Microsoft (and Bibliographisches Institut/Brockhaus)
LexiROM 2.0

Release:	1996
Systems:	16/32 bit Windows
Requirements:	Multimedia PC with 486SX/33MHz CPU or better, Windows 3.1 or 95 or NT 3.51 or later, 4MB RAM, 5MB free HDD space, Double Speed CD-ROM drive, SVGA graphics with 256 colours, sound card recommended, mouse recommended
Order number:	0996 Artikelnummer 06932
ISBN:		3-411-06931-7

Online books collection for writing tasks. LexiROM is an exclusive German market version of Microsoft Bookshelf 96, with slightly shifted emphasis on language, rather than facts. It features Microsoft Office integration and QuickShelf, a tiny toolbar that allows quick program access and switching even on Windows 3.1.

Contains the following books:
• Meyers Lexikon in drei Bänden (encyclopedia)
• Duden – Die deutsche Rechtschreibung (orthographic dictionary, now 1996 spelling reform compliant)
• Duden – Das Fremdwörterbuch (foreign/loan words dictionary)
• Duden – Die sinn- und sachverwandten Wörter (thesaurus)
• Langenscheidts Taschenwörterbuch Englisch (pocket dictionary German-English)
• Microsoft Weltaltas (world atlas)

Because disk space was expensive in the 1990s, only runtime files were to be installed and the CD has to be present in the drive in order to use LexiROM.

The world atlas is not comparable with Microsoft’s Encarta World Atlas; it rather is a bitmap collection with hypertext links. Best resolution is state-level. It’s far more important that this is the first version of LexiROM with currently valid German spelling rules, following the 1996 reform.

Fun fact: This product was developed for Windows 95; but this application appears in a modern, flat post-95-era look, combined with Windows 95 window controls even on Windows 3.1. While most Microsoft products of 1996 were strictly 32bit, reference programs like this were kept compatible with older computers that sometimes still ran Windows 3.1.