It's a Mobile CD-ROM Disc, Man
by: Shannon Ryan
Size matters, especially when you hit the road. If you're anything like me, you want the convenience of a CD-ROM drive in a compact package that won't add much heft to your overpacked laptop case. If it can play audio CDs, all the better.
For size-conscious folks, the Sony CD-ROM Discman is a concept whose time has come. It's a portable CD player and double-speed MPC2-compliant CD-ROM reader in one small, slim package, weighing in at less than 10 ounces. For comparison purposes, that's lighter than an average New York deli sandwich.
Better yet, the Sony CD-ROM Discman is not powered by a massive rechargeable brick, like most other portable CD-ROM drives, so the overall package is lighter still. Instead, the CD-ROM Discman runs off of two standard AA batteries. This will give you approximately 1.5 hours of CD-ROM play or 2.5 hours of audio CD play before you have to change the batteries.
On aesthetics alone, the CD-ROM Discman wins big points. When you open the box, you'll find the player--a sleek, matte-black widget with a profile like a Ferrari--along with a set of headphones, the PC card interface for the unit and an AC adapter. All told, the CD-ROM Discman, with peripherals, weighs under three pounds.
Once I got the unit up and running, I tested the CD-ROM reader's data transfer rate using Aris Software's MPC Multimedia Wizard, as well as a proprietary program made available to WINDOWS Magazine by Toshiba. The
CD-ROM Discman had an average transfer rate of 288KBps (with a high of 351KBps) and an access time of 357ms. That makes the access time a little slower than the MPC-2 standards, according to my tests, but fairly close to the manufacturer's claim of 300ms. The excellent data transfer rate (as compared to other double-speed drives) picks up some of the slack.
I found the Discman's performance on CD-ROM applications to be comparable to other double-speed CD-ROM drives, with no noticeable lag. In both audio and CD-ROM modes, I discovered the scan function is faster when the disc is in Pause mode rather than play. This is more a quirk than a drawback, however.
The audio portion of the Discman worked flawlessly. All I had to do was plug it in and slide in a disc. The sound was sharp and clear, and the headphones were acceptable, though certainly not studio-monitor quality. When I tested the unit on a pair of Sony speakers, sound was even better.
There are downsides to the CD-ROM Discman, however, and every one of them involved the spotty, not-ready-for-prime-time installation procedure. I had a devil of a time getting the Discman to run, despite the fact that there were two highly technical users working to install the blessed thing.
The problem was that the CD-ROM Discman chose an IRQ that was already in use by my system. The installation routine had no provision for either changing the IRQ or choosing another one. Moreover, the driver software wouldn't tell me what the trouble was. I finally found the source of the problem by spelunking through my system files and was able to solve it by changing the other IRQ setting.
I also had trouble getting the unit to work with my laptop's PC card drivers. I finally discovered the only way to get the drive running was to boot up normally without the interface card in the socket, and insert the card only after boot-up. This is a minor annoyance, but it's still an annoyance nonetheless.
Once the CD-ROM Discman was operational, I was quite pleased with its performance. The drive's compact, slim design makes it a worthy road companion. The use of a Type II PC card for the interface rather than the more common parallel or SCSI interfaces leaves the other ports open for printers, modems and other peripherals. With a new installation and setup utility, this drive would be nigh-perfect for its intended use.
--Info File--
Sony CD-ROM Discman
Price: $499.95
In Brief: The Sony CD-ROM Discman is a sleek, lightweight, compact and versatile widget.
Sony Electronics
800-766-9236, 201-930-1000
Encore of Slide Show App Is a Hit
by: James E. Powell
Bravo moves into the big leagues to rub shoulders with the presentation powerhouses. Version 3.0, which I tested in beta, adds sophisticated features, including animation, wizards and new transition effects. Bravo's menu system and toolbars keep things in perspective, so the program never seems overwhelming.
Among Bravo's enhancements, you'll find the standard presentation features popularized by the program's competitors. You can create speaker notes and black-and-white preview slides. Like PowerPoint, Bravo has an AutoContent Wizard that helps you create presentations to sell services, introduce a product, establish a policy or announce bad news. This version adds a Design Wizard that helps you through the design options with suggested styles and backgrounds.
When you create a new slide, you can choose a type--title, text with a graph, bulleted lists and so on. Each new slide template has placeholders with "Click here to ..." instructions for entering text elements.
