Subject: RE: CD-ROM "A Designers Manual"

From: April Sampson-Kelly <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 12:07:38 +-1000

Both you and I seem to have the wrong end of the stick here 
- we need to find the person who is in charge of the CD rom dream.  

On another note - I am currently working on a big software package that will 
present permaculture designs and ideas.  Our package will be on CD rom and 
will be info-tainment rather than just listings.  It will be modular and get bigger as
resources permit.
For the last 2 years I have been writing a text for PDC it is about 400 pages with
data and in depth research on grey areas like toxins in the soil through 
to Care for People.

Some other people have spent time developing a data base - if I can 
recall their address I'll let the net know - I was disappointed because they
wanted a lot of money for it - like $800  -= one can''t hope to cover costs on
initial sales - you have to plan to cover costs by spreading it over a lot of 
sales I think - otherwise you kill the market.
April

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From: Christopher Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 21:11 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings, 

Having followed the CD-ROM thread somewhat, I wanted to mention
the HSCP goal of producing interactive "hyper-media" projects on
permaculture, appropriate tech, sustainable ag, watershed restoration, and
related topics. 

Anticipating the continued growth and data acceleration of the net, we
hope to distribute the productions on the web (or it's future
manifestation) for potential clients to download direct. We believe the
need to "burn" the script to CD will become an unnecessary step in getting
the content to folks who want it. (No, I not going to stick my neck out 
with an exact time frame prediction).

Very best of luck!
Christopher M Robinson
The Humboldt Sustainable Community Project
The HumboldtNation <http://www.humnat.org>
[email-masked]

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From: Michael Totten <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 23:12:59 -0400 (EDT)

Having been involved through out non-profit group in producing 4 
interactive multimedia CD-ROM discs, plus a 2-floppy interactive 
multimedia program, and also being part of the growth and maintenance of 
probably the largest non-governmental Internet site on sustainable energy 
development, i come to a very different conclusion than Christopher's 
no-cd approach.

we find that cd-rom is far outpacing web 
access, let alone fast web access, in many developing countries.  The 
National Academy of Sciences study on African digital tools, for example, 
finds the CD-ROM drive to be the fastest growing peripheral after the 
computer. At $100  a drive, you simply can't beat an off-line device 
when you're caught in an environment with few phone lines, all of which 
are highly unreliable and skittish, and cost a lot.

Second, you can now press a CD-ROM for $1 each (the recent cost of our 
Greening of the White House CD-ROM released on Earth Day), and inhouse 
you can press prototypes and pre-releases on your own CD-Recorder now 
costing a little more than $1,000.

Downloading 700 MB of info is pretty imposing, even w/ a T1.  Yes, when 
Ethernet speeds become available it would be superfluous to press CDs, 
but that's a fair number of years for most of the planet.  In the 
meantime, using all digital storage media makes sense -- floppys (poised 
to leap from 1+ MB to 100+ MB if Sony gets its market share), CD-ROMs 
(the R&D innovations in the pipeline promise steady increases on the 
amount of storage on a disc to eventually 10x current levels), and by 
email/Internet.

Now, admittedly, one could just leave off the videos, and focus on text, 
graphics, photos, and w/ the spread of Javascripts and Shockwave, 
interactive spreadsheets and graphic exercises.  But I, for one, would 
love to see the video that I saw of Masanobu Fukuoka teaching people his 
natural farming method become available as soon as possible, and i only see 
that possible on a CD-ROM.  Likewise, i would love to get the courses 
given by Max Lindegger, Leah Harrison, and a host of others on video slices.

admittedly, getting material up on the web is easier than producing a 
good cd-rom, but we tend to think its worth pursuing both paths.

 Michael Totten, Director
Center for Renewable Energy & Sustainable Technology (CREST)
****NEW ADDRESS****
1725 K Street N.W., Suite 402, Washington, DC 20006
Phone: (202) 289-5368  Fax: (202) 289-5354  Email: [email-masked]
Web: http://solstice.crest.org/
FTP: ftp.crest.org      Gopher: gopher.crest.org

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From: Christopher Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 23:55 -0700 (PDT)

> development, i come to a very different conclusion than Christopher's 

Greetings Michael,
I participant in several other lists that focus on more theoretical 
themes. Often these forums can deteriorate into "my point of view can 
lick your point of view" exchanges. 

Before that can develop in this thread, let me say that I'm certainly not 
advocating anyone's abandoning their CD-ROM projects to jump on the web 
bandwagon. Rather I was pointing out that all indications are that the 
web (or future manifestation of same) will become a viable conduit for 
the kind of interactive multimedia productions that are now only widely
available on CD-ROM.

As late comers to the digital media game, we decided to anticipate this 
advancement. At our present learning curve and funding, we're going to 
need most of the interim to "consolidate our feces".

I'll bet you an organic peanut ,though, that you're overestimating the time 
frame on this transformation, even in the "3rd world".

Again, the very best of luck to you.
  
Christopher M Robinson

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From: Michael Totten <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 16:23:18 -0400 (EDT)

yes, i have no problem being proved wrong in this case.  in fact, i've 
been chastised by most of the intl people i deal w/ for being too 
optimistic on the use of digital media in dev countries.  i am not 
beholden to any telecommunication system or digital storage media, since 
my main goal is to get as thorough of high-quality content to as many people 
as swiftly as possible, and as cheaply as possible, that promotes 
sustainable energy and resource development.

Michael Totten, Director

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From: Thilo Pfennig <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 06:58:53 +0200

>access, let alone fast web access, in many developing countries.

Not only their! I think even in the developed countries CD-ROM is still a
good solution. It is not the way to transport everything on demand! This
will be the dead of the internet. The storage of information will allways
be important (and internet-Computers have no future!)

>that possible on a CD-ROM.

Yes, it's plus is that it need not to be PAL or NTSC, so one product fils
the need of the whole world.

> Likewise, i would love to get the courses

Yes,... and Bill Mollisons Videos,too.

--
<URL:http://www.kiel.netsurf.de/homes/Thilo.Pfennig/thilo.html>
<URL:mailto:[email-masked]>

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From: Christopher Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 09:11 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 29 May 1996, Thilo Pfennig wrote:

>(and internet-Computers have no future!)

And that e-mail stuff will never catch on either... oops!

Rather than passing so final a judgement on a technology that has yet to 
be implemented, I suggest you repost the above message, oh, around the 
year 2000. It should make for some very interesting responses.

Regards,
That ol' kooky web head
Christopher M Robinson