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Silicon Times Report Issue 1224
Silicon Times Report
The Original Independent OnLine Magazine"
(Since 1987)
June 14, 1996 No. 1224
Silicon Times Report International OnLine Magazine
Post Office Box 6672
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STR Electronic Publishing Inc.
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06/14/96 STR 1224 The Original Independent OnLine Magazine!
- CPU Industry Report - Corel Chess! - Firaxes Software
- 200Mhz Pentium - IBM VoiceType - NEW Aptiva
- FAT32 Explained - MS Intranet Goals - AT&T's Plan
- ADS on the NET - People Talking - Atari JagNews
Internet Decency Law Struck Down
Gore Opposes Net "Censorship"
Jewish Group Protests Net Site
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From the Editor's Desk...
My, my how some well thought out comments from a few wise and
enlightened robed individuals can put an abrupt end to what some, myself
included, would call a journey to the dark side of censorship. The "CDA"
Communications Decency Act, has been called "unconstitutional" by a three man
panel of Federal Judges convened to sit in judgment of the CDA.
Of course to listen to the religious fanatics and zealots. the "end of
the world" has arrived. But just last week. they were so confident that the
Internet would be all but shut down. Now, one fanatic likens the net to "God
knows What" but she. is overly distraught over the fact that Censorship was
not permitted to prevail. Pretty sad when one considers that most of the
broadcast houses are totally under the gun and thumb of censorship to one
serious degree or another already.
How about the "serious" Church Leaders" of the South. "Boycotting"
Disney and the Disney Theme Parks. Yup! "Serious leaders" all right. Why
aren't they boycotting Homelessness, Poverty and Hunger right in their own
Congregations? Why? Because hitting on Disney makes for Headlines. Thus,
it appears they're "doing" something effective. Why then, do they remind one
of snake oil hustlers of old? If they show the statement being made again,
listen to that guy spewing forth all that righteous sounding Hatred and
drivel because Disney believes in the quality of human life. Another form of
censorship ..plain and simple.
Speaking of Broadcasters.. Have you ever noticed how CBS' Dan Rather and
Crew seem to have the solution, ending, conviction etc., well before the
outcome of any news making incident is actually known?? That's called
swaying public opinion. That practice can easily be compared to the goof who
was ever present in the old days outside the Sheriff's Office clamoring for a
"hanging". Dan Rather ought to get with the times. A Judge and Jury he
ain't.
That also goes for a certain CBS affiliate. Ours.. Channel Four. ("The
one and only")! Channel Four, WJXT, has some of the most talented people in the nation working hard to bring a comprehensive local newscast to our area. Then..
their Vice Prez... has to blow it all with her baseless and super shallow
"editorials". Did I say. Editorials??? Change that to daily dose of
lukewarm, gummy Pablum! Its the pits and only a biased observer would see
otherwise. If they're (Chan. 4) going to call them editorials.. Then for
goodness sake, let them be just that! Take issue with the various real
problems facing the area. (Unresponsive City Council and Lackluster School
Board). Sherry, for once. Be hard hitting and ask serious "gotcha"
questions. If this cannot be done, then please. change the name from
Editorial to "Pablum Time". Editorials. they ain't! Steve Wassermann, on
the other hand, knew the meaning of Editorial. Perhaps a little "archival
viewing and learning" by the present GM Veep is in order.
Here's a good one for Sherry folks.. Jacksonville Florida, our lovely
City, where temperatures in the upper nineties are more normal than uncommon.
has garbage pick-up, unbelievably, only once a week! Incredible?? Not as
incredible as the levels of bacteria and vermin that's proliferating on every
street, alongside every home and in every backyard.
I and many others only wish each City Council Critter could be forced to
follow a Garbage Truck at the hottest time of day to enjoy the variety of
numbingly ripe aromas and collect the fluids that ooze and drip out of the
trucks back onto our neighborhood streets. They should then be forced to
have these potent fluids analyzed at their own expense (since they're SO
budget-minded) and then made to publicly reveal the findings of the Analyzing
Laboratory.
Can you easily imagine a youngster learning how to ride a bicycle a few
hours later in very same spot, falling and scraping a knee in that oozed and
dripped out bacterial cocktail filth? Tropics and Sub-Tropics especially
should have twice and at times, three pick-ups per week. Watch the headlines
folks, wanna bet Salmonella and other "happiness microbes" nail more kids
this summer than last and.. nails them even harder?
The Jacksonville City Council should be ashamed of themselves in trying
to save a few lousy bucks at the expense of Risking the City's Taxpayer's and
their Children's Health. But, on the other hand. they did vote in pay
raises, added help and new electronics goodies for themselves.
Its amazing to see Vice President Gore speaking out against Censorship
on the Net. After all, what was it "Tipper" was harping about a year or so
ago?? And wasn't it his partner and Boss who signed the horrid mess into
existence? What he and the Country's Exxon's others who're quick to try to
garrote the Internet ought to try doing the very same to the crooked
politicians and outright thieves in government who are setting the examples
for our young people on how to live their lives.
Hat's Off to Janet Reno's Posse out west! They have proven (at last)
that this country's government is not made up of bloodthirsty barbarians out
to rid the world of "whatever". That was a nice, clean safe ending to the
Freemen Incident. Job Well Done.
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STReport Headline News
LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS
Weekly Happenings in the Computer World
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Gore Opposes Net 'Censorship'
Vice President Al Gore says society should not resort to "unwarranted
censorship" on the Internet as an oerreaction to protect children from
objectionable material in cyperspace. Speaking yesterday in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, in a commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Gore said government had to assist parents in protecting their
children from exposure to suchmaterial, reports the Reuter News Service.
However, he added, "let me also state my clear and unequivocal view that a
fear of chaos cannot justify unwarranted censorship of free speech, whether
that speech occurs in newspapers, on the broadcast airwaves -- or over the
Internet." Said Gore, "Our best reaction to the speech we loathe is to speak
out, to reject, to respond, even with emotion and fervor, but to censor --
no. That has not been our way for 200 years, and it must not become our way
now."
The vice president stressed the gulf separating society and science, a theme
students had suggested in email messages to him. He said new technologies
initially break down stable patterns and "then new ones emerge at a higher
degree of complexity." He told the 2,000 graduates in an outdoor ceremony,
"Societies are vulnerable to misinterpreting the first stage as a descent
into chaos and then overreacting with the imposition of a rigid, stagnating
order."
Internet Decency Law Struck Down
A panel of federal judges has ruled that a new law banning indecent speech on
the Internet is unconstitutional. The three judges issued a preliminary
injunction blocking the Communications Decency Act signed into law in
February by President Clinton, pending the resolution of two related
lawsuits. The act criminalizes the transmission of "indecent" material that
children could find on the Internet.
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the
First Amendment protects," the judges wrote. Justice Department officials
say they will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. "The judges in this
case agreed that it makes no more sense to give the government control of
the Internet than to dictate what should be in America's newspapers," says
John F. Sturm, president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, one
of 27 organizations challenging the law.
"This decision will remove a major government-imposed obstacle to the
Internet's growth as a viable publishing medium." Other organizations
hailing the decision include the American Civil Liberties Union, Internet
providers and free speech advocates.
Appeal Likely in 'Decency' Case
While much of the Net community celebrates a first- round victory in the
debate over whether Congress can keep "indecent" and "patently offensive"
material off the Internet, lawyers expect the case to move next to the U.S.
Supreme Court, though the government has not yet officially decided to
appeal. As reported, the three-judge federal panel in Philadelphia has ruled
that the Communications Decency Act, signed into law in February by President
Clinton, is unconstitutional.
Covering on the case, Associated Press writer Dave Ivey says the panel, in
blocking the decency law, declared the Internet "deserves the highest level
of free-speech protection." "The government has said it will appeal
directly to the U.S. Supreme Court," Ivey writes, "but following the ruling,
Justice Department spokesman Joe Krovisky said a decision has not yet been
reached." Krovisky said, "We believe this statute can be applied in a
constitutional manner to help parents in protecting children from sexually
explicit material on the Internet." First Amendment lawyer Bruce Sanford in
Washington, D.C., told AP it could be difficult to overturn the panel's
decision on a law inspired by a fear of the unknown -- the Internet --
adding, "Congress should stop wasting time regulating content in any medium.
Because when they do, they look like a near-sighted Julia Child waving a meat
ax -- they're scary, they're clumsy and somebody is going to get hurt: the
American people."
As noted, the act, part of a telecommunications overhaul, made it a crime
punishable by two years in prison and a $250,000 fine to display indecent or
patently offensive material where children might see it. However, the
Philadelphia judge's panel agreed with plaintiffs -- including civil
libertarians, online services, librarians, newspapers and booksellers -- that
the new law was too vague, and could lead to a restriction on material that
is constitutionally protected for adults.
On the other side of the issue, Bruce Taylor of the National Law Center for
Families and Children told Ivey he is confident the Supreme Court will uphold
the law, but in the meantime, he urged parents to keep reporting cyberporn to
police for prosecution under local obscenity laws. He said, "This isn't a
total or permanent setback for law enforcement officers to protect children
from online pornography."
Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton said last night the Communications Decency
Act is a legal way to protect children from online obscenity, despite a
three-judge panel's ruling that blocks large parts of the act. A Clinton
statement was quoted by the Reuter News Service as saying, "I remain
convinced, as I was when I signed the bill, that our Constitution allows us
to help parents by enforcing this Act to prevent children from being exposed
to objectionable material transmitted through computer networks."
The president said he would continue to work to shield children from such
material, adding he also supported "the development and widespread
availability of products that allow both parents and schools to block
objectionable materials from reaching computers that children use." Clinton
also applauded the communications industry's efforts to rate Internet sites
so they are compatible with blocking techniques.
Other reactions to the ruling:
ú Sen. Jim Exon, a Nebraska Democrat who sponsored the law, said,
"Hopefully, reason and common sense will prevail on the Supreme Court.
That's where the final decision will be made." Exon told Scott Ritter of the
Dow Jones news service the panel of federal judges was "bamboozled by the
wizardry of the Internet," adding, "We are convinced Supreme Court will take
a much more judicious approach."
ú Sen. Patrick Leahy, a leading Congressional opponent of the
Communications Decency Act, praised the decision. "I'm extremely pleased
with the ruling. I think the court reached the only decision they could," the
Vermont Democrat told Reuters. "Maybe members of Congress will start
legislating concern for the Constitution rather than for political bumper
stickers."
ú Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said, "This
is a victory for anyone who cares about freedom of expression or the future
of the Internet. Technology can provide a much more effective safeguard
without restricting the free flow of ideas and opinions on the Internet."
ú Cathleen Cleaver, director of legal studies at the Family Research
Council, a conservative public interest group that had urged Congress to
adopt the curbs, told The Wall Street Journal this morning, "It's a joke. The
judges take such delight in holding up the Internet as some sacred cow which
no law can touch that it borders on the ridiculous."
As reported, the judges' panel -- comprised of Dolores K. Sloviter, chief
judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Judges
Ronald L. Buckwalter and Stewart Dalzell -- heard six days of hearings on
the nature and history of the Internet.
Ivey says if the Supreme Court receives the case, it would have to rely on
the judge's 175-page opinion in the appeal, adding the high court can review
only the preliminary injunction and determine whether the lower court stayed
within its power based on the findings of fact. AP notes the following
passages of the Communications Decency Act were pertinent in the panel's
ruling:
ú "Whoever ... by means of a telecommunications device knowingly makes,
creates or solicits, and initiates the transmission of any comment, request,
suggestion, proposal, image or other communication which is obscene or
indecent, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years
of age ..."
ú "Or whoever ... uses interactive computer services to display in a
manner available to a person under 18, any comment, request, suggestion,
proposal, image or other communications that, in context, depicts or
describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community
standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs ... shall be fined or
imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
If you want to see the complete text of the panel's ruling, it has been
posted on several sites on the Internet's World Wide Web, including the
pages of the American Civil Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org/), the
Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org/), the Electronic
Privacy Information Center (http://www.epic.org/) and Voters
Telecommunications Watch (http://www.vtw.org/).
Jewish Group Protests Net Site
Officials of the Jewish Information Network contend that an online site
called "Ken's Guide to the Bible" promotes anti-Semitism and characterizes
Jews as murderers. The group is urging investors in America Online, the
commercial online service that carries the site, to drop their stock in
protest. "I'm a strong believer in free speech but free speech ends when
you incite hatred," JIN President Victor Beck said at a New York news
conference. "This area promotes the idea that Jews are the trashiest people
in the Bible and it says they are liars."
