ftp.wwiv.com/ftp.wwiv.com.zip/ftp.wwiv.com/pub/HATCH/WWIVNEWS.ZIP/9308_6.NWS

Text File | 1993-08-04 | 15KB | 249 lines

...Although older processors - the 386 included - lack a comparable pipeline,
several major software developers have announced plans to compile future
releases of their products on Pentium-based machines so as to allow 486 users
to gain the additional boost in performance.

...DEC, meanwhile has announced a second-source for its "Pentium Killer", the
Alpha AXP. Mitsubishi has been awarded a contract to produce Alpha chips, thus
ensuring a stable, competitive second-source for the new processor.

...However, unless Intel can get their collective fecal matter together, the
true killer of Pentiums might just be the bane of all processors - heat. As
reported previously, the 66MHz versions of the Pentium suffer from the same
problems their first 486DX-50 counterparts suffered from. The 60MHz version of
the Pentium are reportedly running just within temperature tolerances to be
granted a release approval, but still require a serious heat sink arrangement
to help dissipate damaging excess heat.

...Word from Intel is that a combination micro-fan and heat sink combination
has been developed that reportedly will cool the 66MHz release of the Pentium
enough to maintain tolerance levels and ensure the chip's life expectancy.
Unlike other chip fans like the CPU Cooker, the Pentium micro-fan taps
directly off the 5v lead in the chip socket as opposed to using a power tap
from one of the drive power cables.

...In case you've been living under a rock the past few months - or under an
old 10Mb IBM full-height "brick", as the case may be - hard drive prices have
fallen through the floor, with street prices approaching the mythical $1/Mb.
Both Western Digital and Connor have dropped their prices on drives below 1/2
Gb to this level, and needless to say a Windows-hungry userbase has been in a
feeding frenzy that shows no sign of letting up.

...However, a recent announcement by Connor may shed some light on just *why*
the prices were slashed. In 1991, Connor acquired VISqUS, a research firm
dealing with innovative technologies. VISqUS had developed a new drive
technology that involved the use of oil films instead of air as a support
medium for hard drive head, which allowed for superior resistance against head
crash and allowed the heads to travel closer to the platter surface than air
technology allowed.

...Connor reportedly saw a good idea, and decided not to let it slip away.
After buying the company, a Connor-labeled prototype drive was seen making the
big trade shows that packed a reported 60Mb on a *single* 3.5" platter. At the
same time, rumors started to surface of a similar design being developed by
Western Digital, with prototypes being demonstrated for stockholders. Shortly
afterwards, both WD and Connor started dropping their prices on hard drives in
the 130-240Mb range, and last March slashed prices from the 540Mb range on
down to the discontinued 40 and 80Mb sizes.

...Industry experts now believe that this dumping serves a twofold purpose:
getting the market used to having affordable, serious mass storage while
getting rid of existing stockpiles of air technology hard drives. While no
official announcements have been made by either company, experts also predict
that the first oil-film drives will hit the market by 2nd Quarter 1994, and
will probably be targeted towards use in laptops.

...From the Microsoft _______ For Windows department: rumors out of the Left
Coast speak of a joint venture between the Gates boys and a major cable
company to produce a new form of interactive TV. The plan reportedly involves
using the soon to be dime-a-dozen 386DX-33's as a foundation for a new cable
box that will act as both an advanced channel selector and a game interface
intended to compete with Sega and Nintendo.

...While no other specifics have surfaced, some cable trade rags have
commented on the rumors, and have predicted that if the venture is to succeed
it *has* to be cheaper in price than Nintendo, better in quality than Sega,
and must offer significant additional features to current cable box
capabilities that today's boxes simply aren't capable of.

...From the Caveat Emptor department: thinking of buying a Video Blaster, an
ATI Graphics UltraPro, or another high-performance video card or frame
grabber? Well, if you're running 16Mb or more on the system board, you might
be in for a bit of a problem. Most cards of this nature require that a linear
frame buffer - AKA a "memory aperture" - be available at or above 16Mb. If RAM
is detected at or above this level, the card won't be able to find an aperture
and won't run. Most cards allow you to turn off the aperture feature, but this
can cut your performance to as low as a third of what it should be.

