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» A Custom PC Specification from 1999 «

Intro

Custom PC - Building the perfect system... (1999)


This page is dedicated to building the best computer system possible, with advice on what's worth waiting for and what's coming in the wings to bear in mind.

April 2000
With the exception of Nvidias GeForce entering the picture and ever faster chips, nothing has radically changed in the past year. That said, an overhaul is long overdue and I'll try and see to it later this month.

September 1999
Most of this was actually written in the first quarter of the year and parts of it need looking at, but this areas are still unsettled anyway. What I will say though is this - Mitsubishi 2020u - go for it! The street price has just been dropped to just £729 ex vat (probably around $999 stateside :-( including three year on site warranty. OK, at 22" it's a tad big and the price isn't small but it's money well spent - you'll never look at a smaller monitor again.

If anyone wants to offer their own advice or suggestions I will add these (and a link) where appropriate.   My weak spots are midi keyboards, audio-visual cards and equipment and video-conferencing so if anyone has expert advice to offer I'd appreciate it.   I will, of course add/leave in copyright messages and links.

Copyright of all images and any copied articles (in frames) remain with their respective owners.

This site is NOT sponsored in any way (though that would be nice) and all the products listed are those I have either bought or played with and will probably buy when I can. I firmly believe that these currently represent best of breed in each (price) category and that their manufacturers offer reliable support*.

*Beyond warranty issues, this means decent, regularly updated drivers. Given the growing size and complexity of OS's this is important. It doesn't mean that bugs won't happen, but when they do you can at least have the confidence that something will be done.

I'll add a menu system and more links at a later date.     Paul



Incidentally, to qualify my judgements for those that were asking, I owned a computer consultancy for a number of news and was reseller for a number of manufacturers including:

AMD,   APC,   Apple Mac,   Compaq,   Creative (C.A.P.),   Epson,   Hewlett Packard,   Intel (I.P.I.)   and Mitsubishi  





Mitsubishi 2020u

Mitsubishi 21" Diamondtron 1010e or
the new 2020u Natural Flat monitor
shocked man

UPS
Be afraid, be very afraid
If you haven't got a decent surge protector, get one today!
Even a £12 one is better than nothing, but for peace of mind, something like a 700va APC or Exide can be classed as an investment.
All those scare stories about brown-outs, surges etc..? They are real, they happen, they can fry a computer!
Supermicro sc750 tower case

Supermicro logo SC-750 Case
Labtec LVA-8550 headphones

Labtec
LVA-8550
headphones
Yamaha YST-MSW10 subwoofer

Yamaha
YST-MSW10
Subwoofer
Yamaha YST-MT100 speakers

Yamaha
YST-M100
Speakers
Epson 9500 scanner

HP6200s or
Epson 9500 scanner
Wpson 740 inkjet

Epson 740 or HP1120c inkjet or HP4000 laser printer
Nikon Coolpix 900 digital camera

Epson PhotoPC 700 Digital camera -
or perhaps a Nikon for Sir?
PlexWriter 8/20 cd-writer

PlexWriter
8/20
CD-Writer
Creative DVD-5X box

Creative Labs DVD
Plextor Ultra40 CD-Rom

Plextor Ultra40 logo
CD-ROM
Abit BX6R2 slot 1 motherboard

ABIT BX6 (r2)
Motherboard
Intel PIII logo

CPU
72 pin SIMM shown

Memory
Hard drive

EIDE - Get UDMA-66 drives
Hard drive

SCSI - Adaptec Ultra2 with IBM hard drive
Tape cartridge

Back-up storage. Use a CD-R!
Alternatives include DAT, ZIP and JAZ
RealMagic Hollywood card logo

MPEG2
Matrox Millenium G400 Max

Matrox G200 - or
Wait for the Matrox
Millenium G400 Max...
3Dfx logo

3D CARD
SBLive! logo

Soundblaster Live!
10BaseT cable

NIC
ADSL modem shown

MODEM
Microsoft optical Intellimouse

MS Intellimouse
Keytronic KT2001 keyboard

Keytronic KT2001 keyboard
Microsoft Force Feedback joystick

Joysticks. MS Force FeedBack, perhaps - see comments below.
.


