RAndY s RumOR RaG April 1993 WINCIM - WAOL I've never subscribed to CompuServe for a variety of reasons. Having watched people us it, it looks extremely complicated and confusing to navigate the system. A while back, they came up with a DOS-based front end which shielded the user from command prompts, similar to GEnie's Aladdin program. Windows freaks can now use WinCIM, a Windows-based version of the CompuServe Information Manager. Since I don't subscribe, I haven't been able to use the software but I have looked at it. It appears to be very well done. There are provisions for doing time consuming tasks off-line (such as creating or responding to mail). The program only costs $25 and you then get $25 of credit on the system. It's a good deal and will get one more piece of DOS software off your system. America Online subscribers also have new Windows software available for accessing the system. The America Online Windows version is quite colorful and offers similar functionality to WINCIM. You can write mail offline and even customize one of the pulldown menus for the areas of the system you visit frequently. AOL charges $3 for the software and it's certainly worth it. --------------- NEWS IN YER FACE WordPerfect 5.2 for OS/2 is now in the beta testing stage and is scheduled for a second quarter release. This will have a feature set similar to the Windows product and will take advantage of multi-threaded background printing, drag and drop, and Workplace Shell integration. The company continues work on WordPerfect 6 for OS/2, which will be a 32-bit multi-threaded product that is highly integrated with the Workplace Shell. --------------- In other WordPerfect news, word has it that they're going to kill off PlanPerfect. Domestic sales have slowed to a crawl and more than 40% of the user base is overseas. The company sees no need to upgrade the product but will continue to support existing users. --------------- Microsoft is working on an update to Access already. Due out in the spring, the new release will feature an increase in the maximum database file size, direct connectivity to FoxPro data, direct access to Oracle and Sybase SQL Server databases, and improvements in Word for Windows mail-merge capabilities. --------------- Subscribers of GEnie now have the option of 800 number access. For just $6 per hour, call 1-800-362-1296 and the number for 9600 baud is 1-800-847-5260 (regular 9600 rates). --------------- Looks like the Pentium will finally see the light of day. It is due to be released by the time you read this, but don't expect to see systems until early summer. Meanwhile, Intel is planning a $1 billion plant for "next-generation" microprocessors with the winning site to be announced in July. --------------- Microsoft may be hot with Windows, but one of their DOS products needs help. Word for DOS sold only 289,000 copies in 1992, behind #2 Wordstar with 335,000 and #1 WordPerfect with more than 1 million copies shipped. --------------- Compaq is planning a multi-processor server with architecture that will accommodate up to SIX PENTIUM processors! It will start with four processors and be upgradeable to six by 1994. --------------- BIG DOS 6 ROLLOUT Microsoft is gearing up for the rollout of DOS 6 (as this is published) to the tune of $7 million. This will be the largest single product rollout in the company s history. A special "60 Days to Upgrade Your World" promotion will mean a suggest retail price of $49.99 until May 31. DOS 6 will ship in six configurations: an upgrade, a multi-license pack, and 3-, 10-, 18-, and 100-pack units. Retailers are wondering if they can achieve the same success as they did with DOS 5 because it is not a technological leap from DOS 5. Although Microsoft and Stac Electronics remained engaged in litigation over disk compression technology, the integrated DoubleDisk technology will remain in the product (the dispute is over a compression optimization facility). --------------- MORE NEWS IN YER FACE The second beta version of Windows NT has shipped. New features include fault tolerance, built-in file, print services and user-level security. They've also added TCP/IP including 32-bit mail and scheduling based upon MAPI. --------------- Apple's John Scully recently announced that he is not available or interested in becoming chief executive for IBM. --------------- Media Vision has released an enhanced version of the Pro Audio Spectrum 16 card which adds voice recognition of 300 words, a microphone, and new bundled software. The voice recognition software, ExecuVoice, lets users control Windows through voice commands. Audio compression and decompression (4:1) has been added. MIDIsoft Recording Session (Windows-based sequencer) and Sound Impressions (professional digital editing package) are also being