The templates offer some helpful shortcuts. For exam-ple, pressing Enter as you fill in a bulleted list will create the next bullet. You can easily promote and demote bulleted items with the click of a button. If you skip a "Click here ..." item, it won't show when you run the slide show, but will reappear when you switch back to edit mode.
When you change the color palette, your slides' backgrounds change to one of the predefined color schemes. You can also choose bullet styles, including blocks,check marks or graphics.
As with GoldDisk's Astound, you can add animation effects--such as bars growing up from a chart's x-axis--to a chart. You can set up graphs almost effortlessly with the spreadsheet Bravo creates for each presentation. You can use Bravo's animated objects to liven up charts, too. For example, you can have chart bars appear as stacks of coins rising from the x-axis.
But unlike Astound, Bravo doesn't allow control over the length of time it takes to display an animation. However, you can use animation in conjunction with another application, like Excel, to create charts that change as a variable fluctuates--like a chart that shows the effects of escalating interest rates, for instance.
Editing slide shows is easy. You can flip between slides or insert new ones while working in either outline mode or directly on the slides. A sorter makes rearranging slides a snap. You can change an object's attributes just as easily. Select the object and click on one of the toolbar buttons to alter alignment or color, for example. You can also use the eyedropper to pick up formatting from one object and apply it to another.
Bravo includes dozens of graphic effects--fill patterns, line sizes, arrowhead styles and so on--to spruce up your show. You can align items, snap them to a grid, and rotate or skew them. There's a quick preview and multiple levels of undo and redo, so there's no penalty for experimenting. Other notable features include find and replace, a spell checker and kerning control.
Playback options include continuous looping, control of the delays between slides, and overlays that make slide objects appear or disappear. You can use transition effects to make bulleted items appear one at a time or add jumps to show your slides out of sequence. You can attach a sound file, CD track or voice annotation to a slide. With the Export Runtime Slide Show command, you can create a runtime version of your presentation that can be played back using the included runtime viewer.
The beta lacked a user's guide, which wasn't missed because the program is so intuitive. The beta's online help offered sufficient directions, but some concepts would be easier to understand if more examples were included.
Bravo offers so many features that it seems like it should be harder to use. Even if you're presentation phobic, you'll find Bravo 3.0 reassuring. And its excellent output is bound to impress your audience.
-- Info File --
Bravo 3.0
Price: $49.95
Alpha Software Corp.
800-799-6877, 617-229-2924
17EX -- Sharper Picture, Softer Price
by: James E. Powell
Nanao has a reputation for making high-quality, expensive monitors. The F2 series aims to change the latter half of that perception. But it's more than just a lower price that makes the FlexScan F2-17EX an excellent monitor. Besides its crisp, bright, sharp display, the Nanao monitor offers plenty of controls that should put it at the top of your shopping list.
It's good enough for CAD/CAM users, sporting a 17-inch flat square shadow mask tube with a maximum resolution of 1280x1024 at 80Hz refresh rate. It can go as high as 1600x1200 (with a 66Hz refresh rate), though this high setting makes your Windows icons too small to be effective. The incredibly sharp image is due in part to the 0.26mm dot pitch and the SuperErgoCoat, an antireflection, antistatic coating that reduces glare, dust and static electricity. The power management works with both NUTEK- and VESA DPMS-compatible systems. In normal mode the monitor consumes 95 watts, but it drops to 10 watts in standby mode and less than five at the next power saver level. The monitor is compliant with TCO and MPR II low-radiation standards.
Use touch buttons on the front panel to select horizontal and vertical position and size or brightness. Touch one of these buttons and you'll see a small window that displays an icon matching the control you've selected. You spin a thumbwheel knob to make the actual adjustment. In many cases, such as brightness, the screen shows you the setting. Press a button underneath the knob to save your settings and return to your screen display.
You can also press the button underneath the knob to invoke the ScreenManager, an on-screen menu that lets you select screen controls (brightness, contrast, and pincushioning and trapezoidal adjustments), image adjustments (horizontal and vertical convergence, tilt, and horizontal and vertical moire reduction and color) the PowerManager (for energy conservation), the size and position of the menu, and the menu's language (English, Spanish, German, French or Italian). You select, make, and save or abandon your adjustments all by using the menu and the rotating thumbwheel.
Positioning a monitor's image can be tedious, but the Nanao FlexScan F2-17EX makes it easy with its One Touch Auto Adjustment button. Push this button on the front panel and the monitor finds your image, then adjusts its horizontal and vertical position so that it's smack dab in the middle of your screen, no matter what the screen resolution. You can fine tune these settings using the ScreenManager.
