NAUTILUS: FORERUNNER OF MAGAZINES TO COME 

For several centuries we have had magazines (from the military magazine, "storehouse of ammunition") bringing us information ("storehouse of information") in print form with illustrations added showing life in our time. Until recently magazines consisted primarily of smaller sheets of paper usually under 100 pages, bound together. These served us well for several centuries. Available today is an electronic/photonic magazine holding vast amounts of information to feed several senses: print, pictures, illustrations, sound, light, color, animation and with not only one-way communication but with almost-instant feedback ability. The name is NAUTILUS, after that many-chambered spiral shell of the tropical mollusk. NAUTILUS holds 600,000,000 bytes of information on one 4.5-inch compact disc. At eight bytes per letter, that's 75,000,000 words. My disc books hold 50 columns like this one, about 750 words each. A year's 50 columns total approximately 37,500 words, and that fills one double-density computer disc. During the last six years I've filled six floppy discs -- 3,750 pages containing 300 words per page. To fill one issue of NAUTILUS I would have to write, at that speed, for the next 2,000 years! Got the message? A CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) can hold a lot of information. An earlier column some years ago explained how the 21 volumes of the electronic version of the Grolier Encyclopedia would fit on one such disc.

Like its namesake, the Nautilus, this magazine is a many-chambered shell. Inside the shell are sections or departments, just like in old print magazines. You can browse through NAUTILUS just as you have done holding a magazine in the past, but now the "pages" appear on your computer screen. You can read, view animation or illustrations in color and listen to spoken words, music or sounds. You can skip through this magazines or you can penetrate in depth. Great depth. You can hear, see, and read about famous composers. What can be included in any issue of NAUTILUS is, for practical purposes, limited only by the imagination of its editors, staff and reader/viewers.

The opening NAUTILUS index page of this revue issue lists the features of the month. First is a feature interview, in sound, on the new Macintosh System 7 Operating System, of particular interest to computer operators. Next is the "Desktop Publishing" section containing software demos and presentations for a wide variety of DTP (desktop publishing) activities. NAUTILUS also has newspaper, radio and tv features. The "newsroom" (they call it "Newsbytes") features numerous recent news stories of interest to the type of person that subscribes to this "magazine". The current issue lists 631 of them. About the same as in several full-size daily papers. The "Multimedia" section offers Fractals, Logos and Movies.

Another 13 additional sections pop up when you hit "More". Motion Control, Soundbytes, Photography, Health Sciences, Press Room and XNet Entertainment and More. Subscribers can submit "Letters to the Editor" section via E-mail, Fax and Voice Mail. Yes, they still have a traditional telephone too. The CD-ROM Directory lists what's new and available in that format. And they now carry 10 Dr. Tomorrow columns in each monthly issue. A PET scan picture of my brain will speak to you if you wish. What will they think of next!

More Information -- including a free $15 sample issue on CD-ROM of the magazine NAUTILUS, contact: Carol Williams, Managing Editor, NAUTILUS, 7001 Discovery Blvd., Dublin, OH 43017-3299. Phone: Customer Service: 800-637-3472 or 614/766-3150 Fax: 614/761-4110 Voice Mail: 614/761-4112 If you don't yet have a CD-ROM player (they also handle musical discs), worry not. Prices are dropping rapidly. They are becoming widely available for US$150 to $300.

Save a million trees, buy NAUTILUS. Each issue holds the equivilent of 1,000 300-page books.

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