• Tag Archives PC World

  • PC World (May 1998)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    By the late 1990s, PC World and PC Magazine were the dominant PC magazines in the U.S. Of those two, I think I generally preferred PC World. This issue is from about 5 months after I got my second Gateway 2000 PC which was a 333 MHz Pentium II. The May 1998 issue of PC World includes:

    Features

    • How Much PC Do You Need – A detailed guide to choosing the best PC for your needs when your budget isn’t unlimited.
    • Streetwise – A comparison of travel planning and street atlas software. These are categories of software wiped out by MapQuest and later Google Maps and others. Titles here include Expedia Streets 98 Deluxe Edition, Street Atlas USA 5.0, StreetFinder Deluxe 1998 Edition, Road Trips Door-to-Door Pro, AAA Map’n’Go 1.0, Expedia Trip Planner 98, and TripMaker Deluxe 1998 Edition.
    • The Complete Guide to Investing With Your PC – A look at various investment resources including research websites, trading info, portfolio tracking, investment clubs, and more.
    • No-Hassle Hookups – A test of various USB peripherals to determine how plug-and-play they really were. Various keyboards, joysticks, scanners, video cameras, speakers, and other devices were tested.

    Special Reports

    • No Easy Fixes – In order to fight buggy software, a new category of software was available…software update utilities. However, for the most part, these didn’t work all that well.
    • The Best of the Web: The 1998 Webby Award Winners – The best web sites of the year in various categories. Some winners include Entropys (art), The Well (community), Starchild (education), Bezerk (games), Babycenter (home), The Internet Movie Database (film), Mayo Clinic Health O@sis, and many others. A few are still around. Many are long gone.

    Top of the News

    • Intel’s Celeron 266: Cheap, But Will It Fly in Sub-$1000 PCs? – This was one of the original “Covington” Celerons and performance was terrible mainly because they had no L2 cache. In these tests, the Celeron 266 was even slower than the Pentium 200 MMX. The next generation “Mendocino” versions had 128k of on chip cache which made them much faster and more popular.
    • AOL Rate Hike Ignites Internet Service Price War – AOL raises monthly subscription fee from $19.95 to $21.95.
    • Lotus Smartsuite Millennium: Practical, Not Pioneering – A Microsoft Office competitor back when such things used to exist.
    • Pentium II Portables: Speedy But Power Hungrs – A look at five different Pentium II based notebooks including the Gateway Solo 9100LS, IBM ThinkPad 380XD, Dell Inspiron 3200 D266XT, IBM ThinkPad 600, and Quantex H-131. All systems have 64MB of RAM and 512KB L2 cache. A laptop wouldn’t have fit in my budget at the time but I would have chosen the Gateway if I could. I was still a Gateway fan then. But not for $4300.
    • Finally, An Easy Web Speedup That Works – Sometimes – A look at Quick Web, software that uses compression and caching to speed up the web.

    New Products

    • HP Laserjet 3100, Canon MultiPass L600 – A look at Canon and HP’s latet all-in-one laser printers.
    • Compaq Presario 2240 PC – This machine had a somewhat unique design and wasn’t a bad value for the time. However, it was quickly made obsolete. It wasn’t very expandable and its biggest problem was that the RAM maxed out at 48MB. That’s not even enough for Windows XP to install when it came out. The Pentium II based Gateway I got five months earlier could be expanded to 384MB.

    • 3Com Palm III – Before smartphones, PDAs were a common accessory. For a long time, Palm Pilots were the best and the Palm III was their latest flagship model.
    • Cross Pen Computing Cross Pad, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 5 – The CrossPad is a device designed to send handwritten notes on paper to your PC. Paint Shop Pro was my favorite image software around this time.
    • Brooklyn North Email Postal Software, The Paperless Office Network Edition 2.0 – An expensive e-mail list manager and a document management system designed to eliminate paper from the office.
    • Mustek Plug-n-Scan 1200 III EP, Microtek ScanMaker X6 Scanner – A look at these two low cost 36-bit flatbed scanners.
    • Micrografx Picture Publisher 8, Corel Venturay 8 – Photo and desktop publishing software.
    • Positive Support Review Zinnote 5.0, Symantec Act 4.0 – Zinnote is a tool for generating reports based on data from different sources while Symantec ACT is a personal information manager with mapping capabilities.
    • Mijenix PowerDesk Utilities 98, Aladdin FlashBack – Various desktop utilities for Windows 98 and a program for keeping track of file revisions.

