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  • Maximum PC (September 2000)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Maximum PC – September 2000

    Another issue of what was my favorite PC magazine. It was among the latest survivors in the magazine world as well. This magazine was generally targeted at those who were power users. People that build their own PCs, do PC gaming, overclock, etc. The September 2000 issue includes:

    • Commport – Letters from readers about the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP, color temperature calibration, the demise of Psygnosis, computer heat, AOL and privacy, the KX133 chipset, turning off the task scheduler, and more.
    • Inside Sources – Low power CPUs shown off at PC Expo including Transmeta’s Crusoe, a low power 600 MHz Pentium III, and AMD’s K6-2+ at PC Expo; the DVD-RAM / DVD+RW war continues; and a look at the new bluetooth technology.
    • Watch Dog – Philips settles lawsuit regarding defective CD-R drives; problems with Access Micro PC, getting Klipsch speakers in Canada, Aureal files for bankruptcy, and more.
    • Peripheral Vision – A look at new tech toys including the Casio Freedia FZ-500P Super-Compact Printer, Creative Video Blaster WebCam GO Plus, and Olympus Eye-Trek FMD-150W-US.
    • Fast Forward – A fair price for MP3a and the future of music consumption.
    • Dream Machine 2000 – Every year, Maximum PC editors built the ultimate PC that could be built. In 2000, that was a desktop featuring dual 1 GHz Pentium III CPUs, an Intel OR840 motherboard, a pair of 256MB Kingston RDRAM modules, a Hercules 3D Prophet II 64MB video card, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum + Live Drive II, Sigma Designs Real Magic Hollywood Plus MPEG Decoder, Plextor Ultraplex 40x Max CD-ROM, two Plexwriter 12/4/32 drives, Pioneer DVD-115 16x DVD-ROM, two 18GB Seagate X15 SCSI drives, a 75GB IBM 75GXP drive, an Adaptec 39160 Ultra 160 SCSI card, an Iomega 100MB Internal IDE ZIP drive, a Sony F500 monitor, Klipsch ProMedia V.2-400 speakers, Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro USB, Logitech First Mouse Wheel, and a PC Power and Cooling Solid-Steel Tower. All for the low, low price of $11,987.
    Dream Machine 2000
    • Hands Down: The 25 Best Palm Apps – This list of best Palm Pilot apps includes things like Unitconv (an app for converting units), Cruisecontrol (an overclocking app), Arranger (an organizer app), Moon Phase (will give you the phase of the moon for any date), and lots of others.
    • Thunderbird’s A Go-Go! – A detailed look at AMD’s new iteration of the Athlon CPU. The big changes were to the cache architecture which also allowed it to go from slot based back to socket based.
    • Whitepaper – A talk with Matrox regarding its OpenGL driver.
    • Ask The Doctor – Questions answered about using Premiere with a Compaq Presario 7970, problems with IE 5.5, problems with ripping MP3s, DMA issues, using SoftFSB, and more.
    • Hardware Reviews – Reviews of the Polywell Poly A30k7-1000 system, Diamond Rio 600 MP3 player, Hercules 3D Prophet II 64MB graphics card, Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 32MB graphics card, Hercules 3D Prophet II 32MB graphics card, OnStream 30GB tape drive, Dell XPS8100R Special Edition digital studio, Samsung SM-304B CD-RW/DVD drive, Toshiba SD-R1002 CD-RW/DVD drive, and Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 350CBi mobile color printer.
    • Game Reviews – Reviews of Diablo II, Deus Ex, MDK2, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, StarLancer, and Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption.

    …and more!


