Thursday, August 31, 2023

PC World (September 1987)

PC World was perhaps the widest read PC magazine during its life. Issues from the 1980s were massive with this issue from September 1987 coming in at around 420 pages. The page count gradually decreased over the years with the Internet finally destroying this magazine as it did so many others. Contents of this issue include:

Getting Started

Worksheets by Design - A beginner's guide to creating a worksheet in your favorite spreadsheet program.

Laser-Perfect - Using the LaserJet Plus with WordPerfect 4.2.

Community

DOS Amigos - Interviews with Compaq's Rod Canion and Tandy's John roach in which they talk about the PS/2 and the future of personal computing.

The Knowledge Engineers - Capturing knowledge with Expert Systems.

_{Table of Contents from the September 1987 issue of PC World}

Review

NewViews Breaks the Rules - A look at a new accounting software product from Q.W. Page that combines a spreadsheet with an audit trail.

Letters From Cell A17 - A look at three add-in products for Lotus 1-2-3 that add word processing capabilities. These are 4Word, InWord, and Write-in.

Dimensional Fortitude - A look at two three-dimensional spreadsheet programs (basically combining the functionality of multiple worksheets), Boeing Calc and MVP Spreadsheet Plus.

Hands On

From Ledger to Spreadsheet - Using EasyBusiness Systems, Lotus 1-2-3 and DOS Exports, you too can movie data from a Ledger to a spreadsheet.

Up From WordStar - Various macros to make Microsoft Word and WordPerfect work more like WordStar.

_{Table of Contents from the September 1987 issue of PC World (continued)}

Departments

David Bunnell - The FCC proposes to add "access fees" to dial-up to online services such as CompuServe of $4.50 to $5.40 an hour.

Letters - Letters from readers regarding IBM, the PS/2 Model 60, the PS/2 Model 50 and converting programs to 3.5" disks, the Kyocera F-1010 laser printer, software piracy, PC-Talk, and more.

Harry Miller - Using new to tools beyond spreadsheets for financial analysis and budgeting.

Stewart Alsop - The strategy behind new product announcements.

Top of the News - Toshiba gets in trouble for selling submarine propeller technology to the Soviet Union; Koryo Systems announces the Inchon, a 286/386-upgradable desktop system the size of a laptop; Hercules announces PS/2 card; Daybreak announces Satin integrated package that includes spreadsheet, file manager, word processor, communications package and idea processor; Epson to release low end PC clone called Apex featuring an 8088-2 processor, 512K RAM and two 360K floppy drives.

PC World View - An interview with Ashton-Tate CEO Edward Esber, Jr. about dBase IV and Ashton-Tate's future plans.

Product Outlook - Recent product announcements and upcoming releases including Byline (desktop publishing software); the Zenith Easy PC; new Wyse models including the PC 286 Model 2108, Model 2112, Model 2214 and Model 3216; the Turbo 888-XT Headstart Computer System; and more.

From the Software Shelf - Reviews of the latest software, including Xerox Ventura Publisher (desktop publishing program), True BASIC 2.0 (BASIC compiler), Eureka: The Solver (equation solver), and Opt-Tech Sort (DOS sort utility), Glyphix (font designer).

_{Back cover of the September 1987 issue of PC World}

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Minimum Wage Laws Increase Homelessness, New Study Finds

One thing Lang Martinez said he learned after living on the streets of Ventura County, California , was that being homeless was worse than being in prison.

“It’s a different lifestyle. You think prison is bad? No. Prison’s got structure,” Martinez, a former Los Angeles gang member-turned-advocate against homelessness, recently told California Insider. “The streets got what they call rules of engagement.”

Though Martinez agrees with the conventional wisdom that mental illness and drug abuse are the primary catalysts for homelessness, new academic research suggests the picture is more complicated.

A fresh study out of University of California, San Francisco suggests that losing income is the single biggest driver of homelessness — ahead of mental illness, drug addiction, and other causes — the study authors say.

“I think it’s really important to note how [desperate] poor people are, and how much it is their poverty and the high housing costs that are leading to this crisis,” said Margot Kushel, a physician and leader of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, which conducted the study.

California is home to approximately 30% of the entire U.S. homeless population (115,491 people as of 2022 ), and some advocates expressed hope that the new research would “inform a statewide strategy” to combat the problem.

Separate research, however, suggests California’s own policies have exacerbated its homelessness epidemic, including a new paper written by University of California economist Seth J. Hill titled “ Minimum Wages and Homelessness ” published last month.

Utilizing data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and other sources, Hill examined 100 cities from 2006-2019 to determine the relationship between wage floors and homelessness. The findings are bleak.

“Merging administrative data from HUD to state and local minimum wage laws suggests that minimum wages induce increases in homeless counts,” Hill writes. “When cities raise their minimum wage by 10%, relative homeless counts increase by three to four percent.”

Hill’s paper will not be the last word on the relationship between minimum wage laws and homelessness, but it provides yet more evidence of a stubborn reality minimum wage proponents often overlook: Minimum wage laws often harm the very people they are designed to help.

For decades, it was an all but universally accepted economic gospel that increases in the minimum wage came with adverse trade-offs. Many economists often pointed out these adverse consequences, including job losses, often fell on workers with the least skills and those who were the least valued.

