That would have given him access to the entire contents of the 20-volume OED. And having them on the computer screen has many advantages.
We suspect Ms Vickers is confused, and the real reason for Mr Golightly’s preferring the books was the sad history of the CD-ROM version .
Way back in the early-90s we’d bought a copy of version 1 of the Second Edition of the OED on CD. Despite the fact that it cost $950, and the original software was slightly buggy, it was a delight. It went far beyond checking on the meaning and spelling of words, allowing you to explore the origin of words and phrases.
Although Oxford University Press at the time was telling customers it didn’t recommend putting the database on to a hard drive, and claiming there was no significant advantage in doing so, in fact it happily resided on a hard drive, where it made for much speedier searches. You could network that version with other computers. It even worked on a Macintosh.
Then Windows XP came on the scene, and our software stopped working. We couldn’t get OUP to address the problems, so, in a moment of frustration, we disposed of our copy.
Later OUP sent us a new version of the Second Edition of the OED. Our early hopes for a return to Word Paradise quickly evaporated. Although this version did work under Windows XP, it had gained a bulky interface, and lost the features which made it such an attractive alternative to all those heavy books.
It was obvious that OUP had become paranoid about the possibility of having its valuable data stolen. The new release could only access the data from the CD. Networking was no longer permitted. A later version allowed you to copy information to the hard drive, but every 70 to 90 days it required you to re-validate from the CD. Unfortunately, glitches in the copy protection system meant the validation sometimes failed. The “improvements” killed our enthusiasm.
It wasn’t until much later that we discovered fixes for all the problems we’d had running version 1 under Windows XP, at a site established by an apparent dictionary fanatic, Robert Holmgren.
Holmgren’s discoveries meant we had to track down a second-hand replacement for version 1. Fortunately, at the time, there seemed to be no shortage of disenchanted users, so it wasn’t too costly.
Holmgren was convinced that version 1 remains the most useful release, but he had some good news for users of versions 2 and 3 of the OED software too. He found ways all the versions could be run from a hard drive under Windows XP and earlier Microsoft operating systems. More recently, he reports that version 1.10 will still run under Windows Vista, under administrator privileges in Windows XP compatibility mode; that version 1 works on the (Intel) Macintosh platform using Crossover Mac and that version 3 happily runs on Macs under Parallels, or VirtualPC.
What’s even better news is that OUP has only recently had a change of heart. They’ve released a software patch called “Release 2”, or version 3.1.1 which means that the only form of OED that you can still buy as a new product, is no longer crippled.
If you have a version 3.1 product that is dated 2004, you can obtain the update from OUP Tech Support (ep.help@oup.com), and gain access to the first version of the OED since v1.11 that can be freely installed on a hard disk without irritations.
In Australia, the electronic version of OED is particularly expensive, at $725, compared to $608 ( 250 pounds) in the UK. The cheapest source, however, is via the US specialist retailer. Elernaid. The latest version is currently on sale for $US198, which is $US100 below the normal price. With $13.60 shipping, that makes a total of $211.60, which is quite a bargain for those of us who, like Mr Golightly, want to take our dictionaries on holidays.
For saner individuals, the electronic versions of the Macquarie Dictionary are probably better value. You can buy the Macquarie dictionary, thesaurus and spell package on CD for $69.95. It doesn’t approach the number of words in the OED, but the interface is vastly superior, allowing you to drag and drop a word onto a small desktop icon. And for crossword fans, you can fill in missing characters with an asterisk, which is a great aid for finding the answer to 1 Across and 7 Down.
You can subscribe to an online version for an annual subscription of $18.65, but we had a good deal of difficulty getting through to it last week. Like us, Mr Golightly would no doubt find that would spoil his holiday.