Technology Hits Yellowstone Park

Visitors to Yellowstone National Park have one more reason to stay in their cars.

A Missoula man has teamed with Sony to develop Tour Information Systems, a multimedia-guided tour of Yellowstone that visitors plug into their car’s cigarette lighter.

Visitors can rent a modified Sony Dataman, a hand-held CD-ROM device that plays a five-hour disk with audio and visual descriptions of the park’s plants, wildlife, geology, camping and safety rules and tour routes to follow.

CD-ROMs are compact disks that can contain audio recordings, video clips, photographs and text for display on a computer.

In the case of TIS, audio information read from the compact disks is broadcast on a designated FM frequency, so visitors can hear the sounds from the tour through their car’s speakers.

The TourGuide can be rented at 10 locations in the park. It costs $24.95 for a day and a half.

“You don’t have to rewind it or follow a particular group as you would with a cassette tape,” said Bob McCue, who sold Sony on the concept. “You can pick a number and go where you want to go.” xxxx