HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 09:52:22 EST


Hi everyone:

I just read something that completely floored me.  Computer Shopper  
ran a piece on windows accelerators, claiming that the Diamond  
Speedstar 24 performed better overall than the ATI Graphics Ultra on  
Windows and Dos tasks at 256 colors and 800 x 600 res.  What about  
the Stealth?  Is the Speedstar 24, a cheaper card than the Stealth,  
really the one to buy for casual windows and dos usage at 800 x 600  
or 1024 x 768?  If anyone would care to illuminate I would appreciate  
it.

Reggie Roberts
reggie@sansyr.psy.syr.edu
rroberts@suvm.acs.syr.edu
From: krostrin@cats.ucsc.edu (Kenneth Robert Ostrin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: NCR Graphics accelerator advice?
Date: 15 Dec 1992 03:33:42 GMT
Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz
NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu



Can someone please tell me what the NCR graphics accelerator board is?  It says
it has 2megs ram.  Is it 24bit?  How fast is it?  Is it S3 or some other chip?
Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks
Ken
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.mac.hardware
From: willson@seas.gwu.edu (Stephen R. Willson)
Subject: Poor Technical Support
Keywords: computers
Organization: George Washington University
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 06:25:07 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.223714.8555@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes:
>>At the beginning of the semester the Mac labs get more use than the 
>>PC labs, perhaps because the Macs look a little cuter and the mud 
>>and game players predominate. Later in the semester after people ac-

>Is this due to any of these reasons or rather a lack of decent INSTALLED
>software???  Most Mac labs around here have a wait HOURS long.  The only

Sounds like bad technical support.  If MUD is crashing machines left and
right, it shouldn't be on machines intended primarily for students to do
work.  And on top of that, the bozos who leave it running in the first
place should have had their accounts revoked.  I don't see any real
problem with games being in a student computer lab, as long as it doesn't
interfere with the primary use of those machines.  And, if students are
going to abuse the privalege of entertainment, the system administrators
should either remove the student in question's account or remove the game.
 Out of fairness to all, I say nuke bozos's account. 

Boy I can hear the flames cracklin...

-- 
-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------
 Stephen R. Willson    | A fitting end to a screwy campaign year...
 willson@seas.gwu.edu  | Here to swear in the President of the United States,
 (202) 395-4922        | Larry King!                         -The Miami Herald
From: peter@global.hacktic.nl (Peter Busser)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: AMD rubbish????
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:45:58 GMT
Organization: Global Village 1

pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth) writes:

>I'm happy with the 386/40, but it's my understanding that the comparison
>to 486sx-25's is often unfair, because most of the low-end 486 systems are
>shipped with no motherboard cache, and a dinky on-chip cache, whereas
>most of the 386dx-40 systems come with 64k cache RAM on the motherboard.

In a 486 chip-set comparisson in the c't (German magazine), the author claimed
that it is possible for a well designed 33MHz 486DX motherboard to run without
external cache. The reason that even 25MHz 486s have external caches is a)
mainly for marketing reasons and b) because they are not well designed. The
33MHz 486 will run slower, but not more than at most 10% but would be
significantly cheaper.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: colfelt@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Andrew BW Colfelt)
Subject: Re: Video Acceleration for MCA?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 02:46:31 GMT

mikes@mikes.mentorg.com (Mike Stanbro) writes:

>I am looking for a video accelerator board that has a Micro-Channel bus.  
>Does anyone have knowledge of such a beast?  I spent most of the afternoon
>on the phone calling manufactures and dealers and only came up with *one*
>manufactured by ATI.  

In my situation, I not only wanted acceleration,
but VESA compliance as well.  The desire for
VESA compliance was motivated by the purchase of
Links386, which is documented not to work on the PS/2 
VGA.  

("VESA" in this post has NOTHING to do with Local Bus designs.)

The ATI 8514-Ultra is definately a slick card for
having both AT- and MCA-style edge connectors, but
it lacks the on-board VGA circuitry.  Thus, it is
an ACCELERATOR, and not a self-contained, accelerated
VGA system.  For my purposes, the purchase of this card
would have gotten me a super fast, non-VESA VGA system--
not what I wanted.

