🚀 go-pugleaf

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PC Notes #96               10/27/92           copr. 1992, Dave Williams
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  BIX: 'dave2'      CIS: 72571,3542      dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us
                The Courts of Chaos BBS, (501)985-0059
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 By now it's no secret who has replaced Sam Walton on the throne of
"richest man in America."  Yep, our very own Bill Gates of Microsoft,
worth over $6 billion.  Ross Perot is about 18 slots further down.

 Back last month IBM was demoing Flight Simulator running under DOS,
running over their licensed Mach kernel.  They claim they'll have DOS,
AIX, and OS/2 2.0 programs running concurrently on the same machine
by Fall Comdex.  Show me.

 The new Windows NT beta is out.  Good news: it'll run in 8Mb instead of
the 12 the old version required.  Bad news:  it won't talk to my Always
IN2000 SCSI controller.  The tech at Always said they don't support NT
yet.  They don't support OS/2 yet either.  The IN2000 also doesn't like
to coexist with any other type of hard disk controller.  Avoid this
turkey if you can.  The Adaptec 1542 series is the only thing
practically guaranteed to work with OS/2, NT, or Unix, assuming you can
find a vendor willing to sell you one with the proper drivers.  Make
*sure* you get the drivers with the card - Adaptec's user-disservice
department will charge you up to $80 for them separately.

 You've probably been hearing about Windows for Workgroups.  It's a
variant of Windows 3.1, except it will talk directly to various LAN
adapters without the need for LAN software.  You can share files like
a peer network, sort of.  Unfortunately, it seems to be the answer to
a question nobody asked.  Most places would just as soon put in a real
network so they're not headlocked into Windows.

 Didya ever notice?  It's no surprise that programmers and consultants
are primarily male, but why are so many of the female ones named Karen?

 Put It On The Red:  Following their successful bingo operation, the
Pequot Indians of the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation have opened a
casino.  No problem, there are over 150 known gambling operations run
on Indian reservations, scalping bucks from those who believe in Lady
Luck instead of Murphy.  The Pequots' operation is notable for its
size (three restaurants, 210 gaming tables, two stores, and associated
stuff) and its fully-integrated electronic cashless gambling system.
New members are issued "wampum cards" which are now used primarily for
ID.  When the casino gets hooked in to the banking system, the cards
will be used to allow cashless gambling by merely swiping the card
through the reader at the table of your choice.  No chips, no cash.
The readers of the internet comp.risks newsgroup will probably have
a collective stroke.  Anyway, the system is run on a half-million-dollar
fiber optic LAN.

 Fed up with Lotus 1-2-3 For Windows?  How about Lotus Improv For
Windows?  Yep, they've ported their 680x0 spreadsheet to the Windows.
Holy moly, maybe they'll resurrect Lotus Jazz next?

 Rumors indicate Netware 4.0 may ship on 40 diskettes.  Maybe it's time
for CD-ROM?

 Intel announces Yet Another 486:  The new chip will have built in DVI
for multimedia.  I'm waiting for the 486 with the built-in Sound
Blaster.

 Cyrix has licensed their i486 clone to Texas Instruments.  TI is
already sampling 20 and 25mHz low power 486SX clones and 25 and 33mHz DX
clones.  The TI chips are licensed Cyrix copies now.  After production
is established TI will develop their own variants using proprietary
technology.  Clone makers Daewoo, Samsung, Canon, Matsushita, and
GoldStar have already committed to the TI chips.

 Datalight, (800)221-6630, has updated their ROM-DOS to 5.0.  They claim
it uses 20% less memory than MSDOS 5.  Licenses range from $1 to $25 per
copy, with a developer's kit at $495 and optional full source code at
$10,000.  I dunno if this is the same company that used to market
Datalight C or not.

 Lotus Works - Microsoft Works - WordPerfect Works - now there's Enable
Works.  Jeez, they didn't exactly bust their tails for originality, eh?

 IBM has announced they'll add peer networking and Email to OS/2 2.0
to counter Windows For Workgroups.  Rotsa ruck.  I'd be happy if they'd
just fix the bugs in the hard disk support.

 Conner's next-generation hard disks will use "wet" technology, where
the heads slide with liquid between them and the platters instead of
the usual air cushion.  I hope they learned a lesson from Seagate, who
some years ago used a silicone lubricant on the platters to minimize
damage from head crashes.  Alas, after a few years the lubricant dried
out and turned into a gluey mess that actually stuck the heads to the
platters tightly enough the motor couldn't spin the drive back up once
it had stopped for a while.

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 Dave Williams is the author of "Programmer's Technical Reference"
    (Sigma Press, 1990) and "DESQview Revealed" (SAMS, 1992)
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