Personal Computer World articles from February 2008

Personal Computer World archives from February 2008

2001 remember when.
February 21, 2008... The P4 reached 2GHz l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you a 1.4GHz Athlon PC with 256MB of Ram, 60GB hard disk, CD-RW and DVD-Rom drives, 17in flat-panel TFT monitor, 64MB video card and surround-sound speakers l Intel's net income dropped to $3.6bn...

Chip speeds at Gigahertz level.
February 21, 2008... Chip speeds at Gigahertz level Microsoft had a busy year with three new versions of Windows, while processor speeds soared to 1GHz and beyond. January kicked off with the first chips from Transmeta. The Crusoe processors offered...

2000 remember when.
February 21, 2008... The P4 arrived at speeds of up to 1.5GHz l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you a 1GHz Athlon system with 128MB of Ram, 30GB hard disk, DVD-Rom, CD-writer, 64MB graphics and a 19in monitor... l...add an Epson Stylus Photo 870 for [pounds...

1999 remember when.
February 21, 2008... PIII chip arrived l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you a 600MHz PIII with 128MB of Ram, a 13GB hard disk, DVD-Rom, Zip drive, 56K modem and a 19in monitor... l...add [pounds sterling]299 for Psion Revo organiser l Intel reported record sales of...

1998 remember when.
February 21, 2008... PII speeds continued to climb, reaching a whopping 450MHz l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you a PII 450MHz with 64MB of Ram, a 16MB graphics card, 10GB hard disk, 17in monitor and dual-speed DVD drive l Despite its court antics Microsoft posted...

1997 remember when.
February 21, 2008... Pentium ll speeds rose rapidly beyond 266MHz l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you a 200MHz Pentium MMX multimedia PC, 4.3GB hard drive, 32MB of Ram and a 17in monitora[bar] l a[bar]add [pounds sterling]82 for a 56K fax-modem card.... l a[bar]add...

1996 remember when.
February 21, 2008... Intel stopped using mips to measure processor speed l [pounds sterling]1,500 got a 200MHz Pentium multimedia PC, 1.6GB drive, 16MB of Ram and a 15in monitora[bar] l a[bar]add [pounds sterling]313 for a Canon BJC-610 colour printer l Microsoft...

Windows 95 finally arrives.
February 21, 2008... Windows 95 finally arrives "Nicely does it," observed PCW's Newsprint column as Intel fumbled its response to a furore over a bug in the Pentium, discovered by Dr Thomas R Nicely in 1993. It cost the company around $400m to replace faulty...

1995 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 166MHz Pentium Pro was roughly 600 times faster than an 8086 l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you a 75MHz Pentium multimedia PC, 8MB of Ram and a 540MB hard disk... l...add [pounds sterling]595 for an HP Laserjet 5P l Microsoft had $5.9bn...

Iomega drives process to zip up storage market.
February 21, 2008... Iomega drives process to zip up storage market Windows 95 brought home the fact that multimedia and graphical software would require far more storage than that available in most PCs of the day, which had 250MB hard disks. Disk...

Web users fix on bandwidth.
February 21, 2008... Web users fix on bandwidth PC users began to take processing power for granted. Ram prices and subsystems such as graphics were major constraints on performance. In January Apple showed off its first PowerPC product, a Mac upgrade...

1994 remember when.
February 21, 2008... The 100MHz Pentium was 276 times faster than the first 8086 l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you a 66MHz 486DX2 multimedia PC with 8MB of Ram and a 540MB diska[bar] l a[bar]add [pounds sterling]500 to get a 90MHz Pentium equivalent l Microsoft...

PowerPC alliance bears fruit but Intel holds firm.
February 21, 2008... PowerPC alliance bears fruit but Intel holds firm The first fruits of the PowerPC Alliance, formed by IBM, Apple Computer and Motorola in 1991, began to appear at the beginning of 1994. The unlikely allegiance between Apple and IBM seems to...

