• Category Archives DOS
  • Computer Arcana » DOS

  • Computer Gaming World (December 1987)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Computer Gaming World – Issue Number 42 – December 1987

    Computer Gaming World was really the best computer gaming magazine available for most of its life. In its earlier days it covered multiple platforms but eventually became a PC only magazine. The December 1987 issue includes:

    Features

    • Plundered Hearts – A run-through of Plundered Hearts, an adventure game from Infocom which is sort of a spoof on pirate romance.
    • The Electronic Gridiron – A survey of the various computerized football games available at the time. Games covered here include 4th & Inches, GFL Championship Football, Gridiron, Football, Head Coach, Mac Pro Football, Super Bowl Sunday, 3-in-1 Football, Instant Replay, Computer Quarterback, and NFL Challenge.
    • 1987 CGW Game of the Year Awards – The 1987 Computer Gaming World Game of the Year awards were presented at DragonCon where there was also discussion of the future of computer gaming and a gaming tournament. Award winners include The Bard’s Tale II (Electronic Arts), Starflight (Electronic Arts), Leather Goddesses of Phobos (Infocom), Trinity (Infocom), Might and Magic (New World Computing), Hardball (Accolade), Marble Madness (Electronic Arts), Earl Weaver Baseball (Electronic Arts), Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon (Cinemaware), Gunship (Microprose), Defender of the Crown (Cinemaware), Under Fire! (Avalon Hill), Balance of Power (Mindscape), BattleCruiser (SSI), Gettysburg (SSI), Battlefront (SSG), and the overall winner, Ultima IV (Origin).
    • Project: Stealth Fighter – A review of this combat flight simulator for the Commodore 64/128.
    • Beyond Zork – Review of this classic adventure game from Infocom for a variety of systems. This was one of the last games in the long running Zork series of interactive fiction games.
    • Secret Agents, Man! – A look at The Spy’s Adventures in Europe and The Spy’s Adventures in North America. These are two games in a series of educational adventure games for the Apple II.
    • Victory At Sea – The second part of a strategy guide for SSI’s Warship, a naval strategy game.
    • Battles In Normandy – A review of this World War II strategy game from SSG for the Commodore 64 and Apple II.
    • Firepower – Review of this arcade tank game from MicroIllusions for the Amiga (coming soon for the Commodore 64, Apple IIgs, and Dos).

    Departments

    • Editorial – An overview of recent changes to the magazine including both content and layout changes as CGW moved to an IBM AT and desktop publishing.
    • Taking A Peek – Previews of new and upcoming games including Thunderchopper (Apple II, Commodore 64), Wings of Fury (Apple II), California Dreams (Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga), Vegas Gambler (Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga, Apple IIgs, DOS), Shirley Muldowney’s Top Fuel Challenge (Commodore 64), Dark Lord (Apple II, Commodore 64), Force 7 (Commodore 64), Tomahawk (Atari, Commodore 64), Street Sports Basketball (Apple II, Commodore 64, DOS), Heartland (Commodore 64), Silicon Dreams (Apple II, Atari, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS), Solar Star (Atari), Plutos (Amiga), Terrorpods (Amiga, Atari ST), 3D Helicopter Simulator (Dos), Thexder (DOS), Connect (DOS), and Halls of Montezuma (Apple II, Commodore 64).
    • Game Ratings – A list of the top 50 strategy and top 50 action/adventure games as rated by CGW.

    …and more!


    Amiga Apple ][ Atari 8-bit Atari ST Commodore 64 Computer Arcana DOS Retro Games 📎and tagged

  • PC World (September 1997)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC World – September 1997

    As can be seen by the page count at nearly 400 pages, the late 1990s were probably near the height of popularity for PC World. This is probably true of most computer related magazines (PC ones anyway). The September 1997 issue of PC World includes:

    Cover Story

    • Windows 98: A Convenience You Can Live With…Or Without – A first look at Windows 98. At the time, it wasn’t seen as a major upgrade over Windows 95.

