Software for kids is not something I usually write about, but I'm so knocked out by Math Workshop, a charming new CD-ROM from Broderbund, I have to tell you about it. It uses innovative multimedia techniques (like bowling gorillas and boogie-woogie music) to demystify basic arithmetic for children ages 6 to 12--but that's just the beginning. It also uses animation and interactive graphics to teach advanced concepts like fractions, and it even delves into difficult stuff like pattern recognition, spatial visualization, logic, and estimation. All the drills and games reward you with multimedia events--even the Help character (a cute little girl named Poly) is amusing. I bet it will be almost impossible to tear this away from any bright child. One cheer plus one cheer plus one cheer equals...three cheers!

Castles in the Air

I'm not sure how many 'castle freaks' there are in the world, but they will go wild for Castles II: Siege and Conquest. This CD-ROM combines a multimedia seminar on the theory and practice of castle building (borrowed from a BBC documentary) with a battle game that's halfway between SimCity and Battle Chess. The interface is primitive, but the sense of inhabiting medieval France makes the struggle worthwhile.

You start with a video tour of ten of the greatest castles ever built, complete with architectural sketches and helicopter flyovers. A narrator explains the military and tactical trade-offs of various design details.

You can use these classic castle designs for your abode (or create your own) when you start to play the battle-game part of Castles II. Then, using that castle, along with the troops and battle engines you build, you set out on a campaign of conquest through medieval Europe. As in SimCity, however, you will have to take some time out from slaying enemies and stealing horses to establish a thriving economy that can support both military exploits and construction expenses. In fact, you can't even start building your castle until you've gathered wood, mined iron, and recruited military troops.

Although the video graphics in the documentary section are first-rate, the rest of the game looks far less impressive. Most of the game graphics are semianimated, comic-book-style drawings, and the battles themselves are fought by stick figures. Still, if deciding between a round and a square turret at the southeast corner of your keep makes your heart beat faster, a few stick figures won't spoil the fun.

Information Please

There are more than 80 million phone numbers in the United States, and up until recently the only way to find one that wasn't already in your Rolodex (or the local phone book) was a series of expensive calls to directory assistance.

Now, three new CD-ROM business tools--ProPhone for Windows, PhoneDisk PowerFinder, and 70 Million Households Phone Book--are making life on the phone line a whole lot faster.

ProPhone stores 80 million numbers on five CD-ROMs, sorted by region. You use a selection screen to set your search parameters, then the program goes to work. You can call up multiple phone and address listings selected by name, address, area code, ZIP code, or type of business--or any combination thereof. (Searching by anything but name is pretty slow, though.) Click the World icon at the top of the screen, and MapLinx Lite (included at no extra cost) displays a map of the United States showing each highlighted listing. There's even an auto-dialer.

The five CD-ROMs of PhoneDisk PowerFinder hold over 91 million listings. As with ProPhone, you can cull phone numbers by name, address, area code, zip code, or type of business--but because PhoneDisk features an auto-scrolling search function, it's blindingly fast. As you type in letters or numbers, PhoneDisk moves its highlight bar right to the name you need. It took me about three keystrokes (and 10 seconds) to compile a list of every record store in New Orleans--including Eddie's Three-Way (it's also a bar and a shoeshine parlor). Printing and file export options are basic but serviceable. My only complaint is that the spring 1994 edition did not have me in it, although I've lived at the same address for several years. PhoneDisk is designed for DOS, but it runs happily in a DOS box under Windows--at a blazing clip, too. It's my favorite of the three, even if it does cost $249.

70 Million Households Phone Book is underpowered. It only takes up two disks and at $69 it's quite affordable. But it lacks some important features: You can't search by area code or type of business, and after you view a phone number your only export option is to print it--one number per page. You have to guess which states are on which disk, too. I wasted five minutes searching in vain for Louisiana numbers on the 'East' disk; 70 Million Households thinks Louisiana is in the West.

Star Wars Technia and Trivia

At first glance, LucasArts' Star Wars Screen Entertainment looks like a cynical attempt to wring one last quart of Grade A from Lucas's main cash cow. But this inexpensive, disk-based divertissement (it's only $35.95) is a revealing compendium of behind-the-scenes technia and trivia, and will probably be of keen interest to filmmaking fanatics as well as R2D2 diehards.

Among many other things, Star Wars Screen Entertainment is an After Dark-compatible screen saver. But it's also a collection that includes working storyboards for all the composited sequences, an encyclopedia of trivia, full spaceship schematics, Star Wars posters, and a copy of the complete screenplay. You better love Star Wars a lot, because if you load all 14 modules you'll need 9MB of hard disk space.

Michael Goodwin is a contributing editor for PC World. He can be reached on PC World Online