Acorn User printed a spectacular 4 page review of "The Coniston Fells" CD-ROM in their December 2001 issue. Unfortunately it was a sell-out edition, so we're afraid you will have to settle for our text-only version below. Note that while "The Coniston Fells" was designed for PC use it will work on Acorn computers, and there is some technical information part way through which PC Users may well wish to skip, so we've put a link in over this section.

When we did the magazine feature on digital imaging and brought in advertisers from that area little did we imagine that we would find a gem of a product ready for use on RISC OS.
  NVM Digital advertise in video magazines promoting their copyright-free music which can be used in professional, semiprofessional and amateur video work -- it's not expensive and we take a look at that in the panel.
  However it was something that was slipped in with their music sampler CD that attracted my attention, first as (well I admit it) something amusing, but then I realised something rather good.
  You may remember the Frontier 2000 CD-ROM from Cambridgeshire Software House, it combined the history of the Carlisle area with detective work looking for clues to locations in the border regions. In fact this product encouraged very successful family holidays near to Carlisle.
  NVM Digital have their own answer to Frontier 2000 and it is their Fell Walks on CD-ROM series. Although it has PCs and references to Intemet Explorer and Netscape Navigator plastered all over it, the whole system works well on a RISC OS machine -- with a couple of caveats.
Go to end of RISC OS technical
  I will cover the caveats first and then get on with the CD itself. First, you have to have CDROMFS from Warm Silence Software because the CD uses the Windows long filenames format, RISC OS 4+ may work as well but that has not been tested.
  Second, and a little more irritating, is that neither Fresco nor Oregano can handle the spaces in some of the filenames which means that if you want to access some of the sub-directories you have to resort to opening up the CD directories and finding a suitable HTML file within the directory and proceeding from there.
   Oregano is slightly better here because at least it tells you what the complete filename is, whereas Fresco just says it can't open the file without actually saying which one is causing the problem.
  That over with let's get on with the interesting bit: What's on the CD? In this case we had the Coniston Fells CD, some of the material (such as the safety section) will be repeated on the other CDs.

What you get

The contents of the CD is broken up into several specific areas, three main ones and six others. The first group is composed of History, Safety and the Walks themselves. 

The history section is only a single HTML page but gives an overview of the Coniston area from 5500BC up to about 1800 -- as the page remarks almost sadly there have been very substantial local events in that period apart from the Ulverston Bread Riot (1800) and the Newfield Riot (1904).
  The various sections include the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, Iron Age, the Romans, the Dark Ages, Vikings, Normans (including the frequently changing Scotland/England border), Henry VIII, industrialisation and more North/South conflicts.
  There are quite a few picture resources here although this is one of the smallest sections on the whole CD. From here you also get links to the geographic sections and Donald Campbell.
  The Campbell section covers the life of Donald and his father Malcolm. Naturally the fatal crash of Bluebird in 1967 is covered since it occurred on Coniston Water, but this very up-to-date CD also contains information about the recovery of the Bluebird and possibly Donald Campbell's body this year.
  For Geography you get sections on the geology of the area, the coppermines, slate, the Coniston railway and flowers you might meet while walking.
  Not content with just explaining about the copper that was mined here for centuries the CD tells you how to get to the mines from Coniston village -- while also cautioning you about correct behaviour in the area. Following these pages you can walk all over looking into mines, there is a reference section of books for anyone wanting to know more.
  For geology you get another whole series of pages that go into great detail and have lots of pictures, most of them of excellent quality. The Coniston Fells are very photogenic.
  How much can you write about slate? Well there are four pages on it here though much of it is on the history and the quarries around and about. You can explore the old mine buildings but once again the safety aspect is stressed.
  I can't say I am big on flowers, and here we have 44 varieties covered in fair detail, including the stinging nettle -- something you do tend to come across while walking unfortunately. Even this has some interesting facts associated with it, but you will have to get the CDROM to find out what.

Tourist trap

If you go walking in Coniston you are a tourist and there is a whole section on touristy things to see and do. However having holidayed around here I have to say that really it is not your classic tourist area, not if you like theme parks, amusement arcades or the clubbing scene.
  It is more your walk around outside and look at things, get on a boat and look at things or go into a building and look at things kind of place. The tourist information section reflects this with museums and boating opportunities. Not that I'm complaining, I like walking around and looking at things.
  Nine towns and villages are described in a little detail if they have some particular feature of interest -- more walking around and looking at things -- they are Coniston, Ulverston, Seathwaite, Broughton in Furness, Hawkshead, Little Langdale, Ulpha and Torver. You are also advised to check out a publication called "The Place Names of Cumbria" if you are interested in the etymology of names like these.
  In the Photo Gallery there is a huge number of additional images including such items as Blocked Fox Hole and Burial Cairn on Torver Low Common. In addition to these single shots there is a selection of panoramas with images stitched together such as the Tarn Hows in snow which I have reproduced on these
pages.
   Another section is the hyperindex which provides links to every nameable item on the entire CD providing multiple links where appropriate -- for example Banniside Stone Circle can be found on one of the walks and as well as in the Photo Gallery. Useful if you know what you want but don't know where to look.
  Finally, under the sections of "lesser" interest is the music. You will need the PD program SoundCon to play the 96Mb WAV file of mood music to go with the CD. You don't have to play it and it's not going to set your soul on fire, but it is 18 minutes long and pleasant enough.
  If you play it while viewing the CD you may find that it gets a bit jittery with Oregano -- it becomes a pointless exercise if you are using Fresco as it cuts out completely while this browser builds a page.

Walkabout

Before I get down to the walks themselves I will take a brief look at the section on safety. The safety instructions are amusing but firm, they explain quite clearly why it is a really bad idea to wander around the fells without the proper clothing, footwear and equipment. While giving good advice on what you should be wearing. There is also a section on the Country Code which everyone should know -- don't you?
  There are 15 walks in all rated in terms of distance (on a scale of 1 to 3) and degree of climbing/quality of surface involved (rated A to C). The walks range from a couple of 1As to some 3Bs and 3Cs -- real toughies. Plus some of the walks involve locations that you can fall off, places with the name "crag" usually have sudden drops associated with them.
  From the walks menu you select the one you want to look at -- we will take the easiest one, Holme Fell from Tilberthwaite. This takes you to the introductory page which gives a short overview of the type of walk in terms of terrain. This walk is relatively easy but there are still some steep parts and places you can fall from. Who said walking was a safe pastime?
  From this page you can go to the location map which shows you where the walk is in relation to Coniston, although there is only one map for all the walks and you will just have to find the appropriate place names yourself. Click on Start to go to the first page of the walk.
  The description of every part of the walk is accompanied by photographs showing what you should be on the lookout for in terms of landmarks. All the walks are on public right of ways so you shouldn't run into any problems with irate landowners, though there is even advice about what to do if that does happen.
   This particular walk takes you up to a summit from which you can view Coniston Water on a clear day -- and if you can't see it what are you doing walking about the Fells on a day like this?
  Rather taking an Acorn A4 computer with an external CD-ROM drive and a lot of car batteries to power it all, you can instead opt for a specially design printout page which gives you short clear instructions and the little map that you don't find on the location page. Print this out and take it with you.
   And there it is. What a nice little CD-ROM. Definitely worth the price and with foot-and-mouth slowly dwindling into memory it's time to think about getting those hiking boots out and giving them a good rub down already for the spring.