“Among the effects of a minimum wage law, when it is effective, is that many unskilled and inexperienced workers are priced out of a job, when employers do not find them worth what the law specifies,” the economist Thomas Sowell once observed.

This is why even left-leaning publications such as the New York Times, until relatively recently, conceded that using minimum wage laws to combat poverty was an “old, honorable — and fundamentally flawed” idea because it would “price working poor people out of the job market.”

That minimum wage hikes increase unemployment was once hardly a debatable subject among economists, and even today a scouring of the literature shows that a “clear preponderance” of the scientific research shows a job-killing impact.

So in light of this evidence and the more recent UCSF findings, Hill’s conclusion should not surprise us.

“To the extent minimum wages cause disemployment of low skill-workers, the lost job can exacerbate existing economic insecurity and lessen ability to pay for housing,” he writes.

This finding is not just tragic but ironic. Politicians and wage-justice fundamentalists, who take pride in the idea they are fighting poverty by advocating for higher minimum wage laws, are not just costing countless lower-skilled workers jobs. They are actually pushing many of them into homelessness.

Again, this should not be a surprise. Decades ago, the economist Murray Rothbard famously observed the absurdity in the idea that banning jobs was a path to prosperity.

“Remember that the minimum wage law provides no jobs,” Rothbard wrote , “it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result.”

This is not to say wage floors are the sole cause of homelessness, which is a subject as complicated as human beings. Lang Martinez is no doubt correct when he says substance abuse and mental illness play a significant role.

But these realities should not overshadow another truth: For many struggling people, a lower-paying job is not “exploitation.” It’s a lifeline.

This article originally appeared on The Washington Examiner.

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Editor at Large of FEE.org at the Foundation for Economic Education.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Minimum Wage Laws Increase Homelessness, New Study Finds

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (1237-1240)

See the previous post in this series here.

I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are many thousands of these slides. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity./p> Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be pretty common but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides from the late 1950s that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job. /p>

This set continues a large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo//p>

Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date. /p>

Click the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration./p>

I am guessing that the first and last photo in this set were both taken in Bermuda. The first could be looking down at a beach almost anywhere but it has the same processing date (May 1966) as the last photo which was taken near the Bank of Butterfield Building in King's Square, St. George, Bermuda. The other two photos may both have been taken in Italy. One looks like it is from inside the Colosseum. The other is a coastline somehwere but it has the same processing date (September 1966)./p>

processed May 1966

processed September 1966

processed May 1966 - King's Square, St. George, Bermuda

The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here./p>

Sunday, August 27, 2023

ANALOG Computing (September 1983)

ANALOG Computing was probably the most popular and longest running magazine for Atari 8-bit computers in the U.S. The September 1983 issue includes:

Features/Articles

The New ATARI Peripherals - The 1983 Summer CES was a pretty big event for Atari. New products announced or show there include the 600XL, 800XL, 1400XL, and 1450XLD computers. In addition, there were numerous new peripherals including three different printers, the 1050 Disk Drive, 1030 Direct Connect Modem (300 baud), CX77 Touch Tablet, CX80 Trackball, Atari CP/M Module, and lots more.

ATARI Graph - A cryptographic puzzle.

Fine Scrolling - Part one of a tutorial on scrolling on the Atari 8-bit including programming examples and a discussion of what various games do, including Defender, Caverns of Mars and Eastern Front.

Reviews/Profiles

Family Cash Flow - Software for keeping track of your money.

Electronic Arts/Games Review - Reviews of several Electronic Arts games including Archon, M.U.L.E., Pinball Construction Set, and Worms?

Donkey Kong - A conversion of the arcade classic on cartridge.

Pole Position - Another arcade conversion on cartridge. I got really good at this game on the Commodore 64.

Dark Crystal - A graphics adventure game based on the movie of the same name.

_{Table of Contents from the September 1983 issue of ANALOG Computing}

Program Listings

Observational Astronomy - A type-in program that allows you to enter your latitude and longitude as well as the date and it will tell you what objects are in the night sky.

Livewire Paddle Default - A modification to a previous type-in game that sets the paddle controllers as the default instead of the joystick.

Roundup - A type-in game in which you must herd and lasso cattle.

Columns

Editorial - Alan Alda's endorsement deal with Atari and crediting programmers for their work.

Reader Comment - Letters from readers regarding hardware add-ons, the San Diego Computer Society Computer Fair, software piracy, and more.

New Products - A look at new products including Blue Max, Zaxxon, Dimension X, Drelbs, Shadow World, Rainbow Walker, Wavy Navy, The Dark Crystal, Mr. Cool, Moon Shuttle, Pooyan, Satan's Hollow, Lord of the Rings, Operation Whirlwind, Silicon Warrior, Gateway to Apshai, Jumpman Jr., River Raid, and lots more.

Our Game - A column on game design in which reader ideas are explored.

_{Back cover of the September 1983 issue of ANALOG Computing}

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

The 1983 Video Game Crash and a History Lesson for Lina Khan

The video game industry is getting a lot of attention lately thanks to both exciting tech advancements and unprecedented interference by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The sector has witnessed substantial growth in recent years, which is why antitrust concerns are being raised by Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair, Lina Khan. It can often feel like ancient history, but video gaming’s future hasn’t always been so bright in the U.S. In fact, it was almost “game over” for the business at the start of the 1980s.