COMMENTS - RECOMMENDATIONS - LINKS
[Δ]

CD-ROM:

Plextor 40 Max

Yamaha, Teac, Creative CD-ROM are good too, but I'd go with the Plextor.

One thing to bear in mind with CD-ROMS is that the faster they spin, the more likely a badly pressed CD-ROM is going to be unreadable or unbearably noise.   I have a copy of the game Baldurs Gate on 5 disks - on a 32x Plextor it sounds like I'll trying to vacuum clean the room, the same disks on a 20x (DVD) are fine.


[Δ]

CD-WRITER:

Plextor 8/20

A good alternative is the Yamaha CRW4416

I've found Ricoh to be reliable too.   For me, least, HP CD-Writers are conspicuous by their absence...


[Δ]

DVD-ROM:

Creative Labs DVD

Hitachi & Panasonic are good alternatives


[Δ]

SPEAKERS:

Yamaha YST-M100 speakers   with the Yamaha YST-MSW10 sub-woofer

The Yamaha YST-M20DSP speakers are less expensive, but good sound quality.

I used to swear by the (now out of production) Altec Lansing ACS500, but whilst I have seen a selection of their new range, including the USB ones, I haven't had a proper chance to evaluate them and so can't comment on quality other than to say that Altec Lansing retain their reputation for high quality speakers

Another company I can thoroughly recommend is Labtec.
Due to a system problem (CD-ROM related) at a trade show I was unable to fully appreciate their updated range, but what I saw and heard was rather impressive.
As my favourite speakers are the Labtec LCS-3210, which are crystal clear even at the lowest settings and remain distortion free well into the high volume range, I'd say to check out their replacement - the APX-4620 with subwoofer.
Utilizing something called Variable Spatializer ® 3-D Imaging technology their speakers can create a 360° sound field giving the impression of surround sound akin the the SBLive! with four speakers.

For a stereo headset and boom microphone look no further than the Labtec LVA8550


[Δ]

TOWER CASE:

Supermicro SC750 tower case

Alternatives: If there's a better tower case in the price range, I've yet to see it.

As a word of note - at some point in the next year (mid 2000?) the ATX format is to be likely to be superceded by the   [ www.wtx.org ] WTX   design to account for necessary changes to thermal management (better cooler for hotter chips...).

So far Acer, Asustek, Supermicro and Tyan will be bringing out these new board, while chasis and power supplies will be built by Supermicro, Chenbro, Enlight Liteon and Loyalty Founder.


[Δ]

VIDEO CARD:

Choices are harder to nail down here. If you're buying today then it's the Matrox G200. Care to wait a short while? Then, possible heat concerns aside, it's the ATI Rage Pro Fury / Magnum - with hardware DVD, full DirectX 6.0 support and 32Mb memory (16Mb for initial release)

If you have a reasonable enough video card and are planning a SERIOUS upgrade, then, come fall, I suspect Matrox and ATI may have a slogfest with a 4x AGP cards (for the upcoming Camino motherboards).   These will almost certainly have 4x AGP, full DVD support and 32Mb memory as standard, with support for DirectX 7.0 and conceivably enhanced GL support.   256bit bandwidth is also possible from one or both.   Given all the buzz for the next Century, I'm taking bets that Matrox with throw everything and then some at the MILLENIUM III - no doubt adding "2000" to it.   Tacky, but that's PR & marketing types for you!. I just hope they get their act together with supply & demand.

Since I wrote this (in January '99) S3 have already done a press release announcing support for 4x AGP on its upcoming Savage4.   Number Nine and Diamond Multimedia will be the first to release this Voodoo beater in the second quarter. (Links to follow)

Throwing oil on the fire is the announced release, on May 15th, of the 183MHz Voodoo3 3500 AGP board which is expected to deliver up to 8 million triangles and 366 Megatexels per second at resolutions of up to 2,048 by 1,536 pixels.   It has even been designed to support the latest digital flat panel displays, feature a 350MHz RAMDAC, TV/S-Video Out capabilities and will no doubt have a suitable game bundle to show it off.

As far as I can tell from on-line and trade reviews it is basically a much faster 2D/3D Banshee with 16 MB of SGRAM.   Feature list includes single-pass single-cycle multi-texturing for bump mapping and trilinear mip-mapping, dual 32-bit internal rendering, per-pixel mip-mapping, sub-pixel and sub-texel correction, 8-bit palletized textures, programmable exponential fog tables, Gouraud shading, a full 128-bit 2D accelerator, DVD hardware assist, and support for DirectX®, Glide® and OpenGL®.

