Doubledisksuperpack
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OCT 1995 October 1995 £2.95 Overseas Price £3.95 FX Fighter - France 75 FF Germany DM 20,00 Italy 18,000 Lire Spain 1,225 PTS Malta Lm2.85c Virtua Fighter on the PC? Holland HFL 17,95 Belgium 364.00 BFr p248 Finland FIM 49.50 Canada CAN$12.95 VNU Business Publications Docking Notebooks PCMCIA round-up Britain's favourite personal computer magazine DockingDocking ● SOFTWARE: CAD / Visual Basic 4 RAM Doubler for Windows ● PC CARDS 4 DX4 100MHz PCs The ultimate NotebooksNotebooks portable PORTABLEPORTABLE DESKTOPS?DESKTOPS? accessories SOFTWARE INTERNETINTERNET CAD round-up SERVICESSERVICES ● Visual Basic 4 Buyer’sBuyer’s GuideGuide INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS RAM Doubler for Windows DX4 100MHz Fast and 4affordable PCs ALL HARDWARE TESTED BY THE VNU LABS VOL15 NO10 VOL15 NO10 Now with INTERACTIVE DOUBLE DISK SUPER PACK CD-ROM and 3.5in disk PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD CYAN•MAGENTA•YELLOW•BLACK October 1995 PCW October 1995 Contents Group Test First Impressions 61 Regulars Hands On Docking 18 Newsprint Internet Service Providers 62 NEW! Gadgets Microsoft’s gamble in launching Windows notebooks A monthly round-up of quirky and 95 in the face of a threatened lawsuit pays useful devices to tickle your fancy. Computing on the move ● The first step in getting off; Universal Serial Bus could spell the end of the PC’s serial port; Dorling-Kinder- and power on the desktop wired is to choose your 66 Apple PowerBook 5300 sley launches CD-ROM titles for adults The highly desirable PowerBook note- — a notebook with a dock- service provider, but and children; Netscape hits the £38 million with so many to choose books could only be bettered by a mark; Prisoner banned from using laptop PowerPC processor. We look at the ing station can give you the from it’s easier said in jail; Windows 95 applications very first model with this speedy chip. announced; Fujitsu joins the super-floppy best of both worlds. Steven than done. Wendy M league; Acorn angst. Helstrip and the PCW team Grossman tries out 15 67 Panasonic PD System This be-all of storage devices takes put 15 through their paces and explains what to 40 News Analysis 253 Introduction 650Mb rewritable cartridges and dou- look out for. • William Poel on planned legislation to 254 NEW! Windows 95 bles as a quad-speed CD-ROM drive. control porn on the Net. 256 Windows PCW Cover Photography by David Whyte • Clive Akass on the goings-on in the 174 DOS 70 RAM Doubler for Windows world of PC ports. 260 152 An economical software utility which • Tim Bajarin reports on the industry. 262 32-Bit doubles your RAM sounds too good to 266 Word Processing be true, but this is a must-have product 43 Sounding Off by Michael Hewitt Cover Disk for Windows users. 270 Spreadsheets 45 Homefront by Tim Nott 274 Databases 72 Calera WordScan Plus 4.0 47 Straight Talking by Barry Fox 278 Graphics & DTP or CD-ROM The latest version of a veteran OCR 282 Multimedia package. 49 Business Matters by Nick Beard 286 Sound ● 52 Letters Cover Disk 8 74 Pioneer DRM-624X 292 Visual Programming Includes version II of that hit shareware, The return of this ground-breaking six- 298 Low Level Charm, PC Tax, which may save you disc CD-ROM changer in a new guise: 325 PCW Marketplace The best 302 Numbers Count better looking, faster, and cheaper. 304 Networks money, and Recorder, for learning and Ideal for games, large-directory users place to compare hardware and making music. and network sharing. software prices. 308 Macintosh 312 Computer Answers 78 3D Garden Designer 2 328 Buyer’s Charter 315 Beginners ● 9 PCW Interactive CD-ROM Don’t let Mother Nature ruin your 671 ChipChat 650Mb of software, demos, music and more plans. Order pesky plant life and sneaky shrubbery with CAD-like PLUS our cut-out-and-keep CD label. accuracy. 79 Pentax PocketJet Features Hardly pocket sized yet certainly CUTTING EDGE portable. It uses thermal technology to print on fax-like paper. 209 Introduction Computers and Cars 141 Windows 95 applications by SIMON ROCKMAN 116 81 Arc en Ciel address utility PCW Online Behind every successful motor- by SIMON ROCKMAN The genuine Royal Mail postcode 210 Net.answers database, with simple search tools. racing team there are banks of 214 Net.news computers churning away to get The first Win95 applications are hitting the 82 Adaptec APA-1460 SlimSCSI (incorporating the most out of the cars on the streets complete with 32-bit code and long- The EZSCSI setup utility says it all, Net.surf) track. We look at how the filename support. Visio 4, Works for Win- except that it’s a doddle to use and 218 Comms now available for mobile users. Williams team puts Adams dows and Xara Studio get a once-over. 225 Net.newbies Technology machines into 84 Vitec Video NT MPEG encoder PCW Futures action. Real-time MPEG video compression PC Cards 122 on a PC card for only £400. 