Magazines of Yesteryear - Personal Computer Magazine - Issue 65 - June 1993

Five Years Later...

If 1988 was the year of talking up OS/2 as the next step(!) in PC operating systems, by 1993 the conversation had settled firmly on the future with Windows NT, and this issue of Personal Computer Magazine handily deals with that in their Pentium/Alpha face off given that DEC's new super chip could run Microsoft's power OS. If you want to know more about how NT came about, give Showstopper! by G. Pascal Zachary a read. It's a simple tale of folk being absolutely pummelled for the promise of stock options and pay outs whilst their personal lives are shredded all for the cause of "achievement." Yeah, well, that's a rant for another time...

Anyway, the news:

Compaq might have asked Intel to embargo all Pentium-related announcements until Compaq's own motherboard for the chip was ready for the prime time. Such shenanigans were denied but given that everyone else was having to use Intel-produced boards and Compaq wanted to shift boxes...

The battle for networking control was heating up with Novell Netware's pricing undercutting Microsoft's own Windows NT Advanced Server package, as well as PINning their hopes (you'll see) with their Processor Independent Netware (See!!!) initiative, which hoped to put Netware 4.0 on Alpha, PA-RISC and Sparc processors, as well as the then current Intel offering. Hey, it seemed to work out for the rest of the decade...

Meanwhile, AMD were spaffing 486 chips left, right and centre, handy since the 486 was the CPU of choice in the market. A court win against Intel regarding microcode infraction was also a plus point. At the same time, Intel were still litigating against all and sundry who tried to use AMD or Cyrix processors, with Twinhead (a prolific notebook manufacturer at the time), the latest victim of Intel's lawyerly legions. 

Apple were planning to move the "look and feel" of the Mac GUI to Unix workstations in an attempt to... well, it wasn't exactly clear what they were doing. Fighting Microsoft in the Unix sphere? Attempting to garner support for their forthcoming PowerPC-based machines? Piss around because at this point the wheels are starting to wobble? Speaking of wheels, they had fallen off the MJN Technology bandwagon, with the direct PC seller's fall leaving 70 people out of work. The brand would rise again as part of the Granville Technology Group, alongside brands such as Colossus, Time and Tiny. Yep, them!

Coreldraw 4.0 was winging its way to UK users for the princely sum of £395, with Coreldraw 3 dropping to £149! Ah, kids, serious software used to cost serious money back in the day. Also costing real money was IBM's PS/1 Multimedia System - a 25MHz 386 rocking an 85Mb hard drive, Philips CD-ROM, Audio Spectrum 16 soundcard and a 256-colour SVGA display. The £1,340 they were asking for it included DOS, Windows, Works for Windows, and a tutorial CD-ROM. Canny shoppers could get a similar spec a little cheaper, and it was arguable whether a 386 would cut the mustard for much longer. 

Word 6.0 (for DOS) was also due to meet the public, helping the marketing bods by matching version numbers with long time rival Wordperfect. Also due out by year end would be Word 6.0 for Windows, as well as a Mac version too. In more surprising news, Virgin (yes, them!) were planning to get into the PC hardware market, albeit using third party kit with a badge slapped on the box. And no, that's didn't work out either, pretty much in line with the commentary piece on page 47 - entering a mature market and thrashing the competition first time??? I mean, they had form, but this wasn't the airline market.

News analysis sections this month offered thoughts on possible competition for Microsoft as other companies try to leverage Windows applications with Unix and Macintosh - very much a storm in a teacup. VESA Local Bus standards were up next, or not as was then the case, with varying interpretations of what VL-bus actually meant doing the rounds. Another teacup-sized forecast as PCI was already fermenting nicely over at Intel, and that would prove far better suited to Pentium processors as they found their footing in 1994.

A proper 90's fascination up next and yes, it's the "what the fuck were they thinking" collision of the personal computer and television. Bill Gates had been demo-ing some marketing bollocks about tech permitting greater PC/TV integration and, well, it was a piss poor idea at the time, and truly didn't evolve until online connectivity could keep up with even basic video encoding standards. Given the current state of television and the streaming market, it's still ended up being a piss poor idea for those who create the content, as well as those who consume it. 

Speaking of which, here comes the D! (Not that, you filthy minded buggers!). No, we're talking about ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), a way of guaranteeing two 64Kbps channels (and potential for up to 30 of them), at a time when your standard modem was giving 14.4Kbps, with forthcoming 19.2Kbps and 28.8Kbps specs and even (spoken in hushed tones), 56.5Kbps!!! You had to be there, kids, as well as being very patient. Although you could say the same today as you wait for the Satan-bating combination of cookie consent pop-ups and adverts to interrupt even the fastest of connections. The article does talk about ISDN's D channel (for flow control and error reporting, the B channels being the main data pipes), and also mentions the possibility of Broadband and 100Mbps. Fantasy for 1993 users, and maybe for more than a few 2024 ones as well, but the future looked bright, even if the then-present offering was still an expensive luxury - £400 for Basic Rate ISDN 2 (so 128Kbps) installation plus £84 per quarter line rental, but £3,025 for Primary Rate ISDN30 installation and £33.87 per quarter per channel line rental - and remember, you could have up to 30(!) channels! Now we know where Virgin Media get their pricing model from!

