European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 02, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                12 the stars and stripes computers tuesday february 2,1993 chips w bits the unlikely name of Philip Weintraub comes up during a baseball trivia discussion. You pop the total baseball disk into your cd rom drive select browse from the menu bar pick subjects from the drop Down menu Type the first few letters of his last name choose player Register or Fielding Register and there Are his statistics Philip Mickey Weintraub who played in the National league from 1933 to 1945. His Best year was 1934, when he hit .351 for the new York giants. Of course not Many baseball discussions break out within teach of a personal computer particularly one equipped with a cd rom drive. For most fans of the game and electronics the big league baseball encyclopedia the calculator sized device produced by Franklin is far More convenient. The Franklin encyclopedia has the statistics but the total baseball disk goes beyond the raw numbers 120years of them through the 1991 world series. There Are essays amounting to a history of baseball and about 500 images ebbets Field in the 50s the 1941 cardinals infield and the cover of the 1916 world series program. The total baseball disk is based on the Book of the same name edited by John Thorn and Pete Palmer. The advantage of the Book is relative portability though a Book of 2,640pages can hardly be called Handy. The advantage of cd rom technology is that one disk can hold As much As a shelf of books As Well As pictures and even a few historic sound clips. Total baseball is a product of Csc of Portland ore., Ana has a suggested retail Price of $69.95. If you can t find it in the stores it May be ordered from the company by calling 800-776-9277. The Oxford English dictionary second 1989 edition is on a single cd rom disk All 20 volumes 616,500 words and 2.4 million quotations of it. This version of Oxford University press Premier dictionary should not be confused with the cd rom that appeared in 1988. To use the oed second edition you will need a computer with an 80386 or later processor Dos 3.0 or later four megabytes of free memory a megabyte of free hard disk space Ega or via graphics windows 3.0 or later and of course a cd rom drive with its associated software version 2.0 or later. You will also need $895, about a third the Price of the books. A macintosh version i promised for next year. It could be argued that the Advent of the facsimile machine has brought More visible change an greater immediate benefits to the office than the personal , computers process words and crunch numbers but they Are no nearly As Friendly for communicating jokes gossip lunch orders or even business documents. A Little Industry has grown up to produce attention getting fax Cove sheets. Fax mania from to maker of Mountain View calif., has 80 templates on disk ranging from dignified to downright silly. The cover sheets Are compatible i Man Standard word processing programs for both Dos and macintosh machines. They can be printed out As facts were meant to be or transmitted electronically. Either version is $39.95 and May be ordered by calling 415 962-0195. Front wire reports take off with air Bucks new game allows players to operate an airline company by Scott thursto Cox news service Atlanta air Bucks the new game from impressions allows you to create your own airline and serve dozens of cities around the world including such bustling Domestic metropolises Asmo bile Ala. And Charleston . Here at last is a same that allows you Mohave a go at one of the most glamorous and volatile industries of the 20th Century. Play begins in 1946. You own a fledgling Carrier named air Bucks which consists at that Point of a dc-3 and $100,000. Three competitors go into business atthe same time. You All begin in Miami Al though you can elect to Start in other cities. If you re quicker than your computer run rivals to acquire Good routes set profitable prices and enlarge and update your Fleet you can turn air Bucks into a Globe girdling Meg Carrier during the game s 40-year Span. If you fail in any of those areas you soon will be up to your ailerons in debt and out of business. Transactions Are accomplished through pull Down menus overlaying the map screen. You can play with a key Board but a mouse is vastly preferable. Your Cash balance is constantly up dated on the main screen and you can request detailed financial breakdowns for routes and planes. You also get updates on the status of your three competitors who can be disabled or put on a higher degree of difficulty if you want to cheat. As the years Advance cartoon like sequences Tell you of major world events fuel Price changes and new planes Avail Able for Purchase. The game includes a Good mix of aircraft from the dc-3 through the current Jet models. You can set up your planes however you wish from All first class to All cargo. Air Bucks has some quirks takes time to learn and requires you to plow through Many layers of computer commands using your mouse. But All in All it strikes a Nice balance be tween replicating the intricacies of the air line business and making a game of them. Airline buffs will find it absorbing even if for the moment some of the fun is missing for those of us in Atlanta. Call me provincial but i have a prob Lem with any airline strategy