3/25/2021 0 Comments Microsoft Encarta Free Download
Initially a CD-ROM product, the Encarta brand later expanded to include an Internet-based incarnation and was bundled with other Microsoft products.Encarta 95 CD-ROM A student holding a CD-ROM of the 1995 edition of Encarta, a digital encyclopaedia published by Microsoft.Daily MailRexAlamy The possibility of a digital encyclopaedia was first discussed at Microsoft in 1985.
The company approached a range of reference publishers before signing a nonexclusive contract with Funk Wagnalls to use their 29-volume New Encyclopedia in establishing a database in 1989. The project, however, was put on hold in 1990 due to concerns about the commercial viability of the product. After efforts resumed in 1991, the company proceeded to illustrate the approximately 25,000 articles using an array of sound files and maps as well as more than 5,000 public domain images and a small selection of videos. Additional features included a time line of human history, a dictionary and thesaurus, and a quiz game called MindMaze. The encyclopaedia was later offered in a range of foreign-language and regionally specific editions. The initial CD product was released in March 1993 with a retail price of nearly 400, equivalent to such competitors as Comptons MultiMedia Encyclopedia. Microsoft Encarta Software Suite ThatFollowing slow sales, later that year the CD was given away with the Windows software suite that was included with the purchase of many computers, and the stand-alone price was dropped to 99. The price reduction effectively catalyzed sales that outstripped competitors. Abbreviated versions of some Encarta articles were available to subscribers to the Microsoft Network ISP, launched in 1995. Beginning in 1996, Encarta CDs were issued in standard and deluxe editions. Microsoft Encarta Download Monthly UpdatesUsers of the deluxe edition, which had twice the multimedia content offered by the standard edition, could also download monthly updates from Microsoft; users of the standard edition could do so for a fee. Encarta was offered in a bundled reference suite edition, which included a reference library and an interactive atlas, beginning in 1997; it also remained available as a stand-alone product. In 1998 Microsoft purchased the copyrights to Colliers electronic encyclopaedia and the New Merit Scholars Encyclopedia and incorporated that material into Encarta. In 1999 the company debuted the Encarta Africana, an encyclopaedia of black history that was the result of a collaboration with scholars, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and published a print and digital dictionary, the Encarta World English Dictionary, called the Encarta Websters Dictionary of the English Language in subsequent editions. Encarta 97 Packaging for the 1997 deluxe edition of Microsofts Encarta encyclopaedia on CD-ROM. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Microsoft began charging for access to all encyclopaedia content the following year, though access to dictionary content remained free. In 2006 maintenance of Encarta content was turned over to Websters Multimedia Inc., a subsidiary of Websters International Publishers Ltd. Citing the advent of free online reference sources, Microsoft discontinued Encarta, which then consisted of more than 60,000 articles, at the end of 2009. It also entered the information services and entertainment industries with a wide range of products and services, most notably the Microsoft Network and MSNBC (a joint venture with the National Broadcasting Company, a major American television network). A CD-ROM drive uses a low-power laser beam to read digitized (binary) data that has been encoded in the form of tiny pits on an optical.
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