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September 1997 Newsbyte | |
EDITOR'S
CORNER
MORE CHANGES!!! For those of you that didn't
make the August meeting,
this will come as a shock! (It did me anyhow!) This will be your
last "paper" newsletter! (Except for people that do not have E-Mail
capability.) Starting with the October issue, the Newsletter will
be E-Mailed saving the club postage and reproduction costs. E-Mail
me with your address, or call, write, something to let me know if
you can accept E-Mail! My address is in the heading above, and
geiserhj@aol.com for E-Mail.
Fall already!! Where did summer go? Things are very quiet here at
the computer graveyard. All computers are busy humming away. I have
three now, a Pentium 133 with 48Mb of RAM, and two CD-ROMs, one an
HP CD-writer (2X)/ Reader (6x) the other a Sony (16X) that will copy
directly onto the HP; a 2.5Gb hard drive, and two scanners, a flatbed,
and a photo/slide scanner. Also installed is an SVGA 15" monitor.
(Boy what a difference!!!) The second computer is a '486-DX4-100,
with an 8X CD-ROM drive, 2.5GB hard drive, 16MB of RAM and a VGA monitor.
It is a fill-in for when the big Beast is busy, I can plunk away
on another project while waiting. The third computer, a '486 DX-2-66
is being concocted for my sister and niece for Christmas, it gives
me something to tinker with and play with. It has 5MB of RAM, a really
small 120MB hard drive, and an EGA monitor. Remember when these were
the ultimate? All these things were really something less than 10
years ago!!!
| President | Earl McGaha | 264-7950 |
| Vice Presidents | Jim Pfaff | 262-6805 |
| Tom Zimmerman | 264-5521 | |
| Secretary-Treasurer | Pat Johnston | 264-8726 |
| Librarians | Joe Luster | 682-7815 |
| Phillip Crosby | 264-1444 | |
| Editor | Harry Geiser | 682-7486 |
Tired of waiting while your CD-ROM drive spins its discs? Western Digital thinks your hard disk can help do more to speed the process along. The company says its new Storage Data Acceleration, or SDX, technology can improve CD-ROM performance by up to 100 percent by connecting the CD-ROM drive directly to the hard disk drive, rather than to an interface card or the PC's motherboard. This direct link enables the CD-ROM drive to temporarily store, or "cache," program instructions and data on the hard drive, which can transfer them to the processor and memory areas much more quickly. The catch? You'll need new CD-ROM and hard disk drives to make this work. Western Digital plans to begin selling SDX hard drives this spring, which is about the same time Sanyo says it'll sell the first such CD-ROM drive. In all, more than a dozen companies say they'll support SDX. Western Digital says SDX can be adapted for DVD-ROM drives as well. -- C.O.
The coupling of electronics and optics inside a
computer has to long been a shotgun marriage at best. But the recent merger of a
light-emitting diode with electron ic circuitry on a single chip promises, if not
wedded bliss, at least a smoother road ahead as we move toward computers
that can handle pulses of light as well as electricity.
Engineers at the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute
of Technology in New York arranged the marriage by creating a sturdier
form of porous silicon. Porous silicon -- -with pores that let it
emit light -- -was first made in 1990, but was too fragile to withstand
the rigors of manufacturing. Rochester engineers chemically modified
the material to strengthen it, then integrated it with conventional
microelectronics on a single computer chip.
Though you won't see the hybrid technology in consumer devices anytime
soon, the blending of electronics and optics is considered a building
block for future computers, since beams of light can transmit data
far more quickly and clearly than electricity. And with fiber-optic
cables now handling much of the data transmissions around the world,
our computers already have some catching up to do in the optics department.--Chris
O'Malley
What's the fastest home computer you can buy? Often, it's a toss-up
among more than a dozen companies producing similar Windows PCs, each
powered by Intel's raciest microprocessor. But for now, at least,
it's no contest -- -and it's no Windows PC: Apple's Power Macintosh
6500/300 is the new king of the hill, and by an unusually wide margin.
The Power Macintosh 6500/300 (the Performa name attached to earlier
home models has been dropped) owes its speed primarily to a new 300-megahertz
PowerPC processor. That chip, coupled with an ATI Rage II 3-D accelerator
video card, 32MB of memory, and a 12X CD-ROM drive, make this a very
mean machine. We pitted it against one of the fastest Windows home
computers now available, an IBM Aptiva S model with Intel's 200MHz
Pentium MMX chip and the same video card. The results? We found the
Power Mac 6500/300 was one-and-a-half to two times faster running
graphics-oriented software such as Adobe's PhotoShop and Fractal Design's
Painter, which are available in Windows and Mac versions. Even using
software adapted for Intel's MMX technology, which speeds up many
graphics operations, the 6500/300 was typically 20 to 30 percent faster.
