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I still have amazing memories of playing with Dorling Kindersley CD ROMs as a kid

The Way Things Work.

Encyclopedia of Space and Universe.

Encyclopedia of Nature.

And looking back at those on YouTube, they were pretty great! There is nothing like that in iPad era for kids. What comes close are those interactive iBooks that Apple tried to push when iBooks were new, but they never really caught on

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And my personal favourite, Eyewitness Earth Quest! I extracted the pictures of stones from the CD-ROM and used them as desktop backgrounds for a while. I found Castle Explorer, another Dorling Kindersly release, also very educational, albeit nigh impossible as a game! (Thus it also taught me not to consider spying as a profession, be that in Norman times or the present day...)

I think the entire Eyewitness franchise, from the original books to the interactive games, can rightfully be considered a masterpiece both in multimedia and education.

The VHS were pretty underwhelming, which I could tell even as a kid

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