The front panel also has a degaussing button (degaussing is automatically performed whenever you warm or cold boot your system), and a button to select which signal input connector to use when the monitor connects to two computers.
If you want easier control of all these settings, you can use the included ScreenManager Pro software and a cable that runs from the back of the monitor to your serial port. This software lets you make the same adjustments as the built-in ScreenManager on a much friendlier Windows user interface. You can unplug the cord after making your adjustments.
The Nanao F2-17EX monitor also ships with Colorific color management software, so the colors you see are the colors you print. You can manually change the colors on your monitor with adjustments knobs at the back of the unit.
If your color card is Windows 95 Plug and Play compatible, the monitor can adjust its scanning frequencies and choose the most suitable resolution and refresh rate automatically by using a FlexCom DDC adapter. I did not test this feature.
I only had to make minimal adjustments to the Nanao to work with my Diamond Stealth video card. I was extremely pleased by the bright, sharp images and excellent controls. Nanao includes a three-year warranty, including parts and labor. No matter what task you're doing--from simple word processing to complex CAD drawings--you'll find the Nanao F2-17EX is at the top of its class.
--Info File--
Nanao FlexScan
F2-17EX
Price: $999 (street)
Nanao USA Corp.
800-800-5202, 310-325-5202
Turn Apps into Cinema
by: James E. Powell
If a picture's worth a thousand words, a movie's value may be priceless. With Lotus ScreenCam 2.0 you can create animated "movies" to illustrate how to perform a task in a Windows application.
ScreenCam movies are compact animated captures of what you do on your screen. It's like having a personal video camera to record your every move, augmented by your simultaneous narration.
To record a ScreenCam movie, you start the program and press the Record button on its small VCR-like control panel. From that point on, you're recording all your keystrokes and mouse movements. Hook up a microphone and choose the sound option, and you can add your comments to the on-screen action. You can use the VCR panel to play back the movie, with pause, stop, rewind and fast forward controls. You can also use ScreenCam's runtime playback module, which you can distribute freely, to view a movie.
This version, which I tested in beta, adds long-awaited features. For example, you can now use hotkeys to stop a movie, rather than having the stop button visible at all times. And you can customize your presentation with a bitmap of a logo or other graphic. ScreenCam's File/Open dialog previews a movie's first screen, and a file information box provides details, like the size of the movie file, its duration, sound track sample rate and size, author's name and so forth.
You can also rework the movie's image and sound portions separately. While you can't edit specific parts of screens or sounds, you can delete either entirely and recreate it. You can keep things in synch by viewing the movie as you rerecord the sound track. If more complex editing is required, you can extract the sound track to a .WAV file, use a third-party sound editor to make changes and then merge the sound file back into your movie.
Version 2.0 adds command-line playback options to hide the VCR panel and mouse pointer during playback and to set the number of times you want the movie to play. Options for embedding a movie in another document are new, too. You can send your movie via Notes or VIM-compliant e-mail (MAPI is not supported). ScreenCam now integrates with Notes via Notes/FX, so you can store file information or a movie in a Notes database.
You can get more movie per megabyte using version 2.0's sound compression. I found that ScreenCam reduced a movie's size by roughly 25 percent when its sound was compressed. Compression maintained sound fidelity, though the sound recorder uses an 11kHz sample rate and 8-bit sample size, which is acceptable only for voice.
Captioning is, perhaps, the most useful new feature. You can create boxes with text that pop up during your movie. You can adjust the borders, size, position and font for caption boxes. After creating your captions in the order you plan to use them, they're saved to a file. As you record your movie, you use a hotkey to display or hide the captions.
Captions aren't animated--they just pop up on the display--and you can't use any fancy graphics, such as arrows pointing from the caption to a spot on the screen. Still, captions are a good alternative if the viewer doesn't have a sound card or finds the audio a nuisance or inconvenient. Also, by using captions instead of sound you can store up to 15 minutes of movies on a single floppy, as compared to the one-minute limitation for sound-enhanced movies.
ScreenCam is an excellent product for creating presentations that help you show--rather than describe--how to get something done. With Version 2.0 your presentations will look better and, thanks to the program's sound compression, be easier to distribute.
It's as easy to make a ScreenCam movie as it is to operate a VCR--but you won't be harassed by a flashing "12: 00" on its display panel.
-- Info File --
Lotus ScreenCam 2.0
Price: Not set at press time
Lotus Development Corp.