Acorn takes Risc to rival Apple.
February 21, 2008... Acorn takes Risc to rival Apple Cambridge-based Acorn Computers challenged Apple's Powermac in June 1994 with the desktop Risc PC600, but response was lukewarm. One of the very first companies to use Risc processing, Acorn launched its ARM...

Open Access.
February 21, 2008... Open Access Microsoft had dabbled with databases for some time. It had licensed R:base and in 1992 bought Foxbase - the company that produced Foxpro, and had developed other projects in-house. These were shelved before release. The...

Internet starts to weave web.
February 21, 2008... Internet starts to weave web After years of milking the mainframe market, IBM posted a $4.96bn loss from 1992 in January - the biggest in US history. Stac sued Microsoft over disk compression program in Dos 6.0. Next dropped its...

1993 remember when.
February 21, 2008... The 66MHz Pentium cost 66 times less per mips than the 8086 and was nearly 200 times faster l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you a 33MHz 486 PC with 8MB of Ram and a 340MB disk l A US Robotics 1.4Kbits/sec fax-modem cost [pounds sterling]252 l...

Temperatures rise as first Pentiums finally appear.
February 21, 2008... Temperatures rise as first Pentiums finally appear Few chips have caused such a stir as the Pentium, and not always for the right reasons. First there was the great legal battle over the name '586'. US courts ruled that Intel did not have...

Encarta becomes reference point.
February 21, 2008... Encarta becomes reference point Microsoft was not the first company to produce a multimedia encyclopaedia and it will not be the last. From its first version, Encarta was a groundbreaking product. As PCW said: "Encarta is an exciting...

Alpha beats Intel.
February 21, 2008... Alpha beats Intel Since its release in February 1992, Digital's Alpha had been significantly faster than any chip produced by the opposition - the latest Alpha ran at a blistering 700MHz. The first incarnation, the 21064, clocked on at...

1992 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A $600 66MHz 486DX2 was 50 times cheaper per mips than the first 8086 l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you a 50MHz 486 with 4MB of Ram and a 210MB hard diska[bar] l a[bar]add [pounds sterling]105 to complete your system with a Star dot-matrix...

OS feast confuses users.
February 21, 2008... OS feast confuses users In 1992, a plethora of operating systems arrived to confuse the poor user. First off, in March, IBM released the first GUI version of OS/2 in version 2. Microsoft hit back in April with Windows 3.1 and...

Bickering damages CD-i standard.(compact disk interactive)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Bickering damages CD-i standard Having announced CD-i as a standard the previous year, 1992 witnessed the first hardware and Philips was vaunting it as the product of the decade. CD-Rom had been a Sleeping Beauty waiting to be awakened by...

Creative card adds stereo to PC.
February 21, 2008... Creative card adds stereo to PC The trend toward convergence of your home entertainment appliances with your PC can be traced back to 1991. Creative Labs was the first company to bring out a stereo PC soundcard, the Soundblaster Pro Deluxe,...

Sharp fall in prices of PCs.
February 21, 2008... Sharp fall in prices of PCs Applications began to catch up with the GUI boom, with Windows versions of Word, Excel, Pagemaker and Coreldraw. AMD put pressure on Intel with cheap 20MHz and 40MHz 386 clones. In April Intel...

1991 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 50MHz 486 cost $644. 100 times faster than an 8086, it was 36 times cheaper per mips l ZDS' Mastersport 386 SX notebook cost [pounds sterling]3,695 l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you a 33MHz 386 PC with a 44MB disk and 2MB of Ram l Microsoft...

Psion of the portable times.(Psion Teklogix Inc.)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Psion of the portable times Here at PCW we saw the potential of the Psion early on. As we said: "The Series 3 is the latest attempt to create a mass-market handheld computer and it should be the most successful." And it was, at least until...

