• Tag Archives Windows

  • PC World (February 1991)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC World – February 1991

    By the early 1990s, PCs were being rapidly adopted though it would still be a few more years until the Internet came into widespread use. When AOL started providing web access in 1995 is probably a good metric for that. PC World was certainly one of the most popular PC magazines at the time and in 1991, 486 based PCs were around but 386 (and lower) were still much more common. The February 1991 issue of PC World includes:

    Cover Stories

    • Excel 3.0: The Push-Button Spreadsheet – A preview of the latest version of Excel. Some new features of Excel 3.0 include a new tool bar, hierarchical worksheets, drawing tools, and more.
    • Laptops in Living Color – A preview of a few upcoming laptops with color screens including the Sharp Colorstar featuring a 20-MHz 386 CPU, 100MB hard drive, and 256 color VGA screen for between $10,000 and $15,000 and the Toshiba T3200SXC featuring 20-MHz 386SX CPU, 120MB hard drive, and 256 color VGA screen for $9000. Those color screens weren’t cheap then.
    • Value Alert! 20-MHz 386SX Systems – Reviews of the latest batch of 20-MHz 386 based computers including the ALR Powerflex 20CSX ($3600), AST Premium II 386/20 ($3528), Compaq Deskpro 386x/20 ($4279), Dell 320LX ($3659), NCR PC386sx20 ($3547), and NEC PowerMate SX/20 ($3635). Typical specs included 4-5MB of RAM, 100-120MB hard drive and VGA graphics.
    • Personal Laser Printers: Looking Better All The Time – Reviews of the latest laser printers including the Brother HL-4 ($1381), HP LaserJet IIP ($1493), IBM LaserPrinter E ($1500), Okidata OL400 LED Page Printer ($994), Panasonic KX-P4420 Laser Printer ($1334), and Tandy LP 950 ($2199).

    Special Report

    • Windows – A special supplement on windowing environments and applications.
    • The Windows-Mac Connection – A look at GE’s experience getting Macintoshes and Windows based PCs working together.
    • Reviews – Reviews of The DeskTop Set 3.0, Spinnaker Plus 2.0, Ashlar Vellum for MS-DOS With Windows 3.0, PerForm Pro Designer and Filler, Distinct Back-Up 2.0, Command Port 7.0, and Windows Workstation Release 3.

    News

    • Top of the News – 16-ppm laser printers hit the market, CD-ROM and erasable optical technologies arrive, IBM introduces the luggable PS/2 Model P75 featuring a 33-MHz 486 CPU and 8MB of RAM for $16000, and more.
    • Industry Outlook – IBM and Tandy back new multimedia standards with better audio and CD-ROM drives coming to PCs soon, cheaper laser printers on the way, 9600bps modems gaining ground, Macintosh introduces low cost LC model to tempt PC users, and more.
    • Product Outlook – A look at new and upcoming products including the AST Premiu Exec 386SX/20 and 286/12 notebook models, Howtek Personal Color Printer, Control Point Backup, Crosstalk Communicator 1.0, Zeos 286 Notebook, Tandy 2810 HD, Toshiba T2000SX, and lots more.

    Previews

    • PageMaker Tries Harder – A preview of PageMaker 4.0 desktop pubishing software.
    • ccMail Meets Windows – A preview of cc:Mail for Windows 1.0 e-mail package.

    Features

    • Taming the Telephone – What contact management software can do for you.
    • Buyers’ Guide: Management Software – A guide to numerous contact management tools including Act 2.0, Contact Professional 2.4, The Desktop Set 3.0, Performer 2.01, Tracker 4.0, and many others.
    • The WordPerfect Office – Communications and file-sharing functions for users of WordPerfect products.

    How To

    • The Help Screen – Questions answered about duplicating fields in Paradox 3.0, end of the month macros for spreadsheets, and more.
    • Network Q&A – Questions answered about fault tolerance, including disk mirroring and duplicating.
    • Windows Walk-Through – The basics of using Windows.
    • Words Into Print – Automatic footnoting with WordPerfect.
    • Spreadsheets (A…Z) – Graphing spreadsheet data with Lotus 1-2-3 version 2.x.
    • Data Basics – Adding titles and column headings to database reports.
    • The Art of Persuasion – Choosing the best typefaces for business documents.
    • The Information Edge – Tips for getting the best value out of GEnie’s off-hour services.

