Upgrades from Hell

Installing CD-ROM drives and graphics accelerator cards turns into pitched battles between Jerry and the Chaos Manor computers

Jerry Pournelle

I've been told that my best columns happen when I've had a whole lot of problems. That ought to make this one a doozy. I've been tearing my hair out for a week. All's more or less well now, but I sure have a lot to tell you.

It all started when I asked Alex to install ATI Technologies' CD Sound Dimension Multimedia Upgrade Kit in SuperCow, our Gateway 2000 486DX2 with local-bus video. It's fast and reliable. It sits on a computer cart, making it nearly ideal as a test-bed for new equipment. Alex installed the full-length sound and CD-ROM controller board, but he noted there were no mounting rails for the CD-ROM drive, so he didn't unpack that. He did get the sound b oard working, and pretty soon Chaos Manor was filled with the sounds of Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Spock, generated by Berkeley Systems' After Dark screen saver, and a screwy program called Icon Hear It.

I have reports from sound experts that the ATI sound board is not quite 100 percent compatible with Sound Blaster Pro, but it has played all the sounds, including games, that we've tried with it, and we've had no problems. I can suggest one improvement. The board has an option to connect the sound output of your system to the board, where you have volume control, but to do that you must disconnect the internal speaker, which means that you must have an external speaker connected to the board or you'll get no sound at all. I wish they'd set it up so the internal speaker is activated when you unplug the external speakers. Other than that, the ATI board is quite acceptable, and it's easy to set up.

Mind you, no sound board has as good quality for the money as Turtle Beach Systems' MultiSound. Unfortunately, it's for Windows only, and it won't play the sounds used by just about all the game designers. If you're serious about sound, get the MultiSound. Incidentally, it will coexist quite nicely with the ATI board or Sound Blaster Pro, but you have to be a real sound fanatic to go that route.

The ATI CD-ROM drive didn't need any mounting rails. When I unpacked the Mitsumi-labeled Matsushita drive, I found it comes in a little metal cage that replaces mounting rails; it makes a snug fit, but it's easy to install in the half-height bay that's below SuperCow's floppy drives. I like the drive design a lot: you press on the drive face and the whole thing slides out. Open a lid on top and drop in your CD; no caddy needed. I've always had mixed emotions about those caddies. If CD-ROMs came in them, it would be different; but no, CD-ROMs are shipped in jewel boxes, and you have to provide the caddies yourself. I have never been able to open a caddy without a fight. Anyway, the ATI system doesn't use t hem.

There's only one way the CD cable will attach to the drive, so that was no problem. Alas, it's quite possible to attach the cable the wrong way to the sound board. Fortunately, the installation diagrams show where pins 1 and 2 are on both drive and board, and once I noticed that, all was well.

The software installation is pretty simple, but I found one subtle problem, which I'll explain in just a minute. There's a place to set the start-up configuration, and Alex had set the CD-ROM drive to disable. Enabling it is easy enough, but when you do, the board can't find that CD-ROM drive until you power down and turn the machine back on. Meanwhile, you can set the interrupt channel (i.e., IRQ [interrupt request] number) and I/O port addresses for the CD-ROM drive. That's all explained quite well in the ATI manuals, but the screen setup is simple enough that you probably won't look into the manual at all.

I set things up, powered down, noted that the CD-ROM light flashed when the machine po wered up, and tried to access the CD-ROM drive. "Drive not ready." I reset the machine and tried again. Same thing. Time for some logic.

First thing, eliminate any distractions. SuperCow had the Maximum Storage Duette optical drive running off a Future Domain SCSI board; eliminate that and comment out the software device installations in CONFIG.SYS. Reset. Still no joy.

Next, cables: I disconnected the cable from the ATI board, liberally spread on Stabilant 22 (a connection enhancer), and connected again. Reset. This time it worked. Now enter Windows for Workgroups 3.11, go to File Manager, and access the CD-ROM drive. The system locked up to hardware reset.

Clearly some kind of conflict, probably in the interrupt processing: each of these devices must be assigned a unique IRQ number. The sound board was set to IRQ 7. There were several possibilities for the CD-ROM drive, but the default was IRQ 5, and I saw no reason to change it. Now to look at the network board. That's an Intel EtherEx press, and it's examined and set with a simple-to-use Intel program called SoftSet. SoftSet told me that, sure enough, the network board was set to use IRQ 5, the same as the ATI board was using for the CD-ROM drive.