Dos 5 and System 7 compete.
February 21, 2008... Dos 5 and System 7 compete Microsoft had messed up with the release of MS-Dos 4 and was not about to repeat the failure. It put out 7,000 beta copies of Dos 5 for full testing and sat on the launch until content it was stable. It was...

High-speed bus war accelerates.
February 21, 2008... High-speed bus war accelerates In January 1990, PCW's Peter Jackson reported on the impending high-speed bus war between IBM's MCA and the 'gang-of nine', who produced the Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA). We managed to...

Graphical front end a reality.
February 21, 2008... Graphical front end a reality The PC was at last ready for a graphical interface, with entry-level systems (just about) able to run one. Rising PC power had hit the mainframe business, forcing mighty IBM to retrench with many layoffs. In a...

1990 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 1.44MB floppy drive cost [pounds sterling]97 l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you a 20MHz 386 Bravo PC with a 20MB disk and 14in colour display l An HP Laserjet llD printer cost [pounds sterling]1,835 l Microsoft had $1.18bn revenue and 5,635...

Windows on the future.
February 21, 2008... Windows on the future In July's PCW editor Guy Swarbrick checked out Windows 3.0. He said: "Apple may have been the first company to successfully produce a GUI as a commercial product, but it wasn't long before the PC-based imitations...

Big noise from multimedia.
February 21, 2008... Big noise from multimedia Arguably, 1990 was the year multimedia began with a vengeance. Back then the arrival of CD-Rom drives and sound facilities was monumental. There were a few ill-fated crossbreeds such as Commodore's CDTV and...

Portables and palmtops emerge.
February 21, 2008... Portables and palmtops emerge This was the year of the portable, and not only because it saw the start of the PC Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) to develop what would become the PC Card notebook slot. In January...

1989 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 25MHz 486 cost $950 at launch: five times as much as a 386, but about the same cost per mips l [pounds sterling]1,500 ex VAT got you three 2MB Ram cards l An Amstrad PPC 640S portable PC with 2,400baud modem cost [pounds sterling]524 l...

Sun sets out to lure PC users with slimline Sparcstation 1.
February 21, 2008... Sun sets out to lure PC users with slimline Sparcstation 1 In June 1989 we commented that "as the high-end PC world tends more and more to have the flavour of workstations, so workstation manufacturers are styling their 'low-end' machines...

The 386 is dead, long live the 486.
February 21, 2008... The 386 is dead, long live the 486 IBM was one of the first manufacturers to produce a machine fired by Intel's brand-new 80486 processor, which Peter Jackson took apart in September 1989's PCW. "The 80486 [comprised] more than one...

Dos still rules the PC roost.
February 21, 2008... Dos still rules the PC roost Four years after the Mac demonstrated the power of the GUI, PCs were still predominantly running under text-based Dos. In March Apple sued Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, claiming their GUIs infringed its...

1988 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 16MHz 386SX cost $40 less at $165 than the 386, but nearly twice as much in cost per mips l [pounds sterling]1,500 ex Vat got you a 286-based Brother BC-20 PC and an HP Deskjet l A 16MHz portable mono Mac cost [pounds sterling]4,500 l...

Jobs goes cubist with the Next thing in computing.
February 21, 2008... Jobs goes cubist with the Next thing in computing December 1988's PCW said: "When Steve Jobs left Apple three years ago and announced he was going to build the next thing in computers, he wasn't given much chance to succeed. But the...

OS/2 born, but giants sever links.
February 21, 2008... OS/2 born, but giants sever links IBM and Microsoft shipped OS/2 1.1 with the Presentation Manager GUI in November 1988. Bill Gates said: '"During the next 10 years, millions of programmers and users will utilise this system." In...

DTP gains ground.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... DTP gains ground 1987 was a great year for DTP, with the first releases of Ventura and Quark Xpress, while Pagemaker was maturing. The Atari ST offered a DTP bundle consisting of one of the first cheap laser printers driven by the new Mega...