On to the reviews and before we get to the kit being covered, just a shout out to the headers for each piece. They are quite funny and I'll include them as I go. Hewlett Packard had a printer (Quite.a brainy type) that could do you 17 pages per minute at 600 dots per inch for £2,999 in the form of the Laserjet 4Si. For network use, the 4Si MX was yours for £4,449 with included Ethernet and Local talk cards, as well as Postscript, compatibility with ten networks OS's, optional Token Ring, and a parallel port for single user types. PCM declared this should become the standard in network printing. 

Dell placed their new Dimension 486/25S on the line (Dell to be different), and priced at £1,025 for a 25Mhz 486, 8Mb of RAM, a 120Mb hard drive and local bus graphics, it was a rather nice machine. The £30 delivery charge gets a call out, and when you consider that equates to just over £60 in today's money, they're not wrong. 

Microsoft wanted you to use their Mouse 2.0 (New moose in the hoose) but for £69 then, that was a lot of readies for your rodent, Quicken 2 for Windows (The Quicken wakes - one for Wyndham fans there) offered an excellent financial package for £59.95, and Norton Utilities 7.0 (Beautility and the beast) was another winner, both as a package and a title. 

NEC's latest colour laptop, the Ultralite Versa 25C (Your Versa-tile friend) gained points for future-proofing, with a degree of modularity that would have been used to justify its £3,195 price tag. That and the lovely (for the time) 9.5" 256-colour TFT screen. Finally, low-cost document image processing software, Watermark Discovery (That's the OLE point), harks back to functionality that has long been subsumed into more general packages. 

The cover stars are next and it's definitely more Pentium than Alpha-based. You get a long and highly detailed background as to why the Pentium chip is the Pentium, as well as the technology behind it. It's pieces like this that make these old magazines well worth reading, and it was certainly a school day after finishing those paragraphs. PCI is touched upon briefly (see above for my prior comment), as is whatever the P24T upgrade malarkey was (marketing tripe, mostly it seems, as people just upgraded the whole box as it would become clear that by 1994, a dedicated Pentium machine was the future), before we get to the high-end server products that Intel's latest was aimed at. 

ICL's Teamserver F5 started at £7,500 for a good tower option, whereas Viglen's EX Pentium was a much more affordable server/desktop at ££4,949 as tested. Elonex went straight to the simple "Pentium" moniker, and for £8,100 as tested, they could keep it. DEC's Alpha-equipped AXP proved a competitive offering, at least spec wise, as no pricing was mentioned. Benchmarks are a pleasant surprise and the general feeling is that DEC have a capable machine on their hands. The final question about whether they could leverage Windows NT on their new box was soon answered - the market said "Meh," and stayed with Intel. 

For those who have an accounting thing (Hey, I just test financial databases and associated logic! Those six years in finance were an aberration!), a round up of interviews with corporate types and how they handled LAN-based high-end DOS accounting packages could be of historical interest. As someone whose career has revolved around IBM i, there are some interesting connections here but it's a tad too dry, even for me.

A very definite period piece on the dangers of leasing equipment is an "oh, really?" read, given that times have changed, but the next sixteen pages really do confirm that the past is a different country: hard disks - what they are, how they work, and what to do when you run out of space, as well as other storage options. All that spinning rust... 

The main group test gives word processors for both DOS and Windows a run out, and there are some truly memory-raking names present and correct, all the more so after I've just read this wonderful article on The Register about WordStar 7. Yes, I'm going to be trying that out ASAP! Back in '93, Lotus Ami Pro received the best in show gong for Windows, whilst Wordperfect 5.1 clinched it for DOS, although honourable mentions were given to Starwriter and WordStar. 

The Platforms section, covering Unix, OS/2 and cross-platform issues takes a gander at NeXT's Intel port of NeXTSTEP. The pre-release version was handled by some loaned hardware that really missed the boat for the average user: 486DX2 66MHz, 16Mb RAM, 240Mb SCSI hard drive, and a 2Mb VRAM graphics adaptor - £3,500 plus £900 for the developer release of the OS. Even then, that didn't meet the suggested developer release spec from NeXT, which apparently needed 24Mb of RAM and 330Mb of drive space. It's an informative read but the conclusion does state that NeXT was competing at the high end of the workstation market, whilst also noting that some have said its real opponents are (the several years away) Microsoft's Cairo and IBM/Apple/HP's Taligent collaboration. As it turned out, Cairo never shipped although some elements appeared in Windows 95 (which won the consumer OS race with surprising ease), and Taligent fell apart. Our fruity friends then shat the bed with Copland and ended up buying NeXT in 1997, thus taking the "next step" on the journey to financial recovery. 

Back into the real world and the first part (of two) of a series detailing networking Netware LANs to Unix does provoke a slight yawn from me (apologies), before Bob Walder casts a gimlet eye on the release version of Netware 4.0, comparing it as he does so to Microsoft's LAN Manager 2.2 and Banyan Vines 5.5. Do I need to spell out the conclusion, or can the 90's veterans in the room guess? Yep, Netware is the best, LAN Manager is good and improving, especially if you're already using Windows for Workgroups, and Vines 5.5 has issues with complexity and a monumentally crappy copy protection system (a dongle that proved "troublesome"), so loses any chance of a recommendation. As noted in the news section, Novell retaliated by dropping its prices, but as end users were increasingly becoming equipped with machines running Windows for Workgroups, the buy in was simple enough for Microsoft to leverage. 

