The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his056/bl22.arj/BL22.TXT

Text File | 1991-04-03 | 35KB | 714 lines

The following material comes from the Raised Dot Computing Newsletter. The
Raised Dot Computing Newsletter is published bimonthly, and is available in
audio, large print, and disk editions. Subscriptions are $20 for audio, $18
for print, and $30 for disk. The disk edition is in PC or in Apple II/BEX
formats. For more information, contact:

Raised Dot Computing
408 S. Baldwin Street
Madison, WI 53703
[phone]


                CD-ROM Technology is here -- David Holladay

     In January, 1975, I attended a course at MIT on microcomputers. Besides
learning all about microprocessors and microcomputers, I got a peek at a
future technology. We discussed the Phillips/MCA project to put movies on
laser disks. We realized that these laser disks could hold enormous amounts
of text data (several billion characters each). We dreamed of getting a
massively indexed, encyclopedia on a single disk. We dreamed about a service
that would provide, on a monthly basis, full text of all general interest
magazines.

     We realized the implications of packing billions of characters of data
on a single disk. What we could not have anticipated would be how useful
this technology would be for blind persons. For a sighted person, this
technology represents marginal improvements in search time, in cost, and in
storage space. To a blind person, this technology represents volumes of text
that can be read with a talking computer. The disks are small, easily
stored, and easily carried. Usually the data can be quickly searched
(because most disks also contain massive cross-indexes).

CD-ROM Technology

     Over the last few years, many of these ideas are coming to pass. The
technology is called CD-ROM. CD-ROM stands for Compact Disk Read Only
Memory. The disks are almost identical to conventional CD-Audio disks. In
order to take advantage of the information on the CD-ROM, you must have a
CD-ROM disk drive connected to your personal computer.

     Each CD-ROM disk has the capacity for holding about 640 million
characters (this is less than the capacity of the larger 12-inch laser disks
used to store movies).

     One of the main differences between CD-ROM drives and home CD-Audio
players is that CD-ROM drives have additional error detection and correction
circuitry to minimize errors (slight errors would not make a noticeable
change to music, but would garble text data).

     The disks themselves cannot be altered or erased by the user (just as
an individual cannot alter a CD-audio disk). A CD-ROM is not an alternative
to floppy disks or hard disks because it is read-only. As far as the general
market is concerned, CD-ROM is a publishing medium. It is an alternative to
inkprint publishing. CD-ROMs have been most successful for publishing large
documents which would be expensive to distribute in another format.

     CD-ROMs also compete against on-line databases. Against the costs of a
CD-ROM and the disk drive, you can weigh the access charges and the
long-distance telephone charges. In general, people do quicker and more
thorough searches when they are using a CD-ROM based system. CD-ROMs cannot
compete against databases which change rapidly (like airline schedules). It
is too difficult to be constantly producing and distributing new disks.

CD-ROM Use Today

     Right now, there are two basic families of CD-ROM disks; those designed
to work with the MS-DOS machines and those that are designed to work with
the Macintosh. Some disks have been issued for both formats. Because of the
difficulty blind people have in using the Macintosh, this newsletter will
focus on PC-based applications. If you want more information about CD-ROMs
and the Macintosh, get the catalogs from the CD-ROM vendors mentioned later
in this article.

     Over the last five years, there have been very rosy predictions about
the potential of CD-ROMs. Many of these predictions did not come to pass. It
was a classic cars and roads problem. (At the turn of the century, no one
wanted to build many roads since there were few cars; few wanted to buy cars
since here were few roads.) Few general CD-ROM disks were produced since
there were not many people with CD-ROM drives ready to buy disks. Few people
bought CD-ROM drives since there were not many titles available to make the
purchase worthwhile.

     CD-ROMs have been very successful in specialized applications. One
example is giving access to the enormous database of chemical substances and
their effects for use in a poison control center. In this situation, one
vendor provides a system with a computer, a CD-ROM disk drive and a CD-ROM
disk. While this is an interesting application, it is unlikely that anyone
in the general population will want a copy of "poison index" CD-ROM. It also
is unlikely that anyone in the poison control center would want to read any
CD-ROM except the one that contained their data. As long as CD-ROM systems
were used in specialized applications, it was unlikely that general interest
applications of CD-ROM technology would see the light of day.

