From the November 1994 Bits of Blue Newsletter

MINUTES OF 10/12/94 MEETING
and Personal Comments

by Jim Clark, Tampa PC Users Group

Well, wonders of wonders, it wasn't pouring down rain for this meeting. And it was a good session with a very interesting presentation — a look at some of the latest hardware on the market and where it is likely to go from here. Those that didn't make the meeting missed out on a lot of very interesting information and an excellent give and take.

MEMBERSHIP DUES INCREASING: Harvey gave a brief summary of the decision the Board of Directors has taken in light of increasing user group costs —to increase annual membership dues by $5, except the corporate membership which will increase $10, all effective 1 January, 1995. Membership dues will then look like this: Regular Membership - $25; Family Membership - $35; HCC Student & Faculty - $20; Corporate Membership - $60 (includes 3 corporate personnel), with additional corporate personnel at $20 each. New members joining between now and 1 January and renewals of memberships expiring before 1 January, 1994, will enjoy the current rate. Memberships expiring in 1995 may be renewed between now and 30 November, 1994, at the current rate. Beginning 1 January, however, all memberships and renewals will be subject to the above listed rates. All memberships renewing early will have one year tacked onto the expiration date of the current membership.

CONSENSUS - EXPOTECH A FLOP: Harvey asked for opinions of the EXPOTECH in Tampa this year. This generated a good bit of discussion, most of which was that of disappointment at the reduction in booths this year and the scarcity of computer vendors of interest to most of our membership; the bulk of the vendors provided services, some of which had little or no relationship with high technology.

ELECTION OF CORPORATE OFFICERS: Nominations for the five elected TPCUG corporate officers will be open and solicited at the November 10 general meeting. Elections will take place early in the December 14 general meeting. Nominations may be made until just before the election at the December general meeting. The five elected corporate officers are: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Member at Large. Newly elected officers will assume their positions effective 1 January, 1994.

All members are asked to give the nominations some serious thought and to make their nominations at the November or December general meetings, or mail your recommended nominations to the TPCUG Nominating Committee at the TPCUG corporate address (shown on the last page of this newsletter).

INDUSTRY NEWS:

Probably the most important bit of information brought out is that the new OS/2, OS/2 Warp 3.0, has been released and is available for $79, before a $25 rebate. Pretty good price, I would say. One word of caution, however, is that if you are considering get- ting OS/2, be sure to check the compatibility listing IBM provides for OS/2 to make sure your hardware and software is compatible.

PRESENTATION — A Look At Some Of The Latest In Hardware. Following notification by Gold Disk that they would be unable to make their scheduled presentation at this meeting, Harvey contacted Jason Kimenker, from our own Tampa/St. Petersburg Brainchild Computer Distributions, Inc., to see if they could fill in. Like the proverbial "knight in shining armor", Lee Vaccaro and Jason responded to our short notice request and put together a presentation on some of the latest in computer hardware. What's more, Jason did an admirable job with the presentation. And as it turned out, I think it was one of the most interesting and informative sessions that we have had during the several years I have been a member — and I have missed but a very few of the general meetings.

I won't even attempt to summarize the information Jason passed on, but among the hardware Jason reviewed were: Modems; PCI technology, compared to VESA; CD-ROMs; Soundcards, especially in a current Microsoft Office bundle; AMD chips, compared to Intel; and the DX4/100 chip. Jason did an excellent job of reviewing these new products and was clearly well versed on them. His discussion was not only very informative and interesting, but it generated a lot of give and take with the membership. Some tidbits that I will pass on are:

28.8 Modem: V.34 standard was approved earlier this year is now being put into 28.8 modems. Though it is currently available only in the Robotics Sportster, all manufacturers should have them out soon.

PCI Technology: If you are considering the purchase of a Pentium, be aware that the 60 MHz chip is giving the most trouble.

CD-ROM: The double speed CD-ROM is probably adequate for most of us, but you should consider the quad speed if you are into multimedia sound/video very much because it will provide near-movie quality. New controller cards are also coming out that will support up to 4 floppy drives, and 4 IDE drives one of which can be used for a CD-ROM. This will not only allow increasing the number of IDE drives one can operate, but can free up an expansion slot by eliminating the need for a separate card for the CD-ROM.

AMD Chips: Have proven at least as good as Intel chips and are considerably cheaper; like AMD has a DX2/80 MHz chip that sells for about the same as Intel 66 MHz chip. Also, a 586 line of chips will be out soon in competition with the Pentium line and is expected to be about $200 cheaper.

DX4/100: If considering purchase of this new technology, be sure the voltage of the chip is compatible with your motherboard; some of the earlier chips are 3.2 volts, while 5.0 volts is most common.

Jason and Lee, thank you - and Brainchild Computer - for a GREAT presentation and the most useful and helpful information you provided, not to mention your generous contributions for our door prizes. We hope that you will agree to give us a similar presentation again in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks to the generosity of Lee Vaccaro and Brainchild Computer Distributions, Inc., there were a several very nice door prizes. Those among us to have the good fortune to win are:

Joe Crochet  - S/2 2.1
Dave Claire - Printer stand & mouse pad
A. J. Mester - Printer stand & 100 diskette box

In addition, J. Whitmer, S. Atron, Van Ost, M. Nicholson, R. Davis and J. Robinson won mouse pads.

The meeting adjourned at about 9 PM. u