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           GOOD COMPUTER BUYER'S GUIDE 7.0

                    (GCOMP70.TXT)

                    INTRODUCTION

  A few years ago, I felt overwhelmed by all the stuff you needed to take
into account whenever buying a new computer. So, on the computer that
I had, I wrote up a little document specifying the specs that a good new
computer ought to have. The list immediately became over a page long,
and at the time, I felt it complete. But then, I began finding obscure little
details which I felt I ought to add in... So I did. And the list got bigger.
It grew over a period of several years, until it became what it is now.
This file.
  My original intent was to use it only for my own reference, but now
that it's reached this size, I feel I ought to share it with others so I can
help them out.
  This file is freeware. It's free. It used to be shareware, but not
anymore. (See more info under "Contacting The Author", below.)
  This file is REALLY MESSED UP. I am the only person who
maintains it, and since I lead a rather busy lifestyle myself, I find it hard
to keep up! Consequently, some information here may be outdated,
incorrect, or in need of clarification. If you find anything you feel ought
to be remedied, please let me know (again, see "Contacting The Author"
below). I have tried to fix it up so it's fairly readable and easy to use,
but I'm sure I missed some spots.
  This file is intended for reference when you want to buy something for
your computer (or, an entirely new computer). When you buy something,
you want to take a look at its specifications to see if it's up to par. But
how do you know what to look for? And even if you know the basics,
what about those obscure little details that nobody has ever told you
about and which you never worry about until you run into a problem
with them on your brand new computer? That's what this file is for... It
attempts to eliminate all the quibbling little details. After all, even if you
spend thousands on a Goliath power machine computer, it can easily be
defeated by a David bug. Maybe two components simply don't get along,
maybe something is screwed up, maybe a million things... There are
^lots^ of things that can go wrong with a computer. I hope that this file
can help prevent those kinds of things from happening.
  Also, if you suspect that the author of this is kind of crazy, you're
probably right. I get a little wired after working on this file for a while!!!
  (Note that the name of this document is intended to mean that it helps
you to buy a good computer, not that the guide itself is good.)

               ***** DISCLAIMER *****

See "Legal Disclaimer Thingy etc." at the end of this document.

               NOTE ON PCs VERSUS Macs

This document is geared towards IBM PCs and compatibles, not Macs
or Amigas or Ataris or Commodores or anything else.
  This is because in my opinion the PC is the only real platform that
exists today. Ataris, Amigas, and Commodores are all dead, and no one's
even disputing that. As for Macs, Microsoft owns Apple now, so it won't
be long before their time comes. Besides, PCs are open-architecture
systems, which is what has made them last so long. They've been around
for decades already, and they'll be here till long after the Mac leaves.
Open-architecture is important simply because it means you can do
virtually anything with the computer. And you don't have to get new
ones. In a Macintosh, you can't add anything to the computer once they
come out with new innovations. When a new technology is invented, if
you have a Macintosh, you have two choices: 1. Ignore the new
technology or 2. Buy a new computer. Macs are closed-architecture. But
with a PC, not only can the computer recieve new technologies all the
time, but it's much easier for YOU, the owner of the computer, to do
whatever you want with that computer. You can utterly control every
fibre of a PC, whereas if you own a Mac, you're closer to having that
computer own YOU than having you own IT.
  That's why I feel PCs are superior to Macs, and that's why I write here
on PCs only. Besides, what would be the point of writing all this about
computers that'll be nonexistent a decade from now?

              COMPANY-NAMING CONVENTION

Throughout this document, some product names will also have their
company that produces them mentioned. The company name will appear
in square brackets [like this].

                  PART I: HARDWARE

NOTE: This hardware list specifies the MAXIMUM POWER hardware
that you can have. This is probably not practical for most buyers. It is up
to you to reduce these statistics to an acceptable price/performance level.
Remember: Match everything to your own needs.

NOTE 2: This hardware list is concise. It does not attempt to explain
what the specifications mean. The list is already too long as it is, without
going into explanation of the terms used. If you do not understand
something, seek an external reference (such as the books and magazines
in Appendix F, Bibliography).

NOTE 3: When this hardware list first began, all of the hardware items
had all their specs listed in a single block of text, using various
separators to delimit the specs, such as commas or words or phrases like
"And" or "As well as". This is fine for items with only a few specs, but
for hardware components with many specs to consider, this looks stupid.
I have converted the longer and more important spec lists into point form
(which means that each spec is listed on a separate line), which makes
the specs much more readable and easy to distinguish, but some of the
components with less specs and the relatively un-computery accessories
are still in the old block format.

Case:

Sturdy Plastic/Stainless Steel (Steel is stronger but plastic doesn't
conduct static electricity)

Accessible

Waterproof

Clean (Not Dirty)

Double-Wide Full-Tower, Minitower, Or Desktop-Type (Either AT-Type
or "Baby AT"-Type) (Depending On Your Needs)

FCC Class B-Approved

AT, ATX, Or NLX (NOT XT or LPX)

Rack-Mounted

RAID-Capable

On Wheels (Or Else Tough Rubber "Feet")

A Strong, Nicely Colored Stainless Steel/Plastic Cover (Leave ON) That
Opens With Bare Human Hands

Tool-free! Opens and services with hands only!

NO Plastic Back

20 Hot-Swappable Drive Bays (8 Of Which Are Accessible From The
Front (4 Of Those 5.25" And The Rest 3.5"), The Rest Of Them Being
Internal), (8 Of Them 5.25" And The Rest Of Them 3.5")

12 Well-Spaced Slots, With Slot Openings Which Jut Out Slightly At
The Rear Of The Case So That Expansion Cards Can Be Added Or
Removed Without Opening The Entire Case Cover (See Bus Specs
Below), And Which Come With Slot Covers Which Can Be Re-Installed

HDD LEDs (One HDD LED For EACH Hard Drive)

Power LED With Two Different Colors, One For "On" And One For
"Sleep/Standby"

Failure LEDs To Indicate Failure With Drives, Fans, Or Power Supplies

Network Activity LED

Some Slack In All Internal Wires (None should be stretched tight; they
should have some room to move)

A Reliable, Effective Keylock Which Locks The Keyboard

A Lock On The Cover (Chassis Lock)

Chassis Intrusion Alert

A Carrying Handle On Top That's NOT Attached To The Cover

Big (Covering almost the entire side), Lockable, And Extremely Sturdy
Doors On Both Sides Of It, Plus A Big, Lockable, Extremely Sturdy
Flip-Top

Lockable Front Panel Which Slides Open

Grill Vents On Both Side Walls Of The Case Which Can Be Slid Open
(For cooling; It used to be that the power supply fan was the only fan in
the case, but now that CPUs typically have their own fans, having vents
to open up the case a bit more can help prevent the CPU from getting
too hot. Of course, these vents should also be closable)

4 USB Ports And 1 FireWire (IEEE 1394) Port On The FRONT Of The
Case Under A Flippable Semi-Transparent Plastic Panel

Front Panel With LEDs Indicating The Status Of ALL Bits Inside The
CPU, As Well As ALL Bits In Memory, With The Ability To View And
Alter Any Of Them At Any Time, As Well As Switches To Toggle All
Those Bits

An Accurate, Easy-To-Read MHz LCD Window

An Easy-To-Access, Sturdy Rocker-Type (Not Push-Button-Type)
Up/Down Power Switch Which Is Clearly Marked "I" For On And "O"
For Off

An Easy-To-Access, Sturdy Reset Button

A Turbo Switch And LED Which, When On, Runs At Normal Speed
And When Off Runs At 8 MHz (Set To ON!!)

Uses Real Screw-In Slot Covers To Cover Unused Slots, NOT Clumsy
Breakaway Panels, And Which Similarly Does NOT Block Unused Drive
Bays With Breakaway Panels

A Sturdy, Somewhat Transparent Black Plastic Sliding Cover Which,
When Slid In One Direction, Covers The Power Switch, Reset And
Turbo Buttons, Keylock, And MHz Window, And Reveals The
Manufacturer Logo

Microphone And Line Out (Speaker/Headphone) Jacks On The Front Of
The Case Which Can Be Hooked Up To The Sound Card (So you can
plug your speakers and microphone into the front of the case instead of
directly into the sound card at the back of the case)

Everything (All LEDs, Power Switch, Reset Button, Turbo Switch, MHz
LCD Window, And Plastic Cover) Easy-To-Reach

Motherboard:

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

800 MHz Front-Side Bus (FSB) (But which allows you to manually set
the bus speed of the motherboard to 66, 100, 133, or 200 MHz)

64-bit

6-Layer

AT, ATX, Or NLX (NOT XT or LPX)

Reliable (Made by either Intel or IBM)

FCC Class B-Approved

An OverDrive Socket And An OverDrive Plugged Into The Socket

All Sockets ZIF

A Small Lever Next To The Processor Socket Which Loosens Or
Tightens The Socket (For use when putting chips in)

Supports Up To 32 GB Of RAM

Runs At 0 Wait States

8 Snap-On Mounting Holes And 2 To 4 Screw-On Mounting Holes

AUTOMATICALLY RECHARGES The CMOS Battery When The
Computer Is Plugged In (Even When It's Off) (Uses Main Power To
Store CMOS Values And ONLY Uses The CMOS Battery If The System
Is Unplugged Or If The Main Power Goes Down (In The Event Of A
Blackout, For Example)) (Or Which Stores BIOS Configuration Settings
On An EEPROM Chip, NOT In Battery-Maintained CMOS Which Will
Fade When The Battery Does)

Support For SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

Supports Both The More Common Master/Slave Hard Disk Configuration
Routine As Well As The More Efficient IDE Cable Select Option

Supports Wake-On-LAN (WOL)

NO PROPRIETARY BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS (ALL Controllers For
Floppy Drives, Hard Drives, CD-ROM Drives And Ports, Plus Video
And Audio Functions, Should Be On CARDS In The Computer (A
Diskette/Fixed Disk Controller Card, A Host Adapter, A Video Card And
A Sound Card), Not Chips On The Motherboard) (If They ARE Built In
To The Motherboard, They Should All Be Fully Plug 'N' Play
Compliant)

ALL CHIPS SOLDERED INTO PLACE

1 Primary IDE Connector And 1 Secondary IDE Connector (If the IDE
controller is OnBoard)

Two Separate SATA (Serial ATA) Connectors

A Self-Powered Internal Speaker Connector

Automatic CPU Voltage Adjustment (But Which Also Lets You Set It
Manually)

Supports Wake-Up On Modem Ring

Fully Supports Both DIMMs And SIMMs And DRAM, EDO RAM,
AND SDRAM

Fully Supports Parity And ECC RAM, SL Enhanced Processors And
APM

Supports Chassis Intrusion Alert

Automatic CPU Voltage Detection And Adjustment

Built-In Sensors To Detect Temperature And Voltage Levels And Which
Can Report These Through Software

Switchable On/Off Built-In CPU Overheat Protection (Automatically
shuts the computer down when the CPU overheats) And CPU Overheat
Alarm (Starts beeping when the CPU overheats)

Automatically Shuts Down The Computer's Main Power When The OS
Shuts Down

Has The Ability To Adjust The Internal Speaker's Volume Through
Software

A Thorough, Friendly, Stylish Manual Which Covers All Connectors,
Jumper And Switch Settings, And Specifications

Will Work With All 286s, 386s, 486s, Pentiums and Pentium IIs

Lifetime Warranty

Expansion Slots As Specified Below Under "Slots"

(See individual entries for specs on Processor, Chipset, Peripheral
Controller, Main Memory, Cache Memory, Expansion Slots And Power
Supplies)

(IMPORTANT: The screw holes, slots, and keyboard connector should
be aligned so that they will be physically compatible (i.e. lined up in the
right place) with your case! Ensure that they are! This is crucial!)

Processors (CPUs):

60,000 Parallel-Processed CPUs

Intel Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, or Pentium 4 DX (get a real DX
chip, not a scaled-down SX model) With MMX Technology (Not an
8088, 8086, 286, 386, 486, Pentium Pro, or AMD or Cyrix chip)

3.2 GHz

SL Enhanced

64-bit

Liquid Cooling Technology

Reliable, Ball-Bearing (NOT sleeve-bearing) ACTIVE Heat Sinks (Ones
With Fans) With Thermal Paste And A Peltier Cooler (if you are really
serious about CPU cooling) To Keep Them Cool

Support The AT (Advanced Technology) Standard

A BIOS-Controlled (NOT software controlled) PSN (If They Have A
PSN (Processor Serial Number), like the Pentium IIIs do)

128 MB (or 1 MB) 4 ns Pipeline-Burst Write-Back (Not just write-
through) On-Die L2 Cache

Coprocessor: No longer necessary (should be built into main processor)

Chipset: Intel 440BX AGP Chipset (Do not get anything older. DO
NOT get a Triton!!! The Intel Triton chipset was discontinued in 1995!
Some people use the name "Triton" to refer to chipsets in general, like
the name "Kleenex" is used to refer to any type of facial tissue, even
though not all facial tissue is Kleenex brand. Make sure that the chipset
you are getting is not a REAL Triton, which is super-old!!! If you get a
Triton you will not be a happy camper! Also, the chipset MUST be from
Intel, not some other company!) (Get it on flash ROM if you want, but
if you do, get a spare chipset as well.) (See "PC Chipset Chips", below,
for a list of what chips should be in a PC chipset.)

Peripheral Controller: Reliable Peripheral Controller

Power Supplies:

8 Redundant Power Supplies

External (Mounted On The System Case)

EPA Energy Star And FCC Class B-Approved

1500 Watts

Auto Regulating (For Power Conservation And Constant Running Even
In Brownouts)

UL, CSA, TUV And FCC Class B-Approved

Reliable

Hot-Swappable

Worldwide Automatic Voltage Sensing And Automatic Voltage
Switching

From APC

Auto-Recharging UPS That Runs Up To 30 Minutes On Battery And
Takes 2 Hours To Recharge

Built-In Dust Filters On Fans

Circuit Breaker

Line Filter (Line Conditioner) Which Deals With Overvoltage And
Undervoltage Situations

Dual-Stage EMI Output Filter

Independent-Regulation Design

8 Powerful, Reliable, Auto Regulating, Very Quiet (2 dB (decibels) each)
Heavy-Duty Hot-Swappable Cooling Fans Which Use Ball Bearings

Always Keeps All Its Fans On As Long As The Power Supply Is On
(Does NOT helpfully turn off the fans "when they're not needed")

MTBFs Of Over 1,200,000 Hours

Can Take Voltage Spikes Of Up To 2,500 Volts

At Least 15 Power Connectors Each, With All Wires Detachable From
The Power Supply

Powerful, Reliable, Auto Regulating, Silent Ball-Bearings-Operated
Processor Fan (Fan That Fits Under The Processor To Cool It Down)

With A Row Or Column Of Bright LEDs Which Act As a Bar Graph-
Style Load Indicator, Showing How Much Of The Power Supply's
Capacity Is In Use

Lifetime Warranty

(NOTE: When discussing wattages on PC power supplies, don't confuse
watts capacity with watts used. There's an important difference. Watts
capacity is how much wattage something can supply; Watts used is how
much it is actually using. PC power supplies are expressed in watts
capacity, meaning that if you plug a 5,000-watt power supply into a
computer, it won't necessarily use any more electricity than a 300-watt
one (assuming the components inside the computer don't use more than
300 watts). So don't worry about wasting electricity by buying a high-
wattage power supply; Your computer only uses as much electricity as
its components need, not how much its power supply is rated for.)

Power Bar (Power Strip):

Surge-Supressing On BOTH ELECTRICAL AND TELEPHONE LINES

UL AND CSA Approved

9 AC Power Outlets On It, ALL Of Which Are Spaced Apart Far
Enough To Accept Those Large Transformer Blocks Without Covering
Any Other Outlets

Recessed Master Power Switch To Prevent Flipping It Accidentally

2,500 joule Capacity

6 Telephone Line outlets

Easy-To-Access Circuit Breaker Reset Button

Made By APC Or Tripp

Green Protection LED

Red Wiring Fault Indicator LED Which Warns Against Unstable
Grounding And Reversed Polarity

Flat Wall Plug

UPS Battery So It Keeps Power Going To All Outlets For 30 Minutes
In The Event Of A Blackout

BIOS:

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Preferably From AMI (Not Microid Research, Phoenix Or Award)

Either On Flash ROM (If You Are A Very Advanced Computer User
And Wish To Program Your Own BIOS) Or Non-Flash ROM (If You
Are A Novice Or Security-Conscious)

Stores BIOS Configuration Settings On An EEPROM Chip, NOT In
Battery-Maintained CMOS Which Will Fade When The Battery Does

Lets You Assign Any Drive Letter (A-Z) To Any Type Of Drive (5.25"
Floppy, 3.5" Floppy Or Hard Disk)

ALLOWS YOU TO BOOT FROM *ANY* DRIVE LETTER (From A-
Z), Or, If Going By Drive Type Rather Than Drive Letter, Lets You
Boot From ANY Floppy, IDE, Or SCSI Drive In The System

Can Boot From A CD-ROM Drive

Fully Supports APM (Advanced Power Management), DMI 2.1, LBA
(Logical Block Addressing), EIDE AND SCSI-3 And UDMA/100

Supports DMA Hard Disk Access

An "Auto-Detect Hard Disks" Command

Automatic Auto-Detect (In other words, it automatically detects when
new hardware has been installed and installs it without you having to
manually choose auto-detect)

LAN-Upgradeable

Supports Up To 25 Hard Drives And Up To 4 Floppy Drives

Stores Date And Time Values And Everything Else Even When The
Computer Is Off

Can Accept An Unlimited Number Of Keyboard Keys Pressed
Simultaneously

Fully Supports SMART II (But Lets You Disable This If You Wish)

Fully Supports Parity Checking And ECC Memory

Fully Supports Up To 5 USB 2.0 Ports

Lets You Turn On Or Off Daylight Savings Time (Set To On If You
Live In An Area That Uses Daylight Savings Time, Otherwise Set To
Off)

Lets You Turn On Or Off The NumLock Startup Key (Set To Off)

A Reliable, Unlimited-Character Password Feature Which Lets You
Choose To Use The Password Either Every Time The Computer Is
Booted, Whenever The CMOS Setup Program Is Accessed, Or Never

A "Check Both Floppy Drives Before Hard Disk On Startup" On/Off
Function (Set To On)

An Above 1 MB Memory Test (Set To Off)

Power-On Memory Test Clicking Sound (Set To On)

Wait For F1 On Error Option (Set To On)

Numeric Processor Test Option (Set To On)

Allows You To Enable Or Disable The External (L2) AND Internal (L1)
Cache Memories (Set Both To On)

The "Hit DEL For Setup" On Startup Message Display (Set To Off
Unless You Want To See It For Some Reason)

Actually DOES Use DEL To Enter The BIOS, Not F1 Or Some Other
Even More Obscure Key

Does NOT Require You To Open The Case And Physically Set A
Jumper In Order To Access The CMOS Setup Program, As Many Newer
BIOSes Do In An Attempt To Save Newbies From Themselves!

A Hardware Security Switch

Support For 2.88 M 3.5" Floppy Drives

Support For Type 47 (User Definable) Hard Disks (LETS YOU SET
HEADS, SECTORS, CYLINDERS AND TRACKS (As well as Write
Precompensation and Landing Zone, if applicable) FOR ALL HARD
DISKS!)

Supports Up To 3 TB Hard Disks, And ATA/66 Hard Disks

Supports Up To 25 Hard Drives

Fully Supports MS-DOS, PC-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 9x,
Windows NT, OS/2, Novell Netware, UNIX, Solaris, VMS, And DR
DOS

Full Support For On-Board Controllers For Floppy Drives, Hard Drives
And Ports, And (If your diskette/fixed disk controller card functions are
OnBoard) Also Allows You To Disable ANY COM, LPT Or Game Port
(As Well As Letting You Set Any Address For Them) And The OnBoard
FDC And HDC

Lets You Set ALL Parallel Ports To Either ECP, EPP, Or Normal

Full Support For PS/2-Style Mouse Ports

User-Definable (And Turn-Offable) Hotkeys For Warm Boot And Cold
Boot, Instant Warm Boot, Cold Boot To Setup Program, And Warm
Boot To Setup Program

An "Instant Boot" (Or "Instant-On") Option

Instant Access To Setup Program Without Rebooting

A Built-In Hard Disk Low-Level AND High-Level Format Utility

Allows Setting CPU PSNs On Or Off

Lets You Set The Typematic Rate (Both the delay which takes place
before typematic kicks in (adjustable between 0 ms, 250 ms, 500 ms, 750
ms, 1,000 ms, 1,250 ms, 1,500 ms, 1,750 ms, and 2,000 ms), and the
actual rate of the typematic function itself once the delay has finished
(adjustable from 0 to 200 characters per second)

Lets You Manually Adjust The CPU Voltage And Bus Clock Speed And
Which Lets You Set The Speed Of The Processor To ANY Number Of
MHz Between 8 And Its Top Operating Speed

Allows You To Manually Set The Bus Speed Of The Motherboard To
66, 100, or 133 MHz

Lets You Specify Whether Your PCI Or Your AGP Video Card Is Your
Primary (if there are multiple video cards)

Lets You Select Whether The Video Card Uses An IRQ Or Not

Lets You Enable Or Disable ANY Serial, Parallel, Or PS/2 Port In The
Computer (to save on IRQs you don't need)

Allows You To Manually Set The Clock Rate For Each Individual
Expansion Slot, As Well As The Front-Side Bus (FSB) Speed

Provides The Ability To Adjust The Internal Speaker's Volume Through
Software

Displays The Number Zero (0) With Either A Slash Or A Dot In The
Middle (Depending On Your Preference)

Either Beeps Or Clicks Whenever Any Key Is Pressed While The
Computer Is Busy And Its Type-Ahead Buffer Is Already Full

Will Work With Or Without A Keyboard Plugged In

A Thorough, Friendly, Stylish Manual Explaining All Error Beep Codes

Fully Year 2000 (Y2K) And Year 10,000 (Y10K) Compliant (For 8
Millenniums From Now)

Fully Supports ALL Other Hardware And Software In The Computer

Spare BIOS Chip: If you have a flash BIOS, keep a second chip
containing your BIOS around in case your current one gets attacked by
a virus or trojan.

CMOS Battery: Non-Polluting Rechargeable Lithium CMOS Battery
With 5-Year Life Mounted On A Cemented-On Velcro Strip Inside The
Case

Hard Disks:

14 Hard Drives

4 To 350 GB

Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, Quantum (Quantum officially sold all
of its hard disk business to Maxtor on March 30, 2001, after 21 years in
the business), IBM, Or Micropolis (Preferably Western Digital; Western
Digital Caviar hard drives are the best)

SCSI-3 (Should Be SCSI; If You Get IDE, Make Sure It's EIDE) (NOT
ST506/ST412 or ESDI)

RLL (Not MFM)

Fully LBA

Ultra-Wide

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Hot-Swappable

Reliable

Thin-Film Sputtered

VERY QUIET (7 dB (decibels) each)

Half-Height (3.5")

Dual-Actuator

Ultra ATA-150

1:1 Interleave

3.5 ms average seek time

160 MB per second Physical (Not Cached) SUSTAINED data transfer
rate (DTR) (124 MB/second BURST DTR)

2.99 ms Average Latency

3.5 Watts Power Consumption

15,000 RPM (Not 10,000 RPM, 5,400 RPM or 7,200 RPM)

Sector Sparing

16 MB Multi-Segmented Write-Back (Not just write-through) Disk Cache

4% CPU Utilization

Thin Film Or Magneto-Resistive (MR) Heads

SCSI-3 Parity And Active Termination Support

Full SMART II Support

A Buffer To Disk Data Transfer Rate Of Over 12 MB Per Second

A Spindle Ground Strap

Rubber-Isolation Shock Mounts

Very Low Vibration

Completely And Thoroughly Shielded So That External Magnetic Fields
Will Not Corrupt It

Fits Into A 3.5" Drive Bay

Supports Both Master/Slave Jumper Configuration AND IDE Cable
Select (Having its master/slave selection determined by its position on a
single daisy-chained ribbon cable instead of using two separate ribbon
cables)

A 150,000 hour MTBF

A VOICE COIL ACTUATOR!!! (VERY Important!) (***NOT*** A
STEPPER MOTOR!!!) (So it parks itself)

A THOROUGH, FRIENDLY, STYLISH MANUAL

Drive Geometry (Heads, Cylinders, And Sectors Per Track (SPT), As
Well As Landing Zone And Write Precompensation (If Any)) WRITTEN
PHYSICALLY ON THE CASING OF THE DRIVE ITSELF As Well
As In The Manual

5-Year Warranty

(Why RPMs Matter: For a hard disk, it may seem unimportant how fast
the drive actually rotates; As long as it has a fast data transfer rate, who
cares how fast it spins? It matters. The DTR quoted on a hard disk is the
"burst" or "theoretical" speed; The highest possible speed at which it
could transfer data. In practice, however, drives rarely actually sustain
this speed. The rotational speed of the drive directly affects the *real*
data transfer rate of it. Faster-spinning drives will have faster real-world
sustained data transfer rates; It's that simple.)

RAID Array:

4-Channel

64-bit

4 Hot-Swappable Hard Disks In It

128 MB Of Cache

RAM:

64 GB

DIMM (Not SIMM)

RDRAM Or DDR400 SDRAM (Not FPM DRAM, EDO RAM, Or SDR
SDRAM)

184-pin Or 168-pin (Not 72-pin or 30-pin)

PC133 (133 MHz)

Reliable

Parity (8 chips on a RAM module indicate non-parity RAM, 9 chips on
a RAM module indicate parity RAM)

3.3-Volt (Not 5-Volt)

From Crucial, Kingston, Micron, PNY, Techworks, Or Corsair

Uses ECC

Set In Metal Sockets

600 MB Per Second Data Transfer Rate

6 ns speed

External (Level 2 (L2)) Cache: Nowadays, the L2 Cache should be on
the CPU (instead of separately on the motherboard), as this makes it
faster. Thus, see the CPU specs for specs on the L2 cache.

Host Adapter:

32-bit

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

SCSI-3

6-Layer

PCI

Bus Mastering

Compatibility With Windows 95, Windows 3.1, Windows NT 4.0, MS-
DOS 6.2, OS/2 2.1, And Solaris

Supports SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

SCSI Port

Can Turn Termination On Or Off With A Software Command

Thorough, Friendly, Stylish Manual Covering All Jumpers, Connectors
And Specifications

SCSI Cables: SCSI-3 Cables From Amphenol, Quintec Or Icontec (For
Cabling And Active SCSI-3 Termination Support)

Diskette/Fixed Disk Controller Card (Often Called An I/O Card):

PCI

6-Layer

SCSI-3

Ultra-Wide

Reliable

Supports Up To 6 Hard Disks And 4 COM Ports And 3 LPT Ports As
Well As 2 Floppy Drives

1 Primary IDE Connector And 1 Secondary IDE Connector

Supports SCSI-3 And EIDE And UDMA/100

THOROUGH, FRIENDLY, STYLISH MANUAL COVERING ALL
JUMPERS, CONNECTORS AND SPECIFICATIONS

MARKINGS On All Connections

Monitors:

8 Monitors

17-45 Inches

VESA 2.0 compatible

SVGA

Unlimited (Infinite) Color

Supports The Following Resolutions: 160 X 120, 320 X 200, 320 X 240,
360 X 240, 640 X 400, 640 X 480, 800 X 600, 1024 X 768, 1280 X
1024, 1600 X 1200, 1600 X 1280, 1920 X 1440, 2000 X 2000, 2048 X
1536 AND 2048 X 2048

Non Interlaced At ALL Resolutions

Perfectly Flat

Etched

Dark-Tinted

Sharp-Cornered

Anti-Static

Bulletproof-Glass Screen

Antiglare

Antireflective

All These "Anti" Effects Produced By SHIELDING, Not Some Coating
That Will Wear Off In Time

NTSC

Rotatable Portrait/Landscape

Magnetically-Shielded

Touch Screen (Touch Screen Which Accepts The Touch Of Anything
And Doesn't Need To Be Touched With A Human Finger)

IBM PC Multisync

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Digital- AND Analog-Capable

CRT OR LCD

RGB

Ventilation Grills On Back, Sides, And Top That Won't Accept Anything
Except Air

0.4 mm Data Area Misconvergence And 0.3 mm Center Misconvergence

Less Than 1% Geometric Distortion

Less Than 1 Degree (1) Tilt

0% Screen Nonuniformity

100% Brightness Uniformity

0 mm Horizontal And Vertical Nonlinearity

200 Hz Vertical Refresh Rate In ALL Modes (Or at least 80 Hz; People
say that 70 Hz is the minimum, but you can still see some flicker at that
rate)

A 130 KHz Horizontal Scan Frequency In ALL Modes

.21 X .13 Dot Pitch (.25 Diagonal)

320:1 Contrast Ratio (Higher Contrast Ratio = Better, Brighter, Clearer
Images)

135 MHz Bandwidth

Very Bright

Built In (Or Easily Removable) Tilt And Swivel Stand With Tough
Rubber "Feet" On The Bottom

A Built-In Power Supply

A Nice, Attractive Color

180 Viewing Angle (Or 45, if you don't want people sitting next to
you to see the screen)

A Power LED

An E-Mail LED That Lights Up When You Have New E-Mail

DIGITAL Controls On The Front For Power, Contrast, Brightness,
Vertical Size And Position, And Horizontal Size And Position (Plus
On/Off AUTOMATIC Vertical Size And Position And Horizontal Size
And Position), Tilting (Rotation Of The Onscreen Image),
Keystone/Trapezoidal Skew (To Make The Corners 90 Degrees),
Parallelogram Skew, Barrel/Pincushion (Convex/Concave) Bend (To
Make The Vertical Sides Straight, Not Bowed In Or Out), RGB Color
Adjustment, Color Temperature, Moir Cancellation, And Convergance

A One-Touch "Center Image And Fill Full Screen" Button

ALL Monitor Controls Should Be Physical Ones On The Front Of It,
NOT Some On-Screen Display (OSD) Popup Controls Which Cover Up
What's On The Screen Behind Them And Are Less Easy To Use

An On-Screen Display Which Displays The Current Horizontal And
Vertical Scan/Refresh Rates

Without Any Weird Cracks In It

Allows You To Zoom In On Any Section Of The Screen

Comes With Software Which Lets You Adjust The Monitor Without
Touching The Physical Controls

Lets You Color-Calibrate The Monitor With Your Printer

A 19" Tube (If It's A CRT) (NOT LESS THAN 19") (Should have no
tube if it's not a CRT)

Compliance With Swedish MPR And MPR-2 (NOTE: MPR Is Now
SWEDAC) And European TCO ELF (Extremely Low Radiation) And
VLF (Very Low Radiation) Radiation Standards

Complies With EPA Energy Star Power Conservation Standard

Shuts Itself Down In 1-15 (Customizable) Minutes

Uses 1 Watt Of Electricity When Resting

Approved By UL, FCC, CSA And TCO

Weighs Less Than 8 Pounds

No More Than 80 Watts Power Consumption

Resizeable PIP (Picture-In-Picture) Option

TV-Cable Coaxial Input Port

A Hook On The Back For Wall-Mounting

Can Have Suspend Mode Completely Disabled With One Switch

Built-In Sensor Which Automatically Adjusts The Screen Brightness
According To The Level Of Ambient Light In The Room (But which can
also have this feature disabled)

A Small Switch On The Back To Let You Choose Between Low-Input
Voltage Power (100-125 Volts) And High-Input Voltage Power (200-240
Volts)

Can Act As A USB Hub (With 5 USB Ports On It)

A Sturdy Rocker-Type (Not Push-Button-Type) Power Switch

Fast, Effective Degaussing Circuits That Are Activated By Pushing An
Easy-To-Access Button On The Monitor's Side

A Nice Color

Lifetime (Or 5-Year) Warranty

Supports SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

FULLY DETACHABLE, RADIO-SHIELDED ELECTRICAL AND
VIDEO CABLES!!! (Cables Should Be Nice And Long)

A Standard 15-pin Video Connector As Well As A BNC Connector And
2 Input Cables (Which Can Be Easily Switched Between)

A Thorough, Friendly, Stylish Manual Covering ALL SPECIFICATIONS

(For a great program for testing monitor image quality, see DisplayMate
For Windows in the Software section below.)

Copy Holder (Viewclip):

Easily Removable/Attachable

Sturdy

Plastic

Attaches To The Side Of Your Monitor And Will Hold Up Paper Sheets
There So They're Held Up Right Next To The Monitor

Easy To See

Can Be Folded Along The Side Of The Monitor When Not In Use

Expanded Memory (EMS) Board:

PCI

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

6-Layer

8 MB EMS

Complies With The LIM EMS 4.0 Standard

Can Support Up To Ten DOS Applications And/Or Up To Eight Host
Application Programs Concurrently

Support For SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

Comes With An Expanded Memory Manager Which Complies With The
LIM EMS 4.0 Standard

Sound Card:

64-Bit

256-Voice

OPL-4 Based (Uses A Yamaha OPL-4 (Or OPL-3) (Not OPL-2) Chip)

Well Shielded

48 Khz

General MIDI And Extended MIDI Compatible

6-Layer

Stereo

PCI OR ISA Bus (See "NOTE ON PCI SOUND CARDS", below)

Full-Duplex

FCC Class-B Approved

From Creative Labs Or MediaVision

FM Synthesis (Uses Yamaha OPL2 or OPL3 for FM Synthesis) AND
Wave Table Synthesis (MUST Have Both FM And Wavetable
Synthesis!)

A 4 Watts Per Channel, Internal Amplifier

SCSI-3 Interface

336 Instrument Voices Built In

Generates Sound Independent Of System Processor

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Windows 3.1, Windows 95, MS-DOS, Linux, BeOS, Creative Labs
Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, AdLib, C/MS Game
Blaster, Roland MT-32, And Microsoft Windows Sound System 100%
Compatibility (MUST Be 100% Compatible With ALL Of These, Except
Maybe The Microsoft Windows Sound System; Do NOT confuse the
different types of Sound Blaster compatibility: Original (8-bit) Sound
Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, and Sound Blaster 16. They are NOT the
same! The MS-DOS sound card drivers, if any, MUST work with pure,
unmodified DOS mode. They MUST NOT require HIMEM, EMM386,
or any other memory managers or TSRs to be loaded in order to work!),
(And optionally compatible with the following: MediaVision Pro Audio
Spectrum (PAS) 16, Gravis UltraSound (GUS), Logitech SoundMan,
MediaVision ThunderBoard, ATI Stereo F/X, and Ensoniq Soundscape)

Great Sound From 10 Hz to 20,000 Hz (Which comprises the entire
range of human hearing)

Three 4-Pin Analog Audio Inputs For Playing Audio CDs On CD/DVD
Drives

Comes With DOS-Based (NOT Windows-Based) Software Through
Which You Can Easily Configure The Sound Card For Any IRQ, DMA
Or I/O Address

Fully DirectX 8.0 Compatible

An Internal Mixer

3D QSound Support

A3D Support

Full Surround Sound With Eight (8)-Speaker Support

Directsound And Directsound 3D Support

EAX (Environmental Audio Extensions)

Real-Time Lossless MPEG Audio Compression/Decompression

Text-To-Speech Capability

Doesn't Use A TSR

SCSI-3 Parity And Active SCSI-3 Termination

DSP Chip Set

All The Software Drivers Needed To Use It BUILT ONTO THE CARD
IN THE FORM OF ROM So You Don't Have To Copy All Those
Sound Drivers Onto Your Hard Disk

Has A Volume Control On It

SEPARATE LINE IN AND LINE OUT (Speaker/Headphone) Jacks And
A Microphone Jack And A 15-pin Digital (or analog, if you prefer)
Joystick Port And MIDI-In And MIDI-Out Ports (Both 6-pin DIN and
5-pin Mini-DIN)

Dolby Digital Decoder

(NOTE ON PCI SOUND CARDS: Older DOS games link to the sound
card directly through an IRQ, and a PCI sound card does not have an
IRQ. If you want to play old DOS games you may be better off with an
ISA sound card. If you get a PCI sound card, it MUST come with
software to assign it an "artificial" IRQ. This software must be 100%
compatible with MS-DOS, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows 98,
Windows NT, Linux, Novell Netware, OS/2, PC-DOS, DR DOS, and
Solaris. This software must allow you to assign ANY IRQ to the sound
card.)

MIDI Keyboard:

General MIDI Compatible

76-Key

Stereo

Supports Up To 32 Notes Polyphony

6-Track Sequencer

Separate MIDI-In And MIDI-Out Ports

MIDI Module: Stereo MIDI Module

MIDI Connector: Stereo MIDI Connector For Sound Card

Mice:

(Good Mouse:

Reliable

2900 dpi

100% Microsoft Compatible

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Self-Cleaning

Lightweight

Non-Ambidextrous (Mice which are specifically geared for a right- or
left-handed person feel better)

3-Button

A Dynamic Shape

PS/2, Bus, Serial, AND USB Compatibility

Supports SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

A Nice Color

A Nice, Long, Flexible Cord

A Hardware Sensitivy Control So You Don't Have To Adjust The
Sensitivity Through The Software

A Quiet (But Not Too Quiet) Click On All Buttons

A Short (But Not Too Short) Button Travel

A Soft (But Not Too Soft) Button Touch

An Easily-Openable Bottom Panel So You Can Access The Ball Quickly
And Easily

A Soft Rubber Scroll Wheel Which Turns Easily And Doubles As A
Mouse Button And Which Emits A Quiet Click When You Scroll With
It

Optical If You Want It To Be (In which case it would have no ball)

[End Good Mouse Specs])

-Microsoft Mouse 2.0 [Microsoft] 

-Logitech Mouseman Cordless [Logitech] (Cordless)

-Logitech Cordless MouseMan Wheel [Logitech] (Combines a cordless
mouse with a scroll wheel)

-Logitech TrackMan [Logitech] (Stationary)

-Orbit [Kensington] (Really Cool-Looking And Easy-To-Manipulate)

-Expert Mouse [Kensington] (More Normal-Looking But Still Very Large
And Comfortable)

-IMSI PC Stylus [IMSI] (Pen Shaped)

-Felix The Better Mouse [Altra] (Uses Writing Movements)

-Glidepoint (Small & Similar To A Drawing Tablet)

-GlidePoint Touchpad 2 [Cirque]

-EZ-Point Touchpad [Synaptics]

-Power Cat [Cirque]

-Smart Cat [Cirque]

-Easy Cat [Cirque]

-Cruise Cat [Cirque]

-Trackman Marble [Logitech] (Non-Moving)

-Thumbelina (Tiny)

-Microsoft Intellimouse [Microsoft] (Features A Scroll Wheel Between
The Buttons)

-Microsoft IntelliMouse TrackBall [Microsoft] (A Cross Between The
Intellimouse And A Trackball)

-Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer (Uses An Optical Sensor To Detect
Movement Rather Than A Ball-In-Socket System) [Microsoft]

-Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical [Microsoft]

-NetMouse Pro [Genius] (A Button To Scroll Up And Down, Rather
Than A Wheel)

-Microsoft EasyBall [Microsoft] (Extremely Giant-Sized Yellow
Trackball For Very Young Kids To Use)

-GyroPoint [Gyration] (Contains tiny gyroscopes which detect movement,
allowing you to use the mouse in mid-air instead of on a surface)

-Philips' "3D Pointer" Wireless [Philips] (Just like GyroPoint, except
wireless)

-MotorMouse [MotorMouse] (Car-Shaped)

Mouse Holder: Plastic Pouch-Type Mouse Holder Mounted On Side Of
Monitor (To Keep Mouse In When It's Not In Use)

Drawing Tablets:

-The UnMouse [MicroTouch] (Pressure-Sensitive Drawing Tablet, 1200
dpi, With Fine-Pointed Sturdy Plastic Pen And Which Will Work With
A Finger)

-Summa Expression [Summagraphics]

-The iPen [Cross]

Touchpad: Touchpad Which Accepts A Single Tap On The Touchpad
Surface As A Mouse Click

Keyboard:

Programmable

101-Key (Or alternately, as many keys as possible) (But NOT WITH
ANY OF THOSE WEIRD KEYS ESPECIALLY MADE FOR
WINDOWS 95)

Color-Coded

Extremely Rugged And Durable

Extended & Enhanced

QWERTY (Or Dvorak, if you prefer)

Waterproof

Standard United States Key Layout

3 Sets Of 12 Function Keys Each (One Which Runs Along The Top Of
The Keyboard, And The Other Two In Two Neat Columns Each On The
Right And The Left Side)

A Quiet-But-Not-Too Quiet Keypress Click

A Soft-But-Not-Too-Soft Touch

A Key Travel That's Just Right

A Very Nice Color

An Adjustable Typing Angle

Tough Rubber "Feet" On The Bottom

A Key Layout You Feel Very Comfortable With (This Is Extremely
Important)

Switchable Between XT And AT

Says "Enter" (NOT "Return") On The Enter Key

All keys marked (NO BLANK KEYS, Except For The Space Bar)

Both Of The Tab Arrow Symbols (which look like |< and >|) On
The Tab Key

All Keycaps Firmly Attached To The Keyboard

Can Accept An Unlimited Number Of Keys Pressed Simultaneously

Caps Lock, Num Lock And Scroll Lock LEDs (The LEDs Should Be
BIG, Bright, Visible, Clearly Marked, And Green)

Small Bumps On The F And J Keys And The 5 On The Numeric
Keypad (For Touch-Typing)

Says "Page Up" And "Page Down" On The Dedicated Keys Instead Of
"PgUp" And "PgDn"

Uses Rubber Caps Under The Keys (Or Else Capacitive Keyswitches)

Adjustable-Volume Switchable On/Off Speaker Which Can Be Set To
Either Beep Or Click Whenever Any Key Is Pressed

A Radio-Shielded, Straight (Not Curly) Detachable Cable Of Appropriate
Length With A Sturdy Plug At The End Which Is Long Enough To Not
Fall Out

A 5-Pin Connector, NOT A 6-Pin PS/2-Style Connector (Those things
are for mice!)

A Small Switch On The Bottom Which Switches It Between AT And XT
Mode

A Keypad Which, via NUM LOCK, Switches Between Cursor Control
And Number Typing

CAPS LOCK And SCROLL LOCK Keys

4 USB Ports

Dedicated Cursor And Screen Controls

With The 4 Arrow Keys Alone In An Inverted T

Split IF You Want It To Be (Some people simply hate the feel of those
"ergonomic" split keyboards with a big split down the middle where
there are no keys)

Built-In Shield That Protects Against Liquid And Other Foreign Matter

Weighs 3 Pounds Or Less

The Following "Special" Keys: Internet Functions (Launch Internet
connection, launch Web browser, search Web, launch e-mail program,
launch Usenet reader), Audio CD Controls (Play, Pause, Stop, Next
Track, Previous Track, and Eject), 3 User-Definable Keys,
Standby/Suspend, Help, Find Files, Print, Fax, Mute, Dial-Type Volume
Control (Not two buttons for "Volume Up" and "Volume Down"), 3
User-Definable Games, Productivity Applications (Launch word
processor, spreadsheet, graphics program, database, desktop publishing),
Calculator, MS-DOS Prompt, Windows Explorer, And The "My
Documents" Folder

Spare Keyboard: Spare Keyboard Matching Your Current One (In case
it gets lost, stolen or broken)

Keyboard Tray:

Ergonomic

Extremely Rugged And Durable

Large, Front-Mounted, Completely-Padded Soft Wrist Rest With A Large
Center Slot For Putting Pens Into

Extends 12 centimetres (about 5 inches) Forward From The Front Of
Where The Keyboard Will Be

Removable/Attachable Walls

Allows You To Adjust The Height Of The Keyboard As Well As Tilt
The Keyboard

Tilts Up And Down Up To 20

Slides Forward And Backward

Non-Slip Surface

Can Be Detached And Can Be Locked Into Place

Slides EXTREMELY SILENTLY AND SMOOTHLY!

Keyboard Skin: Waterproof, Airtight, Clear, Flexible Plastic Keyboard
Skin Which Fits

Cable Organizer: Get a cable organizer!!! Something, anything to help
you keep your cables and wires in line. Something to arrange them nicely
so they're easy-to-access and in orderly rows. Or, if you want to hide
them so they're out of sight, you can do that too.

Video Cards:

8 Video Cards

ATI, BOCA, Chips And Technologies, Cirrus Logic, Diamond, Everex
Systems, Genoa Systems, IBM, National Design, NCR, Number Nine,
Oak Technology, Orchid Technology, Paradise, Perfect View, Radius, S3,
Sigma Designs, STB Systems, Trident, Tseng Labs, Video Seven Or
Western Digital

16,700,000 Color

Supports The Following Resolutions: 160 X 120, 320 X 200, 320 X 240,
360 X 240, 640 X 400, 640 X 480, 800 X 600, 1024 X 768, 1280 X
1024, 1600 X 1200, 1600 X 1280, 1024 X 2048, 1920 X 1440, 2000 X
2000, 2048 X 1536 AND 2048 X 2048

Monochrome, 8514, 8514/A (8514/A was superceded by XGA), CGA,
EGA, VGA, MCGA, XGA, PGA, AND SVGA Compatible

VESA 2.0 Compatible

Windows Accelerator

8x AGP 2.0 (Advanced Graphics Port, You must have an AGP slot in
your motherboard for this) (Not PCI Or VLB)

8.5 MIPS

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

RISC Processor

300 fps

30 Million Triangles Per Second

Maximum Pixel Fill Rate Of 1.6 gigapixels per second

Maximum Texel Fill Rate Of 2 gigatexels per second

6-Layer

4-128 MB Of 125 MHz DDR (Dual Data Rate) SDRAM (Not SDR
(Single Data Rate) RAM) Or WRAM (Not DRAM, VRAM or EDO
RAM) Set In Metal Sockets

220 Hz Vertical Scanning Rate Support And 130 KHz Horizontal
Scanning Rate Support

Allows You To Set The Refresh Rate (Probably through a software
utility, which must be available for MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows
9x, Windows NT/2000/XP, Linux, BeOS, VMS, and NetWare)

Support For SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

VESA 2.0 Support Internally Installed In The Card's ROM So You
Don't Need To Load A Software VESA Driver

Flash ROM

Support For 16-bit (Hi Color, 65,536 Colors), 24-bit (True Color,
16,777,216 colors), and 32-bit (which also has 16,777,216 colors; The
extra bits are used as an alpha channel for transparency and fog effects)
Color

256-bit 360 MHz RAMDAC Graphics Chip

A 1.6 GB/sec DTR (Data Transfer Rate)

Video Out AND Video In Connections (For TV/VCR) And Audio Out
AND Audio In Connections

FM-In AND FM Audio-Out Connections

8 Standard 15-pin VGA-Out Connections (Video Ports), (With
multi-monitor support)

Full HDTV (High-Definition Television) Support

Correctly displays text in DOS EGA/VGA 8x14 (8 pixel by 14 pixel
character box) text mode (video mode 10h) (unlike many newer video
cards which display garbled text in this mode, which is used particularly
by the original SimCity; If your card doesn't support it you need a TSR
to correct the problem, which is a pain to load)

Fully DirectX 8.0 Compatible

A Hardware DVD Decoder

An ACTUAL EXPANSION CARD (Do Not Get An OnBoard Video
Controller)

A Thorough, Friendly, Stylish Manual Covering All Jumpers, Connectors
And Specifications

Fully Supports MPEG AND MPEG-2 (MPEG Support ON THE
CARD'S HARDWARE, *NOT* SOFTWARE-LEVEL MPEG
SUPPORT)

D3D (Direct3D), OpenGL 1.4, 3Dfx/Voodoo Graphics/Rush, PowerVR,
Glide 3.X, Voodoo2 (V2) (Actually, V2 supports OpenGL, Direct3D,
AND Voodoo Graphics/Rush all together), And Voodoo 3

Based On One Of The Following Chipsets: 3DFX Voodoo, Voodoo 2,
Voodoo 3, Voodoo 4, Voodoo 5, ATI Rage 128, ATI Rage Fury, ATI
Rage Fury Maxx, Intel 810, Matrox G200, Matrox G400, NVidia TNT,
NVidia TNT2, NVidia GeForce, Or NVidia GeForce2

Supports The Following Hardware 3D Features: Anti-Aliasing, 32-bit Z-
Buffering, Flat Shading, Gouraud Shading, Phong Shading, Bi-Linear
Filtering, Single-Pass Tri-Linear Filtering, Bump Mapping, Texture
Mapping, Mip Mapping, Fogging, Specular Highlighting, Alpha-
Blending, Perspective Correction, Dithering, Hardware Triangle Setup,
Transparency, Stencil Buffering, And Backface Culling

Lifetime Warranty

Laser Printer:

32-bit

366 MHz

Internal Processor

Reliable

6,000,000 Color

Straight Path

256 Greyscale

Silent

Fully DOS And Windows Compatible

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

13.5 Pounds

7.75" X 13.8" X 6"

SCSI-3

Jam-Proof

Parallel Or USB

Complete PCL 4, PCL 5, PCL 6, PostScript, PostScript Level 2, AND
PostScript 3 Compatibility

HARDWARE AUTOMATIC EMULATION SWITCHING BETWEEN
PCL AND POSTSCRIPT (automatic swtiching should NOT require
loading a TSR)

Weighs 8 Pounds

True 1440 dpi Resolution

Switchable Between 30-100 lpi

64 KB Buffer

45 ppm (Pages Per Minute)

400 cps (Characters Per Second)

Envelope, Letter, Legal, Tabloid, And A4 Paper Size Compatibility

Recyclable, 8000 Sheet Toner Cartridge

3 500 Sheet Input Trays (Each with paper size settable to any of those
specified above, and each of which completely contains the paper inside
the printer in an enclosed cavity instead of having part of the paper
exposed to the outside)

5000 Sheet Output Tray

512 MB Of SIMM RAM Set In Metal Sockets

57 Scalable Adobe Fonts

83 Resident Fonts

Two-Sided Printing (Duplexing)

Microsoft At Work's Windows Printing System Built In

IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) Compliant

Doesn't Require Any Software Drivers To Function And Works With
Any Operating System

Unlimited Engine Life

Support For SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

Large, Easy-To-Read LCD

"Low Toner" LED

Doesn't Curl The Paper

Prints STRAIGHT (Print Out Some Straight Vertical And Horizontal
Lines And See How Close They Come To Being Parallel With The Sides
Of The Paper)

A Nice Color

Comes With A THOROUGH, FRIENDLY, STYLISH MANUAL

Networkable (Supports 10 mbps/100 mbps Ethernet, Token Ring, And
FDDI Networks)

Fully Supports ECP And EPP Parallel Ports

Works With T-Shirt Transfer Paper, Plain Paper, High-Resolution Paper,
Envelopes, Transparencies, Back Print Film, Glossy Photo Paper, High-
Gloss Film, And Fabric Sheets

Can Print All The Way Up To The Paper's EDGES

Tough Rubber "Feet" On The Bottom

IrDA Infrared Port

Fully Detachable Power And Radio-Shielded Data Cables Which Are
Nice And Long

Switch To Let You Choose Between 110 Volts And 220 Volts Power
Supply

Ports For Both A Serial AND A Parallel Interface

Mechanically And Automatically Draws Paper Through Itself

Color Printer:

Dye Sublimination, Thermal Wax Or Inkjet (Inkjet is the same as bubble
jet)

Reliable

16,000,000 Color

Straight Path

256 Greyscale

Silent

Fully DOS And Windows Compatible

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Dual-Printhead

6 Pounds

7.75" X 13.8" X 6"

SCSI-3

Jam-Proof

Parallel Or USB

Plain Paper

Compatibility With Envelope, Letter, Legal, Tabloid, A4 And 8.5" X 66"
(5'6") Banner Paper Sizes

PostScript, PostScript Level 2, AND PostScript 3 Compatibility

Recyclable, 8000 Sheet Ink Cartridge

3 500 Sheet Input Trays (Each with paper size settable to any of those
specified above and each of which completely contains the paper inside
the printer in an enclosed cavity instead of having part of the paper
exposed to the outside)

5000 Sheet Output Tray

2,880 X 1,440 dpi

64 KB Buffer

25 ppm (Pages Per Minute)

400 cps (Characters Per Second)

400 MB Of SIMM RAM Set In Metal Sockets

57 Scalable Adobe Fonts

83 Resident Fonts

Over 1000 Print Nozzles

Two-Sided Printing (Duplexing)

IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) Compliant

Doesn't Require Any Software Drivers To Function And Works With
Any Operating System

Unlimited Engine Life

Support For SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

Large, Easy-To-Read LCD

"Low Ink" LED

Doesn't Curl The Paper

Prints STRAIGHT (Print Out Some Straight Vertical And Horizontal
Lines And See How Close They Come To Being Parallel With The Sides
Of The Paper)

A Nice Color

Comes With Software Which Lets You Color-Calibrate Your Monitor
With Your Printer

Comes With A THOROUGH, FRIENDLY, STYLISH MANUAL

Networkable (Supports 10 mbps/100 mbps Ethernet, Token Ring, And
FDDI Networks)

Fully Supports ECP And EPP Parallel Ports

Works With T-Shirt Transfer Paper, Plain Paper, High-Resolution Paper,
Envelopes, Transparencies, Back Print Film, Glossy Photo Paper, High-
Gloss Film, And Fabric Sheets

Can Print All The Way Up To The Paper's EDGES

Tough Rubber "Feet" On The Bottom

Fully Detachable Power And Radio-Shielded Data Cables Which Are
Nice And Long

Plus A Switch To Let You Choose Between 110 Volts And 220 Volts
Power Supply

Ports For Both A Serial AND A Parallel Interface

Mechanically And Automatically Draws Paper Through Itself

Dot Matrix Printer:

360x360 dpi

NLQ (Near Letter Quality)

2-Year Warranty

24-pin Print Head

Can Print Graphics

Prints At 300 cps With NLQ Turned Off, And 100 cps With NLQ
Turned On

Tractor-Feed Mechanism

LF (Line Feed Button) (Advances paper one line)

FF (Form Feed) Button (Advances paper to next page)

Selectable Tractor/Friction Paper Feed Mechanism

Line Printer: Line Printer

Daisy Wheel Printer: Daisy Wheel Printer

Spare Printer Cartridges: Spare Laser Printer Cartridge And Spare
Color Printer Cartridge

Plotter: Color Plotter

Multi-Function Device: Multi-Function Device (MFD) Which Prints,
Scans, Copies, And Faxes

Punched Card Drive: Punched Card Drive (One which reads punched
cards)

Card punch: Card Punch/Keypunch (For making punched cards)

Paper Tape Drive

Magnetic Drum Drive

CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW Drive:

72X

Photo CD And Audio CD Compatible

SCSI-3 (Not IDE)

XA-Ready

Multisession-Capable

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Self-Cleaning

Internal

From Panasonic, Toshiba, NEC, Talon, Philips, Or Plexstor

Doesn't Use A Caddy (Although it should, but nobody sells caddy-using
drives anymore)

Supports CD-I And Enhanced Music CDs (CD+), CD-R and CD-RW

75 ms AVERAGE seek time

7200 KB per second SUSTAINED throughput data transfer rate (20
MB/sec BURST rate)

Supports 52x CD-R And 32x CD-RW

4 MB Buffer

3% System Utilization

Orange Book Compatible

Fully Compatible With The ISO 9660 ("High Sierra") Standard

Can Read CD Subchannel Data

A Stepper Motor

SEPARATE LEDs FOR READ AND WRITE

Supports SCSI-3 Parity And Active Termination

A Thorough, Friendly, Stylish Manual

Burn-Proof (To prevent buffer underruns while burning CD-Rs)

Comes With A Driver Disk Containing Device Drivers For MS-DOS

Easily-Accessible Eject Button As Well As A Manual Emergency-Eject
Hole (If The Eject Button Works Electrically And Not Mechanically),

Very Low Vibration

Fits Into A Standard 5.25" Drive Bay

Plus A Speaker/Headphone Jack

Volume Control On The Front Of The Drive (For Playing Audio CDs)

Audio CD Controls: Play/Pause, Stop, Previous Track And Next Track
Buttons

Never Pulls Its CD Tray In Without You Telling It To (In Other Words,
Which Doesn't Start Pulling The Tray In Right When You're Trying To
Load A CD Onto It)

(If It Has A Tray) A Tray Which Slides Fast, But Not Too Fast

(To determine the data transfer rate (DTR) of a CD-ROM drive, multiply
the "X" number by 150 KB/second. For example, a 24X CD-ROM drive
has a DTR of 3600 K/sec.)

WARNING: NEVER leave a CD-ROM inside a CD-R or CD-RW drive;
It is possible to spontaneously lose data this way, for no apparent reason.
I have personally had CDs wiped out by CD-RW drives even when I did
not run any CD-burning software; The drive *WILL* sometimes
overwrite part of the CD by itself, even if you don't tell it to. If it
overwrites the CD's TOC (Table Of Contents), all the data on the CD
will be lost. This is part of why, when you burn a CD, you should
always burn two copies, so you'll have a backup if one gets damaged or
destroyed. This is also why it's a good idea to have two CD-ROM
drives, one of which is non-burning-capable, for reading the discs, to
eliminate any risk of them being overwritten.

Additionally, CD-ROM drives should use caddies, because a caddy
protects the CD; With a caddy system, it is possible to change CDs
without ever having to touch the CD itself, as long as you have each CD
in a separate caddy. Thus, there is never any risk of the CD getting
smudged or scratched from external forces, because it constantly remains
inside the caddy. The only issue with caddies is that finding CD-ROM
drives which use them is very difficult today.

Blank CDs: Several Hundred Blank CD-Rs And CD-RWs For Writing
On Which Are On Good, Name-Brand, High-Quality, Long-Life Media,
NOT Some Cheap No-Name Brand On Unreliable Cyanine Media Which
Will Fade And Become Unreadable In A Few Years (In general, avoid
CD-Rs which come on spindles; Buy CD-Rs which come in jewel cases)

Jewel Cases: A Jewel Case For Every CD You Own, And A Few
Thousand Spare Jewel Cases (Preferably real, full-size jewel cases, NOT
the flimsy "slim" half-size jewel cases which bend easily, unless you are
really so pressed for storage space that you don't have room for a real
jewel case)

CD Caddies: A Caddy For Every CD (And 5 Spare Caddies)

CD Cleaning Tools: A Supply Of Approximately 50 CD Wipes For
Every CD You Own, Plus A Few Litres Of CD Cleaning Fluid

CD Recorder: Hewlett-Packard SureStore CD-Writer 4020i Plus
[Hewlett-Packard]

CD Stomper: CD Stomper (To Get Labels On Straight)

Bar Code And Magnetic Stripe Reader/Encoder: Bar Code And
Magnetic Stripe Reader/Encoder Which Can Connect To A Serial Port
Or A USB Port

Slots: 12 64-bit PCI 2.2 (NOT An Earlier Version) Slots And 1 8x AGP
2.0 Slot (For Video Card) (Possibly 1 AMR (Audio/Modem Riser) Slot)
On Motherboard Which Use Slot 2 Configuration And All Of Which Are
Hot-Swappable And Which Have Thumb-Driven Screws Instead Of Ones
Requiring A Screwdriver (Do not get any S-100, EISA, MCA, or VL-
BUS slots) (All Slots Should Be Hot-Swappable)

SPECIAL NOTE: ISA slots should no longer be included. Even for years
after PCI came out, ISA should have been kept around for backward
compatibility purposes. However, PCI is now a mature enough bus type
for it to be fully adapted. In addition, completely eliminating ISA
altogether means not having to worry about IRQs anymore, which will
make thousands of computer owners around the world sing for joy. The
PC98 standard, which was hacked together by Microsoft and Intel and
some other guys and which specifies standards that every computer in
1998 should have, states that ISA slots should be absent from your
computer (this is the only really important point of PC98). For once, I'll
agree with them. There should NOT be ANY ISA slots in your
computer. (Also note that if you do get ISA, a 16-bit ISA slot will work
with both 16-bit and 8-bit ISA cards. Therefore, there is no reason to
have an 8-bit ISA slot, which would only work with 8-bit cards.)

(Additional Note: The ONLY reason why you might want to get an ISA
slot in a modern computer is for a sound card. Older DOS games link to
the sound card directly through an IRQ, and a PCI sound card does not
have an IRQ. If you want to play old DOS games then get one ISA slot
for the sound card.)

Speakers:

Reliable

Compact

120-500 Watts RMS (Per channel, NOT total power)

Rugged & Durable

Self-Amplified

Completely And Thoroughly Magnetically Shielded

Waterproof And Weatherproof

Stereo

Attractive-Looking

Digital

NOT Battery-Powered

Clear, Powerful Sound

Low Hertz Rating

30 Hz To 22 KHz Frequency Range

Large, Easy-To-Access-And-Manipulate Front-Mounted Controls On
ALL SPEAKERS For Power, Volume, And Bass And Treble And On
ONE SPEAKER For Balance

Front-Mounted Headphone Jack On ALL SPEAKERS

Speakers/Headphones Switch On ALL SPEAKERS (DOES NOT
Automatically Switch To Headphones Just Because They're Plugged In)

Can Stand Alone On The Desktop Or Attach To The Sides Of The
Monitor

Include A Subwoofer As Well As Two Satellites

A One-Touch MUTE Button On ALL SPEAKERS Which Mutes ALL
SPEAKERS

Power LEDs On ALL SPEAKERS

Power Toggle Push-Buttons On ALL SPEAKERS

Nice, Long Wires

A Nice Color

On Tough Rubber "Feet"

Headphones:

Reliable

Stereo

14 Watts Per Channel

Self-Amplified

Magnetically Shielded

Waterproof And Weatherproof

DON'T Use Batteries

Clear, Powerful Sound

Low Hertz Rating

Nice Thick Wire That Won't Come Loose

PADDED Contact Surfaces That Feel Soft Against Your Head And Form
A Partially Soundproof Space Around Your Ears So Outside Sounds
Don't Get In And Sounds From The Headphones Don't Get Out

Built-In Volume Control In Each Side Of The Headset

MIDI Keyboards:

-Yamaha PSR 510 [Yamaha]

-Roland PC-200mkII [Roland]

Microphones:

Desktop Microphone: Desktop Microphone With 600 ohm Impedance
And Sensitivity Of -75 dB And With A Little Stand To Sit On A Desk

Clip Microphone: Microphone which clips onto the top of your monitor
and stays there.

Modems:

Internal:

-Adjustable Between 50 BPS, 75 BPS, 110 BPS, 135 BPS, 150 BPS, 300
BPS, 600 BPS, 1,150 BPS, 1,200 BPS, 1,275 BPS, 2,400 BPS, 4,800
BPS, 7,200 BPS, 9,600 BPS, 10,473 BPS, 11,520 BPS, 12,000 BPS,
12,800 BPS, 14,400 BPS, 16,457 BPS, 16,800 BPS, 19,200 BPS, 21,600
BPS, 23,040 BPS, 24,000 BPS, 26,400 BPS, 28,800 BPS, 31,200 BPS,
33,600 BPS, 34,000 BPS, 36,000 BPS, 38,000 BPS, 38,400 BPS, 40,000
BPS, 42,000 BPS, 44,000 BPS, 46,000 BPS, 48,000 BPS, 50,000 BPS,
52,000 BPS, 54,000 BPS, And 56,000 BPS (V.90, NOT X2, K56flex, or
V.pcm) (For Data) And 300 BPS, 2,400 BPS, 4,800 BPS, 7,200 BPS,
9,600 BPS, 12,000 BPS, And 14,400 BPS (For Faxes)

100% Compatible With Hayes And The Standard "AT" And "AT&"
Command Set

Supports The Use Of A Comma In The Dial String To Create A 2-
Second Delay

Fully Class 1 Fax And Class 2 Fax Compatible

MNP 10

Bell 212A, Bell 103, Bell 202, V.18 (TTY), V.21, V.22, V.22bis, V.23,
V.33, V.32, V.32bis, V.42, V.42bis, V.34, V.FC, AND V.32terbo

Fully Supports Group 1 And Group 2 (300 bps) Faxing As Well As
Group 3 (14,400 bps) Faxing, Including V.27, V.29, And V.17 Fax
Standards

Internal

Data/Fax/Voice

Send/Recieve

Full/Half Duplex

Pulse/Tone

Asynchronous/Synchronous

6-Layer

PCI Bus

Cellular

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Fully 100% Compatible With MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 3.1 And
Windows 95

Support For SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

Made By A Really Good Brand Name (Either US Robotics Or Hayes)

(PCMCIA In A Notebook, With The Patented XJACK Technology)

Thourough, Friendly, Stylish Manual Covering All Jumpers, Connections,
Specifications And Commands (Plus An Index, Diagrams And A
Troubleshooting Section)

100% Hayes-Compatible (That is, compatible with the industry-standard
Hayes "AT" command set)

Can Be Set To COM1, COM2, COM3 Or COM4 Through Hardware-Set
Jumpers (DOES NOT USE SOFTWARE CONFIGURING)

Uses DSP (Digital Signal Processing) (NOT HSP (Host Signal
Processing) (DO NOT GET AN HSP MODEM)

Non-RPI (DO NOT GET AN RPI MODEM) (Modem DOES ALL ITS
WORK INDEPENDENTLY And Does Not Require ANY Software
Drivers)

Recognizes And Reports Busy, Voice, Fax Machine Connect, No Dial
Tone, Incoming Call (RING), And Modem Carrier Connect Messages

Uses The Standard AT Command Set

Self-Diagnostics

Auto Dial And Auto Answer Features

Adjustable Dial-Type Volume Control Speaker

Phone AND Line Jacks, BOTH Of Which Are RJ11, RJ12, RJ13, AND
RJ14 Compatible And Which Clip Onto The Phone Wires (Instead of
having them simply slide in and out loosely)

Flash ROM

Waits For Dialtone Detect Before Dialing (But Can Have This Option
Turned Off, In Case You Ever Wish To Dial Without A Dialtone)

Disables The Telephone While The Modem Is In Use

Detects If An Incoming Call Is From Another Modem, And If So,
Connects To It, If Not, Sends The Call To The Telephone

5-Year Warranty

Doesn't Distinguish Between Upper- And Lower-Case Letters When
Issuing AT Commands

Speakerphone

Supports X6 Commands (Activated by sending ATX6 to modem)

Supports Remote Access, Control, And Diagnostics

Built-In Caller ID

External:

-Adjustable Between 50 BPS, 75 BPS, 110 BPS, 135 BPS, 150 BPS, 300
BPS, 600 BPS, 1,150 BPS, 1,200 BPS, 1,275 BPS, 2,400 BPS, 4,800
BPS, 7,200 BPS, 9,600 BPS, 10,473 BPS, 11,520 BPS, 12,000 BPS,
12,800 BPS, 14,400 BPS, 16,457 BPS, 16,800 BPS, 19,200 BPS, 21,600
BPS, 23,040 BPS, 24,000 BPS, 26,400 BPS, 28,800 BPS, 31,200 BPS,
33,600 BPS, 34,000 BPS, 36,000 BPS, 38,000 BPS, 38,400 BPS, 40,000
BPS, 42,000 BPS, 44,000 BPS, 46,000 BPS, 48,000 BPS, 50,000 BPS,
52,000 BPS, 54,000 BPS, And 56,000 BPS (V.90, NOT X2, K56flex, or
V.pcm) (For Data) And 300 BPS, 2,400 BPS, 4,800 BPS, 7,200 BPS,
9,600 BPS, 12,000 BPS, And 14,400 BPS (For Faxes)

100% Compatible With Hayes And The Standard "AT" And "AT&"
Command Set

Supports The Use Of A Comma In The Dial String To Create A 2-
Second Delay

Fully Class 1 Fax And Class 2 Fax Compatible

MNP 10

Bell 212A, Bell 103, Bell 202, V.18 (TTY), V.21, V.22, V.22bis, V.23,
V.33, V.32, V.32bis, V.42, V.42bis, V.34, V.FC, AND V.32terbo, Plus
Fully Supports Group 1 And Group 2 (300 bps) Faxing As Well As
Group 3 (14,400 bps) Faxing, Inlucing V.27, V.29, And V.17 Fax
Standards

External

Data/Fax/Voice

Send/Recieve

Full/Half Duplex

Pulse/Tone

Asynchronous/Synchronous

Cellular

Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Fully 100% Compatible With MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 3.1 And
Windows 95

Support For SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

Made By A Really Good Brand Name (Either US Robotics Or Hayes)

(PCMCIA In A Notebook, With The Patented XJACK Technology)

Thourough, Friendly, Stylish Manual Covering All Jumpers, Connections,
Specifications And Commands (Plus An Index, Diagrams And A
Troubleshooting Section)

100% Hayes-Compatible (That is, compatible with the industry-standard
Hayes "AT" command set)

Can Be Set To COM1, COM2, COM3 Or COM4 Through Hardware-Set
Jumpers (DOES NOT USE SOFTWARE CONFIGURING)

Uses DSP (Digital Signal Processing) (NOT HSP (Host Signal
Processing) (DO NOT GET AN HSP MODEM)

Non-RPI (DO NOT GET AN RPI MODEM) (Modem DOES ALL ITS
WORK INDEPENDENTLY And Does Not Require ANY Software
Drivers)

Recognizes And Reports Busy, Voice, Fax Machine Connect, No Dial
Tone, Incoming Call (RING), And Modem Carrier Connect Messages

And Which Uses The Standard AT Command Set

Actually Has 3 Levels Of Volume (As controlled by the ATL1 to ATL3
commands)

Self-Diagnostics

Auto Dial And Auto Answer Features

Adjustable Dial-Type Volume Control Speaker

Phone AND Line Jacks, BOTH Of Which Are RJ11, RJ12, RJ13, AND
RJ14 Compatible And Which Clip Onto The Phone Wires (Instead of
having them simply slide in and out loosely)

Flash ROM

DURABLE Plastic Case With Tough Rubber "Feet" On The Bottom

The Following Status LEDs: AA (Auto Answer, indicating the modem
will automatically answer any incoming calls), CD (Carrier Detect,
indicating the modem is connected to a remote carrier), CS (Carrier
Send), DSR (Data Send Ready), DTR, EC, FX, HS (High Speed,
indicating the modem is set to a speed of 1200 bps or higher), ML, MR
(Modem Ready, indicating the modem is turned on), OH (Off Hook,
indicating the modem is currently using the phone line), RD (Receive
Data, indicating the modem is receiving data), RX, RXD, SD (Send Data,
indicating the modem is sending data), TD, TR (Terminal Ready,
indicating the computer connected to the modem is ready to talk to it),
TX, TXD, Power, And Synchronous

Waits For Dialtone Detect Before Dialing (But Can Have This Option
Turned Off, In Case You Ever Wish To Dial Without A Dialtone)

Disables The Telephone While The Modem Is In Use

Detects If An Incoming Call Is From Another Modem, And If So,
Connects To It, If Not, Sends The Call To The Telephone

5-Year Warranty

Doesn't Distinguish Between Upper- And Lower-Case Letters When
Issuing AT Commands

Speakerphone

Supports X6 Commands (Activated by sending ATX6 to modem)

Supports Remote Access, Control, And Diagnostics

Built-In Caller ID

-Cable Modem

-ISDN Modem

-ADSL/SDSL Modem

Direct Link Cables: 2 PC Direct Link Cables (One parallel, one serial)

Telephone Headset: Compact, Comfortable Telephone Headset With
Good Sound Quality Which Basically Consists Of A Pair Of Headphones
With A Microphone Sticking Out In Front Of Your Mouth And Which
Has A Volume Control

Cellular Phone: Cigarette-Pack Sized, 6 Ounce Cellular Phone With 7
Day Battery Life Standby, 9 Hours On, A Spare Battery, A Car Cigarette
Lighter Adapter And A Worldwide Auto-Sensing AC Adapter As Well
As An Adjustable Noise Ringer And Switchable Pulse/Tone Dialing,
One-Touch Redial, Retractible, Flexible Rubber Antennae, 10 Number
Emergency Dial, Effective Security System, And 2-Year Parts And Labor
Warranty, And Which Has A Built-In Digital Recorder So You Can
Record Short Voice Memos To Yourself, And With A Visual Battery
Level Indicator, Visual Signal Strength Indicator, Built-In Phone Number
Directory, Calendar, Calculator, And Games, A Plug For An External
Headphone Set, And A Sliding Volume Control On The Side, Plus A
Variety Of Amusing Ring Sounds, And 7 Default Alerts: Visual;
Audible; Vibrate; Visual And Vibrate; Audible And Vibrate; Audible
And Visual; And Visual, Audible, And Vibrate, As Well As The Ability
To Send And Receive Text Messages Through e-mail, And Which
Supports Connecting To A Cellular Modem For Use With A Computer

Telephone: Telephone With Adjustable Noise Ringer And Switchable
Pulse/Tone Dialing, One-Touch Redial That Lasts Forever (24 Hours In
A Power Failure), Effective Mute, Will Work With The Receiver Down,
5 Lines, Hold Button, And 10 Number Emergency Dial That Lasts
Forever (24 Hours In A Power Failure)

Acoustic Coupler: It's getting difficult to find acoustic couplers
nowadays. They're handy little devices which strap onto a telephone
receiver, then plug into your modem, so you can create a modem phone
line connection with any telephone. They used to be quite common, but
not anymore, which is unfortunate because they really can be very useful.
Below are some that I know of which still are made:

-Konexx Koupler [Konexx Unlimited Systems Corp. Inc.]

Beeper (Pager): Beeper (Pager) That Can Hold 200 Calls With Numbers
And Names, Plus 24 Hours Battery Life And Adjustable Noise Ringer,
Backlit Display On/Off, Message Time/Day Stamp, Option To
Save/Delete Messages, Clock And Alarm Clock, Plus 7 Alerts: Visual;
Audible; Vibrate; Visual And Vibrate; Audible And Vibrate; Audible
And Visual; And Visual, Audible, And Vibrate

Digital Recorder (Device which acts like a portable tape recorder,
except it stores sounds on EEPROM rather than mechanical tapes):
Lightweight Digital Recorder Which Can Store Up To 400 Minutes Of
Sound And Runs On Two AA Batteries, And Which Has Jacks For An
External Microphone And External Headphones As Well As A USB
Connection To Connect To A PC, And Which Has A Date/Time Stamp
Feature And Which Allows You To Organize All Sounds Into Folders
And Sub-Folders, As Well As Which Has A Voice-Activated Recording
Function Along With Manual Recording, A Built-In Pocket Clip, A
Built-In LCD Which Allows You To Browse Messages By Date, Time,
Or Length, And Which Allows You To Speed Up Or Slow Down
Playback To Skip Over Unimportant Segments And Listen Carefully To
Important Segments

Desk: Extremely Sturdy And Large Computer Desk With A Section
With Slots For Holding CD Jewel Cases And Lockable CPU Storage
And Which Is Very Attractive-Looking And With Bookcase Sides And
Back

Camcorder: Super VHS (SVHS) Digital Video (DV) Camcorder With
360X Digital Zoom, A Flying Erase Head, Auto/Manual Date Insert, And
Which Comes With An RF (Radio Frequency) Remote Control (Not An
Infrared Remote) And Which Will Run For 2 Hours On One Battery
Pack And Which Uses A Digital Electronic Image stabilizer Which
Adjusts To Movements So That Even Shots From Inside A Moving Car
Will Look Like You Used A Tripod, Plus With A Comfortable Strap On
The Side For A Hand, Plus Fade, Wipe And Overdubbing Effects Which
Can Be Done Right In The Camera, As Well As A COLOUR
Viewfinder!!! And Which Has Hi-Fi Stereo Sound

Tripod: Tripod

Monopod: Monopod

Hand Scanner: 600 Optical dpi 4,800 X 4,800 Resolution 36-bit 68.7
Billion Color SCSI-3 Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant 4,096 Grayscale
Level, Image Merging Desktop Hand Scanner With 99% Reliable OCR
That Supports SCSI-3 Parity And SCSI-3 Active Termination

Flatbed Scanner:

42-bit

Flatbed

Single-Pass

Parallel, SCSI, Or USB (Preferably USB)

TWAIN-Compliant

68.7 Billion Colors

4,800 X 4,800 Resolution, 1,600 x 3,200 Optical Resolution, 600 X 1200
Optical dpi

4,096 Grayscale Levels

3.3 Dynamic Range

99% Reliable OCR

Scans Anything In 10 Seconds

One-Touch Scan Button

Nice, Long Cord

Tough Rubber "Feet" On The Bottom

A Nice Color

Fully Supports ECP, EPP And Normal Parallel Ports

Doesn't Require Insanely Long Warm-Up Times

Comes With Drivers And Scanning Software For Windows 95, Windows
98, Windows 3.X, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Me,
Windows NT 4.0, MS-DOS 6.2, Linux, OS/2 2.1, Novell NetWare, DR-
DOS 7.0, and BeOS 4.5

Compact Flash Card Reader: Compact Flash Card Reader Which Can
Connect To A USB Port, A Parallel Port, A FireWire Port, Or A
PCMCIA Slot, Is Hot-Swappable, Has A LED To Indicate When It's
Active, And Supports Windows 95/98 And Windows NT

Smart Media Card Reader: Smart Media Card Reader Which Can
Connect To A USB Port, A Parallel Port, A FireWire Port, Or A
PCMCIA Slot, Is Hot-Swappable, Has A LED To Indicate When It's
Active, And Supports Windows 95/98 And Windows NT

Cassette Recorder: Cassete Recorder That Supports SCSI-3 Parity And
SCSI-3 Active Termination Plus Tapes

Tape Backup Drive (Nowadays tape drives are used mostly for
backup): Reliable Tape Backup Drive Which Allows You To Remove
The Tape, Has 5-500 GB Capacity On Each Tape, Data Transfer Rate Of
5 GB Per Minute, Doesn't Require A Restore Operation To Get The
Data Back, Can Back Up An Entire DOS Partition, Works On A
Network, Can Be Completely Verified, Can Span A Large Drive Onto
Multiple Tapes, Can Run The Software As Commands From A DOS
Batch File, Can Put Several Backups On One Tape, Lets You Back Up
Or Restore Any Or All Files Individually (File-By-File Backup And
Restore) And Which Comes With And Uses SyTOS

Tape Rack: Tape Rack Which Can Hold Up To 5,000 Computer Tapes

Data Cartridge Drive: Zip, Jaz or Ditto drive

Video Capture Board: Video Spigot [Creative Labs] (160 X 120, 320
X 240, AND 640 X 480, 30 fps Video Capture Board For Windows That
Can Do Single-Frame Captures With No Trouble And Which Doesn't
Use A Memory Buffer)

DVD Drive: 16X DVD-ROM III Drive With A Hardware Decoder
(NOT A Software Decoder) Which Can Read Audio CDs And Data
CD-ROMs, And Which Supports 4X DVD-R And 2X DVD-RW

PCMCIA (Now actually usually called PC Card) Slots: 3 Type I, 3
Type II, And 3 Type III PCMCIA (PC Card) 3.0 Slots Which Are
CardBus (*MUST* be CardBus; Do *NOT* get non-CardBus PCMCIA
slots)

Light Pen: Light Pen

TV: 20" To 60" Unlimited Color Rear-Projector Stereo TV With 900
Lines Resolution That Has Two Connections (One For Cable And One
For Antennae), A Dark-Tint Screen, And Which Lets You Switch
Between The Two Via An External Switch, Plus With An Up-To-24
Hours Sleep Timer, Adjustable By The Minute, As Well As A Channel
Memory Erased/Stored Channel-By-Channel Feature, Plus An Internal
Clock That Holds Accurate Time And Stays Inside For Five Hours After
A Power Failure And Which Has An RF (Radio Frequency) Remote
Control (Not An Infrared Remote) That Lets You Switch On Or Off
Button Illumination And Which Has A PIP (Picture-In-Picture) Feature
So You Can Watch One Channel And Another On A Little Box In The
Corner Of The Screen, PLUS Split-Screen View, So You Can Watch one
Channel On Half The Screen And Another On The Other Half, Plus An
Alarm Timer, Closed-Captioning Support, And An On-Screen Clock And
Channel Display As Well As A 181-Channel Tuner And Which Has A
Coaxial Input AND RCA-Style Jacks For Audio AND Video Inputs
AND Outputs And A Random-Channel Button On The Remote Control

TV Antenna: Archer Color Supreme V [Archer]

VCR: 2 Super VHS (SVHS) Hi-Fi Stereo 6-Head VCRs With Two
Connections (One For Cable And One For Antennae) And Lets You
Switch Between The Two Via An External Switch, A Flying Erase Head,
Built-In "VCR Plus" Technology, A Pre-Amplifier, Plus An Internal
Clock That Holds Accurate Time And Stays Inside For Five Hours After
A Power Failure And Is Shown In An Easy-To-Read LCD On The Front
And Which Has A Built-In Head Cleaner And Which Has An RF (Radio
Frequency) Remote Control (Not An Infrared Remote) That Lets You
Switch On Or Off Button Illumination, Plus A 181-Channel Tuner And
Remote Eject Capability And Audio AND Video Inputs AND Outputs

Videocassette Rewinder: Videocassette Rewinder

Laserdisc Player: Laserdisc Player That Plays CDs

Virtual Reality Equipment:

-i-Glasses [Virtual iO]

-VFX1 Stereo Headgear [Forte Technologies]

-CyberMaxx Head-Mounted Display [VictorMaxx Technologies]

-inViso eShades (Connects to a PCMCIA card slot) [inViso]

Monitor Arm: Monitor Arm

Rear-View Mirror: Rear-View Mirror Mounted On Top Of Monitor (So
you can see behind you while you're computing)

Ports: 2 16550AFN (Not 16550AN) UART Serial Ports, 2 Bidirectional
Parallel Ports Which Can Be Set To Either ECP, EPP Or Normal
Through A BIOS Setting, 1 Game Port (Joystick Port) Which Supports
3-axis Joysticks (Not just 2-axis joysticks, as some sub-par game ports
do; Joysticks with a throttle control use the throttle as a third axis), 1
Video Port (On The Video Card, For The Monitor) 1 Audio Port, 1
Keyboard Port, 1 PS/2 Style Mouse Port, 1 PS/2 Style Keyboard Port, 1
Printer Port, 1 SCSI Port (On The Host Adapter), 6 USB 2.0 Ports (3 at
the front of the case), A 4 Mbps IrDA 1.1 Infrared Port, 1 Firewire
(IEEE 1394) Port, 1 RJ-45 Ethernet Port, And 1 Coaxial Ethernet Port,
And ALL PORTS WITH A LITTLE CARVED-IN TEXT ON THE
SLOT STATING WHAT KIND OF PORT IT IS!

(NOTE: The ports which come with your computer are usually just
mounted on a slot and then plugged into the motherboard. This, of
course, means that your motherboard needs connectors for all those ports.
If it does not have enough, and you are short on ports and need more,
you can also get port cards, which are expansion cards which plug into
a slot and supply their own ports. Which leads us to...)

Port Card: Port Card Which Supplies From 1-4 Ports (depending on
how many you need), Which Are Serial, Parallel, Or USB Ports
(depending on what kind you need), And Which Plugs Into A Standard
ISA Or PCI Slot (depending on what kind you have) And Which Does
Not Require Any Special Drivers Or Other Software, And Which
Therefore Is Not Dependant Upon Any Particular Operating System

Port Adapters: 4 Serial Port Adapters (25-Pin To 9-Pin If Your Serial
Ports Are 9-Pin, 9-Pin To 25-Pin If Your Serial Ports Are 25-Pin)

USB Hub: USB Hub Which Can Connect Up To 4 USB Devices To 1
USB Port

Floppy Drives:

-2 Quiet, Reliable, Self-Cleaning, Half-Height, Internal, 2.88 MB 3.5"
Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant Internal Floppy Disk Drives Which Also
Support 720K And 1.44 MB Disks With Access LED That Supports
SCSI-3 Parity And Active SCSI-3 Termination And Which Has A
Thorough, Friendly, Stylish Manual And Which Doesn't Click Too Loud
When You Insert A Disk And An Eject Button Which Also Functions
Quietly And Which Doesn't Get Damaged If You Accidentally Are
Holding The Disk Inside The Drive With Your Finger While You Push
The Eject Button

-2 Quiet, Reliable, Self-Cleaning, Half-Height, Internal, 1.2 MB 5.25"
Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant Internal Floppy Disk Drives Which Also
Support 160K, 180K, 320K, And 360K Disks With Access LED That
Supports SCSI-3 Parity And Active SCSI-3 Termination With A
Comfortable Drive Door And Which Has A Thorough, Friendly, Stylish
Manual

SPECIAL NOTE: A modern computer should no longer have an 8"
floppy drive. They are too large to bother with, and very few 8" disks
exist anymore anyway. It's time to do away with the original floppy disk
size.

Floppy Disk Holder: Large (Room Enough For 40 Disks), Rugged,
Durable Floppy Disk Holders With 5 Dividers And Index Labels, Plus
A Lock (In Both 5.25" And 3.5" Sizes)

Remote Control: Remote Control With Soft Rubber Buttons Which Lets
You Do Anything With Your Computer Remotely That You Could Do
While Sitting At It, i.e. Which Can Turn The System On Or Off, Run
Various Key Programs (Such as web browser, media player, etc.),
Control Audio Programs (With buttons for Play, Stop, Pause, Next Track,
Previous Track, Record, and Eject), A Volume Control, And Can Also
Function As A Remote Mouse

Flashlight: Bright, Extremely Durable Flashlight with fresh batteries
(for seeing into dark corners of your computer's interior)

Voltmeter: Voltmeter With A 20,000 ohms Per Volt Impedance

Ohmmeter

Ammeter

Multimeter: Digital 3.5-Digit Manually-Chosen-30-Range (Along With
An Auto-Range Option) True RMS Pocket-Sized Waterproof Multimeter
With Low-Battery Indicator And A Diode Checker, Capacitance And
Transistor Gain Measurement, Continuity Buzzer, AC Voltage Check, 20
MHz Frequency Counter, Logic Probe And Logic Pulser Functions, Auto
Power-Off After 5 Minutes, A Built-In Memory Which Can Hold Up To
20 Readings, Built-In Circuit Breaker To Protect Against Overload,
Auto-Ranging (Automatically selects correct voltage/resistance range
when taking measurements), With Detachable Leads, A Continuity Test
That's Both Visible AND Audible, Auto Power-Off After 3 Minutes Of
Inactivity, "Display Hold" Feature Which Makes It Hold The Last Stable
Reading, Stores Highest And Lowest Measurements In Memory, And
Which Has A Connection And Software That Lets You Hook It Up To
A Computer And Which Is Extremely Durable And Which Runs On A
9 Volt Battery And Which Can Measure Volts, Ohms, Or Amps And
Has The Following Voltmeter Ranges: 15 V DC, 150 V DC, 1000 V
DC, 15 V AC, 150 V AC, And 1000 V AC

Oscilloscope: 100 MHz To 1.5 GHz, 2-Channel (Having two input
connections) Or 4-Channel, Dual-Trace (Able to display waveforms from
both inputs at the same time) Analog (Not Digital) Oscilloscope With
Freeze-Frame Capability (Able to freeze display and show single frames
from waveform history) Which Can Accept Up To 600 Volts Input And
Which Uses Either BNC Or Banana Plug Inputs

Frequency Counter

Logic Analyzer

Function Generator

Voltage Transformer: Variable Voltage Transformer Which Can Output
AC Voltages From 0 To 240 Volts

Business Card Scanners:

-Scan-In-Dex

-CardGRABBER

-CypherScan 1000

Footrest: Very Comfortable Footrest

Power Control Center: Power Control Center With The Following
Switches: Computer, Monitor, 2 Printers, Scanner, 2 Auxiliary
Peripherals, And A Master Switch

Surge Protectors:

-Curtis SP5000 Surge Protector

-Curtis SP4500 Surge Protector (Use With Phone Lines!)

-Proxima Power Centre Plus

-Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra 6 (960 Joules)

Photocopier: Color Photocopier With Letter, Legal, Tabloid, And A4
Paper Size Compatibility Which Runs At 80 ppm

Mousepad: Plastic & Teflon-Coated PC-Compatible Mousepad That
Comes With A Bottle Of Anti-Static Spray And A Grounding Cord And
Is Large Enough For The Monitor, Keyboard And Mouse And Which
Lets You Slide Photographs In And Out From Inside It So You Can See
Them On The Surface Of It

Mass Storage Devices:

-MultiStore

-ROMBox 300

-Pinnacle Micro RCD-202

-CDM 4000

-infiniDISC: Stores up to 2,750 CDs and 44 CD-ROM readers. If all the
discs are full, that's 1.78 terabytes. [DynaTek]

Computer Projection Panel (LCD Panel): Active Matrix 16.7 Million
Color TFT (Thin Film Transistor) Computer Projection Panel For
Overhead Projector

Video Projector: 100% IBM PC Compatible LCD Video Projector With
3,000 ANSI Lumens (More Lumens = Higher Brightness), True SVGA
(switchable between 800 X 600 and 1024 X 768 resolution) And XGA,
100:1 Contrast Ratio (Or 300:1, Whichever Is Better), 1.1 Brightness
Variance (Lower Number = Better; 1.0 Is Ideal) 85 Hz Vertical Refresh
Rate In ALL MODES, 6 lbs. Weight, Built-In Carrying Handle, Very
Quiet (About 40 dB), 8,000 Hour Lamp Life, Zoom In/Zoom Out, And
A Very Durable, Rugged Case, Plus Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant

Overhead Projector: LCD Overhead Projector 

Overhead Screen (For Overhead Projector): Fully Retractable
Overhead Screen Which Is Fire- And Mold-Resistant And Which Is
White With A Thin Black Border

Slide Projector: LCD Slide Projector

Pointers:

-Steel Telescopic Pointer Which Extends To 7 metres (about 23 feet)

-Laser Pointers With 3,000 metre Range In Red, Green, And Blue

Computer Label Device: P-Touch PC

Computer Thermometer: Thermometer which shows the computer's
internal temperature in both Farenheit and Celsius and sounds an audible
alarm and flashes a visible alarm when the computer's internal
temperature reaches 110F (43C)

HAM Equipment:

-HAM Radio And Scanner

Computer Still-Image Cameras/Digital Cameras:

[Good Computer Camera: 2000 x 1800 pixels, Up To 50X Zoom, 8
Ounces Weight, 1.6-inch Color LCD Monitor, Built-In Automatic Flash,
With The Ability To Timestamp Photos With The Time And Date They
Were Taken, Which Can Save Into JPEGs, Can Hold Up To 200 Images
On One Memory Card At The Highest Picture Quality, Which Can Store
Images On Floppy Disks, Compact Flash Cards, Smart Media Cards, Or
(Sony) Memory Sticks]

-ComputerEyes/LPT Parallel Port Color Video Frame Grabber

-Chinon's ES-3000 [Chinon]

-Kodak's DC-40 Digital Camera [Kodak]

-Logitech Fotoman Plus [Logitech]

-QuickTake 100 [Apple]

-Digital Science DC-50 [Kodak]

-Epson PhotoPC [Epson]

-Digital Color Zoom Camera 10-C [Dycam]

-Casio QV-30 [Casio]

-Chinon ES-1000 [Chinon]

-Ricoh DC-1 [Ricoh]

-Fuji's Fujix DS-220 [Fuji]

[1500 X 1500 Digital Camera Which Can Store Up To 50 Images In Its
Internal Memory And Which Can Also Store Them Onto A Floppy Disk
In BMP Format]

Computer Videocamera/Webcam: USB Computer Videocamera With
1024x768 Resolution, A 45-Degree Field Of View, A Frame Rate Of 60
fps, 24-bit Color, A Tilt-Swivel Base, A One-Touch "Snapshot" Button
Which Is Easy To Access, A Sliding Shutter To Block The Lens When
Not In Use, Auto-Focus And Auto-Light Adjusting, And Which Weighs
Less Than 200 grams And With A Cable That's Nice And Long And
Which Can Save Snapshots To JPEGs Or Videos To AVIs As Well As
With Internet Videoconferencing Capability And Which Fully Supports
The H.323 Version 2 Standard (for videoconferencing) And Which
Comes With Software Which Lets You View The Camera's Input So
You Can See For Yourself What It's Picking Up, Which Works With
Microsoft NetMeeting 3.0, And Which Can Automatically Adjust And
Compensate For Focus, Lighting, Color Saturation, etc., And With An
Anti-Flicker Function Which Can Be Set To 50 Hz (for Europe) Or 60
Hz (for North America) To Compensate For Fluorescent Lighting

Game Port Cards:

-CH Gamecard 3 Automatic

Paddles: 2 Paddles (The Ancient, Computer Kind) Which Connect To
A Regular Game Port

Brand-Name Specific Special-Purpose Hardware:

KickStart 2 [Landmark Research]

ROM POST [Landmark Research]

Post-Probe [Micro 2000]

One Slot: A large expansion card which has 4 serial ports (using fast
16550 UARTs) and three parallel ports. That's a lot of ports on one
board. A pretty cool product! [Star Gate Technologies]

Game Zapper

AdLib: The first sound card ever made available for the PC, the AdLib
card sparked a revolution in PC entertainment and created the standard
for MIDI sound synthesis that would stand for nearly a decade.
Originally released in August 1987, the AdLib card used FM MIDI
synthesis to create MIDI music, and was officially incapable of playing
digitized sound effects, so "sound effects" played with the card were
actually just simulated sounds made with MIDI instrument sounds,
although some programmers did use kludgy hacks to get it to play (rather
poor) digitized sound. The AdLib card created a huge stir and held down
the PC sound standard for a couple of years, until Creative Labs released
their seminal Sound Blaster card in November 1989, which quickly
became the de facto PC sound standard, because it was compatible with
the AdLib standard, and on top of that it could play digital sound (and
play it well), spawning a long line of spinoff products that remained the
standard for PC sound cards until DOS gaming took a backseat to
Windows gaming. [AdLib]

SS Security Filter

Microsoft Windows Sound System 2.0 Without Sound Card [Microsoft]

FlexCam

QuickCam [Logitech]

Color QuickCam 2 [Logitech]

Axis 200 Web Camera

ViewBridge

Video Toaster 4000 [Newtek]

FlyLight: A small light attached to a flexible stem, intended for use with
portable computers to illuminate the keyboard in low-light conditions. It
plugs into a USB port and gets all the power it needs from there. A neat
idea, and possibly even genuinely useful for when you're using your
notebook in the dark. [Kensington]

Studio Magic

Yamaha's CBX-D5 Digital Recording Processor

SoftBoard

Sheffield/XLO Test & Burn-In CD

Phone Blaster [Creative Labs]

Clipper CS-1

MODULA-Executive "DeskPad"

Portable CD Tower Which Holds 30 CDs And Has A Lockable Cover

Forminco Mouse Arena

Mouse Palace

Apple Cat Modem [Novation]

Apple Cat ][ Modem [Novation]

XA1541 Cable: The X1541 series of cables are designed to interface a
1541 floppy drive (the standard 5.25" floppy drive for a Commodore 64)
with an IBM PC-compatible's parallel port. There are four types: The
basic X1541 is older and not compatible with most modern PCs. The
XE1541 (Extended 1541) will work on the average PC using Windows,
but not Linux. The XM1541 (Multitask 1541) is a slight modification of
the XE1541 for Linux users. The best cable of all, however, is the
XA1541 (Active 1541) cable, which overcomes minor incompatibilities
in the parallel ports of some PCs by using transistors and resistors rather
than simple diodes, and so it is the cable you should get and use. You
can find information on these cables on the Web at
http://sta.c64.org/xcables.html, and you can order these cables from The
X1541 Shop on the same website at http://sta.c64.org/x1541shop.html

System Saver: A classic computer accessory which is memorable for
several reasons. The System Saver was a fan unit built for the Apple II
line of computers that mounted on top of the system case. But the
System Saver was no mere fan; It actually cooled the air it blew, making
it more of a refrigeration unit, an innovation which has not been seen
since then and which could be desperately used today, in this age of
failure-prone CPU fans which do little except push the air around inside
the case. The System Saver is notable for two other very important
reasons as well: First, it was Kensington's first product, launched along
with the company in 1981. Secondly, it was the all-time highest-selling
peripheral for the Apple II line. Besides being a cooling unit, the System
Saver was also a surge protector, taking the form of a power bar into
which you could plug each of your computer's individual components:
Main case, monitor, and a couple of auxiliary peripheral sockets, which
could be controlled via two switches on the front of the unit, one which
turned on the master power (for the computer and monitor), and the other
which turned on the auxiliary power (for printers and the like).
[Kensington]

Glasstron: A set of glasses with TV screens inside the lenses, for
watching TV without other people knowing it. [Sony]

onHand PC: Essentially a wristwatch PDA. The onHand has a good
design, with a screen that's quite light and realistically sized, considering
it needs to fit on your wrist; It's kind of small and you'll need to squint
to make it out, so you won't be reading novels on this thing, but it's
handy for quick information storage and lookup. The screen does have
a decent backlight that you can turn on, so it's readable in even low-light
situations. Because it's meant to be worn on your wrist, the onHand
strives to be water-resistant, so it can't use a touch-screen. Rather, it uses
a simple software design that uses just three buttons, plus a four-way
mini directional button to move around with. Notice that it's water
*resistant*, not waterproof; It's meant to survive getting a bit of water
splashed on it, but don't go swimming with it on. The onHand comes
with several applications pre-installed, including a PIM, a world clock,
a calculator, and several games, and it comes with software and a
docking station that allow you to load new software onto it. Some might
dismiss it as a mere toy without enough power to be practical, but the
wristwatch form factor might just be the future of PDAs, and in the
meantime, it's a viable alternative to pocket-carried devices. For more
information, check out Matsucom's website at www.matsucomusa.com
[Matsucom, Inc.]

FanCard/Combo

IC-PCR1000: A very impressive little black box which basically lets you
listen to any radio transmission in the world on your computer. [Icom]

Remote Power On/Off '95: An EXTREMELY cool product which lets
you turn your computer on or off remotely. Having this is VERY
important. Get this product so you don't have to worry about the
computer having power-up on ring built in. [Server Technology]

Linksys BEFW11S4: An all-in-one broadband hub that combines a cable
router and DSL router with a WiFi wireless access point. It's got a 4-port
Ethernet hub built in so you can network 4 computers wired directly to
it, and it supports DHCP, PPPoE (for DSL), RAS, and PPTP connection
protocols, as well as WEP for security. [Linksys]

LaCie Bigger Disk: Currently the largest PC hard drive on the market,
this is a 1 TB (yes, one terabyte) external hard drive with USB 2.0,
FireWire 400, and FireWire 800 interfaces, a 7200 RPM spin speed, and
a 5.25" form factor. [LaCie]

Memphis [Media Vision]

TwinPower 900 With Case [PC Power & Cooling]

Rio PMP300: The first high-profile portable MP3 player. It's now
obsolete, but it remains a historical figure in the booming portable MP3
player business.

Bernoulli Box [Iomega]

100 MB Zip Drive (Parallel Or USB) [Iomega]

250 MB Zip Drive (Parallel Or USB) [Iomega]

1 GB Jaz Drive (Parallel Or USB) [Iomega]

2 GB Jaz Drive (Parallel Or USB) [Iomega]

10 GB DittoMax Drive (Parallel Or USB) [Iomega]

Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4: One of the best-selling and most legendary
printers ever, the HP LaserJet 4 has gone down in history as the laser
printer that got everything right. Unlike many lasers, it was fast,
processing even complex print documents in a matter of seconds; It was
big and could hold lots of paper so you didn't have to reload it much
even in a business setting doing lots of printing, and it produced
consistently high-quality output. Truly one of the most productive
printers ever. [Hewlett-Packard]

WhyMouse

Remote Point

Intel Play QX3 USB Microscope: Hooking up to a USB port, this is the
world's first mass-market computer microscope. Although technically a
"toy", with zoom levels of up to 200x and the ability to record images
and time-lapse videos to disk, this is a powerful product which just might
start a new category of computer peripheral. [Intel/Mattel]

Lego MindStorms: The new generation of Lego blocks, using the Lego
RCX, a block which is programmable with a PC.

GameCam: A camera system which lets you play games by moving your
body to control your on-screen presence, for example bouncing a
basketball into a hoop by waving your arm and having the camera pick
it up. This isn't a new concept, but this is one of the first products to
bring it down to the home PC level. It just might start a new trend.
[Reality Fusion]

PC Gamegun: A gun for the PC, similar to the guns that came with the
Nintendo Entertainment System a long time ago. Although the PC
Gamegun is not polished (its accuracy is questionable, not many games
ever supported it, and it's a horrible gaudy orange color), it remains one
of the few existing pieces of hardware in what seems to be admittedly a
niche market. [American Laser Games]

Hardcard

LS-120 [Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics And 3M]

BioMouse [American Biometric Co.]

U.are.U [Digital Persona]

IBM Home Director [IBM]

ActiMates Interactive Barney: The cute little Barney doll you've
probably seen which hooks up to your computer and talks a lot. Kind of
dumb, but amusing. Kids who love Barney will like it. [Microsoft]

ActiMates Interactive Arthur [Microsoft]

Modem Saver [Road Warrior International]

Tele-TravelKit International [Road Warrior International]

SureLink Retractable Telephone Cord [Port]

Extron SRI 200 Automatic Horizontal And Vertical Scan Rate Indicator

kidBoard (Keyboard For Kids)

Tripmate GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) Navigator [DeLorme
Mapping] (Mounts on your dashboard and, through satellites, shows you
on a notebook computer where in the world you are.)

Local-Area-Network-Specific Hardware:

Network Adapters (Network Interface Cards (NICs)): Switchable
Between 10/100 Mbps PCI 32-bit Bus-Mastering Ethernet, Token-Ring
Or FDDI (NOT ARCnet) Full-Duplex Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant
Adapters In The Form Of An Internal Expansion Card With An AUI Port
(If Ethernet) Which Supports Either UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair), STP
(Shielded Twisted Pair), Coaxial, Or Fiber-Optic Cable (Depending On
Which Kind You Plan To Use) And BNC (For coaxial cable), RJ-45 (For
twisted-pair cable), And ST Connectors (For fiber optic cable), And
Which Is From A Good Brand (Preferably from 3Com) And Supports
Wake-On-LAN (WOL) And Has Built-In Network And Board
Diagnostics And Fully Supports SNMP, Fully IEEE 802.3 Compliant,
And Has Large, Bright LEDs For Power, Network Status, Duplex, 100
mbps-Link, Tx (Transmit), And Rx (Receive), And Which Includes A
Boot ROM For Diskless Workstations And Which Is 100% Compatible
With Windows 3.1, Windows For Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Linux, Novell NetWare,
Artisoft LANtastic, Microsoft LAN Manager, Banyan VINES, DEC
PATHWORKS, IBM PC LAN, And OS/2, With A Lifetime Warranty,
Which Automatically Connects At The Correct Speed (10 Mbps or 100
Mbps) And Which Is 100% Compatible With NE1000 And NE2000

Hubs: 8-Port Hubs Which Are Either Ethernet, Token Ring or FDDI
(Depending on which network type you choose) And Which Have Clear,
Bright LEDs On The Front Showing Which Computers Are Connected
To The LAN And Which Are Not And Which Also Show The
Network's Level Of Activity And Which Have The Following LEDs:
Power (Lights whenever hub is receiving power), Collision (Flashes
briefly when an Ethernet network collision occurs), Link LEDs For
*EACH* Network Port (Light whenever that port is connected to the
network), And Transmit/Receive LEDs For Each Network Port (Flash
briefly whenever data is sent or received over that port), As Well As An
"Uplink" Function For *EACH* Network Port Which Allows The Hub
To Connect To Another Hub, Switch Or Router Without Using A
Crossover Cable

Router: Router With A Built-In Firewall Which Supports TCP/IP, IPX,
Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, ISDN, T1,
T3, And ATM And Which Has Built-In Environmental Monitoring
(Remote reporting of voltage and ambient temperature) And Which Has
RJ-45, BNC, And ST Connectors, And Which Supports QoS (Quality of
Service), PPPoE, IP Filtering And IP Forwarding

Switches, Bridges, Brouters, And Repeaters

Proxy Server (Also Called Firewall Computer) (Use software under
"Firewall" below to set this up)

T3 (Preferable) Or T1 Server

Precision Guesswork PocketWatch: A product mainly for Ethernet
networks. Lets you capture packets, strip them apart, and view them in
English. Incredibly useful for network administrators. [Precision
Guesswork]

APC MasterSwitch: A master power switch for the whole network, for
when you need to just shut everything down and start over. [American
Power Conversion]

Fluke OneTouch Network Assistant (10/100 Mpbs model): A hand-held
diagnostic minicomputer which is a top-notch network troubleshooter.
Expensive, but worth it. [Fluke Corp.]

        NEXT-GENERATION PORTABLE WORKSTATIONS

PDAs:

Sharp Expert Pad PI-7000 [Sharp]

Apple Newton [Apple]

Tandy Z-PDA [Tandy]

Casio Z-7000 [Casio]

PalmPilot

PalmPilot Professional

Handspring Visor [Handspring]

Handspring Visor Deluxe [Handspring]

Palm III [3com]

Palm IIIc [3com]

Palm IIIe [3com]

Palm IIIx [3com]

Palm V [3com]

Palm Vx [3com]

Palm VII [3com]

Palm Tungsten E [Palm, Inc.]

Palm Tungsten T3 [Palm, Inc.]

Palm Tungsten C [Palm, Inc.]

Palm Zire 21 [Palm, Inc.]

Palm Zire 31 [Palm, Inc.]

Palm Zire 72 [Palm, Inc.]

Compaq iPaq [Compaq]

Philips Nino [Philips]

Philips Velo [Philips]

Hewlett-Packard Jornada [Hewlett-Packard]

Sharp Mobilon Pro [Sharp]

Casio Cassiopeia [Casio]

PCTVs:

Macintosh TV [Apple]

Hardware Of Secondary Importance:

Tamrac World Traveler Executive 2886 (Very Large, Well-Designed
Portable Computer Briefcase)

KellyRest

Mousetamer

MOD-TAP 8 Port Cabling Kit (365 M)

A Better Mouse Trap [Arnie's Answers]

Pair Of Zebra-Striped (Or Whatever Color You Prefer) Mouse Mitt
Keyboarders In The Right Size For Your Hards (Small, Medium, Or
Large)

Port Protectors For ALL Ports

Redi-File 80 / 132 / 80 XL / 132 XL Organizer

Dial-Type Universal Volume Control On Sound Card Speakers, Placed
In An Extremely Easy-To-Reach Location (One which is not part of the
speakers, but connected to them through a wire)

Tri-Connector Wrap Plug: A handy unit which combines a 25-pin serial,
9-pin serial, and 25-pin parallel wrap plug (loopback connector) all in
one. [IBM]

                 JOYSTICK EQUIPMENT

Joystick Accessories:

Game Card: CH Products Or ThrustMaster Adjustable-Speed ISA Or PCI
Game Card With Two (Not Just One!) 15-pin Joystick/MIDI Ports
(Every serious gamer needs a dedicated game port card)

Joystick Platform

Colorado Spectrum Notebook Gameport

Genovation's Parallel Game Port

Joystick Y-Splitter Cable (To plug 2 joysticks into 1 game port)

Joysticks:

(Good Joystick: Extremely Sturdy Digital Fully Plug 'N' Play Compliant
Joystick With Tactile Feedback Which Fits Your Hand Comfortably And
Which Has A Stick Resistance That's Just Right, Plus An Index Finger
Trigger Button, Four Thumb Controls (Two Push-Buttons And Two All-
Direction Floating Hat Switches), And 3 Auxiliary Finger Buttons
Running Down The Stick, And Rubber Feet To Keep It From Slipping
Around As Well As Suction Cups And Desk Clamps, Plus Trim Controls
For Both Pitch And Roll, Plus A Silent, Lever-Type (Not Dial-Type)
Throttle On The Base, Fully Programmable (Lets You Assign Any
Keystroke To Any Button), 8 Buttons On The Base, ALL Buttons
Switchable Between Single-Fire And Adjustable-Speed Automatic Rapid-
Fire, A Base That's Just The Right Size And Weight, A Rotating Stick
Which Can Be Locked To Turn Off Rotation, A Hand Rest On The
Stick, A Textured Surface To Reduce Slippage In Sweaty Hands, And
Which Uses A Standard 15-Pin Game Port)

CH Flightstick Pro [CH Products]

CH Flightstick [CH Products]

CH Gamestick [CH Products]

Phoenix Flight And Weapons Control System

Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro [Microsoft]

Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro [Microsoft]

Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro [Microsoft]

Maxx Cobra Flightstick

Suncom Strike Fighter Joystick + Throttle

Suncom FlightMAX

Suncom FX 2000

Gravis Analog Pro [Gravis]

Gravis Firebird 2 [Gravis]

Gravis Blackhawk [Gravis]

F-16 Combat Stick [CH Products]

CH Jetstick [CH Products]

Jane's Combat Stick [CH Products]

Logitech Wingman [Logitech]

Logitech Wingman Extreme [Logitech]

Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital [Logitech]

Logitech Wingman Interceptor [Logitech]

Logitech Wingman Force Feedback [Logitech]

Gravis Firebird 2 [Gravis]

Thrustmaster Millenium 3D [Thrustmaster]

Top Gun [Thrustmaster]

Force FX [CH Products]

X-Fighter [Thrustmaster]

Thrustmaster F-22 Pro [Thrustmaster]

PC Mission

F-15E Talon [Suncom]

F-16 Throttle Quadrant System [Thrustmaster]

Millennium 3D Interceptor

Control Systems:

QuickShot Super Warrior

QuickShot Sky Commander

ThrustMaster Mark II WCS (Weapons Control System)

ThrustMaster Original FCS (Flight Control System)

ThrustMaster PFCS (Pro Flight Control System)

ThrustMaster RCS (Rudder Control System)

ThrustMaster Attack Throttle

Act Labs PowerAmp

Yokes/Wheels:

Suncom G-Force

CH Virtual Pilot [CH Products]

CH Virtual Pilot Pro [CH Products]

Flight Sim Yoke USB [CH Products]

AeroAce 5

Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Wheel [Microsoft]

Logitech Wingman Formula Force [Logitech]

Thrustmaster Pro Racing Wheel [Thrustmaster]

ThrustMaster Formula One DCS (Driving Control System)
[Thrustmaster]

Thrustmaster Formula T2 Cockpit [Thrustmaster]

ThrustMaster NASCAR Pro Digital Racing Wheel [Thrustmaster]

Advanced Yoke & Throttle AFCS II [AETI]

V3 Racing Wheel

Game Pads:

QuickShot StarFighter 5

Suncom Command Control

Gravis PC GamePad

Gravis PC GamePad Pro

Gravis GrIP System

Gravis XTerminator Game Pad

3Dfx Hammerhead FX [3Dfx]

PC Propad

Microsoft Sidewinder Game Pad [Microsoft]

Microsoft Sidewinder Freestyle Pro Game Pad [Microsoft]

Microsoft Sidewinder Dual Strike [Microsoft]

CH Gamepad [CH Products]

Hanaho HotRod Arcade Control (A big, durable, joypad-style box which
has controls like those on full-size arcade machines) [Hanaho]

Thrustmaster Digital Rage 3D [Thrustmaster]

Phazer Pad [Thrustmaster]

Thunderpad Digital [Logitech]

Revolutionary Control Devices:

CyberMan: CyberMan was a device with a shape resembling a mouse on
a stick attached to a base which sat on your desktop. You could move or
rotate the mouse in any direction and thus be able to translate any motion
of your hand into motion on the screen. It was supposed to be the next
big thing in gaming (Logitech touted it as "a gaming device so intuitive
it's like not having one at all"), and a lot of new games and other
programs were predicted in the near future which would support it, but
it didn't happen, and so CyberMan died. That's a shame, because it
really was a promising input device, and the industry hasn't seen
anything like it since. [Logitech]

CyberMan 2 [Logitech]

3DZoneMaster [Techmedia]

Act Labs RS Shifter (The only stick-shift transmission lever that I've
seen for a computer) [Act Labs]

Force-Feedback Chairs:

Imeron Intensor LX 350 [Imeron]

Handy Items That You Can Worry About Later, After You've Got
Everything Above Prepared (Maintenance Tools, Etc.):

SafeSkin Keyboard Protector (Clear, Airtight Plastic Sticker Keyboard
Skin)

Very Large, Clear Plastic Sheet To Guard Against Dust (Put On When
Computer Is Not In Use)

Very Large, White Cloth Sheet To Protect From Sunlight (Put Over
Plastic Sheet When Computer Is Not In Use)

Chairs:

-Canvas Sling Lawn Chair Or Other Very Comfortable Chair

-Comfortable, Sufficiently-Padded Office Chair With Raisable/Lowerable
Seat And Adjustable-Height Armrests And Wheels Which Doesn't Creak
At All And With A Seat And Back Which Both Recline In Unison
Whenever You Lean Back (But With A Reasonable Amount Of
Resistance To The Recline)

Wastebasket: Sturdy Black Steel Wastebasket

Spare Non-Polluting Rechargeable Lithium CMOS Battery With 5-Year
Life

2 Emergency Kits (Envelope Labeled "EMERGENCY KIT" Containing
Printouts Of Setup Screens, And A Write-Protected 3.5" Floppy Disk
Containing The System Files (transferred through the SYS command),
EMERAUTO.BAT (See Below) (Renamed To AUTOEXEC.BAT On
The Floppy), EMERCONF.SYS (See Below) (Renamed To
CONFIG.SYS On The Floppy), ATTRIB.EXE, FDISK.EXE,
QBASIC.EXE, EDIT.COM, CHKDSK.EXE, FORMAT.COM,
SCANDISK.EXE, SCANDISK.INI, SYS.COM, UNFORMAT.COM,
UNDELETE.EXE, UNDELETE.INI, MEM.EXE, MSCDEX.EXE (and
CD-ROM device driver), PKUNZIP.EXE, SAVECMOS.BAS (Listed
Below), RESTCMOS.BAS (Listed Below), CMOS.RAM (Create With
SAVECMOS.BAS), SAVECMOS.BAT (Listed Below),
RESTCMOS.BAT (Listed Below), And Norton Utilities'
DISKEDIT.EXE, NOT Stored Next To Monitor)

Printer Paper In Letter, Legal, Tabloid And A4 Sizes In Many Colors

Continuous-Feed (Fanfold) Printer Paper (The Kind With Detachable
Sides Filled With Holes, Used For Dot-Matrix Printers)

Blank, Reliable, Preformatted, Color-Coded 2.88 MB 3.5" Floppy Disks
With Index Labels, Flexible, Shock-Resistant Shutters That Won't Come
Off

Blank, Reliable, Preformatted, Color-Coded 1.44 MB 3.5" Floppy Disks
With Index Labels, Flexible, Shock-Resistant Shutters That Won't Come
Off

Blank, Reliable, Preformatted, Color-Coded 1.2 MB 5.25" Floppy Disks
With Index Labels

Floppy Drive Cable: Standard 34-pin Floppy Drive Cable WITH FOUR
(4) DRIVE CONNECTORS: One For A 5.25" Drive A:, One For A 3.5"
Drive A:, One For A 5.25" Drive B:, And One For A 3.5" Drive B:

Index Card With IRQ, DMA, and I/O Address specifications of CD-
ROM Controllers, Game Cards, And Sound Cards, Taped To Side Of
Monitor

Small Tabletop Light

Screwdrivers: Philips (Sizes #00, #0, #1, and #2), Robertson And Slot,
Various Sizes

A Set Of Computer Keys For The Keylock

Game Cartridge Emulator For 8-bit And 16-bit Video Game Systems

Rubber Gloves (ALWAYS Wear Rubber Gloves Before Opening A
Computer's Case!!!)

Reliable, Verstile, Adjustable Size Chip Puller

U-Shaped Chip Puller

Chip Puller/Extractor

Speech Secretary

Spray Bottle Filled With Anti-Static Spray

Anti-Static Gun

Anti-Static (Or Anti-Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)) Wrist Grounding
Strap With A 1 megohm Resistor Built In

Heel Ground Straps: 2 Heel Ground Straps Which Are Big Enough To
Fit Your Shoes And Which Have A 1 megohm Resistor Built In

Paper Towel Sitting In Convenient Location On Desk

Several Dongles

Wet-Type Floppy Drive Cleaning Kits For All Floppy Drives

Stethoscope

Can Of Compressed Air With A 5" Straw Nozzle

A can of WD40

256 MB to 2 GB USB Storage Key/Flash Drive

Several Solar Panels Of Varying Size (For using computer in areas
without immediately available electrical sources, or for building satellites)

Wavelength Division Multiplexer (For Checking Fiber-Optic Lines)

Outlet Wiring Tester Which Shows If An Electrical Outlet Is Properly-
Grounded Or Not

Several Blank PC Circuit Boards, A Circuit Board Etcher, A Large Jar
Of Ammoniacal, Cupric Chloride, Or Ferric Chloride, And A Tray For
The Boards And Acid, Plus Tongs To Lift Boards From The Acid (For
making your own circuit boards) (Watch that acid! It's extremely
corrosive stuff!!!)

Binoculars: 40x Zoom, Rugged And Waterproof, Compact And Light
Binoculars With Carrying Strap And Case And Infrared Capabilities In
Both Lenses

Needlenose Pliers

Wire Cutters

Wire Stripper

Wire Crimpers

File (The Kind You Rub, As In A Nail File)

Forceps (Tweezers)

Hand-Held Claw Hammer

12-Pound Sledgehammer

Wooden Baseball Bat

Aluminum Baseball Bat

Hard Hat

70% (or 99%) Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol

Cotton Swabs

Band-Aids

Chip Inserter Which Straightens Pins

Chip Pin-Straightener

Mini-Vise

Full-Size Vise

Vise Grips

Small Crowbar

Large Crowbar

Clamp

Hacksaw

Utility Knife

2-Claw Parts Grabber

3-Claw Parts Grabber

A Keylock Key (One of those little keys which are basically a small,
hollow cylinder with a tiny tooth sticking out for use on case keylocks)

T-8, T-9, T-10, T-15, T-20, T-25, T-30, AND T-40 (Especially the T-10
and T-15) TORX Drivers, All Of Them Tamper-Proof (With a hole
drilled in the center to allow for the pin in tamper-proof TORX screws)

3/16" Hex-Headed Screwdriver

1/4" Hex-Headed Screwdriver

Switchable Between 15 Watts, 30 Watts, And 45 Watts Extremely Sturdy
Soldering Iron With A Replaceable Tip And A Non-"Squeeze Bulb"-
Type Of Solder Sucker, Plus A Holding Stand, Solder Probe, A Solder
Sponge (For wiping soldering iron on), And A Desoldering Braid, Clip-
On Heat Sink, Replacement Solder Tips Made Either Of Iron Or Copper,
Plus Lots Of Rosin-Core Solder (Always use rosin-core solder for
electronics; Acid-core solder is meant for industrial purposes and will
corrode electronics) (NOTE: Always solder using the TIP of both the
soldering iron and the solder itself.)

Breadboard: Low-Static, Plastic, Solderless Breadboard With 3,220
Contact Points And 1 mm Hole Spacing And Nickel-Plated Clips Which
Accept ICs And Transistors And Which Has All Holes In A
Row-And-Column Numbered System, 2 Terminal Strips, 2 Bus Strips,
And 2 Binding Posts, And Which Weighs 0.5 Pounds

A Tube Of Thermal Paste (Heat Sink Compound)

Logic Probe

Logic Pulser

Continuity Tester

4 or so pairs of Alligator Clips

A few LEDs (Or Neon Lamp Assemblies)

A few each of the following types of switches: SPST, SPDT, DPST, and
DPDT

A Few Spade Terminals (spade lugs), Ring Terminals, Disconnect
Terminals (both male and female), And Bullet Terminals

Electric Drill: Electric Drill With Reversible, Adjustable-Speed Rotation
With A Keyless Chuck That Can Be Adjusted Between 2 millimetres
And 1 Inch

Soft, Lint-Free Cloth

Antenna

Sunglasses

Sturdy Ear Protectors Rated At 21 dB Noise Reduction (put after
Sunglasses)

Small Electric Motor

Large Electric Motor

Many, many fresh, rechargeable AA, AAA, C, D and 9V batteries, plus
9V Battery Clips

Some spare wire of varying thicknesses

A complete supply of all capacitor, resistor, diode, and transistor
types in your computer (for backup purposes, in case one burns out)

Several Other Resistors, Capacitors, Diodes, Transistors, Thermistors,
Induction Coils, Relays, Fuses, Potentiometers, Inductors, Transformers,
Rheostats, Crystals, And Solenoids Of Varying Specification For
Electronics Work

Phototransistors, Photoresistors, Photodiodes, Optosensors, Light Sensors,
Infrared Sensors, And Other Optical Electronic Sensors (For making
vision-oriented electronics)

Standard 8-ohm Piezo Speaker

Some 555 Timer Chips (8-pin; The 556 has 14 pins and is actually two
555s in one)

Several 7400 (NAND), 7402 (NOR), 7404 (NOT), 7408 (AND), 7432
(OR), and 7486 (XOR) TTL 7400-series chips

A Few 16C84 And 16F84 PIC (Programmable Interrupt Controller)
Microcontroller Chips

Can Of Compressed Carbon Dioxide Which Has An
Attachable/Removable "Straw" Nozzle, And Is Approved For Computer
Use

Glass TTY Without Cursor Control

EPROM Reader

EPROM Programmer/Encoder/Burner

EPROM Eraser

Several Blank EPROMs

Memory Chip Tester

Hair Dryer

Spare Computer System EXACTLY The Same As This One (For Backup
Purposes)

Accurate, Reliable EMF (Electromagnetic Field) Sensor Which Runs On
One 9-Volt Battery And Gives Readings Between 0.1 And 50 milliGauss
(mG)

Miniature Computer Vacuum Cleaner

Silicone Lubricant

Electrical Tape

Duct Tape

Masking Tape

Foam Tape

A Tiny, Clean Paintbrush

Paint, Paint Brushes, And Paint Thinner (For painting the computer) (Just
be sure when you paint your computer that you don't get any paint inside
it. Avoid cracks, vents or sockets that lead to the interior. Don't paint
directly on them, and make sure that no paint runs into them. Wait for
all paint to dry before touching it. And don't get any on the screen.)

Liquid (Not A Spray) Computer Cleaning Solution

Lint-Free Foam Cleaning Swabs

Condoms (Only necessary if you are a true computer nerd, to protect
computer from STDs and moisture damage)

Several Sturdy Glass Broken Vacuum Tubes

Sturdy Wood Or Metal Abacus

Very Portable Voltage Convertor Which Converts Foreign Voltages Into
Either 110/120 Volts Or 220 Volts (Selectable With A Switch) And
Which Satisfies Power Requirements From 0 to 1600 Watts And Which
Has Various Plug Shapes For Foreign Places: Round (Europe), Square
(Hong Kong And United Kingdom) And Flat-Prongs, Which Can Be
Rotated To Be Straight Vertical (Most North American And South
American Countries) Or Diagonal (Australia)

Device Which Attaches To Your Phone Line And Senses Fax Machine
Or Modem Connect Signals On Incoming Calls, And Forwards The Call
To The Appropriate Device, Or, If Neither Signal Is Detected, Sends The
Call To The Telephone

                  PART II: SOFTWARE

NOTE: It's neither practical nor necessary to have all this software on
your computer. Remember: Match everything to your own needs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL SOFTWARE SHOULD COME WITH
THE ORIGINAL BOXES, DISKS, MANUALS, WARRANTY
REGISTRATION CARDS, AND PRODUCT KEYS (in case you ever
reinstall)!!! The reason I mention this is that many programs these days
(especially older ones) are packaged inside little tiny jewel cases, with
nothing more than a CD in there and (sometimes) a microscopic-sized
manual stuck in the front of the case. Then, on the back of that tiny
manual, you see the words "To register this product, call 1-800-such-and-
such phone number". WHAT GARBAGE!!!!! YOUR SOFTWARE
SHOULD COME WITH A BIG, FULL-SIZE BOX FOR IT AND A
BIG, FULL-SIZE MANUAL!!!!! Seeing those little tiny cases on
software store shelves is really depressing. THE ONLY WAY TO
KEEP THIS SORT OF TRASH OFF THE SHELVES IS TO
^!&*REFUSE^!&* TO BUY IT!!!!! If we don't buy it, the software
companies will be forced to end this disturbing practice. If necessary,
instead of buying from your local store, directly phone the ordering
department of the company that makes the program and order the full
version that way! NEVER !EVER! BUY LITTLE TINY SOFTWARE
PACKAGES!!!!! 

SIDE NOTE: I apologize for the pathetic nature of some of the software
reviews in here. I will try to make them less stupid and more controlled.

                      Utilities

Operating Systems:

MS-DOS 5.0: MS-DOS 5.0 included several interesting things 6.2 didn't,
including the legendary DOS Shell (DOSSHELL came with MS-DOS 5.0
and 6.0, but not 6.2), the (remarkably fun) QBASIC games Gorillas and
Nibbles, and EDLIN, which was the standard DOS text editor before
EDIT. It also came with a full manual (later versions didn't). For pure
computer history buffs, MS-DOS 5 is worth having if you can get it.
[Microsoft]

MS-DOS 6.2 or 6.22 (Each version of DOS 6.x had a supplement disk
released for it, containing things omitted in that version which had been
included in previous versions of DOS. These supplement disks can now
be found on the Internet, under the following filenames:
DOS6SUPP.EXE is for DOS 6.0, DOS62SP.EXE is for DOS 6.2,
SUP621.EXE is for DOS 6.21, and SUP622.EXE is for DOS 6.22.
DOS6SUPP contained ASSIGN, COMP, EDLIN, EXE2BIN,
GRAFTABL, JOIN, MIRROR, and the QBASIC games GORILLA and
NIBBLES, all things which had come with MS-DOS 5.0, but not 6.0. In
addition to those items, DOS62SP came with DOS Shell, the
revolutionary graphical file-management shell which had come first with
MS-DOS 5.0, and lastly with 6.0. SUP621 and SUP622 were similar to
DOS62SP.) [Microsoft]

MS-DOS 7.0 (Included with Windows 95, can't be bought separately) 

Microsoft Windows 95 4.03.1212 (NOT The Older Version 4.00.950),
Revision C (Check revision by typing VER/R at the command prompt)
CD Version, With Microsoft Internet Explorer Starter Kit CD Version
(Including Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0) Included FREE (Includes MS-
DOS 7.0.) (Side Note: Windows 95 OSR2 and subsequent versions of
Win95 did actually support USB and AGP, but the original OSR1 did
not. Although AGP cards will still work with OSR1, they will not use
the full AGP functionality; They will run at PCI speeds under Win95A.)
(Windows 95 was released on August 24, 1995. Oh, historic day...)
[Microsoft]

Microsoft Windows 3.1 OR Microsoft Windows For Workgroups 3.11
(Preferably 3.11): The new Windows 95 is out, but it's incompatible with
many older Windows programs. You should keep this earlier version of
Windows which is compatible with everything that Windows 95 is not
compatible with. The most significant advance of Windows 3.1 over 3.0
was the addition of the multimedia extensions, which were basically
support for multimedia hardware (sound cards) and functions (playing
WAV and AVI files). It was the first version of Windows to include
Media Player. [Microsoft]

Windows 1.0: The first version of Windows was quite a different bird
from the Windows that everyone knows and remembers today. Instead
of Program Manager being the major front-end for it, it was more like
File Manager: As soon as you typed WIN, you saw a listing of all the
files in the directory, with the ability to switch around directories and run
programs from them. There were no icons, just textual listings of files.
Indeed, Windows 1.0 was much like the famed DOS Shell (which was
included with MS-DOS 5.0 and 6.0). Win 1.0, however, already came
with basic productivity apps like Notepad and Calculator. Unfortunately,
it was plagued with "Out Of Memory" errors and frequent, unexplained
crashes. (Some things never change.) [Microsoft]

PC DOS 7 [IBM]

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0: An excellent operating system for LANs.
(Not for personal-use-only computers.) [Microsoft]

Windows NT 3.51 (Released in 1995 as an update to NT 3.5, which had
been released in 1994) [Microsoft]

Microsoft Windows NT (New Technology) 3.1: Released in August of
1993 with version 3.1 as the first version, Windows NT began as an
operating system of very little interest or importance. It was intended to
be an "industrial" version of Windows, the business user's version, as
opposed to regular Windows, which was supposedly the home user's
version. Windows NT had its own file system, NTFS, which was
incompatible with FAT. It had file permissions and the other stuff which
you associate with a network operating system. Despite its initial failure
to generate much of a usership, Microsoft stuck with NT, and eventually
it became almost as important as (and the sister product to) the regular
Windows. The name Windows NT was dropped after version 4.0, but the
"network Windows" torch was simply passed to Windows 2000, which
complemented Windows Millennium Edition in the same way as
Windows NT 3.1 complemented Windows 3.1. (Windows 2000 was
originally to be called Windows NT 5.0.) As of the release of Windows
2000, Windows NT and its legacy is still alive and well, despite promises
by Microsoft that they will eventually merge the two separate lines of
Windows systems into one unified operating system. Furthermore, the
addition of Windows NT and Windows 2000 knowledge to the new A+
test objectives indicates that knowing how these operating systems work
is probably as important (if not more so) to the computer serviceperson
as knowing Windows 9x. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Windows 98, CD Version: A minor upgrade to an operating
system that didn't really need one. Support for USB, AGP, FireWire and
DVD makes this worth noting, but other than that, it's not much of an
improvement over Windows 95. (It also came on a bootable CD-ROM,
unlike Windows 95.) (Oh, and the Quick Launch toolbar is a handy
feature too.) (Windows 98 was released on June 25, 1998.) [Microsoft]

Windows 98, Second Edition (SE) [Microsoft]

LiteStep 0.24.5: A replacement shell for Win32's Explorer, LiteStep adds
slightly improved functionality to Windows, along with increased
stability (since Explorer isn't running as the shell, and LiteStep is
reportedly much more stable than Explorer). [Francis Gastellu, aka Lone
Runner/Aegis] (Freeware)

Windows CE (for palmtops and other small portable systems) [Microsoft]

Windows 2000: Windows 2000 comes in four editions: Windows 2000
Professional, despite the misleading name, is really the "basic" edition.
It is for home users and workstations. It can support 2 CPUs, and up to
4 GB of RAM. Windows 2000 Server contains added functionality to
make it function as a server. It supports up to 4 CPUs and 4 GB of
RAM. Windows 2000 Advanced Server is essentially the same as the
Server edition, except it supports 8 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM, as well as
two-node clustering. Finally, Windows 2000 Data Center Server is, again,
similar to the Server edition except that it supports 32 CPUs, 64 GB of
RAM, and four-node clustering. (When you install Windows 2000, it
actually asks you for an administrator password during the setup
program. This way, you can't have a Windows 2000 installation without
an administrator password.) [Microsoft]

Microsoft Windows Me (Millennium Edition) [Microsoft]

Windows XP (Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001.)
[Microsoft]

Microsoft Windows NT 5.0 [Microsoft]

BeOS 4.5 [Be, Inc.]

ShutDown 1.10: A handy utility for Windows 95/NT which lets you shut
down the computer just by running the program. (You can create a
shortcut to it on the desktop, so all it takes is double-clicking that icon.)
It makes more sense than clicking "Start" on 95. And it's easier than the
normal shutdown procedure on either OS. [Chris Bluethman] [Shareware]

SHUTZ 5.0: A convenient system tray utility which shuts down or
reboots your computer with a single click. Another "anti-Start menu for
shutdown" program. [Thijssen & Zimmerman]

DOS For Windows

DR DOS (Also Called Novell DOS) 7.03 (originally by Digital Research,
which was bought out by Novell)

UNIX (Or Linux (including XFree86, the 80x86 version of XWindows,
the Linux GUI) (Preferably Slackware 7.1, Caldera OpenLinux 2.3,
Debian Linux 2.2, Mandrake Linux 7.0, TurboLinux 6.0, or SuSE Linux
9.0 Professional Edition (the German Linux; most popular Linux distro
in Europe) if you are experienced, or Red Hat 9.0 Professional if you are
a beginner), Or FreeBSD 4.0, Or NetBSD 1.4.1, Or OpenBSD 2.6, Or
HP-UX (Hewlett-Packard's Unix), Or IRIX 6.5.13 (SGI's Unix), Or SCO
UNIX, Or Ultrix 4.2A (DEC's Unix), Or UNIX System V Release 4.2,
Or AIX 4.2 (IBM's Unix), Or DG/UX Release 4.2 (Data General's
Unix), Or UNICOS, Or BSDi, Or Xenix (Microsoft's UNIX))

Finnix 0.03: A Linux distribution specifically intended to be booted from
CD as a system maintenance/recovery shell, for use when something's
wrong with your existing Linux partition.

XFree86 4.1.0: The free version of XWindows for Intel 80x86 CPUs,
most often used with Linux. (NOTE: X requires a window manager to
work, which is basially the shell. XFree86 comes with Tab Window
Manager (TWM), which it correctly describes as "very basic". In fact,
TWM is so horrible that if you use it as your first X window manager,
it may turn you off XWindows for life. Don't let it. Get GNOME or
KDE, the two most popular X window managers, and try them out. They
offer much better user interfaces. Remember, you select your X window
manager by typing "xwmconfig" at the command prompt.)

GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment): The most popular
GUI desktop environment for Linux. Its homepage is at
http://www.gnome.org

KDE 2.1.1: The second most popular GUI desktop environment for
Linux (after GNOME). Its homepage is at http://www.kde.org

iptables 1.2.3: A network traffic logger and "packet mangling" program
which is similar in concept to ipchains, but much more functional and
powerful. It is intended for the 2.4.x (and higher) Linux kernels. The
official homepage is at http://netfilter.samba.org

DOSEmu 1.0.1: A package for Linux which purports to let you run DOS
programs under Linux. It works pretty well with some DOS programs,
but tends to fail with others. DOSEmu's homepage is at
www.dosemu.org. The following are some particular configuration
options for DOSEmu which you should probably configure before using
it (the DOSEmu configuration file is in /etc/dosemu.conf):
speaker: Set to "native" (otherwise, you won't hear anything through the
  internal speaker.)
rawkeyboard: Set to 1 (otherwise many programs which use direct
  keyboard access won't work.)
graphics: Set to 1 (lets the video card use its own graphics modes, which
  is good, because otherwise you can only use text modes.)
mouse: Set to "microsoft" so you'll have a built-in Microsoft-compatible
  mouse driver.
sound: Set to on (for the sound card.)
hdimage: This chooses where your hard disk is, so you can access all
  those nifty DOS files. [The DOSEmu Development Team] (Freeware)

FreeDOS: An open-source project which seems to be the most popular
free MS-DOS derivative. FreeDOS is completely original code (it does
not borrow any Microsoft code) and it seems to comply quite well with
most DOS programs at this point. The official homepage is at
www.freedos.org. Note that FreeDOS is not a DOS emulator; It is an
actual DOS, meaning that you can use it in conjunction with DosEmu to
run DOS programs from within Linux. [The FreeDOS Project]
(Freeware)

WinE: A Windows emulator for Linux, which is supposed to run almost
any 16-bit Windows program and some 32-bit Windows programs. WinE
has gotten pretty famous, but it's still not quite ready for prime time.
WinE's homepage is at www.winehq.com.

Win4Lin: A Windows emulator for Linux, which purports to let you run
Windows programs without actually having Windows. In this sense, it is
much like WinE; The difference is, Win4Lin costs money. [NeTraverse,
Inc.]

VMware 2.0 For Windows NT And Windows 2000: A software package
which is supposed to let you use "virtual machines", pseudo-computers
on the same physical system, allowing you to run multiple operating
systems at once without dual-booting or do other things which come with
the flexibility of having multiple computers. [VMware, Inc.]

VMware 2.0 For Linux [VMware, Inc.]

Samba 2.2.1a: A protocol for file and print sharing which is nearly
universally supported by the major operating systems. It's most often
used to link Windows systems with non-Windows systems so they can
share resources peacefully. It's open-source under GPL.

SCO OpenServer 5 [SCO (Santa Cruz Operation)]

VMware For Linux

VMS (used on DEC's VAX)

GNU-Win32: An attempt to create a UNIX-like development
environment on a Windows platform. It's a pretty good substitute, if you
don't want to make the leap to Unix/Linux. (NOTE: It assumes that
UNIX's "/" is DOS's "c:\" so you should install it on drive C: instead of
D: or anything else.) Its homepage is at
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/. [Cygnus Solutions]

QNX: A remarkably small operating system, a working copy of which
can be placed on a single high-density floppy disk.

OS/2 2.1 [IBM]

OS/2 For Windows

OS/2 Warp 4 [IBM]

OS/2 Warp Connect

OS/2 Warp CD Pak

OS/400 (used on IBM AS/400s)

IOS (Internetwork Operating System): The operating system which runs
most Cisco networking equipment, including routers and switches.
[Cisco]

GeoWorks Ensemble 2.0: This scores positions both here and under
Desktop Publishing. It's basically both an OS and a DTP program in one.
("GeoWorks" is the name of the PC version of what originally was called
GEOS on the Commodore 64 and Apple II.)

Solaris 8 [Sun]

SunOS 5.7 [Sun]

Minix 2.0.2 [Andy Tanenbaum/Kees J. Bot]

Third Dimension

Norton Desktop For Windows 95

Dashboard For Windows 2.0 [Hewlett-Packard]

4DOS 6.02B [JP Software]

EasyEnglish DOS

Praxim

DESQview 2.70 [Quarterdeck]

WindowMagic 3.0

WinTools

OS/390 (Used on IBM System/390s)

TOPS-10 (Used on DEC PDP-10s) (Now completely obsolete)

TOPS-20 (Originally known as TENEX, afterward nicknamed
TWENEX) (Also used on DEC PDP-10s) (There never was a PDP-20)
(Also now completely obsolete)

ITS (Incompatible Time-sharing System; used on PDP-6s and PDP-10s)
(Now completely obsolete)

CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers; The industry-standard
operating system for microcomputers until MS-DOS' introduction on the
original IBM PC in 1981) (Now completely obsolete)

Multics (Now completely obsolete)

Finder (The Apple GUI)

GS/OS (Used on the Apple IIgs)

ProDOS 8

ProDOS 16

NewWave 4.1 [Hewlett-Packard]

Mac In DOS

Network Operating Systems:

Novell NetWare 5.1 [Novell]

Novell NetWare 4.2 [Novell]

Novell NetWare 3.2 [Novell]

LANtastic 8.0 [Artisoft]

Microsoft LAN Manager 2.2 [Microsoft]

Banyan VINES 8.50 [Banyan Systems]

DEC PATHWORKS 4.1 [DEC]

IBM LAN Server 3.0 [IBM]

IBM OS/2 LAN Server 2.0 [IBM]

3+Open [3Com]

Install Before Anything Else Utilities:

Anti-Virus Programs:

Norton AntiVirus (NAV) Deluxe 5.0 For Windows 95/98 [Symantec]

Norton AntiVirus 2000 6.0 For Windows [Symantec]

Norton Antivirus 2002 [Symantec]

Central Point Anti-Virus [Central Point Software]

Central Point Anti-Virus For Windows [Central Point Software]

VirusScan 4.02 Deluxe [McAfee]

McAfee VirusScan Professional 7.0 [McAfee]

AntiViral Toolkit Pro (AVP)

The Cleaner 3.0: A virus scanner which has gained a lot of attention
online lately, for reasons unknown to me. You can get a 30-day trial
version from MooSoft's homepage at www.moosoft.com [MooSoft
Development]

F-PROT [Data Fellows]

Untouchable [Fifth Generation Systems]

Untouchable Network [Fifth Generation Systems]

NOVI [Certus]

Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit 7.0

IBM AntiVirus

24h-365d Antivirus Insurance [Panda Software]

PC-cillin 95 [TouchStone Software]

Microsoft Anti-Virus (MSAV) (Came with MS-DOS 6.0 and 6.2, then
was abandoned from Windows 95 onward, using the logic that a bad
virus scanner is worse than no virus scanner at all) [Microsoft]

Antivirus-Plus [Trend Micro]

IBM Antivirus [IBM]

Immune II [Higher Ground Diagnostics]

Immunizer [Western Digital]

InocuLAN [Cheyenne Software]

Mace Vaccine

Rising Anti-Virus [Rising Science And Technology, Inc.]

VirAway [Techmar Computer Products]

Virex-PC [Datawatch]

ViruCide [Parsons]

VirusNet PC [SafetyNet]

VirusProtect [Intel]

VirusSafe LAN [EliaShim Micro]

Vi-Spy [RG Software Systems]

Watchdog [Fischer International]

Vaccine [Sophos]

Vet [Cybec]

Archivers: See Compression Programs

Backup Program:

Back-It For Windows

Drive Image Pro 3.0 [Power Quest (PQ)]

DataKeeper 3.0 [Power Quest (PQ)]

Norton Ghost 6.5 [Symantec]

Norton Ghost 2000 [Symantec]

ARCserveIT 6.6 [Computer Associates]

BBS:

The Major BBS 6.1 [Galacticomm]

Maximus 3.01 [Lanius Corp.] (On December 31, 1998, Lanius announced
they "will no longer be selling Maximus... Due to the changing
marketplace, and particularly due to the impact of the Internet, we have
decided not to pursue further development" of it. Plans were in effect at
that time to make Maximus open-source under GPL (GNU Public
License) or something similar, with the software being unsupported but
freely available. As of this writing, a freeware Maximus 3.01 is still
available for download from www.lanius.com)

Renegade 99-044d: This is probably the most popular BBS software
among small-time BBSes. And that, in turn, is probably because it's free.
Renegade's official website is at http://www.egate.net/renegade/ [Cott
Lang/Patrick Spence (Cott Lang originally was the sole maker, but on
Wednesday, April 23, 1997 he announced he was signing off
permanently and passing all development onto Patrick Spence)]
[Freeware]

Telegard 3.02 [Tim Strike]

SuperBBS

Hypgnosis 1.99

PCBoard 15.3 [Clark Development Corp.] (Clark Development went out
of business in July 1997.)

AdeptXBBS

Spitfire 3.51 [Buffalo Creek Software]

WWIV [Dean Nash (Originally by Wayne Bell, who has since bowed
out)]

Wildcat! 5 [Santronics Software (Originally by Mustang Software,
Wildcat was sold to Santronics in December 1998)]

ProBoard

QuickBBS (QBBS) [Benjamin Schollnick/Matrix Technologies]

TriBBS [Gary Price]

Synchronet [Rob Swindell]

Benchmark Programs:

Landmark 3.0

WinBench 99 1.2 [Ziff-Davis]

3D WinBench 2000 1.1 [Ziff-Davis]

Winstone [Ziff-Davis]

ServerBench [Ziff-Davis]

Netbench [Ziff-Davis]

WebBench [Ziff-Davis]

Dr. Hardware 2000 1.5.0e (Homepage at www.drhardware.de) [Peter A.
Gebhard]

Norton System Information (Comes with Norton Utilities)

SYSmark Bench Suite [BAPCo (Business Applications Performance
Corporation)]

SYSmark 2000 [BAPCo (Business Applications Performance
Corporation)]

3DMark2001 Second Edition Build 330 [MadOnion.com]

CheckIt Utilities [Smith Micro Software]

Boot Managers:

System Commander 3.05 (or Deluxe version): Basically, what System
Commander does is allow you to have more than one operating system
on your computer. True, this can also be done with disk partitions, but
System Commander is much easier and simpler. Well worth it. These
days, you really shouldn't run Windows 95 alone. You ought to have old
MS-DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1 still available for old programs which
conflict with Windows 95, and keep Windows 95 around for other stuff.
I have nothing against Windows 95, but because it is such a radical
change in structure from Windows 3.x, it is simply not compatible with
a lot of software that exists. I cannot accept that. If you can't either,
System Commander is a necessity. [V Communications]

System Commander, Special Edition For Windows 98 [V
Communications]

System Commander 2000 [V Communications]

System Selector (homepage at www.bootmanager.com) [Thomas
Wolfram]

LILO (LInux LOader; Freeware, comes with Linux)

SILO (Solaris LILO)

GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader; homepage originally at
www.uruk.org/grub, later moved to www.gnu.org/software/grub as part
of the GNU project) [Originally by Erich Stefan Boleyn, later by GNU]

Wolfpack Boot Manager

Power Boot [BlueSky Innovations]

Bootman (BeOS boot manager, comes with BeOS)

CD Burning:

Adaptec Easy CD Creator 5.0 Platinum [Adaptec]

Nero 5.5.9.9 [ahead software]

DirectCD 3.03b [Roxio]

CloneCD 4.2.0.2: CloneCD was a *very* popular CD-burning program
when it was available, as it wrote CDs in raw mode, allowing you to
make true copies of CDs (even those which incorporated bizarre
protection mechanisms that were designed to ensure you had an original
disc). Naturally, the law closed CloneCD down, and it is no longer
produced or sold. [elby (Elaborate Bytes AG)]

Alcohol 120% [Alcohol Software]

Blindwrite [VSO Software]

Cdrecord 1.9: Essentially the only major freeware CD-burning software
which actually works. The official homepage is at
http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/pr
ivate/cdrecord.html [Jrg Schilling] (Freeware)

Compression Programs:

STACKER 4.1 For Windows 95 [Stac] [NOTE: The days of whole-disk
compression have passed. In these days of huge hard disks and Windows
95, a program like Stacker is likely to be more of a nuisance than a help.
You should get and use it only if you are extremely low on disk space.
It was a great blessing to everyone years ago, in the days of MS-DOS 6,
but its time has come and gone. It is included here mostly for reference
purposes.]

PKWARE Data Compression Library For DOS 2.04g, Including PKZIP,
PKUZNIP, PKARC, PKXARC, And PKSFX [PKWARE]

LHA 2.55E (Formerly LHarc, Then LH, Now LHA. LH Conflicted With
The DOS LH (LOADHIGH) Command.)

ARJ 2.60 [ARJ Software, Inc./Robert Jung]

ZOO 2.1

WinRAR (RAR for Windows) 2.05 [Eugene Roshal]

WinZIP 8.0: Versatile compression utility for Windows. Supports ZIP (of
course), GZIP, and TAR formats. [Public Software Library] (Shareware)

Winpack32 Deluxe 2.4.8: VERY versatile compression program.
Supports every major compression format as well as several minor,
obscure ones. [CSDD]

Drag And Zip 3.0 [Canyon Software] (Shareware)

ZipMagic 98: An innovative approach to ZIP handling which makes
Windows 95's Explorer treat ZIP files simply as regular directories.
[Mijenix]

FSplit 1.5: A very handy program which lets you split any file into
smaller chunks (for floppy disk purposes). [Ffyon Applications]

Defragmentation Programs:

Diskeeper Server 6.0 and Diskeeper Workstation 6.0: While modern
operating systems come with a basic defragmenter, Diskeeper is an
interesting product that does some things those other defragmenters can't
do: It can defragment multiple disks at once, it will let you use the
system even while it's working, it claims that it WILL NOT corrupt or
lose data and that it's safe for all types of disks, and, for some people
(like network administrators), one reason why you absolutely must get
it: It works over a Windows NT network. You can defragment every
computer on your network without leaving your desk. It also includes
flexible scheduling options and five different priority settings. Very
impressive indeed, and (if you run a network) surprisingly necessary for
such a specialized purpose. [Executive Software]

Diagnostic Programs:

MSD (Microsoft Diagnostics) 3.01 (Older versions were included with
MS-DOS 6.0 and 6.2, but this newer version never seems to have been
included with any Microsoft OS)

AMIDiag 6.0: Industry Standard Diagnostics: A potent diagnostics
package from a company that used to be known for their BIOSes.
AMIDiag has excellent testing, but its real charm is in the detailed
reporting it provides. [American Megatrends]

MyCPU 1.05: A utility to identify your CPU, along with its speed and
built-in features. Could be handy, since this information can otherwise be
hard to determine in a hurry. You can download it from
http://www.seelhofer.ch/mad/download/download.html [Martin Seelhofer]

Rescue 4.5 [AllMicro]

RAMexam: A program which purports to test, through software, the
integrity of your RAM. An iffy idea, but if it's from the company that
made 386MAX, it must have something to it. [Qualitas]

PC-Doctor 1.1

Micro-Scope 6.16 [Micro 2000]

CheckIt For Windows

WinSleuth Gold Plus

Service Diagnostics [Landmark Reserach]

AlignIt [Landmark Research]

WINProbe 95 [Quarterdeck Corp.]

PC Probe With Landmark Benchmark System Speed Test [Landmark
Research]

CheckIt Utilities [Smith Micro Software]

WinTune (Download from the WinTune homepage at
http://wintune.winmag.com/) [CMP Media]

DiskBase [Landmark Reserach]

SystemWizard [SystemSoft]

QA Plus For Windows

Advanced Diagnostics #1 [Shareware]

Skylight 4.0

PC Technician [Windsor Technologies]

SpinRite 5.0 [Gibson Research Corp.]

The Modem Doctor 6.0S [Hank Volpe] [Shareware]

TestDrive [Microsystems Development]

Drive Probe

Disk Manager 3.1 [Ontrack Computer Systems]

DiskMapper 2 [Micro Logic]

Registry Monitor (Regmon) 4.32: A handy program which shows you all
attempts to access the Windows registry, including what keys were
access and by what program. Part of the System Internals collection at
www.sysinternals.com. [System Internals] [Freeware]

Filemon 6.03: A utility for Windows that lets you see what files are
opened and accessed by programs, and exactly what programs are using
them. Can be very, very useful for tracking and debugging purposes. Part
of the System Internals collection at www.sysinternals.com. [System
Internals] (Freeware)

Driver Packages:

WinSpeed

MPC Wizard 3.0

Drivers:

Microsoft Mouse Driver 8.20a For DOS: You really should have a DOS
mouse driver for when you're not using Windows. This is the standard
one used for most mice. I'm not sure where you can get it (it's probably
available from Microsoft's WWW or FTP sites somewhere). Apparently
it's also included with Windows 3.1 as MOUSE.COM in the Windows
directory. There's also a version 9.01. [Microsoft]

CuteMouse 1.8: A free third-party mouse driver which is fully
compatible with the Microsoft mouse standard. CuteMouse is
distinguished from Microsoft's own mouse TSR, however, in that it's
only 3.5K when loaded in memory, which is important when you're
working in DOS and its 640K limitation. [Nagy Daniel] (Freeware)

DirectX 8.0 (DirectX includes DirectDraw (2D graphics), Direct3D (3D
graphics), DirectSound (sound effects), DirectMusic (music), DirectInput
(input devices), and DirectPlay (multiplayer/network gaming). (DirectX
is downloadable from www.microsoft.com/directx) [Microsoft]

OpenGL 1.1

Intel Indeo Video Compression/Decompression Driver 5.1 (Used for AVI
files) (Download it from http://www.ligos.com/indeo) (Downloadable
installer's filename is iv5setup.exe) [Formerly by Intel, then sold off to
Ligos Technology]

File Management Programs:

Sherlock [2010 Software]

Font Control Programs:

Ares FontMinder 3.02: Quite possibly the premier font-management
program of its time, FontMinder allowed you to manage both TrueType
and PostScript fonts, installing/uninstalling them on command,
displaying/printing your fonts in several formats, and allowing you to
organize your fonts into specific categories. It worked fine on both
Windows 3.x and Windows 9x. Unfortunately, after Ares was bought out
by Adobe, FontMinder was discontinued (no doubt because Adobe saw
it as a threat to Adobe Type Manager). [Ares Software Corporation]

Ares FontMonger

Adobe Type Manager (ATM) Deluxe 4.0 [Adobe]

FontViewer 2.0: A useful utility for managing your fonts; As you've
probably heard by now, having too many fonts loaded slows Windows
down, especially on bootup. FontViewer will list all your currently-
loaded fonts along with what they look like in a big list of adjustable-
size fonts, and it will let you uninstall them from the system. (Fonts
uninstalled through FontViewer can also be reinstalled through it. The
way it uninstalls them is by creating a folder called "Uninstalled" in your
fonts directory, and then moving the font files there; To reinstall them,
it simply copies them back.) FontViewer is free software, hallelujah! Get
it from www.pcmag.com/utilities [Ziff Davis Media/Neil J. Rubenking]
(Freeware)

AllType

Font Chameleon

Font-O-Matic

Hard Disk Management:

Disk Historian

Vopt

Turbo Menu [Shareware]

Hard Disk Security Programs:

FolderBolt For Windows

DiskLock

Memory Managers:

QEMM 8 [Quarterdeck]

QEMM 97 [Quarterdeck]

Netroom 3 [Helix]

Hurricane 1.02 [Helix]

Multimedia Cloaking

386MAX 7 [Qualitas]

Memory Commander

RAM Doubler

SoftRAM 95

MagnaRAM 97 [Quarterdeck]

Menu Systems:

MenuWorks Advanced 2.0

Direct Access Menu For Windows [Fifth Generation Systems]

Direct Access Network [Fifth Generation Systems]

Direct Access DOS [Fifth Generation Systems]

KidDesk [Edmark]

Miscellaneous Utilities:

Sync 2.0: A small utility to flush the Windows cache to the disk to
prevent data loss. Similar to the UNIX sync command. This should have
been built into Windows. Part of the System Internals collection at
www.sysinternals.com. [System Internals] [Freeware]

d-Time 10

d-Time 95

WinKill: A utility to let you quickly close any running task under
Windows. This extends the functionality of Windows' own Close
Program dialog, which only lets you close processes that have their own
window open. [James Bray] (Freeware)

KillCMOS: A small utility to reset your CMOS settings, intended for use
when you forget your BIOS password but still need to access the setup
program. Although there are several utilities which purport to do this,
this particular one is one of the best because it uses a more effective
technique than many of the older programs, which tend to fail with
newer BIOSes. [KoASP Products]

MemTest: A program which purports to test your RAM's reliability by
repeatedly accessing it. MemTest has several things going for it: It's
small, very easy to use, and free. However, the reliability of such a test
is somewhat debatable, since there are those who maintain that a simple
software test is not really sufficient to test RAM chips. Nonetheless, if
you leave it running overnight, MemTest will at least let you know if
your RAM is prone to mis-writes or -reads. Get it from the official
homepage at http://hcidesign.com/memtest/ [HCI Design] (Freeware)

Motherboard Monitor (MBM) 5.05: A highly user-friendly program for
Windows which lets you view the temperature of your CPU, along with
the voltages it's receiving and the RPM of the fan(s) on it. Of course,
this requires a newer motherboard and chipset which support software
monitoring of these variables. Download MBM from the official
homepage at http://mbm.livewiredev.com [Alexander van Kaam]

FakeCD 1.0c: A *VERY* popular and small utility for bypassing one of
the most annoying aspects of modern computer gaming: The fact that
most CD-ROM games now require you to have the CD in the drive when
you play, even if all the data is already on the hard disk. Although this
is to combat piracy, it's an incredible inconvenience for people with a lot
of games who must keep shuffling CDs every time they play. For those
people, FakeCD makes the game believe that the CD is in the drive when
it isn't. [Ingo Warnke] (Freeware)

AutoAct: A utility to automatically perform actions like clicking buttons
on applications that need it. This can be used, for example, to
automatically click the "Connect" button on a dial-up networking
program so you can sign on to your ISP on startup without having to
click the button yourself. This can be pretty useful for all sorts of things,
and it's the only program of its kind that I've seen. [Ziff-Davis]
(Freeware)

NO: A DOS command-line utility to exclude files from a command. For
example, you could use "NO FILE.TXT DEL *.*" to delete all files in
the current directory except for FILE.TXT. This can come in quite handy
for those command-line warriors. [Ziff-Davis Publishing/Charles Petzold]

SWEEP: A DOS command-line utility which makes a command take
place in not only the current directory, but also all its subdirectories. For
example, you could type "SWEEP DEL *.TMP" to delete all .TMP files
in the current directory and all its subdirectories. Although you might not
use this utility often, it can be very handy for some specific tasks, like
the .TMP eradication used in this example. [Ziff-Davis
Publishing/Charles Petzold]

ASC: A memory-resident utility which pops up a full list of all the
ASCII characters and their numbers when you press ALT-A. Useful for
a quick reference tool. [Ziff-Davis Publishing/Jeff Prosise]

CHANGE: A text search-and-replace utility which searches for and
changes any matching strings in a text file. Could be useful for
automated changes to configuration files, among other things. [Ziff-Davis
Publishing/Michael J. Mefford]

PLAY: A command-line utility which works just like the QBASIC
PLAY command, except it works right from DOS, without having to go
through BASIC. [Ziff-Davis Publishing/Michael J. Mefford]

CLICKER: If you've ever been disappointed because your keyboard
doesn't beep every time you press a key (like in the movies), here's a
program to make it click, which is better than nothing. It only works at
the DOS prompt, though. [John P. Sohl/Ziff Communications]

Mo' Slo 1.31: You've heard of all kinds of products trying to make your
computer faster, but I don't know many which serve to slow it down.
Why would you want to? For playing old games. Many games from the
early 80s (and some even later than that) were designed to just run as
fast as the computer could go, which was fine for that age, but those
same games are now unplayably fast on modern computers. If you like
playing classic games, you should get Mo' Slo 1.2 or a similar utility.
[Dr.David's Super Crispy Software] [Freeware]

TPPatch: One of the most enduringly problematic bugs in a computer
program has been the "Runtime Error 200" message which is associated
with running programs compiled using Turbo Pascal (which was an
extremely popular compiler back in the days of DOS) on CPUs which
are too fast (basically, any CPU that's faster than about 200 MHz or so
will exhibit this problem). It should come as no surprise, then, that for
a long time, one of the most popular utilities among oldgamers has been
a utility to fix precisely this problem: Andreas Bauer's TPPATCH. This
utility will actually change the binary code of an .EXE file which has
been compiled with Turbo Pascal, and change the code to eliminate the
divide-by-zero error caused by using the Delay() instruction in a Turbo
Pascal program on a fast CPU. Of course, there is some risk involved in
this, and you should make a backup of the executable before you begin;
TPPATCH is free software released with no guarantees, so use it at your
own risk. In my own experience, however (and that of several other
people), TPPATCH has shown itself to be a safe, effective solution to the
problem. [Andreas Bauer] (Freeware)

X-Setup 5.6: A program much like Tweak UI except less famous: It's
loaded with little-known functions you can use to change how Windows
(and several programs associated with it) behave. Power users should
love it, especially considering it's free. Download it from www.xteq.com
[Xteq Systems] [Freeware]

98lite Professional 4.6: A system optimization utility for Windows 9x
that aims to make Windows run faster by removing some of the
integration that users typically don't want or need, particularly that of
Internet Explorer. 98lite has received some pretty positive testimonials
from people with older computers who've managed to make Windows
run significantly faster. It's worth a look if you want to use Windows,
but remove some of the bloat associated with it. The official homepage
is at www.litepc.com , the new home of what used to be the site at
www.98lite.net . [Brooks Innovations]

Explore2fs: A program for Windows 9x which reads ext2fs (Linux)
partitions! Now you can view all your Linux stuff in Windows without
having to reboot. And it's free. Get it from the official Explore2fs
homepage at http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm
(Freeware)

Cacheman 3.80: A program which purports to put a limit on how big
your disk cache can get, which supposedly lets your system run faster
and helps prevent system slowdown from a bloated cache. I've heard
good things about it, and it's free, which is always good. Download it
from www.outertech.com [Outer Technologies/Thomas Reimann]
[Freeware]

Rain 1.0: A utility which purports to cool your CPU down by sending
HLT instructions to certain parts of it when they're not running. Believe
it or not, in addition to increasing CPU life, this apparently actually
speeds up your computer, because cooler circuits run faster. [Leading
Wintech]

Genius 2.0: As the name suggests, this is indeed a brilliant utility which
sits in your system tray, and allows quick access to many imminently
useful functions, including: Several Internet clients for things like FTP,
Telnet, Finger, Ping, SMTP, and HTTP, a quick port lookup utility which
lets you see what service is associated with a TCP/UDP port, an
automated e-mail checker which checks for new e-mail every minute,
Finger and Identd servers, a connection "keep alive" tool, a function to
quickly copy your current IP address to the clipboard, a mini-PIM which
includes an Address Book, note pad, To Do list and password list, and
several others. One of the most versatile and handy tools you'll see
anywhere. A real winner. [Independent Software] (Donationware)

Sam Spade 1.10: An Internet tool suite for Windows with some neat
features, including nslookup, some SMTP tools, and displaying what IP
block is owned by a particular host. Also notable for its *huge* Tip Of
The Day archive, most of which are not actually tips for the program.
Blighty Design's homepage used to be at www.blighty.com [Blighty
Design] (Freeware)

Tweak 1.6B: A utility to let you manually twiddle the registers on your
video card, producing new, weird screen modes with unusual resolutions
and other strange properties. Obviously a power user's tool, and probably
of somewhat limited use, but people interested in playing with graphics
modes may get a kick out of it. [Robert Schmidt/Ztiff Zox Softwear]
(Freeware)

WinFix 4.3: A much-hyped program with boasts rave reviews from
virtually every source that comments on it. It aims to make Windows
more reliable and stable. As if. [Challenger Software, Inc.]

CPUKiller! 2.0: Though Mo' Slo is probably the utility of choice for
slowing down old programs, it only works for DOS programs.
CPUKiller! is a Windows program which will slow down your computer
up to 98%. It also appears to run a bit smoother than Mo' Slo (which
tends to be very jerky sometimes). And, since it runs in its own window,
you can adjust or turn it off while the program you're trying to slow
down is still running. Pretty cool! Its homepage is at
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Sector/3648. [Roberto Rossi]

Tioga Self-Healing System: A software which aims to let your computer
"heal" itself, by finding out what DLLs, configuration files, and other
details exist for programs and letting you figure out if they were
changed, and if so, how. [Tioga Systems]

Undelete For Windows NT 4.0: MS-DOS 5.0 introduced an "undelete"
utility and it also came with DOS 6.x. However, it was abandoned for
Windows 95. Now there's a commercial program (this one) that does the
same thing for Windows NT. [Executive Software]

FileRestore 1.0: The computer world is still reeling from the impact of
Microsoft's removal of an undelete utility from Windows 95 and all later
operating systems; As a result, there are still companies trying to make
programs that do what the free UNDELETE utility did in MS-DOS.
FileRestore works on FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS file systems, but it has
the same limitations as the classic undelete utilities of lore: It can't
recover data that has already been overwritten. [Winternals Software]

VolumeID 2.0: DOS/Windows' LABEL command lets you change the
disk's volume label, but not its volume ID (serial number). This utility
lets you change it. Part of the System Internals collection at
www.sysinternals.com. [System Internals] [Freeware]

Monitor Testing Utilities:

DisplayMate Professional For Windows: The most looked-at part of your
computer, the monitor, is often the most overlooked. Users live with
ghosting, poor focus, improper screen geometry, etc., rarely venturing to
do more than twiddle the contrast and brightness controls. DisplayMate
is an excellent monitor-test utility which will help you set up and fine-
tune your monitor for optimum image quality. Highly recommended. A
bit expensive (it's also available in a $79 standard edition if you don't
want to pay for the $249 Professional Version) but worth it. Necessary
for people who do graphics-intensive work that must be precise.
DisplayMate gives expert information on what to look for in a monitor
(making it a great tool for when you're shopping around for a monitor),
and it'll tell you what kinds of adjustments you can make, based on what
controls your monitor offers. It also has a series of excellent test patterns
which will test the monitor's linearity, focus, color quality, and color
sensitivity. Does this sound like an awesome tool? It is. [Sonera
Technologies]

Online Manuals:

DOS Help! 6.0

Remote Computing:

Close-Up 6.0

Close-Up Dual Pack 4.0

Takeover 1.0

Remote 2.1

Norton pcAnywhere 32 10.5 For Windows [Symantec]

RapidRemote 1.5 [Quarterdeck]

Multi Express

HotDisk [SmithMicro]

Remote DeskLink [Traveling Software]

Reachout 5.0 [Stac]

Remote Desktop 32 [McAfee]

CoSession 6.0 For Windows [Triton Technologies]

Carbon Copy 3.0 For Windows [Microcom]

NetBus 1.70: Although it has been cast as primarily a hacking tool (and
it does indeed possess enourmous potential for hacking), NetBus is also
a very powerful and free remote access utility which can be used for
various non-illegal activities. It contains more flexibility and ease of use
than the "Back Orifice" (BO) trojan which has received so much media
hype. [Carl-Fredrik Neikter]

Back Orifice (BO) 1.20: BO can't be ignored, however, as it does have
several strong features NetBus doesn't. [Cult Of The Dead Cow (cDc)]

SubSeven 2.1.3 BONUS: Out of the Back Orifice and NetBus-dominated
scene exploded the enormous popularity of this trojan, on the strength of
its numerous features and the fact that since every scanner detected
existing trojans, a new dominant one was needed. Subseven's homepage
is at http://subseven.slak.org [mobman]

Screen Savers:

After Dark 2.0 For Windows [Berkeley Systems]

After Dark 4.0: The latest version of the world's most popular Windows
screen saver. [Berkeley Systems]

After Dark Deluxe [Berkeley Systems]

After Dark Games [Berkeley Systems]

After Dark Add-On: Star Trek: The Screen Saver

After Dark Add-On: The Energizer Bunny Screen Saver: Did you ever
wonder what that cute little pink Energizer bunny does when he's not
making commercials? Find out in this hilarious screen saver!

After Dark Add-On: More After Dark

After Dark For DOS: Heck, most people don't use Windows all the time.
What if you want a good screen saver (like After Dark) in DOS? This
screen saver solves that problem, because that's exactly what it is: After
Dark For DOS. Hey, they even NAMED it that. [Berkeley Systems]

Opus 'n Bill Screen Saver: A screen saver based on the characters Opus
(the penguin) and Bill (the cat), from Berkeley Breathed's famed comic
strips "Bloom County" and "Outland". [Delrina Corporation]

Fish! 3.0: The classical Windows screen saver which not only has a
whole bunch of fish, but includes a built-in editor to let you make your
own. This was the inspiration for After Dark's "Aquatic Realm" module.
[Tom & Ed's Bogus Software]

Fireplace: A small, amusing simulated fireplace screen saver for
Windows, complete with a handy light switch and CDs. [Bob Rechul]

Intermission For Windows

TraySaver: A tiny program which lets you access your screen saver from
the system tray. [ThunderWare] [Freeware]

Matinee CD

O.J.: The Screen Saver [Squiggle Star Software]

Star Wars Screen Entertainment [LucasArts]

Bill's Pie Toss: A cool and goofy interactive screen saver which lets you
throw pies in the face of Bill Gates. [Rhode Island Soft Systems]

Marvel Comics Screen Posters

Kaleidosonics

Lights Out Sports Fans

The Adventures Of Johnny Castaway 1.01 [Sierra On-Line]

SCSI Driver Packages:

CorelSCSI! [Corel Systems]

EZ-SCSI

Security (Network):

Retriever 1.0 [L-3 Network Security]

Security (Personal):

Desktop Security Suite [McAfee]

eSafe Protect Desktop 2.1 [Aladdin Knowledge Systems]

Guard Dog Deluxe [Cybermedia]

Guard Dog 2.0 [Cybermedia]

Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2000 2.0 [Symantec]

NukeNabber 2.9b: This is the preferred program for detecting TCP, UDP,
and ICMP "nukes" on your computer. Download from
http://www.dynamsol.com/puppet/. (NOTE: It opens all the ports it's set
to monitor.)

ZoneAlarm 2.1: A newer, more polished PC Internet protection software
system, which uses a program-by-program list of what programs can
access the Internet, including a function to let you set which programs
can act as servers, meaning it can work in conjunction with ICQ and IRC
Ident, which Conseal can't. ZoneAlarm is free for personal and
non-profit use, but commercial use costs. Its homepage is at
www.zonelabs.com. [Zone Labs]

BlackICE Defender: Another Internet protection suite, but this one's not
free. [Network ICE]

SurfinShield Xtra [Finjan]

eTrust [Computer Associates]

Ad-Aware 5.82: A rightly well-designed little utility to remove "adware"
from your Windows system, which are programs that hide themselves
and show you advertising, and (worse yet) "spyware", programs which
hide in your system and try to collect information about you, with the
intent of selling this info to marketing companies via the Internet. Ad-
Aware is like a virus scanner for these programs, scanning your memory,
registry, and disk drives for known adware and spyware and helping to
get rid of them. Although such parasitic programs which use your
Internet connection have been around for a while, Ad-Aware really got
popular following the Brilliant scandal of April 2002, in which it was
revealed that a company called Brilliant Digital had paid the makers of
Morpheus (Napster's successor) to secretly include their software in
Morpheus, so Brilliant's software would automatically be installed when
Morpheus was. This was no small revelation, considering how many
people had already installed Morpheus on their systems. You can get
more info on Ad-Aware at Lavasoft's homepage at www.lavasoftusa.com
[Lavasoft]

Spybot: Search And Destroy 1.2: An adware-removal utility which many
people insist is superior to Ad-Aware. Having tried both products, I can
attest that Spybot: S&D certainly seems to detect far more spyware
products; The interface is slightly less user-friendly, but since this isn't
the type of program that you use on a regular basis, that shouldn't matter
too much. The fact that Spybot: S&D is free (although donations are
requested and appreciated) makes it a great program that every Internet-
connected Windows user should get and try. The official website is at
http://security.kolla.de/ . [PepiMK Software/Patrick M. Kolla]

SDelete 1.1: A DoD-compliant "secure delete" program (one which
overwrites deleted files so they cannot be recovered). Free and very
useful for confidential data. Part of the System Internals collection at
www.sysinternals.com. [System Internals] [Freeware]

Shredder 95 1.15: A handy utility which is intended especially for the
purpose of overwriting files (instead of just deleting them) so they cannot
be recovered. This function is duplicated by the WIPEINFO program
included with the Norton Utilities. [Gale-Force Software]

NetBuster 1.31: NetBus is sneaky, so the philosophy of NetBuster seems
to be "fight fire with fire". It sets up your computer to SEEM like
NetBus is running on it, but in fact it will log the IP addresses and
actions of anyone attempting to access your computer through it. Pretty
clever! Get it from http://surf.to/netbuster. [Hakan Bergstrom]

Busjack: This program will remove the 2.x versions of NetBus as well
as the 1.x versions, something NetBuster won't do, because NetBuster's
author didn't want to make a new version to work against the new
NetBus.

Antigen 1.01: And, yes, for Back Orifice there's this program to tell you
if you have that as well (and to get rid of it). It doesn't spoof BO servers
however. [Fresh Software]

BoDetect 1.5: The best big-name BO removal program. It's fast, and
doesn't base its detection on ports, meaning it doesn't get fooled by
programs set to monitor port 31337. It can also detect BO servers set to
ports other than 31337, something Antigen has trouble with. [Chris
Benson]

Back Orifice Spy (BOSpy) 1.31: This program DOES spoof BO servers,
so you can see who's trying to hack you. [Chaplin Inc.]

Cracker Jack 1.4: For many years, Cracker Jack was the Unix password
cracker of choice. It stood the test of time, and remained at the top of the
heap for most of the early 90s. But development of it stopped, and to this
day it's simply a memory in the minds of old sk00l crackers, and John
The Ripper has been the cracker of choice since about 1994 or so. (As
JTR's FAQ succinctly puts it: "Q: Is John the Ripper better than Cracker
Jack? A: Yes." [Jackal]

John The Ripper 1.6: The long-standing champion of the Unix password
cracking category of software, John The Ripper has the advantage of
speed, which, as any Unix password cracker can tell you, is the most
important thing (as cracking large passwords files can take literally days).
Download it from http://www.openwall.com/john/ [Solar Designer]

Crack 5.0a: The Unix password cracker of choice for those who are
actually doing their cracking *on* Unix (Cracker Jack and John The
Ripper are both DOS programs, although JTR does now have a Unix port
as well). Download it from Alec Muffett's homepage at
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~crypto/ [Alec Muffett]

Egoistic 2.2: Claiming to be the fastest wordlist generator that currently
exists, this is indeed a quick and intuitive program, which allows you to
generate wordlists based on how many characters they contain (you can
specify the minimum and maximum sizes for words, from 1 to 30
characters) as well as which characters they contain (it breaks characters
into 6 sets which you can choose from: lowercase letters, uppercase
letters, numbers, whitespace (spaces), punctuation/other special
characters, and extended ASCII characters). This gives it a high degree
of versatility. It's also quite fast, generating every possible 5-letter
combination of lowercase letters (an 80 MB wordlist) in well under a
minute. Just type ego22 -int to run it in interactive mode, and it'll ask
you all the questions it needs to know. Download it from the official
website at
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Sector/4834/ [Divide by Zero]

Internet Scanner 6.0.1 [Internet Security Systems, Inc. (ISS)]

HackerShield 2.0 [Bindview]

CyberCop Intrusion Protection Suite: CyberCop Scanner (a scanner to
look for security flaws in a network), CyberCop Monitor (a system
monitor to watch for attacks on a network), CyberCop Sting (an
"information gathering" program to create what appears to be a security
hole and monitor attempts to exploit it), and CyberCop CASL (a
security-focused scripting language), all in one big package. [Network
Associates]

7th Sphere PortScan 1.1: Probably about as good a dedicated port
scanner as you're likely to find; Allows you to set start and stop ports to
scan, and log file. Plus, it doesn't seem to lock up the computer or create
connection flood problems like most programs of this genre. [7th Sphere]
[Freeware]

ttysnoop 0.12d: A program for Linux/Unix systems to allow sysadmins
to "snoop" on users, that is, to view exactly what is showing up on their
terminal screens, sort of a virtual live security camera feed. (NOTE:
ttysnoop 0.12c was released in 1996. It was in 1998 that Carl Declerck
produced version 0.12d, which was essentially a bug fix for a serious
problem which had plagued version 0.12c: It would not compile on
newer versions of Linux, because of some sort of conflict with the Linux
#include header files. If you are trying to compile ttysnoop and you find
yourself getting strange errors relating to header files which prevent the
code from compiling, it's almost certain that you have ttysnoop 0.12c (or
an even earlier version), and should get version 0.12d (or whatever is the
most recent version).) Note, also, that in order for ttysnoop to start, you
must manually create the /var/spool/ttysnoop directory. [Paul
Haggart/Carl Declerck]

nmap (network mapper) 2.54 BETA 22: A security analyzer which scans
networks looking for security flaws. Powerful and free. Available from
http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ [Fyodor] [Freeware]

COPS (Computer Oracle and Password System) 1.04: One of the earliest
classic security auditing programs for UNIX. COPS searches for well-
known vulnerabilites in UNIX systems, and was possibly the first such
tool to become famous. These kinds of programs have since become
controversial, as they not only give sysadmins a way to check their own
security (the program's stated purpose), but they also give crackers a tool
to find ways to break into others' systems. COPS later led to the creation
of SATAN. (COPS was originally written by Dan Farmer as his senior
project for his Computer Science class at Purdue University.) (For a
detailed description of every single security hole COPS searches for, find
Dan Farmer's text "COPS And Robbers" on the Net somewhere. In a
nutshell: It checks vital directories to see if they are world-writable
(including /etc, /usr, and /bin), vital system files to see if THEY are
world-writable (including /etc/*, /bin/*, and /.*), vital system files to see
if they are world-READABLE, then it creates a database of current file
SUID statuses to track changes in the SUID settings, it checks
/etc/passwd for null passwords, blank lines, non-unique user IDs, etc.,
then it checks /etc/group for those same flaws, it checks all passwords in
/etc/passwd for weaknesses such as single-letter passwords or passwords
which are the same as the login, it ensures that files in /root are not
world-writable, it checks the commands in /etc/rc* to ensure that none
of the files or paths mentioned there are world-writable, then it does the
same with all the commands in /usr/lib/crontab, and it checks all files
beginning with a period in users' home directories to ensure they are not
world-writable. Obviously, this is only the beginning of the common
UNIX security holes, but it is still a start.) [Dan Farmer]

SATAN (Security Analysis Tool for Analyzing Networks) 1.1.1: The
spritual successor to COPS, SATAN got much more media attention than
COPS ever did. SATAN scans for three vulnerabilities relating to NFS
(Network File System). Next, it checks to see if the password file is
available through NIS (Network Information Server). Then it checks to
see if rexd is enabled on the target system. (It is recommended by both
CERT and CIAC that rexd be disabled in the /etc/inetd.conf file.) It also
checks for some Sendmail vulnerabilities. Next, it checks to see if TFTP
is enabled. TFTP allows a client to remotely access the computer's files
without a password. Although this is useful for some purposes, it is
inherently a huge security risk, and again, it is recommended that TFTP
simply be disabled if it is currently enabled. Similarly, SATAN checks
if rshd is enabled, and again, if it is, it's recommended that you disable
it. Next, it checks for unrestricted XWindows server access. Next, it
checks if the FTP home directory is world-writable. If this is the case, it
would be possible for a cracker to upload an .rhosts file or overwrite
existing system files through FTP; The directories accessible by FTP
should never be world-writable, except for a dedicated incoming FTP
directory of course. Lastly, SATAN checks for a vulnerability in wu-ftpd.
As with COPS, these are common security flaws, but this list could
hardly be considered a comprehensive list of every major security hole.
(Amusingly, if users are offended by the name SATAN, they can run a
small utility which SATAN comes with called repent. repent will change
the program's name to SANTA.) [Wietse Venema/Dan Farmer]

Guideon 1.10: This is a handy program to remove the GUID (Globally
Unique Identifier, the ID number they used to track the creator of the
Melissa virus) from any Microsoft Office documents. Good for
maintaining your privacy. Download it from
http://www.vecdev.com/guideon.html [Vector Development]

Security Focus Pager 2.0: A program which sits in your system tray and
keeps a running list of items which come into the Security Focus
website, the site which now hosts the infamous security mailing list
Bugtraq. [Security Focus]

Startup Management:

Quick Restart For Windows And DOS: A program which was popular
in the days before Windows 95. It allowed you to quickly reboot your
computer when you turned it on, without having to go through the
POST/startup files/Windows startup process. Apparently it was pretty
popular in its time, too, selling more than 120,000 copies, no slouch for
a program that came out around 1994. Unfortunately, PowerPro Software
seems to have faded from view and Quick Restart doesn't seem to have
been updated for Windows 9x. [PowerPro Software]

System "Snapshot" Utilities:

GoBack 3.0 Deluxe: A utility which lets you go back to a state your
computer was in before, undoing any changes which have been made
such as new, renamed, or modified files. An interesting idea for
publicly-accessibly computers so you can remove undesirable elements
which may have been introduced by users. [Wild File]

SecondChance 2.0 [PowerQuest]

Uninstall Utilities: (You know it's getting bad when this becomes a
successful category of software.)

CleanSweep 4.5: Currently the standard in uninstall programs. Works
well. [Symantec/Quarterdeck] (Formerly just made by Quarterdeck)

UnInstaller 4.5 [MicroHelp/McAfee]

Utility Packages:

NetUtils 3

Norton SystemWorks 2000 3.0: Norton AntiVirus, Norton Utilities,
Norton CrashGuard, and Norton CleanSweep, all in one potent budget
package. That's the Standard Edition; the Professional Edition includes
Norton Ghost and Norton 2000 as well. [Symantec]

SystemSuite 2000 [Ontrack Computer Systems]

McAfee Office 2000 PRO [McAfee]

Norton Utilities 7.0 For DOS: You can't go wrong if you have Norton
on your side. And you may very well go wrong if you don't. [Symantec]

Norton Utilities 8.0 For DOS [Symantec]

Norton Utilities 4.0 For Windows: A batch of utilities specially designed
for Windows. You'll wonder how you ever ran Windows without it.
[Symantec]

Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95

Microsoft Plus! For Windows 98

PC Tools 2.0 For Windows [Central Point Software]

PC Tools Pro 9.0 For DOS: Using revolutionary techniques, these
utilities can actually help you get back unsaved data in case you should
have a power failure or some other such disaster before you save your
latest work. [Central Point Software]

First Aid 2000 Deluxe [Cybermedia/McAfee]

Nuts & Bolts 98 [Helix]

Mace Utilities [Fifth Generation Systems]

Norton CrashGuard Deluxe Version 4.0

Safe & Sound [McAfee]

Virtual Keyboards:

No-Keys 2.0 [David Leithauser]

TouchKeyVirtual Keyboard [JumpSoft]

Virtual Keyboard 1.1 [S. Beaven]

Windows Updates:

The latest version of COMCTL32.DLL is available from:
http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/ie/comctrlx86.asp The
file description is "Common Control Library Patch", and the filename (as
of this writing) is 50comupd.exe

The latest version of DCOM (1.3) is available from:
http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom95/download.asp
The file description is "DCOM95 for Windows 95", and the filename (as
of this writing) is dcom95.exe

WinSock 2.0 is available in an installer with a filename of Ws2setup.exe
(If you still have Windows 95, get W95ws2setup.exe instead.)

Year 2000 (Y2K) Utilities:

Norton 2000 2.0 [Symantec]

2000 Toolbox: A complete Year 2000 PC checkup kit from a company
that's made a name for itself with its virus utilities. [McAfee]

Check 2000 PC: An interesting program which attempts to find Year
2000 incompatibilities in your computer.

---------------------------------------------------

Install Anytime Utilities:

Batch File Utilities:

TurboBat 3.24: A small program to convert your batch files into COM
files, making them harder to reverse-engineer. [Foley Hi-Tech Systems]

BatLite 1.5: Another program which does the same thing as TurboBat.
[Pieter A. Hintjens]

Hacker 1.2: A program similar to the Batch Enhancer utility which
comes with the Norton Utilities. It's a collection of functions useful to
the batch file programmer, including a collection of PC speaker sound
effects. [Ted Wray] (Shareware)

Copy Programs:

Copy II PC [Central Point Software]

CopyWrite

Cursor Utilities:

Cursorific Professional

CursorPower

Defragmentation Utilities:

FastTrax 4.01 [FastTrax International]

Encryption:

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) Freeware 6.5.3 For Windows (The MIT
Distribution Site For PGP is at http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html)
[Philip Zimmermann]

MIT PGP 2.6 [Philip Zimmermann]

PKLITE [PKWare]

PKLITE Professional [PKWare]

File Listing:

LIST 6.4a (Shareware) (Copy LIST.EXE from the
\SOFT\ACTION\KEEN directory of the Gamefest CD into your hard
disk's UTILS directory)

LIST 9.0e

HotDIR Plus 7.5: An interesting stand-in for the DOS DIR command,
with nice features like color-coded entries and a 4-column-wide display.
[Robert Woeger]

File Transfer:

FastLynx 3.0

FOSSIL drivers:

X00 1.50: This is the most popular FOSSIL driver for DOS. It used to
be downloadable from Raymond Gwinn's website at www.gwinn.com,
but not anymore. [Raymond L. Gwinn]

General:

Prodea Synergy

WinScope 1.01 [Periscope]

OpenTrap 1.2: A cool and free utility which lets you record the file open
and close attempts of Windows, so you can see just what files programs
use! Very useful for power users. Download it from
http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-
bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=000OD1 [Ziff-Davis]

Resource Hacker 3.4.0: A utility to view resources (graphics, web pages,
etc.) within Windows files such as DLLs. Can be a very handy utility,
but it should not be confused with analysis tools like DLL viewers which
actually show you the Windows code inside a file; Resource Hacker only
shows human-readable resources in the files. Get it from the official
homepage at http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/ [Angus
Johnson] (Freeware)

Eclipse FIND

CommWorks For Windows [Traveling Software]

ToasterLink

Oil Change For Windows 95 & Windows 98 [CyberMedia]

TuneUp [Quarterdeck]

DiskBase

XTree For Windows: With this program, you'll almost look forward to
working with files.