     Beginning in 1987, general interest titles on CD-ROM began to appear.
Microsoft Corporation lead the way. Microsoft produced several titles, and
sponsored several conferences to attract interest in this field.

     To get a better idea about the current state of CD-ROMs, I called Judy
Dixon. Judy Dixon has been an involved consumer of sensory aids equipment
for many years. She is the consumer relations officer at the National
Library Serivce for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. She now collects
CD-ROMS as a hobby. As she told me, "I like to look things up". Her favorite
CD-ROM is called the Microsoft Bookshelf. This is a collection of 10
reference books (a dictionary, A thesaurus, a book of quotations, a Zip Code
directory, etc.). All these applications are available as easy-to-use TSR
applications. In other words, she can look something up in the dictionary
while using her word processor. The Microsoft Bookshelf CD-ROM disk costs
$199.

     Another favorite is the CIA World Fact Book, a disk which costs $89. It
contains profiles of 248 different countries and territories with lots of
statistical data. According to Judy, Iraq has (or at least used to have) 68
AM Radio stations, 1 FM station, and 81 TV stations. Judy has recently
ordered the 1991 World Almanac for $65. All told, Judy has close to 20
different CD-ROM disks.

     According to Judy, the National Library Services for the Blind plans to
put its complete catalog (over 100 megabytes) on CD-ROM. This project will
be completed in about 18 months. Using such a disk, a blind person could
quickly search the entire database in seconds for books they need.

     Judy supplied me with several sources of CD-ROM disks. CD ROM, Inc. has
a catalog in print and on audio tape. Their number is [phone]. The
Bureau of Electronic Publishing has a catalog in print. Their number is
[phone]. We would appreciate learning about any other significant
sources of CD-ROM disks.

     A good source of information is the CD-ROM forum on CompuServe. There
is a magazine called CD-ROM End User. It is free to qualified persons (i.e.
those with a CD-ROM system). Call [phone] to get an application form.
The magazine has plans to start issuing a disk edition for the visually
impaired this spring.

     Many CD-ROM disks are still quite expensive. It is my understanding
that the manufacturing cost of a single disk is about $3. Many CD-ROM disks
cost over $1,000. The high price tag is due to the enormous cost of
preparing the data, mastering the data, preparing the indexes, and linking
in the searching software. Some disks are priced high based on low sales
projections. I hope that once the general market for CD-ROMs picks up,
prices will move down to more reasonable levels.

Package Deals

     Right now, two companies are offering special deals: a CD-ROM drive,
all the materials to get you connected to a PC, plus 6 CD-ROMs; all for
about $700. The deal from DAK is described in detail in the next article.
The Bureau of Electronic Publishing is also offering a package deal. It is
described in the article Some Selected CD-ROM Titles.

     There is no doubt that CD-ROMs will play an important part in providing
information to blind persons. As with all technologies, CD-ROMs have their
problems.

     As we will see in the next article, CD-ROM systems need lots of memory.
They use special drivers which may conflict with other pieces of equipment
in your system. Most CD-ROM disks want to load their searching software on
your hard disk. Each CD-ROM disk seems to have its own user interface (a
different set of window sizes and shapes, different ways of showing the
cursor, different commands, and different ways of approaching the problem of
searching massive amounts of data).

     As each new technology comes out, it takes a period of time for the
technical kinks to be worked out. The easier things get, the more people
there are who can take advantage of the technology. If there is sufficient
interest, this newsletter can be a source of information to assist people
who want to get started on CD-ROM technology.


                          CD-ROM offering from DAK

     A month ago, Caryn and I took the plunge into the world of CD-ROM
computing. We bought DAK's CD-ROM package and installed it in our home
computer.

