From the December 1993 Bits of Blue

We made it. Marylee and I survived yet another week of COMDEX/Fall, the largest and best known computer show in the country. This show had more than 2000 exhibitors from around the world showing their products to over 170,000 attendees. It can be overwhelming if you try to visit the six main sites. But hey, it’s a passion and my job, damn the feet, full speed ahead.

Imagine a computer show spread out over the Tampa Convention Center, the Thunder Dome, Curtis Hixon Hall, the Performing Arts Center, the Sun Dome and the Bayfront Center but contained within a two mile circle and you begin to get the picture. All of these Tampa Bay sites still could not contain all the vendors of COMDEX/Fall. In addition to that imagine walking in to a computer show with 2000+ exhibits manned by the employees representing each specific product where you can ask questions or view live demos.

COMDEX/Fall is also the place and time of the annual user group summit meeting put on by the Association of Personal Computer User Groups. This meeting is the world’s largest gathering of user group leaders and officers. The summit provides officers with an opportunity to share ideas to effectively run, maintain, promote and enhance a user group. This year over 300 officers attended. Additionally, the officers attend a meeting to recognize user groups that have developed and implemented community service programs within four specific categories: Education and Training in America’s Schools, Education and Training for the Economically Disadvantaged, Medicine and Health and Social and Civic Welfare and Improvement. This award program is known as the Computer Industry REACH (Recognizing Exceptional Achievement in Community Help) Awards and is sponsored and funded by some well known companies including Ziff-Davis Publishing, Microsoft and Apple. This year five groups were recognized for their achievements. From helping the visually impaired and disadvantaged inner city residents to developing and supporting a 200-node wide area network for the U.S. Olympic Festival ‘93, all groups showcased what can be done with an idea, volunteers and the willingness to share their time and knowledge. These groups were each awarded $15,000 to apply to their specific projects. Three of these groups are no larger than ours which shows that a group does not have to be a large group to provide a worthwhile community project.

The summit is also a chance for user group officers to meet and listen to national vendors and see their products on a more personal note. This year over 45 vendors, from the big vendors like Microsoft, IBM, Lotus, Hayes, Adobe and Borland to the smaller ones like Cambell Services, askSam Systems, GST Software and Mustang Software, sponsored roundtables, breakfast meetings, luncheons and receptions to promote their products, share their vision and answer questions. The Microsoft reception is always my favorite. It’s not just because of the great food that Microsoft provides us with, it’s the visit and presentation by Bill Gates himself. No transparencies or slick computer multimedia presentation, no suit or tie, just plain old English from a podium. Bill shares his thoughts and vision of the computer industry, Microsoft and this year NAFTA. He then opens the floor to questions from the audience. Bill is at ease as usual around 300+ user group officers which at times can be a bit testy. During his one hour visit he was enlightening and humorous. Of course his competitors may tell you otherwise.

Following are my thoughts, opinions which I compiled from COMDEX/Fall.

This year CD ROM disks were everywhere. This inexpensive medium will be a standard for distribution of PC related items by the end of 1994. This not only means distribution of software like MS Office, Novell 4.0 and Corel, but consumer products like educational software, magazines and technical CDs full of information and references. Imagine over 600Mb of data on a CD, no diskette shuffle when installing a large program. Several vendors were showing off a new way of distributing software through a try before you buy approach. Even Gateway is selling this idea. You buy a CD from a vendor with over 40 leading applications on it for you to try. If you like one or more products you call the vendor and give them a credit card number and voila they send you the manuals and give you the key to unlock the program(s). Ziff-Davis issued their first copy of PC magazine on CD at COMDEX. It’s different reading a magazine from your monitor than from your favorite lounge chair. However, I can imagine one day when the computer can read the article off the CD to me via a sound card and some software while sitting once again in my favorite chair.

The down side of this technology is the selection process of buying a CD ROM drive. There are too many choices and variations. Each drive has a specific function. Before you buy determine your needs. Do you want to just be able to install software from CD, do you want to use it for occasional access to graphic libraries or reference materials, or do you want to use it for interactive entertainment, education and, yes, even medical diagnoses. At a minimum and if you can afford it, look for drives that have: access time of 300ms or less, dual speed with a transfer rate of 150Kbps to 300Kbps or higher, SCSI interface, support the High Sierra and ISO-9660 standards and are MPC compliant. Remember that a lot of CD drives may not come with the required interface card. Ask before you buy. If you already have a standard SCSI card or sound card with a SCSI connector in your system you may be able to attach your new CD drive to it.

The ever-growing abundance of CD titles will make CD ROM drives a necessity not just a specialty item. Just as the 3.5” diskette drive evolved, CD ROMs will evolve and become a standard in PCs replacing the 5.25” diskette drive.

PCMCIA, those credit card size computer cards that go inside notebooks and sub-notebooks, are increasing their versatility. In addition to memory, FAX/modems and network PCMCIA cards which have been around awhile, there are now:

SCSI, sound, and 100+ Mb hard drive PCMCIA cards. Eventually desktop computers will be fitted with PCMCIA slots to accept all these cards. Imagine adding or replacing these cards on your desktop without the hassle of pulling off the cover or messing around with jumpers. I did see one company, DATA 110 1-800-332-8246, that was selling interfaces designed to use existing PCMCIA cards on your desktop. One version allowed connection through the parallel port while a second version installed in an empty drive bay. I found this product to be WAY COOL! One concern I have about these small PCMCIA cards is that they will be vulnerable to damage and theft.