Back up options get a group test before we get to the tail end (a round up of Desktop Publishing books, anyone), but also this absolute classic from Richard Sarson under the training banner. Companies were being "delayered" of management, and this should bring about a change in recruiting practices as well as a move away from the idea of 40 years of progression before you get your pension. What makes this a fun commentary is the distance of thirty years and how much things haven't changed. You can see the full article ablve, but from actual experience, whatever "flat, competence-driven" structure companies might aim for, I can attest from my experience that deeds have not matched words, and that the vertical management culture is alive and well. 

It's the adverts and we begin at the beginning, with Apricot tying to convince potential shoppers that they were good value. As much as I loved the Xen desktop case design (we had a one at Tanfield Comp for the careers advisor to use), I don't believe £949 ex VAT for a diskless 33MHz 386 was good value, network security or no. And £1,299 for a 25MHz 486 was, as we shall see, a tad over the odds too. 

Now here's something more than a little strange! Apple with multi-page adverts! Indeed! This was at a point where the fruity fiends were pushing what was left of the 680x0-series range before the big move to PowerPC, and more importantly, highlight the benefits of using a Macintosh over Windows (something that the arrival of Windows 95 would begin to change very quickly). Much like logic puzzles beloved by adventure games and films, Apple poses this as a three part process: Macs weren't affordable, Macs were only for graphics, and Macs were not compatible. Here's their guide (with commentary) to the answers.

The Mac isn't affordable:

The LCIII 4/80 was only £1,150 ex VAT! A bargain! Well, for a Mac, pretty much. Three years prior, and that amount wouldn't have gotten you the box, never mind a display! That LCIII rocked a 25MHz 68030 and could also be found in its civilian guise as the Performa 450. But check out that Classic II - £695 ex VAT! It also had a 68030 but clocked at a lower 16MHz and on a cheaper/slower 16-bit bus. Still, the 4/80 configuration was a good budget option, yet one can't help but feel that the 9-inch 512x342 display was a step too far down the ladder. There were added benefits (networking and audio), so arguably, Apple weren't horribly wrong here, except maybe asking if you should buy one for the office, or the home, or both? That's a lot of saving up, and they didn't even have the benefit of cancelling Netflix subs to help out back then...

The Mac is only for graphics:

There's lots of professional packages for Mac users, and you can easily do whatever you can on a PC but also on a Mac. And no, that's not sarcasm. What should be noted is the focus on their being a Mac for whatever purpose. In all, 17 models. Now, let's be clear, that was quite restrained compared to what would happen over the next four years - Apple spattered the market with conflicting ranges and multiple configurations within those ranges. Just a quick check of a 1996 Mac mag makes for migraine inducing complexity, so maybe the next MoYY post will check that out. But as for 1993, there were (just) 17, which was still a worrying sign of things to come. 

The Mac isn't compatible:

Fair play, they were good for network connectivity, they could read MS-DOS floppies, and they could run MS-DOS programs via an emulator. Job done!

But not quite: there's some summer specials (four, on top of the 17 models mentioned above), and it's here that the messaging stumbles slightly. The only "special" that received coverage in the previous pages was the LCIII at that £1,150 price point. The cheapest option was the LCII at £850, which sounds good until you realise the model had been discontinued a couple of months earlier. A great upselling chance for the LCIII, perchance? That Centris 610 with a Personal Laserwriter NTR as a package for £2,795... What was that about affordable? The last "special" is a doozy, and also one of the most desirable combo's ever created (IMHO). The Powerbook Duo, all in for £2,495. Effectively an LCIII in portable form, the concept was neat but very expensive for the benefits it offered. 

Bless them, but IBM were trying with the aid of the Pink Panther. Here's an NEC ad from a few pages prior, and you can see the asking price for their 25MHz 486 was competitive, and to be honest, of the two, I prefer the aesthetic of the PS/ValuePoint range, but horses for courses. 

Nicely placed following the Alpha/Pentium dust up, this DEC advert targets the server end of the market, and I'm sorry, but adding "just" before those prices is an... interesting choice.

P&P were a dealer who were gunning for Compaq fans with these two offers, and that ProLinea for £999 ex is really good for the time, as is that bundle price including Microsoft's best offerings. 

Time Computer Systems Ltd. next and some duality there. That colour Amstrad laptop was good value at that price, but compared to the latest offerings from other manufacturers, was bulky, so definitely belonging to the previous generation of portable technology, whilst that IBM bundle is another good value option, though that 386 model for under a grand was an exercise in false economy - the 486 was at the grand-ish level and would only get cheaper. 

Not that that would stop the likes of Wearnes, whose 386SX-25 at £649 ex VAT was more for the budget conscious rather than anyone looking ahead a year or two. Good price on the 486SX-25 mind...

Nationwide Direct were slinging out 386 and 486's from IBM, Compaq and, yep, Alan, and Gawd help them, still trying to flog both the 7000-series and the Mega PC. The 7386 would do you a reasonable if un-expandable desktop, but trying to flog the 7286, even with that games pack? No. No, no, no! Same would go for the Mega PC. At least their dealer price for the IBM ValuePoint range makes them even more attractive, the 486 mentioned above was only £899 ex!

The Pen Pad: pointless, but I still wanted one.