    Departments

    • Richard Landry – The new Windows craze.
    • Letters – Letters from readers about accounting software, installing Windows 3.0, tech support, shareware, and more.
    • Consumer Watch – Advice for getting an old PC fixed.
    • Taking It Home – Tips for backing up and insuring your home/office computer.

    …and more!


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  • PC World (November 1999)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC World – November 1999

    I haven’t researched the numbers but it wouldn’t surprise me if PC World was the most successful PC magazine in history. Of course, these days I don’t think there are any successful PC magazines. Certainly not on the scale they used to be. The November 1999 issue of PC World includes:

    Cover Story

    • The Lowdown on Upgrades – For this article, PC World upgrades a Hewlett-Packard Vectra VL5 Series 5 in the following way: Pentium 166 -> K6-III-400 (via a PowerLeap adapter) ($199), 16MB RAM -> 64MB RAM ($100), add 17.2GB Seagate Medalist hard drive ($210), add 3dfx Voodoo3 with 16MB ($130), plus upgraded sound card, modem, USB ports, and monitor.

    Features

    • Spam!: How it Happens and How to Beat It – Spam, the eternal problem. This article offers tips to avoid and filter spam.
    • Notebooks for Cheapskates – A survey of “bargain” (i.e. sub $1700) notebooks. Ranked highest on their list of 10 notebooks is the Compaq Presario Notebook 150 featuring an AMD K6-2 380, 64MB RAM, and a 4GB hard drive for $1499.
    • Eyes on the Price: 17-inch Monitors For Under $400 – A look at 10 different 17-inch CRT monitors. The “best buy” in this bunch is the Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 71 for $349.

    Special Report

    • You Say You Want A Revolution: Music on the Web – A look at new ways of getting music and other audio on the web. While there were already some streaming sites, most were still downloads of static content.

    Top of the News

    • What’s a Buyer to Do? – A look at new chipsets for the Pentium III and the new Pentium III-600. Chipsets for the PIII and Celeron at the time included the Intel 440BX, Intel 810, Intel 810e, and Via Apollo Pro133 4x. RDRAM was available on the 820 but didn’t make much difference and the Athlon 600 was faster no matter what.
    • Speechware Needs Less Coaching – Speech software continues to improve but hasn’t quite reached Star Trek levels. Today, we practically have the Universal Translator.
    • High-Style Portables – A look at new Notebooks including the Thinkpad I Series 1480, Sony’s PCG-XG9, NEC’s Versa FX, and the Apple iBook.
    • Instant Messaging Brouhaha – Microsoft and AOL bicker over compatibility between Instant Messenger and Microsoft Messenger. I mostly used ICQ myself.
    • Microsoft Does Its Home Works – Microsoft releases Works Suite 2000. Works was sort of a lite version of Office that was cheaper and meant for home users.
    • Signed, Sealed, Delivered…Online – The legality of electronic signatures.
    • Whose Cable Is It Anyway? – AOL and other ISPs fight with AT&T over who should connect AT&T’s customers to the Internet.

    New Products

    • Micron Millennia Max PIII-600 – Back when I was buying Gateways, Micron was another computer maker I considered. This one includes a Pentium III 600.
    • Polywell Poly 800K7-65 Desktop PCs – AMD’s Athlon was the main competitor for the Pentium III and at this time it tended to be faster. This Polywell includes an Athlon 750.
    • HP Pavilion FX70 Flat Panel Display – Flat panel displays were around in 1999 but they were very expensive and not very good. This 15-inch LCD would set you back nearly $1200, had a native resolution of 1024×768 and one analog plus one DVI input.
    • Toshiba Portege 3110CT Ultraportable – This 3.1 notebook includes a 300 MHz Pentium II, a 6.4GB hard drive and 64MB of SDRAM for $2300.
    • Handspring Visor PDA – A PDA that runs PalmOS apps better than the Palm Pilot. The Palm Pilot and its derivatives made the best PDAs but it couldn’t compete with iOS and Android when they arrived.

