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May 1998 Newsbyte | |
EDITOR'S
CORNER
I think it was Forest Davault that told me about printing a screen by hitting the
<CTL> and <PRN SCR> keys then <CTL> <P>. By golly it works!! I
printed my Wife's picture that was on the front page of the Daily Record (Virtual) At
http://www.the-daily-record.com/. It printed in color. Tips like this are invaluiable! And
one reason I continue to be a member of this club. I REALLY miss the meetings. I've
said it before and I'll say it again: I have never gone to a meeting that I didn't learn
something!!!
Speaking of meetings, Brian Powell and I did some brain-storming to try to figure
out what will get more people interested in the club. Membership is still less than half
of what it was only a couple of years ago. Anyone with suggestions are urged to call
Brian or me and make your feeling and ideas heard.
Spring is in full force here in the woods. Everything is fresh and green, and the
newly hatched birds are starting to show up at our feeders. They really love sunflower
seeds. We feed "Scratch" feed also, and the ground feeders like that just fine.
Well, I had to eat crow (again). My CD-ROM writer and player just would not
work. I had muddled through trying everything I knew to get it to work, and no joy!
Had a friend take it to John Grayson, and by golly it was worth it!! Needed a new
CD-ROM player. The old one went south. And as Murphy's laws all say, I had just
about everything backwards that I could. John will have to tell what else he found as I
didn't understand half of what he was talking about or more importantly, what he did to
correct it. The important thing is it works and works great!! Also the 133 pentium came
home as an AMD 200. Does that make it a Pentium 200 or some kind of a cross
breed????
| President | Willis Troyer | 669-3925 |
| Vice Presidents | Brian Powell | 828-8365 |
| Tom Zimmerman | 264-5521 | |
| Secretary-Treasurer | Pat Johnston | 264-8726 |
| Librarians | Joe Luster | 682-7815 |
| Phillip Crosby | 264-1444 | |
| Editor | Harry Geiser | 682-7486 |
Maybe Columbus was wrong after all-at least when it comes to PC displays. The
monitor world is definitely flattening out. To date, there have been only a trickle of flat
panels for desktop computers, but nearly every major display maker (and quite a few
minor ones) will be offering desktop color LCDs in 1998. No one expects LCDs to
replace CRT monitors anytime soon; the cost of LCD technology is still too high for
that. But prices have tumbled over the past year, from about $5,000 to $2,000 for the
smallest (typically 13- to 14-inch diagonal) desktop LCDs. And that's expected to
continue as the competition heats up. IBM, Mitsubishi, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, Philips,
Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and ViewSonic are a few of the better-known vendors that
have recently introduced new desktop panels in sizes ranging from about 13 to 20
inches. A 13.7- to 14-inch LCD panel is roughly equivalent to a 15-inch monitor in
viewing area.
Two notable newcomers: Nokia's 300Xa ($2,100) is a 13.3-inch screen with a
profile a mere 2.4 inches thick. ViewSonic's VPA-138 ($1,995) is a 13.8-inch display
with built-in speakers. Both are capable of XGA reso-lution (1,024 by 768 pixels).
At the larger end of the spectrum, Mitsubishi recently debuted a 15-inch panel
for about $3,500, and NEC is shipping a 20.1-inch panel, the LCD 2000, with 1,280 by
1,024 resolution and a roughly $8,000 price tag. -- Jon Pepper
Page or sheet-fed scanners have long been a poor man's substitute for more
versatile, copier-style flatbed scanners. Now, it seems, everyone is going to bed, so to
speak.
Advances in (and falling prices for) image sensors have prompted a wave of
inexpensive and easier-to-use color flatbed scanners. Flatbed scanners let you place
documents, including pages in books and magazines, on a flat glass surface, rather
than feed them through a paper slot. Flatbeds tend to be much less troublesome than
sheet-fed models, and now they're just as affordable.
Logitech's P6000 ($99), Storm Technology's EasyPhoto ImageWave ($149), and
Canon's CanoScan 300 ($229) are among the latest of this breed. Each scans in full
color at an optical resolution of 300 by 600 dots per inch. Some, including the new
Storm and Logitech models, connect via a parallel printer port, too, eliminating the
need to install a SCSI card inside a Windows PC. (Macs have SCSI ports.)