Tom Pabst has done a full review of the (pre-release) card and reckons it will be a must have for the Quake fanatics out there, though 2D acceleration, while good, could be better.


Update May '99 - enjoy!

I've unashamedly copied this, verbatim, from Matrox's launch story

Shock wave speed slams new Matrox G400 MAX into first place...April 6, 1999 -

Matrox Graphics Inc. introduces the new Matrox G400 MAX, a higher speed version of the already blisteringly fast Matrox G400 graphics chip. The Matrox G400 MAX benefits from an increase in raw speed of more than 30% over the Matrox G400 and can achieve peak 3D fill rates in excess of 333 Mtexels/second. On industry standard benchmarks, the new Matrox G400 MAX comes close to maxing out Ziff Davis’ 3D WinBench 99 test with a score of 1080 at 1024 x 768 resolution. The Matrox G400 MAX graphics chip also includes an industry-leading 360Mhz UltraSharp RAMDAC capable of driving high-end monitors at resolutions up to 2048 x 1536, 32-bpp at 85Hz.

Priced at a premium, the Matrox G400 MAX is targeted directly at the accept-no-compromise PC gamer, as well as at professionals using extremely high-end 21" monitors. All other professional and power users will benefit from the exceedingly high performance levels of the standard, lower cost Matrox G400 graphics chip, which attains an impressive 960 on 3D WinBench 99.

Note: The above information is for the Matrox G400 Chipset. Board-level products based on the Matrox G400 chip will be announced shortly and will include full details on functionality, pricing and availability. Matrox reserves the right to change product specifications without notice.

Look out for the Matrox Millenium G800 too, pencilled in for summer 2000 (no details as yet) - Paul


ATI Rage 128

Review by: Tom Pabst read that the ATI Rage 128 - runs hot.

Matrox Millenium G200


[Δ]

SOUNDCARD:

Creative labs SoundBlaster Live! 256

Good alternatives are: None I can name - these really rock!

BUT
I'm close to a scoop here, I think, (3rd September 1999) after being send a spec. sheet and screen shot of the next version - the SBLive! 1024 Platinum. It's main feature is that it quadruples the standard number of available "voices". Two important things to note, however.
1) It uses a PCI slot - only of note if you're out of these slots.
2) It doesn't work in DOS, period. (DOS mode is generally OK)
3) If 2) bothers you, it will co-exist with ISA cards like the AWE 64 Gold if you want the best of both worlds

HOWEVER, the device drivers really need an update!
The install disk on the (initial releases) was known to have a small problem with quad speakers (one of the the things it sold on!) - it didn't work! Easy thing to miss in testing, I guess...

The last update (bugfix) to the drivers (as at May '99) was in November '98 and I believe the current ones are rather flaky. Possible problem I am aware of include:

  • Auto detect (program) for CD's appears to affect sound volume. This, I think, has been fixed.
  • The pop-up menu - Creative Launcher - for some people, crashes with regular abandon.
  • Using EAX on the game Baldurs Gate causes the blue screen of death! This, however, is down to the programmers at Bioware to sort, I believe. Interplay need to get there act together there!

[Δ]

MONITORS:

Mitsubishi Diamondtron Pro 2020u NF

The link above is to the 1010, which I'll update, but the 2020u NF has just (Sept 1999) been reduced to a street price and just - and I do mean just - £729 + vat with a 3 year on site warranty. This is a no brainer. Get one!

What most people don't realise, or think about, is that the monitor is actually the most important element of the computer.   You are staring at it for several hours a day, from a distance of around 30".   Any weakness in the monitor will, I guarantee, reflect over time in your failing eyesight and more frequent headaches.

This isn't the place to go into the health and safety aspects (Eiza used to like doing scare stories on monitor concerns) but suffice to say that getting anything less than a 17" monitor is silly and you truly should get the best model you can. Remember, it's about the only part of the computer that retains it's value and that a good monitor will last up to ten years - and you only get one set of eyes!