Last, but not least, is Thripplewoods with some intriguing goods for sale. First up has to be Amstrad's Pen Pad PDA 600, the lower cost option for those who couldn't reach the heady heights (or public humiliation) of Apple's Newton. I've never seen on in the flesh but contemporary reviews were lukewarm at best, and those of a social climbing nature would probably have been better off with a Newton!

Another pointless piece of kit, still wanted one.

Moving passed the sextet of fax machines (you have to be of an age...), it's the MagicNote that steals the show. A word processor in a laptop form, it's something that would have appealed to my gadget freak side even though it was pricey for something Amstrad's own NC100/200 range of portables could have achieved. But hey, considering these days Freewrite ask for around £400 for effectively an e-ink typewriter...

Next time, the return of The Mac (that's a hint, that is...)

What if... RISC OS part two

This is the second of three articles published in the Wakefield RISC OS Computing Club newsletter last year. The articles focussed on three key years for the Acorn Archimedes and its successors - their original launch (with the Arthur OS) in 1987, the introduction of the A3000 (and RISC OS) in 1989, and finally, the belated attempt at the wider UK home computer market with the A3010 in 1992. 

I have taken the opportunity to expand each piece, and all views that appear here are my own, as are any omissions. I hope you like the slightly tongue in cheek approach to questions that were answered decades ago. No slights or offence intended. Please, enjoy.

Could 1989's A3000 have became the games machine of the period?

Nope. Article over, thanks for reading.

What? What do you mean I can't leave it like that? Oh, okay then! Just because it's you.

1989 was a pivotal year for home computing in the UK. The Atari ST was comfortably placed at the important price point of £299 (the same amount would get you the colour Amstrad CPC 464 combo, but that 8-bit offering was looking at tad tired by now), whilst Commodore's Amiga A500 was a ton more. Both connected to a standard TV via an RF input and were more powerful than any 8-bit machine, even the SAM Coupe (sorry, Colin!). More pointedly for Acorn, they were now cheaper than the 8-bit BBC Master that arrived in 1986 to secure the future for Acorn after a tumultuous couple of years in '84 and '85.

When Acorn launched the A3000 in the summer of '89 (that's what you should have sung about, Bryan!), despite possibly offering the best value on the market and having the benefit of RISC OS, it couldn't, realistically, break into the general home market for four reasons, and as such, this article is, like the first, more of a why not rather than a what if.

The 16-bit competition in November 1989

Price: At £649 excluding VAT, the A3000 was an ARM-powered bargain. A bargain until you realised you needed a monitor on top, and 15% of that total was added for Nigel's cut, meaning you were looking at just over a grand. That was and still is folding money (according to the BoE, about £2,500-ish today). Acorn couldn't really sell it any cheaper and it was only when The Learning Curve pack was released in 1990 that the A3000 could connect to a SCART-equipped TV. Those weren't exactly cheap back then either! 

Typical Acorn dealer prices at the tail end of 1989.

Software support: Here at least, Acorn tried to do something. Shortly after the A3000's launch, Acorn held a games conference with 30 "top development houses" such as Ocean, US Gold and Domark. Several firms promised trial titles to test the market and, indeed, some games did actually see a release. Yet within a year, most of those who had pushed a game or two onto the 32-bit wonder had given up to focus on the much larger 16-bit market. The comparatively low sales figures didn't lie.

The Competition: Atari had been selling the ST since 1985 and it had gained a good reputation in both the consumer and professional markets (the latter for it's musical abilities via the included MIDI ports, and budget DTP prowess). By 1989, it was the cheapest 16-bit computer and looked to be sitting pretty. A series of Packs bundling "hundreds of pound of games" (at original RRP's) had created a handily sized market for those who wanted (and could afford, for the newer machines weren't ubiquitous just yet) to move on from the 8-bit era. All was not well though. The Tramiel-led Atari wasn't cash rich, with the company's third quarter 1989 results showing a $5.4m loss from a turnover of $81.4m. Acorn, never the most profitable of companies to put it mildly, was at this point doing (slightly) better than that, generating a profit at least. Atari's big problems were that a) the base ST spec had remained pretty static since 1985, and the new STE would not be the panacea that was hoped for, b) an expansion into the DOS PC market stole precious resources the ST desperately needed, and c) the purchase of the Federated Group in 1987 hammered the US dealer network and extracted even more money from Atari's pockets.  

The ever-present Silica Shop advertising the ST in November 1989.

Commodore had, seemingly, learned the mistakes of the original Amiga A1000 with the A500. As with the ST, it could plug into your TV and it was demonstrably greater technical abilities than Atari's kit. In a marketing coup that year, they bundled the A500 with Ocean's rather decent Batman game, renowned flight sim F-18 Interceptor, platformer New Zealand Story, and industry leading art package Deluxe Paint II. Commodore hoped to sell 100,000 £399 Batman Packs. By the time it was discontinued the following year (remaining on sale long enough to take advantage of the film's VHS release), sales totalled some 186,000 units. They also released a Class of the '90's bundle, complete with a database package, DTP and spreadsheet software, Deluxe Paint II, and a MIDI interface and recording software. Oh, and a BBC emulator and some programs just to really stick it to Acorn. All for £499 inclusive. As a result, Amiga Format's February 1990 issue reported that Commodore had sold its 200,000th UK Amiga. To be fair though, just as the A500 was the cheaper, mass-market evolution of the Amiga A1000, so too was the Archimedes A3000 to the A305/A310, but there was a two year gap between Commodore and Acorn's generational leap. Given that Commodore would be the company to beat in the UK home computer market, that was a gap Acorn could never realistically close. 