DiskJockey 98: An excellent file management program for Windows,
with over 200 files viewers and built-in ZIP support. [Clear & Simple]

General CD Utility Packages:

CD Power Pak

Meridian Visual CD

Help File Cration Programs:

MultiMedia WinHelp

RoboHELP 7 [eHelp Corp. (formerly Blue Sky Software)]

Installation Engine:

InstallSHIELD 2.0

Keyboard Macros:

Keyboard Express 2.01c 32-bit [Insight Software]

Offline E-Mail Reader:

Offline Express

Partitioning Programs:

Partition Magic 7.0: Well, I don't think any other major partitioning
program exists in the market. Although most of its functions can be done
with FDISK, the free utility that comes with MS-DOS/Windows, its
ability to resize partitions without destroying data (a potent feat that no
other program can boast) makes it worth mentioning. [Power Quest (PQ)]

Ranish Partition Manager 2.38 Beta 1.9: A powerful partition editor
which lets you quickly, easily and directly change all settings for drives
and partitions. The power user's tool for partitioning. Its homepage is at
http://www.ranish.com/part [Mikhail Ranish] [Shareware]

FIPS 2.0: A highly popular and free utility which re-sizes hard disk
partitions without destroying the data on them, a function which FDISK
can't do and which is most often used for putting Linux on a computer
which has already had all its hard disk space partitioned for another
operating system. The reason FIPS is so popular is because it's free, of
course. It used to have a homepage at
http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips/, but that site no longer exists. [Arno
Schaefer] [Freeware]

Screen Capture Programs:

Collage Complete

Clip 'n Save 2.0

FullShot

HALO Desktop Imager

HiJaak Pro 4.5

HyperSnap-DX 3.21.00 Pro [Hyperionics]

ImagePrep 4.0

Picture Eze 2.0

Pizzaz Plus 4.0

The Juggler 1.0

Windows Icon Editing & Anti-Boredom Programs:

Microangelo 98: The premier utility for editing icons and cursors in
Windows 9x. It includes functions for changing your system icons,
something which Windows should have come with, but didn't. [Impact
Software]

Icon Make-It [Moon Valley Software]

Icon Hear-It [Moon Valley Software]

Icon Do-It [Moon Valley Software]

Icon Hear-It Too! [Moon Valley Software]

IconDraw 1.2 [Philip B. Eskelin, Jr./Michael Gates]

ROMaterial

Wind Chimes 1.01: A unique Windows program to create ambient wind
chime sounds. It's intended to be loaded in the background as you work,
to help you relax. You can use different sounds, tones, and wind speeds
to create your own customized chime ambience, although the defaults
work pretty well. Download it from www.syntrillium.com [Syntrillium]
(Shareware)

WinPong 1.2: A fun little program which puts a ball on your screen and
lets you bounce it with the mouse cursor, even while you have other
windows open. Lets you play while you work (which is what Windows
was made for in the first place). Get this game from Game Empire 2 CD.
[Eric Saito]

WindowBlinds 1.2: A program which lets you put "skins" on windows
in Windows, so you can change how they look. Good for when you get
bored with your windows. [Stardock Corp.]

xearth: A "virtual Earth" program which turns your GUI's wallpaper into
a representation of the planet Earth. xearth is more than just a map;
Based on the current time, it will actually shade the planet to indicate
which parts of the globe are in sunlight, and which are dark. In addition,
if you have an Internet connection active, it will attempt to contact the
USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) servers for earthquake updates and show
recent earthquake epicenters on the globe. You can add or remove any
marker you like by latitude and longitude (so you could, for example,
add your city, no matter where in the world you are). xearth reminds me
of a similar program described in Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow
Crash", in which you could see a live representation of the planet,
complete with satellite-relayed weather patterns. xearth doesn't actually
show weather yet, but maybe that's a future feature. Meanwhile, it's a
very cool program, although it might not be that useful for many people.
[Original XWindows version by Kirk Johnson; Windows version by Greg
Hewgill]

                    Productivity

3D Rendering:

3D Workshop 2.0

3D Studio MAX 4 [Discreet/Autodesk]

Cool 3D 2.5

trueSpace 6.6 [Caligari]

gameSpace 1.0 [Caligari]

Bryce 4 [MetaCreations]

Maya [Alias|Wavefront/Silicon Graphics Limited]

SoftImage [Avid Technology]

ZBrush 2 [Pixologic]

3ds max 6 [discreet]

XSI [Avid Technology, Inc./Softimage]

Canoma [MetaCreations]

Lightscape Visualization System (LVS) [Lightscape Technologies]

LightWave 3D 5.0 [NewTek]

Softimage 3D 3.51 [Microsoft]

SoftF/X 2.5 [Byte By Byte]

Ray Dream Studio 4.1 [Fractal Design]

Extreme 3D [Macromedia]

Visual Reality 2.0 [Micrografx]

Animation:

Microsoft 3D Movie Maker

ANSI Editors:

TheDraw 4.63: Probably the best and most popular ANSI editor
available. [TheSoft Programming Services]

AcidDraw 1.20: Another good ANSI editor which is particularly well-
suited to beginners. [ACiD Productions]

Atlas: See Maps

Audio Editing:

Audacity 1.2.2: An audio editor that rivals the best in the industry,
including the likes of Cool Edit Pro, Acid Pro, etc. Because Audacity is
free, it should be your first choice before you look for a commercial
audio editing package. [The Audacity Team/Dominic Mazzoni]
(Freeware)

Wave For Windows 2.0

Sound Forge 4.5 [Sonic Foundry]

Sound Forge XP [Sonic Foundry]

Cool Edit Pro 1.1: An outstanding audio editing program, containing
everything you'd need to be a professional audio person. [Syntrillium]

Cool Edit '97 [Syntrillium]

ACID Pro 4.0 [Sony; Formerly by Sonic Foundry]

FL Studio (Formerly Fruity Loops) [Image Line Software]

Cubase [Steinberg Media Technologies]

Reason 2.5 [Propellerhead Software]

Just!audio [CeQuadrat]

AudioCatalyst 2.01: A handy program for converting CD audio and
WAVs into MP3s. [Xing]

MusicMatch Jukebox 6.1: A good, popular jukebox program with an
easy-to-use "File Convert" dialog box which lets you convert WAVs into
MP3s. It also makes it really easy to record audio CDs from MP3s.
[MusicMatch]

WinAmp 2.72: The world's preferred program for playing MP3 files (and
with good reason: It's the best), but it has some other interesting features
as well, making it a worthwhile program. This program is finally
freeware, no registration. [Nullsoft]

X11Amp (WinAmp for XWindows)

X Multimedia System (XMMS) 1.2.10: XMMS is an XWindows media
player, based on WinAmp, which plays MP3s, WAVs, MODs, and the
like. It's perhaps the most popular media player for Linux, so it's a fairly
important piece of software. Its official homepage is at www.xmms.org
[4Front Technologies/XMMS Team] (Freeware)

K-Jofol 0.51: A completely incredible MP3/VQF player which everyone
should have. Its smooth deck look alone makes it worth getting, but it
has features, too. Any serious computer music collector needs this. K-
Jofol's homepage is at www.kjofol.org [aEGiS cORP.]

Sonique 1.05: A versatile audio player which supports MP3s, MP2s,
MP1s, WAVs, MODs, CDA (CD Audio), and several other audio
formats. Pretty slick little program. Its homepage is at www.sonique.com.
[Mediascience]

Total Recorder 2.2: A handy program which records any audio sent
through your computer's speakers. Useful for recording audio from
games, or those annoying RealAudio files which you're not allowed to
download. [High Criteria Software]

n-Track Studio 2.2.1: A truly innovative audio recording program with
a fairly unique capability: It can record multiple times, overdubbing each
audio stream together to create a single unified WAV file. This could be
useful for all kinds of things. For example, solo musicians who want to
create the effect of multiple singers. Download it from the official
homepage at www.ntrack.com [Flavio Antonioli] (Shareware)

Internet Audio Mix 1.48: Another program which lets you overdub
WAVs. It works pretty well, and its interface is intuitive and friendly.
[Acoustica]

Protools

Babies:

A.D.A.M.: The Nine Month Miracle

B.A.B.Y.: Birth And Baby Years (Also Called Just B.A.B.Y., Or BABY)

BabyDOC

Bookkeeping:

QuickBooks 2001 [Intuit]

QuickBooks 6.0 [Intuit]

QuickBooks Pro [Intuit]

DacEasy Accounting For Windows + Instant Rolodex FREE!

DacEasy Accounting & Payroll 95 [DacEasy]

CA-Simply Accounting Pro 8.5 [Computer Associates]

Peachtree Complete Accounting 7.0 For DOS [Peachtree Software]

Peachtree Complete Accounting 8.0 [Peachtree Software]

MYOB (Mind Your Own Business) Accounting 8.0 [MYOB, Inc.]

Building Maintenance And Renovation:

Reader's Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide [Microsoft]

Black & Decker Everyday Home Repairs [Parsons Technology]

Home Improvement 1-2-3 [Home Depot]

CAD/CAM:

AutoCAD 2000 [Autodesk]

AutoCAD Release 14: AutoCAD is the definitive CAD software. Accept
nothing less. [Autodesk]

AutoCAD LT 2000: Except maybe this. [Autodesk]

AutoSketch 5.0 [Autodesk]

Actrix Technical [Autodesk]

DesignCAD 97 [ViaGrafix]

DynaDesigner For Windows

Draft & Print

KidCAD [Davidson]

netViz 4.0 [netViz]

netViz 3D [netViz]

Picture This Home!: Kitchen

3D Home Architect Deluxe [Broderbund]

Design Your Own Railroad (DYORR) 1.35: A really cool railroad design
program which is actually rather game-like. It's been around for years,
but is still being made by Abracadata. You set up a railroad, putting
together pieces of track, then you can set trains in motion on it and
control the switches and the directions of the trains. Version 1.35 of
DYORR is finally freeware, as Abracadata has stopped making the
program. You can download it from their homepage at
www.abracadata.com [Abracadata] (Freeware)

Design Your Own Home [Abracadata]

Career:

The Perfect Rsum [Davidson]

WinWay Resume 6.0

JOBHUNT

City Databases:

InfoNation

Places Related Almanac

Clip Art Libraries:

Corel Gallery 2

Masterclips 303,000

Presentation TASK FORCE CGM 4.0

Business 500 PC Library

Clickart Studio Series (.WMF Format)

Clickart Studio Series (.CGM Format)

Textures Of Italy

Corel Professional Photos CD-ROM Collection

Picture Factory Set #1 [Photodex]

Picture Factory Set #2 [Photodex]

Clocks:

Willow Pond Alarm Clock 2.10.017: A cute clock application for
Windows which can say the time at specified intervals through the sound
card, or just show a digital clock on the screen. [Willow Pond Corp.]

Communications:

Dynacomm For Windows 3.1 [FutureSoft]

ProComm Plus 32 4.7 [Datastorm Technologies]

Crosstalk For Windows 2.3 [Digital Communications Associates]

MKS Internet Anywhere

Qmodem Pro For Windows [Mustang Software]

Relay/PC Gold 6.0 For Windows

Unicom 3.1 [Data Graphics]

Delrina WinComm PRO [Delrina]

Sierra's On-Line [Sierra On-Line]

ASCII Express (AE): One of the most famous communications programs
ever, this was *THE* comm program for the Apple II line of computers.
[United Software Industries/Southwestern Data Systems]

BitCom 3.58a For DOS [BitCom]

Telix 3.21 [deltaComm Development]

Telix 3.51 [deltaComm Development]

Telix 1.00 For Windows [deltaComm Development, Inc.]

Terminate 4 [Strathrory Systems Ltd.] [(Formerly by Intershop Ltd.)]

FocalPoint

COMMUNICATE! 8.0 [01 Communique Laboratory Inc.]

Computer Pets:

Catz: Excellent program! Lets you have a cat who periodically comes
onto your screen, requesting food, attention, playtime, etc. Kind of like
those "Tamagotchi" pet things except you can turn this off. [PF
Magic/Mindscape]

Catz 2 [PF Magic/Mindscape]

Catz3 [PF Magic/Mindscape]

Dogz: A dog version of the very cool Catz program! [PF
Magic/Mindscape]

Dogz II Premium [PF Magic/Mindscape]

Dogz3 [PF Magic/Mindscape]

Oddballz: As you may have guessed, this program is similar to Catz and
Dogz, but it uses creatures which don't actually exist on this planet. [PF
Magic/Mindscape]

Babyz: Well, this is another in the Catz/Dogz series, and the title
probably says it all.

Esheep: A low-scale computer pet, basically a sheep who runs along the
tops of your windows and sometimes engages in other antics. Its
homepage is at http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/2269/esheep.htm
[God's Pet Lama Corp.]

Neko: A cute little screenmate cat who runs around your Windows
desktop, chasing the mouse pointer. "Neko" is Japanese (it means "cat"),
which explains why it's an Anime cat. What began as a simple 16-bit
Windows program which ran in a window has become a 32-bit Windows
application in which the cat is independant of its own window, capable
of roaming anywhere on your Windows screen, with its own
configuration program in which you can set the cat's size, speed, and
behaviour (whether it chases the mouse pointer, runs away from it, or
just wanders around oblivious to the mouse pointer). This may be taking
the concept a little too far, but computer programmers have always been
known to beat a concept to death with features. Interesting historical
note: Neko is actually a clone of a so-called "game" that came with OS/2
called Cat And Mouse; The purpose of it was to "help you learn how to
use the mouse". It was included in OS/2's Games group, although it
wasn't really a game. [Original Windows 3.x version by Dara T. Khani,
later made into a Win9x version by David Harvey] (Freeware)

Lava Lamp: A small Windows program which simply creates an on-
screen lava lamp that sits in your Windows system tray. You can control
the speed and color of the lamp, and then just watch it agitate. It's a
pretty cute idea and it's kind of relaxing, but it really would be nice if
the lamp could be a bit bigger: A tiny lava lamp on the system tray just
isn't quite satisfying. [Lonnie Foster] (Freeware)

Computer Radio:

RadioActive: Like listening to radio? Now you can do it on your
computer with RadioActive.

Computer Television:

Watch It!

Win/TV: Watch TV in a window. Useful, entertaining, and convenient.

Contact Management:

Ernie Hemple's Professional Office

In The Black

Janna Contact 95 [Janna Systems]

Maximizer 97

Maximizer 5.0

Symantec Act! 2000 [Symantec]

GoldMine 3.2

Conversion: See File Conversion

Cooking: See Food

Database:

Paradox For Windows 9: Considered by many to be the best Windows
database there is. [Corel]

Lotus Approach 2.1 For Windows

FoxPro 2.5 For Windows

Visual FoxPro 5

Microsoft Access 97 [Microsoft]

At Home

FileMaker Pro 5 [Claris]

FoxPro/LAN

Superbase 5

KnowledgeMan

AskSam [Seaside Software]

MySQL: Proclaiming itself (correctly) as the world's most popular open
source database, MySQL is another of those awesome products that
garners so much market share simply because it's free. MySQL is
actually sold in a more powerful version for business users who need the
extra power, which is great, but the basic database for SOHO users is
free and open-source. It provides all the functionality that you expect in
a modern SQL database including ODBC connectivity. The official
homepage is at www.mysql.com . [MySQL]

Firebird 1.5.1: Providing some pretty good competition to MySQL is
Firebird, a free, open-source relational database. Its homepage is at
http://firebird.sourceforge.net . [Firebird Project] (Freeware)

dBASE IV 1.5: The original version of dBASE was actually the first
database to exist. This program still stands out even today. [dBASE, Inc.]

dBASE IV, Server Edition: Even more powerful edition of dBASE!
[dBASE, Inc.]

dBASE 5.0 For Windows [dBASE, Inc.]

Visual dBASE 7 Client/Server Suite [dBASE, Inc.]

Paradox For DOS 4.0: The mega-powerful databse in a DOS version.

Oracle8i: One of the world's most famous databases ever. [Oracle Corp.]

Instabase 4 [Ezenet]

R:BASE 4.0

Advanced Revelation 3.0

DataFlex 4.0

Symantec Q & A 4.0

Arago Professional

Decision Making: (The last barrier in computer productivity
software has been broken down.)

DecideRight: An innovative program which helps you
make any decision. [Avantos Performance Systems]

Desktop Publishing (DTP):

Adobe (Aldus?) PageMaker 6.5: Probably the most powerful DTP
program there is. A powerfully large price tag, too. [Adobe]

Microsoft Publisher 98: A medium-priced and very easy-to-use DTP
prog. One of the easiest of all, in fact. [Microsoft]

Serif PagePlus 3.0: An incredibly powerful DTP program, with a price
tag that makes jaws drop wherever it goes.

GeoWorks Ensemble 2.0: Actually an operating system.

Quark XPress 4.0: This has the most powerful color features of all the
DTP programs. It's also the most expensive we could find. [Quark]

Corel Ventura 8: This is the best for long publications. If you're doing
something of several dozen or several hundred pages, this is good.
Otherwise, you would probably be better off trying something else.

Adobe InDesign 1.0 [Adobe]

Adobe FrameMaker 5.5: Strong, expensive, and somewhat clunky DTP
prog. [Adobe]

iPublish

PFS: Publisher 1.1

Easy Working Desktop Publisher 1.1

Interleaf Publisher 1.0.1 [IBM]

Publish It! 3.0 For Windows: Very easy to learn and use DTP program.
Lacks power. Good if you've never used a DTP program in your life and
need to do something with one in 5 minutes.

Publish It! 2.0 For DOS

Greetings For Windows

Desktop Video:

Video For Windows 1.1

QuickTime For Windows

Adobe Premier

MediaMerge

SoundTrack

MCS SoundTrak

MCS Stereo

Diet And Exercise:

Nutrition Expert 2.0

DietPro For Windows

Dieter's Edge 2000

Diet Analyst 2.5

Diet Balancer 3.0

Diet Expert

ExerCitement Plus Machine (Exercise Bike, Stair Climber, Treadmill,
Cross-Country Ski Machine, Or Rowing Machine)

Fitness Partner

AlphaSport Software Super Bundle

Document Viewers:

Adobe Acrobat 5 [Adobe]

Ghostscript: The standard in PostScript document viewers (files with a
.PS extension). Ghostscript's official homepage is at
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.

PStill: A utility to convert PostScript documents (.PS and .EPS) to the
wildly popular PDF (Portable Document Format) format used by Adobe
Acrobat. Handy if you're more comfortable working with PDFs but you
need to view a PostScript file. PStill is available in both shareware and
freeware versions, and its homepage is at http://www.pstill.com

RoPS (Roger's PostScript) 5.2: RoPS used to be a one-man operation
developed by Roger Willcocks. It was a popular PostScript document
viewer with a website at www.opengate.co.uk/opengate/. However, the
product is now sold by Giant Technologies, with the homepage being at
http://www.giant-technologies.com/rops/. [Giant Technologies/Roger
Willcocks]

Microsoft Reader 2.0: Microsoft's utility for reading eBooks (files with
a .LIT extension, short for "literature"). [Microsoft]

Drawing:

Corel Draw 10: Animation, photograph editing, thousands of clip art
pictures, a wide range of supported file formats which you can import
from and export to, and hundreds of other features make this an
extremely power-packed draw program. An astonishing program, which
has gotten over 270 awards since the first version in 1989. Get it. (It
used to be called "Corel Draw!", but the exclamation mark is now
officially off.) [Corel Systems]

CorelXARA! [Corel]

FreeHand 9 [Macromedia (Formerly Aldus)]

Visio Professional 2000: An excellent product which is the definitive
program for flowcharting. [Visio Corp.]

Aldus IntelliDraw

Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000, Version 2 [Microsoft]

Professional Draw

Adobe Illustrator 9.0 [Adobe]

Arts & Letters Graphics Editor 3.12

Micrografx Designer 7: Powerful draw program with some innovative
features. [Micrografx]

Microsoft Fine Artist 1.1

Crayola Amazing Art Adventure

Crayola Art Studio

Jurassic Art

Persistence Of Vision (POV-Ray) 3.1g: An excellent ray-tracer drawing
program, which is made even more impressive by the fact that it's free.
It's been around for years and has become fairly well-known, but it's
STILL free. It now also has a website at www.povray.org. [Freeware]

Arts & Letters Apprentice 1.2

Picture Wizard

Windows Draw! 6 [Micrografx]

Electronics:

DC Circuit Analysis 1.4: An interesting program for the electronics
engineers among you. It lets you put together circuits and test them out.
It features functional switches and potentiometers. It's not really
well-suited for professional-level circuit planning but if you're just
learning them or if you're just a hobbyist it's neat. [Arthur Tanzella]
[Shareware]

Logic Circuit Analysis 1.1: Following up on his excellent DC Circuit
Analysis program, Arthur Tanzella has produced an equally good
program for creating and testing logic circuits. [Arthur Tanzella]

Electronics Workbench 5.12: If you're an electronics designer and you've
ever wished for a computer program that would allow you to build and
simulate circuits on a computer, then Electronics Workbench is the
program you've been thinking about. It's fairly complete in terms of
parts (it provides all the 7404 family ICs, for example, and it even gives
you several instruments like an oscilloscope to monitor your circuit with),
and it's pretty easy-to-use. [Interactive Image Technologies Ltd.]

The DC Challenge [ETCAI Products/Charlie E. Ormon]

Digital Challenge [ETCAI Products/Charlie E. Ormon]

Meter Challenge [ETCAI Products/Charlie E. Ormon]

E-Mail:

Lotus CC: Mail

Microsoft Mail

M-mail

Employee Data Management:

WorkWise Employee File

Emulators:

C64S 1.1B [Miha Peternel]

VICE 1.5: VICE (Versatile Commodore Emulator) lives up to its name,
featuring an emulator for the C64, C128, VIC20, PET, and CBM-II. As
a bonus, it works under Win9x, and it can run in a window. Download
it from the official VICE homepage at
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dsladic/vice/vice.html (WinVICE uses CAPS
LOCK for the C64's RUN/STOP key.) (Freeware)

Star Commander 0.82: A PC program which acts as a File Manager for
Commodore floppy drives, via the use of an X1541 cable which connects
the Commodore floppy drive to the PC. Although there are a few other
programs which do this as well, Star Commander seems to be the most
popular program for this, probably because it's made by the same person
who is also the most popular source for ordering the requisite X1541
cables on the Internet.
  A quick-start guide to setting up and using Star Commander: Before
you turn on your Commodore floppy drive, ensure that the X1541 cable
you're using is already connected to both the PC and the Commodore
drive. (DON'T connect this cable while the Commodore drive is on!)
Then, turn on the Commodore drive, as well as the PC. Boot the PC into
real mode (pure DOS mode), and run Star Commander.
  Star Commander comes with a pretty good setup by default that should
work with most drive and cable configurations; The only configuration
screen that you should need to use is the "Transfer options" screen. To
get there, first bring up the "Configuration" menu. To do this, you can
simply press CTRL-F9, or you can press F9 to activate the menu bar,
then use the arrow keys to select the "Options" menu, and then select the
"Configuration" option. Once at the Configuration menu, select "Transfer
options" (or just press F5).
  Within the Transfer options menu, set the "Serial cable" option to the
correct model of X1541 cable that you are using (X1541, XE1541,
XM1541, or XA1541). Although this cable actually connects to the
parallel port on the PC, it is considered a "serial" cable within the
context of a Commodore 64 floppy drive. If you are using a parallel
cable with the drive (which serves only to speed up data transfer and
cannot be used in place of the serial cable), set it under the "Parallel
cable" option; Otherwise, set that option to "None". Also set the correct
type of drive that you are connecting the PC to (by default, a basic 1541
drive).
  "Transfer mode" should be set to "Normal" for your first use of Star
Commander. There are also several "Detect" options which I strongly
recommend you activate to ensure drive and disk compatibility; Turn on
"Detect port modes" and "Detect disk changes", and also set "Extended
1541 disks" to "Detect". This will save you from a lot of compatibility
headaches. I also recommend you turn on "Force async transfer" and
"Manual timeouts", and set "Delay value" to 0 (zero). Finally, set "Serial
interface" to the parallel port on the PC which you have the X1541 cable
connected to (probably LPT1), and then select OK. Save your
configuration changes by selecting "Save setup" from the options menu.
  Now that your Commodore drive and transfer cable have been set up,
it's time to test the drive! Put a floppy disk in the Commodore floppy
drive, and set either the left or the right side of Star Commander's screen
to display the contents of that disk. Do this by going to either the "Left"
menu or the "Right" menu, then select "Drive", and select the drive
number which your Commodore floppy drive is set to be (probably 8).
If all goes well, you should see a listing of the floppy disk's contents!
You can now use Star Commander to copy files between your PC and
Commodore-formatted floppy disks. [Joe Forster/STA]

ApplePC 2.52 [David Ellsworth]

XGS-DOS 0.50.6: Probably the premier Apple IIgs emulator for DOS.
Download it from the official XGS-DOS homepage at
http://www.classicgaming.com/xgsdos/ (NOTE: XGS-DOS has a weird
bug which makes it usually crash with a core dump when the emulator
starts running. This is a known bug, but there is currently no known
solution for it. Just keep trying to re-start the emulator until it works.
Also, a PC emulating an Apple IIgs will be way too fast, so press F7
repeatedly to increase the slowdown ratio until you find a comfortable
setting. Use SHIFT-F7 to decrease the ratio and speed it up again.) Get
it from the official XGS homepage at
http://www.optera.com/~invid/emulators/XGS/ (NOTE: Make sure you
set the keyboard layout to "USA" in the configuration screen, since
otherwise it defaults to the "Swiss French" layout, which is highly
annoying.)

KEGS32 0.60 Release 3: Currently the best Apple IIgs emulator for
Windows, even though it's still in development. KEGS32 offers near-
flawless reproduction of the IIgs' graphics and sound, and it allows you
to easily switch between windowed and full-screen mode. Get it from the
official homepage at http://www.geocities.com/akilgard/kegs32/
(Freeware)

Fellow 0.3.5: An Amiga emulator for DOS, which may or may not anger
all the Amiga owners out there.

DosUAE 0.7.5d: The DOS version of UAE, the Ultimate Amiga
Emulator. (DosUAE's homepage is at
http://www.jackbox.com/users/ggoedert/dosuae/index.html) [Gustavo
Goedert]

WinUAE 0.8.14.3: The Windows version of the Ultimate Amiga
Emulator. It lets you run your Amiga programs under Windows, in a
window, no less. Download it from the official WinUAE homepage at
http://www.codepoet.com/UAE/

MESS (Multi-Emulator Super System): An emulator which supports a
stunning array of old computing platforms, including positively archaic
architectures like the DEC PDP-1 and the Apple I. Its official homepage
is at http://mess.emuverse.com

bleem! 1.5b: The infamous Sony PlayStation emulator for the PC.
[bleem! inc.]

Snes9X: The premier PC emulator for the SNES (Super Nintendo
Entertainment System; The 16-bit successor to the original 8-bit NES).
The official website is at www.snes9x.com.

DOSBox 0.63: An MS-DOS emulator for Windows. Since the latest
versions of Windows provide no real DOS mode, it becomes difficult to
create a real DOS environment without using multiple partition and a
multi-boot solution. DOSBox attempts to bypass these problems by
simply creating a real-mode DOS emulation within Windows. DOSBox
has come a long way since its initial versions, which were buggy and
sometimes ran DOS programs incredibly slowly. The latest version of
DOSBox is much, much better, and runs DOS games of any era with
very good speed, as well as near-perfect video and sound emulation.
DOSBox's homepage is at http://dosbox.sourceforge.net [Harekiet]
(Freeware)

VDMSound 2.1.0: Essentially a driver which creates a software-emulated
virtual Sound Blaster device. This is to allow you to use programs which
use real Sound Blaster sound, without needing to have an actual Sound
Blaster-compatible sound card. As of this writing, VDMSound only
supports NT-based Windows kernels (2000, XP, etc.), but there is an
alpha version that has been hacked to work with Windows 9x.
VDMSound's homepage is at http://vdmsound.sourceforge.net (Freeware)

Altair 8800b Simulator: A small program which creates an on-screen
representation of the front panel of a MITS Altair 8800b, and lets you
interact with it, flipping the switches to create and run programs. The
program correctly calls itself a "simulator", not an "emulator". [Claus
Giloi]

IMSAI 8080 Simulator: The companion program to the Altair 8800b
Simulator, this program simulates (as you might guess) an IMSAI 8080,
a very similar computer to the Altair 8800b. [Claus Giloi]

6502sim 1.01: A well-designed little 6502 CPU programming
environment in which you can enter machine language commands, see
their disassembled contents listed, and run them in a simulated memory
space. Very handy for those trying to write their own 6502 programs in
machine language. Get it from Dan B's Emulation page at
http://www.atarihq.com/danb/emulation.shtml [Daniel Boris] (Freeware)

Enterprise Management:

Unicenter TNG [Computer Associates]

Ergonomics:

Dilbert Break [Vanity Software]

ErgoBreak For Office [Vanity Software]

ErgoSentry [Magnitude]

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)/CRM (Customer Relationship
Management):

Oracle ERP [Oracle]

mySAP ERP [SAP]

PeopleSoft 8.8 CRM [PeopleSoft, Inc.]

iBaaN for CRM [Baan]

Siebel PRM 7.5 [Siebel Systems, Inc.]

J.D. Edwards 5 [J.D. Edwards]

Exercise: See Diet And Exercise

FAX:

Delrina WinFax Pro 9: Probably the best FAX program in the world.
[Delrina] [Symantec]

QuickLink Gold 1.1

Intel FAXability Plus/OCR

FaxWorks Pro 3.0

DataFAX 4.1

BitFax Easy

File Conversion:

Conversions Plus 4.5: Microsoft Office 97 is packed with hot new
features that make it number one! These same features make it
incompatible with previous versions of Office! And everything else too,
for that matter! Way to go, Microsoft! As always, DataViz, the file
compatibility experts, are here to help. Introducing Conversions Plus 4.5,
the answer to almost all of your file conversion needs. Loaded with over
1,000 file translation combinations, it translates hundreds of word
processing, spreadsheet, graphic and database file formats. Quickly and
accurately. Between many different Windows programs, and even
between Windows and Macintosh! It's a great remedy for the
incompatible world we live in. This version includes e-ttachment Opener,
an amazing program that converts garbled e-mail messages back into
their original file formats. And MacOpener, a utility for reading and
writing Mac disks on your PC. Runs on Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and
Windows NT. [DataViz]

Address Magic: A program to convert various e-mail program file
formats among each other. Address Magic can import/export e-mail
from/to Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, Eudora, America Online, and
Lotus Notes. It can also use the relatively standard LDIF format.
[Connected Software] (Shareware)

Financial:

Quicken Deluxe 99 [Intuit]

Quicken 2002 Deluxe [Intuit]

Kiplinger's CA-Simply Money 2.0

Your Best Money Moves Now

Managing Your Money: 1994 Edition For DOS

Managing Your Money For Windows

Microsoft Money 2000 Deluxe [Microsoft]

Microsoft Money 99 Financial Suite [Microsoft]

MoneyCounts For Windows

Charles J. Givens Money Guide, Windows Edition

Charles J. Givens Money Guide, CD-ROM Edition

Reuters Money Network

Reuters Money Network Version For Quicken Users

WealthBuilder

MetaStock 4.0

Journeys!

Windows On WallStreet 2.1

All Four Volumes Of Trading Systems For MetaStock

All Four Utility Packs For MetaStock

Rich And Retired

RetireASAP

RetireASAP For Windows

Destiny

J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax Software

Hi, Finance! [Shareware]

Checkmate Plus 1.5 [Shareware]

Loan Accelerator 1.03 [Shareware]

HomeTax

CanTax

CanTax T1

Smart Money [Sierra On-Line]

Firewall:

ConSeal PC Firewall 2.06: A staple of the PC security scene for a long
time, ConSeal PC Firewall is one of the most versatile and configurable
software firewalls imaginable. It allows you to add, edit, and delete a
long set of rules, each of which can be configured according to service,
protocol (TCP, UDP, ICMP, NetBEUI, IPX, ARP and RARP), whether
the connection is inbound or outbound, and the remote and local address
and port. You can also choose whether events which pertain to each of
these individual rules are logged. This kind of configurability makes
ConSeal highly flexible, as well as something which Internet security
newbies should stay far away from. (Download demo from
www.consealfirewall.com) [Signal 9 Solutions]

FireWall-1 4.0 [Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.]

AtGuard [WRQ, Inc.]

The Wall [Raptor Systems]

Check Point VPN-1 Appliance 330 [Check Point Software Technologies]

WatchGuard LiveSecurity System 4.1 [WatchGuard Technologies]

Sidewinder 5.0 [Secure Computing Corp.]

Flowcharting:

ABC Flowcharter 4.0 [Micrografx]

allCLEAR 4.0 [SPSS/Clear Software]

Flow Charting 3

Font Creation:

Macromedia Fontographer: There are oddly few font-creation programs
in existence. This one is a good one which lets you edit or create
TrueType, Adobe Type 1, or Adobe Type 3 fonts. [Macromedia]

Font Packages:

Fantastic Fonts For Windows

WriteType [Signature Software]

PenFont [Signature Software]

Too Many Typefonts

Fonts: See Font Creation, Font Control Programs, Font Special
Effects, and Font Packages

Font Special Effects:

MakeUp: A popular and powerful font special-effects app in its day,
MakeUp has been discontinued. [Bitstream]

Font FX 2.5 With Express [Electric Rain, Inc.]

Adobe Type Twister: The official line on ATT from Adobe's website is:
"Adobe Type Twister was a type manipulation application that enabled
you to enhance plain text with a selection of special effects, fonts,
shapes, styles and colors. It was discontinued on September 25, 1998.
Adobe Type Twister is no longer being developed. Adobe currently has
no similar products available. Person-to-person technical support is no
longer available. However, complimentary technical support resources are
still available via the World Wide Web." [Adobe]

Food:

Cooking With Dom DeLuise

MasterCook 3 [Sierra On-Line]

Micro Kitchen Companion

MasterCook Silver Platter Cookbook [Arion Software]

Edna's Cookbook [Shareware]

Fred's Recipes For Edna's Cookbook [Shareware]

Forms:

PerForm PRO 3.0 For Windows [Delrina Technology]

OmniForm 4.0 [ScanSoft (formerly by Caere Corp.)]

Formbuster

JetForm 4.0

Gardening:

FLOWERscape

Microsoft Complete Gardening [Microsoft]

Sprout!: A garden-planning program from the same CAD software
company that made Design Your Own Home. [Abracadata]

Sunset Garden Problem Solver CD-ROM [Sunset New Media]

Geneology:

Family Ties For Windows

Family Tree Maker For Windows

GIF Animators:

GIF Construction Set [Alchemy Mindworks]

GIF Movie Gear 2.61 [Gamani Productions]

Ulead GIF Animator 5 [Ulead Systems]

Lake Clear Animato [Lake Clear Software]

AniMagic 1.21 [Right To Left Software]

Microsoft GIF Animator [Microsoft]

GifBuilder 0.5 [Yves Piguet]

GIFmation 2.22 [BoxTop Software]

Graphics Display:

IrfanView 3.61: A relatively new kid on the block of image-viewing
software, IrfanView quickly became wildly popular, overtaking the more
established utils like ACDSee. It's not too hard to see why: It's powerful
(handling BMP, JPG, GIF, PCX, TIF, EPS, and PNG files) and free. Get
it from the official website at www.irfanview.com [Irfan Skiljan]
(Freeware)

CompuShow 9.03a: A graphics viewer for DOS which comes so close
to getting it right, but falls short because of a critical bug. In program
design, CompuShow is just about ideal, featuring a simple interface
which shows all the image files in the current directory and lets you use
the arrow keys to scroll around, picking whichever one you want to
view. A menu with one-touch resolution/color control makes adjusting
the way the picture is shown simple. Tragically, the program suffers from
the bug affecting any program written in Turbo Pascal: On a modern
CPU, it encounters a divide-by-zero error when you try to run it, making
it refuse to work. It's a shame, because this is probably the best image
viewer I've seen for DOS, featuring support for GIF, JPG, BMP, PNG,
RLE, TIFF, PCX, IMG, IFF, and LBM files. [Canyon State Systems]
(Shareware)

Dvpeg 3.0l: The best JPG/GIF/BMP viewer I've seen for DOS. It's quite
well-behaved, has a built-in file browser so you don't have to type in
filenames, and has good video card support, including a video setup
program which lets you choose which video modes the program presents
as options. All I can say is, thank goodness for DVPEG. [Eric Praetzel]
(Freeware)

VPIC 6.0e [Bob Montgomery]

Groupware:

GroupWorks [HyperDesk]

Health: See Also Medical

BodyWorks 5.0

A.D.A.M.: The Inside Story

Nine Month Miracle

Hex Editors: See Also Programming

HexIt 1.32: A small, free hex editor for DOS with a built-in disassembler
and a nice interface. [Mikael Klasson aka Fluff]

Heck Hex Editor 1.1 (For Linux) (Download from
http://www.lssi.net/~killen/heck.html) [Jason Killen]

VCHE (Virtual Console Hex Editor) 1.7.2 (For Linux) (Download from
http://www.grigna.com/diego/linux/vche/) [Diego Javier Grigna]

Home Renovation: See Building Maintenance And Renovation

Illustration:

Canvas 6 [Deneba Systems]

ImagePals 2: Do you work with graphics in Windows? If the answer is
yes, this program can really help. Too many features to list!

Information Superhighway:

America Online Startup Kit, Including AOL Software For Both DOS
And Windows (Version 4.0 for Windows)

CompuServe Startup Kit, Including WinCIM 1.4 And DOSCIM 2.2.3

DELPHI Startup Kit

BIX Startup Kit

Prodigy 3.1 Startup Kit

GENie Startup Kit

NetZero ZeroPort/zCast: NetZero was the first free ISP to make it really
big, and after people saw its success, it spawned a frenzy of similar
services, including some from big names like K-Mart (with their
BlueLight free Internet service), and AltaVista (their service was simply
called Altavista Free Internet Access). Perhaps not surprisingly, NetZero
was also among the first major free ISPs to expand into Canada, a bold
move. However, although NetZero and all the rest were great services,
they had one major annoyance: That ad banner. Two ISPs, WorldSpy and
FreeWWWeb, stood out from the pack because of their incredible
openness: They required no banner. In fact, FreeWWWeb would actually
work with Windows' regular Dial-Up Networking software. (WorldSpy
wouldn't; It needed its own proprietary dialer, which would also make
your web browser pop up to its home page whenever you connected.
However, once you closed that browser window, you were ad-free for the
rest of your online session.) Unfortunately, a free ISP with no advertising
has no revenue, and both WorldSpy and FreeWWWeb were quickly
bought out by Juno, the other major free ISP. Meanwhile, NetZero still
stands as the free ISP that comes to most people's minds when they
think of free Internet access, thanks in no small part to their advertising
blitzes and relentless expansion, not to mention support from several big
advertisers. (NetZero did eventually reduce their unlimited free access to
a mere 40 hours a month, however, which sort of killed the deal.)

The ImagiNation Network (INN) Startup Kit: INN no longer exists. In
the interest of historical documentation (especially in light of the fact that
this story was vastly under-reported), a brief history follows:
INN was the only major online service devoted entirely to online gaming.
INN began in 1991 as TSN, or The Sierra Network. At that time it was
completely owned by Sierra On-Line.
On Wednesday, July 28, 1993 AT&T announced it had acquired an
equity position in TSN, an agreement which called for it to be renamed
to INN (the ImagiNation Network).
On Thursday, July 28, 1994 Sierra began discussing selling INN to
AT&T completely.
On an unknown date sometime after, exactly that happened: AT&T
bought out INN. (Attempts at getting more information on this from
AT&T's news archives website were unsuccessful, as AT&T's search
server appears to no longer exist.)
AOL (yes, that AOL) bought INN from AT&T on Tuesday, August 6,
1996.
Until its demise, INN was on the Web at www.inngames.com. Their
Member Service phone number was 1-800-IMAGIN-1.
On Tuesday, June 17, 1997, INN became WorldPlay Entertainment. The
name change was part of major renovations on the AOL Games Channel.
Available at AOL keyword: WorldPlay, the service became a
"pay-per-play" service available only through AOL. It cost $1.99 per
hour, a rate which outraged many as the service only had basic games
such as board and card games which were free on most services. Many
of the games on INN were based on Sierra PC games, including Red
Baron and The Shadow Of Yserbius. These games were not on
WorldPlay.
WorldPlay was on the Web at www.worldplay.com. It is known that this
website was still operating in November of 1998. The website no longer
exists.
One week after this name change, AOL announced it would drop its
extremely popular online RPG Neverwinter Nights, citing "outdated
technology" as the cause. Angry gamers in the AOL community began
a group called "Neverwinter Association of Players," drafting petitions,
newsletters, and letter-writing campaigns - sending so many emails to
CEO Steve Case that his inbox became full. One petition was so long
that it has had to be broken into four separate emails.
Jill Robinson, an organizer who met her fianc through the game, wrote:
"Of all the areas on America Online, Neverwinter Nights truly
exemplifies what Steve Case touts as the real product of AOL -
community. This game is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) multiplayer
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons games around. Some people have been
playing it for all six years it has been in existence. But despite repeated
assurances to the NWN community that AOL cared about the game and
was 'committed' to Neverwinter Nights and its players, AOL is throwing
it out like yesterday's trash."
In September of 1997, Kesmai, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News
Corporation, filed suit against AOL, charging "flagrant violation of
antitrust laws" in online gaming by WorldPlay. AOL denied the charges.
On February 11, 1998, AOL fired 25 of the 60 employees at WorldPlay's
Burlingame, California, office. In addition, all 40 people who were
working on WorldPlay's 3D gaming project, dubbed CyberPark, in
Oakhurst, California, were let go and CyberPark was canceled.
CyberPark had a website at www.cyberpark.com. It was an ambitious
3-D virtual city that aimed to engage visitors with "multiplayer games,
entertainment, and real-world community-building experiences" according
to the news story from AOL Studios (the content-development division
at AOL).
On March 24, 1998, it was announced that AOL was closing down The
Hub (which had been at www.thehub.com), an entertainment service
geared toward college-aged males. In response to this move, Jupiter
Communications analyst Patrick Keane said: "AOL has started to weed
out content ventures. It's expensive to create original content, and AOL
has had a kind of 'I've had it up to here' syndrome after throwing a lot
of money down the hole with these ventures." (For more information,
consult "Internet Games: Five Year Outlook Revenue Models and
Technology Development", a research study from Jupiter
Communications.)
As of this writing (mid-1999), WorldPlay is still available at AOL
keyword: WorldPlay. But it is a shadow of its former TSN and INN self.
Thanks to CNET, the AT&T press archive, and the Wired News archive
for much of the information here.

WinGopher

The WELL Startup Kit

Dow Jones News/Retrieval Service Startup Kit

WinPoET (Windows PPP over Ethernet) 2.0: A client for PPPoE, which
is used for DSL, cable modems, etc. [Wind River Systems]

Incontext Spider

Digiphone CD

Internet Phone

WebPhone

ICQ: An innovative Internet program which lets you talk to other Internet
users without using IRC. It made online "instant messaging" a public
reality (for the most part). (The ICQ homepage is at www.icq.com)
(NOTE: Turn on "Don't Show Announcements" in your ICQ Preferences
to disable that annoying "Announcements" window that pops up every
time you run it.) [Mirabilis]

HearMe For ICQ: A small program for ICQ which allows you to have
live voice conversations with other people on your ICQ list. It's actually
an ActiveX control which you incorporate into your ICQ homepage, so
people can activate it from ICQ by clicking on the little yellow house
next to your name (assuming your ICQ homepage is activated). It's
simple to install and use, which makes it a plus for inexperienced ICQ
users. Its homepage is at http://www.hearme.com/products/vp/tools/icq/
[HearMe]

Qtalka 1.05: An add-on for ICQ which lets you use a microphone to talk
to other ICQ users using voice chat.

Licq 1.0.3: A version of ICQ for Linux, which apparently works pretty
well. Its homepage is at www.licq.org.

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) 4.3.2229 [America Online]

Gooey: A Web browser add-on which lets you chat with other people on
the same website as you if they are also running Gooey. An interesting
concept if it garners enough users to justify getting it. [Hypernix]

WebWhacker [ForeFront]

Explore

Internet In A Box 2.0 [SPRY, Inc.]

Mosaic In A Box 2.0 [SpryNET, Inc.]

Internet Madness

KA9Q: A TCP/IP stack for MS-DOS, and a fairly unique product in this
aspect. KA9Q was made in 1990, long before the Internet's popularity
explosion, and as such must have been fairly amazing software in its
time. It remains the only relatively well-known and well-documented
DOS TCP program. Unfortunately, its functionality today is crippled by
the fact that the fundamental Internet dial-up protocols have changed;
KA9Q relies on a plaintext password authentication system in which the
username and login is send via a plain modem connection, BBS-style
first, before the actual SLIP/PPP exchange begins. As such, it is basically
worthless for use with any modern ISP, nearly all of which use encoded
authentication protocols such as PAP/CHAP these days; KA9Q is an
amazing little piece of software but its usefulness is limited today. It has
a homepage at www.ka9q.net [Phil Karn] (Freeware)

uTOK (User's Tree Of Knowledge) [uTOK]

FileFerret: A tool to quickly search multiple FTP databases for a
filename. Handy when you want to find some obscure shareware or
something like that. [FerretSoft]

EmailFerret: A program which search multiple E-mail registries for a
person's name. Handy when you know somebody's real name and want
to find their e-mail address. [FerretSoft]

Instant Website: Create a website instantly! Easy as pie! An incredibly
hype-y box which looks like one for laundry detergent! [IBM]

Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 [Microsoft]

Apache 1.3.12: An excellent HTTP (Web) server system, probably the
best, and incredibly, it's free. You can't beat something like this. The
Apache website is at www.apache.org. Available for both Unix/Linux
and Win32.

Xitami 2.4c2: Although not as popular or powerful as Apache, Xitami is
a free Web Server which is extremely easy to use. (I can't imagine
software being easier, actually.) For anyone who doesn't know a thing
about administering your own HTTP server, but wants to anyway, this
is the package for you. [iMatix Corp.]

Quarterdeck WebServer [Quarterdeck]

NetComplete Plus 4.0 [NetCom]

Netscape Communicator Pro 4.6: This is, of course, the OTHER Web
browser. [Netscape Communications]

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 (Included With Your Copy Of Windows
95) [Microsoft]

Opera 5.0: An efficient browser which has gained a fair amount of
popularity lately as an alternative to the Big Two Browsers, IE and
Netscape. [Opera Software]

Cookie Stopper 1.01 for MSIE 3.0x: A handy utility which will
automatically deny those cookie confirmation windows when they pop
up on IE 3.0x (the last version to lack automatic cookie rejection). [PKK]
[Freeware]

Microsoft NetMeeting 3.01: A curiously under-hyped Microsoft product
which comes with Internet Explorer. It's a wonder that NetMeeting never
became more famous than it is, considering it's a truly remarkable
videoconferencing program, especially since it's free. Besides being able
to see the people you're conferencing with and talk to them through the
sound card, NetMeeting has a rather innovative little "Whiteboard"
feature, which lets all the parties involved draw together in a basic
Microsoft Paint-style paint program. To be sure, NetMeeting is a fun
program, and the fact that it's free should make it the first program you
look into if you want to do webcamming. [Microsoft]

WebWasher 1.2.2: A program to prevent banner ads from displaying in
your Web browser. This may actually inspire companies to stop putting
those ads on sites. This program's homepage is at www.webwasher.com.
[Freeware]

Mosaic 3.0 For Windows 95/98 (Download Mosaic from
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/) [NCSA]

Lynx 2.8.2 (The Linux Web browser) (Remember, when using Lynx,
press \ (the backslash key) to view the page source HTML code)

PINE (The Linux e-mail editor)

SSH (Secure Shell) 2.0

Sendmail 8.10.1: The definitive mail-sending program for Unix, it's the
one everybody uses. It's available in a freeware open-source version, as
well as a commercial version with added functionality. The free version
is downloadable from www.sendmail.org (actually it links to
ftp.sendmail.org/pub/sendmail), the commercial version is buyable on
www.sendmail.com. (NOTE: Setting up Sendmail requires an M4
program. If you don't have one, download GNU m4 1.4 from
ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4.) [Sendmail, Inc.]

CuteFTP 2.6.1: This is the preferred FTP program among savvy Internet
users. [Alex Kunadze]

WS_FTP Pro 6.0 [Ipswitch]

PuTTY: A free SSH client for Windows. Comprises several products,
including PuTTY itself (the Telnet client), PSFTP (an SFTP, or SSH-FTP
client), and PSCP (an SCP client). The fact that it's open-source and
totally free makes this great stuff. Get it from the official homepage at
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ [Simon Tatham]
(Freeware)

Free Agent 1.21: The freeware version of the popular and excellent
Agent newsgroup reader. [Fort]

NewsXpress 2.01: A good basic Usenet newsgroup reader, although it's
a little TOO basic for some. :) [Ken Ng]

BinaryBoy 1.1 [Freeware]

CRT 2.4 beta 3: This is probably the best Telnet client available. It
definitely is superior to the plain TELNET that comes with Windows 9x.
[VanDyke Technologies]

NetTerm 4.2a: Another worthy Telnet client. [InterSoft]

NetCat 1.10 For UNIX: A Swiss-army knife of TCP connections, capable
of listening on a port for incoming connections and logging any incoming
data to a file, or making at outbound connection and sending data
somewhere (although basically you'd usually use Telnet for the latter
function). It is a fairly basic program, but it gets the job done. Its
command-line nature makes it a useful network debugging and
exploration tool, as well as quite modular and capable of being used in
batch files/shell scripts. [Hobbit/Avian Research]

NetCat 1.10 For Windows (Add -h on the NetCat command line to see
usage help for it)

Trumpet Winsock 3.0 For Windows 3.x: A popular Winsock TCP/IP
driver for versions of Windows prior to Windows 95 (the first version of
Windows to have TCP/IP support built into the OS).

IP Subnet Calculator 3.10: A handy program for calculating information
about IP subnets. Also useful for learning about them. Download it from
http://www.net3group.com/ipcalc.asp [Net3 Group, Inc.] (Freeware)

Ping Plotter 1.00.2: A visual traceroute tool which shows a broken-line
graph of how long each hop takes. [Pete Ness] (Freeware)

DU Meter 2.2: A program which monitors how much your Internet
connection downloads and uploads. This is a function duplicated by the
little modem icon in the system tray, but if Windows Explorer crashes
you lose that icon, so DU Meter could be used as a backup. Download
it from www.dumeter.com [Hagel Technologies]

GetRight 3.2: An Internet downloading program which has the special
capability to resume downloads which stop. This is very handy on those
shaky connections with servers that are overloaded. [HeadLight Software]

Go!Zilla 3.92: A program which does exactly the same thing as
GetRight, but which is not quite as popular. At least, that used to be the
case, but now Go!Zilla actually seems to be more popular, probably
because it's free. (NOTE: This is not to be confused with Mozilla, which
was the original name of Netscape Navigator.) [Aureate Media]
(Freeware)

RealPlayer 8: RealPlayer is the closest to a virus I've ever seen a
legitimate program behave; It automatically adds itself to your registry's
Run section, so it starts in the system tray every time you boot. If you
remove it from the registry, it will automatically add itself every time
you run it. Not only that, it associates more than a dozen file extensions
(including .MP3) with itself every time you run it; If you change the file
associations, RealPlayer will claim them for itself the next time you run
it. [RealNetworks]

SiteSnagger 1.2: A very handy (and free) program for power-surfers
which downloads a complete website (including multimedia components)
and lets you view it offline. Download it from
http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-
bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=000P7Z [Steven E.
Sipe/Ziff-Davis] [Freeware]

Teleport Pro 1.29 (Website at
http://www.tenmax.com/teleport/pro/home.htm) [Tennyson Maxwell
Information Systems, Inc.]

NeoTrace 2.12a: A "graphical traceroute" program, which means it shows
a map depicting where the various hop sites of a traceroute are. Pretty
slick. [NeoWorx]

WAR FTP Daemon 1.70 beta 1 release 4: The preferrred FTP server
daemon, for one simple reason: It's free and very powerful. (OK, that's
two reasons.) [Jgaa's Internet]

Serv-U 2.5: The second most popular FTP server in the industry,
probably because it's easy-to-use. [CatSoft/Deerfield.com]

ProFTPD 1.2.7: A freeware (GPL-licensed) FTP server which is powerful
and flexible. It's available mainly for Linux/Unix platforms, and not in
a Win32 version, although it will work under CygWin. ProFTPD's
official homepage is at www.proftpd.org

Vermillion FTP Daemon 1.23: Another popular and highly configurale
FTP server daemon. [Arcanesoft]

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 [Microsoft]

IRCd: The software of choice for running your own IRC server. (The D
stands for daemon.) IRCd has been released in both a Unix and a
Windows version. (For Windows, get Wircd 4.6.7. It includes
example.conf, which is a sample ircd.conf file.)

DeEnesse 2.11: The coolest DNS server management program I know of.
It makes managing your own DNS server easier, with built-in registration
and other cool features. [cyberspace hq software]

Simple DNS Plus 2.02: Another program which purports to help you run
your DNS server. [JH Software]

CountryCodes: A small, quick program to look up country codes for
domains. Could be handy. Download it from
http://www.empire.net/~jason [Jason DeCarteret] [Freeware]

WinGate 3.0.2: WinGate is a proxy server/firewall software for sharing
an Internet connection. WinGate lets multiple computers over a LAN
share a single computer's Internet connection. Although it was at one
time a very useful and popular program, this function is now duplicated
by the ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) function of Windows 98 SE,
and so WinGate has become effectively obsolete. [Deerfield]

TCPView 1.11: A small utility which shows you what ports you have
open on Windows. This is the only program I've yet seen which shows
you not only what TCP connections are currently established (like
netstat), but also what TCP and UDP ports are currently listening for
connections. Good for checking if you have a trojan, or if your server's
doing what it should. (I have since discovered that you can accomplish
the same thing by using the -a switch with NETSTAT.) Part of the
System Internals collection at www.sysinternals.com. [System Internals]
[Freeware]

Fserv 3.0: A good basic Finger server, with no frills, just good solid
functionality and ease of use, which is good since Finger is a fairly basic
and simple function anyway. [Donald Leavitt/AMAZON Systems]

Search IP 2.1: A basic dedicated DNS lookup utility. It resolves IPs and
tells you how long the lookup took. [Vortex Automatisering]

Universal Whois 1.03a (Download from the Net Services homepage at
www.netservs.com) [Net Services] [Freeware]

DUNCE (Dial-Up Networking Connection Enhancement) 2.52: An
add-on to the Windows 95 Dial-Up Networking system which adds
several useful features which no serious dial-up networker should be
without. Download it from http://www.vecdev.com/dunce.html [Vector
Development] [Freeware]

Internet Mania [Corel]

mIRC 5.81 32bit: Since Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was invented in 1988
by Jarkko Oikarinen (a very Finnish man with a VERY Finnish name)
in Finland, IRC has become a very busy place. It's where you go if
you're at home alone at 3:00 AM and feel like talking to someone. mIRC
is probably the world's most popular IRC client for the PC. It's the
premiere straight-text IRC program. (Download from the Internet as
described under "Particular Downloads From Particular Places", below)
[Khaled Mardam-Bey]

BitchX: This is the preferred IRC client for Linux. Its homepage (where
it can be downloaded for free, along with support files) is at
www.bitchx.org.

ircII: This is the other preferred IRC client for Linux.

Rooms 3.0: A great chat program for those who want something a bit
more big and sophisticated. [ichat]

The Palace: Yet another great chat program. This one's very graphical.
[The Palace]

Virtual Places [Ubique]

VolanoChat [Volano LLC]

Emissary [Wollongong]

Net.Medic 1.2.2: Net.Medic used to be a highly popular Internet
diagnostics program for checking your connection speed to websites and
alerting you to problems with your computer, ISP, the server you're
connecting to, or the routers between you and the server which might
cause the connection to be slowed. It was a relatively impressive and
user-friendly program for power-users. Although it originally cost, it was
later made freeware. The VitalSigns homepage was at
www.vitalsigns.com. However, VitalSigns Software appears to have gone
out of business, and their URL now redirects to a section of Lucent's
website, advertising MyVitalAgent, the successor to Net.Medic.
[VitalSigns Software]

Dr. Spewfy 1.96: This is a little program for Windows which purports
to create a user on IRC with a spoofed hostname. It uses a little-known
trick in IRC's USER command, which allows the IRC client to actually
specify its own hostname. Unfortunately for the would-be spoofer, using
this trick prevents the IRC client from joining channels, sending
messages, or basically doing anything other than being online (and the
client will not be online for long, because it will ping out). However, it
*does* create a user on the IRC server in the sense that all the user's
information, including the spoofed host, will show up on a /whois. This
could be used to create a very short-lived connection which might
impress your friends and fool your enemies with a fancy "spoofed" host.
I'm sure this program has been used to impress some gullible newbies,
but it's useless for actual IRCing. [\\StOrM\\]

e-ttachment Opener: Get this program from Conversions Plus 4.5 (see
description under that product for a description of this one). [DataViz]

Eudora Mail Pro CommCenter 4.0 [Qualcomm]

Eudora Pro Email 4.2 [Qualcomm]

Pegasus Mail 3.12c: An excellent e-mail program which has won itself
a position as an alternative to the e-mail readers which come with the
major web browsers. It's relatively small (by today's program standards),
and free, like all the best Internet software. Download it from
www.pmail.com (formerly www.pegasus.usa.com). [David Harris]
(Freeware)

Microsoft Outlook 98 [Microsoft]

DBXtract 3.50: A utility for Outlook Express 5.0 and above, which use
binary DBX files to store e-mail. If a DBX file gets corrupted, Outlook
Express usually won't be able to read it. That's where DBXtract comes
in; It extracts your e-mail from DBX files so you can read them when
OE can't. (Freeware)

Microsoft Exchange 4.0.410.59: Microsoft's failed attempt at an e-
mail/fax program. It came with Windows 95 and was quickly abandoned;
It did not come with Windows 98 or later versions. However, you can
still find the Windows Messaging components (including Microsoft Fax)
on the Windows 98 CD in the \TOOLS\oldwin95\message directory.
[Microsoft]

Hotmail Popper 2.1.0: When it first started, Hotmail was a revolutionary
idea; It allowed you to check your e-mail from a web browser. This
meant that you didn't need an e-mail client or any software set-up at all.
You could just run a web browser from any Internet-connected computer,
log in, and you'd be reading e-mail right away. It was a great idea, and
that's why Hotmail ended up being the first of innumerable free web-
based e-mail services (all of which were Hotmail imitators), but the idea
also became a problem for some people. There were people who relied
on their Hotmail accounts who wanted the option of using a real, POP-
based e-mail client with their e-mail, and Hotmail didn't provide that
option. It was in response to this need that Hotmail Popper was created:
A program that allows you to read your Hotmail e-mail in a regular
POP-based e-mail client. It's free and it works. The official homepage
for it is at http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/ [Boolean Dream, Inc.]
(Freeware)

Majordomo: Majordomo conveniently describes itself: "Majordomo is a
program which automates the management of Internet mailing lists.
Commands are sent to Majordomo via electronic mail to handle all
aspects of list maintenance. Once a list is set up, virtually all operations
can be performed remotely by email, requiring no intervention upon the
postmaster of the list site." The homepage is at
www.greatcircle.com/majordomo

Internet: See Information Superhighway

Job: See Career

Karaoke:

PC Karaoke

Soft Karaoke

Turtle Beach MIDI Karaoke

Lamer Programs:

[NOTE: The programs listed below are programs which have no practical
use in the world other than to cause damage. Not all so-called "hacker
tools" are necessarily placed in this category; Programs such as war-
dialers and port scanners have legitimate uses in the field of exploration,
and even if they did not, they are infinitely more meaningful and
harmless than "script kiddie" tools such as these. Any programs which
are about the innocent, curious fun of exploration which many call
"hacking" are not listed here; If anywhere, they are probably listed under
the Security section. The programs in this section are entirely devoid of
merit or redeeming value, and I list them here purely for reference value.
I encourage everyone to stay away from these programs, not only
because their function is illegal, but also because that kind of so-called
"hacking" is as lame as any.]

TFN (Tribe Flood Network): This is the DDoS program which was used
to launch those infamous attacks against major websites like Yahoo!,
eBay, amazon.com, CNN, and buy.com in February of the year 2000.
Programmed by a young German (h/cr)acker calling himself Mixter, TFN
became infamous as well, and a symbol of the new so-called "hacker"
age in which destructive and intellectually void tactics became the norm
for wannabe script kiddies.

Trinoo

Mstream

Language:

Universal Translator: VERY versatile language translation program.
Japanese, Russian, Korean, Spanish, Danish, French, Italian, Dutch,
Greek, Swahili, German, Norwegian, Hungarian, Romanian, Chinese,
Czech, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Tahi, Swedish, and even
bizarre and legendary languages like Latin, Esperanto and (believe it not)
English. 25 languages in all. The first and last language translator most
people will ever need. [LanguageForce Inc.]

Berlitz For Business-Japanese

Berlitz Live!: Japanese, Windows CD [Sierra On-Line]

Berlitz Live!: Spanish, Windows CD [Sierra On-Line]

EZ Language

VocabuLearn/ce 2.0 English/French Level I [Penton Overseas]

VocabuLearn/ce 2.0 English/French Level II [Penton Overseas]

Tense Tutor English/Spanish

Tense Tutor English/German

Tense Tutor English/Italian

Tense Tutor English/French

Pronunciation Tutor English/Spanish

Pronunciation Tutor English/French

Transparent Language 2.0

Power Translator 2.0

Language Assistant English/Spanish

Language Assistant English/French

Language Assistant English/German

Language Assistant English/Italian

Word Torture English/Spanish

Word Torture English/German

Word Torture English/French

Word Torture English/Italian

Translate It! English/Spanish

Translate It! English/German

Translate It! English/French

Word Translator U.S. English

Word Translator British English

Word Translator English/Spanish

Think & Talk French

Think & Talk Spanish

Think & Talk Italian

Think & Talk German

Spanish: En Marcha [Mentorom Multimedia]

French For The Real World [Knowledge Adventure]

Spanish For The Real World [Knowledge Adventure]

Triple Play Plus Spanish [Syracuse Language Systems]

Who Is Oscar Lake?: A language-tutoring program disguised as an
adventure game. Very innovative and interesting, and it works as far as
the language teaching goes too. [Language Publications Interactive]

Legal/Law:

Professional Lawfirm

It's Legal

Kiplinger's Home Legal Advisor 2.0 [Block Financial Corporation]

WillPower

WillMaker 5

Home Lawyer

Lottery:

Smart Luck Advantage Plus/Computer Wheel Combo

Maps:

Street Atlas USA 7.0

Automap Road Atlas

Automap Pro

Automap Streets

Automap Destination Golf

Automap Destination Ski

Automap Destination Europe

Automap Destination Campground

Global Explorer

US Atlas 4

World Atlas 4

MapInfo Professional [MapInfo]

Microsoft MapPoint 2001 [Microsoft]

Personal Travel Guide With Destination Database

Rand McNally Tripmaker 1999 Edition

National Geographic Maps [Mindscape]

Starry Night Deluxe: A very impressive astronomy mapper which will
delight enthusiasts but will prove too complex for those who aren't
serious astronomers. [Sienna Software]

Everywhere USA Travel Guide For Windows

Picture Atlas Of The World

Mathematics:

Mathcad 3.1 For Windows

Mathematica 5 [Wolfram Research, Inc.]

Mathematica 3.0 For Windows

Maple 9.5 [Maplesoft]

MATLAB 7.0.1 [The MathWorks, Inc.]

Statistica '99: The most powerful computer statistics program I've ever
seen. If you work with statistics, get it. [StatSoft]

SPSS 8.0 For Windows: Another very powerful statistics program.
[SPSS]

StatView [Abacus Concepts]

Medical:

Doctor Schueler's Home Medical Advisor Pro CD [Pixel Perfect]

Your Medical Records

Mayo Clinic Family Pharmacist

Mayo Clinic Family Health Book

PharmAssist

Medical Matters For Windows

Family HealthTracker

The Corner Drugstore

Mayo Clinic

The Family Doctor, 4th Edition

Medical HouseCall

Miscellaneous Productivity:

High-Q: Wanna check your IQ at home? Try this program! It's fun, too.

ITTutor 2000: A free tutor for IT, which also has free add-on modules
for teaching additional topics. This is the best program of its kind that
I've seen yet, although it needs a lot more modules to really be useful.
You can get more info and download the program at www.ittutor.com
[The Technology Corporation]

Dress Shop 2.0

Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover: The Collection [The Learning
Company]

Cameron's Fine Art Poster Catalog On CD-ROM

Alpha FOUR 2.0

Dennis Miller, That's News To Me: A bunch of news stories from
Dennis Miller. Either a really cool or a really boring program, depending
on how you look at it.

Dennis Miller, That's Geek To Me: Features Miller's humorous
definitions of a collection of computer and multimedia terms. (Not meant
for actual computer instruction!)

Password Master: An innovative software program which stores
confidential information. It incorporates a unique "hinting" system which
gives a hint rather than the actual password (or whatever confidential
data you use). [International Systems Inc.]

Revelation 1.1: A semi-infamous free program to reveal the text in
"hidden" fields (those used for passwords, where entered text appears as
a line of asterisks, like *******). Presumably "intended" for use when
you forget your password, but I can think of other uses. It's available for
download at www.snadboy.com. [SnadBoy Software] [Freeware]

The Complete Herman Collection: A collection of more than 5,000
hilarious cartoons from Jim Unger's famous comic strip Herman. [Corel]

Totally MAD: A complete archive of every issue of MAD Magazine on
7 CDs. If you're a fan of the magazine, you obviously want this.
[Broderbund]

WinRoach 2.1: Sends cockroaches (up to 10 at a time) scurrying around
your Windows desktop. You can crunch these pests with the mouse. Fun!
Actually makes it fun and exciting to move, resize, or close windows!
[New Generation Software] (Shareware)

Kewl Talker 2.0: A handy program for lamers; It converts normal text
into StuDLyCaPs and h1g|-| 4$(||. [Andrew Moorcroft]

Metricus: A simple Metric-American measurement conversion program
with a nice design. It's a simple idea but I haven't seen many programs
for this purpose. [Jerry L. Hammock] [Freeware]

Lower Your Score With Tom Kite: Shot Making

Lower Your Score With Tom Kite: The Full Swing And Putting

Textpad 3.2.5 32-bit: For those not satisfied with Windows' built-in
ASCII text editor Notepad, you can use this high-end one. [Helios
Software Solutions]

EMACS (from Editing MACroS): One of the most famous, versatile, and
used programs in the Unix community. On the surface, EMACS is a text
editor. Big deal, you say. But EMACS is an incredibly flexible program,
doing things you'd never expect from a text editor, including performing
as an e-mail reader, shell, and complete LISP interpreter. EMACS is less
of a text editor and more of a program which can do anything any other
program can do. Indeed, some people spend most of their computer time
in EMACS, and it's been called "The operating system cleverly disguised
as a text editor".

vim: vi (short for "visual") is the most popular text editor for UNIX,
probably because it's a lot simpler than EMACS. vim (a contraction of
"vi improved") is basically vi with some cosmetic additions.

Value Vision

Ultimate Trivia CD [Microforum]

Ultimate Trivia CD II [Microforum]

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus CD: This computerized
version features John Gray (author of the book of the same name)
offering advice on how to be popular with anyone of the opposite sex.
[HarperCollins]

Thoughtful Moments

Instant Credit

Intelligent Computer Buyer

Intelligent New Car Buyer

SAW (Software Audio Workshop)

Echo Lake: With Echo Lake, you can create your own electronic family
album. A terrific program, which has been declared a killer app.

Fractal Ecstasy

The Turtle Tools For Multimedia

IQ For Windows 95

Eliza: The original "computer as psychiatrist" program which spawned
a whole genre of such software, none of which has been really successful
in passing a Turing test. However, there are WAY better efforts than this
thing. (A fairly standard version of ELIZA is built into some versions of
EMACS. It can be accessed by pressing M-x (that's ALT-x for PCs)
(make sure the x is lowercase), then typing "doctor" (without the
quotation marks) and pressing ENTER.)

JIT Learning Windows 95 CD

Accent Express

Business Plan Pro

Learn To Do Windows 95 With John C. Dvorak

Universal Transformation Suite [Data Junction]

EstimatorPlus

Quayle Quotes

Just For Laughs #1 [Shareware]

Zip Code Finder [Shareware]

SmartPad [Softblox]

Dimension 4 Version 4.3: A fine piece of time synchronization software
for Windows 9x. It has a list of servers on the Internet which you can
use to set your PC's clock to within 50 milliseconds of the "real" time.
D4 is relatively simple, and there are more sophisticated and feature-
heavy programs out there to do the same task, but D4 is free, and it gets
the job done. It sits in the system tray, not making any trouble but
conveniently synchronizing your clock automatically every time you go
online. What more could you want from a handy free utility? Download
it from the official homepage at http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/
(Turn on "Hide when minimized" to keep D4 off the taskbar and in the
system tray, where it's available but out of your way.) [Thinking Man
Software/Rob Chambers] (Freeware)

WinZones: A small program which will show the current time for any
time zone in the world. [Extend]

Tardis 4.0: This is the best time synchronizer for Windows. [H.C
Mingham-Smith]

Post-It Software Notes [3M]

Poser 4: This program does nothing but display human figures. It
displays them in just about every pose and type imaginable. Quite a
useful tool for digital artists and animators. [MetaCreations Corp.]

Napster 2.0 Beta 5a: The infamous MP3 searching online program which
got sued countless times by countless recording industry artists and
companies. [Napster, Inc.]

Morpheus 1.3: The spiritual successor to Napster. [MusicCity]

Gnutella 0.56: A small program touting itself as "file sharing for a new
generation", Gnutella is a peer-to-peer file sharing program which lets
you search through the massive Gnutella network for files wich other
people have decided to share with the world. It's probably the largest
general-purpose file sharing program on the Net. Unfortunately, its peer-
to-peer nature makes it incredibly slow. Get it from the official Gnutella
homepage at http://gnutella.wego.com/

Tuxedo: A highly-regarded transaction processing monitor for Unix.
[BEA Systems]

Ingenium: A life-insurance administration software package. [Solcorp]

Money: See Financial

Morphing:

WinImages: Morph

HSC Digital MORPH

Movie Reference:

Microsoft Cinemania 97 [Microsoft]

Video Hound Multimedia

All-Movie Guide [Corel]

Movie Select

Mega Movie Guide

Blockbuster Video Guide To Movies & Videos [Creative Multimedia]

MetaMorf [Virgin]

Multimedia Authoring: See Presentations

Multimedia Exhibition:

Ceremony Of Innocence [Real World Multimedia]

Professor Multimedia

The Guided Tour Of Multimedia

Multimedia Players:

QuickTime 4 [Apple]

Music:

Encore For Windows: Almost as good as Finale, and lots faster.
[Passport Technologies]

The Musical World Of Professor Piccolo [Opcode Interactive]

Finale 3.5: A very high-powered (and rather slow) music program.
[Coda]

Allegro 2000: The new MIDI-making program from Coda, the makers
of Finale, the best-selling music notation software. [Coda Music]

MusE 0.7.0: A free MIDI and audio editing package for Linux. It's
popular, powerful, and open-source. [Werner Schweer] (Freeware)

Music Construction Set [Electronic Arts]

Cakewalk Professional 8 [Twelve Tone Systems]

Cakewalk Home Studio 9 [Twelve Tone Systems]

Cakewalk Pro Audio Deluxe 9 [Twelve Tone Systems]

Cakewalk Express 8 [Twelve Tone Systems]

Maestro V [Synchrome Technology]

The Miracle Piano Teaching System

Music Lessons For Windows

GuitarWorks Advanced Edition

Power Cords

Anvil Studio 1998.09.05: An absolutely incredible MIDI editing studio
which is aimed at the beginner. Easy to use, with a nice interface and no
really advanced features. The fact that this program is freeware is totally
unbelievable. You've got to see this to believe it. This program's
homepage is at www.anvilstudio.com. [Willow Software]

JAZZ++ for Windows 4.0.0: A full-featured MIDI creation program,
JAZZ++ has always been good, but now it's even better: It's become
open-source, free, and available for both Win9x and Linux. It doesn't get
much better than that. The official homepage is at www.jazzware.com
Quick tutorial on getting started with JAZZ++: To open up the piano
window for a particular track (probably the easiest way to edit the notes
in a track), right-click in the horizontal row for a track (don't click in the
gray space on the left side of the screen, click in the white space). This
will bring up that track's piano window. Once there, click on the fourth
button on the toolbar, the one with a picture of a note under a plus sign
and a minus sign. This is the cut/paste event tool, and it's probably the
easiest way to control events in the piano window. Now, using the mouse
cursor, you can add or remove notes on the piano scale using the left
mouse button, and control their length by clicking and dragging with the
right mouse button. You can also click the piano keys on the left column
to hear exactly what note a particular row is. (NOTE: If you have
Windows set to play sounds when programs open or close, JAZZ++ will
probably choke on the WAVs playing when it runs, if you try to use it
with your wave-table synth. If this happens, disable those sound effects
for Windows while you're running JAZZ++.) [Andreas Voss and Per
Sigmond]

The Jazz Pianist

Master Tracks Pro 3.97

Sequencer Plus Gold 4.06

Ballade 2.51

MusicTime 2.0 [Passport Technologies]

Dr. T's Sing-A-Long [Dr. T's Music Software]

SuperJAM!

Boom Box

Soloist

Rock Rap 'N Roll

Rock And Bach Studio

Melody Maestro

Trax [Passport Technologies]

EasyKeys [The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks]

MIDISCAN [Musitek]

Musicware Piano [Musicware]

Midisoft Sound Explorer CD-ROM [Midisoft]

MIDI Kit With Recording Session [Midisoft]

Music Mentor With Recording Session [Midisoft]

Play Piano 2.0 [Midisoft]

PowerTracks Pro [PG Music]

Band In A Box 7.0 [PG Music]

Hotz Trax [Hotz Corp.]

Jammer

MIDI Made Music For Windows [Shareware]

MIDIART [Shareware]

Noteworthy Player [Freeware]

Drums Professional

Digital Orchestrator [Voyetra]

Music Write CD

Music Studio 3.0 [Magix]

Music Maker Deluxe 3.0 [Magix]

Maestro [LaserMedia]

Mixman Studio Pro [Mixman Technologies]

GrooveMaker [Ilio]

Acid [Sound Foundry]

ReBirth RB-338 [Steinberg/Propellerhead Software]

Seq-303 [Techno Toys] [Shareware]

Arp-X8 [Techno Toys] [Shareware]

NewBeat

Total Joplin

David Bowie's Jump: Yes, rock star David Bowie has a CD-ROM. It lets
you create your own rock video.

Peter Gabriel's Xplora 1: Yes, rock star Peter Gabriel has a CD-ROM.
It lets you read a lot about him.

eMedia Guitar Method 1.2 [eMedia]

Classic Rock Guitar, Volume 1 [Ubi Soft]

Classic Rock Guitar, Volume 2 [Ubi Soft]

Acid Music

Acid Rock

Acid DJ

Guitropolis [Alfred Music]

Guitar 101 [G-Vox] [If you're really serious about playing guitar, also
get G-Vox's optional guitar pickup, which attaches to just about any
steel-string guitar and lets the computer pick up the notes you play]

Kid Riffs [IBM]

Morton Subotnick's Making Music [Voyager]

Music Reference:

Music Central 96: Get the low-down on thousands of popular music
albums and artists. This does for music what Cinemania did for movies.
[Microsoft]

Under The Covers [Graphic Zone]

Negotiation:

Winfluence

Networking, Client-Server: See Also Network Operating Systems Above

BorderManager [Novell]

Lotus Domino R5 [Lotus]

Microsoft Proxy Server 2.0 [Microsoft]

Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 [Microsoft]

DS Expert 2.2 [NetPRO Computing]

ServerMagic 3.0 [Power Quest (PQ)]

Networking, Miscellaneous:

cc:Mail 4.02 For DOS [Lotus]

cc:Mail 6.0 [Lotus]

CyberManage [Wipro Ltd.]

PC Inspector: If you're a network administrator, you need a reporting
product. And what could be better than getting one free? PC Inspector
is a great tool for networks, and it's freely available for download at
www.fluke.com/nettools. [Fluke Corp.]

Network Inspector 4.0 [Fluke]

PC/TCP: A cool add-on which lets you use TCP/IP LANs in MS-DOS.
Who says you need Windows to do TCP networking? [ftp
Software/NetManage]

Networking, Peer-To-Peer:

One-Man-LAN (For Home Use)

MainLanEasy

Neural Networks:

BrainMaker Professional MMX 3.7: Ranks among the most astounding
software products ever. BrainMaker is neural network software. If you
don't know what a neural network is, basically it's a computer network
which attempts to replicate a human brain. It works and "thinks" much
as a brain does. It works surprisingly well. The program is expensive, but
it is incredible. It must be seen to be believed. [California Scientific
Software]

Neugents: Another neural network software package from a company
which has long been known for its fine software. [Computer Associates]

OCR:

NeuroTalker OCR [International Neural Machines]

OmniPage Pro 10 [Caere]

Pagis Pro 2.0 [Xerox]

TextBridge Pro 98 [Xerox/ScanSoft]

TextBridge Pro 9.0 [Xerox/ScanSoft]

TextReader [IBM]

Officework:

Cruiser [Connectware]

Offline Mail Readers:

BlueWave Offline Mail Reader For DOS 2.30

SLMR (Silly Little Mail Reader) 2.1

OLX (Offline Xpress)

Painting/Photo Editing:

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 [Adobe]

Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home Edition 4.0 [Adobe]

Corel Photo-Paint 9 [Corel]

Photo Points 7.0 [Corel] [Does this product exist, or is it a confusion
with Photo-Paint?]

PhotoFinish

PhotoImpact 6: A resounding product which gives even the robust
Photoshop a run for its money. [Ulead Systems]

Painter 7: Although it gained a fair amount of popularity among home
users in the mid-1990s, Painter never extended much beyond the home
market. Some photo editing professionals, however, swear that Painter is
more powerful than the industry standard of Adobe Photoshop.
[procreate; Originally made by MetaCreations (Formerly Fractal Design),
who sold it to Corel, who in turn palmed it off to procreate]

Fractal Design Painter X2 [MetaCreations] [Formerly Fractal Design]

Fractal Design Dabbler 2.0: A scaled-down (and cheaper) version of
Painter. Also includes extensive instruction in drawing well, which
Painter doesn't. [MetaCreations] [Formerly Fractal Design]

DeluxePaint II Enhanced [Electronic Arts]

PhotoSuite III Platinum Edition [MGI Software]

PhotoStudio 2 [ArcSoft]

Gray F/X: A terrific image touch-up program with one of the worst user
interfaces in the world.

Paint Shop Pro 8.0 [Jasc Software]

Fireworks 3 [Macromedia]

NeoPaint Pro Pack: An excellent DOS paint program.

NeoPaint 3.2a [Neosoft]

ImagEdit 2.0 [IBM]

Picture Publisher 10, Professional Edition [Micrografx]

PhotoWorks

Paintworks Gold [Activision]

Picture It! 2000: A relatively lame photo-editing program. [Microsoft]

Kai's Power Goo [MetaCreations] [Formerly Fractal Design]

Kai's Photo Soap [MetaCreations] [Formerly Fractal Design]

Personal And Professional Development:

Connect For Success

Sell To Needs

Relate With Ease

Decide For Sure

Pets:

Wizard Of Dogs [WildWood Interactive]

PIM:

Ascend 4.0: The best PIM I've ever seen. Some people have gone so far
as to say they can't live without it. [Franklin Quest]

Ascend 97 [Franklin Covey]

Sidekick 98 [Starfish Software]

Lotus Organizer 6.0 [Lotus]

Lotus Notes R5: Originally marketed as a PIM, Lotus Notes has now
established itself as one of the premier groupware software packages,
simply because it was one of the oldest. [Lotus]

Day-Timer Organizer 2000: Yeah! The world-famous Day-Timer pocket
paper-type organizers have finally come to the computer, and it was
worth the wait. [Day-Timer Technologies]

OnTime

OnTime For Windows

PackRat 4.0 [Polaris]

Lotus Agenda

Ecco Professional 4.0 [NetManage]

The Far Side Daily Planner And Calendar Publisher [Delrina
Corporation]

Dilbert: Not Just A Calendar

Postage Software: (Believe it or not)

Personal Post Office For The PC [Pitney Bowes]

PostagePlus [Saranac Software]

Presentations:

Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0

Freelance Graphics 97 [Lotus]

IconAuthor

Multimedia ToolBook

Authorware Professional For Windows

MediaStudio

ToolBook 1.5

HyperStudio [Roger Wagner Publishing]

Compel 2.0

VZ Programmer 2.0

Thinx 1.1B

Spinnaker PLUS For Windows 2.5

Realizer

ObjectVision For Windows 2.0

SUPER Show & Tell

WordPerfect Presentations 2.0 For Windows

Q-Media 1.2

Harvard Graphics 2.0 For Windows [Software Publishing]

Bravo! 2.0

Aldus Persuasion For Windows 2.1

Macromedia Action! 3.0 For Windows

The Multimedia Workshop

ASAP For Windows [Software Publishing Corporation]

Hollywood [Claris]

Charisma 2.1 For Windows [Micrografx]

Macromedia Director 7 [Macromedia]

Macromedia Freehand [Macromedia]

Macromedia Deck II [Macromedia]

Printing:

Avery LabelPro For Windows [Avery]

Claris Easy Business Cars For Windows

Corel Print House 1.1 [Corel]

The Newsroom [Springboard Software]

Print Artist 4.0 Gold [Sierra On-Line]

PrintMaster Platinum 7.0 [Mindscape]

Print Shop Deluxe Ensemble III [Broderbund]

Print Shop Deluxe 11 [Broderbund]

The Print Shop Deluxe Version 10 [Mattel]

Photocopier 2.11: A free utility which lets you use your computer like
a photocopier: It scans directly from the scanner into the printer, without
you having to scan into an imaging program and then print from there.
Can be handy if you need to do this occasionally, and the interface is
quite pleasant and easy-to-use (it looks just like a real photocopier panel).
[Nico Cuppen] [Freeware]

Programming: See Also Hex Editors

di-ogix With Debugger

Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 Professional Version [Microsoft]

Borland Turbo C [Borland]

Borland Turbo C++ 3.0 [Inprise (Formerly Borland)]

Borland C++ 4.0 Professional Version [Inprise (Formerly Borland)]

DJGPP 2.11: This is one of the most commonly-used C/C++ compilers
for MS-DOS/Windows systems... It includes GCC (GNU C Compiler)
and GPP (GNU C++ compiler). Download it from the official DJGPP
homepage at http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

GCC: The famous GNU C compiler, which just about every Linux
system needs. It's downloadable from ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc

g77 0.5.23: The freeware Fortran compiler from the good old GNU
project. Get it from ftp.gnu.org/gnu/g77

LCC-Win32: The number of compilers that can make Windows
executables is unbelievably low. And the few that do exist are almost
exclusively commercial. LCC is the only major stand-alone C compiler
in existence which can make Windows executables. Although it's a little
tricky to use, it's easy enough. Its homepage is at
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/. To use LCC, first make your
C/C++ source code and put it into text file format in a working directory.
Choose "Create" from the LCC's Project menu, and ensure "Windows
executable" is selected for what to create. Load the source file and press
F9. The Windows executable will be made. [Jacob Navia]

Win32 SDK (Software Developer's Kit)/Win32 Online Help: A huge
collection of all the internal functions of 32-bit Windows, a definite
necessity for anyone who writes Windows 9x applications. [Microsoft]

BinaryWork DLL Viewer 1.0.7: If you're a casual Windows
programmer, you've probably wondered at times how you can view a
listing of the functions inside a DLL. The answer, quite simply, is that
there is no simple way to do so with the tools that come with Windows;
You need third-party software to do it. Microsoft explains how to do it
with some of their development tools, but if you want a third-party
solution, BinaryWork DLL Viewer will show you the goods inside any
normal DLL file. Before version 1.0.7, this program was known as
Maquisistem DLL Viewer 1.0.6, but Maquisistem appears to have
changed its name to BinaryWork Corp. The Maquisistem homepage is
still up at http://maquisistem.tripod.com, although it is full of references
to BinaryWork, whose homepage is at http://www.binarywork.net.
(Shareware)

PEBrowse Professional 7.4: A brilliant program that allows you to view
the contents of Windows' Portable Executable (PE) files, most notably
.EXE, .DLL, and .OCX files. With PEBrowse, not only can you see a list
of the functions in a DLL, you can even view the code within those
functions. (Functions in DLLs are listed under "Exports" in the program.)
PEBrowse is a wonderful tool with a great interface, and like all truly
great software, it's free. Download it from www.smidgeonsoft.com
[Russell Osterlund] (Freeware)

W32Dasm 8.9: The industry standard in Windows disassemblers. It's big
and bloated. [URSoftware Co.]

Windows Disassembler 1.07b: A somewhat lower-calibre Windows
disassembler, but it's clean, efficient, and easy to use. [Eric Grass]

Microsoft Visual J++: Microsoft's Java compiler, following the tradition
of its definitive Visual C++ compiler. [Microsoft]

Soft-ICE 2.52 [Nu-Mega Technologies, Inc.]

Soft-ICE For Windows [Nu-Mega Technologies, Inc.]

At Ease With Computer Programming 1.4: A unique approach to
teaching programming theory, which focuses more on the thinking
process than the computer science aspect. If you're a right-brain person
this may be a good introduction to the world of programming.
[Synfoncis/Dominant Systems]

Rational Rose: A "model-driven development tool" which uses UML
(Unified Modeling Language). [Rational Corp.]

HiProf 1.01 [TracePoint Technology Inc.]

Visual Quantify [Pure Atria Corp.]

VTune 2.4 [Intel]

Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0 for DOS [Inprise (Formerly Borland)]

Borland Turbo Pascal 1.5 for Windows [Inprise (Formerly Borland)]

Pacific C 7.45 For MS-DOS: This is a quality product which is probably
the best shareware C compiler for the PC. [HI-TECH Software]
[Shareware]

PCalc 1.10: Billing itself as the ultimate programmer's calculator, this is
a potentially handy utility which will evaluate any expressions you type
into it. It has the ability to store variables, which you can then use in
later equations. It's freeware, too. Download it from www.analogx.com
[AnalogX]

ActiveX Template Library (ATL) 2.0 [Microsoft]

BugTrapper 2.0 [MuTek Solutions]

YACC [Mortice Kern Systems]

Lex [Mortice Kern Systems]

Delphi 5 Professional [Inprise (Formerly Borland)]

FPKPascal 1.0.6: This is an excellent Pascal compiler, almost on a par
with Turbo Pascal, and amazingly, it's freeware. FPKPascal's homepage
is at http://www.brain.uni-freiburg.de/~klaus/fpc/ (or www.freepascal.org)

JDK (Java Development Kit) 1.2: This is Sun's official set of programs
for making and running Java applications and applets. It's freely
downloadable from the official Java site at java.sun.com. [Sun]
[Freeware]

Visual Caf Pro: An excellent Java compiler, from the company that
makes the Norton Utilities. [Symantec]

Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.5: Another one of those old little treasures
which is really incredible... QuickBASIC is like QBASIC which comes
with MS-DOS, but QuickBASIC adds a few important features, most
notably the ability to create stand-alone .EXE versions of the programs
you write. It's hard to find now, because it's considered commercial
software so it's illegal to copy, but it's far too old to find in any software
store. But if you can get it, it is something any serious BASIC
programmer will want to have! If you are serious about programming in
BASIC you must get QuickBASIC 4.5, somehow... (Of course, make
sure you get only version 4.5... All previous versions are non-standard
now.) [Microsoft]

PowerBASIC 3.0 [Bob Zale]

Microsoft Visual Basic 1.00 For Windows 3.0: Released in 1991, the
first version of Visual Basic made it ridiculously easy to make your own
Windows applications, by letting you drag-and-drop windows, buttons,
scroll bars, etc. and use a BASIC-like programming language to control
what they did. It became a big hit, and is still an important "language"
today. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0: VB3 was the last efficient Visual Basic,
before VB became a huge tangled mess of DLLs and bloatware. (4.0
came out right after Windows 95, and was split into 16-bit and 32-bit
support; Everything after that was calibrated for the 32-bit world of
Win9x excess.) [Microsoft]

Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 (Available in 3 versions: $100 Learner's
Edition, $500 Professional Edition, or $1,200 Enterprise Edition)
[Microsoft]

Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Fortran [Microsoft]

Microsoft Cobol-80 [Microsoft]

Project CobCy 0.4.1: A freeware COBOL compiler for Linux.

Deskware COBOL 0.007: A freeware COBOL interpreter for Linux.

g77dos: The g77 GNU Fortran compiler, coupled with the EMX DOS
extender, which lets you use g77 as an MS-DOS program. This should
probably be your tool of choice if you're looking for a free Fortran
compiler for DOS. g77dos is available from
ftp://ftp.star.le.ac.uk/pub/fortran/ (Freeware)

Compaq Visual Fortran 6.1A For Windows [Compaq] (Formerly Digital
Visual Fortran, from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC))

Forte Fortran [Sun Microsystems]

HP Fortran 90 [Hewlett-Packard]

FortranPlus, Version 2 (Available for both Windows and Linux) [N.A.
Software]

XL Fortran For AIX, Version 7.1 [IBM]

XL High Performance Fortran For AIX [IBM]

BC-FORTRAN77 1.3b: A Fortran compiler for DOS from Germany,
which is clunky and inefficient, but notable because it's the only
freeware Fortran compiler for DOS. [Andre Koestli]

Personal Fortran PF77L [Lahey]

uIP: Short for "micro IP", uIP is a tiny TCP/IP stack for 8- and 16-bit
computers. It is a popular choice among Commodore 64 enthusiasts who
want to connect their C64s to the Internet, and it really works, although
you won't exactly be playing Unreal Tournament online with it. It was
meant for use with the CC65 compiler, a free C compiler for similar
platforms; You'll need to get CC65 from its official hompage at
http://www.cc65.org to compile uIP. uIP's official homepage is at
http://dunkels.com/adam/uip [Adam Dunkels] (Freeware)

CC65: A freeware C compiler for the 65XX CPU family (which
comprises mainly the 6502 and the 6510). CC65 itself does not actually
run on the 8-bit computer platform; Instead, you run the compiler on
your PC, then it generates the binary executable which you can then run
on the 65XX-based system. To use CC65, you must therefore download
two files from the site: One is the actual compiler executable for the PC.
This would be, for example, something like cc65-win32-x.x.x.zip if you
are using Win32 to run CC65. The second file is the system-specific
libraries for the target platform. This would be, for example, cc65-c64-
x.x.x.zip if you want to make binaries for the Commodore 64. Once you
have downloaded both the files you need, unzip them to the same
directory, and create your C source files in the \lib subdirectory under the
main CC65 directory. From that directory, type "..\bin\cc65 foo.c" to
compile the C source (where foo.c is your C source file), then "..\bin\cl65
foo.s" to link the resultant object file. The result should be a file called,
simply, "foo" (without any extension) which is the executable that you
can use. Get CC65 from the official homepage at http://www.cc65.org
[Uz]

FPP (Flash PIC Programmer) 0.9: From David Tait, one of the best-
known sources on the Web for information about programming PIC
microcontrollers, comes this simple and free utility for programming
these microcontrollers through your PC's serial or parallel ports. It comes
with graphics showing how to connect the chips, and it lets you load the
PIC code as a HEX file to be burned onto the chip. A great tool for
those who don't want to spend a few hundred bucks on a dedicated PIC
programmer. [David Tait] (Freeware)

WinCUPL 5.0: A program for programming PLDs (Programmable Logic
Devices) and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays).

Micro-C PC Release 3.21: A C compiler for DOS which is notable for
two reasons: It's freeware, and it makes incredibly small compiled
executables. Available for download from www.dunfield.com. [Dave
Dunfield/Dunfield Development Systems (DDS)]

PCC (Personal C Compiler): A small, old shareware C compiler for DOS
which also makes small compiled code, but with no other advantages.
Not bad, but Micro-C is free (thus, cheaper), newer, and more
compatible.

Allegro Common LISP 5.0 For Windows

CMU Common LISP, Release 18a

XLISP-PLUS 2.1e For DOS

XLISP-PLUS 2.1e For Windows 3.1

PC-LISP 3.0 [Peter Ashwood-Smith]

CodeWright 6.0e: A programming editor which purports to make
programming simpler and increase your productivity. Considering that
most of your coding time is spent in an editor writing code, it behooves
programmers to get a solid editor which makes their job easier.
CodeWright is widely regarded as the best major-name programming
editor. [Starbase (Formerly Premia Corp.)]

WinTG: Turtle Graphics For Windows: This is a cute and simple
Windows Logo program. It works well for beginners and children.
[NoodleSoft/Y. Tosa]

Berkeley Logo 4.6: The only authoritative Logo program, this is a
standard which every serious Logo programmer should have. [The
Regents Of The University Of California]

A86 4.05 & D86 4.05 (Download from the Internet as described below
under "Particular Downloads From Particular Places"): This is not only
the premier shareware assembly language compiler for Intel 80x86 chips,
but also one of the finest such programs on the market, shareware or
otherwise. [Eric Isaacson]

Turbo Assembler 1.01 [Borland International]

HelpPC 2.10: A convenient reference for the assembler programmer,
containing tables used by DOS and the BIOS, a good INT list, and a full
list of the standard assembly language commands. [David Jurgens]

PowerBuilder 6.5: A very powerful (and thus aptly-named) programming
suite, with some awesome features that shouldn't be missed.
[Powersoft/Sybase]

ActivePerl Release 522: The best Perl compiler for Windows. It's free
and powerful, what more do you need? Get it from
http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl/ [ActiveState]

VBAssist

Spread/VBX

Grid/VBX

Tab/VBX

3-D Gizmos

C Set++ First Step For OS/2

MediaShop

HighEdit [MicroHelp]

At Ease With Computer Programming [Shareware]

Project Management:

CA-Super Project/SuperProject [Computer Associates]

Microsoft Project 2000 [Microsoft]

Primavera Project Planner 5.0

SureTrak Project Manager 1.5 [Primavera]

Project Scheduler 6 For Windows

Time Line 6.1 For Windows

Reference:

1995 Guinness Multimedia Disc Of Records: Filled with those really
weird and amazing records you always see in the book form.

Americans In Space

Auto Insight

Body Insight

Encyclopedia Britannica 99 CD [Encyclopedia Britannica]

Cameron's Fine Art Poster Catalog On CD-ROM

Canada Phone

CD-ROM Advisor

Compton's Interactive Encyclopeida 1998 [Compton's NewMedia]

Computer Reference Library [Shareware]

ComputerWorks: An interesting and educational journey inside the guts
of a computer. Great for computer beginners. [Software Marketing]

What's In That Box?: Originally released in 1991, What's In That Box?
was a shareware program for DOS which was actually just a slide-show
presentation with some introductory information on what's inside your
typical PC and how it works. It began with a picture of the inside of a
desktop PC, then went into more detail on what was on the motherboard
specifically, a bit about integrated circuits, binary math, the BIOS POST
process, how disk drives (both floppy and hard drives) work, and how a
CRT display works. (Interestingly, WITB seemed to have more screens
at the end advertising other products by Another Company than screens
of computer info.) Although this information could be readily found in
many places, WITB was a phenomenally successful product in its time,
originally being released in monochrome and later updated with EGA
and VGA versions. Today, the information in it is largely out of date,
and an updated version of the same basic product is now available for
free on a website which is still maintained by Jeff Napier, the same
person behind the original shareware WITB. The website's URL is
http://members.aol.com/wbox/ and claims that the disk-based shareware
version of WITB sold more than a quarter-million copies back in the day.
Impressive indeed, but today, What's In That Box? is just another piece
of cheesy shareware history which serves mainly to shed some light on
what the computer world must have been like back in those times. Today
Jeff Napier also has several other websites, which can be found at
http://members.aol.com/efbetter/author.htm. [Jeff Napier/Another
Company/Home Business News]

Dangerous Animals [Microsoft]

Distant Suns 2.0 CD: A really cool product. Load it on your notebook,
take it outside on a clear night, and see how many stars you can identify!

HAM Radio [Shareware]

Hollywood: The Bizarre

Internet Connection [Microforum]

Library Of The Future, Third Edition

Mammals: A Multimedia Encyclopedia

Microsoft Bookshelf 2000: An interesting set of reference books: An
almanac, dictionary, encyclopedia, etc. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Dinosaurs: A fascinating look at these prehistoric reptiles. Very
entertaining. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Encarta DVD-ROM Reference Suite 98: Microsoft Encarta, the
encyclopedia, has gone DVD. There are about five CD-ROMs worth of
data on this DVD. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Encarta Deluxe 99 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Explorapedia

Microsoft World Of Flight CD

Monarch Notes On CD-ROM

Microsoft Ancient Lands [Microsoft]

Multimedia Dogs 2.0

Multimedia Strauss

Multimedia Mozart

Multimedia Beethoven

Multimedia Cats

Multimedia Bach

Leonardo Da Vinci [Corbis, a Microsoft company]

The Complete National Geographic

National Parks Of America

Oceans Below

Prehistoria: Similar to Microsoft Dinosaurs. Another really cool program.

Random House Webster's Electronic Dictionary And Thesaurus, College
Edition [Reference Software International]

Random House Unabridged Dictionary Second Edition

Sports Illustrated 1994 Multimedia Sports Almanac

The 1996 Canadian Encyclopedia Plus

Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia 1998 [Grolier]

The Deluxe American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition For Windows

The Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition) On Compact Disc

The Way Things Work 2.0 CD [DK Multimedia]

The New Way Things Work CD [DK Multimedia]

The Way Things Work Pinball Science [DK Multimedia]

Encyclopedia Of Associations: National Organizations Of The U.S.: A
list of 22,000 different associations that exist in the U.S. Quite a list.
From the Lawn Institute to the American Medical Association, you'll
find it here. [Gale Research]

Twain's World: All about Mark Twain.

Microsoft Complete Baseball Guide [Microsoft]

World Book Multimedia 1999 Encyclopedia Deluxe Edition [IBM]

Collier's Encyclopedia 1998 [Sierra On-Line]

World Traveler Volume 1

Scheduling:

FastTrack Schedule 6.02 For Windows 95 [AEC Software]

Shareware Collections:

Shareware Heaven 1

Shareware Heaven 2

Shareware Supreme CD

World Of Shareware CD

So Much Shareware CD

ASP Advantage

Shopping:

Magic Cap + Telescript [General Magic]

Software Packages:

Libris Britannia CDROM

Simtel MSDOS CDROM

CICA MS Windows CDROM

Shareware Explosion CD-ROM [S Software]

Sound Editing: See Audio Editing

Sound Effects And Utilities:

1000 Of The World's Greatest Sound Effects: What a deal! Do you like
sound effects? Looking for just the right sound effect to add to your
Windows startup? This program ought to help. [Interactive Publishing]

CD Player 3.0 [Graphical Bytes]

Sound Explosion: See above product.

Sound Sensations [Shareware]

SoundWorks [The Software Toolworks]

Specialized PIMs:

Calendar Creator Plus 4.0

Address Book Plus

Spreadsheet:

QuattroPro for Windows 5.0

Microsoft Excel 2002: As is often the case with Microsoft, they pretty
much dominate this category of software. [Microsoft]

Lotus 1-2-3 3.1 For DOS [Lotus]

Lotus 1-2-3 Release 4.1 For Windows: The flagship of the entire Lotus
company. A terrific, robust spreadsheet. [Lotus]

Lotus 1-2-3 9.5 [Lotus]

Lotus Improv Release 2.1 For Windows [Lotus]

DS Lab Pro 2.0: A spreadsheet that doesn't use a grid!!! The most
expensive software product (yes, it has a LANDMARK price) I've ever
seen!

FuziCalc 1.11 For Windows: Most spreadsheet need exact numbers. You
can't enter in "A little less than" or "Not more than" or "Approximately".
FuziCalc, however, is specially designed to handle numbers that are not
exact, "fuzzy" numbers.

VisiCalc: One of the most legendary and important killer apps ever
made. Originally released in 1979 for the Apple II, VisiCalc is widely
regarded as the first computer spreadsheet program (at least, the first one
to sport the "traditional" spreadsheet style and interface as it's generally
used today). For a bit of history and info on VisiCalc, check out Dan
Bricklin's site at www.bricklin.com. [Dan Bricklin/Personal Software]

Lucid 3-D 1.15 For Windows

The Baarns Utilities 5.0 For Microsoft Excel

Statistics: See Mathematics

Taxes:

Kiplinger TaxCut 1993

TurboTax 9.0 With TurboTax Tax Planner

CA-Simply Tax

TAXPERFECT-PC Personal 1040

Text-To-Speech:

Monologue 97: The definitive text-to-speech reading program. [First
Byte] (First Byte's website is at www.fbyte.com, not www.firstbyte.com
as you might expect)

SpeakEasy 4.3 (available from www.speakeasily.com)

DECtalk 4.4 for Windows NT and Windows 95 [DEC]

Infovox 330 (Infovox's website is at
http://www.promotor.telia.se/infovox) [Telia Promotor AB]

Infovox 230 [Telia Promotor AB]

Infovox 210 [Telia Promotor AB]

Time Management:

Microsoft Schedule+ For Windows

Video Editing:

Adobe Premiere 4.2: Currently the power user's video editor of choice.
From Adobe. Need I say more? [Adobe Systems Inc.]

MediaStudio Pro 5 VE [Ulead Systems]

VideoStudio 3.0 [Ulead Systems]

MGI VideoWave 5.0: A good choice for those just beginning with video
editing. Very user-friendly. [MGI Software]

Video Action: An award-winning professional-level video editing
program which is one of the most impressive I know of. [DPS Inc.]

Virtual Reality:

Active Worlds 3.0 Browser: This is the software you need to access the
"Active Worlds Universe". Active Worlds has been a pioneer in the field
of virtual online worlds for quite a while, and they're quite possibly the
largest such online community on the Net. The browser is free and
available at www.activeworlds.com [Activeworlds.com, Inc.] (Freeware)

Virtus VR

VistaPro 4.0: A really cool program that lets you do all sorts of weird
and interesting stuff with the landscapes. Using Virtus WalkThrough, you
can move around in the VR envirnments. Cool! [Virtual Reality
Laboratories Inc.]

Makepath

VistaMorph

Virtus WalkThrough

Virtus WalkThrough Pro

Superscape Do 3D 5.10: A powerful and flexible virtual reality program
for Windows which should give you everything you need to imagine and
create virtual worlds of your own. [Superscape VR]

VR Workshop+

VR Studio 2.0

Voice Recognition:

Voice Companion

NaturallySpeaking Preferred 6.0 [Dragon Systems]

VoiceMouse

Free Speech 2000 [Philips]

ViaVoice 98 [IBM]

Webcams (Live Streaming Video):

Emulive [Emulive Imaging Corp.]

NetSnap 1.2 [Logan Industries]

NutWBCam [Nu Tech Software Solutions]

TrueTech WebCam Personal Edition, 2.25 beta 4 [TrueTech]

Webcam32 6.0.1 [Surveyor Corp.]

Webcams (Still-Image): (Still-image webcam programs periodically
capture an image from a video input device (usually a webcam), and
upload it as a JPEG to whatever website you specify. Although this
works for still-image webcams which update periodically, it's obviously
not for live webcasting.)

ChillCAM [ChillCAM]

iVISTA 3.0 [Inetcam]

KABcam 2.0.3 [kab software]

SpyCam 6.20 [Bill Oatman]

Web Page Design:

Claris Home Page 3.0 [Claris]

Corel Web.Graphics Suite [Corel]

Corel WebMaster Suite [Corel]

Microsoft FrontPage 2000 [Microsoft]

Adobe GoLive 5.0 [Adobe]

Adobe LiveMotion 1.0 [Adobe]

ColdFusion 4.0 [Allaire]

HotMetal Pro 6.0 [SoftQuad]

Fusion 5.0 [NetObjects]

Macromedia DreamWeaver 4 [Macromedia]

Macromedia Flash 5 [Macromedia]

AOLpress 2.0: A highly-respected freeware Web page design program,
probably because it's made by AOL and a lot of people downloaded it
for that reason. [America Online] [Freeware]

xSite: A neat free HTML editor with a unique split screen: You type
your HTML in one window and watch the website evolve in the other,
real-time. Another nice feature is Body Snatcher, which lets you rip off
someone else's HTML from their site and insert the code into yours. [L.
A. DeBuys] [Freeware]

CGIMail 2.5:  A CGI tool to handle HTML input forms for online
product ordering, questionnaires, e-mail, or basically any kind of web
form function that you need. [NSI Web Design]

Word Processing:

401 Great Letters For Windows

Microsoft Word 97: The best Word Processor in North America.
[Microsoft]

Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 [Corel/WordPerfect]

Corel WordPerfect Suite 8 [WordPerfect]

Corel WordPerfect 8 For Linux [Corel/WordPerfect]

WordPerfect For DOS 6.0 [WordPerfect]

WordPerfect For DOS 5.1: The last efficient version of WordPerfect,
before it became a bloated GUI-style application. NOTE: WordPerfect
5.1 stores its settings in a file called WP{WP}.SET. If the program locks
up when it runs, delete this file. [WordPerfect]

Lotus Ami Pro 3.1 For Windows: Superb word processor, matched only
my Microsoft Word. [Lotus]

WordStar Professional Release 7.0

WordStar 2000, Release 2

Microsoft Creative Writer

Word For Word: If you convert files from Word to WordPerfect (or vice
versa), you should get this product.

AbiWord 1.0.2: Yet another victory for the open-source freedom fighters,
AbiWord is a free, open-source word processor which does everything
that Microsoft Word does (well, everything useful that Word does,
anyway). It's available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and MacOS.
Download it from www.abisource.com

Accent Special Edition

HomeWordII [Sierra On-Line]

Dramatica Pro 4.0 [Screenplay Systems]

ScriptThing For Windows

Scriptware For Windows

Works Programs:

Borland Office [Inprise (Formerly Borland)]

ClarisWorks 5.0 [Claris]

Corel Office Companion [Corel]

Lotus SmartSuite 4.0 For Windows 3.1 [Lotus]

Lotus NotesSuite [Lotus]

Microsoft Bob CD: An ill-fated office suite from Microsoft which was
intended to be both user-friendly and cute, featuring "Bob", a yellow
smiley face with glasses. Unfortunately, it didn't sell well, possibly
because the face itself turned people off; After years of complaining
about computers being too hard and unfriendly to use, people couldn't
accept a program which tried to change that. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Home Essentials 98 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Office 2000 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Office 97 Professional Edition [Microsoft]

Microsoft Works 95 [Microsoft]

OfficeBlox For Windows 95

PushButton Works

StarOffice 5.1 [Sun Microsystems]

Lotus SmartSuite, Millennium Edition [Lotus]

CA-Simply Business

                    ENTERTAINMENT

                         PC

Adventure/Role Playing:

3D Trek: A simple virtual-reality adventure set in a Star Trek-themed
world, built with Domark's 3D Construction Kit. [Scott Douglas]
(Freeware)

9:05: An extremely short text adventure written by the same guy who
brought us I-0, that famously open-ended game. 9:05 begins with a
seemingly mundane setting (you wake up late for work), but the game
has a wickedly clever twist in store for the player. You won't spend very
long playing this game but you'll probably get a kick out of it if you
enjoy text adventures. [Adam Cadre]

Accolade Comics: A novel approach to a computer game which is
actually more like a customizable comic book. It was a interesting
concept, but how well it works out is a matter of opinion. [Accolade]

Ace Ventura [7th Level]

Activision Game Vault, Volume I [Activision]

AD&D: Al Qadim: The Genie's Curse

AD&D: Ravenloft

A Day For Soft Food: A cute text adventure game in which you play a
cat who must somehow convince your owner to feed you soft (canned)
food rather than the normal dry food. This is not as simple as it sounds,
and involves quite an extensive journey through the snow-covered
outdoors. The game is charmingly handled, and should please most cat
lovers. [Tod Levi]

Adventure: See Colossal Cave. Adventure was also the name of a pretty
decent (but primitive) adventure game on the Atari 2600.

Adventures In Serenia: See The Wizard And The Princess

AGI Studio 1.31: A complete package for editing and creating games
made with AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter), the proprietary system
used in Sierra On-Line's early adventures (from before 1989). It lets you
do fun things with the games Sierra made, or you can make your own
games from scratch using the system. (For a similar development
environment for Sierra's newer SCI game system, see SCI Studio.) [Peter
Kelly]

Aklabeth: Also known as Ultima 0, this game preceded the first Ultima
game. It's a good thing this wasn't officially part of the series, because
otherwise Ultima would have never made it.

Aladdin [Walt Disney/Virgin]

Alice In Wonderland

Alone In The Dark (AITD): An adventure which broke all the rules. It
has some elements of role-playing games but still mixes in more
traditional adventure puzzles, while containing a dark story inspired by
the work of H.P. Lovecraft, with the bizarre horrors one would expect
from that sort of influence. Like the most effective horror, however, it
contains more suspense than anything, with a classical dark, eerie
mansion, complete with creaky floors and a lightning storm outside. It
also uses polygon sprites, something completely unheard of in adventure
games of its time, as well as a totally unique system of movement which
is hard to describe until you see it. Considering it came out in 1992,
Alone In The Dark is pretty darn impressive. It became one of the most
important games of its time. (TIP: To run in this game, you need to
double-press the "walk forward" key, similar to the way you would
double-click a mouse. Tap it briefly first, then hold it down the second
time, and your character will run. You need to do the tap rather quickly.
It may take a few tries to get it to work, but that's how you do it.)
[I-Motion]

Alone In The Dark 2 [I-Motion]

Alone In The Dark 3 [I-Motion]

Alpine Encounter: An Apple II adventure with middling graphics but an
original setting: An alpine ski resort.

Alter Ego: A game with a concept which is fairly simple and obvious,
but rarely implemented in computer games: The day-to-day life of a
normal human. The "game" begins at birth and advances through all the
stages of life to death, making you cope with school, college, career,
love, and marriage. It also keeps a running set of meters on various
personality aspects, so going through the program a few times might give
you some insight into yourself. Maybe. It's available in both male and
female editions. [Activision]

Altered Destiny [Accolade]

Amazon [Access Software]

Ambermoon

Amberstar

Amberzone

A Mind Forever Voyaging (AMFV): A dark text adventure from Steve
Meretzky, unusual for its grim theme (Meretzky, best known for his
"Spellcasting" series of adventures and "Leather Goddesses Of Phobos",
usually made very funny games). You play a computer named PRISM
(which was also the original title of the game) who possesses advanced
artificial intelligence. The game was also highly unusual in its form. It
was one of those rare "follow along" adventures with no real puzzles in
the traditional adventure game style. Instead, you simply watch as the
world around you decays. A depressing experience but thought
provoking. The game features a surprisingly rich storyline, with several
background themes which are not central to your purposes but which add
atmosphere to the futuristic world you're simulating. The moments
leading up to the end, too, are surprisingly climactic, and conjure up
emotions not normally associated with playing a computer game,
especially not an all-text one. [Infocom]

Anachronox [Eidos/Ion Storm]

Anarchy Online 12.61: An RPG which received a huge amount of media
attention for its attempt to up the ante in the "massively multiplayer
online RPG" (MMORPG) field. It's true that Anarchy Online had a wide
variety of character types you could play, and an excellent game world.
However, its original release was crippled by horrible bugs that made the
game crash every few seconds, making it one of the most disappointing
releases in memory. Although Funcom worked hard on patches for the
game, which came fast and furious, it really would have been better to
wait until the game had been ready for release before releasing it. Still,
the technical problems are now behind, and Anarchy Online stands as an
absorbing MMORPG for those who're into that sort of thing. [Funcom]

Andy Capp: A silly half-adventure game for the C64, featuring the
world's most infamous comic-strip beer bum. [MirrorSoft/Blitter
Animations]

Angel DeVoid [Mindscape]

Another World: See Out Of This World

Armed & Delirious [Sir-Tech]

Arthur: The Quest For Excalibur [Infocom]

Asghan [Silmarils]

Asheron's Call [Microsoft/Turbine Entertainment]

A Tale In The Desert (ATITD): A self-described "social experiment",
ATITD is a fairly non-violent MMORPG which emphasizes character
interactions over level-building. Players in the game spend most of their
time building structures like houses, growing crops, and creating and
voting on laws. The result is a rather unique online experience which
functions much like a real-world democracy. Although it has several
rough corners and certainly is not for everyone, ATITD has great appeal
for some people who want a different online gaming experience. The
official homepage is at www.atitd.com . [eGenesis]

Autoduel [Origin]

Axe & Fang 1.18: This is an extremely flexible all-text MUD which
allows you to host games on your own computer. You can use it to make
a multi-player BBS door, or if you're really ambitious you can make it
into an Internet MUD. [Charles Marchant/GrimWare]

Babel: One of the most powerful interactive fiction (all-text adventure)
games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. The plot and imagery which
drive Babel are dramatic and at times disturbing. The game is mostly
flashbacks, memories of the past incidents which led to where you are
now. The plot, like that famously revolutionary first-person shooter Half-
Life (a similarly chaotic and disturbing game) focuses on a scientific
experiment gone horribly wrong, with dire consequences. But while Half-
Life is an action game with lots of shooting to resolve most of your
problems, Babel requires you to uncover the history of what has
happened, and find a cure for the toxin which has transformed a human
into an animalistic beast. Babel doesn't have a lot of puzzles; It's mostly
exploration and reading the flashbacks. It's more of a game to be
experienced rather than played, although the few puzzles it does have are
decent, short, and usually logical. The religious imagery here is
undeniable; From the Biblically-inspired name to the morals it draws
about the morality of science and humanity's power, Babel is one
thought-provoking game. HINT: You know all those objects you see
which glow with blue light? Try touching them. [Ian Finley] (Freeware)

Bad Day On The Midway: The sequel to The Freak Show (see below).
Quite similar, but also different. If you liked The Freak Show, well, I
needn't say anything much about this, it's everything that the original
was, so get it.

Bad Mojo: The Roach Game: The trend in computer games today is to
make them as weird as is humanly possible. This game follows that
trend. Need I say more? ...OK, I'll say more. In this extremely bizarre
game you play poor Roger Samms, who gets turned into a cockroach and
must do a lot of crawling around to become human again. Although it's
weird, the graphics and sound are excellent, and the plot is interesting
and amusing enough to be worth your while. [Pulse Entertainment]

Baldur's Gate [Interplay/BioWare]

Baldur's Gate Add-On: Tales Of The Sword Coast [Interplay/BioWare]

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows Of Amn [Bioware Corp./Black Isle Studios]

Ballyhoo [Infocom]

B.A.T. 1: It is sadly ironic that although this is one of the few games in
this list which I could really call cyberpunk, it is also an incredibly bad
game. It's basically an adventure game with a point-and-click interface,
which doesn't let you use the keyboard and the mouse at the same time.
And while the context-sensitive cursor is nice, it would help if it changed
context right away when you moved it over an object, instead of waiting
about 5 seconds, so you wouldn't have to hold it over everything for a
while to see if you can click on something or not. The interface is only
the beginning of your problems, though. The dialogue in the game is
shallow and lacking in any kind of flair; It brings to mind the really bad
all-text adventure games which take you 5 minutes to play. Characters
in B.A.T. speak in short, uninspiring sentences ("HELLO", "I DON'T
KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT", etc.) Considering how bad the
text is, they could have at least made the game all-flash with some
snazzy graphics, but they didn't even do that. B.A.T. has terribly dull
graphics which use a lot of ugly washed-out shades of brown and green.
The result is an unpleasant experience with little entertainment value or
appreciable playtime. [Virgin]

Battlespire [Bethesda Softworks]

Beasley's Deathtrap: A typical "made-for-fun" game, consisting entirely
of two-way decisions, one leading to death, one leading to the next
decision. It's also typically short (consisting of a total of 7 decisions),
although most would probably consider that a good thing in this case.
Believe it or not, this game actually has a sequel (which could only
happen because it's self-published). [Michael Sewell/Keith Boone/Comix]
(Freeware)

Beneath A Steel Sky (BASS): Paranoid population. Psychotic criminals.
Power hungry corporations. Big Brother government. Haves and have
nots. America? Close. One of very few cyberpunk adventure games, and
one of the very best among those that do exist. It has all the usual
elements of the genre, like a dystopian city where Big Brother does a lot
of watching, the protagonist wears a black trenchcoat, and you do some
jacking into cyberspace (called "LINC Space" in the game). The puzzles
are good, the plot is very interesting, and the artwork (for which we can
thank famed British comic-book-artist Dave Gibbons) is excellent.
(There's clearly some British influence at work here, as the game insists
on calling a particular inventory item a "spanner", while any American
would use the term "wrench". Not surprising, considering Revolution, the
company that developed the game, is British.) (NOTE: If BASS
continually aborts with a fatal error when you try to walk along the
walkway right after leaving the furnace room, this is a known bug. It can
usually be fixed by pressing SCROLL LOCK while you're there on the
walkway. The keyboard Scroll Lock LED will not change when you do
this, so there will be no visible effect, until you actually try to walk off
the screen. Kudos to Revolution for still having this information on the
official BASS site at http://www.revolution.co.uk/noflash/steel.htm , even
several years after BASS went off the commercial market!)
[Virgin/Revolution]

Betrayal At Krondor 1.02 CD: Definitely ranks among the very best
classic RPGs. With its elegant prose (thanks to Raymond E. Feist, who's
also a successful author of fantasy novels upon which the game's plot is
based) and huge world to explore (224 million square feet of terrain), it's
an epic. Alas, it suffers from the typical RPG shortcomings. I'm probably
in the minority here, but I found that the combat probably takes away
from the gameplay more than it adds. If they had eliminated it, BAK
could have been revolutionary as the first major first-person adventure
game, as it does have a lot of exploration and character interaction. As
it is, it's a silly RPG in which your progress is hampered by having to
fight enemies every 10 seconds. It really wouldn't be so bad if the
combat didn't consist of the usual RPG fare of simply attacking your
enemies repeatedly until either they fall or you do. NOTE: If your
characters keep getting sick or poisoned, that's a sure sign that your food
is either spoiled or poisoned. To check food, click on it with the right
mouse button. This will bring up an info screen on the food. If the food
is spoiled or poisoned it will say so in parentheses there. If you have any
bad food get rid of it, and always check food you find before taking it.
[Sierra On-Line]

Betrayal In Antara [Sierra On-Line]

Beverly Hillbillies [Capstone]

Beyond Zork [Infocom]

Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance [Sierra On-Line]

Black Dahlia: Apparently the last adventure game from Take 2
Interactive. Black Dahlia matches Take 2's earlier work: It's massive,
placing a lot of emphasis on graphics and less on actual gameplay.
Puzzles are mostly small and puzzle-ish, not focusing on inventory items
or character interaction (much like Myst). Black Dahlia comes on no less
than 8 CD-ROMs, which probably makes it one of the largest adventures
ever made. However, what's truly remarkable about it is how many
influences and subplots it contains: The game's name comes from the to-
this-day-unsolved murder mystery of actress Elizabeth Short in Los
Angeles in 1947. It also draws inspiration from the Cleveland Torso
Murders (which are also still unsolved), which took place just prior to
World War II. Of course, because of the time frame, elements of
history's most notorious war have been mixed into the plot, including the
fascination the Nazis had with the occult. On top of all this, Blach Dahlia
mixes in bits of Norse mythology, making for a thoroughly unusual and
cross-culture adventure which will probably take a while to finish, as it's
amazingly difficult. [Take 2 Interactive]

Blade Runner: Loosely based on the Harrison Ford movie of the same
name (with emphasis on "loosely"), Blade Runner looks like a typical
adventure at first: You walk around, you talk to people, you pick up
clues. But it's not quite standard adventure fare, mainly because of its
branching storyline. In an age when games with multiple endings are all
the rage, Blade Runner follows this trend with random variables that end
up significantly affecting the gameplay and changing the ultimate
outcome. The game's atmosphere is top-notch; It really has the feel of
the movie. Interestingly, the game does not actually have a lot to do with
the movie in terms of plot, beyond the fact that you are in fact a blade
runner, a special kind of police officer whose main job is to "retire" (kill)
"replicants" (androids which have been outlawed due to their
unpredictably violent nature). You do not play Deckard (Harrison Ford's
character in the movie), although the game does allude to him
occasionally. [Westwood Studios]

Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr [Terminal Reality/Gathering Of
Developers]

Blood & Magic [Interplay]

Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain [Activision]

Bloodnet: A cyberpunk/horror game which defies categorization,
containing equal parts RPG and adventure. You are cast as Ransom
Stark, a cyberpunk-vampire in Manhattan who's on a quest to become
human again. (This is part of what's unique: Bloodnet is not only billed
as the only cyberpunk vampire game, it's also one of oddly few games
which takes place in New York City. For some reason, Los Angeles has
been much more popular as a real-world dystopian cyberpunk city in
computer games.) Although the game is superficially excellent, featuring
top-notch presentation and even a great plot with nice character
development, it suffers from unreasonable difficulty. Besides the usual
RPG shortcoming of lots of very difficult combat, there is the unusual
aspect of constantly needing blood. (You are a vampire, after all.) And
while actually getting blood isn't a huge problem (you can suck it from
just about any human in the game), there's no way of knowing if the
person you're about to bite is actually a crucial plot element, and if you
kill him or her, you'll be unable to finish the game. In an age when
adventure gamers were complaining about how adventure games tended
to come to frustrating "dead-ends" if you forgot to get a particular
inventory item or perform a particular action early on, Bloodnet was a
prime example of this problem. It's just way too easy to work yourself
into a corner from which you can't go anywhere. Bloodnet is an
ambitious, fun game with an original concept. Alas, as is so often the
case, the execution prevents what *could* have been a great game from
being much fun. [MicroProse]

Blue Force: Next Of Kin: This police game is designed by Jim Walls,
who designed the first three Police Quest games for Sierra. [Tsunami]

Border Zone [Infocom]

Borrowed Time: See Time To Die

Brain Dead 13 [ReadySoft]

Breach [Impressions]

Breach 2 [Impressions]

Breach 3 [Impressions]

Broken Sword: Circle Of Blood [Virgin]

Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror [Virgin]

Bureau 13: A strikingly fresh and original cyberpunk thriller, with an
adventure-style interface but adding elements of RPGs as well as
strategy, including a lineup of agents who you can choose from to carry
out your missions. These agents are quite a diverse group, consisting of
a hacker, mech (cyborg fighting machine), priest, thief, vampire, and
witch. Unfortunately, on my system, after a few moments of play, the
mouse cursor stops responding (but not the keyboard controls), requiring
a restart to get it working again (although, turning off sound effects
solved this problem). [GameTek/Take 2 Interactive]

Bureaucracy [Infocom]

Burn:Cycle: Yet another CD-ROM game from the early days when
multimedia was still getting started. Like most games of that era,
Burn:Cycle is uncommonly short, but fun. It's a cyberpunk adventure in
which you play Sol Cutter, a cracker who was making a run against a
system on the matrix when his brain got fried by a power surge. Now
you, as Sol, have somehow ended up with a virus implanted in your
brain and 90 minutes to get rid of it. The game is, in fact, timed, and you
really do have only 90 minutes to win. (Note that in addition to a
PC/Mac CD-ROM format, Burn:Cycle was also released in CD-i format,
Philips' proprietary Green Book CD format that was never widely
supported even when it was at its peak; Be aware if you are looking for
this game on eBay or someplace similar, since the CD-i versions
abound.) (Hint: After you enter your hovercar the first time, you want to
go to the city first, before you go to Doc's.) [TripMedia/Philips
Interactive]

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon: A pitifully under-hyped 1997 adventure
which gave Josh Mandel a chance to let his brilliant talent for bad puns
shine, something he hasn't really done since he did the in-game text for
Sierra's Freddy Pharkas. [Legend]

Castle Elsinore: A text adventure in the vein of the original Adventure,
except this is based upon Shakespeare's most famous play (Hamlet, of
course). [Temple Software] [Shareware]

Castle Of The Winds 1.1: A cool RPG which is made even more cool
and easy-to-use by the fact that it's a Windows program. [Epic
MegaGames]

C.I.T.Y. 2000 [Aditus, Inc.]

C.H.A.O.S. Continuum CD [Creative Multimedia]

Challenge Of The Five Realms

Chronicles Of The Sword [Psygnosis]

Chronomaster: If you wondered what Dreamforge did before their
rightfully successful adventure Sanitarium, this is the answer:
Chronomaster, a positively gorgeous sci-fi adventure based on the work
of author Roger Zelazny, who in fact worked extensively on the design
of this game until he died of cancer. A "chronomaster" is a "time cop",
a person tasked with correcting problems in the time stream (the usual
time-travel quandary of how changing the past affects the future).
[Dreamforge/IntraCorp]

Chrono Trigger: One of the most popular classic console RPGs, Chrono
Trigger was a fairly typical Anime RPG for the SNES, but it gathered a
large following, even though it was basically a typical RPG with some
minor adventure elements thrown in.

Circuit's Edge: This is another cyberpunk adventure, it captures the spirit
of the dystopian future. The city which most of the game unfolds in is
called "The Budayeen", a futuristic place which has been described as
"the Middle East meets New Orleans". Cybernetic enhancements and
urban vice like drug abuse and prostitution are common. The plot takes
many twists as you progress and forces you to become something of a
private detective, as you alternately pursue murderers, terrorists, and plain
old thieves while using plenty of high-tech gadgets (as well as a few
good old reliables, like switchblades) to achieve your goals.
[Infocom/Westwood]

Clandestiny

Classic Collection: A collection of 10 of the best games from Interplay
over the years. Includes Mindshadow, Tass Times In Tone Town, The
Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Dragon Wars, Battle Chess, Lord Of The Rings,
Castles, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary Edition, and Out Of This World (in
that order). (See also The Ultimate RPG Archives.) [Interplay]

Clock Tower

Codename: Iceman [Sierra On-Line]

Codename: Iceman 2 [Sierra On-Line]

Colossal Cave: One of the first computer games ever. An interesting,
free, text-only adventure game that set the mood for a whole generation
of games after it, including the Zork games. Get this game from
Gamefest 1 CD. [Freeware]

Comp00ter Game: The Jeff K. phenomenon has had a surprisingly strong
impact on the underground computing scene in general; Indeed, Mr. K.
is nothing short of a cult hero to thousands of people who seem to find
his brand of humor hilarious. Comp00ter Game is the first interactive
fiction game I've seen, however, that attempts to mirror his style (or at
least the B1FF style in general). It is a very short, but quite funny,
parody of the wannabe hax0r. If you don't play Comp00ter Game, you'll
never realize how hard it is to escape from a game by just going east and
then going through the door there. [Brendan Barnwell]

Companions Of Xanth: Another richly graphical point-and-click
adventure game with interesting characters and places. [Legend]

Computer Underground: A simple but amusing game which simulates
hacking. It lets you break into other hackers' computers, or you can try
various corporations, or (your highest challenge) the government
mainframe. Not technically accurate, but still fun. [Jeff Marlow]
[Freeware]

Conquest Of The New World, Deluxe Edition [Interplay]

Conquests Of Camelot [Sierra On-Line]

Conquests Of The Longbow: The Legend Of Robin Hood: A cheery
medieval adventure, one of the less well-known Sierra adventures from
their heyday. [Sierra On-Line]

Conspiracy CD: This game stars Donald Sutherland, who is a famous
movie actor. (This is the multimedia CD-ROM version of a game
originally called KGB.) [Virgin/Cryo Interactive][Virgin]

CosmoServe: An Adventure Game For The BBS-Addicted/Enslaved: A
clever, dead-on text adventure parody of the BBS/early CompuServe
culture, with a nice DOS simulation to boot. [Judith Pintar] [Freeware]

Countdown 1.2: Access was certainly pushing the envelope when they
released this one. Its graphics and sound were far ahead of its time. It's
a rather pleasant but bizarre psychological thriller (with a definitely dark
sense of humor) in which you have 3 days to save the world... Just as
soon as you escape from the mental hospital you're in. [Access Software]

Cranston Manor [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Cruise For A Corpse: A pleasant adventure in which you play a private
investigator who must solve a murder. Another early-90s adventure to
while away a few evenings over. [Delphine]

Cryptic Passage

Curse Of Enchantia

Cutthroats [Infocom]

"D" [Acclaim]

Daggerfall [Bethesda]

D.A.: Pursuit Of Justice [Alpha Software]

Dare To Dream (D2D) Trilogy: D2D was the second game made by the
legendary Cliff Bleszinski, following his lucky break with "The Palace
Of Deceit: Dragon's Plight". Released in 1993, D2D established him as
an up-and-coming game designer. He lived up to his promise: As the
years went on, he designed both Jazz Jackrabbit games, and the super-
successful Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Thus, while D2D is a cute
and fun little Windows adventure, it's more notable for its historical
significance, both in that it influenced the Windows and adventure
gaming scenes for years after it came out, and because it launched one
of the gaming industry's brightest stars into the limelight. Among the
first serious adventure games for Windows, the Dare To Dream games
set the standard for several Windows games to come. [Epic MegaGames]

Dark Earth [Microprose]

Darklands 7.0 [MicroProse]

Darkness: Like many other RPG door games for BBSes, Darkness
follows a formula directly copied from that of L.O.R.D. (Legend Of the
Red Dragon), and simply changes the settings and characters to create a
new world. In this case, Darkness is a cyberpunk RPG, complete with
bleak futuristic city, drugs and sex, high-tech weapons, and bionic
augmentation. A nice addition to a BBS with cyberpunk-ish users, but
those who're tired of Legend Of the Red Dragon clones will find little
new here. [jp/damned software]

Dark Rift

DARKSEED [CyberDreams]

Dark Side Of The Moon [SouthPeak Interactive]

Darkstone [DSI]

Dark Sun: The Shattered Lands

Dark Sun: Grey Isle

David Wolf: Secret Agent [Sierra On-Line]

Day Of The Tentacle: See Maniac Mansion 2

Deadline [Infocom]

Deadlock

Death Gate [Legend]

Deathkeep [SSI]

Deathtrap Dungeon [Eidos]

Decker 1.9: A freeware "hacking simulation" which invites obvious
comparisons to the better-known sleeper hit, Uplink. However, although
it is somewhat lesser in its presentation and scope, it is my opinion that
Decker is a superior game because it is more fun. What makes it more
fun? It's hard to say... It seems rather repetitive, especially when you
look at the missions and realize that there are basically only two types
of mission: Activate an I/O station, or work with a file. (This can mean
steal a file, alter a file, or delete a file, but it doesn't really matter, since
all these procedures are done the same way.) But Decker has an
undeniably addictive appeal in its gameplay. For starters, the matrix is
represented on-screen as a grid of nodes, something which Uplink didn't
have. (Yes, Uplink had that world map, but Decker's matrix is more fun
to move around on.) Decker also has a wide variety of ICE types and
other assorted defense mechanics which you'll face as you make your
way through the matrix; It's really an RPG with a cyberpunk guise to it.
The more successful hacking jobs you pull off, the more skill points you
get, and these points can be used to advance skills such as programming
and chip design, which you can then use to create your own more
powerful software and hardware for your computer. This seems like a
simple idea, but the thrill of pulling off a successful hack so you can
write your own hack program to perform even better hacks in the future
is something that Uplink doesn't have. Overall Decker is simplistic and
small, but that doesn't stop it from being addictive. You can get it from
the official homepage at www.caro.net/dsi/decker [Shawn Overcash]
(Freeware)

Denarius Avaricus Sextus (Avvy) 1.6: A good but unfortunately short
adventure through ancient Rome, notable for its user-friendly interface
and *corny* humor. (Denarius Avaricus Sextus' sequel is Lord Avalot
d'Argent.) [Thorsoft/Mike, Mark and Thomas Thurman]

Descent to Undermountain [Interplay]

Deus [Silmarils]

Diablo: The game's title (which is Spanish for "devil") says it all. A very
technically impressive game, with smooth gameplay. [Blizzard]

Diablo: Hellfire Add-On [Sierra On-Line]

Diablo II [Blizzard]

Dink Smallwood 1.06: An awesome, offbeat, and huge role-playing
adventure with great graphics and a sense of humor to match. Download
it from The Official Dink SmallWood Website at
http://www.rtsoft.com/dink/pages/home.htm [RT Soft] (Freeware)

Disciples Of Steel [MegaSoft]

Discworld [Psygnosis]

Discworld II: Mortality Bytes [Psygnosis]

Dogday: A bizarre first-person adventure in a world where dogs make up
society. You are an operative for CATS, Coalition Against Totalitarian
Society, a subversive group which attempts to (as you might guess from
the name) end the government's oppression. [Impact Interactive
Publishing/Eyst]

Dog World 1.45: A BBS door RPG which is much like Legend Of The
Red Dragon, except it uses dogs instead of humans.

Dracula Unleashed [ICOM Simulations]

Dragon Dice [Interplay]

Dragon Knight III: Knights Of Xentar: An Anime RPG with a slight
twist: It's got porn. Yes, as the storyline progresses, you eventually
encounter a wide variety of women without many clothes doing some
strange things. This alone is what made Knights Of Xentar famous and
sought-after. [MegaTech]

Dragon's Keep: You get to save a bunch of trapped animals from the
domain of the dragon in this game. [Sierra On-Line]

Dragon's Lair CD-ROM [ReadySoft]

Dragon's Lair 2 CD [ReadySoft]

Dragon's Lair 3 CD [ReadySoft]

Dragonsphere: After writing not one, but two excellent science-fiction
adventures (namely, Earthrise and Rex Nebular And The Cosmic Gender
Bender), Matt Gruson produced this absolutely gorgeous Medieval
fantasy adventure, fully capable of holding its own with anything the
King's Quest series has to offer. The graphics are lush and colorful, the
music is beautiful, and the plot is, well, perhaps a bit cliche, but good.
[MicroProse]

Drakkhen [Data East]

DreamWeb: When you run DreamWeb, the first thing you see on the
screen is a quote from the Bible; Specifically, Revelation 16:1. A grim
taste of things to come, to be sure. DreamWeb is an good example of
how dark cyberpunk science-fiction can be. Besides the violence (which
can get somewhat gory at times), there's one of the earliest uncensored
sex scenes ever in a big-ticket computer game. The game is absolutely
rich with atmosphere, including an incredible amount of rain (does it ever
stop raining in this city?), very good (and, as you'd expect, very dark)
music, and well-done graphics which really bring out the darkness in the
mood. DreamWeb is an excellent example of a game which values
atmosphere over actual content. The whole plot is muddy and
indecipherable. However, that doesn't really matter, since the plot isn't
that important to the execution of the game anyway. DreamWeb is all
about a dark, dirty city and the similar people who inhabit it. In terms of
its actual gameplay, it's a pretty good adventure, although it's unusual in
that it lets you pick up an incredible number of items, most of them
ambient items which serve no purpose, which means it can be very hard
to figure out what's useful and what's there only for show. This makes
the puzzles tricky sometimes, and the fact that most of the time you're
not quite sure what you should be doing (beyond a vague idea that your
job is to assassinate specific people) means you'll get stuck a lot,
particularly since many puzzles hinge on your having a particular object
with you, and if you don't have it (which may very well be, considering
your limited inventory space), you'll have to backtrack. Not only is the
game full of objects you can take, it's also full of description.
DreamWeb seems to take delight in surprisingly (some might say
excessively) detailed descriptions of every small object. If you've ever
read a cyberpunk novel, you know that authors like William Gibson often
write very detailed descriptions of people, places, or things, including
small quirky details; The same obsessive attention to detail manifests
itself in DreamWeb's text. [Empire Interactive/Creative Reality]

Druid: Daemons Of The Mind [Sir-Tech]

Druuna: Morbus Gravis: An adventure that's decidedly for adults, based
on its strong sexual content (quite a bit of nudity) and its elements of
horror. The game clearly tries to overplay the sexiness of the title
character Druuna, a voluptuous woman who appears naked in the game
and whose pants are unzipped on some versions of the game packaging.
Beyond the protagonist, however, the game is nothing remarkable,
although the graphics look pretty good. [Microids/Artematica]

Dungeon Hack

Dungeon Keeper

Dungeon Keeper 2

Dungeon Master: Lots of fun journey through a spooky dungeon with
less monsters than you'd expect. Much like Eye Of The Beholder. [FTL]

Dungeon Master 2: Legend Of Skullkeep [Interplay]

Dust: A Tale Of The Wired West [GTE Entertainment]

Earthrise: A science-fiction adventure which looks and feels a lot like the
first two Space Quest games. Indeed, it was written by Matt Gruson, who
later did the similarly SQ-like Rex Nebular for Microprose. Although it's
outdated, the puzzles on this game are surprisingly logical, and  the
descriptions are surprisingly... Well, descriptive. All in all it's a great
way to spend a few days of puzzling. [Interstel]

Elder Scrolls Arena [Bethesda Softworks]

Elvira

Elvira II: Jaws Of Cerberus

Emperor Of The Fading Suns: A deep and unique story, highly
challenging and addictive gameplay, and outstanding graphics and music.
Just make sure you download the game's patch from SegaSoft's website
(www.segasoft.com) to keep it from crashing every few minutes.
[SegaSoft]

Enchanter [Infocom]

EntoMorph

Eric The Unready [Legend]

Escape From Hell [Electronic Arts]

Escape From Monkey Island [LucasArts]

Eternam [Capstone]

Evil Crypt [Curtis Keisler]

Eye Of The Beholder, Volume I [SSI]

Eye Of The Beholder, Volume II [SSI]

Eye Of The Beholder, Volume III [SSI]

Fable: A light-hearted adventure with great cartoon graphics and a
worthy sense of humor. [Sir Tech]

Fade To Black CD [Electronic Arts]

Fallacy Of Dawn 1.01: After three bizarre but original interactive fiction
adventures (A Crimson Spring, Chicks Dig Jerks, and Revenger), the
inimitable Robb Sherwin once again brings his odd dialog-driven style
of adventure game to the table in a game that's part drug-hazed trip
through a futuristic Orwellian city, part extremely long conversations
between game characters, and part cyberpunk-flavored tribute to old
video games. Fallacy Of Dawn keeps getting remarked upon for its
preponderance of old electronic games, complete with brief-but-pointed
reviews from Sherwin's point of view; It's clear the guy has a fascination
with classic arcade and adventure games. Fallacy Of Dawn, meanwhile,
is an adventure game with little emphasis on puzzles but a strong focus
on exploring the city streets, meeting characters, and getting into lengthy
conversations with them. It's a unique taste which may not be for
everyone, but if you don't mind Sherwin's fringe-element characters and
his writing style (which is alternately incoherent and brilliant), you'll
enjoy Fallacy Of Dawn as a text-adventure-with-pictures world to
explore. (There is an odd bug in Fallacy Of Dawn which manifests itself
during the Johnny Dapper scene; You are supposed to deal with him by
talking to Porn or Clara, which is supposed to trigger them creating a
distraction to let you exit the sushi restaurant. However, sometimes the
game simply says you have nothing to say to Porn or Clara, which leaves
you with no way to escape. I recommend saving your game before you
enter the restaurant, so you can try again in case this happens.) [Robb
Sherwin] (Freeware)

Fallout 1.1: The spiritual successor to the classic RPG Wasteland.
However, Fallout beats the heck out of Wasteland in every possible
aspect. As with many RPG or adventure games, what consistently makes
Fallout a great game is the little details; The tiny animations put into
your character (and other characters in the game), the careful attention to
location detail and the magnificent graphic artistry. About the only thing
lacking in the artistry is the music, which is very little more than a
continuous sound loop of eerie howling sounds. The sound effects are
crisp and appropriate, the graphics are gorgeous and appropriately
weathered (and gloomy), and the character animation, both during
gameplay and in the full-motion-video sequences, is smooth.
  Fallout is the tale of a world ravaged by nuclear war. Set in a post-
apocalyptic Southern California, you're cast as a member of the Vault,
a group of people forced to live underground because of the fallout from
the nukes. A life-threatening malfunction in the water purification system
forces you to go to the surface of the world and try to survive there.
Along the way, you'll pass through countless burned-out, destroyed cities
and encounter plenty of gruesome mutants who have been drastically
enlarged or otherwise disfigured by radiation. The game isn't all
depressing, however; It retains the fairly distinctive Interplay sense of
humour that's been in this kind of game since the early days of games
like Neuromancer and Wasteland. Fallout is a fascinating game, marred
mainly by the typical RPG shortcomings: A too-heavy emphasis on
repetitive combat and not enough unique locations or characters to
explore and interact with. Even so, Fallout rightly holds a place in many
gamers' hearts as one of the very best computer RPGs ever created.
[Interplay]

Fallout 2 [Interplay]

Fantasy Empires [Silicon Knights/SSI]

Farenheit 451: Based on the famous book of the same name, this
adventure game is the science-fiction story of a future in which books are
made illegal. You play Guy Montag, a "Fireman" whose job is to burn
books, yet who becomes a freedom fighter. Released for MS-DOS and
the Commodore 64. [Byron Preiss Video Productions, Inc./Trillium]

Fascination: An odd adventure with good graphics which doesn't make
much sense but is interesting anyway, largely because it's full of sexual
content. [Tomahawk/Coktel Vision]

Final Fantasy VII (FF7): An absolutely top-notch RPG which has been
successfully converted from console-type game systems. This is what
RPGing was meant to be. Very highly recommended for die-hard role-
players. [Square Soft]

fin fin: The Real Computer Creature [Fujitsu]

Flight Of The Amazon Queen (FOTAQ): A good VGA adventure in an
Amazon jungle. It's propelled by its quaint sense of humor and its
HUGE inventory (the game relies mostly on inventory items). [Interactive
Binary Illusions/Renegade/Gee Whiz! Entertainment]

FooM: A text adventure adaptation of the first level of Doom. Further
proof that some people have way too much time on their hands. [di
Software]

Frankenstein [Interplay]

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist: There's no question that Al Lowe
is best known for being the designer of the Leisure Suit Larry games.
But Lowe is a genuinely versatile writer, not limited to spinning yarns
of modern-day swingers looking for their next lay. Freddy Pharkas is an
adventure set in a very different setting: The Wild West. Of course, the
game is still imbued with Lowe's offbeat sense of humour, which is
greatly aided by the talented writing of the semi-legendary Josh Mandel
(who wrote all the in-game text). Although Freddy Pharkas was probably
the first Western adventure ever made, the plot would be original even
if the game had had a precedent to live up to: Freddy Pharkas wanted to
be a gunslinger as a young man, but an unpleasant accident during one
particular shootout made him choose a peaceful life; He became a
pharmacist, and started his own pharmacy in Coarsegold, California,
which ended up being quite successful (probably because it's the only
pharmacy in town). (Game-long easter egg: Coarsegold was were Sierra
On-Line used to be headquartered.) The game is quite simply the most
joke-laden adventure I have ever seen, with very nearly every object in
the game having some kind of gag attached to it. This may be good or
bad for some folks, as there are those who may feel that Lowe and
Mandel are trying too hard to be funny. For those who appreciate bad
puns and below-the-belt humour, however, Freddy Pharkas delivers
laughs in spades. And not only is it a lot of fun, it's also a great
adventure to boot, with logical, tough-but-not-usually-too-tough puzzles.
A worthy play for any adventure game fan, and a must-play for the true
adventure enthusiast. (Freddy Pharkas was released near the end of
Sierra's golden age, and a year or two later the company began its slide
into oblivion, releasing sub-par games that weren't adventures and
eventually getting bought out and basically shut down. Freddy Pharkas
was Josh Mandel's last time to shine at Sierra, but he re-emerged later
with the release of Legend's funny-but-bizarre adventure, Callahan's
Crosstime Saloon.) (In an interesting and unusual marketing move, the
demo for Freddy Pharkas actually had different puzzles and inventory
items than the full game, meaning that even if you've played the full
game, the demo has some material that you haven't seen.) [Sierra On-
Line]

Freddy Pharkas NON-TALKING Version

Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist 2 [Sierra On-Line]

Full Throttle CD: Arguably LucasArts' best adventure game to date (until
Grim Fandango a few years later), Full Throttle is the tale of a biker
gang, and specifically a member of the gang named Ben. Although not
especially remarkable (it doesn't stand out that much from LucasArts'
previous efforts), Full Throttle is a thoroughly enjoyable adventure game
that any hard-core adventurer should enjoy. [LucasArts]

Gabriel Knight: Sins Of The Fathers CD: A horror game with more
suspense than real horror. An intriguing, evil, and fascinating journey
into the depths of voodoo, a religion still practiced even today. [Sierra
On-Line]

Gabriel Knight NON-TALKING Version

Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within [Sierra On-Line]

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned [Sierra
On-Line]

Gateway [Legend]

Gateway II: Homeworld [Legend]

Gold Rush! [Sierra On-Line]

Good & Evil [Cavedog/GT Interactive]

Grim Fandango: An impressive spectacle. The dead come to life in this
epic story of crime and corruption among zombies. One of the very best
adventure games of the late 1990s. Grim Fandango changed the way
people thought about adventure games, at a crucial point when adventure
games were dying. It didn't actually save the genre, but it did fill a
gaping void: Prior to Grim Fandango, there had been a desperate need
for an epic adventure which was both creative and popular. It ended up
being both, and remains fondly remembered for its excellent voice acting,
truly otherworldly settings (rendered in well-done artwork), and
atmospheric jazz soundtrack. All these elements combined to make a
game that was truly a masterpiece in every way, as well as being a
genuinely enjoyable and interesting adventure. [LucasArts]

Hacker: A unique, sort-of-adventure game without an introduction or
explanation. You begin looking at a computer terminal, then end up
piloting a subterranean vessel to various world locations to barter for
strips of paper to make a whole document needed to save the world. The
complete lack of any coherent plot, along with the unforgiving,
closed-ended and repetitive gameplay make for a novel, but failed,
attempt at an espionage adventure. (HINT: Type AUSTRALIA to get
past the login prompt.) [Activision]

Hacker 2: The Doomsday Papers: A considerably better effort overall,
with much more open-ended gameplay and a conscious introduction.
Basically, this time you're supposed to penetrate a high-security complex
with 3 robots which you control, sending them through the building to
get secret codes. Even though you have access to all the security cameras
so you can see which ones come on at what time, the game's still pretty
hard because there are a lot of cameras, and the guard who keeps
walking around doesn't make it any easier. [Activision]

Hard Nova

Hare Raising Havoc

Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone [Electronic Arts]

Harvester [Merit Software]

Heart Of China [Sierra On-Line]

Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller [Take 2 Interactive]

Hell Cab CD [Time Warner Interactive]

Heroes Of Might & Magic [New World Computing]

Heroes Of Might & Magic II [New World Computing]

Heroes Of Might & Magic III: The Restoration Of Erathia [New World
Computing]

Hero Quest: Based on the board game of the same name. (Not to be
confused with Sierra's Hero's Quest, which was renamed to Quest For
Glory because of THIS Hero Quest.)

Hillsfar [Westwood/SSI]

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: A humorous, classic text adventure
based on the sci-fi book of the same name. [Infocom]

Hive CD-ROM For Windows 95

Hollywood Hijinx [Infocom]

Hotel California: A small text adventure inspired equally by old Infocom
adventures and the Eagles song of the same name. [Dan Harris-Warrick]

Hugo's House Of Horrors Trilogy: The three Hugo adventures are the
adventure game darlings of the shareware universe. They're about the
only shareware graphical adventures that exist. [David P. Gray/Gray
Design Associates] [Shareware]

Humbug 5.0: This is the largest and best text adventure I've seen. With
about 100 rooms and lots of objects to interact with, it will keep you
occupied for some time. This version is public-domain, and includes
online hints. (Previous versions contained shareware notices, and required
you to register for hints.) [Graham Cluley]

I-0 Release 4 (v1.21): A text adventure which is notable for two reaons:
First, it's one of the most open-ended games of its kind, offering several
completely unrelated ways to win. Second, it's one of the most
understatedly sexual adventures, allowing you to have sex (or try to) with
any character in the game (including yourself). [Adam Cadre]

Icewind Dale [Black Isle Studios/Interplay]

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream [Cyberdreams]

Inca CD [Sierra On-Line]

Inca 2 CD [Sierra On-Line]

Incubation: Time Is Running Out: A terrifying game which is yet another
of those near-future end-of-all-life-as-we-know-it science-fiction sort of
things. [Blue Byte]

Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine [LucasArts]

Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
[Lucasfilm]

Indiana Jones 4: The Fate Of Atlantis: Travel around as Indy Jones, with
a psychic.

Indiana Jones And His Desktop Adventures [LucasArts]

Inherit The Earth: Quest For The Orb: In this game, humans exist only
in legends, but their legacy remains. Foxes, deer, and boars, but no
humans. (Now there's a pleasant change.) [New World Computing]

Innocent Until Caught (IUC): The IRS is after you! You've got only a
few weeks to come up with the money. A very bizarre game. [Psygnosis]

Innocent Until Caught 2: Guilty [Psygnosis]

Interplay's Classic Collection: See Classic Collection

In The 1st Degree [Broderbund]

Iron Helix: An adventure which was a big breakthrough in the days when
"multimedia" was still a new buzzword and a developing concept in
games. Though the game is sometimes uncomfortably repititive (it
consists mainly of guiding a remote-controlled robot probe through an
abandoned spaceship while avoiding a security droid), it's still worth
going through. [Spectrum Holobyte]

Ishar 1 [Silmarils]

Ishar 2 [Silmarils]

Ishar 3 [Silmarils]

Isle Of The Dead [Merit Software]

Jewels Of The Oracle [Discis (Now-defunct)]

Jewels II, The Ultimate Challenge [DreamCatcher]

Johnny Mnemonic CD-ROM: Further proof that games based on movies
(and especially full-motion video (FMV) ones) usually suck. A shameless
ripoff of the movie of the same name (which itself was based on a short
story by William Gibson), this is little more than a lot of movie footage
stacked onto 2 CD-ROMs and made to look like a game. It actually
incorporates some pathetic game elements, but overall this is just meant
to get a little more money from people who liked the movie. (Although,
if you could actually like such an awful movie, you might just like such
an awful "game".) [Sony Computer Entertainment]

JohnnyQuest: Curse Of The Mayan Warriors [Hollyware Entertainment]

Journey [Infocom]

Jungle Book: How nice. A brutally violent "children's" game. [IBM]

KGB: An adventure game which has something to do with the KGB.
(This game was later re-released in a CD-ROM version with video clips
of your father (played by Donald Sutherland) giving you advice. This
CD-ROM version was called Conspiracy.) [Virgin/Cryo Interactive]

King's Bounty [New World Computing]

King's Quest Collection: A complete collection of the first seven King's
Quest games, plus three other Roberta Williams games: Mixed-Up
Mother Goose, The Dagger Of Amon Ra, and The Colonol's Bequest.
That's 10 games in total, making this a very cool collection. Highly
recommended. Get it. [Sierra On-Line]

King's Quest Collector's Edition: In celebration of Sierra's 15th
anniversary, they came out with this incredible collection. It contains
every one of the first 6 King's Quest games, including both the original
King's Quest 1 and the newer, better-graphics remake of it. Plus, it has
looooots of designer notes, and an interview in FULL MONTION
VIDEO with none other then Roberta Williams (designer of King's
Quest) herself. Two FULL CD-ROMs!!! (You'll have trouble finding this
in stores now, so get the King's Quest Collection instead.) [Sierra On-
Line]

King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown: The first game in the series which
has become the best-selling computer adventure game series ever. You
play a little guy with a feathered hat named Sir Graham, and you need
to find three treasures so you can be king. Sounds simple, but it's not.
This game is available in both an older, comparatively poor-looking
version, and a new higher-resolution version. Get both from the King's
Quest Collector's Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

King's Quest II: Romancing The Throne: OK, now you're King Graham.
So what's next? A queen, of course. You run off to a foreign land so you
can find a maiden up in a tower to be your bride. This sequel is either
better than or worse than the original, depending on how you look at it.
Get this game from the King's Quest Collector's Edition. (The plug in
the hole in the rock is obvious, but there's actually a second, slightly
harder-to-find plug for more Sierra games in KQ2. To find it, go one
screen West from the Southwest corner of the poisoned lake, and look
around. Specifically, "look at the trees" and you'll notice a sign on the
back of one. Read the sign for a little-known KQ2 easter egg.) [Sierra
On-Line]

King's Quest 2: Romancing The Stones: Apparently there is an on-going
effort to update the early King's Quest games. Some time after the
release of the VGA version of King's Quest 1 (which was entirely an
amateur operation which had no funding or base in Sierra), the fans have
done it again: King's Quest 2: Romancing The Stones (not "Throne", as
in the title of the original, commercial King's Quest 2) is simply one of
the finest fan-made remakes ever to grace a computer screen. This is
actually much more than just a graphical conversion to gorgeous 256-
color VGA; The plot of the game has been rather extensively re-worked,
and while purists may immediately cry foul at this idea, any player of the
game will quickly realize that the work that went into the game was a
labor of love. The game's characters have been fleshed out to make them
less one-dimensional; King's Quest 2 came from an age when shallow
characters were common, and it wasn't unreasonable to have a character
in the game simply so you could avoid having them step on you or eat
you. But this remake adds much more life and personality to the
characters in the game, as well as adding new locations and puzzles. The
result is a stunning game that any old-school adventure gamer who
enjoyed the King's Quest series should play. [Tierra Entertainment]

King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human: An excellent third installment in
this award-winning series. Considerably more sophisticated, with several
magic spells for you to cast, an evil wizard to escape from, plus a
running timer at the top of the screen. You'll need it, expecially in the
beginning. Tense stuff, but interesting. This game has a somewhat
surprising beginning. You play a fellow by the name of Gwydion. Just
who IS this guy, anyway? Suddenly we leave off Graham and start on
some character we've never even seen! Read the manual and play the
game, though, and you'll figure out what's going on. This game is tough,
but there's lots for you to explore and do. (Check out that three-headed
dragon! It takes up almost the whole screen!) This game gives me the
impression that Roberta Williams doesn't like cats, but she does like
dogs. Hmmmmm. Get this game from the King's Quest Collector's
Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

King's Quest IV: The Perils Of Rosella: OK, that's it. Now the royal
family is complete (after the somewhat poignant ending of King's Quest
III). We have a king, a queen, a prince, and a princess. But there's bad
news: The family might not be complete for long. It look like the first
person who we saw of the royal family, King Graham, is about to die.
So now you play the Princess Rosella as she tries to find a magic fruit
to save her father. When it came out in 1989, King's Quest IV was the
largest computer game ever produced (although these days it's quite
small, as games go). The graphics are better than in the previous three
games (although they're still not that good), plus this game has support
for sound cards. Nice soundtrack on this one (it was done by William
Goldstein, who also composed for the "Fame" TV series and the movie
"Hello, Again"). Get this game from the King's Quest Collector's
Edition. (This game was also released in an older version, using Sierra's
earlier AGI system. However, the SCI version is much more common.)
[Sierra On-Line]

King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder!: Ahhhh, King
Graham is still alive and well. So now that his daughter's saved him, it's
his turn to save her (and the rest of his family as well, and his castle
too). An evil wizard has taken away them away, and he's got to get them
back. This game was a major breakthrough for the King's Quest series,
because it went from the still uncomfortably pathetic-looking graphics of
King's Quest IV to nearly photographic-quality graphics. From the open
sands of the ridiculously large desert, to the misshapen trees and plants
and other strange growths of the dark forest, to the rolling waves of the
ocean, these graphics are GOOD! So's the sound and music, actually
(Sound Blaster support! Awright!) Add a compelling plot, interesting
characters (some of them amazingly stupid), and an all-new interface (no
more typing! Everything's done by the mouse now), and you've got a
game that deserves to be called a breakthrough. (Speaking of that new
interface, if you ask me, it's a bit too simple. I prefer the old one, but
hey, that's just my opinion...) Get this game from the King's Quest
Collector's Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

King's Quest V NON-TALKING Version

King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow: A big game. Rescue the
princess and save the day for everybody on an island (well, probably four
islands, actually). Huge opening sequence, impressive graphics and music
and sound, very twisted and interesting plot (at last, some attempt at plot
development!), need I say more? Get this game from the King's Quest
Collector's Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

King's Quest VI NON-TALKING Version

King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride: Available on CD only. This
game is co-designed by Lorelei Shannon, who wrote the somewhat
excessively light-hearted hint book for King's Quest VI. Remember
Edgar, the little green dude from King's Quest 4? Well, he's back in this
game. While you're in the area, check him out. This is a totally wild,
wierd game which should be played by the whole family for maximum
enjoyment. [Sierra On-Line]

King's Quest VIII: The Mask Of Eternity: Well, they changed King's
Quest: Now it's King's Quake. Adds combat sequences, which was a
dumb and practically sacrilegious idea. The game's just not the same, it
lacks the magic that made the first seven games enjoyable. [Sierra On-
Line]

King's Ransom [ReadySoft]

Knight's Chase [I-Motion]

Knights Of Legend [Origin]

Koala Lumpur: Journey To The Edge [Broderbund]

Kronolog: The Nazi Paradox: An adventure which became semi-famous
for its rather unique and intriguing plot, centering on one of history's
most disturbing "what if" scenarios: What would it be like if Germany
had won World War II? Although the game's setting is at least somewhat
original, it's really just an average adventure game. [Merit Software]

L.A. Crackdown: A very old but traditional-style adventure game. This
one's a police thriller. [Epyx]

Lands Of Lore: The Throne Of Chaos [Westwood Studios/Virgin]

Lands Of Lore 2: Guardians Of Destiny [Westwood Studios/Virgin]

Lands Of Lore III [Westwood Studios/Virgin]

Larry Vales: Traffic Division 3.0: An absolutely outstanding little
amateur adventure game, with every aspect of gameplay brilliantly
executed. The plot is clever, original and funny (you're a traffic cop sent
to neutralize a deadly cyborg), the puzzles are challenging but logical, the
humor is genuinely funny (and in the tradition of Freddy Pharkas,
ubiquitous and liberally borrowing from pop-culture references), and the
soundtrack consists of a rocking collection of tunes from the 70s,
rendered in well-composed MIDI. The graphics are somewhat lacking,
but they're no worse than typical adventure games from 20 years ago.
Definitely a game worth playing for the adventure nostalgist. Download
it for free from the official homepage at
http://www.stockton.edu/~stk16329 [Philip J Reed, VSc] (Freeware)

Laura Bow [Sierra On-Line]

Laura Bow 2: The Dagger Of Amon Ra [Sierra On-Line]

Leather Goddesses Of Phobos [Infocom]

Leather Goddesses Of Phobos II [Infocom]

Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver

Legacy Of The Ancients [Electronic Arts]

Legend Of The Red Dragon (L.O.R.D.) 4.00a: The highly popular multi-
player ANSI online RPG which has become a staple of BBSes
everywhere.

Legend Of The Red Dragon (L.O.R.D.) 2: The New World: The
much-anticipated sequel to Legend Of The Red Dragon. This is the
coolest real-time free-moving BBS ANSI MUD you're likely to find in
common use.

Legends Of Valour

Leisure Suit Larry Collection: Lock the doors and windows on your
house, roll up the windows on your car; It's here, a compilation of all the
Leisure Suit Larry games from the first one to number 6. (Doesn't
include number 7.) [Sierra On-Line]

Leisure Suit Larry Collector's Edition: Contains Larry 1 to 5. An
amazing value! This product is the companion to the Space Quest
Collector's Edition and the King's Quest Collector's Edition. This
collection also includes the Laffer Utilities, which contains a bunch of
zany clip art, sound effects, and more! (You'll have trouble finding this
in stores now, so get the Leisure Suit Larry Collection instead.) [Sierra
On-Line]

Leisure Suit Larry In The Land Of The Lounge Lizards: The Leisure Suit
Larry series has always been about a VERY nerdy-looking fellow by the
name of Larry Laffer going around and having sex with every woman he
can find. In fact, that's mostly all that happens in these games. Find a
woman who will bother talking to you, then try and figure out how to get
lucky with her, then move on to the next. Sound sleazy? Yeah, it is. That
may explain why these games are so popular. This game is available in
both an older, considerably poorer-looking version and a new, VGA
version. Get both from the Leisure Suit Larry Collector's Edition. [Sierra
On-Line]

Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking For Love (In Several Wrong Places):
There is little to be said about this sequel that I didn't already say for the
original. Although this time, instead of stressing the sex and debauchery,
there is a sort of plot going on. You have to stop a mad doctor's plot to
destroy an island. Get this game from the Leisure Suit Larry Collector's
Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti In Pursuit Of The Pulsating
Pectorals: This game was the first Sierra game to have you suddenly
switch roles. After being Larry and going through about 4 or 5 women,
you start playing a woman named Patti, who then has to find Larry and
finish up with him. (My question is this: Larry goes around having sex
with every woman he can find, so why doesn't Patti with some men? She
hardly even MEETS any men throughout her part in the game.) Get this
game from the Leisure Suit Larry Collector's Edition. (LSL3 has several
bugs which make for problems on newer CPUs, caused by algorithms
that didn't foresee advances of computer technology. The first one you'll
notice shows up while watching Cherri Tart dance; It takes forever for
her to finish. Next, while exercising, you'll have to repeat each exercise
literally hundreds of times. Originally it was only supposed to be a few
dozen times for each, perhaps 50 at most. And finally, while waiting for
the elevator in the casino to reach your floor, you'll be waiting a long,
long time...) [Sierra On-Line]

Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does A Little Undercover Work:
This game is considerably tamer than the previous three. In fact, since
the first game, the Larry games have gotten progressively softer. This
one is so mild, it's almost OK for kids to play it (although you might
want to watch it). I was very pleased with the interesting (sort of
abstract-looking) graphics of this game and the music soundtrack. Some
nice sound effects, too. (By the way, in case you're wondering if I forgot
Leisure Suit Larry 4, the answer is no. There never was one. It has to do
with the plot for this one, play the game and you'll find out what I
mean.) Get this game from the Leisure Suit Larry Collector's Edition.
[Sierra On-Line]

Leisure Suit Larry VI: Shape Up Or Slip Out: This Larry game has lots
of babes, almost more than all the other Larry games stacked together!
Nine of them in all, and all in great hi-res graphics! Nude bungee
jumping, anyone? [Sierra On-Line]

Leisure Suit Larry VII: Love For Sail!: Excellent game! If you liked the
other Leisure Suit Larry games, get this game! End of story! [Sierra On-
Line]

Les Manley 1: Search For The King [Accolade]

Les Manley 2: Lost In L.A. [Accolade]

Lighthouse [Sierra On-Line]

Little Computer People: A cute "game" which is really more of a pet
human. You get to watch a little guy in his house live his everyday life
and occasionally play games with him like poker. [Activision]

Loadstar: The Legend Of Tully Bodine

Loom CD 3.5.40 [Lucasfilm/LucasArts]

L.O.R.D.: See Legend Of The Red Dragon

Lord Avalot d'Argent 1.3: The sequel to the clever Denarius Avaricus
Sextus, this game is pretty much a mirror of the original in every aspect.
[Mike, Mark and Thomas Thurman/Thorsoft]

Lord Of The Rings, Volume I [Interplay]

Lord Of The Rings, Volume II: The Two Towers CD [Interplay]

Lords Of Magic [Sierra On-Line]

Lords Of Magic: Special Edition [Sierra On-Line]

Lords Of Midnight

Lords Of The Realm

Lords Of The Rising Sun

Lost In Time: Tired of violence in computer games? For a refreshingly
new approach which is a lot like the TV show MacGyver, try Lost In
Time. This is actually one of the longest and most intelligent first-person
adventures you're likely to ever play. It has extremely logical puzzles
which (usually) make sense, a monstrous inventory with a huge set of
items you can carry around with you, and standout graphics and
sound/music. The result is a fairly unique adventure, which just might
teach you something about battery acid. [Coktel Vision/Sierra On-Line]

Lure Of The Temptress: Another generic Medieval adventure game, this
one marked by the fact that you can order some characters to perform a
specific set of instructions, and that the other characters in the game have
their own lives and will wander about doing things even as you're doing
the same, giving the game a sort of life of its own. Otherwise a fairly
pleasant, but unremarkable, adventure. [Revolution/Konami/Virgin]

Lurking Horror: Yet another Infocom adventure, but this one is special,
because its geography is based on the infamous Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT). Lurking Horror takes place in a fictional institution
called George Underwood Edwards (GUE) University, but as the game's
author, Dave Lebling, later admitted: "All the locations in the Lurking
Horror are, pretty much, real places at MIT." MIT was, for better or for
worse, the alma mater of most Infocom employees. Lurking Horror was
also the only horror game released by Infocom. [Infocom]

Mageslayer [Raven Software/GT Interactive]

Magic & Mayhem

Magic: The Gathering [Microprose]

Magic: The Gathering: Dunes Of The Plainswalkers [Microprose]

Majestic: If it seems like there aren't many adventure games in the world
today, you're not alone. Electronic Arts seems to have decided that a
fundamental change in the way we play not only adventure games, but
computer games in general, can change this. Majestic isn't your typical
computer game; It's not software which you install and play from your
hard disk (well it is partly that, but that's not the most important part of
it). Once you install Majestic, you will actually get phone calls. In real
life. Real, actual calls to your telephone. Not only that, you'll get real e-
mail, real faxes, and real instant messages through AOL Instant
Messenger (AIM). How is all this possible? Beats me, but that's the
premise behind Majestic. [Electronic Arts/Anim-X]

Manhunter: New York [Sierra On-Line]

Manhunter: San Francisco [Sierra On-Line]

Maniac Mansion: Lucasfilm (now LucasArts) made this gem in 1988, the
first adventure game to use a point-and-click (no typing) interface. It
went on to gain a reputation as one of the pioneering games of the 80s,
and rightly so. (This game was also re-released in an "enhanced" version,
with different graphics and sound.) [Lucasfilm]

Maniac Mansion 2: Day Of The Tentacle (DOTT) CD: For all the praise
heaped upon it, I never cared much for Maniac Mansion's sequel. Oh
sure, it has vastly superior graphics, and yes, the CD-ROM version has
full speech. Its presentation is better, certainly. But something in the
gameplay feels empty. Right off the bat, you can't choose your trio of
adventurers from a roster the way you could with the original Mania
Mansion; You have a set team of three, which takes away the one thing
which lent some replay value and game-wide influence to the first game.
And the plot is so cliche; Admittedly, the original Maniac Mansion had
a cliche plot too, but it was cliche in a cute, funny way, while DOTT's
plot (the three teens are sent into different time zones, where they
experience the world as it exists in the past, present, and future) just
sounds so commercialized, like something from an episode of a Saturday-
morning cartoon. DOTT is a lot of fun, no question, but it fails to
capture the free-flowing, fun, teenage experience of Maniac Mansion.
[LucasArts]

Martian Memorandum [Access Software]

Masterpiece Mansion [Philips]

Mean Streets 1.3 (This may not run on a fast computer without the patch.
Get the patch from Access' support website at
http://www.accesssoftware.com/ctg/support) [Access Software]

Men In Black (MIB): The Game

Mia: The Search For Grandma's Remedy [Kutoka Interactive]

Might & Magic I [New World Computing]

Might & Magic II [New World Computing]

Might & Magic III: Isles Of Terra [New World Computing]

Might & Magic IV: The Clouds Of Xeen [New World Computing]

Might & Magic V: The Darkside Of Xeen [New World Computing]

Might & Magic VI: The Mandate Of Heaven [New World Computing]

Might & Magic VII: For Blood And Honor [New World Computing]

Might & Magic, Millennium Edition [New World Computing]

Millenium Auction: Definitely an unconventional sort of game, but fun.
Not aimed at kids, considered adult entertainment (not so much because
it contains mature material as just because it's slow-paced and any
person under the age of 20 is likely to find it extremely boring).
Basically, you're at an auction. Have you ever wanted to attend an
auction, but never really bothered because it was too fancy or you hated
the way they considered it a bid if you inhale? Millenium Auction is a
great auction game, with some humor in there, a few elements of
adventure games, and very impressive graphics. [Eidolon]

Mission Critical [Legend]

Monkey Island: See The Secret Of Monkey Island

Monty Python And The Holy Grail [7th Level]

Monty Python's Complete Waste Of Time [7th Level]

Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life [7th Level]

Moonmist [Infocom]

Moraff's World: An RPG with some of the broadest graphical support
in the industry. Other than that it's fairly basic. [MoraffWare]
[Shareware]

Mummy [Interplay]

Muppet Treasure Island [Activision]

Myst CD: The computer game that shook the world. It's the best-selling
game of all time. If you like big, complicated puzzle adventure games,
you should have Myst. And if you liked Myst, you must get Riven, the
sequel. Myst was a fairly unique adventure, for a variety of reasons. First
of all, it was from a first-person perspective, unusual in a time when
most adventures were still third-person. It had no inventory of any kind,
which definitely broke the mold (although, most dedicated adventure
gamers considered this point a weakness, not an improvement). It also
had no other characters to interact with; You were alone, in a strange,
beautiful world. (This, too, was considered a bad point by fans of more
traditional adventure fare.) However, Myst was a fresh type of
environment in a market saturated with Medieval and sci-fi adventures,
it was a vast and interesting world in its own right, and it served as the
very first adventure game for many people who were, in 1994, jumping
on the then-just-beginning multimedia revolution. However, there are
those who insist that Myst was not a positive development, but rather a
negative one. Adventure-game purists insist that Myst is not an adventure
game, but rather a puzzle game with a plot added to make it seem like
an adventure. To some extent, this is true: The lack of character
interaction or inventory management makes Myst a significant departure
from an "adventure". An adventure, properly speaking, should be a real-
world situation in which you, a character in a computer-created world,
interact with your environment around you to achieve a certain effect.
Myst and its ilk focus mainly on puzzles so contrived that they have little
to do with the real world; Instead of opening a locked door by using a
jar of acid to burn through the padlock, you're opening a locked door by
aligning two rotating towers with each other. Your actions in Myst
typically feel more like a logic puzzle than a real-world situation, and the
adventure gamers say that this makes Myst a puzzle game. They may be
right; Myst served as an introduction to the adventure game for many
people who had never played computer games much before, but is it
better to simplify games in an effort to make them more accessible to the
general public, or is it better to just keep games "real" and admit that not
everybody in the world was made to play computer games? In the end,
everybody has to decide for themselves whether Myst was a good thing
or a bad thing, but to decide, first you'll have to play it.
[Broderbund/Red Orb Entertainment]

Myst III: Exile: By now, you should know whether you like the Myst
series or not. The original Myst, and its similar sequel, Riven, have been
out for a few years, and you've probably sided with one of the two
camps: The side which says they are brilliant adventure games with
beautiful graphics, haunting background music, and driving plots... Or,
you say they were responsible for the death of "real" adventure games
which contained inventory items, character interaction/dialog, and puzzles
which were directly related to the plot, rather than feeling like puzzles
for puzzles' sake. Well, Myst III is exactly the same story as the first
two Myst games. Sure, the graphics are a bit better, and the game takes
up a little more hard disk space and needs slightly higher system
requirements, but basically, it follows the tradition of atmospheric puzzle-
solving-mixed-with-exploration pioneered by its predecessors. The only
real innovation in Myst III is that instead of the scenes being static
pictures, you can now use the mouse to "mouse-look", panning around
a 360-degree view much as in first-person shooters. Otherwise, Myst III
is still the same old Myst game. If you liked the first two, you'll like
this, and vice-versa. [Ubi Soft/Presto Studios]

Myst, Masterpiece Edition: Several years after the release of the original
Myst, and even quite a while after that of its sequel Riven, Red Orb
opted to release this slightly beefed-up version of the game with
re-worked 24-bit color graphics, and the addition of a built-in hint
system. [Cyan/Red Orb Entertainment]

Mystery House: The very first computer game from Sierra. A piece of
gaming history. Tough to find, except from the Roberta Williams
Anthology. [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Myth: The Fallen Lords [Bungie]

Myth II: Soulblighter [Bungie]

Nemesis: The Wizardry Adventure [Sir Tech]

Neocron [Reakktor Media/CDV Software]

NetHack 3.3.1, PC Version: This is the classical text-graphics RPG with
a lot of exploring and fighting to do. Although based on the earlier game
Rogue, Nethack is famous for being huge, with many, many levels to
explore, an absurd number of monsters to fight, and tons of items to use.
It's also notable for its completely deadpan sense of humor: Strange,
often completely ridiculous things happen and are noted in flat sentences.
Download Nethack from the official Nethack homepage at
www.nethack.org.

Neuromancer: A classic cyberpunk adventure, this one's a pretty good
computer game version of the book. (The theme song to the game is
"Some Things Never Change", by Devo, the New Wave band best
known for their song "Whip It". The song was made into an instrumental
version for the PC and Apple IIgs versions of Neuromancer, but on the
Commodore 64 version, a short sample of the actual song is played
during the title screen.) (Speaking of the C64 version, that was also the
only platform without mouse support. As such, the joystick is used to
move the cursor around instead of the mouse. Additionally, while the
other platforms let you move around with the arrow keys on the
keyboard, the C64 version requires you to "click" the icon of a man
walking with the joystick button, then use the joystick to move your
character around the screen.) [Interplay]

Neverwinter Nights: In addition to the highly popular BioWare RPG, this
was also the name of one of the earliest massively multiplayer online
RPGs (MMORPGs) ever, a highly popular service on AOL which began
in 1991 and had an amazingly successful history right up until it was
shut down on July 18th, 1997. That Neverwinter Nights was made by
Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). [New: BioWare/Atari Games; Old:
Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI)]

Nightlong: Union City Conspiracy: A seriously under-exposed cyberpunk
adventure with nothing to make it stand out, but all the normal elements
one expects. The graphics are excellent and atmospheric. The plot
focuses on an investigation into an assasination attempt on the governor
of Union City. Although it's basically another dystopian adventure with
a lot of techno elements added to make it interesting, if this stuff never
gets old for you, Nightlong is worth a look. [Trecision/Dreamcatcher
Interactive/MicroProse/Team 17]

Nightmare Creatures [Activision]

Noctropolis [Electronic Arts]

Nord And Bert Couldn't Make Heads Or Tails Of It [Infocom]

Normality: You're Kent, a young slacker whose apathy and lack of
hygiene know no bounds, and you're not going to take this normality
anymore. A humorous and fun 3D adventure, Normality is sort of a
Generation X version of 1984, the story of a young man with a surfer
dude accent who's trapped in a city where people are required, by law,
to be normal. At the beginning of the game, he's arrested for being too
happy and spends a week in jail. From there, it's a typical freedom
fighter story, spent in an enjoyable 3D adventure-gaming engine that
offers full first-person-shooter-style freedom of movement. [Interplay]

Nox [Westwood Studios/Electronic Arts]

Obsidian [SegaSoft]

Odium [Monolith Productions/Metropolis Software House]

Of Light And Darkness: This game looks interesting enough to check out
on the basis of its cover art alone. [Interplay]

Omikron: The Nomad Soul: Another of those late-90s CD-ROM
adventures which puts more emphasis on atmosphere and presentation
than plot or gameplay. Omikron is an impressive game with a large
world to explore. You play the "Nomad Soul" (an utterly pretentious
name, to be sure), a computer game player who gets transported to
another dimension. Omikron is a city, and a big one at that. And the best
part about it is, it's all yours to explore any way you see fit. (Like most
of these atmospheric CD-ROM adventures, this game seems to put a lot
of emphasis on being non-linear.) The music is amazing and atmospheric
(David Bowie actually worked on it), and the graphics are stunning, no
question. The game does involve a fairly small amount of adult content,
most notably Omikron's red-light district, which includes a sex shop. The
dark, moody atmosphere of the game often gets it categorized as
"cyberpunk".
  Omikron's strengths are clear, and so are its weaknesses. First of all,
it must be understood that although Omikron tries to be a multi-genre
game (it mixes adventure, first-person shooter, and RPG elements), these
discrete parts do not blend very well. They feel more like separate mini-
games instead of a cohesive unit, like more successful genre-bending
games such as Deus Ex and System Shock. Furthermore, the action
sequences in Omikron aren't that great (they're not bad, but FPS fans
will not have fun with them for very long). Where Omikron is supposed
to shine is in its adventuring. The game's environments are meant to be
rich with atmosphere, so that they create that "you are there" feeling
which is the goal of every adventure. The fact that it is a freeform world
which you can explore at will is where the real appeal of Omikron is.
Ultimately, it is best for people who want to explore a vast, futuristic,
detailed world. Action buffs had best look elsewhere.
  Unfortunately, all is not well even during Omikron's adventuring
phases. The first and most constantly irritating anomaly is the fact that
you can't keep the game in first-person view; You can temporarily look
around in a first-person perspective, but you must move around in a
Tomb Raider-like behind-the-character perspective, which is much less
immersive. (Perhaps Eidos really does have Tomb Raider on the brain.)
Perhaps even more irritating is the game's habit of suddenly switching
to different camera views when you enter different rooms. This is
probably supposed to look cool, but usually it's just disorienting. It also
hampers gameplay since you often can't see what's on the other side of
the room until you walk there so the camera can pan to follow you. The
use of "save points" (which look like three rings hovering in the air)
instead of just being able to save your game anywhere also hurts
Omikron's gameplay a lot.
  But probably the worst thing about Omikron is that its world just isn't
as convincing as it should be. Yes, it is a huge world to explore, but the
truth is that you can't interact with much. You have absolutely no contact
with the passerby on the sidewalk (beyond a brief apology if you happen
to bump into them), and most objects in the game are merely for show
and cannot be examined or manipulated in depth. (Most reviews of
Omikron say "most objects in the game can be interacted with." That
statement is an outright lie. Most objects yield a "I can't do anything
with that" type of message.) After a while, all the dingy city streets look
the same (yes, the fact that only about 4 or 5 different models are used
for all the street characters doesn't help), and you're left in a typical
solve-the-puzzle-and-move-to-the-next-one adventure situation. That
makes Omikron pretty much just another adventure, which isn't actually
such a bad thing, but considering it had the potential to be so much
more, it's a shame: The thrill of exploring a fully-realized world is
broken. (At least they did the right thing in including an in-game
automap, so you can make your way around the city effectively.)
(Clearly, Bowie's involvement with the game is merely a gimmick to
help the game sell better. If you just want to listen to his music, get his
"Hours..." album, as it contains his songs from Omikron.) [Eidos/Quantic
Dream]

Outcast: An action/adventure which blends these two genres skillfully,
rather than being an awkward transition from one to the other. Outcast
looks great thanks to its use of Voxel graphics, but it doesn't support 3D
video cards because they didn't support Voxel graphics at the time it was
released. Although the plot is as typical as any sci-fi game's (scientists
succeed in making a passage to an alternate dimension, resulting in all
sorts of trouble), the game is rich in atmosphere, and plays well too.
[Infogrames/Appeal Entertainment]

Panic In The Park

Phantasmagoria: The very best horror game you're likely to see
anywhere. [Sierra On-Line]

Phatasmagoria II: Puzzle Of Flesh [Sierra On-Line]

Pitfall [Activision]

Pitfall CD: The Mayan Adventure For Windows 95: Specially designed
for the new Windows 95! [Activision]

Plan 9 From Outer Space: The sci-fi movie of this same name was hailed
by many as the very worst movie ever made, a dubious honour that
quickly earned it legendary status among B-movies. Now, apparently,
Konami has decided that the worst computer game ever made should be
based on this movie. If that was their intent, they did a pretty good job.
[Gremlin Interactive/Konami]

Planetfall (Steve Meretzky's first game, before he went on to A Mind
Forever Voyaging, Leather Goddesses Of Phobos, and the Spellcasting
series) (Adventure gamers may notice some similarities between
Planetfall and Space Quest I; It's fairly apparent where Mark Crowe and
Scott Murphy got their inspiration for the first SQ game's plot.)
[Infocom]

Planet's Edge

Plundered Hearts [Infocom]

Police Quest Collection: Since the early Police Quest games are no
longer in stores, the first five games in the series are all bundled together
here. Cool stuff! [Sierra On-Line]

Police Quest I: In Pursuit Of The Death Angel: Sonny Bonds, a police
officer, must track down a major drug dealer and bring him to justice.
Like many of Sierra's other early adventure games, this was later re-
released in a 256-color VGA version with way better graphics and sound,
but a point-and-click interface instead of a typing one. (In the original PC
version of Police Quest 1, four special function keys exist: F4 makes you
enter or exit your car (when on the normal third-person adventure view;
this can also be done with text commands), and it also makes you pull
over your car and stop (when on the overhead 2D map driving screen).
F6, F8, and F10 all control the speed of your car when driving. F6 makes
your car move at "normal" (slow) speed, F8 makes it go somewhat faster
(this is the speed you'll need to use when pulling other cars over), and
F10 makes it go the fastest (and also activates the lights and siren, which
is the only state in which you are allowed to go through red lights). On
the Apple IIgs version of the game, these keys are defined as SHIFT-4,
SHIFT-6, SHIFT-8, and SHIFT-0 (since the Apple IIgs has no function
keys).) [Sierra On-Line]

Police Quest II: The Vengeance: Jesse Bains is back, with a vengeance.
[Sierra On-Line]

Police Quest III: The Kindred: When Sonny Bonds' wife is attacked in
the parking lot where she works, Sonny tries to find out who did it. This
game has some of the best sound effects I've heard, from the Chug-
Chug-Chug-VROOOM of a car engine starting to the BLOM of a gun
firing. Although Police Quest 3 is a very good adventure, it has one
slight quirk which creates a twofold problem: You spend about half of
the game just driving around from place to place. This is a problem
firstly because it gets boring after a while, and secondly, because on any
modern computer, the car is virtually impossible to control because the
streets whiz by so quickly. The result is a game filled with aggravation
unless you can find a 486 to play it on. [Sierra On-Line]

Police Quest IV: Open Season: This game was designed by Daryl F.
Gates, who is quite possibly the most experienced police officer in the
USA. [Sierra On-Line]

Porn Adventure [Sierra On-Line]

Portal: A science-fiction adventure from 1986 which is mostly text, with
some rudimentary graphics livening things up. However, the game has
a deep plot which pulls you into it (although this plot is outlined in the
manual; The game itself doesn't have much of an introduction).
Basically, you're a space traveller who was supposed to awake from your
cryogenic hibernation in orbit around a double-star. Instead, you awake
during re-entry to planet Earth. Once there, you find that the whole
planet is desolate. There are simply no living humans to be found
anywhere, and nothing but empty buildings to indicate there ever were
people there in the first place. Finally, on the second level of an
abandoned hospital in Chicago, you find a computer terminal (the first
working one you've come across). Desperately, you use it to try and
determine what has happened. The game begins with you logging into
this terminal, and indeed, the entire game takes place in front of it.
Because it is a simulation of a computer terminal that you are trying to
figure out how to work and do things with, Portal somewhat resembles
Hacker (another adventure game made by Activision). However, Portal
differs in that it has *some* introduction and instructions, whereas
Hacker had none. (Except for the 5-page intro story, Portal's instruction
manual is actually the operating instructions for the computer terminal
you have found.) Also, Hacker was a boring game in which you basically
travelled all over a map of the world trading things with other people,
while Portal has an interesting plot that advances as you find things in
the computer, making it a vastly superior game to Hacker. Portal is,
however, not much of a "game", per se; It is more of an interactive
novel. Basically you advance it by simply calling up information in the
computer, while an AI called HOMER pieces together a history of what
went wrong and why nobody's left on Earth. The storyline in Portal is
absolutely huge, big enough to be made into a book in itself. However,
if you really like reading, it can be an interesting experience. [Activision]

Prisoner Of Ice [Interplay]

Quantum Gate [MediaVision]

Quarterstaff [Infocom]

Quest For Glory Collection: The fifth "collection" to be issued by Sierra,
this one's for QFG of course. It contains the first four. Yes, it's very
cool, just like the rest. [Sierra On-Line]

Quest For Glory (Originally Hero's Quest) I: So You Want To Be A
Hero: Adventure games are great for mental workouts, but they're not
very realistic: You're either alive, or you're not. Things like strength,
agility, etc. don't come into play at all. They do in role-playing games,
which is good, but role-playing games are rarely more than just hacking
up everything in sight. Fun, but rather mindless. For a wonderful
combination of the best of both worlds, try the Quest For Glory (QFG)
games. They're great! In this first one, you're in a cheerful alpine
mountain range and must free it from the nasty brigands. This game
comes in both an older EGA version and a new VGA version. (The
VGA version, like many of Sierra's early SCI games, has some bugs that
prevent it from working properly on faster CPUs. In particular, the
weapon master thrashes around so quickly when he fights that it is
completely impossible to beat him, and it seems impossible to get Yorick
to stop throwing things at you during the endgame.) [Sierra On-Line]

Quest For Glory II: Trial By Fire 1.105: Even better than the first game,
this is an Arabian Nights-flavoured trek through a large desert and a
(seemingly) larger desert city. (NOTE: There's an annoying bug they
never did fix in this game: Don't buy more than ONE pouch of incense
at a time. If you have more than one on you, things won't work.)
(NOTE: Quest For Glory 2 has a weird bug which makes it crash on
newer systems when it is set to Sound Blaster sound; On my Pentium,
it locks up during the introduction when using the Sound Blaster, for
example, but on my 486 it works fine using the same configuration. You
can make the game run by setting it to AdLib sound, but the sound
effects won't be digitized. The music will still sound the same, because
it is generated through AdLib-style FM synthesis MIDI, but the sound
effects will be simulated effects using MIDI instruments instead of actual
digital sound effects. And speaking of QFG2's use of the Sound Blaster,
keep in mind that your sound card must be set to use IRQ7 if you intend
to use the Sound Blaster option.) [Sierra On-Line]

Quest For Glory III: Wages Of War (Formerly Subtitled Shadows Of
Darkness, But Then That Name Was Given To The Next Game In The
Series) [Sierra On-Line]

Quest For Glory IV: Shadows Of Darkness [Sierra On-Line]

Quest For Glory V: Dragon Fire: Following the announcement that
Shadow Of Darkness would be the last game of this series, some people
threatened hunger strikes and self-immolation. So, who wants that on
their conscience? Hence, this game. [Sierra On-Line]

Rage Of Mages [Monolith Productions]

Ragnarok 2.5: What I like about this game is it's an interesting analogy
with real-life survival: You are in a dangerous world, where you must
fend off enemies, hunt for food, run when necessary, and remember that
knowledge, not physical strength, is your greatest asset. More realistically
so than most RPGs, but my main complaint about this game is it's too
hard: If you *EVER* win this game without cheating in any way, let me
know. It allows you to save your games, but interestingly, it deletes your
saved game when you die. It's possible to simply back up your saved
game when you save it, and restore it every time you die (I've won the
game that way), but that's what I mean by CHEATING.
RIDICULOUSLY difficult otherwise, but still interesting. (It visibly
derives from NetHack in some areas.) Get this game from Game Empire
2 CD. [Norsehelm Productions/Thomas Boyd and Robert Vawter]
(NOTE: With version 2.5 of Ragnarok, the game finally kept your saved
games instead of deleting them whenever you died. Apparently the
designers realized nobody would ever win the game without dying at
least once. Also, version 2.5 is freeware instead of shareware.)