The subtle bug I mentioned earlier is that the ATI software will warn you if you try to change to an interrupt line that's already in use, but it doesn't notice if the default IRQ creates a conflict when you first activate the board. Anyway, I told SoftSet to change EtherExpress to use IRQ 10. Then I did extensive tests of the CD-ROM drive under DOS. No problem, so bring up Windows for Workgroups. The system again locked up to hardware reset.

Maybe, I thought, I needed to power down the system after changing the EtherExpress settings. I tried that, made sure I could get the directory on the CD-ROM drive, and brought up Windows for Workgroups again. That came up fine. Go to File Manager and try to access the CD-ROM drive. System locks up.

By then it was quite late at night. I reset, noted that I could get a CD-ROM directory when in DOS, left the machine logged to the CD-ROM drive, fired off an angry fax to ATI Technologies' technical-support staff, and went to bed.

I was awakened at 0700 by the telephone. A flack representing the Dithering and Redundancy Corporation had got my telephone number and called to find out if I'd received their product. When I pointed out that it was 0700, she was apologetic. "I didn't know it was your home number," she said.

"No, but you knew it was my private line. Do you know how many products I get every day? If the flacks representing those products were all to call to see if I got them, I would never get any writing done," I said. "Let me tell you about a wonderful invention called E-mail. It lets you send messages to people through computers. You do know what a computer is?"

I may have been unduly harsh--I don't guarantee that I'll be either civil or coherent at 0700 after fighting an installation problem all night--but someone in her firm ought to have had better sense. I sometimes suspect these PR flacks get paid by the "contacts" they make, even though few of their messages warrant the urgency of a telephone call. Anyway, that's how the day started.

Rick Osborne of ATI Technologies' technical-support staff called about 10:00 a.m. I hauled the phone over to SuperCow. It was still running, but it would no longer access the CD-ROM drive. That was suspicious. I reset the machine, logged on to the CD-ROM drive and got a directory, went into Windows for Workgroups, and locked the machine when I tried to access the CD-ROM drive. Reset. Use the ATI installation program to be sure of the settings: sound board at IRQ 7, CD-ROM drive at IRQ 5. Now use SoftSet to check the network board. It was set to IRQ 5.

I was absolutely certain I had set that to IRQ 10. I set it to IRQ 10 again. Still in DOS, I accessed the CD-ROM drive; it worked fine. Enter Windows for Workgroups. Machine locks to hardware reset. Reset. Now I can bring u p Windows for Workgroups, but going to File Manager and trying to access the CD-ROM drive locks the machine. Reset. Use SoftSet--and find that EtherExpress is set to IRQ 5 again.

Something is real weird, folks. OK, use SoftSet to set EtherExpress to IRQ 10 again; and this time get out all eight floppy disks and install Windows for Workgroups again. Tediously I swapped disks. Finished. Powered down and then back up. Can't enter Windows for Workgroups. Reset. Now I can enter, but accessing the CD-ROM drive locks up the machine--and EtherExpress is set to IRQ 5.

The conclusion is clear: the evil Microsoft daemon inside Windows for Workgroups 3.11 is resetting EtherExpress, and it's doing that without telling me. The first remedy was to leave EtherExpress at IRQ 5 and change the CD-ROM drive to IRQ 10. That worked just fine, so I let Rick Osborne, who had been patiently listening as I went through all this, go back to work.

The problem is that to change the network settings for Windows for Wor kgroups, you have to be inside Windows. Invoking Setup in DOS lets you change video drivers, but not network card settings. However, when Alex got home, he reminded me of something I had forgotten. If you're running Windows for Workgroups, you can access Windows without the network: simply invoke it with WIN /N.

Once you're in Windows, you have available all the controls, including a new program group that Windows for Workgroups 3.11 automatically installs for you. Inside it are some neat tools that include a Network Setup icon; open that, use the drivers button to open a second window, use the setup button to pop up yet another box, and lo!, there is the EtherExpress IRQ setting.

I did all that and changed that setting to IRQ 10. Immediately I got a warning box: IRQ 10 was in use. Interesting, I thought: this part of the program is smart enough to detect interrupt clashes. I told it to use IRQ 10 anyway. Then I exited Windows and went to the ATI Setup program to set the ATI CD-ROM board from IR Q 10 back to IRQ 5. Once again I got a warning box: IRQ 5 was in use, as of course it was since I hadn't changed the network board; and once again I ignored the warning.

