The Way Things Work CD-ROM (1994)

To say I was obsessed with this series of books is an understatement. I remember at a very young age being obsessed with how microchips worked, what silicon was etc. I think they’re definitely some part responsible for my need to know how things work, why they work the way they do.

This was a blast to the past I didn’t know I needed. Definitely going to get this going in DOSBox.

What a trip! I remember riding my bike to my local library and spending a lot of time on this!

I also had the book that I loved looking through before bed. Very influential to my future engineering career.

I wonder how accurate the more modern diagrams are after nearly ~20 years?

40% of everything i know, l learned from The Way Things Work.

The other 60% was from The Rudiments of Wisdom, now available online:

https://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com/default.htm

The Internet Archive is such a treasure.

A couple days left on the 2022 "2-to-1 Matching Gift Challenge":

https://archive.org/donate

I loved this book as a kid! I had no idea there was a companion cd!

By the way there is a slightly updated version “the way things work now”. My kids unfortunately don’t enjoy it the way I did.

Recall Christmas Day eating some sweets (which I didn’t like) and playing this (which I did like). I got this for my 6th (?) Christmas. Most memorable things for me were demonstration of gears (using mammoths) and the guy who would pop up if you went AFK.

Also dorling kindersly’s eyewitness soundtrack deserves a special mention.

Reminds me of Microsoft Encarta as well, I spent so many hours using that as a kid.

Got the hardcover for my kids - it's a great book.

Also reminds me of what I grew up with; the How It Works encyclopedia set my grandpa gave me one year. Less whimsical, but was like having the internet before the internet — spent entire days in those books.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_Science_and_...

Some other Macaulay books are: Cathedral, City, and Pyramid.

This book by David Macauley was one of my favourites as a kid growing up. My father bought me a copy at the Science Museum in the very early nineties.

They released an updated version, and I snapped it up as soon as I learned about it. It’s not only updated but has a lot of new things as well: https://amzn.to/3VnjtKF

I miss books like this and the Klutz Press books. They explore things in way that still instills wonder and excitement.

My father had this CD.

I remember using it as a kid.

You could really select anything (or seemingly anything) and have its inner-workings explained in a nice set of animations!

I still have fresh in my mind of how a car speed-o-meter used to work.

I spent way too much time on this CD as a kid. The little animated demos were wonderful.

This and Usborne Kid's Encyclopedia are forever etched into my brain.