The 1983 Video Game Crash, as it is known today by industry insiders, left the market for video games with no clear path to recovery. A primary culprit for the industry’s downfall was third party publishers, who were flooding the market with subpar products. Up until this time, Activision was a primary provider of video games, and with interest in gaming growing fast, other opportunistic firms sought to get in on the action by offering lower-priced, lower-quality games to consumers.

Parents would scoop up a handful of these off-brand games for the price of one Activision video game, assuming that their kids would be thrilled. They quickly learn this was not the case.

User reviews didn’t exist at this time and since parents weren’t consulting other children for feedback on the games being sold, it was hard to be clued in on what was worth buying.

Trust in the gaming market dropped, and increasingly risk-averse consumers were hesitant to buy the top-shelf games for fear of being duped again.

It wasn’t until Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 that interest in gaming rebounded. Super Mario Bros, along with other addictive games like Tetris, Atari’s Gauntlet, and Sega’s OutRun, restored interest and faith in gaming products. Since then, the industry has grown at an impressive rate.

Access and options for gamers have dramatically improved thanks to tech innovations in mobile gaming, as well as the surge of engagement during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Consumers were particularly eager for novel in-home entertainment, and multiplayer as well as online-based gaming allowed them to connect and create affinity networks like never before. And though the pandemic was a nightmare for millions of Americans, gaming has been credited as “a positive force in the field of mental health.”

Today gaming is big business, on track to be worth $321 billion by 2026, which is why Lina Khan and the FTC have their sights set on the sector. Since her appointment as FTC Chair by President Joe Biden, Khan has made clear her negative view of corporate growth, which is unfortunate, given that US gaming firms have yet to catch up with the likes of Japan’s Sony Interactive Entertainment Studios.

The Japanese juggernaut’s long march toward market dominance solidified in 2020 when Sony released the Playstation 5 (PS5), which quickly became the global favorite for next-generation gaming consoles.

In response, Microsoft’s US-based Xbox Games Studios went on defense, announcing its plan to purchase Activision-Blizzard in January 2022. The merger brought Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Diablo, and Candy Crush Saga all under one roof. Microsoft’s interest, therefore, is unsurprising, but this mutually beneficial business transaction between Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard was enough to draw the attention and legal might of Lina Khan’s FTC.

Instead of allowing Microsoft to improve its competitive stance against Sony, the FTC sought to block the merger. The legal battle turned out to be a huge waste of time and resources at taxpayers expense. What is particularly puzzling is the fact that other jurisdictions around the world were already greenlighting the deal, and yet our own government opposed an American firm’s advancement against a foreign entity with 70 percent market share.

Fortunately for Microsoft, Khan’s claims against the merger carried little weight in court. Unfortunately for Khan, her failed filing has led many to call into question her understanding of business and antitrust law. For instance, the FTC asserted that the merger could result in Microsoft restricting Activision-Blizzard games only to Xbox consoles, an unconvincing claim given Microsoft’s standing commitment to maintain the distribution status quo with Sony.

The hypocrisy was clear to gamers watching the case play out in court, who are most all aware that Sony’s popular title, The Last of Us, is only available on PlayStation consoles. And who is to say there is anything wrong with exclusivity in the first place?

The role of the FTC is to ensure consumer welfare in the marketplace, and right now it seems Khan is willfully overstepping her authority. It’s unclear who exactly she thinks the FTC is protecting in slowing down Microsoft. The FTC’s interference is delaying opportunities for gamers and developers at a time when creativity for gaming content is really taking off. Although the 2020 lockdowns surged interest in gaming users, the ability for developers to collaborate and curate new games has been hampered by remote work and other hardships brought on by the pandemic.

If we have learned any lessons from the Video Game Crash of 1983, it should be that improvements in gaming access and quality should be encouraged, not derailed. Today’s gamers have high expectations for new and innovative experiences, and FTC interference only gets in the way of content development and distribution.

Though the great gaming crash occurred just before Lina Khan was born, the FTC’s youngest chair in its history should familiarize herself with how this industry has survived and thrived since its inception. Gamers call the shots, and like other consumers, they’re the most powerful source of accountability for an industry supported by their hard-earned dollars.

The FTC stepped far outside its lane at the expense of taxpayers, and one can only hope that a lesson was learned.

Kimberlee Josephson

Dr. Kimberlee Josephson is an Associate Professor of Business at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania, and a Research Fellow for the Consumer Choice Center.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The 1983 Video Game Crash and a History Lesson for Lina Khan

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (1233-1236)

See the previous post in this series here.

Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be pretty common but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides from the late 1950s that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.

This set of photos continues a series that looks like they were taken in the late 1980s or early 1990s and include photos at a Confederate grave (see https://hive.blog/photography/@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-oestreicher-1205-1208 for example). I'm not sure where the first three photos in this set were taken other than they must have been at or near the cemetery. The final photo shows the grave again but the name is clear for the first time...Isaac J Whiteley. Presumably these people are somehow related. A little research matched this up with an Isaac Jasper Whiteley that was born in 1836 and died in 1922. The grave is in Walnut Grove (AKA Boxley) Cemetery in Arkansas so I was wrong about this being in Alabama.

