European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 20, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Home High to Erlot the High tech invasion of american households continue unabated paralleled by constant upgrading of products to they audio visual or computerized. Who Alt the design advances and technical complexity involved not to mention Tho Broad variety of items Consumers often Are bewildered. The Bride Here May Clear up some of the mystery regarding just a few of the question prospective buyers May have by Larry Blasko associated prs sep personal computer shopping ran to like listening to cannibals argue about whether to boil you or roast you your interest is More Ihan academic but the difference in results is Small 11 need l to Hal Way. Some simple preparation can help you and your Walton survive an expedition to the computer store. F is. Ligure out whal you re Able to spend. If you re  Able to come up with Al teas $500, consider not spending anything us Lough to buy a cult fun Clian personal computer system for less than thai. A full Junction system includes keyboard Monitor data storage and Printer most Home systems Are going to All in the $1,000 Range although a first Purchase Home computer can easily slide into the  category. Next decide the machine s primary use. That s usually easier if you Lind the primary user. Be honest. If you re a 40 cat old son the answer is one Hal looks like a Loy truck. But if you re a a your of lather who admits that pitching education Tor the child might fog this $1,000 Loy past a wifely auth specifying a system i easier. While computers Are Universal tools of thought computer systems the machines plus peripherals should be weighted towards the main intended use. Common main Home uses education Tho primary use of the machine will be Drill and practice and educational games perhaps with some simple word processing software for term papers and such word Roe Flag whether it s the great american novel or Fellers is machine is going to be a smart typewriter Referd keeping keeping rack of malting lists friends Cohe Lions mrances the machine is going to be your accountant with a Silicon soul fun tact keeping track of your investments or plotting Cha company s Cash flow the machine will spend is Days counting and comparing. Entertainment it s neat to Zap 10,000 aliens before dinner even it one Coos sometimes slip by and Swallow new Jersey. In Broad Brush Here air some of the implications of those categories when you re pulling a system log Ethor. For educational uses checkout the Apple ii product line the Commodore 64-128 tines. Atari and increasingly the Low priced ism compatible lines such As Tandy leading Edge. Blue Chip. A color Monitor Lor graphics and sound capability Are musts since a Tol of educational software particularly Grade school stuff. Wears Arcade game disguise to avoid children discovering that they Ere doing something useful on their own Lime. One disk drive is adequate Here although two Are always better and the Printer can be simple Dot matrix Job chugging along at around 300 words per minute "30cps" in Lech no babble. For word processing look Lor an ism compatible with at Leas 256.000 characters of memory and twice that ii possible. A monochrome Monitor la line but it should be a Monitor nol just a television doing double duty trying to read Small Type on a to Monitor is an inv Lvalion to headache. Two disk drives Are a Musl they make backup files easier to produce and a Tot of top drawer word processing software virtually requires them. Look for sturdy detachable keyboards. The Printer should be tractor or pin feed Type the kind that takes paper with holes along both edges so Mulh Page documents always print cleanly. Ii it s a Dot matrix Printer it should have an no or correspondence Mode which Means the Printer makes each letter More than once to get a Darker More typewritten took. A Daisy wheel Printer uses typewriter like Lype to make lha image bul usually prints slower than a comparably priced Dot matrix machine. Look for printing samples before you buy. And make certain thai Printer ribbons and paper Are conveniently available from More than one source. Word Proee Long Soll Ware runs from $50 to $300. Some come with elaborate up cling checkers a thesaurus training disks and manuals. Almost All word processing software gets Iho Basic Job Dene and if the machine you select comes with a word processing package Start Wilh Hal one. It s easier to explore the capabilities of a now Soll Ware package if you already understand another aimed Al the same task. Machines used to keep record and Armani Pusan numbers need Tols of memory and tots of sewage. Ii 1he record keeping application is keeping simple mailing lists or the family tree or the family budget a non ism system from Apple Commodore Tandy or atari might do it. But in the list of things is Gong to run into the thousands v if Tho