Computers
by Gary Mattingly

Looking back at Skug 10 (or was it Skug 9) I notice my comments on buying a new computer, a 386, and dealing with everything associated with moving from typing a fanzine on a typewriter, even if it was an IBM Selectric, and making copies with a mimeograph to typing it into a word processor and making copies with a photocopier. We just recently gave the 386 away to a friend. The HP LaserJet II printer is still working although I think I need to replace a fan (at least I think that's what the noise is). I did add some RAM to the printer and replaced a hard drive, added RAM and added a 3.5 inch floppy drive to the 386.

Things change and about two or three years ago we bought a 486-DX 66 with a 17-inch SVGA monitor from a mail order company called Zeos in Minnesota. I thought I had a hard drive that would be more than sufficient for a while, a whole 400 MB. Now I keep having to clean it off. 8 MB of RAM seemed sufficient too. Last year I upgraded to 32 MB. Things work much better now. I do believe the EISA bus was a mistake although my alternative at the time was a VESA local bus. PCI wasn't around then. It does have a SCSI controller card but now there's SCSI II. If I add another hard drive, it will be SCSI. All the new hard drives with SCSI use SCSI II. Hopefully I can get one that is backwards compatible. If it is, I won't have to upgrade to SCSI II, yet. I did purchase an HP ScanJet 4C, which is how various photos and artwork were transferred into this issue. It has its own SCSI I/O card although it could also be plugged into a preexisting SCSI card. My Zeos PC also has a 2X CD ROM. Patty never could get Myst to play on that machine. I don't know whether it was the CD ROM, the driver, the SCSI card or just insufficient RAM.

We bought a new computer for Patty in 1995. She had been using the 386. Again I think we have enough room on the hard drive and enough RAM but we shall see. The new one is from Micron in Boise, Idaho. They're one of the few US companies that continued manufacturing DRAM when Japan dropped their prices and took over most of the DRAM market. (Hopefully someone will correct me on this point if I don't have it quite right. I don't exactly memorize semiconductor history.) They bought out Zeos by the way. This one has a 120-MHz Pentium with a PCI bus. It has a 17 inch SVGA monitor too. It also has a 1.6 GB EIDE hard drive and 32 MB of RAM. It was loaded with Windows 95 and so far Win 95 hasn't caused us any problems. The 486 still runs Windows 3.1 and will stay there at least until I add another hard drive to it. I loaded the Norton 95 stuff on it. Norton is still more intrusive than Patty likes but it's not as extreme as Norton Desktop, which I use. I even had the Stealth 64 videocard loaded with 4 MB of VRAM. That probably was overkill but I'm trying to play it safe. It has a Creative Labs Soundblaster with AWE card and Altec Lansing speakers. Patty's new PC also has a 4X CD ROM and she has completed Myst on it. It is a rather fast machine.

At the moment I'm typing this on a Toshiba T4850CT portable machine while I watch the 49ers/RAMS game the weekend after Thanksgiving. This one isn't ours. It's from work but pretty much for my use now It has a 75-MHz 486, 32 MB RAM and an 800 MB hard drive. This seems amazing considering its small size.

Also, communications have changed. I started with a 2400 baud modem. Now we have two 14,400 baud modems. Earlier this year we had ISDN brought to the house and the 486 has an Intel SecureLink card (with an NT1 daughter board added by Surf Communications I believe). It is quite fast but that's part of the reason my hard disc keeps filling up. We have an ISDN connection to the internet through Surf. When you consider cruising with Netscape, checking out all of the Usenet groups with Free Agent, and needing to have all these various other programs for playing and viewing as many different formats as possible, RAM and disk space get used up fast. In addition, I have these programs for ftp'ing (which I do use), gopher, archie, WAIS, (I'm just starting to try to use the last three), etc.

Add to this the fact that the latest issue of Skug came out in print form and as a Web page. Currently I'm using Hot Dog as an HTML editor but I still need to add many things in manually. Then there's the various GIFs I either created through scanning or changing/capturing through either Lview or Paint Shop Pro. Memory, memory. No wonder I have a hard time remembering everything. I don't get upgraded every couple of years, actually I think I get down graded continuously. Where are the memory enhancing drugs when you need them.

So what's the point of this little article? Just that many changes have happened since Skug 9 or 10. Obviously the changes didn't just happen with me. Electronics and communications have changed and become faster. Now you can get email reports and direct satellite TV transmission straight from cities in Bosnia (and many other places) where people are being killed over race and religion. Such advances.