I had forgotten those were the shit back then, with those dorky long microphones, plugged to a PC. Thank you for remind me how old I am.
- PhreakyByNature ( @PhreakyByNature@feddit.uk ) English3•11 months ago
Probably Dragon Dictate?
- everett ( @everett@lemmy.ml ) 5•11 months ago
- PhreakyByNature ( @PhreakyByNature@feddit.uk ) English2•11 months ago
Ahh yes I remember it.
- ApeNo1 ( @ApeNo1@lemm.ee ) English4•11 months ago
Having spent so much of my youth using the familiar cream and dark brown 1970’s World Book Encyclopaedias, with the ever growing collection of Year Books, this was amazing. I was blown away watching videos of things like the JFK moon speech. This for many like me I imagine meant the end of flipping through physical encyclopaedias.
- 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏 ( @lemann@lemmy.one ) 3•11 months ago
Why the abrupt ending? Where’s the rest 😭 did Britannica launch their own competing product? How did they react to Encarta’s success? Where are both products today?
Sorry, I put the link wrong.
- 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏 ( @lemann@lemmy.one ) 1•11 months ago
Yayy fixed, thank you 😁
- jollyrogue ( @jollyrogue@lemmy.ml ) 2•11 months ago
Those graphics. 🫨
Peak performance for their time.
- siigna ( @siigna@lemmy.sdf.org ) English1•11 months ago
The clip Encarta included from this song will forever be burned into my brain.