🚀 go-pugleaf

=======================================================================
PC Notes #81               03/14/92           copr. 1992, Dave Williams
=======================================================================

 Just when you thought it was safe:  InfoWorld breaks the news of the
Maltese Amoeba virus!  <cueing in the horror music>  Death date:  March
15th.  Ooooohhhh.....

 Cheryl Currid's column in March 9's InfoWorld was somewhat confused.
I got the impression she was blaming cheap clone PCs for causing users
to have multiple DOS versions and their own subdirectory structures.

 Gilbert Hyatt, the man who was awarded a US patent for the single chip
microprocessor in 1990, says he is collecting royalties from six major
Japanese electronics companies for a portfolio of his patents, ranging
from the microprocessor patent to LCD technology.  Texas Instruments
has filed an appeal with the Patent Office, claiming their employee Gary
Boone invented the single chip microprocessor.

 "We lose money with every sale, but we make it up in volume":  Western
Digital posted its fifth straight quarterly loss - $20M for this
go-round.  That's after selling off its LAN business for $15M and laying
off 1400 employees over the last 16 months.  Telebit posted a $5.3M loss
for 4Q91, with an $8.9M loss for the year.  Texas Instruments is laying
off 1000 people and reported a $43M 4Q loss.  IBM USA lost $2800M for
1991.

 Sun reported a 20% increase in earnings for '91.  Novell's income rose
71%, AST's sales 48%, CompuCom's 65.9%, EDS earnings up 13%, Zeos
earnings up 145%, Everex sales up 45%, Novell up 71%

 Recession seems to depend on where you look.

 DEC does it again:  Right after signing up to distribute Novell Netware
in DEC boxes, DEC has also signed up to resell Banyan's VINES network.
This is, of course, on top of DEC's own networking software.  With their
commitment to half a dozen processors, four operating systems, and new
marketing schemes (everything from cold calls to direct mail) DEC looks
like it's running off in all directions at once.  Oh, yeah - and they're
lopping 7000 people off the payroll too.

 A column in Computer Reseller News suggests the present shortage of 40
to 120Mb hard drives is due to IBM and Compaq buying them up to resell
in computers destined for the (former) USSR, where they'll supposedly
barter them for diamonds.  Faaaar out, even for a rumor column...

 I just noticed that the price of Generic CADD, which used to be $125,
has crept up to $495.  And who says there's no progress?

 Logitech has a new TrackMan - this one looks like a snail, right-handed
of course, and no mention of a left-handed version.

 Fujitsu bought Poquet Computer.

 Intel is planning a market blitz - they're talking about introducing 30
(thirty) variants of their 386 and 486 processors for niche markets.
You want on-chip cache?  On-chip coprocessor?  No cache?  No processor?
Dual clock?  Mix and match nearly any features you want.

 DRI's marketing director says they've shipped and licensed more than a
million copies of DR-DOS 6.0 since September 1991.

 Microsoft may be considering building tape-drive support right into
Windows NT.  Well, when an operating system balloons past 20mb ya gotta
do something to load updates - the Unixoids went to tape or CD-ROM long
ago.  Microsoft has pushed CD-ROM hard since its introduction; odd
they're not going that route for NT.  They're talking with Maynard about
their Logical Tape Format.  Now, what happened to QIC?

(continued)