• Tag Archives retrocomputing

  • Computer Shopper (September 1994)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Computer Shopper – September 1994

    Computer Shopper was not a magazine I picked up very often. Calling it a magazine is almost misleading. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was phone book sized…or bigger. This issue approaches 900 pages which is pretty insane for a magazine. Before the Internet, this was THE source if you were looking for places to by computers or parts. However, in addition to all of the ads, it also had great articles. The September 1994 issue includes:

    Features

    • 60MHz Pentiums Under $1,500 – A look at were the “best buy” system based on the 60MHz Pentium processor. Systems here include the First Computer Systems Inc. FCS Green Pentium 60MHz, Micro Professionals Inc. P5/60 Pro Systems Ultra, MilkyWay Computer Products Myriad P5/60, Royal Computer Inc. Pro Desk, and the Tagram System Corp. Pentium VLB P60.

    • 64-Bit Graphics Accelerators – A look at some of the latest and greatest graphis cards. They weren’t even really GPUs at this point. Cards looked at here include the Diamond Viper Pro PCI, Media Vision Pro Graphics 1024 VL-Bus, Number Nine GXE64 PCI, and STB LightSpeed VL.

    • Special Report: Cyber Chips – A look at some of the latest and upcoming CPU technology. The top CPUs of the time included the 100 MHz DX4, 66 MHz Pentium, 100 MHz Pentium, 80 MHz PowerPC 601, 200 MHz DEC Alpha AXP 21064, 150 MHz MIPS R4600. Upcoming CPUs included the 133 MHz Intel P6, 100 MHz PowerPC 604, 100 MHz Cyrix M1, 100 MHz AMD K5, and 100 MHz NexGen 586.

    Shopper’s Guide: Super Systems

    • High-Powered Portables Move In – On the PC side of things, most vendors were still using 486 CPUs because of their lower power requirements but a few were putting 60 and 66MHz Pentium CPUs in mobile systems. For Mac, the PowerPC 603 (which would become the G3) would be the next big thing.

    • CPU Upgrades: Bridging The Generation Gap – CPU upgrade options were really just heating up at the time. There still weren’t a whole lot of options. SX2 and DX2 processors could be used to upgrade some systems and there was the long awaited Pentium Overdrive option that was upcoming. If I recall correctly, the DX2-66 I had back in the day could be upgraded to an 83 MHz Pentium Overdrive. On the Mac side, both DayStar and Apple had upgrade cards that would take 68040 based Centris and Quadra machines up to a 80MHz PowerPC 601.

    • Multiprocessing Goes Mainstream – Pretty much all CPUs were single core at this time and multiprocessing (systems with more than one CPU) were really just starting to become available on the Microsoft/Intel side of things. There were a relative handful of 486 and Pentium based options available.

    • Serious RISC Solutions – A look at Alpha AXP and MIPS R4000 based machines.

    Software

    • Communications Software – In this case, communications software mostly means terminal software. Software looked at here includes Crosstalk for Windows 2.1, HyperAccess 1.02, Procomm Plus for Windows 2.0 (always one of my favorites), QmodemPro for Windows 1.10, Relay/PC Gold for Windows 6.0, Smartcom for Windows 1.0, and WinComm Pro 1.06 among others.

    • Compoent Software – A look at technologies such as Microsoft’s OLE 2.0, OpenDoc, Appware, and Taligent.

    • News And Analysis – Microsoft introduces Exchange, new Harvard Spotlight presentation software, Excel outsells Quattro Pro and Lotus 1-2-3, and more.

    • Spin Doctor – A look at some of the latest CD-ROM titles including Score 800 (30 educational programs), Peterson’s College Database (profiles of 3,200 colleges and universities), Lovejoy’s College Counselor (more college info), ad more.

    • Wohl’s World – Supporting increasingly complex software.

    • Games – Reviews of several games including D-Day: the Beginning of the End, Serf City: Life Is Feudal, Aerodrome, Corridor 7: Alien Invasion, Aerodrome, and Fields of Glory.

    Trends & Technology

    • Charles Cooper – Falling mail-order PC prices.