    Top 100

    • Power Desktops – If I remember correctly, the Gateway G6-300 in this list was very close to the machine I had at the time. It features a 300 MHz Pentium II (mine had a 333 MHZ PII), 64 MB of RAM and an STB Velocity 128 AGP video card.
    • Budget Desktops – CPUs in the budget list include the Pentium II-266, AMD K6-266, Pentium MMX-200, Pentium MMX-233, AMD K6-200, AMD K6-233, and Cyrix Cx6x86MX-PR200. At the top of the list is the Gateway G6-266b. It’s not much different than the machines in the power list except for a lower end version of the PII, less RAM (32 MB) and smaller hard drive.
    • Notebooks – The top power notebook is the Micron Transport XKE 266 featuring a Pentium MMX-266 and the top budget notebook is the Micron Meridian featuring a Pentium MMX-166.
    • Home PCs – The top power home system (not really sure what the distinction is here) is the Micron Millennia XKU 266 while the top budget home system is the Dell Dimension XPS D233c.
    • 17-Inch Monitors – The top 17-inch (CRT) monitor this month is the Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 87TXM for $575.
    • Graphics Boards – At the top of the list this month is the ATI 3D Pro Turbo PC2TV. The STB Velocity 128 which I had at the time comes in at number 6.
    • Modems – The top modem this month is the IBM 56K Modem Internet Kit. Frankly, I don’t see how the 3Com Courier V.Everything 56K Internal isn’t number one (it’s number 3 here).

    Here’s How

    • Answer Line – Questions answered about buying a PC at a local store, defragging, tracking income in Quicken, making .wav files, and more.
    • Windows Tips – Tips to keep Windows running like new, emptying trash from any window, centralizing font storage, and solving printer problems.
    • Internet Tips – Putting your spreadsheet on a web page, finding jobs online, plug-ins for your browser, and more.
    • Hardware Tips – Repartition your hard drive, avoiding seeing spots, and more.
    • Upgrade Guide – Upgrading to a 56k modem.

    @Home

    • @Home Products – A look at new products including the Ricoh RDC-300Z and Epson PhotoPC 550 digital cameras, Canon BJC-7000 printer, and more.
    • Home Office – Testing satellite internet speeds. Here the author downloads a zip file at 57kb/sec.

    Departments

    • Up Front – The new era of $1000 (and less) PCs.
    • Letters – Letters from readers about leasing PCs, Windows 98 vs. Windows 95. HAM Radio, warranty cards, and more.
    • Consumer Watch – The dangers of online auctions. This was before eBay dominated.
    • Got A Problem? – Resolving issues that cause your PC to run more slowly.
    • Bugs and Fixes – The infamous Zip Drive click of death, security issues with AOL Instant Messenger, and more.
    • Full Disclosure – Software license restrictions for you to accept flaws, no matter how severe.

    …and more!


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  • PC World (September 2003)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    PC World was around for decades from the early 1980s until well into the 2000s. It was perhaps the most popular PC magazine for most of that time. The September 2003 issue includes:

    PC Makeovers

    • 60-Minute Upgrades – A look at relatively quick and easy upgrades for your computer including adding a 100 GB 7200 RPM PATA hard drive, adding a DVD burner, upgrading a CPU (in this case a Pentium 700 to a Celeron 1400 via a PowerLeap PL-ip3/T adapter), adding more RAM (1 to 2 GB was a lot at the time), upgrading your video card (AGP was all the rage at the time), and more.