Rama [Sierra On-Line]

Ravage

Realms Of Arkania [Sir-Tech]

Realms Of The Haunting [Interplay]

Return Of The Phantom: A lushly graphical and pleasantly intelligent
adventure through a big opera house. [MicroProse]

Return To Krondor [Sierra On-Line]

Return To Ringworld [Tsunami]

Return To Zork: Humorous, interesting, and puzzling continuation of the
bestselling Zork games from the old text-based days (now packed into
The Lost Treasures Of Infocom) [Infocom]

Rex Nebular And The Cosmic Gender Bender: A good adventure from
a company better-known for their simulations. Overall I found it a highly
enjoyable game with some of the smoothest walking animation I've seen.
It's highly reminiscent of Space Quest, for several reasons: Its interface
and graphical style, its futuristic theme on a primitive world (a jungle
which calls to mind Space Quest 2's Labion), its strange and sometimes
dark sense of humor, and its bumbling, sloppy but well-meaning
protagonist. [MicroProse]

Riana Rouge: The notoriously erotic (and violent) adventure with
innovative gameplay for its open-ended puzzles, emphasis on both action
and adventure, and humor mixed in with the adult-movie-style sex and
horror. [Black Dragon]

Ringworld [Tsunami]

Ripper [Take 2 Interactive]

Rise Of The Dragon [Dynamix/Sierra On-Line]

Riven: The Sequel To Myst, DVD Version: Riven must surely rank as
one of the greatest sequels ever. Although marred by a lot of disc-
swapping (it comes on 5 CDs), everything else about it is superior to
Myst. (This is why you should get the DVD version, if you have a DVD
drive.) Riven is everything Myst wanted to be, but failed at. A lot of
Myst's graphics were rather fuzzy and many were dull. Riven, on the
other hand, has photorealistic graphics which achieve the level of
impressiveness that justifies a game of this calibre. Also, Myst suffered
from smallness. (I personally solved most of it in under a week.) Riven,
on the other hand, has a much larger and more complex landscape, with
plenty more to see and do. Ultimately, it's a more satisfying experience
than Myst was. One tip if you play the game: Make no assumptions, and
ignore no details. Some of the least important-seeming things have huge
significance in this game. Actually, the same was true for Myst, but it's
even more so for Riven. [Red Orb Entertainment]

Road To India: Between Hell And Nirvana: A fairly unremarkable
adventure game with all the usual stuff you'd expect from the genre. The
one noteworthy thing is that it takes place in India, a location not often
used for adventure games. This allows the game to be rich in exotic
atmosphere, and both the graphics and music are suitably so. Otherwise
it's just another pleasant adventure. [Microids]

Roberta Williams Anthology: A collection of games from Roberta
Williams, who designed the legendary King's Quest series. Everything
from Mystery House to Phantasmagoria. Highly recommended. [Sierra
On-Line]

Robinson's Requiem: A tragically under-exposed game of 1994. It's a
gripping adventure/RPG kind of game in a jungle-like environment. This
game is brutally hard, survival is your first concern and you'll have a
tough time maintaining it. The game monitors over 100 of your body
variables including body temperature, stress, fatigue, pain, coughs,
malaria, poisoning, fractures, gangrene, hallucinations, etc. It includes a
built-in body scanner which highlights unhealthy body areas in red,
allowing you to quickly see what parts of you are infected, missing, etc.
Count on having to amputate at least one of your own limbs in order to
stay alive before you win. (NOTE: Setting MS-DOS to manage upper
memory blocks (UMBs) causes Robinson's Requiem to reboot instantly
when you run it. You'll need to remove the line DOS=UMB from your
CONFIG.SYS before you can play it.) [Silmarils]

Roger Wilco's Spaced Out Game Pack: A collection of goofy games
featuring the main character of the Space Quest games. [Sierra On-Line]

Rugrats Adventure Game

Rules Of Engagement [Impressions/Omnitrend]

Rules Of Engagement 2 [Impressions/Omnitrend]

Runaway: A Road Adventure: An adventure game from a small
European developer which somehow made it to America, translated and
published and subsequently garnered itself some attention in 2003. It's
an adventure game in the grand old tradition, with inventory-based
puzzles and lots of interesting characters. The graphics are cartoonish in
nature, the voice acting isn't always that great, and some of the writing
may seem bland, but overall it's a good sign that games of this genre are
even being made. [Pendulo Studios/Tri Synergy]

Sam And Max Hit The Road: Hitch a ride with Sam and Max... They
don't brake for anything! A cheerful, slapstick adventure across America,
with two detectives who happen to be a dog and a rabbit. [LucasArts]

Sanitarium: A dark, scary adventure in an insane asylum. An even mix
of horror, science-fiction and psychological thriller. Excellent graphics
and enjoyable gameplay, but not for the faint of heart. [Dreamforge/ASC
Games]

SCI Studio 3.0.1.29: What AGI Studio was to AGI, Sierra's early
adventure game interpreter, SCI Studio is to SCI (Sierra Creative
Interpreter), the system used by Sierra On-Line for their more recent
adventure games (all the ones made after 1990 or so). The depth of
supprt for variations in SCI within SCI Studio is amazing; This toolkit
supports every major version of SCI ever used by Sierra for their games,
and the tools are well-designed and fairly easy to use. Unfortunately, as
of this writing, SCI Studio is still rather buggy and tends to crash
hideously when processing certain SCI resources. Thankfully, it is still
a work in progress, and its creater, Brian Provinciano, is still working on
it to make it better. Get it from the official homepage at
http://www.bripro.com/scistudio/index.php [Brian Provinciano] (Freeware)

Seastalker [Infocom]

Sentient [Psygnosis]

Shadoan [Interplay]

Shadowcaster: A first-person game with an interesting twist. You can
change into other forms, including a giant cat, a monstrous stone gorilla,
and a froggie sort of thing. Full support for Logitech's CyberMan device
makes this game even more realistic! [Origin]

Shadow Of The Comet [Interplay]

Shadowrun: Based on the pen-and-paper cyberpunk RPG of the same
name, the electronic version of Shadowrun was, unfortunately, only
released for the SNES and the Sega Genesis, not the PC. It was,
however, quite a good game, with plenty of atmosphere (typical of the
genre), although it did have its own peculiar flaws. [Data East]

Shannara: I don't know how Legend got Lori and Corey Cole (designers
of Sierra's Quest For Glory series) to sign with them to make this game
based on Terry Brooks' best-selling fantasy novels of the same name, but
they did. If you've read the books, and even if you haven't, you should
be playing the game instead of reading this. [Legend]

Sherlock [Infocom]

Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective [ICOM Simulations]

Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective 2 [ICOM Simulations]

Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective 3 [ICOM Simulations]

Shipwreckers: An amusing pirate adventure which appears to be a rip-off
of the Monkey Island games. [Psygnosis]

Shivers [Sierra On-Line]

Shivers II: Harvest Of Souls [Sierra On-Line]

Shogun [Infocom]

Silence Of The Lambs, Release 2: Possibly the funniest one-move text
adventure in existence. [Gunther Schmidl]

Simon The Sorcerer [Infocom]

Simon The Sorcerer 2 [Infocom]

Slater & Charlie Go Camping [Sierra On-Line]

Snatcher: A cyberpunk semi-classic adventure which was only ever
released in English for the Sega CD system (although it was released in
Japanese on other systems), Snatcher is a decent game which is basically
a direct derivation of Blade Runner. The plot is exactly like that of Blade
Runner, and even the gameplay is exactly like that of the Blade Runner
PC game. The only real difference is that you're named Gillian Seed
(instead of Ray McCoy), you're part of "J.U.N.K.E.R.", which is a
military organization (instead of being a "blade runner", a special type of
L.A.P.D. officer), and your job is to hunt and kill androids which blend
in with society and are called "Snatchers" (instead of "Replicants"). It's
tempting to say that Snatcher is a cheap ripoff of the Blade Runner
game, but it was actually released in 1994, four years before BR. Calling
it a cheap ripoff of the Blade Runner movie is still a viable possibility,
however, although it should be noted that Snatcher really is a pretty
decent adventure. As a side note, this game was written by Hideo
Kojima, one of electronic gaming's biggest stars thanks to being the
father of the Metal Gear series of games. [Konami]

Snoopy And Peanuts: A small, simple quasi-adventure based on the
comic strip; You play Snoopy, and you have to do something. (If you
can figure out what it is, though, you played the game longer than most
people would.) The game seems fun enough, but rather aimless.

SoftPorn [Sierra On-Line]

Sorcerer [Infocom]

Sorcerian [Sierra On-Line]

Space Quest 0: Replicated: A fan-made game that is supposed to be the
Space Quest series' prequel, taking place before the events of Space
Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter. In this sense, it is similar to Space Quest:
The Lost Chapter, another fan-made game which takes place between the
end of Space Quest 2 and the beginning of Space Quest 3. However,
while SQ:TLC was a pretty good little adventure, it had some elements
that didn't make it feel quite like a Space Quest game; Many of the
puzzles were stunningly illogical, it had a sprawling screen layout (in
some places, anyway) that left a lot of room for exploration but felt
somehow messy and fragmented, and the overall writing style didn't
quite capture the biting sarcasm and wit that characterized the writing for
Sierra's Space Quest games. Space Quest 0 deals with all of these
problems. It feels like a real Space Quest game, in graphical style, in the
structure of the screens, in the clever but logical puzzles, and in the
writing. (It also feels like somewhat of a ripoff of Space Quest 1, as it
starts in almost exactly the same type of setting (Roger comes out of the
janitor's closet to find his spaceship's crew has been slaughtered), but
that's another story.) Overall, a fine fan-made effort that's worth
checking out if you've already played all the Space Quests and felt sorry
that there'll probably never be an official seventh one. [Jefferson Stewart]
(Freeware)

Space Quest Collection: A hilarious collection of the first six Space
Quest games. (That's all of them, as of this writing.) The perfect
companion to the King's Quest Collection. (KQ was Sierra's most
successful series, Space Quest was their second most successful.) [Sierra
On-Line]

Space Quest Collector's Edition: This amazing collection includes all of
the first 5 Space Quest games, for one insanely low price. This is the
companion product to the King's Quest Collector's Edition (see above).
(You'll have trouble finding this in stores now, so get the Space Quest
Collection instead.) [Sierra On-Line]

Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter: Since it first came out, the Space
Quest series has become internationally famous as a science-fiction game
series with a very strange (and often hysterically funny) sense of humor.
They have always contained extremely bizarre characters and places (as
befits a sci-fi story). This game was the beginning of it all. Roger Wilco,
janitor, never meant to be a hero, but that's what happened after he
escaped from the spaceship Arcada before it blew up and saved the entire
planet of Xenon from destruction. This game is available in both the
original version, and the new version, with much better graphics and
sound. Get both from the Space Quest Collector's Edition. (NOTE: In the
updated 256-color VGA version of Space Quest 1, the game may lock
up on newer computers during the beginning when the ship's computer
is saying "Destruct sequence is engaged." It turns out there is an easy fix
for this problem: Change your sound card in the install program to an
AdLib card instead of a Sound Blaster card. Then, start the game, and it
should proceed past that part normally. If you want Sound Blaster
support while playing the game, save the game after the "Destruct
sequence" message, set your sound card back to Sound Blaster, then
restore that saved game. Speaking of Sound Blaster support, like most
early Sound Blaster-supporting games from Sierra, you need to set your
sound card's IRQ to 7 to use Sound Blaster support on this game.)
Unfortunately, the VGA version of SQ1 is crippled by a bad timing
algorithm on newer CPUs that makes you die of thirst almost instantly
on the surface of Kenora, making the game unfinishable. (Adventure
gamers may notice some similarities between Planetfall and Space Quest
I; It's fairly apparent where Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy got their
inspiration for the first SQ game's plot.) [Sierra On-Line]

Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge: If you thought the idea of one guy
saving a planet wasn't strange, then... Well, you probably won't think
that the sequel is, either. This is an excellent follow-up to The Sarien
Encounter, with a large jungle-planet to explore, strange aliens, and some
futuristic gadget-thingys to fool around with. Get this game from the
Space Quest Collector's Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

Space Quest: The Lost Chapter: A fan-made Space Quest game that takes
place between Space Quest 2 and Space Quest 3. The game is quite well-
done in terms of the writing and artwork (the richly silly world of Roger
Wilco comes through again, fully-realized), but many of the game's
puzzles are far too difficult. [Monster D Vonster] (Freeware)

Space Quest III: The Pirates Of Pestulon: Roger Wilco jumps into an
escape pod, rockets out of the asteroid fortress, and has a little (or
probably a big) nap. (Remember? That was what happened at the end of
Space Quest II.) When he wakes up, he's inside... a garbage dump.
Actually, it's a giant garbage-collector spaceship, and he's inside the
ship's waste compartment (which seems to take up most of the ship
itself). Can he get out of here alive? Doing so is going to take some
clever thinking on his part (or I guess I should say YOUR part). And
even if he does, that's only the beginning. After that, he (or you) must
blow up a generator (and subsequently an entire planet), destroy a killer
robot, and buy new underwear. Then you jaunt off to the planet Pestulon,
and free Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy (a.k.a. The Two Guys From
Andromeda), the designers of the Space Quest series, from the bad guys
in charge of a software company. All this in one day? This was the first
Space Quest to have sound card support. Great music and sound (the
soundtrack was actually done by Bob Seibenberg, part of the classic-rock
group Supertramp). Get this game from the Space Quest Collector's
Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco And The Time Rippers 1.1: Roger Wilco
flies off in his little spaceship, and tries to get to his home planet of
Xenon. (Remember? That was what happened at the end of Space Quest
III.) But after a while, he decides, before going to Xenon, he'll take a
quick rest stop at a planet called Magmetheus. That's his mistake. While
at a bar on Magmetheus, he's confronted by two big black baddies who
want to kill him. Then, after a bit of a struggle, the game begins on the
streets of post-apocalyptic Xenon. (You're no longer playing Space Quest
IV here. Now you're playing Space Quest XII: Vohaul's Revenge II).
After spending some time (actually quite a lot of time) in Space Quest
XII, you find a time machine and go back (or forward, or whatever) to
Space Quest X: Latex Babes Of Estros. There you'll find a big
pterodactyl, some rather scantily-clad women, a big sea monster, and an
intergalactic shopping mall. In fact, that's one of the most interesting
parts about Space Quest IV. Very little of the game really takes place in
Space Quest IV. First XII, then X, then, incredibly, you actually go
BACK to Space Quest I, where you meet some guys at Ulence Flats who
weren't around last time you were there. Then, if you survive all that,
there's a little more time-travelling in store, until you go back to Space
Quest XII and finally meet the guy who saved your life at the very
beginning. This ending is pretty poignant. Don't miss it. Get this game
from the Space Quest Collector's Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

Space Quest IV NON-TALKING Version

Space Quest V 1.04: Roger Wilco And The Next Mutation: Roger Wilco
enlists in StarCon Academy, so he can learn how to be a spaceman.
After you help him graduate from the Academy (by cheating, of course),
you find yourself in charge of your very own... garbage scow. Wow. But
at least it's your very own spaceship and you control it. Plus, you'll find
three other people on the ship to help you in controlling it. You can even
boss them around by giving everybody orders. At first the game seems
to be just picking up garbage from around the galaxy, but when you're
about one-fifth into the game, the REAL plot of the game (from which
comes the game's subtitle) surfaces. A strange substance has infected the
crew of one of the universe's largest and most important starships. It's
only a matter of time before this stuff turns everybody in the world (or
worlds) into hideous mutant-creatures. This Space Quest game is the first
to have some serious attempts at plot development in it (perhaps owing
to the fact that one of the original Space Quest designers has left off
doing work on the series), and things can get pretty creepy sometimes
here. Space Quest V is a good mix of suspense and comedy, unlike the
previous four games, which were entirely caught up in their own silliness
and where the emphasis was just on being stupid and funny. This game
concludes with a really big explosion, and Roger rescuing the woman
who is destined to be his wife. Get this game from the Space Quest
Collector's Edition. [Sierra On-Line]

Space Quest V NON-TALKING Version

Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco In The Spinal Frontier, Windows 95 CD:
A totally excellent and dangerously pee-the-pants funny space comedy
adventure, chronicling the latest adventures of everyone's favorite
interstellar janitor, Roger Wilco. If this game doesn't make you laugh,
get a brain (or is that a spinal?) transplant. [Sierra On-Line]

Space Wrecked: A sci-fi RPG which is almost the usual first-person
monster hunter at first glance, but with some interesting touches. By far
the game's most clever, interesting, and unusual feature is the ability to
program the various robots found throughout the game to do almost all
the things that you yourself could do (provided you have the right data
cartridge for it). You can set them up with weapons and have them go
through the hallways killing enemies, tell them exactly what room to go
to before fixing something there, or just make them self-destruct
somewhere, a kind of mobile, programmable bomb. This and the
interesting plot which develops as you progress through the game set it
apart from the crowd. It should provoke interest, or at least a faint smile,
from real-life programmers. [Konami/Gremlin Graphics]

Spellbreaker [Infocom]

Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls [Legend]

Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance [Legend]

Spellcasting 301: Spring Break [Legend]

Spycraft: The Great Game [Activision]

Starcross [Infocom]

Starflight: What the Starflight games lack in graphics quality, they more
than make up for in ambience. [Electronic Arts]

Starflight 2 [Electronic Arts]

Starship Titanic

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary Edition CD [Interplay]

Star Trek: Armada [Activision]

Star Trek: Birth Of The Federation [MicroProse]

Star Trek: Borg

Star Trek Captain's Chair

Star Trek: Judgement Rites [Interplay]

Star Trek, Deep Space Nine: Harbringer

Star Trek, Deep Space Nine: The Hunt

Star Trek Emissary Gift Set: A must-have for all trekkies.

Star Trek Omnipedia

Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Final Unity

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace [LucasArts]

Star Wars Episode 1: The Gungan Frontier [LucasArts]

Stationfall [Infocom]

Stonekeep CD-ROM: An extremely impressive CD-ROM game that took
4 years to make. Now packaged into The Ultimate RPG Archives.
[Interplay]

Suspect [Infocom]

Suspended: A *very* involved interactive fiction adventure; Indeed, it
may well be the hardest game Infocom ever made. Instead of being a
typical IF game in which you control a single character, you actually
play a computer mechanism who must control six separate robots, each
of which has a different ability: IRIS is the visual-sensor robot which
describes things to you from a visual perspective. AUDA is the aural-
sensor robot which describes how things sound. WALDO is the
construction robot who fixes things, and also has the ability to describe
how things feel to the touch. SENSA is an electromagnetic sensor robot
who can sense radiation, magnetism, etc. POET is an electronic whiz
who can diagnose flaws in logic circuitry (and who also supplies
profound poetry during the game!) And finally, WHIZ is a general-
purpose sort of robot who can do miscellaneous tasks for you. As
mentioned, you are a computer; Specifically, you control a computer
which controls all aspects of a planet, including the weather. A disaster
has occurred, and your goal in Suspended is to set things right. [Infocom]

Syberia: The adventure game for the year 2002, just as The Longest
Journey and Grim Fandango were the adventure games for their
respective years. And just like those two games, and also Myst (which
has been periodically running through the midst of the adventure-game
genre for almost a decade now), Syberia has a fairly real-world setting
with some creatively bizarre elements of fantasy added. The story here
focuses on the Voralberg family, famous makers of ornate mechanical
toys (which bring to mind the ones from Blade Runner). Unfortunately
for them, business has been dragging lately as electronic entertainment
takes over. You play Kate Walker, a businesswoman sent to arrange the
buyout of Voralberg Manufacturing. But as the game begins, you
discover that the sole living heir of the Voralberg family has just died...
Until you learn that there may be another one alive somewhere. Thus
begins the search for the living Voralberg heir, which entails a lot of
searching through the past. Syberia is a fascinating exploration of
discovery as you unearth the family history of the Voralbergs, and as you
play, you also learn more about Kate's own life. Thus, Syberia becomes
a grand story that slowly unfolds as you play, like a true adventure game
should be. Although it doesn't offer much beyond the classical adventure
game, it does a fine job of keeping the genre existing and alive, if not in
good health. [Microids/DreamCatcher Interactive]

System Shock: A classic, well-respected, and probably under-hyped sci-fi
game which denied categorization into one genre, being an adventure, an
RPG, and a first-person shooter all in one excellent package.
Interestingly, it seems to be a cyberpunk game, as your character is the
classical cyberspace deck cowboy who thinks he's hot stuff. The
culturing shows signs that the designers of the game have some exposure
to underground tech culture (the manual's glossary makes a very smart
move by defining a "Hacker" not as a person who breaks into networks
or computers, but "A programming specialist who doesn't follow
conventional methods of coding.") Even though the plot is pretty basic
and actually somewhat derivative, it's still unusually well-handled,
concerning an artificial intelligence named SHODAN which is in charge
of the computers on a spaceship. When SHODAN (one of the most
memorable villains ever seen in a computer game) becomes power-
hungry, he (it appears to be a quasi-male AI in this game, but curiously,
they made SHODAN female for System Shock 2) sets the ship's security
robots to annihilate the human crew. As one of the few crew members
with a cybernetic implant (and, apparently, the only living one), it's up
to you to stay one step ahead of SHODAN, running around the ship,
avoiding the now-hostile security systems, while trying to reach the
master computer system before the entire space station is lost. Overall,
System Shock gained a deserved reputation as one of the most well-
crafted, original, and intelligent games ever seen on the PC. NOTE:
System Shock will not run nicely unless you configure it with its
configuration file. The configuration file's name is CYB.CFG, and it
should be in the main System Shock directory. Here's a sample
CYB.CFG file, the one which I use:
digi_card 3
digi_io 544
digi_dma 1
digi_irq 2
midi_card 3
midi_io 544
midi_irq 2
language 0
instdir c:\shock
dclick_time 25 75
inp6d 
(End of file. Note that those sound card I/O settings are actually
expressed in decimal, which is why they're set to 544. 544 decimal
corresponds to 220 hexadecimal, the default.) [Electronic Arts]

System Shock 2 [Electronic Arts]

TADS: Text Adventure Development System 2.2 [Michael J. Roberts]

Tass Times In Tone Town [Interplay]

Teen Agent [Union Logic]

Tegel's Mercenaries

Temjin

Terror Of The Deep

Tex Murphy: Overseer: Yeah, Tex Murphy's back, the guy from Mean
Streets, Martian Memorandum, and Under A Killing Moon. If you liked
those games, I don't have to say anything else, you need this game.
[Access Software]

The Adventures Of Maddog Williams In The Dungeons Of Duridian: A
nice Medieval adventure in a forest, with nostalgic graphics and music.
If you remember the old days of adventure games and wish there had
been more, this is one to add to your list. [Game Crafters] [Freeware]

The Adventures Of Willy Beamish: A funny and curiously deranged
game in which kids rule. Good news! You're one of the kids. [Sierra On-
Line]

The Bard's Tale Construction Set [Interplay] [NOTE: This and all three
Bard's Tale games are available from The Ultimate RPG Archives.]

The Bard's Tale: Tales Of The Unknown [Interplay]

The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight [Interplay]

The Bard's Tale III: The Thief Of Fate [Interplay]

The Black Cauldron: The child-oriented adventure game from Roberta
Williams, King's Quest's designer. This game is based on the popular
book by Lloyd Alexander. It's more simplistic than Sierra's other
adventures: You don't type commands, you just use 4 keys to do
everything. [Sierra On-Line]

The Blackstone Chronicles [Legend/Mindscape]

The Bloodstone: An Epic Dwarven Tale [Mindcraft]

The Colonel's Bequest: Although it seems kind of dumb at first, this
adventure is actually very interesting. It's from Roberta Williams (who
did King's Quest) and it leads me to believe that she would be a good
mystery writer. Anyway, it's a suspense-filled adventure through a big
old mansion on an island with a lot of murders happening. It's a
departure from regular adventure games for several reasons: It's not as
"puzzle-oriented"... It has puzzles and inventory items, but
communicating with other characters has a more important role than it
usually does. It has a CTRL-A "ask about" command (much like Sierra's
later Quest For Glory) and it uses no score. Now, that's a change!
Overall, this is a great effort worth checking out. [Sierra On-Line]

The Colonel's Bequest 2 [Sierra On-Line]

The Curse Of Monkey Island: Excellent follow-up to the first two Secret
Of Monkey Island games (which were also excellent). [LucasArts]

The Dame Was Loaded [Beam International]

The Dark Eye [Inscape]

The Dig: Stephen Spielberg designed this one. A dinosaur story.
[LucasArts]

The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall [Bethesda Softworks]

The Freak Show: Have you ever wanted to hang out with some real
freaks? Here's your chance. This is a completely off-the-wall look at the
lives of a group of, ahem, *peculiar* circus performers. This disc was
produced by The Residents, the cult rock band from San Francisco. Very
spooky, VERY interesting, VERY VERY VERY bizarre. See also Bad
Day On The Midway, above.

The Hand Of Fate [Virgin]

The Hobbit [Melbourne House]

The Horde: (NOTE: The Horde has absolutely horrible problems with
faster CPUs. It's not uncommon for older games to run into some sticky
points on Pentium-level computers, but The Horde is absolutely laden
with them. If you can run it on a 486, you'll get a kick out of it, as it's
a great game. If you can't find anything less than a Pentium, forget about
it.) [Crystal Dynamics]

The Journeyman Project 2.0 For Windows: The first Journeyman Project
game was hailed as a breakthrough in its time, back in the days when
"multimedia" was still a new thing and CD-only games were rare. Its
segments of full-motion video were chief among its innovations, although
its crisp graphic scenes were good too. The game itself is a fairly
interesting tale of a secret agency appointed to protect the universe from
the time disruptions caused by time travel. As a member of this agency,
you must correct three time anachronisms that have mysteriously
occurred all of sudden, then trace them to their source. Unfortunately,
The Journeyman Project is a fairly weak adventure game in that most of
its puzzles are very simple; Experienced adventure gamers will likely
find almost all of them to be trivial. This, combined with the fact that it's
rather short, makes The Journeyman Project an adventure you may finish
in one evening (if you play it the whole evening). (Also, the multimedia
in the game is rather cheaply done; Literally all of the scenes in the game
(both still and animated) are actually stored as AVI files, and all the
sound and music is either sound in those AVIs, or separate WAV files.
However, the player doesn't really notice this, so it's not really a
problem, although this may explain the game's notorious reputation for
running slowly, even on top-of-the-line (back then) 486 systems.)
Overall, The Journeyman Project is a pretty decent little sci-fi adventure,
but it's probably most notable for being the first game in the trilogy that
spawned the much-better Buried In Time and Legacy Of Time games.
NOTE: The original Journeyman Project game has a weird problem
which makes it have a hard time finding the game files. Often it'll
complain that it can't find the game files on the CD even if the CD is in
the drive. Even if you manage to make it find the files on the CD, you
have another interesting problem that crops up: Since you can't save
games onto the CD, you'll have to save to the hard disk, and if you try
to load a game from the hard disk, the game will again start complaining
it can't find the files on the CD. To make life easier for yourself, just
copy the whole CD's contents to a directory on your hard disk and play
off the HD instead of the CD. (Change the JMAN.INI file in your
Windows directory if you do this; Set the "Base Path" entry to be
whatever the directory is that you put the game on your hard disk.) This
should make the game run flawlessly, and let you save and load games
without trouble. [Quadra Interactive]

The Journeyman Project 2: Buried In Time [Quadra Interactive]

The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy Of Time [Quadra Interactive]

The Labyrinth Of Time CD [Electronic Arts]

The Last Express: An adventure which takes place in 1914. A
mystery-adventure set aboard the Orient Express as World War I
approaches; This train could make or break the difference in the war. The
only game ever produced by Smoking Car Productions, headed by Jordan
Mechner, best known for his Prince Of Persia games. The plot is
well-written but what makes this game truly different is that it takes
place in real time; You have to be in the right place(s) at the right
time(s) or you'll miss something. A good show. [Broderbund/Smoking
Car Productions]

The Lawnmower Man: This game is based on the movie of the same
name. If you saw the movie, you're probably guessing (correctly) that
this is a weird game. [Sony Electronic Publishing]

The Legacy: Here, you explore an old mansion, which turns out to be
very haunted. Imagine that! [MicroProse]

The Legend Of Kyrandia CD: No doubt heavily influenced by King's
Quest, this is a very well-presented Medieval adventure with top-notch
(for its time) graphics and sound, along with a decent plot and good
puzzles. A winner overall. [Westwood Studios/Virgin]

The Legend Of Kyrandia 2: The Hand Of Fate CD [Westwood
Studios/Virgin]

The Legend Of Kyrandia 3: Malcolm's Revenge [Westwood
Studios/Virgin]

The Lion King [Walt Disney/Virgin]

The Longest Journey: Although adventure games are mostly dead, it's
nice to see somebody's still producing intelligent, involving adventures
like The Longest Journey. Although the presentation isn't particularly
remarkable, the plot is simply one of the deepest, most involving
storylines ever incorporated into any computer game. Ever. [Funcom]

The Lost Files Of Sherlock Holmes [Mythos Software/Electronic Arts]

The Lost Files Of Sherlock Holmes 2 [Mythos Software/Electronic Arts]

The Lost Treasures Of Infocom, Volume I: Do you remember the old
computer games which did not have one single thing even resembling a
picture? Utterly text? This is a collection of 20 of the best games from
that era, including the entire Zork series as well as classics like Deadline,
Witness, Lurking Horror, Infidel, Planetfall, and Hitchiker's Guide To
The Galaxy. [Infocom]

The Lost Treasures Of Infocom, Volume II: 11 more text games,
including Border Zone, Bureaucracy, Cutthroat, and Wishbringer.

The Magic Candle [Mindcraft]

The Magic Candle II [Mindcraft]

The Magic Candle III [Mindcraft]

The Muppet CD-ROM: Muppets Inside [Starwave]

The Neverhood Chronicles [DreamWorks]

The Palace Of Deceit: Dragon's Plight: It's sometimes amazing how
people get their start in a particular line of work. When Cliff Bleszinski
was about 17, he designed and programmed this little Windows
adventure game, and published it under his self-owned company, Game
Syndicate Productions. Although Dragon's Plight was by no means an
amazing game, it was a pioneering game in the sense that it was for
Windows, a GUI which had still been largely ignored by game designers
at this time (in 1991). It is a cute enough little adventure in which you
play a gentle dragon named Nightshade who must escape imprisonment
and defeat the evil wizard Garth. After the game was released, Bleszinski
sent a copy of it to the legendary Tim Sweeny, owner and founder of
Epic MegaGames, a company which at that time was still busy riding the
success of the archaic (but fascinating) text-arcade game ZZT.
Amazingly, Sweeny liked the game so much that he hired young Cliff to
make another game like it with Epic. And so Cliff Bleszinski's career
was born. His next game was Dare To Dream... [Game Syndicate
Productions/Epic MegaGames]

The Pandora Directive [Access]

The Prophecy [Sierra On-Line]

The Psychotron: Dominate the mind. Heck, dominate the world! [Merit
Software]

The Riftwar Legacy CD

The Ring: The Legend Of The Nibelungen [Red Orb Entertainment]

The Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge CD-ROM

The Secret Of Monkey Island [Lucasfilm (now LucasArts)]

The Secret Of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: Side-splitting
pirate adventure. Also seriously challenging puzzles. [LucasArts]

The Seventh Guest CD [Virgin]

The Seventh Guest II: The XIth Hour CD [Virgin]

The Shadow Of Yserbius: Yeah! The game from INN is stripped of its
multi-player features and made into a great single-player game. [Sierra
On-Line]

The Shadow Of Yserbius 2: The Fates Of Twinion [Sierra On-Line]

The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield: Very interesting little CD which lets
you tour the world's most dysfuntional town. A must for Simpsons fans.
[Fox Interactive]

The Space Bar: An excellent adventure game with really excellent,
appropriately spacey graphics (done by Ron Cobb, the conceptual
designer for the aliens in the famous Star Wars cantina scene) and a
really fun plot. This game is tons of fun for those who like adventure
games. [SegaSoft]

The Star Trek Interactive Technical Manual: Star Trek fans, prepare to
drool!

The Train: An old, interesting game. Takes place at the end of World
War II. Some paintings have been stolen, you have to get them back.
[Accolade]

The Ultimate RPG Archives: Another wonderful compilation of classic
Interplay games (see also Classic Collection). This one includes The
Bard's Tale: Tales Of The Unknown, The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny
Knight, The Bard's Tale III: The Thief Of Fate, The Bard's Tale
Construction Set, Might & Magic: World Of Xeen, Clouds Of Xeen,
Darkside Of Xeen, Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld I, Ultima Underworld
II, Dragon Wars, Wasteland, and Wizardry Gold: Crusaders Of The Dark
Savant. Worth several times what it costs. [Interplay]

The Wizard And The Princess: The second game from Sierra, and the
first color one. Also known as Adventures In Serenia if you bought it
from IBM (yes, THAT IBM), this is as much a piece of history as
Mystery House. [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

The Wrath Of Denethenor: A now-forgotten RPG which was fairly good
for its time (late 1980s), in the style of Ultima. [Sierra On-Line]

The X-Files: The Game

The X-Files: Unrestricted Access

The Yendorian Tales: An Ultima-style game where you do a lot of
mining, talking to other people, and fighting really tough monsters. Get
this game from Gamefest 2 CD. [SmithWare]

Threshold [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Time Commando [Activision]

Time To Die: A CGA text-with-pictures adventure in which you play a
private eye who has a group of thugs trying to kill you right from the
start. The setting is fairly unique (oddly, there aren't many mystery
adventures in the world), and the parser is decent, making for a fun little
adventure. (This game is also known as Borrowed Time.)
[Interplay/Activision]

Time Zone [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time

Titanic: Challenge Of Discovery

Tom Clancy's Politika

Tom Clancy: SSN

Toonstruck [Virgin]

Torin's Passage: You are Torin, a lad of sixteen, wondering about your
future. You return home from an errand one morning to discover that
your parents have been spirited away by an evil sorceress's magic spell!
Learning little more than her name, you vow to find her and force her to
release your parents from her evil deed.
  Thus begins Torin's quest. You'll travel through fantastic worlds inside
worlds, thwart death again and again, until a climactic confrontation that
changes your life in ways not even you could have imagined! Along the
way, you'll learn that everything in Torin's Passage is not as it appears
to be...including you!
  But because this story is from Al Lowe, you'll laugh as well. A story
to make everyone laugh out loud. And, your Passage will be as involved
as  Torin's. Torin's Passage is a beautifully elaborate game, full of
twists, humor, and puzzles. You must be as quick and resourceful as
Torin in this contest of memory, wits and determination. [Sierra On-Line]

Traitors Gate [Daydream Software/DreamCatcher Interactive]

Treasure Quest [Sirius]

Trilogy [Sierra On-Line]

Trinity [Infocom]

Tunnels & Trolls [New World Computing/Ken St. Andre]

Twinsen's Odyssey [Activision]

UBIK: Rather loosely based on the novel of the same name from well-
known sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, making this the second Dick book
concept to be made into a game (the first being, of course, "Do Androids
Dream Of Electric Sheep?", upon which both the movie and the
computer game called "Blade Runner" were based). Ubik is a tactical
action/strategy game with an adventure game's interface; Indeed, there
are moments when the game has the rudimentary makings of an
adventure (walking around, using items, talking to people), but those
passages are brief and generally unimportant, giving them the status of
window dressing, probably implemented to make the game seem more
multi-genre. As Joe Chip (the protagonist of the book), Squad Leader for
Runciter Corporation, your job is basically to lead combat squads into
missions against your rivals, the Hollis Corporation.
  Ubik seems like little more than an excuse to release another real-time
strategy game with a plot that just happens to be fairly unique and based
on a good book, but in fact it's a reasonably unique and entertaining
game in its own right, although it has some quirks, some of which are
very serious. The first problem you're likely to notice with the game is
that it has the world's worst movement-path handling ever. Very, very
frequently, your characters get stuck while trying to walk around, so that
they end up simply walking in place, requiring you to change their
movement path slightly so they can get where they're going. This is a
fairly common problem in several 3D games, but in most games it's a
problem with the characters getting stuck on some object, especially a
door. But Ubik somehow manages to get your characters stuck on
nothing at all; They'll walk half-way across a room, then get stuck on
thin air. If this only happened occasionally, it would be merely irritating,
but since it seems to happen on a regular basis, it becomes a game-
crippling bug that any quality-testing team should have identified as a
must-fix; As it is, this one flaw alone is serious enough to make Ubik a
problematic game.
  The game also has some rather clunky camera controls. You are
supplied with an "Intelligent Camera" which is supposed to automatically
determine a good camera position and angle to show the most important
details at the current point in time. This is a good idea and it usually
works fairly well, but occasionally it will give you a camera view that
is not terribly useful. Still, it's better than using the manual camera
control, which gives you a choice of several camera views, all of which
will either show you a tiny corner of the room in which you can't see
anything, or a view that's so ridiculously zoomed-out that everything
appears to be about 3 pixels in size, and thus which you still can't see
anything with.
  Also odd is the access time required to pull any speech clips off the
CD. In any conversation, every single spoken line of speech will pause
the game for a few seconds, during which the music cuts out and the CD
is accessed. It might seem logical that this could be solved with a faster
CD-ROM drive, but this does not seem to be the case. It's not a problem
of slow hardware, it's a software problem. (I'd be happy to have
someone correct me on this if I'm wrong.)
  All of these are basically technical problems; I haven't even mentioned
the gameplay yet. Thankfully, however, if you can get over the glaring
technical issues, the game itself is not half bad. Unfortunately, it *is*
half-good: Ubik is a mediocre squad-combat game with very little to
distinguish it. You go into your mission, you shoot up some enemies,
you accomplish your objective. The graphics aren't good enough to make
them outstanding, the voice acting and sound effects are only passable,
and the plot (which is the only thing that distinguishes this game,
because it is, after all, based on a novel by one of the greats of sci-fi) is
too under-developed to maintain the player's interest for very long. As
I said before, Ubik is just a bad excuse for a game based on Dick's
book. [Interplay/Cryo Interactive]

Ultima Collection [Origin]

Ultima I: First Age Of Darkness: When it comes to classic computer
role-playing games, you can't get much more classic than the Ultima
series. Ultima I was re-released into a better, more-colored version (over
the original's pathetic CGA 4 colors). As the title screen says, "from
darkest dungeons, to deepest space!" (Remember, in the dungeons of
Ultima, use K for "Klimb", not C for Climb.) (For the first Ultima game,
Richard Garriott, better known as Lord British, spent $200 on Ziploc
bags and photocopied cover sheets to package the game. It was
distributed through a tiny company called California Pacific which went
out of business afterward.) [California Pacific]

Ultima II: Revenge Of The Enchantress (For this game, Richard Garriott
wanted a real box to hold the game in, and a cloth map included with it.
Sierra was the only company which would do this, and so Ultima II was
published through them.) [Sierra On-Line]

Ultima III: Exodus (Garriott and Ken Williams (President of Sierra) had
a disagreement over contract negotiations, resulting in Garriott leaving
them. Together with his brother Robert, he founded Origin Systems,
through which Ultima III was published.) [Origin]

Ultima IV: Quest Of The Avatar: The first Ultima game to give some
kick to the series. While the first three games were quite small and
primitive (and quite similar to each other), Ultima IV suddenly was much
bigger and more impressive all around. [Origin]

Ultima Online: Shattered Legacy: If you are an avid game player who
also likes playing games online (over the Internet), Ultima Online is an
experience not to be missed. It's simply one of the most sophisticated,
beautiful, interactive online games ever made. It's a huge, lush world
where you work, kill, and play with other people online, just like in real
life, except if you kill somebody or die, you don't go to jail or really die.
(Although Ultima Online does have an interesting way of dealing with
"newbie killers", which have long been a serious problem in online
games: Once they get powerful, they slaughter everyone who is new to
the game (and hence less powerful than them). In Ultima Online,
anybody who newbie kills a lot will gain a bad reputation and find
themselves eventually being hunted down by non-human (computer-
controlled) guards.) Ultima Online appears to have been released a bit
before it was ready (there have been reports of serious bugs), but it's still
one of the biggest and best multiplayer online games you'll see. [Origin]

Ultima Online: Second Age [Origin]

Ultima V: Warriors Of Destiny [Origin]

Ultima VI: The False Prophet [Origin]

Ultima VII: The Black Gate [Origin]

Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle Speech Accessory Pack [Origin]

Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle [Origin]

Ultima VII: The Black Gate Add-On: Forge Of Virtue [Origin]

Ultima VIII: Pagan [Origin]

Ultima VIII: Pagan Speech Accessory Pack [Origin]

Ultima IX: Ascension [Origin]

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss [Origin]

Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth Of Worlds [Origin]

Ultimuh: If you've never really understood the appeal of role-playing
games such as Ultima, you might appreciate the parody value of this
play-once RPG which parodies the monotonous kill-monster-after-
monster gameplay of almost all RPGs, and mixes in a pretty good sendup
of the deliberately stilted archaic English of the Ultima games. It's a
fairly stupid game, but then, you might say that its target is too; And at
least Ultimuh doesn't claim to be smart. [Nuclear Meltdown Productions
(No, it's really not from "Oregin", as the opening screen claims)]

Ulysses And The Golden Fleece [Sierra On-Line]

Under A Killing Moon CD: Lots of games claim to be pushing the
"envelope". Under A Killing Moon blows it to SMITHEREENS! [Access
Software]

Uninvited For Windows: This game definitely wastes no time in casting
you into the thick of the plot. An uncomplicated horror game, with
occasional chills and thrills. [ICOM Simulations]

Unlimited Adventures

Urban Runner [Sierra On-Line]

URI Quest: Of the several fan-made games based on the AGI engine
(Adventure Game Interpreter, the same adventure game engine used for
Sierra's early 3D adventures), URI Quest is probably by far the best. It
is a commercial-length, well-written and entertaining story that takes
place within the halls of URI (University of Rhode Island). And it's free.
Get it from the official homepage at http://www.jeffcarroll.net/uriquest/
[Jeff Carroll] (Freeware)

V: The Graphic Adventure: One of the better games built upon Sierra's
AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter) system, this adventure (which, as of
this writing in early 2003, is still in the late demo stages) has good
puzzles and a plot based upon the old 1980s sci-fi miniseries "V". The
game looks to be quite a promising fan-made effort. The official
homepage is at http://www.brainburst.de/v

Valkyrie 17: A spy thriller for the Sinclair Spectrum and the Commodore
64 which starts off being tense and suspenseful, but ends up being funny,
in a good way. (The sequel, Three Days In Carpathia, was never
finished, and thus never released.) [Ram Jam Corporation]

Vampire: The Masquerade--Redemption [Activision]

Victor Vector & Yondo: The Hypnotic Harp [Sanctuary Woods]

Victor Vector & Yondo: The Last Dinosaur Egg [Sanctuary Woods]

Victor Vector & Yondo: The Vampire's Coffin [Sanctuary Woods]

Virtual Springfield: See The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield

Voyeur [Interplay]

Warhammer: Rites Of War [SSI]

Warhammer: Shadow Of The Horned Rat [SSI]

Wasteland: An old classic game. Now available in The Ultimate RPG
Archives. (Wasteland's "spiritual successor" is Fallout.) Unfortunately,
for all the praise heaped upon it, I never much understood or cared for
the Wasteland phenomenon. It's not just that I'm not fond of RPGs in
particular because they're endless streams of doing nothing but killing
monsters; Nor is it just that the graphics are so horribly ugly that they
don't really inspire anything (a game doesn't need good graphics to be
good, but it helps). No, there are deeper problems with this game... First
I should cover its background plot of a post-apocalyptic world.
Wasteland is set in a futuristic California, as it exists following a nuclear
World War III. Nuclear war-torn worlds are a common enough theme in
computer games, but they usually have atmosphere. The whole point of
this post-apocalyptic setting is to create a dark, gloomy dystopia.
Wasteland fails utterly at doing this; Neither the graphics, nor the text,
nor the characters, nor anything else about the game makes you feel like
you're in the blazing California desert of a war-broken planet. Instead,
you feel like you're in a cheap, stupid computer game (which,
coincidentally, is exactly what you're in). The sky isn't even red; It's
blue! What kind of setting is that? Every post-apocalyptic computer game
puts up a bloodlike red sky at the very least. More than anything else,
Wasteland feels like a pleasure walk through a grassy field on a sunny
day. (This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something a little
different from what the game apparently intended.) Another problem with
the game is the skill set available to you; Wasteland has several skills
which you can develop in your party members for use in the game. This
is great, but it would help if the skills didn't suck. They're mostly
uninteresting and generic. Not surprisingly, most relate to combat (ah, the
bread-and-butter of RPGs): Basic skills include brawling, pistol usage,
knife fighting, pugilism (huh? Is that supposed to be different from
brawling?), and rifle usage. Great skill set there, guys. Higher skills do
get a little more interesting, including things like bureaucracy and
forgery, but they're still not that great. Lastly, I wish that gameplay did
not consist mostly of reading the message "You see miles and miles of
endless wasteland. You decide that further progress would be hazardous
to your health." Isn't going out journeying in the blistering desert
supposed to be the point? Why make an RPG when it restricts you to a
tiny little area? It all makes no sense. The "endless wasteland" cited is
described eloquently with the phrase "It's VERY hot!" This descriptive
message really makes me feel like I'm actually there... Actually in one
of those cheesy text adventures which use one-line room descriptions,
that is. 
  I'll admit, perhaps I have come down a little hard on Wasteland. It is
not a perfectly horrible game; If you really enjoy RPGs, you may
actually enjoy playing this game for a while. But in terms of the other
RPGs available nowadays (or, for that matter, even in terms of the RPGs
available when it was released in 1989), well, suffice it to say that if
Wasteland isn't over-hyped, nothing is. [Interplay/Electronic Arts]

Wayne's World [Capstone]

Weird Dreams: An aptly-named adventure game in which you are a
hospital patient who starts experiencing bizarre, hellish dreams during
anesthesia. These dreams form the game, and they are indeed weird.
Although the game is a pretty good adventure, some people may be
turned off by the sheer bizarreness of it all. For those who like strange
fantasy, however, Weird Dreams is a treat. [Rainbird]

Who Shot Johnny Rock?

William Shatner's Tek War

WinTADS 1.3.4: A Windows version of the TADS interpreter, to let you
play TADS games in a nice Windows GUI environment. [Stephen
Granade]

Wishbringer [Infocom]

Witchaven

Witness [Infocom]

Wizardry I [Sir Tech]

Wizardry II [Sir Tech]

Wizardry III [Sir Tech]

Wizardry IV [Sir Tech]

Wizardry V: Heart Of The Maelstrom [Sir Tech]

Wizardry VI: Bane Of The Cosmic Forge [Sir Tech]

Wizardry VII: Crusaders Of The Dark Savant [Sir Tech]

Wizardry 8 [Sirtech Canada]

Woodruff And The Schnibble Of Azimuth [Coktel Vision/Sierra On-
Line]

Worlds Of Ultima: Savage Empire: Following the immense success of
the Ultima role-playing games, Origin decided to launch the ill-fated
Worlds Of Ultima series, the first of which is this. The WOU games
were meant to take place in non-Medieval settings (unlike regular Ultima,
which was a Medieval game). Savage Empire is a caveman-era game.
[Origin]

Worlds Of Ultima: Martian Dreams: The second and last of the WOU
series was a science-fiction game which took place on Mars. Although
bizarre in its plot and completely overlooked by the game-playing public,
its captivating plot and good gameplay set it apart. [Origin]

Wrath Of The Gods: The old Greek legends, with some Bill & Ted and
just about everything else mixed in. [Luminaria/Maxis]

Yserbius: See The Shadow Of Yserbius

Z (Editor's Note: Yes, that's really the name of the game, not an error)
[Virgin]

Zak McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders [Lucasfilm]

Zeliard [Sierra On-Line]

Zero Zone [Cryo Interactive Entertainment]

Zombie Dinos From Planet Zeltoid [Interplay]

Zork: The old classic text adventure games! There are three games in the
original Zork trilogy: Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, Zork II:
The Wizard Of Frobozz, and Zork III: The Dungeon Master. They can't
be bought in stores anymore. Get them from The Lost Treasures Of
Infocom, Volume I.

Zork: A Troll's Eye View: An Interactive Tedium: A study of the
relative paradigms of moral identity in classic and modern IF (interactive
fiction), intended to throw sidelights on the motivation of the player and
of NPCs and their relative role in plot construction and development.
Actually it's a one-joke parody game. [Dylan O'Donnell]

Zork Grand Inquisitor: Almost unquestionably the best of the graphical
Zork games, ZGI is a two-CD epic which is actually funny, unlike the
previous ones. It also has an Internet multiplayer mode, something highly
unusual for adventure games: One player actually plays the game, and
the other serves basically as an observer, offering ideas for solutions to
puzzles or things to look at. Unfortunately, although this mode of
gameplay is an interesting idea, it's really more of a gimmick than
anything. [Activision]

Zork Nemesis [Activision]

Zork Zero [Infocom]

Zyll: A Text Adventure Game: One of the earliest MUD-style games for
the PC, Zyll isn't too fantastic today, but it was a pioneer in the field of
multiplayer RPGing, even though this game's idea of "multiplayer" is
two people sitting at the same local computer, not two people playing on
the Internet or even a LAN. This necessitated a specially-devised control
scheme, and IBM opted to make the game propelled by commands issued
by single keystrokes, making the game feel very simple. Still, it was an
interesting idea. As one poster to MobyGames put it: "This and Alley
Cat is why I like Big Blue." [IBM]

Arcade/Action:

3D Asteroid Impact: The first really new twist I've seen to Asteroids for
a while; In this game, you're a spaceship guarding planet Earth (in the
center of the screen) and you have to keep the asteroids and UFOs off
it. Rocks which slip by your guard make impressively large craters in the
planet, and the perspective is from a somewhat skewed 3D perspective,
making for a relatively fresh game concept. [Gamescape Studios]
[Shareware]

3D Lemmings: Exactly what the name sounds like. Although it may be
a little hard to see exactly where your lemmings are at times, this is still
a fun addition to the very popular line of games. [Clockwork
Games/Psygnosis]

7th Legion [MicroProse]

7-Up: See Cool Spot

Aaargh!: An old game in which you play either a huge lizard who eats
people, or a huge ogre who eats people. [Arcadia Software]

A Bug's Life

Abuse: A fairly generic platform shooter on the surface, but with a few
unusual touches. Foremost is the fact that aiming is done with the mouse
(to date, I have seen no other platformer which does this). Then there's
the moody atmosphere (darker than most platformers) and the extreme
difficulty, even on the so-called "Wimp" or "Easy" modes. And lastly,
although it's expected that games like this have either no plot at all or
plots which are unbelievable, this one's plot is improbable enough that
it sets a new level for suspension of disbelief. Abuse has been called the
platform version of Doom, and the comparison seems more fitting than
it probably really is. [Crack Dot Com]

Action SuperCross 1.2: A notable game with a surprisingly realistic
physics modeller. It's saved from being a basic sideways motorcycle
game by its smooth motion, outstanding graphics and sound, and
true-to-life bike reactions. [Balzs Rzsa]

After Burner: A pretty simplistic behind-an-airplane shooter, which was
nonetheless a big hit for Sega when it came out. [Sega]

Airball: Another old classic from the early days of games, this is a
diagonal-down game in which you play a person who's been transformed
into a big, air-filled ball. [MicroDeal]

Airborne Ranger [MicroProse]

Air Duel 0.90c: A simple but fun head-to-head airplane game, which you
can play against the computer or another human. [Chang Gyu. Chae]
[Freeware]

Airlift Rescue: An excellent clone of Choplifter, the best I've seen, and
better yet, it's freeware. What more could you want? [David Fleming]
[Freeware]

Airstrike USA: Considering Digital Integration's record of making hard-
core flight sims which strive for realism, it's surprising that they made
Airstrike USA, an extremely light game which scarcely deserves to be
called a simulation. The only view is from behind your plane, and your
elevators directly control your altitude rather than your pitch. It's fun as
an arcade game, but it could (and should) have been done better on a
console system like the NES rather than the PC. Although it's not a bad
game as long as you don't expect a realistic simulation, the world is a
better place because of Digital Integration's decision to stay true to "real"
sims (Airstrike USA is its only deviance from that path). [Digital
Integration/Spotlight Software/Cinemaware]

AI Wars: The Awakening: Regardless of whether you love it or hate it,
one can't deny that AI Wars is a highly unusual game in itself, and yet
also highly derivative of what's come before it. In this game, you play
an "agent", which is a type of computer program designed mainly to
collect and sell data in cyberspace. You really are a person who's jacked
into the Matrix, but since the entire game takes place inside the net, you
can think of yourself as being a computer program, or an AI. The net is
mostly represented using the typical grid of lines and data blocks, the
same visualization used in games like Neuromancer and System Shock;
Generally, the look of the game is extremely techno-fetishist, with walls
and doors that have been designed to look like circuit boards or other
high-tech patterns. The graphics are good but not great; The standout
aspect of AI Wars is the gameplay.
  Perhaps the most remarkable thing about AI Wars is the game's goal:
There are actually 3 separate goals, which you can pursue all at once, or
individually (whenever you begin a new game, you are asked which of
these 3 goals you wish to achieve to finish the game; The game will not
end until you have achieved all the goals you selected, and depending on
which goals you picked, the game will come to one of five possible
endings). These goals are to become immortal, to become sentient
(thinking and feeling, like a human and not just a mere computer), and
to gain control of the entire net. These are all lofty goals, to be sure, and
the fact that you play a computer program that's trying to become greater
than humans, instead of a human trying to battle these kinds of AIs,
makes AI Wars a fresh experience. The game's world is large, and ever-
changing, giving it some replay value, and it also has a good multiplayer
mode, playable over our modern-day Internet. The game does not
remember what condition you left any locations in, so if you collect all
the datacubes in a particular node and didn't find any interesting
information, you can simply leave the system and go back there,
whereupon you will find it completely reset with all the datacubes back
in their places, and you can then reap them again, finding completely
different data in them this time. Such is not just a possibility, but indeed,
the standard form of gameplay; Go inside a system, collect all its data,
disconnect to magically make a lot more data appear, go and get more
data, repeat for a long time. Tedious, to say the least.
  Unfortunately, for all of its innovation, AI Wars ends up being not that
much fun. The graphics, music, and sound are all crafted to try and
create an immersive experience, but none of them are actually as
immersive as they were probably meant to be. The music is decent but
unremarkable techno-electronica, with a good beat but a highly repetitive
nature, and the special effects tend to be unconvincing or cheesy. The
gameplay, similarly, tries hard to pull you in but gets old after a while.
AI Wars smacks of a game that was thought up as a promising concept,
then was tried as a game, found to be lacking in substance, and
eventually published anyway. The game's approach to "hacking" is
utterly uninteresting; Basically, you hack when you encounter a locked
door guarded by what's called a warden ICE. You run a crack program
against the warden ICE, and depending on how lucky you are, the level
of the ICE, and the level of your crack program, you either succeed, or
you don't. If you fail, you basically need to try again. The problem with
this is that your crack programs seem unreasonably impotent; You start
off with all your programs being at level 1, which is understandably the
weakest level, but even if you ever manage to get a level 6 crack
program, you'll still find that you need to make several tries against a
warden ICE, and very often you'll trigger an alarm by doing so before
you manage to actually get through the door you're trying to hack. The
game is absurdly difficult in this way, and the fact that your saved games
don't actually save your position, but instead revert you to the beginning
of a location when you restore, doesn't help matters at all.   The
complete lack of explanation in most AI Wars concepts is a serious
problem as well. The manual boasts that "This game does not spoon feed
you with the required elements to finish it". Spoon-feeding the player is
one thing (and it is a problem in some games), but the opposite problem
is serious as well. In AI Wars' case, very little is said about how to
achieve your goals (whichever ones you picked), how to upgrade your
software or make money so you can afford to upgrade your software, or
even how to move around. Perhaps recognizing that a computer game
can take the concept of "Let the player explore and find their own way"
a little too far, Nexus has released a strategy guide for AI Wars in PDF
format that's much, much more helpful than the tiny manual that comes
inside the jewel case of the game. You can get this strategy guide from
the AI Wars website at www.aiwars.com; Once there, click Tech
Support, then click the "Get Strategy Guide" link.   Regardless of its
shortcomings, AI Wars is a must-see for anyone who's interested in
cyberpunk/cyberspace games, but people who're actually looking for a
fun, playable game may want to look elsewhere. The official homepage
for AI Wars is at www.aiwars.com, and Nexus Information Systems'
homepage is at www.nexus-is.qc.ca. It's worth mentioning that because
Nexus is a small company and AI Wars is not a hugely popular game,
it's not sold in stores; You can only get it through the online store on the
website, so you may as well go there if you want the game.
  As a short primer on the game, be aware that you can move up when
you're in the "pool" where you begin the game. In fact, when you enter
most systems, you'll end up in such a pool, and you'll have to walk up
to get out. This had me baffled for several minutes, because when the
game begins it seems that you are trapped at the bottom of a pit with no
way out, and nowhere in the manual did it explain that you have the
ability to walk straight up in some places. To make any money, there is
really only one thing you can do: Collect data cubes. Unfortunately, data
cubes in public areas very rarely (if ever) contain data that's worth
money; You need to crack through a warden ICE to get to a private
datastore, and there you should be able to find some valuable data.
Unfortunately, because your initial Crack program is so weak, you might
have a hard time doing this; However, getting data is the only real way
to make money, so you end up in a Catch-22 situation: You can't
upgrade your Crack program until you make some money, but you can
scarcely manage to make any money until you've upgraded your Crack
program. For a cheap way out, find some retrievers (small, harmless bots
which have no self-defence) and hit them with your virus program until
they die; Retrievers often carry data that's valuable, and will leave
behind a single data block when they die. However, compounding this
problem is the fact that because Crack software is not legal, it's not sold
in the clean markets like Pmarket or Ecom; You'll have to wait until you
can find a less reputable place like Bmarket before you can buy a higher-
level Crack software. (In fact, it seems that Bmarket is the ONLY place
in the entire game where you can buy Crack software; However, there
is a market bot in Church3c.org which sells Crack software, and it can
go as high as level 4. It seems to offer a different level every time you
approach it, so if it offers you a lower level, just walk a few steps away
and approach it again, until it offers you a level 4. Software higher than
level 4 is not sold by any bot (Except for the Data Manager); You'll
have to find it in a datablock somewhere.) If there's a bit of cheater in
you, you can just hex-edit a saved game file to adjust your Crack
software level. To do this, find the "bsp" near the beginning of the file,
which is the extension of the filename used to identify what level the
saved game is in. From the hex location of the "p" in "bsp", add A5
(hexadecimal) to get the location of the byte which holds your Crack
software value. You can then set this manually to whatever value you
like. For example, if the "p" in "bsp" is at hex location 16h, then add
A5h to 16h; The result is BBh, which is the byte holding your Crack
level. (Unfair, you say? I'll tell you what's really unfair: Forcing the
player to use level 1 Crack software against level 3 or 4 warden ICE for
most of the game.)
  In fact, AI Wars is a game that lends itself pretty well to saved-game
editing in general, because the saved game files have some simple areas
which can be easily hex-edited. For example, the following is a list of all
the bytes in the saved-game file which correspond to the level of your
software programs. Note that all of these locations are to be added to the
location of the "p" in "bsp" near the beginning of the file to get the
actual location. So, for example, the first item listed is 81; If the "p"
were at hex location 16h, then you'd add 81 hex to that. 16h plus 81h is
97 hexadecimal, so you'd edit location 97h in the saved-game file to
change your anti-virus software level.
81: Anti-Virus
87: Firewall
8D: Masquerade
93: Virus
99: IRC
9F: Spoof
A5: Crack
AB: Data Manager
B1: Encrypt
B7: Decrypt
  All of the breakthroughs in the game are stored as single-byte Boolean
values in the saved game file; If the byte corresponding to that
breakthrough is set to 1, the breakthrough has been discovered. If the
byte is set to 0, the breakthrough has not yet been discovered. The
locations of each breakthrough byte are as follows (these numbers are,
again, to be added to the "p" in "bsp"):
175: Nano neural surgery
177: Neuro transmeters sensors/emitter
179: Language center translater
17B: Brain cartographer software
17D: Neural induction probe
17F: Human neural net replicator
181: Persona software
183: Behaviour analyser
185: Emotion algorythms
187: Fully immersive SIM sense
189: Concept imaging system
18B: Positronic Matrix Clock
18D: Positronic Matrix
18F: Data Crystals
191: Bioprocessors
193: Neural Biopacks
  Also note that saved game file locations 6Bh and 6Ch (again, add these
to the location of the "p" in "bsp") store how much money you have.
  If you can place a backdoor on a system (by finding its "Core" (which
is represented as a rotating ring) and touching that ring), it will regard
you as a system administrator, and you can then return to that system
again and again, going through the private datastores, collecting valuable
data. You may as well take advantage of your backdoors while you have
them, since they are randomly discovered and removed by human
sysadmins in the "real world". To complete the "Take over the Net"
game goal, you must have a backdoor on very nearly every single system
on the Net. Once this is achieved, instead of going to the individual
router nodes like Planar.com or Raptor.com, you will access a central
router which links to every system on the Net. The "Net Control counter"
will help you keep track of how many systems you've planted a
backdoor on. It is a ten-segment bar graph in the lower-left of the screen,
above your health meter. For every two systems you plant a backdoor on,
a single tick mark will appear. As soon as the tenth tick mark appears,
you will have taken over the Net, and you will go to the central router
hub next time you exit the particular system you're in. (Obviously, then,
you must put a backdoor on 20 systems to take over the Net.)
  Much is said in the documentation for AI Wars on active and passive
alarms, but the difference between them is never clearly stated. The only
given distinction is that an active alarm immediately calls a Black ICE
to your location, while a passive alarm does not. The question, then,
becomes: What does a passive alarm do? A passive alarm causes other
forms of ICE (such as turret ICE) to remember you, and to attack you
upon sight. So while you won't suddenly have a mobile Black ICE
chasing you around, you will start to get zapped if you happen to pass
within firing range of a turret ICE. Systems "remember" you once you
have triggered a passive alarm, and their ICE will still attack you if you
ever return there. The only way to clear a passive alarm is to reach the
system's core and install a backdoor, no easy task if the core is well-
guarded by turret or hunter ICE and you've already been marked as an
intruder.
  Also note that while Root.com has some nasty programs in one area
that are always hostile to you, you don't need to actually deal with them,
because the system's core is in another area. On the other hand, if you
want to reach Front.com's core, you will need to deal with the tarantula
in the way. (I recommend the use of a Spoof program.)
  The Research.mil system is by far the most complicated and interesting
in the game. Unfortunately, its built-in puzzle is unreasonably difficult
to figure out. Essentially, when you are asked to solve the problem
regarding "numbers", you must push four numbered panels, in order.
First you must press panel 1, then 3, then 5, and finally 7. Panel 1 is
located in the hallways behind the door labeled 1; It is behind a movable
wall. If you press against the wall, it will start to slide around. Panel 3
must be revealed before you can press it. In the hallways behind doors
2 and 3, there are two black, unmarked panels. You must press both of
them. (One of them opens the hallway to panel 3, while the other opens
the hallway to panel 5.) After you have pressed the black panels, you
should be able to find panel 2 at the top of a steep staircase; Near panel
2 is the corridor to panel 3. Panel 5 is clearly accessible behind the door
labeled 5 (as long as you have opened the way by pressing the
aforementioned black panel). Finally, panel 7 is easy to find, in the side
room with panels 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 arrayed along the walls. Once you
have pressed the four panels in order, a set of platforms will extend from
the place where you entered this puzzle area, and you can jump across
these platforms to an area rich with valuable datablocks. Also note that
at one end of this datastore is a door which leads to Search.mil, the only
system not accessible directly from a main router node. To the left side
of the door which leads to Search.mil is a hidden wall (you can walk
through it) which will lead to the core of Research.mil. Not only that, but
in the room with Research.mil's core is ANOTHER hidden wall you can
walk through. If you find it, bypass the warden ICE there, and push the
button behind the panel it opens, you can jump into the deep abyss in the
center of Research.mil's core room, which will instantly end the game by
merging you with a trapped AI. (This is the game's "alternate ending".)
  And note that besides being required to complete the "Become
Immortal" or "Become Sentient" game goals, there are three technologies
which have side benefits: The Organic Computer and Positronic
Computer will both raise your maximum health. Develop the Positronic
Computer and your health will go up to 150, develop the Organic
Computer and you'll have 250 health points. This can definitely be
helpful when tangling with places like Search.mil which have ICE that
are always hostile. (Amusing bug in the game: If you develop the
Organic Computer first and then the Positronic Computer, your health
will actually go DOWN from 250 to 150; Thus, if you want to develop
both of these, it's recommended you develop the Positronic Computer
first, then the Organic Computer, so you can keep your 250 health
points.) Also, the Deep Neural Interface increases your running speed (by
quite a bit, actually; It makes running through the Net feel much faster,
and really adds to the feeling of being a computer program, a fleeting
concept, and not an organic being). To pick up the breakthroughs you
need to develop technologies, just go through some high-level databanks
a few times. By far the best system for finding breakthroughs is
Research.mil, so once you've planted a backdoor on it, you can just
repeatedly re-connect to it and go through its databanks until you've
found all the breakthroughs. (Keep in mind, though, that in addition to
the breakthroughs, developing a technology takes a lot of credits; Their
prices range from 4000 to 8000 credits, and if you don't have enough
credits, you won't have the option of developing one.)
  Once you've gone to all the trouble of achieving your goals in AI
Wars, you may be somewhat bemused to discover that nothing happens
when you achieve them. The goals in the game are actually on some sort
of delayed-timer system. If you wish to take over the Net, for example,
you need to plant backdoors on every system in the game, but even after
you do this, you need to wait for the game to end. If you've already
backdoored every system in the game, then just sit and wait for about 5
minutes (or keep playing for 5 minutes) and the game will suddenly stop
and show you the ending sequence. (Note that the ending sequence for
the "take over the Net" goal is absolutely underwhelming; It's simply a
brief walk-through of the router level that appears after you've
backdoored most of the systems in the game, while the music plays the
"My Domain" song that's part of the game's soundtrack.) Similarly, the
"become immortal" goal requires you to develop the technologies that
exist in the game, but once you do this, you need to wait about 5
minutes before the ending sequence actually activates. (This one is a little
more spectacular than the one for taking over the Net, but not by much.)
Creating a sentient AI takes much more work, however, since you need
to feed it with a bunch of datacubes from various systems in the game.
Remember that you need to nurture your AI for it to turn into a healthy
and well-adjusted AI. [Nexus Information Systems & Marketing, Inc.]

Aldo's Adventure: A popular shareware clone of Donkey Kong, with
several new twists in the levels and pleasantly smooth gameplay. Must
have been one of the first games to use high EGA resolutions. [Dave
Ibach And Ben Ibach]

Alien Breed: A top-down shooter that's more Alien Syndrome than
anything else. Lots of areas to explore and lots of aliens to shoot up.
[Team 17]

Alien Carnage: Formerly Halloween Harry, this game has earned
comparisons to the original Duke Nukem games, and not surprisingly so:
It's from the same company, and it features the same kill-'em-all with a
variety of high weapons attitude. (The sequel to this game is Zombie
Wars.) [Apogee/Gee Whiz! Entertainment]

Alien Force: A game for Windows 3.x which puts you in a spaceship in
a grid of squares, up against an array of enemy ships which start out
pretty dumb but get smarter as the levels progress. A basic, but
enjoyable, early Windows game.

Alien Syndrome: A cool bird's-eye-view shooter where you must
eradicate the aliens and free the hostages from a space station. [Sega]

Aliens Versus Predator: An interesting combination of two of the most
popular science-fiction movie series into one computer game. You can
play either the alien, the predator, or a space marine. All three are quite
different first-person shooter experiences, however, making this a
versatile package. The graphics are impressive though not outstanding,
but the gameplay is novel enough (especially playing the alien, who has
only close-in weapons (tail and claws) and no projectiles but who makes
up for this with extreme speed and the ability to walk on walls and
ceilings), and the atmosphere so well-laid out (the fear, dark hallways
and moody, strobing lights of the Alien movies are carried over intact)
that this is a very noteworthy production. [Fox Interactive/Rebellion]

Aliens Vs. Predator 2

Alive Sharks VGA: A study in artificial intelligence, this game is fun
to play but falls somewhat short of its claim of "alive" AI. [Alive
Software]

Alley Cat: One of IBM's finest products! A grand old CGA arcade game
in which you play a small black cat who does what comes naturally to
any cat: Eat and... Well, that's about it. Especially good if, like me,
you're a cat lover, but fun even if you're not. [IBM]

Altered Beast: Another beat-em-up arcade game. This one starts in a
cemetary, with zombies rising from their graves and you knocking their
heads off, then knocking down the rest of their bodies. Great start to a
good game. (The game is so named because after you've collected 3
power-ups on a level, you transform from a human into a beast with
special attack powers.) [Activision/Sega]

American McGee's Alice: A very different kind of Alice In Wonderland,
this game takes place in a wholly corrupted Wonderland, full of all the
characters you remember from Lewis Carroll's classic story, but who
look (and act) a bit different from the way you remember them. The
Cheshire Cat is a skeletally-thin, earring-wearing beast, the Mad Hatter
is... Madder, and the entire landscape seems to be alive with ugliness.
The third-person, half-arcade and half-adventure style, along with the
horrific, deformed characters you come across make the whole game
strongly reminiscent of Alone In The Dark. [Rogue
Entertainment/Electronic Arts]

Amok: As the pilot of a bizarre all-terrain vehicle called a Slambird, your
job is to get two mega-corporations into a state of war against each other.
The graphics on this first-person shooter are pretty nice, but the
gameplay is run-of-the-mill. [GT Interactive]

ANSiDude 1.1: A colorful text-simulated-graphics arcade-adventure with
nice puzzles and gameplay. [Vectorscope Software]

Ant Run 3.0 [Soleau Software]

APB: A fun little police car driving game which takes place in a
big city. You need to pull over a bunch of people to reach your
qouta. [Tengen]

Apocalypse Cow: One of very few underground shareware games that is
actually over-hyped. People seem to like Apocalypse Cow simply
because it is silly, even though it lacks in gameplay value.
Fundamentally, the game is another Scorched Earth clone in which two
players launch cows at each other, Monty Pyhton-style. When two cows
collide in mid-air, a typical one-on-one fighting sub-game ensues.
Unfortunately, neither portion of ApocCow is nearly as good as any
number of similar games out on the market, and the fact that it combines
two types of game in one title doesn't bode well in this case. [Pinata
Fatala] (Shareware)

Apple Cider Spider [Sierra On-Line]

Arcade's Greatest Hits: A collection of great old arcade games from the
coin-op days, including a few obscure oldies as well as cult classics like
Paperboy, Gauntlet, and Marble Madness. [Midway]

Archimedean Dynasty [Blue Byte Software]

Arctic Adventure: An early platformer from Apogee, with 4-color CGA
graphics, and as the title suggests, an arctic theme, mostly ice caverns
populated by penguins and the like. The successor to Pharaoh's Tomb.
[Micro F/X Software/Apogee]

Arkanoid: Out of all the Breakout clones that have been produced (and
there have been a LOT of them, to the point where "ball-and-paddle
game" is a whole category of game), this is probably the best-known.
[Taito]

Arkanoid II: The Revenge Of Doh [Taito]

Armor Alley 1.1: A classic, well-crafted little arcade game blending in
elements of strategy. You frantically try to use your helicopter to shoot
down the enemy forces while ordering your own troops into the battle.
Simplistic but challenging and fun. [Three-Sixty Pacific]

Ashes To Ashes [Corel]

Assault Trooper: An absolutely kicking Commando-style game with
awesome graphics and sound and great, smooth gameplay; Lots of high
weaponry (Uzis, bazookas, etc.) and a very pleasant, diagonal-down
viewpoint. [Juha Kauppinen/Spectrum Pacific Publishing]

Asteroids: A nice up-to-date, commercial clone of the classic quarter-
gobbler. [Activision]

ATmoids: A clone of Asteroids, so named because it's suppoed to
require an AT to run properly (the game's opening screen says "I hope
you have a 386'er"). Amusingly, however, it runs too fast on more recent
ATs. [Andre Weber]

Atomic Bomberman [Interplay]

Badlands: A much-copied off-road racing classic for the Commodore 64
which pits three cars against each other in a series of circuit races in a
desert wasteland, with the possibility of upgrades between races, such as
speed boosts, missiles, shields, and better tires. This may well have been
the original game of its style, which is visible now in a variety of
copycat games. [Tengen]

Bar Games [Accolade]

Barnstorming: A simplistic Atari 2600 game in which you control a
biplane which simply flies up and down, over windmills and through
barns. It's kind of cute but it gets old pretty quickly. Ms. Astro Chicken,
a mini-game within Space Quest 4, is similar but much better.
[Activision]

Barrel Patrol 3D: An absolute gem in the world of freeware arcade
games, Barrel Patrol is a modern-day update of the arcade classic
"Ripoff". As the guardian of a field full of barrels of something, your
goal is simply to protect your barrels from being stolen by the hordes of
enemy tanks. You stand guard in the middle of a force field and fend off
the attacking/stealing tanks. Interestingly, this is probably the only action
game in existence in which shooting a barrel does NOT make it explode,
soXyou can fire freely at the bad guys without worry of blowing up your
own precious resources. (Although each shot you fire deducts 1 point
from your score.) The game is tons of fun, and it looks great (the force
field is particularly well-done, portrayed as a few gleaming shards of
light that project upward from the ground, doing a nice job of showing
you where your boundaries lie, while still being unobtrosive enough to
see beyond). Barrel Patrol 3D requires the SDL (Simple DirectMedia
Layer) library. If you don't have it, you can download it from
www.libsdl.org [Fathom Entertainment] (Freeware)

Bastard Operator From Hell: Servers Under Siege 1.5: The classic BOFH
legend is finally a computer game, although the gameplay (and indeed,
the plot) have little to do with the original BOFH style. However, the
story, such as it is, is unique: You are the eponymous BOFH. You come
to work one day to find that a terrorist group has taken over all the
computers where you work. Rather than leaving the job to the authorities,
you go in to reclaim your computers on your own, using a variety of
weapons including your trusty whip, made from a length of CAT5
networking cable. Although your ultimate goal is the server room, you'll
have to make your way through the lower floors of the building first,
defusing the bombs that have been planted. It's not much more of a
game than an average Commando-style shooter, but BOFH is still a fun
game.
  Perhaps the best thing about BOFH, though, is the map editor, which
is a little primitive but quite fun to use. You can create your own maps
with it or examine the map that comes with the game.
  Version 1.5 modifies the game's damage model to make it like the
Commodore 64 version of the game; It is recommended that you get this
version of the game, as in previous versions, enemies tend to do way too
much damage to you and the game becomes much too hard, even on the
easy setting. Get the game from the official website of the designer at
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~loorni/software.htm
  Note that in order to disarm the bombs attached to each wiring closet,
you must first find the instructions to disarm the bombs; The only way
to get these instructions is to kill a technician. These guys are fairly easy
to recognize by their dark green uniforms and black hair. (Another type
of enemy, the sadist, looks similar but has a slightly lighter green
uniform and brown hair.) Once you kill a technician, he will drop a piece
of paper giving the order in which to cut the wires on one specific wiring
closet. Note that once you view the paper, it will only appear on-screen
for a few seconds and then vanish, but you can re-view all the papers
that you've collected so far by pressing V (you can press it repeatedly to
cycle through all the papers). Papers for bombs which you've already
disarmed will have a big red X over them. In addition, the paper will
appear when you actually enter the wiring closet it corresponds to, so
you don't have to worry about memorizing the wire orders. (As a side
note, technically you do not have to kill a technician to disarm a bomb;
You can simply guess the wire-cutting order, but as the documentation
notes, this is not recommended because it is a matter of pure chance.)
Although it is possible to put technicians in exact locations using the
mission editor's "exact actor" tool, the game's default map does not use
any exact actors for the enemies, meaning that the locations of the
technicians are random and they are scattered among all the other
enemies in the game. All other enemies besides technicians will yield
only weapons or first-aid kits when killed, which are good too, since you
start the game with only your fists for a weapon, and there are very few
weapons scattered around the building, meaning you will have to kill for
most of your weapons. The weapons which are sitting around the
building (which you don't have to kill for) are limited to a few drills and
bazookas, and one single CAT5 whip, located at coordinates X:336 and
Y:461. (In the game, this CAT5 whip location is actually a small
connecting floor between floors 2 and 3.)   Note also that you should use
your scanner liberally when looking for the technicians; There are a few
scanners located around the game, and the scanner is an invaluable tool
when looking for people, especially the technicians, who will always try
to run away from you. Any enemy (technician or not) appears as a red
dot on the scanner. Make good use of it.   Once you have collected all
the papers, finding the wiring closets they correspond to may still be a
problem. Because all the wiring closet names and locations are always
set, learning them may be helpful. There are nine wiring closets in the
default map for BOFH; They are as follows:
KJA1: Floor 1, very near where you begin the game (just a bit west)
KJA2: Floor 3
KJA3: Floor 5
KJB1: This one is actually in the basement (technically called floor 0 in
the game). You can get there from the staircases going down which are
directly ahead of you when you begin the game; There are also elevators
which go to this area of the basement.
KJB2: Floor 2, in an Eastern alcove that can't be reached using the
normal stairwells; You have to get there using some of the smaller
staircases, or one of the elevators. As if its obscure location weren't bad
enough, this wiring closet doesn't look like a wiring closet; It doesn't
have the line of orange lights that distinguishes all the others. Thus, it's
easy to miss.
KJD: North end of floor 1; You have to take the Western hallways to get
there
KJE: Floor 1X just a bit North of where you start the game
KJF: Floor 1, a bit North of KJE
KJR: Floor 1, Northwest of KJF
  Once you have disabled all the bombs, the laser tripbeam that leads to
the server room will be deactivated, and you can go to the server room
and kill all the leaders there to win the game. Your mission, then, can be
summarized as follows: Find and kill all the technicians and get their
instruction papers. Disarm all the bombs using these instructions. Finally,
go to the server room and kill all the leaders. (Freeware)

Batalia: A small two-player game which is fairly simple: Move your
spaceship around the screen and shoot at your opponent. However, I
actually haven't seen many games like this, and it's fun. [The Right
Brothers/Kent Frechette And Brad Baer]

Batman Forever

Battle Arena Toshinden 2 [Arcade Masters]

Battle Beast: The Ultimate Fight Game [7th Level]

Battlefield 1942 [Electronic Arts/Digital Illusions]

Battle Isle

Battle Isle II

Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception: A pioneer in the "mech
combat" type of game. However, Battletech is not just another
action/strategy shooter in which you pilot a mech for points or money,
it's actually an adventure, making it quite possibly the only mech
adventure game ever seen. (Barring its sequel, of course.) You're cast as
Jason Youngblood, a young mech pilot just finishing his training and on
a mission to find his father, who has been captured by an unidenfied
group of people. Although it's an interesting RPG/adventure, I have yet
to finish the first training session (the game repeatedly tells me I am "too
slow", leading me to suspect problems with a too-fast CPU). [Westwood
Studios/Infocom]

Battletech 2 [Westwood Studios/Infocom]

Battlezone: A somewhat lesser-known arcade classic from the golden
days of video gaming, this was probably one of the first first-person
arcade games ever made. You controlled a tank, which had to shoot up
a bunch of other tanks on an all-green-wire-frame battlefield of geometric
shapes (blocks, cubes, and pyramids).

Battle Zone: This was supposed to be an update of the classic wire-frame
first-person tank shooter (one of the first first-person arcade shooters). It
ended up being vastly different, however, which is bad for purists who
merely wanted an audio/video update but excellent for everyone else. The
gameplay in this game is much more involved, incorporating strategy (so
much in fact, that the game is probably better categorized as
arcade-strategy than arcade). The graphics and sound are outstanding, and
the gameplay is fun enough to make this a worthy salute to an old
favorite. [Activision]

BattleZone 2 [Activision/Pandemic]

B.C.'s Quest For Tires: A cool old arcade classic based on characters
from the comic strip B.C. After inventing the wheel, you need tires!
[Sierra On-Line]

Beetlejuice [Hi Tech Expressions]

Bert And The Snake: A clone of Q-Bert that isn't true to the original, but
the only common one I've found for the PC. [William J. Piazza]

Berzerk: Possibly among the first bird's-eye-view shooters, this became
a big hit on the Atari.

Big Bob's Drive-In [Sherwood Forest Software] (Shareware)

Billy The Kid: Another supposedly "intelligent" arcade game from the
company that made Alive Sharks. However, while the opponents here are
smarter than that game, they still don't stand up to human minds. In fact,
they don't go much beyond typical computer game opponent status.
[Alive Software]

BI-NARY: A well-done but very short and small platformer in which
you play the eponymous BI-NARY, "a super AI soldier... composed
completely of binary code in a world overun [sic] by binary bastards."
The graphics, sound, and music are all top notch, but the game provides
you with only two minutes to complete it, meaning that any way you
play, it's going to be too short. Get it from Natomic Studios' homepage
at www.natomic.com [Natomic Studios] (Freeware)

BII-NARY: The sequel to BI-NARY features the same character and
gameplay as the first game. It's slightly larger and longer, though (you
now have three minutes instead of two). Get it from Natomic Studios'
homepage at www.natomic.com [Natomic Studios] (Freeware)

BioForge, Special Edition: A sort of science-fiction Alone In The Dark,
BioForge was another of those sadly under-hyped gems which nobody
ever heard about. Your character, who has been transformed into a
cyborg against his will, is on a quest to discover his true identity. And
so he's off on a violent journey through a large complex that begins in
his jail cell and continues through a series of dangerous but interesting
locations. BioForge has some really strong strengths and weaknesses, the
weaknesses lying mainly in the rather poor physics modelling and the
iffy camera angles, which together usually make combat a huge pain
(your character moves way too slowly and it's often hard to see exactly
where he's aiming). The graphics are quite nice, however, if somewhat
unpleasant thanks to the grimy and bloody settings, and the sound effects
are generally decent, although unremarkable. Plot development is good,
but could have been better, since the game places just a bit too much
emphasis on the action. Nonetheless, BioForge is an original and
absorbing game that is not to be missed. [Origin]

BioMenace: Possibly one of the first arcade games to have spraying body
parts from dying enemies. A good but somewhat dated and rather generic
platformer. [Apogee]

Blackout 2.4: An extremely fast Windows game (it runs too fast on new
computers) in which you need to click on particular areas of your screen
within a time limit. Good way to develop mouse skills and hand-eye
coordination. [Zarkware] [Shareware]

Black Thorne [Interplay/Blizzard]

Blake Stone: Aliens Of Gold 3.0: A post-Wolfenstein clone which is
much better. Textured ceilings and floors, a greater variety of weaponry
and enemies, better music, and a few other cool features like food
dispensers and the ability to visit previous levels anytime. (Blake Stone's
sequel is Planet Strike.) [Apogee]

Blood [GT Interactive]

Blood 2: The Chosen [GT Interactive]

BloodRayne: Although you might be led to believe it's another cheesy
vampire game after seeing the sexy shot of the eponymous vampire
woman on the cover, BloodRayne is actually an above-average action
game with more going for it than just a hot protagonist; But the visuals
of the vampire herself don't hurt. As of this writing (early 2003),
BloodRayne is out for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube, and
slated for release on the PC later in the year. [Terminal Reality/Majesco
Games]

Body Blows: One of the best fight games for the PC, probably rivaled
only by Mortal Kombat. (Use CTRL-F11 to quit.) [Team 17]

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Breakout: The game which started the "ball-and-paddle" type of arcade
game, now one of the most-copied game concepts ever. The concept has
been re-worked to add many new twists in many new games, but this
original version, being the first of its kind, could afford to be basic: You
have a horizontal paddle at the bottom of the screen, and you use it to
knock a ball up towards the top of the screen. It's kind of like one-half
of a Pong screen, turned sideways. But what's different is what's at the
top of the screen: Rows upon rows of bricks, which can be broken
through by the ball. You send the ball up again and again, to keep
breaking the bricks away until they're gone. The game is kind of like
Pong with a destructive bent added.

BreakThrough Bukulu: Another Breakout clone, this one's notable both
for its outstanding SVGA graphics and an innovative feature: You can
rotate your paddle to control the ball's angle. Overall, a highly enjoyable
twist on the classic ball-and-paddle. [Alex Mead]

BRIX: Vaguely reminiscent of Tetris. You move a bunch of blocks
around and try to match up ones with the same pictures on them (instead
of trying to form lines with them like you did in Tetris). Excellent
graphics and sound, plus challenging gameplay, mixing arcade with
puzzle solving. Get this game from Gamefest CD. [Epic MegaGames]

Bruce Lee Lives [The Software Toolworks]

Brutal Paws Of Fury: A fighting game like most others, except this one
uses animals. Good graphics but otherwise another clone. [Gametek]

Bubble Bobble: The classic bubble-spitting game! Really cute, with the
two little dinasaurs who hop around. [Taito/NovaLogic]

Bug Shoot: A cute little mouse-operated shooting game which is different
because your shots travel slowly, so you must use timing and target
leading to hit the bugs. [Rouge Valley Software]

Bust-A-Move

Bust-A-Move 2

Bzzz!: A cute little Windows game in which you're a frog who catches
a lot of flies with your tongue. Addictive and fast-paced. [Astrasoft]

California Games 1.01: A cool collection of 6 beach sports: Halfpipe
skateboarding, footbag (?), surfing, roller skating, flying disc (!), and
BMX biking. [Epyx]

California Games 2: Another collection of beach sports with better
graphics but less catchy gameplay. [Epyx]

Cannon Fodder: A bird's-eye-view army game with great graphics and
terrific gameplay. The action is fast, fun, and furious, as you send you
troops in to perform increasingly difficult missions and shoot up a lot of
enemy soldiers. Unfortunately, after the first 4 missions, it gets insanely
difficult, as many of the enemy soldiers have bazookas which can blow
away all your troops with one shot. A few tips: You know those boxes
you see lying around? They contain 4 hand grenades each, so don't shoot
the boxes or you'll be wasting the grenades. Pick them up by walking
over them instead. Speaking of grenades, you need them to destroy
buildings (bullets won't work). To throw a grenade (if you have any),
hold down the right mouse button, and click the left one wherever you
want to toss the grenade (so that both buttons are down momentarily).
Watch out for quicksand, it'll kill any soldier instantly if they walk into
it. Oh, and for dealing with those pesky bazooka-toting snipers, here's
one thing to remember: KEEP MOVING. That way their missiles will
only hit where you were, not where you are now. And as soon as they've
fired on you, fire back at them, because it takes them a while to reload.
Use ALT-Q to quit the game. [Sensible Software/Virgin]

Cannon Fodder 2 [Sensible Software/Virgin]

Capitol Punishment: Amusing political arcade games for your computer.
Go on a whitewater rafting adventure with the Clintons, and more.
[Sierra On-Line]

Captain Comic: A pretty cool and classic platformer, with just the right
amount of cheesiness. [Michael A. Denio]

Castlevania [Konami]

Cavern Cobra: An Apple IIgs helicopter shooter from the same people
who brought you Sea Strike (they sure liked helicopter arcade games).
[PBI Software]

CD Man: A great Pac Man clone with completely new graphic and level
concepts. One of the best I've seen. [Creative Dimensions]

Celtica

Centipede: An up-to-date clone of the great old arcade shooter. [Hasbro]

Centiped-Em 1.0: A perfect copy of the arcade classic. This product was
discontinued before Champ went out of business. Like other games from
CHAMProgramming, the full (non-shareware) version of this game is
now freely available for download since the company has gone out of
business. Get it from the CHAMPgames Fan Page at www.champ-
em.com. [CHAMProgramming (Now defunct)]

Chagunitzu: The predecessor to Paganitzu, this one's a pretty nice trek
through an ancient pyramid. [Apogee]

Challenge Tetris: Tetris for 2 players.

Champ Asterocks 1.0: Another PC clone of Asteriods, with new, better
graphics. This product was discontinued before Champ went out of
business. Like other games from CHAMProgramming, the full (non-
shareware) version of this game is now freely available for download
since the company has gone out of business. Get it from the
CHAMPgames Fan Page at www.champ-em.com. [CHAMProgramming
(Now defunct)]

Champ Kong 1.11: A great PC copy of the classic Donkey Kong, the
best I've seen. Like other games from CHAMProgramming, the full
(non-shareware) version of this game is now freely available for
download since the company has gone out of business. Get it from the
CHAMPgames Fan Page at www.champ-em.com. [CHAMProgramming
(Now defunct)]

Champ Pac-Em 1.1: The most authentic of the PC Pac Man clones. Like
other games from CHAMProgramming, the full (non-shareware) version
of this game is now freely available for download since the company has
gone out of business. Get it from the CHAMPgames Fan Page at
www.champ-em.com. [CHAMProgramming (Now defunct)]

Chaos Island: The Lost World

Charlie Chaplin: A truly strange little arcade game in which you play the
famous comedian. In a move reminiscent of Stunt Island, the flight sim
that would come out many years later, this game lets you film your
escapades and save them to disk for later viewing. The game seems to
have very little goal or point to it other than to make silly slapstick
movies, but it's highly unique in its concept and execution. (NOTE: It
uses the 5 key in the center of the numeric keypad for a "FIRE" key.)
[U.S. Gold/Canvas]

Chicago 90: A third-person driving game in which you are either a
gangster or the police chasing (or avoiding) each other on the streets of
a city. The game is hampered by the unbelievable stupidity of the civilian
cars, which usually try to keep driving forward blindly even after they've
just crashed into you. However, it becomes apparent if you play the
game for a while that this is deliberate. Chicago 90 is a driving game
from a different perspective: It requires strategy. The cars which blindly
keep pressing forward, once you get used to them, make it into a sort of
puzzle game rather than a true driving sim. Use R on the keyboard to
toggle between forward ("A") and reverse ("R"). Oh, and since cars can
reverse, the way for the gangster to get caught is to wind up in a
situation where both the front and back of his car are blocked, so he
can't move. [Microids]

Chip's Challenge: An amusing little game with a nerd who collects stuff.
This was later re-released on the Best Of Microsoft Entertainment Pack.
[Epyx]

Chomper: A high-quality take on Pac-Man using a top-down viewpoint
and a huge, scrolling playfield rather than one which fits on the screen.
Good music and sound effects (not to mention nicely colorful graphics)
round out one of the better Pac-Man clones I've seen. [Brandon
Kuschnereit]

Choplifter: The famous and classic helicopter rescue game. It's now
cloned on the PC with the excellent Airlift Rescue.

Chopper Command: Perhaps one of the best games ever made for the
Atari 2600, this game seems like Choplifter at first, but it actually sets
you to shooting some targets as well. Kind of a mixture of shoot-em-up
and search-and-rescue. [Activision]

Chopper Commando: A PC CGA version of Chopper Command. A
pretty good game, but it doesn't have nearly enough missions. [Mark
Currie]

Christmas Carnage 1.1: If you're tired of Santa Claus and the
commercialism of Christmas, use this offensive arcade shooter to release
your hostilities. [John Dondzila] [Freeware]

Claw: Apparently a takeoff on the Peter Pan movie "Hook", this is a
platform arcade game about the adventures of Captain Claw, a pirate cat
who must fight against the evil dog king. Although it's a serious game
in its own right and not just a silly parody knockoff, this is really just an
average platformer that doesn't have anything to distinguish it beyond its
cute and cartoonish premise. [Monolith Productions, Inc.]

Clive Barker's Undying: From Clive Barker (the director for the classic
horror movie Hellraiser) comes a horror first-person shooter with all the
usual trappings for a modern-day FPS: Plenty of potent weapons,
stunning graphics, atmospheric and well-used sound effects, and even a
fairly decent plot. You're cast as Patrick Galloway, a man who must
uncover the secrets behind the family of another man named Jeremiah
Covenant. (If you think your family is dysfunctional, wait until you see
the brothers and sisters this guy has.) The game covers a fairly wide
variety of locales, although most of it takes place in a haunted mansion
in Ireland in the 1920s, an appropriate setting for a horror plot, and one
which this game takes advantage of. Overall, although it doesn't offer
anything new in terms of FPS gameplay, Undying is an utterly absorbing
game which any horror buff should experience... At night, with the lights
turned off, of course. [Electronic Arts]

Close Combat [Microsoft]

Cobra Mission: Panic In Cobra City [MegaTech]

Commander Keen Series: The Commander Keen games have been a
standard of the computer arcade game industry since they came out.
These chronicles of eight-year-old Billy Blaze have consistently been
among the best platform-style arcade games available for the PC.
[id/Apogee]

Commando: A classic arcade game released in many different forms for
many different platforms, including the PC, Apple II, Commodore 64,
Atari 2600, and the Intellivision. Commando's gameplay is as simple as
one could imagine: You control a little commando who simply walks
around and shoots stuff. Despite the simple premise, the game was a
success in its day. [Activision] 

Conquest Earth [Eidos]

Contra: Another game which was brought over to the PC from consoles.
It definitely lost something in the translation, though. Basically you're a
commando with a gun who goes running into the jungle to shoot
everything up. [Konami]

Cool Croc Twins [Arcade Masters/Empire Interactive]

Cool Spot: A cool platform shooter. Remember the old 7-Up soft drink
commercials where the red spot from the drink bottle came to life and
started walking around and doing stuff? Well, he finally gets some justice
in this game, because you play him. Lots of fun, and really neat graphics
and sound!

Corel Arcade Mania [Corel]

Corridor 7: Alien Invasion [Capstone/GameTek]

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure: A cute platformer which is one of few
which makes you jump on your enemies, rather than shoot them, to
defeat them. [Apogee]

Covert Action [MicroProse]

Crazy Climber: A strange game for the Atari 2600 with a simple
premise: You're a guy who climbs buildings. You must avoid obstacles
while climbing continually higher. Fun but silly. [Atari]

Crazy Marbles: The spiritual successor to the grand old classic Marble
Madness. This has vastly improved graphics, and somewhat more
engaging gameplay.

Crazy Taxi: Three years after the arcade version of this game (which
became a big hit on the Sega Dreamcast) came out, it's finally been
ported to the PC. The timing is odd, but the game is a fairly true-to-the-
original port, with few changes, so if you ever wanted to play Crazy Taxi
but you only play games on the PC, now's your chance. Ironically,
Grand Theft Auto 3, released months before Crazy Taxi for the PC,
contains a very similar minigame which effectively makes Crazy Taxi
obsolete; However, if all you want is a quick taxi-driving game and don't
want the breadth of GTA3 (shame on you!), this may be worth your
time. [Activision/Hitmaker]

Creepers: A game very similar to Lemmings, and from the same
company too. If you liked Lemmings, you'll like this. [Psygnosis]

Crime Wave: A little-known 1990 platformer from Access Software, the
same company that made Links and then-hit adventure games like
Countdown and Mean Streets. This game follows the graphical style of
those adventures quite closely, with graphics that are impressive in their
photorealism but which look like they're pasted on. The gameplay is
average, and overall the game has little to make it stand out (which
might explain why it failed in the sales department). [Access Software]

Critical Path [MediaVision]

Crusader: No Remorse CD [Origin]

Crystal Caves [Apogee]

Crystal Quest: A brilliant science-fiction arcade game which rightfully
took its place as a true classic in the Apple world. It's now cloned on the
PC by the excellent XQUEST. [Casady & Greene]

Cybercon III: An amazingly creative science-fiction action-adventure.
The plot behind this game is actually quite deep and interesting: A self-
sufficient computer called Cybercon, originally created to defend
humanity in time of war, has turned against its creators and now seeks
to eliminate all human life on the planet. There are definite comparisons
to System Shock here, but it should be kept in mind that Cybercon
predates System Shock's SHODAN by several years. Also, while
SHODAN took on the form of some kind of living entity (it gave itself
a face, a voice, and a personality, and would often communicate with
you directly by e-mail or direct video feed), Cybercon is an entirely
faceless enemy; It is simply a computer. Like System Shock, Cybercon
III (the game, not the computer) has many interesting gizmos and gadgets
to fool around with, most notably the PA (Power Armour) you have been
strapped into, which is laden with information systems and other things
you can control. Despite the first-person shooter facade, there's a very
strong emphasis on strategy here as well, as you have to decide which
of your PA systems to keep on and which to turn off to save energy. An
extremely interesting and clever feature is the "Parrot camera", a little
mini-camera which you can drop somewhere and use to remotely monitor
an area; You can actually have up to four such cameras in this game, but
the Parrot camera is special because it's mobile; You can also remotely
move it around. Overall, the graphics here tend to be rather plain (they're
really just unshaded polygons), and the enemy robots are usually very
hard to deal with, but Cybercon III is still worth a look. Alas, it's
crippled by a technical flaw: Not only does it run way too fast on
modern computers, it also seems to refuse outright to run on some. [US
Gold/The Assembly Line]

CyberDogs: A slick Gauntlet-style game featuring a team of special
operatives who go into a building to collect stuff and kill everybody they
come across. The weapons are varied and quite interesting, the graphics
are great, and the sounds are atmospheric. [Ronny Wester]

CyberGladiators [Sierra On-Line]

Cyberia

Cyber Race

CyClones: In the mid-1990s, a split developed in Raven Software
between two project groups. One group began working with id
Software's engine for Doom, on the game that would eventually become
Heretic; The other group took the engine used in Origin's moderately
successful Shadowcaster, and made the much lesser-known CyClones.
Although it's actually based on the Shadowcaster engine, CyClones bears
more than a passing resemblance to System Shock, a strange coincidence
all around since both games were released in 1994. The look and feel of
the game, from the mouse-and-keyboard interface, right down to the
music, feel like an inferior clone of System Shock. CyClones is not
nearly as impressive as System Shock, however, since the emphasis is
mostly on the shooting and very little on plot (unlike System Shock's
plot-developing gameplay, in which you were constantly finding logs and
other information to read that advanced the storyline). It doesn't have all
the complexity of System Shock's interface, and even the presentation is
similar but not as good; The graphics look more repetitive than System
Shock's, and they seem less detailed. CyClones is not a horrible game,
but you're likely to have trouble finding good reason to play it for very
long, unless you're a fan of old-school first-person shooters. [Raven
Software/Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI)]

Cyril Cyberpunk: Another generic but good platformer with big levels
and a catchy rave soundtrack. [Apogee]

D/Generation: A clever little jaunt through an office building gone out
of control, with all manner of strange (and mostly hostile) life forms
populating it. The diagonal-down viewpoint and spiffy laser add spice.
(Use ALT-S to save your game, and ALT-R to restore it.)
[Mindscape/The Software Toolworks]

Daikatana: One of the most stunningly disappointing computer games
ever, Daikatana was supposed to re-invent the first-person shooter genre
as the world knew it. Instead, it failed dismally, thanks to some
blindingly stupid quirks (particularly the way in which you can barely
control your sidekicks, resulting in them being nothing more than lame
ducks who you have to protect, rather than partners who fight with you)
and boring, repetitive gameplay. Then there's the acting in the cut-scenes,
which could be described, in a word, as "bad". And the role-playing
elements incorporated into the game are just awful: Your character gains
various attributes as the game progresses (in typical RPG fashion), but
these don't seem to affect the gameplay in any noticeable way, making
them a gimmick which should have been either dropped entirely, or
vastly improved. In the end, this is not an utterly horrible game. But...
After the incredible amount of hype that preceded it, Daikatana may well
set a new record for failing to live up to expectations. [ION Storm/Eidos]

Darius Gaiden [Taito/Interplay]

Dark Ages [Apogee]

Dark Castle: An old but excellent arcade-style game which takes place
in (you guessed it) a Dark Castle. This game had great graphics for its
time but there's a LOT of rock-throwing to do. [IntraCorp/Three-Sixty
Pacific]

Dark Colony [SSI]

Dark Earth: A gorgeous 3D adventure game with elements of puzzle-
solving and hand-to-hand combat. [MicroProse]

Dark Forces CD-ROM: An upstart first-person shooter from a company
better known for their adventures and flight simulators. However, Dark
Forces is no slouch, with very smooth animation, top-notch (for its time)
graphics and sound effects, and snazzy weapons. It's somewhere between
Doom and Rise Of The Triad, as it lets you look up and down (unlike
Doom) but also has an engine which doesn't need to work with grid-
shaped levels (like ROTT does). [LucasArts]

Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight: As of mid-November, 1997, this is about as
good a game as any you're likely to play. This game has the best level
design, best story line, and best weapon (specifically, the light saber) that
I've seen in a first-person game. And everything else about it is good,
too. [LucasArts]

Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight: Mysteries Of The Sith Add-On [LucasArts]

Darklight Conflict: A space combat game. Similar to Wing Commander,
except this game can be played over a LAN. [Electronic Arts]

Dark Vengeance [GT Interactive]

Darkwolf 1.3: A happy little platform arcade game, which mixes
elements of adventure (most notably an inventory) among its action. This
game is actually quite good, especially considering it was made by a
team of just two amateur programmers: John Paul D'India and Christoph
Schneider, formerly collectively known as the ZIPTEAM, the people who
previously produced such little-exposed but well-programmed games as
Zipman, Zipfire, Zipfire II, and Zipman III. [D'India Software/John Paul
D'India]

Daytona USA [Sega]

Deadly Tide [Microsoft]

Deathtrap Dungeon [Eidos]

Death Rally [Apogee]

Deathstar Arcade Battles

Deer Avenger: The best hunting game I've ever seen. In a "the hunter
hunted" turn, you play a deer who hunts hunters using various weapons
including an M-16 Rifle and a bazooka, while using various "human
calls" such as "Free beer here!" [Simon & Schuster Interactive/Cendent
Software]

Deer Hunter [GT Interactive]

Deer's Revenge [Snarfblat]

Defcon 5 [Millennium Interactive]

Defender: This was an old space shooter arcade game. You have to save
the people on the ground from the alien spaceships that descend on them
from above.

Defender Of The Crown [Cinemaware]

Delta Force: A rather wonderful little squad-based first-person shooter
which delivers exactly what gamers have come to expect from
NovaLogic: A fun game with great graphics, plenty of action, and some
realism thrown in when it's convenient. Delta Force doesn't exactly
emphasize realistic weapons handling or tactical procedures, but it helps
to move around without being seen or heard. Strategy isn't too terribly
important; You'll find things easier if you're stealthy, but you can often
get through a mission just by blasting your way in and out. HINTS: Even
if you're not carrying a weapon with a sniper scope, you can use your
binoculars to see far. Use them liberally; You need to see far a lot in this
game. Indeed, long-range combat is the very essence of Delta Force. And
if you're being shot at, either go into the prone position, or keep moving.
Stand around in one place, and you couldn't be much more of a sitting
duck. Don't underestimate the importance of stealth, either: You'll have
a lot better luck moving around if nobody knows you're out there. If
there are a lot of enemy soldiers hanging around, consider using the MP5
for that mission; Its almost silent shots will make it worth it. Don't
forget about ground cover, either. When you're being shot at, you should
always run behind a hill immediately and sit there until you can analyze
the situation a bit, with the help of the tactical map. (Hills aren't too hard
to find in this game, every mission is full of them.) And don't forget that
the enemy uses cover to their advantage too. Keep your eyes out for
good hiding places where there may be snipers waiting for you. In
particular, keep an eye on windows in buildings, since guys with guns
just love to stand in windows where they're hard to see. And of course,
remember that bunkers almost always have at least one sniper in them,
often two, and occasionally three. Oh, and perimeter patrols are never
composed of just one person; They travel in pairs. If you meet one bad
guy far away from an objective, it's a sure bet that he has a patrol buddy
who's somewhere nearby. And while you're out there, don't get too
excited about your waypoints. Often they're laid out in a fairly dumb
fashion, leading you directly into ambush points. You don't need to
follow the waypoints to get your mission done anyway, just complete the
objectives, so follow your own judgement in deciding the best way to get
where you're going. And when using the M40A1 sniper rifle, remember
to compensate a bit for bullet drop (the tendency of the bullets to hit a
bit lower than you're aiming because of gravity) by aiming a little above
your target at long ranges. (Note that in spite of the different weapons,
your best ammo load is almost always the M4, a double ammo load, and
the suppressed .22 pistol for a sidearm. The M4 provides a solid all-
around functionality that no other weapon can touch. The MP5 is too
wimpy, it usually requires more than one shot to achieve a kill, and very
rarely is its silence warranted (the enemy will detect you soon enough,
even if they can't hear you for a while). On top of that, it has an
absurdly short range of only 100 metres. Yes, I know it's designed for
close-quarters battle, but Delta Force is a game made for long-range
combat. Both sniper rifles are too slow and don't hold enough ammo,
and the extra magnification of their scopes is rarely worth it. (Yes, the
Barrett Light is supposed to be able to kill someone from 1.5 km away,
but when was the last time you actually spotted someone that far, given
Delta Force's hilly terrain?) The 4x scope on the M4 is almost always
good enough. And the M249 SAW is only useful when you need its
massive ammo load and firing speed (which is very rarely). As for
secondary weapons, you don't need satchel charges or LAWs; The M4's
built-in grenade launcher is good enough for any structures you might
have to blow up. Oh sure, you might have to toss more than one grenade
at it, but if you take a double ammo load you'll have plenty anyway.)
[NovaLogic]

Delta Force 2 [NovaLogic]

Demon Blue: Among the most bizarre platform arcade games in the
world, and also the more obscure. You play a blue demon (oddly
enough), with no firing capabilities, meaning the game consists entirely
of jumping past your enemies and running like a headless chicken. No
save capability and only one level, which has to be one of the longest
levels I've ever seen. [Villa Crespo/MicroValue]

Descent 1.5: A stunning offshoot of Doom-style games, with full 3-D
movement and a huge variety of weapons and robot opponents. The level
design may be slightly too maze-like for some gamers, however, and
while we can be thankful it has an automapper, even with that you'll
likely spend much of your time lost. A definite oustanding effort. (Three
patches are available for Descent: desc14a.exe upgrades from version 1.0
to 1.4a, dreg14a5.zip upgrades from version 1.4a to 1.5, and dreg15.zip
upgrades from version 1.0 to 1.5.) [Interplay/Parallax Software]

Descent II [Interplay]

Descent 3 [Interplay]

Desert Strike [Gremlin Interactive]

Destruction Derby: It's exactly what it sounds like: An arena of cars let
loose upon each other, with only one goal in mind: Smash up your
opponents. It's fun, it's fast, and it's always action-packed. Unfortunately
it suffers from one fatal flaw: Your only available viewpoint is behind
your car, and since the camera doesn't always point in exactly the same
direction as the car, it's too hard to get a feel for what direction you're
going in. [Psygnosis]

Destruction Derby 2 [Psygnosis]

Deus Ex: Another of those games which defies classification, being
partly first-person shooter, partly adventure, and partly RPG. (Warren
Spector, who worked on Deus Ex, previously worked on the similar
System Shock. No surprise there.) Cast as J. C. Denton, a bionic (I
suppose the term nowadays would be "cybernetic") government agent,
you'll have opportunities to develop a variety of skills, including
weapons accuracy, computer hacking, and lock-picking. Because your
skills directly affect your abilities, you'll end up being able to deal with
situations in a variety of ways. You can go the violent route and just
shoot your way through, or you can use a less direct tactic, depending on
how your skills are balanced out. The result is a remarkably open-ended
game with more than one way to do just about everything. Unfortunately,
most games which take this bold kind of genre-defying design usually
fail to work well, because they end up being a messy hodgepodge of bad
execution. What's remarkable about Deus Ex is that it actually pulls off
this kind of game architecture with great success, managing to be both
fresh and fun. It also has an interesting story, which (of course) develops
as the game progresses. Although Deus Ex is not the perfect game, it is
a revolutionary and engaging experience. It might be a bit of a stretch to
call Deus Ex a revolution; After all, System Shock (and System Shock
2) already pioneered this concept of adding adventure and RPG elements
to a first-person shooter. However, Deus Ex is somewhat more
adventure-like in that it doesn't just use e-mail logs that you find to
advance the plot (as System Shock mostly did). Deus Ex very frequently
engages you in a conversation with other characters in which you choose
responses from a list (much like in LucasArts adventures). Deus Ex is
almost somewhat more RPG-like than System Shock because it actually
gives you experience points as you advance through the game, which can
be used to advance your specific skills. And Deus Ex is remarkably
open-ended. It seems like the designers really went out of their way to
try and give you more than one way to do everything. Whereas many
games tout their "replay value" from having one or two key points in the
game where you can make a decision that leads down a different path,
Deus Ex is packed with inventory items that you don't absolutely need
but which will, if you hang onto them, influence what you can do later.
And it seems like almost every location has at least two ways of getting
there (one obvious but perilous way, and another way which offers less
danger but a bit of searching to find). Unfortunately, this open-endedness
is not total. Although the game tries to make it seem like combat is
mostly optional and there are other, smarter ways of outwitting your foes,
there seem to be times when you really have no choice but to shoot your
way through. That makes sense, since ultimately, Deus Ex is still a first-
person shooter at heart. Still, considering how much emphasis it places
on being able to do everything in more than one way, it would have been
entirely appropriate to make "Stealth" one of your skills which you could
increase with skill points, which would have made enemies less likely to
see you. It's ironic that the game continues to mention being stealthy
despite the fact that enemies tend to see you way too easily when you
really need to stay hidden, leaving you with no choice but to blow them
away anyway. (Infuriatingly, they seem practically blind when you're
trying to get their attention to distract them.) The end result is that Deus
Ex still feels more like a shooter and less intelligent than it probably
wanted to be. But it's certainly one of the most brilliantly innovative and
intelligent shooters ever made. (It may also be one of the longest; This
game is longer than any other game I've played that springs to memory,
which is a good thing if you like your games deep and involving, but bad
if you have any kind of a life, because Deus Ex is incredibly addictive.)
I haven't even mentioned the plot, which is a real page-turner (screen-
turner?), the kind which keeps you playing just to see what happens next.
Thank goodness game designers have finally realized the importance of
plot development in games, and thankfully Deus Ex gives you plenty of
plot twists to keep you going. Whereas the much-hyped plot development
in Half-Life was largely a gimmick, in which there were two or three
plot events through the course of the game, Deus Ex has a plot that's
constantly shifting and developing as you proceed. It's a little cliche, but
it's still great, and it has enough conspiracy theories and betrayals to
keep suspense fans happy. (One tip while playing Deus Ex: DO NOT use
your 30.06 sniper ammo liberally. It is very scarce through the entire
game, and if you use it regularly, you may find yourself running out of
it. It is very tempting to use your sniper rifle as a front-line defense,
since it makes an excellent way to kill the enemy before they can hurt
you, but doing this will exhaust your ammo. Use your pistol for standard
one-on-one firefights; Once you get a sniper scope for it, it's almost as
good as the sniper rifle anyway, and the 10mm ammo it uses is much
more common. For more intense firefights engaging multiple enemies,
use the assault rifle or assault shotgun.) (Remember, Deus Ex's damage
modeling system is location-sensitive! Soldier Of Fortune saw to it that
the days are gone when you can use a damage model which makes your
enemies receive the same amount of damage whether you shoot them in
the head or in the foot.) (If you like Deus Ex, get the official SDK from
the official website at www.deusex.com. The SDK lets you create your
own missions and maps for the game.) [ION Storm/Eidos]

Deus Ex, Game Of The Year Edition: Deus Ex has gone the way of
Half-Life, re-creating itself in a "new" edition which adds very little to
the original game but hopes to milk more sales out of what was a great
piece of software. In this case, this GOTY Edition simply adds new
multiplayer modes, a game development kit which lets you edit your own
levels (which can also be downloaded for free from Eidos' website if you
already have the original Deus Ex), and a CD soundtrack containing 30
remixed songs from the game. Big deal. [Eidos/Ion Storm]

Deus Ex: Invisible War 1.2: One of the most-anticipated computer games
ever to be developed in its time, the announcement of the sequel to Deus
Ex, which many gamers swore up and down was the best game ever,
caused no small amount of excitement. DX:IW promised more of the
same that made Deus Ex great, only better and more refined. The game
had so much promise going for it that it seemed almost too good to be
true: The game promised multiple factions which the player could
affiliate themselves with and work for. Thus, instead of the original Deus
Ex, in which you were locked into a set storyline which began with you
working for a United Nations anti-terrorist coalition and eventually
switching sides, DX:IW promised a fully-developed world in which
several organizations, from official government agencies to ragtag groups
of underground rebels to religious organizations, all vied for the player's
attention and which you, ultimately, decided to support or fight against.
This is remarkably similar to the situation in the real world today, in
which many organizations (whether commercial, social, or religious in
nature) seek to gain some amount of the general public's "mind share",
a portion of their attention span so that they can impress their viewpoint
on people. The idea of being able to choose your sides in the futuristic,
open-ended world of Deus Ex held a lot of promise for thought-
provoking, engaging gameplay.
  Also promising was Warren Spector and Harvey Smith's statement that
developers were striving to make DX:IW a game in which you could
truly choose whether to fight or not. Although non-combative behavior
was often possible and encouraged in the original Deus Ex (sneaking,
hacking, or talking your way out of situations), it was still fundamentally
a shooter at its heart, and there were numerous points in the game where
it was necessary to shoot your way out. Harvey Smith stated that for
DX:IW, "we want the player to be able to play the game (and have fun
in a challenging way), from start to finish, without touching a weapon."
If the game truly lived up to this promise, this was an exciting premise
indeed; A game which really gave you the option of playing how you
wanted, whether as a gun-slinging warrior, a light-footed sneak, or a fast-
talking diplomat. Another minor open-ended gameplay feature was the
ability to play as either a male or a female character this time, although
it was not clear if there would be any gameplay differences associated
with this choice, or if it was merely aesthetic. (Your character in the
game is named "Alex Denton", a deliberately androgynous name so he
or she could be male or female.)
  Added to all these gameplay innovations were excellent graphics which
seemed to breathe with a life of their own, through the use of the much-
talked-about Havok engine, in contrast to the graphics of the first Deus
Ex game, which were not bad, but hadn't aged well owing to the first
game's use of the somewhat dated Unreal 3D engine. Combine all this
with a game world that was heavily inspired by the incessant action-noir
style and flair of the Matrix movies, and you had a game that looked and
played great in the previews.
  But as time went on and Invisible War came closer to being released,
there were some rumblings about potential problems with the game
involving some design decisions that had been made. As discussion and
anticipation over the game grew to feverish proportions, some people
began to get angry at some of the misguided (and outright insane)
gameplay issues that were popping up with increased frequency. One of
the first of these was the revelation that DX:IW would have no skill
points; Instead of gaining experience points for doing certain things like
completing missions so you could upgrade your skills (as in the original
Deus Ex, and most RPGs), Invisible War would rely on cybernetic
biomodifications instead. This made many people worry for the fate of
the game when it was first revealed. And the worries just kept piling up.
  Next was the announcement that IW would use "universal ammunition".
Instead of using different bullets for pistols, sniper rifles, machine guns,
etc., a single type of ammunition was created for the game. The
justification for this was that the ammunition was formed by nanites, tiny
programmable molecules that can be programmed to take almost any
shape and form almost any object; Hence, instead of collecting different
types of ammo, you would simply create ammo from your nanites, and
some weapons would just use more "ammunition matter" than others.
Although this might have been a science-fiction justification for universal
ammunition, it certainly didn't please the gamers who heard about it.
  Then there arose dispute over the game's HUD (Heads-Up Display, the
on-screen presentation of data superimposed over the actual game world).
Unlike a regular HUD, the HUD of DX:IW was modeled to look like a
computer readout projected onto the user's retina. As a result, it was
circular and sat in the middle of the screen, creating tunnel vision and
making it somewhat difficult to see details of the world that lay under
the HUD. Although it looked cool at first, many people found the game's
HUD intrusive, complaining that they didn't need the gimmick of this
supposed "retina-implanted HUD" and would rather be able to see the
full screen.
  After that, it was the inventory. DX:IW promised to use "slots" based
inventory instead of the grid-like inventory screen of the first Deus Ex.
In other words, instead of having to organize the items you're carrying
into a limited space, you'd simply have a set number of slots which were
assigned certain designations (weapon slot, for example) and which you
could load any weapon into. Hence, a rocket launcher would take the
same space as a grenade: One slot. This seemed illogical and unrealistic
to Deus Ex purists. (Some noted that people who wanted the original
Deus Ex's inventory system "should go play Tetris instead", a remark
which didn't do much to soothe relations between old-inventory versus
new-inventory proponents.)
  As the game's release drew to only a couple of months away, gripes
over the game (which nobody had yet even played) began to erupt faster
than one could keep track of them. There were complaints that the game
was over-playing the "terrorism" aspect of things. The original Deus Ex
began in a New York City in which the Statue of Liberty was headless
due to a terrorist attack. About a year after the game came out, the real-
world terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 destroyed the World Trade
Center in New York City. Although DX:IW came out more than two
years afterward, the events of a major disaster like September 11 were
not soon forgotten, and terrorism was still very much on the minds of
Americans at the release time of Invisible War. The game's slogan, "The
Future War On Terror", and pictures of the game's box art featuring a
tough-looking Alex Denton aiming a pistol at the viewer made many fear
that the "War on terrorism" aspect of the game would take too significant
a role, playing on people's fears of terrorism in an attempt to sell the
game. The idea of the lead character prominently brandishing a weapon
certainly didn't seem to fit with Harvey Smith's earlier claim that "we
want the player to be able to play the game (and have fun in a
challenging way), from start to finish, without touching a weapon."
Speaking of weapons, it was also revealed that there would be no
reloading in Invisible War; When your ammo ran out, it really was out,
and there were no "clips" that you had to pause to reload when one ran
out. Again, this is unrealistic, since in the real world weapons do use
clips. There was also dismay that the original Deus Ex's location-based
damage system (in which the player's head, torso, arms and legs were all
separate damage zones, with different damage consequences) had been
done away with in place of a simplistic health-point system like old-style
shooters. In this respect, Invisible War actually seemed to be taking a
step backward from the original Deus Ex.
  Many of these complaints were insistently blamed on the fact that
Invisible War was co-developed on the PC and the Xbox at the same
time. The Xbox was almost relentlessly attacked for being an inspiration
to "dumb down" the mechanics and attitudes of the game. It may never
be known exactly how significant the Xbox's development role was in
shaping the interface for Invisible War, but it probably had some
important part in the game's final design. It's worth stating, to be fair,
however, that even many Xbox shooters have had different ammunition
types for different weapons, so it's apparent that these gameplay
decisions really are just that: Gameplay decisions, not concessions to
console gamers.
  On top of all these gameplay issues, there were worries that the game's
soundtrack would be unpleasant, based on the announcement that
industrial-rock group the Kidney Thieves were contributing several songs
to the game's soundtrack. Based on a pre-release gameplay video which
contained music from the KT's song "Pleasant", featuring the screeching
notes and heavy beats of industrial music, many people immediately
tremored: "I hope that's not music from the game!", noting that the
symphonic score of the original Deus Ex was vastly preferable.
Obviously, this was a matter of taste. People even fought bitterly over
the game's box art, based on the aforementioned cover art picture of
Alex D hoisting a gun into the faces of gamers all over the world. In
short, Deus Ex: Invisible War was a game that held an enormous amount
of promise, but also had an overwhelming number of design quirks that
made initial reaction to the game mostly negative.
  It was plainly obvious that a huge amount of work had gone into
Invisible War: The game's plot and characters were carefully laid out, to
create a truly immersive and realistic game world that a player could lose
themselves in. In the face of such a massive effort, it was hugely ironic
that gamers were reacting so strongly to seemingly minor details. In a
game that was a fully-realized virtual world, people complained that the
game used the same type of ammunition for all weapons, that the HUD
was uncomfortable, and even about the box art. The game's big picture
was almost completely obscured as people picked over small details. It
served as a perfect example that no matter how grand any project's scope
may be, the details are what people really notice in the end. Invisible
War had more engrossing characters, a more immersive game world, and
better technical presentation. Yet all of these strengths could be felled by
a lousy user interface.
  Sure enough, when Invisible War shipped, gamers' fears came to life.
There was some speculation (some might call it blind hope) that the
quirks in the game like universal ammo and elimination of player skills
were just rumors, and that surely nobody would actually release the
second Deus Ex game in such a state. Yet it was all true; Invisible War
really does use universal ammunition, it really does have no skills, it
really doesn't have an inventory screen, and all the other sticking points
that gamers complained about in the months leading up to the game's
arrival are all there. It sparked an uproar; Ion Storm was attacked left and
right by gamers who relentlessly protested. It seemed that Ion Storm had,
like lemmings blindly heading off a cliff, gone ahead and released the
game with all the negative sticking points that people complained about
for months while the game was still in development.
  For anyone who's played Deus Ex and is planning to play Invisible
War, it will be worthwhile to approach the game with an open mind. It
must be understood that Invisible War is more than just "Deus Ex 2"; It's
not just another Deus Ex game with the same engine or the same look
and feel. Those who expect a game with a similar approach will indeed
be sorely disappointed. Instead, it's best to approach Invisible War with
a whole new perspective, as if this were a brand new game and the
original Deus Ex had never existed. Taken on its own merits, Invisible
War really is a great game with a lot to offer. Whether it's "better" or
"worse" than its predecessor is a question that could be debated
endlessly; What can't be denied is that Invisible War is very "different"
from Deus Ex.
  Having said that, it's also worth noting that Invisible War is quite a bit
shorter than its predecessor. This perhaps isn't too surprising, given that
the first Deus Ex was one of the longest PC games in recent memory,
and to be fair, Invisible War tends to be paced better, so that in its more
compressed play time, it runs at a more appropriate pace than the first
Deus Ex, which was sometimes bogged down by lengthy sub-missions
or other peripheral tasks.
  It's all indicative of a larger overall change in this Deus Ex game,
however: Invisible War feels like a game for the masses. Whereas Deus
Ex was a somewhat unconventional game that dared to be different, DX:
Invisible War is a game that's developed for mass-consumption by the
general gaming public. Ironically, Deus Ex, the game that didn't try to
be popular, ended up being one of the most popular games ever, while
Invisible War, which tried to be a game for the average gamer to enjoy,
became one of the most harshly criticized games ever. Everything in
Invisible War--the graphics, the interface, the characters--feels like it's
part of a standardized video-game production, rather than the bold,
adventurous experience that a startup game like Deus Ex is.
  While comparing the first DX game with its sequel, it's also worth
pointing out that many of Invisible War's purported faults are shared
with the original game, and some of these are things that Deus Ex was
praised, rather than criticized, for. An example is the absolute freedom
of enemy interaction style: You can sneak past your enemies so that they
never knew you were there, or you can just kill them all in a huge
massacre. Having this power of choice is nice, but what's interesting
(and perhaps somewhat unusual) is that there are no consequences for
either choice; There's no penalty or reward for deciding to spare the lives
of your enemies or just going in like Rambo. The only consequences, in
the end, are whatever health and ammo you might have lost as part of
whatever choice you made. This is somewhat like real life, in that the
real world doesn't give you magical power-ups for sneaking past people
or penalize you automatically for shooting people, but it makes the
game's promise of open-endedness seem hollow, since there's really no
reason to do things one way or the other, besides that you might prefer
to do them that way. Indeed, in the world of both Deus Ex games,
there's little sense of right and wrong; In any conflict, both sides of the
strife have their virtues and their hypocrisies, and nobody is really the
"good guys" or the "bad guys"; They're simply different groups of people
with different opinions. Again, this is like real life, and many people
embrace such a system of "no right, no wrong" values. Others loathe it.
  Invisible War shares its predecessor's rather poor enemy AI. Although
there are times when your foes seem to get it all together, spreading out
and opening fire on you like a real squadron would, they just as often get
it wrong by running around in circles shouting excitedly or acting
confused. This typically makes the game's combat easy, which, again,
some people like and some don't. It also means that going through your
opponents by just slaughtering them all is typically the quickest, easiest
option. However, the game does a pretty good job of living up to its
promise of allowing you to play the game through without actually
shooting anyone; It's just that you'll have a hard time finding reasons to
play the game that way, unless you have moral objections to shooting a
fictional character on a computer screen.
  Also like its predecessor, Invisible War feels painfully contrived at
times, with notes of secret passcodes conveniently left sitting around
remarkably close to the computer or electronic locking device they're for,
or ventilation shafts which you can crawl through placed next to locked
doors. If you can suspend your disbelief, this doesn't hurt the game's
atmosphere that badly, but there'll be times when you can feel the game
designers structuring the game world artificially, like the "invisible hand"
of the Illuminati working in the background to alter things.
  Deus Ex: Invisible War is a game which had a huge reputation to live
up to. As the sequel to Deus Ex, this game had huge expectations of it,
and it's hardly surprising that it failed to live up to the expectations of
some people. But it really is a game that, while perhaps not great, is at
least worth taking a look at. Just remember to check your expectations
at the door before you begin; Play it like it was just another
shooter/action-RPG game, and you'll have some fun with Invisible War.
People who wanted another Deus Ex may just as well play the first game
over again. (NOTE: The developers of DX:IW were quick with a version
1.1 patch after the game's release. The patch does not significantly
change the gameplay, but does resolve a few issues with the game: It
improves the performance and appearance of the game somewhat, it
provides a few extra options, and it cures a notable bug in which the
mouse cursor does not move on the game's menus. A version 1.2 patch
was later released as well; Get the latest patch before you play the
game.) [Ion Storm/Eidos Interactive]

Die By The Sword: This game runs on a proprietary engine known as
VSIM, which is interesting because it lets you control your body and
your sword independently. It gives players an unusually high range of
natural motion by calculating the possible range of joint motion in the
arms, legs, head and torso of each character and rendering it in real time.
The result is surprisingly impressive. In fact, Die By The Sword is one
of the most uniquely absorbing games I've ever seen, simply because it
does give you so much control over your character. No other game that
I've played provides such a hands-on simulation of swordfighting,
ensuring that when you lose a battle, it really is your fault, not the fault
of the game for not giving you the ability to fight back properly.
However, DBTS takes a *lot* of mastering before you can control
yourself competently. Learning all the movement controls, combined with
learning to swing your sword effectively, while trying to manage the
camera at the same time (DBTS has a rather warped camera scheme
which doesn't really let you look where you want to look at the proper
point in time) makes for a game that will take a very long time to
master, but which will richly reward the player who is patient and skilled
enough to do so.
  DBTS includes an tutorial (which it is strongly recommended that you
go through before playing) and an "arena" play option (which it is
strongly recommended that you practice for a long time in before you
start your quest) in which you can pit yourself against an array of
monsters of your choice, and see who wins. The arena is an excellent
way to practice your combat skills and you will definitely want to spend
a long time there before playing the game seriously. And watch how you
fight: The game has adaptive AI, so it will observe how you fight and
learn your weaknesses to attack you better.
  Die By The Sword requires you to fight methodically; This is no mere
arcade game, you can't just swing your sword around repeatedly and
hope that you win. (Actually the game does have an "Arcade" control
mode which lets you make pre-defined sword strokes with a keypress,
but that's for weenies and it defeats the purpose of playing DBTS in the
first place.) Whenever you swing your sword, ensure that the entire
motion is calculated from beginning to end. Don't just swing it in a
particular direction, put it in a proper starting point and then swing it
toward the appropriate endpoint. For example, if you want to swing your
sword to the left, make sure that your sword is actually on your right
first. If your sword is in front of you, your stroke will be much less
effective because you won't be swinging it across your entire body. A
proper set-up is required for each stroke.
  Despite all it has going for it, Die By The Sword disappoints once you
begin the "Quest" mode, which is really the centerpiece of the game;
Rather than simply squaring off against a set of opponents in a closed
arena, you actually go on an adventure, exploring locations and tackling
monsters as they come. The quest starts off being fun for a few minutes,
then it suddenly degenerates into a series of seemingly endless
interlocking tunnels which I never managed to find my way out of and
which there seemed to be absolutely no point to. Thus, DBTS ends up
making a classic game design mistake: It relies on a single gimmick to
propel it, forgoing other gameplay aspects which usually make a good
game. Yet DBTS remains a fairly fun "quickie" game for when you feel
like battling a few monsters in the arena; It fails as a real action-
adventure, however, which is apparently what it wanted to be. [Interplay]

Die By The Sword Add-On: Limb From Limb [Interplay/Treyarch LLC]

Die Hard [Activision/Dynamix]

Die Hard 2: Die Harder [Activision/Dynamix]

Dig Dug: A classic in which you have to blow up your enemies with an
air gun. (Yes, you literally "blow them up".) [Namco]

Dig Dug 2: Unlike many video games, this is a case where the sequel is
vastly different from the original. You still play a little guy with an air
gun, but Dig Dug 2 is 3D unlike the 2D original, and now you're on an
island which you can strategically drill into to make sections of it sink.
This gives you the option of directly confronting and blowing up your
enemies like in the original, or drowning them by sinking the parts of the
island they're on. [Namco]

Dig It! [Pixel Painters]

Dino Crisis: Its gameplay owes a lot to Resident Evil and its plot owes
a lot to Jurassic Park, but Dino Crisis is still quite a great survival-horror
game, centering around a woman identified only as "Regina" (continuing
the growing trend of putting female lead characters in games) who must
penetrate and investigate a secret research base in which a time portal has
opened, through which dinosaurs from the past are entering our world.
(This is more like Half-Life than anything else, but hey, the games
industry didn't get big on being original. Well, it did, but it didn't STAY
that way on being original.) It feels like a console game, which it is (the
PC version is just a conversion from the PlayStation version), but the
graphics survived the transition without looking too horribly disfigured,
and their oddly grainy quality actually does a good job of lending to the
tension. [Capcom]

Dogfight 0.9: A great update of the classic two-dimensional air combat
game Sopwith. Dogfight has great graphics and gameplay, but it's hard
to understand because all the text is in German. The official homepage
is at http://dogfight.kuto.de . Note that Dogfight 0.8 was freeware, but as
of version 0.9, it has become shareware. [Thorsten Kuphaldt] (Shareware)

Dominion Storm [Eidos]

Doom: Knee Deep In The Dead 1.9: The high-quality, high-violence (at
least at the time it was released) arcade game that remains one of the
most popular electronic games ever. Don't get the regular version, get
The Ultimate Doom (it includes episode 4). (Doom is also available in
a Linux version, which came out almost as soon as it came out for
DOS.) [id Software]

DOOM 2D: A simple name which describes exactly what this game is:
Doom made into a two-dimensional, platform-style arcade game. This is
NOT an official release from id Software, or any other well-known
company for that matter; It's a simple, free, fan-made game, but it's
good, with graphics that really look like 2D versions of Doom's graphics.

Doom 2: Hell On Earth 1.9: It's almost identical to the original Doom
as far as graphics and sound go. The only innovations are a few new
monsters, one new weapon (the "Super Shotgun", basically a double-
barrel shotgun, which of course does twice as much damage as the
regular shotgun, as well as using two shells per shot), and of course, new
levels. Most interesting among these are the secret level (level 31), called
"Wolfenstein", which as you might have guessed is modeled after the
first level of Wolfenstein 3D. (Get to level 31 through a secret warp in
level 15.) There's also the super-secret level, level 32, which you get to
the same way you get to the secret level in Wolfenstein 3D's first
episode, and which is modeled after the last level of the first episode of
Wolfenstein 3D, except for a big difference at the end, featuring four
hanging Commander Keens. [id Software]

Doom Companion CD-ROM

Doom Legacy 1.28: An add-on for Doom that adds the features which
set Doom apart from modern first-person shooters: The ability to look up
and down, the ability to jump, a crosshair, OpenGL support, and TCP
multiplayer support. It also has slightly modified graphic transparency
effects which makes fireballs and smoke from rockets look cooler. This
is a great add-on for those who have older computers which can't run
Quake but which will run Doom and which you want to have some
online deathmatch fun with. Doom Legacy's homepage is at
http://doomlegacy.sourceforge.net/ (Freeware)

Doom Overload

Doomed!: A quasi-parody of Doom written in QBASIC. Doomed is a lot
like Doom, only worse. [Hacksoft]

Double Dragon 1 [American Technos/Virgin Mastertronic/Binary Design]

Double Dragon 2 [American Technos/Virgin Mastertronic/Binary Design]

Double Dragon 3 [American Technos/Virgin Mastertronic/Binary Design]

Drakan: Order Of The Flame: An epic arcade game with a lot of dragons
and a really interesting camera perspective (which is also from a dragon),
plus a brunette heroine who almost gives even the robust Lara Croft a
run for her money. Impressive. [Psygnosis]

Driller: An interesting game which takes place on the moon. Your task
is to assign drilling rigs to relieve the build-up of gas pressure under the
ground's surface. Certainly an unusual concept that makes for a decent
novelty. [Epyx/Incentive]

Dschump 1.2: HUMBOO SOFTWEAH PASENT!!! [Homebrew
Software]

Duke Nukem: Long before Duke Nukem 3D existed, Duke was already
a hit in this, one of the greatest platform arcade games ever made. It
rightly became a huge hit, spawning a sequel before Duke eventually
became the first-person shooter he is now. [Apogee]

Duke Nukem 3D 1.3d, Atomic Edition: The post-Doom avenger is here.
Duke Nukem 3D is the sort of game which you always thought Doom
should have been and which you thought maybe someday we would
have. Well, wait no longer, because this is the one you've been waiting
for. SVGA graphics, lots of powerful weaponry, plenty of big places and
nasty monsters and the ability to jump. Yes! Foot-high walls are no
longer an impassable barrier. Thank goodness! As a bonus, it also comes
with Build, an excellent and powerful level builder (the one the designers
used to make the game's built-in levels), so you can make your own.This
"Atomic" edition includes the sought-after fourth episode, the Plutonium
PAK. [Apogee]

Duke It Out In D.C.: A pleasant 10-level addition to Duke Nukem 3D
which, as the name suggests, lets you explore D.C., going through such
locales as the Smithsonian, and of course the White House and Capitol.
Although it has little new to it as far as gameplay goes, the levels are
well-designed enough that they're plenty of fun to play, and a nice
diversion for those who finished all of Duke's built-in levels and ended
up wanting more.

Duke Nukem Forever: The long-awaited sequel to Duke Nukem 3D,
DNF has set a world record for development delay, with its years of
hype build-up and legendary release date of "When it's finished".
[GodGames/3D Realms]

DX-Ball: Yet another Breakout/Arkanoid clone. Better than the rest,
though. [Freeware]

DX-Ball 2 [Shareware]

Earthworm Jim [Activision]

Ecco The Dolphin For Windows (EccoWin) 1.1: The excellent game
Ecco The Dolphin for the Sega Genesis was in fact released in a
Windows version. It's an above-average undersea game in which you
play a dolphin who spends a lot of time singing his dolphin songs, and
even more time swimming around. It's actually surprisingly fun,
however, once you get into it. [Sega/Novotrade International]

EGA-ROIDS 1.0c: A fine DOS clone of Asteroids, one of the best I've
seen. Although it has no sound, the graphics are crisp and pleasant.
[Designer Software] (Shareware)

Electranoid [Pixel Painters]

Electronic Popple [Byteshock]

Elevator: A fun old CGA arcade game which is somewhat reminiscent
of the Atari classic, Infiltrator. You must run across elevator shafts to
climb to the top of the screen while avoiding getting hit by the elevator
cars. Although the game is fun and rather challenging, it desperately
needs some slowdown routines to keep it from running at a frantic pace
on today's CPUs. [Wordworks Software/David Bayliss]

Elevators From Hell: VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY
HARD arcade game. Grab all the tokens, then escape from the building
without getting killed by the sentry drone! Good for anyone who hates
elevators. [John Shramko] [Shareware]

Elfland: One of the most dialog-oriented platform games. It actually has
an inventory too, making it a nice cross of adventure with arcade. [Carl
Erikson]

Enemy Infestation [Ripcord]

Enemy Nations

Enigma 0.81: A superb clone of the relatively obscure classic marble-
rolling game Oxyd. Enigma is free, open-source software available for
Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It comes with more than 100 levels,
and these levels are seriously challenging; count on them taking you a
long time to finish. Enigma's graphics look *exactly* like Oxyd's,
although its sound effects are quite different. Enigma's homepage is at
www.nongnu.org/enigma [Daniel Heck] (Freeware)

Enter The Matrix: Released at the same time as The Matrix Reloaded
(the movie sequel to the original Matrix movie), Enter The Matrix is a
milestone simply because it is the first time that a computer game has
been released in conjunction with a major motion picture, rather than one
following the success of the other; It's proof of the increasing popularity
of the computer and video game scene in mainstream media. ETM even
helps somewhat at breaking the long-standing adage that games based on
movies will suck. ETM is not a terrible game, but it's only somewhat
above a mediocre game. It also suffers from rampant commcercialism.
This is a clear attempt at cashing in on even more money from the wild
success of the Matrix movies.
  ETM seems like a pretty open-ended game at first, giving you the
ability to engage in a lot of cool martial arts moves (like those seen in
the movies) as well as giving you more straightforward ways of
dispatching your enemies (guns). You might think that a gun is a much
more effective way of dealing with an enemy than taking them on hand-
to-hand, so you'd probably plan on shooting your way through the game.
Guns are surprisingly ineffective in ETM, however, partly because
they're ridiculously awkward to aim, and also because ammunition isn't
as plentiful as most gamers would like, so you may actually find yourself
preferring to use martial arts except for when you're up against a large
group of enemies. The mission objectives in Enter The Matrix are also
pretty diverse and some of them are very interesting, but the actual
gameplay doesn't change much throughout the game. ETM incorporates
a few neat mini-games like a driving mode (in which you get to play a
part in the memorable freeway chase scene in The Matrix Reloaded), and
a scene at the end in which you can pilot the spaceship Logos through
a series of tunnels, but these sequences are short and sparse; The main
game is made up of on-foot action. The game looks and sounds good,
and in keeping with the Matrix franchise, everything is incredibly stylish;
Everybody moves, speaks, and acts with the utmost intensity, lending that
certain edge to the game which is also present in the movies. However,
just as in the movies, ETM often fails to make a lot of sense. Most of
the characters, locations, and events don't get a lot of introduction or plot
justification, because hey, they look really cool, so who cares if they
make sense or not? You'll have some fun playing ETM, but it doesn't
take a whole lot of intelligence to play.
  One rather notable and interesting (for some people, anyway) feature
in ETM is a "hacking" mode in which a computer console comes up,
much like the dingy black-and-green consoles that permeate the Matrix
movies. From this screen, which is a sort of computer simulation, you
can uncover interesting extra tidbits of information, as well as enter in
cheat codes to control the structure of the game. (After all, the Matrix is
just a big computer program, so you should be able to control it through
a computer interface.) This is a neat idea and it actually integrates well
with the rest of the game, but it's actually just a small distraction, not a
major feature.
  Ultimately, although it's certainly not a horrible game and it may
actually be good for a bit of fun, Enter The Matrix is yet another case of
style over substance, containing little or no real plot or character
development but being long on the action. The same complaint might be
leveled at the Matrix movies as well, since for all their attempts at
philosophy, most people doubtlessly go to see the movies just for the
cool special effects. Nonetheless, while the movies do at least make you
think for a few minutes, Enter The Matrix does not. If you saw the
movies and really liked them, ETM may help feed your Matrix addiction.
For everyone else, this is essentially an average fight game punched up
with occasional lines of terse dialogue. [Atari/Shiny Entertainment]

Eradicator 1.02: Another good shoot-em-up, this one can be either from
behind your character or first-person. In addition, there are three
characters to choose from, nicely moody music (if you like moody
music), and a variety of potent weapons. The action takes place in a
huge, wasted mine. [Accolade]

Evenstar: Senshi-No Shiken [Dreamstone Entertainment]

EverQuest [989 Studios/Sony]

EverQuest Add-On: The Scars Of Velious [Sony Entertainment]

Evolva: An over-the-shoulder shooter in which you control a team of
bizarre creatures which can take advantage of other creatures' genes to
develop genetic advantages. Too bad it's boring and difficult to control.
There's no map, meaning it's too easy to get lost in the sophisticated
levels, and not enough information on your team is presented onscreen,
plus you can only control one member at a time, which becomes a
problem when you're trying to get them over an obstacle (they
automatically follow the character you're controlling, but they don't seem
to be able to jump, meaning if you jump over something they'll get left
behind). The mediocre graphics effects don't make up for the game's
shortcomings. [Interplay/Computer Artworks/Virgin]

Executioners: A cult classic freeware beat-em-up game, which was
marked by its unusually violent over-the-top action. It was a fitting start
for a little-known company that went on to create several similar games,
as well as the much better-known NES emulator, NESticle. [Bloodlust
Software]

Expendable [Rage Software]

Exterminator: A bug-squashing game which may finally inspire you to
stop using your hands in real life to do this task, since they're so
ineffective in the game. (Press F10 to quit.) [Audiogenic
Software/Premier Technology]

Faces: A spinoff of Tetris in which you try to form faces with falling
parts. (Imagine falling noses and eyes going down your screen!)
Commonly known as "Tris 3" or "FaceTris" in mainstram gamer's slang.
[Spectrum Holobyte/Sphere]

Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix [Eidos]

F.Godmom 4.0: An amusing little arcade game, actually it's pretty neat!
You play a fairy godmother who has to go through 50 levels which
skillfully blend arcade action with puzzle solving. [Soggybread Software]

Final Doom: The end of Doom. The final chapter in the series. Two new
32-level episodes. [id Software]

Fire And Ice: A cute platform game where you play Cool Coyote, who
must journey through progressively hotter places. [Streetwise Interactive]

Fire Fighter: A nice-looking but monotonous game in which you're a
firefighter who, obviously, has to extinguish building fires and save
people. One of two firefighting games for the Atari 2600 (the other being
Towering Inferno). [Imagic]

Flashback: This is the sequel to the highly-acclaimed Out Of This World,
and it shows in some places, like the graphical look and the smooth,
rotoscoped animation (a breakthrough in its own time). Unfortunately,
Flashback lacks the immediacy of its predecessor, preferring instead to
use large, puzzle-laden platform-arcade gameplay which gets boring fast.
Whereas Out Of This World was similar to Prince Of Persia in many
ways, Flashback is obviously a direct attempt to model it, right up to the
tedious ledge-clutching and multi-level navigating of a series of
treacherous small platforms to jump across. Instead of being always
interesting and fresh, like its predecessor, Flashback is exactly the
opposite. [SSI/Delphine Software/US Gold]

Flesh Feast: Gee, this looks like a cute game.

Flying Heroes: What other game lets you play as a teapot? Flying Heroes
does. Actually it's a fairly typical shooter with some novelties thrown in.
[Take 2 Interactive/Illusion Softworks]

Forsaken: An excellent example of the capabilities of the new 3D video
cards. Must be seen to be believed. (Aside from the great graphics,
though, it's a direct clone of Descent. But it's a good one.) [Acclaim]

FRAC 2.0: 3D Tetris!!! Incredibly cool game. [Simsalabim Software]

Framed 1.1: An interesting approach to the platform-type arcade game
which mixes a lot of adventure elements in. You're a prisoner who must
escape from jail. Still feels closer to arcade than adventure, though.
[Machination]

Freddi Fish And Luther's Maze Madness: Pac-Man clone for 3- to 8-year
olds. Nicely done game with over 100 levels. [Humongous
Entertainment]

Freedom Fighters: An alternate-history action game in which the Soviet
Union has taken over the world. You direct a group of everyday
Americans forming a small but fierce group of freedom fighters bent on
defending the United States against the onrushing Soviet invasion. The
action in the game is top-notch, but the storyline and political bent of the
game will also be interesting to some, as your actions are (of course)
considered to be those of a terrorist group rather than a country
defending itself against takeover. Excellent presentation and missions
round out a strategy/action hybrid that's well worth your time.
[Electronic Arts/Io Interactive]

Frequon Invaders 1.3: A remarkably difficult-to-understand game based
on Fourier Space. If you know what that means, you might understand
it. If you don't, you might have fun with this game anyway, but you'll
probably feel pretty stumped. [Arch D. Robison] (Freeware)

FreeSpace: The Great War [Interplay]

Freespace 2: It's exactly like Descent, and it's from the same company.
Hmmm. [Interplay]

Freeway: A Frogger ripoff for the Atari 2600 in which you play a
chicken who must cross a road. Unlike Frogger, in which half of the
screen was road and the other half was a river, in Freeway the screen is
all road, so no floating logs or diving turtles here. The player is left to
decide whether that's good or bad. [Activision]

Frogger: Those who were already playing computer games in the late
1970s or so will probably remember Frogger, the game where you helped
a frog get across the road without getting hurt. Still fun even today.
[Sierra On-Line]

Frogger II: Three Deep: Almost every fan of classic arcade games has
heard of Frogger, but amazingly few people know that it had a sequel.
Frogger II is similar to the first game of course, but it has different
settings. Instead of having to cross the road this time, you now need to
guide the frog up from the bottom of a pond to the top. [Sega/Sierra On-
Line]

Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge [Hasbro Interactive]

Full Metal Jacket: A difficult but good bird's-eye-view shooter, in which
you play a big robot who has to fight a bunch of other robots. Enough
weaponry to make it interesting. [Mirinae Software]

FunHouse

Future Cop: L.A.P.D. [Electronic Arts]

FX Fighter [GTE]

Galaxy Trek: An outer-space arcade zapper with tiny graphics, but lots
of gameplay and a susprisingly compelling plot that develops as you go
along. [TAC Enterprises]

Gauntlet: The classic Medieval bird's-eye-view shooter with lots of
enemies, and the ability to play a warrior, archer, wizard, or Valkyrie. 
[Mindscape/Tengen]

Gauntlet II: The sequel, which is exactly the same as far as gameplay but
with way better graphics and sound. [Mindscape/Tengen]

Gex: Apparently this game's title is short for "Geckos", possibly because
it uses geckos in it.

Gex II

Ghostbusters [Activision]

Ghostbusters II [Activision/Dynamix]

Giana Sisters: A game which is a direct PC clone of Super Mario Bros,
in every way including level layout. The only difference is your character
is a female, as the name suggests. [MYTH, KYP, TU, and Rainer
Sinsch]

Giants: Citizen Kabuto [Interplay/Planet Moon Studios]

Glover

G-Nome [7th Level]

Gobliiins I: A unique game, combining the best parts of adventure,
arcade, and puzzle games. It's sort of like a mix between Lemmings and
conventional adventure games. You control a trio of well-meaning but
rather half-witted little goblins, each of whom has a special skill. You
must learn to co-ordinate their abilities to achieve goals. The graphics are
decent (although not too impressive), but the gameplay is quite original.
[Sierra On-Line]

Gobliins 2 1.02: This time around, you only control two goblins. This
eliminates a bit of guessing which one is the best for the job, but
otherwise the game is similar to the first (although this one also has
some more "adventure" elements, as it seems to have more dialogue
between characters). [Coktel Vision/Sierra On-Line]

Goblins Quest 3: They took another goblin off for this game. Now it's
a solo adventure, and although it's still a good one, it's less original than
the other Goblins games and more like every other adventure game
you've ever seen. [Sierra On-Line]

GobMan: Another VGA Pac-Man clone with a few new features,
foremost among them bombs which sometimes pop up which you can
use to wipe the screen of ghosts. A good rendition of the old classic.
[Filipe Mateus]

God Of Thunder 1.1: A hilarious game which effectively bridges the gap
between arcade and adventure. Playing Thor, you must save the world
from bad guys like Jormangund, Loki and Nognir. [MVP]

GODS: Into The Wonderful: A gameplay-generic platform with great
graphics and a catchy opening theme which could sure use less choppy
movement. [Renegade/Bitmap Brothers]

Golden Axe: See Super Golden Axe

Gore: Ultimate Soldier [DreamCatcher Interactive/4D Rulers]

Grand Theft Auto (GTA): Steal cars, then drive them! Such fun! (Tips:
Often, a mission will require you to face off against a whole gang of
people armed with guns. The best way to deal with these people is to run
them over with a car, because a car takes several hits to destroy while
your body takes only one; Even if you have body armor, you only take
4 hits, whereas a car will take more. Unfortunately, most of these
missions put those gangs in places which are blocked by those pillars
which can't be crossed in a car, forcing you to walk there. In these cases,
usually your first plan of action should be to try to lure the gang out into
the street; Often, once you arrive there and they become aware of your
presence, they will begin to chase you. When this happens, drive away
for a while, and come back; They may be out in the street, where they
are sitting ducks for you to make a hit-and-run. If that doesn't work and
you are forced to go in on foot, always, always make sure you have body
armor on first, because otherwise you will die with a single bullet.) (If
you ever need to rip off a police car, here's the best way to do it: First,
make sure you have a few thousand dollars. Next, get any car and drive
to a respray shop (don't drive inside it yet though, hang around just
outside it). Run over a few people with you car until a police head
appears at the top of the screen, indicating the police are after you. Wait
for a police car to show up, let the cop come out of his car, and run him
over. Then quickly go into the respray shop; This will get the police off
your tail, and you can then exit your vehicle and claim the police car
which the now-dead cop left behind.) (Always play with the maps; This
will make it much easier to figure out where the various back-alleys of
the city are. They also come in very helpful when you have 5 police cars
pursuing you and you need a respray shop in a hurry.) (And forget the
down arrow for braking; Use the spacebar (hand brake) instead, it's
much, much more effective for stopping in a short distance. Use the
down arrow only for backing up.) (When the police really get after you
(when there are 3 or 4 cop heads at the top of the screen), they start
putting up roadblocks. These are not that hard to get through since there
are gaps between the police cars which you can drive through, but each
roadblock has a couple of cops on foot with machine guns who will
spray your car with bullets on sight; A few roadblocks and your car will
be toast. For this reason, it's best to avoid the major highways when
you've got a major arrest warrant on you. Stick to the small sideroads
with only one lane moving in each direction; This will make navigation
a little trickier, but then you won't have to contend with the roadblocks,
only the moving police cars, which are less of a problem, especially
since the smaller roads tend to have less police cars anyway.) [DMA
Design/ASC Games]

Grand Theft Auto 2 (GTA2) 9.6: A deliriously entertaining arcade game,
a quantum improvement over the original GTA, and one of the most
playable games of the late 1990s. Start off by getting a car (almost any
car passing on the street will do, since nobody locks their doors in this
game), get a weapon from somewhere (you can find them conveniently
sitting on some street corners, or kill a gang member for one), then go
on a wild cruising spree through the streets of a big city, running over
whoever you like. When that gets boring, try stealing a police car, and
then a SWAT team van. GTA2 is simply one of the most enjoyable
crime spree games ever made, with plenty of gameplay to explore, and
missions challenging enough to keep you busy for a long time. (A few
quibbles: If there's one element it lacks that the original had, it's the
motorcycles, which were copious in GTA1 but missing entirely in this
sequel. Also, the police are now *much* more common and tough, which
is good if you want a bigger challenge but bad if you prefer the game to
be easy. For starters, every cop car now has two police in it, not just one.
This alone makes dealing with the police vastly harder, since it's easy to
be able to drive over one cop as he exits his vehicle, but it's much harder
to be able to line up two cops so you can hit both before they pull you
from your vehicle. On top of this, GTA2 incorporates SWAT teams,
which stock no less than 4 cops in a single van, and if you ever get to
the highest alert, level six (which only is possible in the final level), the
army will be called out, and I don't think you're even expected to deal
with them; Just sort of count on dying once that happens. The cop heads
at the top of the screen will start bobbing up and down to indicate when
a lawman knows where you are, and they'll stop bobbing if nobody
knows where you are right now.
  On top of that, the number of pedestrians has been increased about
twentyfold, vastly increasing your chances of hitting them (and thus
potentially attracting police attention) in the heat of action. In addition,
although the graphics and sound are obviously of a higher technical
quality, they seem somewhat less pleasant; The graphics, while higher in
resolution, often seem washed-out and less colorful than in the original,
and the sounds are less lively. It's also worth noting that while the idea
of having three gangs of which you must earn respect before you can
work for them is a novel idea which changes the gameplay significantly,
it has a negative impact as well: Some people may prefer to simply pick
up a job immediately like they could in the original, instead of having to
go to a rival gang's territory and kill a few dozen of their members
before the jobs become available, a task which becomes tedious after
you've done it a few times. It is recommended that you first go through
all the missions for a particular gang, from the easiest ones to the hardest
ones, before you attempt to work for another; In this way, you only
really have to earn the trust of each gang once. While this may be
somewhat more realistic (since in real life, changes in gang alliegance are
a major event and not something done on a whim), it actually detracts
from GTA2 by reducing the non-linear feel that is so crucial to its fun
value. The gang system, which presumably was introduced to make
GTA2 better, ends up making it worse by making it more linear and
closed-ended than the freestyle free-for-all that made the first GTA so
great. So although GTA2 has had a lot of work done on it, and it's much
bigger and more unrelentingly reckless than the first game, don't throw
away your copy of GTA1 just yet.)
  GTA2's physics model will also severely annoy people who have
gotten used to the feel of GTA1. For starters, the cars in GTA2 feel way
too twitchy; They tend to oversteer, a stark contrast to the cars of GTA1,
which had the opposite problem. Also, if you got used to using the
handbrake to stop your car in GTA1 (which you should have, because it
was way more effective), forget about it; Here, your normal brakes are
more effective (as they should be). GTA2 also has exaggerated auto-lane-
centering (that is, it tries too hard to automatically help you steer your
car straight on the road), which makes it harder to control your car when
you don't WANT to center it in a lane. GTA1 had some auto-lane-
centering as well, but it was much weaker, and thus could be dealt with.
Beyond this, several gameplay elements have been changed in small but
important ways. A level-one police alert no longer lasts forever; When
one police head appears at the top of the screen, you can simply lay low
for a few moments at it will go away by itself. This makes it a lot
cheaper to avoid getting caught by the police. In GTA1, your only option
was to find a respray shop. Interestingly, in GTA2, although there are
still respray shops, they are much more expensive, and also much less
numerous. Weapons are also much less common; A crate containing a
pistol or machine gun was on just about every street in GTA1, while
you'll have to look quite a bit harder to find any weapons lying around
in GTA2. This is, of course, more realistic (since real cities don't
actually have weapons just sitting around on the sidewalks all over the
place). A welcome change for bad drivers is the fact that police will no
longer begin to chase you simply for bumping other cars (unless you
bump a police car); In GTA1, having a lot of traffic accidents would
eventually get yourself a level-one police alert, where in GTA2, you can
bump cars all you want and the police won't pay any mind. Speaking of
bumping other cars, you now have a visual indication of when your car
is getting close to blowing up from excessive damage: Heavily-damaged
cars now start to flame as they approach destruction. Oddly, GTA2
makes street poles non-blocking; You had to avoid hitting streetlamps in
GTA1, but in GTA2 you'll just drive right through them.
  Another interesting addition is two types of fellow felons: Muggers and
carjackers. You'll recognize both instantly by their shirt colours: Muggers
always wear bright red shirts, carjackers wear green. Muggers are only
a threat to you if you're on foot, in which case they might suddenly
lower your score by taking some of your money, and carjackers,
obviously, might suddenly yank you from your car and drive away with
it, just as you probably did with the person who was originally driving
the car. (Speaking of which, another new "feature" is that some car
drivers, once you carjack them, may actually retake their cars by pulling
you back out, shouting "Gimme back my car!" This is amusing and
appropriate, since in GTA1, they would always simply run away, leaving
you to your prize.) You will also often see these two criminal types
acting upon other game-controlled characters, which makes for an
interesting sight, especially if a mugger attempts to rob a gang member,
which inevitably results in the gang member opening fire on the mugger;
It all really adds up to a fully-realized game world in which vehicles and
people exist on their own, going about their business and occasionally
interacting with each other in ways that make the city of GTA2 feel
artificially alive. Another nice touch is that you can steal a taxi and start
driving customers; They won't even ask you to go anywhere, you'll get
paid just to drive around. You could theoretically win the game doing
just this, but it would take a very, very long time. If you want to try it,
at least complete a few easy missions first to get your multiplier up.
Another nice vehicle touch is the hose on the fire truck; If you steal a
fire truck, you can now aim the water nozzle around and spray people or
vehicles with it. (Spraying a vehicle with it is a great way to get the
driver to get out of his car without damaging the car you're trying to
steal!)
  Oh, and you can also save your game in GTA2. However, doing so is
not free; In fact, it's so expensive that players who play to win will
probably not bother doing so.
  (NOTE: In the Video section of the options for GTA2, there is an
option called "Frame Rate Limiter"; This serves to limit how fast the
game runs. If you turn it off, the game will simply run as fast as your
computer can run it, which will probably either make the game
unplayably fast, or extremely choppy. It is recommended that you leave
this option on to keep the game at a reasonable speed.) [DMA
Design/Rockstar Games]

Grand Theft Auto 3 (GTA3): Grand Theft Auto has come a long way,
which is saying a lot, since it was a groundbreaker from the beginning.
GTA3 is an update of the previous Grand Theft Auto games in many
ways, but perhaps the best thing about it is how true it stays to its roots.
It retains the fun of the first two games, giving you the freedom to
explore a living, breathing city, while stealing and then driving a variety
of fast (and not-so-fast) cars around, and if you feel like it, going on a
rampage and simply driving over everyone you see (including the
inevitably resultant police). GTA3's improvements are mainly cosmetic,
which is exactly how it should be in this particular case: GTA3 looks
better, sounds better, and it uses a more intuitive perspective than the
bird's-eye-view used in the first two games. This perspective may turn
off many GTA purists, but there's no question that it's a better choice for
fast driving through the simulated city streets; Anybody who's played
GTA 1 or 2 has been constantly frustrated with how little of your
surroundings you can see at any time. When you're driving in real life,
you need to be able to see ahead of your car for at least a few seconds'
worth of driving, but in the first two games, when driving at top speed,
you'd traverse a whole screenful of road in less than a second, which
made it incredibly hard to know when you should stop soon. GTA3's
perspective makes more sense for a driving-oriented game, even if it does
make the game feel more like a first-person shooter than a GTA game.
  GTA3 still gives you three areas, just like the first two games.
However, rather than giving you three separate cities (as in GTA1) or
three generic city zone types (as in GTA2), GTA3 takes place entirely
in "Liberty City", a rather obvious fictionalization of New York City.
Considering it was released into a world which was, in real life, still
staggering from the fallout of the terrorist attacks of September 11
(which were mainly in New York City), and considering how many
games chickened out and tried to soften their violent content as a result
of those attacks, it's no doubt a relief for some people to see that GTA3
didn't do the same. GTA3 is brash and bloody from beginning to end,
just like its predecessors, with the same kind of unsavoury characters
(gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes) that you spent most of
your time interacting with before.
  One of the best things about GTA3 (in my opinion) is that the game
does not close off previous areas. The first two games had three stages
which were completely linear: You could not visit previous stages once
you had moved on to later ones. Although GTA3 also has three areas and
they are at first blocked off, once you eventually reach the next stage, the
previous one is still available, so you can go back to see, take, or do
anything that you might have missed before. Eventually, once all three
areas of the game have been unlocked, the entire city is open for you to
explore, and it ends up being a pretty big place!
  GTA3 hasn't lost its sense of humour either. A couple of remarkable
parodies of popular driving games exist within it. If you steal a taxi, you
can start making money for yourself by picking up people and driving
them around the city; The result is both a great minigame within the
game, and a fairly blatant ripoff of Crazy Taxi. If you're a PC gamer
who felt cheated by the fact that Crazy Taxi, one of the best street
driving games ever made, was only ever released for consoles
(Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and GameCube) but not the PC, GTA3
provides some sweet justice. The other driving game parody I've noticed
in GTA3 is a mission in which you're assigned to assassinate a man
named Tanner who was thought to be part of your gang, but has been
found to actually be an undercover cop. People who've played Driver
will quickly recognize this character.
  Speaking of minigames, GTA3 has a few other interesting ones inside
it as well, and they're so much fun that they alone make GTA3 worth
getting. Steal any kind of emergency vehicle (police car, ambulance, or
fire truck) and you can start driving it around, doing mini-missions. Steal
a police car and you can start busting fellow criminals, steal an
ambulance and you can start picking up injured people and driving them
to the hospital, and if you steal a fire truck, you can go around fighting
fires. Interestingly, not too long before GTA3 was released, a game
called Ambulance Driver was released for the PC, which was dismissed
as a ripoff of Crazy Taxi. Although it wasn't a very good game, it still
had a place in the world because it was, in essence, a PC version of CT.
However, if you were considering Ambulance Driver just so you could
play a CT-like game on the PC, forget it and get GTA3 instead: It's
much better. GTA3 was available in a PlayStation 2 version for almost
half a year before it came out for PC, but it's so good that it was worth
the wait.
  GTA3's world is huge; Each area of Liberty City has a lot of stuff in
it, and a lot to do. The graphics are good, although they don't exactly
outshine graphics of other games on the market at the time of its release. 
  Despite everything that it has going for it, GTA3 isn't for everyone.
First of all, many people got bored with the first two GTA games very
quickly. Admittedly, the game is mostly a series of "drive from here to
there" missions, interspersed with various bursts of intense action. For
some people, the thrill of being able to steal a car, drive around a city,
and shoot a few police officers wears off before long. If you got bored
with GTA 1 and 2, you'll probably get bored with GTA3 as well. Also,
while Grand Theft Auto 3 is certainly Grand, and it has quite a bit of
Theft, some people might complain that it doesn't have quite enough
Auto. Like the first two games, a fair bit of footwork is involved here in
addition to driving, and if you want a game that focuses mainly on
driving, you might be irritated by how often you're supposed to exit your
vehicle. (Have you noticed that most of GTA3's publicity screenshots
seem to show your character walking on the street, instead of driving a
car?) To be sure, none of the Grand Theft Auto games are for everyone;
People who don't appreciate the kind of rampant violence, crime, and
foul language that permeates them will be turned off as well. Even so,
GTA3 is a triumph of the art of combining great gameplay with great
presentation, and the result is one of the most entertaining action games
ever created, for some people anyway.
  NOTE: GTA3 is a resource hog. The recommended hardware
requirements specify a 700 MHz or higher CPU, but you'll really want
to play the game with a gigahertz-plus processor. In addition, GTA3 likes
a lot of RAM; The recommended specs are 128 MB of RAM, a typical
amount for PCs when the game was released, but it runs very choppily
at that level; You'll be better off with at least 256 MB, and preferably
512 MB. Also note that, in a really huge oversight, GTA3 has no option
to disable the joystick. This gets incredibly annoying in the game's
menus, as transient inputs from any joystick you might have (especially
if it's an analog stick) will tend to be interpreted as inputs, which will
randomly select and change menu items. The only way to deal with this
is to remove the joystick from your game device settings before running
GTA3. [Rockstar Games/Take-Two Interactive]

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: At first, the title of this game might lead
you to believe it's an expansion pack. Released shortly after Grand Theft
Auto 3, the lack of an incremented number in the name makes this sound
like an add-on to GTA3, especially in light of the fact that the release
dates were quite close together. However, it's hard to imagine anything
being further from the truth. In actuality, GTA:VC is no mere expansion
pack; this is a whole new game in its own right. This is, for all intents
and purposes, GTA4.
  At first glance, VC seems to be pretty much the same game as GTA3,
except with a new character (Tommy Vercetti, voiced, remarkably
enough, by veteran movie star Ray Liotta) and a new location (Vice City,
which is GTA's name for Miami, Florida). The basic gameplay is indeed
the same, but Vice City is full of so many added features that the overall
effect is a truly remarkable game.
  Let's begin with the radio stations. Oh my goodness, the radio stations!
A staple of GTA gameplay since the very first game, GTA's radio
stations took on a whole new dimension with GTA3, and in Vice City,
not only do you get fully-realized stations with real-sounding music that
you can switch between, but you actually get real music. The soundtrack
to Vice City is filled with genuine 1980s music from the big-name artists
of the day, including the likes of Michael Jackson, Blondie, 2 Live Crew,
Judas Priest, REO Speedwagon, A Flock Of Seagulls, Tears For Fears,
and way more. There are over 100 songs in the GTA:VC soundtrack. (!)
Artists you've actually heard of, doing songs you've actually heard, and
it all comes with the game. The soundtrack alone is practically worth the
value of the game, and it's only the beginning.
  The graphics in Vice City are comparable to those of GTA3, except
they seem improved. Characters, especially, seem more lifelike than they
did in GTA3, although cars and landscapes pretty much look the same.
Rockstar seems to have improved the graphics engine's efficiency,
however, as the engine in Vice City seems to be capable of rendering
more stuff faster, without some of the hiccups that were evident in
GTA3.
  Okay, but what about the gameplay? Well, as mentioned, the gameplay
at first seems pretty similar to GTA3, and it does have similar controls
for when you're on foot and when you're in a car. However, there are
some important additions which do a lot to add to the game. First of all,
motorcycles have finally been brought back to Grand Theft Auto. They
were in the very first game, and ever since then, people have wondered
why there are no motorcycles in the world of Grand Theft Auto. Well,
wonder no more, because in Vice City, motorbikes are back, and driving
them is as fluid and fun as it should be. They're also as easy to steal as
cars have always been: Pull the driver off, put yourself on, and zoom
away before anyone can react. Not only that, but you can also fly
helicopters in GTA:VC. Yes, you read that right, although it's worth
noting that unlike motorcycles, which are everywhere on the streets,
helicopters are fairly uncommon in this game, so you probably won't be
flying them much, unless you want to go to one of the few places where
they're available. When you do, however, the experience of being able
to fly anywhere over the city is thrilling.
  Vice City also lets you change your clothes from time to time.
Throughout the course of the game, you'll see Tommy Vercetti in a
variety of outfits, but this is really more of a minor annoyance than a
great feature. (Most often you'll change your clothes because it's
important to have the right threads for a particular mission.) Much more
significant is the ability to buy real estate in the game. Many buildings
have a little house icon next to them, and this will allow you to buy the
building. Once you own a building, you can use it as a save point to save
your game (so you don't need to keep returning to the hotel that is the
only place you can save when the game begins), and if it has a garage,
you can also use the garage(s) to store vehicles in (so they don't keep
disappearing). In addition, about half of the properties you can own in
the game can become places of business, which provide you with extra
missions, AND the opportunity to gain income from the property (once
all the missions for that property are complete).
  The missions in Vice City seem easier than in GTA3, for the most part
(perhaps too many people found GTA3's missions to be too difficult),
but the toughest ones--which lead to a lot of frustration--are still the ones
which require you to take out a huge mob of armed thugs (cars and your
character are still quite fragile, and quickly destroyed by a barrage of
bullets), or beat a race. The missions are mostly well-balanced and give
a good mix of different environments, vehicles, and activities.
  Overall, GTA:VC is not a huge revolution in the Grand Theft Auto
series; it follows the same basic gameplay style and atmosphere of its
predecessor, but it's got some significant improvements that make it,
overall, the best game in the series yet. Given how much replay value
and pure content is packed into the game, it also constitutes one of the
better values in the computer gaming arena of its time. A winner in
almost every respect. [Rockstar Games]

Graviton: An Atari classic where you pilot a small Asteroids-like
spaceship into several planets, where you must then shoot up all the gun
turrets shooting at you, after which the planets explode. [Atari]

Gremlins 2: The New Batch: A bird's-eye-view trek through a
multi-level office building infested with plenty of the little critters from
the movie of the same name. [Hi Tech Expressions]

Ground War II: An amazingly fun little two-player game based on the
Persian Gulf war! Basically each player is given an array of tanks and
other ground installations, then you fire at each other! This game is
incredibly addictive even if you don't have somebody to play with.
[EnQue Software] (Shareware)

GTAed2: A mission editor for Grand Theft Auto, which lets you change
the location of objects in the game (like power-ups, triggers, etc.) along
with their function. [Gain Software/Gavin Rudd]

Gubble [Actual Entertainment]

Gulf War: Operation Desert Hammer

Gunboat [Accolade]

Guy Spy [ReadySoft]

Half-Life, Game Of The Year Edition 1.1.0.4: Another first-person action
shooter with great graphics. This one has a twist to it though: Your
enemies coordinate their attacks and use cover to their advantage. What
a novel idea! If you've ever played Wolfenstein or a similar game, where
your enemies just come walking out into the open like lambs to the
slaughter, you'll know what I mean. This game looked great while it was
previewing two years before it came out, and when it finally came out
in very late 1998, it turned out to be even more impressive than it
seemed at first glance. This is one of the most rewarding games of its
genre ever. However, although Half-Life did have absolutely gorgeous
graphics and its smarter-than-the-average-FPS enemies were a much-
hyped feature, it was a great game for other important reasons as well.
One aspect of the game which didn't get as much attention was its
incredibly well-designed levels. The Black Mesa Research Facility (the
place where most of Half-Life unfolds) is a sprawling complex, full of
interesting places ideal for exploration, from research labs to dark,
cluttered storage rooms. Despite the fact that almost all of the game takes
place in one of two kinds of settings (either modern office/lab building
or New Mexico desert), the game never feels repetitive; Somehow, it
always manages to feel fresh and interesting right up to the end. Half-
Life also had more of an emphasis on stealth and remaining undetected
than most FPSes. Before the similarly-excellent Thief: The Dark Project
spawned the "first-person sneaker" genre, Half-Life was already less of
a traditional game where you simply blast away everything that moves,
and more of a strategic game in which half the time it might be smarter
to move carefully and quietly than with as much violence as possible.
(But be assured, Half-Life still has plenty of machine guns firing and
explosions, for you action fans.) This "Game Of The Year" Edition
includes Team Fortress Classic (TFC), an awesome add-on for the game.
[Valve/Sierra On-Line]

Half-Life Add-On: Counterstrike beta 7.1: The hottest mod for Half-Life,
and probably the hottest mod for any game ever, Counterstrike is the
famous terrorist vs. anti-terrorist game that's about one-quarter action and
three-quarters strategy. Download it for free from the official
Counterstrike website at www.counter-strike.net (NOTE: In the beta
releases, the console was always turned on when you were connecting to
a server. Starting with the first final release, the console was turned off
by default. To enable it, you need to add -console (including the hyphen)
as a parameter to the Counterstrike command-line.) [Team CounterStrike]

Half-Life Add-On: Opposing Force (Op For): The first official expansion
pack for Half-Life, this one turns you into one of the soldiers who gave
Gordon Freeman (your character in the original Half-Life) such a hard
time. Life is not easy as a soldier either, however, although your enemies
will be mostly the aliens this time around. (To do well in Opposing
Force, at some point you are going to have to learn the maneuver known
as the "crouched jump". This is a jump in which you hold down the
crouch key immediately after jumping. This makes you vertically
"smaller", and lets you reach some places which are just slightly too high
to reach with a normal jump. This is a pretty stupid requirement, and this
move is not documented anywhere in the game's manual or the in-game
training sequence. Yes, it's stupid, but it's what you must do in this
game. One might point out that this move *was* mentioned during the
training sequence in the original Half-Life, but if you never played Half-
Life or if it's been a while, you may have forgotten about it; At the very
least, it should have been mentioned briefly, since several other more
obvious points (like how to make regular jumps and crouches) are gone
over in the OpFor training session. Ah well. The crouched jump will be
used at some point to jump onto some relatively low boxes which you
can't jump on top of with a simple jump alone. Just hit the jump key,
then hold down crouch and you should end up on top of the boxes.)
[Gearbox Software/Valve Software/Sierra On-Line]

Half-Life Add-On: Blue Shift: The additions to Half-Life are starting to
wear thin. First there was Opposing Force, then there were the endless
retail re-packagings of Half-Life itself, then there was Counter-Strike,
which became huge both as a downloadable mod and a store-bought box
item. Now there's Blue Shift, the second commercially-made expansion
pack for Half-Life (after Opposing Force). Blue Shift is similar to OpFor
in that it gives you the Half-Life world through another character's
viewpoint: This time, you're one of those security guards who you'd
occasionally run across in the original Half-Life. As usual, you'll have
to take on a bunch of aliens and government soldiers in the midst of a
crisis at the Black Mesa Resarch Facility. Alas, Blue Shift, like OpFor,
doesn't quite live up to the original Half-Life for one main reason: It's
too short. While OpFor at least seemed long enough for an expansion
pack, Blue Shift seems almost comically short, even for an add-on. But
Blue Shift does have a few goodies packaged on its CD which make it
an add-on worth getting: First of all, the Blue Force CD includes OpFor
on it as an extra, so if you didn't already play Opposing Force, now you
can get BOTH expansion packs for Half-Life in one single CD. In
addition, the Blue Force CD includes the Half-Life High Definition Pack,
a game mod which will change the character models of all your Half-
Life games (including the original Half-Life, Opposing Force, and Blue
Shift) to make them look more lifelike. It also changes some of the
game's weapons, although the weapons still behave exactly the same;
They just look and sound cosmetically different. Perhaps best of all,
however, all the games and goodies on the Blue Shift CD are stand-
alone; They don't require the original Half-Life to be installed, so you
won't have to reinstall it if you want to enjoy anything in this package.
All of this combines to make Blue Shift an excellent value and the only
expansion pack you need to buy for Half-Life, even if Blue Shift itself
is rather short. [Gearbox Software/Valve Software/Sierra Studios]

Halloween Harry: See Alien Carnage

Halo: Combat Evolved: Incredibly anticipated when it came out, Halo
ended up being worth the wait and hype, simply because it was quite
possibly the all-around best shooter ever made. The amazing physics
model, combined with the superior graphics and level design made it that
rare game that could get every aspect of gameplay right. The only thing
that angered people about it: It was originally released only for the Xbox
console, in 2001. It was not until September 30, 2003 that it was finally
released in the long-awaited PC version. The question, obviously, was
then: Was Halo worth the wait? The general response from the gaming
community seemed to be "Yes". Halo for the PC is a near-perfect port
of the game, with not much added and not much taken away. So what
makes Halo so great? Well, like several excellent games before it, Halo
does not bring any particularly new features or ideas to the table. It does
pretty much all the same things that games before it have done, but it
stands out simply because it does those things better, and it does them
all well. Halo's one notable gameplay facet is its vehicles; Although it's
fundamentally a first-person shooter, Halo is well-known for its driving
modes in which you can hop on one of four vehicles and start driving it
around. Much of the action takes place outside, in wide-open areas
reminiscent of the sprawling levels of Serious Sam (but with more
attention to detail), which provides plenty of room for huge firefights.
Halo also has a pretty good science-fiction storyline backing it up (the
eponymous Halo is actually the ring-shaped planet on which the game
takes place). All in all, Halo isn't the most original or creative game in
the world, but it provides plenty of kicks for those who appreciate a fine
action game. [Bungie/Microsoft/Gearbox Software]

Hard Hat Mack: A very early effort from Electronic Arts (1984,
specifically) but still one of their best. You play the title character, who
must do some tasks around the construction site. [Electronic Arts]

Harley Davidson: The Road To Sturges [Mindscape]

Heart Of Darkness: The only thing Andy fears is the dark. To save his
dog, he must face it. [Interplay]

Heavy Gear [Activision]

Heavy Gear 2 [Activision]

Heavy Metal

Heavy Water Jogger: A clever arcade game inside a nuclear plant, which
has no save option, but which you can never lose. (Though you can die
as much as you like.) [Viable Software Alternatives]

H.E.D.Z.: Head Extreme Destruction Zone

Helius: An original game for its textless play and bizarre look and sound.
Supposedly this is because it was made by space aliens. [Sean M.
Puckett/Albino Frog Software, or aliens]

Hellbender 2.0 [Microsoft]

Heretic: Shadow Of The Serpent Riders: An impressive game that's
exactly like Doom, except the mood is Medieval, whereas Doom had a
more modern (perhaps even futuristic) feel. Get this game from Game
Empire 2 CD. Heretic's sequel is Hexen. [Raven Software] (Raven
Software is now owned by Activision)

Heretic II [Activision]

Hero: A pretty good game for the Atari 2600 which resembles a slightly
more primitive version of the PC arcade hit Jetpack. [Activision]

Hexen: The sequel to Heretic.

Hexen II: The best-looking game of its kind of 1997. [Raven Software]

Highway Hunter: A quasi-driving game which turns out to actually be
one of the best shareware vertical scrolling shooters. [Safari
Software/Epic MegaGames]

Hitman: Codename 47: It's nice to see that first-person shooters are
finally trying to become more intelligent. Following the success of the
genre-redefining Half-Life, FPSes have been forced to provide more to
the player than simple kill-everything-that-moves gameplay. An excellent
example of this is Hitman, a game which can be played like a
conventional first-person shooter, but which is much easier if you do
some planning before you shoot anything. (It should be noted that Eidos
previously made the critically-acclaimed "first-person sneaker" Thief: The
Dark Project, so they have past experience with making unconventional
first-person shooters.) All characters have their own agendas and
behaviour, and relate somehow to their surroundings, instead of just
being generic monsters which shoot at you as soon as they see you and
which are put in the game only to make it harder. You have a variety of
weapons available (but there are obvious advantages in using quieter ones
like knives instead of guns), and you make money for each successful
mission, which you can use to buy even more weapons. Of course,
Hitman isn't all just sneaking around in the shadows; Eventually you'll
be spotted, or you'll arrive at the person you've been hired to assassinate,
and some gunfire will ensue. However, since the planning and sneaking
around can take several minutes and the shooting usually takes a few
seconds, Hitman is basically a very strategic game spiced up with short
bursts of raw action. It is singularly unique in its purpose and
presentation, but it is a game besieged by design problems.
  At first, the only really serious problem with Hitman is its third-person
perspective. Behind-the-character viewpoints are harder to aim with and
less immersive than a first-person view, since you get a "he is there"
sense instead of "you are there". Eidos has a real problem with this kind
of thing, probably because their most famous title, Tomb Raider,
pioneered it. (They made the same mistake in Omikron, although
Omikron had other things that made it a failure as well.)
  One might also complain about the game's lack of realism, in the sense
that the plot is typical and often ill-developed, the weapons don't exactly
behave or sound like they would in the real world, and you receive
information on guards finding dead comrades in the form of on-screen
updates, which wouldn't happen to a real hitman. However, all these are
perfectly in line with the game's focus: This isn't Counter-Strike. The
weapons aren't meant to be perfectly modeled. This is a hybrid of action
with strategy, with a somewhat heavier emphasis on the strategy: It's
about planning how to get into a spot where you can execute your hit,
perform it, and get out without being spotted or killed. The actual
weapons action is secondary.
  Unfortunately, the real problem with Hitman doesn't become clear until
later in the game. Hitman suffers from the same design mistake that
affected most of Thief: The Dark Project, namely, the perceived need to
put a plot into a game that didn't need one. Both Thief and Hitman
would have worked perfectly well as action/strategy games if they'd just
stuck to the formula used in the first few missions. Both would have
been excellent games on their own merits without any need for a
storyline to develop, but both started veering into increasingly weird
territory before long. And while Thief remained at least fairly unique
right up to its end, Hitman becomes stale before long. The first few
missions in Hitman are good; The game gets off to an absolutely great
start in the Hong Kong missions, which have you sneaking around and
casing locations just like you should be doing. But after the first four
missions in the game, you get sent to the jungles of Colombia, and the
gameplay quickly loses any semblance of its former self, becoming
instead some kind of inferior tactical-shooter wannabe, in which you
simply run around a jungle shooting up a bunch of armed guards and
trying to find things. The sight of the hitman running through the jungle
in military camo uniform is completely absurd; He's an assassin, not a
commando!
  The game picks up slightly for a few missions once you get out of
Colombia, only to come to an amazingly bungled ending, which begins
in a mental hospital and ends in some kind of clone laboratory; This is
where you start to realize the truth behind the nature and origins of your
character, the Hitman, but these origins are never really fully explained
in any kind of sensible way, and so it all just ends up being muddied and
confusing. Had Hitman stayed with the formula of the first four missions,
it would have been a great game. As it is, however, it's too short (only
12 missions), and too bad (only about half of those 12 are worth
playing). A disappointment, but still worth looking at simply to
appreciate the wonderful Hong Kong scenarios. [Eidos]

Hitman 2: Silent Assasin: Although it stays quite true to the foundations
set by the first game, Hitman 2 is a superior game, fixing most of the
original's problems while maintaining the best parts that made it such a
fun game. For starters, Hitman 2 is a bit longer, which is good since the
first game was remarkably, almost ridiculously short; The controls have
been improved, and yes, Hitman 2 does provide a first-person view, for
all the people who complained about the third-person view of the first
game. Another annoyance of the original, the inability to save your game
during a mission, has been changed: You can now save your game
anytime in the middle of a mission. The game's music has been heavily
worked on, in fact Hitman 2 contains a striking soundtrack, parts of
which were performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, and it
really sets the tone for the game in an appropriate way. Also, while
stealth is still as important as ever in this game, you can usually still
finish your mission even if you're discovered, meaning you truly have
the option of either blasting your way or sneaking your way through a
mission, much like No One Lives Forever 2, which was released at
almost the same time as Hitman 2. Like the original, Hitman 2 has an
unusually broad spectrum of weapons available for your jobs, going
beyond the basic "pistol, shotgun, and machine gun" categorization of
weapons; Apparently both Hitman games were designed by someone
with a true enthusiasm for firearms. Stealth has been made more realistic
(read: more difficult) for this sequel; You can no longer just put on the
clothes of someone you killed and blend in perfectly with the locals.
Also, while running around didn't seem to make much difference in the
original, here you'll draw more attention to yourself if you run
everywhere you go, so you'll have to try to walk and look inconspicuous
when people are watching. Hitman 2 still looks great, and the fact that
it was released for the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 simultaneously and
looks about as good on all of them is an encouraging sign for PC gamers
with console envy. Overall, Hitman 2 is a fine game that effectively
mixes strategy with good old action firefights, and if you liked the
original, you should love this one.
  Hitman 2 uses an interesting weapons-availability system, in which you
start the game off with only a few basic weapon types, and must acquire
the others as you play through the game. Whenever you finish a mission,
any weapons you are carrying with you which you did not have before
are added to your arsenal, and become available for future missions. In
fact, you can (and should) actually re-play through previous missions
which you have already completed, simply for the purpose of getting
additional weapons from them. For example, in the game's first mission,
Anathema, there are several weapons available which you do not have
available at the start of the beginning, including the Desert Eagle, the
Shotgun, and the Golf Club. There is also a sniper rifle in the garage
which you may want to grab. Even after you finish the mission, you
should play it again several times until you can acquire all of these
weapons. What actually happens when you finish the mission is that an
additional saved game is created for the next mission, and in this new
saved game file, your additional weapons are made available. (And note
that you must, indeed, be CARRYING any weapons you want to add
when you finish a mission; It is not enough simply to have held them at
some point during the mission, you must actually have them on you
when the mission is over.) Also note that the Silenced Hardballers are
only available by completing a mission with the highest possible rating
of Silent Assassin. Getting the Silent Assassin rating a second time will
get you the Sawed-Off Shotgun.
  (Note that if you have the original version 1.0 of Hitman 2, you will
not be able to use the console, and so you should get the patch to version
1.01, which has support for the game's console window.) [Eidos/IO
Interactive]

Hocus Pocus: A pretty generic, but pleasant, platformer from the kings
of the genre. [Apogee]

Holiday Lemmings 1993 [Psygnosis]

Home Alone: An obvious attempt to make a quick cash-in on the success
of the movie. Although it's amusing at first, after you win it once or
twice (which takes a few minutes), it rapidly loses its appeal. [Capstone]

Home Alone 2

Homeworld [Relic Entertainment/Sierra On-Line]

Homeworld 2: Cataclysm [Sierra Studios]

Hostile Waters [Rage Software]

HoverRace 1.01: A very fast hovercraft racing game which lets you play
against other people over the Internet. [GrokkSoft]

Hunter Hunted [Sierra On-Line]

H.U.R.L.: A Doom-like game aimed at kids. It's not violent. Instead, you
use water balloons and soap to clean up enemies who fire filthy stuff at
you. Cool stuff. [Millennium Media Group]

Impossible Mission 2: An engaging platformer through several levels of
towers. Although some of the gameplay is fairly unique, the main goal
of the game (to search everything you come across for secret codes)
quickly grows tiresome. [Epyx/Novotrade]

Independence War [Ocean]

Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade: The Action Game: Another fine
example of how bad games based on hit movies usually are. This is a
completely generic platform arcader, the only difference being that you
use a whip (something few games do), and you're knocking off Nazis.
Otherwise, although it's decent, it has nothing to recommend it over the
scores of similar games. [Lucasfilm]

In Extremis: A boring first-person shooter from 1993, clearly made in yet
another attempt at ripping off the Doom craze. It's fun, but nothing you
haven't already seen several times before. [Blue Sphere]

Infiltrate: An Atari 2600 classic with a lot of elevators and robots. You
get to shoot the robots and ride the elevators. [Apollo]

Inner Space [Software Dynamics]

In Search Of Dr. Riptide: A pleasant, colorful submarine arcade-ish game
with everything going for it: Great graphics and sound, and addictive
gameplay. [Mindstorm Software/Pack Media Company (PMC)]

Interpose: A side-scrolling shooter similar to Stargunner, remarkable only
because of its cute cartoon graphics and the fact that you play a creature
called an "overlynx", essentially a sentient lynx (as in a lynx cat). Fun
and action-packed, but undistinguished. [Webfoot Technologies/Twilight
Zone]

Ironman Super Off-Road [Virgin]

Ishido

It Came From The Desert [Cinemaware]

Janitor Joe (JumpJoe) 2.0: An early CGA platform game, with lots of
robots. Notable for its greater emphasis on strategy and discovering
secrets than plain shooter action. [Kevin Bales] [Freeware]

Jaw Breaker: A Pac-Man clone which got Sierra sued by Atari because
of the likeness. Atari lost the suit, however, and Sierra was allowed to
continue selling the game. [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Jazz Jackrabbit: Ranks among the very best platform-type arcade games
ever made for the PC. Superb, smooth-scrolling graphics, great sound and
music, and plenty of action in this game of a little rabbit carrying a big
gun. Get this game from Game Empire 2 CD. [Epic MegaGames]

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 1.23 [Epic MegaGames]

Jedi Knight: See Dark Forces II

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast [Raven Software/LucasArts]

Jet Grind Radio (known as Jet Set Radio in Europe and Japan): Although
it never quite seemed to reach the mainstream as a huge, household-name
hit, Jet Grind Radio was deservedly popular and noted for its unorthodox
gameplay style. The game's premise is totally unique: You play a simple
teenage skate punk whose main goal in the game is, quite simply, to
rebel against the system. The game at first appears to be another skate
game (similar to the popular Tony Hawk games), but the goal here isn't
to perform stunts; Rather, it's to spray-paint your graffiti logo at various
places around the city, all while eluding the police who are ever on your
tail. (Also, JGR doesn't take place on a skateboard; Rather, your
character wears rollerblades.) JGR doesn't quite make a profound social
statement (there doesn't seem to be anything specific that your character
is raging against; He's just out to spray-paint the town), so it doesn't
exactly have a huge moral attached to it, but it's still a lot of fun, and
even though it combines important elements of several games, mixing the
teenage slacker rebel sensibilities of Normality, the crime-spree, police-
eluding shenanigans of the Grand Theft Auto games, and the absolutely
non-stop, street-cruising urgency of Crazy Taxi, it still ends up being an
experience that's unique. Too bad it was only ever released for the Sega
Dreamcast. [Sega/SmileBit/THQ]

Jetpack 1.1: A platform arcade game which incorporates a jetpack that
lets you fly around. This almost turns it into a whole new category of
arcade game. [MVP]

Jewel Thief 1.2: A novel Windows game in which your character is the
cursor. This allows quite a bit of freedom of movement. [ServantWare]
[Shareware]

Jezz Ball: A small, simple, cute and fun game for Windows, which
requires quick thinking and action. One to while away a few lunch
breaks over. Part of a Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows.
[Microsoft/Dima Pavlovsky/Marjacq Micro]

Jill Of The Jungle: A pretty good platformer from Epic, and still a
favorite of female liberationists. Mixes puzzles with its action. [Epic
MegaGames]

Joust: A classic arcade game featuring two jousting guys who use flying
birds instead of horses.