bundled with the card. --------------- WordPerfect and IBM recently decided to exchange technology and collaborate on development projects to improve interoperability between workstation products and operating systems. --------------- Who's designing the tasteless ads for computer stuff lately? Last year we saw the tacky Logitech advertisements with a urinating baby - now Video Seven is doing it. New advertisements for Video Seven's video accelerator show a side view of a computer urinating into a cup. The copy suggests that the card is so fast you may have to take a special test. It's not cute - it's tasteless. Enough already... --------------- Owners of Media Vision's new ProMovie Spectrum should contact Media Vision if they have not received an addendum to the owner's manual. Seems that the original manual had the wrong DIP settings and there are reports of hard drives being erased. --------------- The "586" designation is not dead just because Intel came up with the Pentium name. Both AMD and Cyrix will stick with the x86 naming convention, using "586" somewhere in their names. Said Jim Chapman of Cyrix, "There's nothing wrong with continuing with the x86 [naming] tradition. We have a 64-bit superscalar processor in design". --------------- Who's playing with the numbers in Redmond? Microsoft will upgrade both Word 2.0 for Windows and Word 5.1 for Macintosh to Word 6.0 in one big jump. --------------- Software Publishing is pushing Borland to use their Multimedia Player technology in their products. Word is that they'll license Borland for a small fee and stick it to Microsoft for an exorbitant rate. --------------- The Commerce Department has backed off the stiff penalties it proposed in October 1992 against Korean DRAM producers for alleged chip dumping. --------------- After congratulating Bill Gates on his engagement, Lotus executive John Landry joked that Microsoft would do *anything* to upstage a Lotus event. --------------- WORD PROCESSOR WARS TO HEAT UP It's time for another round of DOS word processor wars. It's been three years since WordPerfect made any major changes to their flagship DOS product - and Microsoft will soon be upgrading Word for DOS. Due to be released June 22, WordPerfect 6 for DOS will include a graphical user interface, customizable button bars, and pull-down menus. WYSIWYG editing will also be available when the product finally ships. Other features include dialog boxes, on-screen fax capabilities, sound and voice annotation, new font options, and the ability to have nine documents open on-screen at a time. They will also include Grammatik which they picked up with the acquisition of Reference Software. The F1 key will now be help to more closely conform to industry standards (but you'll be able to specify a version 5.1 keyboard during installation). Microsoft will ship a new version of Word for DOS in either late March or early April. Look for fireworks. --------------- OS/2 2.1 SOON IBM is declining to set a firm release date, but sometime soon you'll finally see version 2.1 of OS/2. Included in this new release will be support for Windows 3.1, Multimedia Presentation Manager/2, advanced CD-ROM and SCSI support, support for more display drivers, an easier installation process, and the 32-bit graphics engine we've been waiting for. I have no idea of the upgrade price, but IBM promises to load the distribution channel before beginning massive advertising. --------------- SPREADSHEET WARS Look for another round of spreadsheet wars in the near future. Beta testers recently received Release 4 of 1-2-3/W (another big version jump). Included will be a new consolidated WK4 format containing data and formatting information. That means macros, charts, and multiple worksheets are stored together and can be embedded as an OLE object. Another feature is a pulldown bar for @ functions like Quattro Pro. This new version could ship in April or May. Meanwhile, Excel 5.0 is expected to ship in September. This new version will include a "pivot" feature that lets users see different data views. There will be a new macro language based on an internal project code-named Object BASIC. There will be a new query tool (replacing Q+E). Borland also plans to update Quattro Pro sometime in 1993. --------------- PENTIUM NEWS Intel is working on a version of the Pentium (for release in 1994) which will be a plug-and-play solution on the desktop for less than $10,000. Intel plans to ship 10,000 Pentium chips during the second quarter. They're working on clock speeds ranging from 60 MHz to 100 MHz along with developing a 3.3 volt version and a Pentium- based Overdrive chip (P24T) for upgrading 486-based computers. A chip code-named P54M will plug into a new Intel-specified socket and work in tandem with a Pentium processor. Vin