    Features

    • Inside Office 97 – Tips for the new Office 97 including how to mix and matchi Office 97 and Office 95 files, removing unneeded components, and much more.
    • Bigger Is Better – At the time, you basically had a choice between 15-inch, 17-inch and 21-inch CRT monitors. 15-inch monitors were for bargain hunters while 21-inch monitors were extremely expensive. 17-inch was the sweet spot and this round-up includes a variety of 17-inch monitors including the IBM P70, Liyama VisonMaster Pro 17, Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 87TXM, ViewSonic PT775, Samsung SyncMaster 700b, Princeton Graphics Systems E075, Dell UltraScan 1000HS, Compaq V70, Hansol Multitech 17PX and Sony CPD-220VS. Prices ranged from $638 to $899.
    • What a Pain! The First Six Months of Owning a PC – An article that follows the adventures (and misadventures) of 25 new PC buyers.
    • Invasion of the Webcasters – Webcasters here basically refers to push notifications. This article looks at various services that deliver news and other info via this method.

    Special Report

    • Servers With Room To Grow – A look at low cost workgroup servers. At the top of the list is the Digital Prioris MX 6200 SMP. It includes a Pentium Pro-200 (expandable to dual processors), up to 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage with up to 36 GB (4 x 9 GB) for $5300. Others looked at here include the Compaq ProLiant 800, HP NetServer LD Pro 6/180, HP NetServer LH Pro 6/200, and HP NetServer E 40 6/200.
    • Eight Ways to Work Across The Web – A look at various software that helps you to collaborate with others over the web.

    Top of the News

    • 56-kbps Illusions: High Speed Access Not as Advertised – At this point in time, there were two competing 56K modem standards, one from U.S. Robotics and one from Rockwell/Lucent, and not all ISPs supported both…or either.
    • The NetPC Arrives: Back to the Future for User Control – The NetPC concept was for typically lower end PCs in a small form factor with limited upgrade potential and sometimes missing floppy and optical drives or missing local storage altogether…but were easier for businesses to manage.
    • USB Gives You a Rough Ride – The early days of USB on Windows 95 was not a great experience. Hot swapping frequently caused problems as did driver support.
    • Browser: Manage Your Money – Virtually everyone does online banking today. In 1997 it was still a novelty.

    New Products

    • Digital 6166K AMD K6 system, USA Flex 6x86MX-PR200 Cyrix 6x86MX system – A look at two machines with non-Intel Pentium MMX class processors. While these systems tended to be cheaper than their Pentium counterparts and even sometimes faster for certain tasks, they tended to be slower (sometimes much slower) for FPU intensive tasks including multimedia and games.
    • CSA-6700 USB add-in card – A $59 add-in card that provides your system with two USB ports.
    • Gateway 2000 G6-266XL PC – Featuring a Pentium II-266 CPU, 64MB of RAM, 9 GB SCSI hard drive, 21-inch monitor, 64-bit 3-D graphics card, and a 56K modem for $5128 this was a very high end but expensive PC. A couple of months later I would get a Gateway machine with a 300 MHz Pentium II and 32 GB of RAM for less than $3000.
    • Toshiba PDR-2 digital camera – A 640×480 digital camera designed to work with a PC Card slot for $499.
    • Reunion online BBS/chat rooms – Software that allows you to host chats and browsable bulletin boards on your PC.
    • DVD471T11 DVD-ROM kit – An early DVD-ROM drive that includes Toshiba SD-M002 DVD-ROM drive and CineMaster DVD playback card (because CPUs weren’t fast enough at the time to decode DVD video) for $579. However, this drive could not read CD-R disks.
    • Kai’s Photo Soap – A once popular image editor and photo retouching tool.
    • Uninstaller 4.5 – Windows 95 (and even Windows today) wasn’t that great at uninstalling software, often leaving behind files and especially registry entries. This was one utility available that helped clean things up.

    Top 100

    • Power Desktops – At the top of the list this month is the Dell Dimension XPS H266. My favorite on the list is in 3rd place, the Gateway 2000 G6-233. It features a Pentium II 233 MHz processor, 3.2 GB hard drive, 64 MB RAM, STB Virge 4MB 3D PCI video card, 16x CD-ROM drive and more for $2899. I would own a slightly later revision with a 333 MHz CPU.
    • Budget Desktops – At the top of this list is the Dell Dimension XPS M166s featuring a Pentium 166MMX processor, 32 MB RAM, Matrox Millennium II video card and 12x CD-ROM drive for $2199.
    • Notebooks – At the top of the power list is the WinBook FX featuring a Pentium 166MMX CPU for $3999. At the top of the budget list is the Compaq Armada 15200M featuring a Pentium 133 CPU for $2199.
    • 17-inch Monitors – The top monitor this month is the liyama VisionMaster Pro 17 for $698.
    • Graphics Boards – The top graphics board this month is the STB Nitro 3D with 4MB of EDO DRAM for $149.
    • Internal Modems – The top 33.6 modem this month is the U.S. Robotics Courier V.Everything. I always wanted one of these (preferably an external version) but they were pricy. Though here the internal 33.6 Courier is only about $15 less than the 56K Sportster (these are internal models though).