United Press International quotes Beck as saying "Ken's Guide to the Bible"
is an area called "The Hub," which is funded by AOL. Officials with AOL have
not commented. UPI notes the protest follows the recent release by the Anti-
Defamation League of a report entitled "Web of Hate," which describes how the
Internet's World Wide Web is used as an organizing point for hate groups.
"We believe that this new technology holds wonderful opportunities but is
fraught with problems," ADL spokeswoman Myrna Sheinbaum told the wire
service. "Our position has always been not to legislate but to counter it
with education and information on the Net."
MCI, British Telecom Team on Net
A joint venture to launch the world's largest Internet network has been
announced by British Telecommunications Plc and U.S. partner MCI
Communications Corp. Reporting from London, the Reuter News Service quotes
BT, which has a 20 percent stake in MCI, as saying the global alliance will
boost the overall capacity of the current Internet computer network by 30
percent.
In a statement, BT CEO Sir Peter Bonfield commented, "Just as the BT-MCI
alliance was the first to offer multinationals seamless global
telecommunication services, today we are launching the first class of global
Internet services." Bonfield added, "Already we have achieved significant
inroads into the European Internet market. This initiative will result in BT
taking the lead in Europe in the same way MCI has taken the lead in the U.S.
Internet Market."
Reuters says the new network, offered by the BT-MCI joint-venture Concert,
will combine the existing Internet networks of the two firms initially into
eight new regional "superhubs." Says Reuters, "The eight hubs will expand
with a year to a total of 20 hubs in key locations around the world. ... BT
said the network would provide the first ever global Internet service
performance guarantees, improved response times and greater availability."
The wire service adds that the network, to be called Concert InternetPlus,
will use NTT Data Communications System Corp. as a new distributor for the
Japanese market and "will offer high speed dedicated access of up to45
megabits a second."
Execs Urge Freeing Code Exports
Software executives are urging Congress to drop export restrictions on
encryption technology, saying the limitations, contained in a Cold War
munitions law, hurt their competitiveness abroad, but do little to
furthernational security interests. President James Barksdale of Netscape
Communications Corp. told the SenateCommerce Committee's science, technology
and space subcommittee yesterday, "We feel that the export controls as they
currently exist provide a burden and a restraint on us that is unnecessary."
Reporter Aaron Pressman of the Reuter News Service says Barksdale added the
export controls do not prevent criminals from obtaining encryption to hide
their files from the police, because "the bad guys don't worry about them."
He said alternative software is available over the Internet and from
companies outside the United States. As noted, current U.S. laws allow U.S.
companies to export software containing weakened encryption that use software
keys 40 bits long.
"This has forced many companies to market one version of their software
inside the United States, containing strong encryption, and another version
abroad, with weakened code capability," Pressman notes. Barksdale noted
Netscape's popular browser software uses only 40 bit encryption, a security
weakness potentially hindering the development of online commerce.
Meanwhile, Lotus Development Corp. CEO Michael Zisman said users of Lotus
Notes have increasingly asked for stronger encryption to protect proprietary
business communications. He said that with today's powerful computers, the
40-bit long key used in export versions of U.S. software can be cracked by a
determined computer vandal in as little as 12 minutes. Pressman reported
senators attending the hearing voiced strong support for the industry's
position, adding, "Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, chairman of the
subcommittee, said the current policy was 'highly destructive to the most
vibrant area of our economy."
CD-ROM Format Challenged
A new consultant report from Price Waterhouse suggests that with the launch
of the DVD format later this year, the days are numbered for CD-ROM as the
ruling storage medium for multimedia computers. And PW's sweeping
technology forecast also predicts many online publishers will begin charging
subscription or pay-per-view fees as readers increasingly use the Internet
for news and other information.
Reporting from New York, Michael Connor of the Reuter News Service notes DVD
drives should begin appearing late this year at prices between $500 and $700
and "will challenge CD-ROMs with more than ten times the storage capacity at
far superior video quality than CD-ROMs." Connor says Paul Turner, executive
director of Price Waterhouse's technology center, told reporters a phone
conference that the U.S. cable TV industry had a good shot at becoming a
leading supplier of advanced electronic services to homes with its budding
cable-modem services.
Said Turner, "If the cable television industry can capitalize on that
opportunity, they can be one of the prime suppliers of high bandwith to the
home." Reuters notes U.S. cable companies such as Tele-Communications Inc
are readying wide launches of high-speed Internet connections using the
coaxial cable that already delivers their signal. However, Turner said the
modems, which will be rented to consumers, were far from cheap and, says
Reuters, "high costs could complicate the rollout seen by the cable industry
as a key to revenue growth."
Fujitsu PC Offers First Notebook
Fujitsu PC Corp., a wholly-owned company of Japan's Fujitsu, Ltd., has
introduced its first family of notebook computers for customers in North
America. The line consists of the Monte Carlo, Milan and Montego models.
All offer a Pentium processor, PCI bus architecture, a 12.1- to 10.4-inch
high-resolution screen and lithium ion battery power.
Built-in features include an intelligent battery management system, a palm
rest, internal floppy disk drives and a mini-LCD status indicator that's
visible even when the notebook is closed. System prices range from $2,199
to $5,199. "Our product family offers no-compromise, with a range of
functions and features combined with extensive service and support options
that meet the challenges faced by all types of mobile professionals around
the globe," says Greg Chambers, vice president of marketing for Fujitsu PC
Corp.
IBM Offers New Aptiva System
A new family of Aptiva personal computers starting at $1,799 is being
introduced by IBM, which is integrating 3-D graphics into some models. The
new Aptiva line will be available by the middle of this month at retailers.
Reporting from Somers, New York, the Reuter News Service says the line also
offers systems with Intel Corp.'s Pentium 200MHz processor, a 3.2GB hard
drive, an eight percent CD-ROM drive and 32 megabytes of memory.
In addition, Iomega Corp. says IBM will incorporate its Zip drive into a
model that is expected to be available in the third quarter. Aptiva general
manager Jose Garcia told the wire service, "Our customers told us that they
wanted the best graphics, high-quality sound and premium software titles on
their home PC without sacrificing full-functionality and reliability, and we
have delivered."
Intel Unveils 200MHz Pentium CPU
Intel Corp. has introduced a 200MHz Pentium processor that will power premium
desktop systems in the second half of this year. The processor's
introduction creates a trio of high- performance Pentium choices -- at
200MHz, 166MHz and 150MHz -- that have been introduced in the first half of
this year for high-end to mainstream PCs. The announcement today also sets
the stage for the 133MHz and 120MHz Pentium processors to fill the entry
level of Intel's PC processor family in the second half.
"System manufacturers will be offering customers an unprecedented level of
performance and value," says Carl Everett, senior vice president of Intel's
desktop products group. The 200MHz Pentium processor, built on a .35 micron
process technology, is in limited production today, and will ramp in volume
over the next two quarters. The processor is housed in a new, more thermally
efficient Plastic Pin Grid Array (PPGA) package.
The 200MHz Pentium delivers benchmarks of 5.47 SPECint95 and SPECint-base95,
and 3.68 SPECfp95 and 2.92SPECfp-base95. The iCOMP Index 2.0 rating is 142.
In 1,000-unit quantities, the 200MHz Pentium is priced at $599.
IBM Ships New VoiceType
IBM Corp. has started shipping VoiceType 3.0 for Windows 95, a speech
recognition product that allows users to work with their computer by talking
to it. Without touching a keyboard or mouse, computer users can open
applications, dictate memos, e-mail messages and edit documents with the most
accurate speech recognition product on the market.
IBM notes that VoiceType 3.0 is useful for customers who generate large
amounts of text and need to increase efficiency and reduce turn-around time,
as well as for those in professions that require hands-free computing. For
example, business executives can process electronic mail by simply telling
the computer: "next," discard," "reply," and so on.
The newest member of IBM's VoiceType family features a combination of
continuous navigation and discrete dictation in a speaker-independent
product. Speaker-independent means that users do not have to train the
computer to adapt to their individual voice. Users can begin talking to their
computer immediately, right out of the box. The software's ability to learn
as users continue to use it enables the computer to improve the accuracy rate
over time. Users can also dictate text directly into applications such as
WordPro, Microsoft Word and Lotus Notes.
"Speech recognition technology is improving by leaps and bounds, and quickly
moving towards the mainstream computing market," says Jan Winston, IBM's
speech systems manager. "With this latest addition to the VoiceType family,
VoiceType 3.0, we improve the highest accuracy rate and word throughput in
the industry." The new version of VoiceType works with most Pentium
computers equipped with industry- standard sound cards, such as SoundBlaster,
and does not require additional hardware. VoiceType 3.0 for Windows 95 is
priced at $699, with upgrades for current users of OS/2 and Windows 3.x
versions selling for $99.
Zenith Unveils Monitor-TVs
Zenith Electronics Corp. says it has become the first company to include a
computer display capability in commercial color television sets. Designed
for a wide range of commercial applications from classrooms to boardrooms,
Zenith's new Presentation Series includes 35-, 32-, 27-, and 25-inch models
incorporating the video scan conversion technology developed by Focus
Enhancements Inc. Zenith says its PCZTV approach, based on three-line
averaging technology, allows the TVs to display computer-generated images, in
real-time, from any personal computer running DOS, Windows or Macintosh
applications.
In addition to the integrated PCZTV technology, other models in the Zenith
Presentation Series feature a SuperPort docking mechanism that accepts add-on
upgrade cards for a variety of high-tech applications. Zenith also plans to
make Focus' PCZTV card available separately to commercial customers who
purchase 19- , 20-, 25-, 32- or 35-inch SuperPort TVs. The PCZTV1000 will
plug into the SuperPort and connect to a standard VGA video output port on
computers compatible with DOS, Windows or Macintosh operating systems.
A stand-alone set-top box, the PCZ150, also will be available to customers
who wish to transfer images from their computers to their Zenith television
sets but lack the SuperPort technology to take advantage of the PCZTV cards.
"By bringing computer applications to the big screen, we're addressing the
needs of businesses and schools for true PC-ready TVs," says Breet Moyer,
Zenith's general manager of commercial products. "Integrating Focus
technology into these sets represents another industry first for Zenith in
providing leading- edge technology to commercial TV users."
Growing Internet Phone Market Seen
Internet telephone technology may soon provide strong competition to
conventional telephone carriers, finds a new study. According to
International Data Corp., recent technological advances and standards
activity have provided Internet telephony with the potential to rapidly
become mainstream. IDC adds that the response of long distance carriers,
RBOCs, cable and computer companies and the evolution of telecommunications
deregulation are external influences that will affect the Internet telephony
market.
IDC estimates number of active Internet telephony users at 500,000 as of the
end of 1995. Of active users, VocalTec (GO VOCALTEC) had the lion's share of
the market at 94 percent. IDC characterizes as active individuals who use
the product on a routine basis, rather than those who purchased or downloaded
an Internet telephony product, tried it, and are no longer using the product.
IDC says the Internet telephony market will grow to 16 million users of all
types by the end of 1999. According to the market researcher, Internet
telephony market revenue at the end of 1995 was about $3.5 million. IDC
forecasts the market to reach $560 million by the end of 1999. It notes that
growth will be driven primarily by business users who gain greater value from
their Internet investments through ease of use and seamless telephone-
Internet connectivity.
"The primary uses of Internet telephony in 1995 were for consumer long
distance calls, Internet chat groups and some modem business experimentation
in intranet applications," says Mark Winther, IDC's vice president of
worldwide telecommunications. "Potential future applications include
interactive electronic commerce, intra-enterprise connectivity and
collaborative computing."
Packard Bell Paying Off Debt
A well-publicized $471 million debt to Intel Corp. apparently is being paid
off by Packard Bell Electronics Inc., a move characterized by The Wall
Street Journal this morning as "a positive sign for the struggling personal-
computer maker." As reported earlier, Intel revealed last November through a
Securities and Exchange Commission filing that one of its major
microprocessor customers had an accounts-receivable balance outstanding that
had been converted into a loan. The chipmaker said the amount of the loan,
plus the customer's remaining receivables, totaled $471 million at the time.
Intel never identified the customer, but it was widely reported the customer
was Sacramento, California-based Packard Bell, the dominant supplier of home
PCs.
"The disclosure," notes Journal reporter Lee Gomes, "offered a rare glimpse
into closely held Packard Bell's finances, confirming its suspected cash
woes due to its heavy price discounting and some operational problems.
Packard Bell in February had to seek financial help from partners NEC Corp.
of Japan and France's Cie. des Machines Bull." However, now Intel states in
a new SEC filing that as of May 10, the debt had been whittled to $113
million.
"It isn't clear," says Gomes, "whether Packard Bell was able to pay the debt
down from cash flow, the usual source for paying trade debt, or had to use
some of the $293 million of cash NEC provided in the February transaction."