Jumpjet: A pretty addictive side-scrolling shoot-em-up with a jump jet
and a lot of enemies. Only 4 missions though. [Monte Variakojis]

JumpJoe: See Janitor Joe

Jumpman [Epyx/IBM/Mirror Images Software]

Jump Raven

Junction25 1.6: A map editor for Grand Theft Auto, which lets you
change the look of the game's cities. [Jim Purbrick and Richard Field]

Jungle Strike: The sequel to Desert Strike is bigger and better. It's simply
a brilliant little chopper arcade game in which you fly around a fairly
large map, blowing up ground assault vehicles and buildings to combat
a terrorist threat. This is one of the best helicopter non-simulations I've
seen. [Gremlin Interactive/Electronic Arts]

Jurassic Park: If you liked the movie, you'll probably like this game, and
vice versa. [Ocean]

KAO The Kangaroo [Titus Software]

Ken's Labyrinth: A post-Wolfenstein clone which is quite similar, but
better, with nicer graphics and sound and more involved gameplay. [Epic
MegaGames]

Keystone Kapers [Activision]

KKND: Krush, Kill And Destroy [Electronic Arts]

Killing Cloud: A game which is somewhat reminiscent of a flight sim,
but with weird physics because you're piloting a hovercraft (or a
hoverbike, as the game calls it). You play an officer with the San
Francisco Police Department in a dystopian future where the ground level
of the city has been covered in a thick, deadly mist caused by a mixture
of fog and pollution (whence comes the title of the game). You'll fight
"street" gangs (which no longer operate on the street, since nobody can
live there) as you pilot your hoverbike through the upper levels of a post-
modern City By The Bay that lives 100 feet in the air. Killing Cloud has
one of the most innovative post-mission procedures I've seen:
Interrogation of the suspect you've arrested. You wager with the thug by
offering to take a certain number of years off his sentence if he'll open
up. This isn't a terribly deep or involved process, but it does make an
amusing little diversion from flying around on your hoverbike.
Unfortunately, the interrogations are crucial to your progress in the game,
and if you fail the process, you fail the whole mission, meaning you need
to start it all over from scratch. This makes the game infuriatingly
frustrating. To alleviate this kind of aggravation, here are the game's
level codes: A66TRDEX, 2WWTR7EX, Q44FRCE2, 3XX8RCCM,
XXX8VCCN, 4338VCCN, W3Q8VCAM, 63QTGDEX, CA2TG7EF.
[Vektor Grafix/Mirrorsoft Ltd.]

Kiloblaster [Epic MegaGames]

King Of Chicago [Cinemaware]

Kingpin: Life Of Crime: Another first-person shooter, this one made
notable by completely-failed (read: utterly shallow) attempts at
incorporating adventure elements (like character interaction) and a huge
number of skins making the opponents all seem different. [Xatrix
Entertainment/Interplay]

KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child [Gathering Of Developers]

Klass Of '99: A masterful PC remake of the classic Sinclair Spectrum
game Skool Daze, released by Microsphere in 1985. You are a schoolboy
in some British school, and you have to hack the computer system to
change the school reports. Good fun, although the gameplay is terribly
unforgiving (with stern authority figures who tend to assign hundreds of
lines if they catch you doing anything, including jumping). Download
this game from the official Klass Of '99 website at
http://www.retrospec.co.uk/rjordan/klass/index.htm [Richard Jordan]

Klax: A weird but fun arcade game experience which is sort of like a
cross between Tetris and Breakout. Basically, you have a paddle at the
bottom of a chute which you must use to catch falling blocks; After
catching them, you must drop them in a grid at the bottom of the screen
in like-colored sets of three. A row of three blocks of the same color is
a "klax". [Atari/Tengen]

Klingon Honor Guard [MicroProse]

Kool-Aid Man: You get to play the eponymous Kool-Aid Man in this
silly Atari 2600 cartridge. There's really not much to the game, but hey,
how many games let you play the Kool-Aid Man? [M-Network]

Kroz: A legendary text-based arcade classic, one of the first games from
Apogee and certainly one of the oldest remembered from them. [Apogee]

Kung Fu: Possibly one of the best-known NES games ever made, this
was the one game (besides Super Mario Bros., of course) that everybody
seemed to have on their NES. It was a fairly simple little platformer,
involving elementary mechanics of Kung Fu (basically, you could choose
to either kick or punch your enemies), but it was still fun to play. (The
boss guardian on the fourth level is incredibly annoying, as he seems
invulnerable to attack at first... Hitting him in the head is useless, as it'll
just get knocked off and he'll grow a new one without having taken any
damage. I eventually beat him by crouching down and then punching him
in the stomach a few times.) (Oh, and those knife throwers are a lot
easier to deal with if you can anticipate where they're going to throw
their knives: High or low. You can tell this by where they position their
hand before they throw. If they raise their hand over their head, the knife
is going high, and you can duck underneath it. If their hand is below
their head, around their waist, the knife is going low and you'll have to
jump over it.) [Irem Corp./Nintendo]

Kururu Kuzushi: Just when you thought you'd seen every Breakout
variation possible and the ball-and-paddle genre had worn itself thin,
Kururu Kuzushi comes on the scene and flips the whole genre on its ear.
This is simply one of the most wildly different ball-and-paddle games
I've ever seen; Instead of simply moving your paddle in a single line,
your paddle actually rotates in a circle, and on many playing fields, the
blocks rotate with your paddle so you can spin the blocks around the ball
as well. There are a few levels in Kururu Kuzushi and all of them are so
different that they all add something new and interesting to the genre.
This game calls to mind BreakThrough Bukulu, a much older shareware
game in which you could tilt your paddle to achieve different angles for
the ball to meet. That game seemed innovative in its time, and it was, but
Kururu Kuzushi simply blows it out of the water. A definite must-have
for virtually any arcade gamer. Get it from the official homepage at
www.asahi-net.or.jp/~xw6h-kjm/ (assuming you can read Japanese).
[Kojipica] (Freeware)

Laf Pak [Sierra On-Line]

Lamers: A semi-worthy spinoff of Lemmings. There object here is to kill
all the little buggers, not save them! [Cocktail] [Freeware]

Lander: An interesting extension of the classic Lunar Lander, adding in
a lot of new things like 3D graphics, combat, flying around doing
missions, and other stuff. In fact, the only thing in common with the
original Lunar Lander is the concept of a landing craft which is propelled
solely by one rocket, which points downward. Although an interesting
concept, the game is way too hard, being unreasonably difficult to
control and often too hard to see in. [Psygnosis]

Lawn Mower 2.0: This is a scary text-simulated-graphics game. It
simulates mowing a lawn. If you find it fun, shouldn't you be mowing
your own lawn in real life? [Christopher D. Orr]

Leaper VGA: A cute, good shareware clone of Frogger, with great VGA
graphics and intact gameplay. [Lee Chapel]

Lemmings: The wildly popular arcade game. You'll stay up all night
getting the little guys home! A true classic, and some of the most
innovative gameplay in years. Lemmings is the world's most mercilessly
addictive game series. [Psygnosis]

Lemmings 2: The Tribes [Psygnosis]

Lemmings 3

Lemmings Paintball: This is the Lemmings as you've never seen them
before. Experience the reckless rodents in an all-out splatter fest, with the
winner being the least soggy. [Psygnosis]

Lemmings Revolution [Take 2 Interactive/Psygnosis]

Liero 1.33: An interesting cross between platform arcade games and
Worms, this is a two-player game in which each player gets a worm who
carries some pretty powerful weapons. It's got the standard game modes,
like Capture The Flag. It's also freeware. A good game overall, good for
some fun, although it wears thin before too long. [MetsnElimet]
[Freeware]

Llamatron: 2112: A brilliant takeoff on the arcade classic Robotron.
Accurately describing itself as a "crazy-type" arcade game, this will
satisfy anyone who loves farm animals. [Llamasoft]

Lode Runner [Broderbund]

Lode Runner: The Legend Returns: The old classic arcade game, spruced
up with improved graphics, neat music, and a level builder which lets
you create your own worlds of gold-nabbing. [Sierra On-Line]

Lode Runner 2 [GT Interactive]

Lost In Space: A game that borrows its title from an old TV series and
its gameplay from an old video game, namely the Atari shoot-em-up
Moon Patrol. Featuring Skunny the squirrel, who's better known from
platform arcade games like Save Our Pizzas. [Copysoft] (Shareware)

Lost In Space: Arcade Series Entertainment Utility

Love Manager: An arcade game with a totally new concept that's
actually not too bad: You control an elevator (moving it up and down
with the arrow keys), with the goal of getting lonely people from the left
side of the building to their lovers on the right side. This is more difficult
than it sounds, because people in this game tend to be ridiculously
licentious. Often you'll have someone's hallway full of lovers lined up
waiting for their turn, and when the hallway gets full, you can't drop off
anybody in that hallway anymore. This becomes a real problem when the
hallways on the left start filling up with people waiting to get to the right
side, because when the hallways on the left become full and another
person tries to enter the hallway, the person at the front of the hallway
gets pushed down the elevator shaft. This is when you need to catch
them with a moving cart at the bottom of the screen (also controlled with
the arrow keys) and take them to the hospital. The game is pretty silly,
but it's fun and funny, at least for a little while. (Note that in the
documentation, the "v" in the game's title is spelled with a heart
character (ASCII 3), so I guess the official title of the game is Loe
Manager.) [Victor Aliyev] (Shareware)

Lunar Lander: A great PC clone of the strangely addictive old classic
arcade game. [Kurt W. Dekker]

Lunicus

Maabus: An action adventure which boasts some impressive specs,
including 1,100 animations and 3 CD-ROMs. Funny thing I've never
heard of it before. [Microforum]

MacBlaster 1.10: A pro-choice computer game in which you must shoot
rotten apples at the Macs as they come down your screen, shooting
(computer) mice at you. An excellent political statement! (Especially for
those who prefer PCs over Macs.) [Earl Gehr]

Mach 3: It's a basic behind-the-flying-car shooter, but this game is
notable because it was the first PC game to use digitized sound through
the internal speaker. A piece of history, and kind of fun to play.
[Loriciels]

Machine Hunter [MGM Interactive]

Mad Dog McCree CD [American Laser Games/IBM]

Mafia: Widely praised by both critics and gamers alike, 2002's Mafia
basically boils down to another third-person shooter. It just happens to
do things better than most other games. As usual, the first thing you
notice about a game is its graphics, and Mafia's graphics are quite good,
with characters actually given real-looking textures and polygons that
animate in a way that's quite convincing, and a noticeable contrast from
Grand Theft Auto 3's somewhat cartoonish-looking figures. That's
appropriate, since Mafia is in many ways a more mature, more serious
cousin to Grand Theft Auto 3. A heavy emphasis is placed on driving in
Mafia, although a great deal of the game is also spent on foot. While the
on-foot missions often seemed to be out of place in GTA, however, they
fit right in with Mafia, since after all, Mafia is not a driving game. While
GTA3 was a driving game in which you also spent a lot of time on foot,
Mafia is a third-person shooter in which you also spend a lot of time
driving.
  Mafia is definitely given a very different atmosphere from most games
by its setting: Lost Heaven, a circa-1930s American city which is
fictional, but clearly modeled on the Mob-ruled likes of New York City,
New Jersey, and Chicago. Because the cars are almost a century older
than the ones in GTA, they certainly drive much differently, taking a lot
longer to accelerate, and lacking the steering finesse of their more
modern counterparts. This completely changes the mood of car chases in
Mafia, which are otherwise not much different at all from what you'd get
from a chase in GTA, except for one key element that always seemed
conspicuously missing in GTA: In Mafia, you can shoot out the window
of your car as you drive. This gameplay mechanic is supremely important
to car-chase scenes, and why the first three GTA games didn't
incorporate it (beyond the possibility to shoot out the side with an Uzi
in GTA3) has always been beyond me. Well, you can do it in Mafia, and
you can aim the gun as you drive, which is great. Predictably, the on-foot
sections of Mafia are not too much different from any other shooter,
although working with old revolvers which usually only hold 6 or 7 shots
is, again, a marked contrast from using a modern-day semi-automatic
handgun.
  Once you get past the things that Mafia does right, however, it turns
out that there are many things the game does wrong. For starters, the
game's plot is about as cliched as any you could imagine. It focuses on
the story of one Tommy Angelo--your persona in the game--who's just
a regular taxi driver in Lost Heaven until circumstances beyond his
control get him involved with the Mob. Most of the dialogue in the game
is so stilted and borrowed from infinitely many Mob movies that it
usually seems completely unnecessary. (Any production which still thinks
it's clever to reuse the old joke about "An offer you can't refuse" clearly
is living in some bygone cultural era.)
  The game also tends to be too difficult. Many of the missions pit you
against several groups of heavily-armed opponents, expecting you to take
them down alone, with a single revolver. Some missions do have you
working together with some accomplices, and their help is certainly
welcome, but too often you're out there by yourself, which is really not
the way the Mafia tends to do things anyway. This is the Family, not the
Army; Commandos don't exist here. Combine this with the lack of a
save-anywhere system (the game instead auto-saves at certain points) and
several areas which contain enemies who are able to kill you with a
single shot, and you have yet another shooter that quickly degenerates
into a series of indistinguishable firefights which depend more on dumb
luck than any kind of skill. A very frustrating aspect of this game is that
your bullets often don't go where you aim. What's the point of having
a crosshairs on the screen if the bullets go somewhere other than where
you're aiming? This may be an attempt to simulate realism (yeah, okay,
recoil makes shots scatter a bit), but when you combine it with how
adept your opponents are at hitting you, it makes for another of those
games which which feels long and pointless.
  Fairly early on in the game, you're forced into a race mission in which
you must simply complete 5 laps around a track faster than the other
drivers, and this also clashes with the street-smart mentality of the rest
of the game. Indeed, many player reviews of Mafia pick on the race
mission as being completely inappropriate and a damper on much of the
fun. It should seem obvious by now, but apparently, designers still just
don't get it: GAMERS DON'T WANT RACE MISSIONS IN A
STREET-DRIVING GAME. Especially not if they're mandatory; as an
optional mini-game on the side, races may be a neat little extra, but to
require the player to pass a race before moving on with the story is a
huge faux pas.
  The linear nature of the game is also a bit disturbing. While all the
Grand Theft Auto games have been universally praised for their open-
ended nature, allowing you to accept missions where and when you want,
or just go cruising through the city if you feel like freestyling for a
while, Mafia is simply a series of missions that you must complete in
order, with a completely separate free-ride mode that doesn't integrate
with the rest of the game. Add this to missions which feel generic after
a while--assassinate some person, get some package, drive to some
placce--and you end up with a game that's terribly derivative. Mafia is
a combination of the Mob-movie mood, Grand Theft Auto's street-
driving car chases, and every shooter's gunplay, and while the
combination is not badly done, it's still not particularly original. Combine
this with a non-adjustable difficulty level, and apparently no cheat codes
(the cheats codes for Mafia which are widely posted online do not seem
to work), and you have a game that's decidedly for the hardcore gamers
only, the kind of people who are willing to play a frustrating mission
several times through even when the odds are unrealistically and unfairly
against you. Mafia is a masterpiece, a very well-made and engaging
game, but it's far from perfect. [Gathering Of Developers/Illusion
Softworks]

Magic Carpet [Bullfrog]

Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds [Bullfrog]

Major Stryker 1.4: An excellent shoot-em-up in which you try to save the
world. This game is so good, you might want to buy the additional
episodes that are available. Get this game from Gamefest CD. [Apogee]

MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) 0.36: An emulator for
classic arcade games (and in this case, "arcade games" mean the original,
self-contained-unit, floor-standing arcade games; You're actually required
to press the key for "Insert Coin" whenever you want to play a game).
In a clever move, MAME itself is really nothing more than a swiss-army
chip emulator, capable of emulating over a dozen chips used in the
classic arcade games, but it does not contain the ROM images of the
games themselves, allowing it to avoid copyright infringement (though
it does require you to have the ROM images to use them, of course).
MAME also includes a giant list of literally thousands of classic arcade
games which can run on the chips emulated by MAME (along with the
year in which each game was released, and the manufacturer name, for
historical reference). Get MAME from the official MAME homepage at
www.mame.net [Nicola Salmoria and The MAME Team]

Mappy [Namco]

Marathon 2 [Bungie Software]

Marauder [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Marble Madness: An old game which gained a huge amount of
popularity as a fad a few years ago. You control a marble which rolls
around the screen, and you have to make your way past enemy marbles,
narrow paths, weird things which attack you and more. Although the
game is quite good and original in concept, the PC version is an
excellent example of how PC versions of old games tend to be inferior
to other versions; The PC version has dismal 4-color CGA graphics, poor
PC speaker music (a particularly bad thing in this case, because the full-
size version has surprisingly good music), and keyboard controls which
seem to have been designed to increase joystick sales.

Mario!!!: A computer clone of the cartridge that came with the original
NES, except this has only 4 levels. [Chaos Software]

Mario Bros.: Before the much better-known Super Mario Bros. follow-
up, this was the first video game to feature Mario and his brother Luigi.
Unfortunately, it's not nearly as much fun as SMB, because all the action
takes place on one screen, and gameplay is a simplistic repetition of
bumping platforms underneath monsters with your head to knock them
out. Notable as the game that gave these video game icons their start,
this is nonetheless not much fun. [Nintendo/Atari]

Marshmallow Duel: A small two-player platform game in which each
player tries to knock the other into the pool of marshmallow at the
bottom of the screen. Various power-ups are available to aid in this task,
including guns, invisibility toggles, and high-voltage bolts (which make
the player lethal to the touch). [The Bruce Boys/Duncan Gill]

Max Payne: A game which had a ridiculous amount of pre-release hype.
Luckily, it was worth the wait, pretty much. Max Payne is the story of
the eponymous undercover New York cop who's been framed for a
crime he didn't commit. Although the story is well-written (a highly
unusual trait for an action game), what really makes the game stand out
is its stylishness. Like Half-Life, Max Payne is just a good game because
every little detail has been attended to. The places you'll go are well-
constructed and full of detail, the action is intense and engaging, and the
unfolding storyline is interesting enough to feel like you're in the middle
of an action movie. These are all traits shared with Half-Life. Unlike
Half-Life, however, Max Payne is too short, its only serious flaw.
Nonetheless, the way the cinematics and gameplay work together to pull
you in make it an experience worth going for. There's no question that
the game's most distinguishing (and controversial) feature is "Bullet
Time", the ability to slow down the game to make it easier to dodge
behind cover and make targeted attacks. The catch is that you only have
a limited amount of Bullet Time, and keeping it on would expend it
pretty quick, so you have to use it wisely, and make your shots count
(since each kill gives you a few seconds more Bullet Time). Although
Bullet Time is certainly an interesting idea and makes for some dramatic
slow-motion gunfights, some people have taken issue with its lack of
realism, and it also starts to be repetitive after a while, leading me to the
other problem here: Although Max Payne is basically a very good game,
it's bothersome to think that this, considered one of the most innovative
shooters ever released, is mostly just an average first-person shooter
(except that it's not first-person, suffering from the same awkward
viewpoint flaw that crippled Hitman: Codename 47). It's clear that Max
Payne tries very hard to feel like a John Woo action movie, and it
sometimes succeeds at capturing the same drama and feel with its intense
gunplay and dramatic slow-motion closeups of bad guys going down, but
after a while, every gunfight starts to feel the same: Turn on Bullet Time,
leap sideways into a battle with your guns blazing, and hopefully land
behind some cover so you can pop up and wipe out the people you didn't
kill yet. Thrilling at first, this procedure feels formulaic before long. Still,
Max Payne delivers where it counts: Constant, thrilling action, a gripping
plot that draws you in as you proceed, and interesting level design.
[GodGames/Remedy Entertainment]

MDK (Maim, Destroy, Kill): Remembered by many as one of the most
innovative shooter games of the mid-90s, MDK was actually not all that
creative, but did incorporate a few interesting new ideas along with a
light-hearted sense of humour that made for an experience that was
memorable at the time. [Shiny Entertainment/Playmates Interactive
Entertainment/Interplay]

MDK 2 [Interplay]

Megaman [Capcom]

Megaman 2 [Capcom]

Megaman 3 [Capcom]

Megaman 4 [Capcom]

Megatron: Probably the first SVGA shoot-em-up that let you play by
modem, this became a standard of multiplayer gaming in the pre-Internet
age. [Stanley Design Team]

Messiah: An unusual arcader with a highly unusual plot: You are Bob,
an angel sent to clean up planet Earth. Given the power of possession,
you can take over the souls of any living thing and control it as you see
fit. This affects the strategy quite a bit, as you might imagine.
[Interplay/Shiny Entertainment]

Metal & Lace: The Battle Of The Robo Babes [Megatech]

Metal Gear Solid: Another PC conversion of a PlayStation game. In
MGS, you play a government spy who's tasked with defeating a group
of terrorists who reportedly have a nuclear weapon called Metal Gear.
Although it's an action game, MGS focuses a lot on cinematic sequences,
so there's a strong storyline going on throughout the game.
[Microsoft/Konami]

MetalTech: Battledrome: An arena-battling game between two robots
(you play one, somebody else plays the other, either the computer or
another human if you use a modem connection). High-action, great fun
for playing against your friends, or enemies of course. [Sierra On-Line]

MetalTech 2: EarthSiege: Whereas Battledrome was simply head-to-head
competition between two robots in an arena, EarthSiege is a war, taking
place in a field where you control a squad of HERC robots instead of
just one. Money was your lifeblood in Battledrome (win money in fights,
buy more weapons, get more powerful), whereas here money is pretty
much useless. (No stores around here.) You don't just have to blow up
your enemies. In fact, that's often not the best way to operate. You need
to cripple them, without destroying them, so you can take their weapons
from them and use those weapons for yourself. [Sierra On-Line]

Meteor 1.1: Possibly the last bird's-eye-view shooter you'll ever need to
play. Meteor does everything right: It provides plenty of enemies to shoot
up, it has lots of weapons which give a good variety of speed, damage,
and abundance, its graphics, sound effects, and music are all very
pleasing, and (most importantly of all), it's infinitely expandable because
it comes with not only an excellent level editor, but also weapon and
projectile editors, ensuring a game that you can continue to build on even
once you've finished the levels it comes with (which shouldn't take more
than a few hours). The fact that it's free truly makes it a must-have
among dedicated arcade gamers. Get it from James Bunting's website at
www.jbssoftware.co.uk (which now redirects to www.jbgames.com)
[James Bunting] (Freeware)

Meteor Mission: Similar to Lunar Lander, but with a twist that breathes
life into that old classic. After landing, you have to go back up, avoiding
the asteroids (or blasting them) as you go! [Kurt W. Dekker]

Metro Cross [Epyx]

Metroid: A grand old classic for the NES, from the days when games
were still an art form. Metroid epitomizes this well, for it is an art form
in its presentation, especially in terms of the well-composed music.
(NOTE: You won't get far in this game without the power-up that lets
you roll into a ball to get into tight spaces. It looks like an orange
sphere, and it's just to the left of where you start the game.) [Nintendo]

Microcosm CD [Psygnosis]

Micro Machines: A speedy game where you race tiny cars around
familiar objects, like tables and books. [Big Red Software/Codemasters]

Microshaft Winblows 98: A very funny parody of everybody's least
favourite operating system. [Microshaft Corp.]

Microsoft Arcade: A collection of five (5) grand old classic arcade games
from the great 80s era of video games: Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede,
Missile Command and Tempest. Included in each program's help file is
a brief history of the games, including quotes from interviews with the
people who designed the games themselves. A wonderful compilation for
nostalgic people who liked that age. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Return Of Arcade: Another roundup of classic arcade games,
this one containing Pac Man, Pole Position, Galaxia and DigDug. Not as
good as the first, but still addictive. [Microsoft]

Missile Defense [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Mission: Asteroid [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Mission Laguna Beach

Monster Bash: A platform game where you have to save a lot of dogs
and cats while shooting up a lot of monsters with a slingshot. One of the
better-designed platform arcade games I've seen, but be warned: It tends
to go heavy on puzzle solving as well as shooting. Get this game from
Gamefest 2 CD. [Apogee]

Monuments Of Mars [Apogee]

Moon Buggy 98 [Sprint Software]

Moon Patrol: Another Atari classic, this one puts you in a lunar vehicle
which rides over the surface of the moon, jumping over pits and shooting
both forward and upward. (Upward shooting was a novelty in this game.
It still was even for the last generation of platform arcade games.)
Considering how well-respected this game seems to be, it's a surprise
that it hasn't been cloned more; The only clone I know of is Lost In
Space, featuring Skunny, the squirrel character of several other shareware
games. [Atari]

Moraff's FlyGame: A small, simple, but curiously entertaining game
from the folk(s) who brought you the RPG Moraff's World. Slide your
plane up and down forever or until you crash into a mountain. Nice VGA
scenery graphics. [Moraffware]

Mortal Kombat [Acclaim/UltraTech]

Mortal Kombat 2 [Acclaim/UltraTech]

Mortal Kombat 3 [Acclaim/UltraTech]

Motocross Madness [Microsoft]

Mouskattack [On-Line Systems (now Sierra On-Line)]

Ms. Pac-Em 1.11: A true-to-the-original copy of the Ms. Pac Man. This
was and still is a great game. Like other games from
CHAMProgramming, the full (non-shareware) version of this game is
now freely available for download since the company has gone out of
business. Get it from the CHAMPgames Fan Page at www.champ-
em.com. [CHAMProgramming (Now defunct)]

MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch: The claymation TV show that spawned
this computer game adaptation was a surprise hit, owing to its
combination of over-the-top cartoon violence and clever commentary by
the two commentators overseeing the action. This fight-game takes the
same premise as the TV show: Pit two well-known celebrities in an arena
against each other, and have them fight to the death. Although the
game's presentation is pretty good (the graphics look nice, at least), it's
really just another fight game, lacking any kind of creativity or
originality that would make you want to keep playing after you've tried
each of the different celebrities available. [Gotham Games/Big Ape
Productions]

Mutant Penguins: A bizarre cross of action with strategy that might best
be described as "Lemmings meets Baldies". [GameTek]

Mystic Towers: Another of those fun little games based on a concept
which nobody else seemed to think of. It's a diagonal-view trek through
several castle towers, spruced up with plenty of enemies to fry, quite a
few magic spells you can cast, good puzzles, nice graphics, and
atmospheric sound effects. [Apogee]

Necrodome [SSI]

Nelda Nockbladder's Anatomy Lesson: Another of those games which
is deliberately difficult to understand, NNAL takes bizarreness to an
extreme. It seems to have its own vocabulary of invented words, which
are not actually covered by the game's built-in "Glossary". The levels
also usually unfold without any kind of clear idea as to exactly what
you're supposed to be doing, meaning you pretty much have to just fool
around until something happens. Basically, although it has excellent
graphics and sound effects, NNAL is decidedly for those who appreciate
oddity in things. [Scott Miller (Not the same Scott Miller who founded
Apogee)] (Shareware)

Night Raid: An update of the classic little arcade game Paratrooper.
Night Raid has the same gameplay, but the graphics are VGA, a big
improvement. You control a gun in the bottom-center of the screen, and
you need to shoot up a lot of little paratroopers before they land and
blow your gun up. [Argo Games]

Ninja Rabbits International: A cute game where you play a large rabbit
skilled in the art of the ninja, and you have to kick up a lot of people in
different countries. [Microvalue/Villa Crespo]

Nocturne: A horror game which succeeds at creating an air of tension
and suspense with it bleak, pale Gothic landscapes and eerie screeching
background music but which fails to completely succeed as a game in the
end on account of its awkward gameplay (camera angles keep switching
wildly and without control), flawed animation execution and cheesy,
generic monsters (vampires, werewolves, zombies, and the like).
[Terminal Reality/Gathering Of Developers]

No One Lives Forever (NOLF) 1.001: Although NOLF has nothing that
makes it particularly original, per se, it's a good enough shooter that it
can hold its own with anything else in the first-person shooter genre.
Inspired by the spy TV shows and films of the 60s (some Austin Powers
influence is probably at work here), NOLF is loaded with top-notch
graphics, music, and sound that fill it with atmosphere and ambience. In
terms of gameplay, NOLF pulls an interesting move by its optional use
of stealth: In an age when "first-person sneakers", inspired by Thief: The
Dark Project are a trend, NOLF does encourage judicious use of sneaking
around. However, doing so is not a central point of the game, and you
can go at it just blasting your way through if you prefer. Like Half-Life,
the famously groundbreaking FPS that preceded it by two years, NOLF
manages to be consistently original and stimulating, due to its constantly
inventive settings and mini-goals for you to achieve. One of the most
notable things about it is the life it breathes into the computer enemies;
As they go about their business, they engage in lengthy, and often very
interesting conversations with each other. Although these conversations
are purely ambience and have no purpose as far as the game's plot, they
do wonders for creating that sense of reality which game designers strive
for. If there's one flaw in NOLF, it's the fact that it uses the Lithtech
engine. (What were they THINKING?) Otherwise, it's a rewarding
experience for any first-person shooter fan. [Fox Interactive/Monolith
Productions]

No One Lives Forever 2: NOLF 2 is the right kind of sequel: The kind
which retains the things that made its predecessor great, but improves
upon them, making them even better. The graphics have been improved,
gameplay has been beefed up (stealth now works more effectively, yet
it's never required; You're always given the option of shooting or
sneaking your way through), and enemy AI is amazing, rivaling that of
the best first-person shooters at the time of its release. NOLF 2 is one of
those rare games that gets everything right; It doesn't try quite as hard
as Deus Ex to be open-ended, yet it still gives you plenty of choice as
far as how you want to play the game, and it's one of the most polished
story-oriented shooters you'll find anywhere. The result is a stunning,
thoroughly entertaining game. Bravo.

Norse By Norsewest: See The Lost Vikings 2: Norse By Norsewest

Nova 9 [Sierra On-Line]

Obliterator 0.0: A space combat game done the way it should be.
Obliterator has only one goal, and as its name suggests, the goal is to
obliterate everything you see. It's sort of like Asteroids, but with an
endlessly large playing field, and a fairly broad variety of aliens to
obliterate. (Actually, it's sort of like a cross between Asteroids and the
similarly excellent freeware XQUEST.) [Justin Smith] (Freeware)

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee: Another wonderful and cute game which has
been converted over from console video game systems. The eponymous
Abe is a rather simple-minded but well-meaning green monster who
spends his days as a janitor for a giant meat-processing factory until he
learns that the management plans to eventually use him for meat as well.
Thus begins Abe's great escape and subsequent oddysey, in a game that's
basically a platform arcade game in its look and feel, but actually a very
clever puzzle game with some simple adventure elements thrown in.
(When you meet fellow beings of your race, you can greet them and get
them to follow you.) The game is hardly a breakthrough, but you'd be
hard pressed to find a more polished and more enjoyable puzzle-
platformer. [GT Interactive]

Oh No! More Lemmings [Psygnosis]

Oilcap 7.1 [Soleau Software]

Oil's Well: A righteously stupid arcade game in which the object is to
drill out an oil well while avoiding the various critters running around
underground. Although the graphics are decent, the gameplay, consisting
mostly of madly trying to plumb the depths and retracting your pipeline
every few seconds to avoid some nasty monster (requiring you to start
the drilling over) becomes repetitive almost instantly, making for a
completely disposable game. Oil's Well appears to be a PC port of an
old coin-op arcade game called Anteater, which was later made into a
Commodore 64 port called Aardvark. If you've never heard of either of
those games either... Well, now you know why. [Sierra On-Line]

Oink!: I guess it should get credit for being the only video game
conversion (that I know of) of the story of the three little pigs. However,
this Atari 2600 cartridge has tediously one-sided gameplay that gets old
really fast. [Activision]

One Must Fall (OMF) 2097: A fight game which was pretty popular in
its time, rivaling the likes of Mortal Kombat with its notable graphics
and sound (to be expected from Epic MegaGames), as well as its broad
selection of fight robots and pilots. [Epic MegaGames]

Oni: Although it was never hugely popular, Oni was more of a
commercial success on the PlayStation 2; On the PC it became
something of a sleeper hit. That's surprising, because it has several of the
elements that gamers tend to go for: Great graphics, stunning animation,
and a sci-fi storyline that's smart but simple enough to digest easily. It
seemed to have all the makings of a blockbuster, but it didn't become
one.
  In Oni, you play Konoko, an operative for the TCTF (Technology
Crimes Task Force) in a near-future setting. Konoko is largely your
typical Anime superhero girl, complete with spiky purple hair and almost
super-human acrobatic skill. Oni definitely has an Anime look to it,
directly inspired by countless Japanimation movies and games, but the
look suits the action-packed style of the game well. Although Oni looks
great, with adequate graphics and wonderfully fluid character movement,
the gameplay is what really makes it stand out. What's remarkable about
the gameplay is that although it does involve a credible amount of
shooting, the emphasis here is actually on martial arts moves.
Ammunition in this game tends to be scarce, and if you just end up
shooting all your enemies, you're liable to run out of ammo pretty quick.
This encourages you to punch and kick your way through situations
when possible, turning Oni into a sort of 3D fight game. Konoko has
several special fight moves which you'll learn through the course of the
game, and most of the game involves timing your kicks and punches so
that you can knock out your opponents efficiently. This is great news for
fight game fans, and even if you're not a fight game fan, Oni just might
turn you into one. You might not think that adopting a Tomb Raider-
style, 3D third-person perspective would work well for this style of
game, but in Oni's case, it does, in part because of the simple and
intuitive fighting controls.
  Ironically, however, while Oni's fight controls are good, one of the
game's greatest weaknesses is its horrible movement controls. First of all,
if you don't like games that require you to use the letter keys to move
around, then you might want to just skip to another game right now. Oni
uses the W, A, S, and D keys for movement, rather than the more
common and popular arrow keys. Making this a default configuration
would have been bad enough, but incredibly, Oni has no option to
redefine the key layout, meaning you're stuck with this. The arrow keys
are completely unassigned and unused throughout the game. Why anyone
would make a game design decision like this is almost unimaginable. But
even if you can get used to using the letter keys for movement, Oni's
unresponsive controls can drive you crazy; Often you'll need to press a
key two or three times before the game reacts. In a slow-paced game this
is bad enough, but in an action game where split-second timing is
sometimes required, this cripples the entire gameplay experience. Mouse
look suffers from a similar choppy effect; It seems that the game is
programmed to actually act as if Konoko is "turning" in the direction you
make her look, meaning that if you turn her heading more than 90
degrees in any direction, there will be a pause so she can actually turn
herself around. Trying to turn yourself around while having the game
turn you part-way, then suddenly pause, is infuriating.
  If you can live with the controls, the rest of Oni's flaws are minor by
comparison. The level design is sometimes dull and uninspired; Most of
the levels are fairly flat, featureless industrial landscapes, and the plot is
the same old cyborg-turning-human stuff that we've seen so many times
before. Probably owing to its PlayStation 2 roots, Oni doesn't have a
dedicated save-game feature, but instead automatically creates saved
games at certain points in the game, making them more like unlocked
checkpoints than actual saves. This is bothersome sometimes, but the
save points are usually at pretty reasonable places, and they don't usually
lead to too much frustration in terms of having to repeat the same game
seqence over and over from the beginning until you can get through. It's
a real testament to how fun Oni is that despite the way the controls
handcuff you, the game is still fun to play, and it drives you to learn to
handle the controls and compensate for them rather than simply throwing
your hands up in frustration. Oni was one of few games in recent
memory to combine a distinctive cel-animation style with martial-arts-
plus-shooting action, and if you can see past its shortcomings, you'll find
it a rewarding experience. Anyone looking for a smoother and more
straightforward third-person-shooter experience found it a couple of years
later in Max Payne. [Bungie/Gathering Of Developers]

Operation: Wolf [Taito]

Orbital Sniper: A simple but well-made little arcade game in which you
are a sniper armed with a very precise rifle, sitting in an orbital satellite
and given the seemingly simple task of sniping any assassins who might
try to kill the VIPs you've been assigned to protect. The game is mostly
a satellite image with a huge mass of people swarming around on it, and
you have to shoot the bad guys before they reach a VIP. The controls for
the game couldn't be simpler and the graphics and overall presentation
are well done, but the gameplay isn't quite as addictive as it should be.
Get it from Sol's homepage at http://iki.fi/sol [Jari Komppa, AKA Sol]

Orb Wars 1.1: A clone of the old classic Spacewar. Of course, as these
ports of classic arcade games often go, this updated version has plenty
of extra features added to set it far apart from the simple game that
Spacewar was. Besides the 256-color graphics and Sound Blaster sound
effects, there's a selection of weapons to choose from, shields, etc.
Overall a fun re-creation of a classic. Download it from
http://www.jyu.fi/~simsavo/ORBWARS.HTML (Note that another clone
of Spacewar, also with the name "Orb Wars", was released as shareware
by Bob Goodsell in 1992. That game was single-player only, and had
you trying to shoot down planets as you orbited around the sun. It was
much simpler and had more primitive graphics and PC-speaker sound
effects, but was still fun.) [Simo Savolainen]

Outlaws [LucasArts]

Out Of This World (OOTW): Very similar to Prince Of Persia in both
feel and execution, this is a stunning blend of adventure with platform
arcade action. The relatively untextured polygon graphics are no doubt
a bit dated, but this is still a gripping game, at least until you die for the
hundredth time. (Out Of This World was titled Another World for its
European release.) (OOTW's sequel is Flashback.) [Interplay/Delphine
Software]

Outwars [Microsoft]

Oxyd: A unique marble-rolling game played with the mouse... You have
to open all the oxygen dispensers. Combines puzzle solving with nice
arcade action and mouse exploration. Pretty good! In much more recent
times, Oxyd has been cloned with the excellent free game Enigma.
(HINT: Umbrellas, when activated, make you float for a short period of
time. Hammers, when they are the currently selected item, let you break
through breakable blocks.) [DongleWare]

Oxyd Magnum [DongleWare]

Pac-Man: Adventures In Time [Creative Asylum/Hasbro Interactive]

Pac-Mania: A hot clone of Pac-Man which was only ever released in a
full-size arcade version. Besides being a 3-dimensional rendition of the
classic Pac-Man, it also gives you the ability to jump (which is handy
when those ghosts get you trapped). [Namco]

PacPC 2.00A: An absolutely faithful PC clone of Pac Man, from the
sound effects and graphics right down to the introductory sequence. And
it's free. Available from www.jrok.com. [JROK Games] [Freeware]

Paganitzu: A nice mix of puzzle game and arcade game, with some good
humor thrown in. Also one of oddly few archaeologist games. The
successor to Chaguniztu. [Apogee]

PAKO 2: A hot Pacman clone with great graphics and some new
gameplay features. [Uranium Software]

Paper Airplane: It's an unusual concept for a game: You fly a paper
airplane through several levels of danger, catching updrafts where you
can to keep your plane airborne. The idea is interesting and the game is
fun for a while, but the level design is far too repetitive; Paper Airplane
is a game with a good idea, but it needed more than just one. [Matt Bell]
(Shareware)

Paperboy: If you play computer games much, you know that a great
many of them take place in fantastic settings, often futuristic worlds
where spaceships are everywhere, or epic fantasy lands, or whatever. But
there are some games which take common, everyday settings, and turn
them into surprisingly fun experiences. A good example was Paperboy.
The concept is very simple: You are a paperboy. Ride down the street in
your bike, throwing newspapers into mailboxes (while dodging obstacles
like other people and cars on the street). It doesn't sound like much, but
anyone who's played it knows it was a great game. It's really neat!
[Mindscape]

Paperboy 2: Just like the original but better! Better graphics, smoother
gameplay, and now politically correct: You can choose to be either a
paperboy or a papergirl. [Mindscape/Tengen]

Paratrooper: A classic arcader, shoot all the paratroopers before they land
and blow you up!

PC*Bert 1.01: The companion game to PacPC. A completely authentic
and free PC clone of Q*Bert. This one's pretty addictive. Available from
www.jrok.com. [JROK Games] [Freeware]

Pea Shootin' Pete: The commercial version of Spit Wad Willy, Pea
Shootin' Pete is the exact same game, just released by a commercial
publisher instead of as shareware. (It's even credited to Raoul Said, the
maker of Spit Wad Willy.) [Villa Crespo]

Pengo: A somewhat obscure but good old classic in which you play a
pengiun who pushes blocks against enemies to squash them. Kind of like
Pac-Man but more strategic and less arcade-ish.

Perestroika: A silly little arcade game, vaguely reminiscent of Frogger,
and based on Russian politics. (If that sounds unlikely, wait till you see
it; It's actually pretty fun.) [Leonid Sneider]

Perfect Dark [Rare]

Pharaoh's Tomb: A forgotten old arcade game which was later succeeded
by the similarly obscure Arctic Adventure. [Apogee]

Pipe Dream: The addictive pipe-laying arcade classic. Hard to play only
once! [Electronic Arts/Lucasfilm]

Pirates! [MicroProse]

Pirates! Gold: Everything that made the original Pirates! a classic, and
more! (NOTE: This game uses 640x480 SVGA graphics, and it expects
to find a VESA driver loaded in memory. If your video card has VESA
support built into its ROM (as most do these days) instead of using a
software-based driver, then Pirates! Gold will probably lock up. If this
happens, run it by typing "piratesg V1" instead of just "piratesg".)
[MicroProse]

Pitfall [Activision]

Pitfall 2: Lost Caverns [Activision]

Planet Strike: Essentially Blake Stone 2, this is almost the same game as
Blake Stone, except of course with new levels and a few minor
improvements in the engine. [Apogee]

Pole Position: Another old arcade classic, this was the definitive
rear-forward-view two-lane race driving game.

Pong: The Next Level: Re-made and re-released for Windows, and who
better to do it than the people who made the original version? (See also
the re-make of Q*bert, below.) [Atari]

Postal: In the annals of computer gaming history, Postal stands shoulder
to shoulder with Carmageddon and Rise Of The Triad as a game which
is unashamedly and unpretentiously violent, revelling without restraint or
concern for morality in the blood of the slain. And just like ROTT and
Carmageddon, Postal is a fairly well-made game with an interesting play
premise that gets old very quickly, resulting in a brutal game with little
appeal to people who are not dedicatedly anti-social. The game has very
little in the way of plot, other than to introduce you to a fellow known
as "Postal Dude", an everyday man who comes home from work one day
to learn that his house has been repossessed. He loses his mind and goes
on a killing spree. The game begins outside his former home, and from
there, Postal Dude goes on a tour of the city, spreading death wherever
he goes.
  When the game was released, the potential for people under pressure
to snap and begin performing wanton acts of violence was a fairly hot
topic, as evidenced by the release of this kind of game, and probably
portrayed best to the general non-gaming public by the movie "Falling
Down". Postal has a thin semblance of a social lesson imbued in it:
Society, and the way it treads on people who do not fit in, is a cruel
thing, and it tends to drive people to insanity if they do not conform to
social norms. This is evidenced occasionally by Postal Dude's rantings
that society must pay for its evils, but generally the game is so one-
tracked that any attempts at giving the game a moral are little more than
a pretense, just as few people were able to justify the Columbine high
school massacre simply because the two gunmen involved were
mistreated by their peers. Postal really is nothing more than killing a
bunch of people in typical urban settings, then watching them roll in the
ground in agony, screaming "I can't breathe!" and various other cries of
distress. It finally climaxes on the 16th level in your one-man raid on a
heavily-armed air force base, by far the hardest level in the game; If you
make it through, you get to watch the appropriately sick ending, a
massacre of an elementary school's playground during which Postal
Dude finally succumbs to the pressure and ends up where he belongs.
  As an aside, Postal is the first game I have seen with an "Execute"
control, which allows you to execute (as in kill) people who you have
already wounded beyond the point of fighting back. This provides a god-
like power, allowing you to decide who dies and who suffers for a few
minutes before their life bleeds away. It also has a "Suicide" button,
which serves absolutely no purpose (since if you use it, the level ends)
but exists anyway. Truly, a gruesome game which, unsurprisingly,
appealed to many gamers. [Ripcord]

Post Haste [Psygnosis]

Prey: One of the most embarrassing failed projects in the history of
gaming, Prey was supposed to be the next big game from 3D Realms,
the company that had enjoyed so much success with Duke Nukem 3D.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, everybody heard a lot about Prey. It was
supposed to be a first-person shooter with the ability to blow up walls,
among other innovations. The player was to play Talon Brave, an
Apache Native American ("Indian") who battled a race of aliens. But the
release date kept getting pushed back, for a variety of reasons. The most
dramatic event affecting Prey's progress was the sudden departure, in
August of 1996, of five key employees of 3D Realms to found a new
game company called Hipnotic Interactive, which was later renamed to
Ritual Entertainment. It is said that when this group left 3D Realms, they
also deleted all the work that they had done on Prey up to that point,
which understandably set the game back. The employees who defected
from 3D Realms were Mark Dochtermann (who became Hipnotic's
president), Jim Dose (who became Hipnotic's vice-president), Michael
Hadwin, Robert M. Atkins, and Richard Gray. (Gray, well-known in the
computer gaming world by his self-given nickname "Levelord", was one
of the two level designers for Duke Nukem 3D.) Dochtermann openly
admitted that his departure was due to a desire to be an executive of a
company rather than simply an employee. (Dochtermann later started
another new company called Mumbo Jumbo, along with ex-Ritual
employee Tom Dimant.) Hipnotic was successful from the outset,
becoming the company to make the first add-on mission pack for Quake;
The mission pack was called "The Scourge of Armagon". The people at
Ritual certainly had a cocky style, as they publicly offered a bet with 3D
Realms, which basically proposed that if Ritual's first full game (Sin)
outsold 3D Realms' next game (Shadow Warrior), then the executives at
3D Realms should wash Harry Miller's (Ritual's then-CEO) truck. (3D
Realms ignored the offered bet.) George Broussard (3D Realms' owner)
admitted that development of Prey was restarted from scratch after the
Hipnotic employees left, which obviously must have had a serious impact
on the game's feasability. (It has been reported that Tom Hall also left
3D Realms and joined Hipnotic, but in fact, he teamed up with John
Romero, who had been one of the key people at id Software (and was
heavily involved in the development of Doom) to start another new
company called ION Design, later known as ION Storm, the company
that developed Deus Ex, among other games.) Nearly two years later, in
1998, it was said that Prey's project leader, Paul C. Schuytema, and
Prey's lead programmer, William Scarboro, had been dropped from the
project, after Schuytema had been on the project for more than a year.
And then nobody ever heard anything about Prey again. (If the name
Paul C. Schuytema sounds familiar, you may recall reading reviews or
articles written by him in Computer Gaming World, or Compute!
Magazine.) Well-known industrial band KMFDM was asked to do the
music for Prey, and they agreed, which would have paralleled the interest
surrounding Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) doing the
soundtrack for Quake. 3D Realms no longer mentions Prey anywhere on
their website, and the page that existed about it
(http://www.3drealms.com/catalog/prey/) has been removed from the site.
For a long time, they maintained a collection of "preview" screenshots
there, even when it seemed that there was no more news coming out
about the game, but now it seems the project has been officially
abandoned. [3D Realms]

Primal Rage CD: A fairly typical fight game for the PC, the only real
difference here being that the fighters are huge, prehistoric-esque beasts
along the lines of dinosaurs and ape-like primates. [Time Warner
Interactive]

Prince Of Persia: A game with nice graphics but very, very hard
gameplay. You will die a lot in this game. It's incredibly unforgiving.
Ironically, the combat sequences may be the easiest part of the game;
Much harder is all the cliff-hanging jumping you'll be doing.
[Broderbund]

Prince Of Persia 2: The Shadow & The Flame: A better game than the
first, this is more than just a series of caves with attitude. The graphics
and gameplay are far superior. [Broderbund]

Prince Of Persia 3D [Mindscape/Red Orb Entertainment]

Private Eye [Activision]

Project IGI: I'm Going In: Eidos continues their penchant for making
first-person shooters that emphasize stealth over action. They first did it
with Thief: The Dark Project (which was Medieval), then they did it with
this game, which was released at about the same time as Hitman:
Codename 47, which (apparently by no coincidence) was also released
by Eidos. Project IGI is a military-based game, while Hitman is from a
completely different perspective: That of a hired killer. However, the
differences between the two games goes well beyond their settings. The
difference in production values is gapingly obvious; While Hitman at
least felt like a considerable amount of effort had gone into it, Project
IGI feels like a cheap "toy" game from the moment you run it until the
moment you stop playing.
  At first glance, IGI has a lot going for it; Cast as a British SAS agent,
your missions typically involve penetrating some kind of enemy complex
with an emphasis on stealth. However, it turns out that you don't really
need to be stealthy, because shooting your way through works just as
well. The game obviously strives to be more realistic than your average
first-person shooter, as enemies die much more quickly than in most
shooters, and so does your own character (similar to the "one shot, one
kill" brand of reality made popular by Delta Force). The problem arises
from several serious flaws in the realism. For starters, if this guy is really
a super-secret SAS agent who wants to be stealthy, he should go into
action with a lot more spy gear. As it is, about the only thing that you
carry around that's not a weapon is your binoculars and a minimal
computer that shows an overhead map and your objectives. These are
pretty good binoculars (they're night-vision, and they even put up little
red squares around enemies so you can pick them out better), but
everything else that goes with you is a gun, grenade, or knife. Shouldn't
a spy have at least a little more gear, like a radio to communicate with
his base, lock-picks to open locked doors, a way of detecting where
people are (the binoculars are purely line-of-sight, so you have no way
of knowing if there's somebody behind a wall until you actually get
behind the wall), and those gas masks that the SAS are usually pictured
wearing? As it is, you go bare-headed, inviting a bullet in the head. The
result is that you're pretty much forced to play this like a first-person
shooter, with some rather minimal elements of taking cover and looking
around corners before you go running out in the open, which are
strategies that you'd use in any game; Even Quake players do that. On
the weapons side of things, then, they could have at least given you a
*sniper rifle*! All secret-agent types need a sniper rifle so they don't
have to go charging up to enemies to shoot them at close range. This
becomes even more insufferable in light of the fact that Project IGI's
signature shot is a picture of your character holding a sniper rifle,
implying that it's standard equipment. In reality, you go into missions
with just a knife, a pistol, and a silenced submachine gun, and you'll
have to pick any sniper rifles you find off the corpses of enemies you
kill, which is just ridiculous.
  Making things harder is the fact that Project IGI does not let you save
your game. There is no save-game feature; The closest thing that exists
is the mission-selection screen, where missions become available after
you've advanced to them. Now, some people love games with no save
feature because it means you have to actually play the game "for real",
and some people hate games with no save feature, for obvious reasons.
However, if Project IGI wanted to be so realistic that it doesn't even let
you save, it could have at least not cheated itself. Yet as it is, the game
actually spawns enemies in the middle of levels, a trick used by many
shooters for various reasons: Half-Life did it because it was a science-
fiction plot and aliens had the seemingly magical ability to teleport.
Soldier Of Fortune did it because enemy respawning was actually a
feature of the game, and you could set how heavy that spawning was,
from nil to extreme. Project IGI, however, has no excuse for this
behavior. The combination of not being able to save, combined with
suddenly finding oppoents in places where you'd already killed everyone
previously, makes levels extremely frustrating. In addition, the game's
oft-cited "nada"-based cheat codes, found on several web sites on the
Internet, do not seem to work.
  Going beyond the issues with difficulty and realism, Project IGI also
suffers from an amazingly unimaginative level design. Almost every
single mission in the game feels very similar. The graphics are very
good, and the game's engine does a credible job of rendering huge
outdoor environments and making them look great, but they still all are
laid out the same: A few buildings, a few bad guys, no surprises. It all
combines to make IGI feel like one of those budget games from
publishers of ill repute who crank out shovelware that sells for $10.
That's a shame, coming from a well-known publisher like Eidos, and it's
worse when you consider that Project IGI really has the makings of
something good here. With a little more work and thought put into it,
this could have been a game that rose above the rest. As it is, Project IGI
is a game that's not realistic, not immersive, and not fun.
[Eidos/Innerloop]

Purple Saturn Day [Epyx]

Pyro 2.2: A novel-concept game in which you play a pyro who tries to
burn down an entire building, one floor at a time. Surprisingly fun!
[Michael O'Brien]

Q*bert: This was re-released along with the re-make of Pong in the last
days of 1999, as a newly updated Windows version. Like Pong, this
one's a grand old arcade classic, but slightly less well-known, and
slightly more diverse in its gameplay. [Atari]

Quadnet: A game which accurately describes itself as "very fast paced",
Quadnet plays much like Asteroids on steroids. You control a little green
spaceship-like thing which moves around on a grid. The tricky bit comes
in how the grid moves with you: Sliding your ship around makes the grid
tilt in odd ways, skewing your perspective and making Quadnet a
seriously trippy experience. Although it begins fairly slowly, the pace
rapidly picks up as rocks start flying around the screen in a chaotic
cloud, forcing you to shoot like a madman. (Count on your wrist getting
tired very quickly if you play this game for long.) Although it's not easy,
Quadnet is actually a very well-crafted and fun game, owing to its catchy
electronica soundtrack, simple but good-looking graphics, and addictive
gameplay. Better yet, it's freeware, from the kind of indie software
company that makes games for the sheer love of it. Get it from
Brainchild Design's homepage at www.brainchilddesign.com [Brainchild
Design] (Freeware)

Quake 1.08: It adds higher-resolution graphics, the ability to aim up and
down, and TCP Internet deathmatch. Other than that, Quake is Doom.
From both a gameplay and an atmospheric point of view, it's almost
exactly like Doom, other than a few minor improvements like vertical
aiming and SVGA graphics. But Quake became one of the most popular
and significant games ever made, much as Doom did, while at the same
time securing id's status as a hugely important developer of first-person
shooters. [id Software]

Quake 2 3.19: A massive improvement over Quake, which overcomes its
rather poor graphics (didn't Quake 1 always seem to have oddly grainy
graphics?), and with much more pleasing animation. And, your
unlimited-ammo weapon in this game isn't some close-combat axe; It's
a real gun. Quake 2 also had an incredibly flexible and extensible engine,
as evidenced by the fact that it was later licensed out for Half-Life and
Soldier Of Fortune. Quake 2 was the only really good game of the Quake
trilogy; Quake 1 was ugly-looking and was basically a Doom clone,
while Quake 3 had no plot, no exploration, nothing but deathmatch. (It
made a good multiplayer game, but a failed single-player experience.)
Quake 2, on the other hand, not only looks great and has a good TCP/IP
multiplayer mode, it even has a built-in computer in the single-player
game which assigns you missions as you go along. Okay, admittedly
most of the missions are typical "find the magic button"-type missions,
but still, this paved the way for more intelligent mission-based shooters
in the years to come. Although it doesn't really have anything to
distinguish it from a crowd of other first-person shooters, Quake 2 is, as
I said, the only good Quake game. [id Software]

Quake 2: Ground Zero Add-On [id Software]

Quake 2: Juggernaut Add-On [id Software]

Quake 2: The Reckoning Add-On [id Software]

Quake 3: Arena: A new type of FPS, Quake 3 is completely focused on
multiplayer gaming. Even single-player games against the computer are
now in the form of deathmatches; No more monster-exterminating and
exploring the levels looking for the end-of-level switch. (Quake 3's
default listen port for Internet play is 27960.) Quake III was the game
that immortalized "Old Man Murray", a gaming humour website, by
turning it into an easter egg in the game: On level Q3DM19
("Apocalypse Void"), on the back of one of the floating lift platforms is
a logo. The particular lift is close to a shotgun, and the logo is on the
back of the lift where you can't see it unless you're using the Flight
powerup. You may also want to shoot at the platform or crank up your
brightness to see it properly, but when you do, it'll be quite clear that the
logo is the head of Old Man Murray. (Also, on the BOTTOM of the
level, where you definitely can't go without the Flight powerup, is the
Dust Puppy from the cult online comic strip "User Friendly"; The Dust
Puppy also shows up in Q3DM16, "The Bouncy Map". Oh, and yes,
somewhere in Q3 is the infamous Dopefish, which seems to be an easter
egg in virtually every id game.) [id Software]

Quarantine: It's been called "Doom on wheels". Quarantine is a futuristic
taxi-driving game which is half driving sim and half action shooter. Your
job is to drive customers around (like a normal taxi driver) and shoot
things (unlike a normal taxi driver). Although the game's plot is rather
brief and (as is usual with action games) completely unimportant to the
actual gameplay, it's a bit more original and interesting than the simple
"bad guys have taken over and you must kill them all" type of plot. The
graphics are decent (typical of the mid-90s time of the game's release)
but the game runs too fast on newer computers. (Tip for getting it to
work at all: Quarantine really, really doesn't like EMM386. Don't have
EMM386 loaded when you try to run it.) [GameTek/imagexcel]

Quarantine 2: Road Warrior: Something gained, but something lost.
Quarantine 2 is a worthy sequel to its bloody predecessor, with the same
pure fun of driving over people and ferrying others around. However, the
completely non-linear gameplay of the original is lost here: Instead of
just being able to whizz around, picking up and dropping off as many
customers as you want, you have specific missions now. This does make
the game less boring (the original Quarantine got kind of repetitive after
a while), but it also takes away much of the freedom. [Mindscape]

Rampage: An old classic game where you play either a giant wolf, lizard,
or gorilla who basically eats an entire city. [Activision]

Ranchan (The Jumping Cat) 1.10b: A unique little game featuring the
eponymous Anime cat, a cat who can indeed only move around by
jumping. The game is somewhat like a platform arcade game except you
can't walk; You use the mouse to jump, combining the cursor position
(direction of jump) with how long you hold down the mouse button
(strength of jump) to jump over gaps in the ground (the only things
which can kill you, and thus end the game). Along the way, there will
be plenty of cat-things to collect, such as fish (flying ones, apparently)
and mice. The game is unlike any I've seen before, but it still gets old
fairly quickly, although it's a cute experience while it lasts. The
homepage for the game appears to be at
http://www.ymo.net/~nozomi/WinMDR/ but if you don't read Japanese,
good luck navigating that one. Your best bet is to find it somewhere else.
[Nozomi] (Freeware)

Ranger Fox: An utterly obscure side-scrolling shoot-em-up from Korea,
which sets itself apart from the pack with knockout graphics and sound
(I know you've heard that before, but it's true in this case). It's sure hard
to understand though, since all the text is in Korean. It's possibly even
harder to find. [Soft Action]

Raptor: A dazzling vertical-scrolling shoot-everything-in-sight kind of
arcade game. Similar to Major Stryker, except with better graphics and
animation. I also found it less fun (perhaps because there's less challenge
and more monotony in the shooting). Get this game from Gamefest 2
CD. [Apogee]

Rastan: You're a guy with a sword who kills a lot of lizard-men. Another
of those fun generic platform arcade games. [Taito]

Rayman, Special Edition

Realms Of Chaos (ROC): Probably one of the last platform-type games
we'll see from Apogee, this is a cheery sort of game with spraying gore,
two different characters who you can switch between at any time with
the press of a key, and five very different skill levels. [Apogee]

Realms Of The Haunting [Interplay]

Rebel Moon Rising [GT Interactive]

Recoil

Redneck Deer Huntin' [Interplay]

Redneck Rampage: Another first-person 3D shoot-em-up. Just like all the
others with really nothing remarkable to set it apart from the rest.
Extremely excellent graphics but basically just a case of the same old
stuff. In fact, Redneck Rampage is so relentlessly uncreative that it's
almost painful to play after a few minutes. There aren't a lot of levels
(there are 7 in each of the 2 episodes), but the levels which are there are
too long, and they consist of nothing but the same old boring, low-class,
hick-town type of setting from beginning to end. There are way too few
enemy types and they get old in less time than it takes to kill five of
them, and even your character doesn't seem to have much to say other
than the usual redneck drawlings, unlike Duke Nukem and Lo Wang who
were usually able to come up with something that was at least funny.
Redneck Rampage has plenty of atmosphere, but that atmosphere is so
one-sided that this game should never have been made. [Interplay]

Renegade: After making the mistake of being in the subway at 2:00 in
the morning, you're forced to fight off the street gang which attacks you.
Another generic beat-'em-up. [Taito/Technos Japan]

Requiem: Avenging Angel

Resident Evil

Resident Evil 2

Return Fire [Ripcord]

Return Fire 2 [Ripcord]

Return To Castle Wolfenstein: 10 years after they spawned a revolution
by creating the first-person shooter craze, id Software returns to the game
that made them big. Return To Castle Wolfenstein is everything that
made Wolfenstein 3D great, except more. [id Software/Gray Matter
Studios]

Ripper

Rise Of The Triad (ROTT) 1.3: An awesome first-person shoot-em-up
game that's like Doom, except more violent. In Doom, you just shot up
your enemies, and they died in a little splash of blood. But not in ROTT.
Here, you fire them up with bazookas, heat-seeking missiles, firebombs,
and even a few magical weapons (like THE DARK STAFF and The
Excalibat). And they don't just die, they splatter against the walls, gobs
of blood and smaller drops pouring down like rain from the ceiling.
Needless to say, this is not a game for young people. An excellent way
to relieve stress, however. Works great after a long day at work. ROTT
is a few years old now but it still is impressive, both in its graphical
realism and its graphic violence. (See also Carmageddon under Car Sims
if you're into this sort of thing.)
  If you look beyond the violence, however, you'll find that ROTT is a
highly unconventional shooter in many ways: Its amusement park-type
levels filled with moving walls, deadly traps, and bounce pads, its strange
power-ups (in addition to God Mode, there's also a Dog Mode), and its
wildly unconventional selection of weapons: Whereas most shooters offer
the basic handguns, shotguns, and machine guns, ROTT has three basic
bullet weapons (which differ only in their firing speed, and all of which
have infinite ammo), and an astounding variety of explosive/fire weapons
(which all have limited ammo), including the basic bazooka, the heat-
seeker (basically a bazooka that automatically aims itself at a target), the
firebomb (which makes a HUGE explosion that never fails to both amaze
the player and devastate large groups of bad guys), the flamewall (which
goes forth and instantly burns almost anything in its path), and perhaps
most unusual of all, the "Excalibat", a magical baseball bat. Although
ROTT was a shooter that dared to be different and is remembered as
being way, way ahead of its time, it fails to be a fun game because of
the horrible level design: Way too much of the game consists of simply
looking for hidden walls and trying to navigate treacherous environments.
ROTT tends to be a love-it-or-hate-it affair; If you appreciate this kind
of level design and you don't mind extreme violence at the ludicrous
level, this game still stands almost a decade later as alone in its class. If
you'd rather just shoot your way through a game, however, you'll have
fun with ROTT's first few levels, then give up as things become too
tangled and you spend more time trying to find your way through a maze
than shooting things. [Apogee]

Risky Woods [Electronic Arts]

Robocop 1

Robocop 2

Robocop 3

Robocop 3D

Robot Arena: A pretty good simulation of the ever-popular robot battles
in which two robots armed with saws, hammers, or other similar
weapons duke it out in an enclosed arena. In this computer game, you
first build your bot from various available parts, then have at an
opponent in an arcade-style battle. It's pretty fun. [Infogrames/Gabriel
Interactive, Inc.]

Robot Arena 2 [Infogrames/Gabriel Interactive, Inc.]

Robot Revenge: Esteeming itself as the most violent stick-figure game
ever, this game may just live up to that claim, with a variety of ways to
die, all of them involving large amounts of blood. The animation is
surprisingly smooth and quick for a game of this calibre, although not
very sophisticated. Still, the gameplay is addictive enough that you'll
probably play this for at least 5 minutes straight. [Riley Enterprises/Ryan
R. Robinson/Steve Downie]

Robotron: 2084: A classic arcade game in which you are put in the
center of a ring of bad guys who you must shoot up. This game was
nicely cloned and spoofed at the same time by Llamatron.

Rocket Ranger [Cinemaware]

Rodger Ramrod 1.10: A first-person shooter which is pretty poor as an
FPS, but above-average as an adult game, simply because it gives you
porn, and plenty of it. The first thing you see when you run the game is
a first-person view of yourself in the act with a woman, and from there
it just continues, through a Red Light District and then the first real level
of the game, the "S&M Level". Unfortunately, Nonaz has gone out of
business, and the game has faded into obscurity, so good luck finding the
full version, as even the shareware version is rare. (Yes, it's really
spelled Rodger, not Roger) [Nonaz, Inc.]

Rollo And The Brush Brothers: A silly little arcade game with a novel
premise: You play a paint brush which must paint all the windows on the
screen without getting caught by the Brush Brothers, the enemy paint
brushes which chase you around the screen. Although gameplay is
simple, it's fun, and certainly an original concept in video games.
[Windmill Software]

Ruins 3-D

Rune [GodGames/Human Head Studios]

Russian Six Pack [Interplay/MIR-Dialogue]

Sabre Ace

Saddam Hussein Target Game: A small and obscure little program, get
it only to hear its brilliant use of the PC's internal speaker for speech.
It's incredible. [S Software]

Sand Storm 2.0: A mildly Paratrooper-like mouse-shooter in the Persian
Gulf War. Hard to play but nice graphics. [Pod Bay Enterprises]

Sango Fighter: Another excellent PC fight game, which takes place in
China. Not surprisingly, it has much the same feel as those Oriental
Martial Arts movies. [Panda Entertainment]

Santaman: An old-style platformer with nice graphics but no sound.
Small and simplistic, but good action. You play Santa. [Dem
Innovations]

Scorched Planet

S.C.OUT [Inline Design]

Scud Attack: A fresh approach to the mouse-controlled shoot-em-up.
Defend the city with your anti-scud missiles! [David Lee Peterson]

S.D.I. [Cinemaware]

Sea Run [Soleau Software]

Sea Strike: An obscure but great helicopter shooter originally for the
Apple IIgs. Made by the same company who did Cavern Cobra. [PBI
Software]

Secret Agent: A fun EGA platformer with nice gameplay and a futuristic
sort of secret spy theme. [Apogee]

Seesaw: An original-concept Atari arcade game, though the concept is
simple: You catch somebody on one end of a seesaw. Then they shoot
the person on the other end up in the air. You then have to catch that
person, and so on back and forth. And while just bouncing the people is
fun by itself, there's a subplot going on: You're supposed to break
through the blocks at the top of the screen by whacking them with the
people (a "Breakout" kind of thing). Surprisingly addictive.

Seiklus: Fundamentally a platform arcade game at heart, Seiklus is a
game of rather a different color in terms of its goals and how you
accomplish them. Perhaps the first interesting thing to note is that the
word "seiklus" means "adventure" in Estonian, and although clysm, the
author of the game, is careful to note that he's not Estonian, he does
speak the language. Seiklus wants to be an adventure game, but there
isn't really enough interaction with the environment to consider it a
proper adventure game. Rather, it's more of a platform-style environment
in which gameplay centers on collecting variously-colored "wisps" (of
which there are 100 of each color in the game), with the ultimate goal
being to reunite yourself with your girlfriend, from whom you were
separated following a meteorite impact on the earth. Playing the game,
it becomes evident rather quickly that clysm has quite an imagination, as
the game tends to be quite otherworldly and surreal in its locations. One
of the most amazing things about Seiklus, however, is that although the
graphics are quite minimalist (scarcely any background, and the objects
in the game are starkly drawn), it's quite effective at creating a lot of
atmosphere with just these graphics and the handful of MOD music files
which constitute the game's soundtrack. Seiklus is a game with a certain
beauty about it, and although it's not an especially creative, lengthy, or
groundbreaking game, it does manage to be somewhat unique. (The
music in Seiklus near the lava waterfall (the part of the game where you
collect the yellow-colored wisps) is the famous loading theme from
Sanxion, a classic little Commodore 64 shooter. The music from Sanxion
was composed by Rob Hubbard, one of the most legendary music
composers in the computer game world, who composed the music for
more than 75 Commodore 64 games. The music from Sanxion is perhaps
his most popular work, and now it's been immortalized in Seiklus, in the
form of a MOD file, which actually sounds better than the original
because it overcomes some of the limitations of the Commodore 64's
SID chip. It's a fitting tribute to a gaming music legend.) [clysm]

Serious Sam: The First Encounter: In the year 2000 (this is a real story,
not part of the game's story), a group of people from Croatia released the
first look at a first-person shooter they called Serious Sam. The game
quickly garnered a large amount of fame, based on rave reviews from the
likes of Richard "Levelord" Gray (of Ritual) and Cliff Bleszinski (of
Epic MegaGames). The action in Serious Sam recalls the olden days of
video games, when things didn't really make much sense, and that was
the way it was supposed to be. In this game, there's not a whole lot of
plot, but does anybody really care? Big, shirtless men wearing huge
boxing gloves come running up to you so you can shoot them. Why
would a guy armed with only boxing gloves charge at a guy armed with
a shotgun? Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Because it's fun.
  What really makes Serious Sam unique, though, is the utter intensity of
it all. This game pits you against more monsters than most people would
consider really reasonable; Enemies are absolutely relentless in their
constancy. Every place you go, hordes of them suddenly teleport into the
room and you're immersed in another fight to the death. Mercifully,
Serious Sam also has a huge arsenal of weapons, most of them really
weird, but also tremendously powerful, the better to blow away the
attacking armies of bad guys. The enemies, too, are varied, colorful and
bizarre, actually comical in their weirdness. It all makes the experience
feel like a bad acid trip: The strange beasts you start seeing, and the
brutal heart-pounding sense of urgency.
  Serious Sam is also notable for its level design, which is totally spartan:
Most of the game just takes place in wide open spaces. It takes away
even further from any sense of strategy and makes the game a total blast-
fest: There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing in the game but
a huge swarm of enemies and the weapon in your hand. This approach
is so simple that it's a bit of a wonder that nobody else has tried it
before; Most first-person shooters try to be as fancy as possible. So the
bottom line is, is it fun? Well, for some people, sure. Unfortunately, there
are people who actually play first-person shooters for more than the
shooting. There's a reason why Half-Life was so universally praised as
being revolutionary for its thoughtful plot development and strategic
elements. If a return to the simpler days (when games were all about how
fast you could hit the fire button) sounds like your style, Serious Sam is
for you. But if you've been encouraged by the move toward more
intelligent first-person shooters, Serious Sam will seem like a step
backward. [Croteam]

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter: The sequel to the first Serious Sam
game is more of almost exactly the same kind of gameplay: There are
huge battles with ridiculous numbers of enemies, there are wide open
spaces to fight in, and there's a heavy emphasis on leaning on the fire
button, with little in the way of plot or strategy. It seems like The
Second Encounter is not much more than an excuse to re-release Serious
Sam in a different setting: Instead of ancient Egypt (as in the first game),
this game takes place in the Andes mountains of South America among
old Mayan pyramids, which are, of course, riddled with the traps and
surprises that they are famous for.
  The single biggest addition to The Second Encounter is the chainsaw
weapon. Call it a ripoff of Doom if you will, but this chainsaw sure is
fun to use. It turns the weaker enemies in the game into huge chunks of
raw meat almost instantly; Larger enemies take a few seconds to kill
with it, but it still works much faster than most other weapons, assuming
you can get close enough to use it. Beyond that, there *is* an obvious
attempt at making the levels a bit more interesting than the bleak
Egyptian deserts that Sam spent so much time in during his first game;
The level design is somewhat more elegant and there are diverging
pathways in several places, rather than simple huge rooms connected by
linear hallways. However, these attempts at de-simplifying the levels
actually work against the game in many cases: Near the beginning of the
game is a huge chasm which can only be crossed by jumping on bounce
pads. This sequence plays exactly like any number of similar sequences
from any number of similar games. Haven't first-person shooter level
designers learned their lesson by now? Haven't they gotten the message
that action gamers don't like jumping sequences and are annoyed to an
extreme by them? Similarly, the efforts to make levels that invite a bit
more exploration would have been welcome in a different type of game,
but the people who're drawn to Serious Sam are the ones who just want
to shoot and see blood. The level exploration just ends up getting in the
way of the real focus of the game. Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
seems to be a game that's not sure if it wants to just build on its
predecessor, or be a different kind of game.
  That's not to say this is a bad game; Far from it. The first Serious Sam
game began as a demo for its 3D engine, and eventually mutated into a
full-fledged market product. The result was exactly what you'd expect:
A game that feels like somebody took a level creation tool, left the entire
level free of structure, and just dropped a bunch of monsters into it. That
was fine for what it intended to be: A action game to shoot your way
through. This game is more of the same, but with more interesting levels.
In some cases, it works, and in some cases, it doesn't. At best, when it
works, the game is great: There are some battles (like those staged to
take place in rooms with bouncing floors, and a particularly memorable
cylinder-shaped room in which you can walk on all the walls) which are
an absolute blast, hordes of enemies flying around you like a whirlwind
as you try to aim at them, all the while getting flung around yourself. At
worst, the battles start to feel like a dozen others you've already been
through before, seemingly endless routines of strafing away from enemy
fire while trying to snipe them when you get a chance. If you liked the
first Serious Sam game, chances are you'll like most of this game. If you
didn't, then there's really no reason to play The Second Encounter either.
[Croteam]

Shadow Man [Acclaim]

Shadows Of The Empire: A Star Wars shoot-em-apart with VERY,
VERY, VERRRRY GOOD GRAPHICS!!! The rest of the game isn't
much, though. [LucasArts]

Shadow Warrior 3D 1.1: Essentially a Chinese/Japanese-cultured Duke
Nukem 3D. (The game isn't clear on the Oriental culture; The yin-yang
symbol which is the main logo is Chinese, but Lo Wang, the character
you play, is a ninja, and ninjas are Japanese.) The two games were made
with the same engine, and Lo Wang is very much an Oriental Duke
Nukem, wielding an extensive list of powerful weaponry, maintaining a
fairly steady stream of wisecracks, and remaining cool and unflappable
even in the tightest circumstances. The two games are pretty much
companion products and if you liked one, you'll like the other. [Apogee]

Shattered Steel [Interplay]

Shinobi [Sega]

Shock Wave

Shogo: Mobile Armor Division

Shooting Gallery 2.0: Probably the best mouse-shooter I've seen. It
simulates several different types of target-shooting games, from skeet
shooting to an Old West-style gunfight. [Nels Anderson]

Silpheed 2.4: More of an art form than a game, or so Sierra says. [Sierra
On-Line]

SIMTrek 2.3: A shareware game which was much-lauded because its
interface was a simulated starship bridge; You use the mouse to click on
the controls for your weapons, navigation systems, etc. Although the
graphics are decent and the gameplay is fairly original, the game runs
way too fast on newer systems. [Rockland Software]

Sin: A first-person shooter, released not too long after Duke Nukem 3D,
that was supposed to be the next big thing in the genre. Unfortunately it
never seemed to get as big as its hype, and it ended up failing to take the
crown away from id's offerings. [Activision/Ritual Entertainment]

Sin Add-On: Wages Of Sin [Activision]

Sinbad [Cinemaware]

Skeetshoot [Sierra On-Line]

Ski King: A downhill skiing-type game which lets you use one of four
sets of equipment: Skis, a snowboard, one of those snow tubes or a
snowmobile. The game takes a ridiculously long time to finish, so it
should be more third-person skiing action than you'll ever need, unless
you want variety. [Axe Productions/Scott Haag] [Freeware]

Skunny Kart 3D 1.3: A cute and excellent behind-the-cart driving game
in the style of Super Mario Kart, with several courses and characters and
terrific animation. (However, it's similar enough to Wacky Wheels that
I could see a lawsuit arising from this.) [Copysoft]

Sky Diver: A two-player Atari classic which, like most Atari games, was
very simple: Throw your player out of a plane, then guide him onto a
landing pad while watching the windsock. [Atari]

Skyroads: An original driving game, which takes place on suspended
platforms in space. The driving gets VERY hard at times, but it's fun to
play. [Creative Dimensions]

Slam!: A great air hockey game for Windows, one of the greatest (and
most underrated) pre-95 Windows classics. Get this game from Game
Empire 2 CD. [Robert Epps]

Slave Zero: A futuristic shoot-em-up in which you get to send a stolen
60-foot robot running through the streets of a city, wreaking havoc and
stomping on a lot of people. [Accolade]

Sleepwalker: Ocean's last game before they were bought out by French
developer Infogrames is an unusual platform-style game which combines
puzzles with arcade-like gameplay. It is actually a mixture of Lemmings
with more conventional platform arcade games. In Sleepwalker, you play
Ralph, a dog who must lead his master safely home. Your master, a
young boy named Lee, is sleepwalking, and so blindly stumbles into
hazards in classic Lemmings style, which obviously you must prevent.
A new spin on a classic concept. [Ocean]

Slicks 'N' Slides 1.30d: A Finnish-made auto racing game which is
probably the best-known and best bird's-eye-view car game. This isn't
the only version you should get; Slicks 'N' Slides has been one of the
most-changed games ever, and the versions are VASTLY different from
each other. Other noteworthy versions which you should get include
1.261 and 1.29D (the first to use weapons). Version 1.30d will be the last
version (as Timo Kauppinen's development of the game has stopped).
[Timo Kauppinen] [Shareware]

Small Soldiers: Squad Commander

Smash Auto 0.9b: A *very* fast-paced, but fun, arcade game in which
you control a small car pitted against three others. The goal is to destroy
them all using your car-mounted gun and mine dropper. The game is
actually pretty good, and it's amazing to learn that it was written in
QuickBASIC 4.5. (QBlueSoft appears to be a company specializing in
QB games.) [QBlueSoft] (Freeware)

Snarf 2.51: Shoot up nests of those nasty snarfs through several levels of
treasure-grabbing! A great little shooter with lots of action. [Everett
Kaser] [Shareware]

Sneak 'N Peek: Another old Atari classic, this was basically
hide-and-seek converted to an electronic game. (Yes, it was a two-player
game.)

SnowCraft: A fun little mini-game for Windows in which you control a
team of 3 children engaged in a snowball fight against an enemy team.
Although the graphics and sound are cute and sharp and the gameplay is
somewhat original, the game is way too hard. Even the first level is hard
enough, pitting your 3 team members against 3 enemies, but level 2 pits
you against even more, leaving you not only outnumbered, but with the
disadvantage of only being able to control one person at a time. Still, this
is a fun game with a concept novel enough to while away a few minutes
over. [Kevin Chiu]

Soccer Kid: A fun and original platform arcade game which captures the
feel of console gaming effectively. You're cast as the eponymous Soccer
Kid, who must get back pieces of the World Cup (which has been
broken). The novelty of the game is in the fact that you yourself don't
have any attack ability; Instead, your soccer ball is your weapon. You
must learn to handle it effectively to ward off enemies. There are a few
amusing little tricks you can learn to pull with your ball, and if it
happens to pop or get lost, you have an unlimited number of extra balls
which you can call up at any time by holding down the spacebar for a
moment. The most important "tricks" in your arsenal are kicking the ball
straight up (tap spacebar, then hold the up arrow), and jumping high off
the ball (jump onto the ball, then hold the up arrow as if you were
jumping normally). [Krisalis Software]

Solar Winds: A science-fiction game with everything in the right place:
Great graphics and animation, catchy music, and atmospheric sound
effects. And it features an amazing innovation: A plot! And an interesting
one, at that! Unbelievable! [Epic MegaGames]

Soldier Of Fortune: Another impressive first-person shooter, this one
marked by its hit-modeling system: Enemies show damage where you hit
them, and a shot to the head will do way more damage than one to the
leg. With some of the bigger weapons (like the shotgun), you can even
blow limbs off, leaving a realistic-looking stump. Add this to a *lot* of
excellent weapons and fairly well-designed levels, and you have a quality
shooter for gun lovers. (It's no coincidence that this game bears the same
name as a famous magazine for militants.) [Raven Software/Activision]

Soldier Of Fortune II: Double Helix: SoF2 is the bigger brother of the
original SoF in just about every way. It expands on the original's
strengths by an order of magnitude, while retaining all of its weaknesses.
The plot is utterly incomprehensible and disposable, the levels drag on
too much (both the original and this sequel spend too much time in the
same kind of atmospheres, leading to a sense of repeating environments),
and while the original thrill of blowing off your opposers' limbs and
watching them bleed as they fall is fascinatingly gruesome eye candy at
first, it's so over-the-top that even this gets repetitive before the game is
over. Having said this, the improvements in SoF2 are notable, but
perhaps the most notable of all is the "random level generator" function,
which is exactly what it sounds like: It generates a new, completely
random level each time. This has resulted in nearly endless possibilities
for multiplayer games, and it makes SoF2 a remarkable game for online
deathmatches, perhaps even more so than Return To Castle Wolfenstein
was. SoF2 also has noticeably improved graphics and sound effects; It's
a shame that these graphics are wasted on completely unimaginative
environments. The other noteworthy development in SoF2 is the
improvement in enemy AI, particularly how they handle their grenades;
Like in Half-Life, your opponents are adept at flushing you out of your
hiding spot with a few well-tossed hand grenades, forcing you to stay on
your toes. Like Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Soldier Of Fortune 2 is a
thrilling first-person shooter which makes a passably decent single-person
game, but which really shines when you go multiplayer.
[Activision/Raven Software]

Sonic CD: A cool port of the legendary Sonic The Hedgehog (now
Sega's official mascot and symbolic logo) to the PC. Add a gamepad to
your computer and it'll be just like having a Sega Genesis. [Expert
Software]

Sopwith 3: An amusing little CGA classic. Fly an old plane and bomb
enemy structures. [BMB Compuscience]

South Park: It was bound to happen. The high-riding TV show comes to
your computer, with the mood intact. [Acclaim]

Space Ace

Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge: A very funny game, but for the wrong
reasons. Beginning with absolutely no plot introduction whatsoever, you
are suddenly placed in the middle of a group of attacking aliens, and
must press the Insert key rapidly to kill them all. Then you are eaten by
a large monster after you exit a spaceship. Consisting of transition
sequences so brief and incoherent they make MTV music videos seem
like Shakespeare recitals, this game is good for a few laughs and a
reminder of just how bad even "professional-calibre" software can be.
[ReadySoft]

Space Bunnies Must Die!: A computer game equivalent of a B-movie,
this is a high-octane action shooter featuring weird space monsters and
a not-very-dressed heroine wielding some big guns. [Ripcord]

Space Hulk [Electronic Arts]

Space Hulk: Vengeance Of The Blood Angels [Electronic Arts]

Space Invaders: One of the most recognizable arcade games, even among
those who didn't play video games before the 1980s. The simple shooter
with 5 rows of slowly descending aliens is one of the greatest successes
for the video game industry, both in popularity and fame.

Space Invaders: Another re-make of a classic arcade game, from the
same folks who re-made Centipede, Asteroids, and Battle Zone for
Windows. [Activision]

SPACEWAR: One of the earliest electronic games to ever exist in the
world, SPACEWAR was a simple arcade game (as most of the games of
that era tended to be) in which two players, each controlling a small
spaceship on the screen, would try to shoot each other up. The controls
match those of the better-known arcade classic Asteroids, consisting
entirely of four actions: Rotate clockwise, rotate counterclockwise, apply
rocket thrust, and fire gun. The physics of outer space were complicated
in this game by having a sun in the center of the screen which had a
gravitational effect on the spaceships. Both players had to be careful not
to touch the sun, or they would (of course) die, but the sun was not only
a hazard: It also could be used to your advantage, by using its gravity to
aid your maneuvering (although this took some practice, and for
beginning players it was more often a nuisance than a help).
SPACEWAR was first programmed as a side project at MIT by Steve
"Slug" Russell over a few months from 1961-1962 on the legendary
PDP-1 (considered the world's first minicomputer), where it became an
instant hit and probably was remembered for years to come as the
arcade-game industry grew into a serious business.

Spear Of Destiny: See Wolfenstein 3D 2

Special Forces: A commando-team game which is a lot less tactical than
most such games and much more arcade-ish. This is not necessarily a
bad thing, as long as that's what you're after. The game suffers right off
the top from screens which take way too long to fade out and in, but
once you start playing, it's actually pretty fun, although definitely more
geared toward fun than realism. The graphics look great and lushly
colorful, although the sound is a little thin. (TIP: Use the space bar to
shoot, the plus and minus keys to choose your weapon, F1-F4 to choose
your commando, and PageUp to show the map.) [MicroProse]

Spec Ops: Rangers Lead The Way: Here you get to play the U.S. Army
Rangers, the most revered and feared fighting unit in the world, which
is not only pretty scary for the people you're against, but also for you.
[Ripcord]

Spec Ops II: Green Berets [Ripcord/Zombie]

Spectre VR: A VERY fast-paced science-fiction-type of arcade game
which might best be described as "capture the flag in cyberspace".
[Velocity]

Spider Run 2.1 [Soleau Software]

Spit Wad Willy: An obscure shareware game in which you play the
eponymous Willy, who must shoot spitwads up at bouncing balls in an
effort to get rid of them before they bounce too low to be destroyed.
Villa Crespo liked this game so much that they turned it into a
commercial hit, under the changed name of Pea Shootin' Pete. [Raoul
Said] (Shareware)

Spy Hunter: This was one of the first top-down shooters to exist. It had
a "bumping" twist to it though: Although you could simply shoot your
enemies, you'd get more points for bumping them sideways so they'd go
flying off the road. This, therefore, was your main tactic for dealing with
the bad guys, and the result was that Spy Hunter was an original, fun
game. [Bally Midway]

Spy Vs. Spy

Starfleet Academy: Interplay gave a sneak preview of this game at the
1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Based on that
impressive show and subsequent hype, the game does live up to its
billing as "the most anticipated 3-D space sim of the year (1997)".
Unfortunately, it now also bears the label of biggest disappointment in
recent computer gaming history. It's a cheap arcade-style shoot-em-up.
Who would've thought the Enterprise was so spry? In this game it flies
like an F-16. Even this might not have been so bad if it weren't for the
fact that the graphics are relatively poor. They're not really that bad, but
put them next to virtually any other big-name game of 1997, and they
look like something out of a lame 1990 or 1991 game. If you accept it
for what it is--a cheap and simple arcade game--it's not that bad, but if
you expected anything more, you're out of luck here. [Interplay]

Star Goose: An older but good vertical scolling shooter, with a goose-like
spaceship and some nice behind-the-rear tunnel scenes. [S.Cain and
G.Everett]

Stargunner 1.1: An impressive side-scrolling space shooter, basically an
update of Raptor, rotated 90 degrees. [Apogee]

Star Hammer: A surprisingly good little shareware space shooter which
feels like a top-down Wing Commander, owing to the fact that the
missions mostly consist of a waypoint patrol, during which you tend to
find (and subsequently must destroy) enemy waves of ships. The music
is very nice (although the game seems to have a *very* limited supply
of tunes) and the graphics and sound effects are well-done and
appropriate. The game is a little one-sided, but then, so was Wing
Commander, although Star Hammer lacks the cinematic plot sequences
that strung together the missions in Wing Commander (and which
ultimately are what people really remember about the Wing Commander
games), although Star Hammer does have extremely Wing Commander-
ish launch and landing movies. [Silver Lightning Software; Distributed
by HomeBrew Software] (Shareware)

Starlancer: A game which is clearly influenced in a major way by Wing
Commander, when it doesn't simply steal directly from it. The gameplay,
between-mission screens, and graphics are so similar to Wing
Commander that this might as well be the next game in the WC series.
But the incredible graphics make up for this. [Digital Anvil/Microsoft]

Star Master [Activision]

Star Wars Episode 1: Racer [LucasArts]

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron [LucasArts]

Steeplechase

Steg The Slug: A bizarre, but very creative and fun, combination of
Lemmings and Bubble Bobble. As the eponymous Steg, you must blow
bubbles which will carry slug larvae into their homes so they can grow
into adult slugs. This is harder than it sounds, because the larvae in their
bubbles tend to get blown around a lot, and you must guide them to their
homes without getting them killed, while at the same time keeping an
eye on Steg's energy level so he doesn't die as well. As a sticky slug,
Steg has the ability to climb vertical walls as well as crawl upside-down
from ceilings, which makes for a totally unique platform-style arcade
experience that no arcade gamer should miss. [Codemasters]

Stellar 7 CD [Sierra On-Line]

Stick Soldiers 1.9.1: A frantic-paced stick-figure platform game in which
the goal is simply to be the first player to reach the highest possible rank.
First player to reach this rank wins; If it's you, you win. If it's one of the
computer-controlled players, you lose. You start as a Cadet, with the goal
of becoming a Fragmeister (which is the next highest level above
General; The designers decided to invent a fake "Fragmeister" military
rank as the ultimate goal, but all the others are normal real-world military
ranks). You start off with a basic pistol, and you return to it whenever
you die, so you should try to get a better weapon fairly quickly; These
range from the basic Uzi or AK-47 to the slightly fancier Grenade
Launcher and Sniper Rifle. Although Stick Soldiers is very simple, its
frantic action makes it a good diversion, especially for people who've
always been fond of those brutally violent stick-figure animations. The
official Stick Soldiers homepage is at www.sticksoldiers.tk (Stick
Soldiers has the documentation in MANUAL.RTF, and the
documentation for the somewhat obscure level editor in EDITOR.RTF.)
[Whitespace Unlimited/AdmiralBinary/AntilogicHyper] (Freeware)

Street Fighter PC VGA [Capcom]

Street Fighter 2 PC [Capcom]

Stryx [Psygnosis]

SubSpace [Virgin]

Supaplex: Take a game that's clearly a ripoff of Boulderdash, add a cute
little protagonist who's clearly a ripoff of Pac Man (except that he's red),
and what do you get? You get Supaplex, a fun little game which is
lacking in originality but not in quality. [Dream Factory/Digital
Integration]

Super Golden Axe 2.0: This is the classic, one and only action game
with lots of stuff happening in it. [Sega]

Super Mario Bros.: Hey, everybody knows what this is; It's the cartridge
that came with the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). (The
legendary "warp zones" in SMB are fairly easy to get to, and they sure
make completing the game a lot easier. The first is in world 1-2. If you
jump onto the line of blocks along the top of the screen and continue
walking along it, to the right beyond the end-of-level exit pipe, you'll
come to a warp zone from whence you can go directly to world 2-1, 3-1,
or 4-1. The other two warp zones are both in world 4-2. The first, which
can be reached by walking on the top-level blocks just as in world 1-2,
will take you to world 5-1. The other is tricker: After you've passed the
first elevator lift, take a look at the three bricks standing by themselves.
You need to jump up and hit the leftmost one, which will then
conveniently sprout a vine. To aid you in this, there are four hidden coin
blocks underneath the brick blocks, which you must jump up into to
reveal. You may find it easiest to hit the "vine block" if you do not
reveal the coin block directly underneath it. Once the vine has been
revealed, you can climb it to the second warp zone, which leads to
worlds 6-1, 7-1, and 8-1.) [Nintendo]

Super Pong '95: A good Windows clone of the first electronic game,
Pong. Great for video game history buffs. (Download from The Internet
as specified under Particular Downloads, below.)

Super Tetris: A minor variation on Tetris, marked chiefly by the fact that
with every line cleared, you get a few bombs to remove some blocks
from the playing field. [Sphere/Spectrum Holobyte]

Sword Of The Samurai [MicroProse]

Tapper: A very old classic from the arcade game days... You play a
bartender who must serve up drinks quickly to an ever-increasing throng
of people. An original gameplay concept, nice graphics and music, and
an ever-increasingly-fast pace keeps this game fun and challenging.
[Bally Midway]

Task Force: Old Apple IIgs game (though one of the later ones by the
GS' standards), play one of two FBI agents shooting up bad guys in five
major cities of the USA. (If you're playing this in XGS-DOS, the Right
Alt key will toggle player 1 standing/crouching, and Left Alt will make
him fire. Player 2 can be made to stand/crouch by pressing
BACKSPACE, and to fire by pressing ENTER. For either player, press
the STAND/CROUCH key and the FIRE key simultaneously to change
your weapon, assuming you have other weapons. Player 1 moves around
using the Q, W, E, A, D, Z, X, and C keys, and uses S to stop moving.
Player 2 is supposed to be movable using the numeric keypad, but this
does not seem to work. On the pre-mission screen where you're viewing
the mission briefings, use the "move left" and "move right" keys to select
a city, and press FIRE to play a mission in the currently-selected city.)
[Brittanica]

Taxi Run [Soleau Software]

TechnoVenture: A virtually perfect platform arcade game that
successfully makes itself into a semi-adventure game with the emphasis
on interaction with characters and objects around you, rather than simply
shooting things. The graphics and sound effects are crisp and pleasing,
and perhaps coolest of all, TechnoVenture comes with a map editor so
you can make your own worlds to jump and explore through. The plot
is both cliche and seemingly incomplete (basically, you're a robot who
suddenly has to save the world for some odd reason), but everything else
about this game is good, including the fact that it was made freeware on
July 21, 2001. The official homepage is at
http://members.tcq.net/~benmarty/TechnoVenture.html [Ben Marty]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game [Konami]

Tempest 2000: An update of the old classic shoot-em-up arcade game
that made Asteroids look mellow. [Interplay]

Terminal Velocity: A semi-flight simulator with impressive graphics but
gameplay which gets boring pretty quick. Nice combat action, though.
Get this game from Game Empire 2 CD. [3D Realms/Terminal Reality]

Terminator II: Judgement Day

Terracide [Eidos]

Terra Nova [Looking Glass Studios]

Tetrinet 1.13: A cool version of Tetris which lets you play games against
other people over the Internet. This can be addictive. [St0rmCat]

Tetris: Alexey Pajitnov's immortal Russian classic. If you've been
playing arcade games for any length of time, you have probably heard of
Tetris. It's deceptively simple: Little pieces of stuff fall down your
screen. You have to get them to fit together. One of the most widely-
copied game concepts ever. [Spectrum Holobyte/Sphere]

Tetris 2: As those who made this game put it: Imagine doing a jigsaw
puzzle in a minefield, with a gun pointed at your head. If that sounds
like fun, you don't need help. You need Tetris 2.

Tetris Gold

Tetris Trio

Tetris Classic

The 3 Stooges: An old game, but still lots of fun, especially for anyone
who happens to like The 3 Stooges. [Cinemaware]

The Adventures Of Dianalee In The Lost Temple Of The Aztecs (a.k.a.
"Dianalee" for short): A simple platform arcade game; Although it
alleges "If you like [Commander] Keen you'll like this", Dianalee lacks
the charm and personality that Commander Keen brought to all his
games. There are three episodes of this game, and only the first one is
shareware. (The protagonist is modeled after Bill Loraine's own wife,
Diana Lee Loraine.) [Bill Loraine/Menlor Inc.] (Shareware)

The Amazing Spiderman: An interesting platform-style game which gives
you the ability to walk on walls and ceilings and shoot spider web
strands to climb to places. [Empire]

The Blues Brothers [Titus]

The Blues Brothers 2: Jukebox Adventures [Titus]

The Bugs Bunny Hare-Brained Adventure: A small old CGA game
where you play Bugs Bunny, who goes through a big castle and
eventually gets out. Amusing, but rather unoriginal. [Hi Tech
Expressions]

The Catacomb Abyss (CATABS): Similar to Wolfenstein 3D, but with
poorer graphics. Still a good horror game, however. Truly the
predecessor to Wolfenstein, which has been incorrectly crowned the first
first-person shooter for the PC. Get this game from Gamefest CD or
Gamefest 2 CD.

The Crow: City Of Angels [Acclaim]

The Godfather [U.S. Gold]

The Great War

The Humans: A blatant rip-off of Lemmings, but this game (which uses
cavemen) is so good that its complete lack of originality is forgivable.
[Gametek]

The Humans 2 [Gametek]

The Humans 2 Add-On: Insult To Injury [Gametek]

The Humans 3 [Gametek]

The Hunt For Red October [Grandslam]

The Immortal: An old diagonal-down arcade/RPG with good graphics for
its time and very, very difficult gameplay. [Electronic Arts]

The Lost Vikings: A console-style platformer which skillfully blends
puzzles with mindless arcade fun, while mixing in plenty of good
presentation (great graphics, smooth animation, catchy music, and
effective sound effects). It's not easy, but it sure is fun to play. This was
one of the first platformers to be specifically intended for PC release.
[Interplay]

The Lost Vikings 2: Norse By Norsewest: It is odd that after the success
of The Lost Vikings, its sequel has been almost unheard of. However, be
assured that it is basically the same great gameplay we saw in The Lost
Vikings, and people who enjoyed the first game should enjoy this sequel
just as much. [Interplay]

The Punisher [Paragon/Microprose]

The Rocketeer: Based on the Disney movie of the same name, this game
basically has you playing the Rocketeer.

The Simpsons: The Arcade Game

The War In Heaven: A Christian Action Game

The War Of The Worlds [GT Interactive]

The Wheel Of Time: Another first-person shooter based on the Unreal
engine, this one with a rather magic-oriented slant to it, recalling Heretic
in an age when Duke Nukem-style settings are more common. [GT
Interactive]

Thexder: A platform arcade game which was supposed to be innovative
because it let you play a humanoid robot who could transform into a
figher jet and back again. Too bad the gameplay was poor and the
graphics somewhat crummy. [Sierra On-Line]

Thexder-The Second Contact: Firehawk [Sierra On-Line]

Thief: The Dark Project: A remarkable approach to the first-person
shooter which relies more on stealth than shoot-em-up action. (It's
actually more of a "first-person sneaker".) A refreshing change of pace
for those jaded by Quake clones. In Thief, every move you make must
be carefully calculated to make sure you don't give your presence away
to some roving guard. Although it hasn't been as hyped as the visual
aspect, sound is just as important as sight. Probably even more so, in
fact, since a guard can hear you no matter what your relative position,
while he can only see you if you're in front of his eyes. You must
remain quiet, always watching your footsteps, and what kind of materials
you're stepping on. (Carpet makes less noise than stone or metal,
obviously.) The guards' footsteps, too, become sounds you must listen
for so you know when they're coming. This makes Thief quite an
immersive experience, as every sound you hear becomes significant, and
every dark corner is a hiding place. It draws you in like no gun-happy
first-person shooter can. (Be aware, however, that although Thief is not
intended to be a horror game, it has some elements of horror, including
some bits which may be too creepy for some players.) (Earlier versions
of Thief were plagued with annoying bugs and stability problems. It is
recommended that you get the latest version, which as of this writing is
1.33. The patch upgrade file is THIEF133.EXE, and can be found on the
Internet.) (Oddly enough, although Thief is a Windows program, it seems
to get thrown out of whack if you happen to have DOS memory drivers
loaded. If your CONFIG.SYS file loads HIMEM or EMM386, this may
cause Thief to blue-screen frequently when missions end, or when
quitting the game. To alleviate this, REM out any lines for HIMEM or
EMM386 in CONFIG.SYS and then reboot before playing Thief.) (While
holy water-infused water arrows are by far your best weapon against the
undead, note that a single arrow will not kill a zombie. The zombie may
fall down temporarily, which may give you enough time to run away
from it, but a zombie is not completely destroyed until its body bursts
into several pieces, which usually takes at least two holy water arrows.)
(You should also know that for all the emphasis the hype has placed on
being able to sneak around castles grabbing loot, the amount of time you
actually spend doing this is quite small. The first mission is like that, but
after that, Thief becomes more story-oriented, with you exploring
underground tunnels and old haunted places. Although Thief is a good
adventure, it must be known that it is, in fact, just that: An adventure,
with a real plot that advances between missions and a fair bit of puzzle
solving. Thief is a good game, but it's not quite what you'd expect from
the hype that propels it: It is NOT a game where you outwit castle
guards, raiding bedrooms and kitchens of their goods; Most of the game
is spent in creepy old caves, fighting undead creatures.) [Eidos]

Thief II: The Metal Age: Although it seems at first to be exactly like its
predecessor (much as Doom 2 was really just the first Doom with new
levels), Thief 2 is a superior game to the first Thief game. It is true that
the engine is exactly the same, and the gameplay controls are wholly
intact. On the technical side, this is still the same old Thief, but The
Metal Age surpasses Thief on possibly the most important aspect of any
first-person shooter: Level design. Thief 2 does away almost entirely with
all the dark dungeon- and cemetary-crawling levels that plagued the first
game, with all their silly zombies and other undead monsters. Although
the goaning zombies occasionally pop up in this game, they are quite
rare, and so the first game's dark, macabre atmosphere (which didn't
quite suit it well) is lightened considerably, although Thief 2 shares much
of the same visual style as the first game. Instead, Thief 2 puts the focus
squarely on what the Thief games really should be about: Skulking
through buildings, knocking out human guards and piling their bodies up
somewhere where others won't see them. The resultant game is what the
first game should have been. Yet although there's nothing particularly
wrong with Thief 2, it doesn't quite feel perfect; A few of the levels drag
on for too long, and generally there's too little variety in them. Also, the
game places rather too much emphasis on fighting mechanical creations.
One might argue that the zombies of the first game have simply been
replaced with these robots; Thief 1 had too many zombies, Thief 2 has
too many robots, and just as the zombies can only be killed with a very
specific weapon (water arrows blessed with holy water), the robots of
Thief 2 can only be killed with either water arrows fired directly into the
gratings on their backs, or with fire arrows, which means they can be
very, very tough to deal with since often you'll find you won't have
enough arrows to deal with them (especially on the insanely difficult last
level of the game). Despite this, if you were looking for first-person
sneaking nirvana and were disappointed in the first Thief... Well, you've
found it here. [Looking Glass Studios/Eidos]

Time Commando [Activision]

Timeline [Eidos]

Tinies: A catchy little puzzler which seems to be very inspired by
Lemmings. [Inline Design]

Titus The Fox

Tomb Raider: The excellent third-person shooter (unusual to have a
third-person game in this age of first-person ones) which features Lara
Croft, the pistol-packing heroine who's been on the front of more than
40 magazines (not all of them even computer-related). In fact, there's a
patch file for Tomb Raider available on the Internet called Nude Raider
(www.nuderaider.com). (I won't explain what it does. Guess.) [Eidos]

Tomb Raider 2: Another excellent gun-blaster with noticeably better
graphics, and plenty of action. [Eidos]

Tomb Raider 3 [Eidos]

Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation [Eidos]

Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness: People sick of the Tomb Raider
franchise were desperately hoping that the series was over when Lara
Croft apparently died at the end of The Last Revelation. No luck, I'm
afraid. In fact, Eidos is planning to release not just one, but several more
games in the Tomb Raider series. Angel Of Darkness is the next one
after The Last Revelation; However, don't groan too loudly just yet.
They're *finally* doing something different with this Tomb Raider game.
That's right, this won't be just the same behind-Lara third-person-shooter
that Tomb Raider has always been. AOD attempts to incorporate an
actual storyline, complete with character interaction and the like, making
it another title in the lengthening list of titles which try to be a shooter,
an adventure, and a role-playing game all in one. Unfortunately, it fails.
Die-hard Tomb Raider fans will want to play it; Anyone else should steer
clear. [Eidos Interactive/Core Design]

Tomb Raider Chronicles [Eidos]

Top Gun (See under Simulation games)

Towering Inferno: Based on the movie in which a skyscraper is burning,
this Atari 2600 game scores points for its original premise: You're a
firefighter who goes into buildings and uses your firehose to douse the
flames. Although this is fun and seems cool at first, there isn't much
variety to the gameplay, and the graphics look ugly, typical of the 2600.
However, it's better than Fire Fighter, the other firefighting game on the
2600. [US Games]

Traffic Department: 2192: A top-down street-hovercraft game in which
you're cast as an officer with the Traffic Department (TD). However,
your duties run far beyond pulling over speeders in this game; The TD
is fighting a massive street gang war, and most of the time your job will
be to shoot up gang hovercraft. The action is quite fast, and the missions
are usually pretty short, but fun. In fact, the missions are so short, and
the storyline (which develops further after every mission) is so long and
involved that you'll spend more time reading dialogue between game
characters than anything else. But the conversation is witty enough, and
the plot interesting enough that that's OK; The good graphics and music
justify it anyway. [Epic MegaGames/Safari Software]

Transland: A never-commercially-released first-person game which is
part first-person shooter, part RPG, and part adventure game with a plot
(think System Shock here). The game was begun by a few programmers
at Origin who were fooling around with making 3D graphics, and later
released as an unfinished freeware project. It contains a wacky sense of
humor, unlike most of Origin's games. [Origin]

Trespasser: Another game with incredible 3D graphics. It's not just a
pretty face, though, it incorporates adventure elements and realistic
controls for a game that truly stands above the usual Unreal/Quake-style
sludge. This is the computer game version of Jurassic Park 2: The Lost
World. [Dreamworks Interactive]

Triplane Turmoil 1.02: A fun little airplane game, it's pretty basic but
still fun. Good graphics and sound. Download it from the official
homepage at http://www.megabaud.fi/~teemut/triplane.html (NOTE: In
a clever design move, Triplane Turmoil will not actually implement your
key definitions if you redefine them. Rather, it stubbornly sticks to the
defaults. Better yet, the defaults are amazingly unintuitive, and since
they're brilliantly omitted from the documentation, they're listed here:
Use TAB to turn on or off the engine thrust, use S to roll (and also to
enter and exit the hanger), use W and X to control your pitch, use 1 for
bombs, and 2 for the machine gun.) [Dodekaedron Squad] (Freeware)

Trolls: A generic platformer based on those Troll toys that were popular
a few years ago... The game itself is filled with a bunch of other kinds
of toys too. [Capstone]

Tron 2.0 1.1 [Monolith Productions/Buena Vista Interactive]

Turoid 1.2: Possibly the best Breakout (ball-and-paddle) clone I've seen.
Not only are the graphics and sound top-notch, but there are several
gameplay additions which make this a whole new ball game. Some great
touches on a worn genre. [Jason Truong]

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter: A highly impressive (and incredibly violent)
actioner which has been brought to the PC from the Nintendo 64.
[Acclaim]

Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil [Acclaim]

Tyrian: Despite being another vertical scrolling shoot-em-up, this is one
of the very finest games of that genre ever, a great classic packed with
action. [Epic MegaGames]

UFO Patrol

Ugh: This game is a surprise: It's actually very good! It mixes addictive
gameplay with nice graphics and atmospheric, but non-instrusive
background music. You're a caveman who flies a primitive caveman
"taxi". Your job is to move people from one cave to another. [Playbyte]

The Ultimate Doom 1.9: This version of Doom includes the sought-after
fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed. [id Software]

Unreal: Yet another in a long line of excellent but stale first-person
shoot-em-ups. But yes, I have to admit, it really is unreal. [GT
Interactive]

Unreal Tournament [Epic MegaGames/GT Interactive]

Unreal Tournament 2003 [Digital Extremes/Atari Games]

Urban Assault [Microsoft]

Urban Chaos: A game about crime in modern-day cities. You play one
of two heroes trying to clean up the chaos. [Eidos/Mucky Foot]

URBAN: The Cyborg Project: Another high-quality freeware game from
the talented culture of developers in the European community, URBAN
is notable mainly for its very, very bloody graphics; When you shoot
unarmored people, their bodies usually split in half or erupt into several
bloody pieces. Armored security personnel don't bleed as much, but they
burn nicely if you hit them with a flamethrower. URBAN's plot is a
direct ripoff of BioForge, but hey, for a free game it's not bad. Get it
from the homepage at http://urban.worldonline.nl/eng [Jonas Borgstrm
and Thomas Nyberg] (Freeware)

Velcro Mind: An utterly original little arcade game concept which is
refresingly simple, well-rendered, and addictive. You control a wheel
with which you must pick up colored balls. The catch: The wheel is
divided into four colored quarters. As you might guess, you must use a
part of the wheel colored the same color as the ball. It gets tougher when
the screen has 50 balls flying around at once. A small freeware gem,
with nice graphics. [Jazz Software] [Freeware]

Vigilance [GT Interactive]

Vinyl Goddess From Mars: A generic platformer, marked only by its
very high frame rate (resulting in unusually smooth animation), and its
protagonist, a woman dressed in an outfit straight out of a B-movie.
[Union Logic/Six Pound Sledge]

Virtua Fighter PC [Sega Entertainment]

Virtua Fighter 2 [Sega Entertainment]

Virus: The Game 1.3: A colorful game for Windows in which you play
a computer virus who must run around sectors of a hard disk (the sectors
form the levels of the game) infecting bytes, while avoiding the anti-virus
program. A clever concept, with some highly fast-paced gameplay.
[DynoTech Software]

Wacko: A cute arcade game featuring a little green alien in a spaceship.
One of the lesser-known full-size arcade games. [Bally Midway]

Wacky Funsters [Tsunami/Accolade]

Wacky Wheels 1.1: Finally, Super Mario Kart comes to the PC. Well,
it's not the same game, but it has the exact same look and feel to it,
other than that it doesn't use the Mario Bros. characters. Good fun, and
nice graphics. [Apogee]

Wall Pipe 2.2 [Soleau Software]

Welltris: Play Tetris in a well. [Spectrum Holobyte/Sphere]

Wetrix: They're still making Tetris variations? Apparently this one's wet.
[Ocean]

Whiplash

Wild Metal Country 1.1 [DMA Design/Gremlin Interactive]

Wild Turkey Hunt [GT Interactive]

Willy The Worm 2.0: A cute and fast game in which you play the title
character, who does a lot of jumping and crawling. [Alan Farmer]

Willy The Worm Part II: The Big Trip Home: An EXTREMELY fast
game, basically (and also non-basically) the sequel to the previous game.
[Alan Farmer]

WinDepth: A Windows remake of the classic arcade game Depth Charge.
Essentially Space Invaders flipped upside down: You control a ship at
the top of the screen which drops depth charges down to hit submarines
in the water. The game is simple, fun, and free. [Bio_100%] (Freeware)

WinFight 0.8: Another Windows quickie game which lets you gunfight
a bad guy on your desktop, at varying skill levels. Fun for those people
who use Windows a lot. [ArteMatica Funny Desktop] [Freeware]

Wing Commander [Origin]

Wing Commander Secret Missions 1 [Origin]

Wing Commander Secret Missions 2 [Origin]

Wing Commander II: Vengeance Of The Kilrathi [Origin]

Wing Commander II Speech Accessory Pack [Origin]

Wing Commander II Special Operations 1 [Origin]

Wing Commander II Special Operations 2 [Origin]

Wing Commander Academy: An addition to the popular Wing
Commander series which just proves what many knew all along: Wing
Commander was all about action, and the plot was filler to make you feel
like you were watching a movie. WC: Academy removed the "plot"
scenes in between battles and simply was nothing but dogfighting in
space. Yet this may have actually been the most playable game of the
series, due to the extreme versatility of being centered around a mission
editor. This game is simply an engine to let you construct your own
space dogfights, and then play them. None are pre-made, and there's no
plot. (This was considered a bold move on Origin's part at the time.)
[Origin]

Wing Commander III: The Heart Of The Tiger [Origin]

Wing Commander IV [Origin]

Wing Commander Armada [Origin]

Wing Commander Privateer CD: A Wing Commander game of an
entirely different color from what we've seen before. Gone are the linear
set of missions which you were assigned and simply completed in order.
Privateer gives you a much, much more non-linear world to explore. In
fact, you're not even a pilot for the military anymore. Basically, you're
a simple merchant who's just out to find some commodities to sell for
profit. (Commodities are easy enough to find, they're sold at the
commodity exchange; It's finding another commodity exchange which
will buy them from you at a higher price than the price you paid for
them which gets tricky.) You can fly anywhere you want, any time you
want. You can buy different ships to tool around in, and you can upgrade
them with better weapons and such. You can also check out the mission
computer and become a mercenary, picking up any missions which
interest you for some extra cash. Interestingly, there's actually a sort of
plot underlying the whole game, but as with the best non-linear games,
you're free to ignore this plot for as long as you feel like, giving you
plenty of time to prepare for it and get used to the world you're
immersed in. And what a world: Privateer has a huge galaxy for you to
explore (over 64 star systems), stunning graphics, nifty sound effects, and
pleasantly atmospheric music which constantly plays in the background.
(Remember, any time you're docked at a station, press C on the
keyboard to bring up the computer console, where you can save/load
games. And press ALT-X to quit.) And remember, if you're going to
choose the life of a pirate, raiding ships for their cargo, you need a
tractor beam to get the cargo they leave behind when you destroy them.
Also, this is the first Wing Commander game in which fuel doesn't come
into account. You basically have infinite capacity to fly around, without
worrying about running out of fuel. (And unlike previous games, in
which your afterburner burned up massive amounts of fuel, it just takes
up some energy in this game, the same energy which your guns use, and
which regenerates constantly.) (Bear in mind that the ship you start the
game with is a Tarsus.) (Oh, and hold out for the Tachyon Cannon early
on. Better yet, hold out for two of them. It's worth the money; They
provide a strong punch, but hardly use much energy.) (And also note that
there are 4 quadrants in the game, but when you start the game, you only
have a map for one of them. You'll need to buy maps for the other 3 at
the SOFTWARE section of the ship dealer's shop before you can do
much navigating in them. You begin the game in the Troy star system,
in the Humboldt quadrant.) (For the cheaters among you, your money
amount is stored at hex locations 2DF, 2E0 and 2E1 in your save file.)
[Origin]

Wing Commander Privateer 2: The Darkening [Origin]

Wing Commander Prophecy [Origin]

Wire Hang Redux: Another of those addictive little Windows games that
doesn't take long to play, but which you end up playing for a long time.
The concept is simple: You play a woman who reaches ever-higher
platforms by firing her "super electromagnetic wire". The trick is to hit
the platform with the wire as you're flying through the air, before you
fall off the bottom of the screen. Fun and free. [Matt Sephton]
(Freeware)

Wizard Of Wor: One of the best games ever made for the Atari 2600,
WOW plays like a cross between Pac Man and Robotron or Berzerk. The
graphics look terrible (it's the 2600, what can you expect?), but the
gameplay is solid. [CBS]

Wizball: A rather weird little arcade game which was released for the
C64 and Amiga (but apparently never in a PC version). You control a
weird green ball (apparently, the eponymous "Wizball") which has a
weird little green face on it that looks like an Ewok. The ball bounces
continually, and you can control the direction it bounces in by changing
the direction it's spinning in, but the direction change only takes effect
the next time it hits the ground (unlike most platform arcade games, you
can't change your trajectory in mid-air), making it a challenge just to
control your movement. You can also shoot little Wiz-bullets sideways.
Overall a fun and very classic game. [Sensible Software/Ocean]

Wolfenstein 3-D (WOLF3D): An incredible smooth-scrolling first-person
maze-running shoot-em-up. This was the game responsible for the
explosion of first-person shooters, at first imitated with clones like Ken's
Labyrinth, and later surpassed by Doom and the like.
  The source code for this game, mostly C with some assembler, is now
available free on the Internet. Note, however, that the source code is only
the code for the WOLF3D.EXE executable file; Wolfenstein 3D gets its
game data from .WL1 files (for the shareware version), .WL6 files (for
the fully registered version), or .WL3 files (for the first three episodes
version). These data files contain the binary code for what the sprites and
textures look like, and for the sound effects. (This is very similar to what
id would do next with Doom, creating the standard WAD file which
contained all the game's binary data in the same way.) Without any of
these data files, the source code will give you the executable game
engine, but no actual game content. [Apogee/id]

Wolfenstein 2: Castle Wolfenstien, Spear Of Destiny

Wordtris: A variation of Tetris in which you try to form words with the
falling letters.

Word Zapper: One of the forgotten arcade classics which you might
remember if you think back. The idea was to shoot the letters scrolling
across the top of the screen in order to spell out a word. It gained a
reputation as educational, too. [Vidtec]

Worms: A cute, funny action-strategy game. It's pitched as "Lemmings
at war", and indeed that describes this game well. It actually deserves
some of the comparisons it's getting to Lemmings, it rivals that game for
playability. Instead of saving your little guys, you try to destroy the other
team. The gameplay isn't TERRIBLY original (it's basically a cross
between Scorched Earth-type games and Lemmings), but at least that's
something we haven't seen before. [Team 17/Ocean]

Worms: Reinforcements (also known as Worms Plus or Worms+) [Team
17/Ocean]

Worms 2: They're baaaaack!!! The little pink guys are coming around
again for another awesome game that's part arcade and part strategy.
[Team 17/Ocean]

Worms Armageddon

Wrath Of Earth (WOE): A sophisticated post-Doom clone with awesome
graphics and a few adventure elements (most notably an inventory)
thrown in. Get this game from Game Empire Volume II CD. [Transend]

Xatax [Pixel Painters]

X-COM: UFO Defense [Microprose]

X-COM 2: Terror From The Deep [Microprose]

X-COM 3: Apocalypse [Microprose]

Xenophage: Alien Bloodsport: A Mortal Kombat-style fighting game,
laced with Apogee's usual enthusiasm for action. [Apogee]

X-Men

XQUEST: A terrific remake of the old Macintosh/Apple II classic game
Crystal Quest. This version is quite similar, but with a few nice
improvements, like larger arenas and special bonuses. In addition, the
manual is extremely funny and remarkably well-written, deserving to be
read even if you don't play the game. Get this game from Game Empire
Volume II. [Mark (Atomjack) Mackey]

XQUEST 2: Yes, XQUEST is back, although this is more of a version
2.0 than a sequel. Three new monsters and two new powerups. [Mark
(Atomjack) Mackey]

Yars' Revenge: One of the greatest underdog games for the Atari 2600,
Yars' Revenge scores big for being totally original in concept and
gameplay, being a lot of fun, and looking not half-bad (by Atari 2600
standards, anyway). You control a bizarre-looking bug that seems to be
some kind of science-fiction mosquito, and you must attack a machine
on the right side of the screen that's protected by a shield. You need to
break down the shield piece by piece by shooting at it. It's a simple
game and it might not hold your interest for too long, but hey, how many
games let you play a cyborg mosquito? [Atari]

Zaxxon: The mother of all shoot-em-ups, this is another great classic in
which you have to fly a spaceship over a lot of brick walls. Also, there's
some shooting at stuff. [Sega]

Zephyr

Zombie Wars (The sequel to Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage) [Gee
Whiz! Entertainment]

Zone 66: A particularly good overhead shoot-em-up with some of the
best presentation I've seen and very, very intense gameplay. The music
is surprisingly good, better than you'd expect from an arcade game.
Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly), it was one of the first games
to be made almost entirely by demosceners (people involved in the
"demo scene", the underground computer world of demo-making, which
often consists mostly of neat graphical effects done in a small little
display hack). Zone 66 was actually programmed by two members of
Renaissance, the legendary North American demogroup. "Tran" (real
name: Thomas Pytel) used his own 386 protected-mode extender, pmode,
on the game. Unfortunately, the extender was an early version, and it
(and therefore, Zone 66) is incompatible with anything higher than a 486.
Pity. [Epic MegaGames]

Zong 1.20: Possibly the best straight Breakout clone. Noteworthy
graphics, and very pleasant music accompanies gameplay (most of these
kinds of games lack music). The gameplay is the same, but that's to be
expected, I suppose. (See Turoid for a gameplay-innovative game of this
genre.) [ZenSoft]

Zool [Gremlin Graphics]

Zool 2 (NOTE: Zool 2 uses the numeric keypad's cursor keys, and the
keypad's ENTER key as the fire button. The normal cursor keys and
ENTER key will not work with it.) [Gremlin Graphics]

Zoop: This surprisingly popular game is a limited arcade shooter which
is interesting the first time you play it, but not the second time. [Viacom
New Media]

ZPC (Zero Population Count): This is one of those products that comes
along once in a while that just makes you stop and wonder. At the first
glance, ZPC seems like another over-the-top violent shooter, with a
nihilistic bent that matches that of the infamous Postal; ZPC even has a
KPM (Kills Per Minute) meter to let you know just how fast you're
killing. But the underlying plot here is so bizarre that it places ZPC in
a whole other dimension, far removed from the simple "angry guy goes
on a shooting spree" that was Postal. In ZPC, you are cast as Arman, a
character who is rather obviously modeled on Jesus Christ, although I
don't remember Jesus being quite this violent. In the world of ZPC, a
suffering underclass of people (known simply as the Survivors), afflicted
by disease, hunger, and an evil organization known as the Black
Brethren, are your people. In essence, you are the son of their god, and
(more relevant to this game), their messiah, their savior. But while Jesus
saved the people by dying for them, Arman decides to deal with things
the opposite way: He kills everybody else. In ZPC, your goal is to kill
everyone but the Survivors; You'll see plenty of Survivors in the game,
who usually react to your presence by wailing or begging you for
something, but there's not much you can do with them. Sadly, although
the object of the game is to save them, the best help you can offer them
is to put them out of their misery. Everyone else, however, is fair game,
and there are plenty of bad guys in this game, from the ubiquitous foot
soldiers (who look remarkably like Nazi soldiers), through a variety of
other deranged bad guys, to the Black Brethren themselves. If someone
isn't a Survivor, it's your goal to kill them, and this is where the
maniacal kill-everything gameplay comes in. The plot of ZPC alone
makes it a remarkable (if not necessarily a good) game, but there are
other things to distinguish it. Most notable are the graphics, which are
done by some talented comic book artists and made in typical overdone
(and ridiculously, cartoonishly violent) comic book fashion. The twisted
comic-book caricatures, combined with the brutal violence crate a
generally surral, psychotic feel that reflects the attitude of the game
perfectly. ZPC is one of those artistic works that doesn't try to be a
better shooter than Quake or better-looking than anything, but it's weird
enough that it does make you pause and think for at least a few
moments; And ultimately, maybe that's what the designers intended.
[Zombie/GT Interactive]

ZZT 3.2: Epic's counter-blow to Apogee's Kroz, this is a very similar
text-based arcade game; Which game is better boils down to personal
preference. [Epic MegaGames]

Board/Traditional/Card/Casino/Gambling:

3D Pinball

3D Ultra Pinball [Sierra On-Line]

3D Ultra Pinball 2: Creep Night [Sierra On-Line]

3D Ultra Pinball 3: The Lost Continent [Sierra On-Line]

3D Ultra Pinball 4: NASCAR Pinball [Sierra On-Line]

Acrophobia 1.5: A popular Internet game in which people are given a set
of letters, after which they make an acronym from them. Everyone votes
on the best acronym, and the one with the most votes wins. Simple but
good fun. [Bezerk/Sierra On-Line]

Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island [Electronic Arts]

Amarillo Slim Dealer's Choice

Austin Powers: Operation Trivia [Sierra On-Line]

Avery Cardoza's Casino [Cardoza Entertainment]

Balls Of Steel: Hmmm, if you played Duke Nukem 3D, you might
remember this pinball game there. [GT Interactive]

Battle Chess VGA (or EGA): Tired of boring old chess, with those dumb
little pieces that just sit there? Bring chess to life with Battle Chess!
Pieces walk around the board in full animation, but the real neat part is
when a piece captures another. Animated fighting takes place! [Interplay]

Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess: Chess with Chinese rules. A whole new
ball game! All-new Battle Chess animations, too! [Interplay]

Battle Chess CD-ROM Enchanced [Interplay]

Battlechess 4000: Battle Chess with a futuristic twist. It's basically like
the first Battle Chess, except it uses science-fiction pieces (aliens, robots,
etc.) instead of Medieval ones. The graphics, animations, and sound are
all top-notch, though. (To set the computer's playing strength, choose
"Set time" from the Special menu, or press ALT-T. From there, you can
choose two categories of play style: "Strong" (which will let you set the
computer's thinking time and style), or "Weak" (which will let you
choose from 10 varying levels of weakness).) [Interplay]

Battleship [Hasbro Interactive]

Beat The House

Boggle CD-ROM

Bridge By Hoyle: A cute, animated bridge game with full speech and
your choice of 11 characters to play against. Works particularly well for
those who've never played bridge before. [Sierra On-Line]

Bridge Deluxe II With Omar Sharif [Interplay]

Bridge Master

Casino Deluxe 2 [Sierra On-Line]

Checkmate

Chessmaster 2000 [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 2100 [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 3000 For DOS [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 3000 For Windows [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 4000 Turbo [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 5000 [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 5500 [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 6000: The finest chess program in the world. Has long been
the standard for chess. [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 7000 [Mindscape]

Chessmaster 8000 [Mattel Interactive]

Chessmaster 9000 [Ubisoft]

Chessmeister (Also Chessmaniac) 5 Billion And 1: The only chess game
besides Battle Chess that does animation. Definidely crude, rude, and
lewd.

Computer Third Reich

Corel Chess [Corel]

Corel Wild Board Games [Corel]

CrossWise: A fast, professional-level Scrabble game which has won the
international Computer Olympiad at Scrabble twice. [Cygnus Cybernetics
Corporation]

Dr. Thorp's Mini-Blackjack

Eight Ball Deluxe 2.0 [AMTEX Software]

Empire Deluxe

Epic Pinball: Unquestionably the definitive standard for pinball, or at
least it used to be. Still among the best pinball collections for the PC.
[Epic MegaGames]

Extreme Pinball [Electronic Arts]

Family Feud: A CGA computer incarnation of the TV game show. It
actually works fairly well, although the limited question set runs out
quickly. [The Family Company/Sharemedia]

Full Tilt! Pinball [Maxis]

Full Tilt 2 [Maxis]

FunHouse [AMTEX Software]

Galapagos: Mendel's Escape

Game Of Life [Hasbro]

Go Junior

Go Master 5.0

Grand Slam Bridge II

Hoyle Casino [Sierra On-Line]

Hoyle Classic Board Games [Sierra On-Line]

Hoyle Classic Card Games [Sierra On-Line]

Hoyle's Book Of Games 1 [Sierra On-Line]

Hoyle's Book Of Games 2 [Sierra On-Line]

Hoyle's Book Of Games 3 [Sierra On-Line]

Hoyle's Book Of Games Classic [Sierra On-Line]

Hoyle Casino For Windows [Sierra On-Line]

Hyper 3D Pinball

IRC Chess 1.20: A basic little freeware chess program which lets you
play with other people over the Internet. [Chimera Software]

Jeopardy! [GameTek]

Jones In The Fast Lane CD [Sierra On-Line]

Kasparov's Gambit: You don't get to be world champion overnight; it
may take you a couple weeks. Or maybe even less than that, if you have
Kasparov's Gambit on your game shelf. It was one of the first chess
games (and to this day, one of the ONLY chess games) to offer full-
motion video. In this case, it was World Champion Garry Kasparov
himself, offering you advice and commentary as the game progressed. It
also had a wide variety of computer opponents, rated on various strengths
and weaknesses. [Electronic Arts/Heuristic Software]

Keeping Up With Jones [Sierra On-Line]

Laser Chess: A popular takeoff on chess, quite old (has its roots in a
game for pre-PC microcomputers), and still widely available today in
many different games, all of which use the exact same name, and thus
are hard to distinguish. Essentially, in Laser Chess, most of your pieces
are mirrors of various styles, but the second-most important piece on the
board (second only to the king, who functions very much like the king
in normal chess) is the laser. The goal of Laser Chess is to set up your
mirrors in such a way that you can bounce your laser beam into your
opponent's king, thus destroying it. Truly an interesting concept, and a
great board game.

Leisure Suit Larry's Casino [Sierra On-Line]

Living Ball: A bizarre pinball-style game with a twist: The pinball tables
are enormous, spanning many, many screenfuls. The result is that this
game ends up taking on a whole new style, a "pinball's journey" type of
game rather than just another pinball clone. Unfortunately, most of the
pinball tables are not that interesting, so it ends up being another boring
game with an original concept but poor execution. [Bitwise]

Lose Your Marbles: An addictive puzzle game, which comes with a
money-back guarantee if it's not better than Tetris! [SegaSoft]

Lucky's Casino Adventure

Macadam Bumper: A very good pinball game which is notable for its
rather unique feature of letting you create and save your own pinball
tables to play on. This is no doubt a ripoff of EA's classic Pinball
Construction Set, but Macadam Bumper has vastly superior graphics and
gameplay to PCS, making it the game to get if you want to make your
own pinball machines. [ERE Informatique/PSS]

Masque Video Poker

Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess

Micro Bridge Companion

Milles Bornes: The classic French racing car card game comes to the PC.
A great conversion which lets you play against the computer or another
human. [TEGL]

Monopoly CD-ROM [Hasbro Interactive]

Monopoly Deluxe

Monopoly Star Wars

Night Mission Pinball 3.0: Yes, it really is a game from subLogic that's
not a flight simulator (although it is set in an airport, at night). It's a
pretty decent pinball game, too. [subLogic]

Omar Sharif On Bridge [Interplay]

Operation [Hasbro Interactive]

Pictionary

Pinball Construction Set [Electronic Arts]

Power Chess 98 [Sierra On-Line]

Pretty Good Solitaire 3.97.0: A collection of literally dozens of popular
(and not-so-popular) solitaire games for Windows. Enough to satisfy even
the most hard-core solitaire card player. [Goodsol Development/Thomas
Warfield]

Pro Pinball: Timeshock! [Empire Interactive]

Pro-Pinball [Interplay]

Protec 1.06: A computer-themed pinball game... Score a 386, then go for
auto-boot or the mega-million! [Wilfried Lottermoser]

Psycho Pinball [Philips]

Ripley's Believe It Or Not! [Sierra Studios]

Risk: The Game Of World Domination [Hasbro Interactive]

Royal Flush [AMTEX Software]

Sargon I [Activision]

Sargon II [Activision]

Sargon III [Activision]

Sargon IV [Activision]

Sargon V [Activision]

Scotland Yard: A faithful computer recreation of the classic board game,
with beautiful SVGA graphics and intact gameplay. It also includes a
"computer enhanced" version which adds detective-style elements to the
game. Single-player mode against the computer, multi-player mode, and
TCP Internet play are all supported. [Cryo Interactive]

Scrabble CD-ROM [Hasbro Interactive]

Scrabble Deluxe

ScrabOut: The best shareware clone of Scrabble I've seen. It's a
Windows game with pretty decent graphics and a good dictionary of
words. [Lance Frohman]

Shuffle Puck Cafe: A really cute, old game of air hockey. You play
against various strange creatures in a cafe. [Broderbund]

Silverball

Solitaire Antics

Solitaire's Journey [QQP]

Sorry! [Hasbro Interactive]

Star Trek Pinball [Interplay]

Star Wars Chess

Strategic Video Poker

Stratego

Take A Break! Crosswords Deluxe [Sierra On-Line]

Take A Break! Pinball [Sierra On-Line]

The Fool's Errand [Cliff Johnson/Miles Computing]

The Real Deal

The Real Deal 2: 17 Classic Card Games

Tristan Pinball [AMTEX Software/LittleWing]

Trivial Pursuit CD-ROM Edition [Hasbro Interactive]

Trump Castle

Trump Castle 2

Ultimate Baccarat 3.0 [Accidental Software] (Shareware)

Ultimate Blackjack 3.0 [Accidental Software] (Shareware)

Ultimate Craps 1.4 [Accidental Software] (Shareware)

Ultimate Gin 2.0 [Accidental Software] (Shareware)

Ultimate Poker 1.30 [Accidental Software] (Shareware)

Ultimate Roulette [Accidental Software] (Shareware)

V For Victory: Utah Beach

V For Victory: Velikiye Luki

V For Victory: Market Garden

V For Victory: Gold : Juno: Sword:

VGA Concentration: For some reason PC versions of the classic memory
game "concentration" seem to be rare. This is a pretty good one, with
nice graphics and music. [Alive Software] [Shareware]

Wheel Of Fortune [GameTek]

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire [Disney Interactive]

Wild Board Games [Corel]

Wild Cards [Corel]

WordsWorth: A Scrabble game for Windows with a fairly basic feature
set, and ugly graphics. [Graham Wheeler]

World Empire II Deluxe: An excellent shareware computer version of the
classic board game Risk. It works particularly nicely for people who've
never played Risk before. Get this game from Gamefest CD under the
name of "World Empire" in the browsing program.

Car Sims:

4-D Sports Driving 1.1: A high-tension stunt car game from the same
folks who brought you 4D Boxing. This game gives you 6 people to race
against, a lot of different cars, and a course editor to make your own
screaming tracks. This is probably the most revered driving game ever
made, but you have to play it for a while to really understand why. At
first glance, it doesn't seem particularly impressive, as the graphics are
rather flat and boring. But the game's real strength lies in the style of its
tracks. As you might guess, these aren't just plain, flat courses; They're
mostly stunt courses, with loops, corkscrews, and ramps. This wild style
of racing, combined with the excellent course editor which lets you freely
trade track files with other players, the wide variety of cars you have to
choose from (more than most racing games, and with significant
differences in handling, too), and a similarly good replay function add up
to quite a strong game. [Broderbund/Distinctive Software Inc.]

Al Unser, Jr. Arcade Racing CD

Ambulance Driver [ValuSoft/Antidote Entertainment]

Andretti Racing [Electronic Arts]

Beetle Buggin' [Infogrames North America]

Bill Elliott's Nascar Challenge [Konami]

Car And Driver: Ten of the hottest muscle cars in existence, ten quite
different tracks well-suited for many different aspects of racing, and
reviews on all of them by one of the most respected car magazines
published today. Plus, of course, the chance to *race* any of those cars
on those tracks, in a game made by Looking Glass Technologies, the
same company which would later score a big hit with their signature
computer game System Shock. Although this game has nice SVGA
graphics and music that's pleasant without being obtrusive, the game
lacks a real feeling of speed. Going 5 mph seems almost as fast as going
200. Still, the love of driving is evident in many aspects, like the wide
variety of courses available: Instead of trying to provide the most curvy,
difficult, or impressive tracks to drive on, the game has locations
providing for variety of driving experiences, including some places most
driving games don't simulate, like a parking lot and a drag strip. The
other thing that makes Car And Driver unique is its excellent in-game
commentary on all the cars and tracks available. Unlike most games,
which simply plop you down on the pavement in a shiny new vehicle,
Car And Driver actually has fairly in-depth information about just what
makes each car and course tick. You might even learn a thing or two
about driving as you read the text. And how many driving games have
a G-force meter? The car handling feels good, too. Overall a unique
driving game that's well worth taking a look at, whether you're a car
enthusiast or just looking for a quick race. [Looking Glass
Technologies/Electronic Arts]

Carmageddon: The Racing Game For The Chemically Imbalanced:
Computer games have gotten more violent lately. People apparently like
to unwind by pretending to kill other people on a computer screen. It's
a sure-fire way to relieve stress after a hard day at work. And people
don't want just death: They want blood. Lots of it. (See Rise Of The
Triad under Arcade/Action Games for more on this.) And if you hate
stop-and-go driving, you'll *love* this game, because it is the only
racing game I know of in which the object is not really to win a race, but
instead to hit other cars, and, even more importantly, pedestrians. Sound
twisted? Trust me, it is. Don't let this game fall into the hands of your
children or you'll regret it for the rest of your life, but if you're like most
people, there are certain things you'd like to do with your car, but can't.
If so, this game is for you. [Interplay]

Carmageddon 2: Capocalypse Now [Interplay]

Carmageddon 3 [Interplay]

Carmageddon Add-On: Splat Pack

Carmageddon TDR 2000: The third Carmageddon game is a bit of a
departure from the tone of the previous games. For starters, there's
actually a sort of a plot going on here, although it doesn't go much
beyond "you live in a destroyed city and must race to survive". But this
Carmageddon game really is different: It alternates between the race-
based tracks of the previous games, and mission-based tracks where you
must complete a specific goal to advance to the next track. Whether this
is a welcome addition or not depends on who you are, but I enjoyed it
to a reasonable extent. You no longer run over normal humans, since
there are none left; Rather, the world is full of mutant zombies, and their
huge purple bodies and spraying green blood are so surreal that, like the
previous Carmageddon games, the violence feels ridiculous rather than
brutal. There's also quite an interesting soundtrack to this game (two
bands called Utah Saint and Plague (ah, modern music) were actually
hired to do the game's music), although it's rather repetitive, and seems
to be filled with various odd schizophrenic mumblings; Playing
Carmageddon TDR 2000 may well drive you insane, but then, a lot of
fans of this series are probably already nuts in the first place anyway.
[Torus Games/SCI Software]

CART Precision Racing [Microsoft]

Crazy Cars [Cistar/Titus]

Crazy Cars 2 [Cistar/Titus]

Crazy Cars III: A *very* fast-paced race game in which you drive a
Lamborghini Diablo against police and BMW-looking cars. (See also
Lamborghini American Challenge.) [Cistar/Titus]

Destruction Derby 2 [Psygnosis]

Driver 6.3w: A novel twist to the driving category: A racing game with
a plot. You are a criminal who spends a lot of time running from the
police. Rather than racing to the finish line, your job is usually to lose
the police cars tailing you. The action unfolds in major cities like Los
Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Miami. It adds a fresh
concept to a now-worn genre.
  There's not much fancy about Driver's gameplay, but the gameplay is
so much fun that it doesn't matter. Driving like a nut case to avoid the
police when they're chasing you, while quietly following the laws to
keep them pacified when they're not, is great fun. Because it was ported
from the PlayStation to the PC, Driver has a somewhat console-ish feel
with absolutely no mouse use anywhere in the game, and the graphics
also sometimes take on that subtle-but-distinctive look of graphics that
have been ported from the PlayStation, but that's not to say they look
bad. On the contrary, one of the nicest things about Driver is that it not
only looks really good, the cities all look exactly as they should: Miami
looks bright and sunny, San Francisco looks cultured and hilly, Los
Angeles (in which it's always nighttime--Driver doesn't simulate L.A.
during the day) is full of bright lights and night-life hangouts, and New
York City looks weathered and gray. The design of the city maps is
good, too: They're pretty large and fun to drive around in, although
they're a bit unrealistically grid-like in their form: All streets intersect at
90-degree angles. This doesn't detract from them except in terms of
realism, though. Of course, there are some obligatory famous sights to
see in each city: In San Francisco you'll see the Golden Gate Bridge and
Coit Tower, in New York City you might have to make a stop at Grand
Central Station, and Los Angeles has... Err, the Santa Monica Freeway
and LAX (the L.A. airport).
  The controls could be easier to handle, and the police AI is
inconsistent; At times, the police seem too good, at other times they
blunder around without any apparent idea of how to drive. The game's
main problem is the somewhat uniform structure of the missions: Like
Grand Theft Auto, Driver's missions mainly take the form of "Drive
from point A to point B before X time limit". Also, many have found
Driver to be way too hard to play; Personally, I found that once you get
used to the game's physics, handling the cars is not that bad (you just
need to get used to using your handbrake to amplify your turns, and turn
off the game's stupid "Auto Handbrake" option). There's no multiplayer
in Driver, and although the game has a really awesome movie-director
mode in which you can replay and edit recordings of car-chase scenes
you've driven, the ability to save the results of this as MPEG (or some
other video format) files would have been a truly awesome feature; As
it is, video playbacks can only be viewed in the game, stored in the
game's own proprietary playback format. Also, while it's interesting to
have a driving game with a plot, the plot is sorely lacking in
development or coherence. Even so, Driver is a completely new and
untouched kind of driving game which stands on its own as a game
which is really all about the driving (as opposed to all the Grand Theft
Auto ripoffs, which, like GTA, feature too much on-foot action). And
best of all, it's tons of fun.
  (A few notes on avoiding the police in Driver:
  The higher your Felony level, the higher the number of police cars
chasing you at once (although the total number of active police cars
never seems to go above 4). At the lowest level, only one car will be
chasing you. You may actually want to keep this car close behind,
because if you lose it, another one will be randomly re-spawned nearby,
and it may be in front of you, which is worse than having a pursuing car
behind you. So if you keep just the one car behind you, it's the only car
you'll have to worry about (unless your Felony level goes up).
  Speaking of police cars in front of you, when they are in this position,
they usually try the simplest and most direct tactic: They pull a
kamikaze, driving straight into you, causing a head-on collision.
Although a police officer would probably never actually do this in real
life (even in hot pursuit), in this game it's what they always do. If they
succed, you will usually lose control of your car and smash into
something, increasing your Felony level even higher and getting even
more cop cars on your back. So when a car in front tries to hit you head-
on, be ready to dodge. The only thing you can do is swerve to one side
and hope it misses.
  Keep an eye on the small map display, because it shows police cars,
meaning you will see where they are on the map before you will actually
be able to see them on the street.
  Avoid having your Felony level reach the top at all costs. When it gets
there, police become much more wild; Cop cars behind you will drive
much faster, rear-ending you and causing a lot of damage. Speaking of
your Felony level, be aware that using your hand-brake is a no-no. Even
if you are at a complete stop, tapping the hand-brake control will
instantly get a cop car on your tail if there is one nearby. In real life,
police have no magic device to detect when someone pulls their hand-
brake, but in the game apparently they do, so never use it when a police
car is nearby (unless it is already chasing you). (Actually the same is true
for the burn-out key, but that makes a little more sense since police
aren't too fond of it in real life either.) Also note that once a police car
is chasing you, hitting it does not raise your Felony level. However,
hitting anything else (not only other cars, but also walls and posts) will
increase it dramatically. Thus, avoid hitting things as much as possible
when you are being pursued. In fact, it's often better to let a police car
hit you then to try and wildly dodge it, because if you dodge in a tight
space you'll probably hit something else. This will increase your Felony
level and probably make things worse than if you'd just taken a bit of
damage from the cop car bumping you. If you're in a fairly open space
with room to move around, go ahead, but if you're boxed in, sudden
moves tend to be counter-productive.
  In a multi-part mission, your Damage and Felony levels are retained
from stage to stage of the mission. Thus, it sometimes pays off to keep
the police from tailing you, even if you are close to the end of this leg
of the mission. Always try to keep them from giving chase; Even if you
seem safe for now, you never know exactly how long the mission is (and
some of them are pretty long), and you may still have a long trip ahead
of you on the next part.
  Because you usually start off with the police not chasing you, it's
almost always best to try avoid getting their attention in the first place.
Thus, when you're near a cop car, don't speed, don't hit anything, don't
pull any funny moves, and get out of its sight as quickly as possible.  
Learn to use your burn out and hand brake keys effectively. These are
ways of introducing strategic amounts of skid in your wheels, helping
you to turn faster (since a skidding rear end on your car tends to spin
you around faster than your steering ever could). The burn out is only
effective at relatively low speeds, while the hand brake is most useful at
higher speeds. However, the most important thing to remember about
these two tools is, don't over-use them. It is all too easy to be over-
enthusiastic with the hand brake when you are going into a turn, causing
you to spin completely out of control and often facing the opposite
direction you intended to be going in. As for the burn out, only use it
when your car is going straight forward, and not being pushed to either
side (in other words, when there are no lateral (sideways) G-forces on it),
unless you are using it to deliberately spin to a new direction. Burning
out at low speed when you are under lateral G-force is an excellent way
to lose control in a hurry.
  At first, having two keys for accelerating and two for braking may be
confusing, but with some practice, you will find they actually make
things easier because they give you more control over your car.
  Not every turn requires using the handbrake. Just easing up on the gas
pedal will alleviate a lot of understeer, because when you have the gas
pedal down, the front of your car tends to rise due to acceleration, which
makes your front wheels (the ones you use for steering) less effective;
Releasing the gas cures this. Of course if you're going at 80 MPH you'll
probably need more than that, so go ahead and hit the handbrake.
  Be aware that the highways aren't always the best way to get where
you're going, because many of them are long stretches with no exits
nearby. If you get caught on such a stretch with a police car nearby, it's
very difficult to get away if the car is pursuing you, and very difficult to
avoid the car from seeing you if it's not. Since most of the missions have
very short time limits, you usually have to speed to get them done in the
time limit, and to avoid alerting the police while doing this, it's good to
leave yourself plenty of back-roads to take so you're not seen. Therefore,
think twice about taking the freeway, even though traffic may be faster
there. No matter what road you're on, you can usually bypass traffic by
driving between lanes anyway. Driver takes place a few decades ago
when lanes were actually made wide enough for a car to fit between two
lanes of traffic, so you can always whiz by the other traffic on the road
without them getting in the way anyway (except when they change
lanes).
  When the cops are not actively chasing you, there will only ever be one
police car around the area. However, the game maintains it so that it's
near your car, and if you get too far from it a new one will be randomly
spawned in another location near you. So keep an eye on the map so you
know where the car is; it's the only way you'll see cars coming out of
nearby side streets.
  Use traffic to your advantage. Police are often hesitant about plowing
through another car to get to you, and even if they try, the other car may
slow them down enough that you'll get away. Whenever it seems like a
nearby police car may be in a position to ram you, see if you can get
some third-party traffic between it and you.
  As in real-life driving, stay aware of traffic patterns. Every time you go
through an intersection, be aware of where traffic will come from.
Through the first half of the intersection, traffic will be moving from
your left to your right; For the second half, they'll be going the other
way. Thus, if possible, you should try to stay on the right-hand side of
the road through the first half and swerve off to the left during the
second half, in case somebody should suddenly come barrelling through.
Of course, if you see cars stopped at a cross-street waiting to go through,
you need to make a judgement call over whether you should try to slow
down enough for them to pass, or blast through the intersection before
they enter it. In real life this would be easier since cars usually stop for
red lights, but in Driver they have a nasty habit of running them,
meaning that even if you have a green light, that's no guarantee you
won't suddenly get smacked in the side. And of course, keep an eye out
for cars flashing their turn indicator lights so you'll have some advance
warning of which way they might go. And in general, DON'T try to
shorten your left turns by steering into the oncoming traffic lane; Before
the turn, you have no idea if there's a car behind the corner, and after the
turn, it's usually too late and you're destined for a collision. This is an
easy habit to get into, because you insinctively try to shorten your turn
time, but do yourself a favor and take the extra few milliseconds to turn
into the correct lane. This vastly decreases the chances of your car's front
fender meeting another.
  On most undercover missions, you'll have to arrive at your destination
without a tail; In other words, you need to lose any cop cars on your
back before you can finish the mission. (You'll know this is the case if
"Lose the tail" suddenly appears when you get close to your mission
goal.) This is another good reason to not get the police chasing you in
the first place, but if you don't have enough time to give a cop the slip,
one desperate tactic is to turn the tables on them: Ram them like they try
to ram you. This can sometimes do enough damage to destroy the cop
car and let you finish the mission. Obviously, you can't have too much
damage yourself, or this tactic will be suicidal.
  Police in this game are not always masters of light steering, and will
swerve more wildly than is necessary to avoid something. Sometimes this
is so extreme that it causes the police car to lose traction and slide out
of control. This doesn't happen a lot but it does happen. Use this to your
advantage.
  I'm not sure if the computer-controlled drivers react differently at all
if you honk, but you might as well use the horn anyway while you're
running through an intersection.
  Oh, and the police do also enforce headlight laws, and will start giving
chase if your headlights aren't shining at night. Driver actually has no
control to turn your headlights on or off, they're just automatically on at
night, but if they're broken in a collision, the police will notice and run
after you for it.
  If a police car is in front of you and about to go for a head-on
collision, there's really not much you can do except swerve and hope it
misses. However, there's a catch to this: The earlier you swerve, the
more time the police car has to react and swing to meet you. Thus, to do
this effectively, you have to wait until just before the impending crash
to swing to one side, and hope the police car doesn't react fast enough,
slipping by your side. It's sort of like playing "Chicken" with the police,
except the police never chicken out and will cheerfully crash head-on
into you, so it's up to you to get out of the way. This maneuver takes
some guts and practice, but once you perfect it, you'll find oncoming
police cars easier to deal with.
  Besides police cars in front of you, another problem is police cars
which come sideways at you, from cross-streets. Mercifully, you have the
map in the corner of the screen to give you some advance warning of
these, so you can be ready. If you're going to get through the intersection
before the police car gets there, it'll end up behind you, but if it looks
like it'll hit your side, slow down a bit. The police don't use braking
effectively in this game, and the cop car is almost certain to overshoot
the intersection, giving you plenty of time to go through before it can
recover.
  The hardest thing to shake is a cop car that's right behind your rear
bumper. As long as it stays really close to you, it can be hard to get rid
of it. To get rid of a tailgating police car as fast as possible, drive right
next to a civilian car that's going the same direction as you are, and yank
your steering wheel in the direction of that car as soon as you're past it.
This gives the police car no choice but to either back off, or be forced
to sideswipe the other car. This may not lose the police car, but it'll at
least put some space between it and you.
  So that's what to do if there's a car right behind you... But what if the
car is off to one side a bit? Lead it into an obstacle. If there's a police
car behind you but off to the right side, drive on the left side of
something (a car, post, etc.) This will force the police car to either hit the
obstacle, or veer around it. Don't just run from the police. You can't get
away on speed alone (especially since Driver seems to artificially limit
you to 87 MPH in most cars). Because of this, the real way to lose the
police is in maneuvering; You don't necessarily have to drive faster to
lose them, just drive better. Never give them any rest. Keep them
dodging the obstacles. Keep them on the defensive, so they don't have
a chance to perform aggressive moves on you. This is the right way to
out-drive the police in Driver.   In a hot pursuit situation, you have to
push your luck. But there's a difference between pushing it, and pushing
it too far. There are some things you just shouldn't do, like trying to take
a corner onto a small street at 80 MPH by going between a building and
a traffic pole when there's another car stopped at the intersection. The
laws of physics dictate that such a move must fail. The faster your car
goes, the more it tends to skid. Thus, the more speed you have, the less
control you have. It is not always best to travel at top speed. You have
to drive a little wild in this game, but learn the difference between wild
and just plain foolish. There are two ways to play Driver: For fun, and
to win. Speeding around willy-nilly in a fast car, flying over hills and
crashing through other cars might be a blast, but it's not the way to win
this game. There are some indicators which tell you you're trying to push
it too hard, including waiting too late to brake for a turn (face it, you
HAVE to slow down well before a turn), and your car sliding around a
lot (caused by over-steering at excessively high speed).   Avoid tiny side
streets. They provide too little room to move around in. Stick with major
through streets, in general, so you'll have more places to go.
  Take it easy on the hills. Remember, when your front wheels are off
the ground, you have no control over your direction whatsoever. Going
over a hill at top speed like you're going off a buffalo jump means you'll
be in the air for a long time on the downside. If there's a car where you
land, you won't be able to avoid it. So keep your speed controlled over
the peak of every hill, so your wheels aren't airborne for long. This is
particularly important to remember in San Francisco (because it's so full
of those hills that make it such a popular city for filming car chase
movies), but it applies to any hill.
  Avoid police cars pushing you around. You can guarantee that if you
turn around a corner with a police car on your tail, it'll try to whack your
rear corner and push you sideways into the wall on the other side of the
street. To compensate for this, when you've got a police car right behind
you, take corners especially slow so that it's harder for the cop to crush
you between his car and the wall. Remember, better to take a little
damage from a bump with the cop car, than to have it force you into
something, which will make your Felony level shoot up. And try to avoid
letting a police car get a clear shot at your side, because if one starts
pushing you sideways, there is no escape; You can't get enough traction
to start going forward or back in this situation, until the police car has
rammed you sideways right into a wall or another car, which will, again,
increase that Felony level. Remember, if you have a police car right
behind you, never go into a turn quickly, because the police car *will*
ram one of your car's rear corners (the left rear corner if you're turning
left, the right rear corner if you're turning right), making you spin out
and lose control. Enter the turn very slowly, so that the effect of the cop
car pushing against your car is muted; You'll take a little damage, but at
least you'll stay pretty much in control of your car. It hardly seems fair
that when you're running from the police, the cops can ram you this
way, but you can't pull the same trick when you're pursuing a car,
because the cars you chase always have Freight Train activated; Well, it
*isn't* fair, but with a little practice, you can deal with both of these
situations.
  Despite your best efforts, you may sometimes find yourself having a
police car pushing you around by a rear corner after a turn. If you DO
find yourself in this situation, I have devised a small trick which is rather
subtle, but seems to be the most effective way to deal with this situation
without losing control of your car: Instead of trying to turn the other way
to keep your car going straight, steer into your skid. (For example, if the
cop car is pushing your right-rear corner, your natural instinct might be
to steer left so you can keep going straight, but in fact, this trick requires
you to steer to the right instead.) If you accelerate as you steer, this will
quickly flip your car around so that you end up next to the cop car,
parallel with it, facing the opposite direction. Now the police car will
seem a bit lost; They don't seem to know how to deal with this situation,
and it will generally slowly try to turn around, steering toward you. If
you do the same, your two cars will go around in a sort of merry-go-
round. You can keep doing this until you're facing the direction you
want to go, then quickly hit the gas pedal and drive away. Because you'll
be behind the police car, you will usually put quite a bit of room
between yourself and the cop; Police in Driver are very quick to
accelerate forward, but they usually don't go backwards very quickly at
all, and even turning around from a stop takes them a while.
  In a pursuit mission, despite the game's encouragements to "ram" the
car you are pursuing, you do not actually need to hit it; Just stay close
to it and don't lose it. If you do this, the car will always crash by itself
when the time limit expires. Although you can win the mission before
the time limit is over if you actually destroy the vehicle, this is usually
pretty hard to do because it's easy to lose control after every bump; By
the time you get your car back on the road and moving again, your target
may well be already out of sight. As long as you stay close to the fleeing
vehicle you'll be fine.
  If you DO decide to chase your target in the Pursuit missions, be aware
that the fleeing computer car has the "Freight Train" cheat enabled,
meaning that you will not be able to influence its movement; In a head-
on collision with it, your car would be flung aside like a toothpick, while
the computer car would not even blink. However, it can influence *your*
movement. Thus, do NOT get caught between the computer car and a
wall, lest it try to crush you. Also, notice that how hard you ram the car
has absolutely no effect on the damage you do to it; Gently nudging it
will do as much damage as ramming right into it at 60 MPH. However,
the force used in ramming does affect how much damage *you* take.
Thus, do not bother trying to ram your target with great force, but
instead hit it as lightly as you can. I find a good tactic is to pull up
beside it, then repeatedly swing back and forth, sideswiping it several
times. As long as you can hold this position, it really makes the damage
meter on your target's car go up, while your own damage should be
fairly minimal. Forget about ramming from behind, this jolts your car
backward which will slow you down. The key is to hit it many times, not
to hit it hard every time.
  Oh, and please, stay away from the San Francisco mission "The
Briefcase"; it's absurdly difficult. Avoid taking 10 years off your lifespan
and play "Guns In The Trunk" instead.
  In Undercover mode, there's always a timer running. However,
sometimes it counts down to zero, and sometimes it counts up from zero.
When it's going down, the mission has a time limit which expires when
the time hits zero. When it's going up, the mission has no time limit and
the timer is simply there to show how long you're taking. So if the timer
is going up, don't rush. Take your time, since accidents are much less
likely to occur when you drive carefully. Why race around, risking
damage and the wrath of the police, when you don't have to?
  Quick recap of everything that the police will start chasing you for:
Speeding, hitting (or even touching) anything, pressing the handbrake or
burnout, running through a red light (but they don't seem to notice if you
run stop signs), driving fast on the sidewalk, and driving at night with
broken headlights (both headlights must be broken, they'll let you go if
you still have one shining). However, once they start chasing you, the
only things that will raise your Felony level further are touching things
with your car, and causing pedestrians to run away from you. (The only
thing you're allowed to touch which will not faise your Felony level is
the pursuing police cars; Hit the cops all you want, it won't get them
more mad at you, as long as they're already pursuing you.) Of course,
a police car must see you misbehaving. If there are no police around,
nothing will affect your Felony level.
  When playing the Carnage game, the single biggest thing you can do
to succeed is figuring out which roads have the most traffic. In Driver,
as in real life, some roads have way more cars than others, so before
playing for keeps, find out where you'll have the most cars to run down
so you can cause the most damage in your time limit, then just race
along, steering to plow through any cars you see. This is fairly easy,
compared to the other driving games, but it's fun. (In New York, for
example, I recommend going over the Brooklyn Bridge; It's always
packed with traffic, so much so that it'll make up for the time it takes to
drive there. And in Miami, two words for you: Macarthur Causeway.
Note that you'll be better off driving on the wrong side of the road,
because that way you'll do even more damage.)
  When playing the Survival game, the most important thing to remember
is, turn corners as much as possible. It's obvious that you can't drive
faster than the police cars, so staying on straightaways is suicide. Instead,
out-turn them. The police, in their great haste, will corner very poorly
and you can usually keep tham back a fair distance for a while if you
just keep turning at every intersection.
  Driver may run choppily if your level files are fragmented. There are
several very large data files in the LEVELS directory, which contain
most of the data for the cities and their scenery. If you notice Driver
running smoothly most of the time but suddenly getting bogged down
(accompanied by hard disk access) now and then, defragging may help.
  As in real driving, stay alert, and try to anticipate traffic. Things are
always happening in Driver, and the only way to keep on top of them is
to keep your eyes open, and stay one step ahead of the cops by
predicting what they'll do and where your best path is.
  And finally, Driver does not seem to incorporate speed limits; Instead,
it uses a "one speed fits all" system. Generally, I have found that 55 mph
is about as fast as the police will let you go; Once you hit 60 mph, they
start chasing you. So keep it at 55 when you're near a police car (your
cruise control is a useful feature when you're trying to sneak by police)
and you should be OK, even if the surrounding traffic is slower.)
  Oh, and all your saved games and replays are stored in the "saves"
directory, so you can back them up and copy them from there if you
wish.
  GAME HACKER'S NOTE: In a move of sheer genius, the
programmers have made Driver a totally customizable game. The mission
scripts are nothing but plain ASCII text files which you can freely edit!
This means that you can create your own missions, resulting in a fully
customizable driving experience! The mission scripts are located in the
SCRIPTS\MISSIONS directory. (You'll have to figure out the keywords
used in them to create your own missions, but if you study the scripts
that are already there, this shouldn't be too hard, especially since they're
commented.)
  To get you started, here's a fairly simple mission in which you need to
get some gas from the gas station just off the Golden Gate Bridge:
DodgyCar 1
Dodgy_Speed_Factor 20000

LoadMap "frisco_01.lev"

DamageBar "Damage, schmamage"
FelonyBar "No cops, no law"

SmashedMessage "Take it easy, buddy. You flipped over."

PlayerCarType 3 //Regular Frisco car
SetPlayerPosition -391800,-55000 //Corner of Telegraph Hill
SetPlayerYRotation 2042
StopPlayer //Hold player in place for now

InformPlayer 4,"GET SOME GAS"
wait 5
InformPlayer 5,"You're low on gas. Head to the gas station and fill 'er
up."
ReleasePlayer //Okay, let 'er rip

SetTarget 0,1000,557000,-274000 //Gas station garage
EnableTarget 0
Set Objective 2

WaitForObjectiveComplete

InformPlayer 5,"Well done."

MissionEnd

[Mission script ends here]

If you want to incorporate cops into a mission, you can use the following
lines to control cop cars:

Cops_on //Superfluous, since cops are on by default anyway.
SetMaximumCops 1
//Maximum cop cars which can exist at one time. There will NOT be this
//many cops unless your felony rating rises; Until then, there will only
//be one car at a time, then it will gradually increase as your felony level
//does. Note that no matter how high you set this, the maximum number
//of cops the game will ever have going at one time is 5.
Cop_Respawn 600
//Time to wait between spawning cops; 0 = no wait, high number = more
//time between cops

To make your car go MUCH faster, add these two lines under the
*INITIALIZATION* line in a mission script:
DodgyCar 1
Dodgy_Speed_Factor 99999

And if you want to make your brakes "dodgy" too, use these lines:
DodgyCar 1
Dodgy_Brake_Factor 2000

And here are some other miscellaneous Driver script commands with
descriptions:
DamageBar: Heading title for damage bar
FelonyBar: Heading title for felony bar
FailedMessage: Message for if you're too late
SmashedMessage: Message for if you wreck the car
LoseTailMessage: "Lose the tail" message
SetPlayerPosition: Set your car's location on the map
SetPlayerYRotation: Set your car's heading
InformPlayer: Show text message
SetTarget: Set your destination location
PlayerCarType: The car used for the mission
LoadMap: Choose map to drive on
ForceFelonyRating: Set your current felony rating
StopPlayer: Locks your car (disables controls)
ReleasePlayer: Lets you drive
Countdown: Sets the timer
StopTimer: Stops the timer
ContinueTimer: Starts the timer
Night/Day/Dusk: Set time of day
Raining: Turn on rain
EnablePlayerDamage: Turn on damage
DisablePlayerDamage: Turn off damage (make you invincible)
SetMaximumCops: Maximum number of cops allowed to exist at any
time Cops_off: Turn off cops
Cops_on: Turn on cops
RoadblockTrigger: How high your felony rating needs to be before the
  cops start setting up roadblocks
Cop_Respawn: Cop respawn rate

Oh, and just in case you want the Driver cheat codes:
Immunity: WAC271074
No Damage: RUS3L
Super Fast Cars: NJW280172
Freight Train: DOUG1AS
Open All Cities: S3l443w
Overhead view (GTA Mode): N3WJ0rK
Skip Interview: P7ttyRz
Play Newcastle: C1J2P3
Credits: TMR300866
Car selection on Take A Ride: We4rrqdz
  (NOTE: Driver also has an annoying problem in its configuration utility
which tends to erroneously report "No compatible 3D device", even if
you have a 3D accelerator card. To fix this, switch to 640 x 480
resolution at 16-bit color depth before you run Driver's configuration
utility.) [GT Interactive/Reflections]

Driver Zero: The Prequel To Driver: The game Driver has spawned a
small flurry of fan-made missions who have discovered that although the
game does not come with its own mission builder, the missions are
contained in ordinary text scripts which can be easily edited, allowing
you to make your own missions for the die-hard Driver fan. Among these
amateur add-ons, the best I've seen is a set of missions created by Frank
Dellen (obviously a big fan of the game) called Driver Zero, which
contains no less than 40 brand-new missions in a series of interesting
settings and plot lines. Be warned, however, that Driver Zero's missions
are usually extremely difficult, pushing the limits of what even the best
drivers will be able to handle. If you thought that the original Driver's
missions were too hard (as many people did), Driver Zero will drive you
crazy. For those few select people who were able to handle the original
game's missions, though, this is definitely something you'll want to take
a look at; It's sure to provide several more hours of cop-eluding fun.
Although Driver Zero may be hard to find, it should be available on
Driver HQ, the premier Driver fan site, at www.driverhq.com [Frank
Dellen] (Freeware)

Driver 2: The sequel to the well-received Driver is a game that's
essentially the same as the original, except for two major changes: First,
Driver 2 was only ever released for the PlayStation, leaving PC gamers
out in the cold. Secondly, Driver 2 gives you the ability to actually step
out of your car and walk around on foot, turning it into a kind of 3D
Grand Theft Auto. (Grand Theft Auto 3, the first GTA game to go 3D,
was released almost a year after Driver 2, so Driver 2 beat it to the
punch.) For those who like this sort of thing, that's very cool, because
it means you can carjack people and do other stuff on foot just like the
GTA games, but for people who're more interested in driving, this just
detracts from the gameplay. [Reflections Interactive/Infogrames]

F1 Racing [Ubi Soft]

Farenheit CD

Ferrari [Acclaim]

Formula 1 Championship Edition [Psygnosis]

Formula One

Grand Prix Circuit EGA: One of the best old open-wheel car racing
games, from the same folks who brought you Test Drive. (Make sure you
get the EGA version, the graphics are far superior, although the CGA
version isn't bad for 4 colors.) (At difficulty level 2, it becomes possible
for your car to take damage from driving off the road, and spin out from
taking a curve too fast. At difficulty level 3, your transmission becomes
manual and you must change gears yourself, using the A and Z keys.)
(Also, press D to toggle whether your gearbox is displayed at all times,
or only when shifting gears. And use M to toggle the map, and I to
toggle the race information window.) (Top speeds of the cars are as
follows: Ferrari 204, Williams 208, McLaren 216.) [Accolade/DSI]

Grand Prix II [Microprose/Spectrum Holobyte]

Grand Prix Legends [Sierra On-Line]

Hard Drivin'

Hard Drivin' 2: Drive Harder

Indianapolis 500: A surprisingly realism-minded racing game (for its
time), and a sign of things to come, as this was the first racing game by
Papyrus, the company that would eventually make the legendary IndyCar
Racing. [Papyrus/Electronic Arts]

IndyCar Racing: A hugely successful racing game from about 1994, long
afterwards cited as the benchmark for future ones. With texture-mapped
graphics, the ability to tweak many aspects of the car's setup in the
garage, and a versatile replay function, this stands as one of the most
important racing games ever to appear on the PC. Its longevity was
surprising, taking years to become obsolete. [Papyrus]

IndyCar Racing II [Papyrus]

Interstate '76 (I76): Another wildly entertaining game mixing driving
with tons of action, in the tradition of Grand Theft Auto, except this is
a first-person driving game. Amazingly, there's actually a rather
interesting and plausible plot backing it all up too (although as you
might've guessed from the name, the game takes places more than 20
years before it was actually made, so it's another of those "what-if"
historial scenarios). Basically, the global oil shortage leads to oil gangs
trafficking it in the fashion of the more contemporary drug dealers
trafficking drugs. As a member of a small group of vigilantes, you'll go
through several missions against these villains. The graphics in Interstate
'76 are a bit blocky, but everything else about it is stunning: The game
has the feel of an action movie, with cinematic sequences introducing
every mission (with full speech, of course) and amazingly fluid
animation. The music, when it plays, is surprisingly good and
atmospheric (assuming you're into '70s-style funk, of course). All the
cars are loaded with various weapons, from machine guns and cannons
to rockets, mines, and other assorted goodies. It all makes for a lot of
fun, even though the missions are all insanely difficult. As hard as the
combat in this game is, the hardest part isn't always defending yourself;
It's usually worse on "escort" missions where you have to escort
unarmed transports, which usually blow up incredibly easily. Remember,
don't leave their side! (Although on some missions, you can drive ahead
of them to clear the path of enemies before your escort gets there, to
keep them out of the line of fire.) (On many missions, you're tasked with
disabling a vehicle, without destroying it. This is often harder than just
blowing it up outright. To disable a car, damage it to the point where it's
just barely on the verge of blowing up; In other words, where the
damage bar on top of the car is just a red dot instead of a bar. Damaging
it this closely, without blowing it up, is no small trick, but often it must
be done.) (If you want to look at your speedometer, use the "Look at
dashboard" key, or press the forward-view key again to toggle a
speedometer overlay over your windshield. But bear in mind that your
speed usually isn't that important in this game.) (Armor is very important
in this game. Use it to your best advantage. Try to remember where
you've hit the enemy hard before, and hit him in the same places,
because that's where he has less armor and where he's most vulnerable.
For example, if you've already given somebody's front end a pounding,
aim for his front rather than his side or rear. Similarly, keep track of
where your own armor has taken heavy damage, and try to avoid getting
hit there; Practice keeping your most protected side toward the enemy.)
(The little damage meter (the one which appears over the targeting box
when you target a car) isn't much help; It only shows the status of the
most damaged part of that car. It doesn't indicate which part is being
indicated, or how damaged any other parts are. So for example, if the
meter is red, it doesn't necessarily mean a few more hits will destroy that
car; It just means that ONE part of that car will blow it up if you hit it
a few times.) (My personal favorite picks for various categories of car:
Fast Car (suitable for the "race" missions): Dover Lightning (in real life,
the Dodge Charger). For even more speed, put the big V-10 engine into
it, and those big 16-inch tires. The Phaedra Palomino (which is the Ford
Mustang, the original classic muscle car) and the Courcheval Mantra
(Chevrolet Corvette Stingray) also work well for this. Wimpy Car
(suitable for putting your enemies in): ABX Strider. (Basically, any car
which only has two weapon slots works well for this.) Well-Armed Car:
Hearse. (Similarly, any car with a lot of weapon slots.) Well-Protected
Car: Jefferson Limo. (Or any other car with lots of armor.)) Of course,
it goes without saying that you should always link your weapons,
because this will give you two, three, or even four times the firepower
without needing to hold down extra keys. I personally am in the habit of
using the specific hardpoint fire keys (the number keys at the top of they
keyboard), because it lets me choose exactly what weapons I'm firing;
But in a combat situation, you usually just want to fire your machine
guns as much as possible. Once your machine guns are linked, you just
need to press the "Fire" control to fire them in unison. I link the "Fire"
button to the mouse, so it doesn't interfere with the keyboard, which can
then be dedicated to steering and the gas/brake pedals. Learn to use the
hand-brake effectively. Normally, if you yank the handbrake while your
steering wheel is turned around, it'll really swing your car around,
sometimes as much as 180 degrees or more; On the other hand, if you
hold down the hand-brake key first and then hit the steering wheel, your
spin will be shorter and more controlled. Practice this art; You'll need it,
because in combat you tend to need to turn quickly. (The difference
between an MG (Machine Gun), a Cannon, and a Turret: The MG is by
far the fastest-firing of the three, but the obvious tradeoff is that each
bullet does less damage. The Cannon and the Turret both fire much
slower, but each bullet is far more crippling. The really cool thing about
the Turret is that it's auto-aiming: MGs and Cannons will always be
aiming either directly ahead of you or directly behind you (depending on
whether they're front-mounted or rear-mounted), but once you select a
target, the Turret will always point itself directly at that target, meaning
you can fire at targets beside you as well. The only bummer about
Turrets is that they can only be mounted on top hardpoints, not front or
rear hardpoints.) Be aware that the configuration of your car is incredibly
important to your success. Do not just go into a mission with the
recommended cars and the default layout; You will have much, much
better chances if you tailor your car to the mission. Remember that you
can custom-configure the car for what awaits you in the mission ahead.
In most cases, you should just outfit the car with the best engine, shocks,
brakes, and wheels available, and have Monkey Wrench fix the best
damaged parts. Pay attention to what weapons you have. Ignore the silly
ones like the oil slicks, and in most cases you should stay away from the
ones with very little ammo, like the missiles and mortars (except for
those cases when you're attacking airborne targets like helicopters, which
can't easily be hit with your bullet weapons. And incidentally, when you
DO attack helicopters, stay away from the FireRite rockets; They're
dumb-fire and have no homing capabilities. I highly recommend the use
of Dr. Radar missiles, which home in on the helicopter and usually take
it down with a single shot). Always try to pick a weapon loadout that can
be linked together, so you can have at least two or three weapons firing
in unison. Since you usually tend to take the most damage at the front,
do not spread your armor out evenly; Take some off the sides and put it
on the front. Also, do NOT leave your "special" slots empty; Fill them
all up, otherwise they won't help you at all! The various specials and
their functions are as follows: Radar Jammers hide you from enemy radar
screens for a fairly short period of time. Nitrous Oxide provides a strong
acceleration boost for those times when you really need to speed up in
a hurry. The Blower is a permanent item which you do not have to
activate; It is simply always there. It, too, increases your acceleration and
speed, making it a must-have for the "race" missions. The X-Aust Brake
is a powerful brake that augments your car's normal brakes. Structo
Bumpers increase your car's chassis reinforcement, very helpful if you
run into things a lot. Curb Feelers help prevent the car from flipping over
under extreme driving maneuvers. Mud Flaps prevent taking damage
from rough terrain. Heated Seats give you 10% more ammunition. Lastly,
Cup Holders make you 10% harder to hit. [Activision]

Interstate '76 Gold Edition: Essentially, the Gold Edition of I76 just adds
Direct3D support and more difficulty level settings. Both are welcome
additions, but they would have been more worthy of a patch than a new
"edition". [Activision]

Interstate '76 Nitro Pack: An unusual concept in an expansion pack: A
stand-alone one. You don't need the original I-76 to run the Nitro Pack.
Basically, it's more of what you saw in I-76, just some new missions. It
also adds two more "special" items which you can add to your car: The
Dashboard Mary makes your weapons 10% more powerful, and the Tire
Covers give you more armor. The Nitro Pack also takes a completely
different approach to mission structure and car configuration: Unlike the
first I76, where you had to salvage what you could from your enemies'
cars at the end of every mission, the Nitro Pack is totally non-linear. The
salvage screen doesn't exist, because before every mission, you can
choose any car you want, and configure it any way you want using any
parts you want, even the big V-10 engine and the "aircraft brake". Not
only that, but you can choose any mission you want instead of having to
do them all in order. (Although there is one set of missions that's
unavailable at first and gets unlocked when you finish all the others.)
This means, obviously, that for every mission you should configure
yourself with the V-10 engine, the EtherX rally shocks, the aircraft brake,
and the big 16-inch wheels. (TIP: The "Velocity" mission is incredibly
hard. I beat this mission by pulling straight out from where the mission
starts, activating a nitrous oxide to get up to high speed, and ramming
directly into the side of the bus at 150 MPH. This made it stop instantly.
And on the "Break In" mission, after you've broken into the base by
jumping the ravine, killed the guards, and found the correct hangar, you
have a problem with a less obvious solution: Getting *out* of the base.
Don't worry about it, after a few moments, you'll hear a radio
transmission ordering the front gate to be opened. You can then drive
through the gate (in the northwest corner of the base) and meet up with
Monkey Wrench by taking the main road to the south (which will require
you to make a circle around a big hill, but don't worry; Follow the road
and you'll find Monkey Wrench's van eventually). And on the "Allies"
mission, first make sure you have one slot filled with Dr. Radar missiles,
then begin by heading east on the dirt road that leads from highway 137.
You'll come to a roadblock. Bust through it and blow up the jeep on the
other side. Then wait for a chopper to show up, and blow it up with a
Dr. Radar missile. From there, explore these dirt roads until you come
across two enemy cars, which you should blow up. Now it's time to end
the mission. Take a look at your radar scope; You should see two blips
on it, that's where the helicopter is that you need to get to. The way
there is blocked by a big chasm which you'll die if you fall into, so
make sure you have a pretty good speed when you jump over it. Then
just keep the bad guys away until the chopper can take off, and the
mission is a success.) [Activision]

Interstate '76 Arsenal: The I76 Arsenal combines the I76 Gold Edition
with the I76 Nitro Pack. If you have neither, definitely get the Arsenal,
as the two go well together. [Activision]

Interstate '82 (I82) [Activision]

Lamborghini American Challenge: This game seems oddly similar to
Crazy Cars III, except it has various improvements such as a two-player
mode. Perhaps one was a re-release of the other. [Titus]

Lotus, The Ultimate Challenge: This is a speedy little racing game with
nicely smooth-scrolling scenery and a catchy soundtrack. (This game was
originally released for the Amiga, and was actually the third in a series
of Lotus games for the Amiga; However, it is the only one of the three
to be released for the PC. Unfortunately the PC version refuses to run on
newer computers, due to divide errors.) [Gremlin Graphics]

Megarace CD

Midnight Outlaw: Illegal Street Drag: After years of being mocked on
the Internet and becoming a modern urban cliche, rice boys (those people
who put ridiculous customizations on their Japanese-import cars such as
giant spoilers, ear-piercingly loud exhaust systems, and stickers that
cover most of the car's window space) now have a racing game that's
aimed mainly at them. Midnight Outlaw gives you the choice of several
cars to race (almost none of which are manufactured in North America),
a variety of typical street-racer modifications to put on them such as
fancy wheels, more extravagant aerodynamics, and even a few things that
might actually make the car faster, like headers. This game doesn't even
pretend to be a game for the general public, with its low degree of
marketing and matching low price, but for people who liked Grand Theft
Auto but would rather race and use real-world cars and mods, this game
has some appeal. [ValuSoft]

Midtown Madness, Chicago Edition: Goodbye to gridlock. It's racing on
the streets of Chicago, without all the annoying rules you're usually
supposed to follow on the road in real life. It brings to mind Vette, the
only other racing game I can think of which took place on regular city
streets (excluding Driver, which came out at almost the same time as
Midtown Madness and is a completely different kind of driving game).
Midtown Madness brings several new touches to the table, however,
including parking meters, traffic poles, newspaper dispensers and
mailboxes to run over, pedestrians who do incredibly good jobs of
jumping out of your way (they're literally impossible to hit), several
different races, and the entire city of Chicago faithfully mapped out.
(NOTE: Use Backspace to toggle your rear-view mirror on and off, and
the H key to toggle the speedometer and tachometer.) (TIP: Before you
do anything else with this game, turn off "Play Commentary" on the
audio options to save your sanity. This will turn off the incredibly
annoying announcer's voice.) (TIP: Avoid the sidewalks when possible,
as they tend to make you lose control because they make your tires leave
the pavement.) (TIP: When you first start the game, win 5 Circuit races
so you get the Mustang Fastback; After that, use the Fastback to rip
through 5 Blitz races.) Oh, and note that the Horn key toggles the lights
and siren when you're driving the police car. Points of interest: There's
an underground parking garage a few blocks south of Wrigley Field, in
the northwest corner of the pink area on the map. It has two entrances
(which double as exits). There's some weird Medieval castle-type
building just southwest of the John Hancock Center. There are several
ramps scattered throughout the city which you can use for making stunt
jumps, but one of the most interesting can be found by first going to the
street which runs under the north end of the downtown monorail system,
then going west on that street until you reach the end. This ramp seems
to be positioned to let you jump over the water, and it is possible to do
so (I've done it), but you have to be going awfully fast to do that.
Another interesting two ramps are next to the street which runs through
McCormick Place. These two seem to be designed for jumping off one
onto the other with. The Art Institute on the east end of the city can be
used as a north-south tunnel. There's a solid-looking wall blocking the
passageway through it, but you can crash right through the wall without
much damage. The same is true for the Shedd Aquarium, it can be used
as an east-west tunnel if you break through the walls in the way.
Although the description of the F-350 mentions that it climbs stairs with
ease, there are actually very few stairs in the game. To find some, take
either of the two roads leading south from the green spot in the north end
of the map (a bit southeast of Wrigley Field). Note that you can edit the
game's files to allow you to drive any car you want. To do this, you'll
need two tools which you should get off the Web somewhere: ARextract
and ARMaker. These extract and create .AR archives. After extracting
UI.AR, in the TUNE directory, you will find several .INFO files (one for
each car in the game). Edit these. Set UnlockScore and UnlockFlags to
0 for every car; This will allow anybody to drive any of the cars at any
time. (Even amateurs will be able to drive the GTR-1.) After you have
done this, you need to re-compile UI.AR by typing MKAR SHIPLIST.UI
in the directory which you originally extracted it to. Copy this new
UI.AR over the one in your Midtown Madness directory, and you're
done! The Panoz GTR-1 goes faster than any of the other cars, but it still
seems to top out at around 200 MPH or so. [Microsoft]

Midtown Madness 2: The follow-up to Microsoft's famed city-driving
game is mostly the same, except for two new cities: London, England,
and America's car chase capital, San Francisco. [Microsoft]

Monaco Grand Prix Racing Simulation 2 [Ubi Soft]

Monster Truck Madness [Microsoft]

Monster Truck Madness 2 [Microsoft]

Motorhead: A no-frills, high-speed, let-it-rip racing game with good,
diverse graphics, simplistic but enjoyable gameplay, and a good selection
of cars and tracks. Very much an arcade-style racing game, but it's good
enough at that to warrant a second (and third) look. [Digital Illusions CE
AB/Fox Interactive]

NASCAR Track Pack

NASCAR 2 [Sierra On-Line]

NASCAR Grand National Series [Sierra On-Line]

NASCAR Racing 1999 [Sierra On-Line]

NASCAR Racing 4 [Papyrus/Sierra Studios]

NASCAR Revolution [Electronic Arts]

Outrun: The classic driving simulator where you drive a car really fast
near a beach. [Sega]

Pod: This was one of the first games to prominently support the new
MMX microchip technology. That means it can do more cool stuff,
faster. It has very, very good graphics, and the MMX support means that
they move impressively fast, even with all the special effects that the
game adds in. The only problem is it's the same old stuff: How many car
racing games are there? Lots. This game is yet another example of a
game which has absolutely nothing new in it, except flashy graphics and
effects. But still, it is impressive, particularly when you consider it can
be played with up to 7 other people over a LAN or the Internet.
[UbiSoft]

Race Drivin '95 [Tengen/Domark]

Rally Championship: International Off-Road Racing

Re-Volt: Another racing game, but this one's set apart by the fact that it
uses those little remote-controlled cars, which means they go flying out
of control really easily. [Acclaim]

Rollcage: A thrill-a-second futuristic racing game with no rules, played
with indestructible cars which can (and often do) defy gravity, running
along vertical walls (as well as walls which lean toward you). Extreme
action coupled with genuinely realistic-feeling physics modeling and
remarkable graphics make for a real winner. Although the concept of a
racing game which lets you shoot at your opponents might seem like an
already-used concept, Rollcage goes way over the top by putting the
action before the actual racing. As such, while it still stands as a racing
game, it's absolutely one of the most chaotic, fast, and fun racing games
you'll ever play. Rollcage is never quiet. [Psygnosis/Attention To Detail]

Rollcage Stage 2 [Psygnosis/Attention To Detail]

Screamer [Virgin]

Screamer 2 [Virgin]

Soda Off-Road Racing [Sierra On-Line]

Speed Busters [Ubi Soft]

Sports Car GT: Another good racing game. Amid the recent flood of
them, this one doesn't do anything especially well or different, but it
covers all the bases, resulting in a decent, solid racer. [Image
Space/Electronic Arts]

Street Rod: An interesting game which takes an innovative approach to
a car race game: You're not only the driver, you're also the mechanic.
So you need to tune your car and install new components. (NOTE: In
order to be able to challenge The King, you must win 6 drag races and
6 road races. Good luck!) [California Dreams]

Street Rod 2: This game is much, much harder than the previous one,
and it lets you install some more parts on your car too. (If you're human,
you'll probably never win anything except drag races, as the other two
are just too hard, so for the cheaters among you, the amount of money
you have is stored in your saved games at hex locations 24 and 25.)
[California Dreams]

Streets Of Sim City: Take an interesting fantasy concept which some
SimCity players might have dreamed about (to be able to actually drive
a car in a city you created in SimCity), make it into reality, and you have
Street Of Sim City, a game which is a good concept with an unworthy
execution. SOSC may give you the ability to explore your cities from a
first-person perspective, but in all honesty, the concept gets old
amazingly quickly. All the buildings and structures look the same, just
as they do in SimCity; And while that may not be a huge problem in a
strategy game, because they lend some continuity to your city's look and
let you see what's what at a glance, it makes for a problem in a driving
game in which you're trying to explore and see new things. SOSC has
been juiced up with several sub-games inside it that let you do things
like make deliveries, but none of these are actually varied enough to
make the game interesting for very long. The result is a great concept-
game which isn't worth getting or playing except out of sheer curiosity.
SOSC's aerial cousin is SimCopter. [Maxis]

Stunt Car Racer EGA: A wild stunt racing game which is amusing for
its complete lack of control and cliff-hanging (or more often,
cliff-leaping) action. [Geoff Crammond]

Stunts: See 4-D Sports Driving

The Need For Speed (NFS) [Electronic Arts]

The Need For Speed II SE [Electronic Arts]

The Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit [Electronic Arts]

The Need For Speed: High Stakes [Electronic Arts]

Test Drive: A speedy game which simulates five fast, cool cars and lets
you tear around a precarious mountain road with them. [Accolade]

Test Drive 2: The Duel: A better effort, this game accepts more than one
key pressed at the same time (unlike the original). That alone makes it
better, but it also has better graphics. Only two cars, however. [Accolade]

Test Drive 3: The Passion: Well, this is certainly different! A far cry
from the first Test Drive, this game has 256-color VGA graphics and a
kicking Sound Blaster soundtrack. Its only real flaw it that it's wayyyyyy
too fast. Actually, more specifically, the game itself is not terribly fast,
but your steering is. Apparently the designers did not realize that a car
travelling at 20 KPH cannot do a 360 degree turn in 2 seconds, no matter
how far you turn the steering wheel. Because of the wildly over-
responsive steering, the only real way to survive is to drive agonizingly
slowly. (Tip: Pull over for any cars that may end up behind you, because
otherwise they're likely to rear-end you. And do NOT hold down any
steering wheel direction key; Tap the keys instead.) Test Drive 3 also has
a few other car controls not normally implemented in driving games, like
the ability to turn your headlights and windshield wipers on or off. Its
music is surprisingly good (press M while driving to change the radio
station). [Accolade]

Test Drive 4 [Accolade]

Test Drive 5 [Accolade]

Test Drive 6 [Accolade]

Test Drive: Off Road [Accolade]

The Italian Job: A game that comes close to giving Driver a run for its
money, TIJ is one of few street-driving games which gives you the
chance to out-run the police in a fast, fancy car. It can rightfully take its
place next to Midtown Madness and Driver, although The Italian Job is
much lesser-known than the other two. It also doesn't have quite the
same level of sheer playability and edginess that Driver had; It's clear
that TIJ wants to be like Driver, since it has several of the same types of
missions (pursuit, driving a big vehicle which is loaded with explosives
and will blow up if you bump it too much, etc.) However, TIJ has a few
problems that make it a lesser game. Right off the top, there's no in-
game map, so you can't plan your route as effectively as you could in
Driver; You need to simply follow a pointing arrow, Grand Theft Auto
style. You'll also notice that the physics model is rather ungainly. All the
cars feel heavy and slow. The game has two difficulty settings, easy and
normal; The easy setting doesn't seem to do much except slow down the
game considerably and further exaggerate the steering characteristics of
the cars. (On easy difficulty, the handbrake's oversteer effects are so
exaggerated as to make it almost unusable. A car which is barely moving
forward will often be forced into a 180-degree turn if you hit the
handbrake.) Both of these effects make the cars feel even more
overloaded. I actually find the game easier and certainly more enjoyable
on normal difficulty, where the handling of the cars is more predictable.
TIJ also has some technical stability problems, frequently crashing mid-
game, which is just infuriating; Rare was the (computer) crash when
playing Driver. TIJ lacks the incredibly frustrating missions of Driver,
however, where your time limit was often timed to give you less than 5
seconds of leeway; Indeed, the missions in TIJ tend to be easier overall.
The result: TIJ is a budget game for people who found Driver too
difficult and just want to have fun zooming around a city without having
to endure a fair-sized learning curve. More "serious" drivers (who can't
afford to buy an expensive car for real and go tearing around the streets
in it) will still prefer playing Driver, however. [SCi/Global Star Software]

Turbo Outrun: Virtually the same game as the original Outrun, but with
way better graphics. About as much fun as the first, which is good.
[Sega]

VETTE! EGA 1.1: Tired of racing in circles? For some street racing
instead of turning left for 500 kilometres, try VETTE! You need to cope
with pedestrians, traffic patterns, stoplights, and the police. Vette is
unique in that it stood for years as the only real-world street-driving
game available on the PC, until Microsoft's Midtown Madness many
years later. Vette is not only true-to-life in its working traffic system, it's
also a re-creation of San Francisco. Yes, the City By The Bay's every
street (well, not EVERY street, but most of the major ones) are here,
with their real-world names and locations. Truly a game that was ahead
of its time, even if its driving model did leave a little to be desired.
(NOTE: By default, Vette's keyboard control tends to oversteer wildly,
because you turn the wheel too far, too fast. To correct this, just turn on
mouse control. Even if you don't use the mouse, the keyboard will still
work then, and it'll only move a little bit when you use the arrow keys,
making your car much more controllable. Note that this DOES make
your car steer a little slower than it should when you go through tight
turns and around corners, so stay on the inside of any curves you go
through on the freeway, so you have more room for error.) (Oh, and as
in real-life driving, watch out for those motorcycles; They're small, so
they're less visible, and they come up pretty fast when you're going
down the freeway at 252 MPH.) (And note that the procedure described
in the manual's glossary as "brake torquing" is a good way to start your
races; Before the light turns green and the race starts, start pushing the
gas pedal so your engine is already revved up before you go into gear.
That way you'll get a better start.) IMPORTANT: Be sure you get
version 1.1, which has some important bug fixes and added features.
[Sphere/Spectrum Holobyte]

Viper Racing: A game which will always be cutting-edge, with probably
the most in-depth garage I've seen in any game which allows car-tuning,
utterly believable graphics and sound effects, remarkable physics
modeling (the crashes are particularly spectacular, with paint scrapes,
dents, and broken taillights meticulously modelled to show up exactly as
you would expect them to; no two crashes are alike in this game) and
seriously challenging computer opponents who are neither pushovers nor
robotic computer-seeming drivers (their driving responses are at times
quite human-like). Indeed, Viper's damage modeling is a benchmark by
which the damage models of other driving games should be judged.
Instead of a generic "damage level", which simply goes up as you take
more hits (like the one employed by most driving games), Viper Racing
immediately models the effects of any bumps. If you hit something with
your right-front tire, the wheel will go crooked, making it harder to steer.
Some of you may not like this, but if there's any game where using
manual shifting pays off, it would be Viper Racing. An automatic
transmission takes your mind off your gears, but it's not always the best
way to race. It may know when to upshift, but it doesn't know when to
downshift, and downshifting at the right moment makes a big difference
in road racing, which means most of the racing in Viper Racing (only a
couple of the tracks are oval-shaped, pedal-to-the-floor-type tracks). And
if there's any game that forces you to learn the intricacies of how to
manage a car in a power turn, it would be this one. About as solid as a
driving game can get. [MGI/Sierra On-Line]

Whiplash

World Circuit: Released at just about the same time as IndyCar Racing,
this ended up taking a back seat to that game's overwhelming popularity.
Although some people actually preferred World Circuit, it ended up
being mostly forgotten, though it really wasn't that different.
[MicroProse]

X-Car Experimental Racing

Cybersex/Adult/Porn:

Blue Heat: The Case Of The Cover Girl Murders: An adult adventure
which is, as is typical, propelled mostly by video clips and other
multimedia. The game actually includes an impressive list of unknown
people from famous works, actors and actresses who had bit parts in
movies and TV shows like "Goodfellas", "L.A. Law", "M*A*S*H", and
"ER". As you can guess, this is what intended to sell the game, since the
game itself is a pretty formulaic porn story about a female LAPD
detective who investigates a series of murders of porn stars. [Orion
Interactive]

Chat With Lisa 1.6: An amusing little BBS door which simulates a sysop
chat with someone supposedly named Lisa. Can also be run in local
mode. [Shareware]

Fatal Relations [Himeysa Software]

Girlfriend Lisa, Adult Version (Or PG-13 Version) [AIVR Corp.]