Orchid makes a ProDesigner IIs for MCA which is the next
best candidate for MCA machines and for those users wishing
VESA compliance; it is a self-contained VGA system.

But the best candidate BY FAR that I have researched is 
the IBM XGA-2 card, which is backordered until January.
IBM sells this VESA card for ~$360 with a 30-day money-back
guarantee.  IBM opened my eyes here with their new and
aggressive pricing system.  XGA-2 is reported to be 250%
faster than XGA-1, but IBM will not (cannot?) disclose
the performance of XGA-1 over the standard, PS/2 on-board
VGA.  It is my suspicion that XGA-1 is slower than VGA.

I believe that AT style XGA-2 cards are available also.


>It [the 8514-Ultra] is rated at 8 Winspecs vs. 25 for there ISA based
>boards.

Yes vs. No.

The ATI 8514-Ultra is rated at 8 Winmarks.

The ATI Graphics Ultra Pro, for the VESA Local Bus
is rated at >29 Winmarks.  The card is "ISA-based"
only insofar as the VESA Local Bus has only been
implemented for ISA and EISA machines.  You cannot 
buy an EISA VGA that does better than 19.16 Winmarks.  

The Compaq Deskpro 50M is a DX2-50 with Compaq's
QVision graphics system, the fastest non-Local Bus
design yet.  

The next best EISA system (Standard Advantage DX2-50)
scores 9.71 Winmarks, less than half the performance
of the Compaq.

In short, 8 Winmarks for the ATI 8514-Ultra is VERY
respectable, faster than the Orchid ProDesigner IIs.
IBM's XGA-2 is not yet rated by the Winmark suite.
(IBM is not the only supplier of XGA-2.)



-- 
Andrew          
Colfelt@ucsu.Colorado.EDU
--
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.mac.hardware
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Subject: Re: RISC defined! Was Re: 486SLC chip.... what is it?
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 92 15:02:43 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Dec11.155653.8469@ptdcs2.intel.com> greason@ptdcs2.intel.com (Jeff Greason ~) writes:
>
>Aha!  Somebody finally admitted it.  I've long suspected that the RISC advocate
>definition of RISC is primarily negative.  Originally, RISC chips had simple
>instruction sets, where "simple" was supposed to make it possible to use
>advanced implementation techniques such as pipelining and caching because
>of the reduced transistor budget.  When CISC chips used these, they claimed
>that reduced implementation time was the advantage.  Now, it comes down to
>just what you stated:
>  "RISC (adj.): 1) A chip which does not accept the X86 instruction set.
>   2) A chip which is not manufactured by Intel."
>

Not so!  Chips which implement the 680X0 instruction set aren't RISC
either.

>This means that no matter what new tricks you'd like to try, RULE 1 has got
>to be at least a modest improvement in the execution speed of a significant
>fraction of existing code!  You can speed up new code all you want -- unless
>you gain an incredible amount (and the market has shown that 1.5X the speed
>is not "significant" here), the guy who DOES speed up existing code will
>clean your clock for you.

Then how did Sun move from the Sun 3 to the Sparc?  The Sparc doesn't
run 680X0 stuff at all.


Hmm... Does the 80386 run 4004 or 8008 code?

-- 
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
Some news readers expect "Disclaimer:" here.
Just say NO to police searches and seizures.  Make them use force.
(not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: rcc@zycor.lgc.com (Randal C. Clarke)
Subject: Looking for 640x480x16 drivers for VGA
Originator: rcc@oasis.zycor.lgc.com
Organization: Landmark/Zycor  (Austin TX)
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 20:04:41 GMT



  Hi folks,
    
     To make a long story short, I'd like to either write a 640x480x16 driver
with 4 frame buffers, or better yet; get a hold of the source to one.  While
looking over the borland .bgi files, I noticed that drivers exist for 
640x480x16 with 2 buffers; so it doesn't seem like a far-fetched idea to
be able to create one with 4 buffers as long as the VGA card has enough 
memory.  If anyone knows of where I can aquire this beast, or how I would
go about creating this, please let me know.

