April 18, 1994
Peter's Computer News, Copyright 1994
Sony Monitor
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The new Sony 17se monitor was a good-news bad-news story. The good news was that it is not normal for it to have the misconvergence problem in the upper right corner. It was also covered by warranty and I can get it fixed. The bad news is that it requires a special, computerized test station to do the repairs. This is only available at Sony factory repair centers. The nearest one to me is in Houston, TX!Since I can’t spare the monitor right now, I will wait to send it in for repairs. In the meantime, I have had very favorable reports about the Viewsonic 17 inch monitor. Perhaps I made an error in my selection. That is the problem with having to buy by mail.
My 15 inch MAG monitor is still waiting for parts. At this rate, it may be obsolete before I get it fixed.
Hijaak Pro
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Hijaak Pro arrived and has been having fits trying to operate under Windows NT. Number of calls to tech support helped only slightly. They are nice about it, and the calls are on a toll-free number. Trouble is, they don’t have NT at their shop and don’t see getting it any time soon. They admit to certain bugs in the software, but not as bizarre as what I have experienced.
Hijaak problems included slow operations, failure to complete a conversion, corrupting the 16 bit Windows subsystem, and producing null files. The Browser that comes with the package is also quite slow and does not work as nicely as a much simpler product from Power Up! software. The Power Up! picture album is part of the Calendar Creator Plus for Windows. Nice product.
Tech support for Hijaak suggested that I return the product for a refund. The only reason I am still considering keeping it, is that it does a number of picture format conversions which my other programs won’t do. However, Hijaak often produces corrupted output on those very conversions. No other program I have behaves this way! What to do?
Calendar Creator
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I had mentioned Calendar Creator Plus. The Windows version runs phenomenally faster than the DOS version I previously was using. This is quite contrary to most software packages. I suppose that the very graphic nature of the program lends itself to Windows well.
If you don’t mind having a copy of the program which is one revision behind, you can get Calendar Creator for only $9.95 plus shipping from Chip Soft, the Turbo Tax people. This shipping charges are a bit heavy at $6.50 for the first item, but if you buy several items it goes down to $2 each.
Networking
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I finally made a decision to install an ethernet network on my two home computers. This would enable me to share files with my wife'’s computer without playing floppy disk jockey. Also, it would simplify backing up the hard disks using my 4mm DAT tape system. And the last reason is that I would get a chance to practice in building a network!The decision to enter the world of networks came with the availability of low cost cards. Although I was able to get a particularly good deal at under $80 for two of them, the retail channel should see similar low prices before too long. You too may soon be networked.
I lost no time in installing the cards as soon as they arrived. One went into my NT computer and the other into Irene’s 386. She now has my old computer which has 4 Mbytes of RAM and is running MS-DOS 5 with Windows 3.1. Plan is to install WFW (Windows For Workgroups) on her machine. NT has networking built-in.
The cards I got were for thin coax cable and used software for configuration. No jumpers to change. These were Magitronic brand and were Novell NE2000 compatible. I worry whenever I see the word “compatible” but the price was right.
Troubles start on the NT machine when the DOS configuration software does not run under NT. The initial signon screen showed up, but the next screen was just a black void. Time to boot up to DOS to get the card configured. Since this is to be done only once on setup, it is not a large problem.
Second problem shows up. Configuration goes ok, but the test routine reports problems with the cable. Being a novice on ethernet, I thought it might work without a cable attached. Where is my cable? The garage has still not been completely unpacked from our move. Is it possible to get unpacked in less than two years?
At last I found my BNC cables. These were left over from when we had our Radio Shack dealership store, still in the original packaging. They are only 6 foot long cables, but I have two of them and I do have a male-male coupling to join them with.
I open the packages and discover that the cable is marked as RG59/U. Not a good number if you want 50 ohm networking cable. RG59 is the 75 ohm TV cable. I need RG58! Does this mean that we should not trust the low cost Taiwanese packages?
For a short run of 12 feet, I figure that I can get away with the 75 ohm stuff. Cable is installed but I still get an error message on the test routine. I postulate that perhaps a 50 ohm terminator is needed. I knew that a terminator is needed at the end of the line, but thought that for only a two computer link it was not needed.
Terminator is installed, but the error persists. I give up; time for a call to tech support. Oh, you need a terminator at each end of the cable. OK, I have a second terminator. I told you I was a novice at this thing. At least it is better that I learn it on my own instead of embarrassing myself at some installation I get called to!With both terminators installed, the test program reports everything is fine. I put the cases back on the computers and install the screws. Not a good idea you say? But the cards are software configurable. What can go wrong?
The NT machine recognizes the card, but reports that it can’t verify proper operation. I figure that it is just a part of the install messaging and continue. Since I don’t have WFW installed yet, I can’t try the network just now. At least I am getting there bit by bit.
I get a funny (meaning problems) message on the NT screen. Checking the NT activity log shows that there are several pages of errors reported. All of them have the same error - error in network device. Seems that on boot-up, NT checks the network card several times a second. Each time it tested, it had a failure and kept doing it till it got tired, I guess. NT works ok, but the error should not be there.Problems get worse. Irene asks, “what does parity error mean?” Why do you ask? Her computer screen is all blue with a message which says there was a memory parity error and the computer was locked up. This has never happened before, what gives.
I mumbled some sort of story about alpha particles hitting the RAM and that this sort of thing happens every couple of years. I don’t know if she believed me, but I was not sure of that explanation myself.
When a second, third and fourth parity error showed up, I knew something was wrong. It was time to remove the network card. Irene needed her computer to be reliable.
The card was removed and I was hoping that the problem would go away. I would rather try to figure out how a network card could cause memory parity errors than trying to fix a computer with a broken memory system.
A call to tech support gave a suggestion to change the I/O address for the cards. Although I had checked for conflicts before I configured the cards, the nice lady at tech support assured me that it was the probable cause of my problems.
I changed the I/O address for the card in the NT computer and guess what? It now reports no trouble with the network. Voila - thank you tech support. I still don’t understand why the previous I/O address caused trouble, but it works.
Don’t have time to complete the network just now, but will let you know of any progress.
CP/M
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Does anyone still remember CP/M? My first computer was a Heath/Zenith H89 running the CP/M operating system. I even developed and sold some software for it. It was a fun thing to do.
Later I discovered ZCPR (a command interpreter replacement). I adapted ZCPR3 and the Z-System to the Heath computer, got a license from Echelon (makers of Z-System) and sold it to the Heath computer user marketplace. I have since released my portions to the public domain.
I still have my Heath H89 computer, but it does not get much use these days. It no longer has a hard disk with SCSI interface as it once had. In those days the disk controller was a separate board which required a SCSI interface in the computer and sent MFM commands to the disk drive. Nor do I have an 8 inch disk controller which was once the standard. What I do have is several hundred CP/M diskettes with lots of old files on them!
If you have ever read about the problems that the national archives has with old format computer tapes, you might relate to my situation. I recently needed to look up some old info that I knew was on some of those CP/M disks.
Look for the rest of the story next time!