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  • PC Magazine (May 28, 1985)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC Magazine – May 28, 1985

    Not only were 1980s issues of PC Magazine quite large (this one is around 375 pages), for a while it was also published every other week. The May 28, 1985 issue includes:

    Cover Stories

    • Plug-ins: The Inside Story – Some of the best add-in devices including hard drives and half-height floppy drives, and backup devices such as tape drives (these weren’t officially supported by IBM until the XT and PCjr came along).
    • Installing Megabytes in Minutes – A comparison of some of the hard drives available for the PC, including the Mountain Computer XT Internal, Micro Design IS 10, Falcon Technology PC Extender, Everex Everdisk, Quadram QuadDisk (12 MB), Sigma Designs HHK-02000, Kamerman Labs Megaflight, Micro Design IS 30, and Quadram QuadDisk (72 MB).
    • Portability Meets Privacy – A comparison of available removeable-cartridge hard disk systems including the Genie XL 10P, Quadram QuadDisk, IDEAssociates IDEAdisk, and Tecmar PC-Mate. These all coast in the neighborhood of $2000 for a storage capacity of 5 to 10MB per cartridge.
    • Double Your Driving Pleasure – A comparison of half-height floppy drives for the PC including the Panasonic JU-455, Control Data 9428, TEAC FD-55B-01-U, and QUME QumeTrak 142.
    • An Up-Front Approach to Backup – A comparison of internal tape drives for the PC including the Everex EXCELL 4500, Micro Design MT 10, Mountain Computer FSI60-AT, Sigma Designs STK-45, and Tecmar QIC-60-AT.
    • New Frontiers for Add-in Technology – A look at some technologies so new that IBM does not officially support them (but that didn’t mean you couldn’t use them…if you had the money). These include quad-density floppy drives such as the Tandon TM64-4, embedded servo drives such as the TeamMate 1103, and CD-ROM technology.

    Features

    • OmniTel’s Encore Performance – A look at the Encore 1200B Hayes compatible internal modem (1200bps for only $449).
    • Get Smart with MaxThink – MaxThink is a “thought processor”, a category of software designed to sort out the pros and cons and other factors for making choices.
    • 2001: Futuristic Accounting? – 2001 from FIS is an accouting package designe for small businesses.
    • Macro Dynamos for the PC – A comparison of two pieces of software for creating macros: ProKey 3.0 and SmartKey 4.1.
    • Fine-Tuning Your Sales Technique – A review of The Sales Manager, software for tracking clients, expenses, commissions, and more.
    • Perfect Components: All in the Family – The Perfect series is an integrated software package with the advantage that you can buy only the components you need.

    Pro Columns

    • Finding Anything Anywhere – A type-in BASIC program for searching text in files on your disk.
    • Keeping the Wolves at Bay – A look at a bankruptcy-reorganization program from Arthur Anderson & Co. called The Reorganization Model.
    • Banking on Your Computer – Online banking has been around longer than you might think. In 1985, you could access your accounts via dial-up to systems such as PRONTO.
    • Restoring Matrix Commands to BASIC – The original Dartmouth BASIC including matrix functionality but this was cut when BASIC was created for PCs. Matrix 100 is a BASIC software package that adds back these BASIC matrix commands.
    • Enter at Your Own Risk – A review of The Computer-Assisted Investment Handbook which includes 50 type-in investment programs.
    • The Organized Writer – ThinkTank is software designed to help in planning the structure of writing projects.

    Departments

    • PC News – IBM enters the “phone-computer” market; IBM cuts prices and releases new XT models; AT&T’s STARLAN; Ericcsson releases 15-pound portable computer for $2995; Kodak makes offer for Verbatim; electronic mail privacy issues; Japan’s new PC JX (sort of a Japanese version of the PCjr), and much more.
    • The Mouse That Roared – Editors at PC Magazine experiment with using a mouse.
    • Letters to PC – Letters from readers about Professional BASIC, user software rights, sending files by modem vs. LAN, BBS lists, and more.
    • Complementary Comments – A look at new printers from IBM (Wheelprinter and Quietwriter Printer), the advantages of using non-IBM hard drives with the IBM AT, and a look at IBM’s new Enhanced Graphics Adapter.
    • User-To-User – Using the IBM’s low resolution graphics mode (160 x 100).
    • New On The Market – A look at new PC related items on the market including the EIT-PS Personal Scanner, Modemphone, new half-height removable cartridge drives, PcOS 100 dot matrix printer, Star Cal II (database of celestial events through 1990), and more.
    • Taming a Wild Language – A review of the book Assembly Language Safari on the IBM PC: First Explorations by John Socha.