November 1989 Amiga dealer ad.

Attitude: Acorn's approach was that educational sales justified the machine's existence (just like the Beeb), and consumer "serious home user" sales were a handy extra. That ended up being the right approach for the time - after all, Acorn outlived both of its 16-bit competitors, but this ignored the changing consumer landscape, something that every format outside of DOS (later Windows) did. And anyway, who was the "serious home user'? Anyone that could begin to fit that marketing buzz term was already well catered for in 1989. An A500 with monitor and hard drive could be had for less than a grand inclusive. Amstrad had the phenomenally successful PC1512/1640 DOS range, albeit with their replacement, the 2000-series, heralding the beginning of the decline of Amstrad as a PC manufacturer. A faulty hard drive issue meant that by the time the problems were sorted, not only had the reputational damage been done, but the market had also changed, meaning Amstrad was now just one of many box-shifters in the UK, and by no means the cheapest. PC's were not their only arrow though, and for those who wanted a cheap printer-equipped solution, the Amstrad PCW range was still reasonable value. Again though, times were a changing and their value for money against as printer equipped 16-bit micro was starting to become questionable. By the time you added a printer and monitor to an ST or Amiga, you were spending more than a PCW, but the ST/Amiga could do much, much more. Finally, if you had the readies, the sky was literally your limit for Macs. Even that would change in 1990 as the Classic made the Mac a sub-£1k option. 

The Amstrad competition (and remember to add 15% VAT on top!).

The Mac and, well, yes but no...

Not that the outside world mattered to the likes of BBC Acorn User. Their June '89 review of the A3000 was glowing, but the comment that "Once again, Acorn have produced the Rolls-Royce of home computing" demonstrated a lack of understanding as to how the home computer market worked and that the Rolls Royce concept was oxymoronic to a mass user base. Without said base, software developers wouldn't see the machine as viable. Without software, potential purchasers would look elsewhere. A follow up piece two months later admitted that Acorn's latest would inevitably be compared to the 16-bitters but it was actually more akin to PC's and Macs costs thousands, and anyway, taking inflation into account, the A3000 was about the same relative value as the original Beeb. To a cost conscious potential buyer, those comparisons didn't matter. Money talked, and all else was simple delusion.

In the short term, however, the A3000 proved to be a tonic for those wanting to jump to RISC OS and the machine proved a success, albeit not one for the home sector, but what if an A3000 package had been released with a few games and a TV modulator?

Hey, at least someone tried!

Well, there was such a bundle. ZCL, a distributor for Commodore and Amstrad products, put together the Jet Set Pack at the tail end of 1990. For a couple of quid under £750 VAT inclusive, you could have a TV modulator equipped A3000, the Euclid 3D package, and a trio of games: Interdictor, Trivial Pursuit and Superior Golf. All it lacked was a joystick but third party options were becoming available at that time. Stock was stated as "running into the thousands", and independent retailers were the first targets of the bundle. The only issue? Price. Again! For literally half that amount, you could pick up an Amiga A500 pack, with the spare change going towards a monitor, printer, hard drive or as many fashion conscious fire-hazard shell suits you could ever need (this was 1990, folks!). Acorn just couldn't compete on value in that particular market against the juggernaut that was the Amiga.

Dealer price for the Jet Set Pack - don't forget the VAT.

Not that the pack was advertised far or wide outside of dealers within the likes of Acorn User, and as 1991 got underway, the pack was discounted to under £700. At the same time, Acorn was happy to announce it had sold its 100,000th RISC OS machine, and that the A3000 was outselling the BBC Master 128 by two-to-one. A near five year old 8-bit machine and only 2-1??? In slightly better news, market data in April that year pointed to 55,000 RISC OS machines were shipped throughout Britain in 1990, 75% of which were the A3000 model. What were those Amiga numbers again?

But let's say they did. What if the original A3000 shipped with TV connectivity and a joystick port? What would have happened? Not much, really. The more impressive Amiga titles would have made it over, with maybe a few companies joining Krisalis Software as a worthy porting house. It might have helped ship a few more boxes into homes rather than schools, a few thousand perhaps as newcomers saw the educational benefit, or maybe with former ST owners who wanted something more powerful that the rapidly aging ST but wouldn't/couldn't stretch to the hefty entrance fee for a DOS machine, and didn't fancy dipping into the Amiga pool. There would, however, have been a slightly bigger RISC OS market for the next generation of machines, including a model aimed squarely at the Amiga and ST. By that time though, it wasn't a question of what if they could succeed, but what was the actual point?

The History of the Gothic Video Game by Christopher Carton - Book Review

The Gothic aesthetic has long been prevalent in popular culture, so it should be no surprise that many a video game has taken inspiration or payed homage to the form. So much so, in fact, that it is the subject of this tome from prolific White Owl-published author, Chris Carton, proving once and for all that it was never just a phase and you just don't understand, mam! 

The first chapter of this 160 plus page volume begins with the Ghosts 'n Goblins series, and if you're going to fuse the ideas of gothic video games and crushing difficulty, there is no finer place to start. A smattering of similar titles receive their due attention before we hit the colossus that is the Castlevania series, and I say this as someone who still has a smidge of respect for the N64's first entry, despite the nightmare of that camera set up. They were young. They were learning. 