task to financial manipulation a la spreadsheets then ism compatibly a a must since most of the available software Wilbe aimed at thai Standard. In general the More memory available to the computer the More information it can handle at one Lime and the Aster it can do certain int mation processing tasks. K memory is Short and the machine must break the task Down into smaller chunks while storing the bulk of the information on the disk drive Lime is lost while the drive tools around Linding things. It s the difference Between remembering the Telephone numbers of 10 friends and having to look them up in the phone Book. Two floppy disk drives Are a minimum to handle this sort of requirement and you May wish to consider adding a so called hard disk a drive that can handle storage in the millions of characters As opposed to the  capacity of most floppy disks. That will add several Hundred dollars to your Cost. For financial spreadsheets and larger list keeping applications another shopping Issue is computer Chip Speed so Many calculations Are required to produce some spreadsheets or do some data base searches Hal a computer that handles instructions at twice the rate of another can make a significant difference. These speeds usually expressed in Mhz Megahen Are called Dock  in the ism compatible world the races Slart Al 4.77 Mhz and go to 16 Mhz. M general faster machines Cost More. Wilh list processing and spreadsheets the big Printer issues Are Speed and the number of horizontal columns possible. Most Printer will find some Way to deliver the traditional 13-column Lull Width printout. Even if its by taking an to column Printer und having an option that reduces the site of the print by half. That s marginally acceptable for test runs of spreadsheet printouts done Al Home but you would t give it to the Boss. Speed should be at least 600 words per minute to handle Long lists and printouts conveniently. The Printer should be tractor or pin fed to handle continuous loan paper. As in word processing let the availability of ribbons and paper influence your Choice software for list processing will Cost anywhere from $30 Lor simple organize your collection programs to s500 for business oriented data base management languages. Spreadsheet software covers the same Range but the Well known products Lotus 1-2-3 for example Are firmly within the �350-$400 Range. If you want to play games with your computer the world still belongs to the non ism compatible machines although this is also changing As More graphics and sound capabilities come to big Blue and ils clones. You be got to have to color Monitor and sound of course and you should gel As much memory As you can since Many of the Best games require a system s Tun memory capability Check out the Apple ii series the Commodore and atari lines and the Low end of the ism pc and compatible lines. A disk drive is required since that s the Way the games Art distributed now As opposed Loca Ridge style packaging irom the video game Days. You la also be looking for Joysticks those lighter Pilot slyly controls that look Tike a pistol grip. A Good Way to shop is to ask to see the same piece of software displayed on dil Teien systems. Most game companies produce software in different versions Lor Apple Commodore. Ism and alarm and seeing How a particular game performs will let you see the advantages and problems of the systems being compared. When you know the intended major use of your computer system get a couple of consumer computer magazines and read them. It will help you understand some of the terms that win be used and it win give you an idea of Price. Remember that while someone must eventually pay list Price it does t have to be you. Get a notebook and list the various component parts of Tho system As you see in then take that Tel to the stores and see if the looks there agree that will do the Job Slart taking notes on prices and exceptions example while machine a costs 595. In comes with Only half lha memory of machine b at $750. Ask about the availability of service and How much it costs and whether the work i done locator at some Remote location. Ask questions and keep asking them until you get understandable answers. That will happen More olten in separate retail outlets that sell Only computers. Bul f you re buying one of the machines stocked at discount houses Don l be shy about asking at the computer store and buying at the discount House. Ii possible take along a Friend who knows something about personal computers and can laugh Al the appropriate Points in the sales Pilch. Finally understand Hal the reflect computer is something like the perfect child perfect mostly because it s yours. Still in you establish a Budge identity the expected use and sir Acturo your system to meet that use you have better than even Odds of gutting some pleasure out of your Purchase. Wednesday january 20. 1938 the stars and stripes Page 13