Travel In Space And Time With New Cd-Roms
There are some places you can’t get to from here, at least not in 1995. But for a desk-chair traveler, software is a nifty way of sight-seeing. Three new CD-ROMs offer lively, colorful information-filled tours of such out-of-the-way places as the Wild West, the far reaches of the solar system, and inside your body.
Time: 1880. Place: Tombstone, Ariz. Method of travel: stagecoach and keyboard. “Wyatt Earp’s OLD WEST” (Grolier Electronic Publishing, CD-ROM for Windows & Mac, $49.95 list) puts you in the center of a historically authentic Wild West town during its heyday, when gamblers, lawmen, desperados and outlaws kept the streets hopping with action.
Incorporating full motion video, lively animations and more than 500 color photos, this informationpacked multimedia adventure offers lots of fascinating facts about the people, places, events, inventions and artifacts of those thrilling days of yesteryear, along with mystery games and treasure hunts. You can even test your knowledge of Old West lore and win rewards for correct answers.
Once you debark from the stagecoach, this is a freewheeling custom-selected tour guided by your own curiosity. You can visit more than 40 hot spots, including Boot Hill Cemetery (so-named because cowboys often died with their boots on), the shebang (general store), the courthouse and the CanCan Restaurant.
The cursor changes to an eyeball whenever there is something further to explore in depth. At the Bucket of Blood Saloon, you can test your luck playing the slot machine. When you stop by the local bank office, maybe you’ll stay awhile and try your hand at cracking the combination of the safe.
Wherever you wander, watch out! A six-shooter packing gunfighter may jump out and challenge your reflexes at any time.
“Wyatt Earp’s OLD WEST” is about as close to the pleasures and perils of the American frontier as you’re likely to get without time travel.
If you haven’t met Ms. Frizzle yet, you’re in for a special treat. This scatter-brained red-haired science teacher conducts the wackiest science class west of the Rockies and takes her students on the most extraordinary field trips. In “The Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System” (Microsoft Home CD-ROM for Windows, ages 6-10, $49.95 list) she has outright disappeared into space. The fully animated interactive software puts you in a front-andcenter window seat on a rollicking excursion through our galaxy and beyond in search of the missing (or hiding) teacher.
Between visits to planets, moons and other heavenly bodies, there are several highly informative presentations by “classmates” on comets, meteorites, asteroids, the tides, the Voyager 2 satellite and its mission, Saturn’s rings, and various spacecraft. Listen closely, and you’ll even pick up a few “space” jokes here and there.
More than 200 “clickable” animations offer “in-flight” movies of such events as an erupting volcano, a rocket zipping around space, and planets spinning in their orbits. You can also click on actual NASA fly-by videos of moonwalking astronauts and the surfaces of Jupiter and other planets.
Nine different “experiments” that demonstrate space concepts let you earn tokens to exchange for clues to the whereabouts of Ms. Friz. In Crater Creator, for instance, you make your own impact on the moon by wielding a slingshot. In Planet Cut & Slice, observers peek inside Neptune to learn what scientists believe is beneath the surface. Tilt & Match challenges players to pair each planet’s tilt and rotation with the right model.
Based on the extremely popular “The Magic School Bus” book series (published by Scholastic Books), this is a fact-and-fun-filled ride into the wild blue yonder and beyond.
In “The Ultimate Human Body CD-ROM” (DK Multimedia, suggested retail $79.95, for kids 8 and up), animation, audio, video and text combine to offer an exciting interactive journey inside the human body. And you’re the pilot. This chock-full-of-knowledge program extends a straight-forward invitation to a wealth of research and browsing possibilities.
Navigating is easy. Point and click on what you want to learn. It will, if you want, list and name aloud every part of the human body (male and female), show where it is situated, what it looks like, and how it works.
The program explores all your anatomy via three different search paths.
Body Machine zooms into the secret world beneath your skin and explains such processes like how you see and hear, why you blink and hiccup, and what happens when you exercise or when you sleep.
Body Organs demonstrates how your organs fit together inside your head, neck, chest and abdomen and how they function in action.
Click on Body Systems to see how all the different body parts work as units to perform vital functions in 10 systems, from respiration and digestion to circulation and reproduction. For each topic, there’s always the opportunity to click on “find out more” for in-depth explanations.
The software contains more than 1,000 illustrations - including 3-D images, approximately 100 animations, lots of informative text and 1,400 sounds and sound effects. “The Ultimate Human Body” is bound to expand your understanding of how healthy bodies run like welloiled machines.
ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: Patti Feldman is a Chappaqua, N.Y.based writer who reviews children’s books and computer programs.