Moving on, chapter 3 takes on the likes of The Legacy of Kain, Severance: Blade of Darkness, the MediEvil series and, my personal favourite, Shadow Man... the first one, not 2econd Coming (what were they thinking with that title???). Oh, and American McGee's fantastic takes on the Alice in Wonderland tales. 

From there, the book just gets better as Resident Evil, Baldur's Gate, the Gothic series and, because it wouldn't be right without them, FromSoftware's sublime creations. That's just the limited highlights from this book and there is much more to entertain and inform. Once again, the author demonstrates his knowledge of the subject as well as a critical eye where necessary, as he guides the reader through some of the best games of their type - and yes, I will bang on about Shadow Man because it's a classic, even if it does take a while to get going. 

The layout is clear, text is well spaced, and there are many, many screenshots. I have to say that whilst a few may appear a tad rough to some eyes, there is something about mid to late 90's 3D graphics tech that appeals to me.

As yet another entrant in the Carton-verse, The History of the Gothic Video Games is a gloriously illustrated and well written deep dive in to some of the most involving and atmospheric video games ever to grace computers and consoles. Even just flicking through now reminds me that I've played about a third of the titles covered here, and now I've a good dozen more that are on my "to play" list, so be wary of that potential danger to your spare time!

Even if you wouldn't consider yourself a fan of the gothic aesthetic or culture, it would be remiss of you not to check out this fine book. Chances are you will have played at least a handful of the games featured, and you'll learn a bit more about how vibrant and expressive the culture of video games can be.

You can pick up a copy from the usual online and physical bookstores, or get it direct from the publisher here. You can also follow the author on X @chriscarton89

Magazines of Yesteryear - Personal Computer Magazine - Vol 1 Issue 2 - March 1988

Personal Computer Magazine was a free of charge publication for suitably qualified PC owners (VNU Business Publications' words, not mine), or, at the time of this issue, via a subscription of £21 per annum. I remember reading several issues of this magazine as I used to know a guy who was a freelance programmer in the financial sector back in the early to mid 90's, but this very early issue was way before that time. 

It certainly looks like a 1980's business publication - and to be honest, despite the slightly sterile aesthetic, hasn't dated that much in my eyes (although they are very tired eyes...). Portables are front and centre this month, alongside the new Olivetti M380T (a quick look rather than a full review, and I've just noticed what they were asking for it!), and the spaff-tastic opportunity to experience Microsoft Excel and Windows 2.0. These, gentle reader, were far more simple times. 

Headlining the news section was the glorious coming of dBase IV, much to the relief (I presume) of the 100,000 UK users of dBase III, and the first to offer SQL. Yay... said no-one, ever. Arriving in the summer, you could choose from either the PC-DOS/MS-DOS version or the wondrous OS/2 equivalent. Either would set you back £595 for the basic edition, £895 for the developers or the LAN pack. 

Can you not feel the excitement for dBase IV???

Olivetti were dropping their prices (8086 models down 11%, 286 down 3-5%, 386 staying steady), Compaq were trying to get OS/2 into users hands (at a £235 suggested resale price for v1.0!), whilst AMT (no idea) were boasting of their 32MHz 386. If you can smell marketing bollocks, you'd be right. That "32MHz" 386 was actually a 16MHz part overclocked to 25MHz then paired with 80-nanosecond RAM set at "zero-wait state" for a Landmark benchtest equivalent of said 32MHz. At £3,995 for a 2Mb RAM, 40 Mb hard drive and an EGA display, was it a) really worth the risk for such shenanigans, and b) who the fuck took Landmark ratings as gospel??? *

AMT, if not exactly lying, are fibbing to a high degree.

At least Real World Graphics were having a laugh with their £4,500 PC8000 graphics card. Featuring the ever-popular "whatever can we use this for?" Inmos T800 Transputer, this 8-bit card could supply 256 colours out of 16 million at a resolution of 1,024x1,280. Heady stuff for '88, but it couldn't do EGA or VGA, and you'd need a seriously business case for chucking that amount of dosh around. There again, a monitor capable of taking advantage of that capability was not exactly cheap either! 

Back when word processing was a serious undertaking.

There are a trio of new analysis features adding commentary to contemporary developments. The first covers Hercules products in relation to the new market for "compatible" VGA products. Hercules themselves had launched an add-on card that would work a treat with the forthcoming Wordperfect v5.0 and provide users with all sorts of type style goodness, especially compared to the limited EGA offering. Nice idea, but the tumult over graphical standards would not last long enough for such productivity-focused goods to succeed, and the kerfuffle over VGA standards would be sorted as the 90's dawned. The second talks about the recent Which? Computer Show at the NEC in Birmingham. Despite 20MHz 386's stealing the hardware show, there was little to surprise the 51,500 visitors. Just imagine that level of attendance at a UK computer event now... Finally, there's a whole page dedicated to interface standards prompted by the establishment of Windows as the default adopted by OS/2's Presentation Manager. The article delves further into DECwindows and Macintosh, but given cynical hindsight, all I can add is, "Bless!".

A lofty tower indeed!

