• Tag Archives magazines

  • 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!


    📂This entry was posted in Computer Arcana DOS 📎and tagged

  •  PC World (December 1992)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: PC World – December 1992

    PC World was probably the most popular PC magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s and maybe longer than that (it was certainly around longer). This issue from December 1992 was from about 7 months or so before I bought my first PC (not counting my Commodore 64). It includes:

    Cover Story

    • The Readers’ Choice: World Class 1992 – Readers pick the best hardware and software of 1992. Some of the winners in the hardware category include the ATI Graphics Ultra video card, the Seagate ST3144A hard drive, the Bernoulli Transportable 90 Pro external drive from Iomega, the Jumbo 250 tape drive from Colorado Memory Systems, the ScanMan 256 handheld scanner from Logitech, and the Microsoft Mouse. Gateway 2000 was voted as the vendor with the best service and support, followed by Dell, Zeos, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard. Winners in the software category include WordPerfect, Excel, Windows 3.x, Norton Utilities, Paradox, ProComm Plus (I loved this terminal software), PageMaker, CorelDraw (another favorite of mine), Quicken, and more.

    Windows

    • Windows NT: A DOS for the ’90s – A detailed look at the upcoming new operating system from Microsoft, Windows NT.

    Systems

    • 486SX-25s vs. 386DX-40s: The Upstart Fights Back – While Intel had moved on to the 486, AMD was still pushing the 386 to faster speeds with the 386DX-40 (I had a roommate in college with one). More than 50% of new sales were 486 systems by this point but the 386 was still thought to be a good budget choice at the time. In reality, it would be woefully out of date within a year or two. In this overview, it shows that the budget 486 processor (486SX-25) is faster than the 386DX-40 though doesn’t have as good of a price/performance ratio. However, the 486 systems were also more easily upgradeable. The best performer in their lineup was the Boss 486SX/25 Cache. The best value was the Compudyne 486SX/25 with the Blackship BLK 386/40 taking second.
    • The Complete Guide to the New CPUs – A look at the latest 386 and 486 processors. Also, benchmark comparisons of 24 processors. From fastest to slowest: 486DX2-66, OverDrive-33/66, 486DX-50, OverDrive-25/50, 486DX-33, OverDrive-20/40, 486DX-25, Cyrix 486DLC-33, AMD 386DXL-40 (with math coprocessor), IBM 486SLC2-20/40, Cyrix 486DLC-33 (with math coprocessor), 486SX-25, 386DX-33 (with math coprocessor), AMD 386-40, 386DX-33, 486SX-20, Cyrix 486SLC-25, 386DX-25 (with math coprocessor), 386SL-25, 386DX-25, AMd 386SXL-25, 386SX-20, 386SX-20.

    Top of the News

    • You Can Take It With You – A look at a bunch of recently released laptops, including the Compaq LTE 4/25c and Lite/25E (with 25-Mhz 486SL CPU); TravelMate 4000 WinDX2/50, WinDX2/40 Color, and WinSX/25; Grid Convertible (386SL-25 based); and Z-Lite 320L (386SL based).
    • Vendors Speed Up PC Introductions – Vendors are introducing new PCs at an increasingly rapid pace. PC tech started rapidly advancing starting in the late 486/early Pentium era. Within two years or so there were cheaper PCs available that were at least 400% faster than the 486-DX2/66 I got in 1993.
    • Microsoft’s Accessible Database – Microsoft releases the easy to use Access database software.
    • Windows for Workgroups – The latest version of Windows, Windows for Workgroups 3.1 made networking easier.
    • ‘Tis Better to Send Than Receive – Fax-Modems combined the ability of a modem with the ability of a fax machine and were all the rage in the early 1990s.
    • Quicken Gets Financial Management Tools – A brief look at the latest version of quicken (6.0 for DOS and 2.0 for Windows).

    Printers

    • Next Generation Lasers – Reviews of the latest laser printers, including the Compaq Pagemarq 15, Compaq Pagemarq 20 (best buy), Helett-Packard LaserJet 4 (best buy), Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4M, IBM LaserPrinter 10P/Lexmark, Kyocera Ecosys a-SI, NewGen Systems TurboPS/660, Okidata OL810, and Xanite Accel-a-Writer 8000.