Dahm, vice-president and general manager of Intel's Microprocessor Division said that dual processing on the desktop will come next and Intel is developing onboard multiprocessing features in a new Pentium chip. --------------- GOOD NEWS - BAD NEWS There's plenty of activity at WordPerfect these days. I guess I should start with the bad news. WordPerfect Corporation will soon unveil a plan to defray the cost of their toll-free technical support. WordPerfect executives recently revealed that they can no longer afford to provide free support to all customers. They're looking into a variety of alternatives including fax-back services and putting some of the burden of support on resellers. According to company president Alan Ashton, "Toll-free support is good for simple and intermediate users who have technical questions, but given the falling prices...can we afford to extend free support to everyone, including those setting up sophisticated networks?" Also being considered is weeding out unregistered users and those with pirated software. The good news is that WordPerfect 6 for DOS will ship in the early summer and the shape of Version 6 for Windows is becoming more apparent. The Windows product plans to include OLE 2, although developers are not sure it can be done in time for their self- imposed deadline of the end of 1993. They're also working on technology to allow networked users to work on single documents simultaneously. You'll see a customizable button bar similar to the Version 6 DOS product. Also to be added are drawing tools borrowed from their Presentations package. They will also include table and calculating functions originally developed for the now defunct PlanPerfect. A WordPerfect executive recently said that WordPerfect 6 for Windows will have 80% of the functionality that spreadsheet users depend on. I hear you should expect an announcement soon of a Quattro Pro/WordPerfect bundle; details are not yet available. --------------- FASTER MODEMS Work on the V.FAST standard for analog modem speeds should be completed by the year's end with products reaching the market by early 1994. Under the current proposal, V.FAST would allow uncompressed data to be transmitted at 28,800 baud (28.8K per second). When used with data compression schemes, V.FAST promises to put analog modems on a par with some digital technologies when it comes to speed. Vendors warn that one potential drawback to high speed transmissions is that the modem can only run as fast at the serial port it's connected to - so make sure you've got a 16550. --------------- DIAMOND STEALTH I've recently sold a few Diamond Stealth VRAM cards to people hoping to speed up Windows. I finally had the opportunity to install one myself so that I could see the difference. This card is based on the popular S3 chip. There is only one set of DIP switches to set and the documentation is quite thorough both for that and setting up the software. The software is installed through a single command. Software is included for DOS applications that would benefit from faster video - Lotus, popular word processors, and CAD programs. A separate disk contains Windows drivers for various resolutions and color combinations. The Windows drivers were written by Panacea, the same folks that do Winspeed, so you know they re done well. So how does it work? Well, it depends upon what you're doing. Corel redraws were slightly faster, but scrolling text in a Windows word processor were definitely faster. The cards in Windows games really fly and moving things around on the screen is definitely faster. The question you have to ask yourself is "is it really worth it?". For me, I think I'll pass. I think a better bet is either an EISA card or, better yet, VESA local bus. If you have an ISA bus, this is a good card for displaying 32K colors in Windows. Expect to pay in the neighborhood of $250. --------------- DOS 6 HERE You've heard all the hype over this new release of MS-DOS, how about some facts? If you're expecting radical changes or some gorgeous graphical interface to DOS, you will be disappointed. If you want better Windows integration, improved utilities, and a bigger hard drive then this is definitely worth checking out. The manual that comes with DOS 6 is quite thin compared with previous DOS manuals. I had to laugh at one section titled "Upgrading from OS/2 to MS-DOS 6". They have a sense of humor after all in Redmond. Installation is simple and intelligent. You have the option of installing Backup, Undelete, and Anti-Virus utilities for Windows and/or DOS. Once you've shuffled the disks, the machine will reboot and you can make sure that everything works OK. Once satisfied that DOS 6 is working properly, use the DELOLDOS program to zap your old DOS files. If you install the Windows utilities, I