Customer Reviews

The Civil War CD-Rom: The Official Records of the War of Rebellion (128 vol. on one cd)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the cheapest way to own the entire 128 volumes or books on the War of the Rebellion. You can made a search for a particular incident and generally find that incident after a little work. That's the good parts about this CD, now the bad. Within this CD there are thousands upon thousands of spelling mistakes, but fear not the owner of this CD can generally correct those mistakes and save the file to the computer. It seems like the people who transcribed this work did not know how to use the space bar on the computer since there are uncountable number of run on's . It would probably take months to correct all the spelling mistakes and run on of words. My first impression was that the 130,000 pages must have been transcribed by a 6th grader who was not concerned with mistakes. The original books were written in Series and Volumes but for some unknown reason the people who transcribed the books decided to make changes and list everything by campaigns. Very confusing since there is not rhyme or reason. Within this CD there is a Shakespearean plays, what it has to do with the rebellion is beyond me.
I spent over 60 hours removing all the garbage, separating all the campaigns, and changing it back into the original 128 volume and then saving it in a Word Document File, now it's extremely easy to make a search. The original search tools was a terrible joke, but worked fairly well if you wanted to spend twice the time as normal to make your searches. I took the original CD and threw it into my junk CD drawer where it now belongs.
Still overall the package was worth the price, and it's even a better package if you're willing to take the time to remove the garbage and put everything back in the original format.

The layout of the disk is a bit confusing on how to operate it. I am finding it tricky at times to find the information that I would like. They have changed the format from its original series-volume orgainization and have organized it into campaigns. This does not bother me too much, but the search engine on the disk to find key words leavs something to be desired. Overall though the price is worth it considering a new set in the printed version was around $3,000.

I purchased this CD and the accompanying guide to assist me while writing my master's thesis. I was immediately disappointed to see how user un-friendly it was to use and the support via phone was not what is expected in 2011. The guide was simply a beginners overview of the OR, not a user specific tool. Both products were quickly returned. Be advised that only about 50% of your purchase price will be refunded.

This is a must for anyone doing any type of in-depth military research on the civil war. I happend to be using it for genealogy purposes. The problems have been identified by others. The search tool is not particularly great and sometimes you have to search in several different ways to tease out the information you are looking for. Despite this drawback, there's really nothing else out there at this price point that even comes close from an electronic perspective. I found it particularly helpful for researching specific units serving in the war.

This cd is a necessity for Civil War research. The new software is great and is easy to use. I spoke to H_Bar Enterprises after I bought it to ask about the Name combinations tool and the Unit Name tool that is part of the software. The lady I spoke to was very helpful and informative. These two tools are a wonderful addition to the usual search software. They use the HBar Reader software that is an improvement on the Folio VIP software that was previously used.

CD Rom arrived and initially I thought I had made a mistake as I am sure the blurb I read when ordering said nothing about it not working with 64 bit systems (I have Win 7 64 bit).

Anyway went through the process of installing to find you have to e mail or ring the US to get an activiation code. Got a prompt repy allowing for time difference.

Ran as Adminstrator in Win XP compatability mode and it seems to be OK.

Interface not as friedly as old version - all records now filed under campaigns and not volume. You load a campaign file and then either search or just browse from there.

The CD Rom is a wonderful way to do your Civil War research and the online support was great. The person on the line was funny and interested in helping. Great buy!