Then I tried to enter Windows for Workgroups again. As expected, the system locked up. Power down. Power back up. Test the CD-ROM drive in DOS. Worked perfectly. Enter Windows for Workgroups. No problem. Access the CD-ROM drive: still no problem, not then, and not later.

The conclusion is clear: the ATI software worked fine, but Windows for Workgroups will reset your network board interrupt without checking for clashes--and without telling you what it did. This is an evil bug masquerading as a feature, and we can hope that Microsoft will exorcise it as soon as possible.

As for the CD Sound Dimension Multimedia Upgrade Kit, if you can get one at a good price, you'll probably be happy with it. The ATI sound board is good enough, although in my judgment Sound Blaster Pro is better. The ATI CD-ROM drive is definitely better th an the single-speed CD-ROM drives in Creative Labs' early multimedia kits. However, Creative Labs' new Sound Blaster multimedia kits have modern two-speed drives, too, and I'm told they have genuine SCSI rather than the proprietary almost-SCSI the original kits had; more on that next month.

ATI gives you a couple of CD-ROM discs of shareware, most of it not very interesting, nothing like the mountain of software you get with Creative Labs' multimedia upgrade.

The bottom line is that ATI's CD Sound Dimension Multimedia Upgrade Kit is easily installed and is configurable with easy-to-understand software--no jumpers to set. It gives pretty good sound, and the CD-ROM drive is fast and reliable. I'd look at the competition, but if you can get an ATI kit at a good price, go for it; it's more than good enough.

When you get your CD-ROM drive set up, use Norton Speedrive. It does a great job of speeding up a CD-ROM drive. I also recommend it over Microsoft's SmartDrive even if you don't have a CD-R OM drive, but there it's not so clear. Windows 3.1 looks at your drive controller and, if it's suitable, offers a 32-bit disk access mode. You can turn that on from the control panel. In the control panel, open the enhanced button (the one that looks like a computer chip); in that, open virtual memory and click on the change button. If you're offered the option of 32-bit disk access, take it.

Fair warning: be sure you have a good backup of your WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files before you do this. I don't know anyone who has got locked out using this (other than the frazzled Alex), but caution is always wise.

If you're running Windows for Workgroups and you've upgraded to version 3.11, you may be offered a second option, 32-bit file access. If you click on that, you'll also be offered the chance to specify a cache size. Mine wants 4 MB, which speeds things up but is silly; on the other hand, cutting that to 512 KB doesn't seem to speed things. I found that 1 MB gives all the improvement I'm going to get.

These 32-bit accesses work with SmartDrive, and they do speed things up. I haven't had a chance to test them with Speedrive, so I don't even know if that will work at all, much less show a speed improvement. More next month.

Once we had the CD Sound Dimension Multimedia Upgrade Kit installed in SuperCow, we played with new CD-ROMs. The first was Microsoft Musical Instruments. The blurb on this says, "You are about to enter one of the largest music studios in the world, filled with instruments from every corner of the earth--and you can play any one you want."

That's all sort of true. From a harpsichord to five kinds of bagpipes to panpipes to a darabukka, it's all there. It's all hypertext-linked, with pictures of the instruments, their history, explanations of the various parts, sound recordings of the instrument in action--often in several ways, like jazz, classical, and rock--and the Sound Box, which lets you click on different notes and hear the result. Clicking on different notes isn't really the same as being able to play the instrument, just as seeing a picture isn't the same as being able to handle the thing.

Still, Alex and I found ourselves wasting a couple of hours fooling with this, and this CD-ROM is definitely a keeper. Any music teacher or music librarian would be thrilled to get this as a Valentine Day present.

Another CD-ROM we looked at was the "improved" Windows version of Library of the Future, 2nd Edition. It's an improvement over the old DOS version of LOF, but it's not so much of an improvement that I'd bother to switch. It has a number of classic works. Lately, I find that reading books on-screen gives me a headache, so I don't do it much; on the other hand, some of the LOF books aren't readily available. If you're doing scholarly work, having the texts in electronic form for searches and comparisons is a real boon.