(In addition to NEC's cash, Packard Bell got assets from Machines Bull that
brought the total value of the February package to about $700 million.)
"Using the NEC cash to pay the Intel debt could indicate that Packard Bell
still isn't generating strong cash flow," the Journal commented.
Even so, the fact that the loan is being reduced is "very significant,"
Dataquest Corp. analyst Kimball Brown told the paper. "It means that some
entity has decided that Packard Bell is viable enough to loan them money,
and is serious about making the company a go. If that $400 million balance
were hanging around year after year, that wouldn't look good at all."
Ziff to Launch Web-Print Magazine
The Ziff-Davis Internet Publishing Group has announced plans to launch ZD
Internet Magazine, an integrated print publication and World Wide Web site.
With a paid circulation of 300,000 in its first year, the print edition of
ZD Internet Magazine will instantly become the largest paid circulation
Internet publication, says Ziff-Davis. The magazine's Web edition will debut
in October and the December issue of the print edition will premiere on
November 12.
Ziff-Davis says ZD Internet Magazine will be written for "power buyers" of
Internet products. The publication will have its own technical lab staff to
conduct product reviews. Ziff-Davis says ZD Internet Magazine will also
have feature stories each month about how Internet tools are being used to
transform content, how content is being delivered and viewed and how the
most important communications problems are being solved by companies with
these products.
"There's no question that businesses are adopting the Internet as a primary
communications tool faster than anyone would have expected," says Dan
Rosensweig, executive vice president of Ziff-Davis Internet Publishing Group.
"It is already enormous and growing at a rate that is hard to comprehend.
With some 200,000 Web sites up already and more than 20,000 being added
every month, it is clear that there is a powerful group of Internet
communicators that see the Web as the most dynamic way to communicate with
their customers, co-workers and suppliers."
Multimedia PC Sales Double
Boom times have come for multimedia desktop personal computers. The worldwide
market more than doubled last year to some 20.8 million machines, up from
10.3 million in 1994. That is the word from researchers at Dataquest Corp.,
who report gains in PCs with multimedia features combining sound, graphics,
animation and video -- were 35 percent in the United States, 44 percent in
Europe and 391 percent in Asia.
In San Jose, Calif., Bruce Ryon, director and principal analyst of
Dataquest's multimedia worldwide program, told United Press International,
"The Asian markets really embraced the multimedia PC in 1995. All
indications are that multimedia will be integrated at a much higher rate in
the Asian markets than in the U.S."
Ryon added, "Multimedia PCs have held at a 42 percent average of all PCs sold
in the U.S. for the last six quarters, but multimedia desktop PCs in the
Asian markets are already at greater than 50 percent of all PCs sold." UPI
says Apple Computer was the No. 1 multimedia PC vendor in the world in 1995
for the third consecutive year with sales growing 67.4 percent to 3.93
million.
"But," the wire service adds, "Apple, which is scrambling to survive by
focusing on its profitable business, saw its market share fall to 18.8
percent from 22.9 percent in 1994." A distant second was Packard Bell, with
sales rising 52.6 percent to 3 million, followed by Compaq, gaining 57.5
percent to 1.93 million. IBM Corp. was fourth with an 88.9 percent gain to
1.55 million and NEC followed in fifth with 1.47 million, posting a gain of
229 percent.
Web Demographics Changing
Right now, the average World Wide Web surfer is a 33-year-old white English-
speaking male with an income of $59,000, but don't blink - the cyber-
demographics are changing rapidly. So says a study at the Georgia Institute
of Technology, which found, for instance, that more women are using the Web
all the time. Reporting from Atlanta, Mike Cooper of the Reuter News Service
says the study reports women accounted for 31.5 percent of people using the
Web, up moderately from 29.3 percent in a similar survey last autumn. In
Europe, however, female users rose by 45 percent. Still, 89 percent of those
surveyed said English was their native or first language and 87 percent were
white. The random survey of 11,700 Web users conducted by Georgia Tech's
College of Computing between April 10 and May 10 also found:
ú Search engines that index the vast amount of information on the Net are
the most popular destination for Web surfers. In fact, 65.6 percent said
they visit search sites frequently.
ú Online newspapers were read by 37.9 percent and CNN's web site was
frequently visited by 35.9 percent.
ú Despite the popularity of these sites, Web users still get most of their
news from traditional sources, led by newspapers (63 percent) and television
networks (58 percent). Online sources were third (53 percent).
ú Four out of five people said their main problem with the Net was the
amount of time it took to retrieve information.
Also, says researcher Colleen Kehoe, Web wanders value their privacy and
don't want to pay extra to get information through the Web. Two-thirds of
respondents said they don't want to pay an extra fee to obtain information
once they are connected to the Internet. Many prefer not to divulge
information about themselves as a condition for using a Web site. Says
Kehoe, "People are far more concerned with controlling their own demographic
information than in being somehow compensated for giving it up. They're
willing to reveal that information, but they do require that they be given
some statement about how that information is going to be used."
Autodesk Wins Piracy Settlement
Autodesk says it has settled a software copyright infringement case for more
than $220,000 against Westech College, a Southern California-based operator
of trade schools. The settlement is the largest ever obtained by Autodesk's
corporate anti-theft program. Autodesk says it learned about the illegal
copying at Westech last December through a tip on its anti-piracy hotline,
800-NO COPIES, which led a seizure order from the United States District
Court. Following a raid of Westech's campus in Pomona, California, conducted
by U.S. marshals accompanied by Autodesk attorneys, Autodesk says the school
admitted to using a single copy of AutoCAD to make more than 75 illegal
copies of the $3,750 software on computers at Westech's three campuses in
Pomona, Irvine and San Diego.
"Too many businesses purchase a single software license and use it as a
license to steal," says Autodesk President Carol Bartz, whose company has
recovered more than $20 million in penalties since it began pursuing pirates
in 1989. "This type of illegal activity corrodes the industry we are working
so hard to build and maintain, and this particular case is most distressing
because it occurred in a school, setting an example for its students." When
confronted by Autodesk, "Westech was very willing to work with us to try to
resolve the issue quickly and thoroughly," says Sandra Boulton, head of
Autodesk's anti-theft program.
The settlement agreement also calls for Westech to sign and abide by a
"Software Code of Ethics," which will be distributed to all Westech
employees and affiliates. The college also will establish and maintain a
written policy governing the acquisition and use of licensed software. In
addition, Westech has agreed to delete all illegal copies of AutoCAD and to
submit to an annual Autodesk inspection for the next three years.
Ironically, a large anti-piracy poster was prominently displayed in a room
full of computers at Westech's Pomona campus, says Autodesk. Autodesk is the
world's leading supplier of PC and UNIX- based design software and PC
multimedia tools.
Corel Corporation Begins Shipping the Newest Game in Town
Ottawa, Canada - June 12, 1996 - Corel Corporation announced today the
release of a new multimedia title for avid chess enthusiasts. Corelr Chess
is a 32-bit interactive, computerized chess game that has been designed for
all levels of players from novice to grand master. Corel Chess gives
players the opportunity to compete against opponents over the Internet, via
modem or over a network. The title runs under both Windowsr 3.1 (the CD-ROM
also includes a 16-bit version) and Windowsr 95 and is available for a
suggested list price of $59 US.
"Regardless of their level of skill, chess lovers are sure to find this
classic game on CD-ROM both challenging and exciting," said Dr. Michael
Cowpland, president and chief executive officer of Corel Corporation. "The
stunning architecture and amazing visual and sound effects may make this
the best chess the player has ever experienced."
Corel Chess features a fully-rotatable board with overhead and side board
views, full 3D action with 24-bit color graphics, and elaborately-rendered
game backgrounds. Five levels of difficulty are available, as are over
4,000 championship chess games so users can learn from the pros.
Participants may play the computer, play against another person or have the
computer play against itself.
Corel Chess features six classic board and piece sets - Romanesque,
metallic, frosted glass, wood, art deco and marble - all of which are SGI
3D modeled and accompanied by background music and Softimage animations.
The customizable user interface allows the player to simultaneously display
different perspectives such as the black's view, the white's view or the
overhead view. These views may be displayed at any angle and scaled to any
size.
Corel Chess offers considerable options, which include the ability to:
ú separate clocks and time constraints for each player
ú load and save games
ú swap sides during a game
ú move pieces by either clicking on the squares or dragging the pieces
ú pause, take back, replay and fast forward moves
ú determine the skill level of the computer opponent through numerous
criteria
ú predefine the board layout (9 options available)
ú detect a stalemate
ú import PGN format games
Players are also able to define the clock in three ways. A mean average
setting allows equal time to each player and move; the blitz setting allows
each player a set amount of time; and the user set depth setting ensures that
the computer's search for the best move ceases after the player's specified
level is reached.
System Requirements
Minimum system requirements for both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 users include
an IBM-compatible PC 486 33 (a Pentium recommended), 8 MB of RAM, a 640x480,
256 color graphics display, an 8-bit Sound Blaster or 100% compatible sound
card, and a double-speed CD-ROM drive. An Internet connection and Winsock
are required for Internet play, and a modem is required for modem play.
Artech Studios
Corel Chess was developed for Corel by Artech Studios of Ottawa, Canada.
Founded in 1982, Artech has produced 50 titles, won 28 industry commendations
and received 11 SPA (Software Publisher of America) awards for silver, gold
and platinum sales.
Corel Corporation
Incorporated in 1985, Corel Corporation is recognized internationally as an
award-winning developer and marketer of productivity applications, graphics
and multimedia software. Corel's product line includes CorelDRAWT, the
Corelr WordPerfectr Suite, Corelr Office Professional, CorelVIDEOT and over
30 multimedia software titles. Corel's products run on most operating
systems, including: Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, MS-DOS and OS/2 and are
consistently rated among the strongest in the industry. The company ships
its products in over 17 languages through a network of more than 160
distributors in 70 countries worldwide. Corel is traded on the Toronto Stock
Exchange (symbol: COS) and the NASDAQ - National Market System (symbol:
COSFF). For more information visit Corel's home page on the Internet at
http://www.corel.com. Neow-Neow, Nikolai, Nikolai's Trains, NN'n N Toy Makers
and Nikolai in Time: In the Time of the Knights are trademarks of I.
Hoffmann + Associates Inc. Corel is a registered trademark of Corel
Corporation. Corel, WordPerfect, Quattro, Presentations, and CorelFLOW are
either trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation or Corel
Corporation Limited. All products and publications mentioned are trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective companies and publishing houses.
Market Bulletin
Windows Product Team, May 1996
The FAT32 File System
This market bulletin is intended to help customers understand Microsoft's
FAT32 file system for Windows 95, which is due to start shipping with new
PC's equipped with Windows 95 in the fall of 1996.
The existing File Allocation Table (FAT) file system was invented in 1977 as
a way to store data on floppy disks for Microsoft Stand-alone Disk Basic.
Although originally intended for floppy disks, FAT has since been modified to
be a fast, and flexible system for managing data on both removable and fixed
media.
A new generation of very large hard disks will soon be shipping, and the
existing FAT data structures have finally reached the limit of their ability
to support ever larger media. FAT currently can support a single disk volume
up to 2 Gigabytes in size. FAT32 is an enhancement of the FAT file system
that supports larger hard drives with improved disk space efficiency.
FEATURES
FAT32 provides the following enhancements over previous implementations of
the FAT file system:
ú Supports drives up to 2 Terabytes in size.
ú Uses space more efficiently. FAT 32 uses smaller clusters (e.g. 4kb
clusters for drives up to 8GB in size), resulting in 10 to 15% more
efficient
use of disk space relative to large FAT drives.
ú More robust. FAT32 has the ability to relocate the root directory and
use the backup copy of the FAT instead of the default copy. In addition,
the boot record on FAT32 drives has been expanded to include a backup of
critical
data structures. This means that FAT32 drives are less susceptible to a
single point of failure than existing FAT volumes.
ú More flexible. The root directory on a FAT32 drive is now an ordinary
cluster chain, so it can be arbitrarily large and located anywhere on the
drive. In addition, FAT mirroring can be disabled, allowing a copy of the
FAT other than the first one to be active. These features allow for dynamic
resizing of FAT32 partitions. Note, however, that while the FAT32 design
allows for this capability, it will not be implemented by Microsoft in the
initial release.
COMPATIBILITY CONSIDERATIONS
In order to maintain the greatest compatibility possible with existing
applications, networks and device drivers, FAT32 was implemented with as
little change as possible to Windows 95's existing architecture, internal
data structures, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and on-disk
format. However, because 4 bytes are now required to store cluster values,
many internal and on-disk data structures and published APIs have been
revised and/or expanded. In some cases, existing APIs will fail on FAT32
drives. Most applications will be unaffected by these changes. Existing
utilities and drivers should continue to work on FAT32 drives. However, MS-
DOS block device drivers (e.g. ASPIDISK.SYS) and disk utilities for these
will need to be revised to support FAT32 drives.
