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On the laptop you need an audio recording and editing program to store and save the audio being input from the microphone. In the software world there are two or three main types of program:

• fully commercial software, made to sell by companies large and small. In the audio world Cool Edit Pro was a favourite of smaller organisations and individuals without multinational-level budgets, and even the BBC. Syntrillium - the company which developed several incarnations of Cool Edit - was taken over by Adobe a year or two ago, and while Adobe's Audition is getting good reviews in the audio press for its comprehensiveness, it is £250, and more than double what Cool Edit used to cost.
  Other professional software packages can cost hundreds, if not thousands, and have too much capability for relatively modest oral history needs.
  
   
• shareware is software developed by small companies or individuals, who usually have a driving passion for what they are doing. They really want it to work, they want people to use it, and they like to hear its good and bad points from users so it can be further improved. Often it it's free to try for 30 days or so, then it closes down until you buy a code to activate it again, but shareware can be quite modestly priced at $20-$50 and is usually worth every cent. Typically, updates will be free until the next major revision, it will have to be downloaded over the internet, paid for by credit card after the trial period, and will have an online manual; there may be email support but nothing by telephone.
  
  I've had many shareware programs and they have all been good value.
  
   
• freeware is the next stage from shareware, and is free to use and own. Freeware may be good and useful, but may be limited in its capability, or with flaws or bugs. If something is really good or useful the author will usually want to get something back for their time and trouble, and will make it shareware. Audacity is a global collaborative venture aimed at empowering people by providing free audio editing software. It has many adherents and can be a good way to test the water.
   

Here are two suggestions for shareware, one for Windows and one for Mac.

• for Windows try Acoustica from Germany. It's a two-channel recording and editing package which will record your audio at up to 96KHz, 24 bit DAT mastering quality, save it to the hard disk, then allow you to edit and manipulate the sound to create your own packages. You can have two or more windows open at once, so you can copy and paste audio from one to the other just like text in Word! It costs $40 after the 30 day evaluation period and works well.
  If you want to create more complex packages with music, more than one clip fading into another, maybe a voice-over, etc, you need a multi-track editor where you can add many different tracks together. A multi-track editor strangely from a different company called Acoustica with no apparent link, and called Mixcraft is available at $39.95.
   
• for Macs try Amadeus which I have used for several years. It's written by Martin Hairer, a maths lecturer at Warwick University who's very committed to his baby. If you email with a query, the response is from Martin himself. Amadeus Pro is now multi-track, so you can build up elaborate sound pieces; it costs $40 and is available for .
   

And that's all you need!