Finally, the Bureau of Electronic Publishing has a wonderful CD-ROM called Twain's World. This has everything Mark Twain wrote, bi ographical data, maps, historical background, sounds, and video; a Twain lover's delight. It's a lot more than just books on CD-ROM. Highly recommended.

The newest machine at Chaos Manor is an AST Research Bravo LP 4/33. (The LP stands for low profile.) The machine itself is 15 inches square by 3 1/2 inches high. I haven't had it long enough to get inside it, but I see on the back there are provisions for two slots. It also has two serial ports, a parallel port, and a mouse port. The video controller is an ATI Mach 32, and it's built in. I measure the monitor at 13 inches (they probably call it 14; I notice that monitor sizes include about half an inch of bezel on each side), and it's a good fast one capable of any screen resolution you like.

The Bravo LP 4/33 comes with MS-DOS 6 and Windows 3.1. It also comes with 4 MB of memory, which I think is a mistake. For better or worse, 4 MB just isn't enough memory for either Windows or OS/2. If, like me, you like to keep a bunch of programs open and re ady to use, 8 MB is a minimum, and I prefer 16 MB.

The Bravo LP 4/33 has only one floppy drive, 3 1/2 inches. There's no SCSI port, but several good sound cards have a genuine SCSI controller (as well as a game port), so adding tape and CD-ROM drives shouldn't be a problem. You can then use the other slot for a network board.

I like the little Bravo LP 4/33. This isn't a final report because I haven't had it long enough, but getting it did lead to more adventures.

One of the programs that impressed me at last fall's Comdex was called AnyView Screen Commander for Windows from Binar Graphics. This lets you change screen resolutions without having to restart Windows. It seemed like a great idea: jump from 640 by 480 pixels to 800 by 600 and on up, 1024 by 760, and in the extreme to 1280 by 1024, and do that as often as you like without ever having to exit and restart. It's got a bunch of other features, including a way to adjust your screen so that in your word processor 1 inch of text takes up 1 inch on-screen, thus giving you true WYSIWYG.

Since the Bravo LP 4/33 was so new that it hadn't any applications installed, it seemed like the ideal test-bed for AnyView. After all, the worst that could happen wouldn't lose me anything I couldn't replace easily.

Installation wasn't fun. First of all, the installation program demands your name and a company name, and you can't leave the company name blank. I solved that one by typing in "Blast your eyes" when it wanted to know what company. Then it demanded a serial number, which sent me scurrying around looking for the program's box in hopes that somewhere in that box I'd find the registration card with my serial number on it. Eventually I found it. It's a long thing, with several letters and a seven-digit number, and I assumed I'd got it right; the program never said. The installation trundled along and then reset the machine.

Alas, the Bravo LP 4/33 AUTOEXEC.BAT is set to bring the system up in Windows--and Windows was totally unus able. The cursor was a large black blob that left striped trails whenever I moved it. I couldn't even close Windows with the mouse.

This happened just after I'd spent hours on the phone over the multimedia upgrade problem, and I fear I was a little shrill when I called Binar Graphics. Their technical-support people told me there was an uninstallation program, so apparently there was going to be no problem getting things back. First, though, to get out of Windows. I punched the reset button.

Of course, their disk was in the 3 1/2-inch drive--and there is only one drive on the Bravo LP 4/33. I got the dreaded message that this was not a boot disk. One dreads this message because it is the most common method of virus infection, and even the most reputable publishers have distributed disks with a boot sector virus. In one case I know, a disgruntled employee at the place that manufactured disks was putting a boot sector virus on every thirty-fourth disk sent out.

Meanwhile, it was time to deal with AnyView. We managed to get it uninstalled. Then I installed it again, giving it slightly different information, and this time it worked. I was able to change screen resolutions on the fly without exiting Windows.

Alas, that doesn't turn out to be quite as useful a feat as I thought it was going to be. For one thing, if you change the number of colors, you'll still have to exit Windows. For another, it turns out one rarely wants to change screen resolution. Still, it does work, and I'll try it out on other machines when I've got more time.

Now, though, I had to check the machine for a virus. The only way to do that is to boot the machine with a write-protected floppy disk that has never been exposed to a virus; and, alas, I didn't have a known-clean 3 1/2-inch boot disk. The first thing, then, would be to make one; however, to do that, I had to boot SuperCow with a known-clean 5 1/4-inch disk and install the latest copy of Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit. It was about time I did that anyway .

