STAR TREK ENCYCLOPEDIA

                  Review by Michael Raven

An essential in book form for Star Trek fans, this isn't as
portable (obviously), but does have extras - video clips of the
programme are available. Although on the box it states that the
encyclopaedia requires a Pentium 90 and 25 Mb of hard disc space,
you can run it off the CD, and on a 486DX2/80 (albeit very
slowly!)

Before I upgraded to my Pentium, I found that I could run the
video and pictures separately with QuickTime. (A Windows add- on,
recommended.) This 'over-requiring' seems to be used occasionally
by software makers - they don't want their program to be thought
of as 'outdated', so they say it requires a Pentium, when often it
will run on a lower-spec.

Although updated episode guides are available on the two episode
CDs, (the encyclopaedia is a set of 4 CD's) I couldn't get the
encyclopaedia to run the episode guides, and could only use them
separately from the encyclopaedia program itself.

The encyclopaedia is very up to date even though it isn't brand
new, as it has information from as recently as the end of season 5
of DS9.

PRESENTATION 90% Excellent quality - as if you were at a Starfleet
computer console.
LASTABILITY 92% Loads of video clips, pictures and information.
GRAPHICS 90% Very good, like a Star Trek console.
SOUNDS 83% Not many, but faithful to the program.

OVERALL 78% Very good, but often it would be just too much bother,
as often you just want one bit of information, and it takes about
thirty seconds to start-up, and another twenty to shut down.  The
book is preferable.


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