The one-disk encyclopaedia

Press, 10 March 1987, Page 38

The one-disk encyclopaedia

By

NEILL BIRSS

Computer users and librarians tasted a little of what is to come in laser storage technology at a recent presentation in Christchurch by Philips New Zealand and Grolier. On display were laser vision and CD ROM products. These included a DC ROM storage device attached to a Philips IBM CD compatible. Grolier demonstrated in it a disk containing 20 volumes of its “Lexicon Universal Encyclopaedia.” This was described as te one of the first CD-ROM products for the public, as opposed to

CD-ROM products for special purposes. An acronymn for compact disc — read-only, memory, the technology allows up to 220,000 A 4 pages of information, the equivalent of 1000 microcomputer floppy diskettes, or about 600 Mb, to be stored on a single disk. CD-ROM uses sin disks and is closely related to compact disc technology. Laser vision evolved from video disks. With two audio tracks and a video track as on video disks, and using an Ilin disk, laser vision is suited for instruction courses. A

screen could have one sound explanations in two languages, for example. Both products have a laser reading information stored on the disk. Lloyds Bank in Britain uses 16 laser vision training disks and hundreds of the machines to train tellers. Philips has helped the Royal New Zealand Navy develop a laservision product for training sailors in ship and aircraft identification, and another product is being used for staff training at the Marsden Point refinery. The cost is about $B5OO

more than making an equivalent video tape. CD-ROM is closer to the concept of books on disks. It is interactive to the extent of allowing searching and questioning. Mr Turner, of Philips, said other products available for CD-ROM included the Bible, “Books in Print,” legal databases, and an atlas. The American publisher, McGraw Hill, was preparing a technical and scientific reference product and in the United States a compendium of tax law was being put on CD-ROM. Miss Maureen King,

manager for schools and libraries of Grolier Educational in New Zealand, said most bibliographic databases in the United States were now available in CD-ROM. The hardware needed for accessing the products and Grolier’s CD-ROM encyclopaedia was an IBM PC or compatible a CDROM machine, and a interface card. Access is by a key-word tape system, and is very fast. The occurrence of every word in the encyclopaedia is pinpointed in a 50Mb index. This is accessed with software on

a diskette that is loaded into the microcomputer. CD-ROM technology would not end printing, she said. “The good old solid book will always be there.” But CD-ROM offered advantages for schools and libraries. Students in a hurry could not rip a page out to take with them, and the indexing function was very valuable for finding information. Another difference from printed encyclopaedias is that the CDROM version comes with a 98-page manual.