Posted on 07/20/2009 12:11:37 AM PDT by Swordmaker
If you make your living with words, and some of us around here at TUAW do, then a good dictionary is what you need.
The mother of all dictionaries, the Oxford, is now available for Macs (PPC and Intel) on CD with half a million words, and the ability to trace word usage through more than 2 million quotations. This version 4 edition CD has the full text of the OED 2nd edition, plus supplementary volumes, full text search, options to customize the entry display, and a variety of ways to display the results.
The Dictionary is designed to be copied to your hard drive, and requires at least a G4 processor with 867MHz or greater or an Intel Core Duo 2.13GHz or faster. The dictionary can run on either OS X 10.4x for 10.5x.
If memory serves the OED hasn't been on the Mac since version 1, and this is a welcome return. The CD is pricey, US$295.00, but buying the printed version is more than $900.00 and takes 20 volumes. Amazon has the CD version for $212.40.
You're probably saying "hold it -- my Mac has the Oxford Dictionary built in!" You'd be right, but it is a cut down version, with about 2/3 of the definitions missing, and for U.S. users, we get the Oxford American Dictionary, not the English Dictionary.
The CD release is not perfect. It has no way to save searches or info out for later research, and the dictionary does not integrate into the existing dictionary on Leopard, so the two don't talk to each other. The GUI is ugly and not Mac like. If you are looking for the last word in dictionaries, however, this is it.
The ultimate dictionary... half a million words.
Note that all Mac OS X Owners have a the American Oxford English Dictionary—a subset of this work with about one-third of the words in the OED—built in to every Mac.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Oh wow! I’ve wanted that one for a long while. I’ll look into that one... thanks.
Ditto. I have been looking for a decent lexicon. I will buy this one.
The specs are bogus. It should run on a mac mini just fine. If it doesn’t then the program is VERY poorly coded.
The Oxford Dictionary :Potatoe
Correct. It's not a real-time performance application (like, say, a video player). There's no reason in the world it shouldn't run -- albeit slower -- on systems with slower CPU or less memory.
However, there may be a practical minimum, such as 512MB of RAM, under which performance sucks enough to be very frustrating. But then, many other apps would be similarly hampered.
What a treat !
In many ways easier to use.
Thank you very much for the link.
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