From the October 1993 Bits of Blue

MINUTES OF 9/8/93 MEETING
and PERSONAL COMMENTS

By: Jim Clark

Must be because the new school year has started the number attending this meeting was down a good bit from our normal group, in spite of the fact that we were having a Microsoft presentation on their Windows NT program. Those who were there learned about a great program.

New Meeting Location: This was the most important item discussed in club news area. Recognizing that we have overflow crowds on occasion and that the space crunch is inhibiting growth of the group, the Board of Directors (BOD) has been discussing and investigating potential new locations for our meetings for several months. During the last few weeks Marylee Bruneau, our newsletter editor, has aggressively searched for a new location. Having investigated a very long list of potential locations, Marylee was successful in identifying two that had reasonable prospects, adequate space, a willing host, and a price we could afford. The better of the two is the Ybor City campus of HCC. Our Prez, Harvey Bruneau, brought these circumstances to the floor and solicited reaction from the members present. Several commented, all favorable, with at least two who had attended that campus noting that it is an excellent location with outstanding security. With that, Harvey indicated that the site would be visited and the specifics of the facility would be explored in greater detail. If suitable, his objective date for moving is in time for the February meeting. More at the October general meeting.

• MS DOS Upgrade: MS has version 6.2 of DOS in the works, to be released in the not-too-distant future. It will no doubt minimize some of the problems that have been reported with Double Space, as well as provide improvements in other areas.
• New SmartDrive: Quite a few folks have reported loss of data on shut down when using SMARTDRV in read/write mode. That is reportedly because SMARTDRV may not write to disk for several seconds and those shutting down quickly do so sometimes before SMARTDRV has written to disk. An update of SMARTDRV.EXE is now available on CServ as well as other locations. This version corrects the delayed write problem at shutdown.
• Windows Replacement: Industry news has it that MS now has in Beta testing (or Alpha, depending on which report you read) a program that will be a replacement for Windows. Called Chicago, this program will be much more powerful than Windows and will replace DOS, Windows and Windows for Workgroups.
• Computer Training: Working with computers in the business world and a wide variety of software, Harvey reported on his experience with one source of computer training his firm uses, Executrain. Without going into much detail, which might be construed as a “plug” for Executrain, Harvey reported that the folks there are well-qualified, do a great job of instructing and provide follow-up support. If you need training on any of the many major software programs Executrain provides instruction on, that firm is certainly worthy of your consideration.

We were fortunate to have John Jenner, Senior Systems Engineer (Florida) for Microsoft Corporation, join us and give a presentation of Windows NT. He gave a very enlightening presentation. Especially in the early portion of the review of Windows NT, I felt a bit like a fish out of water because I had absolutely no knowledge of networking and client server systems. By the time John had finished, he had convinced me that it was a super program for network/client server systems.

There are two versions of the package Windows NT and Windows NT Advanced Server. The basic differences between the two center on the size of operations each will support. NT, for example will support two processors, while NT Advanced will support four processors and is an unlimited server. It will also support Mac systems. Both versions are very powerful and loaded with features, only a few of which I made decipherable notes on:

• Compatible with x86-based, RISC based and SMP systems and expanding.
• Compatible with a host of networking options: IBM LAN Server, MS LAN Manager, MS Workgroup for Windows, and TCP/IP networks; and with Banyan Vines, DEC Pathworks, IBM SNA networks and Novell NetWare with some additional software.
• Compatible with a number of “operating systems”: MS DOS, Windows, 32bit Windows, POSIX and OS/2.
• Consistent with appearance and functioning of Windows and Windows for Workgroups, and John says that users of these programs are already 80% of the way toward using Windows NT. However, NT has included a feature not now in the other Windows programs, but which we have found so useful in others, a tool bar which provides direct click access to a host of commands.
• A true preemptive multitasking environment.
• Provides an “application interface” and “provider interface” which, among other things, permits otherwise incompatible components to communicate, and it isolates each application so that trouble with one has no direct effect on the others.
• Recognizes and works with FAT, OS/2 and NTFX formatting/filing systems.
• Provides a spectrum of “personal” and “common” security options that are easy to set up, with centralized control of user profiles and actions, which are applied at user logon. Supports up to 2 gigabytes of virtual memory, provides power failure protection with uninterruptible power support and includes built-in backup.

Requirements to use Windows NT on an x86-based system are: At least a 386 computer; will operate with 8 MB RAM, but at least 12 MB RAM is recommended; one HD floppy disk drive; at least 40 MB hard disk space for minimum loading and 80 MB of space for full loading, plus paging space of at least 2 MB, with recommended paging space twice the installed RAM; and VGA, Super VGA or other graphics adapter compatible with Windows NT. A RISC-based system needs more RAM and hard disk space, plus a CDROM drive.

Costs: Windows NT lists for $495, with a $295 upgrade price tag.. Windows NT Advanced lists for $1995. No street pricing was available to this writer.

Many thanks to Microsoft Corporation and John for a great presentation and giving us a look-see at what appears to be a super client server capability, and for the programs you donated to our group. It is all very much appreciated.

Thanks to the generosity of Microsoft Corporation (who donated a copy of Microsoft Windows NT and a copy of Windows for Workgroups), our illustrious Prez who secured some other goodies for us during his travels, along with the 50/50 cash drawing, there were some very nice raffle prizes. Those among us to have the good fortune to win are as follows:

The meeting adjourned at about 8:45 PM u