Paying a bit more may get you a bigger, better, and perhaps smarter scanner.
Epson's Perfection 600 ($299) offers 600- by 1,200-dpi scanning and a legal-size bed
for documents. Hewlett-Packard's clever new ScanJet 5100C ($299) employs page
analysis to identify individual page elements (text, photos, line art) and optimize its
scans accordingly. -- C.O.
The primary rationale for putting a classified ad on the World Wide Web has
been the ability to reach millions of people across the globe-which may help you find
the right buyer for an exotic car or mansion, but might be overkill if you merely want to
unload your Chevy or three-bedroom Cape Cod. New multimedia classifieds offer
sellers (and buyers) a more compelling reason: the ability to show and tell.
ClassiFind Network (classifind. com) is the best known of this emerging breed.
Your online advertisement can contain not only text, but also pictures, sound, and
video. You can use as many as five pictures in your ad, sending them to the company
via the mail or, if they're digital, by e-mail. You can also record as much as a minute of
audio by phoning and mailing a videotape that will be converted into 60 seconds of
streaming video. Prices for placing an ad range from $4.95 for text only to $24.95 for
adding audio and video.
Another large network of classified ad partners, Classifieds2000
(classifieds2000.com), lets you place ads for free, and you can include a photo, but no
audio or video. Both ClassiFind and Classifieds2000 have a "notification" feature that
will e-mail buyers when a new listing matches their criteria. -- C.O.
Between disk-eating video clips and the expanding size of many software
programs-not to mention those bulging e-mail archives-our appetite for PC storage
space continues to grow voraciously. Happily, hard disk drive makers have some new
recipes to feed the hunger.
IBM recently introduced a 16.8- gigabyte (or about 16,800-megabyte) hard drive
for desktop PCs that's no larger than today's 3.5-inch drives. That's twice the capacity
of IBM's previous best, an 8.4GB drive. The new Deskstar drive will soon be in PCs
from many vendors, including IBM.
IBM's dramatic leap comes as the result of "giant magnetoresistive," or GMR,
technology (see diagram). The so-called GMR effect, discovered in the late 1980s,
describes large changes in electrical resistance in materials composed of alternating
thin layers of metallic elements-or magnetic metals separated by nonmagnetic
"spacers." IBM tapped this increased signal range to create a GMR read sensor that
can store more information in the same amount of space.
IBM is king of the hill, but others have their climbing shoes on. Just weeks
before IBM's introduction, Quantum debuted a new 12GB drive called Bigfoot TX, the
first time that plateau had been reached. The Bigfoot TX is a larger, 5.25-inch drive, but
it will still be used in many PCs.
Neither drive is expected to boost significantly the price of today's top-end PCs,
many of which come with 6.4GB or 8.4GB hard drives. The average storage capacity of
hard drives today is about 2GB, according to Quantum, and it's doubling every year. --
C.O.
Digital television lends itself to computer use, but disagreements about
transmission could affect the melding of the two convergence--the industry jargon for
the merger of television and the personal computer into one interactive appliance--is
upon us.
With the advent of digital television (DTV), the commingling seems inevitable:
DTV's enormous bandwidth, or line capacity, makes it highly suitable for fast
downloads from the Internet. Yet the form of the coming merger is still up in the air.
Whether it will be TV-centric or accommodating to PC users depends on
behind-the-scenes business decisions on transmission standards that will play out in
the coming months.
DTV's rollout begins in November, only 18 months after the Federal
Communications Commission lent each of the nation's TV stations a second channel
based on pledges to broadcast some high-definition programming. Most of the new
channels lie within the UHF band (numbers 14 to 69); existing channels are to be
given back once the DTV transition is complete. The huge capacity of DTV means that
broadcasters can fill the channel with one crystal-clear, high-resolution program with
six-channel sound and a wide screen--or put four or five standard-definition shows in
the same space. Initially, four major network affiliates in the top 30 markets will begin
broadcasting on the new channels, offering a mix of standard-definition TV (SDTV)
and high-definition TV (HDTV), probably for movies and sports.
