• Tag Archives computers

  • Personal Computer News (January 5th, 1985)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Personal Computer News – Issue Number 93 – January 5th, 1985

    Personal Computer News is a weekly publication that was published in the U.K. in the 1980s. It appears to have covered all of the popular computers of the time. The January 5th, 1985 issue includes:

    Cover Story

    • Spectrum Revisited – A profile in the Sinclair Spectrum with detailed hardware info plus info on the latest software and peripherals.

    Output

    • Commodore file – A type-in program for the Commodore 64 that provides a series of disk utilities including file delete, undelete, file copy, block editor and much more.
    • Memotech machine head – A machine language program to create music on on the Memotech MTX.
    • Amstrad fine art – A type-in routine for storing and retrieving pictures on the Amstrad CPC.
    • Lock and Key – A routine for the Spectrum that prevents others from seeing your source code.
      • BBC Grab Apple – A type-in game for the BBC in which you must save apples from a hurricane.
      • Modish Atari – This is the second and final part of a listing for a game for the Atari started in the previous. This part also serves as a tutorial for Atari’s display list.

      Peripherals

      • PC Pilot – A review of the Penman Plotter for the BBC.

      Software

      • Office Party – Review of a bargain office package for the BBC that includes a spreadsheet, word processing, database, and graphics (charts).

      Regulars

      • Monitor – New 3-inch disk drive for the Spectrum that stores 500K, a preview of the Which Computer Show, new games for the Commodore 64, the Enterprise goes on sale, MSX prices dropping, and much more.
      • PCN Charts – Charts of 1984’s best selling games. Decathlon for the Spectrum and Commodore 64 takes the top spot overall with the top spots for each machine being Jet Set Willy (Spectrum), Beach-Head (Commodore 64), Elite (BBC B), Wizard & Princess (VIC 20), Cuthbert (Dragon), and Zaxxon (Atari).
      • Random Access – Letters from readers regarding Sanyo software support, on disk copy protection, the Brother M100 printer, and more.
      • Routine Enquiries – Questions answered about buying a machine for games, a Spectrum disk drive interface, shopping for a Commodore 64 setup, and more.
      • Microwaves – Tips and tricks for printing double height characters on the BBC B, interfacing a Brother printer to a Sinclair QL, fixing the MTX screen saver, and more.
      • Dungeon – Tips for playing The Runes of Zendos animated adventure for the Spectrum.
      • Gameplay – Reviews of various games including Boiler House (Spectrum), Arcadia (Dragon), Ziggurat (Spectrum), Fort Apocalypse (Commodore 64) – this one is a classic, Doomdark’s Revenge (Spectrum), and Roland Ahoy (Amstrad).
      • Billboard – A classifieds like section where readers offer up stuff for sale.
      • Quit/Datalines – A look at what’s coming next week, upcoming computer shows, and more.

      …and more!


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    • PC World (January 1990)

      Posted on by Azrael Comment

      Source: Computer & Video Game Magazines – PC World – January 1990 – – Cover

      PC World was one of the most widely read PC magazines in the U.S. In 1990, if you were buying a PC it would have probably been 386 based. A few years later I would be buying a 486 DX2-66. The January 1990 issue of PC World includes:

      Previews

      • HP’s EISA Breakthrough – HP’s Vectra 486 was the first PC to feature EISA slots. EISA was the first standard industry response to IBM’s Micro Channel. EISA was a 32-bit superset of ISA and ISA cards would work in EISA slots. However, EISA was relatively expensive and was never popular on consumer desktop PCs. They were mostly used for SCSI cards in servers. VLB and later PCI would eventually take its place. The Vectra 486 here featured a 25-MHz 486 CPU, supported up to 64MB or RAM, had room for six 5.25″ half-height drives, and included either a 150MB or 320MB 15ms SCSI drive. It would set you back between $13,999 and $16,999.
      • Super Servers – Several servers had been announced at this point that supported EISA including the Zenith Z-386/33E, the NEC 25-MHz 486 based PowerMate 486/25E, NEC 33-MHz 386 based PowerMate 386/33E, the multi-CPU Systempro from Compaq (a $15,999 machine but the article notes that it supports up to 256MB of RAM which cost about $176,000 at the time), the Deskpro 486/25, and more.
      • Can EISA Live UP to the Micro Channel’s Potential? – A comparison of the implementation and technical capabilities of EISA vs Micro Channel.
      • Breaking the Board Barrier – A look at the first wave of EISA boards. These mostly consist of drive controllers.
      • Word Meets Windows – A preview of Microsoft’s long awaited Word for Windows.