    …and more!


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  • Maximum PC (August 2005)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Maximum PC – August 2005

    Maximum PC, which start its life as boot, was my favorite PC magazine. It was oriented towards ‘enthusiasts’ such as gamers and those who like to build their own PCs, overclock, etc. It was published up until a a few years ago. The August 2005 issue includes:

    Regulars

    • In/Out – Letters from readers about choosing a video card for Quake 4, video card benchmarks, Quake III on a multi-core CPU, the Pentium D, DVD-R vs. DVD+R, and more.
    • Quick Start – ATI introduces crossfire; ATI releases 10 new drives including internal, external and portable models; Windows Mobile 5.0 released for PDAs and smartphones; DisplayPort standard announced; Athlon 64 X2 series replaces single core models; and more.
    • Head2Head – A look at the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ vs. the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840.
    • WatchDog – Maximum PC investigates industry issues including D-Link router problems, counterfeit copies of Windows XP, motherboard warranties, and more.
    • How To – A guide to protecting yourself from Phishing and Pharming.
    • Ask the Doctor – Questions answered about USB ports on the A7V333 motherboard, ethernet on the Asus P4P800 motherboard, power supply issues, case filters, and more.
    • In the Lab – Testing the 64-bit version of Windows XP.
    • Rig of the Month – A PC custom designed to look like something recovered off of a derelict space ship in Alien.

    Reviews

    • Desktop PC: MMC Modular PC – A modular PC that requires a docking station to work. It includes 1 GHz Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 CPU, 512MB of DDR RAM, 20GB hard drive, Silicon Motion 3DR graphics processor, and more for $1900.
    • 512MB videocards – A look at both the Sapphire Hybrid X800 XL and XFX GeForce 6800 Ultra 512MB. At the time 512MB video cards to offer much advantage over 256MB models.
    • Water-cooling Kit: Koolance Exos 2 – This liquid CPU cooler includes a unit with radiator, fans ad digital display that mounts on top of your case.
    • PDA: PalmOne LifeDrive – The unique features of this Palm based PDA was the 4GB internal hard drive.
    • External Hard Drive: Seagate 400GB – A highly rated and very large for the time external drive.
    • Video Editing Suite: Turtle Beach Video Advantage USB – A USB device and software that allows you to capture analog composite and S-Video with stereo audio.
    • Personal Video Player: Ovideon Aviah 5GB – A portable video player with a 2.2″ OLED screen, 5 GB of storage, and built-in TV Tuner.
    • Digital Cameras – Reviews of the Kodak EasyShare Z740 and the Leica Digilux 2.
    • Wireless Headphones: Sennheiser RS140 – A mediocre pair of wireless headphones.
    • MP3 Player: Gateway 6GB MP3 Photo Jukebox – A 6GB MP3 player that could also store and display digital photos.
    • USB Keys – A look a couple of USB thumb drives including the M-Flyer TravelDrive and CryptoStick USB 2.0.
    • DV Disc-Mastering Suite: Easy Media Creator 7.5 – One of the most popular pieces of software for mastering CDs.

    Gaming

    • Cold Fear – A port of a console survival horror game.
    • Guild Wars – A very popular MMORPG.
    • Pariah – A first person shooter with questionable AI.
    • SWAT 4 – A squad based game in which you command a SWAT team.

    Features

    • Heal Your PC! – Reviews of 23 utilities to prevent and cure viruses and other malware.
    • Picture This! – A review of 11 LCD monitors including the BenQ FP19V+, Eizo L778, Formac, Hewlett Packard L2035, LG L1980Q, Norcent LM-960, Philips 190P5, Planar PX212M, Samsung 193P, Sony SDM-HS95P, and Viewsonic VP191b.
    • Taming the SATA Beast – Understanding the differences between SATA 150, SATA II, and SATA 3G.

    …and more!


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