European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 19, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes computers tuesday. April 19. 1994 chips n bits  to change the Way Consumers plan their vacations and other Road trips. The suburban  announced it i developing computer software that will be available from a wide variety of retailers. We re committed to making our new Media products readily available anywhere our customers shop said Henry j. Feinberg president of the138-year-old, privately held publisher. Feinberg told up that Rand Mcnally s program will differ from map making programs already on the Market because it will incorporate everything the company knows Abou Consumers we be been providing routing an mileage software to trucking and shipping companies for years Feinberg said. Delivering our geographic information in new and exciting ways to Consumers is Natura progression. Software is the next step for the  the programs still Are in the development stage and Are expected to Start coming out during the summer. Feinberg said the information will be available on both cd rom and floppy and possibly through some on line services. People Are looking for greater flexibility in what they can do for themselves Feinberg said. Technology is going to allow them to do  a spokesman for the american. Automobile association Chicago motor club said he does not see the announcement As a threat to aaa travel services. We see a lot of future in compute mapping programs Jonathan Lehrer a spokesman for aaa Csc told up. There Are a number of programs on the Market now. They probably Appeal to a very tin segment at this  Lehrer noted his group is involve Din so called smart car experiments which provide in car navigational information. Aaa Long has provided consumer with Tript iks maps with Road construction and other obstruction marked. For $59, you can buy a program called automat Lehrer said. We Are seeing increases in our membership. If huge numbers of people Are buying that program we Aren t seeing  Dell computer announced five new desktop computers based on Intel corp s 90-Megahertz pentium microprocessor and the Joo Mhz Intel dx4 486 microprocessor. The products include two additions to Dell s dimension family aimed at Small office or business customers and individuals with prices starting at $2,999 for the pentium Model and$2,199 for the 486 Model two enhanced Omni plex systems aimed at engineers designers and financial analysts starting at $4,649 and $3,199 and the Dell opt plex 4100,designed for other business uses starting at $2,099. Dell also said it was taking $100 to$300 off some existing opt plex and Omni plex models. Compaq computer announce plans to invest $50 million to double its Singapore manufacturing operations in response to growing worldwide customer demand. From wire reports log in and play Ball today s baseball fans can get their fill of statistics on line by Peter h. Lewis new York times a the opening of the baseball season. The crack of the Bat the Roar of the crowd the whistle of modems holy cow sports fans baseball has come to cyberspace. Baseball whether the real game or the increasingly popular form of fantasy baseball called rotisserie has become a showcase for the slugging Power of technology and information networks. For a fee fans of the game can now tap into vast information data bases where millions of bits of baseball news Esoterica. And analysis Are stored dissected and disseminated pitch by pitch minute by minute. Call it data for the statistically insatiable. If football is a game of inches base Ball is becoming the game of megabytes. Equipped with desktop computers laptops and even hand held devices with wireless communications links the mod Ern fan can absorb everything about any game whenever and wherever it is played. The passion that baseball fans bring to their real or fantasy leagues has resulted in the development of an extraordinary number of computer services equal to those that arose on Wall Street said Roger Mcnamaee a portfolio manager for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers a High technology venture capital firm in san Francisco. When he is not managing portfolios Mcnamee is managing a fantasy baseball team. In these rotisserie leagues named after the defunct Manhattan restaurant where the game was invented in the Early 1980s the manager of a fantasy team drafts players sets lineups and competes with other managers using the real statistics of real major league players As the season unfolds Mcnamee said he saw Many similarities Between his financial work and his As major league teams begin heir drive to the world series which Toronto won last year statistics freaks also Are getting Back into the swing of things. Sports Hobby. They re both Large games interactive transactional real time and Small pieces of insight have great value he said. It Struly amazing to me How much Money is spent on this subculture. But in every Case a Premium is paid for completeness insight and  for the companies that compile col late and Crank out the data on line sports statistics have become a multimillion Dollar Industry. The leaders include stats inc., of Skokie 111. Allstar stats inc. Of Valhalla . And the Elias sports Bureau of Manhattan the official statistician of major league baseball the National basketball association and other professional sports. Paul Allen a co founder of Microsoft corp., the owner of the Portland Trail blazers basketball team and a sports fanatic has formed a company called Star wave corp. Of Bellevue wash., that plans to begin providing sports news and Statis tics soon on the interchange online net work based in Cambridge mass. That service will put Allen in Competition with Microsoft which Sells a soft Ware program called Complete baseball which can be updated with fresh statistics through a computer network for $1.25 a Day. And the Prodigy computer service signed a contract last week with the esp sports television network report edly valued at $2 million to create an interactive sports information network. Esp in turn has created a pay per View Cable television program specifically to Appeal to rotisserie baseball players. Meanwhile on the Prodigy network it self fans pay $125 a year to manage their own teams of fantasy players plus additional fees for the privilege of insulting rival managers using electronic mail and electronic bulletin boards. Learning the keys to Good music by Catuna Ortiz the associated press half Moon Bay Calif. The tap tap tap of computer keys is real music to the ears of one software company. Passport designs inc. Has developed a program that turns a Standard computer keyboard into a musical instrument. The music appears note for note on the Monitor and can be manipulated re corded and printed. The company s new version of its my sic time program is aimed at a huge mar Ket millions of computer users who want an easy but interesting Way of enjoy ing music. Music time is a product that has a lot of depth although it is very very easy to operate said passport designs founder David m. Kusek. It s not something you play with for five minutes and get  privately held passport designs is a leading maker of music software for per Sonal computers and instruments that use Midi musical instrument digital inter face. Midi allows keyboard and other instruments to work with computers. The original version of music time was introduced a year and a half ago. The software intended mainly for hobbyists lets users play record transcribe edit and print music with a Midi keyboard and a pc. The widespread inclusion of sound boards in pcs has boosted the program popularity. Most people however Are familiar with the boards Only through sound effects in computer games and Are unaware of their possibilities. We re trying to open up the opportunities of people to do music on their computers said Kusek the company s chair Man president and chief executive officer. There Are 42 million Amateur musicians in the . So you be got a fifth of the population who have played a musical instrument at some Point he said. Then you figure 10 to 15 percent of those people have a  the company began shipping my sic time 2.0 last month. Its most important new feature is the ability to dispense with a Midi keyboard instead the keys of a pc keyboard sound notes Over eight octaves. You Don t have to spend Money on a Midi keyboard. You Don t have to know about All the technology involved in getting All the wires hooked up said John Rezendes product manager for passport designs. If you be got a sound card in the computer you can just Start doing  programs offered by rivals Coda music software co. And mid soft corp. Work with either a computer keyboard or a Midi instrument but not both he said. Passport designs which has shipped 50,000 copies of the original music time plans to sell 200,000 copies of the up graded program this year. To help meet that goal the company has Cut the suggested Price from $249 to $149, although it expects some retailers to sell it for under $100. Passport designs does t disclose its financial results but Kusek said the com Pany is making a profit and growing at about 40 percent a year. He credited the company s Success to the ease of use of its products which in clude several other music programs for both professionals and amateurs