All of Microsoft's bundled disk utilities (Format, FDISK, Defrag, MS-DOS and
Windows ScanDisk, and DriveSpace) have been revised to work with FAT32. In
addition, Microsoft is working with leading device driver and disk utility
vendors to support them in revising their products to support FAT32.
PERFORMANCE
For most users, FAT32 will have a negligible performance impact. Some
applications may see a slight performance gain from FAT32. In other
applications, particularly those heavily dependent on large sequential write
operations, FAT32 may result in a modest performance degradation. The overall
effect on raw disk performance is less than 5% however, and the overall
impact on application performance as measured by WinStone is typically less
than 1%.
DUAL-BOOT PERSONAL COMPUTERS
At this time, Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 is the only operating system
capable of accessing FAT32 volumes. Windows 3.1, MS-DOS and the original
version of Windows 95 will not recognize FAT32 partitions, and thus they are
unable to boot from a FAT32 volume. Microsoft's plans for supporting FAT32 in
Windows NT are still being determined, but at this time, Windows NT is unable
to access, or dual boot from, FAT32 volumes. At minimum, Microsoft will
provide a utility to convert a FAT32 volume to an NTFS volume.
Customers who run Windows 95 in real mode (for example, to run a game) will
be able to use FAT32 volumes, however.
CREATING FAT32 DRIVES
In OEM Service Release 2, if you run the FDISK utility on a system with a
drive over 512MB, it will ask whether to enable large disk support. If you
answer yes, any partition you create that's greater than 512MB will be marked
as a FAT32 partition.
WHY NOT JUST ADD NTFS TO WINDOWS 95?
NTFS is an advanced file system, with support for many features not present
in FAT32, including per-file compression, security and transactioning. It is
not feasible to implement NTFS within the memory and compatibility
constraints of the Windows 95 platform. Windows 95 still supports real-mode
MS-DOS for booting and running some MS-DOS based games. Adding NTFS support
to the MS-DOS kernel would have required a significant amount of MS-DOS
memory, and thus would have precluded the use of many MS-DOS mode games and
applications. Protect-mode only support for NTFS would not have allowed
Windows to boot from an NTFS volume.
TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION
Because of the compatibility considerations described above, the
implementation of FAT32 involved very little change to Windows 95. The major
differences between FAT32 and earlier implementations of FAT are as follows:
ú Two new partition types are defined: 0xB and 0xC. Both indicate FAT32
volumes; type 0xC indicates a FAT32 partition that requires Extended Int13h
support (LBA).
ú The boot record on FAT32 drives requires 2 sectors (due to expansion and
addition of fields within the BPB). As a result, the number of reserved
sectors on FAT32 drives is higher than on FAT16, typically 32. This
expanded reserved area allows two complete copies of the boot record to be
stored there, as well as a sector in which the free space count and other
file system information is stored.
ú The FAT is now larger, because each entry now takes up 4 bytes and there
are typically many more clusters than on FAT16 drives.
ú The root directory is no longer stored in a fixed location. A pointer to
the starting cluster of the root directory is stored in the extended BPB.
ú The on-disk format for directory entries is unchanged, except that the
two bytes previously reserved for Extended Attributes now contain the high
order word of the starting cluster number.
ú MS-DOS APIs that rely on intimate knowledge of the file system layout
generally fail on FAT32 drives. For instance, GetDPB (Int 21h, function
32h), Int 25/26h Absolute Disk Read/Write, and most of the Int 21h,
function 440Dh IOCTLs will fail on FAT32 drives. New forms of these APIs
are provided in OEM Service Release 2 which works on all FAT drives.
ú Win32 APIs are not affected by FAT32, with the exception of one
additional API called GetFreeSpaceEx() for determining the true free space
on a FAT32 volume.
c 1996 Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft, MS-DOS, Windows and Win32 are registered trademarks and Windows NT
is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
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Update! Federal judges declare censorship law unconstitutional!
Bill Gates' response to the June 12 court decision:
"This is a great victory for anyone who cares about freedom of expression or
the future of the Internet. Freedom of speech on the Internet deserves the
same protection as freedom of the press, freedom of speech, or freedom of
assembly. "We support thoughtful efforts to ensure that children and other
users are not exposed to objectionable material, but Microsoft believes that
technology can provide a much more effective safeguard w
ithout restricting
the free flow of ideas and opinions on the Internet."
Searching for middle ground in online censorship
(3/27/96)
By Bill Gates
Around the world, the Internet is inspiring many emotions-excitement, hope,
and more than a little outrage.
Controversy is arising over the ease with which objectionable material can be
accessed electronically. Smut, libel and stolen intellectual property are
commonplace. Equally controversial are the steps some governments are taking
to limit access to certains kinds of information on the Internet.
Objections may be loudest in the U.S., where denizens of the Internet have
grown accustomed of late to seeing blue ribbons adorning many web pages.
These ribbons are a plea for the right to free speech in cyberspace.
It's a right the U.S. Congress abridged to an unfortunate extent when it
recently passed the sweeping Telecommunications Reform Act, legislation that
also took many positive steps, such as opening the telecommunications
industry to broad competition and encouraging investment in modern network
infrastructure.
The most striking evidence that Congress went overboard was language in a
part of the new law called the Communications Decency Act that could make it
a felony, punishable by five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, to discuss
topics such as detailed information about birth control, AIDS prevention and
how to get a legal abortion. The Clinton Administration has vowed not to
enforce this provision, which is being contested now in federal court in
Philadelphia.
Some people think the Internet should be wide open. They believe interactive
networks are a world apart, in which copyright, libel, pornography and
confidentially laws do not apply. This is a nave dream which fails to
recognize that the Internet is going to be a vital part of mainstream life,
not a lawless backwater. At the other extreme, some people think the
Internet should be tightly controlled. They would ruin the Internet in the
name of reining it in. We must find a balance that lets the Internet be both
open and sheltered from abuse.
A web page devoted to the blue-ribbon campaign got it right: "The voice of
reason knows that free speech doesn't equate to sexual harassment, abuse of
children, or the breeding of hatred or intolerance. We insist that any
material that's legal in bookstores, newspapers, or public libraries must be
legal online."
The United States isn't the only place clamping down. In every country you'll
find sensitivity to some type of material. China is attempting to restrict
political expression broadly, in the name of security and social stability.
It requires users of the Internet and electronic mail to register. In the
United Kingdom, state secrets and personal attacks are off limits. Laws are
quite strict, and the government is keenly interested in regulating the
Internet with respect to these subjects. In France, which has a proud
heritage of press freedom, the Internet attracted recent attention when a
banned book on the health history of former French president Francois
Mitterrand was republished electronically on the World Wide Web. As it
happens, the electronic republication of "Le Grand Secret" by a third party
wasn't banned by a court that ruled that the printed version of the book
unlawfully violated Mitterrand's privacy. But if it had been banned, the
content easily could have been placed on a web server outside of France and
beyond the jurisdiction of French law.
This is a real problem for governments. Germany, for example, wants to keep
neo-Nazi propaganda from its citizens even though the information is posted
on a server in Canada--where it is perfectly legal. Governments have long
tried to keep unwanted information outside of national borders. Until very
recently, Japan considered almost any picture or video that displayed full
frontal nudity to be taboo. Dozens of housewives equipped with sandpaper were
employed to scratch the objectionable material from pictures in imported
magazine such as Playboy. But attitudes have changed so dramatically that
many popular Japanese weekly magazines now include photographs of nude
females. Presumably the sandpaper trade is a dying profession. In the
emerging world of interactive networks, companies that distribute packets of
electronic information cannot be asked to filter the content of what they
carry, any more than a telephone company can be asked to take responsibility
for everything that is spoken on a telephone system.
So how can authorities, including parents in any country, effectively filter
access to information on the Internet? The best solution I know of is for
authorized organizations to review, categorize and rate the content of web
pages, so that software can filter out that which is deemed inappropriate.
Ratings are not a new idea. Movies are already rated in many countries,
although to varying standards (Canada alone has seven standards systems, with
most provinces having their own). In the United States, where Congress has
mandated that new televisions soon be equipped with a so-called "V-chip" to
allow parents to block unsuitable shows, the commercial networks are moving
toward a ratings system.
Ratings are rapidly coming to the Internet. CompuServe's new WOW service
allows parents to limit their children to approved Internet sites, and
Microsoft is among companies building support for ratings into forthcoming
web-browsing software. Parents will be able to configure the software to
display information only from sites that have acceptable ratings. Different
rating systems are likely to answer key questions differently, giving parents-
and governments-a choice of approaches.
For example, one question is whether advertisements should be rated so they
can be blocked. Televised baseball is suitable for small children, but the
accompanying commercials for violent movies may not be. Similarly, the
editorial content of an Internet site may be kid-friendly even though the
advertising it displays isn't.
No rating scheme is perfect. Some objectionable material will get through.
But a rating system will work most of the time, and is the best approach I
can imagine that doesn't unduly interfere with the great benefits of the
Internet. We should resist measures that go too far. If authorities aren't
careful, they'll eliminate much that's good about the interactive medium
while trying to root out "bad" content.
Creating Next Generation Intranets
Bill Gates outlines Microsoft's strategy for delivering
next generation intranet solutions.
"The Internet is the most important thing to happen to [the computer]
industry since the PC." --Bill Gates.
Intranets are about taking the simple but powerful paradigms of the Internet
and applying them to internal corporate networks. Intranets help add
structure to the chaos of business communications by extending the web
metaphors used for information searching and navigation. However, this
dramatic improvement in information systems should not require that
organizations rip out their current infrastructure and start from scratch.
Rather, intranet solutions should be designed to use the simple, but powerful
metaphors of the Internet to allow easy access existing stores of critical
business data.
Welcome to the Microsoft Intranet Strategy Day. You'll find reading
ofMicrosoft's Intranet strategy and the vision as presented by Bill Gates,
Pete Higgins, and Paul Maritz at the June 13th Microsoft Intranet Strategy
Day event in San Jose most interesting.
The day's demonstrations of upcoming Microsoft products and Q & A sessions
provide information that can help corporate customers move their business
communications quickly, safely, and easily to Intranets while using existing
infrastructures.
Bill Gates outlined Microsoft's Intranet Strategy which enables a new
generation of intranets that seamlessly integrate desktops, LANs, client-
server applications, legacy systems and the public Internet to create
dramatically more effective business management systems. He also demonstrated
upcoming products and focused on these four main areas:
1. Merging of the public and private networks. An Intranet gives people
within a company the same ease of access to information as the Internet.
Intranets and the Internet use the same technologies and can be thought of as
one universal communications network with public and private domains. A
critical component of this integration is providing IT with the tools and
flexibility to create a secured environment for this integrated network of
communications.
2. Adding Intranet functionality to the Microsoft products and services
available today. Intranet/Internet capabilities such as navigating, and
searching for information will be added in to Microsoft applications so that
you can easily connect to files and data. Microsoft Internet Explorer
capabilities will be integrated into the Active Desktop, and ActiveX
documents will allow you to open Microsoft Office documents in their native
formats within the Internet Explorer. The integration of these technologies
and products will make the user experience on the desktop and beyond more
connected and seamless.
3. Making it easy to develop and deploy Intranet applications. Using
ActiveX controls, you can customize your Intranet/Internet environment to fit
your communication needs, making it much easier to develop and deploy new
applications across tens of thousands of desktops.
4. Integrating with existing systems to make a straightforward transition
to an Intranet. Make the greatest use of your resources by combining existing
infrastructures such as LANs, software applications, and business processes
with the new Intranet/Internet technologies.
Pete Higgins previewed the navigating, linking and searching capabilities in
Microsoft Office 97 as well as Microsoft Outlook, the new desktop information
manager included in Microsoft Office 97. Intranets are primarily used to
manage and communicate information. However intranets are only as good as the
information they contain. You'll see how Microsoft Office 97 makes it
dramatically easier to create, locate and analyze that information .
Paul Maritz showed how Intranet/Internet protocols are being integrated into
Microsoft business systems applications. Existing protocols are also being
used to improved file and print access capabilities for Intranet/Internet
environments. Using Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 and Microsoft Internet
Information Server 2.0 tools, you can build powerful backend applications
using content indexing and database integration. Paul discusses scenarios for
leveraging these tools in an Intranet environment.
In addition to the presentations above, Microsoft will announce other aspects
of its Intranet strategy. For example, Microsoft NT Server 4.0, available
later this summer, will be bundled with Microsoft FrontPage 1.1 at no extra
cost. These tools will combine to build powerful global web servers on the
backend, and will allow workgroups to create local webs for communications
and information sharing on the front end.