    • Michael Slater – The 486 remains strong in the face of the Pentium onslaught.

    • Arlan Levitan – Microsoft’s version of 1984.

    • Van Name And Catchings – Searching for data on the PC.

    • John Dickinson – Intel and the competition.

    Tech Section

    • The Hard Edge – Comdex vs. CES, Microsoft’s new OS, and more.

    • Ultimate Windows – A look at the two types of 64-bit video cards: 32-bit interleaved design and true 64-bit.

    • PC’s Unplugged – New battery technologies for laptops.

    • Alfred Poor’s Computer Cures – Questions answered about problem parallel ports, upgrading the hard drive in a notebook, parallel port external hard drives, and more.

    • Developer Tools – Tools for creating fax enabled applications.

    • What Ever Happened To…? – A look back at IBM’s first attempt at a desktop computer, the IBM 5100. Plus the creation of the IBM PC.

    • Cyber-Privacy – A look at the RSAREF cryptography toolkit for encrypting e-mail.

    • Inside The Internet – A look at how the Internet works.

    • What’s The Code? – Programming techniques for performing 2-D rotation with fixed point math.

    Online

    • Hot Off The Wire – Apple has trouble determing audience for eWorld, IBM’s new wireless information-retrieval technology, and more.

    • ZiffNet Dispatch – New electronic cookbook, online survey results, and more.

    • Connect Time – Onlne services prepare for the arrival of broadband (which was still several years away in practice).

    • Shareware Shop – A look at some of the latest shareware including Music Sculptor, CD Jammer, Cool Editor, MIDI Mode Music Jukebox, Multimedia Sales Army Knife, and more.

    Multimedia Direct

    • Best Data’s ACE 5000 Multimedia Card – A combination data, fax, voice, and sound card.

    • North Coast Software’s PhotoMorph 2 – Image manipulation software.

    • Sony Imagesoft’s The Haldeman Diaries CD-ROM – Inside the Nixon White House.

    • Future Labs’ TalkShow 2.1 – Whiteboard software for your PC.

    • Quantas Press’ Terrorist Group Profiles CD-ROM – Dossiers of real terrorist organizations.

    • NuReality’s Vivid 3D – An inexpensive add-on that creates 3D sound from any set of speakers.

    • Dell Computer’s Dimension XPS P90 – A look at Dell’s new Pentium 90 multimedia powerhouse. Features include a 90 MHz Pentium CPU, a Panasonic double-speed CD-ROM drive, a Creative Soundblaster 16, 16 MB of RAM, 256K of secondary cache, a 540MB Quantum IDE hard drive, a Number Nine GXE 64Pro graphic accelerator card, and more for $3299.

    …and much more!


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  • Digital Archaeology: Hewlett Packard xw4100

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The HP Workstation xw4100 was an entry level workstation featuring a Pentium 4 processor. Based on a bit of googling, it seems to have been a popular choice for video editors. At least I found a couple of generally positive reviews from video publications. This machine features:

    • CPU: Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GHz (Northwood)
    • RAM: 2 GB DDR-333
    • Video: nVidia Geforce2 MX400

    For more detailed hardware information, check out the reports from HWiNFO, CPU-Z or HardInfo.

    Early versions of the Pentium 4 earned a pretty bad reputation as being expensive, underperforming power hungry CPUs. They weren’t really much faster (and sometimes slower) than the Pentium III on a per MHz basis. The supposed advantage of the Pentium 4 was that it would be able to scale to very high clock speeds. It turned out that it couldn’t really do that either.

    Having said that, by the time the Northwood variant came along, the Pentium 4 had come into its own and if it couldn’t outright beat the competition (primarily the Athlon XP at the time), then it could at least keep up. By the time the hyperthreaded Pentium 4s came along during this same generation, Intel had regained their lead.

    For a Windows XP machine, a Pentium 4 is a great processor having plenty of speed for pretty much any game and fast for video editing too though at the time we were only talking about DVD resolution stuff. This machine has 2 GB of RAM which is plenty for most things. Windows XP can only see about 3.5 GB so it isn’t like you can go all that much further anyway. However, you could upgrade this machine to 4 GB if you wanted to.