IBM loses grip in a vintage year.
February 21, 2008... IBM loses grip in a vintage year A vintage year for products, and one in which IBM found it had lost control of the PC. In March US Robotics unveiled the 9.6Kbits/sec Courier HST modem. And Sinclair's Cambridge Computing launched his final...

1987 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 20MHz 80386 processed 7mips l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought four 20MB Winchester hard drives l Digitask sold 386-based systems priced from [pounds sterling]2,600 l Compaq posted $1.2bn sales: the fastest growth ever from start-up l Microsoft...

Mac gets taken seriously.
February 21, 2008... Mac gets taken seriously The original 1984 Mac was an undeniably impressive machine, with an operating system that continues to influence developers to this day. The only trouble was that it wasn't taken seriously as a business computer,...

Archimedes makes a big splash.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Archimedes makes a big splash Is this the world's fastest micro? This was the question we asked of the new Acorn Archimedes in August 1987. Our reviewer, Dick Pountain, was smitten: "The A500 felt like the fastest computer I've ever used...

1986 remember when.
February 21, 2008... [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you 2.75MB of Ram in the form of 256KB chips l A colour Amstrad 1512 with 10MB disk and Epson NLQ LX86 dot-matrix cost [pounds sterling]1,236 inc Vat l Microsoft had revenues of $197m and 1,153 staff l Intel lost...

Apple corners the DTP market.(desktop publishing)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Apple corners the DTP market Computers thrive on killer applications and the Mac only needed to wait one year before its holy grail arrived: desktop publishing (DTP). The Mac's friendly GUI, coupled with Aldus' Pagemaker and the first...

Apple drops both Jobs and Lisa.
February 21, 2008... Apple drops both Jobs and Lisa In January Atari launched the 520ST, with 512KB of Ram, 192KB of Rom, colour and Midi. In February PCW gave a rave review to Digital Research's Gem GUI. Microsoft released Word 2.0 for Dos. IBM abandoned the...

1985 remember when.
February 21, 2008... The new 16MHz 80386 was 10 times faster than the first 8086 and at $299, 11 times cheaper per mips l A mono Atari 520 ST and Epson LX-80 printer cost [pounds sterling]1,054 ex Vat l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you half a Canon Laser-beam printer...

Paula, Daphne and Agnus chip in.
February 21, 2008... Paula, Daphne and Agnus chip in At $1,500, the Amiga was at first considered to be more a business machine than one for the home. You got an 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor, 256KB of Ram and three custom hardware chips (called Paula, Daphne...

UK at the leading edge of market.
February 21, 2008... UK at the leading edge of market In January the Apple Mac was launched, with the words: 'I'm glad to be out of that bag'. Also released was the souped-up Lisa 2, the Commodore 264, a $2,900 portable from IBM, and NEC's 8MHz V20 and V30,...

1984 remember when.
February 21, 2008... [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you three 2,400baud modems l A twin-floppy Apricot with monitor and daisy-wheel printer cost [pounds sterling]2,384 l An 8088-based IBM PC XT with 768MB of Ram, 360KB floppy and 10MB drive cost $9,000 in the US l...

IBM AT sets hardware standards.
February 21, 2008... IBM AT sets hardware standards In August 1984, IBM announced its PC AT system, with a 6MHz Intel 80286 processor (the first in a product line still supported today), 1.2MB 5.25in floppy drive and 256KB of Ram - yours for around $4,000, but...

Sid in tune with Commodore 64.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Sid in tune with Commodore 64 'Home computer or small business system?' was the question we asked of the Commodore 64. Costing [pounds sterling]344.95, the 64 was pitted against the BBC Micro, leaving the ZX Spectrum for entry-level...

Gem snaps up the GUI future.
February 21, 2008... Gem snaps up the GUI future Apple seemed to be making all the running in January when it unveiled the 5MHz 68000-based Lisa. Lotus spent $1m launching 1-2-3, which needed 256KB of Ram. In March IBM launched the $5,000 XT with 128KB of...