     DAK is a large consumer electronics mail order firm. They are offering
a package deal of a BSR CD-ROM disk drive for MS-DOS computers and 6
CD-ROMS, all for $718. According to the DAK catalog, the 6 CD-ROM disks cost
$2,400 if purchased separately. From my inspection of different catalogs, I
believe this is accurate. The six disks are as follows:

     -- A World Atlas

     -- A U.S. Atlas

     -- The Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia

     -- "The Library of the Future" (a collection of 450 short stories and
books which are out of copyright)

     -- An 8 volume Reference Library (dictionary, thesaurus, and other
reference books)

     -- "Languages of the World" (a collection of multilingual dictionaries)

     Of these 6 disks, the World Atlas and the U.S. Atlas are graphically
based and cannot be used by a blind person. But the other four disks are
almost entirely text based. We had no trouble using Flipper and the Audapter
to access the non-atlas disks. These disks did contain some graphics,
though. The encyclopedia disk contains some images (mostly of different
breeds of dogs, cats, horses, dinosaurs, plus a selection of presidential
portraits); the "languages of the world" disk uses graphics to show Japanese
and Chinese characters on the screen.

What you need

     In order to install the CD-ROM system, you need several items:

     -- The DAK CD-ROM package

     -- A computer system with at least 1 megabyte

     -- DOS version 3.1 or higher

     -- A memory manipulation program like Quarterdeck QEMM to hide device
drivers in high memory

     -- Some available hard disk space

     -- An EGA or VGA monitor if a sighted person is going to view the
screen

     -- A mouse for the use of a sighted person using the electronic atlases

     -- Some screwdrivers to remove the cover of the computer and install
the disk controller card

Installing the Drives

     At home, we have a 386SX computer with 1 megabyte of RAM. Installing
the drive was easy. It was a matter of removing the cover, inserting a card,
connecting a cable from the card to the drive, and plugging the CD-ROM drive
to the wall outlet. There was no need to change any DIP switches. The system
comes with clear instructions from DAK designed to help a novice computer
user. About the only thing that had me concerned for a few moments is the
fact that there are two data jacks on the back of the CD-ROM drive, but only
one data cable to connect to the computer. It turns out that it does not
matter which jack you use (the other jack is there in case you want to add
an additional CD-ROM drive to your computer system).

Installing the Software

     Installing the software to run the system was another matter. DAK
includes its own installation program. In order to use DAK's installation
program, you have to use your cursor keys to move a pointer around the
screen to simulate a mouse. As long as you are sighted, running the
installation program is very easy. It is impossible to use if you are blind.

     I have prepared a disk containing all the instructions and software you
need to install the DAK package on your computer. Contact me for details.

     After running the installation program, there were two things I did not
like about the software that was loaded. The first problem was that in order
to get into the CD-ROM software and in order to select applications, you had
to use a sighted-type menu just like the installation program. The second
problem is that the system loaded quite a bit of software onto our hard
disk.

     I soon discovered that the CD-ROM drive was treated as a disk drive
with the letter code S. I wrote a series of batch files to get access to the
different applications. For example, in order to get into the encyclopedia,
I just type ENCY <Enter> at the command line. After a bit more
experimentation, I found out that quite a bit of the software that was
loaded onto the hard disk is also available on the CD-ROM itself (but hidden
in a subdirectory).

     I wiped out this duplicated software from our hard disk. I modified the
batch files so that when an application is used, the appropriate software is
copied from the CD-ROM to the hard disk before it is executed. When you
leave the CD-ROM application, the appropriate files get deleted from the
hard disk. This technique really cuts down on amount of hard disk space
permanently allocated to the CD-ROM system.

Memory Problems

     The software drivers for the CD-ROM drive and the CD-ROM software use a
lot of memory. Caryn found out to her dismay that the the drivers on the
CD-ROM drive took up enough memory to prevent EasyScan (the simple front end
to the Arkenstone Reader written by Personal Data Systems) from working. It
was clear that we were out of memory.

     Solving the memory problem was a two-step process. I needed to change
the configuration program on our computer so that the computer knew that
there was more than 640k in the system. Next I needed to purchase a copy of
QEMM from Quarterdeck. This is a program that uses high memory (the memory
between 640k and 1024k) for device drivers, DOS buffers, and other software
tools to support your equipment. This frees up over 100k in the lower 640k.
Once QEMM was installed, we had no more memory problems. We could use the
Fax software, the CD-ROMs, Flipper, and the Arkenstone without any problems.
Based on my experience, I would not want to use a CD-ROM drive on a computer
with less than 1 megabyte of RAM.

