I would imagine it was harder to get information on topics as you would’ve had to buy/borrow encyclopedias to do.

Were there proprietary predecessor websites?

Tell me about the dark ages!

  • Psythik@lemmy.world
    21·
    16 days ago

    Before that, you had to get your Encyclopedia on a CD. Encarta '98 was the shit. Some of the articles had pictures and even video clips! At 320x240 resolution and 15 FPS, but my laptop was playing real video, like a TV! It was mind-blowing shit. I watched the video clip of a earthquake in Kobe, Japan over and over again. If I remember correctly, there was actually a second video of people white-water rafting. Two whole videos, that I could play on my computer. Those were the days…

    • anothermember@lemmy.zip
      8·
      16 days ago

      So you wanna play some basketball?

      https://youtu.be/UPv3KV1pIzA

      My school in the 90s had to ban watching the Encarta Basketball video. We’re in the UK and don’t really have much of a basketball culture but students flocked to the computer room every day to watch it because of the novelty of seeing a video play on a computer monitor.

      I also think I remember the earthquake video, I think Encarta 95 had about 6 videos…

    • BorgDrone
      5·
      15 days ago

      IIRC it also had a clip of the Apollo 11 launch and moon landing. Amazing stuff.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      2·
      14 days ago

      I also learned a ton about different instruments by playing that interactive game where you match them to their countries. Thanks to Encarta I was probably in the privileged minority of American 8 year olds that knew what the heck a digerido, pan flute, or sitar was! :D