1983 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 10MHz Intel 8286 processed 1.5mips l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you 30 ZX81s l Compaq took a record $329m in its second year l An ACT Apricot with floppy drive, 256KB of Ram and Epson RX80 printer cost [pounds sterling]1,800 inc Vat l...

Apple Lisa points the way with new graphics mouse.
February 21, 2008... Apple Lisa points the way with new graphics mouse Most agree that Xerox's advanced research labs in the late 1970s and early 1980s were responsible for the first GUI, but it never carried it through into a viable commercial product: a fully...

Gandalf works his magic as gamesters revel in latest fad.(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Gandalf works his magic as gamesters revel in latest fad Computer games were big in 1983. May's PCW alone covered the superb action of Imagine's Arcadia and Melbourne House's Penetrator for the ZX Spectrum. The madness of Automata's...

Software joins growing throng.
February 21, 2008... Software joins growing throng The PC came to rule not because it was better than its rivals (it wasn't) but because software houses could not write for multiple platforms. The industry needed a focus and IBM was a natural candidate....

1982 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 6MHz Intel 8286 processed 0.9mips l A Sharp MZ80-A with an Epson MX80 printer and custom interface cost [pounds sterling]787 ex Vat [pounds sterling]1,500 bought a 6KB Osborne portable and [pounds sterling]100-worth of software l Microsoft...

Revolutionary Spectrum enhances game playing.(Sinclair ZX Spectrum)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Revolutionary Spectrum enhances game playing Colour, sound and high-resolution graphics for [pounds sterling]125? It could only be the new Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a home computer so revolutionary that the expected name, ZX82, was simply not...

1982 caption for office of future.
February 21, 2008... Not too far from the truth? You decide. This was PCW's vision of an office of the future in 1982

Sirius competitor to the IBM PC.
February 21, 2008... Sirius competitor to the IBM PC Chuck Peddle, designer of the 6502 processor and the Commodore Pet that first housed it, is widely regarded as the man who started the personal computer industry. Chuck ended up leaving Commodore to set up...

IBM changes the world with a PC.
February 21, 2008... IBM changes the world with a PC November 1981 saw the 'Jolly Giant deliver the goods'. In a PCW world exclusive we flew to Florida and tested the very first IBM Personal Computer. IBM listed the main system unit (Intel 8088 at 4.77MHz)...

The last program youi?1/2ll ever need!
February 21, 2008... The last program you'll ever need! February 1981 saw the arrival of what could have been 'the last program you will ever need to buy'. The Last One from Somerset-based David James and Scotty Bambury removed the need for pesky programmers...

BBC Micro and IBM PC hit the shelves.
February 21, 2008... BBC Micro and IBM PC hit the shelves This may be remembered as the year of the IBM PC but, despite the exposure on PCW's cover, few saw it that way at the time. Other launches seemed just as exciting. In January Commodore launched the...

1981 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A Superbrain QD CP/M machine with 700KB of storage and an NEC Spinwriter printer set you back [pounds sterling]3,745 l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you half an Apple ll, with 48KB of Ram and twin floppies l Microsoft had $16m revenue, and its...

Make-your-own ZX81 hits the spot.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Make-your-own ZX81 hits the spot Clive Sinclair cunningly re-used the idea of naming his products after the year of release, and offered us the ZX81. It may have shared its predecessor's doorstop wedge styling, but since it cost [pounds...

Auntie Beeb plants little Acorns.(British Broadcasting Corp. )(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Auntie Beeb plants little Acorns The year ended with a rave review of the BBC Micro, a machine originally commissioned by Auntie Beeb to accompany a series of TV programmes aimed at increasing the public's awareness of computers. The...