Thence follows monthly updates from the IBM PC and Lotus User Groups, before the mag hands over to some quick look reviews, including the exclusive on the Olivetti M380/T. Exclusive is the right word here, as the 20MHz 386 tower packs in ten (10!) expansion slots: four 16-bit AT slots, two 8-bit PC-compatible slots, and four "Olivetti proprietary" 32-bit slots that can also double as existing 8/16-bit ones. No spoilers but that format didn't last the distance. A single 4Mb RAM board and EGA graphics are decent enough, and you can add up to 64Mb of 32-bit RAM as well as five drives (three half-height 5.25" bays, two full height). It would have made a cracking server for the time, and for a list price of £7,436, certainly lived up to the definition of exclusivity.

Happy UK birthday to you...

A product update section gives further details on new and existing wares before the first feature proper of the issue arrives: The Five Year Revolution - aka, the PC's fifth birthday in the UK. A cracking look at how the IBM PC came about and its impact, the final paragraph is a hindsight-baiting hoot - "The next five years of personal computing with PS/2 and OS/2 will be more orderly and less erratic - and probably not as much fun." I mean, it wasn't as much fun as IBM wanted it to be: Microsoft bailed on OS/2, Wintel became very much a thing, and the commoditisation of PC hardware meant that even when IBM tried to get back into the price competitive market, it ended up being just one of many box shifters out there. That said, in no way can you blame the writer of this article for their view - OS/2 looked to be the future. 

And portables have certainly progressed...

The cover feature next and a small group review of portable PC's. This is a lovely period piece in that it questions whether there is an actual market for portables aside from the "obvious applications such as sales and surveying" -  and in those days, aside from management bragging rights, the use case for portables pretty much boiled down to those two niche markets. There are many technical reasons why laptops of 1988 were compromised tech. Display tech is given the first kicking, with gas plasma displays using a minimum of 40 watts for that (frankly superb and that's a hill I will die on) screen aesthetic, hence mostly limited to mains powered devices. Super-twisted LCD screens were the most common type but very prone to ghosting - if you've ever had the pleasure of a passive matrix LCD screen, you'll know the pain of hunting the cursor. If you haven't, be thankful you're under forty (and spoilers, it's always your back that goes first, young 'un). Colour is the future, but as with most cutting edge tech, the first colour laptops (albeit with passive matrix displays) would cost several thousands pounds. 

Processors, memory and storage are up next, Low power versions of 8086, 8088 and 286 chips abound, and memory specs are starting to feel the pinch with the approach of OS/2 - 2Mb is becoming a common amount and even 8Mb is being touted as a near term norm. As for storage, despite their propensity of gobbling up battery charge, hard drives are starting to appear as a standard fit, and you can certainly understand why considering a) the then-potential users of laptops, and b) the prices being paid for portability. Battery tech, though, is letting the side down. Nicad cells are expensive but offer a more sustained discharge compared to lead acid batteries, but even then, you're looking at two hours max away from a wall socket. 

But that didn't mean companies wouldn't sell you something that could be lugged about. Data General offers its DG One Model 2T, the lightest (cough) machine in the group. At 12lbs, measuring 3 x 14.8 x 11.8 inches, it's svelte and compact compared to the others. It is, however, relatively slow (7.16MHz 80C88-2 processor), and not even the presence of a 20Mb hard disk and a reasonable super-twist screen can make up for the 512Kb RAM or the absolutely dire keyboard. The 10 Nicad's that power this beast offer about two and a half hours use with an unspecified amount of HD thrashing. The price? £2,538.

The Sharp is looking particularly sharp...

Toshiba were, at this point in time, the portable PC builder, and its T3100 cuts a dashing 3.1 x 12.2 x 14.2 inch figure in a 15lb body. An 8MHz 286, full 640Kb RAM and 20Mb hard drive offer a decent spec, and the 640x400 CGA gas plasma does a great job. The only downside, apart from the price of £2,995, is that it is a main-only machine. 

Sharp were another early big name in portables, rocking up with their PC-4251. At £1,949, it's the cheapest on offer, but a dire backlit screen, slow 8088 level processor and a basic 512Kb of RAM hold it back. The 20Mb hard drive is handy at the price, but the lead acid battery pack is responsible for a short two hours on the move. You could switch off the back light, but that would just make the screen worse than it already is. 

Great screen, if you can find it in that lid.

Zenith's Z-183 has a cracking LCD screen, 640Kb RAM and a 20Mb Winchester drive. Battery life can run up to three hours (more with an optional extended battery pack), and although it's only an 8088-class laptop, is bloody good value for £2,599, especially with that noteworthy keyboard. 

Actually, compared to the Zenith, the Flyer asks "What screen?"

Finally, the Flyer A286 (wonder what CPU it packs?) is a transportable, coming in at 18lbs and taking up 5 x 16.5 x 15.3". The screen, for that is that tiny rectangle in the lid) ain't great, but the presence of that 10MHz 286 and 1Mb of RAM make up for it. The keyboard is good too, and there's room for a single full length or two half length expansion cards internally. The trade off is that this is mains-only and, combined with the price of £2,795, make it questionable value compared to more mobile machines. Buyers could take their pick but the time of the portable had not yet arrived...

This is a seriously interesting read, honest!

The features continue with a look at Excel's future with Windows (so, so quaint), DECs response to IBM with a pivot to compatible machines and networking, and an absolutely fascinating comparison between Hercules graphics and the EGA standard. No, seriously, that wasn't sarcasm. At a time when the VGA standard was still brand new and most users preferred capability over show, the Hercules option made perfect sense. There is a brief nod to VGA, but the conclusion is set firmly at promoting Hercules for business users. The additional technical info provided is interesting too. 