Sony and Iiyama are very good too, but I personally recommend Mitsubishi


[Δ]

MPEG2 CARDS:

Realmagic are the grandfathers of the biz, but I suggest going for video cards with built in MPEG2 hardware like the ATI Rage 128.   Saves an expansion slot!   The Voodoo3 (for release on May 15th '99) and no doubt other release this year, will have hardware mpeg2 built in. (See Video, above).   The front runners are:

Creative Labs DxR2 MPEG2   This is very good value when bought with their 5x DVD-ROM

RealMagic Hollywood Plus card


[Δ]

3D ACCELERATORS

If you haven't got a 3D accelerator and want one - read Games! - then get any (Orchid are nice, For a time I was disgusted at the apparent lack of support from Creative for their 3D Blaster, but I'm happy to relate they got it together on that score) and wait for the next generation cards due early summer. (Samples are out now to first tier, perhaps even 2nd tier oems).

Too early yet as it's going to be a four horse race as we enter the next millenium.   VideoLogics jockey is riding the Dreamcast and 3Dfx's V3500 is said to be twice the power of SLI'd Voodoo2's.   For me, I'm waiting to see what games need that much horsepower.

3DFX INTERACTIVE 3Dfx Voodoo3 3500 AGP is shipping 15th May '99.   The 3Dfx Voodoo3 3500 is said to promise the next level of 3D gaming, supercharging your games with hardware accelerated 3D graphics.   It features: 16MB 183 MHZ SDRAM; 350 Mhz RAMDAC; 2048x1536 max resolution; and TV/S Video out capabilities.

3Dfx - Voodoo3 [ www.3dfx.com ] press release 16th November '98 (dead link to article)

See also VIDEO CARDS above.


[Δ]

MOTHERBOARDS:

ABIT - ASUS - GIGABYTE - QDI - TYAN

All the above are high quality, with my preference being towards ABIT.   I've left Supermicro out on purpose!   After the monitor this is absolutely most important part of the system; it's what glues everything together, it determines how far you can upgrade or push your PC and how reliable it is.   Not withstanding component failure (I've known batches with up to 90% failure rates!) the quality and design of a board can make a genuine difference of as much as 15% overall speed given any one set of parts (processor, memory, video card).

HOWEVER, I personally am waiting for the upcoming Camino (Intel 820) chipset motherboards.   These support Rambus memory (to 1Gb), 4x AGP, Ultra DMA 66 and will have a 100/133 FSB.   These are expected 2nd quarter '99 and should also take the Coppermine PIII processors.

CARMEL is the server version, supporting 8Gb of ram, quad processors and will have a 66Mhz 64bit PCI bus.

Be aware that these are likely to use a new board layout to improve the cooling, which in turn means a new system case - it's an ehanced ATX design.   The ATX format is to be superceded by the     [ www.wtx.org ] WTX     design to account for necessary changes to thermal management (better cooler for hotter chips...).

So far Acer, Asustek, Supermicro and Tyan will be bringing out new board, while chasis and power supplies will be built by Supermicro, Chenbro, Enlight Liteon and Loyalty Founder.

As yet I've seen no announcement on the above, but FIC's have just released a new board that supports Ultra DMA 66 and PIII up to 700Mhz.   Full marks to them.   I shall try and get one for a full review.


[Δ]

PROCESSORS & CHIPSETS:

September 99 update

Doesn't it go fast! The Pentium III 450 is now bottom of the range, selling around £120 ex vat as Intel swans around showing off it's PIII 800Mhz samples and Merced.

Selling around £45 (ex vat) the Celeron 400Mhz makes a mockery of the prices of years gone by. Ah, competition and volume, what a mix.

The Merced, incidentally, I'm consigning to the trash can of innovation and I won't be touching with a proverbial barge pole. My feeling is that it will be another Pentium 60. Remember those? Higher end 486's where actually better but it was the "new generation." It was thingy waving, a case of "Hey look at this" and muttering out the side of the mouth "Quick, roll out the Pentium 90 and HX boards before they do look!"

Katmai

Intel price drops slated for February and April put the recommended entry level to a PII 400. So, wait and go for a 500Mhz+ PIII - Katmai.   Interestingly, I've read reports that say the 500Mhz PIII is slower than the 400Mhz PII Xeon, but that's more a server thing - and the Xeon with it's extra cache is horribly expensive. If's that's your major (you don't need to read this, huh) the wait for the PIII Xeon's - but it won't be cheap...

