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What did it feel like to discover an entire world inside a CD-ROM? A time before Google, Wikipedia, and instant answers, when there was a different way to explore knowledge.

CD-ROM encyclopedias like Microsoft Encarta turned the family computer into a doorway to somewhere much bigger. You could look up the Roman Empire, discover dinosaurs, explore a map, watch a video, and somehow end up learning about something you never intended to find.

In this episode of Artifacts, Danny Brown explores the likes of Encarta and the sense of wonder they created. Not simply because they contained an enormous amount of information, but because they encouraged us to wander through it.

Because finding an answer is one thing.

Discovering something is another.

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There was something magical about putting a CD into a computer and discovering

that you'd just opened the door to an entire world.

Not a film, not a game, not an album, but knowledge.

Thousands of articles, photographs, maps, videos, sound clips,

interactive features, all sitting there on one little disc.

And you could explore almost anywhere.

You could start by looking up the Roman Empire, and 20 minutes later find yourself

reading about volcanoes, or dinosaurs, or the history of aviation,

or something completely unrelated that you'd never even considered before.

There was no plan. You were just curious.

For generations, encyclopedias had been these enormous collections of knowledge.

Heavy books, rows of them, usually somewhere in a library, a school,

or a home where someone had spent a lot of money on something that took up an entire shelf.

You'd open a volume, find a subject and read about it.

And if something in that book caught your attention, you'd turn to another volume, then another.

There was a physicality to learning. You could see how much knowledge there

was simply by looking at the shelf.

Then computers came along and changed the experience. Suddenly,

an encyclopedia didn't have to occupy an entire bookcase. It could just fit on a CD.

And for a kid sitting in front of the family computer, that was pretty cool.

Because you weren't just reading an encyclopedia, you were exploring one.

Into that world came Microsoft Encarta, which became one of those defining

pieces of software for a generation of home computer users.

You put the disc into the drive, and suddenly there was this enormous collection

of information sitting inside your computer.

But unlike a traditional encyclopedia, it didn't just sit there waiting for you to read it.

You could click, search, jump from one subject to another, look at photographs,

explore maps, watch videos, or listen to audio.

You could begin with something you already knew about and then end up somewhere

you'd never intended to go.

And that was the magic. Encarta wasn't simply giving you answers.

It was giving you places to wander.

And I think that's why it felt a bit different from doing a Google search today.

You weren't necessarily trying to solve a problem. You were exploring.

There's a particular kind of curiosity that happens when you don't have a destination.

You look up one thing that leads to another, that leads to something else.

And before you know it, you've spent an hour learning about something you didn't even know existed.

And we still do this, but today we call it falling down a rabbit hole.

But today's technology surrounding that experience has changed.

Within Encarta, the boundaries were already there.

You had this enormous collection of knowledge sitting on a disc,

but you couldn't simply ask it anything.

You couldn't instantly search the entire internet. You explored what had been included.

But that limitation was part of the experience. You knew there was a finite

world inside that little disc.

But you didn't necessarily know where that world ended.

Then the internet changed what it meant to know something. If you wanted an

answer, you'd search for it.

And eventually, searching became so fast and so comprehensive that the idea

of looking something up became almost invisible.

Today, if I wonder how long it takes light to travel from the sun to the earth,

I don't need an encyclopedia.

I don't even need to think about where to find the answer. I can just ask.

And that's a pretty cool thing. But there's a difference between finding an

answer and discovering something.

An answer ends a question. Discovery creates another one.

And that's what I loved about encyclopedias and CD-ROMs. You could go in looking

for one thing and leave knowing five other things you hadn't planned on learning.

And I think that's why these old encyclopedia discs still feel pretty magical.

Not because information was better. It wasn't. Not because the technology was

especially sophisticated.

By today's standards, it was incredibly limited.

I think the reason it felt magical is because it made knowledge feel tangible.

You could hold a disc, put it into the computer, hear the drive spin,

and then there was a world waiting for you.

The disc itself was an artifact of a very particular moment.

A moment when the enormous promise of the internet was beginning to arrive in

our homes. but before everything was connected to everything else.

Because of that, knowledge still had edges. It could fit inside a box and that

made the world feel both smaller but also much bigger.

And that's what I really miss about those old encyclopedias.

Not having all the answers but having time to wonder.

To click on something because it looked interesting.

To follow a trail simply because you wanted to know where it went.

There was joy in not knowing what you'd find next.

And maybe that's why the likes of Encarta still evoke such warm memories.

Because it wasn't just a collection of facts, it was an invitation.

Open me, look around, see what you find.

I'm Danny Brown, and this is Artifacts.