    I'm using Borland C/C++ 2.0 

    Thanks,
     Randy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Randal C. Clarke                                 Landmark Graphics Corporation
rclarke@zycor.lgc.com                               Programmer/Systems Support 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.mac.hardware
From: arsouth@watson.ibm.com (Andrew R. Southwick)
Subject: Re: Where the mac really wins
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 01:34:35 GMT
News-Software: IBM OS/2 PM RN (NR/2) v0.16 by O. Vishnepolsky and R. Rogers
Reply-To: arsouth@watson.ibm.com (Andrew R. Southwick)
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In <BzBLnq.1G0@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Iskandar Taib) writes:
>In article <ibhan.723754723@husc10> ibhan@husc10.harvard.edu (Ishir Bhan) writes:
>>I've
>>never seen a lock on the menu bar.  This just proves you don't know much
>>about the Mac.  Why don't you learn how to use one, use one for a while,
>>and then get back to us with a valid opinion.
>
>I'm beginning to wonder how often _you_ use macs. You've never seen the 
>tiny little padlock on the window bar? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

I'm not beginning to wonder how often Iskandar here uses Macs, I think I 
know.
There is a difference between the menu bar and the window bar.  Like there 
is no window bar- it's known as the title bar, and it does not (normally) 
have any menus hanging off it.
Yes, that tiny little padlock hangs on document windows, not up in the menu 
bar.

Could you contain yourself to posting less than 20 messages a day?  If you 
want to say that much, could you put it in fewer notes? 

>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Iskandar Taib                          | The only thing worse than Peach ala

"The 1980's were the me generation. The 1990's are the me-too generation."
                               - G. Donald Moncreaff
--------------------------------------------------------------
My views are my own; behaviorists can stick THAT up their ***!
Andrew R. Southwick
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: jching@watnow.uwaterloo.ca (John Y. Ching)
Subject: Re: Contacting ATI via email
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 02:38:12 GMT

In article <BL9RVB4w165w@cibbs.UUCP> root@cibbs.UUCP writes:
>Just to let everyone know, you can reach ATI's Customer Support via email. Use
>the following address -
>
>ATI Customer Support via email:
>
>74740.667@compserve.com
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Mark
>
>----
>Club InSaNiTy BBS   |   BBS:+1 416 691 0679 |   root@cibbs.UUCP
>DataSoft Consulting | Voice:+1 416 691 5529 |   uunorth!cibbs!root
>Mark Buckaway       | Toronto, Ont. CANADA  |   1@4653 (WWIVnet)

Is the above address correct?  My mail just bounced.



-- 
 John Y. Ching (jching@watnow.waterloo.edu)     
 Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Group
 Department of Systems Design Engineering      
 University of Waterloo, Canada
From: nazareth@malibu.janet.ucla.edu (Sean F. Nazareth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: FastMicro Experiences
Date: 17 Dec 92 20:39:38 GMT
Organization: University of California at Los Angeles, EE Dept.

A friend of mine is interested in purchasing a FastMicro 486DX2/66 computer.
He is looking for any feedback from those of you in netland who might have
had some experience with this vendor.  He would especially like some feedback
on the quality, picture of their advertised 14" edge to edge picture monitor.
Could anyone with this monitor post the dimensions of the displayed picture.


Please email replies to nazareth@janet.ucla.edu

Thanks in advance,

Sean

PS.  I will summarize if interest is shown
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: smw@sage.cgd.ucar.edu (Steve Welch)
Subject: Re: Diamond Speedstar 24 vs Diamond Stealth
Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR Boulder, CO
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 03:34:46 GMT


Just a warning on the Diamond Speedstar 24X:  The Windows 3.1 drivers that
they supply with the board don't seem to work in some pretty ordinary
configurations.  I tried to install Word for Windows and kept getting
GPF's until I went back to the Microsoft VGA driver (suggested by Diamond
tech support).  After the install, I put back their drivers, but no luck--
it would still crash and burn every once and a while on my 486/33 clone
(especially while printing to my LaserJet III w/Postscript).  Their tech
support was useless and infuriating, to wit--"We know about the problem, but
we didn't write the drivers... No, we don't know when it will be fixed...
No, we won't call you when it is fixed...  No, we won't FedEx the fix to 
you when it is done...  We will mail it to you US mail."  