      Reviews

      • Micro Channel Clones Flunk the Test – A look at four non-IBM systems that support Micro Channel. Models looked at include the American Mitac’s MPS 22386 and NCR’s 386SX (featuring the 16-MHz 80386SX) as well as the Tandy 5000MCA and Grid’s 386MCA (featuring the 20-MHz 80386 CPU). The conclusion here is that they were a lot of extra money for not much extra benefit and often have compatibility problems.
      • Lotus’s Sensible Upgrade – A look at Release 2.2 of Lotus 1-2-3 which was an update to 2.01 that was lighter on resources and your wallet that release 3.
      • Fax Boards for Fast Times – Eventually pretty much all modems would have fax capability but at this time Fax boards were their own separate thing and some didn’t even have regular modem capabilities. Products reviewed here include the AT&T Fax Connection, The Complete Fax/9600, Datacopy MicroFax, GammaLink GammaFax CP, Intel Connection CoProcessor, and Panasonic FX-BM89 Plus 2. Prices range from $599 to $1295.

      News

      • Top of the News – Lotus debuts beta version of 1-2-3 for OS/2, Compaq launches high-end server with Micro Channel support, bugs found in early versions of i486 processor, and more.
      • Industry Outlook – A look at what vendors pay for PC parts, Lotus still dominates Spreadsheet Market despite Excel gains, desktop and laptop prices compared, and more.
      • Product Outlook – A look at new an upcoming products including the IBM Laserprinter 4019, NEC Intersect CDR-35 (first portable CD-ROM), NEC ProSpeed CSX (color portable), AST FASTboard 486/25 (upgrade your AST 386 based system with a 486), and much more. Except for color, the NEC Intersect CDR-35 looks exactly like the TurboGrafx-CD. Of course, they were both make by NEC so I guess that makes sense.
      • Update – The latest updates of existing software including Applause II, DynaComm 2.1, Micrografx Designer 3.0, XtreePro Gold, Lotus Spreadsheet for DeskMate, DeskMate Q&A Write, and Peachtree Complete III.

      Features

      • Software’s Next Wave: Putting the User First – The promise of intuitive applications in the age of high-powered hardware and easy-to-use interfaces.
      • Next: The Programmer’s Dream Machine – A brief look at the Next machine. It was not itself a commercial success but its OS would eventually morph into Apple’s OS X.
      • User-Friendly Programming: The Manager’s Perspective – Managers look for ways to reduce the burden of training and development.

      How To

      • Do-It-Yourself Menus with Norton Utilities – How to create custom menus with Norton Utilities.
      • Tips & Techniques – Command-line tips and tricks for DOS users, how to create better WordPerfect macros, various application tips and a primer on Paradox Application Language.

      Perspectives

      • Richard Landry – The difficulties of creating software that takes advantage of the latest power hardware while not leaving users of existing PCs behind.
      • Letters – Letters from readers expressing doubt about the necessity of the 486, Windows and excessive resource usage, Microsoft Word and mouse support, WordPerfect vs. WordStar, LAN E-Mail, and more.
      • Another Angle – How the PC represents a revolutionary advancement not in terms of its increasing power but in the applications that are written for it.

      Departments

      • The Help Screen – Questions answered about replacing the clock battery in an Epson Equity III+ (or any computer for that matter), configuring extra memory in an IBM PC, converting Word Perfect macros between versions, and more.
      • Windows Journal – In a battle of word processors for Windows, who will win? Samna’s Ami or Microsoft’s Word? I think we all know the answer to that…
      • Network Q&A – Questions answered about using a fax gateway vs. individual fax boards.

      …and more!


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    • Byte (September 1981)

      Posted on by Azrael Comment

      Source: Byte – September 1981

      The IBM PC was introduced around the same time this issue of Byte was on the stands. If you had a personal computer at the time, it was most likely an Atari, Apple II, Commodore, TRS-80 or something built from a kit. Byte also covered what were called “small systems”. I guess you could think of those as the rough equivalent of workstations for a business environment. The September 1981 issue of Byte includes:

      Features

      • A Look at NCC ’81 – The 1981 National Computer Conference held in Chicago May 4th-May 7th. Some of the many things seen there include the BMC IF-800 microcomputer, LEX-21 portable terminal, the Corvus Omninet, BASF’s slimline 5.25-inch flopy-disk drives, The TRS-80 Color Computer, The Xerox Star, the Sony Typecorder, a half-width 8-inch floppy drive from Tandon and much more.
      • Build an Unlimited-Vocabulary Speech Synthesizer – A guide for building your own speech synthesizer.
      • The Xerox Alto Computer – Xerox designed the Alto as a development tool for Xerox. However, they also donated 50 machines to various educational institutions for research. It consists of a vertically oriented graphics display, a mouse which was a Xerox innovation, two 3MB hard drives, and a “processor” composed of medium- and small-scale TTL integrated circuits. One would set you back about $32,000 in 1981 dollars.
      • Tree Searching, Part 1: Basic Techniques – Techniques for searching trees, e.g. the traveling-salesman problem of finding the shortest route through multiple cities.
      • One Step Forward – Three Steps Backup, Computing In the US Space Program – Space rating computers often means they are obsolete before they fly. Some of the testing includes repeated heating and cooling from +50 Celsius to -50 Celsius, mechanical shocks, electromagnetic interference, radiation, withstand up to 30G, intensive use for several years without any failures, etc. This article goes into more detail on the requirements for different types of space missions (near earth orbit, manned, planetary), space-rating microprocessors, tasks such computer perform, and much more.
      • Artificial Intelligence – As you can see, AI is hardly a new topic. This article focuses on using AI to organize vast amounts of data.
      • A High-Level Language Benchmark – A variation of the Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm that can be easily implemented in a variety of languages to test performance.
      • Science Fiction’s Intelligent Computers – A look at the computers of tomorrow as imagined in sci-fi novels.
      • Symbolic Differentiation via LISP – Using LISP in symbolic mathematics. The author created his on LISP interpreter on the TRS-80 Model I.
      • Knowledge-Based Expert Systems – A look at knowledge-based expert systems and how they work. Includes a demo in BASIC for personal computers.
      • The Atari Tutorial, Part 1: The Display List – The first in a series of articles on the technical capabilities of Atari computers adapted from the forthcoming book, De Re Atari. This part focuses on the graphical capabilities of the Atari.
      • Natural-Language Processing, The Field Perspective – A look at what it takes to create a computer that can communicate like a human.
      • The Emperor’s Old Clothes – A transcript of Professor Hoare’s 1980 Turing Award Lecture. Professor Hoare made many important contributions to computer science including the development of Quicksort, various advanced data structuring techniques, work in axiomatic semantics, and much more.

      Reviews

      • The Big Board: A Z80 System in Kit – The Big Board is a single board computer manufactured by Digital Research that includes 64K RAM, 24-line by 80-character video generator, keyboard interface, room for four 2K ROMs, and a floppy controller with options for parallel and serial ports and an on-board timer. This board cost $650. For an extra $50 they would solder the sockets for you. Then you just have to provide your own disk drive, cabinet/case, power supply, keyboard and monitor. A custom version of CP/M 2.2 was also available for it.
      • Misosys Software’s DISKMOD – A utlity that will conver Radio Shack’s cassette based editor/assembler for the TRS-80 Model I into a disk based version.
      • MINCE – A text editor for the 8080 family of computers and CP/M.
      • BYTE’s Arcade: Big Five Software – A look at three games from Big Five Software for the TRS-80 Model I/III including Attack Force, Cosmic Fighter, and Galaxy Invasion. Plus a review of The Prisoner, a graphics adventure game based on the TV series of the same name for the Apple II.
      • Three Microcomputer LISPs – A look at three different LISP packages including mLISP/mSTAR-80 for 8080/Z80 machines running CP/M, (T.(L.C)) LISP version 1.07 for Z-80 based computers running CP/M, and Cromenco LISP version 1.06 for Z-80 based computers running Cromenco’s CDOS or Cromix.
      • Interactive Fiction: Six Micro Stories – A title from Adventure International that includes six mini text adventure games.

      Nucleus

      • Letters – Letters from readers regarding MIT Apple Logo, software piracy, programming compared to essay writing, a defense of Vikings, and more.
      • Book Reviews – A review of Principles of Artificial Intelligence by Nils J Nilsson.
      • Programming Quickies – A demonstration of changing a FOR…NEXT loop into a REPEAT…UNTIL loop.
      • BYTELINES – Tandy plans to double its hardware and software products within the next six months, Zilog to introduce and enhanced Z80 called the Z800, Commodore introduces 6508 processor, Sony starts providing OEMs with samples of its new 3.5-inch “microfloppy” disk drives, and more.
      • Ask BYTE – Questions answered about the safety of double-siding floppy disks, developing a proximity warning system for cars, expanding memory on Atari 400 and Atari 800 computers, and more.
      • BYTE’s Bits – Info about a new publisher for The Apple Shoppe Magazine, Microsoft stops work on APL interpreter, and more.
      • Technical Forum – The pitfalls of using computers for record keeping as it relates to the IRS, a technique for comparing two signals on an oscilloscope, and how to build an inexpensive cassette level indicator.
      • System Notes – A program listing for a Z80 memory test program.
      • What’s New? – The Stratos 4 MHz Z80 based computer, the Rair Microcomputer Black Box 3/30 (5 MB hard drive + floppy drive), the K-8073 single board computer, The LNW80 computer compatible with the TRS-80, the Xerox 820 microcomputer, the Sierra 4000 S-100, Z80-based computer, and more.

      …and more!


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