Installing Dr. Solomon's is simple, and the program runs itself. Once it had checked SuperCow, I used SuperCow to make a 3 1/2-inch boot disk. Then I tried to pry out the little door that makes a 3 1/2-inch disk writable, but I couldn't do it, so I got some Duco Cement and glued that door open. Then I used the disk to boot the Bravo LP 4/33 and ran Dr. Solomon's. When you get Dr. Solomon's monthly updates, there are both 5 1/4- and 3 1/2-inch disks, so that was no problem.

I hadn't expected a virus, and naturally there wasn't one; but my rule is, if you get the "this is not a system disk" message, it's time to check the machine for a virus. It's unlikely you'll find one, but it doesn't hurt to be careful.

Now it was time to do some speed tests. I was eager to do that because I had just received a new copy of Texas Instruments' program Win Tachometer. This is a very neat benchmark program that simulates a number of practical applications: word processing, CAD, a spreadsheet, and a paint p rogram. It gives you a speed estimate for each of those tasks as well as an overall speed relative to a 486SX/20 with standard VGA. This program is freeware, and it can be obtained from BBSes, including the "listings" section of the tojerry conference on BIX.

I do not like most benchmark programs. Longtime readers will recall that I once wrote one of my own. Unlike most benchmarks current back then, mine was designed to simulate doing some practical work with the computer. Win Tachometer has the same philosophy, and I like it quite a bit.

I applied it to a number of machines. The table shows the results. Note that all the systems except the Bravo LP 4/33 are running Windows for Workgroups 3.11. The Bravo is running the latest version of Windows 3.1. Both Cheetah 486s have Intel OverDrive DX2 chips, as does SuperCow. In all cases unless otherwise noted, the only open application program is Win Tachometer.

You will note there are three entries for the Cheetah 486/33, and that the first one is astonishingly slow compared to all the others, including the Cheetah 486/25. It was the value I got when I first went around testing the various machines. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased: my main machine, the one I spend my life at, is the slowest of the lot.

A puzzlement. Clearly, the 486DX2/33 processor is as fast as SuperCow and faster than the 486/25. It wasn't likely to be the Perceptive Solutions caching controller; so it had to be the video card. On reflection that wasn't surprising. While I am quick to experiment with my other machines, I do not often make changes in Big Kat; so as improved video boards came in, they went to the other systems. Indeed, when I got out the records, I found that I was using one of the earliest ATI Technologies video accelerator boards, fully two years old (ancient in the Windows business), and the video drivers weren't much more recent. Time for a change, and fortunately I had a new ATI Technologies Graphics Ultra Pro accelerator board. I figured it wouldn't t ake long to install.

That didn't turn out to be the case.

I have often sworn to find and beat senseless the person who designed the IBM PC board-mounting system, and I have just renewed my vows. I have yet to change boards in a big machine without losing at least one screw down in the system and tearing the skin off one or more knuckles. Eventually I got the board in and powered up. No problems, so now it was time to install drivers.

ATI has a nifty installation program that guides you at every step, and there was no difficulty copying over and activating the Graphics Ultra Pro drivers; but when I tried to access Windows for Workgroups, the system locked up to hardware reset. This was serious, because the column was due, and this isn't a test-bed system, this is Big Kat, the machine I do all my work on. This was panicsville.

The ATI installation program has an uninstall, and if I'd been thinking I would have used that, but all I could think of was a line from the musical Li'l Abner: "Put 'em back, the way they was!" I took out the Graphics Ultra Pro accelerator board and put the old one back in, powered up, and while it worked just fine in DOS, I couldn't get into Windows. That forced a realization on me: while I write this column in Q&A Write, a DOS word processor, and I send it in with Procomm Plus 2.0, a DOS communications program, I would really hate it if I had to operate without Windows. Indeed, not only am I hooked on Windows, I'm hooked on Windows for Workgroups and easy networking. I like my system, with the six CD-ROM drives and a whole bunch of other assets available on demand.

Fortunately, there was a way to get back to where I was earlier in the day. I may do some silly things, but I'm not crazy. Before I made any changes at all to Big Kat, I did a complete backup to the Palindrome DAT (digital audiotape) drive. Restoration was a snap: I deleted the entire C:\WINDOWS directory and subdirectories, invoked Palindrome's Network Archivist, and issued the command TNARECOV .

