European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 30, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse A no bits Orv America online. Mcdonald a restaurants have teamed up with Abc on the television networks Board to produce an interactive forum and promote country Singer Garth Brooks upcoming appearance on inc Mcdonald a interactive includes topics such As Centennial olympic facts a history of the Chain and outdoor safety tips. Mcdonald a is using its Abc lie in not Only to promote the restaurants but also its Ronald Mcdonald houses which serve the families of hospitalized children. On Friday Mcdonald a will offer cd from Brooks Tina Turner Rosette Elton John and others in stores with $ l of the $5.99 or $3.99 Cost going to Ronald Mcdonald a children charities. In addition Brooks will be on line at 8 . Sept. 9 in the Abc auditorium also called the a auditorium keywords Abc or Mcdonald a. Another example of a to Chanty tie in will be found on Compuserve Over the labor Day weekend. The a muscular dystrophy association forum go mad will be updated with a schedule of the Jerry Lewis telethon a events As Well As with information about the disease. The forum will be free of any extra connect tune charges from 5 . Friday to noon tuesday Eastern time. Celebrities on the telethon will be invited to interact with fans on line and Compuserve members can make credit card donations on the mad main menu. Two major software retailers have agreed to merge creating a Chain of nearly 7 kit stores generating More than $5 x million in annual Revenue. Dallas based Babbage s inc. And Minneapolis based software Etc. Stores inc. Said last week they plan to join forces. The combined company will be stronger than the two have been separately. Babbage s chairman Jim Mccurry said. Quot its As simple As two plus two is equal to five or said Mccurry who will chairman of the new company. V the popular comic Book superheroes the a men Are entering the cube world on Compuserve. Marvel comics and the on line service will launch what is billed As the first comic Book on line at 9 . Thursday Eastern time at a conference that will feature writer Scott Lobdell artist Chris Bachalo and several other Marvel guests. The first Issue of the comic Book generation x will be available on line on that Day go Menand later in Siores after Midnight cube fans can View the comic on the following services internet Ftp Host Alpha sync com in the directory pub Marvel 1x7 file name to Gens zip and macintosh tile name is Gens sea America online uses the keyword graphics Stuj go to new f Iles Library on Geme go to Page of Marvel Cornu s Horary t Rompc Titch in t otitis s has a Board on Arnu online but has t offered a whole co inc yet f Fiatt pc it to error is by John Burgess Washington Post Washington come sit Down Over Here. Let me show you this new cd rom title which documents the lives and times of the pop group heart. What a this there a a message on the screen. Quot Quot fatal error in script line 157.&Quot never mind we be got More disks around Here. Lets try the Simon amp schuster a Day encyclopedia. Ouch. Another snafu again before we even get started. Quot cannot use ,�?� the machine declares referring to a specific file in the a Day program. Quot it is an incorrect version or Damn Well jets try again. Success this time with the software too works world Atlas. a Ltd a. A a a a a but there Are a few things funny. The Anthem god save the Queen sounds Nice and Clear when we go into the Bermuda entry. A a a a. a a to but a voice that reads out categories is cloaked in Static to he Point that its barely understandable. And the Bermuda lag turns from red to Blue when certain buttons in the Bermuda entry Are pressed. Cd rom computers Are proliferating like mad. Dat quest inc. Predicts that the world will have 24 million of them by the end of this year. But i wonder How Many of those drives Are really being used. Despite what the Industry tells us going multimedia Isnit As easy As plugging in the machine and popping in a disk. Let me say that plenty of cd rooms run without problems. At the office Here for instance we be successfully run the can time capsule where in the world is Carmen Sandiego and reference disks. But my experience is that some problem arises in about half the disks often in the setup. The problem is usually solvable but often Only with angst Telephone Calls and much flipping of user manual pages. Often the temptation i be Given into it Many times is to toss the disk aside and move on. So what a going on partly its the perils of using any new software. Most of the cd rom titles Are new enough that you be probably got version i. As with any program bugs have made it past the developers and Are plaguing you the Early user. Lack of standards is another. There Are Many technologies for bringing sound and images to your machine each competing to be the one that the whole Industry goes for. While we wait for that to happen your cd rom has got to have the right sound system the right video card and setting the right number of screen colors. But cd rooms Are