Below is a photo of what I believe to be the same grave as above, taken in 2008 at Walnut Grove (Boxley) Cemetery in Arkansas from https://arkansasgravestones.org/view.php?id=72252

The site above has an option to e-mail the contributor (via a web form) of that photo/grave entry (referred to only as bill). I wonder if he would know who the people in these pictures are (or maybe even be in some of them)? Of course, the entry is 13 years old and they may not be at whatever email the form leads to...or even alive.

Anyway, I'm sending the following message as soon as I post this and get the link. I'll followup if anything results from it.

...

Update: I originally sent the message above about 2 years ago. I just checked the arkansasgravestones site again and the record had been removed. Guess I scared Bill off...

The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here.

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

VideoGames & Computer Entertainment (September 1992)

VideoGames & Computer Entertainment was my favorite gaming magazine during most of its life. It went through a couple of transitions later on, eventually giving birth to Tips & Tricks but I never really cared for that one. The September 1992 issue of VG&CE includes:

Features

Tokyo Toy Show Report - Some highlights of items shown at this show include a RAM backup card for the Turbo Duo, the Wondermega Genesis/Sega CD combo unit, the Teradrive which is a combo 286-based PC and Sega Genesis, Street Fighter II for the Super NES, Afterburner III for the Mega Drive/Mega CD, Lunar: The Silver Star for the Sega Mega CD, Soldier Blade for the PC Engine, Dodge Ball for the PC Engine, Musashi for the Mega Drive, Snatcher for the PC-Engine CD-ROM, Cosmic Fantasy 3 for the PC-Engine CD-ROM, and lots more.

Searching for the Dark World: A Player's Guide to Zelda III, Part I - The first part of a detailed guide for A Link to the Past.

The 1992 Summer Consumer Electronics Show Recap - Highlights of the show include Super Star Wars (Super NES), Street Fighter II (Super NES), Dracula (Atari Lynx), Bart's Nightmare (Super NES), Shadowrun (Super NES), TTI's Turbo Duo, Centipede (Game Boy), Betrayal at Krondor (PC), Maximum Overkill (PC), Battletank 2000 (PC), Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (PC), and lots more.

_{Table of Contents from the September 1992 issue of VideoGames & Computer Entertainment}

Reviews & Previews

Video-Game Reviews

Dungeon Master - The classic 3D adventure game for the Super NES.
Taz-Mania - A platform game for the Genesis featuring the classic Warner Bros. character.
Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat - A racing game for the NES featuring nine courses across the U.S.
Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu - Side scrolling beat-em-up featuring Jackie Chan before he became a household name.
King Salmon - Another fishing game, this one for the Genesis. I don't like fishing games anyway and this isn't one of the best.
DinoCity - A platform game for the Super NES in which you team up with a dinosaur to defeat some evil Neanderthals.
Andro Dunos - A side-scrolling shooter for the Neo Geo.
Side Pocket - Classic pool game for the Genesis.

Gaming on the Go

Roger Clemens MVP Baseball - A reasonably fun baseball game for the Game Boy.
R.C. Grand Prix - A fun R.C. racing game. I never played this one but have fond memories of R.C. Pro Am on the NES and Re-Volt on the Dreamcast.
Tom & Jerry - A platform featuring the famous cartoon duo on the Game Boy.

Seven's The Charm: A VG&CE Exclusive Preview of Wizardry VII - Eleven years after the original Wizardry was released, the seventh game in this classic RPG series, Crusaders of the Dark Savant, makes its debut.

Computer Game Reviews

Darkseed - An H.P. Lovecraft/H.R. Geiger inspired adventure game for the PC.
Mutant Beach - A puzzle/adventure game for the Macintosh.
Pinball Dreams - A pinball game featuring four different tables for the PC and Amiga.
Global Effect - A world building sim for the Amiga and PC featuring 14 different scenarios.
Aquaventure - An action game that plays like a 3D version of Defender for the Amiga.
Crisis in the Kremlin - A strategy game for the PC based on the Tom Clancy book of the same name.

Departments

Editor's Letter - A preview of this issue as well as a little about the upcoming October issue.

Reader Mail - Readers write in about game incompatibility with the new version of the Genesis, rumors of a new Super NES pack-in, controllers and Street Fighter 2, Neo Geo coverage, and more.

Tip Sheet - Game tips for Terminator 2 (arcade), Mission: Impossible (NES), and The Immortal (Genesis).

News Bits - Atari drops price of Lynx software, Galoob wins legal battle to keep making Game Genie, Nintendo and Sega lower 16-bit system prices, Sunsoft to release Road Runner's Death Valley Rally and Tazmania for the Super NES, TTI lowers hardware prices, and lots more.

_{Back cover of the September 1992 issue of VideoGames & Computer Entertainment}

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

PC World (January 1989)

PC World was one of the most well known and widely distributed PC related magazines for many years. There was a LOT of content in 1989. This issue has over 300 pages. This was the better part of 5 years before I had my first "PC" (I had a Commodore 64). If you were using a PC you were probably using DOS though you might have been using Windows 2. XT compatible machines featuring an 8088 or 8086 processor were still widely in use but if you were lucky you had a 286 or even a 386 but those were expensive. The January 1989 issue of PC World includes:

Reviews

Fast Floppy Backup - Reviews and comparisons of six backup tools designed to back up your hard drive to floppy drives. This was when a typical hard drive could be anywhere from 20MB to over 100MB and you were probably using a 1.2MB 5.25" floppy drive (though it could be as small as a 360K disk drive). Tools looked at here include Fastback Plus, Corefast, Back-It, PC-Fullback, BackEZ and DS Backup+.

