- 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•8 months agoAww, 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•8 months agoNow I remember . I can’t believe that I once asked for Microsoft Encarta for a birthday
everett ( @everett@lemmy.ml ) 4•8 months agoI’ve got a dorkier story: I asked for speech dictation software.
VCTRN ( @victron@programming.dev ) English4•8 months agoJfc 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•8 months agoProbably Dragon Dictate?
PhreakyByNature ( @PhreakyByNature@feddit.uk ) English2•8 months agoAhh yes I remember it.
ApeNo1 ( @ApeNo1@lemm.ee ) English4•8 months agoHaving 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•8 months agoWhy 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•8 months agoYayy fixed, thank you 😁
jollyrogue ( @jollyrogue@lemmy.ml ) 2•8 months agoThose graphics. 🫨
Peak performance for their time.
siigna ( @siigna@lemmy.sdf.org ) English1•8 months agoThe clip Encarta included from this song will forever be burned into my brain.