aviva

* Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.8 GHz or AMD Dual Core 7750 2.9 GHz CPU
* Integrated audio, video and LAN
* ATX Mid Tower Case
* 2048 MB RAM
* Seagate 320 GB Hard Drive
* DVDRW
* Card Reader
* Amplified Speakers
* PS2 Optical Mouse and Pad
* 20" LCD widescreen LCD monitor
* Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows XP Home
* 2 Year Limited Parts and Labour RTB Warranty

HPIM0159

New computers: Intel and AMD; all different specs and prices

New 20'' wide, Samsung Syncmaster 2033 LCD Monitor $195

Used 19" Dell 1907fpc square LCD monitor $135

Canon pixma mp140 all in one printer, $75

Canon pixma mp240 all-in-one printer, $80

Canon pixma mx310 all-in-one printer, $115

HP officejet j5750 all-in-one printer, $110

HP officejet 5610 all-in-one printer, $95

WTP-100 serial port receipt printer, $160

black bird

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has introduced its latest line of powerful new computers that are chiefly targeted at gamers.

Dubbed HP Blackbird, the latest machine has been developed merging the engineering skills gained through the acquisition of VoodooPC.

Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer of HP’s personal systems group said, “We see the gaming market gaining significantly. We think there is significant opportunity in the market. There are a lot of Ferrari fans, but not many people can afford a Ferrari.”
The Blackbird is adorned in an angular black aluminum case, which has fins that not only gives it a striking appearance but also help keep its innards cool.


The high-end gaming PC can be twisted easily. A latch has been provided that gives quick access to the case, and parts can be removed or added without tools. Hard drives snap into a pull-out tray, saving your time on cables and screws

cannon pc

A niche computer company by the name of Cannon PC yesterday announced some new Media Center PCs for high end entertainment set ups. These new computers are part of the company’s Cannon PC Pro A/V series and are known as the LX, EX and RX.

The Cannon PC Pro A/V PCs vary somewhat in their configurations and design looks. The LX is a traditional desktop PC looking design and offers such features as gold plated front audio connectors and two DVD drive bays for a custom configuration of dual DVD, dual HD-DVD, or dual Blu-Ray drives. The EX goes further, adding a 12-inch touchscreen panel and the ability to house 10 internal 3.5” hard drives for a massive 10 TBs of storage. The RX, meanwhile, will fit a rack mount solution.

Features in common on these PCs include a 12-in-1 media card reader, front IO, USB and FireWire connections, dual TV tuners, HDTV tuners, 8 channel HD audio and a P35 Express chipset. Pricing on these systems ranges from around $3,400 to over $4,700.

new com

Betsy and I have been doing our part to help the economy. So if things don’t improve soon, it won’t be because we haven’t been trying.

Yesterday we had to take our Prius into the dealership for her 120,000 mile service. Let me just say that the service required was fairly major and I’m sure we helped contribute to the paychecks of at least a couple of mechanics.

We then headed over to the Apple store and made a MAJOR contribution to the economy. We’ve been discussing new computers for over a year now, and we finally decided to take the plunge. We like our Macintoshes and so we stayed with them.

Now all we have to do is transfer our files from the old computers to the new computers. Hopefully much of that will be done overnight. But if you don’t hear from us for a day or two, you know we’ve encountered a problem.

commondore

Commodore Midwest Regional Staff Newsletter Archives
Recently I received a stack of old newsletters from the Commodore Midwest Regional Staff. These were sent to the service technicians. Make your CBM 8032 think it's a VIC 20
If you have a Commodore PET 8032 and you want to make it think that it's a VIC 20 try this:

poke41,16:poke4096,0:new [enter]

...You'll get a syntax error, but you can ignore it. Try loading a BASIC program meant for a VIC 20. It should work as long as the program has not pokes or sys calls.
Summarized from the Commodore Midwest Regional Staff Newsletter Dec 29, 1981

MAX 80

When you first power up a MAX 80, it responds by sending out a short beep every few seconds. That's the system telling you it needs a boot disk. If you plug the computer into a monitor, you'll only see a bunch of garbled characters...this is normal although not necessarily enough to inspire confidence when you have no boot disk to test with. And for two years, that's as far as I could get. I had been attempting to boot the system with a disk I found labeled but I had no idea if the disk was a system disk or just plain bad. I did not have a lot of confidence in the drive either. Every once in a while I would pull the system off the shelf, hook up a new combination of cables or drives or disks to see if I could make progress. No luck