Latest News from the PC World

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): First of all, let's talk about plug and play. That's the new 'must-have' on the PC you'll be buying shortly. If you're really into computers, you should be able to add expansion cards, such as a sound board, a video board, a SCSI (read skuzzy) card, or whatever, without having to experiment with the jumpers, dip switches, IRQ or DMA parameters.

If the computer you bought came with a complete manual, you would have no difficulty configuring your I/O card. More often than not, unfortunately, the vendor does not bother giving you any manual whatsoever. That leaves you in complete darkness as far as reconfiguring your boards is concerned. The 'plug and play' feature, a new industry standard supported by Microsoft, Intel, Compaq and Phoenix Technologies, will eliminate this problem altogether.

In the next generation PCs, BIOS will configure itself during boot-up time based on the responses it receive from individual components. It even stays alert so that you can insert a PCMCIA card and get it connected immediately. Windows Chicago will be the first operating system that has this plug and play capability.

OS/2 in town

Running Windows application no longer means that you still have to stick to Microsoft DOS. And you don't have to wait for Windows Chicago to enjoy true 32 bit operation, either, as long as you're prepared to upgrade your machine to enable it to run the new low cost version of IBM OS/2, OS/2 for Windows. You still have to have Microsoft Windows installed on your machine, though. OS/2 will replace DOS and provide multitasking and multithreading for your applications.

Here's the good news: OS/2 is selling in Indonesia for US$55. The price is effective until next month. That's a very aggressive pricing. For those of you who always look before you leap, you should attend any of the three free 90-minute OS/2 seminars that will be given at Sasono Mulyo I, Le Meridien Hotel, Jakarta, on April 20, 1994, at 8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. A 'Students only' seminar will be given at 2:30 p.m. The bad news is, according to PC World, you would need 20 to 40 MB RAM to be able to reap its benefits in full. To find out, be there at the seminars.

PCTools for Windows 2.0

Central Point Software has released the new upgrade of its very much touted PCTools for Windows Version 1.0. This product seems to be in endless competition with Norton Desktop for Windows, which came out just a couple of weeks ago, and it's really hard not to get tempted to get a hand on each new version as it appears.

The new version boasts, inter alia, a configurable resource monitor, called CrashGuard, that provides you with the information on system resources, memory and disk usage. It even gives out warning if your resource availability is dangerously low.

Its System Consultant not only gives recommendations, it can also perform optimization for you. PCTools for Windows 2.0 also does Norton Desktop for Windows 3.0 in synchronizing the files and their icons in the folders. In PCTools, you can set it up so you can erase files simply by deleting their icons.

Also found in this upgrade is a much improved File Manager, with an additional DOS Command line. Its MultiDesk and Winword 6.0's ToolTips-like pop-up text labels for the overcrowded icons have no challenges in Norton Desktop 3.0. But Desktop's FileAssist is still richer than PCTools's File Companion. In short, the war rages on.