800-343-5414, 617-577-8500
100MHz + Triton = High Power
by: Jim Forbes
Desktop computer performance comes not just from pure horsepower, but from optimizing one component or subsystem with another. The Insight PCI P100 Multimedia computer brings this home. This desktop model from Insight Direct blew the doors off our benchmarks and left me wishing I could move it from the labs into a permanent position beside my desk.
The system includes a 100MHz Pentium, a newly designed Intel Pentium PCI motherboard with Intel's Triton chip set, 16MB of system memory, a 1GB SCSI-2 hard disk, internal 28.8Kbps modem, internal 3.5-inch disk drive, a 64-bit graphics adapter with 4MB of video memory, mouse, keyboard and a 17-inch SVGA monitor. Its multimedia components include a Mitsumi quad-speed CD-ROM drive with an IDE interface, an integrated Crystal 16-bit sound system and two big Reveal RS380 speakers with a maximum rating of 80 watts. The PCI P100 comes in a tower case and includes a 250-watt power supply. As configured, the PCI P100 costs $3,995--aggressive pricing, considering the unit's power and functionality.
Running WINDOWS Magazine's Wintune 2.0 benchmarks, the PCI P100 cranked out 104.5 MIPS and 28 MFLOPS. The results are well above those of other systems we've tested in the last year--except for the 120MHz Micron Millennia (also reviewed in this issue). The PCI P100's video subsystem screams at 17.74 million pixels per second and its Seagate ST31220A hard disk drive cranked out transfer rates of nearly 19MB per second. The video and disk drive scores are on par with the 120MHz Micron.
It has four open expansion slots (three PCI and one ISA) and eight bays that can increase functionality. The 250-watt power supply should be adequate for most needs.
The PCI P100 uses an AMI BIOS and has four SIMM slots. The maximum amount of memory is 128MB. It also includes the de rigueur ZIF processor upgrade socket. Like other high-performance desktop computers, the PCI P100 uses 15-nanosecond external pipeline burst SRAM cache and a direct mapped write back cache architecture.
To speed operations, the new Aladdin motherboard uses a dual 32-bit architecture along with Intel's Triton chip set. In some applications the Triton chip set has twice the speed of the Intel's older Neptune core logic. Triton supports Plug and Play, has been optimized to work in systems equipped with Level 2 cache and offers other features that make it ideally suited for multimedia computers. Its Wintune benchmark scores prove this.
I was impressed with the performance of MPEG-based multimedia applications run on this system. Its video subsystem (which combines Diamond Multimedia's Stealth 64-bit adapter and S3's Vision-964 accelerator) outperforms anything I've tested recently and is suited as well for multimedia as it is for running high-performance engineering applications such as AutoCAD.
The audio subsystem is 16-bit Sound Blaster compatible, and it supports wave table and FM synthesis. The sounds are crisp and distortion-free, and the speakers are powerful enough to annoy my neighbors with repeated playing of the Doobie Brothers' "South City Midnight Lady."
The fast hard disk and the quad-speed CD-ROM make loading applications a breeze. The hard disk controller is integrated on the motherboard. Also included is a Boca V.34 28.8Kbps modem. I like the idea of a high-speed modem built into the system.
The PCI P100 comes with standard keyboard and mouse. I prefer positive feedback keyboards, so I would choose to replace the keyboard immediately. The system's IDEK 17-inch monitor is superb though. It's a flat square monitor with a 0.26mm dot pitch capable of 1600x1200 pixels displays at 66Hz. It includes digital controls and ships with an LCD display that shows system status and other messages.
Software supplied includes DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, FaxWorks and a variety of communications front ends.
The Insight PCI P100 Multimedia computer offers excellent performance and boasts a configuration that will be as useful next year as it is today. I recommend it highly.
--Info File--
Insight PCI P100 Multimedia
Price: $3,899 (direct)
In Brief: The Insight PCI P100 Multimedia computer is based on a 100MHz Pentium rocessor and Intel's new Triton core logic chip set, a combination that yields outstanding performance.
Insight Direct
800-755-3931, 602-902-1176
Multimedia Power to the People
by: Jonathan Karl Matzkin
The real multimedia revolution may come as rank-and-file businesses get hold of authoring tools that let them readily mold multimedia to their own specific purposes. IconAuthor makes it possible for just about any business to exploit multimedia for uses like interactive training, sales and self-service kiosk displays.