also known to have s v 7 v s v a is a a. A a \ a is s s s. Cd rooms push a machine to its limits. The programs and data they contain Are huge the disks hold about 600 megabytes. The $1,500 machine in a Home has a hard time churning All that information. So to help it cd rom software writers often take some liberties. They know for instance that they often wont get optimal performance if the program runs straight from the disk itself Access time is too slow in optical drives. So they copy a few files Over to the faster hard disk. But developers often do More than add to the clutter on your hard disk. They often Monkey with configuration files that they find there just As do the authors of Mammoth applications that come on floppies. Some explanation a personal computer is a general purpose mass produced machine that a Why it costs so Little. Each time its turned on. It automatically runs through a Drill of Quot configuring Quot itself to do specific tasks such As run your applications. It checks certain files on its disk and Btl sed of information it finds there it sets such Arcana As How if will Divide up its memory the people who write cd rooms know that if your machine is configured in just the right Way they can get optimal performance for their programs. So they sometimes write their programs to reach out into your machine and make configuration changes. The problem is that this new configuration May conflict with what a required for the next program you try to use. You May Welt get those mysterious infuriating error messages on the screen. The Industry knows its got trouble Here. The optical publishers association a Trade group is proposing the equivalent of a Good housekeeping sea. Publishers who qualify would do such things As create cd rom programs that can do their Basic tricks without Messing with the hard disk and without modifying the computers configuration. A give the user a Clear explanation and Choice if configuration files Are to be changed. 1 write the program so the user does t need to make physical adjustments to hardware and does t need to know precisely what kind of sound card or whatever is in a machine. Be honest. They would not suggest to the customer that a program will run in one configuration while knowing that to really be useful it needs another higher More expensive More Complex one. Players wont strike out by Jack Warner Cox news service this is for computer users who love baseball so much they Are having withdrawal symptoms after a couple of weeks of deprivation Relief is readily available for the Price of a Good pair of tickets there is a Good selection of baseball games for ism and compatibles games that will satisfy both the action one med player with lightning reflexes and the More reflective Lover of the endless numbers the game generates of those games available immediately the Best bets Are Tony Larussa baseball from ssi. Hardball Iii hum accolade and baseball fur windows from Mil Ter associates a new game. Front Page Stuis baseball is supposed to be shipping nest Momb rums Obi Uima i have just it Hiitt Ai a rest version of ifs game and hum those Pat is of u shut ate working u appears will be a very Strong Challenge o i. and Han Thuu a desc two arc Art gated games. They can be played to Arcade style in which you do All the batting All the Fielding All the base running and All the pitching for your team. I find this next to impossible but in a sure some people can manage it the pitching Isnit difficult at All. The batting can be mastered with practice but die Fielding is beyond me All three games can be played with you As the manager leaving All the athletics to die computer in some cases they come with a Tew All Star teams and the disks with Hist Veur s major league players and tit air stalls lies comes e Vita. 5 us Vii draw up new leagues a circe out the is to new teams and so up a league w bed Ute of As Many games As Yuhi w vib even As i write the sulks Ai ten army ate this ii play Paiit out Nifte Tea pc season a a it a turns face sports base hah my favorite of the games is. Baseball for windows which is actually the old Aba baseball game in disguise. The Only graphic you get with this game is a very Nice rendering of any one of half a dozen or so actual major league Parks. This is no problem for me. The graphics in All the graphic games tend to be repetitive. Often confusing and slow things Down. Baseball for windows resolves each at Bat to a single pitch. A sport waster like narration of the action appears m a window you have All the managerial chores and make snap decisions on when to Send runners for an extra base and that sort of thing the stats m baseball for windows Are amazing there Are not Only an enormous number of numbers but j lot of creative was so which to Gnu a Ami Maju paiute them ail Trie options fur league creation player trading and league play Are Here it takes halt an he sir to to minutes to play a game. And to runs under Mici Issott w windows it v the most esp noise of the pkg at sit $45 at discount hard Bat i i is the cheapest Aouad s in and Larussa runs a Tut $ 15
