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[the following article is from the August 1985 issue of COMPUTE! Magazine]
 
Monster Memory
 

(Continued, page 2 of 3)   Here's an example: Let's say you're a student researching a report on Thomas Jefferson. On the Atari CD ROM, there are two ways to approach the task. The search tables were compiled with a VAX minicomputer by Activenture, Inc., the company which is developing the CD-ROM software for Atari.       The first way is very similar to the usual method of looking up something in an encyclopedia. First, you boot up the CD-ROM on the Atari 520ST. This takes only a few seconds. A graphics display on the screen shows a bookshelf with a 23-volume encyclopedia. By rolling the ST's mouse controller, you move the screen pointer to the "J" volume and then click the mouse button. This brings up another screen with a graphics picture of the book you selected, opened to several alphabetical tab entries. You move the pointer to the tab which would include Jefferson-for in stance, Japan to Jet. Another click calls up a screen showing all the article titles within that section. When you move the pointer to the title Jefferson, Thomas and click the button again, the computer loads the article (and several preceding and following articles, as well) from the CD into memory. It takes less than four seconds for the CD-ROM to fill the 520ST's entire 512K RAM.       Now you can read the article on the screen, scrolling or flipping pages by clicking the mouse. This method of looking up subjects is recommended for those who aren't familiar with computers, because it requires almost no computer knowledge.       The second method takes greater advantage of the computer's power. Instead of looking up the subject alphabetically by yanking a graphics image of a book off a shelf, you pull down a menu and select the search screen. This screen presents a number of options; to keep it simple, you can just type Thomas Jefferson at the prompt and ask for a general search. In about four seconds, the computer reports how many times the phrase Thomas Jefferson appears in the encyclopedia. You can flip to the first occurrence by clicking the mouse. Again, in less than four seconds, the computer loads the article from the CD into memory and even highlights your search phrase within the text. You can flip to subsequent occurrences merely by clicking the mouse button.       What makes this technique so powerful is that the computer will find references to Thomas Jefferson in articles that may never have been checked using the old-fashioned method. The student may learn that Jefferson was not just a politician, but also an inventor, architect, and connoisseur of wines. Looking up the same references in even the most thoroughly cross-indexed paper encyclopedia would be much more time-consuming.       When the Atari CD-ROM software is finished, it will allow two dimensional searches, too. You could look up every article that contains references to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. Other options let you limit the search for occurrences in adjacent words, single paragraphs, and word groupings of various sizes.

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see also: Report From The Summer Consumer Electronics Show
 
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