Stewart Cheifet: O.K., Kelly, let's turn to you.

Electronic Arts has a new game
for the 64 called Skate or Die.

And I want you to tell me about that.

Kelly Flock: This is a multi-event game.

It's kind of like a skateboard simulation,
where you get to do all

of the things you normally
wouldn't do unless you....

Stewart Cheifet: Didn't want to risk
your knees and your elbows.

Kelly Flock: Right. All of the fun
and none of the scars, as we say.

Stewart Cheifet: O.K.
Kelly, show me how you play Skate or Die.

Kelly Flock: O.K. This is a half-pipe.
A regular skateboarding event.

You do it through a combination kick turns
of joystick moves and button controls.

No need to look at the documentation.

Stewart Cheifet: Oh, whoop! You did that on purpose.

Kelly Flock: I wish.
I'll try to get up in the air on this one.

Stewart Cheifet: Alright! Beautiful! Almost!

So, it's a combination
of the joystick and the buttons.

Kelly Flock: Correct.

Stewart Cheifet: Oh, nice move!
... however ...

So there are like
12 different moves you can do in here.

And you get points
for the variety of your routine,

and you get bonus points at the end.

So, I got 8000 points,
which is a pretty good score.

You can get up to 15,000 points in here.

Stewart Cheifet: Kelly,
is Skate or Die available

on any machine other
than the Commodore 64?

Kelly Flock: No.

Right now it's only available
on the Commodore.

It was designed on the Commodore.

And it takes advantage of some unique features
such as the sprites

and the 16 colors
and the three voices.

We're in the process
of developing for other machines.

Gary Killdall: Kelly, are there more things
that you can do besides

just skating on this ramp?

Kelly Flock: There are a total of five events.

The ramp is the only event
modeled on real skateboarding,

but there are couple
of downhill events.

Where you can break bottles
and skate through bushes

and through a drain pipe.
And there is a pool joust event

where you have three computer opponents.
And you get to wop them

with a little marine bopping stick.
It's a pretty fun little game.

Gary Killdall: What about the price?

Kelly Flock: The suggested retail on it is $29.95.

Gary Killdall: And is there something
about the Commodore market?

You just don't get more than $30 for games?

Kelly Flock: As the Commodore market gets older,
it becomes more price sensitive.

There is a lot more product developed for it,
as opposed to say a market like the Amiga,

where there are very few games right now.

Gary Killdall: So this is something
that you're going to be deemphasizing after awhile?

Kelly Flock: No. We make it up in volume....
How do we do it?: Volume.

Stewart Cheifet: Kelly, Malcolm,
thank you very much.

Paul Schindler: In our available minute,
we can't settle the age old question

of whether you really need an encyclopedia
or not, but if you decide you do

for yourself or for your children,
which would you rather have?

These 20 volumes
or this compact disc?

This is the Electronic Encyclopedia.

And it contains all of the text
from the Academic American Encyclopedia.

That's nine million words,
30,000 entries, 60 MB of data!

You can pay a dollar a minute
to access this encyclopedia online

via Dow Jones
or you pay $300 once

and have this in your home.

Now we are not going
to show you any screens today.

Because screens full of text
aren't very interesting to look at.

But I can tell you
that when you give

the Electronic Encyclopedia search program
a word, it finds every article

in the Encyclopedia that includes that word
and tells you the headline of the article.

You can read it, print it,
or put it in a disk file.

Now, be careful what you do
with that disk file,

because you don't
want to plagiarize this work.

Now I know....
In order to use this you need

an $800 CD-ROM player for your PC.

Believe me, this isn't the last
CD-ROM program you'll want.

The Electronic Encyclopedia is $300
from Grolier Electronic Publishing in New York.

For the Computer Chronicles,
I'm Paul Schindler.