How to meet Leonardo, the inventor, on the CD-ROM
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): Ever since my childhood I have been fascinated by inventors. People like Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and George Eastman are sources of continuing amazement. I always find their constant questing for new ways of achieving things can really stimulate our thinking.
The history of computers has of course never lacked inventors. Early on there were people like Charles Babbage and Herman Hollerith. In recent decades, we have become indebted to people like Robert Noyce, Thomas Watson Jr. and, certainly, our highly visible Bill Gates, for all the convenience we get from computers.
One person who has contributed tremendously to making the computer so easy to use is Douglas Englebart. You may not have heard of him, but when he was at the Stanford Research Institute back in 1965 he came up with the idea of the mouse. Yes, the mouse -- can you imagine your life without the mouse or any of its reincarnations? Englebart was actually behind numerous ideas that were so much ahead of their time, including the graphical user interface, windowed screens and computer-aided meeting -- and the list goes on. Today, these things may no longer be considered marvels. But, can you imagine how fanciful they must have seemed 30 years ago?
Recently I came across another figure from the Renaissance Era that I had not realized was also a great producer of ideas that proceeded his time by leaps and bounds. We all have heard of the Mona Lisa painting, which is now kept behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre museum in France. It was the work of Leonardo da Vinci. What had escaped my knowledge until recently was that he, even more than Englebart, was a man well ahead of his time.
The CD-ROM
Installing Leonardo the Inventor (US$ 19.95) on my PC was very easy thanks to the Autorun utility included in the CD-ROM. In the process, it also added QuickTime 2.0, which was actually already installed on my system. But I did not mind, because the experience after the installation was totally flawless. The narrator's voice was clear, and most of the textual contents are read out. For me, that's a big plus, because my eyes always suffer if I read from the screen for too long. There is also some soft Baroque music to accompany our exploration. What a perfect experience.
Even before the graphite-based pencil was introduced, Leonardo had already accumulated reams of notes. Eventually his notes filled 7000 pages, some of which was penned in a mirror image writing style. Perhaps in his attempt to make it difficult for others to steal his ideas, the left-handed Leonardo wrote from right to left, resulting in the mirror writing.
When the program is first loaded, a narration will introduce the contents of the CD-ROM. From the Contents screen you can click on the Inventions button to view 21 of his prophetic designs, including the bicycle, the tank, the rapid-fire crossbow, the automatic cannon, the woodwind keys and the viola- organista. Do you think the helicopter is completely a modern machine?
Leonardo had the idea of a vertical screw made of starched linen that was tied to a frame. Using pedals, a person could rotate the screw quickly to lift the entire structure -- very much like the helicopter we know today.
Do you want to know more? Click on the Galleries button. You can then learn about 51 of Leonardo's inventions. If you wish, you can print the information in card format or on regular paper.
From the Contents screen again, you can also access the Database, which contains all the information about his works and ideas. The database's Search utility will help you to get straight to the topic you want. The Works contains a list of his paintings and where you can find them today. A click on the name of the work will bring you a digital image of the painting.
If you want to know about his life, you can click on the Biography button. And click on the Timeline button to see how his ideas were employed through time. You can even learn about other inventors whose works were related to Leonardo's ideas in one way or another. For instance, in the Timeline you'll be able to read about Johannes Gutenberg, Ferdinand Magellan, Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei.
All work and no play makes any CD-ROM a dull place to be, so the publisher has included three games to add a little spice to whet youngsters' appetites. What is more important is perhaps the manufacturer's adoption of 3-D graphics. You can look at the picture of Leonardo's helicopter and rotate it and turn it upside down. Navigating through the CD-ROM is very easy thanks to ample navigation tools.
About the only complaint I have is that the graphics are designed for standard 640x480 VGA resolution. It would be nice to look at the contents in full screen 1024x768 resolution.
Nevertheless, Leonardo the Inventor is another excellent product from The Learning Company (www.softkey.com). It combines tasty graphic visuals with informative contents. It is the CD-ROM to get if you want to know about ideas that come before their time, and inventions, like those of Douglas Englebart. It definitely belongs in your CD-ROM library.