     One footnote: installing QEMM was not easy. When I started using QEMM,
I had problems with the Arkenstone. I quickly discovered that the Arkenstone
was using high memory $DC00 through $DFFF. I had to tell QEMM to leave this
block of memory alone. I tell this story to remind people that sometimes the
fixes need fixing.

     QEMM only works on a 386 or a 386SX. You need a piece of software that
can store your device drives and DOS buffers in the area of memory between
640k and 1 megabyte. If you have a 286, use another product, like AMS
Hicard2. Contact your computer dealer for details.

Access Technology

     For access technology on our home computer, we use the Flipper screen
access program with the Audapter speech synthesizer. By sheer coincidence,
both of these items are available from Raised Dot Computing.

     We have not done any experimentation on how well CD-ROM drives work
with any other screen access program other than Flipper. We have heard some
reports that some access programs have difficulty working with CD-ROM
drives. We are in no position to confirm or deny this. We are happy to
provide Flipper demonstration disks to anyone who wants to compare programs.

The Environmental Variable Space

     If you look at your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you will probably find several
lines starting with SET. These lines create environmental variables. MS-DOS
only allows a limited number of characters to be used for environmental
variables. While we had no problem with our system, we understand this can
be a problem area for some CD-ROM systems. Some CD-ROM systems have so many
variables that they fill up the environment area. When this happens,
different program modules do not know what they are supposed to do.

     If you run out of environment space, you need to make more room, either
by enlarging the space or by deleting unnecessary variables. There is
probably a line in your CONFIG.SYS file that looks like this: C:\COMMAND.COM
/E:350. In this example, there is a limit of 350 characters for
environmental variables. In general, you want to keep the maximum size as
small as possible. Because of the structure of DOS, the environmental space
is duplicated many times when most programs execute. Thus any wasted space
is multiplied many times.

     You may have to write some batch files to clear out the environment
space to make room for your CD-ROM software. If you issue a command like
C:\COMMAND.COM /E:750, you make room for more variables, but you also clear
out all the existing variables. Since I have not had any problems with this,
I am reluctant to offer step-by-step advice. You may have to consult an
expert computer user for help.

The Caddy Problem

     One aspect of the CD-ROM drive that I did not anticipate is how the
CD-ROM disks are loaded into the drive. You need to take the compact disk
out of its plastic holder to put it into a different holder called a
"caddy". The caddy protects the CD-ROM disk the same way the casing of a 3.5
inch disk protects the magnetic media. There is a window that only opens up
when the caddy is inserted into the drive. The DAK package contains a second
spare caddy in case you lose one. A blind user may feel more secure if
additional caddies are purchased so that each CD-ROM disk can live in its
own caddy permanently.

     I found a mail order company that sells the kind of caddy I needed.
There are three kinds of CD-ROM caddies: Phillips, Sony, and NEC CDR-77/80.
The DAK drive uses Sony caddies. I bought a set of 5 at $10 each so that
each of the CD-ROM disks from DAK can live in its own braille-labeled caddy.
The source I found was Educorp (a supplier of Macintosh software and the
largest suppier of Macintosh CD-ROMs); their number is [phone].
Caddies for the DAK BSR disk drive are item #1321 in their catalog.

Summary of Installation

     Within an hour of opening the crate from DAK, we were reading data from
CD-ROMs. Installing the CD-ROM system was easy. The hard part was making
sure that the installation of the CD-ROMs did not disrupt any program that
was already there. Make sure you have enough memory, and that you can hide
your device drivers in otherwise unused portions of memory.

Using The DAK CD-ROMs

     Once the software is installed, using the CD-ROMs is easy. You turn on
the drive. You insert the caddy containing the CD-ROM disk. You type the
name of the batch file to start up that application.