With IconAuthor, you don't have to know a programming language. You can develop its applications under Windows and then distribute them, without conversion, across Windows, Mac, OS/2 and UNIX multimedia platforms. Besides the cross-platform capabilities, version 6.0 has enhanced 2-D animation capabilities and database access through SQL support.
The applications you create with IconAuthor unite text, graphics, animation, audio, video and database access.
You create your app's backbone in a flowchart-like structure by linking icons in the main window. You drag icons from a scrolling icon library on the window's left side and drop them where you want them. Each icon represents some action or function that the program performs in the sequence you define.
If you do have programming experience, you'll immediately notice similarities between IconAuthor's application structures and the flowcharts that programmers use to outline their applications. The difference is that you don't actually do any coding. IconAuthor generates proprietary code behind the structure of linked icons that you develop, but you don't explicitly edit the code.
At runtime, an interpreter executes the code the icons represent. IconAuthor supports Windows interface conventions like the clipboard and drag-and-drop operations. So you can move icons around or copy them from one part of a structure to another, where you can reuse them with little or no modification.
IconAuthor's approach has a major advantage because it separates the logical structure of your application from the actual multimedia content. Your text, videos, .WAV files and database files are external to the application structure and remain in their native formats. Your application accesses these files as needed.
When you distribute an IconAuthor application, you use IconAuthor's Resource Manager to assemble the various structure and content files necessary for the application. At runtime, an interpreter executes your app.
IconAuthor comes with extensive, clearly written documentation. An entire manual is devoted to the comprehensive online tutorial, which walks you through the creation of a sample application.
While IconAuthor lives up to AimTech's claims that multimedia developers need not have experience with specific programming languages, this is still a powerful, complex package with a steep learning curve. IconAuthor requires understanding of a number of concepts that are fundamental to programming, because it does most of the same things that programming languages do. For instance, IconAuthor supports conditional branching and iterative loops. Understanding these concepts is essential if you want to gain the greatest benefit from the package.
IconAuthor is a power-user product. As a power user, you will benefit from at least having dabbled in programming before tackling an IconAuthor project. I found that my experience with programming languages was especially helpful in getting me through the tutorial.
IconAuthor blurs the distinction between commercial and in-house multimedia development, because you can use it in both arenas. You can rapidly develop and easily distribute multimedia applications, but IconAuthor doesn't magically eliminate all the development-process work.
-- Info File --
IconAuthor 6.0
Price: $4,995; upgrade from 5.1, $695
In Brief: IconAuthor is a sophisticated development tool for cross-platform multimedia applications.
Disk Space: 20MB (full installation)
System Resources: 5%
RAM: 8MB
AimTech Corp.
800-289-2884, 603-883-0220
Double Up with Dual CD-ROMs
by: Jim Forbes
Packard Bell strives to make computing as painless as possible. With its Pentium 100MHz Twin CD-ROM, the company sets out to add high performance to its trademark ease of use.
The Pentium Twin is the newest member of the Legend family. It's available in two Pentium-based configurations. The entry-level machine uses a 75MHz Pentium processor. The high-end version, which I tested, uses the 100MHz Pentium. Both versions include two internal dual-speed CD-ROM drives.
The 100MHz configuration that I tested has an average street price of about $2,800, not including a monitor. The base configuration includes a PCI-bus graphics adapter mounted on the motherboard with 1MB of video memory, a 1.2GB hard disk, a 3.5-inch drive, 8MB of RAM, a 14.4Kbps modem, a 16-bit Sound Blaster-compatible audio card, a set of external speakers, keyboard and mouse. The unit I tested had 16MB of RAM.
The Pentium Twin was easy to set up. Using Packard Bell's color-coded cabling scheme, I had it up and running in about 15 minutes.
The system's two open PCI expansion slots and two 16-bit ISA slots should be adequate for most needs given its already comprehensive set of peripherals. The instructions for adding expansion cards included in the documentation are excellent and easy to follow.
The Pentium Twin performed well, consistently producing results competitive with other 100MHz Pentium systems that I've tested. Tested with WINDOWS Magazine's Wintune benchmarks, the Pentium Twin's processor scored 107.7 MIPS with a rating of 22 MFLOPS for floating-point operations. Its video subsystem cranked out 9.5 million pixels per second, and the hard disk registered a healthy throughput of more than 12.6MB per second.
The graphics system test score suggests that it is well suited to the demands of sophisticated graphics programs, including those that use video. And the hard disk has ample capacity to handle the requirements of multimedia software.
