Silicon Valley Computer SHUGART 706 User Manual download pdf (Page 65)

EDITOR'S

WORK-

BENCH

REPORT FROM ATLANTA

Comdex,

held

twice a year,

the Com-

puter Dealer's Exposition.

the

name

suggests, dealers get

together

with

man-

ufacturers, distributors,

independent

de-

velopers,

and

members

of the press to

show

hardware

and software, discuss

trends, make

deals, eat, drink, and generally

be merry. Because

of current

market condi-

tions

(good and getting better), things

were

merry indeed

this year

for

those

involved in

the

business end of

things. For

those

inter-

ested

the technical end of things, there

was less

cause for celebration.

number

of booths and square

feet

floor

space, clone

manufacturers,

dis-

tributors,

and dealers easily

were

the

most

prevalent

exhibitors. Most

have

products

that are

virtually

indistinguishable from

one

another;

very

few have

products that offer

truly advanced

features.

The graphics

explosion

There is

a great deal of activity

in micro-

computer graphics these

days.

There

are

two reasons for that activity: falling hard-

ware

prices (of RAM and custom

video

chips),

and

the increasing popularity

graphically

oriented software

(CAD, draw-

ing

and painting

programs,

and desktop

publishing).

Just before Comdex,

NEC introduced

two

new

members

the MultiSync

line:

the

MultiSync

Plus and the MultiSync

XL,

with pixel resolutions

960

720

and

1024

768,

respectively.

All MultiSync

monitors

are compatible

with

all

members

of the

PC family (PC,

XT,

AT,

and

PS /2),

as well

as the Macintosh II. Other monitor manufac-

turers

scrambled

to clone the

original

Multi

Sync, and

will probably

do so

again

with

the

new

models.

Complementing the

new high -res

monitors, many

companies

introduced

111

1111

111111111111111111

new high -res

adapter cards, most

which

provide

EGA compatibility, as

well

as pro-

prietary new modes

with

resolutions

ap-

proaching

the one -

mega

-pixel

(1024

1024) level,

often

with 16

colors.

Even though the new

boards provide back-

ward

compatibility

with

least

some pre-

vious

standards (CGA, MDA, Hercules, and

EGA), the

companies

manufacturing those

boards

must write

special drivers

for

the

new non

-standard high -resolution modes

be useful, and a special driver

must

written

for

each

program

that

to use a

high -res mode.

Inevitably, only the most

popular

programs

(AutoCAD,

PageMaker,

etc.)

will

supported.

The

problem

that those

video

super-

sets are all incompatible

with

each

other at

the

software

level,

even though a

multi -

scanning

monitor

can save users

from pre-

mature hardware

obsolescence.

Therefore

the user may

suffer

if he

buys a

video

adapt-

er to

run

a specific application and

later

discovers

he wants

run

other applica-

tions that are

not

supported.

Overall,

IBM must take the

blame

for

the

situation, because

it has

been

slow to

introduce

better adapters,

not

mention

truly

serviceable ones (technical

problems

prevent

EGA from

being used

multi-

tasking environment,

for

example). In

fact, in

many

ways

VGA is really

only

IBM's

attempt

to catch up to

what

other companies

have

been doing

(640

480 lines

colors)

for

some time.

Eventually Microsoft Windows may

what

saves PC users from the

lack

of a true

video

standard. Programs

written

to run

un-

der

Windows

are supposed to be

ignorant

of the underlying

hardware,

so that, after

installation,

boards

from Tseng Labs,

Number Nine

Computer, STB, or anyone

else

will

run programs in

the best possible

resolution,

etc.

course, few

programs

currently take advantage of the device -in-

dependence that Windows can

provide.

And

you

need

-class

machine

run

Windows

at an acceptable

rate. However,

hardware

prices are

falling,

and

Windows

applications

programs

are starting to ap-

pear,

most

which

are graphically oriented

(drawing and painting

programs, desktop

publishing, and CAD).

PS /2

you

might

expect, there

was

much

discussion of the

impact

that the

new PS /2

line will

have. Right

now, it

seems that, out-

side of the corporate

market, PS

/2 will

have

little impact. The

clone

manufacturers

clear-

aren't

worried.

In fact,

some

industry

ana-

lysts

think that IBM

may have made

huge

marketing

blunder, and

may

even

now

offending the corporate

market

that

is its

real

bread and butter.

The reason is that it is

currently

impossible

to buy "classic"

ma-

chines (XT's and AT's)

in quantity.

IBM seems

be saying:

"Go PS /2

elsewhere."

will

interesting

to see

which way

corpo-

rate America

does go.

We attended

technical

seminar

on the

internal

workings

of OS/2, and

it's clear that

the operating system

has the kind

facili-

ties

that

power

users

have

been

clamoring

for

However, there are two big

problems

associated

with

OS/2:

its not

available, and

it won't let

programs

written

for

DOS 2.x

and

3.x

make

use

the

new facilities

(multi-

tasking and

megabytes

memory).

Under

the

80286

version

of OS

/2,

you'll

be able

to run

only

single

DOS application

at a time, and

will

be a good two years

before OS

/2-

specific programs start

to ap-

pear. And there's

not

even a projected

re-

lease

date

for

version

of OS

that takes

full

advantage of the 80386.

However, '386

control

programs

are available

from

other

vendors

(Quarterdeck Systems,

The

Soft-

ware

Link) right now that

will

allow

you

run multiple DOS

sessions.

But those con-

trol programs

are

not true

operating

sys-

tems, so you don't get true

multi- tasking,

wherein

several parts of the same program

can

run

simultaneously,

pass messages

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