• Tag Archives Windows

  • 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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  • Digital Archaeology: Gateway M-1629

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    When looking at another Gateway laptop almost exactly like this one in appearance I pondered when exactly when Gateway’s quality started to decline. I think it may have been with Core 2 Duo era laptops. While previous Pentium M and Turion 64 laptops (nearly identical in construction) may have lost some of the excitement of earlier models, they at least seemed pretty solid and of decent quality. The Turion based laptop I’m looking at here, while it has an attractive silver and red design, it also has a flimsier feeling keyboard and buttons. Still, I would say it holds up better than Dell Inspiron models of similar age.

    The Gateway M-1629 I am looking at here has the following features:

    • CPU: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2GHz
    • Memory: 3 GB DDR2-666/PC2-5300
    • Video: Radeon Xpress 1270M
    • Screen: 1280×800
    • Hard Drive: Western Digital ATA WDC WD3200BPVT-6 (320 GB)
    • Optical Drive: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7560A

    Check out the output of HardInfo for a more complete look at the hardware.

    This is a lower-end laptop. The CPU is an AMD model which tended to be put in lower end machines because they were cheaper. However, this particular model is quite a bit faster than a similar Pentium (Core 2 Duo variant) laptop I looked at recently. Of course, the Pentium is typically clocked lower and has less cache than a Core 2 Duo. MHz for MHz a Core 2 Duo will be faster but also more expensive. The Turion 64 X2 is based on the K8 architecture so it is essentially the same thing as an Athlon 64 X2 only designed for laptops. The CPU is socketed so theoretically it could be upgraded to a TL-68 model running at 2.4GHz.

    The video hardware is also low end. The Radeon Xpress 1270M is integrated with the chipset and shares system memory. I suppose it is technically a little better than the equivalent Intel solutions at the time but it hardly matters. Neither was sufficient for what would have been modern gaming at the time.

    Vista was the version of Windows that shipped with this laptop. I’m not sure if it was the 32-bit or 64-bit version. It seems like the 32-bit version was typically included as the default install because 64-bit drivers were somewhat less available. Some users likely would have downgraded to Windows XP as well assuming drivers exist to support the hardware. Windows 7 and/or Windows 8 are probably the best choices for a Microsoft OS for this laptop. Any of those are fine for retro use but if you really plan to use it in a modern context then Linux would be the best choice.

    With a low-ish end CPU and a video solution that is near the bottom of the barrel, this was definitely a laptop for bargain hunters. Still, having two cores and a 64-bit processor it is really still good enough to run a modern OS. The cap of 4GB of RAM is actually the biggest limitation. Windows 10 really does better with 8 GB, especially when the rest of your hardware is already low end. However, I’m running a modern version of Xubuntu and it does fine. Web browsing is problematic because modern web browsers are such memory hogs. However, if you stick to 1 or 2 tabs then it is usable, if not exactly snappy. For some reason Firefox, the default browser in Xubuntu, is extremely laggy and seems to constantly eat CPU cycles. Brave does quite a bit better and there are lighter browsers available.

    It’s also still good enough to run BOINC and most projects, at least the ones I am most interested in. You can see how it is doing in Einstein@home, Asteroids@home, and Universe@home or see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.

    The photo at the top and the specs image were taken from The Gateway Computers Wiki. The other images are from the user manual.


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  • Byte (November 1988 – IBM Special Edition) 

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Byte – November 1988 (IBM Special Edition)

    Byte was one of the earliest and most in-depth computer magazines around while it was being published. It began life in the 1970s and lasted all the way into the 1990s. This issue is from November 1988 and is one of two issues published that month. Once the IBM PC became a huge deal, Byte started doing a yearly special “IBM” issue and did so for a number of years. This is one of those special IBM issues and it includes:

    Trends

    • Editorial: Two Roads – There was still a question at this time as to whether the IBM PS/2 would set the new standard for PCs to come or the AT/386 standard. We all know how that turned out…
    • Probing the State of the Art – More about the latest in the PC world including both PS/2 and AT/386 standards. Plus a look at advanced operating systems like OS/2 and Unix. Also, I look at new peripheral devices like the HiREZ mouse from Logitech, the Kyocera F-3010 laser printer, the ScanJet from HP and more.
    • Mapping the Software World – A look at some of the common types of software available and good representative examples, including integrated software packages, word processing software, desktop publishing software, spreadsheets, database management, telecommunications, drafting, painting, utilities and more.
    • Beefed-up Bulletin Boards – While most hobby BBSes may have been run on a single phone line and a basic PC, there were some much larger systems out there. This article covers a few of them including Exec-PC (54 dial-up lines, 1.48 gigabytes of files), Invention Factory (24 dial-up lines, 1.2 gigabytes), Thousand Oaks Technical Database (160 megabyte), Utilities Exchange (117 megabytes). These systems offer maximum dial-up speeds of 2400bps to 9600bps. According to this article, at the time there were over 10,000 BBSes in the U.S.
    • Migrating: Up or Down? – Migrating from mainframes to PCs and vice versa.
    • OS/2 Dreams – A look at the current state of OS/2 and where it should go in the future.
    • To Mac and Back – Various ways to move files between the PC and a Mac. Options discussed include direct serial and SCSI connections, using a DOS co-processor, using DOS disks on the MAC, and various networking solutions.
    • DOS 4.0 – A look at the new DOS 4.0. Some enhancements over previous versions include support for disk drives larger than 32 megabytes, new and improved utilities, and a DOS Shell.
    • Memory Board Roundup – A comparison of memory expansion boards for PS/2, PC, XT and AT systems. There are 21 boards listed for PC/XT/AT systems ranging in size from 64K to 16MB with prices ranging from under $100 to nearly $1900 and those prices are for whatever the “standard” memory amount is for that board, none of which exceed 2 MB. There are another 20+ boards for PS/2 systems. These max out at about the same price but start at closer to $350.

    Technology

    • The Micro Channel versus the AT Bus – The advantage of the PS/2 32-bit MCA bus was speed. The advantage of the AT Bus was significantly lower cost and greater compatibility with existing expansion cards. At the end of the day, it turned out that the PS/2 wasn’t really faster than the fastest AT based machines and those AT machines were a whole lot cheaper. The rest is history. It wouldn’t be long before 32-bit “AT” solutions came along like EISA and VLB.
    • Keeping Up with the CPU – A processors in the PC increased in speed from 4.77 MHz to 8 MHz to 16 MHz and beyond, the bus (and system memory) started having trouble keeping up. Some solutions at the time were to introduce wait states (negating much of the speed advantage of faster CPUs), using faster DRAM (which was more expensive), or using SRAM (also expensive). For 386 based systems, the approach settled on was using standard DRAM but including a smaller amount of SRAM for cache. Essentially, the same approach at a high level is still used today with cache having long ago moved from the motherboard into the processor itself. Of course now CPUs have much more cache that systems back then had total memory. A common amount of memory in high end 386 desktop systems in 1988 would have been 1 or 2 MB. The relatively old at this point Ryzen 1700 I am typing this on has 8MB of L3 cache plus smaller amounts of L2 and L1.
    • Whither IBM and Unix? – A look a the various implementations of Unix available including PX/IX, ISC, Xenix, and most recently for IBM, AIX. Plus, OS/2 versus Unix.
    • DOS Meets Unix – Hosting DOS applications like Lotus 1-2-3, dBASE III, and WordPerfect in Unix.
    • Graphics: The Big Picture – The transition of PC graphics from monochrome to CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond.
    • Life After DOS – A look at multitasking options for PCs that don’t require OS/2 including DESQview, VM/386, Omniview, Concurrent DOS, PC-MOS, and Windows/386.

    Techniques

    • OS/2 Communications – A look at communications software in OS/2. It turns out that creating such software that takes advantage of OS/2’s multitasking capabilities is not especially difficult compared to DOS. OS2COMM (including source) is a simple com program for OS/2 that is looked at here as an example.
    • Keep Your PC Healthy – Tips for keeping your PC in working order including things like keeping your environment dust free, not smoking around your computer, making sure it has proper airflow, and more. Plus, software oriented solutions like defragmenting your hard drive.
    • Writing OS/2 Graphics – Technical considerations for creating graphics on OS/2, including things like privilege levels, 286 protected mode, directly accessing graphics hardware, multitasking and more.
    • VGA Video Modes – A technical look at the various VGA graphics modes.
    • Exploring OS/2 with a Lisp Interpreter – Using extensions to XLisp to conveniently experiment on OS/2. Includes various code samples.

    …and more!


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