Looking Back to 1992

From the May 1992 Bits of Blue

Secretary’s Report

TAMPA IBM PC USER’S GROUP

MINUTES OF 1/8/92 MEETING
 

!! Harvey’s opening remarks centered almost entirely on the just released Version 3.1 of Microsoft Windows. Several computer stores in the area were offering the upgrade and the complete package at bargain prices. Sad to say, but these low prices were for a limited time only. Installing the upgrade takes about 20 minutes on a 386. It takes only about 6 minutes to install as a new package.

!! Big feature is that it’s fast. It loads faster, prints faster and the file manager is even faster. Another big feature is True Type, the on-the-fly font generator built into Win 3.1. True Type does work with WordPerfect for Windows, which could not access the Win fonts in the prior version.

!! There are two installation modes: express (which loads everything and needs about 11 meg on the hard drive) and custom (which lets you choose the modules that you want installed). There was no problem in installing the new version over the old version. It is not a good idea to install the new version as a second copy in another directory; there may be conflicts in references to the old files. Still no relief for Uninstalling Window applications.

!! There is now a “Start Up” Group (old Load and Run options) that makes it easier to set up your Window sessions. Also, you can use Control-drag to drag a copy of the icon to a new location. The Control Panel now provides for adjusting Window boxes and font sizes. You can shrink a DOS window to about a fourth of its full screen size and still read the text.

!! The latest version of OS/2 is due by the end of this month. To install the whole kit and caboodle will take about 30 meg of space on the hard drive.

!! On behalf of the User Group, thanks to ROBCO of Lutz for this evening’s presentations. Should any of you be interested in their services, (813) 949-7686 is their office phone and (813) 949-7784 is their fax number.

LANtastic Presentation

David Gallagher of ROBCO, Lutz, described the benefits of LANtastic; rated as the number one peer-to-peer network package. This program makes the productive power of a full-featured LAN (Local Area Network) available at an economic price to, typically, small business users. It allows for resource sharing (printers, disk storage, FAX, modems, CD ROMs, etc.) without the need for a dedicated server machine. Any work station can act as the server.

Security levels, audit trails, and passwords are easily established or changed. Various services or accesses are easily enabled or disabled for any station. In fact, log in can be restricted to a particular period of time and/or a particular day.

Also, in a small network, ROBCO can set up the system so that a LAN manager is really not needed. Of course, as the number of work stations increases, so does the need for a LAN manager. One of the latest features is that of voice support. Hardware requirements are rather modest: 13k per station and 40k per file server. It can use the common network adapters such as Ethernet, ARCnet, Token Ring and LANtastic.

Right Hand Man II Presentation

Gerry Roberts, also of ROBCO, demonstrated Right Hand Man which is available from the Futurus Corporation. This is the new, commercial version of the old shareware program. Many new features have been added to make this product a very desirable addition to a LAN system.

It is a TSR (Temporary, Stay Resident) program that occupies only 4-6 K of memory. In and of itself, it is a revolutionary network E-Mail, scheduling, fax and phone message center. One nice feature is the Scan module which will determine the first available time slot for a meeting of selected individuals. The scheduler module can keep track of individuals as well as teams or work groups. The data file, dBase compatible, is like a free form Rolodex file; making it easy to set up records in the various files.

Right Hand Man Remote provides the ability to dial in from one PC to another. Usually, one station of the LAN would be set up to wait for remote call-ins. Then uploads/downloads of E-Mail and phone messages can be sent/received in full duplex mode.

The cost is under $500 for a five user setup.  u