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Location: GUIs > Windows Shells > Packard Bell Navigator 3.5


Ark Interface
The company that made Packard Bell Navigator was called Ark Interface Inc. and was a subsidiary of Packard Bell. Ark Interfaces separated from Packard Bell and became an independent company named Xsides - for a time they produced a kind of toolbar that displayed underneath the Windows Start menu outside of the normal "desktop" - working around certain restrictions Microsoft had placed on OEMs forbidding them from altering the preloaded Windows desktop appearance
 

Alternate Map
It seems that this version of PB Navigator has some extra stuff in it that isn't used. These appear to be part of the application but were still in development at the time this version was released.

By finding the line HOME=0 in the nav.ini file, changing the value to 1, erasing the USR1 folder, and restarting PB Navigator this alternate map appears.

This second virtual house provides direct navigation to Workspace, Kidspace and two new rooms: Game Room, and Arc Foyer.

Ark Foyer
The Arc Foyer appears to be a replacement for the Navigator Living Room that is used in later versions of PB Navigator.

The stairs going up are the same stairs visible going down in the Workspace. In this mode clicking the stairs in the Workspace will bring you here.

Ark Gameroom
This weird looking room is the "Game room." There is not much to click on here in this version. Like Kidspace the background resizes to fit the full screen if it is larger than 640*480.

In conclusion, the virtual environments of both PB Navigator and MS-Bob eventually proved to be unpopular. Compare these with modern user interfaces such as the stereo-like interface of MacOS X. Rather than use a virtual reality environment with virtual appliances, people have chosen to make the computer just another appliance and leave reality environments... to reality.