...Now, all isn't lost. This only applies to ISA systems. EISA's 32-bit bus
can accommodate this aperture requirement, and cards installed on systems with
an EISA bus need not worry. Same may apply in the future for Local Bus ISA
systems, as some vendors have reported that the VLB can be used to circumvent
some of the aperture problems in lieu of an EISA bus. Until then, keep this in
mind when buying video cards such as these.

...While we're caveating the emptors, a brief NOTE from an IBM insider is that
when you buy DOS 6.1 from Big Blue, what you're really getting is PC-DOS 5.0
with some reversed-engineered MS-DOS 6.0 cloned enhancements. IBM reportedly
has no legal access to any version of MS-DOS later than 5.0, which tends to
explain why data compression has been relegated to such third party suppliers
as Stac and AddStor.

...As to whether or not PC-DOS 6.1 is truly compatible, initial reports say
that while the version is as stable as MS-DOS 5.0, there have been reports of
conflicts and system crashes under Windows 3.1. Although IBM has denied any
serious bugs with their new DOS release, the culprit is believed to be the
reversed-engineered version of EMM386.EXE.

...Speaking of those third-party data compression utilities, industry insiders
report that the reason IBM dropped Stac in favor of AddStor for its competitor
against DoubleSpace is essentially the same that Microsoft has given for
dropping Stac. Seems that Stac wanted more than their share of the profits and
credits for the inclusion of Stacker 3.0 with PC-DOS 5.0 last winter, and
wound up talking themselves out of yet another gravy train.

...Guess this is the best place to offer this hot tip regarding compressed
drives and backups: instead of backing up all the files on the compressed file
volume file by file, simply backup the CFV itself. Since the compressed drive
is, of course, compressed, this allows you to turn off any backup compression
routines and save more time. Tests conducted by the WWIVNews staff show that
with Stacker 3.1 and Fastback Plus 3.0, a CFV containing 60Mb of files was
backed up to just under 50 1.44Mb diskettes, whereas backing up the individual
files with compression turned on required 53 diskettes of the same size!
Similar result ratios were gained with Stacker and Norton Backup.

...While we're talking about IBM, the biggest complaint about the lumbering
giant's PS/ValuePoint line of cheap systems - the proprietary video connector
- has just become history. Market surveys had shown that this attempt to
prevent buyers from using non-IBM monitors with the VP systems was the top
reason given for *not* buying one of Big Blue's pseudoclones. Most people
surveyed stated that they would have preferred to buy from the company that
started it all, but that the designs of the ValuePoints prevented their use
with high-quality monitors such as the NEC xFG series and the Sony Trinitron
line.

...From the Mac Geeks Anonymous department: Insiders at Apple report that part
of the Motorola-IBM-Apple arrangement that will make the PowerPC a reality
also includes the rights for vendors using the PowerPC to incorporate Apple's
new ergonomic keyboard into their designs. This will allow vendors to make
this in-demand input device available for non-Mac environments without having
to perform a serious reverse-engineering feat. This particular feature will
also allow for daisy-chaining of Apple-based input devices into the same port,
much as what Mac users currently have available.

...Finally, with v.FAST approaching, modem vendors have started to dump their
existing stockpiles of 9600 bd modems on the market at prices that would have
been unthinkable a year ago. Street prices for 9600 v.32/v.42b Hayes-
compatible modems using the Rockwell chipset have dropped to just under $200,
and 14.4 kbps modems have dropped to under $275. As v.FAST becomes ratified,
expect these prices to drop at least another $100 each and signal the death
knell for 2400 bd modems.

...The WWIVNews staff predicts that within 18 months of the ratification of
v.FAST, not only will you not be able to give away 2400 bd modems, most BBS's
won't even allow you to connect at anything slower than 4800 bd! Based on the
number of 2400 bd modems sold in the US since 1984, don't be surprised if we
see another New Jersey garbage scow scandal when someone tries to find a
landfill big enough to dump all these worthless modems!


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               │             Dateline: @#$*()#!              │
               │ Editorial Commentary by Omega Man (1@5282)  │
               └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

I had a nice, long, lengthy, in-depth, analytical, critical, full-scale,
educational, logical, soapbox-squashing ranting editorial planned for this
issue's special topic on the UU debate, but seeing as how Wayne essentially
summed up my own thoughts on the matter...well, you get the picture. In any
case, the matter has essentially been settled, and those who are still
disgruntled can find solace in either looking at FileNET, or waiting for
2@2050's WW4-FREQ efforts to bear fruit.

