 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
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September Issue
The September issue almost didn't make it. The old Apple Laserwriter decided to die during the production weekend. It is entirely due to Peter Smith that the camera-ready-copy was prepared in time - literally minutes before he had to fly out to the US! Thanks, Peter. We have had to drop some of the (soft) display fonts used before so that in future we can print it on any PostScript printer in an emergency.
Travel Alternatives
It seems that only one other member is admitting to going to Comdex - the rest probably want to stay anonymous! I hope to pick up some useful tips from other user groups at the APCUG Summit Meeting.
Anyway, making travel arrangements has been a good experience. I initially was interested in a deal that was advertised as $1100 for Melb-LAX return. I also want to go on to Las Vegas and Toronto, and that travel agent quoted $1525 total. To cut a long tale short, I found another deal that costs me $50 more, but this one is using Qantas, has fewer stops and has more direct routes. I wonder if they have a frequent-flier deal... A friend flew United to New York and hired a car. Just doing that has earned him enough brownie points to almost get a free return flight to Hawaii! Roll on, deregulation...
Ventura Publisher for Sale
No, not the company - we are selling the spare copy of Xerox Ventura Publisher 2.0 with Professional Extension. Upgrading it to the new version will cost about $275, so genuine offers are invited from interested buyers. (The lowest offer may not necessarily be accepted.) We have confirmed with Xerox that the licence is transferable to the purchaser.
Buying a PC?
I recently helped three people to buy a 386SX PC each, and it was a useful experience. My criteria were price (one had a budget of $3000), features and location of the dealer. In spite of my "position" here I don't get any special information that is not available to other members, nor has anyone tried to bribe me to push their product
I advised them all to buy a 80386SX-based PC as the bare minimum because I believe that the 80286 (AT) and the 8088 (XT) machines will not be able to keep up with new software. If they could not afford a 386SX then they should wait until they had the money. If they have the money, they should buy a dearer, higher-performance 80386DX machine.
I used the Age Green Guide as my shopping reference. The "best" deal seemed to be a Taiwanese 386SX with a 40 MB voice-coil drive, 1 x 1.2 MB floppy, 1 MB RAM, VGA monitor with a 512 kB card and an IBM 9-pin printer, 1-year warranty, all for $2795. I recommended buying at least 1 MB of additional RAM, which cost $200 there.
When I got to the shop (who will remain nameless until it advertises here), it turned out that DOS was an extra $100, and that they only had the 24-pin printer in stock "for a few hundred dollars more." (We could wait for the 9-pin model, thank you.) On a later occasion, another shop assistant there quoted $120 for the DOS but dropped it to $100 as a "special favour." One of the buyers got a 3-ring binder for the manual but another got a thin stapled equivalent - typical of cheap clones. Not good signs, but in the end I felt that the buyers had a good deal. Time will confirm that.
Would I buy from that shop for myself? Probably not. I'd want a bigger hard disk and I don't need a dot matrix printer, so I would be looking closely at the dearer Samsung advertised by our regular advertisers Microbee Technology Centre at the end of the previous two issues. Elsewhere in this issue I have published a favourable report of our other advertisers.
Support Our Advertisers
If you buy from our advertisers please let them know that you saw their ad in these pages. It's pleasing to see that IBM Australia has chosen to advertise here too. A very good sign.
Reprinted from the October 1990 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
