 Ladies
and Gentlemen - draw near and pay attention.
You now have a great chance to learn about the human body - to find out how it works - to help understand a medical problem you or someone else has - to enjoy a professional program that teaches AND entertains - to have Adam and Eve take you by the hand and show you what makes the human body work. This CD/ROM program is fantastic. It installs with a click or two and uses about 10 MB of your hard drive. The program requires 8 MB RAM and a 486/33 or better CPU as well as SVGA and a sound card and any of the Windows programs.The CD also contains the Mackintosh version if you have that type of computer.Thus endeth the technical stuff. This magnificent program proves a couple of points that our mothers told us; "Beauty is only skin deep" and "We're all alike under the skin". You can easily prove this since this program gives you the ability to go inside the human body a layer at a time. A simple click on the scroll bar causes the pictured human body to shed its' layers - one at a time until you reach the bones and connective tissues. Let me be up front with a very important point - as you install the program you are given the option to choose a "modesty setting". If you have children not ready for full nudity you have the ability to have fig leaves strategically placed on the male or female body on display. The fig leaves do not leave the screen until you have gone several layers down into the body and the genitalia and breasts have disappeared. If you do not choose to set this option you can either reinstall the program and select it OR you can select fig leaves from one of the viewing options BUT the fig leaves can be removed with a click of the mouse. The illustration also allows you to choose four types of exterior skin color but the first click on the scroll bar shows that color disappears - that we are all the same regardless of exterior appearance. The illustrated person can be rotated for a different view - and you can select certain areas of the body to identify and the program will also pronounce the technical terms to help you learn them. You have several options to consider; among them are "Anatomy" which is the tour of the body that I've outlined above. The "Family Scrapbook" is a guided tour conducted by (who else?) Adam and Eve. "Animations" are the other choice available at the menu. The Family Scrapbook tour is a system-by-system tour of the body. It includes narrations, video clips and medical experts describing the systems. It covers things such as heartburn, snoring and has its' own corny brand of humor to go along with it. Learning does take place and it is fun. (Did you know that vibration of the soft palate and uvula causes snoring)? The Animations are first rate and the quality of the picture and the sound is impressive. You can easily spend several hours just moving from one point to another as you go from system to system. The program has several quizzes built into it and they certainly review the subject matter. You will receive 10 questions - multiple guess, true/false and fill in (drag the answer) the blanks. When you finish the quiz, lights flash and music plays and you are declared a "Repromiester" (if you do the quiz on reproduction, for example). The quiz is not easy but if you have paid attention to the subject matter you'll do just fine. Besides, like all user-friendly programs, the quiz will give you multiple chances to get the answer correct so everybody will pass. A.D.A.M. is one product from A.D.A.M. Software, Inc 1600 RiverEdge Parkway, Suite 800, Atlanta GA 30328. There phone number is 800-755-2326 and they have a very nice web site at www.adam.com where you can connect from the program itself if you want additional details on the area that you're working in. The company tells me that the recommended price is $39.95 so don't forget to look around town and see if you can get it using the Alamo PC discount. The quality of the program shows the attention to detail that you would expect from a company that produces programs to assist medical students to learn anatomy and they also make programs for schools that include a teaching guide and are suitable for grades 5 and up. This is a quality product and is worth owning. By the way - trivia buffs - A.D.A.M. stands for Animated Dissection of Anatomy for Medicine.
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