Girlfriend Suzy, Adult Version (Or PG-13 Version) [AIVR Corp.]

Girlfriend Teri, Adult Version (Or PG-13 Version) [AIVR Corp.]

Ibiza Babewatch: Apparently, this *appears* to be some kind of Leisure
Suit Larry-style game which takes place in a casino, on the beach, etc.
[Redfire Software/CDV]

Inside Chessie: Another of those desktop virtual girl type products.
[Redfire Software/CDV]

Light Up [Jast USA]

Lula: The Sexy Empire: An adult adventure-strategy game which has an
interesting plot behind it: You begin the game as a bank robber hiding
from the law, looking to start a new life for yourself. You meet Lula, an
aspiring actress, and a porn career results. The game begins with you
simply trying to get enough money to buy a new identity, by taking
photos and movies of Lula in a hotel room. Once that's done, you begin
your own porn movie business, which you must manage in typical
strategy-game style. From there, you expand into your own chain of sex
stores. The game ends when you earn enough money to accomplish the
final goal: Launch the Lula television satellite into orbit. Overall, an
original premise for an adult game that's actually pretty good. (The
European release of this game was titled Wet: The Sexy Empire.) [Take
2 Interactive/CDV Software Entertainment/Interactive Strip]

Mad Paradox [Queens Soft]

Midnight Stranger CD-ROM

Nocturnal Illusion [RCY America]

Panty Raider: From Here To Immaturity: Clearly an attempt at quickly
selling games to people desperate for porn, Panty Raider is a typically
horrible adult game with little variety in it. The plot is amusing: You are
a teenage boy forced against your will to photograph gorgeous women
in their underwear. Intriguing though this concept sounds, the game is
little more than clicking off photographs of mostly-naked women. The
thrill wears off very quickly, making for yet another so-called "game"
which doesn't even titillate as much as it should. [MacMillan Publishing]

Paradise Heights [Otaku Publishing Ltd.]

Return To Paradise Heights [Otaku Publishing Ltd.]

Ring-Out Pro-Lesring [Otaku Publishing Ltd.]

Runaway City [Jast USA]

Seasons Of The Sakura [Jast USA]

Three Sisters' Story [Jast USA]

Time Stripper Mako [Otaku Publishing Ltd.]

True Love [Otaku Publishing Ltd.]

UltraVixen: A typically poor-quality "adult" game. Unfortunately, this
one is actually semi-famous, apparently because it's better than most, a
sad reflection on the industry and solid proof that people don't know
how to make a good adult game. Basically you have to use various
devices to bring a purple-haired Anime girl to "SuperClimax" repeatedly.
Unfortunately, this consists entirely of guessing exactly which device to
use on her, then moving the mouse back and forth repeatedly until you
are (or rather, she is) finished. It gets boring pretty quickly. [Pixis]

Venus Select [Otaku Publishing Ltd.]

Virtual Valerie 2: One of the most famous simulated sex games ever,
possibly because its predecessor is regarded as being the first adult CD-
ROM game to exist. However, VV2 is a huge improvement over the
original Virtual Valerie, with vastly improved graphics and "gameplay".
Note that Valerie's "hot spots" (areas which can be stimulated to
progress in the game) are denoted by "targets" which briefly but
repeatedly flash over each area. However, it seems that clicking directly
on these targets does little except annoy Valerie; Instead, you must use
the implement given to you (which starts off as a gloved hand, and later
changes to a dildo or vibrator of some sort) and drag it over these areas
(and move it around between them) to gain points. This is essentially all
that the "gameplay" is, but it sometimes can be fun to watch the effects
of this motion. Also note that the README file makes reference to a
"Secret Buttblaster Level", which is actually fairly easy to reach: Ensure
your score is zero (if it is not, click the SCORE button, which makes you
lose points, until it is). Then click on the Virtual Valerie 2 logo in the
lower-right, and finally click the CLIMAX button. [Reactor, Inc./Arcus
Productions]

Wet Attack: The Empire Cums Back [CDV Software
Entertainment/Interactive Strip]

Simulation:

1942: The Pacific Air War Version 1.5b: Shortly after it released Fleet
Defender, Microprose came out with this World War II sim that was
meant to continue the development of a "new Microprose", one which
was better than the old one. Unfortunately, although 1942 has very nice
graphics and delivers in terms of atmosphere, it fails in one key point:
Control. The keyboard controls work fine until you try to press two
arrow keys at once, at which point the plane starts behaving strangely,
usually plummeting to the ground. The alternative would be to use a
joystick, but the game refused to let me use a joystick, making it
unplayable. It's worth noting that even when I played with a joystick (on
another computer which it did work with), however, the game exhibited
this same behaviour when I pegged the stick into either of the lower
corners. It seems that it does not like having both the horizontal and the
vertical stick positions pegged simultaneously; This would explain the
trouble with the keyboard, as the keyboard makes "partial" control
adjustments impossible. The joystick makes the game somewhat playable,
although the temptation to peg your controls in such a way when making
a tight turn in a dogfight is almost unbearable. As usual, however,
MicroProse has done an absolutely stunning job on the manual:
1942:PAW's manual contains several info bits and other nuances which
are of great value. The game exceeds in every area except playability.
Despite its promises of a "new MicroProse", it was really one of
MicroProse's last games before they were bought out by Hasbro, whose
misguided leadership they finally faltered and died under. (MicroProse
had already been bought out previously, in 1993, by Spectrum Holobyte,
which turned out to be a pretty good deal for both companies. The
release and subsequent successes of Fleet Defender and 1942:PAW
seemed to paint a bright future for computer gaming's biggest name in
flight sims, but it just didn't work out. After Spectrum Holobyte bought
MicroProse, MicroProse's headquarters moved from their original
location in Hunt Valley, Maryland, to Alameda, California (where
Spectrum Holobyte was based). Later, Spectrum Holobyte dropped their
name and simply became another part of MicroProse, officially ending
the existence of a company called Spectrum Holobyte. In 1998, Hasbro
purchased MicroProse. Shortly thereafter, Hasbro closed down the
Alameda location (the place that had once been Spectrum Holobyte)
permanently.) (To check your version of the game, press ALT-V at the
main menu.) (If you have an older version of 1942:PAW, you can
download a patch to update yourself to version 1.5b; The patch is
available on the Internet and has a filename of paw15b.zip) [MicroProse]

3-D Helicopter Simulator [Sierra On-Line]

688 Attack Sub [Electronic Arts]

688(I) Hunter/Killer

747 Jumbo Jet [Alpha]

A-10 Cuba!: This game's main drawback is it's not fancy. It lacks some
of the features that modern people have come to expect from a flight
simulator. Its graphics are not texture-mapped like the newer games are,
which makes it considerably more plain-looking than most flight
simulators in stores these days. It does lack a few other features too, like
the ability to start in the air instead of having to take off from the
runway. Probably the biggest problem, though, is there are only 12
missions in the game... And no mission editor to let you make your own.
That last note kills what otherwise would have been a great game.
[Activision]

A-10 Tank Killer 1.5: Persian Gulf flight simulator. Fly the Warthog.
(Please, please, please get version 1.5, not version 1.0! Version 1.5 is
speed-adjusted so it doesn't run too fast on faster CPUs, it has support
for 256-color VGA instead of the 16-color VGA used by version 1.0, and
1.5 also has sound card support.) [Sierra On-Line]

A-10 Tank Killer Module No. 1 [Sierra On-Line]

A-10 2: Silent Thunder: The sequel to the highly successful A-10 Tank
Killer. [Sierra On-Line]

A320 Airbus [Thalion Simulations/Lufthansa/Deutsche Airbus/Jeppesen]

Ace Of Aces: An early CGA simulation with some nice elements
(dogfights, u-boat runs, and discernible graphics), but motion which is far
too choppy to be flyable. [Accolade]

Aces High [HiTech Creations, Inc.]

Aces Of The Deep: Submarine simulation games are fairly uncommon,
but this is an excellent one. [Sierra On-Line]

Aces Of The Pacific (AOTP): Despite the fair number of World War II
flight simulators, this (and its sequel, the even-better Aces Over Europe)
is probably the only good one. (NOTE: Torpedo bombing is one of the
trickiest things to do in AOTP. First off, you should be aware that you
must drop your torpedo very close to the water, and at a very slow
speed. The manual states that your maximum altitude when dropping is
350 feet in Japanese planes, and only 150 feet in U.S. ones. Furthermore,
your maximum speed is 180 MPH for Japanese, and only 110 MPH for
U.S. This means that if you're pulling a torpedo run in an American
plane, you're going to have to put yourself at 150 feet or lower, at a
speed of 110 MPH or lower, which seems dangerously close to stall
point. Also, you must drop the torpedo at less than 1,500 yards away
from the target (Japanese planes) or 1,000 yards (U.S.) Note that if you
drop it correctly, you can actually see the torpedo in the water; It will
create a wake line in the water as it slowly surges toward the target. The
line is visible whether you're flying an American or a Japanese plane,
and it creates a visual confirmation that you dropped the torpedo
successfully; If you don't see it, the torpedo didn't get launched properly.
It usually takes several seconds for the torpedo to reach impact, making
them slower than dive-bombing. However, torpedos are more powerful,
as a single torpedo will usually sink even the largest ship. Note that as
if the almost-stalling launch parameters for American planes weren't bad
enough, American torpedos are way less reliable than Japanese ones.
According to the manual, more than a third of American torpedos didn't
arm properly, resulting in torps which simply don't blow up. In AOTP,
it seems like this happens more than a third of the time too. It's really
just pure chance.) [Sierra On-Line]

Aces Of The Pacific WWII: 1946 [Sierra On-Line]

Aces Over Europe: Essentially a sequel without improvements, AOE is
the European war counterpart to the Japanese-Pacific aspect of World
War II that was simulated in Aces Of The Pacific. AOE has noticeably
better graphics, including much more detailed markings on aircraft and
neat daylight shading effects (in which daylight dims and brightens as
clouds pass over the sun). As is appropriate considering the nature of the
regions, AOE takes place mostly over land, whereas AOTP took place
mostly over the ocean. This makes AOE's missions inherently more
varied and interesting, as there's a lot more variety in ground landscapes
than a vast blue carpet of water. AOE also seems to have beefed up the
skill of enemy pilots somewhat. Overall, it is a highly worthy sequel to
AOTP, and the two games deservedly stand as among the best WWII
flight sims ever. (AOE attempts to make getting hit by enemy bullets a
more realistic experience by shaking the screen to make you feel like
you're vibrating. However, on many video cards, this effect just makes
the screen black out for several seconds, which becomes very
disorienting. If you want to turn it off, AOE comes with small utilities
to control the shaking; Type SHAKEOFF from the AOE installation
directory to turn off this shake effect. To turn it back on, type
SHAKEON. And if you want to set it to a "moderate" level, type
SHAKEMED.) [Sierra On-Line]

Aces Over Europe Mission Disk 1 [Sierra On-Line]

Aces Over Europe Mission Disk 2 [Sierra On-Line]

Aces Over Europe CD [Sierra On-Line]

AH-64D Longbow Helicopter

Air Command 2.0 [Joe's Games]

Air Duel: 80 Years Of Dogfighting: What's remarkable about this game
is the range of aircraft it has: It simulates every stage of the aircraft's
evolution, from the first World War I fighters right up to the modern
electric jets. You can even mix them, pitting a Fokker Dr.I against an F-
16 Falcon for example. This allows a flexibility that most sims don't
have. [MicroProse]

Airline Simulator 2 (AS2) Professional: As the name suggests, this is a
dedicated airliner sim, and a pretty good one at that. Indeed, with the
exception of SubLogic's now-forgotten "Flight Assignment: ATP", it may
be the only major high-end sim which is exclusively devoted to flying
airliners; No single-seaters here. [NOMISSOFT GmbH]

Air Power [Rowan Software]

Air Warrior SVGA

Air Warrior 2 [Interactive Magic]

Aircraft & Scenery Designer For Microsoft Flight Simulator [Microsoft]

Aircraft & Adventure Factory

Aircraft & Facility Directory

Airfix: Dogfighter: A flight sim of a very different color, this is a
surprisingly good simulation of flying a model World War II plane
indoors. It's obviously not for hard-core war simulation fans, but for
anyone who wants a new experience in the flight arena, this might be
worth a look. [Eon Digital Entertainment/Paradox Entertainment/Vision
Park Entertainment/Unique Development Studios]

Air Traffic Control Center (ATCC) 1.0: Another excellent ATC
simulation, this one letting you play with New York, Los Angeles, or
Chicago airspace. It's definitely one of the best ATC games ever made.
In fact, as much as I liked BAO's Tower!, it must be admitted that
Tower! is more of a "beginner" ATC sim, with its emphasis on snazzy
graphics, while ATCC is more of an advanced game, with only a simple
radar screen for graphics and more of an emphasis on the actual air
traffic controlling. It also has a truly excellent manual, which gives a
thorough treatment of not only the technical aspects of air traffic control,
but also some of the psychological aspects, helping you adjust your
mentality and remain calm even when keeping watch over a cluttered
radar screen full of converging blips. ATCC is the game for serious air
traffic controllers. Version 1.0 is now freeware. Download it from
www.xavius.com [Xavius Software] (Freeware)

Air Traffic Control Center (ATCC) 1.1: This is the CD-ROM version of
ATCC. Essentially a minor upgrade, version 1.1 mostly adds real voices
from the pilots (instead of you having to simply read their words as text),
and a few other small tweaks. (It's no longer made or sold by Xavius.)
[Xavius Software]

Apache

Apache Havoc 1.1C: I call Enemy Engaged: Comanche Vs. Hokum one
of the best helicopter sims ever made, and rightly so. However, its
predecessor, Apache Havoc (that is, AH-64 Apache vs. Mi-28 Havoc) is
no less deserving of praise. It's simply an amazingly well-crafted sim,
with attention to detail everywhere. The graphics, the flight model, and
the well-researched information are all rich. The manual is rather
amazing; It gives a better explanation of the aerodynamics (and
surrounding pitfalls) of piloting a chopper than any other helo sim's I've
seen to date. It explains the reasons why you start yawing sideways
whenever you take off (it's because of the main rotor's torque effect, and
it goes on to explain that this little problem is dealt with by raising the
collective slowly to let the tail rotor catch up, and by using foot pedal to
counteract the yaw), it explains the phenomenons of ground effect and
translational lift, it goes into a fair bit of detail on how to land the sucker
(the hardest part of flight), and it even gives advice on how to land on
slopes, which is amazing since most helo sims simply parrot the old
myth that landing on an incline is a big no-no. (In truth, it's quite
possible on a slope that's smooth and not unreasonably steep.) This game
is definitely a worthy predecessor to its sequel. (It should be noted,
however, that Apache Havoc is a campaign-centric game; There is no
option to just pick a single mission and play it. It does offer the option
of playing just one mission, but even that actually creates a living world
in which missions come and go and helicopters are always flying around
doing their thing; It's really just a mini-campaign. If all you want to do
is just sit down and play missions one at a time, this is not your game.
But if you want something engrossing which will keep you playing for
several hours at once, this is it.) (NOTE: One horribly under-documented
function in this game is that of switching the IHADSS mode. The
IHADSS has two modes: Navigation and combat. Although the manual
mentions this clearly, it does not explain how to switch between the two
in the same section. The only mention of how to switch to navigation
mode is made in the combat section, where it briefly states that putting
your weapons in safe mode returns the IHADSS to navigation mode. To
put the IHADSS in combat mode, press Weapon Select; This turns on
combat mode and subsequent presses will cycle your weapons. To put
the IHADSS back in navigation mode (and activate "Weapons Safe"),
press CTRL-BACKSPACE.) (When flying a recon mission, you must
transmit the recon info back to your base, or the mission will have been
a total failure. To transmit recon, you must be within 500 metres of the
recon waypoint. Once you are, press the TAB key to transmit a radio
message, choose "Local Base" to transmit to your base, then choose
"Transmit Recon". Scout missions are similar to recon missions, but do
not require you to do anything other than fly your assigned route; A
scout mission is complete as soon as you have flown through all the
waypoints.) [Razorworks/Empire Interactive/Interplay]

Apache Longbow [Digital Integration]

Armored Fist [NovaLogic]

Armored Fist 2 [NovaLogic]

Armored Fist 3 [NovaLogic]

Art Of The Kill: A multimedia guide to air-to-air combat, an instructive
part of Spectrum Holobyte's Electronic Battlefield Series, which also
included Falcon 3.0 (and its add-on pack, Operation: Fighting Tiger) and
MiG-29. [Spectrum Holobyte]

ATAC: Advanced Tactical Air Command: A pretty good early simulation
from MicroProse with a nice feel to it. It simulates the F-22 jet and the
AH-64 helicopter. It is unique for several reasons. First, the mixing of
airplane with helicopter (a rare move for flight sims; Why are they
always either airplane-or chopper-only?) Secondly, the setting: You are
commanding a war against South American drug lords and their empires
of wealth. Most important of all, the gameplay in ATAC is almost totally
unique: You begin in the mission planning room, but rather than simply
receiving a mission briefing here, you create your own missions. You are
given intelligence reports on drug shipments and such, then it's up to you
to decide what areas you will strike, and what aircraft and armament you
will use to do so. You can even assign multiple aircraft to the same
mission, and have each of them in the air at one time, working
independently, while you either fly one of them yourself, or simply sit
in the operations room, safely on the ground. This makes it a hybrid
between strategy and flight sim, the likes of which I have only seen one
game previously I could compare it to, namely, the excellent Ka-50
Hokum. ATAC is similar to Ka-50 in its approach, and in fact it is
difficult to decide which game is better, as they both have important
strengths and weaknesses. The ability to fly an aircraft or a helicopter
definitely works in ATAC's favor (Ka-50 only simulates helos), but
Ka-50 actually has more aircraft: 4 choppers you can fly, in total. Ka-50
has better graphics, but ATAC seems to have an edge in sound effects.
Ultimately, however, Ka-50's mission planning map is much more
sophisticated and the whole game is more broad in its scale, meaning it
is probably superior to ATAC. Still, each is a highly interesting
experience worth looking at. (NOTE: When you first enter the cockpit,
press ALT-K to switch to keyboard control, because the game defaults
to mouse control, which is annoying. And note that you need to use the
numeric keypad keys to control your aircraft; The cursor keys won't
work. Also note that if you set your level to Air Strike, you will not go
through the planning screen which includes waypoints and intelligence
reports; You will go directly from the filing cabinet to the cockpit. This
is the equivalent of a "Quick Start" or "Instant Action" option. And be
aware that while the game does use waypoints (which you set yourself
during the mission planning screen), unlike most sims, it does not seem
to allow you to cycle through them, meaning you pretty well just have
to fly them in the order they're assigned.) [Argonaut
Software/MicroProse]

ATF: Advanced Tactical Fighters [Jane's Combat Simulations]

AV-8B Harrier Assault [Domark]

B-17 Flying Fortress: A simulation of World War II's famous bomber,
which turns an unlikely concept into a game that's actually quite good.
You wouldn't think it's much fun to pilot a bomber; A slow,
un-maneuverable, big plane which simply flies to a target, drops bombs,
and goes home sounds like an unexciting concept. But MicroProse
displays the talent for flight simulators that made them the world's
premier flight sim company, letting you play any position in the plane
(pilot, navigator, gunner, bombardier, or radio operator) and emphasizing
teamwork as you strive to get all these players to work together to make
the B-17 work. There's not much dogfighting action here, but as an
unusual and historical flight simulation, this game works. MicroProse has
authorized B-17 Flying Fortress' developer to release the game as
freeware, and it's now available for download from
http://www.bombs-away.net [MicroProse]

B-17 Flying Fortress 2: The Mighty 8th [Hasbro Interactive/Wayward
Simulations]

Babylon 5

Back To Baghdad: This game instantly became semi-famous on the
strength of its incredibly detailed cockpit modeling, which didn't leave
out any of the nuances of a real F-16's cockpit. It also had an excellent
flight model, which drew comparisons to Falcon 3.0 (still the "definitive"
F-16 sim at the time.) Unfortunately, in every other respect, it was a
rather hastily-made, low-end sim which didn't stack up to the
competition. [Military Simulations, Inc.]

Banzai Bug: A very different kind of flight simulator. You play the title
role. You are trapped in an exterminator's house and have to survive
long enough to drive him and his family out. Interesting 3-D graphics
add a solid visual punch to a very enjoyable game. [Grolier Interactive]

Battlehawks 1942: Released at almost the same time as Their Finest
Hour: The Battle Of Britain, this is its companion World War II sim,
simulating the Pacific-Japanese aspect of the war. [Lucasfilm (Now
LucasArts)]

Birds Of Prey (BOP): Possibly the most stunningly varied flight
simulator ever made. BOP has several different types of missions, from
basic dogfights to bombing runs, to more esoteric things like stealth
reconnaisance and test piloting experimental aircraft. Not only that, it
also has a huge number of planes you can fly, from the staples of flight
simulation like the F-15 and F-16 all the way to experimental rocket jets.
Unfortunately, all this variety is spoiled by absolutely horrible controls.
The arrow keys on the keyboard normally only shift your view. You
have to hold down ALT while pressing them to get the control stick to
move with them. Furthermore, the stick doesn't automatically re-center
when you're not pressing anything, meaning you have to manually center
it, which is not the case in a real aircraft. (Very few flight simulators use
this utterly foolish scheme; Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the few
others which has been plagued with it.) On top of that, BOP has a
somewhat iffy flight model which feels like some liberties have been
taken in terms of realism. (Use J to toggle your engines on and off.)
[Electronic Arts]

Black Knight 1.2: An outstanding F/A-18 simulator with impressively
realistic and responsive controls, and graphics and sound that are a cut
above. [FormGen]

Blue Angels: The only flight simulator I've seen which focuses on
formation flying. A bit simplistic and old but a nice introduction to the
concept. Use the numeric keypad + and - keys for your throttle, as the
ones to the left of Backspace don't work. You'll have to get used to the
unrealistic flight model. In particular, learn to use your afterburner and
speed brake effectively. These two tools are not actually used to regulate
your airspeed; Rather, they alter your maneuverability. All your
maneuvers are executed more quickly when you're holding down the
afterburner key, and more slowly when you're holding down the speed
brake. Thus you need to learn to use the afterburner when a tight turn is
called for, and the speed brake when a gentler one is in order. [Accolade]

Blue Max: An unremarkable World War I flight sim which is good in its
own right, but seriously eclipsed by the much better-known (and rightly
so) Red Baron, with nothing to distinguish it. [Three-Sixty Pacific]

California

Carrier Command [Rainbird Software/Realtime Games Software]

Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer 2.0: A predecessor to Chuck
Yeager's Air Combat, the sim that would go down in history, this is a
pretty respectable game which, as you might guess, aims to teach flying.
It's less of a game than CYAC, but it does have some noteworthy
features including high-resolution EGA graphics, a fairly large selection
of planes to test out (including several of those experimental rocket
planes which they used in the early supersonic tests), a nicely-done sky
which gradually fades to black as you go higher until around 120,000
feet or so it just disappears as you enter space, and several demo flights
to show you how to handle these beasts. Version 2.0 has vastly superior
graphics to the first version, which also ran too fast on modern
computers. (NOTE: If you can't see any status indicators on the screen,
try pressing H on the keyboard to toggle your HUD. And if your joystick
doesn't seem to be working right even after you enable it in the config
screen, try pressing J.) [Electronic Arts/Edward Lerner]

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat (CYAC): Another awesome flight simulator,
this one simulates over a dozen planes (though it only lets you fly 6 of
them) and lots of missions. Every computer fighter pilot should have it.
(NOTE: Run the game with the ADLIB parameter to make the game use
your AdLib card instead of the internal speaker. And use the
NOSPEECH parameter to turn off Chuck's digitized speech.) [Electronic
Arts]

Coaster: A roller-coaster simulation. Would be better if your critics knew
what they wanted. [Disney Software]

Comanche: Maximum Overkill CD 3H: A huge assortment of missions,
excellent graphics, and lots of nasty enemies. The best helicopter flight
simulator I know of. This should keep you busy for a while.
IMPORTANT: Make sure you get a version which works with Pentium
IIs and Windows 95. If you don't, there is a free patch available which
upgrades to version 3H. [NovaLogic]

Comanche: Maximum Overkill 3H Non-CD Version [NovaLogic]

Comanche Maximum Overkill Add-On: Over The Edge: 40 new missions
for CMO, which is good because the original game, while excellent, had
one major flaw: It was seriously lacking in missions. [NovaLogic]

Comanche Gold [NovaLogic]

Comanche 3 [NovaLogic]

Command: Aces Of The Deep For Windows 95: The incredibly realistic
submarine game, designed for Windows 95. [Sierra On-Line]

Corncob-3D 3.42: This is the only really good shareware flight simulator
I know of. It has some interesting features, too, including a surprisingly
realistic flight model. [Pie In The Sky Software]

Crimson Skies [Zipper Interactive/Microsoft]

Cyber Race

Dawn Patrol: Although plagued with graphics driver problems (the
VESA support in this game is very badly implemented, at a time when
the VESA standard was still young), this is an impressive World War I
flight sim with astounding graphics for its time, with good physics
handling and plenty of dogfights, along with a nice feel to it overall.
[Empire Interactive/Rowan Software]

Destiny [Interactive Magic]

EF2000 2.0: The original EF2000 was an awesome flight simulator,
despite a few problems with bugs in the software. Now, most of them
appear to be fixed up in version 2.0, thus creating a near-perfect game.
It simulates the EuroFighter 2000. There is no question that EF2000 2.0
now stands as one of the best flight simulators on the market. [Digital
Integration]

Enemy Engaged: Apache Havoc: See Apache Havoc

Enemy Engaged: RAH-66 Comanche Versus Ka-52 Hokum: One of the
very best helicopter sims ever produced, Comanche Vs. Hokum blends
stunning graphics with excellent physics modelling and a remarkably
open-ended and challenging campaign. This title deserves a place on any
armchair chopper pilot's shelf. [Razorworks/Empire Interactive]

European Air War [MicroProse]

F-14 Tomcat [Activision]

F-15: From the very moment you run it, Jane's F-15 is an impressive
product. The game opens to some catchy music and a deceptively simple
main menu, which leads to an options screen that's anything but simple;
In fact, the controls configuration screen is simply stunning, featuring an
absurdly large selection of available commands, and the ability to map
ANY function to ANY key. This is the kind of control that every flight
sim should offer, but Jane's F-15 is the first I've seen that offers it to
this degree. (If one thing bothered me about this game, though, it's that
it simply requires a joystick; There's no facility for using the keyboard
keys to fly.) (Another very serious oversight in F-15 reveals itself after
you've been playing for a while: The game doesn't seem to provide you
with any provision for self-defense. Although you have flares, chaff, and
jammers as per the usual flight sim routine, they seem remarkably
ineffective against those hordes of incoming SAMs you'll be surrounded
by when you start flying real missions. Stunningly, this is the one point
the otherwise-excellent manual ignores. The manual is laden with details
on how to attack ground targets, air targets, flying tips, etc. But it is
absolutely silent on how to defend yourself when something is shooting
at YOU. In a sense, this is perhaps a nod to reality: In real life, pilots
don't have a lot of recourse if they have a SAM headed their way. For
all the emphasis placed on them, flares and chaff are not magic; They
often simply don't work. It may be an effort to make the game realistic,
but it certainly makes F-15 a frustrating sim when even on the easiest
enemy skill settings, you're constantly being attacked by enemy forces
with almost nothing you can do to save yourself. F-15 is realistic, and
purists will like that, but it is also very, very hard.) [Jane's Combat
Simulations]

F-15 Strike Eagle: Air Combat In The Jet Age: The original F-15 Strike
Eagle is an embarrassing program which MicroProse probably wishes
they'd never released. It has 4-color CGA graphics, and a feel that's
definitely less than realistic. [MicroProse]

F-15 Strike Eagle II 451.01: A vastly improved effort, this includes better
graphics, better gameplay, more options, and great sound support for the
internal speaker and AdLib. It's much, much better all around. A large
part of F15SE2's gameplay is dodging missiles, but while most sims
require you to use chaff/flares or jamming to "spoof" missiles, in this
game they can be made to stop tracking your plane by simply turning so
they're facing your side. Although turning perpendicular to a missile's
flight is what pilots are supposed to do, normally this must be followed
by a dump of a countermeasure. In any case, the result is that F15SE2
is largely dodging missiles as they come, turning sideways to them and
waiting until they fly by you. This is not necessarily a bad thing,
although it does mean that the strike eagle doesn't see much actual
striking; Perhaps the game should have been called "F-15 SAM Dodger"
instead. [MicroProse]

F-15 Strike Eagle III 4108.03: Fully up-to-date for mid-1990s computers,
this is a stunning flight simulator, and a far cry from the original F-15
Strike Eagle. Now, THIS is modern air combat. Remember, when using
the air-to-air radar, clicking on a target to designate it does not make a
tracking reticle appear on the HUD immediately; It only designates the
target and puts you in DTWS (Designated TWS) mode. To actually make
a tracking reticle for the aircraft on your HUD, you must press L to lock
up the target. Maintaining SA (Situational Awareness) is crucial in this
game, as enemy aircraft tend to come out of seemingly nowhere if you
don't keep your eyes open. Every few miles, turn on your A-A radar and
do a scan of the air in front of you to make sure there's nobody lurking
there, then turn the radar back into SNIFF mode to avoid giving yourself
away. Likewise, keep an eye out for SAM sites. Even over open water,
ships carrying SAMs often become a threat if you fly too close. Oh, and
note that when using guided delivery mode for guided weapons like the
SLAM, Maverick, Harpoon, HARM, and GBU15: If it doesn't say
"GUIDED" on the HUD, THE WEAPON IS NOT GUIDED AND WILL
NOT HIT THE TARGET! The word "GUIDED" must appear in the
lower-right hand corner of the HUD, indicating the missile has locked
onto the designated ground target. Use the HRM (High-Resolution Map)
screen to lock up your targets for guided weapons. When looking at the
HRM, choose your target by clicking on it with the right mouse button.
You can't just click on empty ground with the right mouse button on the
HRM, it will automatically choose the closest real target. Also, when
looking at the RBM (Real Beam Map), remember that you can't bring
up HRMs for areas right in front of your plane's flight path, because the
Doppler radar returns are too weak. You must therefore turn at an
awkward angle to the location you want a map of, then click on it with
the left mouse button. After a few seconds of waiting, the HRM will pop
up. Although you can adjust the RBM's range with the HOME key, its
possible range is directly related to your altitude; At very low altitudes,
you will not be able to make the RBM larger than 10 NM. The higher
you go, the larger you can make it. It has a maximum range of 80 NM.
(NOTE: Make sure you have the latest version, which as of this writing
is 4108.03. If you have an earlier version, you can get a patch on the
Internet to update your copy; Look for a filename of f15303.zip)
[MicroProse]

F-15 Strike Eagle III CD [MicroProse]

F-16 Aggressor [General Simulations/Bethesda Softworks]

F-16 Combat Pilot: Considering it came out in 1989, this flight sim is
pretty impressive. It has built-in slowdown routines (so it doesn't run too
fast on modern systems, something you can't always expect from these
games), the flight model feels good, and there's actually quite a broad
selection of mission types available. Proof that Tornado wasn't a fluke
and that Digital Integration was and is a highly capable flight sim design
team. [Electronic Arts/Digital Integration]

F-16 Fighting Falcon [Digital Integration]

F-16 Multirole Fighter [NovaLogic]

F-19 Stealth Fighter 435.01: It's amazing what you can do in an airplane
if nobody knows you're out there. With many other games, avoiding
radar detection is hardly even on your list of things to think about. In this
game, it's about all that matters. Unlike most flight simulators, this is not
very arcade-like in atmosphere.
  Since the key to your mission success is basically avoiding radar
detection, it's in your best interests to become familiar with all the radar
sites that exist in the theatre you're flying in. However, since the radar
sites are always the same within each theatre, it's not necessary to review
them in the intelligence briefing for each mission; Once you get to know
them, they'll always be in the same places. Interestingly, your throttle
setting seems to have a significant effect on how effective radar is at
detecting your plane. If you have enemy skill set to a relatively low
setting (such as Regular Opponents), keeping your throttle at 70% or
60% seems to actually constrain the range of enemy radar; You'll notice
that as you get closer to them, the circles on the map representing their
transmissions will actually grow smaller as your plane approaches them.
It's unclear whether this is a bug in the game or a deliberate form of so-
called "rubber-band AI" to make the game easier, but in any case, even
though it does not directly affect the radar visibility bar, keeping your
throttle set low will make you much harder to detect. (This effect seems
to become negated on higher enemy settings, especially Elite Opponents,
who tend to know how to handle their radar better in any case.) Also
keep in mind that there are two types of radar in the game: Pulse and
doppler. Pulse radars are most effective at tracking you when you fly
perpendicular to their radar arc (i.e. your side is facing the radar
transmitter), and least effective at tracking you if you fly directly toward
or directly away from them. Doppler radars are exactly the opposite:
They are most effective at tracking you when you fly directly toward or
directly away from them, and they tend to have trouble tracking you if
you fly perpendicular to their radar waves. This leads to the "threading
the needle" flight path illustrated in the manual, in which the stealthy F-
19 pilot flies a meandering flight path, weaving in and out of radar
patterns so that you can fly in arcs around doppler radars (keeping your
side facing them as you pass them), and in straight lines over pulse
radars (so that you're always flying directly toward them, or directly
away from them).
  I actually find the Central Europe theatre to be easier than the North
Cape. In Central Europe, you have plenty of mountains which make
excellent cover from radar transmissions and missile shots, and you can
make a whole game career out of simply keeping yourself inside those
mountain passes, emerging only to strike targets. The North Cape, by
comparison, is a rather open area with lots of defenses, and it becomes
very easy for the enemy to find and track you.
  You will need a minimum career total of exactly 27,720 after the
game's 99 missions to attain the highest possible rank of Brigadier
General. That's an average score of 280 per mission. Good luck!
  Also note that you can hex-edit the ROSTER.FIL file to change your
pilots' status. While this is technically cheating, it can be very frustrating
to (for example) build up a pilot's career over several dozen missions
and then have him killed because of a single accident. As such, I'll share
with you here the way to resurrect a pilot who has gone KIA (Killed In
Action) in the roster: It's actually very simple, all you have to do is find
the byte that controls the pilot's status (this is byte 50h for the first pilot
in the roster, but will have different file locations for other pilots), and
set it to a value of 0, which sets the pilot's status to "Active". (The other
two possible pilot statuses are a byte value of 1, which means "Retired",
and 2, which means "KIA".) [MicroProse]

F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0: Another stealth flight simulator,
basically the sequel to F-19 Stealth Fighter. [Microprose]

F-22 Lightning II: While based on the same aircraft as Jetfighter III, this
game is more quick-and-simple-arcade-style in its feel. You may prefer
this if you just want to blow things up without having to worry about
seriously realistic aerodynamic stuff. This game has some of the best
graphics available in flight simulators, especially as far as the terrain
goes. What would you expect from the same company that produced
Comanche? [NovaLogic]

F-22 Lightning 3: They did it again. Bigger, better, and more realistic,
this is about as close as you can get to piloting the F-22 without the real
thing. F-22 Lightning 3 suffers from some of the same realism flaws that
were in NovaLogic's original hit sim, Comanche: Maximum Overkill,
namely too-small mission worlds which focus mainly on target
destruction, making missions too short, and too many enemy forces
clustered around the area, meaning you end up spending most of your
time shooting at things arcade-style instead of flying the plane. Another
carry-over from Comanche is the fact that almost anything can be
instantly destroyed with a single missile or bomb. Enemy planes never
take damage from an AMRAMM or Sidewinder; They just blow up.
Even so, F-22 Lightning 3 does have enough realism to appeal to hard-
core simmers for a while, although not as long as the offerings from
Jane's Combat Simulations. The flight model is pleasing, if somewhat
easy-feeling. However, this may well be realistic, considering the F-22
is supposed to be a remarkably easy plane to fly. (Note that that
mysterious  symbol on your HUD is for your angle of attack.)
[NovaLogic]

F29 Retaliator [Ocean]

F/A-18: As you might expect, Jane's has done it again. Following the
release (and acclaim) of F-15, they went ahead and produced this, which
quickly became the definitive simulation of the Hornet. What makes this
game interesting is that unlike the F-15, the Hornet has not already had
a definitive sim. The F-15 had Microprose's F-15 Strike Eagle (and yes,
that was hardly a very realistic sim, but even so, it was the defining sim
for that plane), but the F/A-18 has never had a counterpart on the PC.
There was Hornet, the add-on product for that eternal classic, Falcon 3.0,
and there was FormGen's shareware classic Black Knight, but neither of
those games really did the plane justice (Hornet was an add-on to a game
that really wasn't that great in the first place, and Black Knight was
rather boring and one-sided). Now, at last, the F/A-18 has a real sim.
And what a sim it is. The full range of Hornet operations is simulated,
and done well, impressive considering the F/A-18 is such a famously
versatile plane, capable of air-to-air, air-to-ground, and air-to-surface
attacks, from either the ground or off an aircraft carrier. It's all here,
rendered in stunning graphics, absolutely atmospheric sound effects, the
same great control over your controls that Jane's F-15 gave you, and a
ton of missions, *plus* a mission builder! With everything in the right
place, from the gameplay to the presentation to the execution, it's really
not hard to consider Jane's F/A-18 one of the finest flight sims ever
created. (It should be noted, however, that this game tends to make
things a little too easy on the pilot as far as flying the plane goes.
There's a reason for this: It's realistic. The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet
simulated by the game has among the most advanced avionics of any
plane in the world. This is cool, but it means that basically everything is
done for you automatically. Everything, from locking up a target to
taking off and landing can be done automatically with the push of a
button. This may well turn off hard-core flight jocks who are used to
doing things manually.) (F/A-18 does not even let you manually select
targets off the A/A radar screen as Jane's F-15 did; You must simply
cycle through the targets with the cycle button. (Actually, that's not
entirely true. F/A-18 DOES let you pick targets off the radar screen, but
it doesn't just let you click them with the mouse. F-15 did; In F-15 you
could just click right on the radar display with the mouse cursor and
boom, your target has a tracking rectangle on the HUD. Instead, F/A-18
gives you two incredibly cumbersome ways to pick your targets: 1. You
can move the radar screen pointer, which the game calls a TDC (Target
Designation Control) with the keyboard, by holding down SHIFT and
using the arrow keys. When the TDC is over your target of choice, hit
ENTER to lock up the target. Imagine trying to do this while flying, and
you'll get an idea of how annoying it is. 2. You can use the joystick to
move the TDC, but you must hold down the forward slash key to transfer
joystick control from your plane's control stick to the TDC. Again,
imagine trying to do this while flying and, well, you get the idea.
Probably the most logical way to deal with this situation is to redefine
the "make the joystick control the TDC" and the "TDC designate"
commands to joystick buttons instead of keyboard keys. That way, you
can do it all through the joystick, but even so, this wastes precious
joystick button assignments. To be fair, this is probably closer to the way
actual pilots lock up targets in real life. After all, they don't have
computer mice up there in the cockpit, so they probably do flip a switch
that lets them use their joystick to move a pointer around on the radar
screen. When you think about it, this was probably meant to make the
game more realistic, which is appropriate since F/A-18 is a hard-core sim
anyway, and convenience is always laid aside for the sake of realism in
those. If that is the case, then it should be seen as part of the
experience.)) (Please, run this sim at 1024x768 resolution. I know it takes
a little more juice from your computer, but at anything lower, the cockpit
markings are just too hard to read.) (Oh, and note that that mysterious 
symbol on your HUD is for your angle of attack.) [Electronic Arts/Jane's
Combat Simulations]

F/A-18 Interceptor: An excellent and highly classic flight sim, one of the
best of its time. Unfortunately, it seems to have only ever been released
for the Amiga, and was not given a PC release. (It was bundled with
many Amiga 500s.) However, Jetfigher 2 (released many years later by
a different company) is an extremely similar game, as it has the same
graphical look and feel, similar controls, and the same geographical
location (the San Francisco Bay area). [Electronic Arts/Intellisoft]

F/A-18E Super Hornet [Digital Integration/Titus/Interplay]

FA 18 Hornet CD

Falcon: Yes, before Falcon 3.0 there really was this old CGA game with
outstanding realism for its time. [Sphere/Spectrum Holobyte]

Falcon A.T.: The EGA version of Falcon 1.0. [Sphere/Spectrum
Holobyte]

Falcon 3.0: The incredible flight simulator that lets you find out just what
it really is like to fly a Falcon. I sure hope flying a real Falcon is better
than playing this game. When it came out, it was hailed as the best flight
simulator ever. This seriously puzzles me, because it is one of the worst
flight simulators I have ever seen. From the moment you start the game
(after one of the worst installation programs in the world), you'll find
Falcon 3.0 to be a serious memory hog (odd, especially considering how
poor the graphics are). And the people who say it has the most realistic
flight modeling of any sim must be confusing this with a different game.
First of all, my plane always crashed instantly (before even getting off
the ground) if I tried to take off at full throttle. I had to become airborne
before setting it to full. (I'd like to mention that turning on your autopilot
on the runway also makes the throttle open all the way, causing you to
blow up.) Not that things get much better in the air... The gear and flap
keys sometimes didn't work, forcing me to keep flying with my gear
(and flaps) down. (I later found out that this was due to keeping them
down at excessively high speeds... So it's actually not a bug in the game
after all. Oh well.) And the F-16 (supposedly the most maneuverable jet
in the world) steers abominably slowly in this game. (Tip: It steers faster
(often five times faster) on an external view, rather than the cockpit
view.) Overall, Falcon 3.0 may not be the worst flight sim I have ever
played, but it was certainly the most disappointing, considering its huge
acclaim. (Update: I have since discovered that the problems with Falcon
3.0 are associated with running it on a fast computer. To test it out, I
tried running it on a 486. As it turns out, this solved all the problems.
Not only could I take off properly, the plane was also much more
controllable, and seemed to turn as you would expect an F-16 to turn.
After playing on the 486 for a while I understood why Falcon 3.0 was
so well-loved several years ago. It seems that although it has plenty
going for it in terms of sheer gameplay, it is not particularly well-
programmed, and all sorts of weird bugs crop up in the flight model on
faster CPUs. Bottom line: If you're going to play Falcon 3.0, you'll be
wildly disappointed if you play it on a Pentium III. But if you play it on
an older computer, the kind it was actually designed for, you're in for a
treat.) However, Falcon 3.0 still suffers from some flaws, including very
poor internal views which hardly show anything (ironic, considering the
exceptional visibility of the real-life F-16's canopy), terribly limited
wingman commands, and no IFF system, meaning it's hard to tell if a
plane is on your side or the other. (Be prepared to shoot up some of your
buddies by accident.)
  Actually, my mistake, Falcon 3.0 DOES have an IFF command; It just
happens to use an unintuitive key: N. That's right, you press N to
activate the IFF and see if the plane you're targeting is a friend or a foe.
Unfortunately, the IFF system is supposed to make a sound; It doesn't.
Instead, the little green IFF light on the Left View (the one which comes
up when you press Home) lights up if you've IFFed a friendly plane.
Moreover, the IFF light takes many centuries to reset, even though it's
supposed to only be lit for 10 seconds.
  I have recently discovered that everything I wrote about Falcon 3.0 was
about the original version of it. Version 1.0, if you will (although
technically, it is version 3.0, and the newer versions were given minor
upgrade numbers; The latest version as of this writing is 3.05). Falcon
3.0 has become one of those games with so many improvements and bug
fixes in later versions that the original version is virtually a completely
different game. Indeed, the readme file for version 3.05 says that "the
cumulative changes [in the versions, from 3.0 to 3.05] could be
something of a shock". They're not kidding. The first Falcon 3.0 was so
buggy and unpolished as to be literally unplayable. But version 3.05 is,
if not perfect, at least way better than what came before it. (You can
actually take off! Although it still seems a little choppy. And the IFF
function makes the "squak" it's supposed to make now. And the light
goes off after the prescribed 10 seconds, instead of making you grow old
first.) A prime example of a serious lack of Quality Control, and too
much haste in releasing a game before it's really ready for prime time.
(How can you tell what version you have? Version 3.05 actually says
"V3.05" on the title screen, in the tiny letters at the bottom.)
  When your wingmen start giving you those annoying "Request
permission to engage" messages, shut them up by pressing SHIFT-E
(that'll make them engage so they stop bothering you about it). And
don't forget that if you get lost, you can re-request navigation info on
your next waypoint from AWACS by pressing SHIFT-N.
  The HFR (High-Fidelity Radar) mode is the most realistic one. You
should select it in the difficulty options screen and get used to it, rather
than the SAD or SAM modes (in both of which the SA stands for
Situation Awareness; More SA, less realism).
  Oh, and the F-16 does have a rudder. Use the [ and ] keys to use it.
However, it only works when you're on approach for landing. Speaking
of landing, generally speaking, you should be at about 70% thrust when
you're coming in for your landings. (Keep your airbrake on.)
[Sphere/Spectrum Holobyte]

Falcon 3.0 Add-On: Operation: Fighting Tiger [Spectrum Holobyte]

Falcon 3.0 Add-On: Warthog A-10 [Spectrum Holobyte]

Falcon 4.0, Version 1.08: In flight simulators, a genre noted for manuals
which routinely run around 200 pages, Falcon 4.0's manual is even more
bulky than the norm: About 600 pages, a whopping number which stands
out as one of the very largest game manuals you're likely to ever see.
Indeed, this is the only game I have ever seen for which the manual
comes in the form of a hardcover binder, and this binder actually forms
the packaging for the game (with the CD simply inserted in a small slip
at the front of the binder). [MicroProse]

Fighter Bomber [Activision/Vektor Grafix]

Fighter Duel [Philips Media/Jaeger Software]

Fighter Duel Pro

Fighter Duel Pro 2

Fighter Legends: Europe 1944 [Jane's Combat Simulations]

Fighter Squadron [Activision]

Flanker 2.5: A stunningly rendered flight sim with rock-solid flight
mechanics, challenging (very) missions, a highly involved and
sophisticated (even by normal flight simulation standards) control set,
and, most obviously, graphics which, as usual, push the envelope.
[SSI/Mindscape/Eagle Dynamics]

Fleet Command [Jane's Combat Simulations]

Fleet Defender 2.0 CD: A true-to-life simulation of the F-14 Tomcat, this
is the definitive game for that plane. It stands out as one of the most in-
depth flight sims of its time. Indeed, the entire game is full of attention
to detail, and the special MicroProse touch that marked this company
which had already been the leader in flight sims for years. The game
even includes a fairly in-depth political background, which is outlined in
the manual and which develops further based on the success or failure of
each of your missions. This semi-plot adds a real sense of progress and
development to your task. Because it's of the F-14, primarily a Navy
defence interceptor and not much of a dogfighter, this sim is also one of
very few which focuses on aircraft carrier life, including the special
problems of being surrounded by nothing but ocean all around. The
graphics are excellent for their time, and the manual is typically
MicroProse-ish, including plenty of background information along with
its game instruction. It's amazing that a simulation of a plane which turns
and flies very slowly could be so enjoyable, but the reason behind it is
that this isn't a fast-paced game. There are moments of brief, intense
action, but most of your time here will be spent planning, and waiting for
the next big encounter. It's more of a "strategic" flight sim than an
"action" one. Overall, this is a unique game, offering a setting and
atmosphere which few other games have even modeled, and which no
other game has managed as well. Be aware that on escort missions, a
large amount of your time will be spent simply waiting for the plane(s)
you're escorting to get where they're going. Assuming you get there first
(and you should, since you want to take down any enemy fighters in the
way *before* your escortees are vulnerable to them), you'll basically just
have to loiter until they finally arrive. On some missions, your mission
is not complete until the plane(s) you're escorting have made it *back*
to the carrier; On others, just getting them to the target is enough. Either
way, do NOT land until the carrier has actually told you your mission is
over, or else you will be considered to have failed the mission. (Also be
aware that Fleet Defender simulates the effect of air density on your
airspeed; At higher altitudes, you are able to go faster than at sea level.
On long-range missions (that is to say, most of the missions in the game,
owing to the long-range nature of the F-14), you will find you get where
you're going faster at 30,000 feet (or even more) than just hugging the
ground. The analog airspeed indicator will read lower (because it shows
indicated airspeed, and is calibrated for your airspeed at sea level), but
your true airspeed (TAS) as shown on the lower display (the horizontal
situation display, or HSD) will be higher. To some sim enthusiasts, it
may seem paradoxical to climb higher to gain speed, but such is the
case.) (NOTE: Although the manual claims that RWS radar mode is
exactly like PDSRCH mode except for the additional benefit of the TID,
there is in fact an advantage to PDSRCH mode (after all, otherwise why
would it exist?) PDSRCH mode has the longest detection range of any
radar mode, which means it can detect objects from farther away, while
RWS has among the shortest detection ranges.) When you're escorting
plane(s), don't just follow them; Instead, you should pull out your map
and check the flight plan so you know where they're going. Then you
should fly *ahead* of them, clearing out their path of enemy planes
*before* they are subject to them. Ignore the actual plane(s) you're
escorting, since you don't need to babysit them. Just get rid of the threats
in their way. (Note that when portions of your TEWS display flash
accompanied by a beep, this indicates a ground-based radar beam passing
over your plane. This is different from the radar actually tracking your
plane, in which case the radar would be displayed as a square icon on the
TEWS screen. Speaking of the TEWS, KEEP IN MIND that only radar-
guided missiles are shown on it, never IR-guided missiles.) (Make sure
you get version 2.0, which has numerous big fixes including running at
a suitable speed on fast computers. If you get an earlier version, there is
a patch available free on the Internet to upgrade to version 2.0. Look for
a filename of F14V20.ZIP). [MicroProse]

Fleet Defender Gold: Fleet Defender was later re-relased in this "Gold"
edition, a CD-ROM with over 400 MB of multimedia audio/video. The
game itself wasn't greatly changed though. [MicroProse]

Flight Assignment: ATC (Airline Transport Controller): It's always been
said that Air Traffic Controller is an extremely stressful job. Wanna find
out just how stressful it is, WITHOUT having to worry about killing
people? This game simulates the job of ATC quite well. It's definitely
challenging. [SubLogic]

Flight Assignment: ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) 2.0 [SubLogic]

Flight Commander 2: A "flight sim" of quite a different color; Indeed,
calling it a "flight sim" is really a misnomer. It uses a turn-based board
game format, in which you control little tokens representing your aircraft.
It doesn't sound like a game which would appeal to hard-core flight
enthusiasts, right? Surprisingly, it does appeal, however, for a couple of
interesting reasons: First of all, like a good flight sim, Flight Commander
2 models many different aspects of an aircraft, going beyond the basics
of speed and ordnance, to create a true-to-life board-game "simulation"
of an actual dogfight. Secondly, it contains a massive selection of aircraft
to simulate: Literally dozens, including several different versions of the
same basic plane (both the F-14A and the F-14B (the one with the
upgraded engines) are there, for example). As any fighter pilot knows,
dogfighting is more about fast thinking than fast reflexes. Strategy and
planning ahead matters more than simply reacting to what comes at you.
To that end, what's interesting about Flight Commander 2 is how
instructive it is, even to those who've played several first-person, real-
time flight sims. Without the pressures of having to react quickly to
incoming threats, you're free to really study your tactical situation and
think about the best moves to make. The advantages of pure thrust over
maneuverability, which you may be only glancingly familiar with, start
to hit home in this game: A maneuverable jet doesn't help much when
your enemies are making wide "slashing attacks", the kind where they fly
a few miles away, then turn around and snipe you as they whizz by
before you can turn to aim at them. This kind of attack may seem like
"cheating" to some, but it's a real-world tactic used by faster but less
maneuverable jets against slower but more maneuverable ones (the F-4
versus MiG-17 battles in Vietnam were a real-world example of the
relationship between thrust and turning speed). This isn't the only lesson
you'll learn from playing Flight Commander 2, but it's one of the more
important ones. Overall, this game is a revelatory experience which will
teach you more than you thought a board game could teach about flight.
And the next time you ramp up Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, you just
might remember some of those lessons and find yourself applying them
for more effective dogfights.

Flight Gear: A free, open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight sim
development project. Although the scenery isn't quite world-wide, the
advantages of having such a project are clear: Anyone can add to it, and
it's free for the taking. The graphics aren't top-notch either, but they're
actually pretty good OpenGL 3D. The homepage is at www.flightgear.org

Flight Light: In 1988, a legal battle erupted between Microsoft and
subLogic. subLogic had been the developers of all the first 4 Microsoft
Flight Simulator programs, yet Microsoft wanted to claim the copyright.
As might be expected, MS won, SL lost. This led subLogic to abandon
all its old flight sim code and rebuild it from scratch. Five long years
later, Flight Light was released in 1994 as subLogic's first self-published
flight sim. It is so named because it is meant to be a "light" sim for
beginners who have been intimidated by the more "high-end" sims. It
serves this purpose very well, with a relatively gentle, yet thorough,
learning curve. The manual is excellent (as was typical of subLogic), and
the graphics are spiffy. [subLogic]

Flight Light Plus: An improved version of Flight Light, released in 1995
by Sierra, shortly after they acquired subLogic. It includes more scenery,
and 3 extra planes (which is good, because the original Flight Light gave
you only a basic Cessna to fly). [subLogic/Sierra On-Line]

Flight Of The Intruder: One of the few sims ever made which lets you
fly the A-6 Intruder. (It also lets you fly the F-4 and MiG-21.) It also has
a few other innovative features, like letting you jump from aircraft to
aircraft in flight. [Spectrum Holobyte]

Flight Planner

Flight Sim Toolkit (FST): An impressive product which became
semi-famous (but not famous enough) for letting you create the entire
flight simulator world, including the terrain, the object shapes, the
cockpit appearance and indicators, and the aircraft model and behavior.
If you're feeling creative, you can create everything from scratch, but
luckily, it comes with a sizable library of shapes and cockpit panels, so
you can just throw a few of them together and see what you like.
Overall, a unique product, the likes of which I have never seen before or
since, and well worth getting for the person who wants to customize their
flight sim. Its only major flaw is that the design tools are all Windows
programs, but the actual simulator itself requires DOS mode, so you have
to keep kicking between DOS and Windows to go between design and
testing. (NOTE: Believe it or not, FST uses ALT-V as the keystroke to
go back to the cockpit view.) (NOTE 2: By default, the simulator runs
in 320 x 200 mode. To get it to run in 640 x 480 mode, type "fly -V"
instead of just "fly".) (Tip for when you're terraforming your world: Use
liberal amounts of height. Even a terrain lift of 100 or 200 only creates
a fairly small hill; Do not think that adding 10 or 20 to an area's height
will create a noticeable difference.) [Domark/Simis]

Flight Simulator Flight Shop

Flight Unlimited [Looking Glass Technologies]

Flight Unlimited II: Make no mistake: Looking Glass' Flight Unlimited
games are an excellent series of civilian flight simulators which do a
competent job of challenging Microsoft Flight Simulator's dominance of
the genre. But Flight Unlimited 2's marketing campaign, in which MSFS
is deemed "LIMITED" and FU2 is, of course, declared "UNLIMITED",
is bold and somewhat unwarranted, especially since FU2 has
considerably more limitations than MSFS. For starters, FU2 is inferior in
the two most fundamental qualities that most gamers look at first: Where
can you fly, and what can you fly? MSFS has now extended its scope to
the entire world, raising the bar to the point where any sim which hopes
to compete must do the same or risk rejection by the gamers. And while
some people could probably live without being able to fly to Antarctica
or perhaps Africa, Flight Unlimited 2 does not even give you one
continent. It doesn't even give you one country. The only region modeled
in FU2 is the San Francisco Bay Area. Yes, you read that right: Forget
about long-distance or transoceanic flights, here all your flights will
probably be one hour long at the most. Now, some might argue (and
have already done so) that this is perhaps a good thing, because after all,
who *really* wants to sit for 18 hours, waiting for their computer
airplane to make its way from one side of the world to the other? More
recent versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator include the extra-long-
endurance Boeing 777, an airliner made for flying across vast expanses
of ocean. This is purportedly so the player can practice their long-range
navigation, but really, how many people have actually made this kind of
flight (more than once, perhaps, just so you can see what it's like and
say that you've done it)? Truly, Flight Unlimited 2 lets you practice what
really matters in flying, rather than simply testing your patience as you
wait to get where you're going. And yes, the greatly shrunken scope of
the game means that it is able to model its small world in greater
attention to detail. Even so, it is not appropriate, in this day and age, to
make a game with less than one thousandth of the scope of a competitor,
then say that that competitor is "limited" in comparison to your product.
Next comes the question of what you can fly. FU2 has five aircraft,
which already makes it the loser. Worse yet is the lack of variety in these
aircraft: All of them are traditional fixed-wing, civilian-type aircraft,
meaning those who would like to try their hand at flying the big jets or
helicopters are out of luck here. And yes, MSFS does offer more than
one jet by now, as well as one helo.
  By no means is this to say that Flight Unlimited 2 is a failure as a
game, however. The aircraft are all modeled in detail and the flight
model is good. Aerodynamics seem to behave as they should, and there
is a functional, extensive system of air controllers across FU2's world,
meaning you'll have to learn proper radio communication/navigation
procedure and use it. FU2 is a fun game, but it feels like just that: A
game. And ultimately, even its developers seem to feel that that's what
it is, rather than a "serious" simulation, while Microsoft has been
aggressively marketing MSFS as a game which real-world pilots use to
train on. Those who've never played a civilian flight sim other than
MSFS might do well to take a look at a competing viewpoint by playing
FU2, but don't toss your copy of MSFS 2000 just yet. [Eidos/Looking
Glass Technologies]

Flight Unlimited III [Looking Glass Technologies/Electronic Arts/Eidos]

FLY!: A newcomer to the "civilian flight simulator" market which looks
to be trying to give Microsoft Flight Simulator a run for its money, much
like Pro Pilot, Sierra's failed attempt at doing the same.  [Terminal
Reality]

Flying Circus: An excellent Internet-multiplayer flight simulator. It costs
money to play, but it's one of the finest online flight experiences you'll
find on the Net. Be warned, however, that it's a World War-I simulator
so it may be a bit too old-feeling for jet jocks. [SimGuild]

Flying Corps Gold: An impressive new flight simulator, with a lot of
flexibility. Haven't seen one like this come along in years. [Rowan
Software]

Flying Nightmares [Domark]

Fly The Grand Canyon 3D

FS Pro

Ghost Bear's Legacy [Activision]

G-Nome [7th Level]

G-Police: A fun game which takes place in a hover car. You're a
futuristic police officer in a futuristic patrol car-type vehicle who has to
chase bad guys. Great graphics. [Psygnosis]

Grand Canyon

Great Britain Scenery Collection

Gunship 429.05 [MicroProse]

Gunship 2000 469.03 VGA: This excellent helicopter simulation is
Comanche's less graphically impressive but more realistic cousin.
Simulating several real-world helicopters and helicopter-based weapons,
this is quite possibly the only major classic helicopter sim which
emphasizes realism over all. The only comparable one is EA's LHX
Attack Chopper. [MicroProse]

Gunship 2000 CD [MicroProse]

Gunship 2000 Add-On: Islands And Ice: An expansion pack for Gunship
2000 which not only adds two new theaters with a slew of new missions
(the Philippine Islands and Antarctica, of all places), but also a powerful
mission builder, making the best mid-90s helicopter sim even better.
(NOTE: In order to bring up the mission builder, set your mission type
to "Simulated". This will make the mission builder appear when you
choose to begin the mission. Note, also, that you must have a rank of at
least 2LT (2nd Lieutenant) to use the mission builder; Otherwise, the
"Simulated" type of mission will not be available.) (NOTE: There is an
update available on the Internet for Islands And Ice-enhanced versions
of Gunship 2000 to upgrade to version 0.85. The filename is gs2v85.zip)
[MicroProse]

Gunship!: Distinguishable in name from the original Gunship only by the
exclamation mark in the title, this is essentially Gunship 3. Although the
graphics are absolutely stellar, the realism is so dumbed-down that it
barely deserves to be called a simulation. However, in this age of giving
the public what they want, the game provides plenty of first-person
shooter-style thrills in the department of blowing things up. So it's more
of an action game. Even so, it can be fun, just don't expect true-to-life
realism. [MicroProse]

Hang Gliding Simulator [Ilan Papini/Wilco Publishing]

Harpoon [Three-Sixty Pacific]

Harpoon 2 [Three-Sixty Pacific]

Harpoon 97 [Interactive Magic]

Harrier Assault SVGA CD

Harrier Jump Jet: A forgotten 1992 sim which, as you might guess,
simulates the VTOL Harrier, a little-simulated aspect of flight, which is
well-executed with the knack for flight simulators Microprose was known
for. [Microprose]

Hawaii

Hind [Interactive Magic/Digital Integration]

Hornet (Available only as an add-on for either Falcon 3.0 or MiG-29's
stand-alone edition) [Spectrum Holobyte]

iF-16

iF-22 Raptor

IFR Trainer 3.09: A flight sim which, as the name suggests, is
specifically intended to train people for IFR flights. [Safeline]

Il-2 Sturmovik: The most talked-about flight sim since the two-years-
before MiG Alley, and with good reason. Like the instant-classic MiG
Alley, Il-2 is unflinchingly realistic, possessed with the exquisite
attention to detail that every true fan of flight simulation seeks. The
planes feel and fly like they really should, with all the little nuances that
make the difference between a decent flight model and a great one. Il-2
also offers something new in terms of its theater: Instead of focusing on
the Allies vs. Germany or Allies vs. Japan aspect of World War II, it's
all about Germany vs. the Soviet Union. This is something very few
flight sims have cared to model before (in fact, I can't think of one I've
seen before that does it), making Il-2 even more outstanding, even if it
does also make it somewhat unfamiliar territory. The eponymous Il-2
Sturmovik is a Russian bomber which many people, even serious
historical flight sim fans, may well be unfamiliar with, and there are a
whole slew of other Russian craft which are similarly fresh faces. The
German aircraft, of course, are much more familiar because the Allies vs.
Germany aspect is the most-simulated aspect of WW2; All the Luftwaffe
planes you've come to know like the Bf-109 and the hard-hitting
FW-190 are here. Speaking of hard-hitting, the damage model in Il-2 is
excellent as well, both in terms of the damage you take, and the damage
you deal to others. If there's one thing wrong with Il-2, it's the mission
information, or rather, the lack of it. Briefings are terse and
uninformative, as are debriefings; In fact, almost no information is
presented on how well you did out on the battlefield, meaning it's hard
to tell if you did a good job, and why or why not. This is frustrating,
since the one real justification in any war game's combat mission is
seeing your debriefing unfold and watching exactly how they rate
everything you do. You'll have to judge for yourself how good your
performance was, which is harder than having someone else do it for
you. Il-2 also suffers from one flaw that affected MiG Alley as well: The
manual is a little short, and doesn't give a complete explanation of
everything you need to know to start flying. However, this approach is
logical when you consider Il-2's target audience: This is not a flight sim
for casual fliers. People who will want to play Il-2 will already know the
fundamentals of flight, and there is no need to walk them through yet
another discussion of the four forces of flight and angle of attack. Some
things could have been better explained (especially the relative
performance of the aircraft in the game, since they are, as mentioned, so
unfamiliar), but those who've been playing flight sims for a while will
be able to handle the game without too many problems. And if you
haven't been playing flight sims for a while, you probably wouldn't like
Il-2 Sturmovik anyway. Ultimately, if you loved MiG Alley and have
been waiting for another game to parallel it, this is it. [Ubi Soft/Maddox
Games]

Il-2 Sturmovik: The Forgotten Battles 1.22, Gold Edition: An expansion
pack for Il-2 Sturmovik which focuses on the air war even more obscure
than that of the original game; This expansion pack adds Finnish and
Hungarian pilots, and as that suggests, focuses on the operations that
took place closer to Europe's North Cape. [Ubi Soft/1C:Maddox Games]

Il-2 Sturmovik Forgotten Battles: Ace Expansion Pack 2.04: An add-on
to an add-on which adds 20 flyable aircraft, including some much more
mainstream World War II fighters, like the P-51 and P-38, which may
provide some relief for those still culture-shocked over the planes
provided in the original Il-2 Sturmovik. [Ubi Soft/1C:Maddox Games]

Il-2 Sturmovik Add-On: Operation Barbarossa [Just Flight/Matrix Games]

iM1A2 Abrams Tank [Interactive Magic]

Incoming [Rage Software]

Israeli Air Force (IAF): A typically excellent flight sim from Jane's,
which lets you fly a variety of fighters including the Israeli versions of
the F-4, F-15, and F-16 in this war-torn region. (NOTE: IAF uses a
weird bomb drop mode in which your bombsight must actually be
somewhere in the middle of your HUD. This means you must be going
pretty darn fast, or be flying pretty low (or at least have your nose
pointed low) to be able to drop any bombs, or else the bombsight will be
off the bottom of your HUD. This is incredibly annoying and makes it
hard to effectively bomb targets.) [Jane's Combat Simulations]

Jane's Fighters Anthology [Jane's Combat Simulations]

Jane's USAF [Jane's Combat Simulations]

Japan

Jet: One of the first flight simulators ever made for the PC, from a
company which would grow to be famous for its realistic games in that
genre. This one lets you fly either an F-18 (from a carrier) or an F-16
(from the ground). Although Jet is utterly primitive (it's from 1985, what
do you expect? At least it has 4-color graphics instead of monochrome),
it does have impressive flight modeling for its time, aside from the part
about running out of fuel before you get off the runway. [Sublogic]

Jet EGA 2.12: Jet was actually released in an EGA version, which had
way better graphics, and an even more important feature: Slowdown
routines, letting it run properly on systems faster than an XT. No more
running out of fuel as soon as you open the throttle. [SubLOGIC]

Jetfighter

Jetfighter II: A truly awesome flight simulator, which gives you a choice
of 5 different planes, plenty of missions, and a realistic feel. Now old,
but impressive, especially if you consider just how old it is. NOTE:
Jetfighter 2 requires HIMEM to be loaded. If it's not, the game will
crash when it tries to enter flight mode. [Velocity]

Jetfighter III: One of the best flight simulators to come along in a while.
Based on the F-22. Very realistic, superb graphics, and challenge enough
for almost anyone. If you want realistic, rather than arcade-like flight
simulation, and you feel like you can handle a serious flying challenge,
(and if you have a system good enough to run it well), this is your game.
[Mission Studios]

Jetfighter IV: Fortress America [Mission Studios/RD Simulations]

JetFighter V: Homeland Protector [InterActive Vision/Global Star
Software]

Jet Fighter: Full Burn [Interplay]

Jet Pilot [Vulcan Software]

JETSET: An extremely old text-only program which was one of the first
flight simulators for the PC (from 1982, though it was originally written
for the TRS-80 Model II). It lets you fly to several places in the U.S.
using a 747. Get this game from Giga Games CD. The complete list of
VOR frequencies in the game (there are 16 of them) is as follows (the
radials you need to follow in order to activate the marker beacon, the ILS
localizer headings, and location names, where available, follow). (Be
aware that no matter what, you always begin the simulation taking off
from Philadelphia International Airport):
112.2 (Radial: 270) (ILS: 217)
112.3 (Joliet, IL)
112.7 (Radial: 60) (ILS: 30) (Boston, MA)
112.8 (Radial: 161) (ILS: 75)
113.6 (Cleveland, OH)
113.8
115.5 (Radial: 119) (ILS: 164) (Philipsburg, PA)
115.7
115.9 (Radial: 58) (ILS: 28) (JFK International, NY)
116.4 (Radial: 346) (ILS: 42) (Buffalo, NY)
116.9 (Flint, MI)
117.0 (Green Bay, WI)
117.4
117.7
117.8
117.9

Jiffy Facility Locator V 3.0

JSF: Joint Strike Fighter

Jump Jet: See Harrier Jump Jet

Jutland [Software Sorcery]

Ka-50 Hokum: An unusually good simulation of the Russian Hokum, the
world's first helicopter to be designed specifically for the purpose of air-
to-air combat. Despite the name, the game actually lets you fly 3 other
helicopters as well, including the Mi-8 Hip. The graphics have a nifty
Gouraud shading applied to them which makes the game look really
good, especially considering its 1992 release date. However, what really
makes this game stand out is its thoroughly unusual approach to
gameplay: When you start the game, there are no missions available.
Instead, you have to go to the map and plan out your mission. Because
the results of your missions carry over from one flight to the next, and
in fact events are always in motion (other helicopters, on both your side
and the enemy's side, are going about their business even as you're busy
doing your own mission), the entire game is like one big, extended
campaign mode, except that unlike most sims which just throw missions
at you and let you fly them, you have to actually plan whether it would
be wisest to schedule a reconnaisance mission (which will be the only
thing you can do at first, since you won't know where any enemy targets
are), or an attack, as well as where to send your helicopter(s), and what
model(s) to use. This adds a very strong element of wargame strategy,
making Ka-50 Hokum a hybrid game rather than a pure simulation. It
also makes the gameplay amazingly deep, and people who enjoy that sort
of thing will thoroughly enjoy this game. People who just want to hop
into a helicopter and fly around and shoot stuff, however, may be well
advised to back off. I can't think of another flight sim which takes this
kind of hands-on approach, so Ka-50 Hokum is a truly innovative gem
of a game which deserved to do a lot better at the stores than it did.
[Simis/Domark]

KA-52 Team Alligator: A simulation of the Russian Ka-52 Alligator, an
assault helicopter for the 21st century. The spiritual successor to Team
Apache, KA-52 Team Alligator has the same approach as its predecessor:
Make a game that seems like a hard-core flight simulation, but actually
isn't, simplifying the flight model and controls and putting much of the
game's focus on managing your teammates in a strategy-game fashion
instead of making it a pure flight sim. The result, while certainly not for
hard-core simulation enthusiasts who want a real simulation of the
KA-52, is still a fun game that remains oddly unique in its approach.
[GT Interactive/Simis]

Knights Of The Sky [MicroProse]

LHX Attack Chopper: A truly excellent old chopper sim, which lets you
fly the AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Blackhawk, LHX (which later became the
RAH-66 Comanche in real life), or V-22 Osprey in three real-world
theatres. (Incidentally, this is the ONLY simulation I know of which
simulates the V-22.) The controls feel good, the graphics are decent, and
the gameplay is easy to get into. It is, essentially, the helicopter
companion to Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. [Electronic Arts]

Life & Death 1.04: Play doctor. Appendix removals, intestinal gas,
infections, kidney stones, and more. [The Software Toolworks]

Life & Death 2: The Brain 1.1: A more neurology-oriented game than
the previous one, this one has better graphics and sound and fuller
gameplay. [The Software Toolworks]

Longbow [Origin]

Longbow 2 version 2.09: This is one awesome helicopter sim! As of late
1997, it's definitely the one to get. [Origin]

Luftwaffe Commander [Eagle Interactive/SSI]

M1 Tank Platoon [MicroProse]

M1 Tank Platoon II [MicroProse]

Mallard's FS5 Washington D.C.

Mallard's FS5 San Francisco

Mallard's FS5 Las Vegas

Mantis Experimental Fighter

Mech Commander: The First Mechwarrior Game Of Tactical Command
[Microprose]

Mechwarrior [Activision]

Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries CD, Titanium Edition [Activision]

Mechwarrior 3 [Activision/Hasbro Interactive/MicroProse]

MechWarrior 4: Vengeance [Microsoft]

Megafortress 1.1: The industry-standard simulation of the B-52, this is
a fairly good flight sim with intuitive controls but a somewhat
questionable flight model. [Three-Sixty Pacific/Artech]

Merlin: A small helicopter simulation which is entirely about landing on
a frigate. This was originally made by Digital Integration for the Royal
Navy and later publicly released. It was never sold, but you might still
be able to find it online somewhere. [Digital Integration]

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator [Microsoft]

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: WWII Pacific Theater [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0: This was one of the first flight simulators
to exist, and the latest versions of it are still among the best to exist.
[Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2.1 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.0 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0A [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.0: If you're looking for red hot action in a
flight simulator, look elsewhere. But if what you're looking for is
actually a calm, serene game where you actually fly planes instead of
shoot them up, this game is superb. It's so real, some flight schools
accept hours logged onto FS as actual flight time. Now that's realistic!
Now with REALLY cool graphics. (NOTE: The "Auto Coordination"
option on the Sim menu coordinates your rudder with your ailerons. If
you move one, the other will move in unison with it. This tends to result
in better turning, but if it annoys you, turn it off and they will move
independently.) [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1: A quick bug fix to version 5.0.
[Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 98: The first immediately accessible version
of Microsoft Flight Simulator, this is quite a package, with 3,000 airports
(10 times the number in the previous version), 45 detailed cities (a
definite improvement over the previous version, which was mostly flat),
and 8 planes to fly (well, 7 planes and one helicopter). [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000: By far the most significant advance in
this version of Flight Simulator is the addition of two new aircraft: The
Concorde (yesss!), and the Boeing 777-300. However, there are a host
of other important improvements and additions as well. For one thing,
they toned down the helicopter model, definitely a good thing. (Anyone
who played FS98 will remember the way the helicopter usually flung you
around wildly upon takeoff, beyond any semblance of real-life realism.)
The graphics have been beefed up a bit, and the aircraft have more of the
"auxiliary" controls which you'd find on a real-life plane, like switches
for the alternator, battery and fuel pump. Also, they finally added "pan
view up/down" controls (which default to SHIFT-Backspace and SHIFT-
Enter, respectively), to help you see the ground, which is nice because
in previous versions, most of the time you couldn't see anything except
your instrument panel and the sky. And finally, one very interesting
addition is the GPS. Yes, no more fumbling with VORs to navigate.
Welcome to air navigation in the year 2000, baby. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, Professional Edition: The first version
of Microsoft Flight Simulator to be available in different editions. This
Professional Edition's most important advance is another two aircraft
which the regular version doesn't have: The Raytheon/Beech King Air
350, and the Mooney Bravo. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002, Professional Edition [Microsoft]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century Of Flight: The "century of
flight" in FS2004's title refers to the fact that the year 2003 (which is the
year in which FS2004 was actually released) marks the 100-year
anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic first flight at Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina. Another anniversary to celebrate is that this sim marks
the 20-year anniversary of Microsoft Flight Simulator itself. To celebrate
the history of mankind's efforts to fly, FS2004 has several new aircraft
to fly, and most of them are old, historic aircraft with sluggish, sputtering
engines and less-than-perfect airframes which will take a lot of skill and
effort to fly properly. The new airplanes are definitely the focal point of
the additions to FS2004; The graphics have been beefed up a little bit
and there are a few new airports and other small additions, but overall
this is more of a collector's item than a significant upgrade to Flight
Simulator 2002. [Microsoft]

Microsoft Paris

Microsoft New York

Microsoft Space Simulator [Microsoft]

Microsoft Train Simulator [Microsoft]

MiG-29 [Simis/Domark]

MiG-29 Fulcrum [NovaLogic]

MiG-29 Stand-Alone: It's a companion game to Falcon 3.0, so it's hardly
surprising that it uses the same game engine and has an extremely similar
feel to it. I liked this better, though; At least my plane didn't blow up
when I opened the throttle to take off. But the oddly jumpy and
sometimes seemingly too-fast plane handling still makes it feel like an
arcade game in a flight simulator's clothing. [Spectrum Holobyte]

Mig Alley 1.1: A Korean war flight sim which accurately models the
difficulty of hitting a target in this era: It was the dawn of the Jet Age,
but before the birth of homing missiles, resulting in some of the
fastest-paced, most awkward dogfighting in history. Excellent graphics
and sound, and even a nice music backing round out a fairly well-made,
though realistically frustrating, package. In MiG Alley, there is no such
thing as a plane that you can just burn out of the sky with a quick pull
of the trigger, as is the case in many sims. Planes must be fought with.
You must perform the deadly dance of dogfighting with each and every
plane you go up against. You will have to work to earn each kill you
make, and each one feels like a great accomplishment. This, of course,
is exactly as it should be, for that was how it was in real life;
Dogfighting was not a trivial thing in which an ace could just do a
couple of maneuvers and smoke a bandit, it was a white-knuckle
experience that never got old, simply because each person involved was
well aware that one of them was not going to be alive soon. You will
very quickly learn in this game not to turn too hard. In a normal break
turn, other flight sims have probably taught you to roll 90 degrees and
pull back on the stick as hard as you can. However, in Mig Alley, doing
this will quickly make your aircraft unstable, and usually put you in an
unrecoverable spin, or at least give you a momentary loss of control. You
must pull gently on the stick, not all the way. You'll know you're pulling
too hard when the airframe starts vibrating, which usually precedes the
loss of control associated with turning too hard. (This doesn't even take
into account the fact that turning too hard will rip your wings off if you
have the game set to maximum realism; Even if you turn off airframe
stress, which prevents the wings from coming off, you'll still make your
plane unstable by turning too hard.) Note that extreme air maneuvers also
tend to result in flame-outs (which temporarily disable your jet engine).
If you get a flame-out, just bring your throttle below 25% and press E
to restart your engine. Flame-outs are annoying, but they are the least of
your problems when you start yanking the aircraft too hard. [Empire
Interactive]

Netmech: This is the Net version of Mechwarrior. [Activision]

Operation: Fighting Tiger (Add-on for Falcon 3.0) [Spectrum Holobyte]

Pacific Strike: Try to rewrite history. Can you force an end to WW2
before they drop the bomb on Hiroshima? [Origin]

Plane Crazy

PowerModeler [Revell-Monogram]

PowerModeler: Backroad Racers [Revell-Monogram]

PowerModeler: European Racers [Revell-Monogram]

PowerModeler: Operation Airstorm [Revell-Monogram]

Real Weather Pilot

Rebel Assault CD: Very arcade-like, Rebel Assault is based on Star
Wars, and has excellent graphics and music.

Rebel Assault II

Red Baron VGA (or EGA): The award-winning WW1 sim. [Sierra On-
Line]

Red Baron II [Sierra On-Line]

Red Baron 3D [Sierra On-Line]

Red Baron Mission Builder [Sierra On-Line]

Redline: Xtreme Air Racing 2 [Victory Simulation/Encore Software]

Red Storm Rising [MicroProse]

Sabre Ace: Conflict Over Korea [Eagle Interactive/Virgin]

Sandwarriors [Interplay]

Scenery Enhancement Editor

Scenery Upgrade I

Scenery Upgrade II

Scenery Upgrade III

Scenery Upgrade IV

Search And Rescue: Unlike its sequel, which only simulates a single
helicopter, SAR simulates 12 different helicopters, each with different
physics, and lets you choose any one of them to fly for any mission,
giving you a lot of versatility and choice. SAR comes with 45 missions
in 7 different categories, most of them pretty challenging, and different
enough from each other not to get too repetitive. It's not exactly a well-
polished game (it feels like an indie release, which is basically what it
is), but it fills a very important void in computer gaming by being the
very first major helicopter search-and-rescue simulation ever.
(WARNING: Please, please play this game on "Medium Realism". The
"Extreme Realism" setting is simply uncontrollable; Your chopper will
fly all over the place like it's in a 500 MPH wind. Even hovering is
impossible! Actually, the "Easy Flight" setting, while too simple, may be
necessary for many of the missions. The Medium setting actually
incorporates full aerodynamic realism, but gives your chopper some
stabilizing systems to make it easier to fly; The Extreme setting removes
these stabilizers. As such, the Medium setting is actually closer to what
real chopper pilots experience, since real-world helicopters usually have
stabilizing systems on them to make their flight more controllable. So
don't feel like playing on Medium Realism is cheating; It's more like the
"Normal" setting.) (Note that you use your rope for almost everything in
this game. No matter what you're picking up, be it a person or some
kind of object, you'll use your rope to pick it up. When making your
pickups, DO THEM SLOWLY! Don't try to whoosh overhead at 80
MPH and snap your target with the rope; The proper technique is to
establish a hover over the target, lower the rope, and very slowly ease
the loop at the end of the rope towards the target until it's snared. If you
are rescuing a person, retract the rope after you've caught the person to
pull them into the helicopter. Don't just leave the person dangling on the
rope. Remember, use the R key to extend and retract that rope.) (Fires
are rather tricky to put out in this game; You can't just dump your load
of chemicals on the fire once. You have to do it several times, each time
in a slightly different spot. There are several key points which you must
hit with your drops. They are each marked on the map with an F. Use
the pillars of smoke as a guide; Generally, each one comes directly out
of a fire drop point.) (Note on the "Under The Boardwalk" mission: Just
in case you didn't notice, there's a big fire underneath the right side of
the second bridge you need to pass under. If you try to fly through the
fire, you'll blow up, so fly under the left side of that bridge instead.
Keep your radar altitude below 50 feet or so for both bridges, and you
should be all right.) (Get to know your helicopter. Since there are 12
helicopters in this game, you'll need to get to know all of them. In
particular, make a note of where you need to set the collective to
maintain a hover. Check the "Fuel Flow" gauge and remember where it
sits when you're in a hover. That way you'll know where to set the
collective when you want to hover quickly.) (If ever there was a game
in which it's crucial to make sure your joystick is calibrated properly,
Search And Rescue is it. The delicate nature of hovering means your
helicoper will constantly be going out of whack when you let go of the
stick unless it's properly centered, so make sure that your calibration is
right on.) [InterActive Vision/Intense Entertainment/Global Star Software]

Search And Rescue 2: A helicopter sim which is exactly what it sounds
like: A search and rescue game, in which you're with the USCG (US
Coast Guard), and spend most of your time picking up people. No
weapons action, but the graphics are pretty stunning and the concept is
one that's not often simulated in computer flight sims. The missions are
quite varied and interesting, and the flight model is amazing (although
very hard to control). SAR2 is a huge improvement over the original
game in many ways, and that's saying quite a bit. SAR2 turns what was
already a great game, and makes it into a *really* great game.
  One thing that goes a surprisingly long way in making SAR2 more
enjoyable and fun than its predecessor is the addition of Hover Mode.
This is an auto-hover which keeps your helicopter in one place; This
eliminates an enormous amount of frustration, since in SAR your
helicopter was constantly drifting all over the place while you were
trying to move closer to your target. Better yet, you actually have some
limited control over your chopper even while in Hover Mode. You can
move the cyclic around, which nudges your helicopter horizontally, and
so Hover Mode is basically like regular flight, except that it adds a lot
more stability to your aircraft. You can also use the keypad 7 and 1 keys
to make auto-hover raise or lower the altitude it keeps you at. You can
even land with it by simply establishing a hover over your landing pad,
then tapping the keypad 1 key to lower the hover altitude until you touch
the ground. This is a great feature which you can use liberally to make
all your pickups much, much, much easier. (Although purists will quickly
complain that it feels like cheating.)
  Search And Rescue 2 models all the most important laws of physics for
helicopters, including retreating blade stall (the stalling of the rotor's
retreating blade when your helicopter flies too fast), ground effect (the
tendency of being near the ground to create added lift in a helicopter),
translational lift (the seemingly paradoxical effect of moving forward
from a hover to create more lift), and autorotation ("gliding" to the
ground in a helicopter with a non-functional engine). (Hint: Use your
Auto Hover mode liberally when you're trying to make small
movements. Auto Hover works like a kind of stabilizer for your chopper
which tries to keep it in the same place, but it still lets you control the
cyclic, meaning you can still move around, but slower and with more
stability. This is handy when you're trying to land or come close to
anything on the ground, because otherwise your chopper tends to fly all
over the place. Don't confuse hover mode with the AFCS (Automatic
Flight Control System), which is on by default. The AFCS should
*always* be left on, as turning it off tends to lead to instant, severe, and
unrecoverable loss of control.) (Another tip: Make sure your wheel
brakes are on when you try to land, or else your chopper will tend to roll
off the landing pad, since the ground at most chopper pads isn't perfectly
flat.) (Oh, and speaking of Hover Mode and landing: Keep Hover Mode
on while you land. You can lower the altitude which Hover Mode keeps
you at by repeatedly pressing the 1 key on the numeric keypad (not the
1 key at the top of the keyboard). When your wheels are touching the
ground, turn off Hover Mode and you've landed.) [Developed by
InterActive Vision; Published in North America by Global Star Software
and Take Two Interactive; Published in Europe by SWING!
Entert@inment Media and Virgin Interactive]

Search And Rescue 3: After the quantum leap that Search And Rescue
2 was over its predecessor, Search And Rescue 3 will not seem like such
a big improvement. However, it does add a few things that were missing
in SAR2, mainly the things that SAR1 had but SAR2 didn't. For starters,
SAR3 brings back multiple choppers, giving you the choice of three
helicopters to fly, instead of only one like SAR2. Also, SAR3 has a map,
something which SAR1 had but which was missing in SAR2. A few
little quirks and quibbles were slightly improved upon, and of course the
graphics have been amped up a little bit, making SAR3 a polished,
commercial-quality simulation.

Secret Weapons Of The Luftwaffe (SWOTL): A top-notch World War
II sim, with bitmap graphics (unusual to use bitmapped planes rather than
polygon ones), a variety of available aircraft, and quite a bit of
interesting background and historical info on the war. Unfortunately, it
was programmed by people who don't know how to directly poll the
keyboard, meaning that while the game is quite nice with a joystick, the
planes steer terribly with the keyboard. [Lucasfilm/LucasArts]

Shuttle [Virgin/Vektor Grafix]

Shuttle: The Space Flight Simulator: Not a flight simulator, a space
simulator. And a good one, too. [Interplay]

Sierra Pro Pilot: The Complete Flight Simulator [Sierra On-Line]

Sierra Pro Pilot '99 [Sierra On-Line]

Sierra's 3D Helicopter Simulator [Sierra On-Line]

Silent Service [Microprose]

Silent Service II [Microprose]

Sim Tower [Maxis]

Skychase: A 2-player game which is sort of a flight sim-cum-board
game. The graphics are pretty good for EGA, and you have a
surprisingly broad variety of planes to choose from (nothing beyond the
normal military jets (except for the paper plane), but still, a good
selection). Although I've heard it's a lot of fun, the game runs way too
fast to even approach playability on modern computers, even with
slowdown utilities. [Broderbund/Maxis]

Solo Flight: An ancient sim which places you in the position of, believe
it or not, pilot of a mail plane. You fly around rural America from city
to city, delivering mail. Navigation obviously plays a huge role in the
game. [Sid Meier/MicroProse]

Sound, Graphics & Aircraft Upgrade

Space Station Simulator [Maris Multimedia]

SSN-21: Seawolf: A very sound-oriented submarine game. You must
learn to distinguish between the sonar patterns of dolphins and enemy
submarines. [Electronic Arts]

Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance [LucasArts]

Strike Commander CD: A very graphics-intensive simulation. You're a
band of merecenaries out for hire. This is what makes it different from
most sims: You use the money you get from your jobs to buy more
weapons. Thus, it's in your best interests to not only get the jobs done
without getting killed, but to do it with cheaper (and harder to use) free-
fall bombs instead of more expensive camera-tracking or laser-guided
weapons. This, combined with the tense storyline which progresses as
you go from mission to mission (in the style of Origin's classic space
sim, Wing Commander) make Strike Commander quite a flight sim of a
different color. It does have some weaknesses, however, most notably the
rather awkward controls and somewhat choppy flight motion (sure to turn
off flight sim purists), as well as the linear nature of the missions.
[Origin]

Strike Commander Add-On: Tactical Operations: An add-on for Strike
Commander which gives you another 21 missions and some new aircraft.
[Origin]

Stunt Island: A superb game, which allows you to first fly an airplane
around, then make a movie out of it. Not only does it work as a flight
simulator, but as an airplane movie making thing. [Disney Software]

SU-25 Stormovik [Electronic Arts]

Su-27 Flanker 1.1 For DOS: Immediately establishes itself as the
definitive simulation of the Su-27, which just might be the most
advanced fighter in the Russian arsenal. This game has it all: A real-
feeling flight model, excellent (though somewhat plain and untextured)
graphics, and a an extremely powerful mission editor (which is the first
thing you see when you start the game). It even has a keyboard key for
automatically executing the "Cobra", a Russian fighter maneuver in
which a plane with an enemy on its tail quickly pulls up (thus losing
airspeed rapidly), then drops back down, hopefully now on the tail of the
enemy that was pursuing it. (You may have noticed Tom Cruise pull this
move a couple of times in "Top Gun".) (However, it only lets you
automatically do this maneuver within a certain speed range; It will
refuse if you're going too fast or too slow.) Most of the action takes
place in the Southern Ukraine, near the Black Sea. A few notes on the
mission builder: Aircraft are represented as a set of waypoints on the
map, not an aircraft symbol. To set which aircraft you will fly during the
mission, simply set the aircraft's skill to "Me", in the properties field
where you would normally select the AI skill. (Note that you can only
set an aircraft to be "Me" if it is set to be on your side. You can set
which side you're on in the Briefing window. Also, perhaps not
surprisingly, you cannot set any aircraft to be "Me" if you have already
designated another aircraft as such. And since the game simulates only
the Su-27, you can only designate a plane as "Me" if it is an Su-27. Also
note that to be able to load any weapons on an aircraft, you must set its
Sortie to something other than "Nothing".) Also note that you cannot
"Start" any mission until you have saved it first. In flight, use ALT-J to
toggle your stick/rudder position indicator, which is invaluable in this
sim. [SSI/Eagle Dynamics]

SubWar 2050: A terrific submarine simulation, with excellent graphics
and effects. [MicroProse]

Super EF 2000 [Digital Image Design (DID)/Ocean]

Super Huey: Along with Tomahawk, this is one of the earliest helicopter
sims to ever be released. Although it's not a very well-remembered
classic, it did have pretty fun gameplay and a flight model which wasn't
half-bad (although it was pretty simplistic). Unfortunately, a grievous
lack of missions (the whole game has three missions total) along with
physics that are put to shame by today's standards make this game fairly
forgettable except for a few minutes of fun. [COSMI]

Super Huey II [COSMI]

Surgeon: The third game from ISM Interactive, Surgeon was only
released for the Macintosh, never the PC. It came between Life And
Death 2: The Brain (ISM's second game) and Virtual Surgeon: Open
Heart (ISM's fourth and last game). [ISM Interactive]

Tahiti

Tank [Spectrum Holobyte]

Task Force 1942 [MicroProse]

Team Apache: A particularly balanced helicopter sim, which pays plenty
of attention to detail and realism but doesn't completely sacrifice arcade-
like shooting fun. (Team Apache makes repeated references to ACPs,
annoyingly without explaining what they are. ACP stands for Aircraft
Control Point, which is really just a fancy term for a waypoint.) (This
game uses an interesting approach to jamming. In Team Apache, your
helicopter has an AN-ALQ136 radar jammer, which is turned on at all
times; You cannot switch it off. Although the jammer is somewhat
effective, it has one odd quirk: It only jams things in the Apache's front
quarter, meaning you need to point your nose toward radar in order to
jam it. You also have an ALQ-144(A) infrared jammer, which will tend
to throw off IR-guided missiles. Like the radar jammer, it is always on
and cannot be turned off. Unlike the radar jammer, the IR jammer will
work on missiles approaching from any direction. And of course, you
have the obligatory chaff and flares (15 of each), which you should start
pumping out every few seconds when you have a missile coming at you.)
[Simis/Mindscape]

TFX: Tactical Fighter Experiment: One of the best flight sims of the
mid-90s, this rivals even the best MicroProse sims with its look and feel.
The weapons arming screen is particularly innovative, and the flight
controls are pleasant. Choose between the F-22, the F-117A, or the
Eurofighter 2000. [Ocean/Digital Image Design (DID)]

The Ancient Art Of War

The Ancient Art Of War At Sea

The Ancient Art Of War At Sea 2

The Ancient Art Of War In The Air

Their Finest Hour: The Battle Of Britain: Released at almost the same
time as Battlehawks 1942, this is its companion World War II sim,
simulating the European-German aspect of the war. [Lucasfilm (Now
LucasArts)]

Thud Ridge: It's hard to believe a game this bad came from a company
as well-respected for its quality sims as Three-Sixty. Thud Ridge is sort
of a half-flight sim; The only view available is a chase-plane view, the
flight model is ridiculously simple and unrealistic, and, well, what else
do you need to know? Although this is the only game I've seen which
simulates the F-105 (which was a highly important fighter-bomber during
the Vietnam War), it's bad enough to make you wish there'd never been
an F-105 at all. [Three-Sixty]

Thunder Chopper [subLogic]

TIE Fighter: Tired of flying for the good guys? Wanna try going for the
other side? Go ahead. TIE one on!

Tomahawk: An ancient Apache helicopter simulation, apparently the first
game from Digital Integration, which would produce the sleeper hit
Tornado several years later. Although it has 4-color CGA graphics,
they're detailed enough that you can see what's going on, and the
controls are realistic enough that you could tell Digital Integration had
potential. (No doubt the excellence displayed by Digital Integration in its
sims is due to the fact that DI was started by two Englishmen who used
to work for the Royal Air Force.) This game's most noticeable and
unusual "feature" was that if you crashed your helicopter, the program
would crash your computer, requiring a reboot. [Digital Integration]

Tom Clancy SSN

Top Gun: A computer game conversion which came out more than a
decade after the movie. It's a basic flight sim, you play Maverick (Tom
Cruise's character in the movie). Note that a much older game was also
released under this name by Ocean. That game was a very simplistic, but
oddly fun, flight sim which was probably better categorized as an arcade
game.

Top Gun: Fire At Will [MicroProse]

Tornado 1.0e: Fly the most advanced military plane produced in Europe.
Tornado lets you fly both the IDS (Interdictor Strike) and ADV (Air
Defence Variant) versions of this potent aircraft. After Falcon 3.0, I was
afraid this game would be horrible too, but mercifully, it's actually quite
good. An above-average sim. This is the only combat flight sim I've ever
seen which lets you set your flaps to different "stages" (levels of
extension), rather than simply having them "up" or "down". It also lets
you control the wing sweep, which you really can't help but admire in
a flight sim (even Microprose's Fleet Defender didn't have wing sweep
controls, forcing you to leave them computer-controlled; And this in a
simulation of the F-14). The Tornado includes numerous features which
no American fighter incorporates, most notable among them an
automated terrain-following system (allowing you to maintain the same
altitude above the ground, even when going over hills), and the SPILS
(Spin Prevention and Incidence Limitation System), for "carefree
handling". It also has a powerful autopilot, which automatically sets itself
to your current altitude and heading and can be quickly adjusted using
the control stick: Pulling the stick raises your altitude to be held by 100
feet, pushing lowers it by 100 feet, and moving it to either side adjusts
your heading by 1 degree. Tornado's British background clearly shows,
however, and some of the terminology may confuse or annoy American
pilots (for example, the use of "undercarriage" to refer to the landing
gear, or "reheating" for afterburning). (Be aware that "hardened aircraft
shelters" (HAS) look like little green grassy hills from above. They do
actually have a big door on one side, but you can't see that when you're
lining up the bomb from your plane.) When dropping free-fall bombs,
maintain an altitude of at least 200 feet to avoid damage from the ground
blast. [Digital Integration/Spectrum Holobyte]

Tower!: Absolutely the most graphical air traffic controller game released
to date, with an awesome 3D panoramic view of the area surrounding the
control tower (which lets you see planes taking off and landing), and a
full set of commands you can issue which go well beyond the usual "take
off" and "cleared to land" commands typical of these kinds of games.
  QuickStart for Tower: To get an incoming plane to land, all you really
need to do is give it a CL (Cleared to Land) order. The pilot will
automatically take care of the rest as long as you have cleared him. Once
it has landed, it will ask you for permission to taxi to parking, so give it
a TP (Taxi to Parking) command, and soon that plane will be out of your
hair.   For Departures: They'll tell you they're "ready for taxi" first, so
give them a Tx command (where x is the number of the runway to taxi
to). After a while they'll say they're "ready for takeoff", so give them a
CT (Cleared for Takeoff) command, and they'll take off. It's that simple!
(After takeoff, give a FD (Contact Departure) command so the plane will
switch frequencies to the departure controller and leave you alone.)
[BAO, Ltd.]

TRACON 1.5: Another air traffic control (ATC) sim. Although this one
probably doesn't stack up to the other offerings in this genre, it's a
decent game in its own right. [Wesson International]

TRACON II [Wesson International]

UFO: A game which, as you might guess, is a UFO simulator, from a
company well-known for its excellent and realistic flight sims. An
interesting idea, but not versatile enough to be engaging for very long.
[subLogic]

Ultrabots: Do you like to blow things up? How about blowing them up
in first-person 3-D, controlling a robot, and blasting other robots to
smithereens? If that sounds good, you'll probably like Ultrabots.
[NovaLogic/Electronic Arts]

USA East

USA West

USA Scenery & Flight Assignment System

U.S. Navy Fighters [Jane's Combat Simulations]

USNF '97: An excellent flight simulator of the U.S. Navy Fighters.
Plenty of action and support for Internet play. [Electronic Arts]

Vertigo: A freeware flight simulator created by Anton Norup Sorensen,
the man who programmed the flight models for the semi-famous Search
And Rescue 2 and 3 (he is credited with being the "Physics Programmer"
in the credits for those games). Vertigo is open-source and it's clear that
a lot of work has gone into it. Although there are no missions, and
indeed no goal of any kind, the program is an amazing piece of work
considering it is a one-man project. The official homepage is at
http://www.astro.ku.dk/~norup/vertigo/vertigo.html [Anton Norup
Sorensen] (Freeware)

Virtual Surgeon: Open Heart: Those who played the classic doctor game
Life And Death many years ago in the early years of computer gaming
may wonder whatever happened to the people responsible for that game,
which still stands today as the only well-known simulation of being a
doctor. Well, in fact, Dr. Myo Thant, the designer of L&D, did continue
making games, and so did his own software company, ISM Interactive
(who were actually the developers of both Life And Death games; L&D
just happened to be published through The Software Toolworks, which
was renamed Mindscape in 1994). Open Heart was the fourth game from
ISM, and also their last (they closed for business after its release). If
you've played L&D, you can expect much of the same here: Realistic
depictions of actually cutting a person open and performing delicate
surgery. Oddly, VS:OH was much less commercially successful than
L&D, perhaps because ISM opted to self-published the game instead of
releasing it through a well-known publisher. [ISM Interactive]

WarBirds [Interactive Magic]

Werewolf vs. Comanche 2.0 [NovaLogic]

Western Europe

Wings Of Destiny [Psygnosis]

Wings Of Glory: Another WWI flight sim. [Origin]

WolfPack: Astonishing submarine sim, right down to the weather. (So
who needs to worry about the weather when you're underwater?)
[NovaLogic]

World Air Power: Israeli Air Force (IAF) [Jane's Combat Simulations]

WWII Fighters [Jane's Combat Simulations]

X-Plane 5.31: It's about time we had a new civilian flight sim around
here to give MS Flight Simulator a run for its money, and X-Plane looks
to be exactly the one we needed. It simulates civilian and military planes
alike (from small Cessnas and the Concorde to fighter jets and choppers).
The flight model is amazing, as are the graphics.
  Perhaps X-Plane's biggest failing is in its documentation. The game is
quite complex; It includes an aircraft editor which lets you tweak the
airframe, engines, and several other aspects of your aircraft, and there are
many different options that you can change in terms of the weather, the
control setup, etc. Although these options are sometimes fairly intuitive,
there are many times when they could use a lot of explanation, and X-
Plane ships with no paper manual, and only a 60-page electronic manual
that, while helpful, is woefully inadequate in explaining everything about
the sim. That's not too bad if you don't mind finding things out for
yourself, however... And there's plenty to discover in X-Plane.
  You could write a whole book about this sim, but I decided to list a
few notes which I thought might be notable: The red rectangular slider
which in most planes is next to the throttle lever is your fuel mixture
lever; It'll select a richer or leaner fuel mixture. Some planes also have
a blue rectangular slider, which is the propeller pitch (sometimes called
the RPM) lever.
  Some planes (like the Cessna) won't work if the outside air temperature
is too cold. Below about -30 degrees Farenheit, the engine of the Cessna
will shut off entirely, so if your engine doesn't seem to want to work, try
warming up the outside air a little.
  It can be tempting, when designing a plane, to keep the plane's weight
really low so it'll fly faster. However, there comes a point where
lowering the plane's empty weight too much will make it "crash" by
simply sitting on the ground. If you have this problem, try cranking up
the plane's empty weight a little. [Laminar Research/Xicat Interactive]

Xtreme Air Racing: Within the market of flight simulators, the genre of
air racing is virtually untapped. As things stand, Xtreme Air Racing
would be a remarkable game even if it wasn't very good, simply because
it takes on a genre that hasn't been appropriately handled before.
However, XAR is actually a great simulation, with good flight modeling,
pleasant graphics, and various regions to race around. If you like flying
but aren't that interested in combat and want something that's a little
more challenging than the simple flying around of most civilian flight
sims, then XAR is certainly worth a look. [eGames/Victory Interactive]

Xtreme Air Racing 2: Redline [Victory Simulation/Encore Software]

X-Wing: Remember Star Wars? Whether you do or not, this is a great
game. [LucasArts]

X-Wing Alliance [LucasArts]

X Wing: B-Wing

X Wing: Imperial Pursuit

X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter [LucasArts]

YS Flight Simulation System 2000: A strangely little-known gem for
Windows which is, remarkably, free. It runs in a window so it won't
interrupt your other Windows activities too much, and the game has all
the best features that make up a fun flight sim: A pretty good flight
model, a surprisingly large array of planes to choose from (and they
really feel like they handle differently from each other, too), good
graphics (although they are somewhat simplistic, and sound effects are
minimal), fairly good computer AI, and even a good Internet play
system, which makes it easy to start a server that other people can
connect to and start dogfighting each over with. It's not the most realistic
sim in the world, but it's a pleasant surprise considering it was made
essentially by one person and is being released for free. The official
homepage is www.ysflight.com [CaptainYS] (Freeware)

Sports:

3-in-1 Football

3-D Ultra Mini-Golf Deluxe: A superb miniature golf game which is in
the tradition of the now-legendary Zany Golf. [Sierra On-Line]

4D Boxing: I'm not sure exactly what's supposed to make this game
"four-dimensional", but it's certainly an addictive little boxing game,
featuring a wide variety of boxers to play and fight against, and several
excellent views to make the action that much more discernible, from full-
rink view to first-person view (of either your own boxer, or your
opponent). This is possibly the only game I've ever played which sounds
better on the internal speaker than a sound card. Interestingly, 4D Boxing
was also released in a "Deluxe" version, but it's actually difficult to tell
which version you have if you haven't seen them both, since the Deluxe
version doesn't say "Deluxe Version" anywhere in the title screen or
anywhere else. The Deluxe version has a really punchy intro before each
fight with several cut-scenes of a boxer preparing for the match, while
the regular version has a lame intro with only a couple of shots of the
ring before the fight. The Deluxe version also contains speech.
[Electronic Arts/Distinctive Software Inc. (DSI)]

APBA Baseball For Windows

Arcade Volleyball: Good old classic volleyball game, which can be
played with keyboard, mouse or joystick.

Backyard Baseball [Humongous Entertainment]

Bad Cat: Umm, this is a cat sports game. Yes, a sports game in which
the athletes are cats. (Don't ask me.) [Rainbow Arts]

Bass Class 1.3 [Richard Olsen]

BassDuel 1.1 [Richard Olsen]

BassTour 4.7: The premier shareware fishing simulation. BassTour has
a *large* selection of fishing rods and lures to choose from, a few
interesting lakes to fish in, and nice graphics. [Richard Olsen]

Boarder Zone [Infogrames North America]

British Open Championship Golf: Looking Glass Technologies, as any
serious oldgamer knows, made a lot more games than just the System
Shock and Thief duos, but most of those games fell into obscurity. This
was one of them. BOCG contains only two courses (St. Andrews in
Scotland, and the Royal Troon), but those two courses are modeled with
the same attention to detail and real-world physics that Looking Glass
became famous for in games like Ultima Underworld and Flight
Unlimited.  Although BOCG doesn't *really* add anything truly
innovative that makes it stand out, it has a depth that's lacking in most
golf games out there. (How many other golf games include a history of
St. Andrews, the oldest and probably most-respected golf course in the
world?) [Looking Glass Technologies/Eidos Interactive]

Cabela's Big Game Hunter [Head Games]

Cactus League College

Championship Boxing [Sierra On-Line]

David Leadbetter's Greens [MicroProse]

Fantasy Sports Pro [Sierra On-Line]

FIFA Soccer 2001 [Electronic Arts]

Fisherman's Paradise [GT Interactive]

Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball [Acclaim]

Front Page Sports: Baseball '98: A superb baseball game, probably the
best available. [Sierra On-Line]

Front Page Sports: Football Pro 1999: This one is unquestionably the
best football game available. [Sierra On-Line]

Front Page Sports: Golf [Sierra On-Line]

Front Page Sports: Ski Racing [Sierra On-Line]

Front Page Sports: Trophy Rivers [Sierra On-Line]

Fuzzy's World Of Miniature Space Golf: Absolutely the finest mini-golf
game available anywhere (and given the existence of Zany Golf, that's
high praise indeed). The graphics are luscious 256-color VGA creations
which brim with life and color, and the sound and music are top-notch.
Gameplay, meanwhile, contains all the silly little bells and whistles
which you expect from miniature golf. [Pixel Painters]

Gone Fishin' CD-ROM: The first virtual fishing game I saw (Sierra's
Trophy Bass came later). This game does it well, too. [AMTEX
Software]

Grand Slam

Granite: One of very few curling games ever made for a computer,
Granite is probably the best curling computer game you'll ever play. Of
course, enjoying it pretty much depends on whether you like curling or
not. More info is on Fifty1's homepage at www.fifty1.com [Fifty1
Software] (Shareware)

Greg Norman Ultimate Challenge Golf 2.0: Actually not as good a golf
game as most, but a few interesting features make it worth a look.
[Grolier Interactive]

HardBall 6 [Accolade]

HardBall 5 Enhanced [Accolade]

Hardball III Add-On Big League Ballpark Disk

Hardball III Add-On MLBPA Players Disk

Hi-Res Football [Sierra On-Line]

HyperBlade [Activision]

Infinite Air

International Sports Challenge: An interesting mix of several sporting
events: Marathon running, diving, show jumping (possibly the only
serious horseback riding simulation ever released), swimming, cycling,
and shooting. Unfortunately, the rather poor graphics and sound are made
even worse by gameplay that is both absurdly difficult and mostly
unrelated to the actual sports. [Empire Software/Harlequin]

Jack Nicklaus 6: Goldean Bear Challenge: Excellent golf game! Very
good golf game! [Accolade/Activision]

Jack Nicklaus Signature Edition [Accolade]

Joe Montana Football 2

John Madden Football II

Knockout Kings: An excellent, up-to-date boxing game worthy of the
company that made the classic 4D Boxing. [Electronic Arts]

Links [Access Software]

Links 2001 [Microsoft]

LINKS 386 PRO 1.21: Do you like golf? Get this game. End of story.
It was the definitive golf game of its time. In computer golf, there's
Links, and then there's everything else. (Links 386 Pro is a bit outdated
now and has been replaced by later versions, but it's still a piece of
computer golfing history.) IMPORTANT: Make sure you get the latest
version. (When installing add-on courses for Links 386 Pro, create a
directory called C:\LINKS386 if you don't have the game installed there,
i.e. either on a different drive or different directory. Otherwise, the
installer for the course will search the whole hard drive for the game,
which usually makes it lock up; If C:\LINKS386 exists, it will
immediately ask you if you wish to install it there. Even if the directory
is empty, it will warn you that it can't find the game there, but it'll still
put the course files there, and you can then copy them to the actual game
directory.) [Access Software]

LINKS Add-On Course: Banff Springs

LINKS Add-On Course: Barton Creek

LINKS Add-On Course: Bayhill

LINKS Add-On Course: Bountiful

LINKS Add-On Course: Castle Pines

LINKS Add-On Course: Dorado Beach

LINKS Add-On Course: Firestone

LINKS Add-On Course: Innisbrook

LINKS Add-On Course: Mauna Kea

LINKS Add-On Course: Pebble Beach

LINKS Add-On Course: Pinehurst

LINKS Add-On Course: The Belfry

LINKS Add-On Course: Torrey Pines

LINKS Add-On Course: Troon North

LINKS Collector's Edition CD

Links LS 2000 [Microsoft/Access Software]

Live Action Football

Madden NFL 99 [Electronic Arts]

Maniac Sports: An aptly-named game which simulates nine (9) sports,
all of which are more dangerous in the game than in real life: Ripper
Surfing, Extreme Skiing, Nuclear Windsurfing, Gnarly Climbing, Severe
Mt. Biking, White Water Kayaking, Intense Skateboarding, Radical
Skydiving, and Bitchin' Bungee. [Amazing Media/The Software
Toolworks]

Mario Andretti's Racing Challenge

Mean 18: One of the oldest and most classic major golf games.
[Accolade]

Michael Jordan In Flight [Electronic Arts]

MicroLeague Football 2

MicroLeague Baseball 6.0

Microsoft Baseball 2000 [Microsoft]

Microsoft Golf 1999 Edition [Microsoft]

Microsoft Soccer [Microsoft]

Mini-Putt: An old mini-golf game, an attempt by Accolade to follow up
on the success of their earlier full-size golf hit, Mean 18. Not bad, but
Zany Golf was better. [Accolade]

Moto Racer [Electronic Arts]

Moto Racer 2 [Electronic Arts]

NBA Full Court Press [Microsoft]

NBA Live 2000 [Electronic Arts]

NFL Challenge, Premium Edition

NFL Coaches Club Football

NFL Football

NHL 2001 [Electronic Arts]

NHL Breakaway 98

NHL Powerplay 98

NHL Hockey

Peter Jacobson Golden Tee Golf

PGA Tour 486 [Electronic Arts]

PGA Tour 96 [Electronic Arts]

PGA Tour Golf: Tiger Woods 99 [Electronic Arts]

PGA Tour Pro [Electronic Arts]

Powerboat Racing [Interplay]

Pro 18: World Tour Golf [Psygnosis]

Pro Boarder

Professional Basketball

Rack 'Em: An old, thorough pool game with the basic options you
expect from a pool game.

Road Rash [Electronic Arts]

Sailing Simulator VGA

Sharkey's 3D Pool

Sierra Sports Skiing: 1999 Edition [Sierra On-Line]

Skate Or Die [Electronic Arts]

SkiFree 0.2.7: A simple skiing game, one of very few true classic
Windows games. [Chris Pirih]

Ski Or Die [Electronic Arts]

Soccer [Sierra On-Line]

Sportsman's Paradise [GT Interactive]

Strat-O-Matic Computer Baseball 4.0

Street Sports Baseball [Epyx]

Street Sports Basketball [Epyx]

Street Sports Soccer [Epyx]

Summer Challenge [Accolade]

Summer Games [Accolade]

Superbike 2000 [Electronic Arts]

Superbike 2001 [Electronic Arts]

Ten Pin Alley: Curiously, there don't seem to be many bowling games
for computers. Not only is this a bowling game, it's also a great one. In
fact it's the only modern commercial one I know of. [ASC Games]

The Cycles: Essentially the motorcycle racing equivalent of Accolade's
earlier open-wheel racing classic, Grand Prix Circuit. This game has way
more courses, though, along with better animation. [Accolade]

The Greens: A nice little golf game for Windows, with great graphics
and pleasant background music. [Shadoware]

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 [Electronic Arts]

TimeOut Sports: Baseball: This is a sports game that aims more for fun
than realism. You can practice sign-calling and arguing with the umpire.

Tom Landry Strategy Football Deluxe

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 [Activision/Gearbox Software]

Tony LaRussa Baseball 3: A superb baseball game, totally excellent.

Triple Play 2000 [Electronic Arts]

Trophy Bass CD: Bass fishing simulation. [Sierra On-Line]

Trophy Bass 2 [Sierra On-Line]

Unnecessary Roughness: Good football game.

Virtual Pool CD-ROM: The world's best computer pool game ever! Lots
of fun to play even if you don't like pool! View the table from any
angle, zoom in and out, remove balls or put them back, and lots more!
Great game for the whole family! [Interplay/Celeris]

Virtual Pool 2 [Interplay]

Virtual Pool 3 [Interplay/Celeris]

Virtual Snooker: This does for snooker what Virtual Pool did for pool.
[Interplay]

VR Soccer '96 [Interplay]

Wayne Gretzky Hockey 3: Play with The Great One!

WCW Nitro

Wilson ProStaff Golf: This game bears more than a casual resemblance
to the golf game available on The ImagiNation Network. In fact, it looks
EXACTLY like INN's golf game. Hmmm...

WinBowl 3.0a: A great bowling game for Windows, with nice graphics
and sound. One of very few bowling games I've seen for the computer.
This program's homepage is at
http://members.aol.com/winbowl/index.htm [Thomas J. Bernthal]

Winter Challenge [Accolade]

Winter Games [Accolade]

WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game [Acclaim]

Zany Golf: An old but good and classic miniature golf game, which is
aptly-named. Beautifully rendered courses, full of clever mini-golf tricks,
like a pinball machine which uses the golf ball as the pinball. Worth
trying to find. (Please, get the EGA version, not the CGA version. The
EGA version not only has 16-color graphics instead of 4-color, it also
lets you putt with the mouse, which is much easier than using the
keyboard.) And if you really think you're good at the game, remember
the old trick of getting to the secret level, "Mystery" by entering the
mouse hole on "Energy" (the 9th and "last" hole of the game) when the
mouse eyes are red! [Electronic Arts]

Strategy:

Achtung Spitfire! [Big Time Software/Avalon Hill]

Afterlife [LucasArts]

A-Train [Maxis]

A-Train Construction Set [Maxis]

Age Of Empires [Microsoft]

Age Of Empires II [Microsoft]

Age Of Empires Add-On: Conquests Of The Ages [Microsoft]

Age Of Empires Add-On: The Rise Of Rome [Microsoft]

Age Of Wonders [Gathering Of Developers]

Air Bucks 1.2 [Impressions]

Air Force Commander [Impressions]

Airlines: This seems to be a lesser-known imitation of Air Bucks. It's
basically another strategy game in which you manage an airline.
[InterActive Vision]

Alien Legacy: This was an under-hyped science-fiction adventure from
the days when Sierra still made great games. An interesting storyline,
plus plenty of critical decision-making and fast thinking make this game
very enjoyable for just about everybody, whether you're into strategy,
adventure, role-playing or arcade. Never really got much attention, and
certainly not as much as it deserved. Worth looking for. [Sierra On-Line]

Alpha Centauri [MicroProse]

Alpha Centauri Add-On: Alien Crossfire [MicroProse]

Alphaman 1.1 [Soleau Software]

Archon [Electronic Arts]

Archon Ultra: A game which, at first glance, seems to be like chess,
except with different piece names and a slightly different layout. But
playing the game for a few minutes reveals a wildly different concept
underneath. First off, the pieces are entirely different from chess, with
different strengths and abilities, most notably the wizards who can cast
spells to do things like teleport other pieces or summon demons to fight
for their side. In addition, when two pieces clash, instead of the attacking
piece always winning (as in chess), animated combat takes place, in
which each player has direct control over their own piece. This make the
game a combination of both strategy and action, with plenty of each.
Another interesting touch is that the squares have varying shades of light
and dark, and battles are affected by this: If the two pieces meet on a
light-colored square, the light piece will have more hitpoints, and vice-
versa. (Battlefields are also affected by this; Light-colored squares yield
serene arenas while dark-colored squares lead to dark, hellish ones.) A
masterfully executed game, with splendid VGA graphics and gameplay
that may make it the most original and playable takeoff on chess ever
made for the PC. [SSI]

Arctic Baron [ReadySoft/Silmarils]

Armor Command

Armored Fist 3 [NovaLogic]

Army Men: Real Combat, Plastic Men 

Army Men II

Ascendancy

Atomic: An update of the classic puzzle game Atomix, Atomic is really
not much more than a cosmetic facelift with a Windows interface.
Atomic has the convenience of passwords, however, which are given
after every 6 puzzles (although passing 6 puzzles in one sitting is quite
a feat for this game). An even more appealing feature is the super-user
password which lets you scroll through the puzzles at will. The super-
user password is elementaire, and you simply type it in while playing the
game (rather than entering it into the "Enter password" prompt as you do
with the other passwords); Once super-user mode is on, use the Page Up
and Page Down keys to browse the puzzles, End to reach the winning
screen (the one that appears when you solve the 30th puzzle, which is the
last), Insert to increase your score, Delete to stop the timer, and Home
to return to the opening screen (the one with Einstein's picture on it). A
neat little game that serves to appropriately update a classic. It might
have been nice if new levels were actually added, but as it is, Atomic is
a nice port. Get it from the official homepage at
http://users.skynet.be/NightGem/windows.htm [Philippe Lesire]
(Freeware)

Atomix: A classic little puzzle game, best known on the Amiga, which
is similar to Soko-Ban but with a setting twist and a gameplay twist. The
setting twist is that instead of pushing around boxes in a factory, you're
pushing around atoms to make molecules. The gameplay twist is that
when you push something, instead of sliding over one square, it doesn't
stop moving until it hits something else, which tends to make gameplay
vastly harder. The game starts off fairly simple, using small molecules
(the first is probably the best-known molecular structure in the world:
Water, consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom), but
becomes much more difficult after just a few levels, requiring you to
build large, complex molecules like those for propanol and ethanol. The
game is quite a brain-bender and a lot of fun, however, and it just might
teach you something about chemistry, so it's worth a look. [Thalion]

Award-Winning SimCity 2000 Cities

Baldies [Panasonic Interactive Media/Creative Edge]

Balloon Challenge 2.0 [Soleau Software]

Bananoid: Another Arkanoid clone, this one better than most because of
its luscious 256-color VGA graphics, and its scrolling, larger-than-the-
screen playing fields. [William Rieder]

Bang! Bang!: A Windows clone of the old QBASIC Gorillas game. The
graphics are decent, and the game is simple and fun to play. [David B.
Lutton II]

Battle Bugs: Think war games are too complicated? Try Battle Bugs. As
the title suggests, they use bugs: Ants, bees, wasps, mosquitos, praying
mantises (mantii?), and the monstrous rhinoceros beetle. Loads of fun,
occasionally even humorous, and very challenging. [Sierra On-Line]

Begin 1.65: A tactical starship simulator, a highly technical all-text
strategy game in which you command up to 17 starships which attack a
fleet of eney ships. (This game is hard to find. Look for a filename of
BEGIN165.ZIP) [Clockwork Software/Tom Nelson/Mike Higgins]

Bitozoa 2: An utterly fascinating artificial life (AL) simulation which is
a bit simpler than most such programs, and as such might be appropriate
for people who are just beginning to experiment with this field. "Bitozoa"
is the plural of "bitozoon", a fictional creature invented for this
simulation; A bitozoon has five eyes, each of which has three signals
(one for each primary colour) which go to a neural network. The bitozoa
also have a glucose sensor which feeds into the neural network. The eyes
and the glucose sensor comprise the inputs of the neural network. The
neural network also has two outputs, each leading to one of the
bitozoon's two flagella, which are used to propel it forward. Bitozoa can
be either herbivores or carnivores; Herbivores are blue, carnivores are
red, and the brightness of the colour indicates the bitozoon's energy level
(the brighter the colour, the more energy it has; Carnivores actually turn
from red to orange, and then to yellow, as their energy increases). When
two creatures of opposite types meet, the one with less energy will die
(either the carnivore eats the herbivore, or the herbivore tramples the
carnivore). When two creatres of the same type meet, nothing happens
unless they both have high energy, in which case they breed, resulting in
a small explosion of low-energy offspring. The number of plants (which
you can control in the parameters window) is the only way to control the
amount of energy that flows into the ecosystem; With less plants, the
herbivores will have less food and begin to lose energy and die off, and
with less herbivores to eat, the carnivores will begin to die off as well.
Conversely, incresing the number of plants will make more herbivores,
which will in turn make more carnivores, resulting in a flourishing
artificial ecology. All of this is fairly simple and easy to understand; The
only part that is not well-documented at this point is the neural network
of the bitozoa, which is understandable since neural networks are
complicated. The bitozoa are supposed to actually learn in this
simulation, however, figuring out how to efficiently hunt for food
(whether they are herbivores or carnivores) and supposedly, if you leave
the simulation running for a few hours, the bitozoa will have evolved
into intelligent, efficient beings that can fend for themselves. Bitozoa is
a highly interesting simulation and a great introduction to artificial life
for biology enthusiasts. Get it from the official homepage at
www.bpp.com.pl/bitozoa2/bitozoa2.html [Marcin Borkowski] (Freeware)

Black & White: Widely touted as the most original computer game in
many years, this game is both excellent and revolutionary. It's not only
a strategy game and a role-playing game, it's a sort of strategic
role-playing game which also functions as a non-game sort of simulation
and ultimately a form of self-expression. Weird, thought-provoking,
brilliantly original, wonderfully orchestrated, and everything else too.
(Amusingly, Black And White was even made available in two boxes,
one with a black cover, one with a white. The black box was the "evil"
copy, featuring a picture inside the cover flap of a malevolent monkey
with big claws. The white box was the "good" copy, with a picture of a
tiger with the face of Jesus, benevolently lying on the ground and
watching a group of villagers. Presumably, the two box types were made
so people could make a personal statement by which box they chose, and
most likely there was a hope that serious collectors would buy both
boxes to have the complete set.) [Lionhead Studios/Electronic Arts]

Black & White Add-On: Creature Isle [Lionhead Studios/Electronic Arts]

Blind Wars 1.1 [Soleau Software]

Block Man I [Soleau Software]

Block Man II [Soleau Software]

Bolo Adventures I 3.0 [Soleau Software]

Bolo Adventures III 2.1 [Soleau Software]

Bolo Ball 2.2 [Soleau Software]

Boppin' 1.1: A strategy puzzle game with an original plot: All the
monsters from computers games have gone. With no more monsters,
there are no more games. You have to free the monsters and keep
gaming alive. A cool concept, and very puzzling gameplay. [Apogee]

Braveheart [Eidos]

Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (BARIS) 1.01 CD: A very original
concept incorporated into a strategy game. BARIS is based on the United
States' race to be the first nation to land a man on the moon, and the
competition that resulted against the U.S.S.R. The game is a lot of fun,
and it has very good graphics. (The CD-ROM version contains a good
600 MB of rare historical footage.) Although it is a strong strategy game,
it is also incredibly difficult, even for hard-core strategy gamers. Casual
space explorers need not apply. [Interplay]

Caesar [Impressions]

Caesar II [Impressions]

Caesar III [Impressions]

Capitalism

Capture The Flag: One of the most-praised shareware games ever, this
is a great computer version of the classic outdoor game. [Shareware]

Cargo Bay: A widely-distributed shareware game despite the fact that it's
yet another Sokoban-type clone. [MVP]

Castles [Interplay]

Castles II CD [Interplay]

Civilization: This has been called the best game in the world. Whether
or not you think it is, it's definitely a great game. (The city map screen
is by far the most confusing screen in the game, so to aid you in
understanding what all the symbols mean, here's some explanation: The
yellow half-arches represent food, the white shields represent resources,
the twin diagonal arrows represent trade, the diamonds represent luxuries,
the yellow circles represent tax revenues, and the blue light bulbs
represent science research. In the top-center of this screen is a small map
representing this city; Around it are the surrounding squares. You can
click on these squares to have people work them for food, resources, or
trade. When you click on a square, it toggles small symbols on that
square which indicate exactly what you will reap from it. Generally,
fields will generate more food and resources, while water will generate
more trade. Note that you are limited to how many squares of land you
can work with at once; The maximum number of squares is equal to how
many people live in your city, which in turn is indicated by the little
icons in the upper-left of the screen. In the beginning there will only be
one person there, meaning you will only be able to work on one square
of land at a time. Workers who are currently working on the land are
represented in the upper-left of the city map screen as guys in overalls
and hard hats, and as cavemen with hammers on the 3D city view. If the
number of squares you are working with is less than the population of
the city, there will be some non-workers; These people are called
specialists. You can have three kinds of specialists: Entertainers, taxmen,
and scientists. Entertainers increase the city's luxuries (which makes
more happy people), taxmen collect taxes and increase the city's tax
revenue, and scientists increase scientific research, which greatly speeds
up the rate at which new discoveries are invented. Entertainers are
represented as guys who look like Elvis. Taxmen are represented on the
map screen as guys in business suits carrying briefcases, and on the 3D
city view as hooded figures carrying big bags. Scientists are represented
on the map screen as bald guys in lab coats, and on the 3D city view as
wizards. You can change the role of any specialist by clicking on his
icon in the upper-left of the city map screen.) [MicroProse]

Civilization: Call To Power [Activision]

Civilization, Network Edition (CivNet) [MicroProse]

Civilization II: YESSS!!! A SEQUEL!!! GET IT!!! [MicroProse]

Civilization II: Gold Edition Multiplayer [MicroProse]

Civilization III [Infogrames/Firaxis Games]

Close Combat [Microsoft]

Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far [Microsoft]

Close Combat: The Russian Front [Microsoft]

Cogito [Inline Software]

Command And Conquer Gold CD: The game that dominated (and
indeed, defined) the real-time strategy genre for most of the 1990s, C&C
is a decent war game in which you choose to play for either the GDI
(Global Defense Initiative, or in more everyday terms: "The good guys"),
or the Brotherhood of Nod (a quasi-terrorist group). The missions get
hard very quickly, as your opponents always seem to have an
overwhelming advantage, but then, that's what strategy is for. Perhaps
the best advice to take with you when playing C&C is to have your units
attack en masse. Don't just make one soldier at a time and have them
singly go out attacking the enemy; Make an army of a half-dozen or
more, and have them all go together to maximize efficiency (since the
faster the enemy units die, the less time they have to damage YOUR
units). [Westwood Studios] [Virgin]

Command And Conquer: Red Alert: The sequel to the wildly popular
C&C. It just gets better. [Virgin]

Command And Conquer: Red Alert: Counterstrike [Virgin]

Command And Conquer: Red Alert: The Aftermath [Virgin]

Command And Conquer: Sole Survivor Online [Virgin]

Command And Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun [Virgin]

Command And Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun Add-On: Firestorm [Westwood
Studios/Virgin]

Command HQ [MicroProse]

Conquer The World [Microprose]

Contraption Zack [Mindscape/Presage]

Creatures [Mindscape]

Creatures Adventures [Mindscape]

Creatures 2 Deluxe [Mindscape]

Creatures 3 [Mindscape]

CrossWire: A TV game show on your computer.

Crusher 3.2 [Soleau Software]

Crusher Castle II 2.2 [Soleau Software]

Cutthroats: Terror On The High Seas [Eidos]

Cyberstorm [Sierra On-Line]

Cyberstorm 2: MissionForce [Sierra On-Line]

Dark Omen

Dark Reign: The Future Of War [Activision]

Detroit 2.1: A novel, interesting strategy simulation in which you take on
the job of managing a car company in the early 1900s. As time marches
on, you must keep up with the market and keep your company going. A
fresh idea, nice gameplay, and good graphics. [Impressions]

Diggers [Millennium Media Group]

Disciples: Sacred Lands

Dotso 1.1 [Soleau Software]

Drachen Zor

Drain Storm 1.02: A rather addictive little turn-based strategy game that's
similar to the classic Dalek Attack or Autobots games, but with several
creative twists that make it more than just another puzzle-ish game.
Hours of fun in this little Windows game which is absolutely free. Get
it from Dave Horner's homepage at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dhorner/ [Dave Horner]
(Freeware)

Dulles Tower: Pretty good CGA air traffic control simulation, with nice
sound effects and realistic gameplay. [John McKeown]

Dune [Westwood/Virgin]

Dune II [Westwood/Virgin]

Dune 2000: Long Live The Fighters! [Westwood Studios]

EarthSiege [Sierra On-Line]

EarthSiege 2 [Sierra On-Line]

EGATrek 3.1: An authentic copy of the old Star Trek game (one of the
first ever computer games), with gameplay unaltered but nice new EGA
graphics. Get this game from Gamefest 2 CD. [Nels Anderson]
[Shareware]

Elements: Unquestionably one of the finest classic puzzlers in existence.
Top-notch graphics and gameplay make this one a cut above. One of
those games that just keeps you coming back for more. [Avery
Pack/Villa Crespo]

ElFish: A remarkable program which lets you choose some fish, then let
them breed and see what their offspring look like. Sort of a simulated
fish tank. It uses artificial intelligence to blend some attributes of the
parents so the baby fish have some of their attributes, but it also gives
the babies some attributes of their own. [Maxis/AnimaTek]

Emergency Room [IBM]

Emergency Room: Life Or Death: Many years after The Software
Toolworks made the original Life & Death, it's being copied by a
different company, with basically the same gameplay as before. [Legacy
Interactive]

Empire Earth: It touts itself as having "the largest historical scope of any
game". EE is a strategy game spanning the earliest battles between
cavemen to futuristic combat involving huge armed robots and space-age
weapons. [Sierra Studios/Stainless Steel Studios]

Empire Earth Add-On: The Art Of Conquest [Sierra/Mad Doc Software]

Enemy Infestation [Panasonic]

Enemy Nations

Entrepeneur

Explorer [Sierra On-Line]

Extreme Warfare [Red Orb Entertainment]

Facetrex 2.0 [Soleau Software]

Fallen Heaven [Interactive Magic]

Fantasy Empires

Firestorm 2.1: A cool simulation of a brush fire. You're given four
ground teams and two air teams to put a fire out with. [Cricket Software]

Flight Commander 2 [Big Time Software/Avalon Hill]

Floor 13: As an agent hired by the government to increase their
popularity in the polls, your job is mostly to deal with people who
publicly say things which negatively impact the government's public
image. You can have these people put under surveillance, have their
houses searched, blackmail them, or (if they start to get really
troublesome) order them to be killed or taken to a secret prison to be
tortured for information. Fairly grisly subject matter, no doubt, but this
stuff has great appeal for some people. [Virgin/PSI Software]

Force 21 [Red Storm Entertainment]

Fragile Allegiance [Interplay]

Fury3 [Microsoft]: Experience the thrill of 32-bit gaming. This game was
designed especially for Windows 95.

Gangsters: Organized Crime: A Piece Of The Action [Eidos]

GearWorks [Hollyware Entertainment]

Global Domination

Global Effect

Gorilla 2: The Return, Version 3.0: A modern update of the classic
QBASIC game Gorillas, which came with MS-DOS 5.0 and was a
simple Scorched Earth type of game in which each player entered an
angle and velocity at which to throw an exploding banana in the hopes
of hitting the opposing gorilla with it. Like the best fan-made remakes
of old classic games, Gorilla 2 retains all the gameplay of the original,
simply adding to it rather than replacing any elements, making for a
game that has all the fun of the original, and more. Gorilla 2 has several
enhancements, all of which genuinely add to the fun of the game:
Different gorilla types (from a Terminator-esque robo-gorilla to a
Medieval knight-style gorilla; These different types are purely for
aesthetic value, but they're a nice touch), different banana types (which
must be won by winning rounds of the game), and a great Internet
multiplayer mode. Best of all, Gorilla 2 is free. It's kind of amazing what
they've done with this classic, but finally, a great game gets the
treatment it deserves. Get it from the official Gorilla 2 website at
www.gorilla2.net [Dani Julien (dusk) and Matthew Zacharias] (Freeware)

Green 0.07: A novel concept in a strategy game: You control a team of
farmers, tasked with driving out the evil pavers who're intent on paving
over your field with a parking lot. This is done by building lots of plants,
so the pavers get tired of clearing through them. Often when they
become severely weakened, pavers join your cause and become planters.
Perhaps surprisingly, the game can be a lot of fun, as you start to plan
where you should plant so the pavers are encased in a virtual hedge
maze. [Cascoly Software] (Shareware)

Ground Control [Sierra Studios/Massive Entertainment]

Gruntz

Guardians: Agents Of Justice [Microprose]

Hackarama: Another game which attempts to simulate computer
"hacking" (and which doesn't do it too well). Hackarama, like many such
games, takes a familiar game concept (in this case, Master Mind) and
tries to shoehorn it into a "hacker" context, with lukewarm results. The
basic gameplay works exactly like Master Mind: You try to crack serial
numbers for computer programs, and after each guess you make, you're
told how many correct numbers you guessed, and how many numbers are
in the correct place. Ultimately guessing the number earns you money,
experience, and more computer time. The only thing which distinguishes
Hackarama is that it's a BBS door, so you can set it up on a BBS to be
a competition between users, but it's still a mediocre game at best.
(NOTE: In Hackarama, you need 15 hack codes to advance to level 6.
However, in the unregistered version, if you actually manage to
successfully get to level 6, the game will reset your stats when you do
so, as an incentive to bugging the sysop to register the game.) [Sunrise
Door Software] (Shareware)

Headrush: A terrifically entertaining game which is a lot like You Don't
Know Jack, except even more sophomoric. (Comes from the same
company as YDKJ.) [Sierra On-Line]

Heroes Of Might And Magic [New World Computing]

Heroes Of Might And Magic 2 [New World Computing]

Heroes Of Might And Magic III [New World Computing]

Hidden & Dangerous

Hill Street Blues: A game based on the highly popular cop drama TV
show. (Like the show itself, the city in which the game takes place is
never named, although the show was mostly shot in Chicago.) Unlike
most games based on TV shows or movies, however, this one is actually
quite decent and has gameplay that lasts beyond 10 minutes or so. Cast
as police Captain Frank Furillo, you assign one of 9 officers at your
command to respond to various crimes as they occur. You must also
assign each of them to a patrol in a particular zone of the city in order
to help prevent crime from happening in the first place. Although the
controls are a tad awkward at times and both the graphics and sound
leave something to be desired, Hill Street Blues is actually a surprisingly
deep game, good for several hours of play. (Press F10 to abort the
game.) [Krisalis Software Ltd.]

Homeworld [Sierra On-Line/Relic]

Hubie 2.0: A lively puzzle game featuring a cute little character who
needs to go through some seriously hard puzzles. [Serendipity Software]

Humans: Insult To Injury

Imperialism [SSI]

Impossible Creatures: The long-anticipated second game from Relic
Entertainment, who made a good name for themselves with their
outstanding first strategy game, Homeworld. Impossible Creatures is
another real-time strategy game, with a thoroughly unusual but interesting
premise: Using a technology called Sigma, you're given the ability to
create hybrids of various wild animals, such as the tiger-headed scorpion
on the box cover. The game itself is actually a fairly typical RTS
product, however, with only the novel premise to distinguish it. [Relic
Entertainment/Microsoft]

Isle Wars 3.1 [Soleau Software]

Ladder Man III 1.1 [Soleau Software]

Laser Light: An innovative puzzle game using an utterly clever and
original concept: You need to direct a laser beam to a specific point
through the use of carefully-positioned mirrors. It's not as simple as it
sounds, but it's tons of fun. [Pixel Painters]

Lemonade Stand: A 1979 classic, originally for the Apple II. It's a
simulation of running a lemonade stand. Each day, you decide how many
glasses of lemonade to make, how many signs to make, and how much
to charge per glass. Despite its simplicity, it's strangely addictive and
good enough to play several times. [Apple]

L'Empereur [Koei]

LexiCross

Lhexicon

LinCity 1.09: A freeware clone of SimCity which is even more
complicated and involved. Not surprisingly, its target platform is
Linux/Unix, although a Win32 version is available as well. [I J Peters]
(Freeware)

Liquid War 5.5.8: A rather awesome little real-time quasi-war game in
which you control... Err, "an army of liquid". Actually the seething
masses of pixels that form your "army" are supposed to be analogous to
a real army full of individual soldiers, with each pixel being one soldier,
but your army sure looks and behaves like a blob of liquid on the screen,
hence the name. The gameplay is much, much simpler than a typical
wargame, as there are no controls other than the four directions of
movement. You control a cursor-like object the moves around the
battlefield, and all the pixels in your army simply try to move toward the
cursor. It sounds simple, but Liquid War is a surprisingly addictive game.
There's undeniable appeal in watching your pixels spread out and
envelop the enemy army, slowly blending together and watching one side
grow or shrink as the tide of war turns.   Liquid War makes a great
single-player game, but the documentation states that it is meant to be a
multiplayer game played between humans. As the documentation also
notes, the computer player is not terribly good, and a basic strategy of
surrounding the enemy is usually very effective. The most important
thing to remember in this game is to use all your soldiers as much as
possible; If you have a huge mass of pixels on one side, chances are the
pixels at the back of the mass aren't doing much, and you could divert
them to attack the enemy somewhere else. Ideally, the enemy should not
have any places where his army is exposed; You should be attacking him
on all fronts. When you do this, you will win 90% of the time.
  Liquid War is open-source freeware, and it's available for DOS,
Windows, and Linux. An amazing little product that surely proves that
the art and science of making computer games for the sheer joy of the
act are alive and well. Get it from the official homepage at
http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar [Christian Mauduit, a.k.a. U-Foot]

Loader Larry 1.2 [Soleau Software]

Lords Of The Realm [Sierra On-Line]

Lords Of The Realm 2 [Sierra On-Line]

Lucky's Casino Adventure

Lunar Command

Mad TV [Rainbow Arts]

Marble Drop: A game somewhat reminiscent of The Incredible Machine,
with a marble taste. [Maxis]

Marco Polo [I-Motion]

Masters Of Orion [MicroProse]

Masters Of Orion 2: Battle At Antares [MicroProse]

M.A.X.: Mechanical Assault & Exploration: A rather underrated but
highly-praised (by those who've played it) strategy game which is great
simply because it does everything well all across the board: It's got a
user interface that's actually pleasant to use, good playfields, excellent
computer AI, and fantastic graphics that draw you in. Note that the
game's title, and its underlying plot that your brain is wired into a
command and control system may suggest some kind of cyberpunk-ish
storyline in which you interface directly with computers via your brain;
Let it be known that M.A.X. has nothing to do with cyberpunk beyond
its slight plot premise, so if you're looking for something like that, you
won't find it here. Anyone who wants another Command & Conquer-
style game will find plenty to love in M.A.X., however. [Interplay]

M.A.X. 2 [Interplay]

Mega Lo Mania: Very much a no-brainer strategy game. [Ubi Soft]

Mice Maze 1.2 [Soleau Software]

Mice Men 2.2 [Soleau Software]

Mice Moves 1.1 [Soleau Software]

Mind Grind [Microforum]

MindRover: The Europa Project 1.08: Hailed by some as "the next Robot
Odyssey", MindRover is a stunning experience which has been tragically
ignored by the mainstream gaming industry, although it has had a decent
amount of attention in the underground/shareware gaming communities.
Essentially, the goal of MindRover is to build a robot. Your robot(s) will
be called upon to engage in various challenges with computer-controlled
robots. Your robot may have to win a race, capture the opponent's flag
in a capture-the-flag type challenge, or simply engage in a head-to-head
deathmatch. MindRover allows a tremendous amount of freedom in
building and programming your robots, making it a highly fascinating
and brain-stimulating experience. It's basically the next generation of
Robot Odyssey or Omega. [Cognitoy]

MissionForce: See Cyberstorm 2

Mob Rule

MULE [Electronic Arts]

Ned's World: A small, simple Windows game in which you teach a little
bug-like creature (Ned) to live for himself. It's actually meant to model
computer neural networks. Although it's a bit simplistic, it's a nice
exercise in instructive thinking. [David S. Smiczek]

NetStorm: Islands At War [Activision]

NetWalk: An addictive little puzzle game with roots in Pipe Dream.
You're tasked as a network administrator who must connect all portions
of a network to the central server. This is achieved by rotating the
various segments of cable so the network takes its proper shape. Good
for a few minutes or hours of fun. (Interesting quasi-bug in NetWalk:
The game will only play background music if your sound card is set to
use FM synthesis MIDI; On wave-table synthesis, the music will be
silent, or at least that's what happens on my sound card.)
[GAMOS/Arsenal]

Nomad [GameTek/Papyrus]

North & South [Infogrames]

Numlo [Soleau Software]

Objection!: A game written by a lawyer, in which you play a lawyer
representing a client on trial in court for murder. The gameplay is fairly
simple, mainly consisting of prompts to press an appropriate key
corresponding to what type of objection you should use to counter the
prosecution's questioning, but you might actually learn a few things
about law as you play.
  Since the game is not well-documented (most of it is learn-as-you-
play), below is a fairly brief summary of the different types of
objectionable questions and when you should object to them.
  Argumentative questions are usually pretty easy to spot in Objection!
They are questions which are confrontational, and usually contain an
insult in the game, such as "How can anything you say be true, you
wench?" These questions are fun, because in addition to being easy to
spot and get points for, they provide some comic relief (imagine a real
prosecutor asking such a question at the witness stand).
  The best evidence rule states that whenever documents are used as
evidence, the original copies of the documents should be used, not
photocopies or other copies, and not verbal testimony. Therefore, in most
cases when written documents are asked about in Objection! (for
example, the question says "What did the coroner's report say about..."),
you can press B to cite the best evidence rule.
  Questions calling for a conclusion can be a little tricky. Sometimes, the
question will be worded as "What can you conclude about...", in which
case you can press C, but it's not always that obvious.
  A question that assumes facts not yet established is also fairly easy to
spot. It will say something like "What time did you hear the scream from
upstairs?", when in fact there has not yet been any testimony that
screams were heard from upstairs. Keep track of what's been said and
what hasn't, and you'll be able to recognize when a question makes
unestablished assumptions.
  Questions which call for hearsay are usually very easy, but there are
some exceptions. If a question says "What did (some person) say
about..." or "What did the newspapers say about...", then the question
calls for hearsay.
  Questions which are irrelevant or immaterial tend to be a gray area.
Certainly, some of them you can spot a mile away, but a question like
"Has the defendant ever been convicted of a crime before?" might seem
relevant as a reflection of character, but at least in Objection!, such a
question is irrelevant, and you should press I for it.
  Questions which are leading may be tricky at first until you learn to
recognize them. These are questions which seem to assume that
something is true. As an example, "Did you know the deceased?" is a
"proper" question, but "Didn't you know the deceased?" is a "leading"
question, because it implies that the questioner is trying to imply
something.
  Multiple questions tend to be among the easiest to recognize in
Objection! These are questions like "When did you arrive at the mansion,
and with whom?" This is not really a question; It's two questions in one.
If the question is asking more than one thing like this, you can object by
pressing M.
  Questions which violate priviledge are questions which ask for private
information. These are usually questions like "What did your lawyer
advise you regarding...", which is a violation of priviledge since you
cannot ask someone what legal counsel their lawyer gave them. Similar
questions regarding what advice a person got from their preist also come
up in this came, and they are also a target for the P key.
  Speculative questions are questions that ask the witness to guess about
something. "What do you suppose the murderer was thinking just before
the crime?" is a speculative question with no right answer, since it is
simply a guess.
  Vague questions are among the worst in the game, simply because they
tend to be subjective. Sometimes they are easy to spot, as in a question
that asks, "Is that right?" On the other hand, several vague questions in
Objection! are actually valid questions. You just need to learn to decide
whether a question asks something clear and relevant.
  Of course, if none of these apply, you can press Q to allow the
question as a proper question. The questioning almost always begins with
asking who the witness is and what their job is (or asks these questions
near the beginning); These questions are always proper. Other proper
questions include the ones asking the coroner what he thinks the cause
of death were, whether the witness knew the deceased or the defendant,
where the witness was at a certain time, etc. There's a question which
often comes up in level 2 asking "Do you know of any reason the
defendant would have to kill the deceased?" Although this sounds like a
question calling for a conclusion, it is actually "proper" according to the
game.
  Don't forget, as you play, to keep track of what's been said, because
at the end of each level of the game, you will be quizzed on the court
proceedings before you can advance to the next level. [TransMedia,
Inc./Ashley S. Lipson, Esq.]

Ogre [Origin]

Omega: A mostly-ignored 1989 game which puts you in charge of
designing cybertanks, self-controlled tanks which make their operating
decisions entirely based on programs you write in the game, using a
programming language reminiscent of BASIC. An interesting exercise in
applied programming, and a fun game too. Remember, your tank needs
at least a 70% win ratio for you to advance to the next clearance level.
Good luck! (Omega has 10 clearance levels: STANDARD,
CONFIDENTIAL, SENSITIVE, RESTRICTED, CLASSIFIED,
PRIVILEGED, SECRET, TOP SECRET, EYES ONLY, and OMEGA.)
[Origin]

Origamo

Outpost 1.51: This game begins where the world ends. Sierra is known
for their strategy games, but Bruce Balfour has designed their first
strategy game, and it's better than any other. The SVGA graphics are
BETTER (if that's possible, which it probably isn't) than those in Aces
Of The Deep. An outer space game of galactic conquest. The basic idea
is: There is a huge asteroid heading for Earth. When it hits, it'll create
another ice age, so the people set off long range probes to monitor star
systems... You have to build and equip your own spaceship, but you only
have a limited amount of money and room on the ship. You have to limit
what you buy. Next, you fly to Jupiter to get fuel. The probes get back,
and you can decide where to move. When you get there, you choose a
planet and location for you to start your colony. You launch lasers to
blow away meteors (no atmosphere to burn them up), build stuff, equip
the colony, and move everybody down. Then you've got your colony.
But that's not all. There's 300 MPH winds, and solar flares. You have
to keep the people happy and employed. Eventually, they start making
advances. So you travel some more and build more colonies on other
planets. FUN! IMPORTANT NOTE: Ensure that you get version 1.51 of
Outpost, which has many important bug fixes and additions that were not
in previous versions. Also note: If you can't build anything in this game,
it's probably because you have no space for a structure. This means the
only items on the list of things you can build will mostly be robots and
tubes. You must have at least one square on the grid which has been
bulldozed (with a RoboDozer) and which is adjacent to a tube opening,
or else most structures won't even show up on the list. And don't forget
that you can't dig around underground until you've made a surface air
shaft, which is done by putting a RoboDigger right next to a tube
opening on the planet surface. And once you go underground, don't
forget that the rule about needing bulldozed terrain next to a tube
opening applies there too. [Sierra On-Line]

Outpost 2: Divided Destiny [Sierra On-Line]

Over The Reich [Big Time Software/Avalon Hill]

Paratrooper Bob [Soleau Software]

Pengo: A tragically under-hyped little arcade game from 1982. You play
the eponymous penguin, who must push ice blocks in such a way that
they crush and kill the enemies. The gameplay is simple but addictive
(like all great arcade games from that era). Because of this game, Hans
Hbner (a member of the infamous West German cracker group the
Chaos Computer Club; his last name was sometimes spelled "Huebner")
chose the nickname "Pengo". [Sega]

Pharaoh: Following the success of Caesar, a strategy game in ancient
Rome, Impressions (which is now owned by Sierra) decided to make a
strategy game in ancient Egypt. This game is the result. [Sierra
On-Line/Impressions]

Pharaoh Cleopatra [Sierra Studios]

Pizza Tycoon 2.0: An intriguing strategy game in which you're the
owner of a chain of pizza stores, who also associates with the Mafia to
keep in business. [MicroProse]

Plix [Soleau Software]

Police Quest: SWAT: A radical departure from the previous Police Quest
games. It seems PQ is no longer an adventure game; It's become
something of a strategy/simulation (the box officially labels it a "tactical
simulation"). Although quite interesting at times, the gameplay is
uncomfortably awkward and there are far too few scenarios. A revealing
glimpse into the lives of the officers in a SWAT (Special/Strategic
Weapons And Tactics) team, but it falls short of being an entertaining
and playable game. (HINT: If you complete enough missions as an
assaulter, you'll be promoted to element leader. This is a job with a lot
of responsibility, as it's hard enough in this game just to follow orders.
However, there's only one mission in the game which you will ever be
assigned under the element leader position: The Eastman Enterprises
mission. In this mission, your first action is deciding what point to enter
the building from, whether to use a stealth or dynamic entry, and where
you want the highground (which is slang for the sniper cover). On this
mission, you must choose to enter through the front door (on side 1), by
a stealth entry, with highground cover on the 1/4 corner. Any other
decision will result in the mission failing immediately. As a side note, be
aware that this is also the only mission in the game which requires
massive use of your LASH unit. Every other mission requires very little,
if any, use of it. In fact, on this mission, very nearly every single action
you perform will be simply transmitting LASH commands to your teams,
except for a few movements and one nasty surprise at the end.) [Sierra
On-Line]

Police Quest: SWAT 2: An excellent simulation of a SWAT (Special
Weapons And Tactics) team, with superb graphics and highly engaging
gameplay. This one will keep you awake through several nights.
Remember, you are authorized to shoot at suspects ONLY when they are
threatening you with deadly force. Although all suspects in this game
carry guns, if the gun is not raised, you should give them a challenge
instead of firing at them. However, you do not actually have to wait for
them to shoot at you before you are allowed to shoot at them. If they
have their gun raised in a threatening manner, by all means, shoot them
before they shoot you. (While hostages will normally be grateful to you
for rescuing them and follow you quietly once click the RESCUE icon
on them, they may occasionally go berzerk and start running away. If
this happens, you should immediately arrest them to get them under
control. Whether they come with you peacefully or you arrest them,
rescued hostages (as well as arrested suspects), once under control,
should be escorted by the officer they're following back to the command
post, which is the SWAT van.) When equipping your team, ALWAYS
make sure that somebody has a mirror and a hooligan tool. These two
items are absolutely essential in the game, the mirror because it is the
only way to know what's in a room without actually stepping into the
room, and the hooligan tool because most doors are locked and cannot
just be opened by hand. (There are other ways of breaching locked doors,
but the hooligan tool is the only quiet one. Ramming the door, blowing
it open with an explosive, or hitting it with the tank are all noisy. Using
the hooligan tool will not compromise a stealth entry.)
  To become successful in SWAT 2, you *must* make effective use of
the "Cover" command. This command makes your team members
automatically respond to threats; If you don't use it, you'll have to
manually respond to threats by selecting a weapon, aiming your cursor
at the target, and clicking on it. This takes way too long in this game.
When a team member enters a new area, *always* have another member
covering him. The person providing cover will then automatically shoot
at any threats against the target of the cover, whiXh is important, because
otherwise the officer in the lead will probably get shot down immediately
if there's an enemy in the next room. In fact, I recommend that you
avoid manually firing your guns when possible, because officers under
a "Cover" order will automatically discern between a threatening and a
non-threatening person, and shoot if necessary. As you'll notice,
however, computer-controlled players are sometimes slow to respond to
threats. If a subject is already threatening and needs to be taken down
immediately, select a gun and click on the target for all you're worth.
  On SWAT Mission 10, "Riot In The Valley", based on the infamous
Rodney King riots of 1992, all hell is breaking loose all over the city,
and the situation calls for a slightly different approach than most
missions in the game: The manual recommends that instead of deploying
one element and strategically inserting it into a target zone, you'll want
several active elements, so you can cover as much area as possible.
However, I finished the mission fairly effectively using a very different
tactic: Instead of being a strategic mission, this is more of a free-for-all
mission. Just down the violent suspects, and the mission will end.
Therefore, I sent a single one-man element into the mission armed with
an MP5, and simply machine-gunned down all the suspects. There are
only 5 of them in the mission, so if you are quick on the trigger, you
should be able to get them down without hurting your officer. This is
definitely not real-world SWAT protocol, but trying to deal with the
suspects "properly" usually leads to innocent bystanders getting shot by
the suspects, which just makes your outcome worse.
  Once you get to SWAT Mission 14, "Assassination In The Park", just
assign as many resources as you can muster into the recruitment session,
because this is the last mission in which you'll have access to the
recruiting screen. Just assign as many officers as possible and give them
as much equipment as possible. (Definitely make sure everyone has an
MP5.) Then, in the mission, keep one element next to the stage where
the mayor will be speaking, and send the rest out into the extremeties of
the map to wait for enemies who come into the picture. Pay particular
attention to the hills at the top of the map, because snipers will try to set
up posts there to shoot at the mayor. Also set up some officers to guard
the terrorists' escape vehicle; It's the turquoise-colored jeep sitting in the
parking lot on the right side of the map. Keep the guarding officers on
the left corner of that parking lot, because that's one of the sniper spots
where a sniper will attempt to shoot the mayor. And don't forget to have
your helicopter go into orbit so you'll have a more clear picture of who's
out there. As soon as you see any green dots appear on the map,
indicating a spotted enemy, scramble an officer there and gun them down
immediately with an MP5. (Interestingly, many of the snipers who will
attempt to shoot the mayor during his speech will actually be plainly
visible beforehand, but it will not be readily apparent that they are bad
guys; Thus, an unconventional but useful tactic on this mission is to
simply arrest *everybody*. Obviously you'll arrest some innocent
bystanders as well, but there will be no penalty for this (you're penalized
for killing innocents, not arresting them), and it'll reduce the difficulty
of the mission by eliminating several of the shooters.)
  Snipers can be very helpful in SWAT 2, but there are only a few
missions where you can actually set them up in sniping positions, and
only two missions where they are really helpful: Mission 8 (the big
outdoor mission with the people playing with bombs), and the mission
right after it: Mission 9, where your snipers can be instrumental in killing
the enemy snipers who suddenly show up when you take one particular
hostage outside.
  And finally, one piece of advice which won't help you while actually
playing SWAT 2, but which will make the game much more rewarding
when it's all over: Get as much evidence as possible. In several missions,
there are small items sitting around which you can pick up as evidence.
They don't seem to be very important at the time, but after the 15th (and
final) mission is over, how much evidence you've recovered over the
course of the game will affect the final debriefing. The more evidence
you've found, the more the plot will be wrapped up at the end of the
game. If you find all the evidence, the full extent of the plot will be
revealed. If you find none, the final debriefing will be quite
unsatisfactory, leaving many plot questions unexplained and not leading
to a "happy" ending. It makes for a terribly disappointing finish after
working your way through the entire game, so take the time to collect the
evidence as you're going through the missions. Possible collectible
evidence in the game is as follows: Mission 3: Drugs. Mission 5:
Pamphlets and money. Mission 7: Drugs and guns. Mission 8: Explosives
and detonator (found on suspect). Mission 9: Drugs and gun. Mission 10:
Explosives (may or may not be carried by suspect). Mission 12: Money.
Mission 13: Brochure and cell phone (cell phone may or may not be
carried by suspect). Mission 14: Weapons on suspects. Oh, and it's also
a good idea to keep the mayor alive on mission 15 as well, since his
presence will lend some content to the final debriefing too. [Sierra On-
Line]

SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle: SWAT is now three games old, and it
is one of the most changed game series ever. All three of the games are
vastly different from each other in the way they handle the task of being
a SWAT officer. With SWAT 3, however, Sierra seems to have finally
gotten it right. Whereas the first SWAT was a somewhat disappointing
full-motion video (FMV) game and SWAT 2, while good, suffered from
slightly questionable gameplay, SWAT 3 is now a tuned game, refined
by the lessons learned from the first two. [Sierra On-Line]

Populous [Bullfrog]

Populous II [Bullfrog]

Populous: The Beginning [Bullfrog]

Porrasturvat: Who says nobody's making computer games with original
concepts anymore? Porrasturvat (which, apparently, is Finnish for "Stair
Dismount") is a simple game with a simple premise: Push someone down
a staircase, and hurt them as much as possible. The more damage they
take, the more points you get. It's that simple. You control the direction,
pitch, and force of the push, as well as what body parts to shove.
(Pushing from the head or neck gives you more leverage, but I find that
pushing the feet actually works well, because if you shove hard enough
and at just the right angle, the guy actually flips upside-down and smacks
his head on the top of the staircase, usually inflicting about 10,000 points
of damage before he's even begun tumbling.) Although it's a simple and
silly little game, Porrasturvat is remarkably addictive for the same kind
of crowd that enjoys the sadistic aspects of games like Grand Theft Auto,
or anybody with a sense of humour and an interest in small, well-made,
free games. Get it from the official homepage at
http://tAAt.fi/taat/porrasturvat/ . Believe it or not, Porrasturvat actually
spawned a similar sequel, Truck Dismount: Rekkaturvat. [tAAt]
(Freeware)

Powermonger [Bullfrog]

Princess Maker 2: An Anime game with a concept reminiscent of
Tamagotchi, but with way more depth to it. The premise: You're a father
of one daughter, and you need to raise her, deciding what she'll study in
school, what she'll do to earn money, and what clothes she'll wear. The
game starts when she's 10 and ends when she turns 18, at which point
you're told what kind of parent you were.

Pushover: A delightful little puzzle game for anyone who enjoys (or has
ever enjoyed) playing with dominoes, in the line-them-up-and-make-
them-fall way, not the lay-them-on-the-table way. Puzzles center around
arranging your dominoes so you can make them all fall with a limited
number of pushes available. Controls are simple: By default, you are in
"move" mode, in which you can move the dominoes around. Press
SPACEBAR to pick up the domino where you are standing now, and
press it again to drop the domino somewhere. When you want to begin
a push, press UP to enter "push" mode, in which you press SPACEBAR
and either LEFT or RIGHT at the same time to push in that direction.
After you complete the puzzle, the end-of-level door will open; Walk to
it and press UP to go through it. At any time, you can press P to pause
the game, which will show you all the different types of dominoes in the
game, as well as how many pushes you have total for this puzzle.
[Ocean]

Quato 2.1 [Soleau Software]

Rags To Riches: An above-average "businessman" game, in which you
buy and sell investments while managing your agents and keeping up
with the news. An interesting (though slightly simplistic) glimpse into the
life of those who trade for a living. [Interplay]

Railroad Tycoon Deluxe [MicroProse]

Railroad Tycoon II: The Second Century [MicroProse]

Rainbow Six: At first, Rainbow Six seems like a great game. Its
emphasis on realism is bound to appeal to people who want to know
what it really feels like to lead a team of elite operatives through a series
of anti-terrorism missions. But from the start, things seem a little fishy,
and the game's shortcomings become more and more apparent as you
continue to play. First of all, if you actually check how many missions
there are, you'll learn that there are 16. Now, if these missions were a
little longer and provided some replay value, that might not be so bad,
but considering that most of them are fairly short and have only one
goal, there's precious little playtime inside Rainbow Six. But the small
size of the game aside, the gameplay has some flaws that make even
those 16 missions not all they're cracked up to be. First and foremost is
the way missions tend to abruptly end in failure if you make the tiniest
error. Most missions pit you against ridiculous odds, and even in heavy
body armor, your operatives die easily with only one or two gunshots,
making missions the tedious, repetitive "try and try again until you get
it exactly right" process that was typical of arcade games 20 years ago.
Often terrorists will instantly kill hostages if they see you, meaning you
must be completely undetected until you have a chance to shoot those
terrorists. This becomes especially ridiculous when there are several
terrorists guarding the hostages and you must shoot them all in a fraction
of a second before they turn and shoot the precious hostages, ending the
mission in failure. Possibly even more outrageous than this, if you fail
a mission, the game won't even tell you why, leaving you with little
chance to learn from your mistakes unless you can figure out for yourself
why it failed (which usually isn't too hard; But even so, it wouldn't be
too hard to give you an explanation for why you were suddenly booted
to the "mission failed" screen). Secondly, you'll quickly learn that the
computer AI for your teammates is just awful. They tend to react slowly
if somebody is shooting at them, meaning your buddies will get killed a
lot. Although they are excellent shots if they happen to be facing an
enemy (usually killing the bad guy before you even notice he/she is
there), they don't seem to understand that if somebody is shooting at
them, they have to turn around to *face* the aggressor to shoot back. In
the end, it's easier just to leave everybody at the insertion point and go
in by yourself to do the job as a one-man commando, which is utterly
ironic considering the game is meant to emphasize teamwork among the
operatives. Instead of being a cooperative team game, it's more like
Quake in slow-motion. Adding insult to injury are the training missions
(which are just plain confusing, because they don't really give you clear
instructions on what you're supposed to do, making it a trial-and-error
process to learn the game) and the manual, which is good at explaining
the controls and dialog boxes in the game but doesn't seem to say
anything about actually PLAYING the game, probably because gameplay
is ultimately too simple to bother documenting: Just sneak around and
shoot any bad guys you see. The result is a game that isn't realistic
enough to be a hard-core tactical simulation, and not fun enough to be
a kill-happy shoot-em-up. Rainbow Six had so much potential, but in the
end, even NovaLogic's Delta Force is a more realistic (and fun) game in
this genre, which is pretty ironic considering that NovaLogic is known
for making games that are game first and simulation second (with Delta
Force being no exception). People raved about Rainbow Six because it
was supposed to achieve that elusive balance between realism and fun.
It's clear that they really tried hard to fit both in the game, but in the end
they got neither. Rainbow Six is very definitely over-hyped. Personally,
I stopped playing Rainbow Six at mission number 5, "Operation: Ghost
Dance". On this mission, several hostages are being held in the middle
of an amusement park, and the room that they're in is full of water. They
are being guarded by two terrorists, who will kill the hostages if they see
any of your team members. Stealth is absolutely impossible on this
mission, because you'd have to slog through water to get to the hostages,
and the two terrorists would hear you long before you got there. Is this
fair? Absolutely not. I have no idea how anyone is expected to finish this
mission. Obviously the only workable strategy is a massive assault in
which all team members suddenly start shooting at the terrorists from a
distance, in the hopes that they can kill them quickly before they start
killing the hostages, but this is purely a matter of chance and has no
element of skill or strategy to it. (NOTE: One of the most incredibly
frustrating things about Rainbow Six is how missions tend to suddenly
end in failure for no apparent reason. There's a reason for it, but too
often you can't tell exactly what the reason is, since the game, in an
incredibly annoying design quirk, never tells you exactly WHY the
mission suddenly failed. It's caused by a "can't happen" situation
happening, such as a hostage dying that you needed to rescue, or
terrorists becoming aware of your presence when you needed to keep out
of sight. (Bear in mind that in most cases, if a terrorist is guarding a
hostage, that terrorist will kill the hostage if he sees you, making the
mission an instant failure.) If it seems to consistently happen in one spot,
try taking a different approach to that area.) (TIP: The only drawback to
having heavier body armor is a decrease in mobility (because the extra
armor is heavier) and stealth (because it makes a tad more noise).
Although stealth is important in R6, the slight additional stealth of lighter
armor doesn't really justify the increased vulnerability. Considering how
easily a couple of bullets can kill your operatives in this game, you need
as much protection as you can get. The reduced mobility is almost
completely irrelevant, since most of the time you're moving very slowly
anyway. Let's face it, Rainbow Six ain't Quake, and sneaking around
cautiously is the order of the day. I always put the heaviest level of
armor on all my team members.) [Red Storm Entertainment]

Rainbow Six Add-On: Eagle Watch

Raku Master 1.1 [Soleau Software]

Redline: Gang Warfare 2066

Rekkaturvat: See Truck Dismount: Rekkaturvat

Return Of The Incredible Machine: Contraptions: Several years after the
TIM series had been mostly-forgotten in the computer-gaming world,
Sierra released another one. As might be expected, it's updated for new
computers, with better graphics and support for 3D graphics cards, but
in terms of gameplay, it's exactly the same TIM. (And that's a good
thing.) [Sierra On-Line]

Robix 1.1 [Soleau Software]

RoboSport For Windows [Maxis]

Robot Odyssey 1.1: An educational game which teaches logical thinking
using robots, featuring a rudimentary introduction to digital electronics
and some ingenious puzzles. Considered by many to be the most
entertaining educational game ever; It's certainly one of the most original
and unique, even to this day. WARNING: Robots in this game have
battery levels which run down as they stay on. Consequently, you should
keep robots turned off whenever possible. This point is addressed in the
"Robot Anatomy" tutorial, but on a modern computer, battery levels run
low so fast that your robots will be drained before you reach that point
in the tutorial, and you will be unable to reach it. (Hint: Mo' Slo might
be called for when running Robot Odyssey.) As soon as you begin that
tutorial, turn OFF your remote control or most of the robots will run out
of battery energy before you even reach them. [The Learning Company]

Rock Man 1.3 [Soleau Software]

Rocky's Boots: A companion program to Robot Odyssey, Rocky's Boots
is aimed at slightly younger children, but focusesXon the same concept:
Building little virtual electronics circuits on the screen to learn how
digital logic works. It succeeds as well as Robot Odyssey did, which is
pretty well, considering RO was an excellent game. [The Learning
Company]

Rogue Spear: The sequel to Rainbow Six. [Red Storm Entertainment]

Roller Coaster Tycoon [MicroProse]

Romance Of The Three Kingdoms 1 [Koei]

Romance Of The Three Kingdoms 2 [Koei]

Romance Of The Three Kingdoms 3 [Koei]

Sacrifice [Interplay/Shiny]

Scorched Earth 1.5: If you played and liked the QBASIC game Gorillas
(it was included with MS-DOS 5.0, but not later versions), you'll
REALLY like Scorched Earth. The basic concept is the same, but there
are about 20 times as many features, the most important of which are
money, which lets you buy more powerful weapons, and up to 10
different players at a time (any of which can be controlled by either a
human or the computer). Great fun. (NOTE: Make sure you get the latest
version, which has a huge number of bug fixes.) [Wendell Hicken]
[Shareware]

Serf City: See Settlers 1

Settlers 1: Serf City: Life Is Feudal [South Park Interactive]

Settlers II [South Park Interactive]

Settlers III [South Park Interactive]

Seven Cities Of Gold [Electronic Arts]

Seven Cities Of Gold 2 [Electronic Arts]

Seven Kingdoms II: The Fryhtan Wars

Shadow President: Have you ever wanted to try and be president of the
US? Now you can, with Shadow President. Face assasination, scandal,
and all those other wonderful things that are associated with being pres.
[DC True]

Shanghai: This was a huge classic in its time, but it's been surpassed by
Shanghai II, which is more of a replacement game than a sequel.
[Activision]

Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye: A terrific Mah Jongg game. Features 13
different tile layouts and 8 different tile sets. [Activision]

Sheep: A game which obviously wants to be like Lemmings, based on
the fact that you control a flock of utterly brain-dead creatures who walk
blindly in a straight line, and which you must save from certain death.
However, it's not as much fun as Lemmings, so it ends up being just a
cheap clone. [Empire Interactive/Mind's Eye]

Sherlock: A challening and fun little thinker program in which you must
determine what picture fits where in a grid. [Everett Kaser] [Shareware]

Sid & Al's Incredible Toons: A more cartoonish member of the
Incredible Machine family of games. Join Al E. Cat and Sid V. Mouse
on a cartoonishly strange trip through dozens of puzzles. Elephants are
just one of the many parts available to make a machine! [Sierra On-Line]

Sid Meier's Gettysburg [Origin]

Silicon City 2.5: An enjoyable strategic challenge with a surprisingly
good sci-fi plot behind it and gameplay that's challenging without being
overwhelming. [Lyric Software]

SimAnt: Did you know that being queen of an ant colony is not all it's
cracked up to be? If not, you'll find out in this silly and even somewhat
educational game. [Maxis]

SimAnt CD [Interplay]

SimCity EGA/VGA: The grand old classic city simulator which has
become one of the most classic computer games ever. It spawned a
revolution in computer games. You play mayor and build a city. Until
you have played SimCity and experienced the SimCity experience for
yourself, you, my friend, have not lived. Well, that may be a bit of an
exaggeration, but it's close enough. Any serious computer gamer will
have SimCity on their computer. (NOTE: This game uses DOS
EGA/VGA 8x14 (8 pixel by 14 pixel character box) video mode (mode
10h), which is not supported by many newer video cards. These cards
will display the game's text as garbled nonsense. There are TSR
programs available free on the Internet to cure this problem if you have
it.) (Tip: Don't just build your cities haphazardly, adding sections as you
need them. Instead, plan ahead, decide where you will put things before
you actually need to place them there. And try to put things where you
will have lots of space to build around them. In other words, avoid
building right next to the water, except for some luxury residential areas.
Remember, your industrial areas are meant to be far away from
everything else because of the pollution and crime they tend to breed,
while your residential and commercial areas should be conveniently close
to each other.) [Maxis]

SimCity For Windows: A new, user-friendly Windows-type interface on
a great game. [Maxis]

SimCity 2000 1.01: The best-selling city simulator is back, and better
than ever! Did you like SimCity? Just try this one on for size! 3D is just
one of the awesome improvements! (In SimCity 2000, building a good
infrastructure right from the start is even more important than in the
original SimCity. I recommend putting down residential, commercial and
industrial zones, a police and fire station, a hospital and a school right
from the start, plus the electrical, water and road connections needed to
link these elements together. Indeed, if you don't build a lot of nice
things, you will find nobody moving into your city at all.) (The female
voice which speaks whenever a new city is being generated is saying
"Reticulating splines", believe it or not. Yes, really.) [Maxis]

SimCity 2000 CD [Maxis]

SimCity 2000 Add-On: Urban Renewal Kit [Maxis]

SimCity 2000 Great Disasters

SimCity 2000, Network Edition [Maxis]

SimCity 3000 [Maxis]

SimCity 4 [Maxis]

SimCity 4 Add-On: Rush Hour [Maxis]

SimCity Classic

SimCity For Windows [Maxis]

SimCity CD-ROM Enhanced Edition: A multimedia version of SimCity,
essentially the same game dressed up with spoken audio and full-screen
video clips which mainly feature your city's public employees telling you
their opinions on how you're running the city. Although they must have
seemed like something really special when this game first came out in
the mid-1990s when multimedia was still on the rise, in retrospect the
multimedia aspects are mostly pretty cheesy, and once you've seen all
the video clips a few times they really add nothing to the gameplay, and
indeed, they get irritating before too long. A perfect example of a well-
crafted gem which wasn't improved by trying to fix something that
wasn't broke. [Interplay]

SimCity Classic Graphics 1

SimCity Classic Graphics 2

SimCopter: A slightly less obvious extension of the mediocre Streets Of
Sim City, SimCopter lets you fly a helicopter over a city that you've
created in SimCity and perform various missions in it. Although it's not
a bad game, SimCopter is still more of a good concept than a good
game; The missions are interesting but there aren't enough of them (they
basically fall into traffic-control or disaster situations), the graphics are
only passable, and if you're just looking for a flight simulation, the flight
model is too simplified for hard-core helicopter realism pilots. If you just
want to fly over a city you made in SimCity, then this is your game; If
you want a non-violent helicopter sim in which you do things like airlift
people to the hospital or deal with traffic accidents, then play any of the
(much lesser-known) Search And Rescue games, all of which have a
hyper-hard flight model. [Maxis]

SimEarth [Maxis]

SimEarth CD [Maxis]

SimFarm: A bit more SIMplistic than the other SimGames, SimFarm lets
you farm, with cows and corn (plus a few other types of animals and lots
of different crop types). Tornadoes and other disasters stare you right in
the face. Although it doesn't have the same addictive gameplay that
SimCity had, this is a pleasant rural simulation which should please
anybody who wishes they lived in the country. The only thing missing,
curiously, is chickens. Although one might assume that because it's a
simulation of a real-world living scenario like SimCity, SimFarm should
be about as much fun, in actuality SimFarm is a very plain game. That
makes sense when you think about it; A city is an active system, and the
little nuances of setting one up and attending to it were precisely what
made SimCity so much fun. On the other hand, a farm is a fairly simple
system, consisting of a few logically laid-out fields which need regular
attention, and gameplay in SimFarm basically boils down to making sure
your crops are taken care of; It's more like work than fun. Certainly
SimFarm has potential for an educational experience, as it contains a
decent encyclopedia of common crops and their characteristics, but as a
game it falls flat pretty quickly. [Maxis]

SimHealth [Maxis]

SimIsle CD: A tropical rainforest management game, in the tradition of
SimCity. [Maxis]

SimLife: SimLife lets you alter the genes of any plant or animal in your
world, changing several aspects of its life such as how large it grows to
be, how long it lives, how quickly it produces offspring and how long
those offspring take to produce, and many other variables which have an
impact on the way the mini-ecosystem works. Then you can observe how
your changes affect the world. SimLife's scope is perhaps broader than
any other strategy game's I've seen to date, and indeed it comes closer
to playing God than most games do. It's actually similar to SimEarth in
that it gives you a simulated world to populate with life forms and
observe, but while SimEarth was more focused on the environmental
aspects of the world, SimLife is more focused on the characteristics of
the creatures themselves, including a highly interesting simulation of
evolution, making the creates change and adapt to their surroundings,
both in the environment and from other creatures. [Maxis]

SimPark [Maxis]

SimSafari [Maxis]

SimTower [Maxis]

SimTown CD [Maxis]

Sleuth 4.45: A cool computer adaptation of the old board game Clue.
Really neat! NOTE: Figuring out the murder suspect and finding the
murder weapon is easy enough in this game, but the manual doesn't give
you clear enough instruction on finding out the murder ROOM. Let me
clarify it for you: Whenever somebody is in a room when you enter it,
read what they are doing. If somebody is engaging in suspicious activity,
that generally is a clue that that room is the room where the murder
occurred. Learn to distinguish between suspicious and normal acitivity.
For example, if someone is searching under the bed in the bedroom,
that's suspicious. If they're sitting on the bed, that's not. If they're
rummaging through some papers in the study, that's suspicious and may
mean that the study was the murder room. (This should be considered
especially important if you know or later find out that the person who
was doing that is also the murderer!) Just thought I'd clarify that for you,
I had a hard time figuring the murder room out. BTW, you may not see
anyone doing anything suspicious at all for the whole game... If so,
you're out of luck. Sometimes you see something suspicious, sometimes
you don't. Play the game a few times and you should get it. (Shareware)

SnowMotion: A thoroughly original game concept (although it's
reminiscent of Soko-Ban), SnowMotion is a puzzle game which, like all
truly addictive puzzlers, has a simple premise: You roll around balls of
snow. The more you roll your snowball, the bigger it gets. You need to
roll three separate snowballs to three different sizes, and get them
together so you can construct a snowman. The game is seriously difficult,
but it's great fun and it's free. Get it from the official homepage at
www.snowmotion-game.com [Twisted Pair] (Freeware)

Sokoball: A strategy game based on the classic Japanese Sokoban games,
but marked by excellent graphics and some clever twists on an old
concept. [Jim Radcliffe]

Soko-Ban: One of the most copied game concepts of all time, Soko-Ban
is the original "box-pushing" puzzle game in which you can push boxes
around on the screen, but not pull them, and so you must get them all
into their proper storage areas through pushing alone. [Spectrum
Holobyte]

Spaceward Ho! [New World Computing]

Spaceward Ho! For Windows [New World Computing]

Squarex 1.2 [Soleau Software]

Stalin's Dilemma: A tiny but fascinating mini-strategy game designed by
a university professor as an educational aid and distributed as freeware
in the hopes of getting suggestions for improvements from the public.
You are tasked with managing the national strategy of the Soviet Union
through the years leading up to World War II, in an effort at keeping
your country from being taken over by Germany or collapsing from lack
of necessary infrastructure. You must assign food, workers, and other
resources for three periods (each of which lasts 5 years). That's right, it
is a turn-based strategy game with only three turns in the entire game. (I
said it was tiny, didn't I?) Despite this, Stalin's Dilemma works
surprisingly well as an introduction to the difficulty of managing a
country on the verge of war and battered by poverty and lack of
technological development. To be sure, it is a difficult game, but its tiny
size and easy accessibility makes it worth a look if you want to get
started with resource-management games. [Edward Bever] (Freeware)

Star Control

Star Control 2: A masterpiece of a game, combining arcade action with
strategy, featuring a great, driving plot (one of the finest plots ever seen
from a computer game, in fact), a catchy techno soundtrack (some of the
very finest music ever heard in any computer game), and a HUGE
universe to explore, with hundreds of star systems and thousands of
planets. This is the game for the person who wants a lot of depth to their
computer games. Unfortunately, although Star Control 2 is a well-crafted
gem in terms of the presentation and universe, the gameplay is absolutely
painful. The game's main fault is that although it does give you a huge
universe, that universe is mostly empty. Yes, there are a lot of planets
out there, but most of them have nothing on them except a few minerals.
This reduces the game to a tedious repetition of razing all the planets for
their minerals, then going to another star system and doing the same. The
result is that most of Star Control 2 plays like a silly little arcade game,
guiding your planetary lander around to pick up minerals while dodging
weather and tectonic hazards. There may indeed be a lot of interesting
aliens out there to interact with, but what good is that when you can't
find them? It takes an absurd amount of patience and time to keep
exploring every planet, then going back to Earth to get more fuel and
then going back to distant star systems for more searching. The fact that
you hardly ever find anything makes it very difficult to find motivation
to keep playing the game. You must have a lot of time on your hands if
you can find reason within yourself to keep playing the game after
searching through four or five solar systems and finding no life forms at
all. Clearly, the appeal of this game is in the joy of exploration, finding
new and interesting aliens and interacting with them; Where, then, is this
appeal when you hardly ever encounter those aliens? Star Control 2
exceeds in every aspect except actual playability. (Star Control 2 may
appear in weird colors on certain non-standard video cards. To fix this,
run the game with the /g:BIOS switch, which will force it to use BIOS
functions to update the video palette. This slows down the game slightly,
which is why it is not done by default.) (The keys for combat in the
game are as follows: Left and right arrow keys rotate your ship, forward
arrow key activates the thruster(s), ENTER fires your main weapon,
SPACEBAR activates your ship's special ability (if any), and ESC
escapes from the battle.) [Accolade]

Star Control 3

StarCraft: A space strategy game which has recieved a huge amount of
hype in spite of the fact that it's pretty much just another case of the
same old stuff. [Blizzard]

StarCraft Add-On: Brood Wars

StarCraft Add-On: Insurrection

Starfleet Command

Star Reach

Starsiege [Sierra On-Line]

Starsiege: TRIBES [Sierra On-Line]

Star Trek Generations [Microprose]

Star Wars: Droidworks [LucasArts]

Star Wars: Force Commander [LucasArts]

Star Wars: Rebellion [LucasArts]

Strife [Velocity]

Subculture [Ubi Soft]

Syndicate Plus: A cyberpunk cross between arcade and strategy which
should please fans of both those genres. It's ruthless and rather violent,
and it's a blast to play. Syndicate's plot is not too terribly original,
particularly not to those familiar with the cyberpunk culture: It begins
with the uprising of mega-corporations, and the power they wield
because of their massive amounts of wealth, the influence and, often, the
flat-out control they can exercise over governments with their money.
(Can you say "zaibatsu", boys and girls?) As a young executive in a
relatively small corporation, your job is to use your money and power to
muscle your way to the top, through brutally ruthless, but effective,
means.
  In terms of atmosphere, Syndicate was a huge success for its time. It
was one of the first major DOS games to use SVGA graphics, and the
bleak, futuristic cities are well-rendered and brimming with activity (most
of it of no interest to you or your objectives).
  Syndicate does suffer from one fatal flaw, however: It's way, way too
hard to play. After the first few missions, you're always so hopelessly
outnumbered and outgunned that you're constantly fighting a losing
battle. And even when the enemy's firepower isn't overwhelming, the
missions are frustrating because way too often they hinge on the life of
one fragile person (who too easily gets caught in crossfire between you
and enemy agents). (Tip: On "Escort" missions, your job is to make sure
that a person gets to where they're going safely. However, enemy agents
don't actually shoot at your quarry; They shoot at YOU. Thus, the best
thing you can do in Escort missions is to just get away from the person
you're escorting, and wait for the mission to be over.) Also too often,
you need a car to get through gateways, and if your one vehicle is
destroyed (which also happens way too easily), you can't finish the
mission.
  Syndicate also gets uncomfortably repetitive. Most missions are of 3
basic types: Assasination (in which you must kill a particular person),
Combat Sweep (in which you must simply purge the city of enemy
agents), and Personnel Acquisition (in which you must "Persuade" a
particular person to join your syndicate). The game has quite a few
missions, and only 4 or 5 of them incorporate any real variety or
creativity. Before you finish the game, playing Syndicate will become
more of a chore than anything else.
  (NOTE: Syndicate's executable, MAIN.EXE, has some switches that
allow you to select the IRQ, DMA channel, and I/O channel used by
your sound card. To see the command-line options, type "main /?" in the
Syndicate game directory. And, like most programs that use DOS4GW,
Syndicate doesn't take too well to EMM386, so boot without loading
EMM386 before you run it.)
  The 3 bars below each agent's profile (during the missions) represent,
in order, the following: Adrenaline (increases walking speed), Perception
(increases shot accuracy, for when you're doing long-range sniping or
trying to pick one target out of a crowd), and Intelligence (makes the
agent shoot at targets on his/her own; This allows you to concentrate on
moving around without worrying about stray police officers or rival
agents making trouble). You can increase these levels, but be aware that
after a while the effects of this will start to wear off, and the agent will
return to normal, so use these only when you really need to. Note that as
time wears on, gradually the agents will start to regain their sensitivity
to these hormones, and you will be able to use them again. Note that you
can induce a state of "controlled panic", immediately pushing the
hormone levels of your selected agent(s) to maximum, by pressing both
mouse buttons simultaneously. Because the missions in the game are so
chaotic, with huge legions of enemy agents constantly closing in on all
sides, it's usually pretty hard to stay on top of things and to keep track
of where you're being shot at from. For this reason, I recommend you
generally let your agents take care of themselves through their hormones.
An agent with all 3 of the hormone levels set to the maximum will react
very quickly to being shot at, automatically aiming and firing at whoever
poses a threat. In general, their automatic reaction time will be faster
than yours if you try to deal with the threats yourself.
  The various items which you will gain through the various types of
research are as follows: Researching automatic weapons will get you the
Uzi, then the Mini-Gun (which has a lot of ammo and is a good value,
besides having longer range than the Uzi. As soon as you can afford to
do so, you should make the Mini-Gun your general-purpose weapon
which you use most of the time). Researching heavy weapons will get
you the Laser (*very* powerful sniping weapon), then the Gauss Gun
(most powerful weapon in the game; Unreasonably destructive. In fact
the Gauss Gun is so powerful, and so hard to avoid hitting yourself with,
not to mention so incredibly expensive for a paltry 3 shots, that I
recommend avoiding it). Researching assault weapons will get you the
Flamer, the Long Range (sniper rifle), then the Time Bomb (which must
be dropped to work). And finally, researching Miscellaneous will get you
the Access Card (which not only lets you get through some locked doors,
but also identifies you as a police officer and keeps police from shooting
at you), then the Energy Shield (which protects against bullets and must
be turned on to work).
  Bear in mind that pistols are so worthless in this game that they're
absolutely free to buy. They're not exactly the most powerful weapon,
but they kill, so you might as well stock up on them so you have backup
for when your heavier weapons run out.
  Also keep in mind that because of the game's point of view, it's easy
to get into a situation where you can't see who's shooting at you,
because they're hidden behind some building. For this reason, you should
generally keep your agents out in the open so you'll have a clear view
(and thus a much better chance of aiming at) whoever's shooting at you.
  Invest early in the first chest mod for all your agents. This will make
their health slowly regenerate during the mission. This means never
having to buy Medikits again, assuming you can keep them out of
trouble long enough for their health to recharge to maximum. The arms
and legs mods are not that important unless you need to move fast. The
eyes mod is helpful because it increases perception (which means greater
shooting accuracy).
  Watch out for enemy agents carrying time bombs. When they die, the
bombs fall to the ground and the timer begins; They will explode
moments later. Always be wary of their corpses and check if there's a
time bomb among their remains before you go near. (If you're quick, you
can actually pick up the bomb before it explodes and carry it with you.)
  It is not always to your advantage to have your weapon drawn. Police
will only shoot at you if you have your gun out in the open; If you are
empty-handed, police will leave you alone.
  Note that you are paid for any people you persuade during the mission
(assuming they are still alive when it's over). Therefore, you should try
to persuade as many civilians as you can; It's like free money! Not only
that, but enemy agents who you persuade go into your Cryo Chamber,
for use as your own cyborg agents! Liberal use of the Persuadertron,
whenever possible, is a good practice to get into. It costs you nothing,
and will gain you money and agents. (Even if people you persuade die
before you finish the mission, you haven't really lost anything.)
  After every mission, you should scan the map, taking note of the
population status of every territory you own; If the citizens start to feel
unhappy, you should lower your tax rates. Conversely, if they are very
happy, you should raise tax rates so you get more money. If you let their
status get all the way down to "Rebellious", you will have to repeat the
same mission in that territory to regain it. After that, you should check
up on research. Make sure you're researching what's most useful to your
team, and that you've allocated an amount of funding that's economically
viable. This should be your routine between each mission.
  On the Atlantic Accelerator mission, there are at lot of enemy agents
to dispose of. The actual number varies, but is generally large. (I once
had no less then 55 of them dead at the end.) Good luck. I recommend
just putting all the V3 mods in all 4 of your agents, equpping them all
with several Mini-Guns, setting all of them onto maximum hormones the
instant the mission begins, and just going on a sweep through the
mission. On this mission in particular, avoid close-in battles. Try to keep
your agents out in the open during the beginning so that you'll have
relatively long-range shots at the enemy agents when they come
swarming at you. Close-quarters gunfights usually result in your team
being overwhelmed. Oh, and take along one Gauss Gun, for that one
pesky enemy who stays inside that building and doesn't come out.
  (Note that although this is not mentioned anywhere in the manual,
saving a game costs you some money. Even so, the missions are tough
enough that you should probably save after each one; It's worth the fairly
small amount of money.) [Bullfrog/Electronic Arts]

Syndicate Add-On: American Revolt: Syndicate's sole add-on is not quite
what you might expect upon seeing the name. This is not America as in
the United States of America, it's America as in the Americas. American
Revolt begins with you having already conquered the Eastern
hemisphere, but the entire Western half of the world, from Alaska to
Argentina, is ready to be plundered with all-new missions. Be warned,
these missions are hard, harder than the ones in the original Syndicate.
Although American Revolt trumpets its inclusion of additional equipment
not available in the first game, there are actually only two items that
were not in Syndicate: A device called a "clone shield", which makes an
agent look like an ordinary civilian, and an "air raid" command, which
lets you order a bombing of a particular area. Although both of these
items are useful, neither is particularly remarkable. Otherwise, American
Revolt is much the same type of game as Syndicate, which is a good
thing, considering that Syndicate was a great game. Bullfrog stayed fairly
true to not fixing what weren't broke. About my only real complaint is
that the missions are almost ludicrous in the single-minded hammering
of enemy agents they deliver. I personally found the original Syndicate
a tad too difficult, but still manageable; American Revolt is over the top.
[Bullfrog/Electronic Arts]

Syndicate Wars [Electronic Arts]

Taipei 5.00: A good, basic clone of Mah-Jongg for Windows, with
several layouts to choose from and good graphics. [David Norris]
(Shareware)

Take No Prisoners: A shooter notable mostly for its rather unique top-
down perspective; Unlike most top-down games which use a fixed
camera angle and simply scroll around to follow your character, TNP
keeps your character centered at the bottom of the screen and always
faces the direction he's facing (in a slightly forward-angled view so you
can see where you're going). In some ways, a third-person perspective
gives you more situational awareness, at least in theory, because you can
see something sneaking up behind you, instead of only being able to see
what's in front of you. This is an interesting idea, but playing TNP for
a while will probably convince you that it's useful more as an
experiment than a serious game design decision; The fact that you're
looking almost straight down means you can't see very far in any
direction, and you're constantly only aware of what's immediately around
your character, instead of being able to see a few feet into the distance.
In terms of everything else, Take No Prisoners is a pretty typical first-
person shooter from the mid-1990s, with a cliched-to-death plot about
nuclear radiation turning the world into a place full of mutants and
desperate survivalists who just barely manage to make a living off the
land. The game's location is unique (San Antonio, Texas, a city not often
made the centerpiece of a computer game), but this is moot since none
of the scenery accurately reflects modern-day San Antonio. The game
does get a pretty good post-apocalyptic wasteland theme going, though,
and in fact it feels like a shooter version of the popular Wasteland or
Fallout RPGs, which isn't a bad thing as long as that's what you're into.
Overall, Take No Prisoners is a fun and very gory game that'll give
action shooter fans some fun for a while, but it's really just another first-
person shooter, that's not first-person. [Red Orb Entertainment/Raven
Software]

Team Yankee [Empire Software]

Terra Nova

The Big One 1.01: A SimCity-like simulation of a major earthquake
hitting the Los Angeles area. You must deploy fire crews, police, etc. to
control the resulting problems. Although the game is little more than
sending these emergency crews around, you might learn something about
the geography of LA and the surrounding area (including parts of
Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside). [Swfte International]

The Blue And The Gray: One of the grand classic strategy war games,
this is a historically accurate game set in the American Civil War.
[Impressions]

The Doonesbury Election Game: Campaign `96 [Mindscape/Kellogg
Creek]

The Incredible Machine (TIM): The original puzzle-solving game! My
personal all-time favorite computer game. Don't get it anymore, though,
get The Even More Incredible Machine (below), which has almost twice
as many levels and a puzzle builder.