The Atlases: Fun for Sighted People

     In the collection of six disks from DAK, two cannot be used by blind
persons. These are the two Atlases. One contains maps of the United States,
the other contains maps of the World. The program is totally driven by the
mouse. You click on a portion of the World Map to indicate a region you are
interested in. Once the regional map pops up, you click on the individual
nation that you want. The maps are clear and sharp. My major complaint is
that I want to be able to continue to magnify any portion of the world
indefinitely. I like having a map of Iraq or Kuwait, but I want to also have
a street map of Baghdad.

The Encyclopedia

     The Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia is the best of the lot. It is an
enormous work of over 400 megabytes. We have been pleased with the text. We
looked up subjects that we were very familiar with, like Guide Dogs, and
found the text to be a very accurate description of the training and use of
guide dogs.

     The user interface is very easy to learn. You press enter to get past
the opening screen. You get to a screen which offers a choice between three
selection methods: word search, browse titles, and browse word index.
Usually word search is preferred, so just press enter again since this is
the default.

     Word search allows up to four words or phrases that must be present in
an article. If you wanted to find all articles containing the words "Roman"
and "army", just type in each word followed by enter. Press enter an
additional time to start the search. If a few seconds, the program tells you
how many times this combination appears in the entire encyclopedia. Press
enter again to get a list of the article titles that contain this
combination.

     Each title appears on a separate line, along with the number of times
the words appeared in the article. Move through this list with the up or
down arrow keys. When you want to make a selection, just press enter.

     The text of the article appears in a text window that takes up about
half the screen (from the 6th line to the 18th line of the screen). Press
Alt-Z to enlarge the window so the text fills the screen (except for a few
status lines). When you want more text, press the page down key (or use the
page up key to move back).

     If there is a mention of something with its own article in the
encyclopedia, it is in all caps. If you get the cursor on that name and
press return, you open a new text window with another article. Reading
cross-references has never been easier!

     It is very easy to copy an article to a textfile. Press Alt-K, then the
down arrow key followed by enter to select "all" (i.e. the entire article).
Then press the up arrow key followed by enter to begin saving. You are prompted
for a file name. The system uses the extension "ART". Once you have a textfile,
you can turn it into braille using Hot Dots. Or you can merge the text into
your term paper.

The Library of the Future

     The Library of the Future is a collection of over 450 short stories,
plays, novels, and historical documents. It contains most of Shakespeare,
the Bible, War and Peace, lots of Sherlock Holmes, and much more.

     The hardest thing about it is understanding the interface to select a
document. You end up looping through the selection process twice. First you
give some selection criteria (author, country, time period, subject matter,
etc.); then you are offered a list of titles which meet these criteria. It
takes some use of the disk to learn when to use the enter key and when to
use the spacebar to select an item.

     Once you get into a document, reading is a matter of using the cursor
keys (or Page Up or Page Down).

Languages of the World

     The Languages of the World disk is a series of multilingual
dictionaries. The program is a TSR (terminate and stay ready, it hides in
memory until you call it up). The program is designed to be used inside your
word processor. The "hot key" combination to call it up is Alt-space.

     The first time you press Alt-space, you get to set up the program. You
declare your source language and your target language (it supports 13
different languages), you specify which dictionary to use, and how detailed
you want the searches to be. To specify these options, you only use the four
arrow keys. If you press the enter key, it really fouls things up.

     After a little experimentation, I used the program to write some
sentences in Norwegian. I know that there are software packages that act as
automatic translators. The "Languages of the World" disk has no such
software. If you are going to use it to write in another language, you need
to know something about the grammar, word order, verb conjugation, etc. of
the other language.

Reference Library

     The Reference Library is a collection of 10 reference books. This
collection is different from the Microsoft Bookshelf, another collection of
reference books on CD-ROM.

     It is my understanding the Microsoft Bookshelf is fairly easy to use.
In contrast, the Reference Library in the DAK collection is more difficult.
Despite my grumbling, it is a useful disk. Using the dictionary, I was able
to understand the origin of Scud as a name for a missile (a Scud is a cloud
formation which indicates bad weather is coming; a very bad joke when you
remember that the first Scuds contained nuclear weapons).

     The Reference Library has three separate screen areas. The right column
selects which reference book you are using. The top line selects the menu
option (i.e. Search, Browse, Quit, etc.). The bulk of the screen is called
the View Window, where you actually read the text in each book. When you
want to switch between giving a menu command and selecting a reference book,
press the tab key. To select browse, use Alt-W. To select search, use Alt-A.
To exit the program, press Alt-X.