On a cooler level - cpu fan to be precise - make sure you get the IPI boxed chip for the kosher Intel fan.   If you must get a bulk or grey import processor, then at least make sure you get the best brand of fan you can - reputable companies like CoolerMaster.

Check out the links to road maps below. Scary!


©  PC Pro   (Horizons)

Katmai Inherits the Pentium Name


8 January - DN Wire -- Intel's next-generation desktop processor chip, currently code-named Katmai, will be christened the Pentium III when it is launched in March, the company confirmed yesterday.

The chip is based around the core of Intel's best-selling Pentium II but uses 70 additional instructions to optimise multimedia and graphics performance.

Early models of the PIII will run at clock speeds of 450Mhz and 500Mhz, with a 600Mhz version scheduled for release towards the end of the year.

Initially the chip will cost around $500 but analysts predict prices will drop to $200 by the third quarter.

The PIII will be the fifth family of Intel chips to wear the Pentium brand.

The Pentium name appeared in the mid-1990's and over the last half decade has been applied to the Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium MMX and Pentium II family of processors.

Feedback and comments to DNWire





The Register

Katmai-Pentium IIIs
And what it means for Pentium IIs

Our information is that Intel will use the occasion of the Superbowl game to announce the arrival of the Pentium III. While Intel still remains shtum on the name, that does not matter quite as much as its significance in the market place.

The formal launch of the Katmai-Pentium III is on the 28 February, although it will be no surprise to us here at The Register if Intel attempts once more to steal a march on the competition by doing it all a bit earlier. Katmai-Pentium III will initiatially come in 450MHz and 500MHz versions, and although the initial 1000 prices are supposed to be $530 and $760 respectively, it is not outside the bounds of reason if Intel cuts these prices pre-launch, to give Katmai-Pentium III an extra boost and in an attempt to scupper its rival AMD, which is introducing its K6-3 (Sharptooth) at the same time.

During the year, Intel will introduce faster versions of the Katmai-Pentium III, and this means a heap of price cutting on the Pentium II family, which is nearing the Chip Gulag. It will demonstrate its evil intentions on the 28 February when it slashes and burns prices on the PII/400 and PII/450. Further price cuts are slated to follow in early April 1999.

Despite the lack of support from games companies at the Intel Developer Forum this autumn, the company is still insisting that the 70 or so additional instructions in the Streaming SIMD (Screaming Cindie) instruction set is aimed fairly and squarely at the gaming market.

Mobile Celerons, Mobile PIIs
January 1999 will be a busy month for the Satan. As well as introducing its Mobile PII/Dixon family on the 25th, at speeds of 333MHz and 366MHz, we will see Celeron mobile processors. This is Intel’s attempt to make sure that the Cyrixes and Rises of this world don’t eat into the low end notebook market – a potentially lucrative field. Initial clock speeds will be 233MHz, 266MHz and 300MHz, with prices ranging between $100 and $200 in units of 1,000.

Xeon family
Intel introduces its 450MHz/2Mb Xeon family on the 4th of January. There will also be a 1Mb version with prices of around $3,700 for the former, and $2,000 for the latter.

These chips are intended for the high end server market but demonstrate just how cunning the Great Satan is. There is little essential difference between the Slot Two and the Slot One Pentium IIs aside from the additional cache. They offer PC vendors a chance to sell ridiculously expensive servers but from Intel’s point of view subsidise many of its lower end processors.

Coppermine, Cascades and other silly code names
In the second half of next year, Intel makes a number of important chip introductions based on .18 micron technology and higher clock speeds. Coppermine is likely to be a 600MHz clocked jobbie using a 133MHz FSB, with level two cache included on the processor.

This is aimed at power users at both the desktop and the notebook level, although Joe D’Elia, senior semiconductor analyst at Dataquest UK, thinks that the introduction of Direct Rambus makes this question of FSBs for Intel chips all a little academic.

Cascades is a .18 micron Xeon version of the foregoing and will run at 600MHz and 666MHz. Intel says 667MHz but this is a crude attempt to dodge its Great Satan of Chips tag. A Tanner 550MHz chip will be introduced in the same period.

