The Way Things Work (1994)
Computers

@256

#Alt4You description of image:

A page from a guide explaining how to use computers (presumably taken from a CD-Rom). There is a cute cartoon drawing of a mammoth or mastodon sitting down, wearing glasses, using a desktop PC.

@FediThing @256 It's from this CD-ROM: https://archive.org/details/the-way-things-work-cdrom. (The images are BMP, so they can be opened without installing the software.)

I think a Polish version of this was one of my favorite educational CD-ROMs of my childhood. (Unless there were other works with mammoths.)

The Way Things Work CD-ROM : David Macaulay : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Multimedia CD-ROM for Windows 3.1.

Internet Archive

@mtjm @256

Ahhh... yeah, thanks! Didn't that author put mammoths into all of the illustrations?

@FediThing @mtjm @256 before cd rom this was a glorious book in the Richard Scarry Ilk. Love it. Thank you!
@256 Wow!! I had this book as a child. The picture of the elephant (mastodon?) unlocked the memory.
@256 Oh, this book was so good! I had the slightly-updated version, "The NEW Way Things Work". Utterly delightful.
@256 I have actually read this book, but newer edition (?) and translated

UPD: And this screenshot seems to be an interactive software version of the thing instead
@256 ahhh so many hours of my childhood with this software. I could redraw the laser and pumps from memory even today.
@256 That was one of my favorite books back then!

@256 I had a copy of that growing up!

I wonder if the illustrator is still alive, and would be open to doing a guide to Mastodon in the same style (with the mammoths, of course!).

@256 I had the original hardcover version of this and would flip through it for hours. Never got the CD-ROM.
@256 mastodon users be like
@256 @oceanotter I still have the CD-Rom of that! Doubt anything I own would run it though.
@256 i think i remember this book!
@256 false, computers do not work.
@256 As a computer science professor, I have to say, even after all these years, this is still the best explanation of how computers work!
@256 even back then they knew of the importance of Mastodon!
@256 THAT DOESNT EXPLAIN THE WAY THE THING WORKS
@256 I loved that book as a child!
@256 I had that book and I loved it. So many mammoths.
@256 I loved this book in my childhood.
@256 It took that Mastodon almost 20 years, but we're finally there. And it's great. 😆
@256 but how does it work without RGB?
@256 @kalleboo dang i remember this graphic. Must be from some child's encyclopedia cd?
@256 I loved this software!!!
@256 Actually, strictly speaking, I think I had "The Way Things Work Two" from 1996ish?