Those who are still not satisfied should consider looking at joining Fidonet.

With that out of the way, I'll simply dedicate this edition of Dateline:
@#$*()#! to several short topics and announcements.

ITEM: Is anyone going to ONE BBSCON next month? If so, WWIVNews would love to
print in-depth articles and reports on the events that are scheduled to take
place. Of extreme importance is Ward Christansen's lecture on how he invented
the BBS; a transcript of this would be most appreciated. Same applies for any
other seminars or lectures held at the convention.

If you're doing an overview of the con as a whole, be sure to point out areas
where the convention holders fouled up. With WWIVCon approaching less than a
year from now, this information could be valuable in helping the WWIVCon
organizers avoid making the same mistakes!

ITEM: See the above item regarding ONE BBSCON? Well, if anyone is going to
Fall COMDEX, and you happen to see any striking technological advances that
can be applied to the BBS environment, feel free to submit reviews of what you
experience.

ITEM: Would you believe over seven months later, I'm STILL getting requests
for the WWIVNews Editorial Desk sub? Folks, if you don't have a SUBS.LST with
a file creation date later than 2/1/93, then contact your AC or your GC about
getting an updated release ASAP! Lord knows that if I'm still getting requests
for a sub long dead, then 8-Ball must be getting quite a few more himself!

ITEM: Ye Editor is looking for a BBS that specializes in TARGA utilities. If
anyone has a line on a system that supports TrueVision boards beyond the usual
stockpile of .TGA images, drop me a line in E-Mail. My job now involves the
use of TARGA boards for professional TV production, and I'd like to find a BBS
that might offer assistance in making this "overpriced...but worth the over!"
card jump through a few more hoops.

ITEM: Thanks go out to Filo (1@2050), Group 4 GC and host of the AC/GC sub for
granting WWIVNews access to this administrative sub. The access will allow
AC's and GC's to interact better with the WWIVNews staff, and will hopefully
lead to regular features from those who bear most of the administrative
burdens of WWIVNews.

ITEM: While the issue is still 8 months away, start thinking about the April
issue for 1994. This time around we'll be doing an "April Fool's" issue, which
will feature as many phony gag articles as the WWIVNews staff can collect
together into one issue. If you've kept up with Penn Jillette's bogus PC
specials the past couple of years in _PC Computing_, then you get the idea of
the type of sick, sadistic humor we're looking for.

ITEM: Hmmm...seem to have run out of items! See you next issue!

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Next "Month" in WWIVNews:

MS-DOS 6.0 is upon us at last. However, unlike MS-DOS 5.0, the Gates Boys'
latest upgrade to the industry standard for PC operating systems is reportedly
not as stable as its predecessor. WWIVNews takes a look at the pros and cons
of DOS 6.0, and takes a look into alternatives to MS-DOS as well. WWIV under
Windows 3.1, OS/2.xx, and DesqView will be explored as well.

Coming Soon in WWIVNews:

WWIV 4.23 is just around the corner. What will Multi-line capabilities and
Fidonet compatibility mean to you, the WWIV sysop? WWIVNews asks some
pertinent questions regarding what may be the most important stage in the
evolution of WWIV since the introduction of WWIVNet.

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                             Closing Credits                               │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ WWIVnews is an independent newsletter NORMALLY published monthly as a     │
│ service to the WWIV community of sysops and users. The opinions & reviews │
│ expressed herein are the expressed views of the respective writers, & do  │
│ not necessarily reflect those of the WWIVnews staff. Reproduction in whole│
│ or in part is allowed provided credits are given. All rights reserved by  │
│ WWIVNews, and all articles are copyright of their respective authors.     │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ The source site for WWIVnews is the Klingon Empire BBS (512-459-1088),    │
│ WWIVNet node @5282. Requests for information regarding articles and other │
│ editorial submissions, as well as back issue requests and the WWIVnews    │
│ Writer's Guide, can be sent in e-mail to the WWIVnews editor, c/o 1@5282. │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│            WWIV and WWIVNet, copyright 1986,1990 by Wayne Bell            │
│  Any product or company mentioned or reviewed herein are copyrighted of   │
│  their respective owners, creators, and other corporate pseudoentities.   │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