Microsoft Outlines Intranet Strategy,
Demonstrates Wide Range of New Intranet-Related Products
And Future Technologies
CEO Bill Gates Sees Dramatic Evolution in Corporate Computing
Enabled by Internet Technologies
SAN JOSE, Calif. - June 13, 1996 - In a worldwide briefing to customers and
industry influentials, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and CEO Bill Gates today
outlined Microsoft's strategy to deliver a comprehensive set of products and
services that seamlessly integrate desktops, LANs, client-server
applications, legacy systems and the public Internet to create dramatically
more effective corporate computing systems. Gates also announced a broad set
of intranet-related products and previewed future technologies in each of
Microsoft's key product lines.
Today's briefing was the third major presentation of Microsoft's strategy for
the Internet. The company unveiled its overall Internet strategy and a range
of new products in December 1995, then delivered a comprehensive set of
technologies and tools for developers in March 1996 at the Microsoftr
Professional Developers Conference - Building Internet Applications. Since
December, Microsoft has delivered a wide range of Internet products and
technologies across every major product line and focused its worldwide
product group to develop products that help customers take advantage of the
Internet.
"Six months ago, Microsoft promised the world that it was hard-core about the
Internet and since then we've delivered innovative products in every major
product category," Gates said. "Today, we're making the same promise to our
customers about the intranet."
Microsoft's Intranet Strategy
Intranets that integrate a corporation's computing environment with the
Internet can help customers dramatically increase the effectiveness of their
business-management systems. Broadly, Microsoft's strategy is to do the
following:
ú Seamlessly integrate internal LANs with the Internet to enhance
communication between businesses and their customers and partners
ú Implement new navigation paradigms pioneered on the Internet into all
products to make it easier for users to find, create, analyze and
collaborate
ú Simplify applications development, deployment and administration to help
customers streamline business processes and shorten development cycles
ú Integrate new products and Internet technologies with existing
infrastructures to enable customers to leverage technology investment and
evolve information technology systems smoothly
Intranets will have an immediate and dramatic impact on businesses over the
next few years - but this is just the beginning," Gates said. "By merging the
best of the Internet and the best of the PC with customers' existing
computing environment, Microsoft will enable customers to develop a new
generation of more powerful, flexible and cost-effective intranet solutions."
Simon & Schuster, the world's largest English-language book publisher and a
leader in electronic publishing, has been able to easily develop and begin
using its corporate intranet by using Microsoft technologies. "To use an
intranet as a full production platform, you need fully integrated tools,"
said Michael Packer, executive vice president of technology systems and
operations at Simon & Schuster. "We believe that these intranet tools from
Microsoft will enable Simon & Schuster to operate more efficiently and retain
a manageable infrastructure, all the while creating substantially more value
for our internal business clients."
New Products and Technologies for Intranets
Microsoft announced and previewed a range of new products, technologies and
services that will enable customers to implement next-generation intranets:
ú Microsoft Office. Microsoft previewed Office 97, a new version of its
leading suite of desktop applications that will include Web technology to
make it easy for business users to create, analyze and publish content on
intranets. Microsoft also previewed Microsoft OutlookT, an innovative new
desktop information management application that helps users organize,
communicate and collaborate on intranets.
ú Microsoft Windows and Windows NT Workstation. Microsoft previewed the
next generation of its Web browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, and the
Windows Active DesktopT technologies. By integrating Microsoft Internet
Explorer with the Windowsr operating system, the Active Desktop provides
seamless access to information of all types regardless of location.
Furthermore, it notifies the user when priority information is updated on an
intranet or the Internet.
ú Windows NT Server. Windows NT Server 4.0 will add Microsoft FrontPageT,
Microsoft's innovative Web publishing and site-management product, and a
Search Server for document searching. These features, along with Internet
Information Server, the high-performance Web server already incorporated in
the product, make Windows NT Server the most capable intranet operating
system available, with high performance, security, and ease of use.
ú Directory Server. Microsoft demonstrated its next-generation Windows NT
Directory Server, designed to seamlessly integrate Internet and intranet
environments. The next-generation Directory Server combines the best of DNS
(domain name server) and X.500 in a seamless upgrade to Windows NT Server
4.0. The Directory Server will be available for preview in the second half of
1996.
"Microsoft's new Internet strategy will make the company an important
supplier of Internet and Web technology to corporate users," said John Rymer,
vice president, information group at Giga, a knowledge resource firm for IT
decision-making based in Cambridge, Mass. "The breadth of its product line
and its ability to integrate new Internet paradigms with existing systems
will make it a leader in the intranet marketplace."
For additional information on Microsoft's Intranet Strategy Day briefings and
announcements, connect to Microsoft's Web server at
http://microsoft.com/intranet/.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in
software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products
and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of
making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full
power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, Windows NT, Outlook and FrontPage are either registered trademarks
or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
For online product information: http://microsoft.com/intranet/
EDUPAGE STR Focus Keeping the users informed
Edupage
Contents
Baby Bells Put Video On Hold
PacTel & AOL Team Up To Offer Internet Access
Career Change For Deep Blue
New Angle On LCD Technology
Berners-Lee On The Web
Time Warner Purchase Of Turner Goes Forward
EDS Freed From GM
IEEE Wants Protection For Intellectual Property
Money For 3rd World Telcos
Global "Free" Calls
MCI & UK Telecom Merge International Network
IBM Agreements With Storage Technology, Iomega
Build A Mall, & They Will Shop At All The Stores
Satellite TV Dispute Escalates In Canada
SoHo Market A Myth, Study Says
Software Language Police
Ads On The Net
Microsoft Buys Electronic Commerce Company
Net Offers Power To The Intelligentsia
Wired's Asset: "Attitude"
Court Says Decency Act Violates Free Speech
Intel & MCI Offer "WebMaker" For Small Businesses
Intuit Expands Insurance And Banking Services
Competing Intranet Strategies
AT&T's Attack Plan
Countering Intellectual Property Piracy In China
Murdoch Plans Satellite TV Service In Japan
AOL To Sell Netscape Ads
Medal Of Science Winners
U.S. Sues Canadian Telemarketers
Voice-Mail Cooperation By Regional Bells
BABY BELLS PUT VIDEO ON HOLD
Tele-TV, the programming alliance formed between Bell Atlantic, Nynex and
Pacific Telesis Group, is headed for downsizing, after the three Baby Bells
told Tele-TV management that it should delay interactive programming
development until technological advances such as wireless cable make it more
economical to offer the services. The companies have decided instead to
focus initially on getting into the long-distance business, where the
investment is smaller and the returns more immediate. Bell Atlantic now says
it will be 1998, at the earliest, before it begins large-scale offering of
interactive programming. (Wall Street Journal 7 Jun 96 B4)
PACTEL AND AOL TEAM UP TO OFFER INTERNET ACCESS
Pacific Telesis and America Online are collaborating to offer Internet access
to customers in four major metropolitan areas in California - Los Angeles,
Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco. The cost is $14.95 for 20 hours,
with each additional hour costing 50 cents, up to a maximum of $19.95. An
alternative pricing scheme offers 10 hours for $9.95 a month, plus $1 per
hour after that. "We think we've tailored our price to the way people use
the Internet," says the president of Pacific Bell's Internet Services. Bell
Atlantic, Nynex, BellSouth, Ameritech and SBC Communications all are
planning to provide Internet access sometime this year. (Broadcasting &
Cable 3 Jun 96 p64)
CAREER CHANGE FOR DEEP BLUE
Freshly laid off following its loss to Garry Kasparov as a chess opponent,
IBM's Deep Blue computer has a new job -- as a weather forecaster. Deep
Blue will assume its new post this summer, providing up-to-the- minute
weather updates to Atlanta's Summer Olympics athletes and spectators.
(Information Week 27 May 96 p12)
NEW ANGLE ON LCD TECHNOLOGY
In an effort to make liquid crystal displays readable from more angles and in
a greater variety of lighting situations, scientists at ROLIC Ltd. In Basel,
Switzerland have developed a new method of liquid crystal patterning.
Current technology uses a velvet cloth to rub the polymer material that
encases the magnetic material on either side, thereby aligning the molecular
pattern of the liquid crystals. The new method uses ultraviolet light
instead of velvet, varying the liquid crystals' angle of orientation, making
it easier to see from a wider range of viewpoints and lighting types.
(Science News 1 Jun 96 p348)
BERNERS-LEE ON THE WEB
World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee is gratified that people find the Web
useful, but disappointed that for most people, the Web is a browsing
activity rather than a creative one. He'd like to see Web technology speed
up, and the computers used to access it made easier to use. "The Web has
many ways to grow. It is acquiring richness in interface, with 3-D and real-
time audio and video. I hope that we can finish the process of hiding the
computers and the Net. A challenge is to remove the need for a person ever
to have to think up a file name." (Investor's Business Daily 7 Jun 96 A1)
TIME WARNER PURCHASE OF TURNER GOES FORWARD
A Delaware judge ruled against a petition by U S West to block the Time
Warner acquisition of Turner Broadcasting. U S West had argued
unsuccessfully that its own agreement with Time Warner precluded the new
deal. The Time Warner merger with Turner still must withstand antitrust
objections filed with the Federal Trade Commission. (Atlanta Journal-
Constitution 7 Jun 96 F1)
EDS FREED FROM GM
Electronic Data Systems, the nation's largest independent computer services
company, has spun off from its parent company, General Motors Corporation,
which had purchased EDS from founder Ross Perot in 1984 for $2.5 billion.
(New York Times 8 Jun 96 p18)
IEEE WANTS NEW PROTECTION FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
To extend the protection offered by copyrights and patents, the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is proposing a simple, low-cost
"useful article registration" that would last for three years, could be
filed by a registrant without legal assistance, and would not search for
"prior art." (Computer Industry Daily 7 Jun 96)
MONEY FOR 3RD WORLD TELCOS
WorldTel, a London-based company created by the UN's International
Telecommunication Union and funded entirely by the private sector, is
planning to lay up to 40-million telephone lines in developing countries over
the next decade. (Toronto Financial Post 7 Jun 96 p6)
GLOBAL "FREE" CALLS
Whereas 800-number "free" phone calls account for 40% of the traffic on
AT&T's network, only 10% of the world's 9 million freephone numbers are held
outside North America. But now the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) has approved a new standard for global freephone numbers. The ITU
decided not to auction popular numbers. Combinations that spell words on a
dial (such as 1-800 FLOWERS) are less valuable in Europe than in the U.S.
because only about one-third of handsets have letters as well as numerals.
(The Economist 8 Jun 96)
MCI AND BRITISH TELECOM MERGE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK
MCI Communications and British Telecommunications will merge their
international data networks and significantly expand their capacity in order
to provide corporate customers faster and more reliable international
communications. MCI senior vice president Vinton Cerf said the enhanced
network would be "like first -class service on an airline. There's the same
square footage, but there are fewer passengers and better food." The new
operation will be run by Concert, which is the joint venture that MCI and
British Telecom formed three years ago. (New York Times 11 Jun 96 D5) A
Forrester Research strategist says: "This week MCI & BT will be ahead, and
in a very short period of time AT&T will trump them. This is Internet dog-
years -- everything gets done in one-seventh of the time." (Wall Street
Journal 10 Jun 96 B6)
IBM AGREEMENTS WITH STORAGE TECHNOLOGY, IOMEGA
IBM will sell Storage Technology's storage systems for mainframe computers
and will provide Storage Technology financing for R&D. Industry analyst Bob
Djurdjevic says that "for all intents and purposes, IBM has really taken out
one of the competitors in the disk market," and that Storage Technology
"needed a parent with deeper pockets, because the amount they can spend on
R&D and product development isn't enough to sustain them in the long run."
(New York Times 11 Jun 96 D4) Meanwhile, IBM has agreed to include Iomega's
removable storage Zip drive in one of its new Aptiva home PC models. The
machines will be available later this month. (Investor's Business Daily 11
Jun 96 A19)
BUILD A MALL, AND THEY WILL SHOP AT ALL THE STORES
IBM has created a Web site called World Avenue with the idea that merchants
will derive "cross traffic" from other stores at the cybermall, in the same
way they do in real-world malls. The Express units of Limited Inc. and the
Hudson Bay department store chain are the first merchants, with about 20 more
expected this fall. An Express executive says the company is participating
in World Avenue because its standalone Web site was not
getting sufficient traffic on its own. (Wall Street Journal 11 Jun 96 B6)
SATELLITE TV DISPUTE ESCALATES IN CANADA
A Canadian company, Thomson Consumer Electronics, says it will go ahead with
plans to sell 45 cm RCA satellite dishes to the public despite threats by
pay-TV and satellite operators to sue. The dishes enable people to receive
American television services, which the complaining companies say they have
the exclusive right to deliver. (Toronto Financial Post 11 Jun 96 p9)
SOHO MARKET A MYTH, STUDY SAYS
A study by Computer Intelligence Info Corp. has branded the so-called SoHo
(unified small office-home office) market a myth, noting that small
businesses and home-based workers make very different buying decisions.
