An Extravaganza on Your Desktop

With the proper hardware and software, today’s PCs and Macs can deliver what is, literally, a multimedia extravaganza. Forget text and simple graphics. You can now get stereo sound, full-motion video, animation and vivid color photos.

To make all this happen, you’ll need a CD-ROM drive. Computer CDs, which look just like audio discs, store up to 680 megabytes of data. I’ll have more on the hardware later. First the fun stuff.

Encyclopedias from Compton’s New Media, Microsoft and Grolier give you access to not only thousands of pages of text, but to photos, animation and moving pictures. See and hear excerpts from John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech or Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic march on Washington. Don’t just read about the heart--view an animation that shows how it pumps blood.

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If you’re a news nut, consider the “1993 Time Magazine Compact Almanac” ($99.95), with 20,000 articles from Time, including the complete text of every article from 1989 through 1992, along with historic articles, photos, charts, maps and nearly 60 minutes of recent and historical videos. Call Compact Publishing at (800) 964-1518.

Curious about the Kennedy assassination? A CD for Windows, “JFK Assassination: A Visual Investigation” ($59.95, (800) 788-3866) from Medio lets you explore each frame of four home movies. You can examine documents and photos and see a computer-enhanced re-enactment of that tragic moment.

“National Parks of America” ($59.95, (800) 850-7272) from Multicom Publishing lets you interactively explore all 230 of America’s National Parks with more than 1,000 photographs by nature photographer David Muench. Ebook’s California Travel has 1,000 photos of the Golden State by travel writer and photographer Lee Foster. At $29.95, it’s a lot cheaper than a coffee table book. Ebook is at (510) 429-1331.

Microsoft’s “Multimedia Mozart: The Dissonant Quartet” allows you to experience Mozart’s artistry in ways that are just not possible with standard records and audio CDs.

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Nautilus is a monthly magazine on CD with more than 500 megabytes of material for Windows and Mac. For $137.40 a year, this is great way to sample the world of multimedia. You get demo copies of commercial programs as well as several share-ware programs you can use and pay for if you find them useful. There are lots of graphic files, short videos, color photographs and sound files. You get sample CD-audio tracks from Windham Hill and lots more. A kids corner has short movies, games and educational programs. Call (800) 448-2323 for a free sample issue.

CDs aren’t just for grown-ups. “Four Footed Friends” ($57.95, Windows and Mac, (800) 955-1750) from T/Maker is a delightful set of animated stories for children ages 3 and up. Broderbund ((800) 423-9999) has several “living books” for kids, including “The New Kid on the Block” (an interactive poetry book by Jack Prelutsky) and “The Tortoise and the Hare,” an animated interactive version of the classic story that lets kids play with the characters.

For only $4.95, you can pick up a copy of KidSoft at book and software stores, or you can subscribe for $9.95 and receive four issues by calling (800) 354-6150. This printed magazine/CD combination for PCs and Macs gives you three simple games (the current issue has dot to dot, a picture puzzle and a creature creator) as well as demonstrations for up to 50 commercial programs for kids ages 3 to 13. Some of the demo programs are fun to play and useful as they are. In some cases, you can, for a fee, get a code to unlock the full program by calling an 800 number.

Most software stores carry CDs for PCs and Macs. For a printed catalogue listing 140 multimedia titles for Windows, send $3 to MPC Council, 1730 M St. N.W., Suite 707, Washington, D.C. 20036.

Not every computer can run multimedia software. For IBM-compatible PCs, you’ll need a machine with at least a 386SX CPU, 4 megabytes of memory, a sound board and a CD-ROM drive. If you’re buying a new multimedia PC, I recommend a 486SX or better and at least 160 megabytes of hard-disk space. Of course, you’ll need a color Super VGA monitor.

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For Macs, you’ll need at least a 68030 CPU and 4 megabytes of RAM, but you’re better off with a faster 68040 CPU. All Macs can play sound and all modern Macs have an SCSI connector for an external CD drive.

The easiest way to add a sound card and CD drive to an IBM-compatible PC is to purchase an upgrade kit. Leading vendors are Media Vision ((800) 348-7116) and Creative Labs ((800) 998-5227). Creative Labs’ $549.95 Sound Blaster Discovery CD 8 kit comes with an 8-bit sound board, a double-speed CD-ROM drive and several CD titles. The company’s $749.95 Edutainment CD-16 kit comes with a 16-bit sound board. Serious audiophiles will appreciate the 16-bit board’s higher sound quality, but I think 8-bit is adequate for PC applications that don’t involve critical listening. Another option is to get a sound board with an SCSI-2 connector that allows you to connect any brand CD-ROM drive. Both Media Vision and Creative Labs offer such boards.

Whether for a PC or a Mac, look for a CD drive with an access time of 350 milliseconds or lower and a data transfer speed of 300 kilobytes per second. Double speed drives offer improved performance, and NEC has come out with triple and even quadruple speed drives. Also look for a “multi-session” drive that can be used to view Kodak’s photo CDs.

Computer File welcomes your comments. Write to Lawrence J. Magid, 898 Chestnut St., Suite 3, Redwood City, Calif. 94063, or message magid@latimes.com on the Internet or KPVN58A on Prodigy.