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COMPUTER BITS BY PAUL LYNCH Good books on the PC can be well worthwhile It's possible that today's secondary schools are teaching their pupils properly about computers, and particularly about PCs, but I doubt it. They would be better off reading a few decent books. While researching a story on computers in schools some 18 months ago, I spent a melancholy morning in one of Sydney's "show installations" and watched hapless, eager, interested children pecking their way across their keyboards, rather like laboratory animals not quite sure which button would produce the desired grain of seed. My own children have attended five schools between them and at none have they found a computer club. At one school - one of the most famous schools in the state - my son told me that there would be no computer instruction at all in the first year but thern might just be an hour a week in the second. While there are secondary schools offering good computer courses, I gather that these tend to be places lucky enough to have one or two truly enthusiastic and largely self-taught computer-loving teachers. This may be bad news for Australia but it's good news for the publishers of self-help books about how the PC works. And it's good news for us PC users that some of these books are very good, indeed. I review two of the best ones this month. I know quite a number of PC users who spend $30 a month and more on magazines, because they know no other way to find out what's actually going on inside their computers. While computer textbooks and refer70 SILICON CHIP ences are generally expensive (the two volumes I review here each cost $59.95), they're a cheaper way than the magazine route for us all to learn about our PCs. The documentation supplied with most computers doesn't help all that much. Two of the better reference books are Peter Norton's Inside the IBM PC and PS/2 and The PC Users Guide by Nick Anis and Craig Menefee. Peter Norton's guide Peter Norton is one of the legends of the PC era. Some six or seven years ago, based on his reputation as a man who knew the innards of PCs, he was writing a regular column in a US magazine. In particular, I remember one in which he explained that you could make a buck out of selling commercial software from your home or ga- rage. His article included an explanation of how to buy cheap floppy discs, how to get cheap labels printed, and how to put the software on using the MS-DOS diskcopy command. ' I think he established that you could hope to mail your software out at a cost of something like $US1.50 a disc using all these cheap tricks. Presumably, these costs have not changed much but if you wanted to buy all Peter Norton's software today, you'd be spending the thick end of $A1000. For this, you would get your money's worth and more, because Peter Norton has proved one of the most brilliant of all those shirt-sleeved programmers of the early eighties at working out where the holes were in MS-DOS, and how the Intel processors and other hardware bits operate under DOS. Yes, this is the Peter Norton of Norton Utilities. His book, as you might expect, is a reasoned step-bystep guide to how computers do the things they do. In US textbook style, it also concludes each chapter with a list of possible projects. But his new book (the review copy is the fourth edition of a standard text and was published late in 1991) is not just a textbook. It's a true reference volume. One of its ornaments is an appendix called a "narrative glossary", which in 12 pages takes you through a coherent, interlocked account of virtually everything you need to know about in your PC. The technical words and phrases are printed in bold letters, thus: When a computer uses a common data path - a special set of circuit wires - to pass data from one part to another, this path is called a bus. The narrative then goes on to name various buses. DVORAK~~1• regard his book highly and recommend it for your computer desk. The PC User's Guide NickAnis& Craig Menefee Wh at if you want to know more about what a bus is? The index refers you t o a section in the main body of the book which describes them in detail. A famous programmer, Norton has written a special BASIC program for readers of the book, so they can write their own simple computer game. His section on programming is, of course, excellent but so is his information on hardware. The book's title is a trifle misleading. While it is indeed about the IBM PC and the PS/2, it's also about the PC clones and compatibles that most ofus buy and use. It's up-to- Nick Anis and Craig Menefee have written their reference book from a different perspective. It's 722 pages long, in comparison with Norton 's 398, and evidently the authors believe you should buy it before you decide on your next computer, or else should pick it up after you've handed over payment for your PC. There are sections on which type of machine to buy and on how to put your system together. There's a chatty, friendly style of writing that many will find encouraging (one example: "When IBM jumped into the personal computer market in 1981, it was like the arrival of Shamu the whale in the backyard inflatable swimming pool") . Unlike Norton, Anis and Menefee offer a valuable 40-page troubleshooting guide. While this does not cover every possible trouble that you might want to shoot one day, it does warn you bluntly about the risks of the more dangerous DOS commands, and it explains many of the hardware and software problems that arise. The authors also prudently tell you the difference between troubleshoot- "The PC User's Guide is equipped with an excellent index that makes it easy to use as a reference. It also offers extra treasures whose values may become more apparent to you as your expertise grows" STOCK SALE!! 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He firmly believes that IBM's ideas for the PC are the best in a number of respects. His section on IBM's Micro Channel Architecture explains MCA clearly and gives · the best argument I've read for going the high-priced IBM route. But it also gives the best argument for not going the same route, which is that the peripherals you have working with your clone's ISA and EISA boards won't work on an MCA mach ine. He expects, he writes, that the n on-IBM manufacturers will start to produce MCA machines one day but I have my doubts about whether this is right. In every other way, I ing (working out what's wrong, and fixing it) and service (handing.the job over to a trained specialist). The "PC User's Guide" is equipped with an excellent index that makes it easy to use as a reference. It also offers extra treasures whose values may become more apparent to you as your expertise grows. One appendix is a table of hard disc drive geometries and, from this, I learned that the disc in my 386DX was configured by the dealer to hold six fewer megabytes than its capacity. The book tells me elsewhere how I can get them back. I must get around to that some day, real soon. PS: in May 1992, I referred to an advertised computer with a 486 40MHz CPU. This was a mistake: the computer had a 386 40MHz chip. SC MJ15024 .. ..... .... .. ..... ... .. ...... ... $8.60 MJ15025 .......... .. ...... .. ... .. .. ... .. $8.60 TOA 1023 ....... ..... .. ... .. .. ........... $4.30 T DA1085 .. .. ..... ... ..... ...... .. ..... $18.00 TC9142 ... ... .. ... .. ...... ....... ...... .. $5.50 MC14514 ...... .... ... ... ..... ...... .... $3.00 NE555 ... ... ...... ...... .. ........ .... .... $0.40 MJE13007 .... ... .... .... ... ... ....... .. $4.00 ALL ITEMS 10 PLUS 10% OFF _HYCAL ELECTRONICS Unit 4, 62 Gt. Western Hwy, Parramatta, NSW 2150. Phone (02) 633 5477 Fax (02) 891 5640 Credit Cards Welcome JULY 1992 71