The Hardware Shelf

Intel Connection CoProcessor - A PC fax expansion card designed to convert disk files to fax format and send them to a fax machine.
NEC PowerMate 386 - A high-end 20-MHz 386 based computer with 2MB RAM, 1.2MB floppy drive, 130MB ESDI hard drive and a whopping 237 watt power supply. All for the low price of $9295. Apparently this is a poor performer compared to similar IBM and Dell machines.

_{NEC PowerMate 386}

Mitsubishi MP 286 - A 12-MHz 286 based computer for $3895 which is cheaper than a similar model Compaq Deskpro but about $1000 more than other comparable machines.
Microscience HH-3120 - A 112MB SCSI hard drive for $1195.

The Software Shelf

AlphaWorks 1.0 - A low-end integrated software package featuring a word processor, database, spreadsheet, and telecommunications that uses dBASE III and 1-2-3 file formats.
WordStar Professional 5.0 - The latest version of this once powerhouse word processing package that features updates for desktop publishing, mail merge, menus, and more.
Windows/286 2.1 - The latest version of Windows. It didn't REALLY get popular until version 3 though.

_{Table of Contents from the January 1989 issue of PC World}

Feature

Buyers' Guide: EMS 4.0 Memory Boards - Memory expansion was much more complicated in the XT/AT days. The EMS 4.0 standard allowed 8088 CPUs to access up to 32MB of RAM with an individual executable using up to 1MB. This overview covers twenty-one EMS 4.0 memory boards to extend your PC beyond the 640K barrier.

News

Top of the News - AST releases three new 386 based systems starting at $4195; Plus Development ships hard drive targeted for network file services; Hayes introduces first V.42 modem, $899 for 2400bps and $1299 for 9600bps; and more.

Industry Outlook - A new category of software is coming: Personal Information Mangers; new laptops feature lighter screens and disk drives; 80286 based laptop sales exceed 8086/8088 based machines and expected to continue growing fast; Digital Video Interactive (DVI) offers multimedia capabilities; and more.

Product Outlook - New products include the PS/2 Model 30 286, Turbo Pascal 5.0 and Turbo C 2.0, Adobe Illustrator, and more.

_{Table of Contents from the January 1989 issue of PC World (continued)}

How To's

Accelerating Excel - Various tips for Excel to help improve productivity including pre-selecting the data entry area, using mass data entry, Filling instead of Copying, using custom number formats, and more.

Macros for Word - Twenty tools for Word in the form of macros. Macros given here include saving the current document in ASCII format, making a document double spaced, toggling hidden text, justifying text, listing files in a specific documents directory, drawing a box, opening and closing notes, selecting a printer, and more.

Perspectives

Richard Landry - Between 1984 and 1987 the cost of business PC ownership more than doubled from $7500 to $18,000 but return on investment remained flat at 10%. However, upcoming improvements in multitasking and GUI development are expected to improve productivity.

Letters - Letters from readers about WordStar, the GridCase 1520, accounting software, and more.

David Bunnell - Discussion about creating a national network for education. The Internet seemed to supersede any such concept. I know four years later the college I went to was already Internet connected.

Departments

In This Issue - A preview of what to expect in this issue.
1988 Annual Index - An index of the previous year's (1988) reviews, features and how to's.

Consumer Watch - Beware of recommendations from your computer dealer...they're probably getting paid to push certain products; Make sure that when you buy online, you are getting everything you need. E.g. a $1599 laser printer really is going to cost you $1720 if it doesn't include a toner cartridge and cable; Beware of cheap power supplies (good advice still today); when buying a computer pay attention to the number of free slots, not just total slots; and more advice.

_{Back Cover of the January 1989 issue of PC World}

Monday, August 14, 2023

MacAddict (May 1998)

The best way to describe MacAddict would be to compare it to boot/Maximum PC for the PC. It was a magazine for enthusiasts. If I had been aware of it at the time, this magazine probably would have made me want to buy a Mac. Sadly, it transformed into MacLife at some point which was perhaps more polished but also boring and almost...antiseptic for lack of a better word. MacAddict was so much better. the May 1998 issue includes:

Highlights

Become a Mac Handyman - A guide to troubleshooting, repairing and upgrading your Mac. Includes tips on solving software issues, installing PCI, PDS and NUBUS cards, installing RAM, and much more.

This Old Mac - I especially loved this series on upgrading and using older Macs. This month the PowerBook 100 is covered which was six years old at the time. The PowerBook 100 is a 16-MHz 68000 based machine. At the time, it could still be made useful for e-mail, word processing and other basic tasks. The RAM could be upgraded to 8MB but RAM upgrades were expensive and 4MB could be enough for those basic tasks. Alternatively, upgrading from 4MB to 6MB was a cheaper alternative then going to 8MB. The hard drive could also be upgraded from the standard 20MB or 40MB drive up to at least 1GB. External drives were also an option. If only modern MacBooks were as upgradeable. Other potential upgrade options include a modem (up to 9600bps external or 2400bps internal), upgraded System Software (up to 7.5.5), and there was plenty of Internet software available including MacPPP, MacTCP, NCSA Mosaic 1.0.3, MacWeb, Eudora, LeeMail, Pegasus, NewWatcher, Fetch, Anarchie, AOL 2.1, and more.

