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Encarta Virtual Globe 1998
**** Excellent [92]
Windows 95, ISBN 1-57231-777-9
$20-$39.95
Microsoft
http://www.encarta.msn.com
While Microsoft gave this a different title than last year's Encarta World Atlas 1997, it's a straightforward upgrade of that first-rate CD-ROM. Those readers with long memories (or backsets of DATABASE) may note that the overall rating for Encarta Virtual Globe is identical to that for Encarta World Atlas. That's an accident of the way my ratings scheme works. In fact, this is a substantially better product.
AutoPlay works properly. The install is polite (even allowing choice of program group) and takes up about 9MB. The interface scales to any screen size, and most of the screen (80 percent or more) is devoted to content. All maps show a global perspective, but scaling is intelligent, so that you can fill a screen with an area as small as Barbados if there's worthwhile information to show at that level. A legend in the lower right of the screen shows how much area you're seeing; you can zoom in using step icons, a special control, or by outlining an area on the map and clicking in.
There is more detail to maps than in other atlases. The...