Re: Alfa Romeo: View from the Mouth of the Dragon

[Bernie & Diana Bennett <bennetts@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

John & All Digesti:

The recent discussion of _View_from_the_Mouth_of_the_Dragon_ prompted me
to look again at the copy I bought at the Alfa convention this summer
and tested hastily in Santa Fe during our stay after the convention or
on our journey home.  My recollections of the product did not mesh with
the comments posted to this forum so I dug out my copy and looked at it
this afternoon and evening. (I've got a stack of CD's sitting here not
frequently used, books unread, a Linux (Leen-ux) installation on my hard
drive waiting for some free time so my digging out the copy has nothing
to say about my first (and now second) strong positive impressons).

Yes, the interface is novel; but, logical, as they say in the computer
world RTFM (read the freakin' manual) but perfectly logical and the rich
hypertext and animated illustrated early history (pre-WWII) history of
Alfa comes to life.  You can page back and forth, morph views of the
different engines from photo to cross section diagrams of different
sections of the engines.  Well the fact that I killed the last 4 hours
reading chapter 8 and the Epilogue is testament to a rich texture and
layers of content.

Quality of the graphics is good.  Question does anyone have a really big
screen monitor and 1600X1200 resolution.  If I did could I read the
legends and annotations on the engine drawings (assuming I had the
Italian vocabulary?)

I'm not a historian.  I can't comment on the facts presented.  The time
I read it all the way through (not stopping for most of the
illustrations and hyperlinks) I didn't find anything that conflicted
with the little I know.  But I like View from the mouth... and hope
those of you who have it will give it a second chance.  I would love to
see a post war version done as well as this one.  Kudos to S. Scott
Callan, Kip Crosby and Tom Ellis?

The address on the CD is www.gearshift.com or PO Box 791, Pleasanton, CA
USA 94566

No interest in this org; just a satisfied customer.

Bernie Bennett
Brenham, TX

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