_{Table of Contents from the May 1998 issue of MacAddict}

How To

Switch to HFS+ - HFS+ was a new file system that came with MacOS 8.1. This tutorial guides you through upgrading from MacOS 8 and HFS to MacOS 8.1 and HFS+.

Know It All about Finder Views - A guide to configuring how Finder displays files and file info.

_{Table of Contents from the May 1998 issue of MacAddict (continued)}

Every Month

Editor's Note - Lamenting the end of the Newton MessagePad.

Letters - Letters from readers about the PowerMac 6100, Steve Jobs,
Get Info - The latest Mac related news including new G3 vs. Pentium II benchmarks, better support from Iomega (including for Zip, Jaz and Ditto drives), IBM experiments with 1 GHz PowerPC chip, and more.

Cravings - A look at some of the latest tech gear, including the Kodak DCS 520 Digital Camera ($14,995 for 1728x1168 resolution), DirectCD (using CDs like floppies), DaynaStar FastHub 8 (an 8-port 100 Megabit hub for $269), Action Files (file manager/finder), and Lapdog (a lapdesk for your PowerBook).

Reviews

Dreamweaver 1.0 - a WYSIWYG HTML editor
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Elastic Reality 3.1 - morphing/warping graphics software)
Multi-Ad Creator 2 - a tool for creating small documents such as ads and brochures
Claris Home Page - an HTML editor

Mac Picasso with 3D Overdrive - a 2D video card with an optional 3D module based on the 3Dfx chipset...for $550
...and more!

_{Back cover of the May 1998 issue of MacAddict}

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Why the United States Lost Its AAA Credit Rating

For the second time in its history, the United States saw its AAA rating on long-term debt downgraded by a credit rating firm.

Fitch Ratings said the downgrade of the U.S., which is now rated AA+, “reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to 'AA' and 'AAA' rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.”

In the wake of the downgrade, the first since S&P downgraded the U.S. in 2011 amid a similar debt-ceiling showdown, Democratic politicians and White House officials immediately attacked both Republicans and Fitch.

“The downgrade by Fitch shows that House Republicans’ reckless brinksmanship and flirting with default has negative consequences for the country,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen slammed Fitch, calling the decision “flawed” and “entirely unwarranted.” She was echoed by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“It defies reality to downgrade the United States at a moment when President Biden has delivered the strongest recovery of any major economy in the world,” Jean-Pierre said. (CNN inexplicably blamed the downgrade on Jan. 6, even though Fitch in its report made no mention of the event, which happened 2 1/2 years ago.)

Perhaps such a reaction should not surprise us. Pointing fingers and blaming others is what politicians do best. Yet pointing fingers will not change a troubling reality: The federal government is facing a fiscal reckoning.

Most people probably don’t even know that in June, the national debt hit $32 trillion. If you find this strange because it feels like only yesterday that the national debt was $20 trillion, you can be forgiven. It practically was.

It was in 2017 that the national debt hit $20 trillion. You read that correctly: The U.S. government racked up an astonishing $12 trillion in six years. Sadly this spending frenzy will have serious consequences for the future of our children and grandchildren.

The federal government is now shelling out an unprecedented amount of money to pay interest on its debt — $476 billion in 2022, an increase of 35% from the previous year.

The nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation says Americans are likely to spend $9 trillion in interest on the debt over the next decade, making it perhaps the single largest federal expenditure in the coming years and crowding out other programs.

Lawmakers in Washington seem oblivious to the threat. Despite record revenues, federal spending continues to outpace tax receipts at a growing rate. In May 2022, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the federal government would rack up $15.7 trillion in new debt over the next decade; this year, the CBO adjusted the figure to $19 trillion, largely because of legislative changes.

This isn’t to say the debt-ceiling drama did not play a role in Fitch’s downgrade; it clearly did. What partisans are neglecting to tell you is that the standoff stemmed from the other causes Fitch alluded to in its downgrade — ”the expected fiscal deterioration” of the federal government and the “growing general government debt burden.”

These are serious threats, and instead of pointing fingers at Fitch and Republicans, the White House and Schumer should be addressing them. Instead, Democrats are calling for student debt “cancellation,” Medicare for All, and a fatter Pentagon.

There’s a troubling disconnect with reality here. It’s not unlike those who insist the historic inflation that began in 2021 stemmed from “corporate greed,” not trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve printed to flood the economy with money.

The Biden administration is of course not solely to blame for this debt. But it’s time for leaders to get honest about this fiscal recklessness, which history shows is more difficult to correct than it might seem because of the perverse incentives and corruption it spawns.

America’s Founding Fathers warned about such dangers. James Madison called public debt “a public curse, and in a Republican Government a greater curse than any other." Benjamin Franklin called it a threat to liberty.

To keep independence, "we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt," warned Thomas Jefferson.

People, especially leaders in Washington, have failed to heed these warnings. Sadly, it will be the generations of tomorrow who will pay if we fail to learn from our mistakes.

This article originally appeared in The Washington Examiner.

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Editor at Large of FEE.org at the Foundation for Economic Education.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (1229-1232)

See the previous post in this series here.

