CompuServe Messages

Hi, John– I was thinking topo maps are _relatively_ wide in appeal, compared to, say, geological maps. Hikers may not be a majority, but are a large enough group to rate attention of the CD map sellers after they have handled the drivers. Hikers who use CDs must be a small group as yet, but must be a very fast-growing group. The market for CDs in general seems to be exploding, and sellers who wait for sufficient numbers of customers to be CD-ready will be too late when competitors can so easily see it in advance. I read that Encyclopedia Britannica got itself in financial hot water because they were slow making the turn into CDs – as best I remember, this was before I was aware that CDs had "arrived", before they suddenly materialized in a big rack of their own at Sam's Club. If having E-maps with detailed elevation info can help a GPS-using program to refine its position estimates (a wild guess), that kind of info could even become useful to everyone (though they may not know it is in there). –Doug