European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 20, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 14 the stars and stripes computers tuesday december 20,1994 a game plan for Christmas software choices for under the tree by Mark Potts Washington Post Washington with Home computers becoming ubiquitous software and computer goodies Are joining ties and toys As gift giving Staples. If you re looking for a Good computer related holi Day gift Here Are some of the Best things i be come across in the past year. Despite the popularity of shoot pm ups like doom ii Good computer games Don t have to be violent. Maxis the maker of the wildly successful Sim City has a Bunch of new titles out that let users simulate various activities and even learn a Little in the process. But Check out Sim Tower in which you have to build and run a skyscraper and Sim town a whimsical children s version of Sim City. They re each less than $50 for the macintosh pc versions won t be out until after the new year. Cd rom drives Are becoming a Stan Dard computer peripheral. If you Don t have one consider putting one on the Christmas list assuming your computer has enough Power to handle cd rom prices for the cheapest cd rom drives Are Down to around $200. Beware of pre packaged multimedia kits you la often find that you can get the individual items cheaper especially speakers if you buy them separately. And you la want some of the Best soft Ware for these powerful multimedia de vices. For kids Broder bund s living books Are standouts with particular nods to Tortoise and the Hare and Harry and the haunted House. Science fiction fans will like the amazing Star trek the next generation interactive technical Man Ual or the dazzling rebel assault Lucas films game based on the Star wars mov ies. A. ,. V / myst remains the Gold Standard for Complex and Beautiful cd rom prob Lem solving games if you know someone who s figured out the mystery of myst s world and is looking for new challenges try the 7th guest. A of these cd rooms Are available for pcs and Maes for $40 or $50 apiece. Speaking of cd rooms voyager has a wild new one for the macintosh based on the classic movie parody this is spinal rap. It includes the Complete film plus All sorts of background material outtakes and related goofiness a pc version is due next year. Elsewhere on the popular culture front seventh level s Monty Python cd rom for pcs has garnered rave reviews but stay away from game Tek s saturday night live the first 20 years which looks like it was put together in a hurry with very Little imagination. All of these Are about $50. Cd rom encyclopedias still Aren t really up to snuff but there Are a couple of  reference works Worth checking out. Street Atlas Usa for pcs and macs provides maps of virtually every place in the United states. It s great fun to throw it an obscure Remote address and watch it show up on a map on your screen. And pc owners should Check out Darling Kindersley is cd rom version of David Macaulay s the Way things work one of the most delightful educational cd rooms to come along yet if you know somebody with an artistic Bent get him a copy of the incredible kit Bryce about $100 for macintosh it creates highly realistic artificial land scapes. Younger artists and older ones too will have a Ball with Dabbler about $50 for pc and Mac. It makes Art fun. Writers will appreciate the newest ver Sion of Microsoft s word 6,0, which runs about $300, or just $ 100 if you re upgrading from an earlier version the macintosh version of word 6.0 has been slammed by macintosh magazines As too big and too slow and those Are fair criticisms but the payback is incredible Power and features such As resume and newsletter makers. Everybody seems to love screen savers and Berkeley systems after dark continues to Lead the pack by a wide margin. The latest version 3.0, adds a number of valuable features and even More cute new modules. Berkeley also has special versions out for fans of Star trek and the Simpsons. / a a Ai a. F w Santa will have a lot of software gift possibilities for Christmas morning. Also from Berkeley express a color Ful and powerful Datebook and organizer whose Only disadvantage is that it eats up a lot of hard disk space. Every computer owner wishes for More memory of either the storage or operating variety. Hard disk prices have fallen sharply in recent weeks i picked up a 730-megabyte drive for a bit More than $300, a Price that would have been unthinkable this tune last year. Operating memory also continues to fall in Price and it always comes in Handy to provide room to run today bigger programs macintosh owners have an advantage Here though any owner of a newer Mac will love to get the under-$60 Ramdo Ubl eras a gift. It uses software tricks to Dou ble the amount of available operating memory a Miracle that s in keeping with the spirit of the Holiday season. That s a lot cheaper than buying new memory for you machine. Mark Potts is director of product development at digital Ink the washing ton Post co s electronic Media subsidiary. His email address is Potts at  full length films on cd the Tavvo developers of com pact discs announced a set of pro posed specifications for a new video compact disc capable of holding a full length feature movie. Japan s Sony corp. And Philip electronics of the Netherlands said the new multimedia cd would Bethe same size As current audio cd but would be Able to store More than 11 times More data up to 7.4 gigabytes 7.4 billion bytes. Sony said a group of computer and software makers is also Dis cussing ways of using the new cd to store computer data. But the specifications proposed by Sony and Philips Are not Compa Tible with rival formats proposed by other japanese companies including Toshiba corp. And Pioneer electronic corp. The Gap could led to a format War similar to the one Over videotapes a decade ago which pitted vhf the current de Facto Stan Dard against the Sony backed Beta format. To glitch by Evan Ramstad the associated press new York Microsoft corp. Said it would repair its windows software that produces wrong answers in some simple subtraction equations the action came after a Wall Street journal columnist mentioned the glitch in an article thursday that mainly focused on Intel corp s trouble with the pentium Chip. A Microsoft executive said the move was unrelated to the criticism Intel has received Over its handling of the pentium flaw which can goof up Complex division problems. This has not changed my expectations on the Quality customers demand said Brad Chase general manager of personal operating systems. I think customers de Mand High Quality irregardless of the pentium  but he acknowledged Microsoft has known about the problem for several months and had planned to wait to fix it until a new version of windows went on Sale next summer. � the glitch occurs when the calculator program in windows subtracts number sending in .01. For instance 2.0 minus 2.01 produces a result of 0 instead of0.01. X v " r i think customer demand High Quality irregardless of the pentium situation l-.-l-fr-. C -. Of com  i % / Jav Brad Chase Microsoft the problem has existed since win Dows 3.1 went on the Market in 1991. More than 60 million copies of the soft Ware have been sold. The program oper ates the Basic functions of a personal computer such As storing a file. Other publications including the Trade paper into world have written about the Microsoft flaw in the Wake of the pentium Flap. Microsoft Learned about it sever Al months ago from people who we retesting a new version of windows that had the same calculator program. Microsoft Early next month will pro Duce a program that corrects the calculator error it will be distributed through on line services and to customers who phone in the company said. Few people Are believed to rely on the windows calculator. They More typically use the calculators in a spreadsheet or other financial application programs. But after the Intel episode technology firms have to guard against customers be coming suspicious of computing in Gener Al said Amy Wohl a technology Consul Tant in Philadelphia. The problem is there s a big Gap be tween what the software Industry knows about what it takes to develop software and what the customer s expectations Are Wohl said. The pentium error made Public by a Virginia mathematician a month ago happens in Complex division calculations unlikely to be made by a typical computer owner. Nonetheless it became a or Nightmare for Intel after it refused to re place the Chip with no questions asked. Earlier this week ism said it would Stop Selling pentium based machine until corrected versions of the Chip reach volume production Early next year. An ism spokeswoman said the company did not plan to Stop Selling windows