While the number one computer vendor for small companies last year was IBM,
home businesses patronized Packard Bell the most. Also, self-employed
people, who make up the bulk of home-based workers, tend to use a wider
range of software and are two-and-a-half times as likely to be regular users
of online services. (Investor's Business Daily 10 Jun 96 A6)
SOFTWARE LANGUAGE POLICE
Quebec's language police are back as part of a toughening of provincial
language laws, and computer software companies will have to release any
French-language versions of their new products at the same time they launch
the English-language versions. The new rules mean customers looking for
French-language versions of software would have to pay several times the
price of an equivalent English-language product at the time of release.
(Montreal Gazette 11 Jun 96 A1)
ADS ON THE NET
Although online advertising represents only a tiny fraction of the $125-
billion U.S. advertising market, it has been growing rapidly, from (in
millions) $80M in '95, $343M in '96, and a projected $5,000M in 2000,
according to Jupiter Communications. LA Times columnist Dan Akst says that
the nonprofit Audit Bureau of Circulations, a creature of the newspaper
industry, has the latest entry with a system called WebFacts which will
offer independent certification of Web counts just as it does newspaper
circulation. In opposition to these developments is the work of a small
North Carolina company called PrivNet which has developed software that
blocks ads, blinking texts, Web graphics and Web "cookies" that track a
visitor's movements through a Web site. < http://www.privnet.com > .
PrivNet's founder says that "if the advertisers want to pay for a high-speed
Net connection to my house, then I would take the ads, but right now it is
costing me money to look at their ads." On the other side, a Time Inc. new
media editor says that the current ad model on the Web "is non-intrusive and
users understand there is an implicit bargain that ads come with free
content." (Los Angeles Times 10 Jun 96 B7)
MICROSOFT BUYS ELECTRONIC COMMERCE COMPANY
Microsoft is buying eShop Inc., a four-year-old San Mateo, California-based
company that markets programming tools to help merchants set up
"storefronts" on the World Wide Web. (Wall Street Journal 11 Jun 96 B6)
NET OFFERS POWER TO THE INTELLIGENTSIA
In an interview with Jeff Ubois, CyberCash founder Dan Lynch predicted that
the Net will change the power structure in the third world: "There will be
a lot of quick winners in the developing countries and a rise to power by a
new class of people. Most of these will come from the academic community;
that is the natural way this technology gets disseminated, and it may be a
one-time opportunity for the intelligentsia to be in power. Some will flub
it, but some won't. It is a power shift." (Internet World Jul 96 p75)
WIRED'S ASSET: "ATTITUDE"
The Initial Public Offering of Wired Ventures Ltd. indicates that its
business is the creation and distribution of "branded content with
attitude." Wired Ventures Ltd. owns Wired magazine, the HotWired and Suck
sites on the Web, a fledgling book publishing business, a proposed TV show
called "The Netizen," and the HotBot search engine. The three-year old
company has never made a profit. (Washington Post 11 Jun 96 D3)
COURT SAYS COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT
VIOLATES FREE SPEECH
A three-judge federal court has blocked enforcement of the Communications
Decency Act (CDA), describing it as "a government-imposed content-based
restriction on speech," in violation of the Constitution. The CDA attempted
to make it a crime to place "indecent" or "patently offensive" material
online where children could access it. The full text of the decision is
available on the Web at < http://www.cdt.org >. The Justice Department may
still carry an appeal to the Supreme Court. President Clinton defended the
Communications Decency Act by saying: "I remain convinced, as I was when I
signed the bill, that our Constitution allows us to help parents by enforcing
this act to prevent objectionable material transmitted through computer
networks." (New York Times 13 Jun 96 A1)
INTEL & MCI OFFER "WEBMAKER" FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
MCI and Intel are marketing a $10,000-range workstation called "networkMCI
WebMaker" intended to make it easy for small companies to create and manage
their own Web sites. The system, which uses a Pentium Pro Chip, the Windows
NT operating system, a Cisco router, and network software from Netscape, will
require a high-speed communications line that costs between $1,000 and
$1,300 a month. (Wall Street Journal 12 Jun 96 B8)
INTUIT EXPANDS INSURANCE AND BANKING SERVICES
Intuit, the nation's leading personal finance software company, has purchased
Interactive Insurance Services as a step toward selling and servicing
insurance policies online. The company will also offer online banking
software in a service called BankNow, to be made available on the Web and
through America Online. (Washington Post 12 Jun 96 F1)
COMPETING INTRANET STRATEGIES
In an aggressive move against competition from Netscape, Microsoft will
attempt to bundle a series of existing Microsoft products (such as database
and e-mail programs) into the new version of its Windows NT operating system,
to be used in corporate "Intranets," which allow employees to work
simultaneously on the same documents. Netscape is developing advanced
technologies for corporate collaboration by means of a new browser program
code-named Gallileo and a new server code-named Orion. (Wall Street Journal
13 96 B5)
AT&T'S ATTACK PLAN
AT&T chief executive Robert E. Allen says that AT&T is ready to go after the
local phone service market "with everything we've got," and predicts that
the company will capture a third of that market within a few years, whereas
"it could be well into the next century" before the local phone companies
could meet the regulatory tests they must pass before they themselves can
offer long-distance services. Allen says that AT&T will "take a basic $25-a-
month long-distance customer and convert him or her into a $100-a-month
customer for a broader bundle of services that includes long distance as
well ... the 180-degree opposite of commodity service." (Wall Street
Journal 12 Jun 96 A3)
COUNTERING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PIRACY IN CHINA
Looking at a June 17th deadline set by the U.S. for China to take action to
stop piracy of copyrighted material (especially software, books, records and
movies), the United States and China are close to an agreement in which
Beijing would close up to half its compact disk factories, take actions
against the others, and ease restrictions on U.S. entertainment products in
the Chinese market. (Journal Of Commerce 13 Jun 96 1A)
MURDOCH PLANS SATELLITE TV SERVICE IN JAPAN
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation will create a pay-TV digital satellite
broadcast service in Japan within the next two years, and expects to be
profitable "very, very quickly" because of the great opportunity presented
in Japan by the fact only 6 percent of that country's households have cable
TV in spite of the high disposable income of Japanese consumers. (Financial
Times 13 Jun 96 p13)
AOL TO SELL NETSCAPE ADS
An America Online agreement with Netscape will result in AOL sales
representatives selling advertisements on the Netscape Navigator browser for
the World Wide Web, a deal which should yield more advertising revenue to
both companies. In other developments, the New York state attorney general's
office has reportedly launched a formal investigation of America Online to
determine whether AOL improperly overcharges customers for time they spend
online. (Washington Post 13 Jun 96 D8)
MEDAL OF SCIENCE WINNERS
The National Science Foundation has awarded the nation's top science award to
James Flanagan, who solved basic problems in speech communications, and to
Richard Karp, who applied advances in theoretical computer science to real-
world problems. (Computer Industry Daily 11 Jun 1996)
U.S. SUES CANADIAN TELEMARKETERS
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched suits against six Canadian
telemarketing companies, alleging they have violated American laws by
collecting fees to help debt-strapped Americans get loans and credit cards.
(Toronto Financial Post 12 Jun 96 p1)
VOICE-MAIL COOPERATION BY REGIONAL BELLS
The four regional Bell phone companies Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, Nynex, and
Pacific Telesis, plus the Stentor Alliance of Canadian phone companies, are
forming a joint venture called Message Alliance L.P. that lets customers
record a voice or fax message once in one system and send it mailboxes in any
of the other systems. (New York Times 13 Jun 96 D3)
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educom.edu) & Suzanne Douglas
(douglas@educom.edu).
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Kids Computing Corner
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The Kids' Computing Corner
Computer news and software reviews
from a parent's point of view
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IBM Macintosh
OS: Windows 3.1, Windows 95 OS: System 7.0.1
CPU: 486SX/33 CPU: 68030/25
HD Space: 2 MB HD Space: 1
MB
Memory: 8 MB Memory: 8 MB
Graphics: 640 by 480 with 256 colors Graphics:
256 colors, 13" monitor
CD-ROM: Double-speed CD-ROM: Double-speed
Audio: 8-bit Windows compatible sound card
Other: mouse
Logical Journey of the ZoombinisT is humorous trek that encourages the
development of logic skills through puzzle-solving. Your fun learning
mission is to guide the Zoombinis to a new homeland as they traverse through
the tricky terrain.
The Zoombinis are a peaceful and productive people. One day a militant race,
the Bloats, conquers their homeland and enslaves the Zoombinis. You must
lead groups of Zoombinis through twelve devious puzzles to reach the promised
land. These puzzles can even prove challenging for adults. They encourage
the development of numerous math and logic skills including algebraic
thinking, pattern finding, sequential logic and logical reasoning.
The game is played by building teams of sixteen Zoombinis. You can choose to
assign individual characteristics for each team member or you can roll the
die to quickly assemble each Zoombini. While each Zoombini is similar, they
all have identifying characteristics. It is these characteristics that the
player uses to solve each puzzle. For example, at the Allergic Cliffs,
Zoombinis can cross one of two bridges but if they don't meet the required
attributes, the cliff will sneeze and blow them back across the bridge. The
player must logically deduce which characteristics will allow passage over
each bridge. As you lead more groups to Zoombiniville, the puzzles will
become progressively more difficult.
The program uses a very simple point-and-click interface. The program does
not provide any audible help files, but the interface is explained thoroughly
in the manual. The program's narrator offers a cryptic clue as you lead
Zoombinis to each puzzle. Again, the manual will provide detailed
instructions. Considering how easy it is to misplace manuals, I think more
help should have been available within the program itself. On the other
hand, the manual is excellent. It includes a very enlightening parent's
section that details the program's benefits and intent. Another bonus of the
program is that it supports Autorun in Windows 95.
This game is wonderfully animated with attention to fine details and gorgeous
colors making it a delight to the eye. The screen captures provided with the
PDF version of the magazine cannot do justice to the esthetic qualities of
the graphics. The sound portion of the program is very high quality. The
narration of your quest is done especially well and is very enjoyable.
Children will love the quirky, funny animations and the simple interface.
The only problem I foresee is that the puzzles may be too difficult for
younger children. Parents, be prepared to put on your thinking caps! You
will probably be asked for assistance to solve these puzzles. Once you
become involved, you may find that you enjoy the game immensely too.
This program has fantastic educational value. The development of math and
logic skills is very important. Logic skills are used every day at work and
at home. I wish that programs like this had been available when I was a
child. Logical Journey of the ZoombinisT has an expected retail price of
$40, but I have seen priced at less than $30. Broderbund is offering a
number of discounts currently that will make this an even better value. See
your retailer for more details. The program is also backed by a 90-Day
Satisfaction Guarantee that makes purchasing this software almost risk-free.
If you would like see one of the puzzles from the game, surf over to
Broderbund's website and try out Mudball Wall online.
Logical Journey of the ZoombinisT is a fantastic educational program that
both children and parents can enjoy. It's mentally stimulating while being
rib-tickling funny. This program deserves a spot on your software shelf.
Ratings
Graphics 10.0
Sound 9.0
Interface 8.5
Play Value 9.0
Educational Value 10.0
Bang for the Buck 9.5
Average 9.33
And now for something completely different...
If you are interested in joining the staff of The Kids' Computing Corner,
please send an e-mail to me at fsereno@matrix.uti.com. I'll give details in
reply about the requirements and benefits of writing for STReport
International Online Magazine.
Portable Computers Section
Marty Mankins, Editor
MICROPROSE MASTERMINDS REBORN AS FIRAXIS SOFTWARE
Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds, who comprise one of the most
successful development teams in the software development industry have left
MicroProse(r) Software to found FIRAXIS SOFTWARE, INC.
Jeff Briggs, FIRAXIS President and Chief Executive Officer, spent nearly nine
years at MicroProse, managing, designing, and producing products. For the
past four years, he served as Producer of Sid Meier products, in addition to
serving as Director of Product Development for MicroProse, and maintaining a
career as a composer.
Brian Reynolds, Vice President of Software Development, is a leading
programmer/designer with a brilliant career ahead. Reynolds has two hit
titles to his credit already, Sid Meier's Colonization(r) and Sid Meier's
Civilization II(r), which is currently one of the world's top-selling titles,
having sold over 260,000 units in its first two months of release.
