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ComputerTalk Magazine 2
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ART7
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1992-07-27
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┌──────────────────────┐
│PC-KWIK Power PAK and │
│ Power Disk │
└──────────────────────┘
by Tony Curro
Cache software does truly speed up your system. If you are running
a system with only 640K, you might have to look to a higher power! You can
have a cache as small as 64K or as large as the amount of EXTended or
EXPanded memory on your system.
The PC-Kwik Power PAK consists of a set of programs to speed up
more than your disk drives. In addition to the disk cache, we have a screen
accelerator (and blanker), keyboard accelerator, print spooler, and
command-line editor. Currently the new version 2.1 also comes bundled with
the PC-Kwik Power Disk, which is a disk optimizer. This is a $79.95 bonus
added to the PAK for a limited time. More about Power Disk later.
The multiple award winning software package is compatible with
386-to-the Max, QEMM, DESQview and Windows 3.0 and higher. Works with all
types of disk drives, including floppies, IDE, SCSI, ESDI (which I have),
Bernoulli, Syquest, and Plus Passport.
For those who do not like to read, installation is just a few
seconds away. Just pop the disk in either drive A: or B: (it comes with
both 5.25 and 3.5 disks), switch to the drive and type INSTALL. PC-Kwik
will detect what you have on your system. Basically you can just accept the
defaults. It will ask if you use Windows and/or DESQview. The obvious
answer is always highlighted. If you wish to add support for Win or DV even
though they are not currently installed you would just select the YES
option. PC-Kwik will create a directory on the drive of your choice. In
addition it will modify, if you wish, your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
files, adding the appropriate lines to each. If you do not choose this
option, PC-Kwik will create the two files in its own directory. Then by
viewing them you can see what lines need to be added to your actual startup
files.
The Screen Accelerator speeds up your screen display, and has a
screen blanker. It also has a ReVIEW option; which by pressing ScrollLock,
you can scroll your screen to see things that have since disappeared off
the top top of the screen. The default buffer for this is 16K, but can be
expanded to meet your needs.
The Keyboard Accelerator has a feature that's called ReDOS. ReDOS is a
feature that has a pop up box to show you the previous commands you used.
By using the up or down arrow you can select a command you wish to use.
Pressing return on the high lighted option will execute that command
without you having to retype it. Understand that the keyboard accelerator
may not work with some keyboards. I use an OmniKey ULTRA from Northgate and
cannot use it.
The Print Spooler takes the text that needs to be printed and
allows you to get back to working much quicker. I have printed 25 or more
pages and was working within minutes, while my printer continued to print
in the background.
PC-Kwik also has a RAM DISK option, and a generic cache driver that
you use for Bernoulli drives. All these operations are very seamless. What
makes them so, is that once Kwik is loaded it lends portions of the cache
to these programs as needed. So if you are not printing, the print spooler
can lend its resources to say the screen accelerator or other application.
The same is done with Windows. On some system you may have to start Windows
with the command: WIN /3, to force it into ENHanced mode. On most systems
just running Windows the way normally do will make Kwik give up the memory
needed for Windows. PC-Kwik is also faster and smoother than using
SmartDRive.
The Power PAK has been rated at speeding your computer up 3 to 10
times faster. With awards from PC Magazine, PC World and Software Digest,
they must be doing something right.
I have tested Norton's Cache, and a shareware product called
HyperDisk, and have found PC Kwik far and above the fastest. HyperDisk does
have a product called SpeedKit, which has features similar to Kwik,
Keyboard, Screen and Disk accelerators; options for Hyper seem a bit
cumbersome. PC Kwik has a smooth flow and well done documentation, which is
rare to find, and each feature has it own section. So if you need
information about screen accelerator, you do not have to read about the
cache or keyboard programs. In addition it comes with a quick reference
card with ALL the options and commands for the whole package. Also I run a
program that requires extra memory. When I run NCACHE, I must first disable
it to be able to use the memory. With PC-KWIK, I just run my program and
Kwik automatically frees up the required amount of memory. As I said
earlier, it runs seamless. You do not know it is there, but you remember
when you see how fast everything moves.
PC-KWIK POWER DISK
------------------
As I stated earlier, when you buy the PC-KWIK PowerPAK v2.1 you also get a
$79.95 bonus of their award winning Power Disk. Power Disk is a disk
optimizer. It can do a surface scan of your drive and give you suggestions
of which options to use. You have several options that you can select; move
fragmented files, move unfragmented files to front, put entire directories
in order with their files, or defragment files into empty spaces. You can
also have it check your disk on bootup. As its sister program, you just pop
disk in and say INSTALL. It will even detect the PCKWIK directory and place
it's files in there. Power Disk also can check the sectors on your drive
for any possible bad sectors.
╓──────────────────────────╖
║ Product Information ║
╟──────────────────────────╢
║ Super PC-Kwik Power Pak ║
║ w/PC-Kwik Power Disk ║
╟──────────────────────────╢
║ Multisoft Corporation ║
║ 15100 SW Koll Parkway ║
║ Beaverton, OR 97006-6026 ║
║ (800) 395-KWIK ║
╙──────────────────────────╜
Copyright (c) 1992 by Tony Curro. All Rights Reserved.