    Features

    • Well-Connected Handhelds – At this time, PDAs were gaining wi-fi capabilities and cell phones were gaining PDA functionality. Some devices looked at here include the Palm Tungsten C, Sony Ericsson P800, Handspring Treo 300, Kyocera 7135 Smartphone, Palm Tungsten W, Samsun SPH-i700 and Samsung SPH-i500, T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition, T-Mobile Sidekick, Sony Clie PEG-NZ90 and Toshiba E755.
    • Online Music: New Hits and Misses – A look at online music services including RealNetworks RealOne Rhapsody, EMusic, Apple iTunes Music Store, Musicmatch WX Platinum, FullAudio MusicNow, Pressplay, and more.
    • More Broadband for Your Buck – Broadband was still relatively new and not as fast as it is today (5 Mb was common). This is a guide to optimizing your speed and getting the most from the features your service offers.

    Top 100

    • Top 15 Desktop PCs – The top power system this month is the ABS Ultimate M5 featuring an Athlon XP 3200+, 1GB of DDR400 RAM and 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card for $2739 while the top value system is the ABS Bravado 2280 featuring an Athlon XP 2500+, 512MB DDR-333 RAM, and 64MB EVGA E-GeForce Ti 4200 video card for $1139.
    • Top 15 Notebook PCs – The top power notebook is the IBM ThinkPad T40 featuring a 1.6 GHZ Pentium M and 512MB RAM for $3099 while the top value notebook is the Dell Inspiron 500m featuring a 1.3 GHz Pentium M and 256MB RAM for $1616.
    • Top 5 Photo Printers – At the top of the list is the Epson Stylus Photo 900.
    • Top 10 15-inch LCD Monitors – It’s hard to give away a 15-inch monitor today but it was the norm in 2003. The top 15-inch LCD monitor this month was the NEC MultiSync LCD 1560M for $370.
    • Top 10 DVD Drives – The top drive this month was the TDK Indi DVD 440N for $300.
    • Top 10 Digital Cameras – The top digital camera this month was the 3.2-megapixel Canon PowerShot A70 (I think this was actually my first digital camera).
    • More Reviews – Other list toppers include the Olympus C-4000 Zoom digital camera, Oki Data Oki C7300n color laser printer, Dell UltraSharp 1901FP 19-inch LCD monitor, and Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y120P0 hard drive.

    Departments

    • Up Front – A look at some computer services actually worth paying for…maybe.
    • Letters – Letters from readers about adware, file trading, Windows XP updates, photo kiosks, and more.
    • Plugged In – A look at storage options for MP3 players, Microsoft’s new version of Office, AOL 9.0, turning your PC off at night, and more.
    • Consumer Watch – Preventing your PC from being hijacked by spammers.
    • Home Office – A look at the ten best free utilities including hard drive utilities, web browser accelerators, and more.
    • Full Disclosure – Copyright and the perils of ignoring it.

    News & Trends

    • Cheap Ink Probed – Part two of a series on third-party ink cartridges.
    • ISPs Promote Premium Extras – ISPs promote extra services such as antivirus software, digital music, firewall software, and more for an extra cost.
    • A 64-bit Computer: Your Next PC? – The next generation of PC processors will be 64-bit, including Apple’s G5 and AMD’s Athlon 64.
    • .Zip File Format Splinters – Winzip and PKZip use incompatible implementations of AES encryption.
    • Built-in Graphics Show Some Improvement – Integrated graphics show improvement but are still far inferior to even cheap dedicated graphics cards.
    • RSS: Hot Fix for Inter-Junkies – New RSS standard makes it easy to get news on the topics that you want.

    New Products

    • Notebook PCs – A look at new subnotebooks including the Compaq Nc4000 (1.6 GHz Pentium M and 256MB), LifeBook P5000 (900 MHz ULV Pentium M and 256MB), and Sony VAIO PCG-TR1A (900 MHz ULV Pentium M and 512MB).
    • Privacy Software – A look at the latest version of ZoneAlarm.
    • Digital Camera – A look at Apple’s ISight camera.
    • PDA/Cell Phone Hybrid – A look at Hitachi’s G1000 Pocket PC/phone hybrid.
    • Hard-Drive Backup Software – A look at Drive Image 7 for Windows.