The Even More Incredible Machine (TEMIM) for DOS (not Windows
version): The successor to the original game, The Incredible Machine.
This is actually a replacement game, not a sequel. It has 73 new levels
(plus all the 87 original levels) (for a total of 160), and 13 new parts
(plus all the 42 original parts, brining the total to 55). See, it has
everything the original had and more. It also lets you build your own
crazy puzzles. If you ask me, the new levels are a welcome addition,
because I personally made it through the original TIM in under a week!
Not one of the levels in there kept me stumped for more than a day. The
new levels in TEMIM are harder, and in many cases, better. I made it
through them all, but they were much harder (although still none of the
stumped me for more than a day, except a few of the final 5 "Expert"-
rated puzzles, and also #109). A few words of advice: The manual
supplied with the game doesn't tell you ALL the different reactions
between different parts. For example, in puzzle 109 (which, in my
opinion, is one of the game's few true stumpers), the candle is NOT the
only item you can use to activate the teapot! You do not get the teapot
over there AND light the candle! I wouldn't want to give it away, but
suffice it to say that puzzle 109 is not actually that complicated, but the
solution is COMPLETELY different from what you'll be thinking when
you first see the puzzle! Experiment a bit in Freeform Mode with other
parts, there are a few other very important cross-part interactions (besides
just the teapot thing) they don't tell you. Much of the gameplay in the
game consists of "tweaking": The general idea of what you're supposed
to do is usually reasonably apparent, but you need to tweak things; Make
minor adjustments here and there to get everything into place so they
work. Remember, the difference between a machine working and not
working can easily be a single pixel of movement of a single part in
some direction! [Sierra On-Line]

The Incredible Machine 2: New levels, improved music and graphics,
plus something totally new: Scenery parts. Now in addition to just seeing
the parts of the machine, you can see things that are purely decorative,
including buildings, trees, moutains, and about a jillion other things. Plus,
TONS of all-new parts, and a slew of brand-new puzzles! Lots to do in
this, an excellent sequel to an excellent game! Smashingly fun, and now
smashing-looking! [Sierra On-Line]

The Incredible Machine 3: It's almost the same as TIM 2, except with
a few minor additions, as well as the fact that it's a real Windows
application which runs in a window now. [Sierra On-Line]

The Patrician [ReadySoft/Ascon]

Theatre Of War

Theme Hospital: An excellent strategy game. It seems at first like just
another variant of SimCity, but this game has plenty to set it apart from
the rest. Set up your hospital with doctor's offices and examination
rooms, then watch as patients come in and start getting treated. The game
centers mostly around setting up hospital rooms and facilities, like
treatment clinics, pharmacies, and waiting areas. Be ready to do research
later on when patients start coming in with diseases for which there is no
known cure. [Bullfrog]

Theme Park [Bullfrog/Electronic Arts]

The Sims: Following their incredibly successful "Sim" games, originally
spawned by SimCity, Maxis now gives you the ultimate simulated
real-life system to play with and modify at your will: Human lives.
[Maxis]

The Sims Add-On: Hot Date [Maxis]

The Sims Add-On: House Party [Maxis]

The Sims Add-On: Livin' Large [Electronic Arts/Maxis]

The Tunnel Man [Chun-Cheung YIM] [Freeware]

To Serve And To Protect: A police-oriented clone of SimCity, TSATP
combines direct action upon individual units (managing patrol cars on a
city map, having them make traffic stops, etc.) with general resource-
management, deciding how much salary your various officers receive and
which departments to assign them to. A highly obscure shareware gem.
[Vivid Software] (Shareware)

Total Annihilation (TA): An excellent, modern real-time strategy/arcade
cross that is one of today's better examples of a really cool computer
game. [Cavedog Entertainment]

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms

Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency

Traffic Giant: One of a number of games inspired by the SimCity games
which have taken a smaller portion of running a city and making it into
a game unto itself, Traffic Giant puts you at the head of a public
transportation system, with the task of expanding your empire by adding
new transit stations and planning routes for your buses and trains. A
decent game, even if it's not as accessible as SimCity. [JoWood
Productions]

Tribal Rage: A cool real-time strategy game in which six tribes fight:
Trailer Trash, The Bikers, The Enforcers, The Cyborgs, The Amazons,
And The Death Cultists. [Talonsoft]

Tristate 1.4: A well-designed little puzzle game which uses digital
electronic components. Your task is to figure out the layout of the
"hidden" circuit by placing digital logic elements into a grid and sending
electrical pulses through them. Great fun for digital engineering types.
You can download it from Peter Balch's homepage at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PeterBalch/prbalch.htm [Peter
Balch] (Shareware)

Tropico 1.05: Essentially SimCity in the Caribbean, Tropico simulates
your attempt, as leader of some people on a tropical island, to build a
functional society. Although it's basically just another strategy game on
the surface, it has a simple charm that makes it fun to play, even if it's
not breathtakingly original. [GodGames/PopTop Software]

Truck Dismount: Rekkaturvat: Porrasturvat was one of the most original
and unpretentiously violent freeware games anyone had seen in a while
when it came out, and although it never garnered a huge amount of
attention, it did become a moderately popular little game among some
people. Even so, it seems like most people didn't expect a sequel, so it
was quite a surprise to many when Rekkaturvat came onto the scene.
This is a game that uses a somewhat less creative concept (making a
game about pushing someone down a flight of stairs is a fairly unique
game concept, while running somebody over with a truck isn't), but
Rekkaturvat is still a lot of fun, although it ends up being less open-
ended than it seems at first. The concept is simple: You're given the
same little stick-figure person, and a truck which is about to run into a
wall. You can put the figure in six different positions (sitting in the cab
of the truck, sitting atop the cab, sitting on the trailer, sitting on the
hood, standing directly in front of the truck, and standing some distance
afar from the truck), and you can adjust the speed of the truck, as well
as whether or not it has a windshield (if not, the guy will get thrown out
of the cab if he's sitting in it when the truck crashes). In addition, you
get two ramps which you can adjust the location of (but oddly enough,
not the incline angle of). The result is that you can have the guy get
thrown off the truck, crushed between the truck and the wall, crushed
underneath the truck if it gets launched airborne by a ramp, or simply
thrown over the wall (if he's on top of the truck and gets thrown upward
just before the crash). Although it seems like there's a lot to play around
with here at first, it turns out that the truck pretty much crashes the same
way most of the time and the guy pretty much gets banged up the same
way as well, no matter how you adjust things this way or that. The result
is that while Rekkaturvat is a fun little game, it actually lacks some of
the time-passing ability that Porrasturvat had, in which making small
changes to the angle or force of the push could make a large amount of
difference in how the stick figure fell. [tAAT] (Freeware)

Unnatural Selection [Maxis]

Utopia

Vikings

WarBreeds [Broderbund]

WarCraft-Orcs & Humans [Blizzard]

WarCraft II [Blizzard]

Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos [Blizzard Entertainment]

WarGames: Named after the movie about hacking, this game shares very
little what that movie other than a thin plot link and the name. It has
almost nothing to do with hacking, in any event. [MGM Interactive]

Warlords

Warlords II

Warlords III: Reign Of Heroes: The first Warlords game was one of the
unquestionable classics of computer gaming. Now it comes to Windows
95 in Warlords III. Of course, the first thing you'll notice is much better
graphics, but other than that it remains basically true to its original
predecessor. Warlods III is one of those timeless games you can learn in
a few minutes and just keep playing and playing. [Red Orb
Entertainment]

Warmonkeys [Silicon Dreams]

Warzone 2100 [Eidos]

Weapons Of War [Egerter Software]

When Two Worlds War

Wilderness: A Survival Adventure: A truly old game from the days when
games had to have gameplay to make up for their lack of graphics or
sound finesse. This is quite one of the most unique games ever, and it's
surprising that something similar hasn't been made since. Wilderness is
quite simply a simulation of being stranded in the middle of the woods
after your plane crashes. It uses an adventure-style text parser interface
but this isn't an adventure game, at least not in the conventional sense;
There are inventory objects and locations to explore, but it's more of a
survival game. You need to forage for food, water, and shelter from wild
animals, while trying to stay alive long enough to achieve your goal
(namely, find a forest ranger station to win). The game has a large
variety of variables (like weather) which have a big impact on your
journey, as well as a pretty big inventory of items you'll need like
clothing, hunting tools, food, etc. Overall, Wilderness is a stunning mix
of adventure, strategy, and real-world simulation, including a pretty big
manual which goes into great detail over survival techniques you'll need
to use in the game. To top all this off, it generates a new, random map
each time you play, meaning that each game is a wildly different survival
experience. (It's worth noting that this game was written by a team of
real-life doctors.) Even though the plain 4-color CGA graphics all look
the same after a while, the game is a roaring success, both as
entertainment and education. [Titan Computer Products]

Wildfire 2.1: After the moderately successful shareware fire-fighting sim
Firestorm, Cricket followed up with this more featureful game along the
same lines. [Cricket Software]

Winner Takes All

Wishbone [Electronic Arts]

Wordle 1.2 [Soleau Software]

Wordmax 1.1 [Soleau Software]

You Don't Know Jack (YDKJ) [Berkeley Systems]

You Don't Know Jack Movies [Berkeley Systems]

You Don't Know Jack Sports [Berkeley Systems]

You Don't Know Jack Television [Berkeley Systems]

You Don't Know Jack Volume 3 [Berkeley Systems]

You Don't Know Jack, Volume 4: The Ride [Berkeley Systems]

You Don't Know Jack XXL (X-Tra X-Tra Large) [Berkeley Systems]

You Don't Know Jack XXXL (Huge) [Berkeley Systems]

Packages:

Gamefest CD-ROM: Over 200 incredible computer games on CD!!! This
is an absolutely incredible package, with a mind-bogglingly low price. I
would recommend this to absolutely any person who likes computer
games and loves a bargain. NOTES ON THIS CD: There are many
programs (not all of them are even games) on this CD which you won't
find in the main program listing of games. Go into the CD's
\SOFT\MORE2\PRO16 directory and type START. This will run a little
program to browse those "hidden" programs. (Note that the "Duke
Nukem 2" in there is not actually Duke Nukem 2, but EPISODE 2 of
Duke Nukem 1, which is not even shareware!) But not even that
browsing program will tell you about the following programs on the CD:
-Kiloblaster, in the \SOFT\MORE\KILO directory
-Space Storm, \SOFT\MORE7\PRO1
-Hoosier City, \SOFT\MORE\HC
-Fairy Godmom 2.1, \SOFT\KIDS\GODMOM
-Rimtrix, \SOFT\KIDS\RIM
-Animated Multiplication And Division, \SOFT\ED\PRO9 and
\SOFT\ED\PRO10:
-Math Challenge 2.0, \SOFT\ED\PRO11
-World Flags, \SOFT\ED\PRO13 (NOTE: This directory actually has two
programs in it: Mathman Plus and World Flags. Mathman Plus is in the
secondary browser mentioned above, World Flags is not.)
-PC-FASTYPE, \SOFT\ED\PRO17
-The Orion Odyssey, \SOFT\MIXED\ORION (For a shameless
advertising program, run CB.EXE in this directory)
-Sand Storm 2.0, \SOFT\MORE\SAND2 (The Sand Storm in the CD's
main browser is only version 1.0)
-Mine!, \SOFT\MORE10\PRO2
-Super Pinball Disks, \SOFT\MORE2\PRO11
-VGA CAD, \SOFT\MORE2\PRO28
-Cunning Football, \SOFT\MORE2\PRO3 (This directory also contains
the executable and documentation for LIST 6.4a)
-Baffled!, \SOFT\SOFT\MORE8\PRO31
-Roulette 40-Number Version, \SOFT\MORE8\PRO32
-EdChess 2.30, \SOFT\MORE8\PRO33
-ClysBar 1.70, \SOFT\WIN2\CLYSMIC
-ColorView For Windows 0.95, \SOFT\WIN2\CVIEW (TREE.JPG is a
nice JPEG here too)
-Battles On Distant Planets 1.1, \SOFT\WIN2\DISTANT
-Mandel, \SOFT\WIN2\MANDEL
-WinJammer 2.20, \SOFT\WIN2\WINJAM
-Windows Lotto, \SOFT\WIN2\WINLOT
-WinPool, \SOFT\WIN2\WINPOOL
-WinScope, \SOFT\WIN2\WINSCOPE
-Windows Image Viewers, \SOFT\WIN2\WINVIEW
-WinZip 4.0a, \SOFT\WIN2\WINZIP
-WinWisdom 3.0, \SOFT\WIN2\WISDOM
-QuinZip, \SOFT\WIN2\WZIP

Also, for some reason, the files for the games Silicon City and Minefield
got swapped. When you ask the browsing program to install the
Minefield program (in the Strategy Games section), it instead copies the
Silicon City files to your hard drive in a directory called MINE, then
tries to run them (without success), while trying Silicon City (in the
Mixed Games section) copies over the Minefield files to a directory
called SILICON. To install Silicon City, try to install Minefield, then
change the installed directory's name to SILICON. To install Minefield,
try to install Silicon City, then change the installed directory's name to
MINE. Also note that the game I.Q. Challenge (in the CD's main
browser program) doesn't work. Also, interesting update: This CD
contains version 4.5 of a game by Graham Cluley called Humbug which
is full of registration notices. Humbug is now public domain (freeware)
and version 5.0 of it has all registration notices removed, plus built-in
hints. It is available on Mr. Cluley's home page at
http://members.aol.com/gcluley. (A full walkthrough for the game is also
available there.) One other thing: You can skip the main browsing
program's opening screens by typing MENU to run it instead of GO.
[Software To Go]

Gamefest 2 CD-ROM: Yet another incredible collection of over 200
mind-blasting computer games on one CD! This one contains the more
modern games. There's something for everyone in here. NOTES ON
THIS CD: The game Kung Fu Louie (in the EGA Games section)
doesn't work. Gamefest 2 CD has one hidden game: CoffeeBreak Card
Games 2.1s, in the \FILES\GAME_EGA\CARDGAME directory. The
games Tamper and Ultimate Gin (both of which are in the Board/Card
Games section) are in two parts, but unfortunately, the guys who put
together Gamefest 2 forgot the first parts for both of them! Only the
second parts are included, meaning you won't be able to use those
games. The cover art for the CD has graphics from three games on it, but
you might have trouble finding one of them. You can stop looking: The
three games are Doom, Raptor, and Hocus Pocus, of which only the first
two are actually on the CD. The game Ultimate Challenge Golf (in the
Simulator/Sports Games section) has one of the most ridiculously stupid
install programs I've ever seen in my life. Most of the games on
Gamefest 2 CD you can install right onto your hard disk, by copying the
files over to the hard disk and then running the install program and
specifying your hard disk as the source drive. But not Ultimate Challenge
Golf! First of all, the install program accepts NOTHING other than A or
B as the source drive, thus requiring you to copy all the files to floppy
disks before you can go ahead. Not only that, but the game is in three
parts, and even though all three are small enough to fit on one high-
density disk, the install program won't let you! You have to get THREE
floppy disks and copy each part separately onto them! Luckily, the game
itself is stupid too, so you can probably spare yourself the trouble of
trying to install it. Also, Ford Simulator III (in the VGA Games section),
while not requiring any floppies to install, does have a bit of a weird
install routine. It's also not a good game, but it's the only driving
simulator on all of Gamefest 2, so if you want to check it out, here's
how you install it: STEP 1: Make sure the hard disk to which you're
installing the game has at least 5.5 megabytes free. STEP 2: Copy the
four parts of the program to a directory on the hard disk with the CD's
browsing program, then enter that hard disk directory at the DOS prompt.
STEP 3: Type fjoin c:, assuming that the hard disk is drive C:. If it's
something else, replace the letter C with the letter of the hard disk. You
will be prompted to enter some disks after this, just keep pressing
ENTER when you are prompted, they don't apply in this case since all
the files are already on the hard disk. STEP 4: Type lha e ford and wait
for the computer to finish its business. STEP 5: Type the following
commands to delete all the installation files that are no longer necessary:
del *.bat
del fjoin.exe
del lha.exe
del partfile.*
del ford.lzh
Installation is now complete. To run Ford Simulator III, enter the
directory to which you installed it and type ford. (Speaking of Ford
Simulator III, neat way to avoid police when they come from the front:
Shortly after you start driving, you'll come across a gas station. Pull over
there and buy a map. Then, any time you see a police car coming ahead,
quickly press F2, then press SPACEBAR, and you'll stop instantly.)
Final note on the game Starmines II: The manual for Starmines II says
it is possible to CHEAT in the game, but it doesn't say how. This is
how: While playing the game, hold down the C, H, E, A, and T keys on
your keyboard (which of course spell CHEAT) simultaneously. This will
advance you to the next level of the game. [Software To Go]

Game Empire Volume I [Softkey International]

Game Empire Volume II: Similar to Gamefest. Over 250 games! Note:
For some reason, the game Reaping The Dungeon was given the name
Futuristic in the game catalog. Also, the following games are on the CD
but not included in the catalog browser:
-Vinyl Goddess Of Mars (In the \XTRA\PROG40 directory)
-Aldo's Assault (\ARCADE\ALDO3)
-The Jellybean Factory (\E\PRO13)
-Wrath Of Earth (WOE) (\TEMP\SPIRO\WRATH)
-Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats (\ACTIONS\PRO18)
-Cyberwars 1.1 (\ARCADE\CYBER11)
-Replay Professional Basketball (\ARCADE\NBASKET)
-Stelcon 1.6 (\ADVENTUR\SCV16)
-3D Cyber Blaster (\ADVENTUR\3DCYBER)
-Space Chase (\ADVENTUR\STORM1)
-Hero's Heart 1.3 (\BEST\HERO)
-Joker's Wild (\CASINO\JKRVPACK)
-Pool Shark 3.0 (\E\PRO9)
-Monopoly (\MIXED\PROG58)
-Mystic Towers 1.11 (\NEW\PROG10)
-The Apocalypse Abyss (\NEW\PRO31)
-1st&Goal Fantasy Football (\SPORTS\1ST104)
-Battles In A Distant Desert (\STRATEGY\BDD)
-Curses! (\STRATEGY\CURSES) (NOTE: This is not actually a game.)
-Stellar Empires 1.0 (\STRATEGY\STLEMP10)
-Rise Of The Triad (ROTT) 1.2 (\TEMP\ROTT)
-Windows Wizard (\TEST\WINWIZ)
-TANGAROOs (\WIN\PRO270)
-Alphabet Soup (\XTRA\PROG17)
-God Of Thunder (\XTRA\PROG4)
-Heroes: The Tantalizing Trio (\XTRA\PROG6)
-Spirotris (\TEMP\SPIRO)
-EGA Mouse Paint (\KIDS\EGAPAINT)
-Spider For Windows (\KIDS\WNSPIDER) (NOTE: There *is* a "Spider
For Windows" entry in the CD's browsing program, but it is a different
game with the same name! There are two Spider For Windows games on
this CD!)
-Constitution 1.21 (\GAMES\CONSTUT3)
-Maze Master 1.01 (\GAMES\MAZEMSTR)
-Wheel Of Luck (\GAMES\WOLUCK) (NOTE: This game's
FILE_ID.DIZ file is incorrect. It is actually for the game Cell War,
which is in the CD's main browsing program.)
Other amusing/interesting notes on this CD: The game Blackjack
Strategy 1.1 is actually called "And More Black Jack" in
the CD's browser. The directory on the CD called \GAMES\THINGS is
actually not for a program called "Things", but for Thieves And Kings,
which is in the CD's browser. The game 2 Bit Poker gives an "Error in
EXE file" error when run. There is another game on the CD which is
called 2 Bit Poker, but it is in the CD's browser under the name of "AN
Poker". It is also in a directory called ANPOKER. The game which is
actually called 2 Bit Poker on the CD's browser is a different game
altogether, but it was written improperly on the CD and so cannot be run.
You can see a picture of it, however, in the CD's browser. Also note, the
\PIX directory on this CD contains a LARGE collection of BMPs which
are pictures from shareware computer games. Some are from games on
Game Empire 2 CD, but most of them are not! The picture for Hong
Kong Mahjong in the CD's browser program is incorrect. Oh, and to get
sound effects in the CyberDogs game, you'll need to add the following
lines to the end of its DOGS.INI:

[Sound]
bang=bang
powergun=gun
blaster=blaster
minigun=minigun
flame=flame
pickup=pickup
switch=switch
kill=scream
launch=launch
laser=zap
chainsaw=chainsaw
poof=hit

In addition, note that the game Atmoids, which is in the catalog browser
under the name "Asteroid Game For Windows", is NOT on the CD.
[Softkey International]

Microsoft Entertainment Pack For Windows I

Microsoft Entertainment Pack For Windows II

Microsoft Entertainment Pack For Windows III

WinGames

OS/2 Family Fun Pack

Giga Games CDROM: Another impressive and *VERY* large collection
of games. [Walnut Creek]

Giga Games 2 [Walnut Creek]

Giga Games 3 [Walnut Creek]

Giga Games 4 [Walnut Creek]

Giga Games 5 [Walnut Creek]

War:

Across The Rhine [MicroProse]

Admiral Sea Battles [Megamedia]

Age Of Rifles [SSI]

Allied General

Axis & Allies: The Ultimate WWII Strategy Game [Hasbro]

Axis & Allies Add-On: Iron Blitz [Hasbro]

Battlefront

Battleground 1: Bulge [TalonSoft]

Battleground 2: Gettysburg [TalonSoft]

Battleground 3: Waterloo [TalonSoft]

Battleground 4: Shiloh [TalonSoft]

Battleground 5: Antietam [TalonSoft]

Battleground 6: Napoleon In Russia [TalonSoft]

Battleground 7: Bull Run [TalonSoft]

Battleground 8: Prelude To Waterloo [TalonSoft]

Battles Of Napoleon

Carrier Command

Carrier Strike

Carriers At War

Carriers At War Construction Kit

Clash Of Steel

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines: Another of those little action-strategy
games which is surprisingly fun once you start playing, and easy to get
into. You control a team of elite World War II commandos dropped
behind enemy lines (as you might guess from the name), who must sneak
around, quietly offing any Germans they come across. The game includes
six different types of commandos with different skills, most interesting
of which is the spy, who can pose as a German soldier and kill enemies
with a lethal injection. (If there's one complaint I have about this game,
it's that some of the missions end up feeling like deliberately scripted
puzzles rather than actual commando-style missions, especially mission
12, the last Africa mission, "Up On The Roof", which is absurdly
difficult, a totally fake-feeling balancing act of enemy soldiers
everywhere.) (Tip: Enemy barracks, those buildings which keep
producing more German soldiers whenever you kill the ones that came
out before, are incredibly annoying because they seem to never run out
of bad guys. Thankfully, you CAN blow the barracks up with explosives,
if you have any. This will stop the endless stream of Germans.
Obviously, this tends to draw some attention to yourself, so be careful.)
(Tip for Mission 9, "A Courtesy Call": On this mission, the three Panzer
tanks are indeed a menace. However, there is a very simple way of
dealing with them. Notice the red vehicle near where the tanks are
parked. Have your driver drive the red vehicle so it's covering the front
of the left two tanks. Then, when they start to drive out, the red vehicle
will blow up because the tanks will come out shooting, and the resulting
explosion will kill all three tanks in one go. It may take a few tries to get
the red vehicle positioned just right, but it's worth it, believe me.) [Pyro
Studios/Eidos]

Commandos: Beyond The Call Of Duty: A stand-alone add-on to the
original "Behind Enemy Lines" Commandos game. Beyond The Call Of
Duty has only 8 missions (Behind Enemy Lines had 20), making it
uncomfortably short, although expansion packs usually are fairly short
mini-games. Worse yet, the missions are even harder than before. Behind
Enemy Lines had missions that were grueling but possible, while Beyond
The Call Of Duty is just aggravating to an extreme. The fun seems to
have been left behind. [Pyro Studios/Eidos]

Commandos 2: A worthy follow-up to the original innovative
Commandos. Although the basic gameplay elements are still the same,
it features new locations (of course), a few new team members (including
a thief, a seductress (woohoo!), and a guard dog). It's not a whole lot
different; Rather, it's more of the strategic arcade fun that made the first
Commandos a good game. Commandos 2 retains much of the same
elements of the original Commandos, but adds so many new nuances that
the gameplay is quite different, even though it's conceptually the same.
The original Commandos was, in large part, a puzzle game because of
the way levels were laid out; You had to carefully plan each move you
made, slowly working your operatives into their target zones and back
out to safety. Commandos 2 is considerably less of a puzzle game and
more of a straightforward strategy game, for several reasons: First of all,
enemy guards aren't the brutally computerized robots they were in the
first game. They don't instantly detect you and start shooting at you if
you accidentally let one of them see you, and so you have a few seconds
to hide yourself before they realize you're an enemy. This makes the
game more "realistic", perhaps (since in real life, after hours of
monotonous patrolling, a real guard probably doesn't instantly notice if
a person standing far away isn't one of them). Your commandos also
have a more even distribution of skills; Instead of each person having
many specialities which only they can perform, as in the first game, most
commandos can now do most things, although each does still have his
or her own specialty. There are a few new tricks up the old boys' sleeves
as well: They can now knock guards out with their fists instead of killing
them outright, for example, and you can also take weapons and other
handy items off the bodies of enemy soldiers. A welcome feature is the
ability to rotate your perspective around in 90-degree increments so you
can see what's behind scenery, something which would have come in
handy with the original Commandos. Speaking of the scenery,
Commandos 2 has absolutely gorgeous graphics that add that extra touch
to a game that is a fine, polished piece of work. Although it is a thrilling
and highly enjoyable blend of strategy and action that remains mostly
true to its predecessor, it has one ugly flaw: The so-called "tutorial",
which is really more like a boot-camp torture-test to see how good you
are. You must make it through that before you can proceed with the
"real" missions, which is a shame. But thankfully, it's just a one-time
annoyance, and then you can proceed with the good part. [Pyro
Studios/Eidos]

Commandos 3: Destination Berlin: For the most part, the third game in
the Commandos series is just a continuation of what we saw in the first
two games. Unlike Commandos 2, which was bigger and better than the
first game in every way, Commandos 3 has actually reduced the number
of commandos in the game to six. This game is also more land-oriented
than the first two; There aren't a lot of operations around water here,
which could be good or bad, depending on whether you liked the maps
involving a considerable amount of ocean or river in the first games. The
graphics engine here is essentially the same as used in Commandos 2,
which means that the game looks great but not better. The bottom line
is that if you played and liked the first two games, this is worth taking
a look at, but if you've never played a Commandos game before, you'd
be well advised to take a look at the previous games in the series before
you start on Commandos 3. [Eidos/Pyro Studios]

Deadlock [Accolade]

Decisive Battles Of The Civil War I

Decisive Battles Of The Civil War II

Decisive Battles Of The Civil War III

Dreadnoughts

East Front [TalonSoft]

Fire Brigade

Gettysburg: The Turning Point

Great Naval Battles

Great Naval Battles II

Great Naval Battles III

High Command

iPanzer 44 [Interactive Magic]

Jagged Alliance Deadly Games [Sirtech]

Jagged Alliance 2 [Sirtech]

Lost Admiral

Man Of War [Strategy First]

Man Of War 2 [Strategy First]

Nam: This gruesome program captures all the intensity and paranoia of
jungle warfare. You're a Marine sergeant. Your mission: Survive. Fire-
fights, ambushes, booby-traps, snipers, air-strikes, anti-personnel mines,
and more. This isn't a glorious celebration of war like most war games
are. Appropriately enough, this game was released at about the same time
as the similarly-themed movie Saving Private Ryan. Nam is the first
game of its kind. Nam is war. [GT Interactive]

Pacific War

Panzer Commander

Panzer General [SSI]

Panzer General II [SSI]

People's General [SSI]

Perfect General

Perfect General II

SEAL Team: The name pretty well says it all: This is a tactical
simulation of a SEAL (SEa, Air, Land) team during Vietnam. Although
it bears a rudimentary resemblance to a first-person shooter at first,
SEAL Team is a strategic game, requiring painful amounts of slow
crawling to be quiet, brief (but intense) moments of exchanging gunfire
with the enemy, and managing your resources like the aircraft support
units which circle overhead. (Tip: Be very aware of how much noise
you're making in this game. The enemy will be able to detect you easily
if you come crashing into their camp. Every time you brush against a
plant, it makes a rustling sound; You can hear it clearly in this game, and
so can the enemy. Stay away from trees, leaves, etc. when you're
crawling around. And generally, you'll be in the prone position, because
it makes the least noise. It's also the slowest position you can be in, so
get used to travelling around at a snail's pace. Note that even if you
don't brush a leaf, your teammates may, meaning you should give plants
a really wide berth so the people following you won't make any noise
either.) You may also find it wise to keep your team under "Cease Fire"
orders, since otherwise they might fire upon sight of the enemy, which
would pretty much give yourselves away immediately. Just because you
can see them (the game says "Enemy sighted"), doesn't mean they see
you, and therefore you don't have to shoot at them. It's often smarter to
try and sneak past them than to fight them, so stay on the Cease Fire
until they're actually shooting at you. Press C to put the team on Cease
Fire. [Electronic Arts]

Second Front

Sid Meier's Civil War

Soldiers At War [SSI]

Squad Leader

Star General [SSI]

Steel Panthers II [SSI]

Tides Of War [GT Interactive]

Victory At Sea

Wargasm [Ocean]

War In The Gulf [Readysoft]

War Wind [SSI]

Western Front

Z [Virgin Interactive]

Miscellaneous Games:

Aide De Camp

Game-Maker 2.0: Not actually a game. This program allows you to
create your own games. Very cool.

Klik & Play [Maxis]

Click & Create [Corel]

The Games Factory [Clickteam/Europress]

NESticle: The premier NES emulator for the PC. NESticle is even better
than a real NES, because the miracle of computer storage lets you do
something which some might consider cheating: You can save the current
state of the system and its memory, so that if you die, you can restore to
an exact point instead of having to start the level over. Sure, it's not
what the game designers originally intended, but just try resisting the
temptation to use this feature after dying for the 578th time on your
favorite game. (Press F5 to save your current state, and F7 to restore the
saved state.) [Bloodlust Software]

Neverlock: The Copy Protection Buster, Spring 1996 [Copyware Inc.]
[Shareware]

Cheat Machine 2.03: A large collection of cheat codes, level passwords
and software patches for a lot of games. [A Forest Soft] [Shareware]

Cheat 26.0: Another large cheat collection. [Mike Zier]

Core Wars: A classic game of computer programming, in which you
write assembler-like "warriors", programs which fight each other for sole
ownership of a core of computer memory. Very involved, but fun for the
computer scientists.

C-Robots: A Core Wars-like game which lets you write robots in C.
Available from Tom Poindexter's homepage at
http://www.nyx.net/~tpoindex/ [Tom Poindexter]

Quest For Fame [IBM]

Virtual Bubble Wrap 1.1: Taking yet another traditional concept into the
information age, Virtual Bubble Wrap is exactly what it sounds like: A
program which fills your screen full of bubbles, and lets you click on
them to pop them. Although it's the only program of this kind that I've
seen, it needs to be improved upon, as popping the bubbles just isn't
satisfying enough: The bubbles look a little weird and fuzzy, and worse,
the sound they make when you pop them isn't loud enough; It's more
like a faint tap than a really bursty pop sound. [Randal
Cromb/ChromaSoft Computing Services] (Shareware)

Break Dance: BREAK DANCE! Yeah! Umm, it's a game which is about
break dancing. Go figure. It gets old really quickly, but I can honestly
say it's the only break dancing game I've seen. (Actually, it's just
another of those "remember the sequence" type games where you try to
memorize the sequence of moves and then press the sequence of keys to
make your dancer repeat them.) [Epyx]

Wumpus: The extremely old classic game which has you hunting a
creature called a wumpus through a cave. Several clones and ports have
been made of it.

PLife: The best implementation I've seen yet of John Conway's classic
"Game of Life". This version is a Windows one, with a nice interface
that lets you change the trace timing and grid size, place or remove cells
with the mouse, and quickly control the action with hotkeys. [M. Zack
Urlocker]

RHSLIFE: Another implementation of the classic "Game of Life".
Although this one is excellent, it's marred by one flaw: It's too hard to
see, because all the cells are one pixel in size. [Richard H. Smith]

W-Life: Another very good implementation of the "Game of Life" for
Windows, this one marked by highly variable grid sizes (you can make
grid squares from 1 to 16 pixels in size). Unfortunately it has no grid
option, so it's hard sometimes to plot your cells exactly. (This is a
Windows port of XLife 2.0) [Glen Summers]

Professional Bull Rider: Yes, they actually made a game out of this. Play
as the cowboy or the buck.

Beavis And Butt-Head Do U.

Beavis And Butt-Head In Screen Wreckers [Viacom NewMedia]

Beavis And Butt-Head In Virtual Stupidity

Inanimate Racer 1.1: Proving yet again that some people have way too
much time on their hands, Inanimate Racer stands as the only racing
game I have ever seen in which you race inanimate objects. You have
the option to "race" five objects: An old teddy bear, a toaster, a grass-
head plant (?), a compact disc, and an upside-down toy car. Once you
select which object you want to "race", you are taken onto the road,
where you can watch your inanimate object sit until you get tired. (Or
until the race ends in a tie, which takes a few seconds to happen.) A fine
example of you-wouldn't-pay-for-this-ware. Get it from the official
Watermelon Productions homepage at http://dotmelon.com/watermelon
[Watermelon Productions/EricSoft Technologies] (Freeware)

Katamari Damacy: The Japanese have long been known for making video
games which completely deviate from typical game paradigms, often
coming up with concepts that are boldly original, and sometimes just
really weird. Katamari Damacy is one example of this, but it's not quite
too weird to be impalatable to American audiences, and since it was
released at a budget price, it became a sleeper hit among American
gamers who wanted something different. The game is certainly quite
weird, but that was, of course, what drew gamers in. Unfortunately, it
was only ever released for the PlayStation 2. [Namco]

BarneySplat .003: Another program which has become a popular door for
BBSes. It's a twisted sort of text-only semi-adventure in which you co-
star on Barney's TV show, and have to kill everybody there. It's pretty
funny and offensive. [Bong Software]

Fun-Seekers Guide To Eastern Madera County: An obscure program
which was apparently included with the Space Quest Collector's Edition.
It's actually a reference to the "World-Famous Talking Bear", an in-joke
alluded to in several Sierra games and which refers to an actual tourist
attraction which really exists in the Sierra Nevada mountains (it's a bear
statue which talks when you push the button on it). This "Fun-Seekers
Guide" lists several supposed tourist attractions, all of which seem to
somehow tie-in with the bear. It's pretty silly, but it's a rare piece of
"gaming" history. [Sierra On-Line]

Gearhead Garage: A game which casts you as an auto mechanic who
earns money for doing jobs on cars. This is a fairly new class of game
(the only other game I can think of which had you doing auto mech was
Street Rod, and that's really more of a driving sim). But there's no
driving in Gearhead Garage, just tooling in the garage. You probably
have to be into cars to really enjoy this game, but it can be fun, and it's
certainly unique in its concept. In addition to having people come in with
small jobs for you, you can also buy cars, fix them up, and re-sell them
for profit, choosing to fix as much or as little as you want, or even
souping up some parts to make even more money. (NOTE: Gearhead
Garage has a weird bug which makes the game crash if you try to load
a mechanic who has any cars in the workshop or car lot. This means that
you have to sell all cars that you own before you quit, or the game will
crash next time you try to load that mechanic.) (You reach the highest
skill level, Mekada, when you accumulate $120,000.) (NOTE: If you
have Gearhead Garage, it is recommended that you install Service Pack
1. Among other things, this will incorporate a random job generator into
the game, giving you virtually unlimited jobs. This is important, because
the game by default ships with a rather limited number of jobs which
you can finish in about an hour. You can download SP1 from the official
website at www.gearheadgarage.com) [Snap-
On/Mekada/Ratloop/HeadGames]

Uplink 1.31: A game which has received quite a buzz in the underground
gaming scene lately for a very simple reason: It is the first serious
"hacking simulation" in a long, long time, and depending on how you
define "serious", perhaps ever. Think about it: When was the last time
you played a game which tried to simulate breaking into computers and
did it with any measure of technical accuracy? Activision's game
"Hacker" is a classic, but it was crippled right from the start by the two
worst flaws it could possibly have: It was absolutely no fun to play, and
it didn't even simulate hacking. Rather, it was about trying to peddle
things to spy contacts around the world, and the only relation to
"hacking" was the fact that you happened to be doing this through a
computer terminal connected to a system you weren't supposed to be in.
Of course there were the classic atmospheric cyberpunk adventures
Neuromancer and Circuit's Edge, but CE had very little hacking beyond
a brief episode with a computer terminal and a connection to the police
department's system. Neuromancer, meanwhile, while an excellent
adventure with some really fun computer-access scenarios, was not so
much a game about computers as a game incarnation of William
Gibson's famous novel. And then there's Computer Underground, a game
which absolutely nobody has heard of because it was released as
freeware by an obscure programmer in Canada. Even if it were better
known, Computer Underground is not technically accurate in any way:
It "simulates" crashing a server by playing a "concentration" type game
in which you need to match various tiles in a grid. That's about it. If
there are any other games in the world which put a strong emphasis on
breaking through computer security, I haven't heard of them.
  Now, enter Uplink, a game which presumably has tried to learn from
the failures of the games just mentioned. It must be understood that
hacking is an inherently boring process, made exciting only by the
knowledge that you are getting into a place where most people are not
allowed and getting secret information which few people can know. This
is the thrill of the real-life act. In a game, it's just not the same thing
breaking into a system because you don't have the joy of exploring its
every nook and cranny. Thus, these kinds of games are given the very
difficult task of striking a balance between realism and fun. Any fan of
flight simulations is familiar with this dilemma, but it is even more acute
in the creation of hacking simulations, which is probably why so few
have been created.
  Uplink is a game that wishes to strike the balance. It does probably the
best job possible of trying to be fun while still tossing in some real-world
factors that make it feel somewhat technical. You are tasked as an agent
working for Uplink Corporation, essentially an employment agency
which lets people rent hackers to do specific tasks for money. Servers are
connected to through IP addresses which are given to you in your
mission briefings, and more IP addresses can be gained by connecting to
the InterNIC. Your computer has a simulated memory space in which
you can choose where to store your various programs and data files, and
you can upgrade your computer with better/more CPUs, more RAM, or
a faster modem. Uplink also puts a very strong emphasis on connecting
to your target server through several other computers, creating a long
chain of connections that makes it much harder (and a much longer
process) to trace you, a tactic often used by real-world hackers as well.
All this starts to have the effect of making it feel somewhat technical, if
you can forget for a moment that this isn't even remotely what real
hacking is like.
  Although it is probably the best game of its kind ever released, Uplink
still feels somehow inaccessible simply because of the abstractness of it
all. Most of your tasks are simply done by running software programs,
which function as "black boxes" to do things like download files from
servers, crack passwords, or monitor traces put on your line. Part of the
fun in real hacking comes from knowing and visualizing how everything
works, but in this case all you really do is run your programs, making
Uplink feel like a "script kiddy" experience.
  Uplink also represents a rather poor value, because even though it's not
that expensive as games go, the game itself doesn't last for very long;
Once you've done a few of the missions, you'll find that the procedure
for nearly every single mission is very similar: Bypass the system's
security, get in, do what you need to do, clear your tracks and get out
quickly. It doesn't take long for Uplink to become extremely repetitive,
and perhaps even worse, it doesn't take long until you've done most of
the things to do in the game, at which point it becomes more like a job
than a game.
  Even so, Uplink is unique and fun, so it's worth a look. You can get
more info at Introversion's official website at www.introversion.co.uk 
  (TIP: Getting caught breaking into any government-owned computers,
or any mainframe computers, will end your game instantly. Before you
risk hacking these babies, be very, very sure that you won't get caught.
Their security is sometimes astonishingly capable of tracking you down.)
  Uplink has historically been one of those games that was released with
some notable problems and has since gone through several patches that
significantly altered the face of the game; You would be well advised to
get the latest patch (version 1.31 as of this writing) from Introversion's
website, under the "Other Files" heading of the Downloads section.
  There is, however, one showstopper bug that they never did seem to
fix. I'm not certain it's a bug (perhaps it's by design), but it can prevent
you from starting the game's story. It works like this: Uplink's story
starts in mid-April (on April 14, to be specific), when you spontaneously
get an e-mail from another Uplink agent which gives some information
on an organization called ARC. The e-mail includes a link to ARC's
Central Mainframe, along with a username and password combination to
let you log into that mainframe. The way things are supposed to work is,
when you get this e-mail, you're supposed to connect to the mainframe
and try using the username and password in the e-mail to log in. You'll
find that they won't work; However, after you try using them, ARC will
be alerted to your presence, and a few days later they'll send you an e-
mail that develops the game's storyline. However, if you're a slow,
methodical gamer (like me), it's tempting to wait a while before you try
connecting to the ARC mainframe. Rather than trying to log in
immediately after you get the e-mail, you may want to wait a while.
However, you only get the e-mail from ARC if you try to connect to
their server SOON after you get the initial e-mail from the Uplink agent.
If you wait too long, you'll never hear from ARC, and it will be
impossible to start the game's story. To avoid this, try to log into the
ARC Central Mainframe as soon as you get the initial e-mail from the
Uplink agent. (You won't be able to log in anyway, so there's not much
point in waiting.) If you wait too long, you won't be able to advance.
Similarly, when you get the first e-mail from ARC, reply to it quickly,
because if you wait too long to respond, you'll never hear back from
them. This is a pretty stupid setup, but in a way it's realistic, since
people might behave the same way in real life. By the way, after you
reply to the first e-mail from ARC, wait a while before you react to the
second one; In a little while you'll get a competing offer from an
organization called Arunmor. At this point, you decide whether you'll
work for ARC (the "bad" guys, who want to destroy the Internet) or
Arunmor (the "good" guys, who want to protect the Internet).
  The fact that the plot goes away if you don't respond to it right away
is bad, but the game's handling of LAN systems seems almost broken.
Uplink really was not meant to contain LANs at first; They were tacked
on to the game later in a patch, and it shows. LANs are clumsy to
navigate, and instructions on how to use them are conspicuously absent.
Considering the fact that they also don't figure that prominently in the
game, it might have been best if they were just left out. It's too bad,
because hacking LANs in Uplink can actually be a lot of fun once you
get the hang of it--it's certainly a different experience from anything else
in the game--and if Introversion had made the idea a bit more fully-
realized, it could have worked well. As it is, it seems like the idea was
meant to be developed later in yet another patch, but that never
happened. Briefly, a couple of pieces of advice on LANs: First of all,
you'll sometimes come across "subnets" on LANs, which are incredibly
annoying at first until you figure out how to get past them. The idea of
a subnet in Uplink is that one computer is "guarded" by the subnet, and
the subnet itself is a group of other computers which you must get
through first to reach the protected computer. (Sort of like a reverse
firewall concept; Instead of using a single security device to guard a
network of systems, Uplink's subnets are a network of security devices
to protect a single system.) To get past a subnet, you must be within a
device that shares a link with both the protected computer and one of the
computers in the subnet. Once there, you must use the "LAN Spoof"
program on one of the computers in the subnet, and then you will be able
to enter the guarded system. Since the LAN Spoof program is not
explained properly, you might think that you're supposed to use it while
you're within one of the computers in the subnet; Not so. In reality, you
use it on a computer in the subnet while you're NEXT to that system,
and after doing so, you should be able to click "Back" and then gain
access to the protected system. Also, if you look at the lines that form
the links between devices in a LAN, you'll notice that at the end of each
link, the line widens out a little bit at the very edge of each device.
Presumably, this is meant to look like a plug. Well, pay attention to it,
because sometimes links will SEEM to go to devices that they don't
actually go to. I myself got stuck in a situation where a line seemed to
go to a particular computer, and I spent several frustrating minutes
wondering why I couldn't link to that computer. It turned out that the
link in question didn't actually go to the computer I thought it went to;
The line representing the link just happened to pass right through the
computer! The algorithm to decide where to draw lines is presumably
supposed to avoid having the lines pass right through another device, but
apparently they don't always do such a good job of that. So, be aware:
If a link line doesn't have the little plug on the end of it where it meets
a device, it doesn't actually link to the device; It passes through it.
  There's a file in the "misc" directory on the Uplink CD called
gamebible.zip which has received a lot of attention from the Uplink
gaming community; It is a passworded ZIP file, and the password is "too
many secrets?", without the quotation marks but including the question
mark and spaces. (Many websites incorrectly cite this password without
the spaces.) The file turns out to be somewhat disappointing, however,
since inside it is little more than a collection of some conceptual
diagrams of the design of Uplink. It's an interesting behind-the-scenes
glance at the making of Uplink, but it is hardly a game "bible", as the
filename suggests.
  Also note that although Uplink offers no in-game "save game" option,
you can easily save your status by simply making a backup of your .USR
file in Uplink's "users" directory. If your character should come to some
misfortune in the game, just restore the file from your backup.
[Introversion Software]

MyLink: A free, open-source clone of the cult-hit cracking game Uplink.
MyLink was created because Uplink isn't free, and the author doesn't
like non-free software. [Ingo Blechschmidt] (Freeware)

Professional Hacker 2001 1.0.57: A relatively new and unknown face on
the "hacking simulation" scene, Professional Hacker 2001 is a game with
some interesting new ideas to it that deserve some attention, even though
the game overall is somewhat amateurish.   The game is mainly a one-
man effort, which explains its simple design, but it has an original
premise which ends up working against it more than for it: It runs on a
time limit. When you begin the game, you have 5 minutes on the clock
to work with. You must get hacking jobs and pull them off to get money,
and with that money, you can buy time (which is expensive, at $1,000
per minute), as well as proxy server addresses, credit card numbers, and
passwords for your password list (which is used with your brute-force
password cracker). The proxy servers are a key part of the game and
you'll want to make sure you're using one at all times, since they
essentially allow you to be untraceable. If you lose all your proxy servers
(you lose your current one after a random amount of usage), you'd better
buy another one before continuing. If you don't have enough money to
buy another one, count on losing the game soon.
  Like all other games of this kind, PH2001 has a serious weakness in
the lack of variety in its missions. There are only 4 mission types, and
they're not even that much different from each other: Get the root
password to a system (a simple matter of using your brute-force cracker
and hoping it works; there's nothing you can do if it doesn't), find a
vulnerability in the system (which works in exactly the same way, except
that you use your vulnerability scanner instead of a password scanner),
get a certain quantity of credit card numbers (which is a little more
complicated), and transfer the password file to another system (which
requires you to first find a vulnerability in the system, then log into it
and use the uucp command to transfer the file). These aren't bad ideas
for missions, but the fact that each mission run is completely formulaic
makes the game get old even more quickly than most. At least most
games have systems with different structures to make each hack a little
different, but in PH2001, the procedure is exactly the same each time.
There is one very interesting feature in PH2001 which I wouldn't mind
seeing in other games like this, even though it's utterly useless and
nothing more than a joke: When you log into a system, you can browse
the files and start looking at some text files. The game actually contains
a number of fake texts which are things like saved e-mails or chat logs.
They have absolutely no value as far as gameplay goes, but some of
them are quite amusing and their inclusion adds some atmosphere and
humour to the game. This makes the systems seem a little more alive,
and other programmers of hacking games might want to make a note of
this. Unfortunately, there are only a very few of these fake text files, and
so they soon start to repeat as well.
  The premise of a time limit is the only thing that lends any real
challenge to the game. You'll find you have to work against the clock
quite hard to be able to keep your time from running out. However,
doing so simply isn't much fun, and in fact it takes away from one of the
most important aspects of cracking: Patience. Real crackers don't try (or
need) to break into a system in under 60 seconds. On the contrary,
crackers are famous for having huge gobs of time on their hands, often
staying up well into the night (or morning) performing their "hobby".
The ability to take your time and explore a remote computer system at
a leisurely pace is one of the things that make cracking so enjoyable. It's
like a walk through the park, except the park is somebody else's
computer. Having to hurry is the antithesis of what cracking's all about.
  Nonetheless, Professional Hacker 2001 is a good effort that deserves at
least 5 minutes of attention. (Professional Hacker 2001 seems to be hard-
coded to look for a file called C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\HREG.INI. It
does not seem to be able to cope with your Windows directory being
something other than C:\WINDOWS, so you'll have to actually manually
create this path and file if your Windows directory has a different path.)
[Bryan Stokes]

Oakflat Nuclear Power Plant Simulator 3.1: A text-based simulation of
running a nuclear power plant, which seems to center mostly around
regulating the turbines and control rods. Although the game is somewhat
user-unfriendly, it's the only nuclear plant sim I've seen.
[GAMTECH/Gamble Technologies]

Robocode 1.0.6: The battle robot programming game genre is an old one,
with several different games offering several different languages to
program in, including C (C-Robots), BASIC (Omega), assembler (Core
Wars), and a drag-and-drop GUI (Mindrover: The Europa Project). Into
this fray comes Robocode, a game very similar to the ones just
mentioned, except that Robocode lets you program your robots in Java,
and it's made by IBM. Yes, that IBM. It's free, too. The official
homepage is at http://robocode.alphaworks.ibm.com . [IBM] (Freeware)

Driver's Education '98 [Dynamix/Sierra On-Line]

Russian Roulette: The game has been an old favorite among drunk or
high people in real life for several years. Now it comes to your
computer, set against the backdrop of a futuristic government-operated
system for the public to gamble on convicts playing the game. Place your
bets, relax, and let the action unfold. An interesting idea for a computer
game conversion. [Bass Software] [Shareware]

Dilbert's Desktop Games: 10 Hilarious Games And Activities For
Cubicle-Dwellers Everywhere!

War Inc. [Interactive Magic]

Capitalism Plus [Interactive Magic]

                     EDUTAINMENT

Art:

Van Gogh Starry Night [Voyager]

Computers:

PC Computing: How Multimedia Computers Work [The Software
Toolworks]

PC-Learn 5.6 (Shareware)

PC Primer 3.1s (Shareware)

Peter Norton PC Guru [Media X]

What's In That Box? (Shareware)

Driving:

Driver's Education '98 [Sierra On-Line]

Ecology:

EcoQuest I: The Search For Cetus [Sierra On-Line]

EcoQuest II: Secret Of The Lost Rainforest [Sierra On-Line]

Geography:

Mario Is Missing!

Where In America's Past Is Carmen Sandiego?

Where In Europe Is Carmen Sandiego?

Where In Space Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition

Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition

Where In The USA Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition

Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego?

Nile: Passage To Egypt

Grammar:

Grammar Games [Davidson]

History:

Ideas That Changed The World

Pepper's Adventures In Time [Sierra On-Line]

The Amazon Trail [MECC]

The Amazon Trail II [MECC]

The Amazon Trail III [MECC]

The Oregon Trail Deluxe Edition [MECC]

The Oregon Trail II CD-ROM [MECC]

The Oregon Trail 3: Pioneer Adventures [MECC]

The Oregon Trail, 4th Edition [MECC/The Learning Company]

Twisty History [Sierra On-Line]

Freedom!

Yukon Trail

Math:

Algebra Smart

Early Math [Sierra On-Line]

Logical Journey Of The Zoombinis [Broderbund]

Arthur's Math Carnival [Microsoft]

The Factory [Sunburst Technology]

Math Ace

Math Blaster: In Search Of Spot CD

Math Blaster 2: Secret Of The Lost City

Math Magic [MindPlay/Electronic Arts]

Mega Math [Sierra On-Line]

Math Rescue [Apogee]

Math Rabbit [The Learning Company]

Treasure Math Storm [The Learning Company]

Treasure Mountain [The Learning Company]

Treasure Cove! [The Learning Company]

Mutanoid Math Challenge [Legacy Software]

Math Circus 2.1 [Greygum Software]

The Great Math Adventure [7th Level]

The Human Calculator [Compton's NewMedia]

Miscellaneous Educational:

3D Dinosaur [Knowledge Adventure]

Eagle Eye Mysteries

Eyewitness Virtual Reality Cat [Dorling Kindersley Interactive]

Eyewitness Virtual Reality Bird [Dorling Kindersley Interactive]

Rocky's Boots [The Learning Company]

Think Quick [The Learning Company]

Moptown Parade [The Learning Company]

Invisible Universe [Voyager]

Kid Pix [Broderbund]

Kid Pix 2 [Broderbund]

KidPix Studio [Broderbund]

Elmo's Art Workshop [Creative Wonders]

Curious George Paint & Print Studio [Houghton Mifflin Interactive]

Curious George Preschool Learning Games [Houghton Mifflin
Interactive]

Curious George Pre-K ABCs [Houghton Mifflin Interactive]

Curious George Learns Phonics: Kindergarten-1st Grade [Houghton
Mifflin Interactive]

Mystery At The Museums

Peter Pan CD

Storybook Weaver Deluxe [MECC]

Snap Dragon [MECC]

Teletubbies [Knowledge Adventure]

Tonka Construction

Tonka Garage

Tonka Search And Rescue

Tuneland [7th Level]

Arthur's Brainteasers [Microsoft]

My Personal Tutor: Preschool & Kindergarten [Microsoft]

My Personal Tutor: 1st & 2nd Grade [Microsoft]

Teletubbies

The Dark Eye [Inscape]

Broderbund's Living Books: Just Grandma And Me

Broderbund's Living Books: Arthur's Teacher Trouble

Broderbund's Living Books: The New Kid On The Block

Broderbund's Living Books: The Tortoise And The Hare

Broderbund's Living Books: Ruff's Bone

Broderbund's Living Books: Little Monster At School

Allie's Playhouse

Zurk's Learning Safari

Teddy's Big Day [Interactive Publishing]

Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise

Video Jam

Imagination Express Rain Forest

Imagination Express Castles

Imagination Express Neighborhood

The Treehouse

The Legends Of Oz

Putt-Putt Joins The Parade [Humongous Entertainment]

Putt-Putt Goes To The Moon [Humongous Entertainment]

Putt-Putt Saves The Zoo [Humongous Entertainment]

Putt-Putt Travels Through Time [Humongous Entertainment]

Let's Explore The Airport

Let's Explore The Farm

Thinkin' Things [Edmark]

Gertrude's Secrets [The Learning Company]

The Manhole CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition

Marty And The Trouble With Cheese [Maxis]

Donald Duck's Playground [Sierra On-Line]

Learning With Leaper [Sierra On-Line]

Mickey's Space Adventure [Sierra On-Line]

Winnie-The-Pooh In The Hundred Acre Wood [Sierra On-Line]

Just Me And My Dad

Spy Fox In "Dry Cereal" [Humongous Entertainment]

Lego Island [Mindscape]

CCNA Virtual Lab, Gold Edition: A software simulation of three 2500
series Cisco routers, one 2621 series router, and two 1900 series
switches. This book is intended to accompany Todd Lammle's study
guide on the CCNA certification. And lest there be any doubt, let it be
known that the two were meant, from the beginning, the be together. The
CCNA exam depends largely upon knowing the command set for Cisco's
IOS, and to really learn it well, you need hands-on experience with an
actual router interface. But buying your own router to practice with
would be at least several hundred dollars. Thus, this product, which goes
hand-in-hand with Lammle's book. The book provides the knowledge,
the virtual lab provides the experience. (Note, however, that there have
been disquieting rumors about numerous bugs in this software, including
unsupported commands which are mentioned in the book, commands
which *seem* to be supported but do not behave like they should,
information inaccuracies which go against the information in the book
outright, and lockups. To provide some perspective, this program is NOT
intended as a general router simulator; It is meant specifically as a
CCNA study tool, and thus it supports mainly commands that are
actually part of the curriculum for that test. It is meant for people who
have no other way of getting hands-on router experience, and
furthermore, it really must be used in conjunction with the book. Used
in this context, it works well enough.) [Sybex]

CCNP Virtual Lab: A similar product, except for the CCNP test, which
is the next step up from CCNA certification. [Sybex]

Nature:

Bug Adventure CD

Bug Adventure DOS

The Magic School Bus Explores The Rainforest [Microsoft]

The Magic School Bus Explores The Ocean [Microsoft]

Puddles To Pondwater

Virtual Safari [Fujitsu]

The Animals! [The Software Toolworks]

The Animals! II [The Software Toolworks]

Reading/Writing:

Advanced Spelling Tricks [Sierra On-Line]

Alphabet Blocks [Sierra On-Line]

Arthur's Reading Roundup [Microsoft]

A To Zap [Sunburst Communications]

Basic Spelling Tricks [Sierra On-Line]

Best Neighborhood Ever

Busiest Neighborhood Ever

Busytown [Paramount Interactive]

How Things Work In Busytown

Mixed-Up Fairy Tales [Sierra On-Line]

Mixed-Up Mother Goose [Sierra On-Line]

Reader Rabbit [The Learning Company]

Ready, Set, Read [Sierra On-Line]

Sitting On The Farm

Sound It Out Land 1

Sound It Out Land 2

The Great Reading Adventure [7th Level]

The Great Word Adventure [7th Level]

Wiggins In Storyland

Who Wants Arthur?

Word Rescue [Apogee]

Writer Rabbit [The Learning Company]

Kid Works 2 CD

Kid's Zoo

The Reading Carnival

Electric Reading Land

Safety:

What Would You Do? At Home

What Would You Do? First Aid

What Would You Do? On Your Own

What Would You Do? School Days

Science:

Dinosaur Adventure

Knowledge Adventure

Microsoft Dangerous Creatures [Microsoft]

Quarkee And Quaysoo's Turbo Science [Sierra On-Line]

Science Adventure

Science Adventure II

Space Adventure

Sports Adventure

The Castle Of Dr. Brain [Sierra On-Line]

The Island Of Dr. Brain [Sierra On-Line]

The Lost Mind Of Dr. Brain [Sierra On-Line]

The Time Warp Of Dr. Brain [Sierra On-Line]

Undersea Adventure

InventorLabs [Houghton Mifflin]

The Magic School Bus Explores Inside The Earth [Microsoft]

The Magic School Bus Explores The Human Body [Microsoft]

The Magic School Bus Explores The Solar System [Microsoft]

The Magic School Bus Explores In The Age Of Dinosaurs [Microsoft]

The Universe According To Virgil Reality [7th Level]

Wild Science Arcade

Connections: It's A Mind Game [Discovery Channel Multimedia]

Science: Elements [Mentorom Multimedia]

Science: Materials [Mentorom Multimedia]

Gizmos & Gadgets [The Learning Company]

Hubble Space Telescope [Malofilm Distribution]

Strategy:

DinoPark Tycoon [MECC]

Typing Teaching:

Kid's Typing [Sierra On-Line]

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Deluxe Version 12 [Mindscape]

Mario Teaches Typing

Typing Instructor Deluxe CD [Individual Software]

Typing Racer: Another game which purports to help teach typing, Typing
Racer is a rather silly action game in which letters constantly fly towards
you as you race down a track; To go faster, you must press the
corresponding key on your keyboard before you reach the letter on the
screen.

Wordplay:

Word Attack 3

Wordsmart CD

Wordsmart DOS

Wordsmart Windows
           PART III: TIPS, ADVICE, & INFO

         STEPS TO SETTING UP A NEW COMPUTER:

1. Find an appropriate place for the computer. The place should be cool
and dry, with not much dust. (Obviously, not a wet, watery or humid
area, or under a leaky roof.) It should be out of direct sunlight (or at
least with curtains on the windows), but it should not be too far from
where the family is, so that people who use the computer often do not
feel alienated. The place should also be where others will not be
disturbed by very loud music or sound effects, and where people writing
on the computer will not be disturbed by noise. There should be a fair
amount of room around the computer, and the room it's in should be
well-ventilated, so that it can "breathe", so to speak. Also, it is a poor
idea to put a computer in the same room with the television or piano. In
addition, the computer room should have a door which can be closed, in
order to keep out pets and small children. And don't forget that the
computer should be located near a power outlet and a phone line jack.

2. Get all hardware out of its boxes. (Don't throw out the boxes,
manuals, styrofoam packing material, etc. that came with your computer.
Save them in the garage or whatever in case you ever need 'em.)

3. Install all hardware (including drivers) and software. Install MS-DOS
into the \DOS directory on your hard disk, install Windows 3.1 into
\WIN31, and Windows 95 into \WIN95. Always plug the system with a
three-prong power cord into a three-holed, properly grounded electrical
outlet. Make sure all voltage switches are in the right position (120 Volts
AC if you're in North America). (Put the wires and cables out of open
sight. Keep them loose, without sharp bends or anything resting on
them.) On AT motherboards, there are two main 6-pin power connectors
leading out of the power supply; Each has two black wires on one end.
The standard code to make sure you've got them plugged in right is to
have both sets of black wires next to each other (in the middle, so you
have 4 black wires in a row). The power connectors which plug into the
motherboard are usually labeled P8 and P9. Make sure that all DC (Disk
Change) jumpers are turned on for all floppy drives (if they have one).

4. Make sure that all the slots are covered by screwed-on-tight slot
covers, and that all drive bays are covered with drive bay faceplates.
Store all spare slot covers and drive bay faceplates in a safe place, just
in case you ever should need them.

5. Run The Norton Utilities' Calibrate and Disk Doctor on your hard
disk, plus Microsoft Scandisk. (Before running calibrate, hit CTRL-ALT-
DEL, then when you get the "Starting MS-DOS..." message, hit F5. Also,
be sure to press F1 immediately upon startup of the program and read all
of the information that pops up before running.)

6. Create emergency kit and index card. These are EMERAUTO.BAT
and EMERCONF.SYS, the configuration files you should use on the
emergency floppy (all those TSRs and things you typically load in the
full-blown files get in the way too much). Put both in your hard disk's
root directory, then put them onto the floppy and rename them on the
floppy and described above.

EMERAUTO.BAT:
verify on

EMERCONF.SYS:
FILES=30
BUFFERS=35
LASTDRIVE=z

7. Test all hardware and software.

8. Run the Norton Disk Doctor on all floppy disks.

9. Create These Subdirectories On Your Hard Disk: TEMP, BATCH,
UTILS, ROMCHIPS, and BASIC. From the \SOFT\WIN3\PRO6
directory of Gamefest CD, copy LIST.COM into your UTILS directory
and rename it LIST2.COM. From the \SOFT\MORE3\PRO1 directory of
Gamefest CD, copy ALLF.EXE into your UTILS directory and rename
it ALLFREE.EXE. From the \SOFT\MORE3\PRO5 directory of
Gamefest CD, copy DF.EXE into your UTILS directory. From the
\FILES\GAME_VGA\NYET3 directory of Gamefest 2 CD, use LHA to
pull PSALIST.EXE into your UTILS directory out of NYETINST.EXE,
then rename PSALIST.EXE to READ2.EXE. Use LHA to pull
CRC.EXE into your UTILS directory from the archive TBS1.EXE in the
\FILES\GAME_EGA\TBS1 directory of Gamefest 2 CD.

10. Ensure that AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS have the following
commands:
AUTOEXEC: Load anti-virus program command, Load mouse driver
command (c:\mouse\mouse), run MSCDEX command
(C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /V /D:MSCD000 /L:D /M:10)
(NOTE: If you are NOT running Windows 95, change
\WINDOWS\COMMAND to \DOS), DOS screen blanker command,
SMARTDRV command (smartdrv c d), path command (call mypath),
prompt customization command (call myprompt), temporary file location
(TEMP and, for older programs, TMP) command (SET
TEMP=C:\TEMP);(SET TMP=C:\TEMP), start Norton Erase Protect
command (ep/on), load DOSKEY program (doskey/insert) command, turn
VERIFY on (verify on) command, load SHARE command (share), load
PC Magazine utilities (npad), (asc), (freeze), (visitype), (xdir), (colorset
xxx) (snapshot);delete Windows 95 swap file (del
c:\windows\win386.swp>nul) command;delete Windows 95 Documents
menu shortcuts (del c:\windows\recent\*.lnk>nul);lock your hard disk
(enabling direct disk access, needed only for Windows 95)(echo y|lock
c:>nul);call ISITTIME (see below) command (call isittime), run
CHEKMEMM (see below) command (chekmemm)
CONFIG: Load HIMEM command
(device=c:\dos\himem.sys/testmem:on), Load EMM386 commad
(device=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram I=B000-B7FF), load ANSI.SYS
command (device=c:\dos\ansi.sys), Files command (FILES=30), Stacks
command (STACKS=64,512), DOS=HIGH,UMB command
(DOS=HIGH,UMB), Buffers command (BUFFERS=35), Lastdrive
command (LASTDRIVE=Z), Load CD-ROM device driver command (device=c:\[path]\[filename])

(NOTE: Adding I=B000-B7FF to the EMM386 command line is
CRUCIAL! It disables the monochrome memory area, which no modern
computer uses anyway. This will free up a HUGE amount of the upper
memory area, which can then be used to load device drivers. It is very
important to the proper functioning and memory configuration of your
machine.)

11. Create all the BASIC text files in Appendix B and put them in your
BASIC directory (except for SAVECMOS and RESTCMOS, which go
in your root directory).

Also create the batch files to run those BASIC programs and put them
into your BATCH subdirectory:

Run SAVECMOS.BAS: SAVECMOS.BAT:
@qbasic/run savecmos

Run RESTCMOS.BAS: RESTCMOS.BAT:
@qbasic/run restcmos

Run LOTTERY.BAS: LOTTERY.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\lottery

Run PIXELS.BAS: PIXELS.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\pixels

Run GETXOR.BAS: GETXOR.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\getxor

Run BACKFORE.BAS: BACKFORE.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\backfore

Run SHOOTEM.BAS: SHOOTEM.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\shootem

Run SSHIPSIM.BAS: SSHIPSIM.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\sshipsim

Run ZURK.BAS: ZURK.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\zurk

Run ADAMGAME.BAS: AGAME.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\adamgame

Run SCR1.BAS: SCR1.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\scr1

Run SCR2.BAS: SCR2.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\scr2

Run 5050.BAS: 5050.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\5050

Run POOT.BAS: POOT.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\poot

Run MKBATCH.BAS: MKBATCH.BAT:
@qbasic/run c:\basic\mkbatch

11. Enter the following commands at the DOS prompt to create
RODENT.COM, which checks the type, LPT, and COMM values on
your mouse (checksum value 14326), CHECKSUM.COM, which checks
a hexadecimal file and returns the checksum value to see if you've typed
it in right (checksum value 13907), DRIVEOK.COM, which checks to
make sure the floppy drive has a formatted disk and the door is closed
(returns errorlevel 0 if both drives are OK, returns 1 if A gives an error,
returns 2 if B gives and error, and returns 3 if A and B show errors)
(checksum value 13229), and CAPCHG.COM, a practical joke program,
which, when run, causes some of the keys on the keyboard to
automatically capitalize themselves, even if CAPS LOCK and SHIFT are
off (checksum value 04481). Place all of these .COM files into your
UTILS directory.

debug rodent.com
e 100 2B C0 8E C0 26 A1 CC 00
e 108 26 0B 06 C3 00 0B C0 74
e 110 49 2B DB B8 24 00 CD 33
e 118 0B DB 74 3E 80 C1 30 88
e 120 0E 8B 01 8A DD 2A FF FE
e 128 CB D1 E3 8B 97 5E 01 B4
e 130 09 CD 21 80 F9 30 74 22
e 138 BA 87 01 B4 09 CD 21 80
e 140 F9 33 7C 16 80 F9 34 7F
e 148 11 80 F1 07 80 E9 02 88
e 150 0E 93 01 BA 8D 01 B4 09
e 158 CD 21 B4 4C CD 21 68 01
e 160 6D 01 75 01 7D 01 83 01
e 168 42 75 73 2C 24 53 65 72
e 170 69 61 6C 2C 24 49 6E 50
e 178 6F 72 74 2C 24 50 53 2F
e 180 32 2C 24 48 50 2C 24 49
e 188 52 51 20 32 24 2C 43 4F
e 190 4D 4D 20 33 24 0D 0A 24
RCX
0098
W
Q

debug checksum.com
e 100 bd 70 01 be 80 00 ac 0a
e 108 c0 74 61 ac 3c 0d 74 5c
e 110 3c 20 74 f7 8b d6 4a ac
e 118 3c 0d 74 04 3c 20 75 f7
e 120 c6 44 ff 00 2b ff 8b f5
e 128 b8 00 3d cd 21 72 3d 8b
e 130 d8 b4 3f b1 01 8b d5 cd
e 138 21 0a c0 74 06 8a 04 03
e 140 f8 eb ee b4 3e cd 21 8b
e 148 c7 bb 10 27 8b fd 2b d2
e 150 f7 f3 04 30 aa 52 2b d2
e 158 8b c3 bb 0a 00 f7 f3 8b
e 160 d8 58 0b db 75 e8 8b d5
e 168 b4 09 cd 21 b4 4c cd 21
e 170 00 00 00 00 00 0d 0a 24
RCX
78
W
Q

debug driveok.com
e 100 BD 03 00 BE 80 00 AC 0A
e 108 C0 74 1B AC 3C 0D 74 16
e 110 3C 20 74 F7 24 DF 3C 41
e 118 75 05 BD 01 00 EB 07 3C
e 120 42 75 03 BD 02 00 B4 19
e 128 CD 21 2E A2 8B 01 B8 24
e 130 25 BA 8F 01 CD 21 F7 C5
e 138 01 00 74 1A B4 0E 2A D2
e 140 CD 21 BA 8D 01 B8 00 43
e 148 CD 21 80 3E 8A 01 00 74
e 150 05 C6 06 8C 01 01 C6 06
e 158 8A 01 00 F7 C5 02 00 74
e 160 1A B4 0E B2 01 CD 21 BA
e 168 8D 01 B8 00 43 CD 21 80
e 170 3E 8A 01 00 74 05 80 0E
e 178 8C 01 02 8A 16 8B 01 B4
e 180 0E CD 21 A0 8C 01 B4 4C
e 188 CD 21 00 00 00 24 00 2E
e 190 C6 06 8A 01 01 2B C0 CF
RCX
0098
W
Q

debug capchg.com
e 100 EB 17 06 50 2B C0 8E C0
e 108 26 80 36 17 04 03 58 07
e 110 2E FF 2E 15 01 00 00 00
e 118 00 B8 09 35 CD 21 89 1E
e 120 15 01 8C 06 17 01 BA 02
e 128 01 B8 09 25 CD 21 8E 06
e 130 2C 00 B4 49 CD 21 B4 31
e 138 BA 12 00 CD 21
RCX
003D
W
Q

ALTERNATIVELY, you could create the following batch files, place
them into your root directory, and run them:

Create RODENT.COM: RODENT.BAT:
@echo off
echo e 100 2B C0 8E C0 26 A1 CC 00>rodent.lst
echo e 108 26 0B 06 C3 00 0B C0 74>>rodent.lst
echo e 110 49 2B DB B8 24 00 CD 33>>rodent.lst
echo e 118 0B DB 74 3E 80 C1 30 88>>rodent.lst
echo e 120 0E 8B 01 8A DD 2A FF FE>>rodent.lst
echo e 128 CB D1 E3 8B 97 5E 01 B4>>rodent.lst
echo e 130 09 CD 21 80 F9 30 74 22>>rodent.lst
echo e 138 BA 87 01 B4 09 CD 21 80>>rodent.lst
echo e 140 F9 33 7C 16 80 F9 34 7F>>rodent.lst
echo e 148 11 80 F1 07 80 E9 02 88>>rodent.lst
echo e 150 0E 93 01 BA 8D 01 B4 09>>rodent.lst
echo e 158 CD 21 B4 4C CD 21 68 01>>rodent.lst
echo e 160 6D 01 75 01 7D 01 83 01>>rodent.lst
echo e 168 42 75 73 2C 24 53 65 72>>rodent.lst
echo e 170 69 61 6C 2C 24 49 6E 50>>rodent.lst
echo e 178 6F 72 74 2C 24 50 53 2F>>rodent.lst
echo e 180 32 2C 24 48 50 2C 24 49>>rodent.lst
echo e 188 52 51 20 32 24 2C 43 4F>>rodent.lst
echo e 190 4D 4D 20 33 24 0D 0A 24>>rodent.lst
echo RCX>>rodent.lst
echo 0098>>rodent.lst
echo W>>rodent.lst
echo Q>>rodent.lst
type rodent.lst|debug rodent.com
erase rodent.lst
erase rodent.bat

Create CHECKSUM.COM: CHECKSUM.BAT:
@echo off
echo e 100 bd 70 01 be 80 00 ac 0a>checksum.lst
echo e 108 c0 74 61 ac 3c 0d 74 5c>>checksum.lst
echo e 110 3c 20 74 f7 8b d6 4a ac>>checksum.lst
echo e 118 3c 0d 74 04 3c 20 75 f7>>checksum.lst
echo e 120 c6 44 ff 00 2b ff 8b f5>>checksum.lst
echo e 128 b8 00 3d cd 21 72 3d 8b>>checksum.lst
echo e 130 d8 b4 3f b1 01 8b d5 cd>>checksum.lst
echo e 138 21 0a c0 74 06 8a 04 03>>checksum.lst
echo e 140 f8 eb ee b4 3e cd 21 8b>>checksum.lst
echo e 148 c7 bb 10 27 8b fd 2b d2>>checksum.lst
echo e 150 f7 f3 04 30 aa 52 2b d2>>checksum.lst
echo e 158 8b c3 bb 0a 00 f7 f3 8b>>checksum.lst
echo e 160 d8 58 0b db 75 e8 8b d5>>checksum.lst
echo e 168 b4 09 cd 21 b4 4c cd 21>>checksum.lst
echo e 170 00 00 00 00 00 0d 0a 24>>checksum.lst
echo RCX>>checksum.lst
echo 78>>checksum.lst
echo W>>checksum.lst
echo Q>>checksum.lst
type checksum.lst|debug checksum.com
erase checksum.lst
erase checksum.bat

Create DRIVEOK.COM: DRIVEOK.BAT:
@echo off
echo e 100 BD 03 00 BE 80 00 AC 0A>driveok.lst
echo e 108 C0 74 1B AC 3C 0D 74 16>>driveok.lst
echo e 110 3C 20 74 F7 24 DF 3C 41>>driveok.lst
echo e 118 75 05 BD 01 00 EB 07 3C>>driveok.lst
echo e 120 42 75 03 BD 02 00 B4 19>>driveok.lst
echo e 128 CD 21 2E A2 8B 01 B8 24>>driveok.lst
echo e 130 25 BA 8F 01 CD 21 F7 C5>>driveok.lst
echo e 138 01 00 74 1A B4 0E 2A D2>>driveok.lst
echo e 140 CD 21 BA 8D 01 B8 00 43>>driveok.lst
echo e 148 CD 21 80 3E 8A 01 00 74>>driveok.lst
echo e 150 05 C6 06 8C 01 01 C6 06>>driveok.lst
echo e 158 8A 01 00 F7 C5 02 00 74>>driveok.lst
echo e 160 1A B4 0E B2 01 CD 21 BA>>driveok.lst
echo e 168 8D 01 B8 00 43 CD 21 80>>driveok.lst
echo e 170 3E 8A 01 00 74 05 80 0E>>driveok.lst
echo e 178 8C 01 02 8A 16 8B 01 B4>>driveok.lst
echo e 180 0E CD 21 A0 8C 01 B4 4C>>driveok.lst
echo e 188 CD 21 00 00 00 24 00 2E>>driveok.lst
echo e 190 C6 06 8A 01 01 2B C0 CF>>driveok.lst
echo RCX>>driveok.lst
echo 0098>>driveok.lst
echo W>>driveok.lst
echo Q>>driveok.lst
type driveok.lst|debug driveok.com
erase driveok.lst
erase driveok.bat

Create CAPCHG.COM: CAPCHG.BAT:
@echo off
echo e 100 EB 17 06 50 2B C0 8E C0>capchg.lst
echo e 108 26 80 36 17 04 03 58 07>>capchg.lst
echo e 110 2E FF 2E 15 01 00 00 00>>capchg.lst
echo e 118 00 B8 09 35 CD 21 89 1E>>capchg.lst
echo e 120 15 01 8C 06 17 01 BA 02>>capchg.lst
echo e 128 01 B8 09 25 CD 21 8E 06>>capchg.lst
echo e 130 2C 00 B4 49 CD 21 B4 31>>capchg.lst
echo e 138 BA 12 00 CD 21>>capchg.lst
echo RCX>>capchg.lst
echo 003D>>capchg.lst
echo W>>capchg.lst
echo Q>>capchg.lst
type capchg.lst|debug capchg.com
erase capchg.lst
erase capchg.bat

12. Create all the batch files in Appendix A and put them in your
BATCH directory.

13. Set the Norton Utilities' Speed Disk to Clear Unused Space when
finished and to Verify written information, then save the options to disk.
Also, configure Norton's WIPEINFO program for Government Wipe,
instead of Fast Wipe, and change it where it says "write the value 246
once" to "write the value 0 once" (make it a single-digit 0, not 00 or
000). Save those changes to disk, too.

14. Edit SCANDISK.INI so that the entries are as follows:

[ENVIRONMENT]
Display = Auto
Mouse = On
ScanTimeOut = On
NumPasses = 1
LabelCheck = Off

[CUSTOM]
DriveSummary = Auto
AllSummary = Auto
Surface = Prompt
CheckHost = Always
SaveLog = Off
Undo = Prompt

All the rest of the entries = Prompt

15. Create backups of your current AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
files, and name them MYAUTO.BAT and MYCONFIG.SYS.

16. Place PC Tools For Windows' CrashGuard, Windows 3.1's Dr.
Watson utility, and Resource Meter into your Windows Startup group.
Put Regedit and Media Player as shortcuts on your desktop.

17. Run MemMaker by typing memmaker at the DOS prompt and
following the onscreen instructions.

18. Copy Your ROM Chips To Files. Stick All These Files In Your
ROMCHIPS Directory. To do this with your BIOS, use DEBUG as
follows:

First, type DEBUG MYBIOS.ROM. Debug should come up with a "File
not found" error, indicating that the file doesn't already exist (if it
doesn't say that, the file DOES exist, and you should try a different
filename. However, it is fairly unlikely that a file called MYBIOS.ROM
already exists). Now, type the following commands to DEBUG
(comments are added in parentheses, and of course should not be actually
typed):

R BX (Change register BX, which is the high-order file size)
(The system should now say BX 0000, indicating that BX is currently set
to 0.)
1 (Set BX to 1, which means a 64K file)
M F000:0 FFFF CS:0 (Copy the contents of F000:0~F000:FFFF into
CS:0, which is the current code segment)
W 0 (Write file to disk)
(Debug should now say "Writing 10000 bytes". This is in hexadecimal,
and corresponds to 64K in normal numeration.)
Q (Quit debug and return to DOS)

This only copies your BIOS, of course. To back up your other ROM
chips, you will need to know their addresses and substitute them where
appropriate using the above procedure. (The BIOS address is F000:0 to
F000:FFFF, which is why that was used in this example.)

19. Back Up Your Used Hard Disk Onto One Of Your Other Hard Disks
AND Onto A Single Data Cartridge (See Backup Rules below).

20. Put everything away in a safe place (disks go into disk holders).

21. Design a schedule of computer use (who gets to use the computer
and when, under what circumstances, who and what takes priority over
computer use, etc.) so that no arguments over who gets to use it arise.

22. Make absolutely clear ALL of the computer safety measures and tips
listed below to everybody who is going to be using the computer.

23. Send in ALL the warranty cards on ALL your computer equipment.

24. If you run Windows 95, change the line in MSDOS.SYS that says
"BootGUI=1" to "BootGUI=0". (In other words, just change the 1 to a
0.) Note that MSDOS.SYS is a system, hidden, read-only file, so to edit
it, you first have to type ATTRIB -S -H -R MSDOS.SYS. Then, type
EDIT MSDOS.SYS to edit it, change the line, save and exit, then re-set
the attributes by typing ATTRIB +S +H +R MSDOS.SYS. This will
prevent the Windows GUI from running automatically on boot-up and
will leave you at the command prompt until you type "win".

25. Create a blank text file BLANK.TXT in the root directory of your
hard disk by doing this: type "cd\", then "edit blank.txt". Press ALT, F,
S, then ALT, F, X. NOTE: To copy BLANK.TXT around, you must use
the XCOPY command, since it is blank. Ordinary COPY won't work
with BLANK.TXT.

26. Follow instructions below on "Wiring a volume control to your
internal speaker".

27. Read ALL Of DOS Help! 6.0, Your Program Manuals, Your
Computer Magazines, Online Help, Online Text Files, And Your Books.

28. Scan through ALL of your online services, check out EVERYTHING
in there, make a note of places that interest you, and download ALL files
that you want.

29. Consider getting your RAM professionally tested. Faulty RAM can
be a hard problem to identify, as it usually manifests itself as
intermittent, untraceable lockups and glitches. Save yourself some grief
and make sure the chips are up to snuff.

30. Put SYSEDIT and REGEDIT as shortcuts on your desktop.

31. Lastly, and MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, give your computer a
name. Any name, like Steve or Joe or whatever.

Turnoff Procedure:

1. Exit all applications.

2. Turn off the computer's power switch.

3. Cover computer with clear plastic sheet, then white cloth sheet.

       Some Great Online Places For Starters:

America Online (AOL):

(To enter the keywords below, press CTRL-K, then type in the
keyword and press ENTER)

Morningstar Mutual Funds Area: Keyword Morningstar

COMPUTE Online: Forum COMPUTE

The Fiction Workshop: Go To Writers Club (Keyword writers), then
double-click on "Chat Area" in the What You Can Select column.

The New Republic:

Writers Club: Keyword writers

News Room: Public room under the People Connection.

Technology News: Go to News & Finance (Keyword News) forum.
Click Technology button. Click Technology News button.

Internet Center: Keyword Internet

Learning & Reference: Keyword Learning

Computing & Software: Keyword Computing

News & Finance: Keyword News

Windows Forum: Keyword Windows

Industry Connection: Keyword Industry Connection

PC World Online (Also On CompuServe): Keyword PCWORLD

Sierra Area: Keyword SIERRA

CompuServe:

Ziff Buyers' Market: Type GO ZNT:MARKET

ZiffNet Main Menu: Type GO ZIFFNET

ZiffNet Software Library: Type GO ZNT:PBS

PC MagNet: GO PCMAG

PC MagNet Forums: GO PCM:FORUMS

Investor's Forum: Type GO INVFOR

Entertainment Drive (E-Drive): GO EDRIVE

EDRIVE Forum: GO EFORUM

Executive News Service (NOTE: $15/hour surcharge): GO ENS

Microsoft Knowledge Base: GO MSKB

Microsoft Developer's Knowledge Base: GO MDKB

Windows Shareware Forum: GO WINSHARE

PC World Online (Also On America Online): GO PCWORLD

Sierra Area: GO SIERRA (GO SI for the Sierra Mall)

Epic MegaGames Forum: GO EPIC

Windows 3rd Party A Forum: GO WINAPA

Windows Fun Forum: GO WINFUN

Gamers Forum: GO GAMERS

Game Publishers' Forum: GO GAMPUB

Windows News Forum: GO WINNEW

Picture Forum: GO PICS

PC Fun Forum: GO PCFUN

Hot Games Download Area: GO HOTGAMES

Prodigy:

Genealogy Bulletin Board:

PC Club: Jumpword PC CLUB

GEnie:

Writers Ink (WINK):

The Internet:

www.yahoo.com (Yahoo! Most-accessed Web page in the world! Tons
o' stuff!)

www.hotbot.com (HotBot Search Engine, Best-Suited For Very Specific
Searches)

www.filez.com (Giant File Searching Base)

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.asp (MSKB, Microsoft
Knowledge Base, World's Largest Collection Of Bug Reports)

http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure (Colossal Cave/Adventure
Web Page)

members.aol.com/KQswst104/KQRealm.htm (King's Quest Realm)

www.uhs-hints.com (UHS (Universal Hint System) Web page for game
hints)

www.tucows.com (The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software/Two
Cows)

deja.com (formerly www.dejanews.com) (DejaNews, best way to access
the Usenet)

www.zdnet.com (ZDnet, best place online for computer news)

www.gmsv.com (Good Morning Silicon Valley, another good place for
tech news)

www.cnet.com (CNET, a portal for computer enthusiasts)

amazon.com (Amazon, the really huge online bookstore)

fatbrain.com (Fatbrain, a computer book-only online bookstore. As their
slogan says: "Because great minds think a lot.")

www.slashdot.org (Slashdot, a cool technology news site)

www.mapquest.com (MapQuest, a really cool map site)

http://www.whatis.com (Whatis.com, a huge dictionary of computer
terms. Updated regularly, so it's a good place to keep up.)

In A Laptop, Notebook, Or Subnotebook:

Backlit 15.1" TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD Active Matrix Screen

17 Hour Lithium-Ion Batteries With Built-In LCD Power Gagues

Can charge its battery through an AC adapter while the battery is inside
the computer (does not require a separate battery charger)

1 Hour (Off) Or 2 Hour (On) Battery Recharge Time

1.8 Pounds, Including Battery, AC Adapter, Spare Battery And Carrying
Case

Built-In Monitor Controls

Built-In LEDs For Low Battery, Power, HDD, FDD, Num Lock, Caps
Lock, Scroll Lock, And Standby

Built-In Speakers Which Can Be Adjusted Through A Built-In Dial-Type
Volume Control

External Jacks For Speakers/Headphones, Microphone, And Line-In

Auto-Standby Activate Whenever It's Folded Shut

Spare Battery

Batteries With Built-In LCD (Or LED) Power Gagues

Battery Alarm Off/Quiet/Loud Function

Durable, Roomy Carrying Bag With Padded Straps Which Is Fully
Cushioned On All Sides Of The Inside, With Business Card Holder, Pen
Holders, Pockets For 3.5" And 5.25" Floppy Disks As Well As CD-
ROMs And PCMCIA Cards, And Which Has Several Other Pockets And
Pouches For Various Accessories Or Documents And Pockets For AC
Adapters, Batteries, And Modular Drives And Which Is Big Enough To
Hold Laptops With 15-Inch Screens

Retractable Power Prongs

Kensington Lock Port

All The Standard Ports: A VGA-Out Port (For attaching an external
monitor), A Keyboard Port, A Mouse Port, A Serial Port, A Parallel Port,
A Game Port, 2 USB 2.0 Ports, And A FireWire (IEEE 1394) Port

Gel-Encased Hard Drive

0.8" Thickness (Length and Width for the notebook should simply be the
same as for the screen, plus a 2 millimetre frame)

Handle On The Top

1 PCMCIA 3.0 Type I, 2 Type II And 1 Type III Slots Which Are
CardBus (*MUST* be CardBus; Do *NOT* get non-CardBus PCMCIA
slots)

Integrated V.90 56K Modem AND 10/100 Ethernet Network Adapter

4 Mbps IrDA 1.1 Infrared Port

Cellular Port (Cellular phone port, for connecting to a cellular phone and
using it as a cellular modem)

Built-In, 2-Button Touchpad

Microsoft Ballpoint Mouse 2.0 (Portable)

IBM TrackPoint

Integrated Front-Mounted 3 Button 20mm 1200 dpi 100% Microsoft
Compatible Trackball With Buttons Right Behind It And With Ball And
Buttons And Placed On A Soft, Large Wrist Rest

Small Joystick-Like Pointer On The Right Side Of The Keyboard That
Uses Its Own Set Of Buttons On The Front Of The Portable

Built-In Switch Which Lets You Switch Between The Touchpad And
The TrackPoint (And a little indicator to show you which one is
currently active)

Detachable Keyboard With Color-Coded, Full-Size Keys (Or 90% Of
Full-Size) And Standard QWERTY Layout (101 Keys!) Plus Short (1
mm) Key Travel, Quiet Touch, 12 Function Keys And 4 Cursor Keys In
An Inverted "T" And Which Is A Nice Color And Which Lifts Up To
Reveal The Notebook's Case Interior

Some portables have special spaces where you can swap things around;
For example, a drive bay which can optionally hold either the CD-ROM
drive or the floppy drive. This is a completely ridiculous setup. Your
portable computer should not require ANY swapping of components to
access ANY of then.

Very Durable, Luxurious Scratch-Resistant Exterior Finish Which Is A
Nice Color

Waterproof Case

Tough Rubber "Feet"

Swivelling Monitor

Worldwide Auto-Sensing AC, Car Cigarette Lighter And Airplane
Computer Port Adapter

100% Compatible With APM (Advanced Power Management) And ACPI
(Advanced Configuration Power Interface)

Word Processing Document On Hard Disk With Critical Phone Numbers
(Such As Technical Support For The Portable) And Copy Protection
Codes For Games (If Any) For Travel

Laptop To Desktop Connector

Made From A Good Manufacturer: Gateway 2000, Dell, Compaq,
Toshiba, Epson, ZEOS, IBM Or Hewlett-Packard

The Following Printer Drivers For Printer Borrowing: TTY, PostScript,
Hewlett-Packard LaserJet II, Epson LQ850, Epson FX85 And IBM
ProPrinter

Sleep (Or Standby, Or Whatever) Button

AutoResume Feature

DSP Solutions' Portable Sound Plus (Rugged, Compact, 16-bit Sound
Blaster Compatible Sound System That Occupies Just 1 Parallel Port)

Equipment For Wiring Into Modem-Hostile Environments: Screwdriver,
Alligator-Clipped Wires, Line-Doubling Jack, In-Line Connector And
Extension Cable

Several Various-Sized Polarized Extension Cords Which Double As
Outlet Multipliers

Axonix Lapstation IV (Docking Station For External Monitor, Keyboard
And Mouse, With 5 Full-Length 16-bit Expansion Slots, 2 Half-Height
Drive Bays, 3 Third-Height Drive Bays, And A 150 Watt Power Supply)

Solar System Mercury [Keep It Simple Systems]

Legtop Podeum [Roch]

Portable-Specific Software:

IntelliLink 2.2

LapLink Gold 11.0 [LapLink]

LapLink 2000 [LapLink]

Laptop UltraVision

In A Palmtop:

15 Ounces, Including Battery, AC Adapter, Spare Battery And Carrying
Case

Touch Screen

Pen Input

222 mm x 112 mm

2 MB RAM, 1 MB ROM

640 x 200 Pixel Backlit LCD

101 Key Fully Functional Keyboard, 75% Of Normal Size, Short (.1
mm) Key Travel

Runs On 2 AA Batteries For Months

ROM Holds Phone/Address Book Database, Scheduler/To Do List,
Financial Calculator, Text Editor, Note Taker, World Clock, Stopwatch,
Clipboard Applications, Calendar, Business Card Directory, Word
Processor, Scrapbook, And Home Clock

From Either Sharp Or Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Portable-Specific Setup Steps:

1. Create A Batch File For Displaying A Message Giving Your Name,
Address, And Phone Number, Offering A Reward If The Computer
Should Be Lost Or Stolen, Then Found.

2. Attach The Batch File To Your AUTOEXEC.BAT

3. Engrave Your Name, Address And Phone Number With An Awl Or
Something Like That On The Portable's Case, So Nobody Can Remove
It

Computer Safety Measures:

1. ALWAYS Wear Rubber Gloves Before Opening A Computer's
Case!!! Keep them on until you close the case.

2. Always type "shutdown" before turning off your computer.

3. Whenever your computer is not in use, cover it with the clear plastic
sheet, then place the white cloth on top of that.

4. Back up all your documents onto 3.5 inch floppy disks several times
a day. For maximum security, every time you change or create a file,
back it up.

5. If you are going to use your computer again within the next 30
minutes, don't turn it off. Leave it running.

6. If you ever need to start your computer from scratch, always try first
a warm boot, then a cold boot. Never turn it off and back on with the
power switch to reset it.

7. Before accessing any floppy disk that you have never used in your
computer before, be sure to thoroughly scan it with a virus checker.

8. Every hour of using the computer, take a short break to exercise your
eyes and relieve them of the strain of the monitor.

9. NO FOOD OR DRINKS AROUND THE COMPUTER.

10. Unless you really know what you're doing, don't ever open your
monitor or power supply. Both contain capacitors which usually store a
charge for weeks, even after the computer has been turned off and even
unplugged. There's nothing inside there that you can fix anyway (unless
you're particularly skilled with electrical devices). Also, never, ever,
under any circumstances open a hard drive, unless you've absolutely
given up on that drive ever working again. Hard drives are so tightly
engineered that getting a few specs of dust inside can ruin them. They
are manufactured in rooms with heavy-duty air cleaning to remove all
dust from the air, and hermetically sealed to keep dust out permanently.
Opening one in an environment without such air-cleaning (which is most
places in the world, unless you have one of those industrial-strength
cleaning units) will cripple, if not destroy, your hard drive for life.

Backup Rules:

1. When you first get your new computer, after you've set up your hard
disk, back it up onto one of your unused hard disks AND a single empty
data cartridge. Put the tape in a safe place.

2. EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU CREATE A DOCUMENT OF ANY
KIND, BACK IT UP ONTO A FLOPPY DISK AS SOON AS
POSSIBLE.

3. ONCE A MONTH, Back Up Your ENTIRE used Hard Disk(s) onto
a single data cartridge. If you have more than one hard disk, use a
separate tape for each. Label these tapes appropriately (January Hard
Disk #1, January Hard Disk #2, etc.) and put them in a safe place. Every
year, go back and write over all the tapes (use January Hard Disk #1
over again for the same purpose, and so on). Every fifth year, however,
stop reusing the tapes and simply put them away somewhere in a safe
place forever, never to be touched unless needed. Get new tapes for your
monthly backups.

4. If you REALLY Work With A Lot OF Critically Important Data,
Back Up Your Hard Disk Daily. Use A 7-Tape Backup System (One For
Each Day Of the week). Every month, replace those tapes. (Trash the old
ones, or keep them if you wish.)

Other Miscellaneous Computer Tips:

1. When replacing your laser printer's ink cartridge, don't throw out the
old one! Contact Quill (see address in Address section below) for
information on how to recycle it. Recycling is better for the environment,
AND it's cheaper.

2. At the airport, NEVER run portable computers or any form of
magnetic media through the metal detector. Don't use the X-ray machine,
either. It's much safer than the metal detector, and probably OK, but just
to be really sure, ask for a hand inspection. If you've got a portable
computer, they usually ask you to turn it on (presumably to prove it's a
computer), so be sure you have enough battery charge. This usually takes
a few extra minutes at security, so be sure you also have enough time.

3. When using the reset button to reboot your computer, be sure to hold
down the button for at least 1 full second, so that a clean signal gets sent
to the system.

4. ALWAYS Wear Rubber Gloves Before Opening A Computer's
Case!!!

5. Don't smoke. Smoke from cigarettes is very harmful when it enters
computers. In addition, it has been found in numerous experiments
conducted that people with computers who smoked had significantly
higher rates of lung cancer, emphysema, and being smelly than people
who owned computers but didn't smoke. It seems that if you own a
computer, smoking may be detrimental to your own well-being as well
as that of your computer. Consequently, those who own computers would
do well to refrain from smoking.

6. Eat and drink. If you do not eat and drink, you will eventually die. As
advanced as computers are these days, they still need someone to hold
their hand and tell them what to do. If you are dead, you will no longer
be able to use your computer, and it probably won't do what you want
it to. Periodical eating and drinking is therefore mandatory for proper
computer operation.

7. NEVER NEVER NEVER CHANGE IRQs!!! By default, IRQ 3 is
COM2 and COM4, IRQ 4 is COM1 and COM3, IRQ 5 is LPT2 (if you
have a second parallel port) and IRQ 7 is LPT1. Don't change this.
*EVER*! NEVER NEVER NEVER *EVER* CHANGE THE IRQs
ASSIGNED TO COM AND LPT PORTS UNLESS YOU ARE 500%
*SURE* OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!! OTHERWISE YOU WILL
BE SHOT! OR AT THE VERY LEAST YOUR COMPUTER WON'T
WORK!!!!!!!!!!

8. When on the Internet, remember that nothing you see there has to be
true. Information is not verified in any way on the Net, so don't
automatically trust everything you see or hear.

9. Choose only an ISP which gives you unlimited Internet access for a
cheap monthly fee. Of course, the access MUST be done through PPP.
Do not accept ISPs which do not support PPP connections.

10. Be gentle. Your computer is a sensitive, precision piece of electronic
equipment, not a punching bag. Treat it with care, and unless it's flimsy,
it should serve you well for years to come.

11. (Bonus Tip) PACKARD BELL SUCKS! (Read: Incredibly bad
support (the proverbial voicemail hell), cheaply-made systems which fail
easily and are made with inferior (and often incompatible) components
inside in a misguided attempt at making budget PCs, lack of driver
support, virtually no upgradeability, inaccessible interior hardware
arrangement, proprietary components (both hardware and software)
specifically designed to be compatible only with OTHER Packard Bell
components, and CPUs which overheated more then they should have
because there were actually no cooling fans in the case. Toward their
final days, it is said that PB computers came in sealed cases which could
not be opened by the user and bore "WARRANTY VOID IF
REMOVED" stickers on the cover. Packard Bell computers were aimed
at first-time computer buyers, or those who truly couldn't afford
something better. This was something they did well, but for anyone who
valued quality over price, Packard Bell rightfully earned their status as
the laughingstock of the PC industry.)

12. Get more than one e-mail address. Having multiple addresses isn't
just a vanity thing; It's genuinely useful for organizing your e-mail. You
should have addresses for the following categories: Public e-mail address
(available on your webpage, if you have one, in your ICQ info, etc.),
family and friends, business/professional contacts, and a miscellaneous
address for passing out to places which need an e-mail address (most
often websites which require one before you can download a file). This
way, you'll be able to separate spam from the really important stuff.

Computer Newbie Tips:

1. Do not ever store files in Windows' Recycle Bin, or UNIX's /tmp
directory. Neither is meant for regular file storage.

2. No disk drive is meant to hold more than one disk at the same time.
If you are inserting a new disk and there is another already in the drive,
eject the one in the drive first before you put in another.

3. A screen saver is designed to run on your monitor while the computer
is on, when you're not using it. A screen saver will not work while the
computer is off.

4. Put a small label that says "Any" on the spacebar. That way, "press
any key" won't be a problem.

Once A Month:

1. Use a vacuum cleaner to suck the dust out of your computer. Dust
tends to collect over time.

2. Backup. See above.

3. Clear your web browser's cache, history, and cookies, as well as your
TEMP folder.

Once A Year:

1. It formerly was conventional wisdom to run the Norton Utilities'
Calibrate once a year on your hard disk. However, with modern
voice-coil actuator hard disks, this is no longer necessary because they
don't require periodic low-level formatting. When you first set up your
computer, you might as well run it once just to check it out and to get
the interleave right (although all hard disks now have interleaves of 1:1),
but after that, there's no need; Hard disks with voice-coil actuators are
basically immune to "alignment creep", the problem low-level formatting
was used against.

2. Check all connections between all components for firm connections.

Data Security:

1. When not using your LAN or modem, it wouldn't hurt to disconnect
your system's phone line.

2. When deleting confidential files, ALWAYS use the WIPE command
(WIPE.BAT, as listed above) instead of DOS' DEL.

Finding Misplaced Data: Type FILEFIND at the DOS Prompt.
(Assuming the Norton Utilities are in your path. If not, put them there.
This will run FileFind, a cool file-finding utility which can search not
only by filename, but also by file contents.)

What to uninstall when you uninstall a program: Uninstalling a
program formerly involved just deleting its files and directory (or
directories). Now it may also involve INI files which may be put into the
main Windows directory instead of the program's own directory,
additions/changes to the WIN.INI file, and (under Win9x and later)
changes to the system registry.

Managing icons in the system tray: Use the Win32 Shell_NotifyIcon()
API call to create, remove or modify icons in the system tray.

Wiring a volume control to your internal speaker:

The below instructions tell you how to wire a volume control to the
speaker that's inside your computer. They are by default always set at
high volume, and they don't come with volume controls. This procedure
is not very hard, but if you have never done electronics before you may
feel a little nervous. Don't worry, just follow the instructions carefully
and you'll be all right. Read the whole thing through before you begin
so you know what you're doing. It's basically hooking up a
potentiometer to the speaker's wire. A potentiometer is simply a small
dial-like device which controls how much electricity goes to the speaker,
and hence, how loud it is.

For this, you will need a 1,000 ohm potentiometer. Get it from Radio
Shack. If they don't have one that low in stock, you can get a 5,000 ohm
one, that will work too, but 1,000 is better. You will also need a roll of
22 gauge stranded hook-up wire. Get that from Radio Shack too. You
probably would want to use the "double-barrel" (double stranded) type
of wire (the kind which is actually two wires running side-by-side, joined
by the insulation) instead of single-strand so the job is neater (just one
wire running from the computer to the volume control instead of two).
You'll also need wire cutters, a sharp utility knife, and if you want to do
a good job, a soldering iron. If you're not using the soldering iron, then
you'll need electrical tape.

Find the internal speaker inside your computer. Pick one of the two wires
leading away from it (doesn't really matter which one) and cut it at a
convenient point, somewhere fairly close to its (the wire's) center.
Lengthen the two wire ends you've created by attaching two lengths of
the hook-up wire to them. Attach them either by soldering or simply
tying them on with electrical tape. Soldering is better because that way
the wires won't come apart by accident, but if you don't have a soldering
iron or if you don't want to use one that's fine, use electrical tape
instead. You will need to strip the ends of all four wires a bit with a
utility knife to expose them. Run the two wires you have now outside
your case (you'll probably need to drill a hole (a SMALL hole)
somewhere in it). Now, bring in the potentiometer. On it there will be
three legs (little protruding thingys). Use the centre leg and either one of
the other legs. Attach the ends of the wires to them. You will need to
strip the ends of the wires a bit with a utility knife to expose them. They
can be attached simply by firmly wrapping them around the legs, but for
a really good job, solder them on. But if you don't want to solder, you
can just wrap the wire ends snugly on (but again, soldering is better).
The third remaining leg on the pot (potentiometer) is a ground, but you
don't need to use it for such a low-voltage purpose as this. Mount the
potentiometer somewhere on your desk so it's conveniently close at hand,
then put the cover on your case and you're in business!

Below is a diagram of basically what things should look like. The lines
are the wires, except for the doubled lines which represent the wall of
your computer's case:

                          Potentiometer
                                
                                
                           Wall of case
 Motherboard                    
      ------------------------  ----------------------
      --------------------------------------------------Speaker

Wiring a new speaker to your computer:

Of course, the above doesn't change the very poor quality of the speaker.
If you want to fancy it up, you can install a second digital audio speaker,
and a switch to switch between it and the old speaker. (Most programs
probably wouldn't be compatible with the new speaker, so you'd want
to keep the old one around.) The diagram for such a project would look
something like this (again, the doubled lines represent the computer case
wall, and the single lines are the wires):

                           Motherboard
                                 
          -------------------Switch----
                                     
Old Speaker                           
          ----------------          
                       
                                     
                    Potentiometer      
                                       
New Speaker------------------------    
                                       
          -----------------------------

Shutting Down Windows From The Desktop:

Here's a quick way to make a desktop icon which will shut down
Windows when double-clicked: Just make a shortcut with this command
line:

RUNDLL.EXE user,exitwindows

You can also restart using the following command line (this doesn't
actually reboot your computer, it just quits and then restarts Windows):

RUNDLL.EXE user,exitwindowsexec

Addresses And Phone Numbers:

The following is a handy alphabetical guide to some computer companies
and their addresses, as well as phone numbers. This list is not yet
complete, a LOT of companies must be added still:

2010 Software (Sherlock)
1-800-952-2314

3Com Corp. (NICs and just about every other kind of networking
equipment)
5400 Bayfront Plaza
P.O. Box 58145
Santa Clara, California 95052-8145
(408) 764-5000
www.3com.com

3M (Data Storage Products Division)
1 Imation Place
Oakdale, Minnesota 55128
www.imation.com

ABIT Corp. (Motherboards)
46808 Lakeview Blvd.
Fremont, California 94538
(510) 623-0500
www.abit-usa.com

Abracadata (Some Great CAD Programs, Including Design Your Own
Railroad)
PO Box 2440
Eugene, Oregon 97402 USA
1-800-451-4871
1-503-342-3030
FAX: 1-503-683-1925

Access Software (LINKS 386 PRO)
4910 Amelia Earhart Dr.
Salt Lake City, Utah 84116, USA
1-800-800-4880
1-801-359-2900

Accolade (Some Great Games, Including Star Control)
5300 Stevens Creek Blvd., Ste. 500
San Jose, California 95129 USA
1-800-245-7744
1-303-352-3183

Acer
2641 Orchard Parkway
San Jose, California 95134-2073
(408) 432-6200
www.acer.com

Activision (Shanghai II)
Consumer Services
PO Box 3048
Menlo Park, California 94025 USA

Adaptec (Cables, host adapters, and other SCSI equipment)
691 S. Milpitas Blvd.
Milpitas, California 95035
(408) 945-8600
www.adaptec.com

Adobe (PostScript, and a whole series of highly-respected imaging
software)
345 Park Ave.
San Jose, California 95110-2704
(408) 536-6000
www.adobe.com

Adobe Systems, Inc. (New address?)
1585 Charleston Road
P.O. Box 7900
Mountain View, California 94039
1-800-988-6293 or 1-800-445-8787
www.adobe.com

Advanced Gravis, Ltd. (Joysticks)
6894 Palm Avenue
Burnaby, British Columbia VJ5 4M3
Canada
(800) 663-8558

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) (Intel's leading competitor in CPUs)
One AMD Place
P.O. Box 3453
Sunnyvale, California 94088-3453
(408) 732-2400
www.amd.com
(AMD Place extends West from the intersection of E. Duane Avenue and
Stewart Drive.)

Aldus (PageMaker)
411 First Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98104
1-206-628-5739

AltaVista
1070 Arastradero Road
Palo Alto, California 94064
(Was formerly 529 Bryant Street, also in Palo Alto)
(650) 320-7700

American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI) (BIOSes)
6145-F Northbelt Parkway
Norcross, Georgia 30071
(770) 246-8600
www.ami.com

American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
11 West 42nd St.
13th Floor
New York, New York 10036
(212) 642-4900
Fax: (212) 398-0023
www.ansi.org

American Power Conversion (APC) (Power supplies; Known for its
UPSes) 132 Fairgrounds Road
West Kingston, Rhode Island 02892
(401) 789-5735
www.apcc.com

America Online (AOL)
2200 AOL Way
Dulles, Virginia 20166
(703) 448-8700
www.aol.com

Amtex Software (Lots Of Good Pinball Games)
PO Box 572
Belleville, Ontario K8N 5B2
1-613-967-7900
FAX: 1-613-967-7902

APOGEE (Wolfenstein)
PO Box 476389
Garland, Texas 75047

Apple (The Macintosh, the iMac, the iBook, and Steve Jobs)
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, California 95014
(408) 996-1010
Sales: (800) 538-9696
Fax: (800) 505-0171
www.apple.com
(Infinite Loop is a circular road which branches off Mariani Avenue, just
Southeast of the intersection of I-280 and North De Anza Boulevard.)

Ares Software Corporation (FontMinder)
561 Pilgrim Drive
P.O. Box 4667
Foster City, California 94404
1-800-783-2737
(415) 578-9090
FAX: (415) 378-8999
(Ares was bought out by Adobe, and FontMinder was discontinued.)

Ask Jeeves, Inc. (Ask Jeeves, a pioneering search-engine-type site which
  became famous for encouraging you to ask normal English questions
  to find what you were searching for)
918 Parker Street, Suite 12
Berkeley, California 94710
(510) 649-8685
FAX: (510) 649-8633
www.ask.com

Asus (Motherboards)
721 Charcot Ave.
San Jose, California 95013
(510) 739-3777
www.asus.com.tw

ATI (Video cards)
33 Commerce Valley Drive East
Thornhill, Ontario L3T 7N6
Canada
(905) 882-2600
Tech Support: (905) 882-2626
Fax: (905) 882-2620
BBS: (905) 764-9404
www.atitech.ca

Autodesk (AutoCAD)
111 McInnis Parkway
San Rafael, California 94903
(415) 507-5000
www.autodesk.com

Automap Inc. (Automap Road Atlas And Accompanying Products)
1309 114th Avenue Southeast, Suite 110
Bellevue, Washington 98004
Phone: 1-206-455-3552
FAX: 1-206-455-3667

Award Software International (BIOSes)
777 E. Middlefield Rd.
Mountain View, California 94043
(650) 237-6800
Fax: (650) 968-0247
www.award.com

Bitstream, Inc. (MakeUp)
215 First Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Sales: 1-800-322-3668
(617) 497-6222
FAX: (617) 868-0784
www.bitstream.com

Brderbund Software, Inc. (Carmen Sandiego)
17 Paul Drive
San Rafael, California 94903 USA
Orders & Tech Support: 1-800-521-6263

Canyon Software (Drag And Zip 3.0)
1-415-382-7999
FAX: 1-415-382-7998

Chips And Technologies, Inc. (Chips)
2950 Zanker Rd.
San Jose, California 95134
(408) 434-0600
www.chips.com

CH Products (Some Great Joysticks)
970 Park Center Drive
Vista, California 92083
1-619-598-2518

Cirrus Logic (Chipsets)
3100 West Warren Ave.
Fremont, California 94538
(510) 623-8300
www.cirrus.com

Cisco Systems (Routers and other industrial-strength networking
equipment)
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, California 95134
(800) 553-NETS (6387)
(408) 526-4000
www.cisco.com

Coda Music Technology (Finale)
1401 East 79th Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55425
1-800-843-2066

Commodore Business Machines, Inc. -- Computer Systems Division
487 Devon Park Drive
Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087

Compaq
P.O. Box 692000
Houston, Texas 77269-2000
(281) 370-0670
Sales: (800) 231-0900
Tech Support: (800) 652-6672
Product Info: (800) 345-1518
Fax: (281) 378-8754
BBS: (281) 378-1418
www.compaq.com

CompTIA (Administers the A+ certification, among others)
450 East 22nd Street, Suite 230
Lombard, Illinois 60148-6158
(630) 268-1818
Fax: (630) 268-1384
www.comptia.org

CompuClub (A Computer Club)
10 CompuClub Plaza
Dept. CC100, Canton, Ohio 44767
U.S.A.
Orders: 1-800-586-4629

CompuServe
5000 Arlington Centre Blvd.
Columbus, Ohio 43220
(614) 457-8600
Customer Service: (800) 848-8990
Fax: (614) 529-1610

Copyware Inc. (Neverlock)
152 Nelson Circle
Newmarket, Ontario L3X 1R3
Canada

Corel Systems (Corel Draw)
1600 Carling Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1Z 8R7
1-800-836-7274
1-800-836-DRAW (or SCSI)
FAX: 1-613-728-9176
BBS: (613) 728-4752
In Canada: 1-613-728-8200
www.corel.com

Creative Labs (Sound Blaster)
1901 McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, California 95035 USA
1-800-990-5227
1-408-428-6600
www.creaf.com

Crystal Dynamics (The Horde)
87 Encina Avenue
Palo Alto, California 94301

Dell
1 Dellway
Round Rock, Texas 78682
(512) 338-4400
Sales: (800) 426-5150
Tech Support: (800) 624-9896
Fax: (800) 727-8320
BBS: (512) 338-8528
www.dell.com

DELPHI (An Online Information Network)
1-800-695-4005
Modem: 1-800-365-4636

Designer Software (EGA-ROIDS)
4447 East Ridge Gate Road
Anaheim, California 92708-3507

Digital Integration (Tornado)
Distributed By Spectrum Holobyte

Dow Jones Information Services (Dow Jones News/Retrieval Service, An
Online System To Help You Fetch Business Facts)
1-800-522-3567

Electronic Arts (More Great Games, Incl. Powermonger)
1450 Fashion Island Blvd.
San Mateo, California 94404 USA
Orders: 1-800-245-4525
1-415-572-ARTS
1-415-513-7555

Epyx, Inc. (Lots Of Good Games, Including Metro Cross)

Exec-PC (The World's Largest BBS)
1-414-789-4210

FastTrax International (FastTrax)
8 Digital Drive
Novato, California 94949
U.S.A.
Tech Support: 1-415-883-9561

Free Software Foundation (FSF)
59 Temple Place - Suite 330
Boston, Massachusetts 02111-1307
U.S.A.
(617) 542-5942
Fax: (617) 542-2652

Gateway (Formerly Gateway 2000)
P.O. Box 2000
610 Gateway Drive
North Sioux City, South Dakota 57049
(605) 232-2000
Sales: (800) 523-2000
Tech Support: (800) 846-2000
Fax: (605) 232-2023
BBS: (605) 232-2224
www.gw2k.com

General Magic (Magic Cap)

GEnie (An Online Information Network)
1-800-638-9636

Hayes (Modems)
5835 Peachtree Corners East
Norcross, Georgia 30092-3405
(770) 840-9200
Sales: (800) 874-3734
Fax: (770) 441-1213
BBS: (770) 429-3734
www.hayes.com

Hewlett-Packard [HP] (Printers, Computers, Dashboard For Windows)
P.O. Box 58059
MS 511L-FJ
Santa Clara, California 95051-8059
U.S.A.
1-800-752-0900

Hewlett-Packard
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, California 94304-1185
(650) 857-1501
Fax: (650) 857-5518

IBM
11400 Burnet Road
Austin, Texas 78758
(Used to be 590 Madison Avenue, New York City)
(512) 823-0000
Sales: (800) IBM-3333
BBS: (919) 517-0001
www.ibm.com

ICOM Simulations, Inc. (Some Wheely Wheelistic Sims From Wheeling)
648 South Wheeling Rd.
Wheeling, IL 60090 USA
1-708-520-4440

Image Club Graphics (Some Cool Tips And Tricks For CorelDRAW, FD
Painter, And Other Graphics Programs)
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
1-800-661-9410

IMotion (Alone In The Dark)
1333 Ocean Avenue, Suite J
Santa Monica, California 90401
1-800-443-3386

Impressions Software, Inc. (Dedicated To Excellence In Strategy Games)
7 Melrose Drive
Farmington, Connecticut 06032
USA

Infoseek Corporation (Infoseek, the underdog search engine that's now
  bought out and merged with GO Network, go.com)
1399 Moffett Park Drive
Sunnyvale, California 94089
(800) 781-INFO (4636)
(408) 543-6000
FAX: (408) 734-9350 
www.infoseek.com

Inner Media (Collage Complete)
60 Plain Road
Hollis, New Hampshire 03049
USA

Inprise (formerly Borland International)
100 Enterprise Way
Scotts Valley, California 95066-3249
(408) 431-1000
www.inprise.com

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
445 Hoes Lane
P.O. Box 1331
Piscataway, New Jersey 08855-1331
(800) 678-IEEE (4333)

Intel
2200 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, California 95054-1537
(408) 765-8080
Fax: (408) 765-9904
Tech Support: (800) 321-4044
Customer Service: (800) 468-3548
www.intel.com

Interplay (Games)
16815 Von Karman Avenue
Irvine, California 92606
U.S.A.
(949) 553-6655
FAX: (949) 252-2820
Support/Service: (949) 553-6678
Orders: (800) INTERPLAY
Product Info: (800) 969-GAME

Iomega (Now famous for the Zip, Jaz, and Ditto drives)
1821 West Iomega Way
Roy, Utah 84067
(801) 778-1000
www.iomega.com

Kingston Technology Corp. (World's largest vendor of RAM)
17600 Newhope St.
Fountain Valley, California 92708
(714) 435-2600
www.kingston.com

Knowledge Adventure (Great Learning Programs, Including Knowledge
Adventure, Science Adventure, and Sports Adventure)
1-800-542-4240

Konexx Unlimited Systems Corp. Inc. (Konexx Koupler)
San Diego, California
1-800-275-6354
www.konexx.com

Landmark Research International Corporation (KickStart 2, Some
Excellent Diagnostic Software)
703 Grand Central Street
Clearwater, Florida 34616
Phone: 1-800-683-6696
FAX: 1-813-443-6603
International: 1-813-443-1331

LanguageForce Inc. (Universal Translator)
2860 N Santiago Blvd.
Suite #210
Orange, California 92867
Orders: 1-888-837-8887
Phone: 1-714-279-9080
FAX: 1-714-279-9368

Legacy Software (Some Great Educational Games)
1-800-LEARN-92 (LEARN = 53276)

Logitech (Lots Of Great Hardware)
6505 Kaiser Drive
Fremont, California 94555 USA
Orders: 1-800-732-3025
Tech Support: 1-415-795-8500

Lotus (Some Good Productivity Programs)
55 Cambridge Parkway
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
1-800-343-5414
1-617-577-8500

LucasArts Games (Some Good Games)
P.O. Box 10307
San Rafael, California 94912 USA
1-415-721-3300

Macromedia, Inc.
600 Townsend Street
San Francisco, California 94103
1-800-945-9354
(415) 252-2000
www.macromedia.com

Mallard Software (Lots Of Excellent Flight Sims And Add-On For
Microsoft Flight Simulator)
Orders And Tech Support: 1-800-WEB-FEET

Maplesoft (Maple, the math software)
615 Kumpf Drive
Waterloo, Ontario N2V 1K8
Canada
(519) 747-2373
(800) 267-6583
Fax: (519) 747-5284

Maxell (Storage media)
22-08 Route 208
Fair Lawn, New Jersey 07410
(800) 533-2836
Fax: (201) 796-8790

Maxis Software, Inc. (Lots Of Good Stuff, Esp. Sims)
2 Theatre Square, Suite 230
Orinda, California 94563
1-800-336-2447
1-510-254-9700

Maxtor (Hard disk drives)
211 River Oaks Parkway
San Jose, California 95134
(408) 432-1700
www.maxtor.com

McAfee Associates (Anti-virus software)
2710 Walsh Ave.
Santa Clara, California 95051
(408) 988-3832
www.mcafee.com

MECC (Some Educational Software)
6160 Summit Drive North
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55430
USA
1-800-685-6322

MediaVision, Inc. (ProAudio Spectrum, a sound card that gave the Sound
  Blaster some serious competition in the mid-1990s)
47300 Bayside Parkway
Fremont, California 94538
(800) 638-2807
(510) 770-8600
Technical Support: (510) 770-9905
FAX: (510) 770-8648
BBS: (510) 770-0527
www.mediavis.com

Merit Software (Nothing Special)
13707 Gamma Road
Dallas, Texas 75244
1-214-385-2353

MICROGRAFX (Designer, Charisma)
1303 East Arapaho Road
Richardson, Texas 75081
1-800-733-3729
1-214-234-1769

MicroHelp (HighEdit)
4359 Shallowford Industrial Parkway
Marietta, Georgia 30066
U.S.A.
1-404-516-0898

MicroProse Simulation Software (Great Sims, Including F-19 Stealth
Fighter, Gunship 2000, & Jump Jet)
180 Lakefront Drive
Hunt Valley, Maryland, 21030 USA
1-800-245-4525
1-410-771-1151
1-301-771-1151

Microsoft Corp. (Windows, MS-DOS, etc.)
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052 USA
1-800-426-9400
1-206-882-8080
(NOTE: Microsoft Way is a small road which branches off 157th Avenue
NE, which in turn branches off 156th Avenue NE.)

MidiSoft (MIDI Software)
1-206-881-7176

Mindplay
Distributed By Electronic Arts

Mindscape (Paperboy)

Musicware (Music Software)
1-800-997-4266

Musitek (MIDISCAN)
1-800-676-8055

Mustang Software (Wildcat!, the BBS software)
P.O. Box 2264
Bakersfield, California 93303
(805) 873-2500
www.mustang.com

National Laboratories Public Affairs (CDs With 100 Times More Space
Than The Average CD)
Attn: Darryl Armstrong
PO Box 2008
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831
USA
1-615-574-4160
FAX: 1-615-574-0595

National Semiconductor Corp. (Very well-known chip manufacturer)
2900 Semiconductor Dr.
Santa Clara, California 95051
(408) 721-5000
BBS: (408) 245-0671
www.nsc.com

NEC Corp. (Printers And Other Stuff)
1-10, Nisshincho
Tokyo, 183 Japan

Netscape Communications Corporation (Netscape the browser)
501 East Middlefield Road
Mountain View, California 94043
(650) 254-1900
Fax: (650) 528-4124

New Generation Software (WinRoach)
P.O. Box 890482
Houston, Texas 77289
U.S.A.
Orders: 1-800-964-7638
Tech Support: 1-713-283-6760
FAX: 1-504-528-3736

New World Computing (Empire Deluxe)
PO BOX 4302
Hollywood, California 90078 USA
1-800-325-8898
Outside US: 1-818-999-0607

NovaLogic (Comanche: Maximum Overkill)
Distributed By Electronic Arts

Novell, Inc. (NetWare)
122 East 1700 South
Provo, Utah 84606
(801) 379-5588
Sales: (800) 526-7937
Tech Support: (800) 858-4000
BBS: (801) 429-3030
(In 1998, Novell constructed a new campus in downtown San Jose, as
Utah was not exactly a center of technological innovation. The San Jose
campus has tennis, volleyball, and basketball courts, a restaurant, and a
gym. Address for this campus is as follows:)
Novell, Inc.
2211 North 1st Street
San Jose, California
(408) 967-5000
FAX: (408) 967-5017
www.novell.com

Oracle (The Oracle database software)
500 Oracle Parkway
Redwood Shores, California 94065

Origin (Wing Commander, Strike Commander)
PO BOX 161750 
Austin, TX 78716 USA
Orders: 1-800-999-4939
Customer Service & Tech Support: 1-512-328-0282

Packard Bell (Cheap computers)
6041 Variel Avenue
Woodland Hills, California 91367
(818) 673-4800
www.packardbell.com

Passport Technologies (Encore)
100 Stone Pine Road
Half Moon Bay, California 94019 USA
Phone: (415) 726-0280
Fax: (415) 726-2254

PC Dynamics (Energizer Bunny Screen Saver)
31332 Via Colinas #102
Westlake Village, California 91362 USA
1-800-888-1741
FAX: 1-818-889-1014

PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association)
2635 N. First Street
Suite 209
San Jose, California 95134
(408) 433-2273
Fax: (408) 433-9558
BBS: (408) 433-2270
www.pc-card.com

PC Power And Cooling, Inc. (Possibly the most-praised power supply
  company)
5995 Avenida Encinas
Carlsbad, California 92008
(619) 931-5700
www.pcpowercooling.com

Phoenix Technologies (BIOSes)
411 East Plumeria Drive
San Jose, California 95134
(408) 570-1000
www.phoenix.com

PKWare, Inc. (PKZIP, PKUNZIP, etc.)
9025 North Deerwood Drive
Brown Deer, Wisconsin 53223
(Formerly:
7545 North Port Washington Road
Glendale, WI 53217)
(414) 354-8699
Fax: (414) 354-8559
BBS: (414) 354-8670
www.pkware.com

Plextor (CD-ROM drives)
4255 Burton Drive
Santa Clara, California 95054
(408) 980-1838
www.plextor.com

Port Inc. (SureLink Retractable Telephone Cord)
Norwalk, Connecticut
1-800-242-3133
1-203-866-0221
www.port.com

Presidio Software (3D Workshop)
Distributed By Brown-Wagh Publishing
160 Knowles Drive
Los Gatos, California 95030 USA
1-408-378-3838

Programmer's Warehouse (Sound Explosion)
8283 North Hayden Road, Suite 195
Scottsdale, Arizona 85258 USA
1-800-323-1809
FAX: 1-602-443-0659

Psygnosis (Lemmings)
29, Saint Mary's Court
Brookline, Massachusetts 02146 USA

Public Software Library (WinZIP 5.0)
Orders: 1-800-242-4775

Quantum (Hard disk drives)
500 McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, California 95035
(408) 894-4000
www.quantum.com

Quill (Information On Recycling Laser Printer Ink Cartridges)
100 Schelter Road
Lincolnshire, Illinois 60069
USA
1-708-634-4800

Radio Shack
100 G Throckmorton Street #1700
Fort Worth, Texas 76102
(817) 390-3011
Fax: (817) 390-2774
www.radioshack.com

ReadySoft (A number of games, most of them amazingly mediocre)
30 Wertheim Court, Suite 2
Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 1B9
Canada
(905) 731-4175
Fax: (905) 764-8867

Realism Entertainment (Some Great Sims & Games, Including Vikings)
6N522 Pine Street
Bensenville, IL 60106 USA
1-708-595-7487

Road Warrior International (Equipment For Portable Computers)
Fountain Valley, California
1-800-274-4277
1-714-418-1400
warrior.com

Roch Inc. (Legtop Podeum)
1-800-226-4902

Roland (MIDI equipment)
7200 Dominion Circle
Los Angeles, California 90040
(213) 685-5141
Fax: (213) 722-0911
www.rolandus.com

S3 (Video chipsets)
2841 Mission College Blvd.
P.O. Box 58058
Santa Clara, California 95052-8058
(408) 588-8000
www.s3.com

Santa Cruz Operation (SCO, makers of SCO UNIX)
425 Encinal Street
Santa Cruz, California 95060
(831) 425-7222
Fax: (831) 458-4227
www.sco.com

Seagate (Largest hard disk drive manufacturer in the world)
920 Disc Drive
Scotts Valley, California 95066
(714) 641-2500
Fax: (408) 429-6356
www.seagate.com

S Software (Shareware Explosion CD-ROM)
2880 Bergey Road
Department 600BM
Hatfield, Pennsylvania 19440
U.S.A.
1-215-997-2470

Server Technology (Remote Power On/Off)
1288 Hammerwood
Sunnyvale, California
94089
U.S.A.
Orders: 1-800-835-1515
Tech Support: 1-408-745-0300
FAX: 1-418-745-0392

Sierra-On-Line
PO BOX 485
Coarsegold, California 93614 USA
Hints: Outside California: 1-900-370-KLUE
Inside California: 1-900-370-5113
BBS: 1-209-683-4463 2400/1200 BPS, 8 Data, N Parity, 1 Stop Bit
Sales Department: 1-800-326-6654
Outside US: 1-209-683-4468
Customer Service & Tech Support: 1-209-683-8989
The Sierra Network: 1-800-SIERRA-1

Signature Software (WriteType, PenFont)
Orders: 1-800-925-8840
Tech Support:1-503-386-3221

Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI)
2011 North Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, California 94043-1389
www.sgi.com

Software To Go (STG) (Gamefest)
630 Kipling Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M8Z 5S2
1-416-251-9777

Sonera Technologies (DisplayMate For Windows)
1-800-932-6323
1-908-747-6886
www.displaymate.com

SPA (Software Pulisher's Association)
1101 Connecticut Avenue NW
Suite 901
Washington, DC 20036 USA
SPA Piracy Hotline: 1-800-388-PIR8

Spectrum Holobyte, Inc. (Tetris, VETTE!)
2490 Mariner Square Loop
Alameda, California 94501 USA
Orders: 1-800-695-GAME
Tech Support: 1-510-522-1164
A Division of SPHERE, INC.
2061 Challenger Drive
Alameda, California 94501 USA

Squiggle Star Software, Inc. (O.J.: The Screen Saver)
London, Ontario
Canada
1-800-257-9109

subLOGIC (The Computer Flight People)
Orders: 1-800-637-4983
Questions And Tech Support: 1-217-359-8482
FAX: 1-217-352-1472

Suncom Technologies (Some Great Joysticks, Including The FX 2000)
290 Palatine Road
Wheeling, Illinois 60090
(312) 459-8000
1-708-647-4040

Sun Microsystems
901 San Antonio Road
Palo Alto, California 94303

Symantec (A lot of software, most notably the Norton Utilities) World
Headquarters
10201 Torre Ave.
Cupertino, California 95014
(800) 441-7234
www.symantec.com

Taito (Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid)

TEGL Systems Corporation (Some Interesting Shareware Games)
Suite 780, 789 West Pender Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada, V6C 1H2
1-604-669-2577
FAX: 1-604-688-9530
Technical Support: 1-604-681-0914

The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks (EasyKeys)
1-800-226-0212

The Cobb Group (Periodic Software Journals)
Customer Relations: 1-800-223-8720

The Learning Company (A Variety Of Fun Educational Games)
6493 Kaiser Drive
Fremont, California 94555 USA
1-800-852-2255

The Software Toolworks (Chessmaster, Life & Death)
60 Leveroni Court
Novato, California 94949 USA
1-800-234-3088
1-415-345-5900

Three-Sixty (Some Good Games)
Distributed By Electronis Arts
PO BOX 7530
San Mateo, California 94403
USA
Orders: 1-800-245-4525
Questions & Tech Support: 1-408-879-9144

Trident Microsystems (Video chipsets and video cards)
189 North Bernado Ave.
Mountain View, California 94043
(650) 691-9211
www.tridentmicro.com

Underwriters Laboratories (UL)
333 Pfingsten Road
Northbrook, Illinois 60062-2096
(847) 272-8800
Fax: (847) 272-8129
www.ul.com

U.S. Robotics (The world's leading modem company)
1565 Charleston Road
Mountain View, California 94043
(800) 881-7256
(415) 237-6000

V Communications (System Commander 3.05)
1-800-648-8266
1-408-296-4224
www.v-com.com

Verbatim (Storage media)
1200 WT Harris Blvd.
Charlotte, North Carolina 28262
(704) 547-6500
www.verbatimcorp.com

VESA Standards (The VESA standard for SVGA video card
compatibility) 2150 North First Street
Suite 440
San Jose, California 95131-2029
(408) 435-0333
www.vesa.org

VIA Technologies (Chipsets)
1045 Mission Court
Fremont, California 94539
(510) 683-3300
www.viatech.com

Virgin Games (Monopoly Deluxe)
1-800-VRG-IN07

Virtual Reality Labs, Inc. (Vistapro)
2341 Ganador Ct.
San Luis Obispo, California 93401 USA
1-800-829-VRLI
1-805-545-8515
FAX: 1-805-781-2259

Vital Technologies (The Star Trek Tricorder Mark 1)
1-800-263-0096

VLSI Technology (Chipsets)
1109 McKay Drive
San Jose, California 95131
(408) 434-3000
www.vlsi.com

Walt Disney Software (Some Excellent Programs, Including Stunt Island)
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, California 91521 USA
1-800-688-1520

Western Digital Corporation (Hard disk drives)
8105 Irvine Center Drive
Irvine, California 92618
(714) 932-5000
Sales: (800) 832-4778
Fax: (714) 932-4012
BBS: (714) 753-1068
www.westerndigital.com

WordPerfect (WordPerfect) (Wow!)
1555 North Technology Way
Orem, Utah 84057 USA

Xerox
Xerox Square
Rochester, New York 14644
(203) 968-3000
Fax: (203) 968-3368

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
3333 Coyote Hill Road
Palo Alto, California 94304
(650) 812-4000
www.parc.xerox.com

Yahoo! Inc. (The Web's most popular portal site)
3420 Central Expressway
Santa Clara, California 95051
(408) 731-3300
Fax: (408) 731-3301

Zilog (The Z80 CPU)
910 East Hamilton Avenue
Campbell, California 95008
(408) 558-8500
Fax: (408) 558-8300
www.zilog.com

Particular Downloads From Particular Places:

NOTE: Below are detailed some particular files that I have seen available
for download in particular places. I understand that some of these places
may be difficult for you to access (because of long-distance charges, for
example) so you don't have to download all this stuff... This is just a list
of interesting stuff I've found which I feel could be potentially useful or
interesting to other people... But if you don't want to download all this,
that's all right.

THE SIERRA BBS (1-206-644-0112) (No Parity, 8 Data Bits, 1 Stop
Bit, MNP 5, V.32/V.42, 300/1200/2400/9600 baud):

1. HACKER.EXE. (HACKER 1.2.) Stick into a directory on your hard
disk called HACKER. Then run HACKER.EXE. ($20 Registration. To
register, read SHAREWARE NOTICE in HACKER.DOC. The
registration form is at the end of HACKER.DOC.)

2. Other:

BUSHSAVE.ZIP (George Bush Screen Saver 1.0) (BUSHSAVE) ($10
Registration. To register, following instructions you get after running the
screen saver and pressing a key to exit.)
LABS.ZIP (Software Labs Software Pack) (LABS) (Register Marooned
Again 2.0 for whatever amount you like, following instructions in
MAROONED.DOC. Register Giant Space Slug 1.0 for whatever amount
you like, following instructions in SLUG.DOC. Register Gamescape 1.0
for $59, following instructions in GSCAPE.DOC.)
LABSARCA.ZIP (Software Labs Arcade Pack) (LABS\LABSARCA)
(Register ALDO At $15, following instructions in ALDO.DOC. Register
Breakout at $10, following instructions in BREAKOUT.DOC, and
register EGA-ROIDS at $5 following instructions upon startup before the
game begins.)
PICEM21.EXE (PICEM 2.1) (PICEM) (Freeware)
VPIC60C.ZIP (VPIC 6.0c) (VPIC) ($30 Registration after 10-day trial
period. Follow instructions you get after exiting the VPIC.EXE program,
as well as in VPIC.DOC.)
BEGIN.ZIP (Begin 1.65) (BEGIN) (Any registration accepted, but $15
recommended, so you can get the Advanced Simulations Manual. Follow
instructions in BEGIN.MAN.)
BREAKCT.ZIP (Break 1.2) (BREAK) ($25 registration for a file server,
or $250 for unlimited registration. Follow instructions in BREAK.DOC.)
BATLITE.ZIP (BatLite 1.5) (BATLITE) ($25 registration (optional).
Follow instructions in REGISTER.TXT.)
EYES.ZIP (Eyes 1.0) (WINDOWS) (Freeware)
SSAVER.ZIP (Screen Peace 1.2) (Place into WINDOWS directory,
extract, then delete from that directory FLASH.SPX, KLOK.SPX, and
FADE.SPX.) (No registration necessary. Charity donations accepted, but
if you want to donate to charity, do it yourself instead of through the
makers of Screen Peace.)
NEKO.ZIP (Neko For Windows 1.0) (WINDOWS) (Freeware)
VIRUSIMU.ZIP (Virus Simulation Suite 1.0) (VIRUSIMU) (Freeware)
FIGHT2.ZIP (Fight 1.0) (FIGHT) (Freeware)
CIAJOKE.ZIP (CIA Joke) (CIAJOKE) (Freeware)
BANG.EXE (Bang) (WINDOWS) (Freeware)
WINPLAY.ZIP (Sierra Windows Drivers And Programs) (WINDOWS)
(Freeware)
SEASN16C.EXE (Sierra 16-Color Christmas Card) (CARD) (Freeware)
ICONDR12.ZIP (IconDraw 1.2) (WINDOWS) ($15 Registration. Follow
instructions in README.TXT)
All .GIF and .BMP files, including self-extracting ones (SIERPICS)
(Free)
All Lode Runner, TIM, Front Page Sports, and Incredible Toons Files
(Free)
NOISES.EXE (Noises) (UTILS) (Freeware)
SLMR21.ZIP (Silly Little Mail Reader 2.1) (SLMR) (Registrations No
Longer Accepted)
Sierra ANSI Files: SIERRA.ANS, QS-SIERR.VNT, and
CAMELOT2.ZIP (ANSI) (Free)
All .ICO files (WINDOWS) (Free)
BBSMAN.EXE (Sierra BBS Manual) (SIERRA) (Free)
All Quest For Glory .SAV files (Place in your respective QFG games
directories) (Free)
UNVESA32.ZIP (Universal VESA Driver, Version 3.2) (UNIVESA)
(Free)

THE MICROSOFT BBS (1-206-936-6735)

(No currently known files good for download)

PC MAGNET (Type GO PCMAG On CompuServe) (Place all these
files into your UTILS directory)

SWEEP.COM
CHANGE.COM
FREEZE.COM
NO.COM
FREE.COM
COLORSET.COM
NPAD.COM
SNAPSHOT.BAS (Use to create SNAPSHOT.COM. You should keep
SNAPSHOT.BAS around in case you want to change the keystrokes for
SNAPSHOT.)
ASC.COM
DIREX.COM
XDIR.COM
VISITYPE.COM
PLAY.COM
DRAW.COM
STATUS.COM
PR.COM
RENDIR.COM
BROWSE.COM
BROWSE2.COM
ATSIZE.COM
FREE.COM (Note: FREE.COM and ATSIZE.COM don't work properly
with very large numbers. FREE reports extremely strange findings on a
1 GB hard disk. Therefore, it is recommended they only be used for
small stuff.)
APPBK.COM
PARSE.COM
QUICKEYS.COM

America Online (AOL):

CompuServe:

The One Less Car (OLC) BBS (1-416-480-0147) (No Parity, 8 Data Bits,
1 Stop Bit):

BBSGUIDE.ZIP (BBS Guide)
INTERNET.FAQ (Frequently-Asked-Questions About The Internet)
FTPSITES.LST (List Of FTP Sites)
SMILES. (The Unofficial Smiles Dictionary)
QWK.DOC (QWK Mail Format Manual)
BBS96FEB.ZIP (The February 1996 BBS Listings)
WP2HTML.LZH (WordPerfect-HTML Conversion Utility)
TOCALL08.ZIP (Toronto Area Calling Guide) (Download Only If You
Live Within Local Calling Area Of 416 Area Code)

(All the above files should go into the same directory as your
communications program, and all are free. ZIPs should be unZIPped.)

TLX321-1.ZIP, TLX321-2.ZIP, TLX321-3.ZIP, And TLX321-4.ZIP
(Telix 3.21 For DOS) (Version 3.21 is actually better than version 3.22)
(TELIX) (Register for $39 Following Instructions You Get Upon Starting
And Exiting The Program)

The Super Continental BBS (1-416-221-3839) (No Parity, 8 Data Bits,
1 Stop Bit) (ALL of the below files are in file area 6, Games. You must
switch to that area before downloading any of these):

BLORTII.LZH (BLORT 2) (BLORT2) (Register For $5 Following
Instructions You Get From "Instructions" Under The Main Menu)
COOTIE.LZH (Bug) (BUG) (Freeware)
PACMAN.LZH (Pacman) (PACMAN) (Freeware)
PC-KONG.LZH (PC Kong) (PCKONG) (Register For $10 Following
Instructions You Get When You Start The Game)
QUBERT.LZH (Q-Bert, a.k.a. Bert And The Snake) (QBERT)
(Freeware)
DALEKS10.LZH (Doctor vs. Daleks) (DDALEKS) (Freeware)
DECISION.LZH (Decision Maker) (DECISION) (Freeware)
WILLY2.LZH (The Adventures Of Willy The Worm 2) (WWILLY2)
(Freeware)

The Excalibur BBS (1-416-484-0607) (No Parity, 8 Data Bits, 1 Stop
Bit):

LIST90E.ZIP (List 9.0e) (LIST) (Register For $37 Following Instructions
You Get When You Run The Program And Press The ? Key)
PGP23.ZIP (Pretty Good Privacy 2.3) (PGP) (Freeware)
JRGN300.ZIP (The Jargon File 3.0.0) (HACKJARG) (Freeware)
TEACH-C.ZIP (Amusing C Tutorial) (TEACHC) (Freeware)
UARTSTUF.ZIP and UART_TUT.ZIP (UART Technical Reference
Files) (UART) (Freeware)

Homeward Bound BBS (1-905-840-0592) (No Parity, 8 Data Bits, 1 Stop
Bit):

FSTORM.ZIP (Firestorm 1.32) (FSTORM) (Register For $22 Following
Instructions You Get When Starting The Program)
HOTEL.ZIP (Hotel California 1.0) (HOTEL) (Freeware)
SMASHM15 (Smash 'Em 1.5) (SMASHM) (Register For $29 Following
Instructions Under REGISTRATION Inside The Program)
USBBS146.ZIP (The US BBS List 1.46) (USBBS) (Freeware)
SBI0496.ZIP (Internet BBS List) (SBI) (Freeware)
SSTARS.ZIP (Super Stars For Windows) (SSTARS)
DGWRL145.ZIP (Dog World 1.45) (DOGWORLD)
FFMTS001.ZIP (File Formats List) (FILEFMTS) (Freeware)
KNIGHT.ZIP (Knight's Tour) (KNIGHT)
2002V2BA.ZIP (TradeWars 2002) (TRADEWAR)

Dungeon Of Domination (DOD) BBS (1-416-748-1173) (No Parity, 8
Data Bits, 1 Stop Bit) (Please note that DOD BBS has been non-
functional since November, 1997. I don't know if it's down for good, or
just temporarily):

SIERRA.ZIP (Sierra Game Solutions) (\SIERRA\SIERHINT) (Freeware)
HACKTEST.ZIP (Hacker Test) (HACKTEST) (Freeware)
F_WORD.TXT (Innovative Uses For "The F-Word") (FWORD)
(Freeware)
GLIDE21.ZIP (Glide For Windows 2.1) (GLIDE)
BUILDIT.ZIP (Computer Building Document) (BUILDIT) (Freeware)
95TRICKS.ZIP (Tips For Windows 95) (WINDOWS) (Freeware)
DOSUNDOC.ZIP (Undocumented DOS Commands) (DOS) (Freeware)
LORD10.FAQ (Legend Of The Red Dragon FAQ 1.0) (LORD)
(Freeware)
PSP41.ZIP (Paint Shop Pro 4.1) (PSP)
ADUDE11.ZIP (ANSI Dude 1.1) (ANSIDUDE)
INV78.ZIP (Space Invaders '78) (INV) (Freeware)
NIB.ZIP (Super Nibbles) (NIB)
ZZT32.ZIP (ZZT 3.2) (ZZT)
ADRAW120.ZIP (AcidDraw 1.20) (ACIDDRAW)
MANIAC.ZIP (Maniac Mansion) (MANIAC) (Freeware)
KCAP.ZIP (KCAP) (KCAP)
FUNKYG.ZIP (Funky Game) (FUNKYG)
MOSLO12.ZIP (Mo' Slo 1.2) (MOSLO) (Freeware)
(The files below are all freeware text files which should go into the same
directory as your communications software.)
BEASYSP.ZIP
NERDTEST.TXT
VIRUS.TXT
(All the below files are related to hacking, are free, and should be
downloaded only if you have an interest in hacking. Unless otherwise
noted, put them in a directory called PHAC)
22WAYS-L.TXT
HOW2HACK.TXT
200-DEF.ZIP
HPAV.ZIP
!BOMBS-!.ZIP
TBBOM13.ZIP
HACKHACK.TXT
HACKPHR1.TXT to HACKPHR7.TXT
AVOIDCAP.ZIP
HACK1.DOC
LIDETECT.ZIP
PHREAK1.BOK
HACKHAND.ZIP
TLABUST.ZIP
ATLAS.ZIP
HACKRA.DOC
BHACKING.TXT
LOCKPICK.ZIP
PHONE93.TXT
CARLOCKS.TXT
TELEGARD.HCK
KILLTLGD.TXT
ASSREN.TXT
CELL-PHR.TXT
THU_HACK.BBS
HAKBBS.ZIP
CELLINFO.ZIP
CALLERID.TXT
HACK.ZIP (Put in INETHACK directory)
CELLA-Z.ZIP (CELLAZ)
UNIXACCT.ZIP (UNIXHACK)
BOXES.ZIP (BOXES)
RISCCARD.ZIP (CMASTER3)
HACKERS.ZIP (HACKBOOK)

Original Sin BBS (1-416-657-8544) (No Parity, 8 Data Bits, 1 Stop Bit):

URINAL.TXT (Urinal Text File) (Whatever directory you please)
(Freeware)

THE INTERNET:

Wind Chimes, Kaleidoscope and Cool Edit '97 are three excellent
programs. All three should be downloaded from www.syntrillium.com.

mIRC 5.41 32bit is an excellent IRC client program and should be
downloaded from the official mIRC Home Page at
www.mirc.co.uk/index.html. (Another good mIRC page is
www.geocities.com/~mirc/index.html.) Note that you really should read
mIRC's online help file, available from its Help menu, before you start
using it. You really should also read the "Introduction to IRC" help file
(also available from mIRC's Help menu) before starting, ESPECIALLY
if you are new to IRC.

If you're serious about Usenet newsgroup reading, you really shouldn't
use "Internet News" that comes with Windows. Get a better one from the
"News Readers" section of the Windows 95 area on www.tucows.com.
News XPress 2.01 there makes a great basic reader, but if you're looking
for something a little more high-end, Free Agent 1.11, Gravity 2.1 Beta
3, and TIFNY 2.0 make excellent choices.

If you are interested in hacking, download all issues of Phrack Magazine
from www.phrack.com and put in directory PHRACK. Also download
BlueBEEP! 0.10 from ftp.fc.net/pub/defcon/BBEEP and put in
BLUEBEEP directory. And download ToneLoc 1.10 from
ftp.paranoia.com/pub/toneloc/tl110.zip (and put in TONELOC directory).
Also download Cracker Jack 1.4 (put in CRJACK directory) and BIOS
Password Extractor (put in BIOSPASS directory) from
http://firechild.media3.net. Also get John The Ripper [Solar Designer]
from somewhere (it beats Cracker Jack). You should also get
CreditMaster 4.0 from MPI. (I don't currently have an URL for it.) And
download HakTek 1.1 (put in HAKTEK directory), Skream's Port
Listener 2.3 (as "Port Listener") (put in PLISTEN directory and your
Startup program group) and Internet Tools (put in ITOOLS directory)
from http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~davegraham/toolz.htm. (Note that's
toolz with a Z, not tools with an S.) (Don't bother downloading the
"CyberKit" program from there, however. It is bloatware which only
duplicates very basic Internet functions already performed by other
programs.)

Speaking of hacking and IRC: "Nuking" is the term used for forcing
people off IRC (disconnecting them from the server; sometimes also
called a DoS or "Denial Of Service" attack). It is frowned upon, of
course, but people still do it. A patch for the Windows 95 registry is
available which prevents you from being nuked. It is available as
Winnuke Patch from the same URL above:
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~davegraham/toolz.htm. Once you have it,
unzip it and install it using Regedit's Import Registry File command.
Note, however, that this is only a basic protection against port 139 OOB
(Out Of Bounds) type nukes. For comprehensive coverage against a wide
variety of attacks including the computer-freezing "Teardrop" and "Land"
attacks, you should first download Winsock 2.2 from www.tucows.com
(from the Tucows Windows 95 area, go to "Networking (TCP/IP)" and
you'll find it there), then download Microsoft's IP and TCP updates as
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/vipup20.exe (Virtual IP Update 2.0,
which fights Teardrop) and
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/vtcpup20.exe (Virtual TCP Update
2.0, which fights Land). You should also download the preferred nuke
tracking software, NukeNabber 2.9b, from
http://www.dynamsol.com/puppet/. (NOTE: It opens all the ports it's set
to monitor.)

Go to www.champgames.com and download all available files.

Download Super Pong '95 from
http://www.SliceOfLife.com/Official/action.

Linux is a version of UNIX that's been scaled down so it can run
acceptably on a PC. Everybody should have a copy of it. FTP to
ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux and examine the file there called README.
It will give you the low-down on downloading Linux. 

BABEL is a big text file explaining computer acronyms. It comes out
periodically, multiple times a year. You can download the latest version
of it from ftp.temple.edu/pub/info/help-net. The file you're after is
BABEL.TXT. (Put it on your hard disk in a directory called BABEL.)
On the same server, you might want to check out
ftp.temple.edu/pub/info/funstuff and get the SMILEY file from there. It
has a lot of emoticons! (Stick it in the same directory as your
communications software.)

The USBBS List is a list of PC bulletin boards across North America,
updated and published monthly since June, 1984 by Brent Yandell. It's
quite a helpful file for people looking to get started with BBSes in their
area. It now has a homepage at www.usbbs.org

A86 is probably the best shareware Assembler compiler for the PC. The
latest version of it is 4.02. It is available as A86V402.ZIP from
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/asmutl. Also, D86 4.02 is the
debugger for A86. If you want it (it's a nice thing to have), it's available
from the same FTP directory as D86V402.ZIP. Note, however, that A86,
as you may have guessed from the name, does not support the new 386
32-bit CPU registers (FS, GS, EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, ESI, EDI, ESP,
EBP). If you want support for those, you need to register A86, which
will get you a copy of A386, which DOES support those registers. Also,
it requires you to end macros with #EM, instead of the industry-standard
ENDM. For a couple more odd quirks of A86, see REBOOT.COM under
"Appendix D: Programs In Assembler", below.

Speaking of programming in Assembler, if you're an advanced computer
user who's serious about programming, you should definitely get HelpPC
2.10, an excellent reference tool for technical PC information
(particularly Assembler programming information). Get it from
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/info/helppc21.zip. (Man, Simtel
rocks! You can find anything technical there!)

Ralf Brown's Interrupt List, Release 58 is a massive collection of
information on everything you ever wanted to know about PC interrupts.
Nothing can prepare you for it. Just download it if you're an assembler
programmer. Mr. Brown's home page is at http://www.pobox.com/~ralf.

The File Format List, Release 1.00 is a list of file extensions, along with
explanations of the file types and in many cases the formats. It's by Max
Maischein, and is a good reference for people who hex edit files. Get it
off the Net somewhere.

Max Maischein's File Format List, Release 2.00, is a large text file
detailing the formats for several popular file types, including many image
and sound formats. This is the only file of its kind that I've seen, and it's
quite thorough in its treatment and scope. You can find it on the net
somewhere (look for a filename called ffmts002.zip).

"Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit", by Aleph One, is the text file
that, for the most part, made buffer overflows common knowledge. It has
since become a classic in the computer underground. Since buffer
overflows are now one of the most common security exploits in the
world, people interested in computer security would do well to study it.
It first appeared in issue 49 of Phrack magazine.

"Secrets Of The Little Blue Box" is an article by Ron Rosenbaum,
originally published in the October 1971 issue of Esquire Magazine. It
is, for the most part, the article which made "phreaking" public
knowledge. It has since become legendary among the culture of
phreakers, and is still an interesting read today, even though the
technology and techniques described within it have long since become
obsolete.

Find all the RFCs (the famous "Request For Comment" files) that have
ever been released, and save them as text files in a directory on your
hard disk for reference. You should especially get numbers 791 and 793,
since those are the ones which cover IP and TCP, respectively. Also,
RFCs 1034 and 1035 discuss DNS, and RFC 1661 covers PPP. RFC
1340 covers assigned port numbers. RFC 792 covers ICMP, RFC 1939
covers POP3, RFC 1180 is a TCP/IP tutorial, RFC 1118 is "The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet", RFC 1332 covers IPCP, RFC 1855
covers "Netiquette" (Hmm...), and RFC 1983 is an "Internet Users'
Glossary". Oh, and RFC 2068 covers HTTP 1.1. They should be
available at www.rfc-editor.org.

The legendary Chris Crawford was a computer game writer who made
a slew of well-known and highly respected classical strategy games. His
writings on computer games are among the finest. Get his greatest work,
"The Art Of Computer Game Design", from the Net somewhere.

The Language List 1.9 is a huge list of every major computer language
ever made (as well as plenty of minor ones). It's currently maintained by
Bill Kinnersley. If you want to find a programming language, this is the
place to find it. Get it off the Net somewhere.

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) standards
define just about anything to do with communications. Get them from the
Net somewhere.

The Sound Blaster Series Hardware Programming Guide (SBHWPG) is
a document from Creative Labs explaining how to program its Sound
Blaster line of sound cards. Get it at
http://www.creaf.com/wwwnew/tech/devcnr/sbhwfaq.html.

Microsoft's engineers have created a surprisingly powerful and useful
(and FREE) collection of utilities for Windows 95 called the Windows
95 PowerToys. There are several of them, and some are more useful than
others. I feel that Tweak UI (a Control Panel module which I am
astounded Microsoft would make available to the public; it controls
several options that power users would want to set) and QuickRes (a
little system tray icon which lets you change your screen resolution right
away without having to reboot) are particularly useful, but many of the
others have potential as well. They are available for download at
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/software/PowerToy.htm.

Bugtraq is a mailing list for exploits in computer hardware and software
products (mostly software). It's the Internet's main source for up-to-date
information on late-breaking exploits. It's used extensively by both
administrators and hackers (crackers) alike. For a long time, Bugtraq was
settled at http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/, but thanks to JavaScript, it's
now several clicks away: http://www.securityfocus.com, then click
Forums, then Bugtraq. Or just go to
http://www.securityfocus.com/menus/mlists.html?fm=0. (They changed
it again: It's now
http://www.securityfocus.com/focus/home/menu.html?fm=7,0,0&action
=unfold) Another online resource of this variety is Rootshell
(www.rootshell.com, or www.rootshell.org will work too). Also worth
checking out are CERT (the Computer Emergency Response Team) at
www.cert.org, and the L0pht advisories at
www.l0pht.com/advisories.html.

PC TROUBLESHOOTING:

NOTE: Before doing any of this, you should have done all the things
above.

Problem: Upon startup, your computer demands a boot disk.

Cause: The CMOS values in the system have probably been lost, because
of battery death, power failure, or some other reason.

Solution: Insert the disk from your emergency kit into drive A and
proceed. Once you've booted up, type "qbasic /run restcmos". Then take
the emergency kit disk out of the drive, put it back in the envelope, and
reboot your computer by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL. Use the MS-DOS
"date" & "time" commands to correctly set the time on your system. Run
the Norton Utilities' SYSINFO program and use it to check if your
CMOS battery is shot. If so, replace it with your spare battery (following
instructions in the manual of the motherboard) and get a new spare
battery. Put this new spare in a safe place. Dispose of the old battery in
a safe way. (Dispose of ALL batteries, not just CMOS batteries, in your
regular garbage.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: "ran out of input data" error when booting Linux.

Analysis: A "ran out of input data" error on booting up the Linux kernel
is usually the result of installing a new kernel file but failing to re-run
lilo after doing so.

Solution: Boot into your Linux system with a boot floppy, and re-run
lilo. Then reboot.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: "Couldn't set tty to PPP discipline: Invalid argument" error
when attempting to connect to an ISP through a modem in Linux.

Analysis: You do not have PPP async support loaded. PPP async support
is required for making a PPP connection through a phone line modem.

Solution: Reconfigure and recompile your kernel with PPP async support
built in. Or, load PPP async support as a module.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Problems with the modem.

Cause: Could be lots of things, but here's one idea you could try.

Solution: Have the phone line checked by a real professional (such as
someone from your phone company).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Microphone not working in Windows 9x

Cause: A weird bug in Windows: By default, microphone recording is
disabled.

Solution: Double-click the yellow volume control on the system tray in
the lower-right. From Options menu, choose "Properties". Click
Recording, then the OK button. In the column for "Microphone", put a
check mark in the box that says "Select". Close the window.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: System refuses to boot after new RAM is installed.

Cause: Could be several things. These include: New RAM is of a
different type than the RAM that was already there (one is parity and the
other non-parity, one is SDRAM and the other is EDO RAM, etc.)
motherboard not configured (in jumpers, if the motherboard is
jumper-configured) for the correct RAM amount, amount of RAM
exceeds what motherboard can support, RAM too slow for CPU.

Solution: Fix whatever's wrong.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Floppy drive light stays on constantly.

Cause: Data cable is plugged in backwards. This is a classic
troubleshooting problem, because the symptom is immediately noticeable
and conclusive.

Solution: Reverse the direction of the data cable on the floppy drive.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Full size of hard disk is not being recognized. (For example 2
GB when you have a larger drive than 2 GB.)

Cause: Could be a variety of BIOS, file system, or operating system
limitations. For starters, check the BIOS to see if the full size of the
drive is recorded there. If not, that's the problem. The drive should be in
LBA mode (sometimes called "Large" mode in the BIOS), because LBA
mode supports drives larger than 504 MB (the older CHS mode,
sometimes called "Normal" mode, does not). If the BIOS reports the full
size of the drive, check the file system the drive is using. FAT16 only
supports logical drives of up to 2 GB. If you want larger than that, you'll
need to switch to FAT32. Even FAT32, in some implementations, only
supports logical drives of up to 8 GB, meaning you may still need to
make more than one partition if your operating system doesn't recognize
FAT32 partitions of larger than 8 GB. (Bear in mind that the first version
of Windows to support FAT32 was Windows 95 OSR2. FAT32 is not
supported by Windows 95 OSR1, or any Microsoft OS prior to it.)

Solution: Fix whatever's wrong.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Computer suddenly seems to run slowly, or have periods of
"jerkiness".

Analysis: If this happens routinely, and you haven't added any
background processes which might be bogging down the system, it's
probably due to an overheated CPU. This has happened to me twice now,
and I've heard of it happening to others: Your computer suddenly runs
like molasses for intermittent but frequent bursts, and you're led to
assume that some rogue program must be taking up a lot of cycles, when
in fact your CPU needs better cooling. In my case, it happened first
because my CPU fan was failing, and the second time because I'd
installed a new CD-ROM drive and the ribbon cable on it passed really
close to the CPU, trapping some of its heat near it.

Solution: Promote better cooling. Obviously, make sure your heat sink
and CPU fan (if any) are attached and functioning properly. Check to
make sure nothing's trapping heat near the CPU. If necessary, get an
extra system fan or a Peltier cooler or something like that. You may also
find some help in a CPU-cooling software program like Rain.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Sound card not producing sound.

Cause: Could be one of several things, but here are some general
troubleshooting tips for sound cards under Windows 9x.

Solution: If the card was working before and suddenly stopped, try
rebooting first. Then, check its IRQ, DMA, and I/O addresses and make
sure there isn't a conflict with any other device. Make sure the speakers
are plugged into the card and have power. Ensure the sound card's
drivers (if any) are fully installed. Check the card in Device Manager and
see if there are any errors for the device (there are if it doesn't say "This
device is working properly" under "Device status"). Try playing a MIDI
file, then a wave file, to see if it's only a problem with one of those but
not the other. Then try rebooting into plain DOS mode and running a
DOS program which uses the sound card to see if the card works in DOS
mode.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Microphone pickup is echoed through speakers, causing
feedback noise or annoying echo.

Analysis: Sound card output is set to output whatever comes in through
the microphone.

Solution: In Windows' Volume Control program, turn on "Mute" for the
Microphone. This will not affect the microphone's recording ability in
any way (Sound Recorder, for example, will still be able to record
sounds from it), but the sounds will not be echoed out through the
speakers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Computer tends to freeze momentarily when CD-ROM drive
is accessed.

Analysis: This is a relatively common problem, caused by putting the
CD-ROM drive on the same IDE controller as the hard disk.

Solution: Put CD-ROM drive on secondary IDE controller, instead of the
primary one with the hard disk. (If you don't have a secondary IDE
controller, get one.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: "General Error!" when trying to use Microsoft Fax.

Analysis: A "General Error!" in Microsoft Fax is caused by using the
default profile, or a profile which does not have enough information in
it.

Solution: Create a new profile, and fill in all the information the program
asks for. Otherwise it tends to give the incredibly helpful message
"General Error!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Windows 98 prompts you to "Enter Windows password" when
you connect to a Dial-Up Networking connection.

Analysis: Connection is set to "Log on to network". By default when a
Dial-Up Networking (DUN) connection is made in Windows 98, the
"Log on to network" option is turned on. This option is quite misleading
and confusing, since it actually refers specifically to a Windows 9x-style
NetBIOS network, not just any network. Since almost no ISPs use such
a network, this option is incorrect for nearly every dial-up ISP in the
world, and it should be turned off.

Solution: Go to the Dial-Up Networking window, which can be reached
via Start > Programs > Accessories > Communications > Dial-Up
Networking. There, right-click on your ISP's connection and click
Properties. Click the "Server Types" tab at the top of the window. There,
un-check the "Log on to network" option. While you're there, under
"Allowed network protocols", un-check NetBEUI and IPX/SPX, since
your ISP uses TCP/IP. This will speed up the time it takes to connect to
your ISP.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: DirectX will not reinstall; It says installation is complete, when
really it leaves behind the old files.

Analysis: This is a relatively common problem with the DirectX installer.
It seems that often, some of the DirectX DLLs will be in use, leading to
a sharing violation when you try to change them. Instead of reporting
this, however, the installer cheerfully lies and says that it reinstalled
DirectX.

Solution: First, run the DirectX installer using this format:
DX80ENG /c /t:c:\tempdir
...Where c:\tempdir is a temporary directory you wish to extract the
DirectX files to. They will all go there. Next, quit Windows into pure
DOS mode, and copy all the files from tempdir into your
WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory (overwriting any files which are already
there). Reboot, and you should find that the new version of DirectX takes
effect.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Windows appears to have two desktop wallpaper pictures, one
which is "on top" and one which appears "beneath" the other one during
certain times, such as when starting up.

Analysis: Windows' Active Desktop is enabled. The wallpaper which is
"underneath" is the "real" desktop wallpaper, and the wallpaper on top
of that is actually Active Desktop. Windows can only make a picture
your "real" wallpaper if it is a BMP file; Any other file format (such as
JPG) can only be turned into fake wallpaper by displaying it with Active
Desktop. If you choose to make a JPG file your wallpaper, Windows
automatically displays it using Active Desktop, and the old wallpaper
will remain underneath it.

Solution: Disable Active Desktop by right-clicking on your desktop,
pointing to Active Desktop, and turning off "View as Web Page". The
old wallpaper which was "underneath" should appear. Convert the
wallpaper you want into a BMP file, and use this BMP file to set your
wallpaper; Windows should now make it your "real" wallpaper. If you
don't have a program to convert the file into a BMP, Internet Explorer
can actually do this for you; If you open a JPG or some other picture file
in Internet Explorer, then right-click on the picture and select "Set as
Wallpaper", this will automatically make the picture into a BMP file and
then use that for your wallpaper.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Windows suddenly starts giving fatal errors which mention a
"SYMEvent" VXD, usually when running an MS-DOS prompt or some
other program.

Analysis: This problem is usually caused by having an older verion of a
Symantec program for Windows (like Norton AntiVirus or Norton
pcAnywhere) installed before you upgrade to a newer version of
Windows. This is common when upgrading from Windows 95 to 98
while Norton AntiVirus is installed, for example.

Solution: Using Regedit, delete the following registry key, if it exists:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\
SymEvnt After doing that, open your SYSTEM.INI file, find the line
which contains "symevnt.386", and place a semicolon at the beginning
of that line (to comment it out). Reboot. The problem should now be
fixed. (This information was gleaned from the Microsoft Knowledge
Base at the following URL:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q189/6/55.ASP ) To get
your Symantec product working again, go to Symantec's website
(www.symantec.com) and download and install the latest SYMEVENT
files from there.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Windows 9x displays "A device attached to the system is not
functioning." error message.

Reason: This is an exceedingly common problem. Contrary to what the
message might lead you to believe, the problem is almost never hardware
failure in an actual device. Rather, it is almost always corrupted driver
file(s), such as an out-of-date DLL or VXD file.

Solution: Solving these kinds of problems is a nightmare, as you usually
have no idea what the faulty DLL (or whatever) file is. Your best bet is
to just reinstall the software associated with the task that yields the error.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: "Non-system disk or disk error" message when system boots.

Analysis: BIOS has attempted to boot from a disk without a bootable
first sector.

Solution: Put some startup code on the first sector.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: CD-ROM drive works fine with some CD-ROMs, but cannot
read others.

Analysis: Drive is probably an original 1x CD-ROM drive. Many of
these could not read some CD-ROMs, most notably CD-Rs.

Solution: Upgrade to a newer CD-ROM drive.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Cannot install a non-Plug-and-Play internal modem in
Windows, because Windows refuses to let you select the port.

Analysis: Windows hasn't yet detected the port.

Solution: Windows, in its brilliance, should find new COM ports as soon
as they're installed, right? Well, no. A COM port is not a Plug and Play
device, and so Windows won't find the port unless you explicitly install
it, or have Windows search for non-PnP devices. And when you install
a modem, the list of available ports which Windows shows you is for
ports installed in Windows. It is *NOT* actually a list of all available
ports on your system. (Funny, DOS can detect COM port changes right
away, because it actually looks for the actual port, while Windows
doesn't.) Anyway, the solution here is to first make sure the COM port
the modem is using is installed in Windows, *then* install the modem.
(Remember, even an internal modem uses a COM port.) The easiest way
to do this is to go through "Add New Hardware", and tell it to search
your system for new devices. Now Windows should find the COM port
the modem is on, and install that port. Once that's done, reboot, and
install the modem manually. (You have to install it manually, since it's
not Plug and Play.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: No hard disk space.

Analysis: Hard disk is full.

Solution: This is where the troubleshooting guides always get it wrong.
They'll run out the same old ineffective solutions you've heard a hundred
times before, like clearing out your temp folders (which you'd be lucky
to reap more than a few megabytes from), removing any programs you
don't use (which is ignorant, since power users probably have a use for
*EVERY* program on their hard disk), and compressing your disk with
a program like DoubleSpace or DriveSpace, which just plain isn't worth
it: It makes the system slower (because everything read or written from
the disk must be compressed/decompressed first), it takes up more
memory (because the compression program's driver must be loaded,
especially pesky in DOS and its 640K limitation), it adds something else
to go wrong (since the whole hard disk is basically unreadable if the
compression program should fail or be lost), and it doesn't add much
space anyway (don't believe the "double space" claims; Actual
compression usually runs more like 1:1.5 than 1:2, and even then, the
added space is usually "perceived" by the helpfully "adjusted" free space
amount, based on your current compression ratio). The only true solution
to this problem is also the simplest: Add more storage. The only cure for
a full hard disk is to buy another, bigger one. Or get a removable mass-
storage drive to offload things onto, like a CD burner or a Jaz drive. (Zip
drives don't really cut it for clearing off a multi-gigabyte hard disk.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: When you turn on the system's power switch, nothing happens;
The green power LED on the case doesn't even come on.

Analysis:

1. Main power is dead.

2. Power supply has failed.

3. Motherboard has failed.

Solution:

1. Plug a lamp into the power outlet and turn it on. If the light does not
turn on, your power line is the problem, not the computer.

2. Check the power supply outputs to the motherboard with a voltmeter.
If there is no voltage coming out, or the voltages are wrong, replace the
power supply, as it is the problem.

3. If your power supply is working fine and there's power coming from
the wall, the final link in the chain is your motherboard. Replace the
motherboard.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Problem: Any problem that you still can't figure out.

Cause: Could be just about anything.

Solution: Turn off your computer's main power, the monitor, and the
printer, then wait for 30 minutes. (Don't turn off the power bar.) While
you're waiting, check all wires, cables, connections, chips, plugs,
jumpers, switches, and ALL other connections, both inside and outside
the computer's case, are secure and correctly set, and check that all your
cards are firmly pushed into their slots and really firmly screwed in.
Make sure the power outlet works right (plug in something else, like a
light, to test it). Make sure you haven't dropped anything, like paperclips,
inside the system's case. After 30 minutes, try again. If that doesn't
work, call the technical support phone line of the place you got your
computer from.

Switching Around Your DOS Video Mode:

The following is an assembler program which will set your system to
video mode 03, which is the default MS-DOS video mode:

MOV AX,0003h
INT 10h
INT 20h

(Compiled into machine language, this program is 7 bytes.
In hexadecimal, they are: B8 03 00 CD 10 CD 20)

Modern programs shouldn't actually end with INT 20, so you should use
this instead:

MOV AX,0003h
INT 10h
MOV AX,4C00h
INT 21h

(Compiled into machine language, this program is 10 bytes.
In hex, they are: B8 03 00 CD 10 B8 00 4C CD 21)

In the first line, the number specifies what mode to change to. The first
two digits must be 00 for this to work, but the last two specify the actual
mode to switch to. Here are some values you can use instead of 03,
along with their corresponding video modes:

00: 40x25 Black and White text (CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA)
01: 40x25 16 color text (CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA)
02: 80x25 16 shades of gray text (CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA)
03: 80x25 16 color text (CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA)
04: 320x200 4 color graphics (CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA)
05: 320x200 4 color graphics (CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA)
06: 640x200 B/W graphics (CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA)
07: 80x25 Monochrome text (MDA,HERC,EGA,VGA)
08: 160x200 16 color graphics (PCjr)
09: 320x200 16 color graphics (PCjr)
0A: 640x200 4 color graphics (PCjr)
0D: 320x200 16 color graphics (EGA,VGA)
0E: 640x200 16 color graphics (EGA,VGA)
0F: 640x350 Monochrome graphics (EGA,VGA)
10: 640x350 16 color graphics (EGA or VGA with 128K)
    640x350 4 color graphics (64K EGA)
11: 640x480 B/W graphics (MCGA,VGA)
12: 640x480 16 color graphics (VGA)
13: 320x200 256 color graphics (MCGA,VGA)

Changing The Color Of The DOS Prompt:

You can use ANSI.SYS (loaded with a DEVICE or DEVICEHIGH
command in CONFIG.SYS) to change the color of your command
prompt. The following command makes your prompt (and most other
DOS text) light blue in color:

echo [1;40;34m

See that "34" there? By changing the "34" to another number, you can
make the prompt different colors. Here are some others:

0 Dull Gray (Normal)
30 Black
31 Red
32 Green
33 Yellow
35 Magenta
36 Cyan
37 White

Also notice the "1". Well, by changing the 1, you can do other things
with your prompt. 1 Means to turn on "bold" (make the prompt light in
color). Change the 1 to 5, and you turn on blink. The prompt will flash!
To turn off all attributes (bold and blink), make it 0.

NOTE: Two other attributes, reverse (set with 7) and concealed (set with
8) are available, but I can't seem to figure out what they do. I don't see
any difference if I turn on reverse or concealed.

You can also change the color of the prompt background (though you
can't make it bold, or blinking, like you can do with the text). See the
"40" in the example above? Well, 40 is the background color for black.
By making it something else, you change the background. Here are the
background colors:

40 Black
41 Red
42 Greed
43 Yellow
44 Blue
45 Magenta
46 Cyan
47 White

CAUTION: Never make the color of the text the same color as the
background. If you do so, you will be unable to see what you are typing.
I suppose you could do it so that nobody else could see what you're
typing, but I wouldn't recommend it, because YOU couldn't see what
you're typing either.

NOTE: If all this ANSI garbage is too complicated for you, try
COLORSET.COM, a pretty simple utility which you SHOULD have
downloaded from PC MagNet (type GO PCMAG on CompuServe).

Other ANSI Things:

You can do all sorts of cool things with ANSI, like placing the cursor in
an exact position on the screen, or programming a keypress to do
something special. Ever hear of those "AnyKey" or "OmniKey"
keyboards which automatically do something when you press a single
key? Well, you don't need that sort of a specialized keyboard. You can
do the same thing with ANSI! The following command makes your
computer type a little message when you press CTRL + F12:

[0;138;"You pressed CTRL + F12. You can do this with ANSI."p

The characters in the displayed message are actually typed in, just as if
you had typed them in on the keyboard. This usually works even in
applications, so you can set off a series of keypresses just by pressing
one key (or keystroke). The code "0;138" is the code for CTRL + F12.
There are many other codes for the other keys on the keyboard. For more
info, type "help ansi.sys" at the MS-DOS command prompt. If you want
to use ANSI in the command prompt, know this: "$E" is a code which,
when placed in the command prompt, becomes the ANSI ESC character
(arrow pointing to the left). So the following sticks something into your
command prompt that does the same as above:

prompt $E[0;138;"You pressed CTRL + F12. You can do this with
ANSI."p%prompt%

You can also draw pictures with ANSI, using text characters. See
ANSIPIC.BAT, above, for a sample of what ANSI can do. The batch file
uses most of the ANSI functions not already explained here. Other
functions NOT used by the batch file are: Save Cursor Position (ESC[s),
which saves the current position of the cursor for future use, and Restore
Cursor Position (ESC[u), which moves the cursor to the position you
saved with the Save Cursor Position command. You can also use ANSI
to change the video mode (ESC[xh) where x is a number for the video
mode (see the ANSI online help for details), but doing so is not
necessary, since the same functions are performed under "Switching
Around Your DOS Video Mode" above in this document.

Side Note: The commands ANSI takes are, to put it bluntly, difficult to
use, akward, and stupid. Batch Enhancer (BE.EXE), included with The
Norton Utilities, performs most of the ANSI functions, and is much
easier to use. If you have BE (and you should), using it in place of ANSI
is recommended. All this talk of ANSI is just so that you can see how
it works, since it IS quite complicated. I just wanted to explain its
functions.

Making Your Own DOS Fonts:

Use INT 10,11 to make your own DOS fonts. Put 11h in AH to choose
the character generator routine, and put 10h in AL to choose the
user-specified character definition table. (Incidentally, INT 10,11 is also
what you use to get pointers to the character tables, so it's a
multi-purpose tool for those who want to tweak their DOS fonts.)

Quick Electrical Fact:

In electricity, amps x volts = watts

CIRCUIT BOARD COMPONENT ABBREVIATIONS:

RP Resistor (?)
R Fixed Resistor
RN Resistor Network
RV Variable Resistor
C Capacitor
L Inductor
T Transformer
D, CR Diode
DL Multisegment Display
Q Transistor
U, IC Integrated Circuit (IC)
X, Y Crystal
F Fuse
S, SW Switch
J, P Connector (J = jack/socket (female), P = plug (male))
JP Jumper
B, BAT Battery
M Modular Subassembly, Daughterboard
FL Filter
KB Keyboard

Ohm's Law:

(E is Energy (voltage), I is Impedance (current, or amps), R is
Resistance, and P is Power (Watts))

I = E / R

R = E / I

E = I * R

Diode Orientation:

Most diodes have a stripe on one end (often black, though it may be
some other color). This end is the positive side. In schematics, the diode
looks like this:

         |\  |
         | \ |
+  ______|  \|_____  -
         |  /|
         | / |
         |/  |

The end the arrow is pointing to is the negative end; The other is the
positive end. (The banded end is the cathode. The other is the anode.)
(Actually, the plus and minus signs don't usually appear in schematics,
but I put them on the picture above for clarity.) Electricity flows by
electrons going from the negative point to the positive one. However,
long before the electron was even discovered, a "conventional current"
standard came into place in which electrical current was assumed to flow
from the positive end to the negative one. This "conventional current" is
still used today, and is the reason why the diode direction on schematics
appears to have electricity flow towards the negative side.

LED Orientation:

The plastic covering on LEDs is semi-transparent, so you can see the
wires inside it. You'll notice that one seems to jut out towards the other,
while the other one is pretty well straight. Something like this:

   
             
             
             
             
-             +


The drawing isn't perfect but it'll approximate. As it illustrates, the
larger, jutting end is the negative one, while the straight one is positive.

Battery Orientation:

On electroics schematics, batteries are represented as parallel lines which
alternate between short and long. In the schematic the side of the battery
which ends in a long line is the positive side, and the side which ends in
a short line is the negative side. Like this:

+  |
   |
   |
-------
  ---
-------
  ---
   |
   |
-  |

Making A LED Flash With A 555 Chip:

In dealing with 555 chips, I have found the following component values
to work well for a flashing circuit:

R1 = 1K ohms
R2 = 5K ohms
C = 130 f

These values create a frequency of approximately 1 Hz, with the circuit
closed for about half a second and then open for half a second. This
works quite well for making a LED flash, for example.

The 555 chip:

Formula for frequency (in Hertz):

1.44 / ((R1 + 2 * R2) * C)

R1 in ohms
R2 in ohms
C in farads (NOT microfarads or picofarads)

In general, you should keep R1 at around 1,000 ohms. R1 should be low,
considerably lower than R2.

The 555's physical limits:

Maximum values for R1 and R2: 3,300,000 ohms (3.3 meg ohms)
Minimum values for R1 and R2: 1,000 ohms
Minimum recommended capacitance: 500 pF
Maximum capacitance: Limited by capacitor leakage
Maximum frequency: Theoretically 1 MHz, but in practical usage, around
300 KHz

Transistor Theory:

A transistor functions like an electronic switch. It is controlled by a
connection which turns it on or off. Before discussing how transistors
work, their anatomy should be explained. A transistor has 3 connections,
each of which has a name. In a bipolar transistor, they are most often
called the base, collector, and emitter. In a MOS (Metal Oxide
Semiconductor) transistor, they are called the gate, source, and drain.
Both types work similarly. The base is equivalent to the gate, the
collector is the source, and the emitter is the drain. Just different
terminology.

Base = Gate
Collector = Source
Emitter = Drain

There are two type of bipolar transistors: NPN and PNP. They work the
same way, except that their current flows in opposite directions.

Bipolar Transistor Diagrams:

NPN Transistor:

         / Collector
        /
Base Ĵ\
         \
           Emitter


PNP Transistor:

          / Emitter
         /
Base Ĵ
        \
         \ Collector

The base (or gate) and the collector (or source) are the logic inputs. In
an NPN transistor, when the base voltage goes high (higher than the
collector voltage), the transistor is turned on, and voltage comes out the
emitter. In a PNP transistor, the opposite is the case: When the base
voltage goes high, the transistor shuts off, and nothing comes out the
emitter.

Levels Of Microchip Miniaturization:

SSI (Small-Scale Integration): Components in the tens.
MSI (Medium-Scale Integration): Components in the hundreds.
LSI (Large-Scale Integration): Components in the thousands.
VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration): Components in the hundreds of
thousands.
ULSI (Ultra Large-Scale Integration): Components in the millions.