    Top 100

    • Power PCs – At the top of the list this month is the Dell Dimension XPS T600 featuring a Pentium III-600, 128MB of RAM, and a 20GB hard drive. However, it is the Sys Performance 600A with its Athlon-600 processor that wins out in terms of raw speed.
    • Midrange PCs – Dell tops this category too with the Dell Dimension XPS T450 featuring a Pentium III-450, Diamond Viper NVidia TNT graphics board with 16MB, 64MB of RAM, and a 13GB hard drive.
    • Budget PCs – The top budget system this month is the Micro Express MicroFlec-50C featuring a Pentium III-450, 64MB RAM, ATI RageGL graphics board, for just under $1200.
    • Notebook PCs – The top power notebook this month is the Dell Inspiron A400LT featuring a Pentium II-400, 64MB of RAM and a 14GB hard drive for well over $3000. The top budget notebook is the Micron TransPort Trek2 featuring a Celeron-400, 64MB of RAM and 4GB hard drive for about $2300.
    • Home PCs – Still not sure how “home PC” varies from the other categories but the top power home system this month is the Dell Dimension XPS T550 featuring a Pentium III-550, 128MB SDRAM, Diamond Viper V770 video card with 32MB for a little over $2300. The top budget system is the Quantex M466c featuring a Celeron-466, 64MB SDRAM, 6GB hard drive for under $1000.
    • Graphics Boards – The top AGP board this month is the Creative Labs Graphics Blaster Riva TNT for $100 while the best PCI card is the 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 for $130.

    Here’s How

    • Windows Tips – Tips for disabling startup apps, cascading menus, using CDDB, and more.
    • Windows NT – Using Windows NT to share your internet connection.
    • Answer Line – Questions answered about hard drive crashes, Tweak UI, default file associations, creating a shortcut to standby, and more.
    • Internet Tips – Finding radio stations on the web, troubleshooting audio problems, trimming AOL files, and more.
    • Word Processing – Using watermarks, quick pasting in Word, keyboard shortcuts, protecting styles in Word, an e-mail formatting macro, and more.
    • Spreadsheets – Filling empty cells in Excel in line charts, summing the highest values in a range, and reducing the size of 1-2-3 imports into Excel.
    • Hardware Tips – Adding RAM vs. adding L2 cache, printing on different paper sizes, troubleshooting IRQ conflicts, and automating modem logoffs.

    Departments

    • Up Front – Hotmail suffers one of the biggest security breaches on the web up until that point.
    • Letters – Readers write in about Price Watch, the use of PCs (an the internet) in schools, Y2K utilities, online auctions, using FTP from Windows, and more.
    • Home Office – A look at DSL vs. Cable.
    • Full Disclosure – A look at seven improvements over the past year including aggressive price cuts, faster internet connections, improvements in ink jet printers, better and more affordable CD-R drives, MiniDV and Digtial8 camcorders with IEEE 1394 (firewire) connections, personal video recorders, and “profitless” e-business.

    …and more!


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  • PC World (July 1990)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source:  PC World – July 1990

    PC World was probably the most widely available PC Magazine throughout the 1990s and 2000s. At some point, they started covering more and more other consumer electronics stuff and it sort of lost appeal (at least to me) as a computer magazine. Page count was a fairly good way to judge how they were doing at at nearly 300 pages, it looks like they were doing quite well in 1990. The July 1990 issue includes:

    Previews

    • Windows Makes the Grade – A look at Windows 3.0. This was really the first version of Windows to start to become ubiquitous on PCs. My first PC had Windows 3.11.
    • HyperCard Meets Windows – A look at ToolBook, a HyperCard-like programming tool for Windows.
    • Windows 3.0 Quiets the Critics – Various software publishers like WordPerfect start supporting Windows but believe OS/2 will be the future…boy were they wrong.