    Here’s How

    • Answer Line – A guide to reinstalling Windows without losing your data.
    • Windows Tips – Checking for disk errors in Windows XP and Windows 2000.
    • Step-By-Step – Upgrading to a Serial ATA drive.
    • Internet Tips – Optimizing your browser security settings.
    • Hardware Tips – Implementing BIOS passwords.

    …and more!


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  • PC World (January 1987)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC World – January 1987

    If you had a PC (meaning an IBM PC or compatible) or were thinking of getting one in the 1980s or 1990s, then PC World would probably have been a magazine you would have wanted. The January 1987 issue includes:

    Getting Started

    • PC to PC – A guide to using a modem and terminal software to communicate between PCs.

    Community

    • PC Users Unite! – A guide to PC user groups.

    Review

    • Compaq Deskpro 386: Dare to Be Great – At the time, this was probably one of the best computers you could by, though it wasn’t cheap with a starting price of $6499. Compaq was the first major PC maker to use the 386 chip, beating IBM to the punch.
    • Fast-Talking Modems – A look at a couple of modems that use proprietary protocols to achieve speeds of 12000bps. They are very expensive though with a cost of up to $2395 and not compatible with other modems above 9600bps.
    • Mainframe Copycats – A look at five different terminal programs that emulate VT100 on the PC. These include Persoft SmarTerm 240 Version 1.1, KEA Systems Zstempc-VT100 Version 2.6, Polygon poly-COM/240 Version 1.12, Coefficient Systems Vterm III Version 1.4, and General Micro Systems PC4010 Version 2.0. VT100 emulation would become common across all terminal software.
    • PCs Teach the VAX New Tricks – A look at Datability’s Remote Access Vacility which is software that goes beyond basic terminal functions when used to access a VAX system from a PC.
    • A Bold New Fact – A look at the AST TurboLaser printer which has the ability to emulate a variety of other printers.
    • Alpha/three: Simple, Powerful, Compatible – A review of the Alpha/three DBMS which is compatible with and cheaper (if somewhat slower) than dBASE.

    Hands On

    • The Tailored Tabloid – Using Microsoft Access scripting to create personalized newspapers.
    • 1-2-3 Budget Tune-Up – A look at a 1-2-3 based app for incorporating sales and cost figures into your budget forecasts.

    Departments

    • David Bunnell – A look at some of the most influential people in the PC World. Some of the names here include John Sculley, Bill Gates, Gary Kildall, Michael Dell, and Trip Hawkins among others.
    • Letters – Letters from readers about legal attempts to prevent renting software, tape backup systems, offshore support, The Mist (game from Mindscape), PCs in Czechoslovakia, and more.
    • Harry Miler – A look at the evolution of desktop publishing.
    • PC World View – Bill Gross talks about HAL (Human Access Language), a English language front end for 1-2-3; results of a survey of PC users; Ashton-Tate seeks to become world’s leading source of software; and more.
    • Product Outlook – A look at recent and upcoming products including RapidFile, Wang LapTop, Crosstalk Mark 4, HAL, Ontio 259, and more.
    • From the Software Shelf – First impressions of recent software releases including WordPerfect Library, The Norton Commander, Webster’s New World Writer, BitCom, and more.
    • From the Hardware Shelf – First impressions of recent hardware releases including the Multitech Accel 900 286 based computer, the Sharp PC-7000 “portable” computer, the Core XT26 (26 MB hard drive), Orchid TurboEGA video accelerator, and more.
    • Password: Communicate – A guide to choosing the right 9600bps modem for your application; comparing time and cost on various online services with 300bps vs. 1200bps modems; phone companies having issues with automatic redial; and more.
    • The Help Screen – Questions answered about dealing with the lack of an 8-bit communications protocol when sending documents with 8-bit characters, serial port configuration, and recording computer images to a VCR.
    • *.* – A BASIC program for generating banners, quicksort routines, and more.
    • Kevin Strehlo – Addressing concerns about the IBM PC standard fragmenting.

    …and more!


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