Having said that, honesty compels a confession: it could have been that simple, but it wasn't. Instead, I fooled around with Palindrome's rather arcane command structure for a quarter of an hour and then in panic called Jeff Sloman, who often works with the Palindrome people. Alas, I was off by an hour on his time zone and woke him up. He was very nice about that, but he couldn't help, so I had to do the ultimate: I found the Palindrome manual. Much of that manual is no model of clarity, but one section, on how to restore an entire volume, is not only clear, but gently written in soothing language designed to produce calm. It told me to use TNARECOV, which I did. Fifteen minutes later all was well.

I fired off another fax to ATI Technologies and went to bed, disgruntled that Big Kat was still the slowest machine in the house. The next morning I talked to Jeff Sloman as well as the ATI technical-support people. They all told me the same thing: ATI makes wonderful hardware, but their drivers are perhaps not the best. Jeff put it more strongly: "When you get ATI boards, you join the driver-of-the-week club." Everyone agreed that the ATI board would work, but I should get the latest ATI drivers.

Those are available from the ATI BBS or from CompuServe. I don't currently have a CompuServe account, so there was nothing for it but to set the Demon Dialer to try to access the ATI BBS; after about 20 tries I got through. The BBS gives clear instructions, and soon I was downloading the newest driver file. There was a lot of line noise, so this took longer than I thought, but eventually I had it.

Once again I took out the old board and put in ATI Technologies' Graphics Ultra Pro. Then I installed the latest ATI Mach 32 drivers, accessed Windows, and found the machine locked up to hardware reset. This time, though, I ran the ATI uninstallation program. When I went to Windows Setup, I found there was no currently installed video driver. One of my choices was the ATI Ultra Pro 1024 by 768 driver. I selected that, entered Windows without any problem at all, and when I ran Win Tachometer, I got the results shown in the second entry for the Cheetah 486DX2/33. Pretty impressive, no?

As an epilogue, I spent an hour today with ATI Technologies' technical-support people in a futile effort to make the Mach 32 driver work with this system. Eventually we gave up, concluding that there's some conflict with Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I can live without the Mach 32 driver until they get that fixed; meanwhile, it's nice to see Big Kat up there in contention as the fastest machine in the house. This certainly wasn't bad for a 4-year-old computer.

Last-minute flash: the third entry is with the Graphics Ultra Pro with Mach 32 drivers, which I was able to install by turning off the 32-bit file access capability in Windows for Workgroups. I don't know why you must do this, and neither does ATI; but wow does it ever work.

Bottom line on Windows for Workgroups: if you use Windows and are contemplating networks, seriously consider it; and if you are already using Windows for Workgroups, by all means upgrade to version 3.11. The new version fixes many bugs and glitches, although, alas, it does not solve the problem of it locking up when doing long writes across the network to optical drives. I can read from optical drives, and short writes are no problem; but copying a large directory can do some very weird things. More on that another time.

Meanwhile, the panting sound punctuated with cries of wild triumph you may hear in the background is Alex celebrating. He now has Windows for Workgroups 3.11 working with Novell NetWare. Much more on that next month, along with a story from the front on Microsoft versus Novell.

The gadget of the month is Mouse Tamer. This is about the simplest thing you can imagine, a small plastic stand with a spring to hold up your mouse tail. It works wonders. I used to have mouse-tail problems every hour or so. Even when the desk is covered by a paper blizzard, I can no w reclaim my rodent. I cannot imagine how I ever lived without this thing. Recommended.

The game of the month remains MicroProse's Master of Orion, but do be sure to download the latest bug fix patches from GEnie or the MicroProse BBS. Master of Orion is a game of interstellar colonization, conquest, and diplomacy, and, if you like complex strategy games, you'll like this a lot.

Next month: Alex and the memory monster; the new Q&A for Windows; QEMM versus EMM386; Windows for Workgroups and NetWare; and a roundup of the usual suspects. It's a great life if you don't weaken.

For More Information

The AnyView Screen Commander for Windows ($69.95) lets you change screen resolutions without having to restart Windows. Contact Binar Graphics, Inc., 30 Mitchell Blvd., San Rafael, CA 94903, (415) 491-4182; fax (415) 491-1164.

I like the Bravo LP 4/33 (with 4 MB, $1467; with 8 MB, $1676; with 16 MB, $1885; 14-inch monitor, $402; 15-inch monitor, $517). Contact AST Research, Inc., 16215 Alton Pkwy., Irvine, CA 92718, (800) 876-4278 or (714) 727-4141; fax (714) 727-9355.