Summary

     If you can afford it, and if your computer has at least 1 megabyte of
memory and some free hard disk space, give CD-ROMs a try. The Grolier
Encyclopedia is the one disk which makes the DAK package really attractive.

     When you buy from DAK, you have a 30 day free trial period. If you are
not satisfied for any reason (within the first 30 days), you can return it
for a full refund. The order number for DAK is [phone]. The BSR
External CD ROM Drive with 6 CD ROM disks costs $699 plus $19 for shipping
for a grand total of $718. This is item number #5719 from their catalog.

Another Package Deal

     The Bureau of Electronic Publishing has a deal called The CD-ROM
Bundle, designed to compete with the DAK deal. For $689 you get a Phillips
CD-ROM drive and all the parts you need to get it working with a PC, plus
their own collection of 6 CD-ROM disks. These six disks are: Microsoft
Bookshelf, U.S. History on CD-ROM, Sherlock Holmes on Disc, Shakespeare on
Disc, Birds of America, and Software Potpourri (Software Potpourri contains
the King James Bible, assorted shareware, and a movie database covering
several hundred films).


                        Some Selected CD-ROM Titles

     Here are some selected items from the catalogs of The Bureau of
Electronic Publishing [BEP] and CD-ROM Inc. [CRI]. This listing focuses on
text-based disks for the PC. More information about each disk is available
in the catalogs from these vendors. For the address of the vendors, see
Facts on File.

     The Bureau of Electronic Publishing offers an on-line CD-ROM library.
If you have a modem on your personal computer, you can take a CD-ROM on a
"test drive". First call [phone] for a "CD-online password". Then
have your system dial [phone]. Set your communications parameters for
no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, full duplex, and echo off. The software
first asks for your terminal type (VT-100 or whatever). Then key in the
password you have obtained. You may use any of the listed CD-ROM titles for
up to 10 minutes at a time. Titles available are changed periodically. This
system is designed for demonstration and sales purposes only.

About Cows

     The full text of a book about Cows including many drawings. Available
from CRI for $29.

Bible Library

     This disk contains 9 full text bibles, 3,000 sermon outlines and
illustrations, a Greek dictionary, a Hebrew dictionary, 7 additional
dictionaries and reference books, and 2 biblical commentaries. The price is
$395 from CRI.

C CD-ROM

     This disk is an amazing resource for computer programmers. It contains
a huge collection of C programs (source code and public domain utilities).
Available from BEP for $88.

CD Music Guide

     A listing of over 50,000 regular audio compact disks. The disk contains
audio samples you can hear through your CD-ROM player. The disk contains the
recording time of the disc, recording date, release data, and ratings of
performance and sound quality. Available form BEP for $99.

CD-ROM Sourcedisc 1990

     A collection of books and documents about CD-ROM technology plus a
database of over 800 CD-ROM disks currently available. The price of $90
includes a quarterly Shopper's Guide (an inkprint update of available
titles). Order from Helgerson Associates (see Facts on File).

CIA World Fact Book

     Contains 248 comprehensive country profiles with all kinds of details
of each nation's geography, politics, population, infrastructure,
governmental structure, and military strength. Available for $88 from BEP
and CRI.

Computer Library

     The complete text for the last 12 months of 29 different computer
magazines plus abstracts of computer-related articles from over 110 other
periodicals. A purchase includes an initial disk plus 12 monthly updates.
Each disk contains the full text or the summary of over 55,000 articles.
Cost is $785 from BEP.

DISC Magazine

     DISC Magazine is a monthly technical journal for those interested in
hardware evaluation, CD-ROM publishing, mass storage, product reviews, and
multi-media. Each monly issue of DISC Magazine includes a CD-ROM. The CD-ROM
contains the entire text of themagazine, as weel as referenced articles and
additional information. The CD-ROM also includes demonstrations of recently
published CD-ROM titles, as well as shareware and games. Each month, your
CD-ROM will contain about 100 megabytes of material. Yearly subscription is
$44.95 for Helgerson Associates.

