InterFact Book and CD-ROM (or Floppy Disk) series

[Katie Cadet 101]

Hello fellow bronies!

I've encountered some rare gems in the history of Katie Cadet's Computer and Video Game Collection, and this one is about the InterFact Book and CD-ROM/Floppy Disk series that is an early 1990s example of eBooks from 2010s tablet devices, but way before the latter became popular!

The InterFact Book and CD-ROM (or Floppy Disk) series were released in the 1990s by Two-Can Publishing and World Book that combines physical paper reading in a binder-style book with computer-based interactivity on a floppy disk or CD-ROM designed for children, featuring science and history topics of different subjects. Two-Can Publishing is also responsible for publishing children’s books from Alan Rogers’ Little Giants series such as Blue Tortoise, Red Rhino, Green Bear and Yellow Hippo, which eventually went to the CD-ROM world in 1995 for Macintosh and Windows 3.1 developed by Motion Works and published by Corel, which H+A acquired the Corel CD Home series in 1997 before its abandonment in 2000. The InterFact CD-ROM and Floppy Disk series were developed using Authorware 2.2, and will work on a variety of systems with no installation required from Windows 3.1 (unofficially Windows 3.0) up to Windows 10 32-bit (Incompatible with Windows 11 and 64-bit systems), and on Macintosh computers running System Software 6.0 up to Mac OS 9.2.2 (including OS X Classic Environment, but not compatible with Leopard and above).

The InterFact Book and CD-ROM/Floppy Disk series uses low memory and processor requirements, requiring at least at 68020 Macintosh or 386SX IBM PC Compatible at 16 MHz with 4 MB of RAM. The titles will look best at 256 colours with 640×480 screen resolution, although they can work in 256 grayscale like my PowerBook 180 as long as the resolution is set to 640×480. The InterFact series is also SheepShaver, Basilisk II and Mini vMac II compatible, but it runs on Mini vMac (the same is true with a Mac Plus or a Mac SE), but not enough screen resolution and memory for the titles to run properly! Also, when running under a Mac Plus/SE or Mini vMac, the graphics will look pale due to using the 1-bit black and white depth, so I recommend using 256 grayscale or 256 colours for the best experience.

For the Windows side, it will work on most emulators and virtualization suites, including Linux with Wine, as long as you use a 32-bit operating system due to the program being 16-bit. For the Macintosh side, the program is 68k only with no PowerPC code in sight.

Some of the titles I remember in the InterFact series are the Electricity and Magnetism title and the Vikings title. I remember borrowing the Electricity and Magnetism title from the public library back then (early 2000s to be exact)! The Vikings title is the one we found second-hand back in the late 2000s. (It seems to be from a garage sale of all things!)

The file size for each InterFact CD-ROM or Floppy Disk is around 2-10 MB, which explains the low memory and processor requirements explained earlier. These books are long out-of-print, and you know, it's unusual to see unusual book formats! Don't you think? It seems that Book and CD-ROM/Floppy Disk titles for children was pretty much outdated, but I didn’t know that these titles existed when I was a kid!

Nowadays, a book would feature a QR code to scan for additional content on a smartphone or tablet, thus not needing a CD-ROM or floppy disk to access additional content! Times have changed, and technology changes too! And now we have eBooks that contain interactivity! It shows how far we progressed over the years!

Version 2.0 of the InterFact series came out in 1997, so there you go! On the InterFact book series, while you are reading a book based on a topic, you will encounter an icon which prompts you to insert the floppy disk or CD-ROM on a Windows or Macintosh computer, and you use the arrow buttons to pick the icon that matches what’s on the book, providing interactive activities related to the subject. It makes book reading a lot more fun and interactive!

What are your opinions on the InterFact Book and CD-ROM/Floppy Disk series? Discuss the series here, and take care!

Regards,

Katie Cadet