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To: Jim McMannis who wrote (62604)	8/17/1998 7:10:00 PM
From: Joey Smith	Respond to of 186894

All: NT gaining momentum. Great news for Intel! joey NT 4.0 Gains Momentum As 5.0 Delays Linger (08/17/98; 4:41 p.m. ET) By Stuart J. Johnston, InformationWeek Microsoft said it expects to ship the second beta of Windows NT 5.0 this week, but customers have given up waiting and are adopting NT 4.0 on the desktop at an accelerated pace. New data from InformationWeek research show sales of NT Workstation 4.0 moving up sharply in 1998 and accelerating rapidly over the next two years. In one survey, 68 percent of 150 IT decision makers say they will move to NT on the desktop within two years. A follow-up survey of 100 desktop operating system managersplanning to move to NT found that the vast majority are choosing NT Workstation for its improved reliability and stability. Other numbers back up those findings. Although Microsoft sold fewer than 7 million units of NT Workstation in 1997, Dataquest predicts that this number will reach 12.9 million this year, 24.9 million in 1999, and 44.6 million in 2000. Key reasons cited for adopting NT 4.0 include security, compatibility with NT Server applications, and year 2000 compliance. The repeated delay of NT 5.0 has also forced the trend to NT 4.0. Fourteen months ago, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates said NT 5.0 would ship in the first half of 1998. The expected shipment data has slipped well into 1999. NT 5.0 betas will go out to as many as 200,000 users this week, although a few key ingredients, such as Windows terminal support, will be missing or not ready to test.

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (62604)	8/17/1998 7:11:00 PM
From: d[-_-]b	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Jim, A little education on USB seems in order: developer.intel.com Easy Plug and Play for Peripherals. Universal Serial Bus allows virtually unlimited PC expansion "outside the box." With USB, PC users no longer need to worry about selecting the right serial port, installing expansion cards, or the technical headaches of dip switches, jumpers, software drivers, IRQ settings, DMA channels and I/O addresses. USB features a "one-size-fits all" connector that makes it easy to add and unplug peripheral devices, without ever opening the PC. USB's "hot insertion and removal" feature makes expansion even easier, because users can add peripherals without turning off their PC. USB allows PCs (and PC users) to connect with an exciting array of new digital imaging peripherals, integrated computer telephony devices and multi-user games. Universal Compatibility. USB is an industry-wide Plug and Play specification that makes it easy to expand PC functionality. USB is currently supported by over 400 leading companies, including PC manufacturers and suppliers of telecommunications products, PC peripherals and software. Simpler Peripheral Design. By eliminating the need for add-in cards, USB makes peripherals easier to design and manufacture. USB distributes power, so many peripheral products no longer require separate power supplies. Intel is supplying the PC industry with a family of validated USB solutions, including advanced AGP chipsets and thoroughly validated USB peripheral controller chips. Intel USB solutions are designed for reliable Plug and Play performance-at both ends of the wire. developer.intel.com Universal Serial Bus technology now makes it easy for PC users to connect monitors, printers, digital speakers, modems and input devices like graphics tablets, scanners, digital cameras, joysticks and multimedia game equipment. Here's a glimpse at the technical side of USB. Two data rates USB has two data rates, 12Mbps for devices requiring increased bandwidth, and 1.5 Mbps for lower-speed devices like joysticks and game pads. Tiered-star topology USB uses a "tiered star topology" which means that some USB devices--called USB "hubs"--can serve as connection ports for other USB peripherals. Only one device needs to be plugged into the PC. Other devices can then be plugged into the hub. USB hubs USB hubs may be embedded in such devices as monitors, printers and keyboards. Stand-alone hubs could also be made available, providing a handful of convenient USB ports, right on the desktop. Hubs feature an upstream connection (pointed toward the PC) as well as multiple downstream ports to allow the connection of additional peripheral devices. Up to 127 USB devices can be connected together in this way. Automatic configuration USB host controllers (which are available as part of several Intel PCI chip sets) manage and control the driver software and bandwidth (data flow) required by each peripheral connected to the bus. Users don't need to do a thing, because all the configuration steps happen automatically. The USB host controller even allocates electrical power to the USB devices. Like USB host controllers, USB hubs can detect attachments and detachments of peripherals occurring downstream and supply appropriate levels of power to downstream devices. Electrical power Another word about electrical power. Since power is distributed through USB cables (with a maximum length of five meters), you no longer need a clunky AC power supply box for many devices. The bottom-line is that USB makes it easy to add peripherals to your PC, and that can make your PC more productive and fun to use. PS: Firewire is for storage devices, it's in the works.

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (62604)	8/17/1998 7:30:00 PM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Jim, Apple has under 3% by boxes, a bit more by $$. This 8% is a fantasy that some cite. The new Imac will redress this a bit but a million of them is a billion in sales to Apple and we will sell 30 million PCs this year so a million imacs will get spread thin but will bring apple to 5% of boxes. $ figures are bigger as apples cost more per box so the Apple people like to cite them. USB is coming for PCs too. It has better bandwidthnthan common serial but you can only put a few hogs on it. The full 127 would be slow items like keyboards and mice. The big brother called firewire is good for 400 mega bits per second and will be good for storage/video etc. Still has the same hog problem, it will not go away. 40 hogs will be limited to 10 megabits per second each and not continuous transfrers, pelletised . Bill

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (62604)	8/18/1998 2:02:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Jim - Re: "Seems like USB is a step backwards. Isn't it slower than SCSI?" Do you need SCSI for keyboards? Do you need SCSI for Monitors? Do you need SCSI for Speakers ? USB is just fine for low bandwidth applications - about 12 Million Bits/Sec. or less. Look up the spec and look up the applications - educate yourself ! No one is pushing USB for HIGH SPEED HARD DISKS ! Paul

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (62604)	8/18/1998 2:15:00 AM
From: Gary Ng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Jim, Re: Seems like USB is a step backwards. Isn't it slower than SCSI? What kind of background are you coming from ? Seems that you know how to plan to sell a $399 computer for 20%+ profit but don't know much able these basic computer stuff. USB and SCSI are not in the same league. The only overlap I know is scanner which actually don't need SCSI(there is many parallel port version now). Initially, it requires SCSI is because there isn't a standard interface for connecting external device that can satisfy the speed requirement of a scanner need. But that is history since the introduction of ECP/EPP port. >I was also surprised to hear that Apple used IDE HDs in >some of their models. Why not ? It is much cheaper. Will you use SCSI harddisk in your $399 computer ? Gary