The rotten Apple.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... The rotten Apple After the success of the Apple II, the two Steves - Jobs and Wozniak - proudly marched ahead with the Apple III. Announced in our July issue, it had 128KB of Ram, a 4KB Rom, a built-in 5.25in disk drive and graphics on the...

Microsoft OS hits the big league.
February 21, 2008... Microsoft OS hits the big league In 1980 computing became available to all but the very poor. The impetus was homegrown, from a certain Clive Sinclair. In March, SSI shipped Wordperfect 1.0 for Data General minicomputers. PCW...

1980 remember when.
February 21, 2008... A 10MHz Intel 8086 processed 0.75mips l [pounds sterling]1,500 bought you Pascal ([pounds sterling]200), Wordstar ([pounds sterling]250) Pet Comaccounts, Company and Comstock ([pounds sterling]950) and a choice of utilities l Support for the...

Clive Sinclair achieves the impossible with ZX80.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Clive Sinclair achieves the impossible with ZX80 In 1980 Clive Sinclair did what everyone said was impossible. With the Sinclair ZX80 he was the first person to make a computer that broke the psychological barrier of [pounds sterling]100,...

Ataris set standard for home PC.
February 21, 2008... Ataris set standard for home PC Hailed in PCW as "the first of a new generation of home/personal computers", the Atari 400 and 800 set the mould for anything you would do with your home PC - play games, sort out your finances and run home...

Word processing starts to emerge.
February 21, 2008... Word processing starts to emerge In our January 1979 issue we reported on a letter-editing system being developed by ICL Dataskil. Later that year Micropro released Wordstar and Apple announced Applewrite I for the Apple II. Wordstar...

Pacman mania takes hold in UK.
February 21, 2008... Pacman mania takes hold in UK The Space Invaders games console arrived in 1979 and kids across the country became hooked on Pacman. Hayes shipped its $380 Micro modem running at 300baud. In May Software Arts launched the Visicalc...

1979 remember when.
February 21, 2008... The $360 Intel 8088 processed 0.66mips at 5MHz or 0.75mips at 8MHz l A 4MHz Z80-based Horizon PC with dual 380KB floppies, 24KB of Ram and 32cps (characters per second) printer cost [pounds sterling]3,616 l [pounds sterling]1,500 got you 23 per...

Killer app Visicalc morphs PC into a serious business tool.
February 21, 2008... Killer app Visicalc morphs PC into a serious business tool Visicalc was the first of the killer applications. From the time it first appeared, personal computers could stop being regarded as pointless toys for nerds and became serious...

Sharp shooter sets sights on Pet.
February 21, 2008... Sharp shooter sets sights on Pet The Japanese invasion was upon us and PCW was quick to milk the imagery to the full (see this year's cover, above left). However, not everyone was overly pleased by this turn of events: "Because of the...

Inteli?1/2s first 16-bit chip in spotlight.
February 21, 2008... Intel's first 16-bit chip in spotlight In the very first issue of PCW we took a look at the new 8086 processor from Intel. Based on the 8080 that, in 1974, had powered the influential Altair 8800, the 8086 was created by two engineers in...

The micro arrives and PCW is born.
February 21, 2008... The micro arrives and PCW is born Thirty years ago desktop computers were called micros to distinguish them from larger minicomputers. As 1978 dawned they were still far too expensive for most people in the UK. There was no Microsoft...

1978 remember when.
February 21, 2008... The $360 4.7MHz 8086 processed 0.33 million instructions per second (mips) l An Altair system with twin floppies, 64KB of Ram and printer cost from [pounds sterling]6,781 l [pounds sterling]1,500 ex Vat got you an Apple II and a Sony TV to show...

Apple II impresses with colour graphics at its core.(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)
February 21, 2008... Apple II impresses with colour graphics at its core The Apple II was one of those landmark machines that changed the early days of computing. It was originally debuted at the first West Coast Computer Fair in San Francisco in 1977 and PCW...