The two dual-speed CD-ROM drives make the Pentium Twin unique. With two drives, you can load and run two CD-based applications at the same time or load an application and listen to an audio CD. Packard Bell includes drivers that let you switch quickly between the drives. The drivers also have a search facility that will automatically move to the second drive if the requested files are not found on the first. Packard Bell offers quad-speed drives as an option.
The Pentium Twin's sound system is outstanding. It supports Sound Retrieval System (SRS), which lets you get the full benefit of stereo sound regardless of your position relative to the speakers. The two speakers are about 11 inches tall and produce excellent high and low tones.
You can also set the Pentium Twin to handle your telephone communications with its phone answering and voice mail capabilities. These features work well, especially because the 1.2GB hard disk has the capacity to handle the large files that voice messaging tends to generate.
A variety of applications packed on 11 compact discs comes with the Pentium Twin. The applications range from Microsoft Works to Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia.
I enjoyed using the Pentium Twin and taking advantage of its many features. Its high performance and low price make it an excellent value.
--INFO FILE--
Packard Bell Pentium 100MHz Twin CD-ROM
Price: $2,800 (street, not including monitor)
In Brief: The Pentium Twin is unique for its two internal CD-ROM drives, but it also offers good value and outstanding performance.
Packard Bell
800-733-5858, 818-865-1555
On a Multimedia Mission
by: Lynn Ginsburg
Quest 5.0, a multimedia authoring system, is all about power and control. From scoping out the big picture to plotting the smallest level of detail, Quest puts you in charge of every element in a multimedia production, including audio, video, animation, graphics and text.
Quest can be used for a variety of multimedia applications, such as computer-based training, online referencing systems, information kiosks or sheer entertainment.
The program is very well designed, with a clean modular interface featuring intuitive, object-oriented tools. Its considerable power lies in providing access to a multimedia project's nitty-gritty details. But Quest is an appropriate tool for multimedia authors of all levels. If you're a multimedia novice, the program's object-oriented design helps simplify the authoring process. Power users will be pleased with features such as access to the Windows API and the ability to write, compile and debug C programs.
Quest leads you down a hierarchical path in plotting your multimedia title. At the lowest level, Quest titles consist of objects, which are a title's primary building blocks. Objects include text, geometrical shapes, audio, video, animations and buttons. Objects are assembled in frames, which are similar in concept to the frames of a film. Frames usually provide a single interaction, such as displaying text, providing a menu or asking for user input.
The interactions provided by each frame are then grouped in modules. Modules are containers for a bundled group of actions, such as the answers to a multiple-choice question. You aren't required to group your frames in modules. If there is no logical grouping for your frames, or if you'd prefer to keep your design at a single level, you can keep each frame separate.
The highest level in Quest's hierarchy is the Title Design mode. This is where you map out your project's content, laying out the start, the end, and the modules and frames in between. The process is similar to flowcharting.
As you work on your multimedia project, you'll spend most of your time in the Frame Edit mode, working out your interactive presentation's intricate steps. The graphical and descriptive Object List manages the frame's elements and is the Frame Edit mode's key component. You can rearrange the sequence of elements and events by dragging an element and repositioning it in the list.
Commands available in the Frame Edit mode let you control the sequence of events. You can use the Watch For command to define an action to occur when a particular event takes place, such as a user clicking on a button. The Wait command pauses the presentation until a specified action takes place, such as clicking on a Continue button.
You can also create detailed "if-then" conditions in the Frame Edit mode, such as counting the number of wrong answers to a multiple-choice test. These instructions can become very complex, requiring programming skills. You can also use Quest's C Coach to walk you through the steps of writing C code for declaring and using variables.
Quest does offer a variety of features to simplify juggling all of the elements and details. QuickFrames offers drag-and-drop Title Design templates with common flow sequences. You can modify templates to suit your needs and save them in the QuickFrames library. The FastTracks library has a large number of predesigned object templates, including animations, audio, backgrounds, buttons, clip art and templates. Quest includes a runtime player and drivers for distributing your titles to others.
Quest is a very serious program. Its detail control is comparable to that of Macromedia's Director. While Director's strength lies in assembling and coordinating multimedia productions, Quest excels at creating logical interactive flows that combine user input and program feedback.
-- Info File --
Price: $3,995
In Brief: With its intuitive interface and excellent detail control, Quest 5.0 is a powerhouse program for creating interactive multimedia projects.
Disk Space: 38 MB
System Resources: 17%
RAM: 8MB
Allen Communication
800-325-7850, 801-537-7800