Look for Intel Corp.’s Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Local Bus to become the high performance desktop Bus standard of the future, however long that is. With a following of at least 150 industry leading companies the non-proprietary PCI Local Bus will supersede and replace the VESA Local Bus currently being used in many PCs today. I am sure you are thinking, “Great, now you got ISA, EISA, MCA, VESA and now PCI--when will it end?”

After seeing and talking to vendors about Windows NT V.34 (V.Fast) and the PowerPC it became evident that none of the products are ready for prime time, YET.

Windows NT is available today as a network operating system, but as a desktop operating system it needs work. Many vendors within the Microsoft floor space were showing their products running under NT. However, quite a few were showing non-shipping products. It made me wonder how much of those products demos were done with smoke and mirrors. It should take Microsoft about a release and a half to get the product usable as a desktop OS. Of course the Chicago release of Windows will be out before then and many individuals may be satisfied with it instead. I must admit that some 3rd party vendors were extremely ecstatic about Windows NT, even to the point of showing me NT instead of their products. I believe that this kind of dedication is a positive sign for NT.

IBM and Apple displayed their PowerPCs at COMDEX. Neither of which is available today or tomorrow. Look for these PCs to be available in quantity during the final part of 94. These new PCs will give Intel a run for their money if they can get the product to market. The benefits of the PowerPC is that it will run just about any operating system including DOS, Windows, NT, OS/2, Solaris, Workplace OS and IBM’s new AIX version 4.x. Of course at this time that’s what the marketing people are telling us.

V. WHAT?

Hayes, Microcomm and Practical Peripherals all demonstrated very fast modems. All of course were non-standard. The new high speed non-standards demonstrated were: V.32 turbo at 19.2Kbps and V.Fast class (V.FC) at 28.8Kbps. The standard that you and I want is V.34 (V.Fast) and is stated to be approved by the newly named ITU-T (formerly CCITT) in late 1994. Can I put some more acronyms in this article? In order to use any of these high speed protocols ( V.32 turbo and V.Fast class (V.FC)) you must have the same vendors modem on the other end. Unless you have immediate needs for this high speed and you are sure that the modem you connect to is similar, you should wait until the standard is approved. Hayes stated that you could buy their V.FC modem today and pay for the upgrade to V.34 when it becomes a standard.

Microsoft has at least three new products that provide more functionality than their predecessors. The new mouse driver for the MS Mouse, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and version 2.0 software of the MS Windows Sound System are worth upgrading to.

Adobe has a real HOT PROSPECT with Acrobat. This family of software will allow you to send fully formatted documents as a file - containing distinctive typefaces, color, graphics and photographs created on your computer - to other computers, regardless of the hardware platform, operating system or application software used to create the originals. Receivers will in turn be able to print, view, annotate and store the document on their own system. I hope to be able to use this software to produce a complete file copy of the newsletter for distribution through the BBS.

Compaq will be bundling a slick replacement product, Tabworks, for the existing Windows program manager with their PCs. Tabworks uses a familiar look and feel. If you can imagine a three ring binder with tabs you will understand this simple idea. This interface provides a very clean looking desktop thereby reducing that group icon clutter. Simply place your groups on the tab sheets and your desktop screen looks like your junior high notebook. While Compaq did not write this product they will have sole distribution rights for one year before other vendors offer it.

The above only represents some of my thoughts and opinions which I wanted to share with you. If time permits I will share additional items at the December meeting.

At this time Marylee and I wish to thank the APCUG, all the sponsoring vendors and Dun & Bradstreet Software for a successful COMDEX.

Please come to the December meeting to vote for YOUR CHOICE. Your vote will determine the officers (President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer) for 1994 and whether to keep the 50/50 door prize. Read the secretary’s report for a current list of nominations and details about the 50/50 door prize. Your vote is important. If you have any additional nominations there is still time to make them at the meeting prior to the vote.

Many of you will notice a renewal slip in the current newsletter. Please take the time to fill it out to renew your membership. The $20 investment is the best PC investment for the money. Of course you will also be helping our group. As you should be aware by now we will be changing our meeting site in February. Our new home will be the Ybor room of the HCC campus. By the time of the December meeting, I will have signed a contract for the use of the Ybor room through the end of 1994. It will be the first time in the past five years that our group will be charged for meeting space. The board of directors and I felt that in order for the user group to grow and flourish we needed to move to larger facilities. HCC was one of the few sites that satisfied our needs.

Unfortunately, we do not have a computer or projection equipment to put on a presentation. HCC currently does not have the equipment we need either. I have contacted some of the local vendors for a donation or to see if we can barter for a PC. On the positive side, no vendor said NO, but more importantly none said yes. I will continue to pursue this with the vendors. Specifically, we need at least a 486/mhz DX with 120 Mb hard drive, 4Mb RAM and VGA monitor. The current cost for the PC is around $1500. If you can help us to acquire a PC or even the parts to build our own please contact me. The big ticket item is of course a video projection panel like the Proxima ColorWorks or the InFocus PanelBook 450. These are the inexpensive models and are priced around $3500. If you have added the amounts of the equipment, we are looking at around $5000. Once again if you have an idea on how we can borrow, rent or acquire these items give me a call. I can be very humble. u