If Clarkson had written for computer mags.

Lotus 1-2-3 release 3.0 is given a close examination, and although it's an informative article, the lack of any screenshots is a shame. Indeed, the repeated use of a mucked about picture of an actual Lotus car is the only imagery present. I thought this was a computer magazine???

Some "Everyday's" are more equal than others.

Four high end dot matrix printers are up for review, and as someone who first experienced home printing via an Amstrad DMP 2000 connected to my CPC, these would have been the Rolls Royce equivalents, albeit tagged as "Everyday options", which I'm sure they were for their intended audience. From the 18-pin Philips GP10 at nearly £2k to the "budget" £1,045 24-pin Epson LQ-2500, these would all have suited many a business, and dealers sold them at slightly lower prices (that Epson is advertised a few pages on for £763 ex VAT). 

A difficult decision in 1988. Less so in 1992.

A history and comparison between Xenix and DOS is another fantastic feature, and is a lovely snapshot of the multi-user multi-tasking domain in the years before the 90's changed things around. Following that is a neat little look at a group of Desktop Publishing Software packages, and the book review round up covers tomes about the ADA programming language, DOS, and Ventura Publisher. 

That turbulence would end up akin to a fart in a hurricane.

Finally, three Comment pages give updates on a trio of contemporary issues. Tim Ring offers advice to Management Information Systems managers about the fast paced nature of the end user, Tom Foremski proffers a view of the American market's response to IBM's PS/2 (whilst also noting Amstrad's push into that country's ferociously volatile low-end arena), and Mike Tait asks if you can handle the move to OS/2. As Microsoft would later have it, no you could not. 

No, and it won't matter anyway.

Adverts time, and because this is a business-centric magazine, it's not all Alan's cheap kit either! 

Just Google him, youngsters, just Google him. 

Compaq are hawking their Deskpro 386/20, comparing it to 1978's most powerful PC, Geoff Capes. You can guess which is the winner, but the most interesting thing stated is the machine's suitability for running OS/2. Yep, the world was waiting for the greatest leap in operating system development - and to be honest, outside of RISC OS, we're still waiting ;-)

You could do a lot worse, and for more money...

Oh, Alan is advertising his wares, with a full page dedicated to the PC 1640, and to be honest, that "from £499" price tag was seriously good value for the time. Over the page is an ad for Amstrad's LQ 3500, and you can tell how much confidence they have in the product as they've knocked £50 off the RRP and bundled Wordstar 1512 with it... and no, the contemporary reviews I've seen were never kind to any Amstrad printers, no matter the price cuts or extras. 

... whereas you couldn't do much worse here.

Dealer Visualex Ltd have a half page showing off Sharp's laptop range - and doesn't that look a beauty? Not to carry, obviously, and for £1,099 ex VAT for the pictured model, quite a chunk of change, but as noted in previous posts, there is something about the late 80's portable aesthetic... 

Isn't that an absolute beauty? What do you mean, no? Heathen!

Toshiba get in the act too, and it's a gas plasma that steals the show. Easily transportable with one hand (that built in handle is more than enough for the 18lb weight... obviously), it's the advertising statement at the end of the text that raises a chuckle: "Of course, the T3200 has the arrogantly understated designer look..." - Bloody hell. Tosh, calm down! Of course, this was the 80's...

Oh, gas plasma, my heart doth pine for thee...

Sponsored by cat owners, naturally...

Psion's Organiser II gets a full page in the company's struggle against domestic pet ownership, whilst Mesh are showing off their range of desktops. £499 for an XT compatible (Turbo, mind you, TURBO!), is competitive for the time, as is the £799 for the 286 AT (sans Turbo), but it's the upgrades where the money really comes in to play - £150 for a CGA card and suitable monitor would give you colour (ish), but £340 for the EGA equivalent? And if you wanted hard disk storage? Whoosh goes the overdraft! There's a £50 difference between a 20Mb XT kit and the same capacity for an AT machine, and none of the machines listed, not even that 386, comes with fixed storage. Compare the price of a Mesh XT with 20Mb of storage and an an EGA display, yours for £1,044 ex VAT, with an Amstrad PC 1640 ECD with 20Mb from a dealer a few pages prior: £969 ex VAT. It might not matter much to business users, but that's still a £75 saving. 

Finally, just to prove that it wasn't all DOS computers, our old favourite Silica Shop have a full page ST ad showing off the 520 ST-FM at the bargain price of £260 ex VAT (£299 inc). For 1988, a superb price for a very good computer. The 1040 ST-F and Mega ST's were pricier (much pricier in the case of the latter), but each filled a gap in Atari's range. 

So that was business in 1988, and aside from the anticipation for OS/2, so far so PC. Changes were coming, and as evidenced in previous posts, although the five tears prior to '88 were definitive for what the DOS PC actually was, the next five years would change the nature of the format beyond anything the average reader of this issue could have forseen.

Next time, we'll travel forward those five years and see what Personal Computer Magazine had to say then.

* Silica Shop advertised Amstrad Mega PC's rocking a 33MHz 486 SLC that bragged about it scoring 92MHz in Landmark v2.00. They only did this to tout the machine's greater powered compared to the  25MHz 386SX of the standard model, which itself "scored" 31MHz! Here's the ad:

This, gentle reader, is known as marketing bollocks.