Rich's Ramblings
By Rich Schinnell
Installation Hardships
What a day of aggravation! I thought it would be neat to set up a new hard disk with a new copy of Windows 3.1 and DOS as well as add my network, CD-ROM, and sound card drivers. This way I could start afresh and see how bloated my \WINDOWS and \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directories had become. I am in a unique situation as I have a removable C drive slot on my computer and can power off and replace the C drive with one of three (3) different 200MB drives. (This way I don't have to change the CMOS settings.) Each of the three drives are identical.
I FDISKed one of the drives to delete all the old partition stuff with OS/2 Warp (sorry, Rod Wright and Richard Biffl). I promise to give it another try, but I had too much trouble with my Iomega ZIP drive not being correctly recognized under Warp.
I booted a clean DOS 6.2 disk in the A drive and correctly formatted the C drive with the system files on it. I then did a Windows install. But wait, I forgot to tell you, I purchased a Microsoft Bus mouse, installed on IRQ 5 so that I could have both communications ports free for testing comm programs. Of course, I had a lot of problems getting Windows to recognize the MS bus mouse. Windows 3.1 kept thinking my Hayes modem on COM1: was a serial mouse. But I finally figured out a way to trick Windows and DOS to recognize my bus mouse. What I did was attach a serial mouse to COM port 1 and then go through the installation of the bus mouse software. I also ended up editing the MOUSE.INI and SYSTEM.INI files. What a pain.
Then I installed my Novell network drivers, CD-ROM drivers, and the sound card drivers (Pro-Audio 16). More about that later. . . .
Internet Phone
I was hoping to be able to set this all up to use an exciting new product I just purchased. It is called Internet Phone (a $59 software package available from VocalTec; tel: 201-768-9400; fax: 201-768-8893).
IPHONE allows you to converse in real time voice mode over the Internet. (One way at a time for now.) You either have to have a SLIP/PPP account or a pseudo one via the TIA program (that we have on cpcug.org). IPHONE, coupled with your Sound Blaster compatible card and a microphone actually works over the Internet. I have had real time conversations with people in Paris, France, all over the USA, and quite a few nice conversations with our friends in Australia. The Melbourne PC User Group has asked me to speak during their general meeting on the 7th of June. We are going to try to make it real time by using the Internet Phone connection. I'll let you know more later on whether it was successful since I have to get this article to our slave driving editor by the 4th of June. Deadlines, you know. . . .
The Woes Continue
Well back to my travails with the new installation. The DOS, Windows and network software all installed quite easily. I then tried the sound software, and it was reminiscent of my experiences with the bus mouse software. I got into trouble with everything I tried. It is sure disconcerting to listen to your speakers scream at you when loading Windows and lock up with a buzz when trying to exit Windows. I finally figured out how to edit the .INI files properly to get rid of the opening and closing sounds.
A less hardy person would have given up at this time. Not Rich; I sometimes am a bit on the stubborn side, and now that I am retired, I'm even more determined to not let this computer stuff get the best of me.
That's the nice thing about removable C drives: I can always go back to one of the other configurations that work. With the price of 512MB hard disks around $150 at our local CompUSA, the removable disks are even more valuable. Some of you can guess how much I love the new Iomega ZIP 100MB removable drives. The Parallel port version is a support person's dream. Only $199 at popular stores, if you can find them.<G>
I've been testing the transfer rates of the SCSI interface ZIP drive attached to my Pentium by copying from my Novell server. Around 427K/sec., which is around 25.6MB/min., versus the Parallel port version on a 386-40 which checks out at around 102K/sec. or 6.1MB/min. Not bad for a portable drive. And the Bernoulli 3½" cartridges are priced around $16 for 100MB ones.
The bottom line reason for all this is that eventually, I will be upgrading this new disk to the latest version of Windows 95. I am at build version 480 as of today, the 2nd of June. Each week or so Microsoft comes out with a new version to Windows 95 Beta. I have not yet figured out how to install Windows 95 on a disk without Windows already installed, but I am about ready to give it a go. Back on track, I can empathize and understand some of our members' aggravation with Windows and installing programs. I sure hope that Plug-and-Play will solve some of this. P.P.S. on this: I just received build 484 for Windows 95 (June 2, 1995). Go figure. . . .
BBS Frontends
I received some mail from a company that advertises a communications program for BBS operators which allows sysops to give the program to people so that their BBSs can be called easily.
What a disappointment! The program has hardcoded in it a phone number for only one BBS; you can't change it, and on top of that, It places icons and files in your Windows directory without your permission. Now how would you like to have a communications program that you can only dial the phone number that's hardcoded into the .EXE? And messed around with your Windows directory as well? Even the AOL and Prodigy programs give you the option of changing modem strings and phone numbers.
I have enough trouble with Windows getting messed up without some strange program adding things without my permission. Guess where that disk went? I'll probably get some flack for mentioning this, but I can stand the heat on this junk.
Coaxial Modems
I am really excited about the prospects of the new Coaxial modems; these should start showing up the latter part of this year. These will allow you to connect up to your cable TV cables. The increased speed possible (around 10 megabits) should really open up the communications world. No more wondering about how to set up the AT commands on your analog modem. These should be digital and should be much more reliable than the analog modems we all know and love so well. But I bet the price will be out of sight for those of us who will have to have one in order to be on the bleeding edge.
Rich Schinnell is retired from the USN and Vitro Corporation. He does a bit of consulting on the side now that he has more free time. He is the president of Capital PC User Group and has been a stalwart supporter almost since day one. He can be reached voice at (301) 949-9292, the Internet at schinnel@cpcug.org, and on the Members Information eXchange BBS at (301) 738-9060. He is also in the CPCUG offices in Rockville on a sporadic basis assisting the office staff. He writes this column to vent his computer frustrations. This month, he really rambled. . . .
Permission for reproduction in whole or in part is hereby granted to other non-profit and computer user groups for internal, non-profit use, provided credit is given to the Capital PC Monitor and to the author(s) of the reproduced material, and attribution of copyright is included.
Permission is also granted for posting on electronic bulletin board systems, provided credit is given to the Capital PC Monitor and to the author(s) of the reproduced material, and the files are made available in their entirety, without alteration, including this notice.
All other reproduction, other than for personal use, without the prior written permission of the Capital PC User Group is prohibited.
Unless specifically stated, opinions expressed in any article or column are those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily represent an official position or endorsement of the Capital PC User Group.
Capital PC User Group, Inc.
Plaza East Two
51 Monroe Street
Rockville, Maryland 20850
MIX BBS: (301) 762-9060 (10 Hayes v.34 modems)
Voice Response: (301) 762-6775
Office: (301) 762-9372