    Here’s How

    • Answer Line – How to reinstall Windows 95, upgrade telnet, and piggyback modems for faster speeds.
    • Windows Tips – Speed up Windows 95 load time, ‘send to folder” functionality for Windows 3.1, Windows 95 safe mode, and more.
    • Internet Tips – Using web auction sites, protecting passwords and privacy, and more.
    • Multimedia Tips – Tips for adjusting PC sound, cataloging your multimedia files, and more.
    • Upgrade Guide – A guide to adding a video camera to your system.

    At Home

    • Home Products – A look at the Panasonic EggCam, Corel Family Tree Suite genealogy software, and more.
    • Top 5 Home PCs – At the top of this list is the Dell Dimension XPS M233s featuring a Pentium MMX-233, 32MB of SDRAM, and more for $2379.

    Departments

    • Up Front – Advice on whether or not to upgrade to Windows 98.
    • Letters – Letters from readers on 56K modems, AOL, the PC98 initiative, Adobe Illustrator, and more.

    …and much more!


    Computer Arcana DOS 📎and tagged

  • PC Magazine (September 4th, 1984)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC Magazine – September 4th, 1984

    PC Magazine was one of the earliest successful PC magazines to pop-up after the IBM PC was introduced and one of the most popular and longest lasting. The September 4th, 1984 issue includes:

    Cover Story

    • The Word on Word Processors – An overview of 19 of the most popular word processors on the PC.

    Features

    • An Attache from Down Under – Attache Software originated in Australia and sold a line of accounting software.
    • Milk, Butter, Cheese, and PCs – How Stew Leonard’s World’s Greatest Dairy Store uses nine PCs to manage the company.
    • Project: Database, Part 7 – A continuing series that covers the latest in database software. This issue includes coverage of Savvy PC, power-base, SALVO, Revelation, DataBlux (version 10), DataFlex (Version 2.0), PC FOCUS, Informia (Version 2.11), dBASE III, and more.
    • How to Be Your Own Best Financial Advisor – A detailed look at Managing Your Money, a personal finance program written by best-selling financial author Andrew Tobias.

    Pro Columns

    • Accounting for Contractors – A look at accounting software useful to contractors.
    • Coping with Complexity :PCs in Neurobiology – How the PC, along with analog-to-digital converters, is helping scientists at the University of Illinois to study nerve cell plasticity in marine mollusks.
    • Bank Market Analysis on the PC – How an integrated software package featuring a database management system can help banks organize customer data.
    • Courseware Design – How interactive courseware improves upon books, pencils and paper in a classroom environment.
    • Writing in dBASE II – Two dBASE II applications. The first automatically executes a command file and the other is a MailMerge program.
    • Low Budget Communications – A look at a few low budget modems including the Hayes Smartmodem 300, Novation j-CAT, Volksmodem, and the LEX-11 and LEX-12.

    Departments

    • PC News – New machines from Tava, ACT, and Polo; the possible demise of DOS; a 74 MB drive from Tecmar designed for PCs used as fileservers; and more.
    • Consumer Guinea Pigs – How the software industry is using consumers to beta test its software.
    • Computers in the Humanities – What computers have to offer in the humanities including preparation, communication art and music.
    • Letters to PC – Letters from readers about terminal software, IBM’s blinking cursor, macros for Lotus 1-2-3, the future of the PC, and more.
    • Support and Control in Flabby Programs – System programs vs. application programs and things that affect program size.
    • Cool Caterpillar – Review of a maze-chase game featuring a caterpillar called Changes from Tigervision and a game called Mr. Cool which is sort of like Q-Bert. I had the latter one for the Commodore 64.
    • New on the Market – A brief look at new computer hardware and software including the Multifunction GPIB Controller, DataPort Letter Quality Printer, RGB-1400PC monitor, S/COM Cache Cartridge, DMP-51 High-Speed Plotter, PCjr Pro-Kit, and more.
    • User-To-User – Macros and other tips and tricks for Lotus 1-2-3,
    • PC Tutor – How to check if a printer is online via BASIC plus questions answered about memory speed, maximum memory in various PC models, and more.

    …and more!


    Computer Arcana DOS 📎and tagged