All of the photos in this set appear to be from the late 1950s. The first is dated January 6th, 1957 and is labeled "Leo's Monkey" which appears to be a toy or decorative monkey. The next two photos are photos of churches. The second church is the Millwood Presbyterian Church and I found that in the Spokane, Washington area. The first is an LDS church and given that it is dated the same must be in the same area but I couldn't find any pictures like it. The final shot shows individuals named Molly Walser and Walt Nystrom. It is undated but is also likely from near the same time period. I see Christmas decorations so probably around Christmas 1956/New Year's 1957.

Leo's Monkey, 1-6-57

Latter Day Saints Church, 1-7-57

Millwood Pres. Church, 1-7-57

Molly Walser, Walt Nystrom

The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here.

Friday, August 11, 2023

PC World (June 2004)

PC World was one of the longest running and most successful "PC" magazines. PC in this context generally referring to IBM PC compatibles, DOS, and Windows. In 2004, that meant mostly coverage of computers running Windows XP. The June 2004 issue includes:

Ultimate PC Protection

Bigger Threats, Better Defense - A look at the latest in security software including the latest firewalls, antivirus, anti-spyware and antispam. According to PC World, the best such products at the time were Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2004, Zone Labs ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5, Lavasoft Ad-aware 6 Plus, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Cloudmark SpamNet.

Spam-Proof Your In-Box - A review of nine different antispam tools. Products included are Aladdin Systems SpamCatcher 3.01, Audiotrieve InBoxer 1.1, Cloudmark SpamNet, Lyris Technologies MailShield 3.11, Network Associates McAfee SpamKiller 5.0, Panda Software Platinum Internet Security, Sunbelt Software IHateSpam 4 for Outlook, Symantec Norton AntiSpam 2004, and Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2004.

Features

Who Knew Your...{PC, Software, Camera, Printer, Network, Drive, Handheld}...Could Do That - Various hints and tips for your PC and peripheral gadgets. Hints include using a wireless printer server, plugging your digital camera into a slide show display, using your notebook screen as a desktop monitor, cataloging your CDs and DVDs automatically, and more.

DV Stars - A look at the latest digital camcorders. Most were MiniDV but there were also recordable DVD models. Units reviewed include the Canon ZR80, Canon ZR90, JVC GR-D72US, Panasonic PV-DV73, Panasonic PV-DV73, Panasonic PV-DV953 (Best Buy), Sharp VL-Z800U, Sony DCR-DVD300, Sony DCR-HC20 (Best Buy), and Sony DCR-IP1 MicroMV.

_{Table of Contents from the June 2004 issue of PC World}

Top 100

Spotlight: Wireless Mice and Keyboards - A comparison of two top wireless keyboard and mouse combos including the DiNovo Media Desktop and the Microsoft Basic Wireless Optical Desktop. Plus a look at the Logitech Cordless Click Plus Optical Mouse and a bunch of other wireless input devices.

Top 15 Desktop PCs - The top "power system" PC was the ABS Ultimate M5-64 featuring a 2.2 GHz Athlon 64 3400+, 1 GB RAM, and a 256MB ATI Radeon 9800XT for $2319. The top "value system" was the Dell Dimension 4600 featuring a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, and a 128MB nVidia GeForce FX 5200 for $1089.

Top 15 Notebook PCs - The top "desktop replacement" was the HP Compaq Nc6000 featuring a 1.6 GHz Pentium M and 512 MB RAM. The top "all-purpose" notebook was the IBM ThinkPad R50 featuring a Pentium M 1.4 GHz and 512 MB. The Top "ultraportable" was the Toshiba Portege M100 featuring a 1.2 GHz Pentium M and 256 MB RAM.

Top 10 Inkjet Printers - At the top of the list month is the HP Deskjet 5150.

Departments

Up Front - On the advantages of using Windows and OS X based systems.

Letters - Letters from readers about offshore tech support, pop-ups, PC security, remembering passwords, printing on the cheap, how to fight spam and viruses, and more.

Plugged In - AMD starts a campaign providing free hotspots. It was common at this time to have to pay for hot spot access at, for example, a Starbucks.

Home Office - Fixes for common mistakes including tools for backing up your data and recovering deleted files.

_{Table of Contents from the June 2004 issue of PC World (continued)}

News & Trends

Viruses Taret IM - Tips and tools to prevent the spread of viruses via IM clients.

Intel Plays Name Game - Intel changes its naming scheme dropping the MHz from model names.

New Cell Phones: Cool, Capable - Smartphones weren't a thing yet. The latest and greatest cell phones included the Kyocera KOI, Siemens CX66, and the LG8000 among others.

Tools to Find PC Data Faster - A look at search tools for Windows XP including Bloomba, DTSearch Desktop and X1.

New Products

Video Instant Messaging Software - A look at video chat software including Sight-Speed Video Messenger, Clique Video Messenger and Logitech's VideoCall.

Notebook - A review of the Inspiron XPS which includes a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition CPU, 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 graphics, 1GB RAM, a 60GB hard drive, and a 15.4-inch 1920 x 1200 screen for only $4349.

Video Transfer Device - A review of the Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U. It is an external device that converts analog video to digital via RCA or S-Video input.

Next Gear

Build a Media-Savvy PC - A how-to guide for building a computer designed to handle TV, music and other multi-media. Examples are provided for a high-end version and a value version. The value version includes a 1.83 GHz Athlon XP 1500+, ATI All-In Wonder 9200, and 256 MB PC2700 (333 MHz) RAM while the high-end version includes a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4, 1GB PC4000 (500 MHz) DDR RAM, and an ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro.