    The weak spot in this machine is probably the Geforce2 MX 400. It’s a pretty low end card for this machine and I suspect that it may not even be what originally came with it. In theory, this machine could run a 32-bit version of Linux reasonably well (given its age anyway) but unfortuantely, neither official nVidia drivers nor open source drivers seem to support this card properly. It seems to be limited to 1024×768 resolution and the video refresh is really slow. In theory, a newer card would fix this issue.

    On the other hand, Windows XP still runs well. If you wanted to use it as a video editing machine for old DV stuff then it would be great. If you wanted to use it for gaming though, you would probably want to find a better AGP video card.

    Other than upgrading the video card and expanding the RAM to 4 GB (which would be especially useful for Linux), you could also upgrade the CPU if you wanted to. It should support at least a 3.06 GHz hyperthreaded Pentium 4. I currently have both Linux and Windows XP installed. However, utnil I get a different video card installed, I’ll probably stick to using Windows XP as it performs much better (and supports the proper resolution).

    Like all of the machines I use, this one has BOINC installed and is participating in various projects including Einstein@home, Asteroids@home and World Community Grid. These seem to be the only three of the six projects I regularly participate in that still support 32-bit. You can see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.


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  • RUN: The Home User’s Guide to Commodore Computing (January 1985)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: RUN: The Home User’s Guide to Commodore Computing – Issue Number 13 – January 1985

    RUN was one of the most popular Commodore 8-bit computer magazines, mostly covering the Commodore 64. It was also one of the magazines I bought the most growing up. The January 1985 issue includes:

    Features

    • Trapped in the Maze – Creating a maze game in BASIC on the VIC-20.
    • Writing Word Games – A guide to creating word games (like Hangman).
    • Smoking Joe – Some tips and a program for creating sprites.
    • Quatro – A type-in tic-tac-toe game for the Commodore 64 with the twist that you have to get four in a row instead of three.
    • Don’t Forget! – A type-in program for the Commodore 64 that gives you a calendar and the ability to create appointments.
    • Selecting The Right Printer – A guide to choosing the best printer for you. Some models mentioned here include the 1520 Plotter, 1525e, MPS-801, Prowriter, Okidata 82 and 92 series, Epson MX, RX, and FX series, Gemini 10X/15X, and more.
    • Three Printers From Commodore – Reviews of the Commodore DPS-1101 Daisy Whee printer, and the Commodore 1526 and MPS-803 Dot Matrix printers.
    • Disk Tips For Beginner – A guide to managing your floppy disks.
    • Let There Be Light Pens – At one point in time, before the mouse took over for good, light pens seemed to be the up and coming input device. This article is an introductory guide to light pens.

    Departments

    • RUNning Ruminations – A look ahead to what is in this issue and a request for articles on the new Plus/4 and Commodore 16.
    • Magic – Short programs for recovering an erased program, extracting lines from an existing program, tracing the execution of BASIC programs, reading raw data from tape, using a voice synthesizer for debugging, and more.
    • Software Gallery – Reviews of Questprobe: The Hulk, Kidwriter, Saucer Attack!, Space Taxi (one of my all time favorites though it only gets a ‘B’ rating here), abd Word Processor – Professional.
    • Clubs – A list of Commodore computer related clubs and user groups.
    • Commodore Clinic – Questions answered about documentation for the Commodore B128, compiling BASIC programs, word processing programs on cassette, CP/M on the Commodore 64, 1541 disk drivr problems, blowing fuses on the VIC-20, keypads for the Commodore 64, and much more.
    • Mail RUN – Letters from readers about CP/M problems on the Commodore 64, Commodore in South Africa, Panasonic printers, and more.
    • RUN’s 1984 Index – An index of articles and reviews from RUN covering all of 1984.
    • New Products RUNdown – A look at new producs including Suspect from Infocom, Breakdance from Epyx, President Elect from SSI, F-15 Strike Eagle from MicroProse, The Operating System from Hacker’s Hardware, The Professor from Progressive Peripherals, and more.


    Back cover of the January 1985 issue of RUN
    …and more!


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