Sid Meier, Chairman of the Board and Director of Creative Development, has
been called the "father of the computer gaming industry." Meier is the
visionary whose ideas have generated many gaming genres enthusiasts
internationally. His career is truly a story of "firsts." Titles of Sid
Meier games include: F15 Strike Eagle(r), Pirates(r), Silent Service(r), Sid
Meier's Railroad Tycoon(r) and Sid Meier's Civilization(r). Meier is co-
founder of MicroProse software, still a leader in the international software
games market, which merged with Spectrum Holobyte four years ago.
FIRAXIS SOFTWARE will be a product development house only. Marketing, sales,
and distribution of products will be handled by a publishing partner.
FIRAXIS founders are currently negotiating with leading software publishing
and distribution firms, seeking a partnership for producing first-rate
innovative software in the tradition established at MicroProse.
FIRAXIS will have a small staff of 15-20 of the best minds in the business.
Each individual in the intimate working group has a proven track record of
success and has shown skill at creating games, from concept to product.
These tested alliances, from the highest leadership levels of the company to
each and every employee ensures FIRAXIS' success in the marketplace.
Founder/President, Jeffery Briggs, said, "FIRAXIS SOFTWARE will be a unique
environment where the most talented programmers, designers, artists, and
musicians work as equals to produce innovative software which is synonymous
with the Sid Meier brand. We will look at all types of new technology and
will chart a new course for computer gaming in the 21st century." Sid Meier
noted, "What we are after with FIRAXIS is the continuation of a great
tradition of creating cool, fun, games."
FIRAXIS SOFTWARE's offices will be in Hunt Valley, Maryland. Firaxis
Software is a leading developer of entertainment software. For more
information contact: Deborah Plutzik, PR Manager; 410-329-6216 Phone; 410-
357-5908 Fax.
MicroProse, Sid Meier's Colonization, Sid Meier's Civilization II, F15 Strike
Eagle, Pirates!, Silent Service, Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon, and Sid
Meier's Civilization are registered trademarks of Spectrum Holobyte, Inc..
Atari: Jaguar/Computer Section
Dana Jacobson, Editor
From the Atari Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!"
It's another one of those week's, folks. All quiet on the Atari front.
What is buzzing is the continuous debate regarding this "Decency Act"
regarding the content on the Internet. When will Washington and these other
ultra-conservative "do-gooders" stop worrying about little Johnny logging
into the Internet and seeing an obscenity or what they consider to be so?
You don't want YOUR kids to be faced with it, then stop YOUR kids from using
the Internet until they're old enough, or responsible enough to handle it!
Gawd, these must be the same people who cringe when they hear someone say
"Damn", I mean "Oh darn!" Give me a break. Stop trying to protect me and
everyone else from the evils of the world. Put your time to productive uses
like preventing real crime, end world hunger, and conquering disease.
How many of you are old enough to remember the early 70's George Carlin
comic bit regarding "The 7 Words You Can Never Say on Television"? What a
hilarious bit! Hey, they're only words!! Whatever happened to the right of
free speech? The more I hear about what these "purists" are attempting to
do, the more angry I get. Create a law to ban these foolish attempts to
protect me from words, discussions, a bare breast, and other "for mature
audiences" material. Dammit!
Stay tuned next week for our regularly scheduled program.
Until next time...
Jaguar Section
"...Must Be a Full Moon..."
From the Editor's Controller - Playin' it like it is!
There's been little progress regarding the release of any new Jaguar
titles for the near future. Atari's Don Thomas has told me that efforts are
still ongoing to get games out.. the next hopeful still remains Breakout
2000. While I can't get into the details, lack of sales for previous games
has played a role in what will happen in the near future.Let's face it, if
Atari can't make any money by releasing new games, they will likely not
release them. I don't like it, you don't like it, it's reality.
I don't hold much hope for the other game consoles, either. As
mentioned in previous weeks, no one is doing well in the console business.
Sales have taken a nose dive and remain pretty dismal. Has it become too
expensive for the users? Are the games lousy? Is the PC making headway and
overtaking the consoles? Perhaps one or all, I have no idea. I don't even
thing that the Nintendo 64 will make a dent, or live up to its hype. We'll
see. In the meantime, stay with us for up to date news with regard to the
Jaguar and new developments, literally.
In the "Been There, Done That" online community faux pas category of the
month department, AEO editor/publisher Travis Guy was recently tossed out
of the CompuServe Atari Forums. It seems Travis' frustrations got the best
of him and he said a few things publicly (and privately from what we
understand) that alienated himself with Atari Forum Manager Ron Luks.
According to Luks, Guy was the first "VIP" to lose his access in all the
years that the Atari Forums have been in existence on CIS c 15 years.A number
of factors led to this decision, but more recent events appear to have
quickly brought about the action. Hopefully Travis' "fortunes" will change
soon. Congratulations on your soon to be, Nuptials!
Until next time...
Jaguar Online STR InfoFile Online Users Growl & Purr!
Most of the online chit-chat has been devoted to "discussions" regarding
the possibility of new games coming out, and a variety of the usual topics
when things are quiet.
I try to call Atari's Don Thomas at least once a week to see what the
latest news is. Ironically, this week we kept crossing each other's path
but I finally caught up with him. He was in the process of putting together
another online Atari Web page "coupon offer". Don has an ever growing
mailing list to whom he sends out these special offer announcements.
While I've been asked to not divulge the details, I can say that the
offer is a good one. Be sure to check out Atari's Web page for details if
you receive the special mailing. If you're really interested and do not
receive the mailing, Don may be convinced to give you the hint to locate the
special offer "coupon" on the Web site. All I'll hint at is that the offer
will be an opportunity to purchase some Jaguar games and hardware. And, if
you're on the STReport mailing list and want details, let me know..
dpj@delphi.com or 71057.3327@compuserve.com. Or, leave some feedback to Don
via the Atari site.
That's it for this week - it's extremely quiet otherwise. Still no
further updates on Towers II, but I hope to learn more in the next few days.
As we learn anything new regarding any new developments with the Jaguar,
you'll hear it here first - stay tuned.
Until next time...
ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'!
PEOPLE... ARE TALKING
On CompuServe
compiled by
Joe Mirando
CIS ID: 73637,2262
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. I'll tell you right now before I forget:
There may not be a PEOPLE ARE TALKING column next week. I'm going to a
training class for work which will keep me away from my beloved CompuServe
for a full week. Those of you with good memories may remember that I've
mentioned the software that I used on my company's Pentium to log all of the
data generated by one of our machines and how I used graphics effects and
layouts that we've all been seeing for years on the ST platform, and how much
the company that we contracted with liked what I had done. Well, this is a
class for that software. The actual classes run for ten and a half hours a
day, and then I've got to "cram" for the following day's lessons (I don't do
things half-way).
So the long and short of it is that I probably won't have time to compile the
information for this column....
I might have, if my tried-and-true STacy hadn't decided to give up the ghost
yesterday. Now with only a matter of days until I have to leave for those
classes I have no time to pull the STacy apart and replace whatever went
"boing" last night.
Oh, remember our neighbor Alejandro Aguilar? He's the one who wrote to me
over the Internet from Costa Rica a while ago and I shared some of his
insights. Well, he dropped me email today and I'll be including his speed
comparisons for MagiC-PC. He also told me that his wife is expecting a baby
girl at the end of the month. Hey! Another Atari Fanatic is born! Perhaps
this is how we can keep the Atari market going. It sure is a lot more fun
than advertising! <grin>
There have been a few other happenings here in the Atari world, but I don't
find them especially news-worthy and the dust hasn't yet settled, so we'll
just talk about it another time. Let's start off with Alejandro's test
results for MagiC-PC:
Alejandro tells me in his e-mail:
"About two weeks ago, I download the demo version of the new operating
system/emulator for running ST programs on the Gatesputers: the Magic-PC
(remember my last e-mail?). After a few days of use, I ended up with a few
comments about it and I would like to share it with you and the others who
are thinking about buying a new system for use as your primary machine:
The Magic-PC system is composed of two parts: The emulator, that emulates the
68000 processor and the rest of the components that makes an ST an ST; and
the Operating system, composed by the Magic O.S. 4.02 (Jan. 3, 1996),
including Mag!Xdesk v3.01.
When I ran the emulator, my first impression was that Magic-PC was slow. But
later two things changed my mind: The first was when I ran GEMBench, and I
found very interesting results; the second was when I finally installed
PageStream 2.2 and ran it: It took 18 seconds to load and run, versus 33
seconds that took to load and run in my 1040STe in the same circumstances.
The GEMBench returns the next results:
multitasked mode singletasked mode
CPU: 345% 345%
Graphics: 95% 96%
Average: 162% 163%
STE TOS 2.00 Mint not present
AES v3.99 NVDI not present
GEMDOS v0.25 FPU not present
Blitter Enabled ROM Malloc from STRam
Video Mode 640x400x16
I can only imagine running this emulator in a Pentium 166Mhz machine !!! ;-).
Next, I'll point point out some things which seem important to me about
Magic_PC:
Pros:
It can be used in any wintel (or gatesputer) computer (at least if it can run
Windows95 at a decent speed).
Software only emulator: can be used in notebooks. (Oh! ... I know that this
destroys my idea of the protection, but at least I can buy a relatively
cheap PC portable and I can have a portable ST... although
in my opinion the design of the Stacy is better that all of the notebooks
offered in the last year ... with a very few exceptions)
The Emulator section of the Magic_PC emulates a plain 68000, and all the
components of the ST. This guarantees better compatibility than MagicMac.
As described on the docs (Oh! I think that I must take some German lessons ;-
( Thanks God that Ruftrade exist !!) it appears that you can access the DOS
disks & partition from Magic-PC. The thing at this point is the fact that
you can or not manipulate directly archives (i.e. copying, moving, deleting,
launching MS-DOS Windows programs, etc.) like Gemulator 4.0. You could use
the TOS environment to manipulate Windows95.
Cons:
It appears to be slow - The authors recommend that it could be used with a
Pentium 100Mhz. In my machine (a 486DX/33Mhz) visually it is slower than a
plain 1040STe. This is a problem of the VDI emulation that uses the display
of the Windows95 video driver (Have you heard of a good action game for
Windows95?...). You can't do rapid animation in a multitasking environment,
specially in one of the Gates' operating systems). For example, for the
famous game of Doom to be playable in a Wintel machine, the game substitutes
the MS- DOS operating system with your own. By this way they can guarantee
the necessary speed for the game.
The maximum number of colors that can support is only 16 (I hope that in the
final version this can be improved or at least one can use a NVDI type of
program that improves the screen speed and color, a'la
MagicMac).
To use a diskette, you must "mount" the disk in the program - load an image
of the disk in the Hard Disk for the use of the emulator. This method has
the advantage of eliminating possible conflicts with Windows95 for disk
access, and speeds the H.D.-to-Disk transfers (at least internally in the
Emulator).
It appears to be a very hot product, since Applications System Heidelberg
have now a very solid operating system in three diferent platforms: ATARI,
MacIntosh and the Gateputers (Who knows, maybee they are working in a new
MagicAmiga and MagicSun right now . . . keep dreaming). And in all you can
speed the programs without much effort (Tell me about multiplatform
development).
Since Branch Always Software released [or soon will ]the new version of the
GEMulator - called GEMulator for Laptops - that uses Magic either 2.0 or
4.0, it will be very interesting to see some benchmarks featuring the two
emulators running head to head with the same circumstances; but I think that
GEMulator will win, because the time that Darek and friends devote to the
Emulator and the fine software that they do for the Atari Community."
Thank you very much, Alejandro, for your review of th
e product. I was
wondering about it and how well it works... now I know!
Okay, okay, I know that because this post wasn't found on CompuServe in the
Atari Forums it really shouldn't be showcased in this column, but heck, not
every computer user has a CompuServe account... as a matter of fact, not
every ST user has a CIS account (shame on you), and it happens to fit all of
my criteria: It's well-written, informative, and interesting. I'd just
like to point out that this column is not an advertisement for CompuServe.
It's a compilation of information and news that just happen to have been
found on CompuServe. If it also happens to make CIS look good, so much the
better.
Now let's get on with the other good stuff:
From the Atari Computing Forum
During a question-and-answer volley, James Seielman asks "Mark" a few
questions about our favorite computer. Mark replies:
"You have asked someone fairly new in Atari, myself since 1991 when I traded
my king size bed to my buddy for his 520. First of all I can't say enough
good things for the TOS system, far ahead of its time and still is in many
ways. The difference as I have observed between TOS 1.4 and TOS 2.06 is a
more streamlined desktop, faster hard drive response, some multitasking
abilities and custom fit the latest Atari software.