HDTV Recorder - A review of LG's LST-3410A HDTV Digital Video Recorder/Receiver, designed mostly to record HD broadcasts.

Cellular GPS Service - Taken for granted today but if you wanted GPS navigation on your phone in 2004 it required special software and a subscription service/data plan and you had to make do with a tiny screen.

Here's How

Windows Tips - How to customize startup and shutdown of windows, including starting applications automatically and running maintenance tasks on shutdown.

Hardware Tips - Tips on getting the right hard drive for your needs... Internal or external, SATA or PATA, size, etc.

Step-By-Step - A guide for tuning up your Windows XP installation.

_{Back cover of the June 2004 issue of PC World}

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Why EVs Are ‘Piling Up’ at Dealerships, Despite Massive Taxpayer Subsidies

Ford Motor recently announced it is slashing prices on its F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle the company rolled out in 2021.

The Lightning now carries a suggested retail price of $49,995, about $10,000 lower than its previous recommended price tag ($59,974), a reduction the company says is possible because of lower “battery raw material costs and continued work on scaling production and cost.”

It’s certainly possible that reduced overhead from battery minerals and production costs played a role in Ford’s decision to trim its price tag by nearly 20 percent, but that may be only half the story.

Several reports show EVs are not exactly flying off dealership lots. In fact, there’s a glut of them.

“After a prolonged period in which EVs quickly disappeared from dealerships, the electric vehicle industry now has the opposite problem: unsold models are piling up,” reported Money last week. “About 92,000 EVs currently sit on dealers’ lots; that's a 342% increase from a year ago, when only about 21,000 did so, according to automotive research firm Cox Automotive.”

Ford is not immune from the weakened demand for EVs. Sales of its flagship car, the Mustang Mach-E, have slumped, down 44 percent in May from the same month last year.

The Lightning, which won the title of EV king of pickup trucks after Ford moved nearly 16,000 units in 2022, has fared better but is still struggling to keep pace with 2022. And now the company is facing some stiff new competition. (More on that in a minute.)

This was not the scenario many people predicted.

In April, the International Energy Agency released a report in which it predicted EV sales to increase 35 percent after a record-breaking year. But economists I spoke with said such predictions were overly optimistic considering current macroeconomic conditions.

This invites important questions. Is the glut of EVs simply a product of tightened money supply?

Apparently not. As Axios noted, the 92,000 EVs currently sitting on lots is comparatively high relative to gasoline-powered cars.

“That's a 92-day supply — roughly three months' worth of EVs, and nearly twice the industry average,” wrote Joann Muller. “For comparison, dealers have a relatively low 54 days' worth of gasoline-powered vehicles in inventory….”

In other words, dealerships are sitting on a lot more EVs than gasoline-powered vehicles—despite efforts to entice consumers to buy EVs with taxpayer-funded credits up to $7,500.

This is evidence that pretty much everyone—from central planners to auto manufacturers—misjudged the demand for EVs, which are not even as environmentally friendly as politicians would have you believe.

Not only do EVs require an astonishing amount of mining—an estimated 500,000 pounds of rock and minerals must be upturned to make a single battery, physicists point out—but their carbon footprint isn’t much smaller than gas-powered cars.

It turns out that EVs actually require a lot more CO2 to produce than gas-powered cars. EVs can make that up, but it takes a great deal of time because EVs also often run on electricity generated from fossil fuels. Just how long? In 2021, Volvo admitted that its C40 Recharge has to be driven 70,000 miles before its carbon impact is lower than its gas-powered version.

All of this is to say that a bunch of unused EVs isn’t just a financial headache for auto dealers and motor companies; it’s also an environmental problem.

That said, the weaker than expected demand for EVs doesn’t mean the future of electric vehicles is doomed. On the contrary, demand for EVs is likely to increase as battery technology and EV infrastructure improves. Ford’s Lightning, for example, only has half the range of its gas-powered F-150 because of its small battery—a clear concern when charging stations are not yet readily available in many places.

For now, however, motor companies are competing with one another to attract customers in a smaller than anticipated EV market. Which brings me to Elon Musk.

Tesla last week rolled out its much-hyped Cybertruck, which is a direct challenge to the Lightning, and likely played a role in Ford’s price cut.

Federal lawmakers may have created a glut of EVs with their meddling, and it’s likely to have an adverse impact on both the auto market and the environment. But one of the virtues of capitalism is that consumers will ultimately decide who wins in the EV market and who loses.

Whether that turns out to be Musk’s Cybertruck or Ford’s Lightning remains to be seen. Either way, the competition is bringing down prices, which is a win for consumers looking to purchase an EV.

But the glut of electrical vehicles on the market reveals the danger in letting lawmakers decide what consumers should be driving.

This article originally appeared in The Epoch Times.

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. (Follow him on Substack.)

His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

steem

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Getting Started

Community

Review

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Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Features/Articles

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Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

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Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Reviews

Feature

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How To's

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Departments

Monday, August 14, 2023

Highlights

How To

Every Month

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Friday, August 11, 2023

Ultimate PC Protection

Features

Top 100

Departments

News & Trends

New Products

Next Gear

Here's How

Tuesday, August 1, 2023