Although Willamette is supposed to be released at the beginning of the year 2000, our sources tell us they will not be surprised if Intel shifts this forward to the last or even the third quarter of 1999. Willamette has a new P6 architecture - expect Intel to migrate this down to other processors at the end of the year.

Expect further announcements on its IA-32 and IA-64 architecture at the next Intel Developer Forum, held early next year.

Year 2000 and onwards
This is where Intel’s samsara really begins to kick in. What with Merced, McKinley and the rest, it’s hardly worth thinking about yet. Our information is that while Intel is still on course for Q2 2000 for a first Merced, it is still desperately trying to whip up support from both PC manufacturers and ISVs for the platform. There could be an interesting clash next year when Eckhard Pfeiffer’s Compaq starts evangelising its Alpha.

Intel and the FTC
It’s entirely possible that Microsoft versus the US will still be running when Intel versus the US opens in February. We shall be covering the Intel case in as much detail as we have covered the Microsoft case. ®

RegistrOid 1999 According to Knaresborough seeress Old Mother Shipton, 1999 is the year when the world ends. Born in a cave in Yorkshire in 1488, she is said to have predicted the invention of the steam engine and the telegraph. How did she know about the Year 2000 bug?


SATURDAY JANUARY 2ND 1999
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[Δ]

MEMORY:

128Mb SDRAM as entry level. Micron if you can afford it. Panasonic is nice. Samsung's good for the price.   The PC100 memory is to be replaced by PC133 prior to Rambus memory becoming mainstream - a point to bear in mind...


[Δ]

STORAGE:

TO BE ADDED IN


[Δ]

UPS:

I can't believed I forgot to add this section! It's one of those things I take for granted - like breathing - and I tend to forget. Amazingly most computer dealers and VAR's don't sell or advice about these.

I've seen data lost, motherboards fried, SDRAM chips that had actually caught fire, even Fortronics (credit card machines) with the flash bios erased, all due to power surges etc. It's not just the big stuff like outages at the power station and lightning storms - turning photocopies on and off cause massive voltage fluctuations.

This story is true. At one site, every time a laser printer or photocopier was turned on the File Server went down! When I asked about it, I was told, "Oh, we do do daily backups, just in case." (They'd been using the same 3 tapes for as many years!). Anyway, I strongly advised they consider hiring a network manager and installed a UPS - which run it's start-up diagnostics - and shut down - the input voltage was so low it refused to run. In the end, an electrician had to have the building rewired to upgrade and distribute the power supply.


[Δ]

HARDDRIVE:

Has to be Ultra2Wide SCSI for ultimate performance...

IBM Ultrastar 9ZX - 9Gb Ultra 2 - 7,200rpm 6.3ms access

IBM Ultrastar 18XP - 18Gb Ultra 2 - 7,200rpm 7.5ms access

Yes, I could recommend the faster Cheetahs etc with 10,200+ rpm, then go on to recommend adequate cooling, then...

IBM...

Quantum...

Seagate...


[Δ]

SCSI CONTROLLER:

Adaptec Ultra2Wide.  

Or at the high end is the recently ratified Ultra160 (Ultra3) or see what Firewire brings...

Adaptec Ultra3 Press release - Sept 14th 1998 (broken link)
Quantum supports Ultra3  Press release - Sept 14 1998 (dead link)
TechWeb on Ultra3  News release 14.9.98
Geek News on Ultra3  Newsbyte 21.9.98

I've never known a problem with Advansys cards and Mylex are tasty, but I prefer to stick with Adaptec if for no other reason than the level industry support they have.

There are, of course, a number of motherboards with Ultra2 on-board (and sound and 10/100...) which brings the relative cost down, but I prefer separate cards for portability.


[Δ]

MODEMS:

SCREAM BLUE BLOODY MURDER AT YOUR TELEPHONE CARRIER FOR ADSL...

In the meantime -

Buying today? - Hayes, ah no, gone to the wall. Pace? ditto, which is a crying shame, to it's either - Diamond or 3Com, or any unbranded thing and wait for adsl / cable modems...

