Mac-compatible Britannica 2002 CD-ROMs, DVDs
updated 02:25 pm EDT, Tue June 26, 2001
Britannica.com has announced that the 2002 editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica CD-ROMs and DVDs will be Mac-compatible and available this Fall with new content, a search-and-display interface, and improved browsing features.
Encylopedia Britanica 2002 Standard Edition (CD-ROM), which will be available for $40, provides the entire text of the Encylopedia Britannica as well as 5,400 illustrations, maps, charts, audio, and video.
The Expanded Edition, which will be available on DVD for $70, includes everything on the standard edition as well as over 7 hours of audio and video enhancements and more than 16,400 photos, illustrations, maps, and charts.
For users who need quick, basic facts, the Encylopedia Britannica Concise (Quick Search) Edition, which will be available on CD-ROM for $10, provides more than 25,000 articles on the full range of subjects.
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The best encyclopedia.
Britannica is the best encyclopedia by far. It's clear and easy to read, but their articles have much more depth than Grolier's, IBM WorldBook, or MS Encarta.
I've been using my 1999 Standard Edition (the last version that supported the Mac OS) for a few years and am very glad to see Britannica updating this excellent product!
There is one very serious concern I have:
The 1999 Edition used Netscape as a front end (a second program ran in the background that feeds the pages to the browser and enables search functions...it doesn't sound efficient but worked quite well). Since then, they have been using IE.I don't want to be tied to a specific browser (especially IE, but I digress).
I hope the 2002 Edition will be browser independent and will support OS X.
--Sean