Classic CPU Pins:

The following are descriptions of most of the pins on some classic
microprocessor chips. After the descriptions are listed the chips which
use those lines.

Every classic chip has a series of pins labeled with letter As and letter
Ds, followed by a number. These pins constitute the address and data
buses.

In addition, there are 4 power-supply pins in common use:

Vss: Ground (8080A, Z80, and 6502)
Vbb: -5 V (8080A)
Vcc: +5 V (8080A, Z80, and 6502)
Vdd: +12 V (8080A)

The rest of the pins are as follows:

RESET: Reset CPU. (8080A and Z80) (RES on the 6502)
HOLD: Main processor hold; The CPU will stop, send out a HLDA
  signal, and release the address and data buses; Then it will stop
  operation until HOLD goes low again. (8080A)
INT or IRQ: Interrupt request. Before an interrupt request can be
  complied with, the CPU will first finish the current instruction. Then,
  if the interrupt mask bit is not set (which disables interrupts), then an
  interrupt will begin. The CPU turns on the interrupt mask bit so no
  further interrupts occur until the current one is over, and then an
  interrupt acknowledge signal is sent out. (INT on the 8080A and Z80)
  (IRQ on the 6502)
NMI: Non-Maskable Interrupt. Works similarly to IRQ, except that it
  will take place even if the interrupt mask bit is on. (Z80 and 6502)
CLK: Clock lines. (Often, a Greek phi symbol is used to represent these
  clock lines.) (8080A, Z80, and 6502)
INTA or INTE: Interrupt acknowledge. (8080A)
DBIN or R/W: Data Bus INput; When 1, CPU is receiving data; When
  0, CPU is sending. (DBIN on the 8080A) (R/W on the 6502)
WAIT: Wait state, for slow peripherals; WAIT will make the CPU pause
  for as long as the WAIT signal is active. (8080A and Z80)
WR: Write; Indicates that the data on the data bus is to be written to the
  current address bus setting. (8080A and Z80)
RD: Read; Indicates that the data at the current address bus setting is to
  be placed on the data bus. (Z80)
READY: Indicates the peripheral is ready to send or receive data.
  (8080A) (RDY on the 6502)
SYNC: Signifies when a new instruction begins. (8080A and 6502)
HLDA: Hold Acknowledge. (8080A)

(Many of these signals are written with a horizontal line over them; This
line indicates that the signal is "active low", meaning that when it is set
to 0, that's an activation signal to do something. The line is also
sometimes called a "NOT" line, because it indicates that that line actually
does NOT perform the named function when it is high.)

PC Bus Card Edge Connector Information:

The connector which a PC's expansion cards plug into is called a card
edge connector. Unfortunately, many manufacturers don't actually use
familiar card style names like "ISA" or "PCI" when describing their card
edge connectors. They use the connector's physical dimensions, requiring
you to know these dimensions if you want to get the kind of connector
you're looking for. There are two main specs which you need to know
if you're looking for card edge connectors. The first is the contact
spacing, which means how far apart the contacts on the connector are
spaced.

ISA uses 0.100" (2.54mm) contact spacing.
PCI uses 0.050" (1.27mm) contact spacing.
AGP uses 0.039" (1mm) contact spacing.

The other spec you need to know is how many contacts the connector
has.

8-bit ISA has 62 contacts.
16-bit ISA has 98 contacts.
PCI and AGP both have 124 contacts.

Irritatingly, even once you know the physical specifications for the card
edge connector you want, it's surprisingly difficult to find a place where
you can buy them. Because card edge connectors are not a consumer
item, they are typically only sold in large quantities to manufacturers.
You may have a difficult time finding the card edge connector you want
if you simply call a manufacturer and ask to buy one or two connectors;
Most places will want you to open an account with them, and proof that
you're a valid reseller. If you're lucky enough to find a reseller that
distributes these parts to end consumers, make a note of them.

Making A Circuit Board:

People often think that in manufacturing a circuit board, you plate the
board with the copper traces which make up the circuits. That's not how
it works. In actuality, a blank circuit board is completely covered with
copper already, and the unwanted bits of copper are melted off using a
powerful acid, leaving the lines of copper which are the circuit.

The basic circuit board is really just a flat panel of fiberglass epoxy. The
first step to making it into a circuit board is to coat it with a sheet of
copper. However, the blank circuit boards which you buy from the store
are usually already coated with this copper, so you won't have to worry
about doing it yourself, unless you're really starting with just a bare sheet
of fiberglass.

The blank copper-coated board is drawn with a pattern of "etch resist",
a layer of tin or tin-lead (usually; other chemicals are sometimes used)
which protects the copper from the acid. Then the whole board is dipped
in an acid bath, which burns away the unwanted copper. (Cupric chloride
or ammoniacal is usually used for the acid.) The etch resist is cleaned
away, and what remains is the completed circuit on the board. Then,
small holes are drilled through the board to mount the components on.
This drilling leaves an epoxy residue, or "drill smear" on the holes, so
the holes are chemically cleaned, and then plated to make them
conductive. The result is a circuit board ready for components to be
soldered to it.

Motherboard DIP Switches:

The IBM PC and XT had DIP switches on their motherboard to
configure certain aspects of operation. The XT had only one block of 8
switches, while the PC had that one plus a second 8-switch block for
selecting how much memory was installed.

Switch Block 1 (PC and XT):

Switch 1 (PC): When on, do not boot from floppy drives. When off, boot
from floppy drives.
Switch 1 (XT): When on, perform continuous looping POST. When off,
perform normal POST.
Switch 2: Turn off if math coprocessor installed. Turn on if math
coprocessor not installed.
Switches 3 and 4: Used to indicate which banks have memory installed.
If both switches are on, only bank 0 has memory (so there is 64K of
memory). If 3 is off but 4 is on, banks 0 and 1 have memory (128K). If
3 is on but 4 is off, banks 0, 1, and 2 have memory (192K). If both 3
and 4 are off, all 4 banks have memory (256K).
Switches 5 and 6: Used to indicate video adapter type. If both switches
are off, a monochrome card is assumed to be installed. If 5 is off but 6
is on, a CGA card running in 40x25 character mode is installed. If 5 is
on but 6 is off, a CGA card in 80x25 character mode is installed. If both
switches are on, the video card has an on-board BIOS (for EGA/VGA
cards and basically anything else above CGA).
Switches 7 and 8: Used to indicate number of floppy drives. If both are
on, 1 floppy drive is installed. If 7 is off but 8 is on, 2 floppy drives are
installed. If 7 is on but 8 is off, 3 floppy drives are installed. If both are
off, 4 floppy drives are installed.

Switch Block 2 (PC only):

This switch block indicates installed RAM memory, with various settings
from 16K to 640K. In the list below, the 1s and 0s indicate the DIP
switch settings. A 1 indicates a DIP switch which is on, and 0 indicates
a switch which is off.

16K: 11111000
32K: 11111000
48K: 11111000
64K: 11111000
96K: 01111000
128K: 10111000
160K: 00111000
192K: 11011000
224K: 01011000
256K: 10011000
288K: 00011000
320K: 11101000
352K: 01101000
384K: 10101000
416K: 00101000
448K: 11001000
480K: 01001000
512K: 10001000
544K: 00001000
576K: 11110000
608K: 01110000
640K: 10110000

How To Solder:

When soldering, NEVER apply solder directly to the soldering iron
(except when "tinning" the tip of the iron). Solder is not applied directly
from the iron to the electronics. In fact, touching the actual solder site
with the soldering iron is often the worst thing you can do. This is
because, irritatingly, the solder is very often more attracted to the
soldering iron than the spot where you actually want the solder to go.
The iron seems to have an almost magnetic attraction for the molten
solder, and when this happens, touching the iron directly to the soldering
point will result in nothing more than a rounded blob of solder collected
on the tip of the iron, with no solder actually on the joint. Attempting to
add more solder will only increase the size of the blob on the iron, until
gravity finally takes over when the blob becomes so huge that its surface
tension cannot keep it on the tip of the iron any longer. When this
happens and the blob falls onto the solder joint, it is usually so huge that
it floods the surrounding area, usually creating a short with some other
part of the circuit. The reason this happens is because solder is most
drawn to the hottest thing it touches. Since the soldering iron will always
be hotter than the components you are trying to work with, the solder
will always tend to stick to the iron. This is why you do not actually
touch the iron directly to the solder. If you find your solder begins
sticking to the iron, wipe the tip of your iron off on a moist sponge or
piece of paper towel, and start over. The instinct is to get the solder on
the iron, then wipe it on the solder joint, just as you would do with a
paintbrush. That is the wrong way to solder. You solder by holding the
iron near the joint (but not actually touching the joint) so that the joint
itself becomes hot. Then you touch the solder to the joint, which will
melt the solder around itself when it is hot enough.

Also note that solder should never be used for physical connection
strength. The connection should already be physically made with screws,
crimping, or some other mechanical means before solder is applied.
Soldering is done simply to create a better electrical connection (because
solder itself is conductive), but solder should NEVER be used for
physical strength. This sometimes creates confusion, because in fact
plumbers do use solder to physically connect pipes; Understand that
plumbers use a different composition of solder (and different flux, as
well) than the solder that is necessary for electronics work. Typically,
plumbing solder is 50% lead and 50% tin, and plumbers use acid flux.
Electronic solder is 60% lead and 40% tin, and uses rosin flux. (Rosin
being, essentially, hardened tree sap.)

Once you understand these key soldering concepts, you can follow these
steps to soldering:

1. Take health precautions before you start. People who solder all day as
a job usually set up a small fan blowing away from their workspace,
which helps to carry away the fumes from the burning flux and molten
solder. You might also want to use needle-nosed pliers to hold the actual
solder instead of keeping it in your hand, so your skin isn't in constant
contact with it. Remember, the solder used with electronics is about 40%
lead.

2. Prepare the parts to be soldered. If necessary, clean the components
to be soldered with sandpaper, a file, or a wire brush, to remove oxide
coatings or other dirt which might reduce the quality of your solder. If
you are soldering a wire, ensure that you have stripped enough insulation
off the end of the wire to allow for a proper solder joint (usually about
half an inch). Make sure the component(s) to be soldered are held in
place firmly so they don't move around while you're soldering.
Remember: DO NOT use solder for physical connection strength!

3. Apply flux. Solder flux is the semi-secret ingredient of soldering that
makes everything run much smoother. Flux serves two purposes: It
cleans the area to be soldered, and it helps the solder flow more freely
over the surface instead of having the solder just stick to itself in a ball.
Both of these will make for a much better solder joint. Put a little flux
on the area to be soldered and leave it for a moment; Just don't forget
that the flux needs to be cleaned off before you do the actual soldering.

4. Pre-heat the soldering iron to operating temperature for a few minutes.
If the iron does not already have a coating of solder on its tip, "tin" the
iron by applying a very small bit of solder to the end of it. This will
maintain a thin film of molten solder on the tip of the iron, which creates
better heat conductivity.

5. Place the tip of the iron against the component to be soldered and hold
it for a few seconds to heat it up. Do not apply the solder without first
heating up the component to be soldered (this makes for a much better
solder and helps prevent "cold solder joints").

6. While still holding the hot iron against the electronics, bring in the
solder, and lightly touch it to the soldering point. Rather than pressing it
into place, simply allow the solder to run off and settle into a tiny
puddle.

7. Remove the solder, and remove the soldering iron a few seconds later.
A smooth, even coating of solder should remain. Let the solder cool and
harden for a while before you stress or move the new joint.

Being able to solder effectively takes some practice. Be sure to try
soldering some "test" joints on cheap components before you do real-
world soldering.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Using An AdLib-Compatible Sound Card's FM Chip:

The FM chip's register port is BaseAddress + 8. The chip's data port is
BaseAddress + 9. So, for example, if your sound card's base address is
220h (as most sound cards are set by default to be), your FM chip's
register port is 228h and the data port is 229h. Wasn't that easy! (The
AdLib card's base address was 380h, and so most Sound Blaster cards
will also work with addresses 388h and 389h for backward
compatibility.)

To set a register on the chip, all you have to do is first send the value of
the register you want to set to the register port; Then you send the new
value for that register to the data port. It's that simple. For example, if
you want to set register 20 to equal 15, then you'd send 20h to port
388h, and then 15h to port 389h.

There are 224 registers on the basic Sound Blaster (or compatible) card's
FM chip. If you memorize all of them and their functions, you are a very
boring person. The most important registers the actual note registers,
where the actual notes are sent. Because the notes are 10 bits, and the
registers are only 8 bits wide, two registers are required for each.
Registers A0h (for channel 1) to A8h (for channel 9) hold the 8 least
significant bits (LSBs), while the last two bits of registers B0h (for
channel 1) to B8h (for channel 9) hold the two most significant bits
(MSBs) for the notes. The next 3 bits of those registers (B0 to B8) hold
the octave number, the next bit is a switch (when set to 1, the channel
is on; when set to 0, the channel is off), and the final two bits are
unused. In theory, you can play a monotone melody by simply sending
values to registers A0 and B0; In practice, unfortunately, some
preparation must be done before you can start playing notes. This
preparation involves arcane concepts like "carriers" and "modulators",
which are the very basis for FM synthesis.

If you've done much work with MIDI using Windows programs, you've
probably gotten used to the concept of having big lists of instruments
which you can choose from and make individual notes out of. Well, FM
synthesis doesn't use instruments; The concept of picking an instrument
from a list is only possible with wave-table synthesis, in which a ROM
chip on the sound card simply holds a bunch of instrument sounds and
you can pick from them. FM synthesis uses sine waves to create an
approximation of an instrument's sound, and it doesn't come with pre-
defined instruments built into the hardware; You have to make your own
instrument sounds using the sine waves.

Below are listed the primary registers for the FM chip. Registers are
shown in the following format:
Channel: Carrier register/Modulator register
For example, if you want the key scaling level/output level registers for
channel 4, the carrier register for that channel is 48h, and the modulator
register is 4Bh. (All register numbers are given in hexadecimal.)

Amplitude modulation/Vibrato/EG type/Key scaling/Octave shift
registers:
1: 20/23
2: 21/24
3: 22/25
4: 28/2B
5: 29/2C
6: 2A/2D
7: 30/33
8: 31/34
9: 32/35
Key scaling level/Output level registers:
1: 40/43
2: 41/44
3: 42/45
4: 48/4B
5: 49/4C
6: 4A/4D
7: 50/53
8: 51/54
9: 52/55
Attack rate/Decay rate registers:
1: 60/63
2: 61/64
3: 62/65
4: 68/6B
5: 69/6C
6: 6A/6D
7: 70/73
8: 71/74
9: 72/75
Sustain level/Release time registers:
1: 80/83
2: 81/84
3: 82/85
4: 88/8B
5: 89/8C
6: 8A/8D
7: 90/93
8: 91/94
9: 92/95

And now for the formats of all those registers. (All registers are 8 bits
in size):

Amplitude modulation/Vibrato/EG type/Key scaling/Octave shift register
format:
First bit: If on, amplitude modulation (AM) is enabled.
Second bit: If on, vibratio is enabled.
Third bit: EG type. (?)
Fourth bit: Key scaling. (?)
Last four bits: Octave. If set to 1, the note is played at the specified  
octave. If set to 0, the note is played one octave below. If set to 2, the 
note is played one octave above.

Key scaling level/Output level register format:
First two bits: Scaling level.
Last six bits: Output level. How loud the note is.

Attack rate/Decay rate register format:
First four bits: Attack rate. (First stage in an FM note.)
Last four bits: Decay rate. (Second stage in an FM note.)

Sustain level/Release time register format:
First four bits: Sustain level. (Third stage in an FM note.)
Last four bits: Release time. (Fourth and last stage in an FM note.)

Actual note values for all musical notes are as follows:

C# (Db): 16Bh (0101101011)
D: 181h (0110000001)
D# (Eb): 198h (0110011000)
E: 1B0h (0110110000)
F: 1CAh (0111001010)
F# (Gb): 1E5h (0111100101)
G: 202h (1000000010)
G# (Ab): 220h (1000100000)
A: 241h (1001000001)
A# (Bb): 263h (1001100011)
B: 287h (1010000111)
C: 2AEh (1010101110)

Remember, the notes are 10 bits, but the registers are only 8 bits, so the
first 2 bits of the note make the last 2 bits of the B register (B0 to B8,
depending on what channel the note is for), and the last 8 bits of the note
go to the A register (A0 to A8).

Once again, the format for the B register is:

First two bits: Unused.
Third bit: Switch (turns channel on or off).
Fourth to sixth bits: Octave.
Last two bits: First two bits of note.

Thus, when calculating what value to send to the B register to make a
note, you must add 20h (100000) (to turn on the channel), plus the
octave number times 4 (this will correctly set the octave), plus the actual
first two bits of the note. So the formula for the value to send to the B
register is:

20h + (octave * 4) + the first two bit values

Why do we multiply the octave by 4? Because it perfectly sets the octave
bits to the way we need them. Suppose that we wanted to set the octave
to 2. 2 * 4 is 8, or 1000 in binary. If we set the B register to 8, then the
octave bits form 010, which is 8 in binary. Another example: If we want
to make the octave 5, we multiply 5 * 4, which is 20, or 10100 in
binary, making the octave bits 101, which is 5. See how it works?

Now for some note-sending examples. To make the note C, which has
a note value of 1010101110, and use octave 1, we would calculate:

20h + (1 * 4) + 2

(...Because 2 is 10 is binary.) This equals 26h, or 00100110. So we
would send 26h to the B register, and then the remaining 8 bits of the
note (10101110, or AEh) to the A register.

One more example: To make the note E (0110110000) and use octave
3...

20h + (3 * 4) + 1

...Which equals 2Dh, or 00101101. So we send 2Dh to the B register,
and 10110000 (B0h) to the A register. Simple, isn't it?

Disabling Call Waiting:

To turn off call waiting, dial *70 before any phone number you dial. To
make your modem do this every time it dials, add *70, before the phone
number in your communications software. (Yes, the comma is important,
it makes your modem pause for 2 seconds before it dials the number.)

Toner Powder Ingredients:

The official Hewlett-Packard spec sheet on toner lists the following as
the composition of toner powder:

Styrene Acrylate Copolymer: 55-65%
Iron Oxide: 30-40%
Salicylic Acid Chromium Chelate: 1-3%

How To Link Two Computers Together Via Modem Locally:

This is actually easier to do than most people think; Just run a phone
cord between the two modems (using the LINE or WALL jacks, of
course). Run a terminal program on one computer, and issue the ATH1
and ATO commands. This will make the modem go immediately into an
on-line state. Now run a terminal program on the other computer, and
type ATA. This computer will make a modem "answer" sound, which
will cause the two modems to begin communicating. That's all there is
to it.

If you want to join two computers directly without the luxury of being
able to issue commands directly to the modems in question (and the
program you are using will want to dial the modem to reach the other
computer), then you have a trickier problem. The problem is that the
modem will expect a dial tone, and immediately cancel the operation
when it does not detect one. This is still not too hard to deal with,
however. Begin by plugging the dialing modem into a real phone line,
as usual, and have it dial some number (any dummy number will do, just
something to make it think it has dialed some number). As soon as it has
begun dialing, unplug the modem from the wall, and plug it into the
answering computer. Then have the answering computer answer the line,
and the two modems will think that they have connected over a real
phone line instead of directly through a phone cord. That's all you need
to do. Alternatively, you can add an X1 command to the initialization
string of the dialing computer's modem, which will prevent it from
looking for a dial tone before dialing.

Controlling External Appliances With A Serial Port:

There are two signals on a serial port which join directly with each other,
forming the most simple electronic circuit (with one line in and one line
out). These signals connect to each other as follows:

RTS (out) - CTS (in)
DTR (out) - DSR (in)

("in" indicates the signal goes into the computer from the external device,
while "out" indicates the signal goes out from the computer to the
external device.)

On a 9-pin serial port, these signals correspond to the following pin
numbers:

RTS: 7
CTS: 8
DTR: 4
DSR: 6

On a 25-pin serial port, these signals correspond to the following pin
numbers:

RTS: 4
CTS: 5
DTR: 20
DSR: 6

When programming serial ports, turning RTS or DTR on or off does
*not* change the voltage level on the pins; Instead, it simply reverses the
polarity. With the signal off, one pin is positive and the other is negative.
When the signal goes on, the polarity is reversed, but the voltage stays
the same.

The MCR (Modem Control Register) is used to control the states of RTS
and DTR. The MCR for COM1 is on hardware port 3FCh. The MCR for
COM2 is on hardware port 2FCh.

Here are programs in assembler to turn RTS and DTR on and off. (These
are for COM1. To change them for use with COM2, change all
occurrences of "3FC" to "2FC".)

Turn RTS on:

MOV AL, 2
MOV DX, 3FCh
OUT DX, AL
MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

Turn RTS off:

MOV AL, 0
MOV DX, 3FCh
OUT DX, AL
MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

Toggle RTS (on or off, whichever it isn't now):

MOV DX, 3FCh
IN AL, DX
XOR AL, 2
OUT DX, AL
MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

Turn DTR on:

MOV AL, 1
MOV DX, 3FCh
OUT DX, AL
MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

Turn DTR off:

MOV AL, 0
MOV DX, 3FCh
OUT DX, AL
MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

Toggle DTR (on or off, whichever it isn't now):

MOV DX, 3FCh
IN AL, DX
XOR AL, 1
OUT DX, AL
MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

Using this information, you could hook up an electronic relay between
your serial port and an appliance, allowing you to turn the appliance on
or off from your computer.

Why High-Speed Buses Are Serial Rather Than Parellel:

In times gone by, people thought that parallel data connections were the
way to go for high speed. After all, they transfer whole bytes of data at
a time, rather than single bits. Surely that must mean they would be
faster, right?

Yes and no. Unfortunately, parallel connections have been plagued in the
past with synchronization problems. It is difficult for the device on the
other end to get the bits in exactly the right sequence; They must all
arrive at the same time, or else the bytes they form get scrambled.
Although parallel connections work pretty well right now, they get very
unreliable at higher clock rates.

Serial connections, on the other hand, have no such problem. The device
on the other end simply receives the bits one by one, without having to
worry about synchronizing them; It just arranges them in the order it
receives them.

At the same clock rate, parallel connections are indeed faster, because
they send 8 times as much data in the same time frame (assuming 8-bit
bytes). However, it is possible to reliably raise clock rates much higher
on a serial connection than on a parallel one. This is why the new
generation of high-speed connection schemes (like USB and FireWire)
are all serial.

Bell series and V-series modem standards:

Bell 103: 300 bps (V.21)
Bell 201: 2,400 bps (V.26)
Bell 202: 1,200 bps (V.23)
Bell 208: 4,800 bps (V.27)
Bell 209: 9,600 bps (V.29)
Bell 212A: 1,200 bps (V.22)
V.21: 300 bps
V.22: 1,200 bps
V.22bis: 2,400 bps
V.23: 1,200 bps
V.26: 2,400 bps (4-wire)
V.26bis: 2,400 bps
V.26terbo: 2,400 bps
V.27: 4,800 bps
V.27bis: 4,800 bps
V.27terbo: 4,800 bps (4-wire)
V.29: 9,600 bps (4-wire)
V.32: 9,600 bps
V.32bis: 14,400 bps
V.32terbo: 19,200 bps
V.33: 14,400 bps (4-wire)
V.34: 28,800 bps
V.34bis: 33,600 bps
V.fast: 28,800 bps
V.42: LAP-M error control
V.42bis: Data compression

Fiber-Optic Line Speeds:

T1: 1.544 Mbps
T2: 6.312 Mbps
T3: 44.736 Mbps
E1: 2.048 Mbps
E2: 8.448 Mbps
E3: 34.368 Mbps
E4: 139.264 Mbps
E5: 565.148 Mbps
OC-1: 51.84 Mbps
OC-3: 155.52 Mbps
OC-12: 622.08 Mbps
OC-24: 1.244 Gbps
OC-48: 2.488 Gbps
OC-192: 10 Gbps
OC-256: 13.271 Gbps

The Bulgarian Computer Virus Connection:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, following the fall of the Eastern Bloc
in 1989, a flurry of new computer viruses from Bulgaria showed up on
the computer scene. In those days, Bulgaria's computer technology
seemed desperate and makeshift; The predominant computer system used
by young Bulgarian hackers was the Pravetz 82, which was actually
hacked together from reverse-engineered Apple IIe hardware. Meanwhile,
the country's government couldn't afford Western software, so they
simply managed to get one copy and then copied the program massively,
training a whole team of elite programmers to break copy protection.
Surely, it must have been an odd mix, a whole generation of bright
young programmers working with improvised microcomputers on stolen
software. But out of this time period, there came more than just software
cracks; These programmers also apparently practiced their virus-writing
skills. A lot.

During this time period, Bulgaria became the world's notorious hotbed
of virus creation. Particularly in Sofia, the capital city, a whole host of
new viruses were spawned and spread rapidly throughout the world. The
most notorious was Dark Avenger, certainly one of the top 10 most
famous viruses ever written, and which caused an infection of epidemic
proportions worldwide as it was spread by software trading and BBS.
Sofia was also the home of the infamous Virus Exchange BBS, an aptly-
named board which was simply a crawling mass of virus uploading and
downloading. Indeed, this BBS was itself responsible for many of the
viruses that came from Bulgaria, because a requirement for new users
joining the board was that they upload a new virus not already in the
BBS's library. Since virtually every known virus was already there, the
only viable option was to write your own new virus so you would be let
into the system.

Despite its presence in the computer world, the Bulgarian virus
phenomenon was curiously under-documented in the media. Although it
did make a few newspaper headlines and magazine articles, it remained
largely one of those things which people talked about but stayed out of
the media limelight. It was finally given a proper magazine article years
after the fact, in the November 1997 issue of Wired Magazine, in an
article titled "Heart Of Darkness", an investigative journey to Bulgaria
to interview the people who were most directly involved in the Bulgarian
computer revolution and virus epidemic.

SWITCHES ON THE ALTAIR 8800b:

First of all, note the 16 address switches. These switches are most often
used to select memory addresses. Each switch represents one bit of the
memory location you want to address. There are 16 switches because the
Altair 8800 has a 16-bit address bus, which allows it to address a
maximum of 65,536 bytes of memory. (In theory, at least; However, of
course, you cannot address that much memory unless you actually have
that much installed, and most Altairs only came with 256 bytes of
memory.)

POWER: The leftmost switch. This turns the unit on or off. Pretty
simple, isn't it? Brace yourself, because from here it gets less simple.

STOP / RUN: Activating RUN will run the program that is currently in
memory. Activating STOP will immediately stop the program if it is
running.

SINGLE STEP / SLOW: Activating SINGLE STEP makes the program
only perform the current instruction. You can repeatedly click this to run
the whole program, one instruction at a time. SLOW works just like
RUN except it makes the program run slower so you can watch it better.

EXAMINE / EX NEXT: This switch is used to display exactly what is
stored at a particular memory address. To use it, first decide what
memory address you would like to examine, and use the 16 toggle
switches to select this memory address. For example, to examine the very
first memory address, push all the toggle switches down to select address
0. Once you have done this, activate EXAMINE, and two interesting
things will happen: First, the row of LEDs above the 16 address switches
will change. Notice they match the address you selected; They serve to
indicate exactly what address you are looking at. The actual data is
stored on the set of 8 LEDs in the upper-right. (There are 8 of them
because the 8080 chip which the Altair uses has an 8-bit data bus. This
means it can send and receive a maximum of 8 bits of data (to or from
the RAM or the I/O ports) at a time. This data bus, incidentally, is what
makes the Altair considered to be "an 8-bit computer".) They will be
showing you exactly what data is stored at this particular address
location. EX NEXT is used to cycle through memory addresses; If you
repeatedly activate it, the unit will keep incrementing the address by one
every time (notice that the address LEDs change to reflect this), and the
data LEDs will also change every time to show what is being stored at
this address.

DEPOSIT / DEP NEXT: After learning how the EXAMINE functions
work, this switch should be easier because it works almost the same,
except that (you guessed it) it's used to input new values into the
machine, instead of simply reading what's already there. To use it, *you
must first use EXAMINE to bring up a memory address*. The address
you wish to write to must be shown on the address LEDs. When those
LEDs are showing the address you want to write to, use the rightmost 8
address switches to set what data you want to input, then activate
DEPOSIT. Got that? When you're using EXAMINE, all 16 address
switches work to choose an address; After that, the rightmost 8 address
switches work to enter the data. After hitting DEPOSIT, the data at your
address of choice will be changed. DEP NEXT will increment the
currently-active address and then deposit the data *there*. (If you want,
you could just keep ramming DEP NEXT to fill the whole memory bank
with the current data value, one address at a time.)

RESET resets the machine.

EXT CLEAR performs an external bus reset. I have no idea what this is
for, but it has something to do with the external bus, and unless you're
using a real physical Altair, that isn't useful anyway.

PROTECT and UNPROTECT perform no function as far as I can tell
other than changing the status of the PROTECT LED.

DISPLAY / LOAD: Notice that this switch, along with INPUT /
OUTPUT, is in the "ACCUMULATOR" section of the control panel. It
is used to view or set what is in the accumulator. When you activate
DISPLAY, it simply displays the contents of the accumulator on the data
LEDs in the upper-right. When you activate LOAD, it sets the
accumulator according to the rightmost 8 address switches.

INPUT / OUTPUT: These two functions use the I/O (input/output)
switches, which are the leftmost 8 address switches. The Altair has 256
inputs and outputs, which can be accessed by adjusting the I/O switches
as appropriate. When you activate INPUT, the accumulator is set to
whatever is currently at the selected I/O port. For example, if you have
the I/O switches set to 00000010 (2), the accumulator will be set to
whatever is at input 2. When you activate OUTPUT, whatever is
currently in the accumulator is sent to the output port selected on the I/O
switches.

By the way, the INTE LED means that interrupts are enabled.

Now that you know how to enter bytes into the Altair, you can start
making programs. Programs begin executing from byte 0 and just go on
from there. The Altair uses the Intel 8080 chip, so you will need to be
familiar with that chip's instruction set to program the Altair; Once you
have a reference documenting all the 8080's instructions, you can just
enter in your program into the computer and let it run.

Applesoft BASIC (Apple II) Commands:

CALL (Calls an assembly language subroutine)
CLEAR (Clears all variable values from memory)
COLOR= (Sets the low-res graphics color)
CONT (Attempt to continue a program interrupted by STOP, END, or
  CTRL-C)
DATA
DEF
DEL (Deletes lines from the program. Works on the program stored in
  memory, NOT on the screen)
DIM
DRAW
END (End current program; Not used directly from the command line)
FLASH (Makes text which comes on-screen flash; See also INVERSE
  and NORMAL)
FOR
GET
GOSUB
GOTO
GR (Puts computer in graphics mode; Opposite of TEXT)
HCOLOR= (Sets the high-res graphics color)
HGR (High-res graphics mode; Like GR, except GR is low-res)
HGR2 (Another high-res graphics mode)
HIMEM: (Sets highest memory position available for variables; See also
  LOMEM:)
HLIN (Example: HLIN 10,20 AT 10)
HOME (Clears screen and moves cursor to the upper-left corner)
HPLOT
HTAB x (Sets cursor's horizontal position to x)
IF
IN#x (Reads input from slot, where x is the slot number)
INPUT
INVERSE (Makes text which comes on-screen be in reverse video; See
  also FLASH and NORMAL)
LET (Sets a variable; "LET" is superfluous)
LIST (Lists program currently in memory)
LOAD (Load a program from the cassette port; NOT from the disk
  drive)
LOMEM: (Sets lowest memory position available for variables; See also
  HIMEM:)
NEW (Clears program currently in memory)
NEXT
NORMAL (Sets text which comes on-screen back to normal; See also
  FLASH and INVERSE)
NOTRACE (Stops tracing initiated by TRACE)
ON
ONERR (Specifies a function to use when an error occurs)
PLOT (Example: PLOT 20,20)
POKE (Directly inserts a value into a memory location)
POP
PR#x (Attempt to boot from slot number, where x is the slot number to
  try)
PRINT
READ
RECALL
REM (Remark; Do-nothing line)
RESTORE
RESUME (Resume program flow after an error)
RETURN
ROT= (Sets the rotation value for high-resolution shapes)
RUN (Runs program in memory)
SAVE (Saves the program to the cassette port; NOT to a disk drive)
SCALE= (Sets the scaling value for high-resolution shapes)
SHLOAD (Loads a high-res shape table off the cassette port)
SPEED= (Sets text output speed, 255 being fastest, 0 being slowest)
STOP (Stops program execution)
STORE (Stores an array to the cassette port)
TEXT (Puts computer in text mode; Opposite of GR)
TRACE (Displays line number for each statement as it is executed for
  debugging; Use NOTRACE to negate)
VLIN (Example: VLIN 10,20 AT 20)
VTAB x (Sets cursor's vertical position to x)
WAIT (Enter infinite loop)
XDRAW

Applesoft BASIC (Apple II) Functions:

ABS (Absolute value of an expression)
ASC (Returns ASCII value of the first character in the string)
ATN (Arctangent)
CHR$ (Character reference)
COS (Cosine)
EXP (Exponent)
FRE (Returns free memory available)
INT (Returns the largest integer less than or equal to the input value)
LEFT$ (Returns some leftmost characters in a string)
LEN (Returns the length of a string)
LOG (Logarithm)
MID$ (Returns characters in the middle of a string)
PDL (Position of an analog device, like a joystick or paddle)
PEEK (Returns contents of a memory byte)
POS (Returns the horizontal position of the cursor)
RIGHT$ (Returns some rightmost characters in a string)
RND (Random number)
SCRN (Returns the color of a low-res screen pixel)
SGN (Returns -1, 0, or 1, depending on whether the input number was
  negative, zero, or positive, respectively)
SIN (Sine)
SPC (Print blank spaces)
SQR (Square root)
STR$ (Converts a numeric value to a string)
TAB (Inserts cursor tabs)
TAN (Tangent)
USR (Jumps to memory location $0A)
VAL (Converts first number found in string to a numeric value)

Applesoft BASIC (Apple II) Reserved Words:

AND
AT
NOT
OR
STEP (Used with FOR)
THEN (Used with IF)
TO (Used with FOR and HPLOT)

To use graphics with the Apple II, you must first:

1. Set it to graphics mode, with either GR, HGR, or HGR2
2. Issue COLOR= or HCOLOR=

Commodore 64 Commands, Functions, And Reserved Words:

NOTE: The command set of the C64 is less refined and advanced than
the one for the Apple II. Almost every command the C64 has is also
available on the Apple II (with a few exceptions), while the Apple II has
several specific commands which the C64 doesn't. Therefore, the C64
keywords here are not elaborated upon, as they mostly duplicate the
Apple II's functionality.

ABS
AND
ASC
ATN
CHR$
CLOSE
CLR
CMD
CONT
COS
DATA
DEF FN
DIM
END
EXP
FN
FOR ... TO ... STEP
FRE
GET
GET#
GOSUB
GOTO
IF ... THEN
INPUT
INPUT#
INT
LEFT$
LEN
LET
LIST
LOAD
LOG
MID$
NEW
NEXT
NOT
ON
OPEN
OR
PEEK
POKE
POS
PRINT
PRINT#
REM
RESTORE
RETURN
RIGHT$
RND
RUN
SAVE
SGN
SIN
SPC
SQR
ST
STOP
STR$
SYS
TAB
TAN
TI
TI$
USR
VAL
VERIFY
WAIT

COMMODORE 64 VIDEO MEMORY MAP:

In the default character video mode, the C64's screen is divided into
1,000 blocks, each of which can contain one character. These characters
are stored as 8-bit values, at memory locations from 1024 to 2023. (Since
the values are 8-bit, that means you can have up to 256 different
characters.)

To directly manipulate these addresses, you need to know how to use
PEEK and POKE. These are standard commands for directly examining
a memory address on old micros like the C64. PEEK displays what is in
a specific address, while POKE lets you input a new value to an address.
PEEK is used as follows:

PRINT PEEK(1024)
? PEEK(1024)

Both of the above commands would display whatever value is in memory
address 1024. (This happens to be the upper-leftmost character on the
screen.) To POKE a new character there, you would use this format:

POKE 1024,5

This directly puts the value 5 into memory address 1024. This would
make the letter E appear in the screen's upper-left corner, because the
character E corresponds to the value 5. (Obviously the C64 flagrantly
ignores ASCII.)

The colors for each of the 1,000 blocks on the screen are stored as 4-bit
values, from memory locations 55296 to 56295. Since they are 4-bit, you
can have up to 16 colors.

The color for the border surrounding the screen is stored at memory
address 53280. And the screen's background color is at 53281.

The C64's VIC (Video Interface Chip) has 47 registers. They are located
at the memory addresses from 53248 to 53294. The most interesting of
these are the VIC Control Registers located at 53265 and 53270. The
third bit of 53265 (which is actually called "Bit 5", since the bits are
numbered from 0 to 7 and from right to left) controls BMM (Bit Map
Mode), the mode which allows the C64 to manipulate every pixel on the
screen. (In other words, it's the graphics mode, rather than the normal
text-only mode.) By default, that bit is off. To change that, type:

POKE 53265,32

This will place decimal 32 (binary 00100000) into that location, turning
on BMM. Note that this locks up the system when I try it, probably
because it's not meant to be invoked directly. The same thing happens
when you try to turn on ECM (Extended Color Mode), which is
controlled by the second bit (bit 6) of the same memory address:

POKE 53265,64

(Decimal 64 = binary 01000000)

The other interesting video mode bit you can toggle is the one at 53270.
Bit 4 of that register (which happens to also be the 4th from the left)
controls MCM (Multi-Color Mode). When turned on, this mode lets you
have up to 4 colors in each character space. You turn it on like this:

POKE 53270,16

The colors used by the C64, and their numbers, are:

0 Black
1 White
2 Red
3 Cyan
4 Magenta
5 Dark Green
6 Dark Blue
7 Yellow
8 Light Brown
9 Dark Brown
10 Pink
11 Dark Gray
12 Medium Gray
13 Light Green
14 Light Blue
15 Light Gray

To summarize, the most important memory addresses associated with the
C64 video are:

1024 - 2023: Characters on the screen
55296 - 56295: Colors for each of those characters
53280: Border color
53281: Background color
53256 - 53294: The 47 registers for the VIC (Video Interface Chip)
53265: VIC register which controls BMM (Bit Map Mode) and ECM
  (Extended Color Mode)
53270: VIC register which controls MCM (Multi-Color Mode)

Loading Programs On A Commodore 64:

To load a program from a disk, type:

LOAD "PROGNAME",8

(Where PROGNAME is the program's name as stored on the disk, of
course.) If you don't know the program name on the disk, just type the
following exactly as it appears, which will load the first program on the
disk:

LOAD "*",8

You can also bring up a listing of all programs on a floppy disk by
typing the following two commands:

LOAD "$",8
LIST

The ",8" signifies device 8, which is the disk drive. If you do not specify
a device number, the computer assumes device number 1. Device 1 is the
cassette tape drive, which is why loading a program from a tape is even
easier:

LOAD "PROGNAME"

...Or (to load the first program on the tape):

LOAD

In any case, after you have LOADed the program, just type RUN to get
it to run.

(And in case you're curious, known C64 device numbers are:)

0 Screen
1 Cassette Tape Drive
4 Printer
8 Disk Drive

NETWARE COMMANDS:

The following are some of the most important NetWare command-line
utilities, along with brief descriptions of what they do.

ATTACH
Connects the workstation to multiple file servers
CAPTURE
Opens a spool file that traps data for printing
CASTOFF
Makes workstation stop receiving messages from other users
CASTON
Makes workstation start receiving messages again
CHKVOL
Displays the amount of space available on a volume
ENDCAP
Closes a spooled file and sends the data to the printer
FLAG
Changes file attributes
GRANT
Gives or restricts rights
LISTDIR
View the directory structure of a volume, drive, or directory
LOGOUT
Logs out the user
MAP
Sets logical name assignments for directory path names
NCOPY
Copies files over the network
NDIR
Makes a global search through a directory or directories
NPRINT
Prints ASCII text files on a network printer
PURGE
Permanently removes files that have been marked for delete
REMOVE
Removes a trustee from a directory
REVOKE
Deletes trustee rights from a directory
RIGHTS
Displays the security rights a user has in a directory
SALVAGE
Recovers deleted files that have not been purged
SEND
Sends a one-line message from one workstation to another
SETPASS
Allows a user to change the login password
SLIST
Lists the servers connected to the network
SYSTIME
Sets the workstation clock to the time of the file server
TLIST
Lists trustees of a directory and rights granted
USERLIST
Lists the users currently logged onto the file server
WHOAMI
Displays user name, attached file servers, connection number, etc.

The following are some of the most important NetWare menu utilities:

COLORPAL
Add, change, and delete color palettes for menu utilities
FCONSOLE
Execute console utilities from a workstation
FILER
Do file maintenance stuff
MAKEUSER
Create or delete users (automated)
PCONSOLE
View and change current print queue status
PRINTCON
Select printer job configuration
PRINTDEF
Create printer control codes
RCONSOLE
Access fileserver console from a workstation
SESSION
Send messages to users or groups
SYSCON
Basic all-around system administration utility
USERDEF
Create multiple users
VOLINFO
Space allocation status for network volumes

PC Chipset Chips:

The following are the ID numbers for the various chip circuits in a PC.
(In the old days, these chips were all placed separately on the
motherboard. Nowadays, however, they are usually integrated into one
or two larger chips. However, even if they are all mounted in a single
chip, that chip is still referred to as the "chipset".)

Keyboard Controller: 8041 (PC/XT) or 8042 (AT)
DMA Controller: 8237
PIT (Programmable Interval Timer): 8253 (PC/XT) or 8254 (AT)
Programmable Peripheral Interface: 8255
PIC (Programmable Interrupt Controller): 8259
Floppy Drive Controller (FDC): 8272 (Traditional), 82077 (Post-1991)
Clock Generator: 8284
Bus Controller: 8288
CMOS Real-Time Clock: MC146818
UART (Serial Port) Controller: 8250, 8251, 16450, 16550, or 16550A
------------------------------------------------------------------
IDE Hard Drive Jumper Settings:

There is no standard for hard drive jumpers, so you should check with
the manufacturer to get their proprietary jumper settings. However, in
general, jumpers are placed vertically, not horizontally, and the columns
have the following designations:

Third column from the right: Master drive
Second column from the right: Slave drive
Rightmost column: Reserved, or else used for Cable Select (CSEL)

Most drives do not need any jumpers in a single-drive system, so you
can just leave all jumpers off in that case.

Phone Wire Colors:

In the days of old, phone wires used solid colors. Your primary phone
line would be on the green and red wires. If you had a second line, that
would be on the black and yellow wires. The red and yellow wires were
the Ring wires, and the green and black wires were the Tip wires.

However, times change, and so do wire color standards. There is a new
breed of telephone wire, which uses multi-colored wires which are
banded with white and some other color. The new standard for wiring is:
Line 1 Blue, Line 2 Orange, Line 3 Green, Line 4 Brown. On all of
these pairs, one wire will have thick white bands and thin color bands,
and the other wire will be vice-versa, thick color bands and thin white
bands. The wire with the thick white bands is always the Tip wire, and
the wire with the thick color bands is always the Ring wire.

The TCP Three-Way Handshake:

The "three-way handshake" is the term for the process used to establish
a connection using TCP. It is so called because it involves 3 steps, each
involving the sending of one packet. These steps are as follows:

Step 1. The client (the machine wishing to initiate the connection) sends
a packet with the SYN flag on.

Step 2. Upon receiving this packet, the host (the machine receiving the
incoming connection) sends back a packet with the SYN and ACK flags
on.

Step 3. The client finishes the process by sending a packet with the ACK
flag on. Once this is done, both sides consider the connection to be
established.

IP Address Classes:

Class A: 1.0.0.0 to 126.255.255.255
Class B: 128.0.0.0 to 191.255.255.255
Class C: 192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.255
Class D/Multicast: 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255

There can only be 126 Class A networks, but each network can have
16,777,214 hosts.
There can be 16,384 Class B networks, and each network can have
65,534 hosts.
There can be 2,697,152 Class C networks, although each network can
only have 254 hosts.

A Class A address must have the first bit off, or 0.
A Class B address must have the first two bits set to 10.
A Class C address must have the first three bits set to 110.

Private Internet Addresses:

As defined by RFC 1918, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) has reserved the following three blocks of the IP address space
for private internets:

10.0.0.0        -   10.255.255.255  (10/8 prefix)
172.16.0.0      -   172.31.255.255  (172.16/12 prefix)
192.168.0.0     -   192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

(This is why 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2 are so popular for home
network internal IP addresses.)

Calculating IP Checksums:

According to the RFC on IP (RFC 791), the "official" explanation for
how to calculate the IP checksum is as follows:

"The checksum field is the 16 bit one's complement of the one's
complement sum of all 16 bit words in the header."

Unfortunately, this explanation is too simple and is not difficult enough
to understand for normal humans. Thus, the following more complex
explanation is offered as an aid. (It is worth noting, in passing, that the
Internet checksum is such a big deal that an entire RFC is devoted to the
topic: RFC 1071, "Computing the Internet Checksum".)

First of all, keep in mind that the checksum is only done on the IP
packet's header; It is NOT applied to the actual data in the IP packet.
Also note that the checksum field is actually part of the header, but while
calculating the checksum, it is considered to be zero. (Otherwise it would
create a bizarre situation in which the correct value for the checksum
would become dependant on itself. Sort of trying to paint a painting of
the painting you're making; You don't know what it's going to look like
until you're finished.) Be aware that calculating IP checksums is
probably easiest to do in hexadecimal notation.

Basically, to calculate an IP header's checksum:

1. Split the header into a series of 16-bit pieces. Add up all of these 16-
bit pieces together. (For this example, let's imagine your result of this
operation is 24327 hex.)

2. The result will probably exceed FFFF hex, so remove everything to
the left of the last 4 digits, and add it to them. For example, if the result
were 24327, you would strip off the 2 (because it's to the left of the last
4 digits), and then you would add it to them. Lo, the result of this is
4329.

3. Subtract the result from FFFF hex (or 1111111111111111 binary, or
65,535 decimal, or 177777 octal; whichever is easiest for you, they're all
the same number). For example, in the previous example, you ended up
with 4329; FFFF minus 4329 is BCD6.

You now have your IP header checksum. In this case, the checksum field
should be set to BCD6.

This works because the checksum is actually "checked" by simply seeing
if all the 16-bit words of the header add up to FFFF hex. If they do, the
packet is considered "good". If not, the packet is "bad" and gets
discarded immediately. So the whole point is to adjust the checksum
value so that it makes the packet's sum (or more specifically, the sum of
the 16-bit words) equal exactly FFFF.

Calculating TCP Checksums:

Unfortunately, although calculating IP checksums is a little bit tricky,
TCP checksums are even more involved. TCP happens to be a rather
complicated protocol, but it is quite reliable, and to be that reliable, it
needs good checksum functions. As with IP, the checksum field in the
TCP header is set to zero while the checksum is actually being
calculated. Here are the steps to computing the TCP checksum:

1. As with IP, you must split the datagram into 16-bit parts and add them
up. However, unlike with IP checksums, TCP checksums are calculated
over the entire segment, both the header and the data. Thus, you must
divide the ENTIRE segment into 16-bit pieces and add up all of them.

2. TCP (like UDP) uses a 12-byte "pseudo-header" in the checksum as
well. This header contains 4 items: The source IP address, the destination
IP address, the protocol number, and the 16-bit length of the entire TCP
segment (in bytes). Again, all of these are treated as 16-bit words, which
are added on top of the addition done in the first step. So when you're
done adding all of the TCP segment, add on the source IP address and
the destination IP address (both of which will be broken into 2 pieces
because they are 32 bits), the protocol number (which will ALWAYS be
6 for TCP, because TCP is protocol number 6; For our 16-bit additions,
the protocol number is 0006 hex), and the entire length of the TCP
segment, in bytes. That's a lot of addition.

3. If you've made it this far, congratulations, you're almost done. From
here on, do the same as with IP: Strip off anything to the left of the last
4 digits (this still assumes you're calculating all this in hexadecimal), and
add it to those last 4 digits.

4. Subtract the result from FFFF hex, and the result is your TCP
checksum.

IRC Scripting:

To change the response your IRC client gives in response to a CTCP
request, use this syntax (using FINGER as an example):

ctcp 1:FINGER: { raw -q notice $nick : $+ $chr(1) $+ FINGER Hey!
Quit doing that. :) $+ $chr(1) | halt }

To automatically do something in response to a particular phrase
appearing on a channel (an ON TEXT event), use this syntax:

on 1:TEXT:hi:#:/msg $chan Hello, $nick .

(This example will automatically greet anyone who simply types "hi" into
a channel.)

To automatically do something whenever someone joins the channel (an
ON JOIN event), use this syntax:

on 1:JOIN:#channelname:/msg $chan Welcome to the channel, $nick .

DoS (Denial of Service) Attack Types:

Major DoS attack types include OOB, Teardrop, Land, Bonk/Boink, Jolt,
SSPING, Pepsi, ICMP (Click), POD (Ping Of Death), and Smurf.

OOB (Out-Of-Band) nukes were one of the first types of DoS attack.
They use port 139 and are fixed in Win98 (only early versions of Win95
are susceptible, as well as some versions of Windows NT). They simply
connect to the victim's port 139 and send any random data, which
confuses the target. They create a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death), after
which all TCP/IP services cannot be used until the system is rebooted. 

Teardrop and Land are both actually Windows exploits. Teardrop and
Land are fixed in Win98 (only Win95 is susceptible). Teardrop and Land
both will lock up your computer. Teardrop uses IP (which is why it can
be cured by VIPUP, the Virtual IP Update), while Land uses TCP (which
is why it can be cured by VTCPUP, the Virtual TCP Update).

Boink (which is actually an updated version of Bonk), like Teardrop and
Land, is a Windows exploit. Teardrop, Bonk, and Boink all send
fragments of packets which cannot be re-assembled at the receiving end,
causing the system to lock up. Land uses a different tactic: It creates a
spoofed packet which makes your computer try to establish a TCP
connection with itself. This redundant connection causes the computer to
lock up.

Jolt and SSPING are similar: They also send fragmented packets which
make the system lock up, but they have the added effect of making the
packets huge, thus bogging down the system further.

Pepsi is a UDP flooder. It uses random source address information to
make it look like many different machines are flooding the victim at
once. This one is particularly nasty.

ICMP nukes use ICMP, the Internet Control Message Protocol, to
terminate connections. The idea is that if you send an ICMP message to
a server stating that a particular computer connected to it has dropped the
connection, the server will drop the connection, and the target computer
will be disconnected even if it hadn't really dropped the connection.
There is little to be done about ICMP nukes, since ICMP is a
fundamental part of the Internet and its architecture makes this a
fundamental vulnerability. (These kinds of nukes are often called "Click"
attacks.)

POD (Ping Of Death) attacks usually rely on sending a single huge ping
packet. The ping packet is actually made larger than the TCP/IP
specification allows such a packet to be (specifically, it allows for up to
65,536 bytes), thus confusing the target (it creates a buffer overflow) and
usually either locking it up or stopping all its network services.

Smurf attacks are a newer form of DoS, and they are among the most
effective. (Sven Nielsen, founder of DALnet (the third-largest IRC
network in the world), called Smurf "probably the worst attack the
Internet has seen to date".) Again, they use ping packets. A Smurf attack
sends ping packets to a network's broadcast address. This causes a single
ping packet to be sent out to 255 other systems. Under normal
circumstances, this would create 255 ping responses, flooding the sender
of the original ping packet. However, Smurf spoofs the ping's source
address, setting it to the victim's computer, so the target system ends up
receiving 255 ping responses from the other machines which thought the
victim was pinging them. And since this happens several times over (the
computer sending the Smurf attack does not only send one ping to the
broadcast address, but several repeatedly), well, you get the idea.

E-Mail Formatting:

Internet e-mail does NOT support formatting. No matter what anyone
tells you, the core Internet protocols for sending e-mail (SMTP and POP)
only support sending plain, unformatted ASCII text. The massive
popularity of e-mail with colored text which can be made bold,
underlined, italicized, etc. is done with HTML. Yes, HTML is the key
behind e-mail formatting. Any e-mail with formatting in it is actually
sent as HTML text, in the hopes that the receiver's e-mail client can
handle HTML-encoded e-mail. Most of them do nowadays, so this is a
moot point for end users, but the point is, e-mail itself does NOT have
any formatting features, okay? It's all done through HTML code.
Note that with most e-mail readers, your e-mail must indicate that the
message is HTML formatted. For example, it may have to begin with
<HTML> in order for the e-mail client to recognize it as an HTML
document.

How to reinstall ICQ and still save your contact list:

1. Back up your ICQ database directory, in its entirety. This directory is
called DB99B or ICQ99B... It has slightly different names depending on
what version of ICQ you have installed, but it should have DB in it.
Back it up to some separate directory.

2. Reinstall ICQ.

3. Copy your database backup into your new ICQ installation's database
directory.

4. Run DBConvert.exe in the new ICQ installation's directory. This
*should* reload ICQ with the database files you copied into it. After the
process is done, you should have a new ICQ installation with your old
user list and history still intact. (Your preferences will still need to be
reset, however.)

Maximum Cable Lengths:

10Base5: 1640 Feet (500 metres)
10Base2: 600 Feet (185 metres)
10BaseT: 328 Feet (100 metres)
10BaseF: 6561 Feet (2,000 metres)
Parallel: 25 Feet in theory, 10 Feet in practice (7.5 metres/3 metres)
Serial: 200 Feet in theory, 50 Feet in practice (60 metres/15 metres)
USB: 10-16 Feet (3-5 metres)

Techniques Viruses Use To Avoid Detection:

Stealth: A stealth virus can, quite generally, be said to be any virus
which tries to hide itself. Any virus which takes measures to avoid
detection can be called stealth. However, the term is usually used to have
a more specific meaning. "Stealth" viruses generally come in two types:
"Size stealth" viruses change the recorded size of the file they're inside,
so that virus scanners don't scan the part of the file which actually
contains the virus. "Full stealth" viruses, on the other hand, actually
prevent the disk drive from scanning the part of the disk where the virus
is stored, thus eluding virus scanners.

Encrypting: Encrypting viruses try to encrypt themselves to avoid
detection. This means changing their program code into coded code.
(Read that sentence again, I know it doesn't make much sense the first
time. It's the difference between "program code" and just plain "code",
as in encrypted material.) Although this may elude detection for a while,
the encrypted code must decrypt itself before it can be run and loaded
into memory, at which point it can be intercepted and halted by a virus
scanner.

Polymorphic: Polymorphic viruses are generally considered to be the
ultimate challenge in virus prevention, the type of virus which you can
fight, but ultimately never quite win against. A polymorphic virus
actually changes itself with each infection. It literally mutates its own
form, changing its program code so that although it achieves the same
thing, it has a different appearance, and thus cannot be detected by a
virus scanner. Sure, you can make a scanner recognize one mutation of
the virus, but that won't help much when the virus changes itself to look
like something else. This is not the same as an encrypting virus, because
an ordinary encrypting virus always looks the same when it's decrypted,
whereas a polymorphic virus looks different after each mutation.

Cracking Gunship 2000:

To defeat the document check on Gunship 2000, you must edit the file
GS.GS2. The byte code you want in this file is at hex locations 4EEC to
4F34. The original byte code that comes with the game is as follows:

4EEC 55 8B EC 57
4EF0 56 8B 76 06 33 C0 99 33 DB AC 3C 20 74 FB 3C 09 
4F00 74 F7 50 3C 2D 74 04 3C 2B 75 01 AC 3C 39 77 1F
4F10 2C 30 72 1B D1 E3 D1 D2 8B CB 8B FA D1 E3 D1 D2
4F20 D1 E3 D1 D2 03 D9 13 D7 03 D8 83 D2 00 EB DC 58
4F30 3C 2D 93 75 07

Change that code to the following patched code:

4EEC 90 90 89 EB
4EF0 55 89 E5 57 56 06 C4 7E 02 26 8A 45 05 98 01 C3
4F00 36 8B 37 C4 7E 06 89 F1 D1 EE 29 DB 01 CE 11 DB
4F10 89 F0 89 DA 50 52 BE 0A 00 B9 05 00 F7 FE 52 31
4F20 D2 E2 F9 B9 05 00 58 04 30 AA E2 FA 5A 58 07 5E
4F30 5F 5D CA 02 00

Then, when you run the game, the GPS system will have the correct
coordinates already locked in and you will not have to fiddle with it at
all.

EGA-ROIDS HISCORE. Files:

This batch file, MAXSCORE.BAT, creates a file called HISCORE.,
which, when placed in the same directory as EGAROIDS.EXE, makes
EGA-ROIDS show a High Score of 999999:

@echo off
echo 09 00 09 00 09 00 09 00 09 00 09 00>highscor.lst
echo rcx>>hiscore.lst
echo 12>>hiscore.lst
echo w>>hiscore.lst
echo q>>hiscore.lst
type hiscore.lst|debug hiscore
del hiscore.lst
del maxscore.bat

This batch file, NUMSCORE.BAT, creates a HISCORE. file for 123456:

@echo off
echo 06 00 05 00 04 00 03 00 02 00 01 00>hiscore.lst
echo rcx>>hiscore.lst
echo 12>>hiscore.lst
echo w>>hiscore.lst
echo q>>hiscore.lst
type hiscore.lst|debug hiscore
del hiscore.lst
del numscore.bat

Win Key Shortcuts:

Win-Break: System Properties
Win-D: Toggle Desktop
Win-E: Run Explorer
Win-F: Find Files
Win-F1: Windows Help
Win-M: Minimize All Windows
Win-R: Run

Features To Look For In A Web Host:

-Plenty of storage space
-Speed
-Ability to host commercial sites
-CGI
-Ability to simply upload your files through FTP (instead of using a  
browser-based builder)
-No server-controlled pop-up ads
-Visitor information statistics

Remember, in order to set up an Internet site with your own top-level
domain (TLD), not only do you need to pay an InterNIC-accredited
registrar the fee to register the actual domain, you also need to have two
(not one, two) dedicated DNS servers to resolve the domain name
(because the InterNIC requires two DNS servers for every domain
registration), *plus* the actual Web server to store the files that make up
your website. (Unless you sign up with an all-in-one host that combines
these services for you, as many do.) Bear in mind that although you must
buy the actual domain name from an InterNIC-recognized registrar,
neither InterNIC nor this registrar carries a record of the IP address for
any domain name; That is the DNS system's job. InterNIC only holds a
record of the ownership of the domain, and two DNS servers which can
be trusted to hold up-to-date records of the DNS information. The actual
DNS server(s) are responsible for keeping records of the host name's IP
address and broadcasting changes made to any such addresses.

Redirecting With HTML:

The following line will redirect you to a new URL. The number (in this
case, 10) is the number of seconds the page will wait before redirecting.

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="10; URL=newurl.html">

HTML Console Colors:

In HTML, #FFA000 for a font color will give a near-perfect "amber on
black monochrome screen" look (assuming you use a black background,
of course).

Making An HTML Mouseover:

The following will create a link with a mouseover attached to it:

<a href=page.html onMouseOver='alert("\n This pops up when you point
to the link! \n")'>Link name</a>

The following will create a picture with a mouseover attached to it:

<IMG SRC=picname.jpg onMouseOver='alert("\n This pops up when
you point to the picture! \n")'>

Putting Java Applets On A Web Page:

The following is the source code for a Java applet that will print "Hello,
world."

import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.Graphics;

public class HelloWorld extends Applet {
    public void paint(Graphics g) {
        g.drawString("Hello, world.", 50, 25);
    }
}

Put this code in a text file (let's say "hiworld.txt") and compile it using
JDK's javac program (the Java compiler). It will make a file called
"hiworld.class". This is the compiled applet. To put it into HTML, just
use the following HTML code:

<applet code="hiworld.class" width=200 height=200>
</applet>

(You need to specify the width and height of the applet's space, or it
won't show up. Web browsers can only run Java applets, not
applications.)

(Don't confuse Java with JavaScript. JavaScript doesn't need to be
compiled; Its code is inserted directly into the HTML. For example, the
following, when put in an HTML document, will show "Hello, world."
with the JavaScript document.write function.)

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
document.write("Hello, world.")
</SCRIPT>

Also, don't confuse Java applets with Java applications. An application
is a self-contained program, while an applet is meant to be incorporated
into a Web page. Here's source code for a "Hello, world." Java
application:

class HelloWorldApp {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, world."); //Display the string.     }
}

To compile and run this application, compile it using javac to make the
binary executable, which will be called "HelloWorldApp.class". Then run
it by typing "java HelloWorldApp" (and yes, it is case-sensitive).

Redirecting With JavaScript:

To redirect a person to another web page using JavaScript, put this into
the HTML document:

<SCRIPT
language=JavaScript>document.location.href="URL"</SCRIPT>

...Where URL is where you want to redirect them. This is the only
JavaScript in my own website; I use it to redirect people with JavaScript
enabled to a dead-end page advising them to upgrade to a better web
browser (that is, one which does not support JavaScript).

Using CGI scripts:

The following is a CGI script which will print "Hello, world!!" It's
written in Perl. The first line is the "shebang line" which indicates where
your Perl interpreter program is. It's necessary for every Perl CGI script.
The second line is necessary also, as it indicates to the Web browser that
HTML content follows. The third line is the actual HTML code.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";
print "<HTML><BODY>Hello, world!!</BODY></HTML>";

If you are on a DOS system instead of Unix, just use DOS directory
format for the shebang line. For example:

#!c:\perl\perl.exe

You cannot run a CGI script by simply loading it in your web browser.
You must be running an HTTP server. You MUST put CGI scripts in
your server software's CGI-BIN directory, and you MUST run the scripts
using a web browser directed to 127.0.0.1 (NOT just the file on the hard
disk through C:\) for the script to work. For example, if the above script
were in a file called HIWORLD.PL and you put it in CGI-BIN, you
could run it by typing "http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/hiworld.pl" (without the
quotation marks, of course) in your Web browser's navigation bar. Note
that EXEs will also work for CGI scripts. Just compile the script using
a Perl compiler into an EXE and use that.

To make a CGI input form, you need two files to handle it: First, the
HTML form, which is basically a normal HTML document with some
special HTML codes in it. The other file you need is the CGI script to
process the input from that form.

Here's a sample HTML document outlining the basic things you need to
have to make a form:

<FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/handler.pl">

<input size=50 name=valname>
<input type=submit value=Click here to submit>

</FORM>

The FORM tag gets the actual form code started. The ACTION
parameter, as you might have guessed, is supposed to point to the CGI
script to handle the form's input.

The INPUT tag makes a type of input... Since the first one doesn't
specify a type, it uses a text-entry field by default. The size specifies the
width, and the name specifies the name of the value to be passed on to
the CGI script.

The second INPUT tag makes a SUBMIT type of input, which is actually
just a button which you click to submit the form information to the CGI
script. The VALUE parameter just specifies what that button should say
on it.

The following are the valid types of inputs in HTML forms (used with
CGI):

"text" (text entry field; this is the default)
"password" (just like "text", except what you type isn't actually shown
in the box; instead, asterisks are used as placeholders for the characters)
"checkbox" (a single-toggle check box)
"radio" (a button which can have the same name as other radio buttons,
only one of which can be selected at once)
"submit" (a button that submits the form to the server)
"reset" (a button that resets the input fiels in the form to their default
values)
"image" (used for graphical submit buttons)
"file" (allows the user to attach a file to the form; often used by web-
based e-mail systems to send file attachments with e-mail)
"hidden" (does not actually show up on the HTML form; used to set
variables in the CGI script which the user is not meant to change)

(NOTE: Drop-down boxes are made with a <SELECT> tag, not an
<INPUT> tag.)

So, the HTML code we see above just makes a text-entry box and a
submit button. Whatever you type in the box will be passed on to the
CGI script! Fairly simple, isn't it? Now the next question, obviously, is
how do you write the actual CGI script?

The input data from the form is sent to the CGI script in an environment
variable called QUERY_STRING. To demonstrate how to use it, here's
a quick CGI script in Perl which simply prints out the data sent to it:

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";

$input= $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'} ;

print "<HTML><BODY>", $input, "</BODY></HTML>";
-----------------------------------------------
Now, note that the URL syntax for entering things into that CGI script
is:

http://server.domain/cgi-bin/handler.pl?valname=blahblah

(Where blahblah is the stuff you typed into the input text box.)

As you can see, the parameter is signified by a question mark, the
parameter name, an equals sign, and then its value. The question mark
is only used for the first variable; Every subsequent one uses an
ampersand. So, for example:

handler.pl?valname1=blah&valname2=blahblah&valname3=blahblahblah

(Note that all the values for the form are sent to the CGI script as one
long string. Before you can do anything useful with this input, you have
to parse that string first. This is a fairly simple process with Perl. Here's
a small routine which will split the query string into two Perl variables,
one called $varname and one called $varvalue. As you might guess, these
variables will hold the form's variable name and that variable's value,
respectively. Then this routine prints only the value, leaving off the
name:)
-----
#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";

($varname, $varvalue) = split('=', $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}, 2) ;

print $varvalue;
-----
Of course, if you want to set $varname to $varvalue, just do this:

$varname = $varvalue;
---------------------

The Meaning Of 10BaseT:

Short forms like 10BaseT are used for specifying types of network
cabling. Here's what each part of the short form means:

The first number is the transmission speed of the medium in mbps. So,
10BaseT cabling can handle 10 mbps.

The "Base" specifies baseband. The alternative is "Broad" for broadband.

Lastly, the last part of the name can be either a number or a letter. If it's
a number, the number specifies the maximum length of a single cable
segment (in units of 100 metres). If it's a letter T, that indicates that the
cable uses twisted-pair wiring. If it's a letter F, that indicates that the
cable is fiber-optic. (If it's a number instead of a letter, the two most
common specs are 10Base2 and 10Base5, which are often called "thin
Ethernet" (or "Thinnet") and "thick Ethernet" (or "Thicknet"),
respectively. Both of these use coaxial cable.)
-------------------------
The DOS Process Table:

MS-DOS (and any operating system running on an Intel 80x86 CPU, for
that matter) keeps track of programs running in memory (and the
memory addresses they're located in) through several important CPU
registers which only came out with the 286 (which is why processors
prior to the 286 couldn't do multitasking; They could run only in "real
mode". The 286 was the first 80x86 CPU to support "protected mode",
which supports multitasking). These registers are: The machine status
word (MSW), global descriptor table register (GDTR), local descriptor
table register (LDTR), interrupt descriptor table register (IDTR), and the
task register (TR). To make a rough analogy, the three "tables"
mentioned (GDT, LDT, and IDT) are to RAM as the FAT is to the hard
disk. They keep track of what processes are running, and what memory
addresses they own. Unfortunately, information more detailed than this
is very scarce, because this kind of info is only of interest to people
making their own operating system, and it is highly technical, beyond the
level of even most assembly language programmers.

Using Protected Mode:

To use protected mode, all you really need to do is call INT 15,89, the
function of which is, quite simply, to switch the processor into protected
mode. However, before you can actually call that INT, you must do a
fair bit of prepatory work. In particular, you must set up the GDT
(Global Descriptor Table) before using this interrupt. Good luck getting
*that* to work.
---------------
How RAID Affects Disk Access Speed:

RAID speeds up disk read times, because when data is read, part can be
read from one drive, and part can be read from another. Multiple drives
working synchronously reduces overall read time.

However, RAID actually slows down disk writing, because data must be
written to all drives in the array.
---------------
Making A Bootable Floppy Disk (or, Making A Floppy Disk
Bootable):

Writing your own bootable floppy disk code will make you appreciate
how handy operating systems are to have. You won't be able to use any
interrupt functions, so you'll have to make your own. (DOS is, after all,
little more than a collection of interrupts to make programming easier.)
Actually, you can use interrupts which are supplied by the BIOS (as
several are), but you can't use any of the standard INTs which are
supplied by DOS.

If there is a floppy disk in the drive and the BIOS is set to boot from the
floppy drive first, it will boot from the floppy drive if there is anything
on the first sector of the floppy. The "Invalid system disk or disk error"
message is NOT produced by the BIOS; The BIOS cannot tell if a disk
is a system disk or not. In fact, when this message appears, the BIOS
really has already booted from the floppy disk, and the reason the
message appears is that the disk itself contains code on the first sector
that will make the computer display this message. (DOS automatically
puts this code on the first sector of every floppy disk it formats.)

To make your own bootable floppy, all you have to do is insert some
code on the first sector of the disk. This will be normal machine code
similar to a compiled assembly language program. In fact, you can write
your boot code in assembler and then use the compiled .COM code on
the boot sector. Just remember not to use INTs supplied by DOS. Also,
one interesting fact to keep in mind when writing boot code: A disk's
boot code is loaded into memory location 0000:7C00 before it is run.
This means that normal assembler code, which is usually assembled
assuming a code offset of 100h (the normal offset for a .COM file) will
get messed up unless it is assembled with a code offset of 7C00. To
illustrate a simple assembler program to use on a boot sector, here's a
short booter program to display an error message and then halt the
system:

;(Program begins here)----------------------------------
PUSH CS
POP DS ;These two lines make DS the current code segment

MOV CX,4Ah ;Number of characters to print is 74, or 4Ah MOV
SI,7C15h ;Offset of message

looper:
LODSB ;Get DS:SI into AL
MOV AH,0Eh ;Print character and advance cursor
INT 10h
DEC CX
CMP CX,0
JNE looper

JMP $ ;Enter infinite loop which halts system

;The message contains a 0D and 0A (CR/LF) to make a new line on the
;screen.

message db 'Welcome to this disk.', 0Dh, 0Ah, 'This is not meant to be
a boot disk. System halted.'
;(Program ends here)------------------------------------

This program, once compiled, is *almost* like a normal .COM program
under DOS, except for the use of 7C15h for the offset of the message
data. Since the message is 15h bytes from the start of the program,
normally SI would be set to 115h. (This is what would be compiled into
the .COM file if you used the command "MOV SI,OFFSET message"
instead of "MOV SI,7C15h".) Since this code is loaded into memory
offset 7C00, we must manually specify the location of 7C15. Otherwise,
this is a typical assembler program; You can put the resulting .COM file
onto the boot sector of a floppy and boot off that floppy; This will
display the error message and halt the system. Congratulations! You've
made your own bootable floppy disk.

Disabling The Internal CPU Cache:

These are the hex bytes for a program which disables the CPU internal
cache.

0F 20 C0 66 0D 00 00 00 60 0F 22 C0 0F 08 B4 4C CD 21

These are the hex bytes for a program which re-enables the CPU internal
cache.

0F 20 C0 66 25 FF FF FF 9F 0F 22 C0 B4 4C CD 21

(Both of these programs make liberal use of weird 386 CPU commands.
MS-DOS's DEBUG will not unassemble them properly.)

Here are assembler listings for the two programs.

For the disabler:

;Disables CPU internal cache.
MOV EAX,CR0
OR EAX,60000000h ;Yes, that's 7 zeros after the 6.
MOV CR0,EAX
INVD
MOV AH,4Ch ;terminate program
INT 21h

(On some CPUs, the INVD command may lock up the computer. If so,
try omitting it. The INVD mnemonic represents the hex bytes 0F 08.)

For the enabler:

;Enables CPU internal cache.
MOV EAX,CR0
OR EAX,9FFFFFFFh ;Yes, that's 7 Fs after the 9.
MOV CR0,EAX
MOV AH,4Ch ;terminate program
INT 21h

Matching new RAM to old RAM:

There are several things you must consider when adding RAM to your
computer. The new RAM must match the old in several aspects. The
most significant are:

Parity. Parity RAM cannot be mixed with non-parity RAM. Either it's
all parity, or all non-parity, but not mixed.

Type of RAM, such as EDO, FPRAM, SDRAM, RDRAM, etc.

Speed in nanoseconds (ns). This does not actually have to be identical to
the old RAM's rating, but it must be fast enough to keep up with the
CPU. The allowable ns rating is determined by the CPU speed. It should
be noted that problems may result from mixing RAM speeds, or they
may not. Although it is possible that it will go without problems, it's
really a matter of chance, and to be on the safe side you should try to
match speeds among all RAM modules exactly.

DIMMs or SIMMS. This will depend on what kind of slots your
motherboard has. Keep in mind that SIMMs must be installed in pairs,
while DIMMs can be installed singly.

Voltage. This, again, is determined by the motherboard.

Maximum per-module memory size. Once again, depends on the
motherboard and how big a module it can take. Some motherboard won't
accept a module larger than 32 MB, for example, while others have a
limit of 64 MB.

DRAM Memory Access:

In DRAM memory chips (not SRAM ones), memory locations are read
from by specifying two values: A RAS (Row Address Strobe) value, and
a CAS (Column Address Strobe) value. Although computer memory is,
from the user's point of view, basically just numbered in order from 0
to (however much RAM you have), on the actual DRAM chip, memory
is accessed more like in a grid: First you specify the row, then the
column of the memory cell (byte) in the grid that you want to read from.
A DRAM has a RAS pin and a CAS pin on it; First the row access
number is put on the address pins (of the address bus), then the RAS pin
is triggered to make the chip read the row number; Next, the column
access number is put on the address line, and the CAS pin is triggered.

Detecting A Carrier:

The modem "answer tone" first heard when you dial a computer modem
is a 2100 Hz tone. This can be used to detect whether the phone number
is answered by a modem carrier.

   COMMONLY-ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COMPUTERS (Along
          with some commonly-given answers)

Q. What is a computer?
A. Don't ask me. I have no idea.

Q. What does a computer do?
A. Computers these days are supposed to be able to do almost anything.
However, in actuality, mainly what they do is cost a lot of money.

Q. How do computers work?
A. They do???

    MORE COMMONLY-ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COMPUTERS
     (Along with slightly more serious answers)

Q. What is a computer?
A. It's usually a machine that does all sorts of cool things, like help you
write, draw, calculate finances, play games, and surf the "Internet". A
dictionary defines "computer" as "An electronic apparatus that can
receive, process, store, and retrieve data, can carry out mathematical and
logical operations at high speed and display the results, and can be
programmed." Another dictionary defines it as "electronic apparatus for
analysing or storing data, making calculations, or controlling machinery".

Q. What IS The Internet?
A. This may come as a bit of a surprise, but there is no such thing as the
Internet. There are many networks around the world which store lots of
information, and they're joined to each other through the phone lines, so
anybody who wants to can access that info with a modem. "Internet" is
simply the term used to refer to all those information networks
collectively. The Internet is used for the worldwide spreading to people
all over the world of crucially important information, especially
pornography and four-letter words. It also covers other very important
topics, like potatoes, dust, and Bill Clinton's hairdo. In fact, that's one
of the major problems with the Internet: Most of the information on it is
so trivial that it's just stupid. Contrary to what it often claimed, the
Internet is not an incredibly educational and informative resource.
Anybody who has anything at all to say (even if it's just "Hello"), says
it on the Internet. Information so trivial it can't even be described is in
there, and insted of attempting to describe it, I'll just say that if you ever
go on the Internet, you'll see what I mean. The Internet can indeed be an
extremely powerful tool for research, provided you know where to look.
There are online libraries with just about every book ever written
available for viewing, there are art galleries with virtually every painting
or sculpture in the world, and there are... well, you get the idea. And all
in the comfort of your own home. And if you have a bizarre hobby, well,
the Internet can be a good thing. If you actually take a serious interest
in potatoes or dust or anything else, chances are good you'll find a place
on the Internet where people go to discuss it. And if you don't, you can
easily (well, fairly easily) start one of your own. Then people will come
onto your little area and start chatting about whatever-it-is. It is true that
the Internet is over-hyped, but really, when you come right down to it,
it's pretty cool. Using your computer, you can skip over all the trivial
stuff that doesn't interest you, and get right to the stuff that does. (The
only real problem with the Internet is that it's financially expensive to
access it.)

Q. How much should a good computer cost me?

A. A pretty good home computer which does a decent job of most things
that an average person would want to do should cost around $2,000-
$4,000. However, if you want to do special things with the computer like
sophisticated graphics work or serious desktop publishing, or if it's going
to be used for a big business in which huge amounts of information will
need to be stored, it can be much more, although these days, they're a
lot cheaper than just a few years ago.

Q. When I take the cover off my computer and work inside it, should it
be plugged into the wall, or unplugged?

A. This is a common subject of debate among computer enthusiasts,
much like the fabled debate over whether it's better to leave your
computer on 24 hours a day or to turn it off at night. In theory,
unplugging the computer from the wall would be safer, since that means
there can't possibly be any live electricity inside it. (This was particularly
important on AT computers, in which the power switch always had live
connections running to it even when the computer was off, and you
would shock yourself if you happened to accidentally touch those wires
while the computer was plugged in. This is no longer a problem with
ATX and other next-generation system designs, however.) However, the
general agreement among most computer technicians is that you should
leave it plugged in and turned off. (NEVER work inside the computer
while it is turned on. This much is unanimously agreed on.) The reason
for this is because the computer is not grounded when it's unplugged, but
it is grounded while it's plugged in. (Assuming the plug is connected to
a properly-grounded electrical receptacle, of course.)

How To Make HTML Frames:

Start with the FRAMESET tag. You can use it to specify whether you
want horizontally-paned or vertically-paned frames. For horizontal, use
COLS. For vertical, use ROWS. Example:

<FRAMESET COLS="50,80">

The above line specifies that you want two frames, horizontally-paned
(because of the use of COLS). The left one has a width of 50, the right
one has a width of 80.

If you want, instead of direct numbers, you can use percentages for
frame sizes. Example:

<FRAMESET COLS="20%,80">

The above line specifies that the left frame should take up the left 20%
of the screen.

In most cases, the last frame should simply take up the rest of the
window, rather than having a set size to it. For this, use the following
syntax:

<FRAMESET COLS="20%,*">

The usage of an asterisk for the size of the right frame simply means that
it should take up as much of the window as it can (after the left 20% has
gone to the left frame).

Once you've specified the sizes of the frames with FRAMESET, you can
use the FRAME tag to define the actual frames:

<FRAME SRC="framesourcefile.html" NAME="index">

The above line specifies that a frame called "index" should use
"framesourcefile.html" for an HTML source. Each frame needs its own
source file; The file with the FRAMESET and FRAME tags is just a
small framework for the frames.

In most cases, you want the frame targets to open up in a different frame
from the one in which the user clicks. For example, many sites use a site
index in the frame on the left side of the screen, but clicking in that
frame results in things popping up in the RIGHT frame. How is this
done? With the BASE TARGET tag:

<BASE TARGET="framename">

The above line specifies that any clicks on links on this frame should
actually open up in the frame called "framename", not the frame the link
is in. This line should be placed in the file with the links (presumably,
the left frame). It will then make all its links open in "boggy", which is
presumably the right frame.

To summarize, here's a simple example of making frames. Suppose you
want two horizontally-paned frames. The left one (called "nav" and
stored in a file called nav.htm) is a navigation list and should take up the
left 20% of the screen; The other one is called "main" (stored in
main.htm) and should take up the rest. You want clicks on nav to open
up in main. You would create the main frame layout by making a small
HTML file (perhaps "index.html") like this:

<FRAMESET COLS="20%,*">
<FRAME SRC="nav.htm" NAME="nav">
<FRAME SRC="main.htm" NAME="main">

Then, put this line in nav.htm:

<BASE TARGET="main">

...And clicking a link in nav will make the target open up in main.
You're done.

Making An HTML Smiley Face:

To make an HTML smiley face, just show a letter J using the
"wingdings" font, as it is a "symbol" font which happens to have a
smiley face for a letter J. So, use this HTML code:

<font face="wingdings">J</font>

How To Specify A NIC's Settings To LILO:

At the LILO prompt, enter a line like the following:

linux ether=10,0x300,eth0

(Where 10 is the card's IRQ, 300 is the I/O address, and eth0 is the
device name)

A Crash Course In BitchX Commands:

Type "bx" to run BitchX.

"/server" changes your current IRC server. For example, to connect to
DALnet, you'd type "/server irc.dal.net".

Type "/disconnect" to disconnect from the current server without quitting
BitchX.

"/ircname" changes the "Real Name" field on your whois. (This is the
command to cure the "I'm too lame to read BitchX.doc" Syndrome.)

"/ircuser" changes your IRC username (the part before the @ sign on
your whois). This is what mIRC users might often call an "Ident".

"/irchost" shows your IRC hostname (the part after the @ sign on your
whois). It even lets you change it if "virtual hosts" are available.

Use "/quit" to quit BitchX.

"/clear" clears the screen.

"/help" lists all BitchX commands and lets you get more info on each of
them.

BitchX Window Commands:

Using the on-screen windows is one of the trickiest parts of using
BitchX, and also one of the most crucial. Thus, I've made all the
commands for working with windows into a separate section.

Use "/window new" to create a new window. Use "/window kill" to
delete the current window.

Use "/window describe" to show information about the current window.
(Note that just typing "/window" will do this by default.)

Use "/window goto x" to make window number x the current window.

Use "/window size 10" to make the current window 10 lines long.

Use "/window channel #channelname" to switch the active window to
#channelname. This is how you switch between channels you're in.

Use "/window help" to get information on other /window commands.

Oh, and one final tip: Don't IRC while logged in as "root" on your own
system. Most IRC servers will immediately disconnect you for this.

Cracking In The 21st Century:

  In the 1980s, when personal computers were just starting to exist in
people's homes, computer cracking was something anyone could do.
Back then, few people were even aware of the existence or significance
of computer security, and those who knew about "hackers" usually
weren't familiar with how they worked. Computers were designed to be
accessible and easy-to-use, not secure. People used weak passwords,
often using their first name or login name for a password, password files
were unshadowed and accessible to anyone, many systems came with
factory-installed logins which could be used as backdoors by anyone who
knew about them, and overall computers were designed with a blind eye
to security. Those were the golden days of computer penetration, when
any person, given enough patience and technical know-how, could get
into virtually any computer.
  Things certainly have changed. The threat of so-called "hackers" seems
to be an ever-growing news item. Software is being designed with
security in mind. Encryption is widely-used and available to anyone, and
computers have become powerful enough to use it routinely, which was
not the case before. Not only are anti-virus programs more common on
home computers than they have ever been before, but "personal
firewalls", which didn't even exist a few years ago, are beginning to pop
up everywhere, to the point where even people who aren't terribly
computer-savvy have them installed to protect against Internet snoops.
  The definition of a "hacker" has also changed. I'm not even talking
about the much-flogged difference between a "hacker" and a "cracker";
I'm pointing to the fact that a great many "hacks" these days take the
form of DoS (Denial of Service) attacks, which serve no purpose other
than to disable the computers they target. This is a violation of the
Cracker Ethic (and yes, there used to be such a thing) for two reasons:
First of all, it's damaging to the target computers, and a key rule of
cracking has always been to never damage or destroy any machine you
penetrate. Secondly, it doesn't really achieve anything anyway. Cracking
has always been about exploration. It's always been about finding secret
data, getting into places you weren't supposed to be. DoS attacks don't
get you any information from the target computer; They just disable it.
  In the grand old days, a skilled cracker could penetrate several
computers of major companies in one sitting. And after that, the cracker
would explore the computer, and afterwards leave it without anyone
noticing s/he had been there. Even if a cracker was discovered, the
system administrator often ignored them if they weren't doing any harm.
There was a sort of "gentleman's agreement" among computer users that
if you didn't harm any computers you cracked, you wouldn't get into
trouble unless you ticked off the sysadmin. For such a thing to happen
today would be inconceivable. Those days are gone forever. These days,
a mere network scan can be cause for legal action.
  Throughout the 1980s, science-fiction writers and computer enthusiasts
alike were speculating about what form cracking would take through the
90s and beyond. Their forecasts for the future differed, but one thing was
generally agreed upon: As long as there were computers and computer
networks, there would be crackers breaking into them.
  Amazingly, they were all wrong. If the 1980s was the decade that gave
birth to cracking, the 1990s are the decade that killed it. Cracking has
become a field of lamers and script kiddies who think that launching
DoS attacks gives them skill. Furthermore, security is tight enough now
that even the best crackers are lucky to get into anything anymore. Oh,
sure, you can exploit the occasional hole on a web server if the admin
was careless enough to leave it unpatched, but beyond exploits (which
are being discovered and patched all the time), there are no real methods
which work anymore. Even social engineering isn't what it used to be;
People are less likely to pass out free information to anyone who sounds
authoritative enough.
  Today, being a hacker/cracker doesn't mean you break into computers.
It means you're familiar with the issues surrounding computer security.
The crackers of today discuss buffer overflows and CGI script flaws, but
how many of them could actually crack a given system, if you asked
them to? Not many. This isn't necessarily because they know less than
the crackers of old; It's just because hardware and software is more
secure.
  Cracking will probably never die completely. There will always be
holes in systems that can be exploited. No software program is ever
perfect. But what once was a fun, friendly, and relatively harmless
activity has become an ugly world of ignorance and confusion. And that
world shows no sign of ever returning to what it once was.
  As it happens, the cracker world seriously began to disintegrate at
around the same time as the whole "e-business" craze did. In the early
days of the Internet, startup companies could turn a huge amount of stock
investments, even when they had no product or service to offer, nor any
business plan of any kind. This went on for a few years, as companies
like Yahoo! and amazon.com became the darlings of the stock market
despite being seemingly incapable of actually making profit. Then, it
suddenly started to fall apart, as investors realized they had been putting
billions of dollars into empty companies.
  The stock market crashed, along with the cracker underground. The
magic is gone from the computer scene. The old world, a computer
world in which anything seemed possible, collapsed. It was replaced by
a practical world in which security was considered as crucial as anything
else, because as the world becomes more dependant on the Internet as a
way of doing business, it won't stand for sites going down because of
DoS attacks or site defacements. As the Internet matures into a tool
which anyone, even the computer illiterate can use, it must necessarily
become more foolproof, more secure, and more realistic in its projections
for the future. And that's exactly what's happening.
  That's good news for anyone who actually wants to use the Net to do
something "useful". But for the crackers who used to get their thrills
from cruising the networks, browsing data they weren't supposed to read
but which nobody knew they could see, the old days are gone for good.

The Efficiency Of A CLI:

Among new computer users, there is sometimes debate over whether to
use a CLI (Command-Line Interface) or a GUI (Graphical User
Interface). For most new or casual users, the answer is simple: A GUI
is easier to understand and less intimidating-looking, making it a natural
choice for non-technical people. Indeed, this has stopped being much of
an issue, as the GUI is now standard in Microsoft Windows, and most
people never have to touch the CLI. (Indeed, many people are not aware
it exists.)

But it does. For more than 10 years, the computing scene has been
operating on a split between the two types of interfaces. The Amiga was
a pioneer in this field, combining a highly functional CLI with the
simple-yet-powerful Workbench GUI. Back in the days of Windows 3.x,
many people still used DOS frequently for file management and other
system functions. And Linux, the hot "new" open-source OS, is
fundamentally a CLI, but with the ability to add several powerful GUIs
on top of it (like XFree86). And make no mistake, as of this writing,
Microsoft Windows is still a GUI built on top of an MS-DOS CLI
(although Microsoft is slowly changing this, and that may stop being the
case in future versions of Windows).

The advantages of a GUI are obvious. But is there an advantage to a
CLI? The answer is unquestionably "Yes".

No GUI can ever approach the efficiency of a CLI. The time it takes to
rap out a string like "copy letter.txt c:\docs" will always be shorter than
the amount of time it takes to navigate through a window of files and
drag-and-drop a file into a destination folder. This automatically makes
using a CLI faster, both in terms of user interface and in the fact that a
GUI places more demands on the hardware, meaning it will slow down
the system. This is why, even though Explorer (which used to be called
"File Manager") is a good-looking and easy way to manage your files,
power users still use the DOS prompt.

A CLI is also simpler to set up, making it ideal for troubleshooting
scenarios where the computer is having trouble booting up. And, as
mentioned before, a CLI is less demanding on the hardware, making it
a better choice for older systems which might have trouble supporting the
latest, greatest bells-and-whistles OS.

Computer users naturally find themselves using a GUI when they first
start using a computer, but many people who explore their systems may
find themselves eventually beginning to move towards the CLI. That was
the case with me, anyway: After years of preferring the convenience of
Windows, I've become a DOS user. I didn't even notice the transition;
I just gradually started using DOS for more things, because it was faster
and easier once I knew how to use it.

I believe that every computer should still provide the option of a CLI.
Sure, have a GUI for everyday use, but a CLI is still a much-needed tool
for certain circumstances. The CLI will always be a more efficient tool
for getting work done.

"Demo Scene" Coding Vs. "Real" Coding:

Deep within the underground of computing culture is what's known as
the "demo scene", a loose community of computer programmers who
mainly program what's known as a "demo", essentially a tiny program
which functions as an electronic ad or greeting card. Demos are often
used to advertise BBSes, or to give greetings from/to various other
underground groups (cracker groups, pirate groups, etc.)

Demo programmers are very concerned with how their demos look and
sound. These are the focal points of a good demo program. After all, any
beginning programmer can produce a program that simply displays text
for greeting the local cracker groups; Demo scene programmers are
marked by their ability to produce eye-candy effects and catchy music
with compact program code.

Although the demo scene is an undeniable part of the computer
underground, and there is no doubt that the coders within this culture can
do some neat tricks with a few lines of code, it is questionable whether
they are "real" programmers or simply tricksters playing around with
toys. The fact is that most demo programming relies on fairly simple
techniques to produce their effects, some kind of algorithm or code
sequence which will produce something that looks impressive on a
screen, but in fact is not so hard to program. In the old days of
computing, demos were called "display hacks", which were considered
fairly trivial tricks used to make pretty designs on the screen. The
legendary hacker Bill Gosper, for example, invented a display hack called
"smoking clover" which made a striking image of a multicolored four-
leaf clover. Although display hacks were fun, they were considered
trivial.

Today, however, the computing scene has changed somewhat. Advances
in computer hardware technology have made graphics a big thing because
of games, and the demo scene is thriving. Demo coders are often
regarded as highly skilled programmers, awed by those unfamiliar with
computer programming. Yet demo coding, and in fact graphics
programming in general, is (perhaps surprisingly) quite far removed from
real-world programming.

There is a misconception among the non-programming public that all
computer programming is the same, and once you know how to program
a computer, you can program any type of application, be it a spreadsheet,
a web browser, or a game. In actuality, graphics programming relies on
a series of specific techniques which must be specially learned, and
which are not usually taught in general-purpose programming courses or
books, since they are so specific.

Let me make an analogy here. There are courses in piano playing which
teach the student how to play certain popular pieces of music. They show
the student what keys to press on the piano, and the student memorizes
the key positions, so the tune can be later played from memory.
However, these courses teach nothing of music itself (properly known as
"music theory"). The student, upon finishing such a course, will be able
to play very well, but will still know nothing of scales, keys (as in "key
of C", not the actual physical piano keys), or sheet music notation, all
topics of important study for the "real" musician. Although this student
may be a great performer able to impress some friends, he or she will
still know nothing about music.

Graphics programmers are often similar. They are regarded as brilliant
programmers because they can make such stunning scenes, yet in fact,
many of them are not well-versed in the workings of any computer
language and don't know many real-world programming concepts like
memory management or code optimization. This is not to say that ALL
graphics programmers are this way; Many, in fact, know a lot about
every kind of programming. But it must be understood that being able to
make a great display hack does not make you a great programmer. If you
want to be a good programmer, you must learn a lot about all aspects of
computers and your language of choice (be it C, Pascal, or whatever).
Don't concentrate specifically on making graphics. In fact, unless you
plan to seriously go into graphics as a game programmer or some other
kind of profession which focuses on graphics, you probably shouldn't
learn much about graphics programming at all, since it has little to do
with any other kind of programming.

The more you know about programming, the better a programmer you'll
be. So learn as much as you can.

Computer-Related IRC Channels:

#amigacafe
#apache
#asm
#basic
#c
#c++
#cgi
#coders
#coderspc
#computerhelp
#computers
#dos
#hack
#hacking
#hackphreak
#html
#internet
#java
#javascript
#linux
#linuxhelp
#msdos
#pascal
#perl
#programmers
#programming
#unix
#win2k
#win95
#win98
#windows
#windows2000
#windows2k
#windows95
#windows98
#www

TIPS FOR ONLINE GAMING:

1. Know your keystrokes and rules. This may seem obvious, but a lot of
people jump into a game without knowing how it's played. Keep a quick
reference sheet of important commands and info, so you can reference
it at a moment's notice.

2. If possible, practice in single-player mode first. This will give you a
feel for the game before you play online and get you familiar with the
controls. However, some multiplayer games don't offer a single-player
option.

3. If at all possible, co-ordinate yourself with other players. Multi-player
teams exist for a reason. Let's face it, no matter how good you are, one
person can never be as good as two.

4. Be ready for anything. Your opponents may surprise you at any time.
Always look ahead at what *could* happen. Don't be lazy and ignore a
possibility just because it's unlikely. For example, if you're playing a
first-person shooter, instead of waiting for enemies to appear before you
aim, always keep your gunsight aimed at a spot where somebody could
appear (for example, at a corner or window) so you'll have your gun in
position to shoot already.

5. Take notes. Keep paper and a pen on hand so you can jot down
crucial facts or strategies for future use.

6. Get advice. A lot of popular games have websites full of game info
and tips. Read the websites. Learn from them. Also, your fellow gamers
will often impart advice as you're playing. Learn from them too. There's
always somebody out there who's better and more experienced than you
are.

7. Customize your game. Once you've gotten better, you may find that
a particular keyboard layout works better for you than the default. Most
hard-core gamers have their own favourite layouts that they're most
comfortable with. Experiment, find out what's best for you.

8. Be an LPB. Let's face it, as much as they're disliked online, they're
not really cheating. Consider getting a faster Internet connection. (Some
people get DSL or cable just so they can play games online faster.)

9. Get rid of background processes. Sometimes applications running in
the background can bog down your system. Close them before you play.

10. Have fun. If you don't, what was the point of playing the game in
the first place?

Undocumented Stuff:

There are some undocumented things we can report in MS-DOS. Here
they are:

1. The MEM command can be used with the undocumented /A switch
to show how much space there is in the HMA.

2. The command TRUENAME returns the current drive and directory,
similar to typing CD without parameters.

3. Typing VER /R instead of just VER shows the revision number you're
on.

Windows 95-Specific Undocumented Stuff:

(In this section, references to the \WINDOWS directory refer to your
main Windows directory. If you installed Windows 95 into a
DIFFERENT directory, for example \WIN95, make any appropriate
changes to the instructions below.)

Windows 95 is interesting in that it takes control of your entire computer.
It automatically does a lot of technical things, often without even telling
you, which is very good for end-users who hate having to mess around
with technical stuff, but for advanced users who prefer having more
control of their computers and knowledge of what it's doing, this can be
annoying.

95TRICKS.ZIP, which should be download as specified above under
"Particular Downloads From Particular Places", is an excellent source for
undocumented and semi-secret Windows 95 information.

There's a magical utility called Make Compatible which comes with
Windows 95 (and also 98). It's in the MKCOMPAT.EXE file. It's
intended to make your Windows 3.X programs more compatible with
Windows 9x. It's worth trying out if your system is having trouble
running some 16-bit Windows applications.

On my own installation of Windows 95, for some reason, the "Previous
Version Of MS-DOS" option on the startup menu (when you press F8 at
the "Starting Windows 95..." message) is not there, even though I was
using MS-DOS 6.2 prior to upgrading to Windows 95. However, I have
discovered an interesting trick in this situation: At the startup menu,
instead of choosing one of the displayed choices, simply press the
BACKSPACE key. This will boot up your old MS-DOS.

When you tell Windows to "Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode", it
actually just exits Windows to the DOS prompt; It doesn't restart your
computer. (It's basically the equivalent of exiting Windows out to DOS.)
When you choose this option, Windows runs a batch file called
DOSSTART.BAT in your main Windows directory. This batch file is
sort of like AUTOEXEC.BAT, except that AUTOEXEC runs before
Windows itself starts, while DOSSTART only runs when you "Restart
the computer in MS-DOS mode".

The Autorun feature of Windows 95 is very cool, but it has a flaw: It
sometimes does not work! On some CD-ROM drives (such as mine), it
simply doesn't automatically start the CD like it's supposed to. This can
be troublesome, because a lot of instruction manuals say "put the CD in
and it will automatically start". I hate it when they say that, because it
DOESN'T automatically start. If Autorun doesn't work for you, and you
want to see what program on the CD is SUPPOSED to automatically run
(or even if it DOES work for you, and you want to see the CD's
Autorun information anyway), the Autorun info is in a file called
AUTORUN.INF in the CD's root directory.

If you're wondering where Windows 95 keeps its information on long
filenames: They're stored in USER.DAT. View that file, and you'll find
a listing of all known DOS filenames (e.g. MEMOTO~1.DOC) which are
supposed to show as long filenames in Windows (e.g. Memo To
Bob.doc).

Your main Windows 95 directory should contain a lot of files with the
.TXT extension that came with Windows. Check these files out! Some
of them are gold mines of important technical data on Windows 95!

When you open a help file for the first time in Windows 95, you briefly
see a message which says "Preparing to open help file for the first time".
This message doesn't appear on subsequent opens of the same file.
Windows keeps a log file of every help file that you open! Where does
it keep these? Typically, in the directory where the help file is located.
They have a .GID extension and, curiously, have the hidden file attribute
set. If Windows cannot write to the directory where the help file is (for
example, if it's on a write-protected floppy disk or a CD), or if it's the
help file for Windows itself, or one of the small accessory programs that
come with Windows, the .GID file will go to the \WINDOWS\HELP
directory on your hard disk.

Internet Explorer's Web page history (listing of which Web sites you've
visited with it) is kept in the \WINDOWS\HISTORY directory.

The Content Advisor settings for what Web pages you can view are kept
in a file called RATINGS.POL in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.
This file has the hidden, system, and read-only file attributes set.
However, it's hard to edit because it's not in ASCII text. If you forget
your password for Content Advisor and want to view Web pages you
wouldn't show your kids, remove your current RATINGS.POL file and
replace it with a RATINGS.POL that's configured to show higher-rated
pages. You should make a backup file of such a RATINGS.POL for this
purpose. Set all the restrictions to their least strict settings and then save
that and make a backup of the RATINGS.POL file somewhere (or, if you
didn't already do this BEFORE forgetting your password, just ask
somebody else to lend you the use of their computer for a moment, then
on their computer, set all the settings to the least strict setting and copy
their RATINGS.POL to your own computer). Then, you can set your
ratings to whatever you like, and if you ever forget the password, you
can just make a backup of your preferred RATINGS.POL, and
temporarily use your backup of the less strict RATINGS.POL. Also, the
rating systems that Content Advisor uses have a .RAT extension and are
normal ASCII text files in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. By
default, RSACI.RAT (which comes with Internet Explorer) is used, but
this can be changed from within Content Aedvisor. (The currently-used
.RAT file is also noted in RATINGS.POL.) Deleting the currently-used
.RAT file may also allow you to view restricted Web pages, but I am not
sure. (Do not delete RATINGS.POL in an attempt to view restricted Web
pages, because if it is deleted, Content Advisor will detect this and
immediately set the maximum level of restriction on all Web pages, and
this cannot be undone until somebody who knows the password goes into
Content Advisor and re-sets all the settings.) Also, the password itself for
Content Advisor is stored in the Windows registry in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Policies\Ratings. (There is no space between Current and
Version.) Use Regedit to open that registry area, and there you'll see an
entry called "Key". The unreadable text following the word "Key" is an
encrypted form of the password. If you wish to access Content Advisor,
simply edit that entry and delete all that unreadable garbage. Exit
Regedit, then go back to Content Advisor (note that you must restart
Windows right after finishing with Regedit. Any time you change the
registry with Regedit you have to restart Windows before the change will
take effect). It will let you create a new password. If, however, you want
to get into Content Advisor and then leave the password the same as it
was before you started, make a note of exactly what the unreadable
garbage said BEFORE you change it, then use Regedit to set it back to
that stuff after you're done with Content Advisor. (This has been
confirmed to work for both Internet Explorer 3.0 and 4.0.)

Speaking of interesting registry entries, another place to put things to run
on startup (besides Windows' "Startup" program group or the "Run="
line of WIN.INI) is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Run.

And password caching is controlled by the DisablePwdCaching value in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers
ion\Policies\Network. If it's 1, password caching is disabled. If it's 0 or
not there, password caching is enabled.

Windows 9x has a whole lineup of built-in security features which can
be set from the registry in the following location:
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Policies\Explorer

Most (if not all) of the values you can set there are DWORD values. The
values are as follows:
ClearRecentDocsOnExit (empties the recent Docs folder on reboot)
DisableRegistryTools (disables Registry editing tools)
NoActiveDesktop (no Active Desktop)
NoActiveDesktopChanges (no changes allowed)
NoAddPrinter (disables addition of printers)
NoChangeStartMenu (disables changes to the Start Menu)
NoClose (disables Shutdown)
NoDeletePrinter (disables deletion of printers)
NoDesktop (hides all icons on the Desktop)
NoDrives (hides Drives in My Computer)
NoFavoritesMenu (hides the Favorites menu)
NoFileMenu (hides the Files Menu in Explorer)
NoFind (removes the Find command)
NoFolderOptions (hides the Folder Options in Explorer)
NoInternetIcon (no Internet Explorer Icon on the Desktop)
NoLogoff (hides the "Log Off..." in the Start Menu)
NoNetHood (hides Network Neighborhood)
NoRecentDocsHistory (clears history of Documents)
NoRecentDocsMenu (hides the Documents submenu on the Start Menu)
NoRun (disables Run command)
NoSaveSettings (don't save settings on exit)
NoSetFolders (removes folders, including Control Panel, from Settings
on Start Menu)
NoSetTaskbar (removes Taskbar from Settings on Start Menu)

There are other security settings in
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Policies\System:
NoAdminPage (hides Remote Administration page)
NoConfigPage (hides Hardware Profiles page)
NoDevMgrPage (hides Device Manager page)
NoDispAppearancePage (hides Appearance page)
NoDispBackgroundPage (hides Background page)
NoDispCPL (disables Display Control Panel)
NoDispScrSavPage (hides Screen Saver page)
NoDispSettingsPage (hides Settings page)
NoFileSysPage (hides File System button)
NoProfilePage (hides User Profiles page)
NoPwdPage (hides Password Change page)
NoSecCPL (disables Password Control Panel)
NoVirtMemPage (hides Virtual Memory button)

Windows 3.x had a similar system which was implemented through the
PROGMAN.INI file. Under the [restrictions] heading in that file, you
could use the following commands:

NoClose=1 (Disables the "Exit Windows" command)
NoFileMenu=1 (Disables the File Menu in Program Manager)
NoRun=1 (Disables the Run command on the File menu)
NoSaveSettings=1 (Prevents saving settings on exit)
EditLevel=4 (Adjusts edit level, from 0 (no restrictions) to 4 (maximum
restrictions))

ISP profiles are kept in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess\Profile\(ISPname)

Your Windows CD Key is stored in a string value called ProductId in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version

The list of installed program which can be uninstalled through Control
Panel's "Add/Remove Programs" section is stored in 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Uninstall\(Program Name). DisplayName is the name of the
application as it appears in the Control Panel listing of installed
programs. UninstallString is the command line for the uninstall program.
This has the potential for doing some extremely amusing things, as you
could set UninstallString to something else to run a different program
when someone attempts to uninstall the application.

The Windows registration information (the user's name and organization,
which show up in the "About" windows of several Windows
applications) are stored in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers
ion. The value names are RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization.

Windows records its list of installed fonts in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers
ion\Fonts

The Internet Explorer "provided by" line is stored in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,
as "Window Title".

In the Start Menu's "Find" section, additional entries can be found in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers
ion\explorer\FindExtensions

The default program for opening an HTML file is stored in
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command. If you change
this to something else, browsers which check if they are the default
browser will start saying they are not your default browser, and would
you like to make them so.

In Windows 98's Explorer, the "View As Web Page" option uses
THUMBVW.DLL to display the thumbnails of pictures and HTML
pages.

The WIN386.SWP file is the swap-file for Windows. In previous
versions of Windows it was automatically deleted upon exiting Windows,
but not in Windows 95. If you wish to delete it, go ahead, as long as you
are currently in command-prompt mode and not running the graphical
part of Windows 95. (Do NOT simply shell to the command prompt, as
Windows will still be running in the background if you do so.)
Remember, type EXIT at the command prompt, and if you go back to
Windows, you were only shelled to DOS, not really in DOS. The
WIN386.SWP file is in the \WINDOWS directory. A convenient thing
to do is add the line "del c:\windows\win386.swp" to your
AUTOEXEC.BAT so that the file is automatically deleted every time you
boot your computer. If you do a lot of command prompt work and don't
always run Windows, you may wish to add ">nul" to the end of this, so
that if the file doesn't exist, "File not found" messages don't start
popping up when you boot up.

Speaking of annoying files that you may want to delete, the entries under
the "Documents" submenu from the Start Menu are stored as .LNK files
in \WINDOWS\RECENT. If you want to keep your Documents menu
there empty, just add "del c:\windows\recent\*.lnk>nul" to your
AUTOEXEC.BAT.

Other interesting subdirectories from the Windows directory: The
\WINDOWS\DESKTOP directory has all the shortcuts on your desktop.
You can add or remove items to/from your desktop by just
adding/deleting the files from that directory. The
\WINDOWS\STARTM~1 directory has the shortcuts you put right on
your Start Menu, and the subdirectories from THAT directory correspond
to your Start Menu's program group structure. And the
\WINDOWS\SENDTO directory contains links to all the things listed
under "Send To" (when you choose to "Send To" something).

In the Windows SYSTEM.INI file is a line which probably says
"shell=EXPLORER.EXE". The EXE filename is the shell used for
Windows. You can set this to whatever you want. If you set it to an
application, whenever Windows tries to boot, that application will run
with no other programs in the background. This is useful for programs
which need a lot of resources, if you want to load them with no
overhead.

Windows has a system file called IFSHLP.SYS in the Windows
directory. It always tries to load it into memory on bootup.
Unfortunately, the file takes up about 3K of conventional memory when
loaded. That's not a lot, but it could be just the edge that prevents a DOS
program from loading.  Windows can't run in GUI mode without this
file, but it will run in DOS mode with no problem (other than an error
message that the file is missing). Windows doesn't have an option to not
load the file on bootup, but you can get that 3K of memory if you
remove the file. However, since you won't be able to run the GUI
without the file, temporarily renaming it or moving it to a different
directory is a better bet.

If the "File and Print Sharing" button is disabled in Control Panel's
Network window, this can be fixed by installing Client For Microsoft
Networks. Do this by clicking Add, then choose Client and click Add,
then click Microsoft on the left and select Client for Microsoft Networks
on the right. (Then click OK, of course.)

The file SHELLI~1 in your main Windows directory is the Windows
Shell Icon Cache. It can get to be a fairly large file. If it's there, it will
have the System, Hidden and Read-Only attributes set. I once heard that
deleting it will cause you to lose all your icons, but I personally deleted
it and never noticed any difference. I certainly didn't lose my icons,
anyway. If you want to delete it, you can probably feel free to do so.

There are a few very interesting and little-known files in your main
Windows directory: FTP.EXE and TELNET.EXE, as you may have
guessed, are programs which access FTP and Telnet, respectively. While
not excellent, these programs should do well for accessing those Internet
functions. In addition, there's TASKMAN.EXE, which is Windows 95's
Task Manager, and PROGMAN.EXE: Good old Program Manager for
Windows 95, for those who preferred the old interface! Enjoy the
nostalgia!

More interesting EXEs in the Windows directory: PING, NETSTAT,
TRACERT, and ROUTE! These are powerful Internet utilities which will
be incredibly useful for very advanced Internet users who want to do
stuff with it! Check them out if you're familiar with the Internet.

WINIPCFG.EXE in the main Windows directory will tell you some
things about your IP configuration, including current IP address.

Most of the standard Windows 95 icons are in SHELL32.DLL in the
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. A few other auxiliary icons are in
MORICONS.DLL in the main Windows directory. (Another icon file,
intended for DOS programs but good for any program, is PIFMGR.DLL,
in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM.)

A toolkit from Microsoft called the Windows 95 PowerToys is a very
powerful collection of utilities. You can use them to do some interesting
things. For example, Tweak UI (which, as its name suggests, lets you
change the Windows User Interface) will allow you to take that annoying
little arrow off shortcut icons (something I had wanted to do for a while),
and it can let you automatically clear all items from the Run command's
pop-up menu. And those are just a few of the cool things you can do.
For more information on the PowerToys, look under "Particular
Downloads From Particular Places", above.

Windows 95 doesn't allow applications to perform direct disk access. It
says that's to protect your long filenames. If you want to use applications
that perform direct disk access anyway, type LOCK hard drive letter: For
example, if your hard disk is drive C (as it almost certainly is), type
LOCK C: and you can then do cool stuff to your hard disk. You might
want to add this command to your AUTOEXEC.BAT. If you do, precede
it with echo y| and add >nul to the end (in other words make it echo
y|lock c:>nul instead of just lock c:) because it asks you a Y/N
confirmation message first. (IMPORTANT NOTE: If you don't know
what you're doing, don't try this!!!)

Another thing Windows 95 doesn't allow is cold booting. A simple JMP
to FFFF:0000 (as done by REBOOT.COM in the Programs In Assembler
Appendix) would result in one under MS-DOS, but Windows 95 now
always boots warm, even if you try to make it cold. This apparently is
because the machine has never been turned off since the last memory
test, so another one isn't necessary.

Many older DOS games used the PC speaker to make "digital sound".
This sound was of much higher quality than the audio you normally get
from that speaker, high enough to accurately render speech in fact.
However, to pull off this trick, those programs had to set the timer chip
to a faster speed. This works fine under MS-DOS and worked fine in
Windows 3.1. However, under Windows 95 (and 98 as well, and
presumably all future versions of Windows), Windows cannot handle the
higher timer speed and as a result the program will usually run very
slowly and the digital audio from the internal speaker will sound muddy
and unclear. There is currently no known workaround for this problem,
other than of course to switch to MS-DOS mode and run the program
there. This problem exists on all Windows 95/98 systems.

Windows doesn't usually require you to run program in DOS mode.
Even if the program works best in DOS mode, Windows will usually at
least try to run it in Windows mode. If Windows refuses outright to run
a program because it says you must run it in DOS mode, the program
probably has a PIF file which says it can only run in DOS mode. Check
for a PIF file, and if there is one, try turning off "MS-DOS Mode". This
isn't always a good idea (there's usually a REASON why the program
is set to run only in DOS mode), but it's worth a try.

Windows 9x comes with a program called START.EXE. This program
is used to start other programs. It can be used to start a Windows
program from a DOS prompt.

On some computers, Windows 98 has a tendency to lock up when DOS
programs play ANY sounds on the internal speaker. Sometimes you
briefly see the blue "This application cannot run in a window" error
message flash, even if the DOS program is running full-screen. No
solution is currently known for this problem, because no people appear
to even have knowledge that this problem exists, let alone how to fix it.
It is known that the computer will exhibit different behavior while
playing sounds in different video modes. For example, in 320x200
256-color VGA mode (mode 13h), the screen will only flicker while
playing sounds on the internal speaker. In 640x480 16-color VGA mode
(mode 12h), however, it will lock up entirely. This problem does not
occur in pure DOS mode; Only when DOS programs run with Windows
in the background. It also does not happen when Windows is in Safe
Mode. It also seems to be affected by the video mode Windows itself is
running in; At lower video modes, the system may not lock up. The
problem seems very erratic as it has been shown to sometimes occur and
sometimes not, even under the same testing conditions on the same
computer. A clean re-install of Windows fixed this problem. Although
the circumstances which created this problem are not known, this is not
an isolated case; At least one other occurrence of this bug on a different
computer has been observed. No further data is currently available.

In your Windows 95 directory is a program called LIGHTS.EXE. This
is the program which creates the cute little icon of a modem with two
lights in the system tray whenever the modem is online.

Windows 95 has a secret screen (sometimes also called an "Easter Egg")
which displays the names of the people who worked on it. (Windows 3.0
and 3.1 had similar screens, but they weren't as elaborate.) To see the
Windows 95 one (this only works on the English version of Windows
95), create a New Folder on the desktop, and name it:

and now, the moment you've all been waiting for

Then rename it:

we proudly present for your viewing pleasure

Lastly, rename it to:

The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!

Type the names exactly as shown (including capital letters and
exclamation mark). Once you've done that, double-click the folder, sit
back, and enjoy.

When the ASCII "bel" character is output to your screen on an MS-DOS
prompt, normally a beep is made through the PC speaker. However,
under Windows 98, you may hear a sound from the sound card instead.
This is because to hear the normal beep, Windows 98 must be configured
to use the 16-bit video ROM BIOS for handling system console access,
and to use the 16-bit video ROM BIOS to play the beep sound through
your PC speaker. An MS-DOS-based program can make a beep sound
by sending a beep character through the system console, which is
normally handled by the video ROM BIOS, a 16-bit component. By
default, Windows 98 intercepts access to the system console and handles
the requests in its 32-bit video driver. This handling of calls intended for
the video ROM BIOS is known as "ROM emulation". When a beep
sound is sent to the system console, Windows 98 uses ROM emulation
to convert it into the beep sound set listed in the Sound tool in Control
Panel. This sound is listed in Control Panel's "Sounds" section as
"Default Sound". To disable this and hear the normal internal speaker's
beep instead, go to the "Properties" of the MS-DOS prompt, click on the
"Screen" tab, then un-check "Fast ROM Emulation". (Thanks to the
Microsoft Knowledge Base for most of this paragraph.)

When Windows has a problem initializing 32-bit drivers for your drive,
it automatically reverts to 16-bit access, known as "MS-DOS
compatibility mode". This mode is much slower than 32-bit access. Each
time you run Windows, it normally tries to load 32-bit drivers, but if
ever it has a problem doing so, it places a value in the registry which
warns it to not try again in the future. If you think the problem was just
a one-time thing and would like to try loading the 32-bit drivers again,
open the following folder in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\I
OS

There you should see a value called NoIDE. That's the one that is
preventing 32-bit access from loading. Delete that value and reboot; This
will make Windows attempt to load 32-bit drivers again. (If it fails, it
will again go back to 16-bit access and the NoIDE value will be re-
created in the registry.) I personally once had this problem for no
apparent reason; All of a sudden I received a message that my hard disk
could not run in 32-bit mode and the system reverted to 16-bit mode.
Normally something is supposed to cause this, but in this case it was just
a weird fluke. Deleting the NoIDE value turned everything back to
normal.

The following paragraphs on the Windows Driver Information database
were copied from Microsoft Knowledge Base article 275499:

When you install a hardware device on your computer, the device passes
information through the basic input/output system (BIOS) to the
operating system (Windows). Windows then determines which driver
Information (.inf) file to use to install the driver for the device, and
Windows determines the location of that .inf file. This process (bus
enumeration) is the first step in identifying the device; the operating
system is notified through the BIOS that a device is attached and is using
a particular bus.

Windows then checks the registry to determine if that particular bus has
an enumeration key and if the enumeration key matches the hardware
identifier that the device supplied through the BIOS. If the enumeration
key exists, the information is then used to install the appropriate driver
for the device. If there is no enumeration key, Windows adds the key to
the registry with the proper enumeration information (the hardware
identifier, the hardware guide, and the driver/inf information), which was
supplied by the device hardware through the BIOS.

When additional drivers are installed for the device by either changing
or updating the driver, additional subkeys are added in the registry under
that bus enumerator for that device.

In Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 98 Second Edition, the
Driver Information database contains all of the drivers that are listed
under the enumerator for that device's bus. In Windows Me, the same
data is in the Hardware Information database. These databases are
comprised of the Drvdata.bin and Drvidx.bin files and are located in the
Windir\Inf folder.

When drivers are updated or changed, a pointer in the Driver Information
database or Hardware Information database is changed; however, there
is no check to determine if mismatched files were installed during the
driver installation. To work around this issue, you can rebuild the Driver
Information database or Hardware Information database to eliminate any
pointers that may cause mismatched files to be installed.

Windows 98-Specific Undocumented Stuff:

The version of Tweak UI mentioned in the Windows 95 section is for
use ONLY on Windows 95, not 98. However, there is a version of it for
Windows 98, it's right on the Windows 98 CD in \tools\reskit\powertoy.

A potent program for getting information about your system (particularly
your Windows configuration) is simply called Microsoft System
Information. It comes with Windows 98, and is generally located in
"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft
Shared\MSINFO\MSINFO32.EXE".

The main Windows folder contains a subdirectory called APPLOG. This
folder contains files that track how applications use other files, mostly
DLL files. The sole purpose of this directory is to help defragmentation
programs optimize your files more effectively; By knowing what files get
accessed and in what order, it attempts to put the files in the order that
they are loaded when programs run. It's an interesting idea, but in
practice it doesn't always work so well, and the downside is the
APPLOG directory can sometimes become large, to 30 MB or even
more. Its contents can be safely deleted, and the only possible negative
effect to doing so is that defragmentation utilities will not organize your
files in a custom-optimized way.

If you want information on your DirectX setup, there's probably no
better program than DXDIAG in the Windows SYSTEM directory.

If your "Show Desktop" button has gotten deleted from the Quick
Launch toolbar, do this to get it back:

1. Use a text editor to create a file with the following lines:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

2. Save the new file as a file named Show Desktop.scf in the
Windows\System folder.

3. Quit the text editor.

4. Using Windows Explorer or My Computer, right-click the "Show
Desktop.scf" file, and then click Create Shortcut.

5. Copy the shortcut to this folder:
Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

6. Rename the shortcut to Show Desktop.

Windows 98 doesn't pause at the "Starting Windows 98..." message so
you can press F8, unlike Windows 95 which would pause for 2 seconds.
The F8 key does still work, but you have to press it very quickly,
because it's only available for a fraction of a second. If you want to use
it, I recommend just pressing it in rapid succession before the "Starting
Windows 98..." message appears.

You know that "Warning: Modifying the contents of this folder may
cause your programs to stop working correctly. To view the contents of
this folder, click Show Files" message that comes up when you try to
view your Windows or Windows\System folders in Explorer? That
messages is actually an HTML file called FOLDER.HTT in that folder.
You can make that message go away by deleting that file, or you can
change the message by editing that file. Also, it should be noted that the
name FOLDER.HTT can be changed by editing DESKTOP.INI, which
must exist in the same directory as FOLDER.HTT and must contain the
following lines:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
Default={5984FFE0-28D4-11CF-AE66-08002B2E1262}
{5984FFE0-28D4-11CF-AE66-08002B2E1262}={5984FFE0-28D4-11CF-
AE66-08002B2E1262}

[{5984FFE0-28D4-11CF-AE66-08002B2E1262}]
PersistMoniker=file://Folder.htt

Obviously, that last line is the one you edit to change the name of the
HTML file Explorer looks for.

Stuff on the "Find" submenu on the Start menu is in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\explorer\FindExtensions (except for "Files or Folders" and
"Computer", which are built into Windows).

Often when using Internet Explorer, you'll get a standard error page
which contains a description of the error, with the actual HTTP Error
code at the bottom. These pages are actually stored in a file called
SHDOCLD.DLL. You can use it to view those pages in Internet
Explorer. As an example, you can view your 404 page with this URL:
res://c:\windows\system\SHDOCLC.DLL/http_404.htm
There are quite a few other pages inside that file, and you can view them
all with a utility such as Resource Hacker, available from
http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/

When Internet Explorer downloads an ActiveX control (.OCX file), it is
stored in one of two directories: Either \Windows\Downloaded Program
Files, or \Windows\Occache. If you go to this directory, you should find
several .OCX files which Internet Explorer has downloaded.

A utility called REGSVR32.EXE allows you to manually register or un-
register OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) controls, typically .DLL
or .OCX files. REGSVR32 only works on OLE controls that are self-
registerable, which means they must have a function called
DLLSelfRegister. REGSVR32 works by calling this function. As an
example of a typical usage, you could simply type this command to
register an OLE control file called BLAH.OCX:

regsvr32 blah.ocx

LOADQM.EXE is another in a long line of mysterious files which comes
with Windows and which is not well-documented by Microsoft, but
which Windows tends to use liberally anyway. Apparently
LOADQM.EXE is for the Automatic Update feature of Windows Update
(Windows' built-in self-updating utility), but it is not necessary for
Windows Update to actually function, and many people report that
LOADQM makes their system run significantly slower; It starts when
Windows starts and continually runs in the background, apparently doing
nothing (although allegedly checking for updates). In any event, you may
be able to gain some performance boost out of Windows by simply
deleting LOADQM.EXE, since it seems to serve no useful purpose
whatsoever and Windows always wants to keep it running.

On the System Properties screen of Windows (which is easiest to reach
by pressing Win-Break, or right-clicking on My Computer and then
clicking Properties if you don't have a Windows key on your keyboard),
you may see some OEM info such as the computer manufacturer name,
etc. This information is contained in a file called OEMINFO.INI. The file
is a normal ASCII text file and can be easily changed if you wish. The
file's format is simple, and a sample OEMINFO.INI file looks like this:

[General]
Manufacturer=LieBM, Inc.
Model=XYZ1234

[Support Information]
Line1=LieBM tech support can
Line2=be reached at 555-1234
Line3=
Line4=IP Address 192.168.3.1

In addition, the logo of the OEM company is contained in a separate
BMP file called OEMLOGO.BMP. This file is a normal BMP, but
because of the size of the window, it can be a maximum of 182 pixels
wide and 114 pixels high. You can use these two files to customize your
OEM info if you so desire; Both of them reside in your Windows\System
directory.

Very often, when installing software under Win9x, the software will
require you to reboot to complete the installation. Then, the next time
Windows boots, it displays a message reading:

Please wait while setup updates your configuration files.
This may take a few minutes...

Ever wonder where this message comes from, and how Windows knows
whether to update your configuration files or not? The answer lies in a
file called WININIT.INI. This file is basically a mechanism for software
to replace system files which are in use while Windows is running. Since
the program can't replace those files while Windows is running, a reboot
is required, and the files are then replaced before Windows boots (since
WININIT.INI is processed before Windows itself actually starts). Before
the GUI of Windows actually loads, a program called WININIT.EXE is
run. It checks for the existence of WININIT.INI, and if the file exists, it
performs the instructions in this file, which are usually jump file-
replacement commands, replacing existing system files with the new
files. These new files often have the appearance of "temporary" files with
.TMP extensions, since they were temporarily created just to be copied
into your main Windows directory.

As you've probably discovered at one point or another, if Windows 9x
locks up and you need to perform a hard reset, the next time Windows
boots, ScanDisk will show up and start complaining that you didn't shut
down your computer properly. Ever wonder how ScanDisk detects
whether the system shut down properly or not? It all has to do with
something called the "Clean Shutdown bit". The Clean Shutdown bit and
the Hard Disk Error bit are bits in the Virtual File Allocation Table
(VFAT); They are the two low-order bits of the FAT entry for cluster 1.
When Windows boots up, it changes the Clean Shutdown bit to 0, and
the bit stays that way until Windows shuts down, at which point it
changes the bit to 1. Thus, if Windows boots up and the Clean Shutdown
bit is set to 0, Windows assumes that the system did not shut down
cleanly and runs ScanDisk. Note that you can suppress ScanDisk by
changing AutoScan to 0 in your MSDOS.SYS file in your root directory.

Another nice "feature" of Windows 98 is an error message that asks
"Your network is not complete. Do you want to continue?" whenever you
open your Network properties dialog box if Client for Microsoft
Networks is not installed. Installing Client for Microsoft Networks will
eliminate this error message, but create an even more irritating
annoyance: Your Windows system will ask you to log on every time you
boot. For this reason, I usually just delete the Client for Microsoft
Networks. The error message is pure garbage; A network can be
complete without having Client for Microsoft Networks installed. (Note
that removing Client for Microsoft Networks will also prevent you from
saving your password for a Dial-Up Networking connection; The "Save
password" box will be grayed out. To fix this, get Dunce, which can
automatically enter your DUN password for you.)

EMERGENCY CD-ROM DRIVERS:

Windows 98 (not earlier versions of Windows) comes with several
"emergency" CD-ROM driver files intended for use in DOS mode. These
are supposed to let you access your CD-ROM drive in DOS if you
should ever delete the driver that came with your drive. Although not
every CD-ROM drive in the world will work with these "generic" drivers
that come with Windows, most should. These drivers are located on your
hard disk in the \windows\command\ebd directory. The filenames are:
ASPICD.SYS, OAKCDROM.SYS, BTCDROM.SYS, and
FLASHPT.SYS. One of these will probably get your drive working. To
load them, do what you do for your normal device driver: Put a DEVICE
line in CONFIG.SYS. For example, to load ASPICD.SYS, put the
following line in your CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD\ASPICD.SYS

The Windows 98 CD has a utility to show just about everything you ever
wanted to know about your USB configuration. Curiously, this utility
isn't copied to the hard disk during the Windows installation. You'll find
it on the CD in \tools\reskit\diagnose\usbview.exe

Outlook Express Files:

(The following information applies to Outlook Express 4.0 and earlier
versions:)

Outlook Express stores the list of your e-mail "folders" (such as Inbox,
Outbox, etc.) and the mailbox filenames they use in a file called
FOLDERS.NCH. In that file is listed each folder and the MBX and IDX
file used by that folder.

MBX files store the text of your e-mail messages as fairly normal ASCII
text. IDX files store the destination/source addresses and subject lines of
your e-mails. For each of your e-mail folders, there is an MBX file and
an IDX file. (For example, your Inbox uses INBOX.MBX and
INBOX.IDX.)

You can also save individual e-mail messages as a single file containing
a single message, which would have an .EML extension.

(The following information applies to Outlook Express 5.0 and later
versions:)

With OE5, Microsoft totally revamped the structure of how OE stores e-
mail. For starters, there is no longer any FOLDERS.NCH file. E-mails
are no longer stored as plain text, but rather in a binary file with a DBX
extension which cannot be easily read. (Not with a normal ASCII text
editor, anyway, although there are utilities available on the Internet to
extract messages from DBX files.) Each folder now has its own DBX
file, for example INBOX.DBX and OUTBOX.DBX. There is also a file
called FOLDERS.DBX which stores folder info and the names of the
DBX files for each folder. (Obviously, FOLDERS.DBX has replaced
FOLDERS.NCH.)

(Note that in some beta versions of Outlook Express 5, the folder storage
files used an .ODS extension instead of .DBX.)

Startup Locations:

The following are places where programs can be placed to start up
automatically when Windows boots:

1. In CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT
2. In WIN.INI, under load= or run=
3. In WINSTART.BAT, a little-known and little-used batch file which
runs when the Windows GUI (not the underlying DOS-based command
line interface) starts up, which is located in the main Windows directory.
4. The Startup program group
5. The Registry, in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Run

Windows Setup Command-Line Switches:

/C Don't load SmartDrive

/d Ignore the existing version of Windows95 for the early phases of
Setup

/id Ignore minimum disk space check

/ih Don't run ScanDisk in the background; see the results!

/iL Load a Logitech Series C mouse driver

/iq Ignore Scandisk (DOS)

/is Ignore Scandisk (Windows)

/t:tempdir Use tempdir for a temporary directory

16-bit Windows Modes:

16-bit versions of Windows (which basically means Windows 3.x and
below) had three modes which you could run them in: Real Mode,
Standard Mode, and (get ready) 386 Enhanced Mode. You could pick
one by adding the appropriate switch to the "win" command, like this:

win /r: Real Mode.
win /s: Standard Mode.
win /3: 386 Enhanced Mode.

Real Mode basically uses the same memory model as DOS. It is intended
for two purposes: 1. To provide maximum backward compatibility with
Windows applications for previous versions of Windows. 2. It is the only
mode usable for computers with less than 1 MB of RAM. Real Mode
uses only the normal 640K of conventional memory, and will not directly
access extended memory. Standard Mode (which, as the name implies,
was meant to be the "normal" operating mode for Windows) allows
usage of extended memory, and also lets you run more than one non-
Windows application. Standard Mode requires at least a 286 CPU, and
1 MB of RAM. 386 Enhanced Mode is the only mode which 32-bit
versions of Windows (Win95 and up) will run in. It allows use of virtual
memory (which in turn allows the use of more memory than the
computer actually has, achieved using a disk-based swap file as virtual
RAM). And, thanks to the protected-mode capabilities of the 386, this
mode also allows multitasking among non-Windows applications by
creating a "virtual machine" for each one. (Other modes will suspend all
other applications while a non-Windows application is active.) It also lets
you run non-Windows applications in a window. (Other modes let you
run non-Windows applications in full-screen mode only.) Obviously, 386
Enhanced Mode requires at least a 386 CPU; It also requires at least 1
MB of RAM (though 2 MB is strongly recommended).

Undeleting files:

When MS-DOS deletes a file, it replaces the first character of the
filename with a different character; This character is ASCII 229. A file
beginning with this character is a sign to MS-DOS that the file has been
deleted, can be overwritten, and should not be listed in any directory
listings. The way to undelete a file is simply to change this character to
something else, so DOS stops thinking that the file has been deleted.
This same procedure can be used to undelete directories, and once the
directory has been undeleted, you may also be able to undelete the files
that used to be within that directory.

The Windows NT Boot Process:

NTLDR (First file used in the NT boot process; Switches the system
  from real mode to 32-bit protected mode; No, there's really no
  extension on the file, it's just called NTLDR)
BOOT.INI (Central boot configuration file; Normal ASCII text file which
  can be edited with any normal text editor)
NTDETECT.COM (Detects hardware)
NTOSKRNL.EXE (The NT OS kernel)
NTBOOTDD.SYS (Only used when booting from a SCSI hard disk
  which does not have a BIOS, or has the BIOS disabled)
WINLOGON.EXE (Presents the log on dialog box)

How To Use A DLL:

To use a DLL, first you must load the DLL file itself using
LoadLibrary(). After that, you use GetProcAddress() to load the function
you want from that DLL. Here's some sample code:

#include <windows.h>

int STDCALL
WinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmd, int
nShow) {

  HINSTANCE DllHandle;

  //Create an int called MBAFunction that's a pointer to a function.
  //The function which it points to takes the following parameters, in
  //the following order: HWND, LPCTSTR, LPCTSTR, and UINT.
  //(These are the parameter types used by the MessageBoxA function,
  //which we will point to with this pointer.)
  int (*MBAFunction)(HWND, LPCTSTR, LPCTSTR, UINT);

    DllHandle = LoadLibrary("user32.dll");

    MBAFunction = GetProcAddress(DllHandle, "MessageBoxA");
    //MessageBoxA is the ANSI message box function, as opposed to
    //MessageBoxW, which is the Unicode one.

    //Now, call the function!
    MBAFunction(NULL, "Hello, world!", "A DLL-using program!",
MB_OK);

    //It's supposed to be good manners to free the library handle when
    //you're done. However, in my experience, this always makes the
    //program crash after it displays the message box, so this is
    //commented out.
    //FreeLibrary(DllHandle);

return 0;

}

How To Recompile Your Linux Kernel:

First, make sure you have installed the Linux kernel source for the kernel
version you want to compile, and the latest version of GCC.

Type the following commands, in order:

cd /usr/src/linux
make config
make dep
make zImage
cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage /vmlinuz

NOTE: "make config" is the classic command to configure the kernel
before compiling it. However, this command gives you an absolutely
HUGE list of questions which must be answered sequentially; If you
miss a question, you can't go back and change it. As a result, another
option is provided with newer kernel versions which is much friendlier,
and recommended for both novice and experienced users: Use "make
menuconfig" instead, which will give you a nice menu-based
configuration interface.

If you use LILO to boot Linux, after you have done all this you MUST
type "lilo" at the command prompt to reconfigure LILO for the new
kernel. Then reboot, and your new kernel should be functional.

UTP Cable Categories:

Cat 1: Voice-grade. This is the wiring used for telephone lines. It is
officially considered unsuitable for data communications (in which every
bit must be transmitted without errors).

Cat 2: 4 Mbps

Cat 3: 10 Mbps

Cat 4: 16 Mbps

Cat 5: 100 Mbps

CD Standards:

Red Book: Audio CDs (Digital audio)
Yellow Book: Data storage (CD-ROM) (Also known as ISO 10149)
Green Book: CD-Interactive (CD-i)
Orange Book: Write-once CD
White Book: CD-i Bridge
"High Sierra"/ISO 9660: CD-ROM file system

FAT Format:

Each cell in the FAT is one cluster of the disk. Each cell contains either
a number, or an EOF (end of file) value. (Alternately, it can also contain
a "bad sector" marking, indicating that that cluster contains a bad sector.)
If this number is 0, that means that that cluster is "Available", i.e. it has
no part of a file stored in it. Otherwise, the number is the next cluster at
which the next piece of the file is. For example, suppose you have a file
which occupies two clusters; The first is cluster 317, and the second is
cluster 582. Cluster 317's cell in the FAT would contain the number 582
(because that's where the next cluster of the file is), while cluster 582's
cell would contain an EOF. (As a side note, a "bad" entry in an FAT is
actually the hex number FFF7, while an "EOF" entry can actually be any
hex number from FFF8 to FFFF.)

Configuring lilo.conf:

The LILO configuration file is lilo.conf. It can be a bit tricky getting it
set up right. Here are some key lines to use:

message = /boot/boot_message.txt
#text message to show when LILO runs
prompt
#makes LILO prompt you for which OS to boot, which is certainly
#helpful, because otherwise it boots the default OS without even asking
#you, which seems to defeat the whole purpose of having LILO installed.
timeout = 70
#time to wait before booting into default OS. Time is x / 10 seconds. So,
#in this example, since 70 is used, LILO will wait 7 seconds. Use
#timeout, NOT delay; delay waits for you to press either SHIFT key
#before you can even get a prompt. prompt makes a prompt always show
#up, instead of making you bring one up.

Installing programs in Linux:

When you get a Linux program, it's usually in a .tar.gz (or .tgz) file,
which is a TAR archive that has been further made into a GZIP archive.
Before anything else, you must uncompress these archives, just like you
need to uncompress a ZIP in DOS before you can use the files in it. The
usual way of handling .tar.gz files in Linux is with this command:

gzip -cd filename | tar xfv -

(Where filename is the filename of the .tar.gz file.) The x option tells tar
to extract the archive (it must be the first option). The v option tells tar
to be verbose (so it provides more info).

Note that newer versions of tar have a "z" option which lets you filter the
file through GZIP first, which allows you to just use a plain tar command
instead of having to pipe gzip output through tar. So, the new method for
extracting .tar.gz files in Linux is with this command:

tar xfvz filename

Much simpler, isn't it? Again, filename is the filename of the .tar.gz file.

Because of all the varieties of different Linux kernels and configurations,
rarely do you just download a program and run it, as you would do with
DOS. Rather, Linux programs, once you unzip them into some directory,
are usually installed using three commands. In the order you should run
them, they are:

./configure
make
make install

The "configure" command configures the program to your system in
preparation for building it. The "make" command builds the program,
compiling the source code into binary executables. And then "make
install" actually installs those executables. This is the standard procedure
for installing any Linux program which comes in source code form.

A final, fourth command is optional: "make clean". This command
usually removes any temporary files created during the previous three
commands. This is not necessary for the program to function, but it gets
rid of the files you don't need anymore and saves some disk space, so
it's good practice to run it when you're done.

A brief tutorial on using ipchains:

The first ipchains command you should know is ipchains -L. This will
list all the current rules. (Yes, the L has to be capitalized.)

Next, experiment with ipchains -N. This is the command to make a new
user-defined chain. For example, typing ipchains -N newchain will make
a chain called newchain. After typing it, use ipchains -L to confirm it
and see your new chain in the list.

ipchains -X is the opposite of -N. Type ipchains -X newchain to delete
newchain.

Now it's time to do some rule editing. First of all, type ipfwadm. This
appears to be some kind of command built into Linux which sets you up
with a basic ruleset. After you type it, use ipchains -L once again and
notice that your ruleset has gone from three lines to about a screenful.
Take a look at the rules that you have; Most of them probably look like
gibberish right now, but you'll learn what everything means later.

Now let's try learning how to change those rules. The command syntax
for changing a rule with ipchains is:

ipchains -R chainname rulenum

Where chainname is the chain name, and rulenum is the number of the
rule you want to change. Note that this command, on its own, does
absolutely nothing; It specifies what rule you want to modify, but does
not mention what modifications you want to make to it. For now, let's
try turning logging on for some rules, so you can see logs of some IP
traffic. (Logging is what ipchains is probably used most for anyway.) To
turn on logging for a rule, you need to specify the -l switch to ipchains
(that's a hyphen and a lowercase letter L, as in log).

Now, you should know that ipchains doesn't actually provide you with
a way to modify a rule; Technically, you replace rules, you don't change
them. (The R in -R stands for replace.) This means that when you change
a rule, you have to specify the *entire* rule's information, or anything
that's already there will be lost. You can't just add one part to a rule.
Check out the first rule in your ipchains -L output. It should look like
this:

ACCEPT     all  ---f--  anywhere             anywhere              n/a

The leftmost column is the rule's target; As you can see, the target in
this case is ACCEPT. So, let's suppose you want to turn on logging for
this rule. You would use the -R command to replace it with a new one,
you'd use the -l flag to turn on logging for it, and you'd also need to
specify the target name again, or else it would just be set to nothing. To
specify a target name, use the -j flag. So, the complete command that
you'd use to turn on logging for this rule is:

ipchains -R input 1 -l -j ACCEPT

Did you get all that? The -R tells ipchains to replace the rule, "input" is
the name of the chain, 1 is the rule number (the first rule in the input
chain), -l switches logging on, and the -j ACCEPT part makes sure the
target remains as ACCEPT.

ipchains logs to /var/log/messages. If you want to check the data it logs,
look there.

There's more to ipchains than this, but that's the basics; If you want
more you can always check the manpage for ipchains (by typing man
ipchains of course). Have fun.

Unix Numerical File Permission Levels:

0 Nothing
1 Execute
2 Write
3 Write and Execute
4 Read
5 Read and Execute
6 Read and Write
7 Read, Write, and Execute (Full permission, no restrictions)

What Makes A TCP/IP Connection: A TCP/IP connection is fully
defined with 4 parameters: A source host and port, and a destination host
and port.

To convert a dotted IP address to a decimal whole number:

Multiply the 1st number in the IP address by 16777216
Multiply the 2nd number by 65536
Multiply the 3rd number by 256
Add the 3 results of these operations, plus the 4th number in the IP
address

For example, to convert 127.0.0.1 to decimal:

127 * 16777216 = 2130706432
0 * 65536 = 0
0 * 256 = 0

2130706432 + 0 + 0 + 1 = 2130706433

Hence, 127.0.0.1 in decimal is 2130706433.

Computer Careers/Jobs:

The following are computer-related careers you can have:

Multimedia Specialist
Database Management/Database Administrator (DBA) (SAP, Oracle,
   PeopleSoft, Baan)
Database Analyst
Database Engineer
Data Processing Specialist
Digital Technology
Robotics/Cybernetics
Research And Development (R&D)
Technical Support
Help Desk Representative/Customer Support
Systems Administrator
Systems Analyst
Systems Architect
Systems Engineer
Systems Management
Software Engineering
Data Communications Technician
Communications Specialist
Computer Applications Specialist
Computer Consultant
Computer Game Design
Computer Game Programming
Computer Graphics
Computer Hardware Analyst
Computer Networking
Computer Operation
Computer Peripheral Operation
Computer Program Design
Computer Programming (Further subdivided into the various languages...)
Computer Repair
Computer Sales/Marketing
Computer Scientist
Computer Security Specialist
Computer Service Technician
Computer Support Provider
Computer Teaching/Training
Computer Troubleshooting
Data Recovery
Desktop Publishing (DTP)
Documentation Or Technical Writing
Electrical Engineering/Electronics Engineering (EE)
PC Applications Specialist
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) (User Interface Design, etc.)
Microcomputer Servicing
Network Administrator (LAN or WAN)
Network Analyst
Network Engineer
Project Manager
CIO (Chief Information Officer)
CTO (Chief Technology Officer)
Operating System Specialist (further subdivided into the various OSes)
Quality Control/Quality Assurance (QA)
Web Page Design And Development (HTML, Shockwave, Flash, Java,
JavaScript, CGI, XML, ActiveX, ASP, DHTML, VRML)
Beta Testing/Verification
Computer Animation
Word Processing
Data Entry Clerk/Typist/Secretary
Technical Writer
Internet Specialist
CAD/CAM

Computer Business Services:

ASP (Application Service Provider)
Consulting
Data Conversion
Data Recovery
Disk Duplication
Insurance
ISP (Internet Service Provider)
Training
Web Hosting

Computer Certifications:

ACP (Associate Computing Professional) (Administered by ICCP, the
Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals, www.iccp.org)
(Similar to A+ but less well-known; An entry-level certification for those
trying to enter the computing industry)

CCP (Certified Computing Professional) (Administered by ICCP, the
Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals, www.iccp.org)
(Much more strict than ACP, requiring at least four years of documented
actual work experience and an ongoing requirement of 120 hours of
continuing education in a three-year revolving period)

A+ (administered by CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry
Association) (Intended for entry-level (6 months experience) computer
service technicians. A popular entry-level certification, as it's relatively
inexpensive and widely-recognized. The content is fairly broad, relevant,
and not too difficult.)

Network+ (administered by CompTIA, the Computing Technology
Industry Association) (For networking professionals with 18-24 months
of experience.) (Exists as 1999 and 2001 objectives)

i-Net+ (administered by CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry
Association) (Aimed at people in Internet-related field. Certifies Internet
and e-commerce professionals.)

Server+ (An advanced, high-level certification dealing with advanced
network issues like RAID, SCSI, SANs, multiple CPUs, etc.)
(administered by CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry
Association)

Linux+ (Aimed at Linux professionals with at least 6 months of practical
experience.) (administered by CompTIA, the Computing Technology
Industry Association)

RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer)

Caldera Certified UNIX Systems Administrator (CUSA)

MCSE/MSCE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer)

MCSA (Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator)

MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer)

MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional)

MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer)

MCPS (Microsoft Certified Product Specialist)

CNE (Certified Novell Engineer)

MCNE (Master Certified Novell Engineer)

CNA (Certified Novell Administrator)

CNI (Certified Novell Instructor)

CNS (Certified Novell Salesperson)

CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) (The top of the Cisco
certification heap. Very few CCIEs exist in the world. CCIEs are
required not only to take a written test, but a two-day hands-on test
demonstrating actual usership of networking equipment. In short, this is
not a test to be taken lightly.)

CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) (The entry-level Cisco
certification. Although it is considered to be a beginner's certification,
most people would not consider it "basic", as it contains several
advanced IP networking concepts. Still, a good study guide and a few
months of patient study should yield a pass. WARNING: Cisco
certifications, unlike CompTIA certifications, are not lifelong. Cisco
certifications, including CCNA, must be re-certified every three years to
maintain their validity, except for CCIE which must be renewed every
two years.)

CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional; This is the next step up
from CCNA)

CCDP (Cisco Certified Design Professional)

CCA (Citrix Certified Administrator): Citrix is a relative newcomer
who's grown pretty big. They basically make one significant product,
formerly called WinFrame and now called MetaFrame. It's a software
product that allows you to set up your own in-house ASP, so that other
users can use applications by accessing on a MetaFrame server through
a special Citrix client. The CCA test has become a relatively important
certification in today's world, as many companies actually do use Citrix
systems.

CSA: Certified Solaris Administrator

CSNA: Certified Solaris Network Administrator

Computer Universities:

While just about any normal university offers courses in Computer
Science or similarly computer-related fields, there are a few universities
which have made themselves famous as special places for information
technology and the people who study it. The most important ones are:

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge, Massachusetts

Stanford (home of SAIL, the Stanford AI Lab), Stanford, California
(right next to Palo Alto)

Berkeley (UC Berkeley/UCB/University of California at Berkeley),
Berkeley, California (right next to Oakland, just northeast of San
Francisco) (famous for BSD, Berkeley Software Distributions, including
FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD)

CMU (Carnegie-Mellon University), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (home of
CERT, the Computer Emergency Response Team)

UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Urbana-Champaign,
Illinois (home of the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing
Applications))

Computer Degree Majors:

Computer Science (CS): The major that usually comes first to people's
minds when they think of computer degree majors, computer science is
a broad term that basically comprises the science of information
gathering, storage, organization, retrieval and display. A lot of it is
concerned with programming and data structures, and artificial
intelligence (AI) is often a part of it as well. Computer science is more
focused on software than hardware.

Information Systems (IS): This is a somewhat more business-oriented
approach to computer studies. While much of the information a computer
science student learns is of no practical use in the real world, an
information systems major is concerned with how computers fit into a
modern business setting. Basic business courses in management or
economics often complement it.

Electrical Engineering (EE): EE used to be the field that most computer
professionals came from, since computers were still mostly about the
electronics back then. Today, however, computers are more about the
software, and EE is more concerned with hardware. Indeed, EE is not all
about computers, it's about electronics in general, but a person with an
EE degree can still usually use it as leverage in getting into a software-
oriented computer job.

Computer Engineering

Internet Address Prefixes:

http:// (HTTP, HyperText Transport Protocol; Used For WWW)
gopher:// (Gopher)
ftp:// (FTP, File Transport Protocol)
telnet:// (Telnet, Remote Terminal Access)
nntp:// or news:// (Network News Transport Protocol, Used For Usenet
Newsgroups; Rarely Typed Manually)
WAIS:// (Wide-Area Information Search; Rarely Used, Period)
file:// (Used To Access A File On Local Computer)

ALL-PURPOSE URL FORMAT:

method://host.domain:port/path/filename

The server's full name (the "host.domain" above) is read from right to
left, not left to right. For example, when connecting to server.com, you're
going to the "server" part of .com, not the .com part of "server". For
whoop.server.com, you first enter the .com domain, then connect to
server, then the whoop part of server.com.

The port can generally be left out, unless you specifically know that you
should include it. Basic port numbers include:

21 FTP
23 Telnet
70 Gopher
80 HTTP
119 NNTP
194 IRC

(You should not have to specify these, as they will be used by default.)

For logging into FTP servers, use this format:
ftp://login:password@host.domain:port/path/filename

To specify special (non-alphanumeric) characters in URLs, use the ASCII
hex code of the character, preceded by a percent sign (%). For example,
if you want to insert a space in an URL, use %20 as a placeholder for
the space, since 20 is the ASCII hex code for a space.

BASIC Data-Type Suffixes/BASIC Variable Types:

% Integer
& Long Integer
! Single Precision
# Double Precision
$ String

(Integers do not use decimals, they are rounded to the nearest whole
number.)

Bitwise Vs. Logical Expressions:

In programming, the logic operations AND, OR, and NOT can take two
forms: Bitwise and logical. Although they share the same name and in
fact the same basic logic concept, they are in fact totally different in their
function. Logical operations are the kind you probably think of when you
think of these logic operations (assuming you learned about them from
a discussion on logic gates). Logical operations are performed on two
items and the results based on boolean truth. For example, if A is true
and B is false, then A OR B is true, A AND B is false, and NOT A is
false, while NOT B is true.

Bitwise operations, on the other hand, use binary numbers. Each digit in
the number counts as one true-or-false condition. For example, 12 AND
5 equals 4, because 12 is 1100 and 5 equals 0101. 1 AND 0 is 0, 1 AND
1 is 1, 0 AND 0 is 0, and 0 AND 1 is 0. That leaves us with 0100,
which is 4.

In C, probably the most popular programming language in the world,
bitwise operations are specified by using single-instance expressions: &
is AND, | is OR, and ! is NOT. For example, "e = 12 & 5" would set e
to 4, because it would perform a bitwise AND operation. On the other
hand, logical operations are specified by using double-instance
expressions: && is AND, || is OR, and != is NOT (or NOT EQUALS).
For example, "variable1 && variable2" is a logical operation which is
true if both operations are true, and false otherwise.

As a side note, this is similar to the way the equals sign is used. A
single-instance equals sign (=) is actually a command to set a variable to
equal something. For example, "a = 5" makes a equal 5. On the other
hand, a double-instance equals sign (==) is used for comparison. For
example, "a == 5" is a conditional statement which checks to see if a
equals 5.

COMPUTER'S PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT:

Always keep a computer within these physical specifications, even when
it's off:

Temperature: 15-24 Celsius
Relative Humidity: 20-80%

How To Drain A CRT: A CRT's anode acts like a huge capacitor and
usually retains enough electricity to kill a person, even after the CRT has
been turned off. It is the only part of your computer which presents an
electrocution hazard after the power is turned off. To drain the CRT,
connect a jumper wire from the CRT's anode to a ground source. You
should always do this immediately after opening any CRT for servicing.
(Obviously, don't try this if you don't know what you're doing!)

Features To Look For In A Computer:

ALL Computer Components Should Be Separate (The Case Should NOT
Be Permanently Attached To The Monitor Or Keyboard). All components
should be easy to separate. The processor (and everything else, for that
matter) should be acessible, NOT hidden behind some kind of housing
or other parts, and the most that you should have to do to take the entire
computer apart is take off a few screws and unplug a few cables and
wires.

ALL Boards, Cards, Chips, Drives, Wires, And Power Supplies Should
Be Easily Removable From The Interior Of The Case

Cutesy, Easy-To-Remember Name (Like The Compaq Presario Or Tandy
Sensation! Has)

The Components Of Your Computer Should Look Nice, So That Even
When It's Off, It Looks Great And Makes A Terrific Addition To Your
Decor.

Price: The price refers to the amount of money it will require you to
purchase the computer. In North America (which includes the U.S.A. and
Canada), prices for computers (and just about everything else) are usually
measured in dollars. A dollar is a unit of currency. In most cases, a low
price shall be desirable. Generally, the closer the price is to free, the
better. Free means the same as 0 dollars, so the closer the price is to 0,
the better. For most purposes, however, a price lower than free would be
better still. If you should see a computer being sold for a price lower
than free, I would certainly go for it, although you may decide to do
otherwise. In any event, bear in mind that money doesn't come cheap.

The computer should NOT have anything proprietary in it. As a general
rule of thumb, if a computer sports a feature, and the feature has a name
that's a trademark, and it's a trademark of the company that makes the
computer, you don't want it. An example of this proprietary garbage is
IBM's TheatreSound. IBM and Compaq in particular, it seems, have a
problem with putting that sort of thing in their computers. It may save
you trouble when buying the computer, but since such things are fairly
non-standard and difficult to work with, it will likely cause more trouble
later on. The more open and conventional the structure of the system, the
better. At the very least, if you do get such things, they should have an
option to disable them.

Speaking of proprietary stuff, the computer should also not have any
clever little "tricks" to make upgrading harder. These usually take the
form of products which have been specially built to only be compatible
with products from the same company. Never buy non-standard
components.

ALL Boards, Cards, Chips, Plugs, Wires, Drives, And Power Supplies
Should Be Easily Removable From The Interior Of The Case

The computer should be Year 2000 (Y2K) Compliant. In addition, it
should be Year 10,000 (Y10K) compliant (able to display dates with
years containing 5 digits), for 8 millenniums from now.

Color-coded cables, while they may be unsightly, can also be just the
opposite: good-looking. They can also be helpful in wiring up the
computer.

The computer should come with a nice, through, friendly, stylish manual
which explains everything about it. If the manual doesn't explain
everything, you shouldn't get the computer. If it doesn't come with a
manual at all, sue the company.

The computer must come in attractive, colorful boxes.

Also, if you're new to computers, it should come with a "Quick Start"
setup guide and a big, full-color setup poster to hang on the wall while
you're setting it up.

If the computer is going to be on a LAN, and it will be one of the
smaller systems there (i.e. not a server), then it should be compliant with
DMI 2.1.

Tests To Perform While In The Store:

1. Turn on the computer. You should hear the system powering up; that
is, you should hear a faint hum getting a little louder until it settles at a
steady, quiet level. If the hum is loud, or if you don't hear it at all, that's
bad news.

2. Bring some really demanding (hardware-wise) multimedia software
title on a CD and run it on the system as a test to see how well it
handles.

3. In fact, test everything. You're the customer, you're always right. It's
your computer you're buying, you have a right to check it out to ensure
you're not getting ripped off by the store.

4. Bring a diagnostics program of some sort and use it to ensure the
computer has all the specifications you want it to have.

5. Better not trust the salespeople. Check for yourself and make sure the
computer has everything they claim. It's not uncommon for them to over-
state the computer, figuring you won't know the difference. Don't just
run a benchmark program on it. Perform real-world testing to ensure that
the system is capable of its specifications. (A benchmark program may
be useful as well, however.)

(If you check the computer for several hours in the store, you are likely
to seriously annoy the salepeople. So if you prefer, do most of your
inspection at home after buying the system, but make sure you get a 30-
day money-back guarantee so you can return the system if it isn't up to
your specs.)

Programming Languages:

Ada: A very stupid programming language which is really not well-suited
to any purpose.

ALGOL-60: An old programming language which used to be quite
popular. Now obsolete.

APL (A Programming Language)

Assembler

BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code): Probably
the best language to start with when you are beginning programming.
Very good for fairly basic programs, but a little too simple for large
programs.

Batch (Not generally considered programming)

C: The most popular general-purpose programming language among
advanced programmers. C is very powerful for all sorts of things. Highly
recommended for advanced users.

C++: C is a text-mainly language; It doesn't do graphics or sounds. C++
fixes a few of the problems inherent in C, but mostly C++ is simply an
object-oriented, multimedia version of C.

COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language): A very simple
language which is hardly even programming: It is very weak and not
useful for much except basic business functions.

COMAL: A language which is basically some Pascal structure added to
BASIC. Popular in Europe as a training language.

Fortran: Formerly very popular for general-purpose programming, Fortran
(short for FORmula TRANslator) is now considered very old and
extremely difficult to program in. Today its use is confined to the fields
of science and physics, which it is well-suited to.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The language which Web pages
on the World Wide Web are programmed in.

INTERCAL: An extremely complex and bizarre language. It was
designed to be deliberatly difficult to use. It's fun if you want a
challenge, but not useful for actual programming.

Java: Another language which is used in the World Wide Web. At least,
it USED to be used only for the Web. Sadly, however, this little toy
language which was only ever thought to be for small "quick and dirty"
applications and Web applets has been taken seriously by the industry as
the successor to C++, resulting in a whole new generation of people
writing programs in Java as if it were suited for general-purpose
programming.

JavaScript: A language which has absolutely nothing to do with Java. (So
why the name? No doubt to induce a feeling that the languages
SHOULD be related.) JavaScript is inserted directly into HTML code and
interpreted along with it in the Web browser when the page is loaded,
unlike Java, which must be compiled into a binary file before it is run.

LISP: The mother tongue of AI (Artificial Intelligence). The name LISP
is actually a shortening of "List processing language", but it is often
joked that it really stands for (or SHOULD really stand for) "Lots of
Irritating Superfluous Parentheses". Lisp is an interesting language which
should be studied if you are a real computer enthusiast, but it is not good
for much other than AI.

Logo: A simple drawing "programming" language which is probably best
suited for children as their first programming language.

Modula-2: Modular Language, intended to be the second version of
Pascal. Both were invented by Niklaus Wirth.

Pascal: An excellent programming language for everyone. It is rather
powerful, quite popular, and not very difficult. It is not as powerful as
C or as simple as COBOL or BASIC, but for general middle-of-the-road
programming, Pascal is ideal.

Perl: An interesting language which is derived from C and resembles it
to some degree. Although C is still the ubiquitous general-purpose
programming language of the moment, Perl seems (for reasons unknown
to me) to have recently been gaining attention.

PILOT (Programmed Inquiry, Language Or Teaching): The best-known
authoring language for the microcomputer.

PL/I: (Programming Language I)

Prolog (PROgrammation en LOGique): A fairly useless language
intended originally for natural-language processing.

Python: A somewhat lesser-known programming language which blends
power with about as much ease-of-use as you can get from this potent a
language. It's not used much in industrial applications, but it's touted as
a great language for people just beginning to learn programming in
general.

Scheme: An instructional programming language, commonly used in
university courses to teach important programming structure principles.
Unfortunately, Scheme has no real-world applications, which is why
Computer Science graduates don't know anything about real-world
programming.

Smalltalk: The first major object-oriented programming language, it
preceded C++ by several years. Now obsolete, though.

SQL (Structured Query Language): A language for use with databases.
It's specifically designed to let you specify what data you want, what
kind, how much, etc. It also lets you manipulate this data and display it
in different ways. SQL is not a general-purpose language for creating
programs, it's just for gathering and presenting data. As such, it's
considerably more simple and easy to learn than, say, C or Perl.

TECO (Text Editor And Corrector): Like INTERCAL, extremely
complicated and ridiculously difficult to do anything with, except TECO
is even more so. It is literally the case that any string of characters is a
valid TECO program. It has some powerful features in it, but they are
tough to use!

VRML: Virtual-Reality Markup Language. A variation on HTML which
adds virtual reality.

Console Video Game Systems (Get PC Emulators For All Of These):

Atari 2600 (1983)

Atari 5200

Atari 7800

NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) (Formerly The Famicom)

Sega Master System

Coleco

Mattel Intellivision

Neo Geo

Nintendo Game Boy

Atari Lynx

Sega Game Gear

SEGA Genisis

NEC TurboGrafx 16

SEGA CD (NOTE: Ecco The Dolphin is the only good game for this
console!)

SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

Panasonic 3DO

Sega Saturn

Sega Dreamcast

Atari Jaguar

Nintendo N64

Sony PlayStation (NOTE: Parasite Eve [Squaresoft] is the only really
good game for this console!)

Nintendo Virtual Boy

Other Computer Platforms (Get PC Emulators For All Of These):

Apple Macintosh (1984)

Apple Macintosh Plus (1986)

Amiga 500 (1987)

Amiga 1000 (1985)

Amiga 1500 (1987)

Amiga 2000 (1987)

Amiga 3000 (1990)

Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) (Commodore's first
computer)

Wang 2000

Atari ST (1985)

Atari 400 (1979)

Atari 800 (1979)

Commodore VIC-20 (1981)

Commodore 64 (C64) (1982)

Commodore 128 (1985)

Coleco Adam

Sinclair Spectrum ("Speccy")

Osborne I (The first portable computer, produced in 1981)

Apple I (Released in 1976 for the famous price of $666.66; Was a
complete computer on a board, requiring only a keyboard, monitor, and
power supply to be added in order to work as a fully functional
computer)

Apple IIgs (1986)

Apple II+ (1979)

Apple IIc (1984)

Apple IIe (1982)

Apple /// (1981)

Apple ///+

Apple Lisa (The first personal computer with a GUI) (1983)

NeXT

Tandy 1000

Tandy 2000

Amstrad CPC

Cray 1

Cray 2

TX-0 (The first transistorized computer; The direct ancestor of the
PDP-1)

DEC PDP-1 (The first minicomputer) (PDP stood for Programmed Data
Processor)

DEC PDP-6 (The system which ITS was first written for)

DEC PDP-8

DEC PDP-10

ENIAC

UNIVAC

IBM 1103
IBM 1103A
IBM 1130
IBM 1401
IBM 1410
IBM 1604
IBM 1620
IBM 1710
IBM 1800
IBM 2741
IBM 3270
IBM 360
IBM 370
IBM 3720
IBM 4300
IBM 5100
IBM 650 (The system that made SOAP famous)
IBM 701
IBM 702
IBM 7030
IBM 704 (Most important of the 700-series)
IBM 7040
IBM 705
IBM 7070
IBM 709 (Successor to the 704; Had the same basic architecture)
IBM 7090 (Successor to the 709)
IBM 7094 (A faster version of the 7090, with more index registers)
IBM 801 RISC Mini

MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800, The First
"Personal Computer"

IMSAI 8080 (Very similar to the Altair 8800)

Radio Shack TRS-80

TRS-80 Color Computer (Tandy CoCo)

Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II (1979)

Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (1980)

Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 2 (1983)

Timex Sinclair

BBC Micro (the British equivalent of the Apple II)

IBM PC (First released on August 12, 1981)

IBM PC XT (First introduced on March 8, 1983)

IBM PC/AT

IBM PS/2

IBM PCjr (1983)

IBM AS/400 (uses OS/400 for an operating system)

Sun SPARC

HP-1000

HP-2000

HP-3000

VAX (uses VMS for an operating system)

DEC Alpha

Intel 80x86

IBM System/390 (Uses OS/390 for an OS)

Xerox Alto (Considered by many to be the first "personal computer";
Never commercially sold, although a commercial version called the Star
was made which was a total failure, financially speaking. Nonetheless,
the Alto had many of the future innovations of the computer industry,
including a mouse, a GUI, and bitmap graphics. The Alto was a large
influence on the Apple Lisa.)

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine

Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine

Acorn Atom (1979)

Acorn Archimedes

Acorn RISC PC

Acorn A3000

Acorn A3010

Acorn A5000

Acorn A7000+

Vectrex

Casio FP-200

NEC 8201a

Magnavox Odyssey 2 (Sold in Europe as the Philips G7000)

Classic Chips:

MOS Technology 6502 (Used in the NES, Apple II, Commodore PET,
VIC-20, Atari 400, and Atari 800)

MOS Technology 6510 (Derivative of the 6502, very similar and
instruction-compatible, but with a few more features; Used in the
Commodore 64)

Western Design Center 65816 (Used in the SNES and Apple IIgs),

Zilog Z80 (Used in the Radio Shack TRS-80)

Motorola 6800

Motorola 68000 (Used in the Commodore Amiga, Apple Lisa, and
original Apple Macintosh)

Intel 4004 (The first microprocessor chip, released in 1971)

Intel 8085 (Intel's last 8-bit CPU) (Used in the NEC 8201a)

RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies):

When AT&T was split in the mid-1980s, seven RBOCs, or "Baby Bells"
resulted. They are:

Pacific Bell (Pacbell) (Operates in California)
Southwestern Bell (Operates in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas,
  and Texas)
U.S. West (Operates in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah,
  Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nebraska, Wyoming, Iowa, North
  Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota)
BellSouth (Operates in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
  Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi)
Bell Atlantic (Operates in Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire,
  Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West
  Virginia, New York (Except New York City), Massachusetts, and
  Rhode Island)
NYNEX (New York/New England Exchange) (Operates in New York
  City)
Ameritech (Operates in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio)
Bellcore (Bell Communications Research) (The research and development
  branch)

Major Internet Backbone Companies:

(Companies are listed in approximate order of size.)

UUnet/WorldCom
AT&T
Sprint
Genuity
PSINet
Cable & Wireless
XO Communications
Verio
Qwest
Global Crossing

So how did UUnet go so huge, as the world's biggest backbone and
wholesale Internet provider by far? Simple: They were the first. In 1987,
UUnet was founded as the world's first commercial Internet access
provider; Prior to that, the Internet had been a non-commercial network
used mainly by universities and the government.

UUCP Address Format:

The old UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy Program) method of sending
messages over the Internet is unreliable, slow, and awkward, but it was
the standard way of communicating over the Net back in the dark old
days. UUCP addresses were often called "bang paths", because items in
them are separated by exclamation marks, which are often called "bangs"
in hackerdom.

The basic format of a UUCP address is very simple. In fact, it is nothing
more than a list of machines through which a message is meant to travel,
with each machine's name separated by an exclamation mark. So, the
syntax is:

first_machine!machine!machine!users_machine!user

The first machine's name must be reachable from the current network;
Thus, well-known system names are used so that people will have access
to the first link in the chain. From there, the chain travels through
progressively more obscure systems, each reachable only through the
previous link in the chain.

The first machine's name is often "uunet". So, you might have an address
like:

uunet!bigcompany!marketing!jim

This might route the message onto UUnet, into a company called
"bigcompany", to a machine called "marketing" (which, presumably,
would be used by the marketing department), and then finally to the user
"jim".

Service & Support Policies:

Lifetime No-Questions-Asked Warranty, Parts And Labor

24 Hours A Day, 7 Days A Week, 365 Days A Year Toll-Free 800 
Number FAST, Accurate, And Friendly Order Line

24 Hours A Day, 7 Days A Week, 365 Days A Year Toll-Free 800
Number FAST, Accurate, Friendly, Lifetime Technical Support During
ALL Of Warranty Period

Free Lifetime International On-Site Service Within 4 Hours During ALL
Of Warranty Period

90-Day No-Questions-Asked Money-Back Guarantee

Instant BBS And FAX Toll-Free 800 Number Support

1-Day Turnaround Policy

Manufacturer: Dell, Compaq, Gateway 2000, IBM, Toshiba, Epson,
ZEOS, Hewlett-Packard

If Buying From A Retail Outlet, The Place Should Have Been In
Business For Over Three Years

Absolutely Free Shipping

Multivendor Service Support Availible

Application Support Availible

ALL software should be preloaded on the computer AND come with
ORIGINAL DISKS, MANUALS, WARRANTY REGISTRATION
CARDS, AND BOXES!!!

THOROUGHLY WRITTEN MANUALS FOR THE ENTIRE
SYSTEM!!!!!

Floppy Disk Care:

1. Never Touch The Disk Surface!

2. Protect (Keep Shutter Shut For 3.5", Keep In Envelope For 5.25").

3. Never Put A Disk Near Magnets.

4. Insert Disk Carefully Into Disk Drive.

5. Keep At Temperature Of 10 - 60 C (For 3.5") Or 10 - 52 C (For
5.25") And Relative Humidity Of 8% - 88%

6. Keep Write Protect Notch In Protected Postition.

7. Never Bend The Disk! (5.25"; You Can't Bend A 3.5").

8. Never drop disks!

9. Don't press hard when you write on the disk. Also, use a felt-tip pen
rather than a ballpoint pen or pencil.

10. Keep disks faaaaar away from any electrical devices, especially in
storage.

11. Don't leave disks in the drive. Remove them when you're not using
them.

12. Don't leave disks in direct sunlight.

Compact Disc (CD) Care:

1. Never touch the disc surface!

2. Keep CDs in their respective jewel cases.

3. Handle CDs by their outer edges and the inner hole only.

4. Never drop CDs!

5. Using jewel cases: When taking a CD from a jewel case, use the index
finger of one hand to push the clasp in the center, then use your other
hand to grasp the CD by its edges. When putting it back in, place it over
the clasp, then push on the clasp and let the CD fall into place. Then
release the clasp.

6. Don't leave CDs in the drive. Remove them when you're not using
them.

7. Don't leave discs in direct sunlight.
               APPENDIX A: BATCH FILES

Introduction (Use With CHEKMEMM.BAT): INTRO.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo Welcome to the computer. To get help on MS-DOS,
echo type "help" at the MS-DOS prompt.
echo.
echo To run the handy menu system, type "menu" at the prompt.
echo.
echo Now, please enter in your DOS command.
echo.

Run specified program: <LETTER>.BAT:
@c:\<directory>\<program name>
@cd\
@cls

Run Windows just by typing W: W.BAT:
win

Greet user. Nice if beginners will be using the computer who might
actually try to type "hello" into it. Makes it seem warm and friendly to
the newbies: HELLO.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo Hello, how are you?
echo.
echo Welcome to my world. If you want some help on
echo MS-DOS commands, just type "help" to get it.
echo.
echo Type "win" to run Windows. And if you want to
echo run the handy menu system, just type "menu".
echo.

Another program for newbies. Makes them feel like they have control
over the computer: JUMP.BAT:
@echo.
@echo How high?
@echo.

Check floppy drives: CHECKDRV.BAT:
@echo off
cls
driveok %1
if errorlevel 3 goto l3
if errorlevel 2 goto l2
if errorlevel 1 goto l1
:l0
echo Both drives A and B are just fine!
goto end
:l1
echo Something is wrong with drive A! Please make sure there is a
echo formatted disk in the drive and that the drive door is closed.
goto end
:l2
echo Something is wrong with drive B! Please make sure there is a
echo formatted disk in the drive and that the drive door is closed.
goto end
:l3
echo Something is wrong with both drives A and B!!! Please make sure
echo there is a formatted disk in both drives and that the drive doors are
echo closed.
:end
echo.

Homemade menu system: MENU.BAT
@echo off
cls
echo Welcome to the Menu System. This is a handy program that allows
echo you to run the most frequently run programs.
echo.
echo.
echo These are your options:
echo.
echo 1. Run WordPerfect
echo.
echo 2. Run Windows
echo.
echo 3. Play A Game
echo.
echo 4. Quit To DOS
echo.
echo 5. Run The Norton Utilities
echo.
echo 6. Run The MS-DOS Editor
echo.
echo 7. Run MS-DOS QBASIC
echo.
echo.
choice Please enter your choice (1-7): /c:1234567 /n
if errorlevel 7 goto 7
if errorlevel 6 goto 6
if errorlevel 5 goto 5
if errorlevel 4 goto confexit
if errorlevel 3 goto 3
if errorlevel 2 goto 2
if errorlevel 1 goto 1
:confexit
choice "Are you sure you want to quit to DOS? Y/N " /c:yn /n
if errorlevel 2 menu
if errorlevel 1 goto end
:7
cls
echo Thank you for running MS-DOS QBASIC...
pause
cls
qbasic
pause
menu
:6
cls
echo Thank you for running the MS-DOS Editor...
pause
cls
edit
pause
menu
:5
cls
echo Thank you for running the Norton Utilities...
pause
cls
norton
pause
menu
:3
cls
echo Here we go!!!
echo.
echo Here is a list of games you can play:
echo.
echo.
echo 1. <game1>
echo.
echo 2. <game2>
echo.
echo 3. <game3>
echo.
echo 4. <game4>
echo.
echo To return to the menu system, press 5.
echo.
echo.
choice What'll it be? /c:12345 /n
if errorlevel 5 menu
if errorlevel 4 goto game4
if errorlevel 3 goto game3
if errorlevel 2 goto game2
if errorlevel 1 goto game1
:2
cls
echo Thank you for running Windows...
pause
cls
win
pause
menu
:1
cls
echo Thank you for running WordPerfect...
pause
cls
wp
pause
menu
:game4
<game4command>
cd\
pause
menu
:game3
<game3command>
cd\
pause
menu
:game2
<game2command>
cd\
pause
menu
:game1
<game1command>
cd\
pause
menu
:end
cls

Give exercise to the floppy drives: EXERDISK.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo Believe it or not, disk drives need regular exercise.
echo Your computer will now exercise your disk drives.
echo Please put a blank disk into drive A and drive B.
pause
echo.
echo Exercising the drives. Please wait....
REM All the following "/c: " switches actually use the Alt-255
REM character after the "/c:" instead of an ordinary space.
REM Two lines ago, by the way, notice that I do not enclose "Alt-255"
REM in the proper way: A less-than sign before it, and a greater-than
REM sign after it. This is because these are considered MS-DOS
REM redirection symbols, and they would cause "File not found" error
REM messages at this point, even though they come after the REM
REM command. That happened to me before. I just wanted to make this
REM clear.
a:
choice /c:  /n /t: ,4
a:
choice /c:  /n /t: ,4
a:
choice /c:  /n /t: ,4
b:
choice /c:  /n /t: ,4
b:
choice /c:  /n /t: ,4
b:
c:
cls
echo The drives have been exercised!
echo Procedure finished.

Do Specific Functions Once Daily And Once Weekly: ISITTIME.BAT:
@echo off
rem c:\nu\be weekday
rem if errorlevel 7 goto saturday
rem if errorlevel 6 goto friday
rem if errorlevel 5 goto thursday
rem if errorlevel 4 goto wednesday
rem if errorlevel 3 goto tuesday
rem if errorlevel 2 goto monday
rem goto sunday
echo.|date>currdat.txt
if not exist lastdat.txt goto newday
fc currdat.txt lastdat.txt | find /i "no">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto newday
if errorlevel 0 goto sameday
:newday
copy currdat.txt lastdat.txt>nul
goto onceday
:sameday
del currdat.txt
goto end
:onceday
find /i "Mon"<currdat.txt>nul
if errorlevel 1 goto nomonday
goto monday
:nomonday
find /i "Tue"<currdat.txt>nul
if errorlevel 1 goto notuesday
goto tuesday
:notuesday
find /i "Wed"<currdat.txt>nul
if errorlevel 1 goto nowednesday
goto wednesday
:nowednesday
find /i "Thu"<currdat.txt>nul
if errorlevel 1 goto nothursday
goto thursday
:nothursday
find /i "Fri"<currdat.txt>nul
if errorlevel 1 goto nofriday
goto friday
:nofriday
find /i "Sat"<currdat.txt>nul
if errorlevel 1 goto sunday
goto saturday
:daily
REM Put once-a-day commands here
rem start
cls
echo This is the first time you have tried to boot your computer today.
echo Your computer is ready to defragment your hard disk now in order
echo to increase its performance. However, defragging a hard disk is a
echo time consuming task. Although doing it daily can help speed the
echo operation up, it may still take a while.
rem NOTE: If you don't want to bother defragging your hard disk daily,
rem just do it once a week. That'll do the trick just as well.
rem To do it once a week, erase the lines from the line "rem start" to the
rem line "rem end" in this batch file. Lastly, remove all the "rem"s from
rem the lines under ":friday" below. This does the operation every
rem Friday.
echo Your computer will reboot itself after the defragmentation process
echo as a safety measure.
choice "Do you want to defrag your hard disk? Y/N" /c:ny /n
if errorlevel 2 c:\nu\speedisk c: /fd /b /sn /v
rem goto end
cls
REM After all those, go back to the main program.
goto sameday
:monday
cls
echo Today is monday. Every Monday, your computer runs Microsoft
echo ScanDisk, a general purpose disk scanner to quickly spot disk
echo problems. Your system will ask you if you want to do a surface
echo scan.
echo You should answer "Yes" to this question if you have the time.
echo ScanDisk will tell you how many minutes the surface scan should
echo take. If you're in a hurry and DON'T have the time, fine. Just
echo choose "No".
echo Your system will run ScanDisk now.
pause
scandisk /custom
cls
echo Another general purpose disk scanner is the Norton Disk Doctor.
echo Your computer will now run the disk doctor.
pause
c:\nu\ndd /complete
call exerdisk
pause
del c:\temp\*.tmp
cls
goto daily
:tuesday
goto daily
:wednesday
goto daily
:thursday
goto daily
:friday
rem cls
rem echo Today is Friday.
rem echo Your computer is ready to defragment your hard disk now in
rem echo order to increase its performance. However, defragging a hard
rem echo disk is a time consuming task. Although doing it often can help
rem echo speed the operation up, it may still take a while.
rem echo NOTE: If you don't want to bother defragging your hard disk
rem echo daily, just do it once a week. That'll do the trick just as well.
rem echo Your computer will reboot itself after the defragmentation 
rem echo process as a safety measure.
rem choice "Do you want to defrag your hard disk? Y/N" /c:ny /n
rem if errorlevel 2 c:\nu\speedisk c: /fd /b /sn /v
goto daily
:saturday
goto daily
:sunday
goto daily
:end

Give Current Time And Date And Return To Prompt: DATETIME.BAT:
@echo.
@echo.|time|find "is"
@echo.|date|find "is"
@echo.

Same as DATETIME.BAT, but works faster. Also, the command is faster
to type (two letters rather than eight): DT.BAT:
@echo off
prompt Today's date is $d.
echo on

@echo off
prompt The time is $t.
echo on

@echo off
echo.
myprompt


List All Subdirectories Of Current Directory: SUBDIRS.BAT:
@dir|find "<DIR>"|more

Restore Old Prompt: MYPROMPT.BAT:
@prompt TODAY'S DATE IS $D$_TIME IS $T$_$P$G

Restore Old Path (NOTE: If you are NOT running Windows 95, omit the
c:\windows\command directory from the path): MYPATH.BAT:
@path=c:\windows;c:\windows\command;c:\dos;c:\;c:\sierra;c:\batch;c:\
nu;c:\utils;..;\

Add A Directory To The Start Of The Path: ADDPATH.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1"=="" goto noparam
set path=%1;%path%
goto success
:noparam
echo.
echo Error.
echo You must include a directory name to add to the path line. For
echo example, if the directory you want to add is c:\director, then you
echo would type the following at the command line:
echo.
echo addpath c:\director
echo.
goto end
:success
echo Directory successfully added to path.
echo.
:end

Add A Directory To The End Of The Path: ADDPATH2.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1"=="" goto noparam
set path=%path%;%1
goto success
:noparam
echo.
echo Error.
echo You must include a directory name to add to the path line. For
echo example, if the directory you want to add is c:\director, then you
echo would type the following at the command line:
echo.
echo addpath c:\director
echo.
goto end
:success
echo Directory successfully added to path.
echo.
:end

Display A Variable You Specify: CHKVARBL.BAT:
@echo off
echo.
if "%1"=="" goto noparam
set|find /i "%1="
if errorlevel 1 goto notfound
echo.
goto end
:noparam
echo Error.
echo You must include a variable with the CHKVARBL command! For
echo example, if the variable you are trying to check is called TEMP,
echo then you would echo type the following at the command line:
echo.
echo chkvarbl temp
echo.
goto end
:notfound
echo Variable %1 does not currently exist.
echo.
:end

Use Keyboard As A Typewriter From DOS Prompt: TYPEWRIT.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo This little program lets you quickly type text straight from your
echo keyboard to your printer. Simply start typing now, and when you're
echo done, turn your printer on, press F6 on your keyboard, and then
echo press ENTER. 
echo.
copy con printext.prn
rem copy printext.prn prn
print printext.prn
erase printext.prn
cls

Demonstrate CHOICE Command To Your Friends: ASKER.BAT:
@echo off
cls
choice Good day! How are you? 1 = Great 2 = OK 3 = Awful /c:123 /n
if ERRORLEVEL 3 goto awful
if ERRORLEVEL 2 goto ok
if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto great
:awful
echo Too bad! Hope you feel better soon.
goto end
:ok
echo Oh, good. Have a good day.
goto end
:great
echo Glad to hear it!
goto end
:end
echo.

Edit Either CONFIG.SYS Or AUTOEXEC.BAT: EDITSYS.BAT:
@echo off
cls
if "%1" == "c" goto editconf
if "%1" == "a" goto editauto
echo Which of your system files would you like to edit?
echo.
echo 1. CONFIG.SYS
echo.
echo 2. AUTOEXEC.BAT
echo.
echo 3. Exit
echo.
choice Please choose: /c:123 /n
if errorlevel 3 goto end
if errorlevel 2 goto editauto
if errorlevel 1 goto editconf
:editauto
edit c:\autoexec.bat
goto end
:editconf
edit c:\config.sys
:end
cls

Reboot Computer (Need HACKER.EXE Downloaded, See Particular
Downloads Below): REBOOT.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto usage
if "%1" == "cold" c:\hacker\hacker boot cold
if "%1" == "warm" c:\hacker\hacker boot
:usage
cls
echo Usage:
echo.
echo reboot [type]
echo.
echo [type] specifies type of reboot. It can be either "cold" or "warm".
echo.
echo You have the following options:
echo.
echo 1. Do a warm (software) boot.
echo.
echo 2. Do a cold (hardware) boot.
echo.
echo 3. Exit.
echo.
echo NOTE: If you attempt a warm boot, it may result in a cold boot, if
you
echo have a TSR or some other such evil software which has violated
DOS for
echo its own lustful purposes.
echo.
choice Please choose: /c:123 /n
if errorlevel 3 goto end
if errorlevel 2 c:\hacker\hacker boot cold
if errorlevel 1 c:\hacker\hacker boot
:end
cls

Do A Quick Warm Boot (Need HACKER): WAB.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker.com boot

Do A Quick Cold Boot (Need HACKER): COB.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker.com boot cold

Give A Music Blurb (Need HACKER): TADAA.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker sound gate

Make A "ZAP" Sound (Need HACKER): ZAP.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker sound alarm

Sound The Alarm Until A Key Is Pressed (Need HACKER):
ALARM.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker sound siren /continue

Sound Another Alarm Until A Key Is Pressed (Need HACKER):
ALARM2.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker sound alarm /continue

Sound Yet Another Alarm Until A Key Is Pressed (Need HACKER):
ALARM3.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker sound dive /continue

Turn Cursor On Or Off (Need HACKER): CURSOR.BAT:
@echo off
cls
if "%1" == "" goto usage
if "%1" == "on" goto turnon
if "%1" == "off" goto turnoff
:usage
echo Usage:
echo.
echo cursor [on / off]
echo.
echo Using "on" turn your cursor on, using "off" turns it off.
echo.
echo You have the following options:
echo.
echo 1. Turn the cursor on.
echo.
echo 2. Turn the cursor off.
echo.
echo 3. Exit
echo.
choice Please choose: /c:123 /n
if errorlevel 3 goto end
if errorlevel 2 goto turnoff
if errorlevel 1 goto turnon
:turnoff
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor|find "{ off }"
if errorlevel 1 goto notoff
if errorlevel 0 goto alreadoff
:notoff
rem c:\hacker\hacker sound dive
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor /off>nul
goto end
:turnon
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor|find "{ on }"
if errorlevel 1 goto noton
if errorlevel 0 goto alreadon
:noton
rem c:\hacker\hacker sound alarm
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor /on>nul
goto end
:alreadoff
cls
echo Your cursor is already off!
goto end
:alreadon
cls
echo Your cursor is already on!
goto end
:end
echo.