Buying today and want 2+ lines (for UK residents) - get BT Highway.  Conversion costs just £99. You keep the existing analogue and get 2 ISDN for an a quarterly line rental of £133.75* a quarter - and a call allowance of £57.50. Effectively that's just £25.42 a month for three phonelines. (Prices are ex vat)

The 128kb connection is nice but remember you are in effect making two phonecalls and pay BT accordingly. It also requires support from your ISP. You need you check that ISDN is supported, if so are 128kb connections are supported and if they are, if there is any addition charges for this.

BT offer an ISDN terminal for £42.50 but I'd look at the Pace...

Willing to wait for ADSL? I believe Diamond are planning a major release for September, but given that BT sales staff are clueless about ADSL and out of the running for cable modems it should be interesting.   As this site is largely dedicated to getting faster cheaper Internet access, you may want to visit my ADSL pages

Hey guys, wake up and smell the coffee - protecting the lucrative leased lines is, long term, a loser.
Hello, Worldcom, yes you, over here please... :-0

Me? I'm just want to go back to Canada - before fall preferably! Cable and ADSL is already live in many provinces.   Holland has cable modems already, and Germany in getting well into ADSL too.


[Δ]

Network Card:

On the budget front I really like Pine, but for quality it has to be 3Com.

Far too many variables to go into details here - number of users - server or peer to peer - NOS - protocols - etc etc. If you need to ask, you need a consultant!


[Δ]

KEYBOARD:

Keytronic KT2001

Keyboards really are a personal thing. The old IBM's from the XT and early AT's were truly awesome and I've never seen there like since. Many folk swear by Cherry and Fujitsu, I used to like Chicony and I had a gorgeous keyboard once - some unbranded thing from Taiwan that gave me years of touch typing, until the wife trashed it playing the old classic Llamatron. She ripped through the levels and burned out the board. C'est la vie.

Other keyboards from Keytronic include Infra Red, trackball, lifetime guarantees on selected products (now that's confidence, eh), card readers and even biometrics like fingerprint readers.


[Δ]

MOUSE:

It's got to be a MS Intellimouse for my money. IBM, Genius and Logitech are good too.
Like keyboards, another touch me, feel me thing. Try 'em&see.


[Δ]

JOYSTICK / JOYPAD:

Bit of a sore point this, me being left handed!   Logitech used to sell a nice one, but that was a long time ago.

From a 'returns' point of view I personally would only recommend MS joysticks and pads but I know Logitech and CH Products are very good too. As I'm not into Flight Sims I've managed nearly 15 years without one and am frankly past caring anymore. Let's face it (are you listening MS...) joysticks are for faster reaction times which is wasted trying a moulded grip in the wrong hand.

Fellow Southpaws may like to take a look at:   The Left Hand for a Left handed joystick


[Δ]

SCANNER:

Epson GT9500  or   HP Scanjet 6200c

Mustek and Black Widow are good if you're on a budget (or just need the odd scan - in which case you would be as well using a friends and saving valuable desk space!).

As a point of interest I've seen (trade) prices of under £30 for A4 flatbeds and under £100 for A3 - my first scanner cost me nearly £800!


[Δ]

PRINTERS:

Epson Stylus e740 or the HP1120 (which supports up to A3) for colour, and the HP4000 laser for mono

Good alternatives are:

If you need a better alternative then you already know what you have or you need to speak to a specialist.   I can offer subjective advice if you need it - drop it on an email.


[Δ]

DIGITAL CAMERAS:

Epson PC700 Seen it, tried it, want one!!!

If you have the money - and the need - look into Nikon E3 series or Canon, but hey, you knew that already, right.
On a budget? Just toying with digital photography? Try Muskek


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THE REST

I'll built these up at a later date as none of it mainstream...

plotter     Plotters (CAD)
HP


Vinyl cutter plotter     Plotters (Cutting, for Signwriters)
Roland


puck     Digitizers - professional
Cherry...     It's been 10 years since I did any serious CAD - can anyone offer up to date advice?


puck     Digitizers - budget range and tablets
Waicom or Genius are good value


puck     Midi
Haven't the faintest idea, but the musicians I've talked to, not surprisingly, say Roland or Yamaha. I'll put links in for the budget end of things though...


camcorder     Digital video recorders
Haven't the faintest idea - anyone offer more expert advice?


puck     MPEG encoders    
Another field out of my league, but from what I've read and seen the Miro DC10 and DC30 are (were?) about the best in the price ranges - can anyone offer more expert advice?