It was also faster in routine word processing and spreadsheet work
using Microsoft Word and Excel.
While not cheap, the Power Mac 6500/300, at about $3,000 plus monitor,
is not out of line with many top-shelf home PCs. (The test Aptiva
model sells for about $2,600 plus monitor.) Apple also sells less
costly 225-, 250-, and 275MHz versions of the 6500. -- -Chris O'Malley
Researchers at UCLA have combined 3-D models with aerial and ground photographs to create a computer rendition of urban Los Angeles, accurate down to the texture of buildings and graffiti on walls. Urban planners and designers could use the simulation to analyze traffic patterns.
Do the new X2 modems from U.S. Robotics deliver on the promise of
56,000 bits per second (56Kbps) download speeds? In our testing with
America Online, we found X2 can be a boon or a bust -- -or something
in between -- -depending on phone line conditions that are virtually
impossible to know about before you buy the modem.
Installing both the external Sportster 56K Faxmodem and the Courier
V.Everything modem was needlessly difficult. The Courier manual sent
us scurrying online, looking for an updated modem driver, while the
Sportster failed to copy the proper driver from the included CD-ROM.
And to make the modems work at higher speeds with AOL, we first had
to download a special X2 file and change several setup settings, including
new phone numbers. Plug and play it ain't.
Finally up and running, we got great speeds in Manhattan, consistently
logging onto AOL at 48,000- to 50,666bps. Once, we even snared the
elusive 56,000bps, despite the fact that the FCC technically limits
these modems to 53,000bps. We didn't fare as well at two home offices
in South Florida. In one locale near Fort Lauderdale, we consistently
logged on at about 42,000bps, but never higher. In another near Boca
Raton, X2 failed to work at all. U.S. Robotics and the regional phone
company, BellSouth, eventually determined the problem was that the
house was too far -- -farther than 10,000 feet -- -from the switches
at the central office.
Trouble is, BellSouth says many of its customers' residences are
more than 10,000 feet away from the phone company's central offices,
since the latter tend to be located in business areas. And many other
residences are wired in local "digital loops" that convert signals
from digital to analog more than once, another no -no for X2. One
BellSouth manager estimated that these two factors could prevent as
many as 70 percent of customers in his county from taking advantage
of X2 speeds. That may, or may not, spell trouble in other regions.
Clearly, X2 can work -- -and the speedier display of Web pages is
a blessing when it does. But this much is also clear: X2 is no sure
thing. -- Chris O'Malley, with Suzanne Kantra Kirschner
Ever wonder why there couldn't be a single type of computer port
for connecting peripherals, rather than a hodgepodge of ports and
cables? Help's on the way, with something called Universal Serial
Bus.
The USB concept isn't new, but it appears ready to finally cross
the threshold into reality, as many computer makers are adding USB
ports to their systems and peripherals. Thrustmaster has introduced
a new USB joystick called Top Gun, for example, while NEC, Philips,
and Sony have shown USB monitors.
Basically, USB is a fast serial port (up to 12 megabits per second)
that can replace not only today's slower RS-232 serial ports on PCs,
but most other connectors as well. This tiny, one-size-fits-all connection
requires only a single type of cable, and you can chain as many as
127 devices on a single USB port. You can also attach and detach them
without rebooting your PC. -- -Chris O'Malley
Every parent who buys their child a home computer does so at least
partly with the hope that it will further his or her education. But
can a home PC help too much?
That's the question you may find yourself asking after looking at
a new series of CD-ROM homework helpers called Knowledge Revolution
Study Tools from Southern Star Interactive (http://www.sostar1.com/).
The programs are guides to literary classics such as The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Scarlet Letter,
and The Old Man and the Sea. They include not only the full text of
the books, but also expert criticisms and commentaries. More helpful
still, they have a feature called Create-a-Composition, with advice
that makes it "a snap to write an A+ essay," a Slideshow Maker to
create multimedia presentations of their findings, and a game that
preps young students for exams.
Of course, much of this merely amounts to modernizing the Cliff Notes
that millions of students from an earlier generation -- -that is,
today's parents -- -took advantage of from time to time. But PCs ease
the burden even more. And, incidentally, you can order Cliff Notes online at http://www.cliffs.com/. -- -Chris O'Malley