The CD Sound Dimension Multimedia Upgrade Kit ($399) is easily installed and configurable, with easy-to-understand software. It gives pretty good sound, and the CD-ROM drive is fast and reliable. Fortunately, when it was time to change the video accelerator board in Big Kat, I had a new Graphics Ultra Pro board ($499). Contact ATI Technologies, Inc., 33 Commerce Valley Dr. E, Thornhill, Ontario, Canada L3T 7N6, (905) 882-2600; fax (905) 882-2620.

Installing Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit (fo r DOS, 99 British pounds; for Windows, 125 British pounds; for OS/2, 149 British pounds) is simple, and the program runs itself. Contact S&S International, Ltd., Berkley Court, Mill St., Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire HP4 2HB, U.K., +44 442 877877; fax +44 442 877882.

The Library of the Future, 2nd Edition ($299) has a number of classic works on CD-ROM, some of which aren't readily available. If you're doing scholarly work, having the texts in electronic form for searches and comparisons is a real boon. Contact World Library, Inc., 12914 Haster St., Garden Grove, CA 92640, (800) 443-0238 or (714) 748-7197; fax (714) 748-7198.

MicroProse's Master of Orion ($59.95) is a game of interstellar colonization, conquest, and diplomacy. If you like complex strategy games, you'll like this a lot. Contact MicroProse, 180 Lakefront Dr., Hunt Valley, MD 21030, (410) 771-1151; fax (410) 771-1174.

The Microsoft Musical Instruments CD-ROM (PC and Mac versions, $79.95 each) has hypertext links, pictures of the instruments, explanations of the parts, sound recordings of the instruments in action, and the Sound Box, which lets you click on notes and hear the result. This CD-ROM is definitely a keeper. Contact Microsoft Corp., 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052, (800) 426-9400 or (206) 882-8080; fax (206) 883-8101.

A small plastic stand with a spring to hold up your mouse tail, Mouse Tamer ($4.95) works wonders. I cannot imagine how I ever lived without this thing. Contact American Business Concepts, 4400 Sunbelt Dr., Dallas, TX 75248, (800) 877-4797 or (214) 380-8724; fax (214) 407-9096.

No sound board has as good quality for the money as Turtle Beach's MultiSound ($599). If you're serious about sound, get this board. Contact Turtle Beach Systems, 52 Grumbacher Rd., York, PA 17402, (717) 767-0200; fax (717) 767-6033.

When you get your CD-ROM drive set up, use Norton Speedrive ($99). It does a great job of speeding it up. Contact Symantec Corp., 10201 Torre Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014, (800) 441-7234 or (408) 253-9600.

A wonderful CD-ROM called Twain's World ($39.95) has everything Mark Twain wrote and includes biographical data, maps, historical background, sounds, and video; a Twain lover's delight. It's a lot more than just books on CD-ROM. Highly recommended. Contact Bureau of Electronic Publishing, 141 New Rd., Parsippany, NJ 07054, (800) 828-4766 or (201) 808-2700; fax (201) 808-2676.

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Speeds Relative To 486SX/20

Win Tachometer on Jerry's machines. Higher numbers are better.


                         WORD
                      PROCESSING      CAD     SPREADSHEET    PAINT      OVERALL


Bravo LP 4/33            14.64       25.9        32.4        17.61       22.64
Cheetah 486/25           13          11.92       18.43       22.52       16.47
Gateway 486/33 DX2       19.09       16.48       36.19       33.02       26.20
Cheetah 386/25            0.45        0.65        0.71        0.62        0.61
Cheetah 486/33            9.42       17.45       17.9
2       12.13       14.23
Cheetah 486/33           17.76       18.32       27.34       35.79       24.30
Cheetah 486/33           20.37       32.76       38.60       44.37       34.02

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Jerry Pournelle holds a doctorate in psychology and is a science fiction writer who also earns a comfortable living writing about computers present and future. Jerry welcomes readers' comments and opinions. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Jerry Pournelle, c/o BYTE, One Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458. Please put your address on the letter as well as on the envelope. Due to the high volume of letters, Jerry cannot guarantee a personal reply. You can also contact him on the Internet or BIX at jerryp@bix.com .