game that does t put Atlanta on the map. Astonishingly that is the Case with air Bucks. Despite its prominent role in the development of the Industry my town is inexplicably absent from the world map that serves As air Bucks main screen. Impressions swears the omission was an oversight and plans to remedy it with an update disk this year. So if you want to go ahead and buy the game or already have just make sure you Send in the registration card. That will put you on the mailing list for the free update with Atlanta and per haps your Hometown. While waiting for it to arrive you can learn the game and enjoy its general merits. The suggested retail Price for the game is $59.95, and it s available Only for ism compatibles. You can mail order it from chips & bits 800-753-4263. At these prices More Power to you falling computer prices have mean bargains for shoppers in the past six months. But rather than paying less and pocketing the Cash Many buyers Are reaching for More Power. As a result the demand for computers based on the Intel corp s i486 processors has  based on the i486dx Chip and its variants Intel s i486dx-?, i486sx and i486sl, and various iterations from other companies were ubiquitous at the annual Codex fall Trade show held recently in Las vegas. Some manufacturers at the show said demand for their 486 machines was so great that they were having trouble get Ting All the chips they needed. The i486 is even prominent in the Lap top and notebook categories which used to lag a generation behind the desktops in processing Power. The Codex floor was a showcase for i486-Bascd portables including impressive models from the ism personal com Puter co., Compaq and Texas instruments. For people out shopping right now the question is often this is it better to take advantage of plummeting prices to acquire the older 306dx and 386sx sys tems or to pay More for the latest technology the answer As always depends on what users need and what their Bud gets Are like. The phenomenal popularity of i486 machines does not mean that the pre Vious generation 386 Chip is dead. In Many cases 386-based desktop and notebook machines Are perfectly Ade quate for Many needs and no doubt Many buyers will be tempted by sub is 000 prices. Will Fastie an analyst at Alex. Brown & sons in Baltimore said some businesses will be attracted As Well. Historically it has been my advice to. Buy absolutely at the Bottom end he said meeting an immediate need for a specific task a machine you re  throw away when you re done with it or absolutely at the High end resulting in system with longer life and greater  both strategies result in Tower costs Over the life of the computer he said. I be moderated that Only recently he continued. If you look in the Cata Logue of a mail order company you la find that the jump from a 3$6 to a 486 is a couple of Hun dred Bucks but Peter h. Lewis you also get More memory More hard disk and other features so the extra $200 goes a Long  just before Codex opened for exam ple the Dell computer corp. Of Austin Texas introduced the Dell system 333s-l, a desktop machine based on a new 33 Megahertz i386sx Chip. In a reasonable configuration to run simple windows applications 4 Mega bytes of system memory a 150-megabyte hard disk a Diskette drive a mouse and color Monitor the 333s-l costs Les than $1,500, including a year of on site service. But for less than $200 More shopper scan find a variety of i486sx-based computers and even some i486dx2 machines that outperform any 386. Gateway 2000, of South Sioux City s.d., offers an i486sx desktop Marin for example that runs at 33  4 megabytes of system memory and a 170 megabyte hard disk that is directly connected to a local bus a sort of data pipeline that significantly improves performance. It Sells for $1,695, and that Price also includes a year of on site serv ice. At the $2,500 level Many Brawny j486dx-50 boxes pack enough enough features for any Power user. Who needs the 486 machines the in creasing popularity of Microsoft s win Dows and ism s os-2 graphical operating systems each of which places More demands on the microprocessor than the Dos operating system Ever did Call for More Power. The arrival of technologies like windows for work groups and win Dows video applications will put even greater loads on the Chip. To run those applications at Peak performance and to have the ability for multitasking running several applications at the same time customers Are snatching i486s with gusto. So for most businesses the higher in vestment in a 486 seems to be Worth while paying dividends in performance and productivity. Many newer 486-based systems also have bigger and faster hard disks better graphics systems for display ing windows images and easier paths for improving the system in the future. Another complication in the 386 vs.486 Issue is the arrival of the 486slc Chip from the Cyril corp. Of Richardson Texas. Intel and advanced Micro de vices officials setting aside their animosities for a moment agreed at Codex to disparage the Cyril Chip As not a True 486 Wolf but rather a 386sx sheep with some admittedly impressive clothing. The truth is that the Cyril Chip is Zippy Little turbocharged perform Rae that appears capable of handling average windows workloads. Excellent for Bud get conscious buyers Iti 386 heritage makes it a Chip not to bet on for Long term heavy duty windows or os-2 applications