The generous bit stream means that even an HDTV movie leaves room to
transmit World Wide Web pages simultaneously. DTV will permit tierloads of
customized news, music, sports, college courses,
interactive games and catalogues. For this reason, the "D" in DTV for many stands as
much for "datacasting" as it does for "digital."
The world wide wait over the telephone lines may finally come to an end. But
it's not going to be that straightforward. The FCC mandate of 1996, which allocated the
digital airspace, specifically omitted the viewing format for DTV, leaving the issue to
the market to decide. Broadcasters want to transmit interlaced HDTV signals; computer
makers prefer progressive scanning. The formats are quite different.
In interlacing, the video camera creates one field of video that has
even-numbered lines and then, in a second scan, creates a second field with
odd-numbered lines (the present analog standard is 525 interlaced lines to a frame,
scanned at a frame rate of about 30 hertz, and is called 525I). In progressive scanning,
the video creates the lines in order, as do computer displays, which require sharpness
for text. Historically, interlace was one of the few ways to compress a TV signal.
Nowadays the vertical and temporal resolution it produces can be accomplished with
modern digital-compression systems. But after more than five decades of using the
interlaced format for production and transmission, broadcasters have become
accustomed to it. They also have substantial investments in the equipment that
supports it. So when the FCC let the video-transmission format remain open to market
forces, broadcast and computer camps went head to head.
The issue is not so much what's good about progressive but what's bad about
interlace. "It's a roadblock on the way to convergence," says Alvy Ray Smith, a
graphics fellow at Microsoft. "It accommodates only low-resolution text and graphics if
you want to avoid flicker." The Web is full of text and graphics and hence inherently
ill suited to interlace scanning. If interlace becomes the de facto standard for HDTV
transmission, displaying the signals on a progressive scan monitor--that is, a
computer--is going to involve costly circuitry, keeping the market for PC-based TV
small. "Viewers will need an expensive board to convert interlaced HDTV transmission
to progressive. The board could easily cost $1,000," Smith says. "Even at a price, the
de-interlacing will not be perfect and will result in a poorer image." Interlace also
reduces the opportunity for datacasting, because it compresses less efficiently than
progressive scanning does. Tom McMahon, Microsoft's architect of digital television
and video, says that even if TV people work inside the studio in interlace, what they
should broadcast is another matter. "Once interlace is in the system, it's difficult to get
it out. If there's any "de-interlacing" to be done, broadcasters should do it just prior to
transmission to keep the receivers cheap." A microelectronics coalition of Intel,
Microsoft, Compaq and Lucent Technologies, called the Digital TV Team, has worked
to persuade broadcasters to initiate digital transmission using high-definition, 720-line
progressive at 24 frames per second for material shot on film, and standard-definition,
480-line progressive for other content.
New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley, author of a lively, detailed history of the
advent of HDTV, Defining Vision: The Battle for the Future of Television, says the
point is already moot. "There is no standards battle," he claims. "The TV
manufacturers have resolved it among themselves. I've spoken to all of them. They
are going to build TVs that receive all 18 of the standards [for DTV] but display only
two or three. They don't intend to support progressive except for 480-line format
because of the cost.
They won't support 720-line progressive, because the scanning frequencies
would make TV too expensive by their definition. 1080I [interlace] will be the defacto
standard for high definition." "It's not up to TV manufacturers," Microsoft's Smith
counters. "It's up to the broadcasters. Sure, right now, manufacturers are covering heir
bases by building a combination, but they'll be quick to build for whatever becomes
the national signal." Brinkley doesn't think the television industry will heed the
computer manufacturers. "Certainly DTV offers the capability for incredibly fast
downloads from the Internet," he says, "but broadcasters would have to devote a
channel to Internet access, and I don't think they see this as a viable business plan
right now. It may grow, but right now it's a niche market for broadcasters who reach
every American home."
The conflict will not be settled until the broadcasters start writing checks for
transmission equipment. "The networks have said they will announce their strategies
early in 1998," Brinkley notes.
"That will leave plenty of time for broadcasters to purchase the proper
equipment." So far only CBS has gone on record for preferring 1080I.