Now, for me, I have TOS 1,2 in my '87 model Mega 2 and a 1040. To be honest,
my comments about 1.04 being the most versatile has to do with that strong 5
year Atari support curve between 1985-1990. Most Atari software ever
written occurred in those years and with the announcement of TOS 1.04, it was
perfect to end an era in the ATARI ST series. It was the ultimate bug fix
for TOS version 1. The newest piece of commercial software is NeoDesk 3.02,
1991! Now that's pretty old, but I like it with my 1.2 TOS, does what I
need.
The question is: what do you need, James? I can tell you right now that to
run the classic stuff and those fun games, you need to stay with TOS 1.4 or
less! (Now I'm open to rebuke if someone can prove me wrong on that) If you
are into Calamus, audio and some video production, lots of RAM, then you
should go get a FALCON or a TT, but I think that your choices are limited in
overall usage, (forgive me guys but that is where ATARI has gone to) In
other words, you might have the Lexus of hardware but if there is no gas
(software) then you're not budging an inch.
(comment: I said earlier, "the newest piece of software that I have is
NeoDesk 3)
My opinion is that 1.4 is still the best. If you can also get your hands on
a copy of NVDI that's even better, a desktop replacement like NeoDesk will
enhance your enjoyment if you have a hard drive. I have a copy of TURBO
BOOST, Turbo mono and Turbo color which does about the same thing, speed up
the screen redraws. I don't have any experience with Magic, but there is a
lot of guys who can give you the lowdown."
Wow! Now we're getting folks to "go active" with their thoughts, huh? James
replies to Mark:
"Actually, my Atari experience began with a 1200XL (outstanding keyboard! I
wish I could put it in my 130XE) some years before I purchased the 1040.
However, a few years after I got the ST (Dec. '89), I joined the Marine
Corps and kinda lost touch with the Atari development stuff. I _did_ know
Atari came out with the Megas and some TOS revisions, but I knew little-to-
nothing about them. Some months _after_ I got out (just last Dec.) I
discovered Atari released such animals as the TT and the Falcon!
I did get a Lynx when I got back from Saudi, though, and thought that was
just the coolest. I learned of them at an Airbase in Jubail (if I remember
correctly) while we were waiting to go home :-)! They had several Lynx
kiosks set up running a couple different games. Weird, eh? Later (about
'91/'92), I used the ST in the armory (I was a Small Arms Repairman,
armorer) until I realized it was not a very friendly environment for a
computer! I then loaned it to my brother who used it for a newsletter for
his Buick GN / T-Type club, using WordFlair. I ended up getting a PC and
descended into an Atari Info-Void until, as I mentioned, I got out of the
Corps.
So, _my_ experience is lacking that critical time period! I'm now thinking
of getting a TT, perhaps (despite some of the incompatibilities), or even a
Falcon. They both have merits of their own. Plus I'm a hardware junkie
<g>. I have several 8-bit Atari's and a couple computers of other makes, so
why not more!?
As far as what I intend to do with the ST, I'd really like to update the
desktop, mostly. However, if a TOS revision or replacement (such as MagiC)
will do that as well as enhance the usability of the machine, I'd go that
far. Your comments about NVDI, etc. tend to mirror my own
wishes/observations. I will keep your opinion of 1.4 in mind, as it's also
the easier of the "hardware" TOS upgrades. (2.06 requires some "extras" for
my ST, as I've been informed). Since my ST is (sadly) mostly a toy of mine
(my PC gets the lion's share of the working out), I don't have any one
particular task in mind. Flirting with programming, some light W.P. and DTP
work, games....
Of course, as with many "toys", I am not against spending a bit of my hard-
earned, over-taxed income to increase my enjoyment of same ;-) !"
There you have it folks, the classic "Atari User Time-Line". Oh, by the way,
in case you don't know, that little bunch of characters at the end of that
post isn't line noise, it's a smile. Take a look at it again... The semi-
colon is a set of twinkling eyes, the dash is a nose, and the close
parenthesis mark is a smile. There are many variations. My own "smile" is
this: (;^{> Can you tell that I'm loosing my hair, and have a moustache
and beard? Well, enough of the small talk.
Mark goes on and asks:
"I keep hearing about this "MultiTOS". What is it? A desktop, TO upgrade?
Who likes it? Would you recommend it?"
Albert Dayes tells Mark that it is...
"A multi-tasking operating system (Multi-TOS). To run it efficiently requires
a 68030 based cpu. The other alternatives are Magic 4.x by ASH or Geneva by
Gribnif software. I have never used MultiTOS myself maybe others can make
some comments about it."
My own personal opinion is to forget about Multi-TOS and MiNT and get
Geneva/NeoDesk4 from Gribnif Software... It's much faster than Multi-TOS and
very compatible with most software. It multi-tasks, it "single-tasks for
those problem programs, and it allows you to do some really cool things with
your desktop, programs, and accessories. There is also MagiC, but I have no
experience with it, so I can't give an honest opinion. Coincidentally,
"Magic" was the code name for Geneva when it was in it's very early stages.
I can remember Rick Flashman of Gribnif telling me "Something's coming soon,
and it's going to be MAGIC!"
Robert Spieler was trying to decide which Atari Computer he wanted to buy, he
asked about what size SCSI (say SKUZZY) drives he could use on the various
models. Albert Dayes tells him:
"You can use SCSI hard drives of almost any size. On some machines like the
Atari Falcon and TT have built in SCSI ports and only need driver software
such as ICD's SCSI PRO or similar software. Others require a host adapter
like ICD link or AdSCSI+ to run SCSI devices."
Robert tells Albert:
"Thank You... By now I know what I want: a Mega 2 or a Mega STE with 100 MB
hard drive and 4MB RAM. Is it possible to equip it with a SCSII host adapter
and can I use the same SCSII devices I use with a PC??"
Albert tells him:
"Atari STe machines are nicer since they use standard simm slots for memory.
If you get a host adapter (make sure it supports parity) then most of your
SCSI devices you use on your PC should work. Some people have had trouble
with some drives but most have been successful."
Tom Harker from ICD adds:
"If you get an external SCSI host adapter like the ICD Link 2 then yes. You
need to keep the partitions under 32 MB though for cross compatibility and
format them on the PC. (There is a PD utility called BIG DOS that might get
around this limitation though.)"
Ralph Kalatucka asks for info:
"I have a copy of Marcel that I downloaded months back, but I haven't de-
arced it yet. Does it support my HP 540 deskjet printer? (I tried and tried
to get ST Writer Elite and 1st Word to access the "times" or "roman" fancy
font supposedly contained in the HP, but all I get is that god-awful
"typewriter" font. Sheeesh!)
So, if I read your letter correctly, I can upgrade my 1040 to 4 meg, but my
color monitor would still be stuck in "medium res." and I'll still have to
do my serious work in hi-res.-but-boring black and white. Thanks for caring
enough to give me some input. It is sincerely appreciated."
Good old Albert Dayes tells Ralph:
"I never used Marcel myself but I remember that it could import/export many
of the Atari word processing formats plus RTF. I never checked on its
printing capability but I believe it supported a few generic printers and
postscript. Maybe if you can just create a raw ASCII file with the HP
escape sequences and send that first before printing. Then that way you will
have the font you like. I assumed also that HP Deskjet were basically
compatible with laserjet's PCL command set. Have you tried using an HP
laserjet driver?
The 1040 can be upgraded using 3rd party boards to 4 megabytes. If an STe
than one can just use simm slots. There are 3rd party graphics cards but
mostly seem to be for the VME bus or similar. You can contact an Atari
dealer and see if they have any other suggestions. I guess I am partial to
black and white monochrome monitors. <g>"
Bob Ledbetter jumps in and tells Ralph:
"I've used Marcel for quite awhile, and when I read your post about HP
printers, I dug out the docs to see if I could shed a little light on the
situation. I don't haven HP printer, so I don't know first hand about the
drivers. However, included in the Marcel Archive are drivers for: the HP
DeskJet; 2 from the DeskJet 520; HP LaserJet; as well as an HP DeskJet 520
description file. I use a StarJet SJ-48 and even though there is not a
driver for this particular printer, I recall it not being difficult to the
Epson driver. In other words, modifying an existing driver is not a mind
blowing task."
Our old friend (and former editor-emeritus) Lloyd Pulley joins in and tells
Ralph:
"I just had to make the same decision. Keep/fix my old MegaST4 (one of the
first ones on the market), upgrade to a Falcon, or buy another system all
together. I opted to buy a PC system. My Mega was getting old, worn out
and needed repairs (computer, internal floppy, and color monitor) and there
was no place within 500 miles of me to get it fixed. Since I am NOT a
hardware person, keeping/fixing it was out of the question.
Buying a Falcon and monitor was an option, but not one that I considered that
much. For just a few bucks more than a new Falcon/monitor system would cost
me, I could get a full-blown PC. Plus, I'd still be stuck with the fact
there was no place within 500 miles where I could get support or get it fixed
if I needed it.
So I bought a new PC system (Acer w/100mhz Pentium). And I have to admit, I
haven't been sorry I did. With my ST system, it was mine. My son would use
it when he _had to_ for word processing for school or work, and that was it.
With the PC system, I almost have to make an appointment to get to use it!
<g> About 10pm my son starts coming in to check on his old Pop - "Hey Pop,
don't you think you should think about going to bed. With that heart attack
you had a while back, you should get plenty of sleep". Translation - he
wants to get on the system so he can cruise he net, peruse AOL, do word
processing, play games, whatever.
And if that isn't bad enough, my wife gets home from work around 6:30 pm and
she has to come in and check on me - "Hon, don't you think you should go set
in the front room and prop that bad leg of yours up [when they ran the doo-
hickey down the artery to clear out the heart blockage, they hit a nerve and
it still gives me problems]." Translation - she wants to get on the system
so she can play her games.
This system almost never gets shut off. It's a 50/50 chance that when I get
up in the morning (since my heart attack, I can't sleep more than 3-4 hours
at a time) that my son will still be on the system. And he, and my wife,
used to laugh and make fun of me when I sat up all night on my old ST.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not cutting down my old Atari. I got more than my
money's worth out of it. If Atari still produced _and_ supported the
system, I'd probably still own one. And if your Atari system still suits
your needs, by all means upgrade yours or buy a Falcon. I have to tell you
the truth, I thought my old Atari system still suited all of my needs - and
if I hadn't had hardware problems, I'd still probably own it. But now that
I have my new PC, I realize how behind the times I was with my Mega. Not
only behind the times, how I was 'making do' and claiming that it was still
suiting my needs - when it wasn't really. It's nice to be able to get on the
net - without having to put together and learn some archaic software.
Software that en if you got it to run (and after weeks of trying, I gave up
because I couldn't), still didn't do the complete job. Now I have many net
software packages to choose from. And all I have to do is click on them and
away I go. I don't have to learn some weird and obsolete system/language,
then learn how to use the software - I just click and go. And if I don't
like the way that software works, there's 'umpteen' more different brands
out there for me to try.
I will admit that I don't know how I'd feel if I didn't have a Window's 95
system (software and hardware). With the Acer startup package, I had the
system up and running _faster_ than I did my first Atari ST (by the time you
figure in modem, printer, etc). Window's 95 made it simple to hook my old
Panasonic P6 printer into the system - and then _every_ piece of software I
ran recognized and used it properly. Then when I added a HP 660C (naturally
my P6 decided to 'bite the bullet' just a week after I bought my new system),
even my wife was able to add it to the system and take out the P6. Add a CD
ROM? No problem - it came stock with the system.
I'd heard all of the rumors about how bad Windows 95 was and how much it
crashed - mine hasn't crashed yet (I have crashed the system once - but it
was due to _my_ fault, not the system's). My opinion is that if you buy a
hardware system _built_ for Windows 95, start out with Windows 95 from
scratch (don't try to load it over Windows 3.1 or whatever), and make sure
you only run Windows 95 software (and there's plenty of it), you won't have
that many problems.
In closing - I am NOT a computer wizard. I'm one of those who bought
'Windows 95 for Dummies' - and then needed a translator to explain it to me!
<g> So if I can get the system up and running, anyone can. One thing
though. IMO, if you've never owned a PC system before, buy a 'name brand'
system and not a "Joe Schmo" special - one that's built in someone's
backroom. You lose a little by buying a 'name brand' system (most are not as
easy to upgrade and you have to take t comes with it - hardware and
software), but you know what's in it and most are made with Windows 95 in
mind. (Which 'Joe Schmo's' might, or might not be)."
Darned if it isn't good to see Lloyd posting again. There hasn't been a
good "knock-down, drag-out, spurting- blood, fists-flying, in-your-face fight
since he left. Lloyd, if you happen to read this, Welcome back Pal! Well
folks, it's getting late. Tune in again next week, same time, same station,
and be ready to listen to what they are saying when...
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