    Reviews

    • Software You Can Really Use – A look at some of the best utilities including WindowDOS 3.0 (a DOS shell not to be confused with Windows 3.0), PC Tools, Norton Utilities, The Norton Commander, SpinRite II, Speed Disk, Fullback Plus, SideKick, and lots more.
    • Hard Disk Health Insurance – A comparison of hard drive recovery tools including Norton’s Disk Doctor, PC Tools’ DiskFix, and Mace Utilities 1990.
    • Making DOS Manageable – A round-up of DOS Shells including 1dir+ 3.03, Disk Director 1.06, Magellan 2.0, Norton Commander 3.0, PC Tools Deluxe 6.0, SoftBreeze 3.0, Tree86 3.2, and XtreePro Gold 1.4.
    • Disk Trouble? No, Thanks! – A round-up of nine utilities to tune up and troubleshoot your hard drive. Included in this review are Disk Optimizer 4.05, Optune 1.2, Mace Utilities 1990, Htest 3.0, The Norton Utilities Advanced Edition 4.5, PC-Kwik Power Disk 1.0, PC Tools Deluxe 6.0, SpinRite II, and Vopt 2.2.
    • No-Excuses Backup Software – A round-up of backup software. At the top of the list are Norton Backup and PC Tools.
    • Playing for Time: Five Personal Schedulers – A round-up of scheduling software including Calendar Creator Plus 3.0, Complete Calendar 2.5, PC Tools Deluxe 6.0, Reminders 2.1, and SideKick Plus 1.0.

    Features

    • Buyers’ Guide: Our Favorite Utilities – The editors of PC World pick their favorite utilities.
    • Souped-Up Word Processing – A buyer’s guide for tools for word processors. Product covered include Grammatik IV, Word for Word Professional 4.1, GrandView 1.01a, and others.
    • Spreadsheets With Extra Reach – Tools for spreadsheets including (at)BASE 2.22, RAR Worksheet Report Writer 1.0, Look&Link 1.1, Noteworth 1.01, Worksheet Utilities 1.01, Budget Express 1.0, Delta-Manager 1.0, Impress 2.0, Sideways 3.31, and more.
    • Time-Savers for Desktop Publishers – Utilities to make desktop publishing chores more efficient. Some utlities included here are MouseWare 1.0, The Soft Kicker Plus 2.0, PageMaker Portfolio, and others.
    • Communications Shareware: The People’s Choice – Tools to improve and make your online experience more efficient. These include TAPCIS 5.2, List 7.3d, PKZIP 1.10, Doorway 2.05, DSZ, E-Z Reader 1.24, MPt Protocol, and Viruscan 2.7V60.
    • Are You Satisfied With Your Software – A survey of what users would like to see in their software to make it easier to use.
    • Who Says Users Can’t Get No Satisfactions – PC World readers pick their favorite softare.

    How To

    • Instant Reference Card: Word Perfect – Keyboard shortcuts for Wordperfect 5.0 and 5.1.

    News

    • Top of the News – Lotus 1-2-3 3.1 released, IBM to introduce another home computer, Windows applications to run under OS/2, DOS 5.0 coming soon, and more.
    • Industry Outlook – Lotus and Novell mergers plans, Compaq expands into peripherals, AT&T markets office software called Rahpsody based on HP’s NewWave, censorship on Prodigy, and more.
    • Product Outlook – A brief look at new products including the PC-6220 laptop from Sharp, PC Power and Cooling Inner Source 2210 combination power supply and UPS, new Tandy systems (2800 HD, 4033 LX, 4016 DX, 4016 SX, 2500 XL), 1.44 MB floppy drives for Next systems, and more.

    Perspectives

    • Richard Laundry – An editorial on why Windows is here to stay.
    • Letters – Letters from readers about FCC regulations, Excel vs. Lotus 1-2-3, modem usage, and more.

    Departments

    • The Help Screen – Help with formatting 720k disks on 1.44MB drives, dual booting DOs and OS/2, memory prices, ASCII file readers, scientific word processors, and more.
    • Consumer Watch – Deciding whether or not to upgrade your software.
    • Taking it Home – Taking your home office on the road with a Toshiba T1000 and SideKick Plus.

    …and more!


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