CURLING up in bed with your Macintosh Powerbook may not be a cosy image but with the list of bestsellers available on floppy disk, it is a reality.
If you are feeling more lively and are prepared to sit at a PC, with the help of a CD-ROM (Read-Only Memory) drive, you can be a more demanding reader. Ask your interactive, multimedia CD-ROM book to back up its grey-matter text with colourful videos, photo-realist graphics and animation, sound or any number of background references and annotations, and it will oblige.
About 50 titles, including the latest Spielberg movie hit Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, are available on floppy disk through Wanderlust Books in Central, as are CD publications. Wanderlust has six floppies and 12 CDs in stock but will order any of the 50 floppies or hundreds of CDs that are available through Hongkong-based distributor Asia-CD.
The floppies, from US electronic publisher Voyager, include fiction, poetry and text-oriented non-fiction titles. The CDs focus on classic fiction, travel, art, history, science and reference material but also include, The Madness of Roland, self-proclaimed first fiction written for CD-ROM.
The potential demand for floppy fiction titles is questionable, although 25,000 readers who have bought Jurassic Park on floppy might argue otherwise. Voyager's fiction series on floppies was inspired by the acceptance of the Macintosh's portable, compact Powerbooks and Notebook laptop computers (IBM-compatible floppies are about one year away).
At $150, the floppies are competitive with paperbacks. Yet most lounge lizards are not screen addicts and find it more relaxing to lie down with a paper back.