recommend moving them into the Windows subdirectory. At the same time, move the MONOUMB.386 and VFINTD.386 files into \WINDOWS\SYSTEM and update the appropriate paths in SYSTEM.INI (and PROGMAN.INI for MSTOOLS.DLL). Next, you might want to move the expanded files onto floppies so you'll have them later if you need them. Then you can delete the unnecessary files like APPEND, SUBST, and the other stuff you never use. Now run MEMMAKER to optimize your memory configuration. The machine will reboot a few times and you'll be presented with information as to what has changed. All the executable DOS files appear to have been compressed with PKLite to further reduce hard drive space. Running DBLSPACE to compress your hard drive is also a simple procedure. You have the choice of an Express or Custom setup. Either way, it will take a little while for the files to compress depending upon how many files are there and what kind of files they are (some compress more than others). Once the drive has been compressed, it will run DEFRAG (Norton SpeedDisk) and you'll be presented with information about the compression. My 105MB hard drive compressed to 1.7:1. So, how does it all work? It works very well. The compression is totally transparent. I can't tell it's there, unlike running Stacker with Windows (which slows things down tremendously). The new utilities are much improved and I especially appreciate two of them. DELTREE deletes subdirectories and the files in them; MOVE will move files (rather than having to go through a copy and delete procedure and can also rename subdirectories). Windows seems to have a little more snap and we can certainly use that. Those using Stacker and SpeedStor can convert their stacked volumes to DOS 6 compression. A new option called Tools is added to the Windows File Manager which gives very basic information about your disk's compression. The installation routines are so stable that you can turn off your computer while it's compressing and it will pick up in the same place when you resume. Also, any Windows INI files that are changed are clearly REMarked so you know what changes have been made. Pressing F5 upon bootup lets you bypass CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to give you "clean" DOS. Pressing F8 will give you the option of executing CONFIG.SYS line by line. A new batch language lets you organize multiple configurations in CONFIG.SYS with provision for loading items common to all configurations (like always loading HIMEM, etc.). When using this feature, you'll get a menu before CONFIG.SYS processes and you can select which configuration you want to load. Also appreciated is the NUMLOCK=OFF command for CONFIG.SYS. The manual is less than half the thickness of a normal DOS manual because most of the documentation is on disk. What don't I like about DOS 6? I hate the default prompt of "$P$G". Fortunately it's an easy thing to get rid of. I think they should have called this DOS 5.5, but it's still a significant improvement if only for the disk compression. DOS is getting better even though it's a slow journey. --------------- GIMME A BREAK I had heard this was coming and it arrived just before the RaG's deadline. If you're a registered user of a Microsoft Windows product, you get a Focus on Microsoft Windows magazine from time to time (usually when they want to sell you something). Included with this issue is a disk containing the Upgrade Advisor. This software will examine your computer and check for current versions of a variety of software. Running this Windows-based programs suggested I buy some of their multimedia products as well as Word for Windows (since I'm a WordPerfect guy). Also included is a sample of the Visio program and the TetraVex game from one of their Entertainment Packs. You also get a special price for upgrades. Cute but extremely self-serving . . . ================================= DISCLAIMER RAndY's RumOR RaG is published on a monthly basis by AINSWORTH COMPUTER SERVICES and is available on various local BBS's, GEnie, and America Online as well as in Modem News. In case anyone cares, RAndY's RumOR RaG is produced on a DTK 386-33 with 16 megs of memory, Cyrix Fasmath co-processor, ATI VGA Wonder+ card (1 MB), 105 MB Toshiba IDE hard drive, Teac 1.2 MB and 1.44 MB floppies, Pro Audio Spectrum 16 running a Hitachi 3750 CD ROM drive, Sceptre SVGA display, Microsoft mouse, WordPerfect for Windows and transmitted through a US Robotics HST Dual Standard modem. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Comments should be addressed to Ainsworth Computer Services on GEnie, America Online, phone, analog mail, or whatever method makes you feel good. AINSWORTH COMPUTER SERVICES 605 W. Wishkah Aberdeen, WA 98520-6031 (206) 533-6647 GEnie Address: RAG America Online: RumOR RaG