Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!parc!biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!wariat.org!config!INFO From: INFO@config.com (config.sys, Inc. Information Account) Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom,alt.cd-rom.reviews Subject: CD-ROM Review; Exploring Ancient Architecture Message-ID: <775760845.14snx@config.com> Date: Mon, 01 Aug 94 17:07:25 GMT Organization: config.sys, Inc. Reply-To: info@config.com Lines: 139 Xref: cdrom.com alt.cd-rom:7593 alt.cd-rom.reviews:638 CD-ROM Review: Name: Exploring Ancient Architecture Publisher: Medio Multimedia, Redmond, WA 98052-5515 System Requirements: 386SX or Better (486SX recommended minimum for best performance;) 2 MB free HD space; VGA or better; CDROM Drive; MS WIndows 3.1 or later; MS-DOS 3.1 or later. Strongly Recommended: Sound Card; mouse Since it's just a little difficult to jump in the "Way-Back Machine" with Mr. Peabody and wander through those ancient sites where people began to settle and build things, this is the next best option. It is getting very close to what I think Multimedia could and should be, a full-featured, entertaining, and educational presentation. Medio Multimedia has produced a walk-through of many of those places I had to struggle through in my early Art History courses. Through the efforts of Dr. Bruce Meyers, Professor of Architecture at Ball State University, Muncie Indiana, and Andrew McClary, President and Animator at Graphic Alchemy Productions, you can visit seven of the major examples of ancient architecture. You can walk through Stonehenge, a Dolmen tomb, the Temple of Khons at Karnak, Memtuhotep's tomb, the Parthenon, the Ecclesiasterion, and the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome in narrated building tours. Period overviews allow you to at least glimpse many other sites. This paints a picture of the general styles and techniques the ancients used for their versions of public buildings, tombs, churches and, even, astronomical observatories. Exploring Ancient Architecture is surprisingly easy to navigate, given its size and complexity. You can jump around from period to period or site to site merely by clicking on the appropriate buttons on the toolbar. Moving through a building is equally easy once you get used to how the directional buttons work. If you want to amble through a particular site, use the slider button then the directionals to turn about and rubberneck a bit. The full-screen option lets you have a bigger, but somewhat less smoot> h, view. The narration, by radio announcer Stan Sollars, is clear and pleasing, avoiding a lecturing tone. It can be a little confusing at first, when doing a walk-through, to have narration suddenly start and stop. Narration is keyed to particular locations in each structure and it's worth waiting a moment to see if it is provided for a particular spot. That's a very minor glitch. I can't understand, though, why Dr. Meyers left out Babylonia. I very much would have liked to have seen the Nebuchadnezzar's Ishtar Gate and a few ziggurats. the Etruscans, too, are missing and there are no examples of Republican Roman decoration or of the later Eastern Empire. Maybe in another version? Clearly, there's only so much space, even on a CD, but there's so much richness in the ancients' buildings that Dr. Meyers could easily spend a lifetime just making CDs like this one. Just imagine a CD-ROM> walk through Hagia Sophia! Get cracking, Doctor! I definitely want to see more! This Medio offering is marred, in my opinion, by devoting too much space to advertising their other CDs, The JFK Assassination, and Midnight Movie Madness. I'd much rather have seen a more complete architectural review and read about the other CDs on paper. Maybe that's praising with faint damnation. It may be that is all the architectural program Dr. Meyers wanted to do and Medio just used up the extra space. But my appetite for more of Meyers' work is assuredly whetted. *************************************************************** Who's the reviewer? John P. Husvar (jhusvar@nimitz.mcs.kent.edu) Art Historian at-Large, Kent State University (Yes, THAT Kent State!) I come neither to praise nor to bury Caesar, just to talk about him. (Sorry, Will!) Taking the role of the prototypical "Mr. Dumb PC-user," I tend to look at a new (to me at least) CD with a playful, kind of Wowsers-what-can-I-do-with-THIS-one(!), point of view. That may result in sometimes being too easy on one CD and too hard on another. Usually, it results in my playing with the thing for a few hours to a few weeks and writing up some general thoughts on what features or glitches jump out at me, whether I could figure out some good use for it, and what new things (again, to me) it has > that seem to improve the breed. Comments and criticisms about this and any of my reviews are welcome. I want to be fair and I'll be the first to admit I don't know everything about anything. I'm certainly not so expert that I couldn't possibly miss something. So fire away. I'll reply, assuming I have time and I'm not in a snit. (See below) I even occasionally enjoy warming my hands at an intelligent flame. (The rude, obnoxious and snotty ones are routed directly to /dev/null, though.) Reviews are my opinion only and should not be taken as an inducement either to purchase or not to purchase any item reviewed. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> APPENDUM NOTICE <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< This review was provided by the author along with authorization for redistribution by config.sys, Inc., in an unedited state above this appendum. Reformatting may have been necessary for various operating systems. The reviews provided by config.sys, Inc. reflect the opinions of the reviewer and not necessarily that of config.sys, Inc. They are provided solely to serve as a guide for information to determine the potential purchase of a CD-ROM disc. Any copyrights are retained by the author. Not all CD-ROM discs reviewed are available through config.sys, Inc. A catalog of over 2260 discounted CD-ROM discs is available upon request. The author(s) have not been compensated by config.sys, Inc. Enjoy! Joe Rinehart joe@config.com config.sys, Inc. CD-ROM Division P.O. Box 27 Kent, Ohio, 44240-0001 Tel.: (216) 296.4446 North American Toll-Free Order Line: 1-800 6CONFIG (626.6344) All reviews and our catalogs are also available via anonymous ftp from ftp.wariat.org, in directory /pub/cdroms. -- config.sys, CD-Roms.. CD-Roms.. BBS/G3Fax: 216.296.2244 24 Hrs voice: 216.296.4446 URL:http://www.wariat.org/1/ccs/cdroms finger cdroms@wariat.org FTP:ftp.wariat.org:/pub/cdroms