CD-ROM Review

Where the Past and the Future Meet

Alan Joch

The Cartoon History of the Universe is part education program, part Internet interactive game, and part comic book campiness. The program's time machine takes you from primordial ooze to the glory of Greece, with quizzes and games along the way. You could justify this CD-ROM as a study aid for junior-high children or as a refresher for yourself. But computing professionals will also be interested in the program's user-interface techniques, which companies like Microsoft and Netscape are only now beginning to use.

For example, in the CD-ROM's "universal desktop," data is available on demand; you don't have to hunt around for it on your local hard drive, LAN, or the Internet. When you play the interactive game that resides on a remote Web server, the software hides the browser behind t he game int erface. The program ranks your quiz score with those of other players logged into the site, and you can communicate with them in chat sessions.

Elements of this disc could easily be adapted for collaborative business software. This CD-ROM goes beyond history to show us what may be the future of UI design.

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Product Information

The Cartoon History of the Universe

Human Code
Austin, TX
Phone:    800-659-5455 or 512-477-5455
Internet: 
http://www.humancode.com

Price: $24.95

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A Portent of Things to Come

screen_link (65 Kbytes)

History disc portends the future of UI design.