They WERE gravely offended when told that this was Bullshit, and told me
to send the product back for a full refund.  I don't think they were willing
to pay me for the time I spent verifying that their product doesn't work,
though.

But I'm not bitter...
 
---
Steve Welch    <smw@sage.cgd.ucar.edu>    Voice: 303-530-2661
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO  USA
also: Complex Systems Research, Niwot, CO   Fax: 303-581-9820
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: obrien@venus.ycc.yale.edu
Subject: CMOS disk ID for Talon drive on Tandon machine?
Organization: Yale Computer Center (YCC)
Date: 16 Dec 92 15:42:54 EDT

I have installed a 120 Mb Talon IDE drive in a Tandon machine.  However, I
don't know what the CMOS drive table for that machine is, so for now I have
the disk defined as type 9 (112Mb using the "standard" IBM drive tables).  I'd
really like to make use of the extra 8Mb.  Since this is a laptop machine (I
can get away with the extra power of this drive since I don't run the backlit
LCD at all - I have an external monitor) the custom setting seems not to be
available.  On the assumption that all Tandon BIOSes are similar, can I ask
some kind soul to e-mail me the CMOS drive number for such a drive?  I believe
it's 918 cylinders, 15 heads, 120Mb.  By the way, I tried the numbers which
would be appropriate in the case of a Phoenix or an Award BIOS, to no avail.

Thanks in advance.
========================================================================
OBRIEN@YALEVMS                Jim O'Brien, Dept. of Chem. Engrg.
OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU     Yale University             
                              2159 YS, New Haven CT 06520, U.S.A.
                              +1 203 432 4382 (days)
========================================================================
From: josephc@cco.caltech.edu (Joseph Chiu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: AMD rubbish????
Date: 18 Dec 1992 07:52:53 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu

rvuori@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Rasmus Vuori) writes:

>Actually I'm running my 486-33 at this moment without the external cache -
>and norton sysinfo 6.0 gives me 72 times the speed of an pc/xt, the same it
>gives with most other 486-33 with the cache on i've used.

The problem with this is that Norton's SI fits nicely in the 486's internal
cache.   Try running memory intensive software (flight simulators such
as Flight Sim and Falcon, or UNIX or OS/2).  You'll notice the difference.

-- 
Joseph Chiu, Dept. of Computer Science, Caltech.    josephc@coil.caltech.edu
1-57 California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91126. +1 818 449 5457 
*    Now running OS/2, Windows, DOS, and UNIX (okay, well, maybe not...)   *
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: sasbnb@diesel.unx.sas.com (Brian Barnes)
Subject:  Boca Research 24-bit true color VGA
Originator: sasbnb@diesel.unx.sas.com
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:04:42 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Keywords: Boca Research 24-bit true color VGA


Howdy hardware hounds,

I recently purchased a Boca Research 24-bit true color VGA board for my
PC. It does Windows nicely at 1024 X 768 X 256. I have wanted to try
some true color fractals on it and I need an assembler function that
can be called from a C program with the form:

    int putpuxel(int x, int y, unsigned char red, unsigned char green, 
        unsigned char blue);


Alternately, would it be possible to map the video RAM into my
PC's address space so as to be able to do Warp Speed direct video 
writes?

Is there anybody at Boca Research on the news reader?
(This project would be a GREAT PROMOTIONAL TOOL!)

Thanx, and Merry Christmas,

        Brian P. Barnes (Mad Scientist at large)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: berger@atropa (Mike Berger)
Subject: Re: AMD rubbish????
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 18:08:17 GMT

ken@sugra.uucp (Kenneth Ng) writes:
>In article <1992Dec8.093121.89@roads.sa.gov.au: wilsonn@roads.sa.gov.au writes:
>:I'm thinking of buying a PC, either a AMD386DX40 or an Intel 486SX25 - 33. I've
>:been told that the AMD chip is unreliable and would appreciate some feedback.
>:Comments on relative speed between the machines also would be helpful. 

