Compton’s, a subsidiary of The Learning Company formulated its mission in 1922 in its first encyclopedia: “To inspire ambition, to stimulate the imagination, to provide the inquiring mind with accurate information told in an interesting style, and thus lead into broader fields of knowledge.”
Like its other products, this one is oriented toward precollegiate students. Given that user focus, Compton’s Interactive World Atlas actually does honor that mission. It is simple to use. Pop in the CD‐ROM and it loads itself with a standard installation wizard. The interface is highly graphical, a plus for getting kids interested in exploring the information in the software. (There is, regrettably, no non‐graphical option, which means this is not a product for visually‐impaired users.) And there is a lot of information packed into the CD. What you have is both an atlas and an almanac.
The information is extracted by clicking on one of eight content buttons: maps, profiles, stats, earth, weather, sundial, and 3‐D flight. In addition, there are buttons for: go to, history (to return to a previously viewed screen), mark (bookmark for later), find, print, online (connect to Compton’s), tools (copy, export, etc.), and help.
At the heart of the program are 600 detailed maps, including city maps. The Maps button provides country, regional, and global maps with capabilities to zoom in and out. A distance tool allows you to measure miles and kilometers between points by dragging the endpoints of a line to the desired locations. The Map view also allows you to construct a wide range of detailed maps based on political, elevation, and satellite image backgrounds. Options range from latitude and longitude to elevations, names, boundaries, and other features usually found in paper atlases. Profiles provides almanac‐like data on the map selected. Topics include Background, Communications, Defenses, Economy, Geography, Government, People, and Transportation ‐ plenty of information for a report in a format which competes nicely with cheap CD‐ROM encyclopedias. In a cute, but basically useless function, you can even get pronunciation of a few words in the local language. For example, you can learn how to say “I am an American” in Farsi for the next time you get trapped in Iran or Afghanistan. Despite my skepticism, some kids might find this fascinating.
Stats allows you to pick information of interest from topics like demography, economics, crimes, international organization, education, etc. The format is like the standard Windows pop‐up window for OPEN. On the top is topic (rather than directory or folder). Underneath are thousands of details, like population under age 18, which are displayed on the map (instead of file names).
Earth and Weather give quick videos on the topics selected by clicking the appropriate icon on an image map. Sundial allows you to see time zones and watch the sun move across the earth. 3‐D Flight is supposed to allow you to see the world from a plane. I could not get the video to run without resetting my machine to 256 colors. This is a pet peeve of mine. It is stupid for people to design CDs which provide full functionality only at 256 colors when the standard machine sold today provides true color. Why can’t CD‐ROMs handle high‐end color? This is especially bad for an atlas which contains primarily visual information! Until CD makers wake up, for those looking for a quick solution to resetting monitor resolution in Windows, try Microsoft’s Quickres, part of Microsoft’s Powertools available from the Microsoft web site.
The online feature links to Compton’s NewMedia Forum which provides access to Web sites about countries as well as active bulletin boards for sharing experiences.
To run the software requires an IBM or compatible 486DX/33 MHZ or better computer; hard disk; double‐speed CD‐ROM drive; 256‐color SVGA, DOS 5.0 or higher; Windows 3.1 or higher (including Windows 95), 8 MB RAM, Windows‐compatible sound card, mouse; printer (optional); modem (optional, required for online features only)” A good help system enables you to find the information needed to work the program.
Compton’s Interactive World Atlas is not a bad package for $50 ‐ especially if you are working with precollegiate students or college students who never took geography seriously and thus can use a basic information package.