226 Innovations by TERENCE GREEN 229 Horizons Visual Basic 4.0 98 PC Cards, better known as 86 Key Presenter for Windows 230 Bluesky Don’t let the high cost of good presen- 233 Retro Computing by TIM ANDERSON PCMCIA cards, are now the tation packages put you off; this is Are the changes to VB more than skin deep? We look at a late standard way to add extra fea- beauty on a budget. PCW Media beta of the Windows 95 version and ask whether it has what it tures to a notebook PC. We test 234 Books takes to face the Delphi challenge. 20, from hard disks to ISDN adaptors. 88 Rescue If your disks are sending out an SOS, 236 CD-ROMs Rescue will recover the files you thought were corrupted forever. PCW Fun DX4 100MHz 105 A chance for PCW readers to CAD Software Round-Up 198 241 Kids’ Stuff by NICK LAWRENCE 246 enter a unique competition at by TIM NOTT 248 Screenplay (with DX4s are the last hurrah of the 486 family, with Pentium-like the Personal Computer World Six CAD software packages to suit every pocket: from over Long Term Tests Leisure Lines, performance at an affordable price. We tested a few, together stand at Live 95. £3,000 for the latest version of the industry standard AutoCad, page 251) with DX4 overdrives designed to breath new life into ageing 92 HP DeskJet 320 Printer to as little as £69 for a copy of Drafix QuickCAD. 486DX 33s. 93 Corel Ventura 5.0 6 7 PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD OCTOBER 1995 OCTOBER 1995 CYAN•MAGENTA•YELLOW•BLACK CYAN•MAGENTA•YELLOW•BLACK PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD COVER DISK NOTES COVER DISK NOTES ON THE CD different types of charm ranging from 100 to 1000 points in value. DOUBLE DISK Masses of shareware including: Mahjong, Poke_It Poker, To help you, you can collect and use SUPER PACK Postcode, Photovision On your CD-ROM and 20 sound effects, 25 Midi tunes, sticks of dynamite to destroy boulders 3.5" Disk this month: 25 Wav tunes and certain other obstacles, but take care Rosenthal utility collection: Cleaner, Master, Uninstall, — they also destroy orbs, charms, keys Virsim and even you! You can also set up chain MSCDEX reactions to blow up a large number of 3.5" DISK Updater of 2.22 to 2.23 ON THE DISK DEMOS obstacles. To detonate dynamite, press 1 CHARM II - strategy game Space Quest/ Reunion/ 2 PC TAX - UK tax package Flagtower/ Kingdom D. To set a stick of dynamite that you are 3 RECORDER - teach yourself to play GALLERY carrying on the ground, press S. October 1995 (100 pages) Run A:\PCW.EXE from Windows 60 high resolution photographs PCW Interactive Including Octobers’s cover disk Good luck, you’ll need it! Turn to page 8 for more details 4 SHAREWARE 1 CHARM II Mahjong, Poke_It Poker, PC Tax Advisor Straegy game [Minimum Requirements: 512Kb RAM, Postcode, Photovision 20 Sound effects Text mode] 2 PC TAX 25 Midi tunes UK tax package An excellent DOS-based tax advisor 25 Wav files which has been produced by HCS Ltd, a 3 RECORDER 5 MSCDEX Teach yourself to play software house specialising in PC-based Updater of 2.22 to 2.23 financial software, and Richens & Co, a the recorder firm of tax consultants. 6 DEMOS Windows Space Quest It has been designed to not need and DOS Reunion printed documentation and has sample Flagtower with 90Mb Mac Software data preloaded, along with extensive Kingdom Help screens. The program will prove For technical support call Robin Nixon on: 01233 665800 or email 7 GALLERY especially useful for readers who will [email protected] 60 High have to fill in self-assessment forms Resolution CD-ROM photographs under the government’s latest tax regula- See page 8 for details PCW tions, and could save you money. PCW Interactive CD-ROM Recorder Robin Nixon Cover Disk [Minimum Requirements: Windows 3.1] A great program that teaches you how to introduces this Another packed cover disk which, this month, play the recorder as well as the month’s software features version two of the smash Shareware hit fundamentals of music theory. It is very packed CD-ROM which PCW INTERACTIVE: OCTOBER 1995 Charm, PC Tax, an excellent tax advisor program easy to use, requiring no documentation. Entire Contents List Just click and follow the prompts. include the very latest that may save you money, and Recorder, a fun and CD TEST: Test your CDs for duplication errors, SysMon — System problem detector demos, applications, scratches or other damage Uninstal — Unwanted program remover educational music program for Windows.