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Inspector Morse Screen Saver

Review By Antony Richards

Campbell Jones, the company which markets ‘Bytes of Britain’ screen savers, have submitted their Inspector Morse screen saver for review. The packaging promises an interactive map of Oxford, excerpts from the novels, an introduction by Colin Dexter, a crossword puzzle and more than 25 full-colour photographs. With this promise of great things your reviewer easily managed to install the software first time and eagerly awaited the interactive map. This is, in fact, a map of Oxford with pointers indicating where the screen saver photographs have been taken. Hence by clicking on one of these points the corresponding photograph is displayed, and according to the mode in which the programme is running, some accompanying text also appears along with an extract from the relevant novel. There is also a one-page introduction to Colin Dexter similar to that found on the inside cover of any one of his novels. I personally found the text to be too brief to warrant more than one glance.

The main purpose, though, is as a screen saver and in this mode the various pictures of Oxford are displayed periodically, and at random (though you may decide to use just one shot). Although pleasing to see so many familiar sights associated with Inspector Morse (and Oxford), in general one soon tires of them since the quality is poor. When I say poor I do not refer to the reproduced quality on the screen, which is excellent, but to the composition. It is clear that these are merely snapshots taken with a medium quality camera, all in the same day without regard to the subject matter. For instance, if I were taking a photograph of the Black Prince for such a project, I would ensure that I went at a time of day when there would be no cars obstructing the view. Likewise, for some of the other shots I would wait that extra minute to avoid including the heads of passers-by in the street, and would try to vary the lighting and angles as much as possible i.e. use different times of day etc. to produce something better than the average tourist view.

In conclusion, this is a cheap and cheerful product of which the user will soon tire and which promised far more than it gave. There is certainly other, far better, software available, although admittedly not of an Inspector Morse nature.

For further information please contact Campbell Jones, PO Box 247, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire L53 8YQ (telephone 01426 958353). The cost is £14·99. A 3.5 inch disk drive is required along with a personal computer with Windows v3.1 or 95 and approximately 3Mb disk space and 8Mb of RAM. The company also markets other screen savers covering a variety of themes (e.g. Jane Austen, English Heritage etc.) and cities (e.g. London, Oxford, York).