Facts on File News Digest

     A comprehensive overview of national and international current events.
Contains the full text and maps of all issues in the last decade (12 million
words and 500 maps) on a single disk. The search and retrieval software
allows for searches on topics, keywords, or time intervals. Cost is $795
from BEP and CRI.

McGraw-Hill Science and Technical Reference Set

     Combines the McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia and the McGraw-Hill
Dictionary and Technical Terms into a single disk. Contains over 7,300
article covering all aspects science and technology plus the definitions of
98,500 terms. Material can be easily exported to a text file for production
into braille. Cost is $264 from BEP and CRI.

Microsoft Bookshelf

     Possibly the first general purpose CD-ROM disk. It consists of ten
reference books: the American Heritage Dictionary, Roget's II: Electronic
Thesaurus, World Almanac, Barlett's Familiar Quotations, The Chicago Manual
of Style, Houghton-Mifflin Spelling Verifier and Corrector, U.S. ZIP Code
Directory, plus several other items. Available from the BEP for $199.

Microsoft Small Business Consultant

     A collection of over 220 Government (mostly Small Business
Administration) and private sources on running a small business. Available
from BEP for $118.

Movie Database and Software Potpourri

     An interesting brew: the full text of the Bible, thousands of PC
shareware programs, and a searchable database on hundreds of movies.
Available from BEP for $69.

PC-Blue

     A collection of 440 volumes of public domain PC software and shareware
collected by the New York Amateur Computer Club. Available from CRI for $99.

Shareware Gold

     Solid collection of PC software. Designed to be used by bulletin boards
(to provide a bulletin board with a huge variety of software for people to
download). The disk is covered with real gold for longer life and better
reliability. Available for $79 from BEP and CRI.

Sporting News Baseball CD

     A sports fan's dream. Available from BEP for $149.

U.S. Civics/Citizenship Disk

     Designed for persons seeking U.S. citizenship and/or students of
American history. Contains the text of the U.S. Justice, Immigration and
Naturalization Service's Federal Citizenship texts. Includes many images of
historical figures and monuments. Available from CRI for $99.

U.S History on CD-ROM

     The full text of 107 books relating to U.S. history. Includes three
volumes on the Iran-Contra affair and the Nixon/Watergate transcripts. You
can search by word, event, book, picture, or article. The vendor is running
a contest: "In what context was George Bush mentioned in the Watergate
transcripts?" Available from BEP for $395.

The World Almanac & Book of Facts; 1990 Edition

     A collection of 1 million facts which, if mastered, will make you a
trivia champion. Also contains summaries of events in the last decade.
Available from BEP for $69.


                               Facts on File

CD-ROM Package Deal
DAK Industries, Inc.
8200 Remmet Avenue
Canoga Park, CA 91304
[phone] (order only)
[phone] (technical questions)

CD-ROM End User Magazine
DDRI, Inc.
510 N. Washington St. Suite 401
Falls Church, VA 22046
[phone] voice; 532-5447 fax

CD-ROM Catalog
Bureau of Electronic Publishing
141 New Road
Paraippany, NJ 07054
[phone] voice; 808-2676 fax

CD-ROM Catalog
CD-ROM Inc.
1667 Cole Blvd, suite 400
Golden CO 80401
[phone]

CD-ROM Sourcedisc 1990
Helgerson Associates
510 North Washington Street, Suite 401
Falls Church, VA 22046
[phone] voice; 532-5447 fax

CD-ROM Supplies
Educorp Computer Services
7434 Trade Street
San Diego, CA 92121
[phone] (order only)
[phone] (information)

CBFB Editor's Notes:

The DAK CD-ROM drive and software described in this article can
also play music.  The CD-ROM drive has a headphone jack and two
RCA jacks.  You can plug in a set of headphones and listen to
music while you are working on the computer.  The CD-ROM music
playing program runs in the background.  You can plug the RCA
jacks into an amp and drive big speakers.

Qrarter Deck makes a memory manager for 286 class machines.
QRAM works in the same way as QEMM.  CBFB will have the
documentation for these products in the next few months.