>If the AMD chip did not perform completely like an Intel, you would see Intel
>plastering that all over their advertisements.
*----
AMD is using actual Intel microcode in their 386 line.  Nonetheless
I opted for the 33 MHz Intel CPU because I wanted a genuine Intel
math coprocessor, and they are only available up to 33 MHz.  But
there's nothing wrong with AMD CPU chips.
--
	Mike Berger
	Internet    berger@atropa.stat.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: knw7719@ultb.isc.rit.edu (K.N. Waterman)
Subject: two video cards on one PC
Originator: knw7719@ultb
Reply-To: knw7719@ultb.rit.edu ()
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 01:03:31 GMT

Hello,

I need some info on how video cards are addressed in clones.
Can I put two video cards (either the same or different) in one
computer?  What can I expect.

What about color or mono??

Has anyone experienced this type of problem.

I need to show the same screen on two monitors?
any help at all would be nice

Thanks in advance,

Ken W.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: joy@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Chien-Chung Chen)
Subject: Re: Should WD Caviar 2200 be noisy?
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 12:15:42 GMT

In article <By0725.5M1@cs.uiuc.edu> tgao@cs.uiuc.edu (Tong Gao) writes:
>I just bought a new Western Digital Caviar 2200(212mb) hard drive. It makes
>big noise when the head is moving comparing with my old Western Digital 2100.
>Also, when I use Norton Utility to check the disk, I found initially I can
>hear some (week) sound coming out of disk. After half of the disk is checked,
>the sound disappears. Since I do not know anything about this drive, could
>somebody tell me if all these things should happen with this drive? Also, in
>general, is this a good drive? Thank you very much.
>
>Tong
>tgao@cs.uiuc.edu

When I ordered my PC, it came with a Maxtor 7213A (213mb). Later I returned
it because of the stability problem and got a WD 2200. WD 2200 is a very
fast HD, in terms of both seek time and transfer rate. Yes, it's a little
bit loud when the head switches track. But overall I'm satisfied with it
now that I'm used to the sound it makes.

Unlike yours, my WD 2200 is making consistent sound when the head moves.
Also one of my friends has the same HD and the same noise. I'm not sure
if it is a good sign for your HD to have the noise disappear sometimes.

-- Chien-Chung Chen
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: Dave Filpus <filpus@bnr.ca>
Subject: Re: Pros & Cons of switching to SCSI for a PC.
Organization: BNR
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 13:35:11 GMT

From: Mahesh Bagade, c23mkb@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com
In article <1992Dec15.134452.4165@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com> Mahesh Bagade,
c23mkb@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com writes:
>Hi Netters!
>
>I am planning to purchase a pc and hence I am involved in some research
>as to what I should be looking for.
>
>Can gurus on the net give me an idea of what SCSI is and it's pros &
Cons?
>All I know is that, it is an interface which will provide multiple
expansion
>slots.
SCSI is a parallel interface designed by an ANSI committee, starting with
Shugart's SASI interface, back in 1984.  It was designed to facilitate
interoperability of devices by multiple vendors.  It allows up to eight
devices on a single cable, including the host computer.  It allows data
exchange rates up to 5 Megabytes/second between devices.  It has a
command structure that requires a certain amount of intelligence in the
device.

>
>Are there any standards?
Plain vanilla SCSI is ANSI standard X3.131-1986.  There are newer
flavors, SCSI-2 is in the publishing process.  SCSI-3 is in the
committee, ANSC X3T9.2. 

>It is widely supported?
It is very widely supported.  There are whole classes of devices for
which SCSI is the only supported interface.  There are many SCSI disks. 
The problem is that the controller is not built into PC's (as it is in
Mac's and PS/2's), so there is an extra controller cost. 

>Are there any compatibility problems?
The idea of SCSI was to eliminate compatibility issues.   SCSI-1 allowed
too many vendor options.  SCSI-2 is better.  There are problems with
cabling and termination which plague the interface to this day.  Both Mac
and PS/2 use nonstandard cables and termination.  However, with a little
intelligent engineering by the vendors and good support, you will find
that SCSI devices will be compatible with each other.   

>Will I face any problems in future?
As in any technology, your SCSI devices will be outmoded, but your SCSI
controller should not be.  It should be posssible to just buy a larger or
faster device compatible with your SCSI controller.    There will be
devices built that will require SCSI-2 or SCSI-3, so you may want to
upgrade your controller in the future.

>
>Thanks for all the responses in advance....
>
>Mahesh
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