Come what may, PCs will still be able to converge with DTV--as long as the TV
is standard rather than high definition. The do-nothing alternative for broadcasters is
to air digital simulcasts of their current 525I analog programs. McMahon points out
that such simulcasts are easily handled by PCs.
Interlace presents no difficulty so long as the program is in standard definition,"
he
says. "The DTV receiver base we will begin to deploy in 1998 can receive these
interlaced broadcasts, along with any data that might be transmitted
concurrently."
PCs may indeed become a place where people watch standard-definition TV.
In the early years of DTV, Intel's Paul Meisner predicts, TV manufacturers won't be
able to grind out the new sets in great numbers. It will be easier to incorporate a
digital SDTV receiver in the PC that will cost the consumer a few hundred dollars
more, he says.
Terrestrial TV transmission debates may also take a new turn in coming
months as cable companies mobilize to cash in on new digital services. Cable lines
enter more than 90 million U.S. living rooms, and the number will jump with DTV, for
many homes will not receive over-the-air DTV without a large antenna, which may
prove too obtrusive. If the cable companies don't carry 1080I, the issue of interlace
versus progressive may indeed become moot, to the benefit of PC users.
--Anne Eisenberg in New York City
Sometimes, little things can make a big difference. And computer scientists at
Washington University in St. Louis have developed a "small" improvement in the way
the Internet finds e-mail and Web page addresses that could help alleviate the delays
of heavy Net traffic.
The new look-up system cuts the speed of finding Internet addresses from an
average of about one-millionth of a second (or microsecond) to 100 nanoseconds (or
billionths of a second). While seemingly trivial, that's a tenfold improvement, and it
should give the routers that direct Internet traffic between networks the ability to handle
more e-mail messages and Web page requests. Today's routers typically forward
messages at a rate of 100,000 to 500,000 per second, according to Washington
University researchers, but they may soon need to handle 5 million per second.
The new look-up system speeds deliveries by enabling routers to more
efficiently match addresses with the special markers, known as prefixes, that tell them
where to forward e-mail or Web page requests. That could be especially important as
we enter an age of information appliances, notes George Varghese, associate
professor of computer science at the school. "In the future, your toaster or air
conditioner could have an Internet address, which really exacerbates the [traffic]
problem," he explains. -- C.O.
There will be plenty of variety in models-and in quality-when the first digital TV
(DTV) sets go on sale this fall. Big-screen and small, direct-view tubes and projection
sets, even flat plasma displays were among the selection of prototype DTVs
demonstrated by more than a dozen manufacturers at previews so far this year.
Most of the sets at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, for
instance, displayed programs in the high-definition (HD) mode of 1,080 interlaced
vertical lines. The resolution of others-mostly direct-view-tube models-was limited to the
standard-definition (SD) digital format of 480 non-interlaced (or progressively scanned)
lines, similar to that of PC monitors.
The majority of the prototypes had the wide-screen proportion that's standard for
DTV and one-third wider than today's sets. But some manufacturers showed
conventionally scaled displays meant to perform double duty as PC monitors and TV
receivers. These were connected to a set-top box that converts the digital broadcast to
a signal the screen can display, usually with video quality equivalent to a PC monitor's
VGA or SVGA resolution. Although the resolution of this "SD" picture isn't much
different from that of today's analog TV, the digital technology eliminates the ghosts,
color-smearing, dot-crawl, and other artifacts sometimes seen today.
In size, the DTVs demonstrating HD displays range from wide-screen 30-inch
direct-view sets to 55- through 73-inch rear projectors to even larger pictures screened
by front-projection systems. The largest SD picture was seen on Mitsubishi's
wide-screen 46- inch DiamondPanel flat plasma monitor-just 4 inches thick. Unlike
direct-view and projection tubes, plasma panels aren't yet capable of HD resolution.
Pricing remains speculative, with estimates ranging between $5,000 and $10,000 for
large-projection models. Direct-view TVs with 34- and 38-inch screens may have a
$3,000 price tag two years after introduction, says RCA. Prices for set-top converter
boxes are unknown but are expected to be more moderate. -- Stephen A. Booth