MICROSOFT DINOSAURS +1Clk Windows 11 10 8 7 Vista XP Install

Actual Game

The Game
They say everything old eventually becomes new again. It must be true, because you can't get much older, yet more in fashion, than dinosaurs. From children's playful TV pals to big-screen terrors, these ancient creatures seem to fascinate us more than ever. Despite the renewed interest, however, myths and misconceptions persist. In 1994 Microsoft helped bridge the gap between paleontology and pop culture with Dinosaurs, an interactive journey that takes you back in time.

For a 90s era title the program packs a surprising amount of information - including full-motion video, fantastic audio, and a gallery of scanned artwork. The main program features more than 1000 illustrations, 200 articles, and 800 pop-up windows. For dinosaur lovers, about the only thing better than this would be living next door to New York's American Museum of Natural History.

The program allows the curious to explore in four ways: Atlas, Timeline, Families, and Index. For the timid, there's also Guided Tour, which is hosted by "Dino" Don Lessem, founder of The Dinosaur Society and editor of the Dino Times. His soft, folksy style uses humor to hook our curiosity and expert knowledge to keep us following his lead on 16 different tours. You can abandon a tour at any time if you find a subject that piques your interest. Unfortunately, there are no video bookmarks, which would allow you to quickly return to specific points of interest.

Atlas takes you where dinosaurs roamed, areas divided into six geographic regions: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Learn how each species adapted to its particular climate and social order. A fascinating sidebar, The Shifting Earth, offers a crash course in plate tectonics. Here you'll see how land movement created new continents, restricting animal migration and possibly dooming some species to early extinction.

In addition to the interesting sidebars that offer explorers more information, most of the program's screens sport links to additional information. Click next to Dimetrodon's sail to learn how this "reptile radiator" helped regulate the giant lizard's body temperature. Branch off yet again to discover creatures with similar radiator sails, such as the warm-blooded Spinosaurus. Like any good reference, these hot spots allow your imagination to wander. There are no wrong moves or dead ends, and to backtrack, you simply click on the back icon.

Timeline begins with a graphic representation of the earth's history, divided into four major eras: Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. Each era is then broken into small chunks of time, called periods. You'll learn that all dinosaurs lived during the Mesozoic era - divided into the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods - roughly 160 million years, yet merely a drop in the cosmic bucket. When viewing such a grand scale, you can't help but be humbled by man's meager stake on terra firma. The Mesozoic era holds many links to the Atlas section, particularly the Cretaceous period, when dramatic plate movement and rising seas helped isolate many species. The end of this era saw the end of the dinosaurs. The program offers several dramatic theories to explain the cause of their extinction, as well as clues to some species that may have survived.

The section on families proves especially interesting for fledgling dinosaur explorers. It teaches the difference between the two main orders of dinosaurs - saurischians and ornithischians - designated, remarkably, by hip structure. You'll also discover that some creatures often mistaken for dinosaurs were actually reptiles, such as the flying Pterodactylus and Quetzalcoatlus. The who's who of dinosaurs is in this section, including the meanest (Tyrannosaurus Rex, of course), biggest (the plant-eating Sauropods), and smallest (the chicken-sized Compsognathus), among others.

Are you tongue-tied by these strange, multisyllabic names? You're not alone. That's why the designers included spoken pronunciations, one of the program's best features. Click on the speaker icon next to particular words or phrases, and you'll hear them pronounced in crystal clarity. Cindy Shrieve provides the voice; she also speaks the introductions to sidebar stories.

The fourth navigational option, Index, allows speedy access to every major article and species. Entries are both alphabetized and graphically displayed. Browsing through Index is also an excellent way to find articles on subjects you might otherwise miss, such as the fascinating art of skeletal reconstruction.

The program also includes six mini-movies. Culled from the PBS series "The Dinosaurs," most feature quality animated watercolors, sound effects, and narration. The centerpiece film, The Hunt, was taken from Phil Tippett's 1984 work, Prehistoric Beasts. Filmed with stop-motion models, intricate backgrounds, and horrific sound effects, this animation depicts a deadly encounter between a Triceratops and a T. Rex.

Both highly entertaining and educational, Microsoft Dinosaurs is a wonderful blast from the past.