    Video

    • Best Monitors for $1000 – Reviews of the latest “big-screen” monitors (we are talking 15 to 17-inch CRT based monitors) for prices ranging from $700 to nearly $1500. Models reviewed include the Amdek AM/815, Amdek AM/817, Compaq QVision 150, Dell 15LR, HP Ultra VGA 17-Inch Display, IOcomm ThinkSync 5, IOcomm ThinkSync 7A, Mag MX15F, Mag MX17F (best buy), NEC MultiSync 4FG (best buy), Rellsys RE1558, Samsung SyncMaster 5c, Sony CPD-1604S, Taxan MultiVision 550, TVM MediaScan 5A+LR (best buy), TVM MediaScan 6A Digital (best buy), and ViewSonic 7.
    • Fast Video for Less – A huge round-up of 95 graphic accelerator boards. These were designed to speed up displays in Windows more so than games.

    Backup

    • Tape Backups You Set and Forget – A look at the latest “high-capacity” tape drives (typically with 120MB capacity and up to 250MB compressed capacity). Tape drives were a pretty common accessory from about this time through the early Pentium era. After that, they sort of faded away in favor of other options (Zip drives, etc.).

    New Products

    • Toshiba Satellite Notebooks – Toshiba launches three “low cost” 386SX Notebooks. The T1800 featuring a 20-MHz 386SX, 2MB of RAM and a 60MB hard drive for $1800, the T1850 with 25-MHz 386SX, 4MB of RAM and an 80MB hard drive for $2200, and the T1850C which is the same as the T1850 except with a color screen for $3300.

    • HP DeskJet 550C, DeskJet Portable Printers – The new DeskJet 550C inkjet printer for $1099 and the new HP DeskJet Portable for $599.
    • Tecmar QICVault tape drives – SCSI based tape drives with 720MB capacity for prices ranging from $1139 to $1889.
    • SyDOS Marlin, Puma hard drives – A look at the new SyDOS 3.5″ drive with removable media.
    • PerForm Pro Plus – Software for creating forms.
    • Superbase 2 – A relational database for Windows. I believe there was actually a Commodore 64 version of the original Superbase.
    • Fontographer 3.5 for Windows – Create and modify fonts.
    • Publish It 3.0, Publish It for Windows – Desktop publishing packages for DOS and Windows.
    • Golden Retriever 2.0 – A file manager for Windows.
    • Dynamics accounting software – A high end accounting package for Windows from Great Plains Software.
    • DrivePro hard disk utility – A utility for helping you set up a new hard drive in Windows without having to resort to DOS commands.
    • Surefire 1.5 word processor – A low cost word processor with spreadsheet and database functions.
    • InfoTAC wireless modem – A $1350 4800 BPS wireless radio modem designed for sending and receiving e-mail.
    • OnTime for Networks – A group scheduling package that notifies you about meetings via e-mail, allows you to respond immediately to meeting requests, and more.
    • The Wire for MCI Mail – A Windows front end for MCI Mail.
    • CreditCard Ethernet Adapter – A ~$445 PCMCIA Ethernet adapter that operates up to 8MB per second.

    Here’s How

    • Help Line – Questions answered about Stacker disk compression software, turning extended memory into expanded memory, printing screen graphics, OS/2, and more.
    • Spreadsheets – Questions answered about displaying negative percentages in parenthesis in 1-2-3, calculating the last day of the previous month in Excel 4.0, hiding columns in Excel 4.0, and more.
    • Word Processing – Questions answered about using clip art in WordPerfect 5.1, gridlines in Word for Windows 2.0, creating text with background shading in WordPerfect 5.1, and more.
    • Windows – Questions answered about playing WAV sound files via the PC speaker in Windows 3.1, using 32-bit disk access in Windows, and more.
    • Instant Reference Card – A reference card for Word for Windows 2.0 Macros.

    Departments

    • Letters – Letters from readers about fraudulent ads in magazines, Hewlett-Packard’s NewWave, CAD software, and more.
    • Real Problems, Real Solutions – Overcoming the feat of computers.
    • What’s Next – A look at navigation software which at the time amounted to map software for your PC, some with subscriptions for updates.
    • Managers of the Universe – A look at computer games including Chessmaster 3000 Multimedia Pro and Loom.
    • Home Office – Tools to make online services and BBS’s easier, including the OZCIS auto-navigator program for CompuServe and Robocomm for BBS systems.

    …and more!


    📂This entry was posted in Computer Arcana DOS 📎and tagged