Play A Game To Demonstrate Some Stuff (Need HACKER):
JAWS.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo In this game, you will help to defeat JAWS, the terrible, horrible
echo shark. JAWS is approaching the island where the small, quaint town
echo of Huntrop is located. JAWS will tear the town apart if he is
echo allowed to get to it. Your job is to stop him.
echo.
echo JAWS is getting clooooooooser...
c:\hacker\hacker sound dive /continue
cls
echo You are captain of a powerful submarine. Your job is to blow the
echo shark to smithereens. To do so will be an fairly easy job,
echo considering the powerful weaponry on your sub. If you are ready,
echo let's begin!
echo.
pause
cls
echo When you get a message about JAWS being within firing range,
echo press any key to launch a torpedo at the shark. If you press a key
echo at the correct time, JAWS will become seriously wounded. You will
echo need to hit him a second time before he is dead. If you hit him
echo twice with torpedos, JAWS will be no more than a memory.
echo.
echo Please wait for the shark to get closer to your sub so you can fire.
echo.
c:\hacker\hacker wait 8
if errorlevel 1 goto imdead
echo The shark is getting closer, Captain. Don't fire just yet, though.
c:\hacker\hacker sound dive
echo.
c:\hacker\hacker wait 4
if errorlevel 1 goto imdead
echo The shark is within firing range, Captain.
c:\hacker\hacker wait 5
if errorlevel 1 goto fired1
goto imdead
:fired1
echo.
echo EXCELLENT, CAPTAIN!!! The shark has become seriously
echo wounded. You will now need to hit him only once more before he's
echo dead!
c:\hacker\hacker sound ruffle;sound ruffle
pause
cls
echo OK, same thing again. Just wait a while.
c:\hacker\hacker wait 4
if errorlevel 1 goto imdead
echo.
echo The shark has turned away from the town and is now centered
echo directly on us, Captain. He's in firing range. Better fire, quickly!
c:\hacker\hacker sound dive;wait 3
if errorlevel 1 goto wonit
goto imdead
:wonit
cls
c:\hacker\hacker sound ruffle;sound ruffle;sound gate
echo CONGRATULATIONS, CAPTAIN!!!!!!! YOU HAVE
echo DESTROYED JAWS AND SAVED THE
echo QUAINT LITTLE TOWN! WAY TO GO!
echo.
pause
goto end
:imdead
echo You didn't fire at the right time!
echo The shark is too close! It's right next to the submarine!
echo The shark is attacking!!!
c:\hacker\hacker sound siren;sound siren
echo You have died.
pause
goto end
:end

Handle INTRO.BAT and MemMaker. When you call INTRO directly
from AUTOEXEC by giving the command "call intro", it results in two
command prompts appearing on the screen. This is not really a big deal,
but a slight rough edge. However, while removing the word "call" takes
care of that problem, it then prevents MemMaker from doing its job if
you decide to use it. It will not do the optimization process properly. So,
to correct this, instead of running INTRO directely from AUTOEXEC,
use CHEKMEMM.BAT (without the CALL command) to manage it all.
Here it is: CHEKMEMM.BAT:
@echo off
type autoexec.bat|find "C:\DOS\MEMMAKER.EXE /SESSION:">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto notfound
type autoexec.bat|find "C:\DOS\MEMMAKER.EXE
/SESSION:">domemm.bat
echo del domemm.bat>>domemm.bat
domemm
:notfound
intro

Play all 21 sounds included with HACKER (Need HACKER):
HACKSOND.BAT:
@echo off
cd\hacker
hacker sound alarm;sound also;sound benven;sound brindi;sound celeste 
hacker sound charge;sound dalila;sound donna;sound dive;sound dream
hacker sound flute;sound fur;sound gate;sound gifts;sound horn;sound
libera
hacker sound pipe;sound rays;sound ride;sound ruffle;sound siren
cd\

Do the HACKER "signal" routine of HACKROUN.BAT included with
HACKER (Need HACKER): SIGNAL.BAT:
@c:\hacker\hacker sound also;sound charge;sound horn;sound pipe;sound
dive;sound rays;sound alarm;sound alarm;sound siren
@c:\hacker\hacker sound ride

Do the HACKER sound "ruffle" and "gate" both (Need HACKER):
RUFFGATE.BAT:
@echo off
c:\hacker\hacker sound ruffle;sound gate

Do HACKSOND.BAT, but pausing between each sound, and displaying
the sound name (Need HACKER): HACKSONP.BAT:
@echo off
cd\hacker
pause
echo ALARM
hacker sound alarm
pause
echo ALSO
hacker sound also
pause
echo BENVEN
hacker sound benven
pause
echo BRINDI
hacker sound brindi
pause
echo CELESTE
hacker sound celeste 
pause
echo CHARGE
hacker sound charge
pause
echo DALILA
hacker sound dalila
pause
echo DONNA
hacker sound donna
pause
echo DIVE
hacker sound dive
pause
echo DREAM
hacker sound dream
pause
echo FLUTE
hacker sound flute
pause
echo FUR
hacker sound fur
pause
echo GATE
hacker sound gate
pause
echo GIFTS
hacker sound gifts
pause
echo HORN
hacker sound horn
pause
echo LIBERA
hacker sound libera
pause
echo PIPE
hacker sound pipe
pause
echo RAYS
hacker sound rays
pause
echo RIDE
hacker sound ride
pause
echo RUFFLE
hacker sound ruffle
pause
echo SIREN
hacker sound siren
cd\

Instant Backup To Whichever Floppy Drive (A Or B) That Has A Disk
In It (Need HACKER): BACKUP.BAT:
@echo off
cd\
echo.
if "%1" == "" goto usage
if "%1" == "/?" goto usage
if not exist %1 goto filenot
c:\hacker\hacker what drive
if errorlevel 3 goto doit
goto curfloppy
:doit
driveok
if errorlevel 3 goto nonedrive
if errorlevel 2 goto backtoa
if errorlevel 1 goto backtob
if errorlevel 0 goto bothdrive
goto nonedrive
:usage
echo Usage:
echo.
echo backup [file]
echo.
echo You can specify wildcards, drive letters, directory names, etc.
echo.
goto end
:filenot
echo The file you specified doesn't exist.
echo.
goto end
:curfloppy
echo Your current drive is a floppy drive. You can't backup from a
echo floppy drive using this program.
echo.
goto end
:backtoa
if exist a:\%1 goto aoverwrite
:finala
copy %1 a:>nul
goto finished
:backtob
if exist b:\%1 goto boverwrite
:finalb
copy %1 b:>nul
goto finished
:finished
echo Done! The specified file(s) have been backed up!
echo.
goto end
:nonedrive
echo There is no disk in either drive A or B.
echo.
goto end
:bothdrive
echo There is a disk in both drives A and B. This program is now
echo confused, and doesn't know what to do. Please take out one of the
echo disks and try again.
echo.
goto end
:aoverwrite
echo Oops! The specified file to be backed up already exists on the
echo floppy disk.
choice "Do you want to overwrite it? Y/N" /c:yn /n
echo.
if errorlevel 2 goto end
goto finala
:boverwrite
echo Oops! the specified file to be backed up already exists on the
echo floppy disk.
choice "Do you want to overwrite it? Y/N " /c:yn /n
echo.
if errorlevel 2 goto end
goto finalb
:end

Variation Of BACKUP.BAT Which Uses LHA (See Below) To
Automatically Compress The Files To Be Backed Up While You Back
Them Up. This Batch File Sticks All The Files To Be Backed Up Into
The File BACKUP.LZH On The Floppy (If BACKUP.LZH Doesn't
Exist, LHA Creates It). In My Humble Opinion, This Is A Very Useful,
Handy, And COOL Batch Program!: LHABACK.BAT:
@echo off
cd\
echo.
if "%1" == "" goto usage
if "%1" == "/?" goto usage
if not exist %1 goto filenot
c:\hacker\hacker what drive
if errorlevel 3 goto doit
goto curfloppy
:doit
driveok
if errorlevel 3 goto nonedrive
if errorlevel 2 goto backtoa
if errorlevel 1 goto backtob
if errorlevel 0 goto bothdrive
goto nonedrive
:usage
echo Usage:
echo.
echo lhaback [file]
echo.
echo You can specify wildcards, drive letters, directory names, etc.
echo.
goto end
:filenot
echo The file you specified doesn't exist.
echo.
goto end
:curfloppy
echo Your current drive is a floppy drive. You can't backup from a
floppy
echo drive using this program.
echo.
goto end
:backtoa
if exist a:\%1 goto aoverwrite
:finala
rem copy %1 a:>nul
lha a a:\backup.lzh %1 /n2
goto finished
:backtob
if exist b:\%1 goto boverwrite
:finalb
rem copy %1 b:>nul
lha a b:\backup.lzh %1 /n2
goto finished
:finished
echo Done! The specified file(s) have been backed up!
echo.
goto end
:nonedrive
echo There is no disk in either drive A or B.
echo.
goto end
:bothdrive
echo There is a disk in both drives A and B. This program is now
echo confused, and doesn't know what to do. Please take out one of the
echo disks and try again.
echo.
goto end
:aoverwrite
echo Oops! The specified file to be backed up already exists on the
echo floppy disk.
choice "Do you want to overwrite it? Y/N" /c:yn /n
echo.
if errorlevel 2 goto end
goto finala
:boverwrite
echo Oops! the specified file to be backed up already exists on the
echo floppy disk.
choice "Do you want to overwrite it? Y/N " /c:yn /n
echo.
if errorlevel 2 goto end
goto finalb
:end

Check If Windows Is Running, Then Return An Errorlevel Of 0 If Not,
1 If It Is: CHECKWIN.BAT:
@echo off
rem Return ERRORLEVEL 0 if Windows isn't running, 1 if it is
running.
mem /c|find "WIN">null
if errorlevel 1 goto notthere
if errorlevel 0 goto itsthere
:itsthere
set winvarbl=yes
set|find "WINVARBL=NO">null
set winvarbl=
goto end
:notthere
set winvarbl=no
set|find "WINVARBL">null
set winvarbl=
goto end
:end
del null

Show How Many Bytes There Are In A Megabyte: BMB.BAT:
@echo.
@echo 1,048,576
@echo.

Beep: BEEP.BAT:
@echo 

Show All Hidden Files In Current Directory Using DIR: HIDDEN.BAT:
@dir/a:h/p

Using CHECKWIN.BAT Above, Display Message On Whether Windows
Is On Or Not: ISWIN.BAT:
@echo off
call checkwin
echo.
if errorlevel 1 goto y
:n
echo Windows isn't running at the moment.
goto end
:y
echo Windows is currently running.
:end
echo.

Hacker's NOTE Function Is Supposed To Be A High-Visibility Thing So
You Can See Text From A Distance. We Think Not. This Batch File
Proves Which Is More Visible: The Old-fashioned ASCII Block
Characters Put Together To Form Text, Or HACKER NOTE (Need
HACKER): TESTNOTE.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo             
echo                                                  
echo                                          
echo                                         
echo                                                  
echo                              
echo.
c:\hacker\hacker note TEST
echo.
echo.
echo Now, which do you think is the more visible from far away???
echo.

Stolen Right From HACKROUN.BAT (Which Is Included With
HACKER), This Batch Program Impresses Your Friends And Fools Your
Enemies By Proving That Not Only Does Your Computer Know What
Day Of The Week It Is, But Also Whether It's Morning, Afternoon, Or
Evening!!! (Need HACKER): IMPRESS.BAT:
@echo off
c:\hacker\hacker what day
set i=Saturday
if errorlevel  6 goto a
set i=Friday
if errorlevel  5 goto a
set i=Thursday
if errorlevel  4 goto a
set i=Wednesday
if errorlevel  3 goto a
set i=Tuesday
if errorlevel  2 goto a
set i=Monday
if errorlevel  1 goto a
set i=Sunday
:a
c:\hacker\hacker what time
set j=evening
if errorlevel 170 goto b
set j=afternoon
if errorlevel 120 goto b
set j=morning
:b
echo                      And a Good %i% %j% to you !
c:\hacker\hacker sound gate
echo.
rem     Let's keep our environment clean, shall we ?
set j=
set i=

Run DIR And Just Show Summary Info. Quite Handy: BYTES.BAT:
@echo off
echo.
dir /w|find "bytes"
echo.

Run DBLSPACE/LIST: BYTES2.BAT:
@dblspace/list

Show All Hidden Files In Current Directory, All System Files, And All
Read-Only Files, And Wait For A Keypress Between Each:
HIDDEN.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo These are the hidden files in the current directory:
dir/a:h/p
pause
cls
echo These are the system files in the current directory:
dir/a:s/p
pause
cls
echo These are the read-only files in the current directory:
dir/a:r/p

Show All Hidden And System (But Not Read-Only) Files On Entire Disk
(Need HACKER): HIDDEN2.BAT:
@echo off
cd\
c:\hacker\hacker show hidden|find "\">hidd.txt
echoͻ>hidden.txt
type hidd.txt>>hidden.txt
echoͼ>>hidden.txt
echo.
type hidden.txt
del hidd.txt
del hidden.txt
echo.

Turn The HIMEM Memory Test On Or Off: HITEST.BAT:
@echo off
cd\
cls
echo Would you like to turn the HIMEM memory test on or off?
echo.
echo 1 On
echo.
echo 2 Off
echo.
choice Please choose (1 or 2)? /c:12 /n
echo.
if errorlevel 2 goto turnoff
if errorlevel 1 goto turnon
:turnoff
type config.sys|find /i "testmem:off">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto dooff
echo The memory test is already off.
echo.
goto end
:turnon
type config.sys|find /i "testmem:on">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto doon
echo The memory test is already on.
echo.
goto end
:dooff
rem find/v "device=c:\dos\himem.sys">conres.txt
rem echo device=c:\dos\himem.sys/testmem:off>config.sys
rem type conres.txt>>config.sys
rem del conres.txt
change config.sys "testmem:on" "testmem:off">nul
cls
echo Done. The test is off.
echo.
goto end
:doon
rem find/v "device=c:\dos\himem.sys">conres.txt
rem echo device=c:\dos\himem.sys/testmem:on>config.sys
rem type conres.txt>>config.sys
rem del conres.txt
change config.sys "testmem:off" "testmem:on">nul
cls
echo Done. The test is on.
echo.
:end

Place The Time Into A File Called TIME.TXT In The Current Directory:
TEXTTIME.BAT:
@echo off
echo.|time|find "is">linetime.bat
echo set time=%%3>current.bat
call linetime
del linetime.bat
del current.bat
echo %time%>time.txt
set time=
echo.
type time.txt
echo.

Similar To TEXTTIME, But Removes The Seconds, And Only Does
Hours And Minutes: TEXTIME2.BAT:
@echo off
echo A>temptime
dir temptime|find "TEMPTIME">linetime.bat
echo set time=%%3>temptime.bat
call linetime
del linetime.bat
del temptime.bat
del temptime
echo %time%>time.txt
set time=
echo.
type time.txt
echo.

Creates a variable called TIME, which contains the time in the format
HH:MMa: VARBTIME.BAT:
@echo off
echo A>temptime
dir temptime|find "TEMPTIME">linetime.bat
echo set time=%%3>temptime.bat
call linetime
del linetime.bat
del temptime.bat
del temptime

Same as VARBTIME.BAT, except changes "a" to "AM" or "p" to "PM":
VARTIME2.BAT:
@echo off
echo A>temptime
dir temptime|find "TEMPTIME">linetime.bat
echo set time=%%3 %%4>temptime.bat
change linetime.bat "a" " AM">nul
change linetime.bat "p" " PM">nul
call linetime
del linetime.bat
del temptime.bat
del temptime

Run Norton's WIPEINFO Command. Before using this program, type
just WIPE with no parameters to see important info: WIPE.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto noparam
wipeinfo %1/batch
goto end
:noparam
echo.
echo Usage:
echo.
echo wipe [file]
echo.
echo [file] is the name of the file you wish to wipe. You can specify
echo wildcards and the like, but be extremely careful with this program.
echo It completely and permanently destroys data. You will not be given
echo any confirmation messages.
echo.
:end

Use WIPEINFO To Clear The Slack Space At The End Of A Particular
File: SWIPE.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto noparam
wipeinfo %1/k/batch
goto end
:noparam
echo.
echo No filename was specified.
echo.
:end

Use WIPEINFO To Clear Away The Deleted Space On A Drive. You
May Want To Do This Periodically To Make Sure Your Empty Space
Doesn't Have Any Confidential Data In It: WIPEFREE.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto noparam
cls
echo WARNING!!! You are about to PERMANENTLY WIPE ALL the
deleted stuff
echo on this drive. This does not touch currently written data, just the
echo deleted things. If you have any files that you have deleted that you
echo want to get back, exit this program and type "undelete". DO NOT
echo use this program until you are sure that you have no deleted things
echo that you would like to keep around.
echo.
choice "Are you SURE about this?? Y/N "/c:yn/n
if errorlevel 2 goto no
if errorlevel 1 wipeinfo %1/e/batch
goto end
:noparam
echo.
echo Usage:
echo.
echo wipefree [drive:]
echo.
echo [drive:] is the drive you wish to wipe the free space of.
echo.
goto end
:no
echo.
:end

Similar To TEXTTIME, But Does The Date Instead Of The Time, And
Places It Into DATE.TXT (Need HACKER): TEXTDATE.BAT:
@echo off
c:\hacker\hacker what day
set weekday=Saturday
if errorlevel 6 goto a
set weekday=Friday
if errorlevel 5 goto a
set weekday=Thursday
if errorlevel 4 goto a
set weekday=Wednesday
if errorlevel 3 goto a
set weekday=Tuesday
if errorlevel 2 goto a
set weekday=Monday
if errorlevel 1 goto a
set weekday=Sunday
:a
echo.|date|find "is">linedate.bat
echo set date=%%4>current.bat
call linedate
del linedate.bat
del current.bat
echo %weekday% %date%>date.txt
set weekday=
set date=
echo.
type date.txt
echo.

Check The Specified File For Fragmentation Using SCANDISK:
CHKFRAG.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto noparam
echo.
scandisk/fragment %1
echo.
goto end
:noparam
echo.
echo Usage:
echo.
echo chkfrag [file]
echo.
echo You can specify wildcards, etc.
echo.
:end

Do A Full Backup Of The Current Hard Disk To Floppy Drive A Using
PKZIP.EXE: FULLBACK.BAT:
@pkzip a:\fullback -&s -rp

Do An Incremental Backup Of The Current Hard Disk With PKZIP:
INCBACK.BAT:
@pkzip a:\incback -& -rp -i-

Do A Backup Of The Current Directory And All Its Subdirectories With
PKZIP: DIRBACK.BAT:
@pkzip a:\dirback -& -rp

Do A Quick Check On The Upper Memory Area And XMS, And Report
On The Findings: HIMEMREP.BAT:
@echo off
cls
:chkhimem
mem/m himem|find "no">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto yeshimem
if errorlevel 0 goto nohimem
:yeshimem
echo HIMEM is currently installed. This means you have access to
echo Extended (XMS) memory.
echo.
goto chkemm386
:nohimem
echo HIMEM is not currently installed. If it were, you would have access
echo to Extended (XMS) memory.
echo.
goto chkemm386
:chkemm386
mem/m emm386|find "no">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto yesemm386
if errorlevel 0 goto noemm386
:yesemm386
echo EMM386 is currently installed. This means you have access to the
echo Upper Memory Area.
goto chkems
:noemm386
echo EMM386 is not currently installed. If it were, you would have
echo access to the Upper Memory Area.
goto chkumb
:chkems
mem|find "* EMM386 is using XMS memory to simulate EMS memory
as needed.">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto chkumb
if errorlevel 0 goto yesems
:yesems
echo EMM386 is also using XMS memory to simulate EMS memory as
echo needed. So you have EMS memory, too. Wow!
:chkumb
echo.
mem /f|find "No upper memory available">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto yesumb
if errorlevel 0 goto noumb
:yesumb
echo MS-DOS is currently capable of using the Upper Memory Area.
echo This means you can load your TSRs in there.
echo.
goto chkdoshi
:noumb
echo MS-DOS is currently not capable of using the Upper Memory Area.
echo This means you can't load your TSRs in there.
echo.
goto chkdoshi
:chkdoshi
mem|find "MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto nodoshi
if errorlevel 0 goto yesdoshi
:nodoshi
echo MS-DOS is not currently loaded into the high memory area. It
echo should be, because when it isn't, it takes up a lot of Conventional
echo memory. You could free up a lot of memory by adding a
echo "DOS=HIGH" command echo to your CONFIG.SYS file.
goto end
:yesdoshi
echo MS-DOS is currently loaded into the high memory area. Good!
goto end
:end
echo.

The MS-DOS FOR command is very handy. It's used to execute a single
command upon more than one file. For example, you could delete
REPORT.OLD and GARBAGE.DOC in one command. The only
problem with FOR is, it's complicated. In fact, it's the most complicated
of the batch commands. This little batch program harnesses FOR, making
it much simpler to do what you want FOR to do: DO.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto usage
if "%1" == "/?" goto usage
if "%1" == "?" goto usage
if "%2" == "" goto usage
FOR %%X IN (%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9) DO CALL %1 %%X
goto end
:usage
echo.
echo Usage: DO [PROGRAM NAME] [FILES OR FILEMASKS]
echo.
:end

This batch file copies any number of files to a particular directory. You
could copy REPORT.OLD and GARBAGE.DOC into C:\DOS all with
one command: FILECOPY.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto usage
if "%2" == "" goto usage
if not exist \%1\nul goto notfound
if not exist %2 goto notfound
set todir=%1
:getfile
shift
if "%1"=="" goto end
copy %1 %todir%>nul
goto getfile
:end
set todir=
echo.
echo All done!
echo.
goto realend
:usage
echo.
echo Usage: filecopy directory file1 file2 ...
echo.
echo This program copies any files you specify to the specified directory.
echo For example, to copy FILE.TXT, FILE.EXE, and WINDOS.DOC
echo into the TEXT directory, type "filecopy text file.txt file.exe
echo windos.doc".
echo.
goto realend
:notfound
echo.
echo You specified a directory or a file that doesn't exist.
echo.
:realend

Use The DIR Command, Then Sort The Output By The Specified
Parameter: SHOWBY.BAT:
@echo off
rem First, check to make sure we have a parameter, then go to the
rem appropriate batch file label.
if "%1"=="" goto usage
if "%1"=="name" goto name
if "%1"=="NAME" goto name
if "%1"=="type" goto type
if "%1"=="TYPE" goto type
if "%1"=="size" goto size
if "%1"=="SIZE" goto size
if "%1"=="date" goto date
if "%1"=="DATE" goto date
if "%1"=="-name" goto name2
if "%1"=="-NAME" goto name2
if "%1"=="-type" goto type2
if "%1"=="-TYPE" goto type2
if "%1"=="-size" goto size2
if "%1"=="-SIZE" goto size2
if "%1"=="-date" goto date2
if "%1"=="-DATE" goto date2
echo.
echo Invalid Parameter!
goto usage
:name
dir/o:n/p
goto end
:type
dir/o:e/p
goto end
:size
dir/o:s/p
goto end
:date
dir/o:d/p
goto end
:name2
dir/o:-n/p
goto end
:type2
dir/o:-e/p
goto end
:size2
dir/o:-s/p
goto end
:date2
dir/o:-d/p
goto end
:usage
echo.
echo Usage:
echo.
echo To view file by name, type, size, or date, type:
echo.
echo showby [option]
echo.
echo [option] can be "name", "type", "size", or "date".
echo You can add a hyphen (-) before the parameter (make sure there's
echo no space between the hyphen and the word) to sort the output in
echo reverse.
echo.
:end

Draw A Picture Using ANSI (See "Other ANSI Things" Below). You
could also remove all the "echo" commands from this file to create an
ordinary ANSI script file, then use the TYPE command to type it out.
Note that this batch file uses the Cursor Up, Cursor Down, Cursor
Backward and Cursor Forward functions a few times, just to demonstrate
how they work. I usually prefer to use the Cursor Position command.
Also, this batch file puts a bold yellow "deleted" on the screen, then
deletes it using "ESC[K", (Erase Line) just to demonstrate how Erase
Line works: ANSIPIC.BAT:
@echo
[2J[2B[3C[1;40;35mThis[2B[20C[15D[0;40;32mis[3;
21f[0;40;33man
@echo
[10;10f[1;40;33mdeleted[10D[K[2A[7;30f[5;1;40;33mexa
mple
@echo [5;46f[0;40;31mof[8;53f[1;40;32mwhat
@echo
[12;5f[0;40;35myou[15;13f[0;40;33mcan[14;24f[0;40;34mdo
@echo [13;32f[1;40;35mwith
@echo
[18;46f[1;5;40;34mA[1;5;31;40mN[1;5;37;40mS[1;30;40mI
[1;32;40m!
@echo [0m

Computer Prank Which Makes The Operator Believe His System Is
Halted. Once the joke is run and the words SYETM HALTED appear,
you can just press ALT+255 (255 on the numeric keypad) to exit:
SYSJOKE.BAT:
@echo off
cls
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor /off>nul
echo ^\*_Err255
echo.
echo Fatal system error detected.
echo Waiting for system shutdown.
echo.
c:\hacker\hacker wait 2
echo.
echo SYSTEM HALTED
choice /c:/n
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor /on>nul
cls

Another System Prank, Even Better Than The First: SYSJOKE2.BAT:
@echo off
echo.
echo WARNING! Hard disk corruption detected on Sector 1.
echo IO.SYS file corrupted.
echo Run SCANDISK as soon as possible.
echo.
echo File COMMAND.COM not found.
echo Cannot load COMMAND, system halted.
echo Bad HD sector.
echo.
echo Running SCANDISK....
c:\hacker\hacker wait 2
echo.
echo FErr12.. Unable to run ScanDisk.
echo System link offline.
echo.
echo Fatal Error #12.
echo WARNING! Hard Disk Unusable.
echo.
echo SYSTEM HALTED.
echo.
echo Press ENTER to reboot.
pause>nul
echo.
echo This has been a computer prank from Adam Luoranen. Thank you
echo for panicking. Please press any key to return to your system.
pause>nul
echo.

Read a text file using BROWSE.COM: READ.BAT:
@echo off
if "%1" == "" goto usage
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor/off>nul
browse %1
c:\hacker\hacker fix cursor/on>nul
goto end
:usage
echo.
echo USAGE:
echo.
echo read [filename]
echo.
echo [filename] is the name of the ASCII text file to be read.
echo.
:end

Tune your computer's internal speaker (or at least let you know if it's
out of tune). This batch file demonstrates how the computer's internal
speaker can produce very high tones, but it can't go very low:
SPKTUNE.BAT:

play MLo0cdefgabo1cdefgabo2cdefgabo3cdefgabo4cdefgabo5cdefg
abMSo6co0cc

Enable or disable your CD-ROM drive. You should enable your drive
just before using a CD, and disable it when not in use, to save precious
memory. NOTE: To make this batch file work, you need to replace the
triple pointed brackets (<<<>>>) with the CONFIG.SYS command for
loading your CD-ROM device driver (there are four of those triple
pointed brackets) (NOTE: This program requires CHANGE.COM, which
you should get from PCMagNet): CDROM.BAT:
@echo off
cls
echo What would you like to do to your CD-ROM drive?
echo.
echo 1. Enable it
echo.
echo 2. Disable it
echo.
echo 3. Check whether it is currently enabled or disabled
echo.
echo 4. Exit
echo.
choice Please choose: /c:1234 /n
if errorlevel 4 goto chose4
if errorlevel 3 goto chkstat
if errorlevel 2 goto disable
if errorlevel 1 goto enable

:chose4
echo.
goto end

:disable
mem/c|find "MSCDEX">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto alreaddi
:d1
change c:\config.sys "<<<>>>" "rem <<<>>>">nul
change c:\autoexec.bat "C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /V
/D:MSCD000 /L:D /M:10" "REM
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /V /D:MSCD000 /L:D
/M:10">nul
goto donedi

:enable
mem/c|find "MSCDEX">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto e1
goto alreaden
:e1
change c:\config.sys "rem <<<>>>" "<<<>>>">nul
change c:\autoexec.bat "REM C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /V
/D:MSCD000 /L:D /M:10" "C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /V
/D:MSCD000 /L:D /M:10">nul
goto doneen

:alreaddi
echo.
echo Your CD-ROM drive is already disabled!
echo.
goto end

:alreaden
echo.
echo Your CD-ROM drive is already enabled!
echo.
goto end

:donedi
cls
echo Done. Your CD-ROM drive has been disabled.
echo To make this change take effect, your computer needs to restart
echo itself.
echo Just press any key and it will automatically do so.
pause
cls
wab

:doneen
cls
echo Done. Your CD-ROM drive has been enabled.
echo To make this change take effect, your computer needs to restart
echo itself.
echo Just press any key and it will automatically do so.
pause
cls
wab

:chkstat
cls
mem/c|find "MSCDEX">nul
if errorlevel 1 goto ch2
echo Your CD-ROM drive is currently enabled.
echo.
goto end
:ch2
echo Your CD-ROM drive is currently disabled.
echo.

:end

Issue commands directly to your modem from the DOS prompt. For
example, if you wanted your modem to pick up the line, you could just
type "AT H1" from DOS. NOTE: You must put a space between the AT
and whatever commands you subsequently issue to the modem. Also,
change the x in "comx" below to actually whatever COM port number
your modem is on. For example, if your modem is on COM 2, change
comx to com2: AT.BAT:
@echo AT%1>comx

Test your printer. This program will test a printer in either PostScript or
PCL mode (it prompts you first which mode the printer is in):
TESTPRN.BAT:

@echo off
cls
echo What mode is your printer set to?
echo.
echo 1. PostScript
echo.
echo 2. PCL
echo.
choice "" /n /c:12
if errorlevel 2 goto pcl
echo /Helvetica findfont>lpt1
rem That sets the font to Helvetica.
echo 20 scalefont setfont>lpt1
rem That sets the font size to 20 points.
echo 100 500 moveto>lpt1
rem That sets the text starting position. The first number is
rem the horizontal position, the second number is the vertical.
echo (This is a PostScript printer test page.)show showpage>lpt1
echo >lpt1
rem The above character is Control-D. CTRL-D is the PostScript
rem character for "end of document".
goto ender
:pcl
echo This is a PCL printer test page.>lpt1
:ender
            APPENDIX B: PROGRAMS IN BASIC

Save current CMOS setting to a file called CMOS.RAM:
SAVECMOS.BAS:
REM The port numbers 112 and 113 are in decimal, and correspond to
REM ports 70 and 71 hex.
DEFINT A-Z
DIM CMOS(63)
FOR I = 1 TO 63
OUT 112, I
CMOS(I) = INP(113)
NEXT I
OPEN "CMOS.RAM" FOR OUTPUT AS #1
FOR I = 1 TO 63
WRITE #1, CMOS(I)
NEXT I
CLOSE #1
SYSTEM

Place current setting of CMOS.RAM file (created with previos BASIC
program) into computer's CMOS (note that the port numbers used in
SAVECMOS and RESTCMOS are decimal. Ports 112 and 113 here
correspond in hex to ports 70h and 71h, respectively.):
RESTCMOS.BAS:
REM The port numbers 112 and 113 are in decimal, and correspond to
REM ports 70 and 71 hex.
DEFINT A-Z
DIM CMOS(63)
OPEN "CMOS.RAM" FOR INPUT AS #1
FOR I = 1 TO 63
INPUT #1, CMOS(I)
NEXT I
CLOSE #1
FOR I = 1 TO 63
OUT 112, I
OUT 113, CMOS(I)
NEXT I
SYSTEM

Give 10 groups of 6 lottery numbers, with no single number recurring in
the same group: LOTTERY.BAS:
CLS
DIM A(50)
RANDOMIZE TIMER
FOR I = 1 TO 50
A(I) = I
NEXT
FOR J = 0 TO 9
GOSUB SCRAMBLE
GOSUB DRAWSIX
NEXT
PRINT "Don't think about an elephant.": SYSTEM

SCRAMBLE:
SCRAMBLE = RND * 1000 + 100
FOR I = 0 TO SCRAMBLE
RESCRAMBLE:
A = INT(RND * 50) + 1: B = INT(RND * 50) + 1: IF A = B THEN
GOTO RESCRAMBLE
A1 = A(A): A(A) = A(B): A(B) = A1
NEXT
RETURN

DRAWSIX:
FOR I = 1 TO 6
PRINT USING "## "; A(I);
NEXT
PRINT
RETURN

Flash Monitor Pixels: PIXELS.BAS:

CLS
SCREEN 12
TOP:
PSET (320, 240), m
PSET (639, 479), m
PSET (0, 479), m
PSET (639, 0), m
PSET (0, 0), m
SLEEP 1
m = m XOR 15
GOTO TOP

Draw a green square on the screen. A good example of how to use
FOR/NEXT for repititive tasks: GRNSQUAR.BAS:
SCREEN 9
FOR A = 1 TO 100
FOR B = 1 TO 100
PSET (A, B), 10
NEXT
NEXT
SYSTEM

Demonstrate how GET/PUT work: GETPUT.BAS:
REM First draw the green square on the screen, then capture it to AR
REM using GET.
DIM AR(1313)
SCREEN 9
FOR A = 1 TO 100
FOR B = 1 TO 100
PSET (A, B), 10
NEXT
NEXT

GET (0, 0)-(100, 100), AR
CLS
PRINT "The green square is in AR. Now we'll re-draw it using PUT."
SHELL "pause"
PUT (0, 0), AR
SYSTEM

Demonstrate Animations Using XOR Or GET/PUT: GETXOR.BAS:

DIM A(101), B(101)
RANDOMIZE TIMER
SCREEN 12
REM First, draw a character on the screen and capture it to a variable
REM with GET
FOR i = 0 TO 10
FOR J = 0 TO 10
PRESET (i, J), RND * 15
NEXT
NEXT
GET (0, 0)-(10, 10), A

A$ = "The XOR Method"
B$ = "Note that the image fluctuates with the background."
GOSUB BACKGROUND
FOR i = 620 TO 0 STEP -1
PUT (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)), A, XOR
FOR J = 0 TO 100: NEXT
PUT (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)), A, XOR
NEXT

A$ = "The GET/PUT Method"
B$ = "Note that the image is more stable."
GOSUB BACKGROUND
FOR i = 620 TO 0 STEP -1
GET (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225))-(i + 10, 250 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)),
    B
PUT (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)), A, PSET
REM PUT (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)), A, PRESET
FOR J = 0 TO 100: NEXT
PUT (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)), B, PSET
REM PUT (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)), B, PSET
REM Change PSET to PRESET for an interesting effect
NEXT

END

BACKGROUND:
CLS
FOR i = 0 TO 640
LINE (i, 0)-(i, 480), i AND 15
NEXT
LOCATE 1, 1: PRINT A$: PRINT B$
RETURN

Demonstrate background/foreground relations: BACKFORE.BAS:
SCREEN 9: CLS
DIM A(500)
h = 150: v = 150
LOCATE 12, 1: PRINT "BACKGROUND BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND"
moveit:
GET (h, v)-(h + 20, v + 20), A
DRAW "bm1,1 br=" + VARPTR$(h) + "bd=" + VARPTR$(v) + "c14
r18 g6 f6 g6 h6 g6 u18 bf3 p2,14"
control:
z$ = INKEY$
IF z$ = "" THEN GOTO control
PUT (h, v), A, PSET
IF z$ = "i" THEN v = v - 3: GOTO checkit
IF z$ = "j" THEN h = h - 4: GOTO checkit
IF z$ = "k" THEN h = h + 4: GOTO checkit
IF z$ = "m" THEN v = v + 3: GOTO checkit
GOTO moveit
checkit:
IF h < 0 THEN h = 0
IF h > 400 THEN h = 400
IF v < 0 THEN v = 0
IF v > 400 THEN v = 400
GOTO moveit

Demonstrate how DIM works: DIM1.BAS:
DIM S(7)
REM That makes an array called S, with 7 subscripts in it.
S(1) = 10
REM That sets the first subscript of S to 10.
PRINT S(1)
REM That prints the first subscript of S.

Further demonstrate how DIM works: DIM2.BAS:
DIM S(7): REM That makes an array called S, with 7 subscripts in it.
S(1) = 10: REM That sets the first subscript of S to 10.
S(2) = 20
PRINT S(1): REM That prints the first subscript of S.
PRINT S(2)

Even more demonstration of how DIM works: DIM3.BAS:
V = 1
W = 2
DIM S(7): REM That makes an array called S, with 7 subscripts in it.
S(V) = 10: REM That sets the first subscript of S to 10 (V is 1).
S(W) = 20
PRINT S(1): REM That prints the first subscript of S.
PRINT S(2)

Draw a sine wave: SINEWAVE.BAS:
DIM AR(101)
SCREEN 12
FOR A = 1 TO 10
FOR B = 1 TO 10
PSET (A, B), 10
NEXT
NEXT
REM The above lines draw a small green box in the upper-left corner.

GET (0, 0)-(10, 10), AR
CLS
REM The above two lines capture the green box into an array called AR
REM and clear the screen.
REM Below is the fun part: The actual drawing of the sine wave using
REM the green box in AR.

FOR i = 620 TO 0 STEP -1
REM The first number is the right end of the line.
REM The second number is the left end of the line.
REM This STEP number controls the spacing between the plots of the
REM square.
REM If you make it -20, you'll be able to see spaces between the
REM squares
REM and it won't be a solid line anymore.
PUT (i, 240 - (SIN(i / 100) * 225)), AR
REM The 240 is the vertical position on the screen where the left end
REM of the sine wave begins.
REM The 100 is the horizontal "tightness" of the sine wave.
REM The 225 is the height of the sine wave.
NEXT

SYSTEM

Mock Game In Which You Use The Arrow Keys To Move The Gunsight
Around, Then Press SPACEBAR To Fire At The Little Circles. Start
With The Lowermost Circle, Then The Topmost One, And Then The
Last Remaining One. If You Do Them In Any Other Order, You Can't
Win: SHOOTEM.BAS:
SCREEN 12
a = 320
b = 240
c = 14
d = 240
e = 308
f = 54
g = 200
h = 372
thisagain:
GOTO scrapgunsight
backagain:
GOTO dogunsight
imback:
IF i = 0 THEN CIRCLE (c, d), 1
IF j = 0 THEN CIRCLE (e, f), 1
IF k = 0 THEN CIRCLE (g, h), 1
a$ = INKEY$: IF a$ = "" GOTO noise
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "H" THEN b = b - 6: IF b <= 1 THEN b = 1: REM
    This is the up arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "P" THEN b = b + 6: IF b > 479 THEN b = 479: 
    REM This is the down arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "K" THEN a = a - 6: IF a <= 1 THEN a = 1: REM
    This is the left arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "M" THEN a = a + 6: IF a > 639 THEN a = 639:
    REM This is the right arrow key!
IF a$ = " " GOTO fire
GOTO thisagain
dogunsight:
CIRCLE (a, b), 25
LINE STEP(-25, 0)-STEP(50, 0)
LINE STEP(-25, -25)-STEP(0, 50)
GOTO imback
scrapgunsight:
LINE (0, 0)-(640, 480), 0, BF
GOTO backagain
noise:
REM 37-32767,0-65535
SOUND 32767, 1
REM SOUND 37, 1
GOTO thisagain
fire:
SOUND 9000, 1
SOUND 8000, 1
SOUND 5000, 1
SOUND 2500, 1
SOUND 2000, 1
SOUND 900, 1
SOUND 200, 1
SOUND 200, 1
SOUND 37, 1
SOUND 200, 1
SOUND 37, 1
SOUND 37, 1
LINE (0, 0)-(640, 480), 4, BF
SOUND 38, 1
SOUND 39, 1
SOUND 40, 1
SOUND 41, 1
SOUND 42, 1
SOUND 43, 1
SOUND 44, 1
SOUND 45, 1
SOUND 46, 1
SOUND 47, 1
SOUND 48, 1
SOUND 49, 1
SOUND 50, 1
SOUND 51, 1
SOUND 52, 1
IF a = c THEN i = i + 1
IF b = d THEN i = i + 1
IF i = 2 THEN GOTO celebrate:  ELSE i = 0
IF a = e THEN j = j + 1
IF b = f THEN j = j + 1
IF j = 2 THEN GOTO celebrate:  ELSE j = 0
IF a = g THEN k = k + 1
IF b = h THEN k = k + 1
IF k = 2 THEN GOTO celebrate:  ELSE k = 0
GOTO thisagain
celebrate:
SOUND 350, 5
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 350, 1
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 350, 1
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 443, 4
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 443, 1
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 443, 1
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 530, 4
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 530, 1
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 530, 1
SOUND 30000, 1
SOUND 700, 9
IF i = 2 THEN l = l + 1
IF j = 2 THEN l = l + 1
IF k = 2 THEN l = l + 1
IF l = 3 THEN GOTO finishoff
l = 0
GOTO thisagain
finishoff:
CLS
PRINT "CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU HAVE BLOWN AWAY ALL
THE ENEMIES!!!"
SYSTEM

Spaceship Simulator. Use arrow keys to move around, press q to quit.
This demonstrates use of the arrow keys in BASIC: SSHIPSIM.BAS:
x = 13
y = 39
position:
CLS
LOCATE x, y: PRINT ""
getkey:
a$ = INKEY$: IF a$ = "" GOTO getkey
IF a$ = "q" THEN SYSTEM
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "H" THEN x = x - 1: IF x <= 1 THEN x = 1: REM
    This is the up arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "P" THEN x = x + 1: IF x > 24 THEN x = 24: 
    REM This is the down arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "K" THEN y = y - 1: IF y <= 1 THEN y = 1: REM
    This is the left arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "M" THEN y = y + 1: IF y > 80 THEN y = 80: 
    REM This is the right arrow key!
GOTO position

Parody Of The "Zork" Games. This game Takes Place In Zurk. Quite
Simple, but humorous: ZURK.BAS:
CLS
PRINT "The light of the sun slowly filters through your window. Your"
PRINT "alarm clock FRRRRRTTTZZZTZAATTS its alarm, and you"
PRINT "wake up."
PRINT
PRINT "Another beautiful day in Zurk."
PRINT
PRINT "Gosh, it's COLD in here! And no wonder! The furnace is out
PRINT "of gas!"
PRINT "Shoot. What do you want to do now?"
PRINT
PRINT "1. Call Petro Zurkada and order more."
PRINT
PRINT "2. Bash your furnace with a sledgehammer until it starts again
PRINT "for no reason."
PRINT
PRINT "3. Feed it some pizza with quintiple anchovies."
PRINT
PRINT "What's your choice?"
PRINT
10 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 10
IF A$ = "1" GOTO one
IF A$ = "2" GOTO two
IF A$ = "3" GOTO three
GOTO 10
one:
PRINT "There's no such thing as Petro Zurkada. Sorry, you lose!"
GOTO ender
two:
PRINT "POW! POW! POW! You beat your furnace silly!"
PRINT "Press any key to continue..."
PRINT
SHELL "pause"
PRINT "You break your furnace. The end."
GOTO ender
three:
PRINT "Your furnace very quickly gets A LOT of gas. It heats up your"
PRINT "home rapidly, and you and your furnace live happily ever after."
PRINT "The end."
GOTO ender
ender:
SYSTEM

A little computer game I designed, consisting mostly of 50-50 choices
which you make by pressing one key: ADAMGAME.BAS:
CLS
PRINT "You're standing next to a lake. It looks like you're lost (again)."
PRINT "Nearby, on your right, you see what looks like a castle."
PRINT "On your left, you see a forest."
PRINT "Would you like to go to the forest, or inside the castle? f/c"
10 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 10
IF A$ = "f" GOTO 30
IF A$ = "c" GOTO 20
GOTO 10
20 PRINT "As you approach the castle you notice something standing in"
PRINT "The doorway."
PRINT "When you reach the door, you find it is a suit of armor."
PRINT "Before you have time to think, it raises the axe it is holding,"
PRINT "And with one swift movement, neatly slices off your head."
GOTO ender
30 PRINT "You are in a spooky old forest. The path branches"
PRINT "To the right and left."
PRINT "Which way do you want to go? r/l"
40 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 40
IF A$ = "r" GOTO 50
IF A$ = "l" GOTO 60
GOTO 40
50 PRINT "As you are walking along, you hear a growl from behind"
PRINT "You. You start to walk faster, but now it's it front of you."
PRINT "All of a sudden, a pack of mountain lions jumps on top of you."
GOTO ender
60 PRINT "You've reached a clearing in the forest. Skeletons liven up"
PRINT "The area."
PRINT "Forming a circle around a blazing fire are dancing elves."
PRINT "Would you like to approach, or run? a/r"
70 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 70
IF A$ = "a" GOTO 80
IF A$ = "r" GOTO 100
GOTO 70
80 PRINT "As you start to walk toward the elves, one of them sees"
PRINT "You."
90 PRINT "You start to introduce yourself, but before you have a"
PRINT "Chance, it raises its hands, chants a few words in a language"
PRINT "You don't understand, and you find yourself suddenly unable to"
PRINT "Move. The elves quickly add wood to the fire. You'll make a"
PRINT "Tasty roast."
GOTO ender
100 PRINT "Boy, you're REALLY lost now! As if that weren't enough,"
PRINT "It's starting to rain. This is just swell. Fortunately, you notice"
PRINT "An umbrella close by. You pick it up, and suddenly hear"
PRINT "Something."
PRINT "There's a crashing sound coming from the path up ahead!"
PRINT "A Person walks into view, sees you, and stops. He greets you"
PRINT "With a wave of his hand. You don't trust him. Do you want to"
PRINT "stay here or run? s/r"
110 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 110
IF A$ = "r" GOTO 120
IF A$ = "s" GOTO 130
GOTO 110
120 PRINT "You run away from the man, and find yourself at the"
PRINT "Elves. One sees you."
GOTO 90
130 PRINT "You discover the old man's name is Edward. After"
PRINT "Walking to his house, you go to sleep in the guest room. In the"
PRINT "Morning, you walk outside for a spot of fresh air, when the"
PRINT "Elves from yesterday suddenly surround you. One of them"
PRINT "Holds a gun to your back and orders you to move. They escort"
PRINT "You to a really big elf, who is sitting on a throne. He tells you"
PRINT "That he is their leader, and will show you the way home if you"
PRINT "Win at a little quiz he has prepared. You don't like"
PRINT "The sound of this."
PRINT "Question #1: What is 18 X 14?"
INPUT A$
IF A$ = "252" GOTO 140
GOTO loser
140 PRINT "CORRECT!"
PRINT "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
PRINT "a) To get to the dentist"
PRINT "b) To get to the other side"
PRINT "c) Because it's there"
150 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 150
IF A$ = "b" GOTO 160
GOTO loser
160 PRINT "CORRECT!"
PRINT "What is the planet closest to the sun?"
INPUT A$
IF A$ = "Mercury" GOTO 170
GOTO loser
170 PRINT "CORRECT!!! YOU WIN!!!"
PRINT "The elves lead you along a lot of paths through the forest, until
PRINT "You reach your home. Then they disappear."
PRINT "Congratulations!!! You have won!!!"
GOTO ender
loser:
PRINT "INCORRECT!"
PRINT "The elves escort you to an electric chair."
GOTO ender
ender:
PRINT "Game Over"
PRINT "Press any key to continue..."
180 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 180
SYSTEM

Screen Saver: SCR1.BAS:
CLS : SCREEN 12
RANDOMIZE TIMER
DrawLoop1:
x% = (RND * 750) + 1
y% = (RND * 500) + 1
RESTORE
FOR j% = 1 TO 7
READ k%
c% = (RND * 15) + 1
CIRCLE (x%, y%), k%, c%
FOR t = 1 TO 250: NEXT
NEXT
FOR t = 1 TO 750: NEXT
Z = Z + 1: IF Z = 35 THEN Z = 0: CLS
REM In the previous line, the number 35 specifies how many circle
REM patterns should be drawn before the screen clears and starts over.
REM Change the number if you feel the screen clears too soon or not
REM soon enough.
A$ = INKEY$
IF A$ = "" GOTO DrawLoop1
CLS : SYSTEM
DATA 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
DATA 30

Another Acreen Saver: SCR2.BAS:
CLS : SCREEN 9
RANDOMIZE TIMER
DrawLoop1:
x1% = RND * 639
y1% = RND * 349
x2% = RND * 639
y2% = RND * 349
c% = RND * 15
LINE (x1%, y1%)-(x2%, y2%), c%
Counter = Counter + 1
IF Counter = 1000 THEN CLS (0): Counter = 0
REM In the previous line, the number 1000 specifies how many lines
REM should be drawn before the screen clears and starts over. Change
REM the number if you feel the screen clears too soon or not soon
REM enough.
a$ = INKEY$
IF a$ = "" GOTO DrawLoop1
SYSTEM

A Minigame I Designed. Full Instructions Upon Startup: 5050.BAS:
RANDOMIZE TIMER
begin:
CLS
PRINT "50-50 is a minigame in which you must guess a number. The"
PRINT "number is either 1 or 2. You have a 50-50 chance of winning,"
PRINT "hence the name."
PRINT
PRINT "Good luck!!!"
PRINT
starter:
B% = INT(RND * 2)
IF B% < .5 THEN C% = 1
IF B% >= .5 THEN C% = 2
IF C% = 1 THEN C$ = "1"
IF C% = 2 THEN C$ = "2"
PRINT "Please enter your number choice: 1 or 2?"
10 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 10
IF A$ = "1" THEN GOTO continue:  ELSE GOTO check2
check2:
IF A$ = "2" THEN GOTO continue:  ELSE GOTO 10
continue:
IF A$ = C$ THEN GOTO winner
GOTO loser

winner:
PRINT "Correct!!! You WIN!!!"
SYSTEM

loser:
PRINT "Wrong! You lose!"
SYSTEM

Make Some Low, Strange Sounds Through The Internal Speaker. Good
For When You're REALLY Starved For Entertainment!: POOT.BAS:
SOUND 37, 2
SLEEP 2
SOUND 37, 20
SLEEP 2
SOUND 37, 40
SLEEP 9
SOUND 37, 60
SLEEP 6
SOUND 37, 75
SLEEP 5
SYSTEM

Make a quick batch file to run a program and clear the screen afterwards.
This program puts the batch file into the BATCH subdirectory:
MKBATCH.BAS:
CLS
INPUT "Type in the batch file name. DON'T include the .BAT
    extension: ", b$
a$ = b$ + ".!!!"
INPUT "Type in the directory name of the program to be run: ", d$
INPUT "Type the command for the program to be run: ", c$
SHELL "echo @echo off>c:\batch\" + a$
SHELL "echo cd\" + d$ + ">>c:\batch\" + a$
SHELL "echo call " + c$ + ">>c:\batch\" + a$
SHELL "echo cd\>>c:\batch\" + a$
SHIELL "echo cls>>c:\batch\" + a$
PRINT
SHELL "if exist c:\batch\" + b$ + ".bat echo ERROR: That batch file 
    already exists."
SHELL "if exist c:\batch\" + b$ + ".bat echo Operation terminated."
SHELL "if exist c:\batch\" + b$ + ".bat del c:\batch\" + a$
SHELL "if exist c:\batch\" + a$ + " ren c:\batch\" + a$ + " " + b$ + 
    ".bat"
SHELL "if exist c:\batch\" + a$ + " del c:\batch\" + a$
SYSTEM

Explained in the opening REM comments: PYTHAGOR.BAS:
REM Pythagorean Theorem program
REM Calculates the length of the third side of a right triangle when
REM two sides are already known. Useful for some basic trigonometry.
START:
CLS
PRINT "Do you know the hypotenuse? Y/N"
10 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" THEN GOTO 10
IF UCASE$(A$) = "Y" THEN GOTO 20
IF UCASE$(A$) <> "N" THEN GOTO 10
PRINT
PRINT "Enter the lengths of the two known"
INPUT "sides, separated by a comma> "; X, Y
Z = SQR(X * X + Y * Y)
PRINT
PRINT "The hypotenuse is "; Z: GOTO ASKAGAIN
20 PRINT
INPUT "Enter the hypotenuse length> "; Z
INPUT "Enter the length of the other known side> "; X
Y = SQR(Z * Z - X * X)
PRINT
PRINT "The length of the third side is "; Y
ASKAGAIN:
PRINT
PRINT "Do you want to do another calculation? Y/N"
30 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" THEN GOTO 30
IF UCASE$(A$) = "N" THEN SYSTEM
IF UCASE$(A$) <> "Y" THEN GOTO 30
GOTO START

Explained in the opening REM comments: AVERAGE.BAS:
REM Program to calculate an average from the entered numbers.
CLS
A! = 0
B! = 0
C! = 0
D! = 0
PRINT "When you're done entering numbers, just press"
PRINT "ENTER instead of another number."
GETMORE:
INPUT "Enter one of the numbers: ", A!
IF A! = 0 THEN GOTO FINAL
C! = C! + 1
B! = B! + A!
GOTO GETMORE
FINAL:
D! = B! / C!
PRINT "You entered"; C!; "numbers."
PRINT "They total"; B!; "."
PRINT "The average is"; D!; "."
SYSTEM

Shows exactly how FOR and NEXT work: FORNEXT.BAS:
CLS
FOR a% = 1 TO 10
PRINT a%
NEXT a%

Shows how STEP works with FOR: FNSTEP.BAS:
CLS
FOR a% = 7 TO -6 STEP -3
PRINT a%
NEXT a%

Does exactly what the opening commant says: COUNT.BAS:
REM Counts from 1 onward, until overload occurs at 32767
CLS
j% = 0
again:
a% = j% + 1
b% = a% + 1
c% = b% + 1
d% = c% + 1
e% = d% + 1
f% = e% + 1
g% = f% + 1
h% = g% + 1
i% = h% + 1
j% = i% + 1
PRINT a%; " "; b%; " "; c%; " "; d%; " "; e%; " "; f%; " "; g%; " ";
h%; " "; i%; " "; j%
GOTO again

Counts powers of 2 until overflow occurs. This happens pretty fast even
though it uses a long integer (that's why it pauses for keypress after each
number): POWRSOF2.BAS:
CLS
A& = 1
mainloop:
A& = A& * 2
PRINT A&
10 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" GOTO 10
GOTO mainloop

Makes a text file with all the numbers from 1 to 1000: 1KTXT.BAS:
OPEN "1000.TXT" FOR OUTPUT AS #1
FOR A% = 1 TO 1000
WRITE #1, A%
NEXT A%
CLOSE #1

An RPG which ends up being more rant than game. =) Made as a quick
response to the RPG renaissance: RPG.BAS:
REM Two major movements have been underway in the last few years
REM in computer games. They represent a shifting in the attentions of
REM computer gamers. The first is the little-lamented death of the
REM adventure genre, killed by people who want more action and less
REM thought in their computer games. The other is the rise of the RPG,
REM the perfect demonstration of my point in the previous sentence;
REM Few genres can match the mindlessness of the RPG, which consists
REM chiefly of looking for monsters, killing them, and repeating until
REM the game is won. It seems an odd fascination to me, but that's
REM what people want. The simple fact is they would rather advance
REM their character level than try to solve an adventure game-style
REM puzzle. And the main point of RPGs seems to be the love of
REM making your level go up. In light of this, I wrote this small RPG,
REM aiming to make it the best RPG ever written. Although I don't like
REM to brag, I like to think I succeeded. Enjoy!

CLS
level% = 1
PRINT "You are now at level"; level%
PRINT

progloop:
PRINT "You find a monster! Press a key to attack it."
10 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" THEN GOTO 10
level% = level% + 1
PRINT "You killed the monster!!! You are now at level"; level%
PRINT "Press a key to look for another monster."
20 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" THEN GOTO 20
GOTO progloop

A more precise way of waiting than using SLEEP: TIMER.BAS:
CLS
INPUT "How long do you want to wait? ", w#
a# = TIMER
loopy:
b# = TIMER
IF b# < a# + w# THEN GOTO loopy
SYSTEM

Put a cross on the screen and move it around: CROSS.BAS
CLS
PRINT "Use the arrow keys to move the cross... Press Q at any time to"
PRINT "quit!"
SHELL "pause"
SCREEN 9
REM first line variables
a = 50: REM First point's horizontal control
b = 50: REM First point's vertical control
c = 50: REM Second point's horizontal control
d = 80: REM Second point's vertical control
REM second line variables
e = 30: REM First point's horizontal control
f = 65: REM First point's vertical control
g = 70: REM Second point's horizontal control
h = 65: REM Second point's vertical control
loopie:
CLS
LINE (a, b)-(c, d)
LINE (e, f)-(g, h)
10 : a$ = INKEY$: IF a$ = "" THEN GOTO 10

IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "H" THEN b = b - 1: IF b <= 1 THEN b = 1: REM
This is the up arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "H" THEN d = d - 1: IF d <= 1 THEN d = 1: REM
This is the up arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "H" THEN f = f - 1: IF f <= 1 THEN f = 1: REM
This is the up arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "H" THEN h = h - 1: IF h <= 1 THEN h = 1: REM
This is the up arrow key!

IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "P" THEN b = b + 1: IF b > 300 THEN b = 300:
REM This is the down arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "P" THEN d = d + 1: IF d > 300 THEN d = 300:
REM This is the down arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "P" THEN f = f + 1: IF f > 300 THEN f = 300:
REM This is the down arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "P" THEN h = h + 1: IF h > 300 THEN h = 300:
REM This is the down arrow key!

IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "K" THEN a = a - 1: IF a <= 1 THEN a = 1: REM
This is the left arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "K" THEN c = c - 1: IF c <= 1 THEN c = 1: REM
This is the left arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "K" THEN e = e - 1: IF e <= 1 THEN e = 1: REM
This is the left arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "K" THEN g = g - 1: IF g <= 1 THEN g = 1: REM
This is the left arrow key!

IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "M" THEN a = a + 1: IF a > 300 THEN a = 300:
REM This is the right arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "M" THEN c = c + 1: IF c > 300 THEN c = 300:
REM This is the right arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "M" THEN e = e + 1: IF e > 300 THEN e = 300:
REM This is the right arrow key!
IF a$ = CHR$(0) + "M" THEN g = g + 1: IF g > 300 THEN g = 300:
REM This is the right arrow key!

IF a$ = "q" THEN SYSTEM

GOTO loopie

A very rudimentary database program: DB.BAS:
CLS
mainprog:
PRINT "1. Create or add to a database entry"
PRINT "2. View an existing database entry"
PRINT "3. List currently available database entries"
PRINT "4. Quit"
10 A$ = INKEY$: IF A$ = "" THEN GOTO 10
IF A$ = "1" THEN GOTO CHOICE1
IF A$ = "2" THEN GOTO CHOICE2
IF A$ = "3" THEN GOTO CHOICE3
IF A$ = "4" THEN SYSTEM
GOTO 10

CHOICE1:
PRINT
PRINT "Please type the name of the database entry"
INPUT "you wish to add to: ", REF$
PRINT "OK, type your entry:"
OPEN REF$ FOR APPEND AS #1
INPUT "", LINE$
PRINT #1, LINE$
CLOSE #1
GOTO mainprog

CHOICE2:
PRINT
PRINT "Please type the name of the database entry"
INPUT "you wish to reference: ", REF$
SHELL "type " + REF$ + "|more"
PRINT
GOTO mainprog

CHOICE3:
SHELL "dir *. /a:-d /b"
GOTO mainprog
              APPENDIX C: PROGRAMS IN C

PRIME.C: Does exactly what the opening comments say.

/* PRIME.C */
/* Checks to see if the inputted number is prime. */
/* dropper starts being 1 less than the number, then goes steadily
down, all the while getting 1 subtracted from it until it hits 0.
target is the actual number entered, while isthiszero should be
anything other than 0 when you get a prime number. setter actually
sets the final decision between primeness or non-primeness. */

int isthiszero, target, dropper, setter;
main()
{
setter = 0;
isthiszero = 0;
printf("\n");
printf("Enter a number >");
scanf("%d", &target);
dropper = target - 1; /* Right now, dropper is 1 less than target. */
while (dropper > 1)
{isthiszero = target % dropper;
if (isthiszero == 0) {setter = 1;} /* If isthiszero is zero, the number */
dropper = dropper - 1;}           /* divided evenly! So, it's not prime! */
if (setter == 1) {printf("%d is not prime.", target);}
if (setter == 0) {printf("%d is prime.", target);}
printf("\n");
}

ARG.C: Demonstrates how to use command-line arguments in C.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])

/* argc is the number of arguments (including the command itself,
meaning argc is 1 when there are no parameters). argv[x] is the argument
itself, where x is the number of the argument. argv[0] is the command
name. For example, if you compile this into ARG.EXE, argv[0] will be
"arg". */

{

int a;
a=argc-1;

printf("There are %d command-line arguments.\n",a);
printf("The first one is %s",argv[1]);

return(0);

}

ADD3NUMS.C: Program to add three inputted integers together.

#include <stdio.h>

main()
{

int a, b, c, sum;

printf("\nEnter three numbers (integers only): ");
scanf("%d %d %d", &a, &b, &c);
sum=a+b+c;
printf("\nThe sum of those three numbers is %d.\n",sum);

}

CASM.C: Demonstrates how to use assembler functions in C programs.

#include <stdio.h>

main()
{

asm (" /* YOUR ASSEMBLER CODE HERE! */ ");

}

SOCKET.C: Shows how to create a TCP socket. (To make socket
programs work in LCC, you must include the library file WSOCK32.LIB
in the project linker configuration.)

#include <winsock.h>

/* That's if you are using Windows sockets, of course. If you're
compiling under Unix/Linux, use these lines instead (yes, both of them):

#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>

*/

main()

{

/* (Windows only): You have to do WSAStartup before you can use
sockets. If you don't run a WSAStartup first, no socket functions will
work. WSAStartup needs to have a WSADATA type variable, which
we'll call "ws" in this case. */

WSADATA ws;
WSAStartup(0x0101,&ws);

/* The "0x0101" specifies the Winsock version number the program
wants. */

int tcp_socket;

struct sockaddr_in peer;

char recvbuffer[1024];

/* tcp_socket will be the socket, and peer will be the name of the peer
(host) to connect to. peer is being made as a sockaddr_in type of struct,
which is specifically used for the purpose of holding TCP/IP addresses.
Note that it is more common to name these structs "sin", for "socket in".
recvbuffer is a buffer to store received data in, in case you want to use
recv() to receive from the host. */

peer.sin_family = AF_INET;
peer.sin_port = htons(80);
peer.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("x.x.x.x");

/* The above lines prepare the struct "peer" for the connection. In this
example, port 80 is used, which is the HTTP (Web) port. However, you
can change it to whatever port you want the program to connect to. The
last line specifies the host's IP address. Alternatively, if you want to use
the decimal version of the host's IP address, use this syntax:

peer.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(x);

Where "x" is the decimal conversion of the IP address.

*/

tcp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

/*
The above is for normal TCP connections. If you want to use raw
connections instead, use the following line:

tcp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_RAW);

SOCK_STREAM is for TCP. If you want to use UDP instead, use
SOCK_DGRAM.
*/

/* if (tcp_socket < 0)
   {
       printf("ERROR: Couldn't open socket!\n");
       exit(1);
   } */

/* This "if" statement checks that the socket was made properly, and if
not, it quits with an error message. (Note, however, that Windows
doesn't like printf commands, so that code is commented out here.) If
everything checks out, the socket has now been created. It has not yet
connected to a host, however. You use connect() to do that, like this: */

connect(tcp_socket, (struct sockaddr*)&peer, sizeof(peer));

/* To use connect(), you must already have the name of the peer to
connect to in a struct. In this example, as you can see, the struct is called
peer. */

/* Once you have connected, use send() to send data to the host, and
recv() to receive data from it, like this: */

send(tcp_socket, "This data will be sent.",23,0);
// The number 23 is the size of the data to be sent... Adjust as necessary!
recv(tcp_socket, recvbuffer, sizeof(recvbuffer),0);
// This received some data, then dumps it into recvbuffer.

/* Or, you can use sendto() and recvfrom() to start sending/receiving on
this socket without connecting to anything. */

/* Before ending the program, you should close the socket using close(),
as shown below. */

close(tcp_socket);

}

BARESERV.C: A bare TCP server. Opens a port, waits for a connection
on it, then closes.

#include <winsock.h>

main()

{

WSADATA ws;
WSAStartup(0x0101,&ws);

int tcp_socket;
struct sockaddr_in peer;
int peerlen;

peer.sin_family = AF_INET;
peer.sin_port = htons(80);
peer.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1");

tcp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

bind(tcp_socket,(struct sockaddr *)&peer,sizeof(peer));
listen(tcp_socket,3);
peerlen=sizeof(peer);
accept(tcp_socket,(struct sockaddr *)&peer, &peerlen);

return(0);

}

BARESRV2.C: Like BARESERV, except that this program actually
sends a short message to the client before closing the connection.

#include <winsock.h>

/* That's if you are using Windows sockets, of course. If you're
compiling under Unix/Linux, use these lines instead (yes, both of them):

#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>

*/

main()

{

/* (Windows only): You have to do WSAStartup before you can use
sockets. If you don't run a WSAStartup first, no socket functions will
work. WSAStartup needs to have a WSADATA type variable, which
we'll call "ws" in this case. */

WSADATA ws;
WSAStartup(0x0101,&ws);

/* The "0x0101" specifies the Winsock version number the program
wants. */

int tcp_socket;
struct sockaddr_in peer;
int peerlen;
int thisconnection;

peer.sin_family = AF_INET;
peer.sin_port = htons(23);
/* This specifies the use of port 23, which is the Telnet port; If you are 
 already running a Telnet server, this may make problems. */
peer.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1");

tcp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

bind(tcp_socket,(struct sockaddr *)&peer,sizeof(peer));
listen(tcp_socket,3);
/* The 3 for the listen command specifies how many connections can be 
 "waiting" to connect */
peerlen=sizeof(peer);
thisconnection=accept(tcp_socket,(struct sockaddr *)&peer, &peerlen);
send(thisconnection, "Have a nice day!\n",17,0);
close(tcp_socket);

return(0);

}

RAWSOCK.C: Shows how to use a raw TCP/IP socket.

#include <winsock.h>

/* or:

#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/ip.h>
#include <netinet/tcp.h>

*/

main()

{

/* (WSAStartup is Windows only) */

WSADATA ws;
WSAStartup(0x0101,&ws);

int tcp_socket;

struct sockaddr_in peer;

struct send_tcp
   {
      struct iphdr ip;
      struct tcphdr tcp;
   } packet;

/* The above makes a struct called "packet" which will be the packet we
construct. Below are all the lines we use to actually build this packet.
See RFCs 791 and 793 for more info on the fields here and what they
mean. */

packet.ip.version = 4; /* version of IP used */
packet.ip.ihl = 5; /* Internet Header Length (IHL) */
packet.ip.tos = 0; /* Type Of Service (TOS) */
packet.ip.tot_len = htons(40); /* total length of the IP datagram */
packet.ip.id = x; /* identification (this needs to be set) */
packet.ip.frag_off = 0; /* fragmentation flag */
packet.ip.ttl = 255; /* Time To Live (TTL) */
packet.ip.protocol = IPPROTO_TCP; /* protocol used (TCP in this case)
*/
packet.ip.check = 0; /* checksum */
packet.ip.saddr = x;
/* source address (can be used for IP spoofing; this needs to be set) */
packet.ip.daddr = x; /* destination address */

packet.tcp.source = htons(x); /* source port (this needs to be set) */
packet.tcp.dest = htons(x); /* destination port (this needs to be set) */
packet.tcp.seq = x; /* sequence number (this needs to be set) */
packet.tcp.ack_seq = 0; /* acknowledgement number (this needs to be
set) */
packet.tcp.doff = 5; /* data offset */
packet.tcp.res1 = 0; /* reserved for future use (must be 0) */
packet.tcp.fin = 0; /* FIN flag */
packet.tcp.syn = 1; /* SYN flag */
packet.tcp.rst = 0; /* RST flag */
packet.tcp.psh = 0; /* PSH flag */
packet.tcp.ack = 0; /* ACK flag */
packet.tcp.urg = 0; /* URG flag */
packet.tcp.res2 = 0;  /* reserved (must be 0) */
packet.tcp.window = htons(512); /* window */
packet.tcp.check = 0; /* checksum */
packet.tcp.urg_ptr = 0; /* urgent pointer */

/* That's got the packet formed. Now we go on making the "peer" struct
just as usual. */

peer.sin_family = AF_INET;
peer.sin_port = htons(80);
peer.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("x.x.x.x");

tcp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_RAW);

sendto(tcp_socket, &packet, sizeof(packet), 0, (struct sockaddr *)&peer, 
  sizeof(peer));

/* the 0 is for the flags */

close(tcp_socket);

}

RAWSOCK2.C: The raw socket program, but with the blanks filled in
to create an actual working example of a raw socket. This program will
attempt to connect to yourself (using the loopback address 127.0.0.1) on
TCP port 80. The connection will appear to come from an IP address of
1.2.3.4, with an outgoing TCP port of 2000.

#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/ip.h>
#include <netinet/tcp.h>

main()

{

int tcp_socket;

struct sockaddr_in peer;

struct send_tcp
   {
      struct iphdr ip;
      struct tcphdr tcp;
   } packet;

/* The above makes a struct called "packet" which will be the packet we
construct. Below are all the lines we use to actually build this packet.
See RFCs 791 and 793 for more info on the fields here and what they
mean. */

packet.ip.version = 4; /* version of IP used */
packet.ip.ihl = 5; /* Internet Header Length (IHL) */
packet.ip.tos = 0; /* Type Of Service (TOS) */
packet.ip.tot_len = htons(40); /* total length of the IP datagram */
packet.ip.id = 1; /* identification */
packet.ip.frag_off = 0; /* fragmentation flag */
packet.ip.ttl = 255; /* Time To Live (TTL) */
packet.ip.protocol = IPPROTO_TCP; /* protocol used (TCP in this case)
*/ packet.ip.check = 14536; /* IP checksum */
packet.ip.saddr = inet_addr("1.2.3.4"); /* source address */
packet.ip.daddr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1"); /* destination address */

packet.tcp.source = htons(2000); /* source port */
packet.tcp.dest = htons(80); /* destination port */
packet.tcp.seq = 1; /* sequence number */
packet.tcp.ack_seq = 2; /* acknowledgement number */
packet.tcp.doff = 5; /* data offset */
packet.tcp.res1 = 0; /* reserved for future use (must be 0) */
packet.tcp.fin = 0; /* FIN flag */
packet.tcp.syn = 1; /* SYN flag */
packet.tcp.rst = 0; /* RST flag */
packet.tcp.psh = 0; /* PSH flag */
packet.tcp.ack = 0; /* ACK flag */
packet.tcp.urg = 0; /* URG flag */
packet.tcp.res2 = 0;  /* reserved (must be 0) */
packet.tcp.window = htons(512); /* window */
packet.tcp.check = 8889; /* TCP checksum */
packet.tcp.urg_ptr = 0; /* urgent pointer */

/* That's got the packet formed. Now we go on making the "peer" struct
just as usual. */

peer.sin_family = AF_INET;
peer.sin_port = htons(80);
peer.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1");

tcp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_RAW);

sendto(tcp_socket, &packet, sizeof(packet), 0, (struct sockaddr *)&peer,
  sizeof(peer));

/* the 0 is for the flags */

close(tcp_socket);

}

FILEREAD.C: Shows basic file-reading procedures with C. This program
will open infile.txt and print out the first 3 characters in it.

#include <stdio.h>

main()

{

FILE *inpointer;
char filechar;

inpointer = fopen("infile.txt", "r");

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
printf("%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
printf("%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
printf("%c", filechar);

}

ROT13.C: A small little rot13 program. This program will read the first
10 characters from a file called INFILE.TXT, convert them through
rot13, and write them to OUTFILE.TXT.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

char convert (char *filechar)

{
    if (*filechar == 'A') {strcpy(filechar, "N");}
      else if (*filechar == 'B') {strcpy(filechar, "O");}
      else if (*filechar == 'C') {strcpy(filechar, "P");}
    else if (*filechar == 'D') {strcpy(filechar, "Q");}
    else if (*filechar == 'E') {strcpy(filechar, "R");}
    else if (*filechar == 'F') {strcpy(filechar, "S");}
    else if (*filechar == 'G') {strcpy(filechar, "T");}
    else if (*filechar == 'H') {strcpy(filechar, "U");}
    else if (*filechar == 'I') {strcpy(filechar, "V");}
    else if (*filechar == 'J') {strcpy(filechar, "W");}
    else if (*filechar == 'K') {strcpy(filechar, "X");}
    else if (*filechar == 'L') {strcpy(filechar, "Y");}
    else if (*filechar == 'M') {strcpy(filechar, "Z");}
    else if (*filechar == 'N') {strcpy(filechar, "A");}
    else if (*filechar == 'O') {strcpy(filechar, "B");}
    else if (*filechar == 'P') {strcpy(filechar, "C");}
    else if (*filechar == 'Q') {strcpy(filechar, "D");}
    else if (*filechar == 'R') {strcpy(filechar, "E");}
    else if (*filechar == 'S') {strcpy(filechar, "F");}
    else if (*filechar == 'T') {strcpy(filechar, "G");}
    else if (*filechar == 'U') {strcpy(filechar, "H");}
    else if (*filechar == 'V') {strcpy(filechar, "I");}
    else if (*filechar == 'W') {strcpy(filechar, "J");}
    else if (*filechar == 'X') {strcpy(filechar, "K");}
    else if (*filechar == 'Y') {strcpy(filechar, "L");}
      else if (*filechar == 'Z') {strcpy(filechar, "M");}
      else if (*filechar == 'a') {strcpy(filechar, "n");}
      else if (*filechar == 'b') {strcpy(filechar, "o");}
    else if (*filechar == 'c') {strcpy(filechar, "p");}
    else if (*filechar == 'd') {strcpy(filechar, "q");}
    else if (*filechar == 'e') {strcpy(filechar, "r");}
    else if (*filechar == 'f') {strcpy(filechar, "s");}
    else if (*filechar == 'g') {strcpy(filechar, "t");}
    else if (*filechar == 'h') {strcpy(filechar, "u");}
    else if (*filechar == 'i') {strcpy(filechar, "v");}
    else if (*filechar == 'j') {strcpy(filechar, "w");}
    else if (*filechar == 'k') {strcpy(filechar, "x");}
    else if (*filechar == 'l') {strcpy(filechar, "y");}
    else if (*filechar == 'm') {strcpy(filechar, "z");}
    else if (*filechar == 'n') {strcpy(filechar, "a");}
    else if (*filechar == 'o') {strcpy(filechar, "b");}
    else if (*filechar == 'p') {strcpy(filechar, "c");}
    else if (*filechar == 'q') {strcpy(filechar, "d");}
    else if (*filechar == 'r') {strcpy(filechar, "e");}
    else if (*filechar == 's') {strcpy(filechar, "f");}
    else if (*filechar == 't') {strcpy(filechar, "g");}
    else if (*filechar == 'u') {strcpy(filechar, "h");}
    else if (*filechar == 'v') {strcpy(filechar, "i");}
    else if (*filechar == 'w') {strcpy(filechar, "j");}
    else if (*filechar == 'x') {strcpy(filechar, "k");}
    else if (*filechar == 'y') {strcpy(filechar, "l");}
      else if (*filechar == 'z') {strcpy(filechar, "m");}

}

main()

{

FILE *inpointer;
FILE *outpointer;
char *filechar;

inpointer = fopen("infile.txt", "r");
outpointer = fopen("outfile.txt", "w");

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

fscanf(inpointer, "%c", &filechar);
convert (&filechar);
fprintf(outpointer, "%c", filechar);

}

LINETO.C: Just what the opening comment says.

/* Brief demonstration of how to use lineto() with C. */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <graphics.h>

/* NOTE: If this compiles OK but linking fails with a bunch of
"Undefined symbol" errors, this is a sure sign that the graphics libraries
are turned off in your linker configuration. */

void main(void)

{

/* Before you can use graphics, you have to initialize graphics. */

int gdriver=VGA, gmode=2;
initgraph(&gdriver, &gmode, "C:\\TC\\BGI");
/* Assuming your BGI directory is C:\TC\BGI */
/* In Turbo C, graphics mode 2 is hex mode 12 (640x480, 16-color
VGA) */

lineto(50,50);
lineto(50,100);
lineto(100,100);

}

3D-1.C: A demonstration of how to project a 3D pixel on a 2D computer
screen.

/* Place a single pixel on the screen, and allow the user to move it
around in 3D with the cursor keys and PgUp/PgDn. A simple
demonstration of how to move points in 3D and reflect their position on
a 2D computer screen. */

#include <graphics.h>
#include <bios.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>

/* The 4 lines below set the screen_center variables */
int x_resolution = 640;
int y_resolution = 480;
int screen_center_x = x_resolution/2;
int screen_center_y = y_resolution/2;
/* --------------------- */

/* The vertex is the point in 3D. X, Y, and Z are its 3D coordinates */
double vertex_x = - 100, vertex_y = -100, vertex_z = 300;

/* screen_x and screen_y will be the actual final pixel coordinates */
int screen_x, screen_y;

/* "distance" is a theoretical variable indicating how far you, the viewer,
are from the screen */
int distance = 256;

/* keystroke will be used to read input from the keyboard */
int keystroke;

void PrintNewCoords() {
/* Print the new vertex's coordinates in
the upper-left corner of the screen */

cleardevice();
/* cleardevice clears the previous pixel instance. Comment out the above
line if you want to leave a trail instead of only having one pixel on-
screen at a time. */
gotoxy(1,1); /* Move text cursor to upper-left corner of screen */
printf("X = %f\n", vertex_x);
printf("Y = %f\n", vertex_y);
printf("Z = %f", vertex_z);

}

void DrawNewPoint() {
/* Draw the new pixel on the screen */

/* The two lines below are where all the real 3D work is done. These
two lines convert the 3D coordinates of the vertex into 2D coordinates
for a pixel on the screen. Once you know the algorithm, it's really that
easy. */

screen_x = screen_center_x + distance * (vertex_x / vertex_z);
screen_y = screen_center_y - distance * (vertex_y / vertex_z);

/* And now, we just draw the pixel... */
putpixel (screen_x, screen_y, 9);

}

void GetKeyStroke() {

/* Get a keystroke */
keystroke = _bios_keybrd(_NKEYBRD_READ);
switch (keystroke) {
  case 19424: /* left arrow */
          vertex_x = vertex_x - 1;
          break;
  case 19936: /* right arrow */
          vertex_x = vertex_x + 1;
          break;
  case 20704: /* down arrow */
          vertex_y = vertex_y - 1;
          break;
  case 18656: /* up arrow */
          vertex_y = vertex_y + 1;
          break;
  case 18912: /* PgUp */
          vertex_z = vertex_z + 1;
          break;
  case 20960: /* PgDn */
          vertex_z = vertex_z - 1;
          break;

}
}

main()

{

/* The two lines below just initialize the graphics mode. */
int gdriver=VGA, gmode=2;
initgraph(&gdriver, &gmode, "C:\\TC\\BGI");

/* Quit if the user presses q. Otherwise, let the user use the cursor keys
(to control 2D motion) and PgUp and PgDn (to control depth), and adjust
the point on-screen accordingly. */

while (keystroke != 4209) {
PrintNewCoords();
DrawNewPoint();
GetKeyStroke();
}

return(0);

}             APPENDIX D: PROGRAMS IN C++

HIWIN.CPP: This is a Windows program which will display a simple
"Hello, World!" dialog box with an OK button. The "Hello" is what
appears in the window's title bar.

#include <windows.h>

int STDCALL
WinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmd, int
nShow)
{
      MessageBox (NULL, "Hello, World!", "Hello", MB_OK);
    return 0;
}

YESNO.CPP: More dialog box work. This makes a yes/no choice dialog
box and then replies based on which button you click.

#include <windows.h>

int var;

int STDCALL
WinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmd, int
nShow)
{
        var=MessageBox (NULL, "Yes or no?", "A puzzling question",
MB_YESNO);

/* var is now 6 (if user answered yes) or 7 (if user answered no). Don't 
ask me why. */

switch (var) {

case 6:
     MessageBox (NULL, "Yeah!", "Yes!", MB_OK);
     break;

/* The break is to stop switch. Otherwise it would keep on going to the
next case. */

case 7:
     MessageBox (NULL, "Nope!", "No!", MB_OK);
}

     return 0;

}
          APPENDIX E: PROGRAMS IN ASSEMBLER

(See A86 under "Particular Downloads From Particular Places", above,
for a good assembler compiler. Put all these in your UTILS directory.)

REBOOT.COM: A simple program to reboot the computer when run.
(Useful for batch files and the like.) I encountered a couple of interesting
problems attempting to write this program in assembler and compile it
with A86. According to HelpPC 2.10 (which, by the way, is an excellent
advanced PC reference utility which every assembler programmer should
have, see above under "Particular Downloads From Particular Places" for
it), rebooting the computer basically starts with setting the CPU register
CS to FFFF, and register IP to 0000. Then, simply jump to CS:IP (which
of course means FFFF:0000). While the final jump would have been easy
enough (a matter of an assembler JMP command), it turns out that both
of the register settings were impossible to implement, for two strange
reasons: First, CS happens to be the ONLY CPU register which A86
does NOT allow you to alter with the MOV command. So changing its
setting directly was impossible! (It ALSO doesn't let you change CS
with the POP command, but that's another story.) This is, in my opinion,
a quibble (albeit a relatively minor one, perhaps) with A86. A good
computer program should give power to the user. Presumably, after all,
a person writing programs in assembler knows what he/she is doing. The
second problem was even more quirky: IP is the only register (not
counting the 32-bit 386 ones) NOT RECOGNIZED by A86!!! DUH!!!
IP is a VERY commonly-used register in assembler programming, and
I cannot imagine by A86 doesn't support it. But anyway, I did eventually
manage to program REBOOT.ASM. As it turns out, if you simply JMP
0FFFF:0, CS automatically BECOMES FFFF, and IP BECOMES 0000.
So, if you want REBOOT.COM, create the following VERY simple
REBOOT.ASM:

jmp 0FFFF:0

Then, compile it with A86, and end of story. You have REBOOT.COM.

SHOWMOUS.ASM and HIDEMOUS.ASM: Two small and somewhat
amusing little programs. SHOWMOUS turns your mouse cursor on, so
you can move it around the screen and use it to point at things at the
command prompt. HIDEMOUS hides it again.

SHOWMOUS.ASM:

mov ax,0001
int 33h
mov ah,004C
int 21h

HIDEMOUS.ASM:

mov ax,0002
int 33h
mov ah,004C
int 21h

Note that the INT numbers have a letter H after them. This is because
some assembler compilers (A86 among them; DOS's Debug doesn't)
assume if you use plain numbers that the INT numbers are in decimal
and should be converted to hexadecimal. In other words, it would use
INT 21 where it's supposed to use 33 (33 decimal = 21 hex) and it
would use 15 where it's supposed to use 21 (21 decimal = 15 hex).
Using an H for "hex" after them signifies that they're already in their
hexadecimal values and need no converting.

MOUSBUTT.ASM: Pauses the computer and proceeds when either
mouse button is pressed.

MOV AX,5     ;5 in AX tells INT 33 to get mouse button info
INT 33h      ;get mouse button info
CMP AX,1b    ;this compares AX (button status) with 1
JL  0100h    ;if no button is pressed, back to start

;AX will be zero while no button is pressed. JL means, if the first
;operand is less than the second, make the jump!

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

HELLO.ASM: Shows the canonical program test message "Hello, world."
and demonstrates use of INT 21,9 to print text strings.

MOV AX,SEG MESSAGE      
MOV DS,AX               
MOV DX,OFFSET MESSAGE

;These three lines make DS:DX form a pointer to the segment:offset of
;MESSAGE. Note that AX is used as a go-between for the segment,
;because some assembler compilers don't allow you to MOV immediate
;values into segment registers (like DS) directly. Some do, some don't.
;Just to avoid problems, instead of MOV DS,SEG MESSAGE, we do
;that to AX and then MOV DS,AX.

mov ah,0009             ;9 in AH makes INT 21 print the string
int 21h                 ;referenced in DS:DX.
mov ah,004C             ;terminate program
int 21h

MESSAGE: DB 'Hello, world.$'

MOUSBUT2.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Gives you an on-screen button to click on with the mouse, and
;proceeds only when you do so!
mov ah,06h ;this calls SCROLL SCREEN UP
mov al,00h ;AL specifies how many lines... 0 just clears the screen
mov ch,00h
mov cl,00h
mov dh,24h
mov dl,80h
int 10h

;The above lines just clear the screen.

mov ah,02h ;Set cursor position
mov dh,0Bh ;row
mov dl,22h ;column
int 10h    ;Actually does it. :)
MOV AX,SEG MESSAGE
MOV DS,AX               
MOV DX,OFFSET MESSAGE

mov ah,0009             ;9 in AH makes INT 21 print the string
int 21h                 ;referenced in DS:DX.

;So, we have printed BUTTON right where we want it!!!

mov ax,0001
int 33h

;Now, that's got the mouse on.

MOUSLOOP:

MOV AX,5     ;5 in AX tells INT 33 to get mouse button press into
INT 33h      ;get mouse button info
CMP AX,1b    ;this compares AX (button status) with 1
JNE MOUSLOOP ;unless LEFT button ONLY is pressed, go back to
MOUSLOOP

;(Only the left button will work for this... Not the right.)

MOV AX,3
INT 33h      ;Now we're getting the POSITION info through INT 33,3!

;CX now is mouse horizontal position. 0 - 639
;DX now is mouse vertical position. 0 - 199

CMP CX,270
JL MOUSLOOP ;If CX is less than 270 (left edge of button), go back
CMP CX,315
JG MOUSLOOP ;If CX if more than 400 (right edge), go back
CMP DX,85
JL MOUSLOOP ;If DX is less than 85 (top), go back
CMP DX,95
JG MOUSLOOP ;If DX is more than 110 (bottom), go back

;The numbers above for the button dimensions are approximations, but
;should be good enough.

mov ax,0002
int 33h

;This just hides the cursor. Otherwise it would stay on when the program
;ended! :)

mov ah,004C             ;terminate program
int 21h

MESSAGE: DB 'BUTTON$'

MCURSOR.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Turn on mouse graphics cursor and make it look like a pointing hand.

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above three lines switch to 256 VGA!

MOV AX,09h   ;Tells INT 33 to set mouse cursor
MOV BX,0Ah   ;horizontal hot spot (-16 to 16)
MOV CX,00h   ;vertical hot spot (-16 to 16)
MOV ES,SEG Curlook
MOV DX,OFFSET Curlook

;ES:DX = pointer to screen and cursor masks (16 byte bitmap)

INT 33h ;SET MOUSE CURSOR!!!

MOV AX,01h
INT 33h ;Turn it on!

mov ah,004C ;terminate program
int 21h

;NOTE: Each word of the following defines one row.
;There are 16 pixels in one row.
;There are 2 bytes for each row.
;1 word is 2 bytes, or 16 bits. Each bit of the word sets
;that pixel to either on or off.
;(The cursor is 16 by 16 pixels.)
;(The "xB"s indicate the number is in binary.)

;Screen mask:
;If a bit is 1, then the background beneath that pixel will show.
;If a bit is 0, then the background beneath that pixel will be hidden
;by the cursor when it's over that area.
;The second byte in each row is the leftmost 8 pixels. The first byte
;is the rightmost 8 pixels. (Don't ask me why they're switched around
;like that.)
;(In general, these bits should just be the exact opposite of their
;cursor counterparts. That way, the cursor covers up what's under it,
;and nothing around the cursor is obscured.)

Curlook DB 11111111xB, 11111001xB
        DB 11111111xB, 11110000xB
        DB 11111111xB, 11110000xB
        DB 11111111xB, 11110000xB
        DB 11111111xB, 11110000xB
        DB 11111111xB, 11110000xB
        DB 00000111xB, 11000000xB
        DB 00000011xB, 10000000xB
        DB 00000011xB, 10000000xB
        DB 00000111xB, 11000000xB
        DB 00000111xB, 11000000xB
        DB 00001111xB, 11100000xB
        DB 00011111xB, 11110000xB
        DB 00011111xB, 11111000xB
        DB 00011111xB, 11111000xB
        DB 00011111xB, 11111000xB

;Whew! :) That's just the screen mask... Here comes the cursor mask!
;(If a bit is 1, that means that pixel for the cursor will be on.
;If a bit is 0, that means that pixel for the cursor will be off.)
;The second byte in each row is the leftmost 8 pixels. The first byte
;is the rightmost 8 pixels. (Don't ask me why they're switched around
;like that.)

        DB 00000000xB, 00000110xB
        DB 00000000xB, 00001111xB
        DB 00000000xB, 00001111xB
        DB 00000000xB, 00001111xB
        DB 00000000xB, 00001111xB
        DB 00000000xB, 00001111xB
        DB 11111000xB, 00111111xB
        DB 11111100xB, 01111111xB
        DB 11111100xB, 01111111xB
        DB 11111000xB, 00111111xB
        DB 11111000xB, 00111111xB
        DB 11110000xB, 00011111xB
        DB 11100000xB, 00001111xB
        DB 11100000xB, 00000111xB
        DB 11100000xB, 00000111xB
        DB 11100000xB, 00000111xB

CHKMOUSE.ASM: A simple program to check for a mouse driver. If
one is found, the program does nothing. If one is not found, a warning
message is displayed.

MOV AX,0000
INT 33h
CMP AX,0000
JNE Ender
;Code here to perform if mouse driver is not installed.
MOV AH,09
MOV DS,SEG Message
MOV DX,OFFSET Message
INT 21h

Ender:

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

Message DB 'ERROR: Mouse driver was not detected.$'

CHKMOUS2.ASM: A simple addition to CHKMOUSE which returns an
errorlevel.

;Checks for mouse driver, returns errorlevel of 0 if no error, returns
;errorlevel of 1 if error (i.e. mouse driver not installed)
MOV AX,0000
INT 33h
CMP AX,0000
JNE Itsok
;Code here to perform if mouse driver is not installed.
MOV AL,01 ;Return errorlevel of 1 (indicating an error)
JMP Ender

Itsok:
MOV AL,00 ;Return errorlevel of 0 (no problem)

Ender:

MOV AH,4Ch  ;terminate program
INT 21h

BIOSDATE.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Print from ROM, starting at FFFF:5 for 8 characters
;(This shows the date of the ROM BIOS)
MOV DS,0FFFFh
MOV SI,5
MOV CX,8

mainloop:
MOV DL,[SI] ;DL = character to output
MOV AH,2
INT 21h ;print the character
INC SI ;move SI to the next byte
LOOPNZ mainloop ;this loops 8 times, because CX was set to 8

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

QBOOT.ASM: REBOOT.COM works as if you'd pressed CTRL-ALT-
DEL or the reset button on your computer. But with a single-line
assembler source file which simply calls INT 19h, you can instantly re-
start from the point where the BIOS hands control over to the OS. This
effectively reboots directly into initial DOS bootup without going back
through the POST. It's faster, and it looks kind of cool. So, this is the
entire assembler file:

INT 19h

SPKRON.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Turns on the internal speaker.

MOV AL,0B6h
OUT 43h,AL

;Most sources say you're supposed to send B6 hex to port 43 before
;turning on the speaker. While it seems to work fine even if you don't,
;you might as well.

IN AL,61h ;Sets AL to port 61's current value
OR AL,11b ;Sets last two bytes of AL to 1
OUT 61h,AL

;This makes 61 exactly the way it was, but with the two-byte change!
;That will turn on the speaker!

MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

SPKROFF.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Turns off the internal speaker.
IN AL,61h ;Sets AL to port 61's current value
XOR AL,11b ;Sets last two bytes of AL to 0
OUT 61h,AL

;This makes 61 exactly the way it was, but with the two-byte change!
;That will turn off the speaker!

MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

ADJUST.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Changes the tone of the computer's speaker. (It must have
;already been turned on before.)

MOV AH,11
MOV AL,01011101xB

OUT 42h,AL
MOV AL,AH
OUT 42h,AL

mov ah,004C ;terminate program
int 21h

PLAYTONE.ASM: Plays a tone on the speaker, waits for you to press
a key, then turns the speaker off. This is simply a combination of
SPKRON, ADJUST and SPKROFF, plus an INT 21,1 to do the pause.

MOV AL,0B6h
OUT 43h,AL

IN AL,61h
OR AL,11b
OUT 61h,AL

;That's got the speaker on

MOV AX,1193
OUT 42h,AL
MOV AL,AH
OUT 42h,AL

;That's got it adjusted

MOV AH,1 ;This makes INT 21 wait for a keypress before continuing
INT 21h

;That does the pause

IN AL,61h ;Sets AL to port 61's current value
XOR AL,11b ;Sets last two bytes of AL to 0
OUT 61h,AL

;That's got it off

MOV AX,4C00h ;terminate program
INT 21h

MAKEFILE.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Create a new, blank file. If the filename already exists, the file is wiped
;out and made 0 bytes long.
;For some reason, this doesn't seem to work with filenames shorter than
;6 characters.
MOV AH,3Ch
MOV CX,0
MOV DS,SEG FILENAME
MOV DX,OFFSET FILENAME
;DS:DX = pointer to an ASCIIZ file name
INT 21h

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

FILENAME DB 'newfile.txt', 00

DIRECTSB.ASM: An example of how to use a Sound Blaster's direct
ADC (Analog-Digital Conversion) port to directly make sounds on the
sound card. This is much less complicated than first setting up the DMA,
etc.

BASEADDR           EQU 0220h       ;SoundBlaster base address

CALL WAITWRITE
MOV AL,0D1h ;Turn speakers on
OUT DX,AL

MOV     CX,0FFFh

playloop:
CALL WAITWRITE
MOV AL,10h ;Direct play... Must be done for each byte!
OUT DX,AL
CALL WAITWRITE
MOV AX,01h ;Actual sound value
OUT DX,AX ;This plays the sound!
CALL WAITWRITE
MOV AL,10h
OUT DX,AL
CALL WAITWRITE
MOV AX,0FFFFh ;Actual sound value
OUT DX,AX ;This plays the sound!

loopnz playloop ;This keeps going through playloop for CX times

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

WAITWRITE: ;This waits for bit 7 to be clear before writing more
MOV DX,BASEADDR+0Ch

loopwait:
in al,dx
or al,al
js loopwait
RET

WAIT.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Pauses the computer for a certain amount of time. (INT 15,86 can be
;used for this as well, but for some reason, this seems to be the preferred
;method of pausing the computer.)

MOV AH,0
INT 1Ah

;The above lines call INT 1A,0 which will set DX to the low order word
;of the tick count.

ADD DX,20
MOV BX,DX

;This adds a number to the current DX, then moves it into BX. BX is
;now the target value that we eventually want DX to be. (Increasing the
;number will make for a longer pause.)

looper:

INT 1Ah
CMP DX,BX
JNE looper

;As you might guess, this simply continues to call INT 1A,0 which will
;continually raise DX, until it's eventually equal to BX. Then the
;program ends.

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

PIXEL.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Draws a single yellow pixel in the upper-left.
;Writes directly to video memory which begins at A000:0

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above three lines just switch to 320x200 256-color VGA.

mov ds,40960
;a000h = 40960 decimal
mov ax, 44h
;44h is yellow! ;)
mov bx,0000
mov [bx],ax

;This defaults to DS:[whatever], and since whatever here is bx, it moves
;AX into DS:BX!!!


mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

YELLLINE.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;By extension, draws a yellow line in the upper-left.
;A good example of how to efficiently use INC, CMP,
;and a conditional jump for repetitive tasks.

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above three lines just switch to 320x200 256-color VGA.

mov ds,40960
;a000h = 40960 decimal
mov ax, 44h
;44h is yellow! ;)
mov bx,0000
START:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,20
JL START

;This waits until BX reaches 20, then exits!

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

256COLS.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;prints all possible 256 colors in a row, in order from 1 to FF,
;along the top of the screen.

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above three lines just switch to 320x200 256-color VGA.

mov ds,40960
;a000h = 40960 decimal
mov bx,0000

mov ax, 01h
MAINLOOP:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
inc ax
cmp ax,0FFh
JNG MAINLOOP

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

SMILEY.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Draws a yellow smiley face.
;Writes directly to video memory which begins at A000:0
;Video memory is numbered starting from the top-leftmost pixel,
;going from left to right, top to bottom. (For example, A000:0
;is the top-leftmost pixel, A000:0 is the pixel to the right of
;that one, and so on until the line ends, at which points the
;next begins. In 320x200 resolution, the rightmost pixel of
;the top row is A000:320. To find the offset of the pixel you
;want, use this formula: OFFSET = (ROW * 320) + COLUMN

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above three lines just switch to 320x200 256-color VGA.

mov ds,40960
;a000h = 40960 decimal
mov ax, 44h
;44h is yellow! ;)

;first line
;from 240 to 243
mov bx,240
LINE1:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,243
jng line1

;An alternative way to do this first line might be:
;MOV ES,0A000h
;MOV DI,240
;MOV CX,3
;MOV AL,044h
;REP STOSB
;ES is the segment address, DI is the starting offset, CX is the number
;of pixels to draw, and AL is the color. However, this is only efficient
;when you're drawing with one color (as in this case).

;second line
;from 557 to 566
mov bx,557
LINE2:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,566
jng line2

;third line
;from 875 to 888
mov bx,875
LINE3:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,888
jng line3

;fourth line
;from 1194 to 1209
mov bx,1194
LINE4:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,1209
jng line4

;fifth line
;from 1513 to 1530
mov bx,1513
LINE5:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,1530
jng line5

;sixth line
;from 1832 to 1851
mov bx,1832
LINE6:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,1851
jng line6

;top of eyes on sixth line
mov ax,10h ;(10 = black!)
mov bx,1835
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
mov [bx],ax
mov bx, 1846
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
mov [bx],ax
mov ax,44h ;set it back to yellow

;seventh line
;from 2151 to 2172
mov bx,2151
LINE7:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,2172
jng line7

;bottom of eyes on seventh line
mov ax,10h ;(10 = black!)
mov bx,2155
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
mov [bx],ax
mov bx, 2166
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
mov [bx],ax
mov ax,44h ;set it back to yellow

;eighth line
;from 2471 to 2492
mov bx,2471
LINE8:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,2492
jng line8

;ninth line
;from 2790 to 2813
mov bx,2790
LINE9:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,2813
jng line9

;tenth line
;from 3110 to 3133
mov bx,3110
LINE10:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,3133
jng line10

;eleventh line (middle one)
;from 3429 to 3454
mov bx,3429
LINE11:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,3454
jng line11

;twelfth line
;from 3750 to 3773
mov bx,3750
LINE12:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,3773
jng line12

;thirteenth line
;from 4070 to 4093
mov bx,4070
LINE13:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,4093
jng line13

;fourteenth line
;from 4390 to 4413
mov bx,4390
LINE14:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,4413
jng line14

;fifteenth line
;from 4711 to 4732
mov bx,4711
LINE15:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,4732
jng line15

;sixteenth line
;from 5031 to 5052
mov bx,5031
LINE16:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,5052
jng line16

;top of mouth on sixteenth line
mov ax,10h ;(10 = black!)
mov bx,5033
mov [bx],ax
mov bx,5049
mov [bx],ax
mov ax,44h ;set it back to yellow

;seventeenth line
;from 5352 to 5371
mov bx,5352
LINE17:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,5371
jng line17

;continued mouth
mov ax,10h ;(10 = black!)
mov bx,5354
mov [bx],ax
mov bx,5368
mov [bx],ax
mov ax,44h ;set it back to yellow

;eighteenth line
;from 5673 to 5690
mov bx,5673
LINE18:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,5690
jng line18

;continued mouth
mov ax,10h ;(10 = black!)
mov bx,5675
mov [bx],ax
mov bx,5687
mov [bx],ax
mov ax,44h ;set it back to yellow

;ninteenth line
;from 5994 to 6009
mov bx,5994
LINE19:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,6009
jng line19

;continued mouth
mov ax,10h ;(10 = black!)
mov bx,5996
lastmouth:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,6006
jng lastmouth
mov ax,44h ;set it back to yellow

;twentieth line
;from 6315 to 6327
mov bx,6316
LINE20:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,6327
jng line20

;twenty-first line
;from 6638 to 6645
mov bx,6638
LINE21:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,6645
jng line21

;twenty-second line
;from 6960 to 6963
mov bx,6960
LINE22:
mov [bx],ax
inc bx
cmp bx,6963
jng line22

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

BYTEDRAW.ASM: SMILEY uses a rather bulky method of drawing.
(Actually, if you want to be REALLY inefficient, you can use INT
10,C!) Anyway, this program illustrates a much more efficient way of
storing data, in which the color of each pixel is stored in a byte-sized
data area.

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above three lines switch to 320x200 256-color VGA.

MOV ES,0A000h    ;Segment of video memory
MOV DI,100       ;Pixel to start drawing at
LEA BX,Pixels    ;Loads the address of "Pixels" into BX
MOV CX,6         ;Number of pixels to be drawn

MainLoop:
MOV AX,[BX]
STOSB
;STOSB AUTOMATICALLY INCs DI!
INC BX
LOOP MainLoop

;STOSB Moves the contents of AX into ES:DI!

mov ah,004C
int 21h

;Below is where the colors are defined.

Pixels DB 025h, 037h, 048h, 056h, 074h, 082h

LEDSON.ASM: Switches all three of the keyboard toggle lights on.

;Move F0h to 40:17! This turns on all three LEDs!

MOV DS,40h
MOV BX,17h
MOV AX,0F0h
MOV [BX], AX

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

LEDSOFF.ASM: Switches all three of the keyboard toggle lights off.

;Move 80h to 40:17! This turns off all three LEDs!

MOV DS,40h
MOV BX,17h
MOV AX,80h
MOV [BX], AX

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

SHOWPARM.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Show the command-line parameters given to the program

MOV AH,03h
INT 10h ;This will return: Cursor row: DH, Cursor column: DL

MOV SI,80h
CMP B[SI],00h
JE Ender

;The above three lines quickly check if *any* parameters were given.
;If not, an abrupt quit is made.
;(The number of bytes in the parameters is stored in 80h)

MOV SI,82h ;From 82h on is where the command-line parameters are

MOV CX,1h ;For INT 10,A's sake

MainLoop:
MOV AH,0Ah ;Tells INT 10 to print a character
MOV AL,[SI] ;Loads a character into AL
CMP AL,0Dh ;If the character is a carriage return, end
JE Ender     ;(Because that's the end of the parameters)
INT 10h ;Prints character in AL
INC SI ;Move to next character
INC DL 
MOV AH,02h
INT 10h
;The above three lines move the column one to the right
JMP MainLoop ;keep going until it hits a carriage return

Ender:
mov al,0
;Amusingly, it causes problems for INT 21,4C if AL has some
;screwy value, so we reset it just before finishing up.
mov ah,004C ;terminate program
int 21h

SHOWBUFF.ASM: Shows the contents of the keyboard buffer.
;40:1E is the location of the 32-byte circular que keyboard buffer
MOV DS,0040h
MOV SI,001Eh
MOV BH,0001h
MOV AH,0Eh
MOV CX,32h

MainLoop:
MOV AL,[SI]
INT 10h
INC SI
LOOP MainLoop

mov ah,004C
int 21h

FILESYS.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.
;Show what file system the first partition of the first hard disk uses. This
;program displays a single character, which it reads from 1C2h of the
;first sector of the hard disk, which is the "system indicator byte". The
;hex value of the character this program shows is the number of the file
;system used.
;Common system numbers include 4 and 6, both of which are used by
;16-bit FAT.
MOV AH,02 ;read disk sectors
MOV AL,1 ;number of sectors to read
MOV CH,0 ;cylinder number
MOV CL,1 ;sector number
MOV DH,0 ;head number
;Notice that we set it to the first sector of the first head's first cylinder.
;This is the first sector of the disk.
MOV DL,80h ;80h is the first hard disk
MOV ES,SEG buff
MOV BX,OFFSET buff
INT 13h

ADD BX,1C2h
;Moves BX to address 1C2h in "buff", where the first partition's system
;indicator byte is (notice that BX has already been set to the offset of
;buff, meaning we don't have to do that again)
MOV DL,[BX] ;moves the contents of BX into DL
MOV AH,02
INT 21h ;prints the contents of DL

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

buff db 512 DUP(?) ;buffer which holds the disk sector

FILESYS2.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.
;Output 8 bytes. The first 4 bytes this program produces are the system
;indicator bytes for the 4 partitions on the first hard disk, and the other
;4 are for the partitions on the second hard disk.
;
;First, the first hard disk
MOV AH,02 ;read disk sectors
MOV AL,1 ;number of sectors to read
MOV CH,0 ;cylinder number
MOV CL,1 ;sector number
MOV DH,0 ;head number
MOV DL,80h ;80h is the first hard disk
MOV ES,SEG buff
MOV BX,OFFSET buff
INT 13h

;first partition
ADD BX,1C2h
MOV DL,[BX]
MOV AH,02
INT 21h

;second partition
ADD BX,10h
MOV DL,[BX]
INT 21h

;third partition
ADD BX,10h
MOV DL,[BX]
INT 21h

;fourth partition
ADD BX,10h
MOV DL,[BX]
INT 21h

;Now for the second hard disk
MOV AH,02 ;read disk sectors
MOV AL,1 ;number of sectors to read
MOV CH,0 ;cylinder number
MOV CL,1 ;sector number
MOV DH,0 ;head number
MOV DL,81h ;81h is the second hard disk
MOV ES,SEG buff2
MOV BX,OFFSET buff2
INT 13h

;first partition
ADD BX,1C2h
MOV DL,[BX]
MOV AH,02
INT 21h

;second partition
ADD BX,10h
MOV DL,[BX]
INT 21h

;third partition
ADD BX,10h
MOV DL,[BX]
INT 21h

;fourth partition
ADD BX,10h
MOV DL,[BX]
INT 21h

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

buff db 512 DUP(?) ;buffer which holds first disk sector
buff2 db 512 DUP(?) ;buffer which holds second disk sector

TSR.ASM: A basic TSR, which actually does nothing other than take up
memory.
MOV DX,8000h ;amount of memory to reserve for TSR

;If DX is 1, TSR size is 384 bytes
;If DX is 8000, TSR size is 512K

MOV AH,31h
INT 21h

TSR2.ASM: A TSR shell, containing everything you need to make a
functional memory-resident program.
;HOW TO MAKE A TSR:
;STEP 1. Get the interrupt vector of INT 8.
CLI ;turn off hardware interrupts
MOV AL,8h ;specifies INT 8
MOV AH,35h ;get interrupt vector
INT 21h
;STEP 2. Make INT C8 behave like INT 8.
;(INT C8 isn't used by anything anyway.)
MOV DX,BX
PUSH ES
POP DS
;the above three lines set DS:DX to whatever ES:BX was
MOV AL,0C8h
MOV AH,25h ;set INT C8's vector (makes INT C8 behave like INT 8)
INT 21h
;STEP 3. Set INT 8's vector to your own interrupt function.
MOV DX,OFFSET TSRINT
PUSH CS ;push the Code Segment...
POP DS ;...to make DS equal this routine's segment
MOV AL,8
MOV AH,25h ;set INT 8 to behave like your new interrupt function
INT 21h
;STEP 4. Do INT 21,31 and you're done.
MOV AL,0 ;exit code (for batch files)
MOV DX,0FFh ;how much memory is reserved for this TSR
MOV AH,31h ;make it into a TSR now
INT 21h

TSRINT:
;THIS IS THE ACTUAL CODE OF THE INTERRUPT ITSELF:
CLI ;disable interrupts
PUSHA ;save current registers status for later

;YOUR INTERRUPT ROUTINE HERE! This is where the code of the
;actual interrupt function (the process which the TSR should keep
;repeating while it's in memory) should go.
;A reminder: PUSHA is used above to save the registers so they can be
;easily restored to their former states with POPA later. However, PUSHA
;and POPA only affect (E)AX, (E)CX, (E)DX, (E)BX, (E)SP, (E)BP,
;(E)SI, and (E)DI. They do NOT affect any of the segment registers (CS,
;DS, SS, or ES), meaning that if your routine uses these registers, you
;will also need to save them by PUSHing them before this interrupt
;routine, and POPing them after it's over.

POPA ;restore old register status (so everything's the same as before)
INT 0C8h
;do the old INT 8 as well, otherwise what should be INT 8 never gets
;done

PUSH AX
MOV AL,20h
OUT 20h,AL ;this sends an End-Of-Interrupt signal to the 8259 int
;controller
POP AX

STI ;re-enable interrupts (opposite of CLI)
IRET ;interrupt return (signifies that the interrupt is over)

PERMPIXL.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says:

;A TSR which actually does something! This little program will use its
;TSR functionality to create an annoying pixel on the screen that WILL
;NOT go away no matter how much you try to scroll it off or CLS it
;away. (Well, switching to a non-graphics video mode will clear it up.)

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above 3 lines put you in video mode 13

;STEP 1. Get the interrupt vector of INT 8.
CLI ;turn off hardware interrupts
MOV AL,8h ;specifies INT 8
MOV AH,35h ;get interrupt vector
INT 21h
;STEP 2. Make INT C8 behave like INT 8.
MOV DX,BX
PUSH ES
POP DS
;the above three lines set DS:DX to whatever ES:BX was
MOV AL,0C8h
MOV AH,25h ;set INT C8's vector (makes INT C8 behave like INT 8)
INT 21h
;STEP 3. Set INT 8's vector to your own interrupt function.
MOV DX,OFFSET TSRINT
PUSH CS ;push the Code Segment...
POP DS ;...to make DS equal this routine's segment
MOV AL,8
MOV AH,25h ;set INT 8 to behave like your new interrupt function
INT 21h
;STEP 4. Do INT 21,31 and you're done.
MOV AL,0 ;exit code (for batch files)
MOV DX,0FFh ;how much memory is reserved for this TSR
MOV AH,31h ;make it into a TSR now
INT 21h

TSRINT:
CLI ;disable interrupts
PUSHA ;save current registers status for later
PUSH DS ;save DS too, since we use it

;PIXEL-DRAWING ROUTINE FOLLOWS!

MOV DS,0A000h
MOV BX,35100 ;location of pixel on screen. Adjust to taste.
MOV AX,44h ;44h is yellow
MOV [BX],AX

POP DS ;pop DS...
POPA ;...and everything else, so it's just like it used to be.
INT 0C8h ;do the old INT 8 as well

PUSH AX
MOV AL,20h
OUT 20h,AL ;send an End-Of-Interrupt signal to the 8259 int controller
POP AX

STI ;re-enable interrupts
IRET ;interrupt return (signifies that the interrupt is over)

SCANKEY.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.
;Keep scanning the keyboard input port (port 60h). This watches for
;whatever keys are pressed. If the key is the A key (which has a scan
;code of 1Eh), the program exits. This demonstrates how to directly view
;what keys are being pressed.
looper:
IN AL,60h ;get most recent scan code

CMP AL,1Eh ;is it a?
JE ender
JMP looper

ender:
MOV AH,4Ch ;terminate program
INT 21h

VIDMODE.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.
;Show current video mode. This programs outputs one character, which
;is an extended ASCII character corresponding to the video mode. The
;character's hex value is the current video mode.

MOV DS,40h
MOV SI,49h

;DS:SI now points to 40:49, which is the location of the current video
;mode

MOV DL,[SI] ;DL = character to output
MOV AH,2
INT 21h ;print the character

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

SBREG.ASM: Shows how to manipulate the registers on a Sound Blaster
(or compatible) sound card.
;Procedure for setting a Sound Blaster register:
;
;To change a register on a Sound Blaster (or compatible) sound card,
;output the hexadecimal number of the register to set to port 388h. Wait
;3.3 ms. Output the hex value to write to that register to port 389h. Wait
;23 ms and you're done.
;
;In this program, the actual waiting routines have been clipped to
;comments for simplicity. You also need to set the reg and val inputs.
;
;Inputs: reg = register to write to, val = value to write to it
OUT 388h, reg ; Spit the number of the register to alter onto port 388
;Wait 3.3 ms
OUT 389h, val ; Spit the value to write to that reg. onto 389
;Wait 23 ms

WRITFILE.ASM: Shows how to write to a file.
;write a character to a file (file name must already exist)
MOV AH,3Dh ;open file using handle
MOV AL,01 ;write only
MOV DS,SEG FILENAME
MOV DX,OFFSET FILENAME
INT 21h

;AX is now the file handle

MOV BX,AX ;moves AX (the file handle) into BX
MOV AH,40h ;write to file using handle
MOV CX,1 ;number of bytes to write
MOV DS,SEG BUFFER
MOV DX,OFFSET BUFFER
INT 21h

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

FILENAME db 'TEMPFILE.TMP$'

BUFFER db 'A'
;BUFFER is what will actually get written to the file

RAW.ASM: Exactly what the opening comment sounds like.
;Raw picture file viewer. This program will open and display files of
;"raw bitmap" format, i.e. picture files without any formatting
;whatsoever, pure dumps of pixel color into a file. The program is
;calibrated to view 64,000 bytes, which is the exact size of a normal 256-
;color, 320x200 raw bitmap file (each byte is one pixel, and there are
;64,000 pixels). You may need to adjust this number if your raw picture
;file is larger or smaller than that. You don't have to view raw bitmaps
;with this program; It will actually display any file's byte pattern to the
;screen as graphics. However, most binary files are unlikely to look like
;anything other than random blobs of color.

mov ah,00h
mov al,13h
int 10h

;The above three lines just switch to 320x200 256-color VGA.
;------------------------------------------------------------
MOV AH,3Dh ;Open file using handle
MOV AL,00 ;read-only
;DS:DX = pointer to an ASCIIZ file name
MOV DS,SEG FILENAME
MOV DX,OFFSET FILENAME
CLC ;clear Carry Flag so AX will be file handle
INT 21h
;AX is now file handle
;------------------------------------------------------------
MOV BX,AX ;the file handle
MOV AH,3Fh ;Read from file or device using handle
MOV CX,64000 ;number of bytes to read
MOV DS,SEG buff
MOV DX,OFFSET buff
INT 21h
;buff now contains the pic data
;------------------------------------------------------------
MOV ES,0A000h
MOV DI,0
LEA BX,buff
MOV CX,64000

DrawLoop:
CLD ;clear direction flag so DI goes forward, not backward
MOV AX,[BX]
STOSB
INC BX
LOOP DrawLoop

mov ah,004C ;terminate program
int 21h


FILENAME DB 'filename.raw', 00
buff db 512 DUP(?)

SOFTOFF.ASM: Does exactly what the opening comment says.

;Turn the computer off through software. This is done through APM, on
;machines that support it. (This won't work on AT motherboards; Only
;ATX and other post-AT designs.) This procedure is known as a "soft-
;off". It uses INT 15 (the system BIOS services).

MOV AH,53h ;APM
MOV AL,07h ;set power state
MOV BX,1 ;Device ID... 1 is everything
MOV CX,3 ;System state ID... 3 is off, 1 is standby, 2 is suspend
INT 15h

;If the program works, it'll never get this far, but just in case it 
;fails, let's end the program properly so it doesn't go haywire.
MOV AX,4C00h
INT 21h

PIT.ASM: You know that annoying "(PROGRAM) may not run well
unless it is run in MS-DOS mode." message that Windows gives you on
some DOS programs? What exactly causes that? It's most often caused
by a DOS program which tries to reprogram the computer's PIT
(Programmable Interval Timer) for its own purposes. Here's a small
program in assembler which does exactly that. Go ahead, run it under
Win9x, and it'll give you that message:

countdown  equ  00000000b

cli
mov  al,00110110b ; bits 7,6 = 00 (select timer counter 0)                
                  ; bits 5,4 = 11 (write LSB, then MSB)
                  ; bits 3-1 = 011 (generate square wave)
                  ; bit 0 = 0 (16 binary counter)
out  43h,al ; prepare PIT
jmp  $+2 ;wait for PIT to do its thing

mov  cx,countdown ; default is 0x0000 (65536) (18.2 per sec)            
                  ; interrupts when counter decrements to 0
mov  al,cl
out  40h,al ; send LSB of timer count
jmp  $+2 ;wait for PIT

mov  al,ch
out  40h,al ; send MSB of timer count
jmp  $+2 ;wait for PIT
sti

mov ah,004C ;terminate program
int 21h

OFFHOOK.ASM: A program to take the modem off-hook by sending an
ATH1 command to it:

;We begin by initializing the COM port via INT 14,0. 2400 baud is used,
;because interrupt-driven serial port I/O is slow, and characters may be
;lost if higher baud rates are attempted.
;Interrupt-driven serial port I/O is too slow for high-speed baud rates, and
;so is impractical for general real-world use. However, it IS an easy and
;quick way of implementing low-speed modem control. The alternative
;is non-interrupt-driven (polled) I/O.

MOV AH,0
MOV AL,10100011xB
MOV DX,0 ;This is for COM1. If using COM2, set this to 1.
INT 14h

;Now we can send the ATH1 command to the modem, one character at
;a time, by means of INT 14,1.

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,41h ;"A"
MOV DX,0 ;Again, this is for COM1.
;Adjust if using a different serial port.
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,54h ;"T"
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,48h ;"H"
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,31h ;"1"
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,0Dh ;(Carriage Return). Needed to make
;the modem accept the command.
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

;The ATH1 command has now been sent to the modem.
;Once a command has been completed by the modem, the modem cannot
;receive another command until the UART has been drained of characters
;to receive. In this case, the modem will have echoed back the ATH1
;command, and it will also have sent the standard "OK" response to the
;computer. Until these characters have been read, the modem cannot
;respond to any more commands. The routines below will receive the
;modem input by simply reading I/O port 3F8h. If this is not done, these
;characters will sit idle in the UART buffer. The first loop waits for a
;letter K from the modem, which will be the K in "OK". Once this has
;been done, the second loop waits until it gets a line feed (0Ah) character
;from the modem, which is the character you get from port 3F8h when
;there is no more data to be read from the UART. Note that 3F8h is used
;for COM1. If using COM2, use port 2F8h instead.

looper:
MOV DX,3F8h
IN AL,DX
CMP AL,4Bh ;Wait for us to get the K in OK
JNE looper

looper2:
MOV DX,3F8h
IN AL,DX
CMP AL,0Ah ;Now wait for a line feed, indicating
;no more data from modem
;(If there is no character to read, reading from the modem read/write port
;will just receive a line feed, or 0Ah, character.)
JNE looper2

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h
-------------------------------
ONHOOK.ASM: This program is almost an exact copy of OFFHOOK.
The only difference is that we use ATH0 for the modem command
instead of ATH1, to make the modem hang up instead of picking up the
line:

MOV AH,0
MOV AL,10100011xB
MOV DX,0 ;For COM1
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,41h ;A
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,54h ;T
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,48h ;H
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,30h ;0
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

MOV AH,1
MOV AL,0Dh ;(Carriage Return)
MOV DX,0
INT 14h

looper:
MOV DX,3F8h ;For COM1, use 2F8h for COM2
IN AL,DX
CMP AL,4Bh ;Wait for us to get the K in OK
JNE looper

looper2:
MOV DX,3F8h
IN AL,DX
CMP AL,0Ah ;Now wait for a line feed, indicating
;no more data from modem
;(If there is no character to read, reading from the modem read/write port
;will just receive a line feed, or 0Ah, character.)
JNE looper2

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

DESCHACK.ASM:

;Descent (the popular first-person shoot-em-up) remembers what level a
;player is allowed to start at in your player info files (the ones that end
;in .PLR). The location for the highest level you can choose is at 1Dh in
;the .PLR file. Since there are only 27 levels in the game, you probably
;shouldn't set this higher than 1B (which is 27 converted to
;hexadecimal), so this program sets it to exactly that number. It will
;change the byte in the specified PLR file to let you access all levels.

MOV AH,3Dh ;open file using handle
MOV AL,01 ;write only
MOV DS,SEG FILENAME
MOV DX,OFFSET FILENAME
INT 21h

;AX is now the file handle

MOV BX,AX ;moves AX (the file handle) into BX
MOV AH,42h ;move file pointer
MOV AL,0
MOV CX,0 ;high order word of number of bytes to move
MOV DX,1Dh ;low order word of number of bytes to move
;Move 1D bytes, since that's where the byte we want is
INT 21h

;BX is still the file handle
MOV AH,40h ;write to file using handle
MOV CX,1 ;number of bytes to write
MOV DS,SEG BUFFER
MOV DX,OFFSET BUFFER
INT 21h

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

FILENAME db 'ME.PLR', 0
;Adjust the player name to be your actual player name. The 0 on the end
;is to terminate the filename with a 0 (null) character, making it an
;ASCIIZ string.

BUFFER db 1Bh
;BUFFER is what will actually get written to the file.

GS2K-ME.ASM:

;Gunship 2000's excellent add-on, Islands And Ice, only lets you use its
;mission editor after you have attained a rank of at least 2nd Lieutenant
;(2LT). This is, frankly, outrageous, since you should be able to make
;your own missions at any time. This program is a simple way of dealing
;with this problem. It edits Gunship 2000's roster file, ROSTER.DAT,
;so that the first pilot in the roster is made a 2nd Lieutenant. If you want
;to change a pilot other than the first one in the roster, you can just edit
;the number of bytes which the program moves forward in the file;
;Currently it is set to 54h. (The program is called GS2K-ME because it
;lets you use GS2K's mission editor.)

;Set byte 54h of file to 5. This will make you a 2nd Lieutenant (2LT),
;which in turn will let you use the mission builder.

MOV AH,3Dh ;open file using handle
MOV AL,01 ;write only
MOV DS,SEG FILENAME
MOV DX,OFFSET FILENAME
INT 21h

;AX is now the file handle

MOV BX,AX ;moves AX (the file handle) into BX
MOV AH,42h ;move file pointer
MOV AL,0
MOV CX,0 ;high order word of number of bytes to move
MOV DX,54h ;low order word of number of bytes to move
;Move 54h bytes, since that's where the byte we want is INT 21h

;BX is still the file handle
MOV AH,40h ;write to file using handle
MOV CX,1 ;number of bytes to write
MOV DS,SEG BUFFER
MOV DX,OFFSET BUFFER
INT 21h

mov ah,004C  ;terminate program
int 21h

FILENAME db 'ROSTER.DAT', 00
;The 00 on the end is to terminate the filename with a 00 character,
;making it an ASCIIZ string.

BUFFER db 5
;BUFFER is what will actually get written to the file.
           APPENDIX F: PROGRAMS IN PASCAL

HIWORLD.PAS: Shows how to do "Hello, world" in Pascal.

program hiworld;

begin
   writeln('Hello, world.');
end.

PROC.PAS: Shows how to define a procedure and then use it in Pascal.

program hiworld;

procedure showit;

begin
   writeln('Hello, world.');
end;

begin
   showit;
end.

PASASM.PAS: Shows how to do procedures in assembler in Pascal.

program pasasm;

procedure asmproc;

begin
asm
{YOUR ASM CODE HERE!!!}
end; {End asm}
end; {End procedure}
BEGIN
   asmproc;
END.
            APPENDIX G: PROGRAMS IN JAVA

DemoFunction.java: Demonstrate how to make your own functions with
Java:

public class DemoFunction {

public static void main(String args[]) {

funcname();
funcname();

}

public static void funcname() {

System.out.println("This will get printed twice.");

}}

MakeASocket.java: Demonstrate how to make a socket in Java:

import java.net.*;

// The above line imports Java's network functions, much like #include
//in C.

public class MakeASocket {

public static void main(String args[]) {

try { Socket sock = new Socket("1.1.1.1", 80); }

// 80 is the port to connect to. And 1.1.1.1 is, of course, the IP address.

catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); }

}}

MakeAWindow.java: Demonstrates how to make a window using Java:

import java.awt.*;

public class MakeAWindow extends Frame {

public MakeAWindow() { }

public static void main(String args[]) {

MakeAWindow window = new MakeAWindow();

window.show();

}}
-----------------------------------------------------------
DrawALine.java: Shows how to draw a simple line using Java:

import java.awt.*;

public class DrawALine extends Frame {

public DrawALine() { }

public void paint(Graphics blah) {
// If you want to set the color of the line, you can do so using setColor().
// However, in another blind quirk of Java design, you can't use a direct
// color value with it; You must define a Color type variable, so unless
//you really want to color your line, it's probably not worth the trouble.
// It makes me wonder, however, why you're allowed to directly specify
//the 4 coordinates of the line. Wouldn't it make Java more "object-
//oriented" if you had to make 4 variables for each of those too? Isn't
//this a little inconsistent? After all, Java isn't inefficient enough if you
//can make one whole line in a window with one whole line of code.
blah.drawLine(50,50,200,200);
}

public static void main(String args[]) {

DrawALine window = new DrawALine();

window.show();

}}
-----------------------------------
(I was going to put a program here to change your video mode and
maybe draw some stuff on the screen, but it turns out that Java has no
function to change the video mode, and it doesn't seem to let you use
assembler commands either, so you can't do it manually with those.
What a silly language! What good is a programming language that won't
even let you change your video mode, or insert assembler?)            APPENDIX H: PROGRAMS IN LISP

HIWORLD.L: The LISP "Hello, World" program:

(princ "Hello, world!\n")

FUNC.L: Shows how to make your own functions in LISP:

(defun myfunc()
  (princ "This gets printed three times!\n"))

(myfunc)
(myfunc)
(myfunc)

USERIO.L: Demonstrates user input/output using (read) and (princ): 

(princ "Enter some stuff here:")
(setq InputtedStuff(read))
(princ InputtedStuff)

ADD2NUMS.L: Short program to add two inputted numbers together:

(princ "Enter first number to add:")
(setq 1stvar(read))
(princ "Enter second number to add:")
(setq 2ndvar(read))
(princ (+ 1stvar 2ndvar))
;; An alternative to the above line might be:
;;
;; (setq a(+ 1stvar 2ndvar))
;; (princ a)
;;
;; This would create a variable called a, which would be the sum of
;; and 2ndvar, then print a.

        APPENDIX I: PROGRAMS IN VISUAL BASIC

WINPRIME.EXE: A prime number checker for Windows.

Create a text box (Text1), and put the words "Enter a number here" for
its text. Put two buttons, labeled "Check" and "Exit" underneath it. Use
this code for the "Check" button:
---
Sub Command1_Click ()

target = Val(Text1.Text)

If target < 2 Then MsgBox "Don't use a number less than 2.", 0, "Oops!"
If target < 2 Then GoTo endthisone

setter = 0
isthiszero = 0
dropper = target - 1
While dropper > 1
isthiszero = target Mod dropper
If isthiszero = 0 Then setter = 1
dropper = dropper - 1
Wend

If setter = 1 Then FinalText$ = Text1.Text + " is not prime."
If setter = 0 Then FinalText$ = Text1.Text + " is prime."

MsgBox FinalText$, 0, "Answer"

endthisone:

End Sub
---
Next, use this code for the "Exit" button:

Sub Command2_Click ()

End

End Sub
---
...Change the form window's caption to a suitable program name, like
"Prime Number Checker", and you're done. Compile WINPRIME.EXE
and the application is created.
           APPENDIX J: PROGRAMS IN FORTRAN

PTEST.F: The Fortran "Hello, World." program. Go any farther than this
with Fortran and you're only hurting yourself. (Note that the 6 spaces
before each line ARE needed; Without them, the program will not
compile.) (In Fortran, PRINT and TYPE are exactly the same.)

      PROGRAM PRINTTEST
      PRINT *,"Hello, world."
      END PROGRAM PRINTTEST

IN_OUT.F: Demonstrates console input/output with Fortran. Note that
when it prompts for your "name", it will actually only accept numbers.

      PROGRAM IN_OUT
      PRINT *,"Please enter your name:"
      READ *,NAME
      PRINT *,"Hello,",NAME
      END PROGRAM IN_OUT

FUNCDEMO.F: Demonstrates how to create and use your own functions
in Fortran.

      FUNCTION BLAH(X)
        PRINT *,"This gets printed twice."
      END FUNCTION BLAH

      PROGRAM FUNCDEMO

      A=BLAH(X)
      A=BLAH(X)

      END PROGXAM FUNCDEMO
         APPENDIX K: OTHER OFFICE EQUIPMENT

This is office equipment that you don't wire to your computer. I figured
as long as I'm making a big list of computer specifications, I might as
well do the same for a few other office electronics things.

Telephone: Telephone With Adjustable Noise Ringer And Switchable
Pulse/Tone Dialing, One-Touch Redial That Lasts Forever (24 Hours In
A Power Failure), Effective Mute, Will Work With The Receiver Down,
5 Lines, Hold Button, And 10 Number Emergency Dial That Lasts
Forever (24 Hours In A Power Failure)

Camera: Camera With Absolutely EVERYTHING Automatic

FAX Machine: 14.4 Kbps FAX Machine That Uses Plain Paper Which
Can Also Be Used As A Telephone, With 20 Number Emergency Dial
And Which Has Both An "Automatic" Mode (In which you simply dial
the number and the fax is sent) And A "Manual" Mode (In which you
listen to the speaker after dialing, and press a button to begin faxing)
Which Supports Letter, Legal, And A4 Paper Sizes, Which Can Fax To
Or From A PC, And With A 60-Sheet Paper Tray (Even with a Fax
modem, you should still have a dedicated Fax machine.)

Answering Machine: Absolutely 100% Digital Answering Machine With
Two Quickly Switchable And Re-Recordable Outgoing Announcements,
Three Mailboxes And A Default Main Mailbox, Voice Compression And
Time/Day Stamp, Digital LCD Which Shows How Many Messages Are
Available, Auto Disconnect When Any Extension Telephone Is Picked
Up, Memo Which Allows You To Quickly Leave A Message In Any
Mailbox, Stops Operating Immediately When Any Extension Telephone
Is Picked Up, 9 Volt Battery Backup, Low Battery Indicator Light,
Ability To Skip Forward Or Backward In Messages, Instant Replay To
Replay The Last Few Seconds Of Message, Remote Message Retrieval,
Selective Erase Message Function, Message Full Indicator, CSA
Certified, And A Two-Year Warranty (Note: Don't try to put your
answering machine, modem, and telephone all on the same phone line.
Connect your modem to one line, then connect a phone to the modem,
then put your answering machine on a DIFFERENT phone line and
connect another phone to the answering machine.

Cordless Phone: 25-Channel Auto-Scan Cordless Phone With Crystal
Clear Sound, 3 Ringer Volume Levels, Digital 900 MHz Clarity, 100%
Digital Security, A 40 Number Emergency Dial, One-Touch Redial, Out
Of Range And Low Battery Warnings, Keypad Which Can Turn Button
Illumination On Or Off, Volume Control, Plus Effective Mute, Flash,
And Hold, And Tone/Pulse Switch

Cellular Phone: 3.1 Ounce Cellular Phone With 40 Number Emergency
Dial, One-Touch Redial, Low Battery Warning, Keypad Which Can Turn
Button Illumination On Or Off, And A Volume Control, Plus 5 Charging
Indicators And 3 Ringer Volume Levels

Actual Office Itself: Biiiiig Office

Pens: Retractable, Quiet Ballpoint Pens That Take Refills And Have 4
Different Colors (Red, Blue, Black And Green)

Space Pen: Space Pen That Writes On Steel, Cheese, Butter, Glass,
Upside-Down And In Zero Gravity And Which Has A Pocket Clip

Mechanical Pencils: Mechanical, Retractable And Extendable Pencils
That Take Refills

Manual Pencils: Manual #2 Pencils Which Are Always Kept Very
Sharp

Pencil Sharpener: Electrical Pencil Sharpener Which Is Fast And
Powerful

Money: $$$Money$$$

Toiletries: Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Hair Comb, Lip Balm, Kleenex
Tissue, And Non-Aerosol Deodorant

Ashtray: Ashtray (For Visitors, Not You)

Briefcase: Very Roomy And Durable Briefcase

Windows: Big Windows

Window Blinds: Thin Metal Blinds Covering All Windows

Alarm Clock: Alarm Clock With A Snooze Button Which Lets You
Sleep In For Another 10 Minutes (To a maximum of 2 hours), Sleep
Button Which You Can Set To Go Off In Up To 1 Hour, And Which
Plugs Into The Wall But Also Has A Battery Back-Up For Dual-Power,
And Which You Can Set To Either Sound The Alarm Or Turn On The
Radio When The Alarm Time Comes (Obviously, a clock radio is needed
for this) And With A Nice, Bright LED Display (If it's digital) And
Which Has Tough, Non-Skid Rubber Feet

Furniture: Chairs (For sitting on), Tables (For putting things on), And
A Bed (For those late-night shifts)

Cash Registers: Cash Registers (If you use cash registers)

Pricing Guns: Pricing Guns (If you use pricing guns)

Refrigerator And Freezer: Refrigerator And Freezer

Toaster: Toaster With A Nice, Big, Wide, Long Slot (Big Enough To
Hold Average-Sized Bagels) And A Quiet Pop, Plus With An Exterior
Which Always Stays Cool To The Touch And A Pull-Out Crumb Tray
For Easy Removal Of Crumbs And Which Is Quiet And Doesn't Rattle
Too Much

Wastebasket: Sturdy Metal Wastebasket Which Is A Nice Color And
Large

Calculator: 12-Digit Plus 2 Exponent Digit Pocket Calculator Which
Automatically Switches Between Solar And Battery, Depending On The
Lighting Situation, And Which Calculates Tangents, Sines, Cosines,
Reciprocals, Physical Constants, Square Roots, Cubic Roots, Percents
And Even FRACTIONS, And Which Supports Digital, Octal,
Hexadecimal And Binary Numerical Systems, As Well As Floating-Point,
Scientific And English Notations, Plus Has A Main Memory, And Nine
Separate Temporary Memories, As Well As A Complex Number Mode
And Statistics Mode Plus Which Can Generate Instant Random Numbers,
And Which Shows pi At The Touch Of A Key And Which Does
Exponents And Which Has A 7 Year Battery Life

Clock: Quartz Wall Clock

Wristwatch: Quartz Wristwatch With A Tiny Calculator AND A TV
Remote Control Built In

Whiteboard: Large Whiteboard With Several Markers Of Varying
Colors

Bulletin Board: Large Cork Bulletin Board

Aesthetic Enhancers:

-Several pretty, fake plastic flowers

-Several loud, ugly, cheap paintings on all walls

Walkman: Walkman With Headphones (See Above For Headphones
Specs) And An AM/FM Stereo Radio, Audio CD Player, And Cassette
Tape Player In One

Electronic Organizer: Attractive-Looking Electronic Organizer With 1
Megabyte Of User-Usable Memory That Keeps Track Of Schedules And
Appointments, Addresses, Phone Numbers And Memos, Organizes
Speeches And Reports, Calculates Market Data And Project Sales, Gives
Daily Reminders You Specify, And Has A Notepad, Calendar, Clock,
Calculator, To-Do List, An English-To-Spanish (Or whatever languages
you prefer) Translator, A Converter To Convert Between Metric And
American/Imperial Measurements, And Several Enjoyable Games

Typewriters:

-Manual Typewriter

-Electronic Typewriter

Paperclips

Colored (Not just yellow) Post-It Notes

Safety Pins

Batteries

Solar Panel Battery Recharger

Laminator

Long (Legal-Sized) Elegant-Looking Letter Opener That's Not Too Sharp
Or Dull And Has A Comfortable Handle

Kleenex, Toilet Paper And Bounty(TM) Paper Towel

Black Plastic Legal-Sized Stacking Letter Tray

Scissors Which Don't Cut Skin

3-Hole Paper Punch

1-Hole Paper Punch

Tape Measure: Tape Measure Calibrated In Centimetres On One Side
And Inches On The Other And Which Goes Up To 150 Centimetres (59
Inches)

Coffee Maker For Those Caffeine Addicts Around The Office

Water Cooler

Lots Of Styrofoam Cups

Window Cleaner

Fire Extinguisher: Refillable ABC Fire Extinguisher Which Weighs 1
Pound, Plus Mounting Bracket

Smoke Detectors And Carbon Monoxide (CO) Detectors In Every Room

Fire-Proof Filing Cabinet With Lots Of Drawers And All Drawers
Lockable

Fan: Powerful Desktop Fan With Strong, Fine Grill And Very Quiet
Motor And Which Tilts Up And Down And Can Have Oscillation
Switched On Or Off And Which Has 4 Settings: Off, Low, Medium And
High

Air Conditioner: 5000 BTU Air Conditioner

Paper Shredder: Paper Shredder Which Can Handle Staples And Paper
Clips, Can Do Up To 20 Sheets At Once, And Which Cuts Paper Into
Tiny 5/32" Squares And Turns Itself On Automatically When Paper Is
Put In And Off Automatically When It's Done And Which Can Fit Onto
A Wastebasket

Stapler With Staples, Plus Spare Staples

Staple Remover

Electric Pencil Sharpener: Electric Pencil Sharpener With Auto Heat
Stop, Rubber Skid-Proof Feet, Sealed, Heavy-Duty Motor, Hardened
Steel Blades, And An Easy Easy-To-Remove-And-Put-Back Shavings
Tray, And Which Plugs Into A Wall Outlet OR Can Be Battery-Powered

Tape Dispenser

Counterfeit Detector Pen [Securitech]

ID 2000 [Securitech]

Stereo System (See Below)

Stereo System:

Fully Programmable Adjustable-Speed Audio CD Player With A 100-CD
Drawer-Type CD Changer And Shuffle (Random) Play Option As Well
As A Repeat Track/Repeat CD Button, Plus Skip To Next/Previous Track
Buttons, Scan Forward/Backward Through Current Track Buttons, A
Stop Button, And A Pause Button And Which Can Handle CDs
Containing Up To 40 Tracks And Which Can Play CDs Backwards

Dual-Cassette Adjustable-Speed Tape Deck With Record And Play
Capabilities In BOTH Tape Compartments, Plus High-Speed Dubbing
And Auto-Reverse And Which Can Play Tapes Backwards

AM/FM Stereo Radio Which Can Scan Both Up And Down For Stations,
Plus With Fine Tuning And 10 Programmable Memory Station Location
Presets On EACH BAND (BOTH AM AND FM) And A ***DIGITAL
TUNER!!!!!***

Adjustable-Speed Record Turntable

Surround-Sound Stereo System Combining All The Above, With 2
Detachable 150-Watt Magnetically-Shielded Tweeter Speakers, 2
Detachable 150-Watt Subwoofer Speakers, A Stereo Amplifier, Plus CD-
To-Tape, Tape-To-Tape, Record-To-Tape AND Radio-To-Tape Synchro
Dubbing As Well As A Remote Control And A Built-In 9-Band Graphic
Equalizer And A Balance Control, Volume Control, And Tone
(Bass/Treble) Control, All Of Them Dial-Type And An Easy-To-Read
LCD And Audio-In And Audio-Out Jacks And A Five-Year Unlimited
Warranty

Home Theatre Equipment:

Decoder: HTS-1 (Passive 900 MHz 9-Channel Home Theatre Decoder
With 100 Watts A Channel, 2 VCR Connections, 1 Laserdisc
Connection, And 1 TV Output Connection, Plus True 3-Channel Stereo
In The Front)

Speakers: Wireless Speaker System With Relatively Small Front-Center
Speaker That Matches Front Speakers At Higher Frequencies, Waterproof
And Weatherproof Self-Amplified Speakers With Built-In Recievers And
That Sound The Same And Are Well-Shielded, With 5 Satellite Speakers
& 2 Subwoofers With Subwoofers Hidden And The Larger Speakers In
The Corners Of The Room, Facing Slightly Inward

Headphones: Several Wireless, Waterproof, And Weatherproof, Self-
Amplified Headphones Sets With Built In Recievers And Which Are
Well-Shielded

LCD Projector: XV-P15 [Sharp]

Home Office Equipment:

Refrigerator (Fridge): 27 Cubic Foot Dual-Door Fridge/Freezer On
Wheels With 4 Tempered Glass Adjustable Spill-Proof Shelves Which
Can Slide Out And In, 2 Lights Bulbs, With Both Lights Bulbs AND
The Air Outlet On The TOP Of The Fridge (Not The Side) With An Ice
Maker And Shelves In The Doors, Plus Seperate Temperature Controls
For The Fridge And Freezer, Both Of Which Are At The Top Front Of
The Fridge Interior And Are Extremely Easy-To-Reach, And Which Is
Frost-Free And No-Drip And With Crispers With Sliding Humidity
Control Knobs On Them

Oven/Range: 30" Stove/Oven With 2 8" And 2 6" Elements And An
Electronic Clock And Timer, Plus A Self-Cleaning 3.7 Cubic Foot Oven
With An Oven Window And Interior Light

Washing Machine: 3.2 Cubic Foot Washing Machine With 1,600 RPM
Spin Cycle Which Can Wash A 6 kg Load Of Laundry And Which Is
Fully Automatic And Made Of Stainless Steel, And Which Lets You
Chooese Between The Following Wash/Rinse Temperatures: Cold/Cold,
Warm/Cold, Warm/Warm, Cold/Warm, Hot/Warm, Hot/Hot, Hot/Cold,
Cold/Hot, And Warm/Hot, And Which Lets You Choose Mini, Low,
Medium, Or High Water Levels, And Which Has A Self-Cleaning Lint
Filter And Which Is Whisper-Quiet And Which Has 6 Cycles: Regular,
Super, Permanent Press, Knit/Gentle, Rinse, And Spin, As Well As A 1
HP (Horsepower) Heavy-Duty Motor

Dryer: Stainless Steel Dryer With An Interior Light And A Turn-Offable
Buzzer To Signify End-Of-Cycle And Which Has A Steam Vent Going
Outside And With A 7.0 Cubic Foot Drum, Plus A
Removable/Attachable Drying Rack

Dishwasher: Dishwasher

Vacuum Cleaner: Powerful (Can lift a 15-lb. weight without
attachments), Quiet (Less than 20 dB) Vacuum Cleaner Which Keeps
Attachments On With Button Clips, Not Just Friction, And With A 5-
Year Warranty

Gadgets Which Have Nothing To Do With Offices But Which Are
Cool Little Gizmos Which I Felt I Ought To Include Here:

Casio CMD-30B

TR-107 Tricorder Mark 1 [Vital Technologies Corporation]
              APPENDIX L: BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALL Back Issues (Plus Subscriptions For New Issues) To The
Following Publications [Publisher names in square brackets]:

2600: The Hacker Quarterly

A+ Magazine (For Apple computers) (RIP, 1983-1989) [Ziff-Davis]

Arsenal Files CD

Boardwatch Magazine [Penton Media]

BYTE Magazine [CMP Media]

CD-ROM Today

CompuServe Magazine

COMPUTE Magazine [COMPUTE Publications] (COMPUTE! Magazine
began publishing in November/December 1979, as a magazine for the
Commodore/Atari microcomputer scene. Although it eventually switched
its focus to PCs, it never lost sight of its pre-PC micro days, and for a
long time maintained a regular column on the Amiga. (The Amiga
column was dropped in September 1993, just one year before the
magazine itself ceased publishing.) It was in May 1988 that COMPUTE!
stopped including type-in programs in the magazine, as it began to be
more of a "general audience" magazine than an "underground hobbyist"
zine. The magazine never lost its personal appeal, however, being written
by people who were clearly enthusiastic about the technology they wrote
about, instead of simply being in the industry for the money.
COMPUTE!'s last issue was the September 1994 issue, volume 16,
number 9, or issue number 168.)

COMPUTE'S Ultimate Power Disk

COMPUTE'S SharePak

Computer Currents Magazine

Computer Games Strategy Plus

Computer Gaming World Magazine [Ziff-Davis]

ComputerLife Magazine

Computer Shopper [Ziff-Davis]

Computerworld

Computing Now! Magazine

CPU (Computer Power User) Magazine [Published by Sandhills
Publishing Company]

Cream Of Crop CD

Creative Computing Magazine [Ziff-Davis]

Dr. Dobb's Journal [Miller Freeman/United News & Media]

Electronic Engineering Times (EETimes) [CMP Media]

Electronic Gaming Monthly

Equinox Magazine

FamilyPC Magazine [Ziff-Davis]

Flash Magazine

Game Developer Magazine

Gamers Arsenal CD

inCider Magazine (For Apple computers) (RIP, 1983-1993) [originally
Wayne Green, later merged with A+ Magazine in 1989]

Incite Magazine (A much-hyped magazine for PC and video gaming
which had promise, but didn't last long. First issue was December 1999.
Publisher went out of business in June 2000, shortly after PCAccelerator
Magazine (PCXL), another famous gaming magazine, stopped publishing
as well. Incite was available in two editions: One for PC gaming, one for
video gaming. It seems that doing celebrity interviews along with gaming
articles wasn't quite the appealing mixture the publishers hoped it would
be.) [Computec Media]

InformationWeek [CMP Media]

InfoWorld [IDG]

Inter@ctive Week [Ziff-Davis]

InterAction Magazine

LANTimes

Linux Journal

Linux Magazine

Medio Magazine

Microsoft TechNet (Includes updated drivers, patches, service packs,
resource kits, and technical info for Microsoft products, plus the entire
Knowledge Base on CD)

MicroTimes Magazine

Monster Media CD

Multimedia World

Network Computing Magazine [CMP Media]

Network Magazine

Network World

Newsweek Interactive

Nibble Magazine (RIP, 1980-1992) (For Apple II computers)

NightOwl CD

Nuts & Volts Magazine

OMNI Magazine

Online Access Magazine

PCAccelerator Magazine (PCXL) (It has been called the "National
Lampoon of gaming", and (more specifically but in the same vein) the
"Animal House of gaming magazines". PCXL was a witty and funny PC
gaming magazine, with a twisted but intelligent sense of humor.
Although it was packed with images of scantily-clad women and written
by guys who seemed to consume copious amounts of alcohol, PCXL had
a brilliance that no other gaming magazine had achieved before, even in
spite of its frat-house atmosphere. First issue hit newsstands on August
25, 1998. Final issue was issue 22: June 2000 (which actually came out
in May, since magazines are always published a month ahead of time).
Ironically, PCXL's editor-in-chief, Mike Salmon, wrote in issue 21 (May
2000), the second-last issue: "The future of PCXL and the future of PC
games begins here and now in issue 21. I have built a new staff, made
them stronger, bigger, better, and faster. These aren't just men, they are
marauding half-man, half-editorial robotic beasts with only one thing on
their mind -- to make PCXL better with each and ever issue.")

PC Gamer [Imagine Media]

PC Games

PC Magazine [Ziff-Davis]

PC World [IDG]

PC Week [Ziff-Davis]

PC Computing Magazine [Ziff-Davis]

Popular Electronics [Gernsback Publications]

Popular Mechanics [Hearst Communications]

Programmers Heaven CD

Scientific American Magazine

Smart Computing Magazine [Published by Sandhills Publishing
Company]

Sympatico NetLife Magazine

Tech Arsenal CD

The Cobb Group's Software Journals (Inside dBASE, Inside Word For
Windows, Inside Hypercard, Inside NetWare, The MacAuthority, Inside
DOS, Inside OS/2, Inside Microsoft Windows, Inside WordPerfect, Inside
Works For Windows)

The Perl Journal

The Pier CD

The Toronto Star's Fast Forward Section

Time Magazine

Toronto Computes! Magazine

Upside Magazine

Windows Developer's Journal [CMP Media]

Windows Magazine [CMP Media] (Kudos to Windows Mag for offering
complete, downloadable archives of all the magazine's back issues dating
back to 1993 at winmag.com)

Windows NT Magazine

Wired Magazine [The Cond Nast Publications/Wired Digital]

WordPerfect Magazine

Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine [Ziff-Davis]

General Computer Books:

1001 Really Cool Web Sites

1001 Things To Do With Your Commodore 64 [By Mark Sawusch and
Tan Summers] [Published by TAB Books]

1-2-3 For Windows Made Easy

101 Essential Windows Tips [By Clifton Karnes] [Published By
COMPUTE Books]

101 Programming Surprises And Tricks For Your Commodore 64
Computer [By David L. Heiserman] [Published by TAB Books]

10 Minute Guide To Lotus Notes R6 [By Jane Calabria and Dorothy
Burke] [Published by Que]

1995 Computer Marketplace

20th Century Computers And How They Worked: The Official Starfleet
History Of Computers [By Jennifer Flynn] [Published By Alpha]

24 Hours In Cyberspace

25 Steps To Safe Computing

386 Computer Buyers Guide And Handbook [By Edwin Rutsch]

3D Game Programming With C++ Gold Book [By de John Goes]
[Published by Coriolis Group]

3D Games, Volume 1: Real-Time Rendering And Software Technology
[By Alan Watt and Fabio Policarpo] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

3D Games, Volume 2: Animation And Advanced Real-Time Rendering
[By Alan Watt and Fabio Policarpo] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

3D Modeling In AutoCAD: Creating And Using 3D Models In AutoCAD
2000 [By John E. Wilson] [Published by Miller Freeman Publishing]

3D Studio Max 3 Professional Animation [By Angie Jones and Sean
Bonney] [Published by New Riders Publishing]

3D Studio Max R3 Bible [By Kelly Murdock] [Published by IDG]

68000 Family Assembly Language [By Alan Clements, B.Sc.] [Published
by PWS Publishing Co.]

80486 System Architecture, 3rd Edition [By Tom Shanley] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

8086/8088, 80286, 80386 And 80486 Assembly Language Programming
[By Barry B. Brey] [Published by Pearson Education]

80X86 IBM PC And Compatible Computers: Assembly Language,
Design And Interfacing, Vol. I And II, 3rd Edition [By Muhammad Ali
Mazidi and Janice Gillispie Mazidi] [Published by Prentice Hall]

A+ All-In-One Certification Exam Guide, 4th Edition [By Michael D.
Meyers] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill] (One of the best A+ study
guides on the market, for all the right reasons: It covers the newest
objectives (the 3rd edition covers the the 2001 A+ objectives), it covers
both the core and the OS tests in great detail (unlike some books which
only cover one or the other but not both), it features a whole load of
visual aids (photos, screenshots, etc.) to show you what you need to
know instead of just telling you, and it actually goes beyond the basic
A+ requirements to give you added knowledge which you won't need on
the test, but which you'll want to know when working with computers
anyway, something very few study guides do.)

A+ Certification Exam Guide [By Michael Meyers] [Published By
Computing McGraw-Hill]

A+ Certification Interactive Workbook [By Emmett Dulaney and Robert
Bogue] [Published by Prentice Hall]

A+ Certification Training Guide [Published By New Riders Publishing]

A+ Exam Prep: CompTIA Certified Computer Technician, Adaptive
Testing Edition [By Jean Andrews] [Published by Coriolis]

A+ Guide To Managing And Maintaining Your PC, Third Edition [By
Jean Andrews] [Published by Thomson Learning]

Aaron's Code: Meta-Art, Artificial Intelligence, And The Work Of
Harold Cohen [By Pamela McCorduck] [Published By Freeman]

Access 2000 Bible: See Microsoft Access 2000 Bible

Access 2000 Unleashed: See Microsoft Access 2000 Development
Unleashed

Ace The IT Job Interview! [By Paula Moreira and Robyn Thorpe]
[Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Ace The IT Resume! [By Paula Moreira and Robyn Thorpe] [Published
by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

ACRC: Advanced Cisco Router Configuration Curriculum; CISACRC.1
[By CBT Systems] [Published By CBT Systems]

Acrobat PDF Bible [By Ted Padova] [Published by IDG]

Active Directory, 2nd Edition [By Alistair G. Lowe-Norris and Robbie
Allen] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

ActiveX Controls Inside Out, Second Edition [By Adam Denning]
[Published By Microsoft Press]

Active Xpert [By Tom Armstrong, Jim Crespino, And Rob Alumbaugh]
[Published By Computing McGraw-Hill]

Ada: A Life And A Legacy [By Dorothy Stein] [Published by MIT
Press]

Ada Byron Lovelace: The Lady And The Computer [By Mary Dodson
Wade] [Published By Silvia Burdett Press]

Ada The Enchantress Of Numbers: Prophet Of The Computer Age [By
Alexandra Betty Toole] [Published By Strawberry Press]

A DBA's Guide To Databases Under Linux, Including Oracle And SQL
[By Syngress Media] [Published by Syngress Media]

Adobe Type 1 Font Format, Version 1.1 [Published By Addison-Wesley]

A DOS User's Guide To The Internet: E-Mail, Netnews, And File
Transfer With UUCP [By James Gardner] [Published by Prentice Hall]

ADSL And DSL Technologies [By Walter J. Goralski] [Published By
McGraw-Hill]

Advanced Animation And Rendering Techniques: Theory And Practice
[By Alan H. Watt And Mark Watt] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Advanced Batch File Programming, 3rd Edition

Advanced Compiler Design And Implementation [By Steven S.
Muchnick] [Published by Morgan Kaufmann]

Advanced CORBA Programming With C++ [By Michi Henning And
Steve Vinoski] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Advanced MS-DOS [By Ray Duncan] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Advanced Programming In The UNIX Environment [By Richard
Stevens] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Advanced Windows, 3rd Edition [By Jeffrey Richter] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Adventures In Artificial Life [By Clayton Walnum] [Published by Que]

A Few Good Men From Univac [By David E. Lundstrom] [Published by
MIT Press]

AGP System Architecture, 2nd Edition [By Dave Dzatko and Tom
Shanley] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

A Guide To The TCP/IP Protocol Suite, Second Edition [By Floyd
Wilder] [Published by Artech House Publishers]

A Guide To UNIX Using Linux [By Jack Dent] [Published by Course
Technology]

A History Of Invention: From Stone Axes To Silicon Chips, Revised
Edition [By Trevor I. Williams and William E. Schaaf] [Published by
Fact On File]

A History Of Modern Computing [By Paul E. Ceruzzi] [Published By
MIT Press]

AI Application Programming [By M. Tim Jones] [Published by Charles
River Media]

AI Techniques For Game Programming [By Mat Buckland] [Published
by Premier Press]

AIX 5L Administration [By Randal K. Michael] [Published by Osborne
McGraw-Hill]

Alan Simpson's Easy Guide To Windows 95

Alan Turing: The Architect Of The Computer Age (Impact Biography)
[By Ted Gottfried] [Published By Franklin Watts, Inc.]

Alan Turing: The Enigma [By Andrew Hodges] [Published by Walker &
Co.]

Algorithms On Strings, Trees, And Sequences: Computer Science And
Computational Biology [By Dan Gusfield] [Published by Cambridge
University Press]

All-In-One Novell 5 CNA/CNE Exam Guide [By John Paul Mueller]
[Published by Computing McGraw-Hill]

Alpha RISC Architecture For Programmers [By James S. Evans and
Richard H. Eckhouse] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Amazon Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips And Tools [By Paul
Bausch] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Analog Interfacing To Embedded Microprocessor Systems, 2nd Edition
[By Stuart R. Ball] [Published by Newnes]

Analysis And Design Of Analog Integrated Circuits, 4th Edition [By Paul
R. Gray, Paul J. Hurst, Stephen H. Lewis, and Robert G. Meyer]
[Published by Wiley]

An Embedded Software Primer [By David E. Simon] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

An Introduction To Information Theory: Symbols, Signals And Noise
[By John Robinson Pierce] [Published by Dover Publications]

An Introduction To Parallel Computing: Design And Analysis Of
Algorithms, Second Edition [By Ananth Grama, George Karypis, Vipin
Kumar, and Anshul Gupta] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

AOL In A Nutshell [By Curt Degenhart And Jen Muehlbauer] [Published
By O'Reilly And Associates]

Apache Server Commentary: Guide To Insider's Knowledge On Apache
Server Code [By Greg Holden, Nicholas Wells, and Matthew Keller]
[Published by Coriolis Group]

Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition [By Ben Laurie, Peter Laurie,
and Robert Denn] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Apple: The Inside Story Of Intrigue, Egomania, And Business Blunders
[By Jim Carlton]

Applications Migration: IBM To VAX [By Alan R. Simon] [Published
By Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.]

Application-Specific Integrated Circuits [By Michael John Sebastian
Smith] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, And Source Code in C,
Second Edition [By Bruce Schneier] [Published By John Wiley & Sons]

Applied Physics For Game Programmers: Creating Real-Time
Simulations [By Christopher D. Watkins] [Published by Charles River
Media]

A Practical Handbook Of Speech Codes [By Randy Goldberg] [Published
by CRC Press]

A Quarter Century Of Unix [By Peter H. Salus] [Published by Addison-
Wesley]

ARM Architecture Reference Manual [By Dave Jagger and David Seal]
[Published by Addison-Wesley]

ARM System-On-Chip Architecture [By Stephen B. Furber] [Published
by Addison-Wesley]

Art And Innovation: The Xerox PARC Artist-In-Residence Program [By
Craig Harris And John Seely Brown] [Published By MIT Press] (Book
about the convergence of art and science in the computer world, and the
importance of art in "Computer Science")

Artificial Intelligence, 3rd Edition [By Patrick Henry Winston] [Published
By Addison-Wesley] (Note: Patrick Winston heads MIT's AI Lab.)

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach [By Stuart J. Russell And
Peter Norvig] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Artificial Intelligence Projects For The Commodore 64 [By Timothy J.
O'Malley] [Published by TAB Books] 

Artificial Life: A Report From The Frontier Where Computers Meet
Biology [By Steven Levy] [Published By Vintage Books]

Artificial Life: The Quest For A New Creation [By Steven Levy]

AS/400 Communications 101 [By Dick Grenham] [Published by
Midrange Computing]

ASP In A Nutshell [By A. Keyton Weissinger] [Published by O'Reilly
And Associates]

Assembly Language For Intel-Based Computers, 4th Edition [By Kip R.
Irvine] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Assembly Language For The IBM-PC [By Kip R. Irvine] [Published by
MacMillan Coll. Div.]

Assembly Language Master Class [By Igor Chebotko, Peter Kalatchin,
Yuri Kiselev, Efim Podvoisky, Kiril Malakhov, Yuri Petrenko, Mike
Schmit, Sergei Shkredov, Gennady Soudlenkov, and Daniel Wronski]
[Published by Wrox Press]

Assembly Language Step-by-Step: Programming With DOS And Linux
[By Jeff Duntemann] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Bandits On The Information Superhighway

Bandwidth On Demand And Cisco Routers : CISCO29 [By CBT
Systems] [Published by CBT Systems]

Becoming An Electronics Technician: Securing Your High-Tech Future,
3rd Edition [By Ronald A. Reis] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Before And After

Beginning Game Audio Programming [By Mason McCuskey] [Published
by Muska & Lipman]

Beginning Linux Programming [By Richard Stones And Neil Matthew]
[Published By Wrox Press]

Beginning PHP4 [By Chris Lea, Wankyu Choi, Allan Kent, Ganesh
Prasad, and Chris Ullman] [Published by Wrox Press]

Behind The Silicon Curtain: The Seductions Of Work In A Lonely Era
[By Dennis Hayes] [Published by South End Press]

Being Digital [By Nicholas Negroponte] [Published By Alfred A. Knopf]

Bert Monroy: Photorealistic Techniques [Published By New Riders
Publishing]

Best Of The Net [By Seth Godin] [Published By IDG Books]

Between Silk And Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 [By Leo
Marks] [Published By The Free Press]

Beyond Calculation

Beyond HTML [By Richard Karpinski] [Published By Osborne
McGraw-Hill]

Bigelow's Build Your Own PC Pocket Reference [By Stephen J.
Bigelow] [Published By Computing McGraw-Hill]

Bigelow's Drive And Memory Troubleshooting Pocket Reference [By
Stephen J. Bigelow and Michael Sprague] [Published by Osborne
McGraw-Hill]

Bigelow's PC Technician's Troubleshooting Pocket Reference [By
Stephen J. Bigelow] [Published By Computing McGraw-Hill]

Bill Gates Speaks [By Janet Lowe] [Published By John Wiley & Sons]

Biographical Dictionary Of The History Of Technology [By Lance Day]
[Published By Routledge]

BotGuide [By Michael Wolff And Peter Rutten] [Published By
HarperCollins]

Bots: The Origin Of New Species [By Andrew Leonard] [Published by
Penguin]

Break Into The Game Industry: How To Get A Job Making Video
Games [By Ernest Adams] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Broadband Networking [By Glen Carty, Richard Coda, and Michael
Mueller] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Broadband Telecommunications Handbook, Second Edition [By Regis J.
Bates] [Published by McGraw-Hill Professional]

BSD Hacks [By Dru Lavigne] [Published by O'Reilly]

Building A Web Based Education System [By Colin McCormack And
David Jones] [Published By John Wiley]

Building Embedded Linux Systems [By Karim Yaghmour] [Published by
O'Reilly]

Building Internet Firewalls, 2nd Edition [By Elizabeth D. Zwicky, Simon
Cooper, D. Brent Chapman, and Deborah Russell] [Published by O'Reilly
And Associates]

Build, Upgrade, Repair Your Own Computer: Get Exactly What You
Need And Save Money [By Michael Harris] [Published By Index
Publishing Group]

Build Your Own 486/486SX And Save A Bundle, 2nd Edition

Build Your Own Flight Sim In C++: Programming A 3D Flight
Simulator Using OOP, 2nd Edition [By Michael Radtke and Christopher
Lampton] [Published by Waite Group Press]

Build Your Own IBM Compatible And Save A Bundle [By Aubrey
Pilgrim] [Published by TAB Books]

Build Your Own Multimedia PC

Build Your Own PC Recording Studio [By Jon Chappell] [Published by
Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Build Your Own Printed Circuit Board [By Al Williams] [Published by
McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics]

Build Your Own Z80 Computer [By Steve Ciarcia] [Published by BYTE]

Buying A Computer: How To Choose And Set Up Your PC [By John K.
Waters] [Published by Adams Media Corporation]

Cabling: The Complete Guide To Network Wiring, 2nd Edition [By
David Groth, David McBee, Jim McBee, and David Barnett] [Published
by Sybex]

Canned Code For DOS And Windows [By Steve Rimmer] [Published By
McGraw-Hill]

CardBus System Architecture [By Don Anderson and Tom Shanley]
[Published by Addison-Wesley]

Careers Tn Computers, Third Edition [By Lila B. Stair and Leslie Stair]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition [By Eric A.
Meyer] [Published by O'Reilly]

Casting The Net: From ARPAnet To Internet And Beyond [By Peter H.
Salus] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Caught In The Net: How To Recognize The Signs Of Internet Addiction
-And A Winning Strategy For Recovery [By Kimberly S. Young]
[Published By John Wiley & Sons]

CCIE Professional Development: Routing TCP/IP [By Jeff Doyle]
[Published By Cisco Systems]

CCNA Certification: Routing Basics For Cisco Certified Network
Associates [By Robert N. Myhre] [Published by Prentice Hall]

CCNA Certification Kit [By Todd Lammle and William Tedder]
[Published by Sybex]

CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide [By Todd
Lammle, Don Porter, and James Chellis] [Published by Sybex]

CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide, Deluxe Edition
[By Todd Lammle] [Published by Sybex]

CCNA Cisco Certified Network Associate: Study Guide, 2nd Edition [By
Todd Lammle] [Published by Sybex] (Probably the most popular CCNA
study guide, and for good reason: It's thorough and the pace is not too
fast for beginners.)

CCNA Exam Notes: Cisco Certified Network Associate [By Todd
Lammle] [Published by Sybex]

CCNA For Dummies [By Ron Gilster, Jeff Bienvenu, and Kevin Ulstad]
[Published by IDG Books]

CCNP: Advanced Cisco Router Configuration Study Guide [By Todd
Lammle, Kevin Hales, and Donald Porter] [Published by Sybex]

CCNP: Cisco Internetwork Troubleshooting Study Guide [By Kevin
Hales, Todd Lammle, And Robert Padjen] [Published By Sybex]

CD-ROM Handbook, Second Edition [Edited By Chris Sherman]

CG 101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference [By Terrence Masson]
[Published by New Riders Publishing]

CGI Programming In C & Perl [By Thomas Boutell] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

CGI Programming On The World Wide Web [By Shishir Gundavaram
And Andy Oram] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

CGI Programming With Perl, 2nd Edition [By Gunther Birznieks, Scott
Guelich, and Shishir Gundavaram] [Published by O'Reilly And
Associates]

Charged Bodies: People, Power, And Paradox In Silicon Valley [By
Thomas Mahon]

Checking C Programs With lint [By Ian Darwin] [Published by O'Reilly
And Associates]

Chilton's Guide To Small Computer Repair And Maintenance [By Gene
B. Williams] [Published By Chilton]

CICS/ESA Primer [By James G. Janossy and Steve Samuels] [Published
by John Wiley & Sons]

CISCO: A Beginner's Guide [By Tom Shaughnessy and Toby J. Velte]
[Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Cisco All-In-One CCIE Lab Study Guide [By Stephen Hutnik And
Michael Satterlee] [Published By Osborne]

Cisco CCIE Fundamentals: Network Design & Case Studies [By Cisco
Systems] [Published By Cisco Press]

Cisco CCNA Exam #640-507 Certification Guide [By Wendell Odom]
[Published by Cisco Press]

Cisco CCNA Exam #640-607 Certification Guide, 3rd Edition [By
Wendell Odom] [Published by Cisco Press]

Cisco Certification: Bridges, Routers And Switches For CCIEs [By
Andrew Bruce Caslow And Valeriy Pavlichenko] [Published By Prentice
Hall]

Cisco Field Manual: Router Configuration [By David Hucaby and Steve
McQuerry] [Published by Cisco Press]

Cisco Internetwork Overview, CISCO1 [By CBT Systems] [Published By
CBT Systems]

Cisco IOS 11.3 : WAN Connections On Cisco Routers : CS1310E [By
CBT Systems] [Published By CBT Systems]

Cisco IOS Essentials [By John Albritton] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Cisco IOS For IP Routing [By Andrew Colton] [Published by Rocket
Science Press]

Cisco IOS In A Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference [By James Boney]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Cisco Router Configuration Basics, CCR100WC [By CBT Systems]
[Published By CBT Systems]

Cisco Routers For IP Networking Black Book: A Practical In Depth
Guide For Configuring Cisco Routers For Internetworking IP-Based
Networks [By Tsunami Computing and Innokenty Rudenko] [Published
by Paraglyph Publishing]

Cisco Switching Black Book: A Practical In Depth Guide To
Configuring, Operating, And Managing Cisco LAN Switches [By Sean
Odom and Hanson Nottingham] [Published by Paraglyph Publishing]

Cisco: The Complete Reference [By Brian Hill] [Published by McGraw-
Hill Osborne]

Close To The Machine: Technophilia And Its Discontent [By Ellen
Ullman] [Published By City Lights]

CMOS Circuit Design, Layout, And Simulation [By R. Jacob Baker,
Harry W. Li, and David E. Boyce] [Published by Wiley-IEEE Press]

CMOS Digital Integrated Circuits Analysis & Design, Third Edition [By
Sung-Mo Kang and Yusuf Leblebici] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

CMOS IC Layout: Concepts, Methodologies, And Tools [By Dan Clein]
[Published by Newnes]

Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction [By
Steve M. McConnell] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Code: The Hidden Language Of Computer Hardware And Software [By
Charles Petzold] [Published By Microsoft Press]

COM And CORBA Side By Side: Architectures, Strategies, And
Implementations [By Jason Pritchard] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

COM And DCOM: Microsoft's Vision For Distributed Objects [By
Roger Sessions] [Published By John Wiley & Sons]

COM-CORBA Interoperability [By Ronan Geraghty, Sam Joyce, Tom
Moriarty, Gary Noone, And Sean Joyce] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Commodore 64/128 Graphics And Sound Programming, 2nd Edition [By
Stan Krute] [Published by TAB Books]

Commodore 64 Advanced Game Design [By George and Nancy
Schwenk] [Published by TAB Books]

Commodore 64 Assembly Language Arcade Game Programming [By
Steve Bress] [Published by TAB Books]

Communications Systems & Networks

Compact Disc Player Maintenance And Repair [By Gordan McComb and
John Cook] [Published by Tab Books]

Compact Disc Troubleshooting And Repair [By Neil Heller and Thomas
Bentz] [Published by Sams]

Complete Cisco Curriculum, ICRC / ACRC ; CISIC&AC.1 [By CBT
Systems] [Published By CBT Systems]

Complete Guide To Compact Disc (CD) Player Troubleshooting And
Repair [By John D. Lenk] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Composing Cyberspace: Identity, Community, And Knowledge In The
Electronic Age [By Richard Holeton] [Published by McGraw-Hill Higher
Education]

CompuServe From A To Z

Computational Linguistics [By Ralph Grishman] [Published by
Cambridge University Press]

Computer: A History Of The Information Machine [By Martin Campbell-
Kelly and William Aspray] [Published by HarperCollins]

Computer Alphabet Book [By Elizabeth S. Wall] [Published By
Bayshore]

Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, 3rd Edition [By John
L. Hennessy, David A. Patterson, and David Goldberg] [Published by
Morgan Kaufmann]

Computer Buying Guide, 2000

Computer Concepts, Illustrated Standard Edition [By June Jamrich
Parsons And Dan Oja] [Published By Course Technology]

Computer Consulting On Your Home-Based PC [By Herman Holtz]

Computer Crime: Criminal Justice Resource Manual [By Donn B. Parker
And Susan Nycum] [Published By Davis Association]

Computer Design And Architecture, Revised And Expanded 3rd Edition
[By Sajjan G. Shiva] [Published by Marcel Dekker]

Computer Dictionary: Data Communications, PC Hardware, And Internet
Terminology [By Scott Mueller] [Published By Que Corporation]

Computer Dictionary, Third Edition [Published By Microsoft Press]

Computer Engineering: A DEC View Of Hardware Systems Design [By
C. Gordon Bell] [Published by Digital Press]

ComputerFit: Staying Healthy In A Computer-Based Workforce [By
Randall Helm]

Computer Forensics: Incident Response Essentials [By Warren G. Kruse
II and Jay G. Heiser] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Computer Graphics Handbook: Geometry And Mathematics [By Michael
E. Mortenson] [Published By Industrial Press]

Computer Graphics: Principles And Practice, Second Edition [By James
D. Foley, Andries van Dam, Steven K. Feiner, John F. Hughes, And
Richard L. Phillips] [Published By Addison-Wesley] (One of the most
highly-regarded texts on programming computer graphics, the book of
choice for many pros.)

Computer Industry Almanac, 8th Edition

Computer Integrated Manufacturing: A Revolution In Progress [By
Robert U. Ayres] [Published by Chapman & Hall]

Computer Job Survival Guide [By Janet Ruhl] [Published by Technion
Books]

Computer Lib/Dream Machines [By Theodor H. Nelson (Ted Nelson)]

Computer Monitor Troubleshooting And Repair [By Joseph Desposito
and Kevin Garabedian] [Published by Delmar Learning]

Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring The Internet
[By James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross] [Published by Addison-
Wesley]

Computer Networks, Fourth Edition [By Andrew S. Tanenbaum]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

Computer Networks And Internets, With Internet Applications, 3rd
Edition [By Douglas E. Comer and Ralph E. Droms] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

Computer Networks: A Systems Approach [By Larry L. Peterson, Bruce
S. Davie, and David Clark] [Published by Morgan Kaufmann]

Computer Organization And Design: The Hardware/Software Interface,
2nd Edition [By David A. Patterson, John L. Hennessy, and Nitin
Indurkhya] [Published by Morgan Kaufmann]

Computer Pioneers [By J.A.N. Lee]

Computer Power And Human Reason: From Judgement To Calculation
[By Joseph Weizenbaum] [Published by W. H. Freeman & Co.]

Computer Professional's Dictionary [By Allen Wyatt]

Computer Related Risks [By Peter G. Neumann] [Published by Addison-
Wesley]

Computers And Human Language [By George W. Smith] [Published by
Oxford University Press]

Computer Science Logo Style, Volume 1: Symbolic Computing [By
Brian Harvey] [Published By MIT Press]

Computer Science Logo Style, Volume 2: Advanced Techniques [By
Brian Harvey] [Published By MIT Press]

Computer Science Logo Style, Volume 3 [By Brian Harvey] [Published
By MIT Press]

Computers Simplified, 2nd Edition

Computer Security Basics [By Deborah Russell And G.T. Gengemi Sr.]
[Published By O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.]

Computer Security Management [By Donn B. Parker]

Computer Technician's Handbook, 3rd Edition

Computer Science: An Overview, Sixth Edition [By J. Gleen Brookshear]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

Computer Science Illuminated, 2nd Edition [By Nell B. Dale and John
Lewis] [Published by Jones & Bartlett Publishers]

Computer Viruses, Artificial Life and Evolution [By Mark Ludwig]
[Published By American Eagle Publications]

Computer Viruses, Worms, Data Diddlers, Killer Programs, And Other
Threats To Your System [By John McAfee And Colin Haynes]
[Published By St. Martin's Press]

Computer Vision: A Modern Approach [By David A. Forsyth and Jean
Ponce] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Computer Wimp No More: The Intelligent Beginner's Guide To
Computers [By John Bear, PhD.] [Published By Ten Speed Press]

Computers And Intractability: A Guide To The Theory Of NP-
Completeness [By Michael R. Garey and David S. Johnson] [Published
by W. H. Freeman & Co.]

Computers In Your Life [By Melvin Berger] [Published By Crowell]

Computers [By Karen Jacobsen] [Published By Childrens]

Computers [By Linda O'Brien] [Published By Watts]

Compute's Buyer's Guide To IBM PCs: Compatibles And Portables

COMPUTE!'s Mapping the IBM PC and PCjr [By Russ Davies]
[Published By COMPUTE! Publications, Inc.]

Computing Across America [By Steve Roberts] [Published By Learned
Information]

Concise Guide To MS-DOS Batch Files, 3rd Edition [By Kris Jamsa]
[Published By Microsoft Press]

Constructing Intelligent Agents Using Java: Professional Developer's
Guide, 2nd Edition [By Joseph P. Bigus and Jennifer Bigus] [Published
by John Wiley & Sons]

Consumer Reports 1999 Home Computer Buying Guide [By Donna
Heiderstadt] [Published By Consumer Reports Books] (My main
competition :) )

Consumer Reports Books: Guide To Personal Computers

Contemporary Logic Design [By Randy H. Katz] [Published by Prentice
Hall]

Coombs' Printed Circuits Handbook, 5th Edition [By Clyde F. Coombs]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

CORBA 3 Developer's Guide [By Reaz Hoque] [Published By IDG
Books]

CORBA Networking With Java [By George M. Doss] [Published By
Wordware Publishing]

CORBA On The Web [By Ron Ben-Natan] [Published By McGraw-Hill]

CORBA Programming Unleashed [By Suhail Ahmed] [Published By
Sams]

Core Java 2, Volume I: Fundamentals, 6th Edition [By Gary Cornell and
Cay S. Horstmann] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Core Jini [By W. Keith Edwards] [Published By Prentice Hall]

CorelDRAW! 6 Unleashed, Third Edition [By Foster Coburn III, Carlos
F. Gonzalez, and Pete McCormick] [Published by Sams]

Core PHP Programming: Using PHP To Build Dynamic Web Sites [By
Leon Atkinson] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Create Your Own Desktop Publishing System

Creating Web Pages Simplified [Published By maranGraphics]

Creating Web Pages With HTML Simplified, 2nd Edition [By Ruth
Maren] [Published By IDG Books]

Crime By Computer [By Donn B. Parker] [Published By MacMillan]

Crossing The Chasm: Marketing And Selling High-Tech Products To
Mainstream Customers [By Geoffrey A. Moore] [Published By Harper
Perennial]

Cryptography And Data Security [By Dorothy Elizabeth Robling
Denning] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Cryptography And Network Security: Principles And Practice, 3rd
Edition [By William Stallings] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Cryptography: Theory And Practice, Second Edition [By Douglas
Stinson] [Published by Chapman & Hall/CRC]

Crypto: How The Code Rebels Beat The Government -- Saving Privacy
In The Digital Age [By Steven Levy] [Published by Viking Press]

Crystal Fire: The Invention Of The Transistor And The Birth Of The
Information Age [By Michael Riordan And Lillian Hoddeson] [Published
By W.W. Norton & Company]

Crystal Reports 9: The Complete Reference, 2nd Edition [By George
Peck, Lyssa Wald, and Michael Mueller] [Published by Osborne
McGraw-Hill]

Cybercafes: A Worldwide Guide For Travelers, 3rd Edition [By
cyberkath@traveltales.com] [Published by Ten Speed Press]

Cyberhound's Internet Guide To The Coolest Stuff Out There

Cyber-Investing: Cracking Wall Street With Your Personal Computer

Cybernetic Music [By Jaxitron] [Published by TAB Books]

CyberReader [By Victor Vitanza] [Published By Allyn And Bacon]

Cybersex [Edited By Richard Glyn Jones] [Published By Carroll & Graf]

Cyberspace: First Steps [By Michael Benedikt] [Published by MIT Press]

Dan Gookin's Guide To Underground DOS 6.0 [By Dan Gookin]
[Published By Bantam Books]

Data Communications And Local Area Networking Handbook [By Britt
Rorabaugh] [Published by TAB Books]

Data Mining Solutions [By Christopher Westphal And Teresa Blaxton]
[Published By Wiley]

Data Networks, IP And The Internet: Protocols, Design And Operation
[By Martin P. Clark] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Data Structures, Algorithms, And Software Principles In C [By Thomas
A. Standish] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Data Structures For Game Programmers [By Ron Penton] [Published by
Muska & Lipman]

Data Warehouse Performance [By W.H. Inmon, Ken Rudin, Christopher
K. Buss, And Ryan Sousa] [Published By Wiley]

Dave Barry In Cyberspace [By Dave Barry] [Published By Crown
Publishers]

dBASE IV: A Tutorial To Accompany Peter Norton's Introduction To
Computers [By Miguel Pendas And Peter Norton]

DC Power Supplies [By Joseph J. Carr] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Debian GNU/Linux: Guide To Installation And Usage [By John Goerzen
And Ossama Othman] [Published By New Riders]

Debugging With GDB: The GNU Source-Level Debugger, 9th Edition
[By Richard M. Stallman, Roland Pesch, and Stan Shebs] [Published by
the Free Software Foundation]

Decline And Fall Of The American Programmer [By Edward Yourdon]
[Published by Prentice-Hall]

Deep Black: Space Espionage And National Security [By William E.
Burrows]

Deploying Microsoft SQL Server 7.0: Notes From The Field [By
Microsoft Corporation] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Design And Implementation Of DSL-Based Access Solutions [By
Sanjeev Mervana and Christopher Le] [Published by Cisco Press]

Designing And Using ActiveX Controls [By Tom Armstrong] [Published
By IDG Books]

Designing Embedded Hardware [By John Catsoulis] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Designing Web Usability [By Jakob Nielsen] [Published by New Riders
Publishing]

Designing With FPGAs And CPLDs [By Bob Zeidman] [Published by
CMP Books]

Designing With JavaScript: Creating Dynamic Web Pages [By Nick
Heinle] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Design Of Analog CMOS Integrated Circuits [By Behzad Razavi]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

Design Of High-Performance Microprocessor Circuits [By Anantha
Chandrakasan, William J. Bowhill, and Frank Fox] [Published by IEEE]

Detecting The World: Capturing Physical Measurements With C++ (Data
Acquisition on the PC) [By David McCombs] [Published by CMP
Books]

Detour: The Truth About The Information Superhighway [By Michael 
Sullivan-Trainor] [Published By IDG Books]

Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills [By Cynthia Gibas and Per
Jambeck] [Published by O'Reilly]

Developing Linux Applications With GTK+ And GDK [By Eric Harlow]
[Published by New Riders]

Developing PowerBuilder 5 Applications, Fourth Edition [By Bill
Hatfield] [Published by Sams]

Developing Your Own 32-Bit Operating System [By Richard A. Burgess]
[Published by Sams] (Later re-published under the name MMURTL
V1.0)

Dictionary Of Computer And Internet Terms, 7th Edition [By Michael
A. Covington, Melody Mauldin Covington, and Douglas A. Downing]
[Published by Barrons]

Dictionary Of Networking, Third Edition [By Peter Dyson] [Published
By Sybex]

Digital Communication, Third Edition [By John R. Barry, David G.
Messerschmitt, and Edward A. Lee] [Published by Kluwer Academic
Publishers]

Digital Computer Electronics, 3rd Edition [By Albert Paul Malvino and
Jerald A. Brown] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Digital Design: Principles And Practices, 3rd Edition [By John F.
Wakerly] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Digital Electronics: Concepts and Applications for Digital Design [By
Richard J. Prestopnik] [Published by Delmar Publishers]

Digital Electronics Troubleshooting, 2nd Edition [By Joseph J. Carr]
[Published by Tab Books]

Digital Integrated Circuits: A Design Perspective, 2nd Edition [By Jan
M. Rabaey] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Digital Logic And State Machine Design, 3rd Edition [By David J
Comer] [Published by Oxford University Press]

Digital Logic Design, Fourth Edition [By Brian Holdsworth and R. C.
Woods] [Published by Butterworth-Heinemann]

Digital Transmission Lines: Computer Modelling And Analysis [By
Kenneth D. Granzow] [Published by Oxford University Press]

Dilbert Comic Books: Always Postpone Meetings With Time-Wasting
Morons, Build A Better Life By Stealing Office Supplies, Dogbert's
Clues For The Clueless, Shave The Whales, Bring Me The Head Of
Willy The Mailboy!, It's Obvious You Won't Survive By Your Wits
Alone, Still Pumped From Using The Mouse, Fugitive From The Cubicle
Police, Casual Day Has Gone Too Far, Journey To Cubeville, The
Dilbert Principle, The Dilbert Future, and The Joy Of Work: Dilbert's
Guide To Finding Happiness At The Expense Of Your Co-Workers

Director 7 And Lingo Bible [By Jonathan Bacon, Robert Martin, and
John R. Nyquist] [Published by IDG]

Director In A Nutshell [By Bruce Epstein] [Published By O'Reilly And
Associates]

DirectX Complete [By Michael D. Root And James R. Boer] [Published
By McGraw-Hill]

Discovering The IBM PC/jr. Home Computer 2 [By Peter Norton and
Jim Heid]

Discover Java [By Ed Tittel and Bill Brogden] [Published by IDG
Books]

Disk Operating System Version 3.10: Technical Reference [Published by
IBM]

Dissecting DOS [By Michael Podanoffsky] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

DNS And BIND, 4th Edition [By Paul Albitz, Cricket Liu, and Mike
Loukides] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates] (Very important book,
since it covers such essential building blocks of the modern-day Internet.
The definitive book on the DNS standard.)

Doing It The Hard Way: Investigations Of Gender And Technology [By
S. Hacker] [Published by Unwin Hyman]

Domino System Administration: Administering Domino For Lotus Notes
& The Internet [By Rob Kirkland] [Published by Que]

DOS 6: A Tutorial To Accompany Peter Norton's Introduction To
Computers [By Terrence P. O'Donnell And Peter Norton]

DOS And Windows Protected Mode: Programming With DOS Extenders
In C [By Al Williams]

DOS Answers

DOS For Dummies, 3rd Edition [By Dan Gookin] [Published By IDG
Books]

DOS Made Easy, 4th Edition

DOS Inside & Out

DOS Internals [By Geoff Chappell]

DOS Power Tools: Techniques, Tricks And Utilities, 2nd Edition [By
Paul Somerman] [Published By Bantam Computer Books]

DOS Programmer's Reference, Third Edition [Terry R. Dettemann, Jim
Kyle And Marcus Johnson] [Published By Que Corporation]

Dr. Batch File's Ultimate Collection [By Ronny Richardson] [Published
By Windcrest]

Dr. Deming: The American Who Taught The Japanese About Quality
[By Rafael Aguayo] [Published By Fireside Books]

Dr. Ecco's Cyberpuzzles: 36 Puzzles For Hackers And Other
Mathematical Detectives [By Dennis E. Shasha] [Published by W.W.
Norton & Company]

Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference, 2nd Edition [By Danny
Goodman] [Published by O'Reilly]

Dynamics Of Software Development [By Jim McCarthy] [Published by
Microsoft Press]

Easy Laser Printer Maintenance And Repair [By Stephen J. Bigelow And
Eric Kuaimoku (Photographer)] [Published By Windcrest]

Easy PC Maintenance And Repair, 2nd Edition [By Phillip Laplante]
[Published By Windcrest/McGraw-Hill]

eBay Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips And Tools [By David A. Karp]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Effective E-Mail Clearly Explained: File Transfer, Security, And
Interoperability

Effective Tcl/Tk Programming: Writing Better Programs In Tcl And Tk
[By Mark Harrison and Michael J. McLennan] [Published by Addison-
Wesley]

Effective TCP/IP Programming: 44 Tips To Improve Your Network
Programs [By Jon C. Snader] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

EISA System Architecture, 2nd Edition [By Tom Shanley and Don
Anderson] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Electronic Display Measurement: Concepts, Techniques, And
Instrumentation [By Peter A. Keller] [Published by Wiley]

Electronic Packaging And Interconnection Handbook, 3rd Edition [By
Charles A. Harper] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Electronics Fundamentals: Circuits, Devices, And Applications, Sixth
Edition [By Thomas L. Floyd] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Electronics Manufacturing With Lead-Free, Halogen-Free, And
Conductive-Adhesive Materials [By John H. Lau, C.P. Wong, Ning-
Cheng Lee, and Ricky S.W. Lee] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

E-Mail Addresses Of The Rich And Famous [By Seth Godin] [Published
by Addison-Wesley]

Embedded Ethernet And Internet Complete: Designing And Programming
Small Devices For Networking [By Jan Axelson] [Published by
Lakeview Research]

Embedded Linux: Hardware, Software, And Interfacing [By Craig
Hollabaugh] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Embedded Systems Design: An Introduction To Processes, Tools And
Techniques [By Arnold S. Berger] [Published by Newnes]

Embedded Systems Firmware Demystified [By Ed Sutter] [Published by
CMP Books]

Embracing Insanity: Open Source Software Development [By Russell
Pavlicek] [Published by Sams]

Encyclopedia Of Computer Science, 4th Edition [By Anthony Ralston,
Edwin D. Reilly, Jr., and David Hemmendinger] [Published by Nature
Press]

Encyclopedia Of Graphics File Formats [By James D. Murray]

Encyclopedia Of Software Engineering [By John J. Marciniak] [Published
by Wiley & Sons]

Engines Of The Mind: The Evolution Of The Computer From
Mainframes To Microprocessors [By Joel N. Shurkin] [Published by W
W Norton & Co.]

ENIAC: The Triumphs And Tragedies Of The World's First Computer
[By Scott McCartney] [Published By Walker & Co.]

Enterprise JavaBeans [By Tom Valesky] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Epson LX-800 User's Manual [Published By Seiko Epson Corp.]

Escape Velocity: Cyberculture At The End Of The Century [By Mark
Dery] [Published by Grove Press]

Essential Client/Server Survival Guide

Essential COM [By Don Box] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Essential CSS And DHTML For Web Professionals [By Dan Livingston
And Micah Brown] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Essential Guide To User Interface Design

Essential Perl 5 For Web Professionals [By Micah Brown, Chris Bellew,
And Dan Livingston] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Essentials Of Programming Languages [By Daniel P. Friedman, Mitchell
Wand, And Christopher T. Haynes] [Published By MIT Press]

Essential System Administration, 2nd Edition [By Aeleen Frisch]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Essential Windows NT System Administration [By Aeleen Frisch]
[Published By O'Reilly & Associates]

Essential Windows Tools: Everything You Need [By Clifton Karnes]
[Published By COMPUTE Books]

E-Support: How Cisco Systems Saves Millions While Improving
Customer Support [By Andrew Connan, Vincent Russell, and John
Chambers] [Published by Cisco Press]

Ethernet: The Definitive Guide [By Charles E. Spurgeon] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Ethical Conflicts In Information And Computer Science, Technology,
And Business [By Donn B. Parker]

Evil Geniuses In A Nutshell [By Illiad] [Published by O'Reilly &
Associates] (The second User Friendly comic collection)

Excel 97 Annoyances [By Woody Leonhard] [Published By O'Reilly
And Associates]

Expert Resumes For Computer And Web Jobs [By Wendy Enelow,
Louise Kursmark and David F. Noble] [Published by Jist Works]

Exploring IBM RS/6000 Computers: Become An Instant Insider On
IBM's Family Of Unix Workstations And Servers, 10th Edition [By Jim
Hoskins and Doug Davies] [Published by Maximum Press]

Exploring Java [By Patrick Neimeyer]

Exploring The IBM PCJR Home Computer [By Peter Norton]

Fabricating Printed Circuit Boards [By Jon Varteresian] [Published by
Newnes]

Fat FAQs: PC Hardware

Feynman Lectures On Computation [By Richard P. Feynman, Robin W.
Allen, and Anthony J. G. Hey] [Published by Perseus Publishing]

Field Guide To Windows 95 [By Steve Nelson] [Published By Microsoft
Press]

Fighting Computer Crime [By Donn B. Parker]

Find It Online!

Firewalls And Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker [By William
Cheswick And Steven Bellovin] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

FireWire System Architecture: IEEE 1394A, 2nd Edition [By Don
Anderson] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Fireworks 2 Bible [By Joseph W. Lowery] [Published By IDG Books]

First Week With My New PC: A Very Basic Guide For Mature Adults
& Everyone Else [By Pamela R. Lessing; Illustrated by David Shenton]
[Published by Capital Books, Inc.]

Fix Your Own PC, 5th Edition [By Corey Sandler] [Published By IDG
Books]

Flash 4 Web Animation F/X And Design, 2nd Edition [By Ken Milburn
and John Croteau] [Published by Coriolis]

Flash MX Bible [By Robert Reinhardt and Snow Dowd] [Published by
John Wiley & Sons]

Flip Chip Technologies [By John H. Lau] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Foundations Of Computational Linguistics: Man-Machine
Communication In Natural Language [By Roland R. Hausser] [Published
by Springer Verlag]

Foundations Of Statistical Natural Language Processing [By Christopher
D. Manning and Hinrich Schutze] [Published by MIT Press]

FPGA-Based System Design [By Wayne Wolf] [Published by Prentice
Hall]

Frame Relay Configuration For Cisco Routers, CISCO25 [By CBT
Systems] [Published By CBT Systems]

Free $tuff From The Internet: Your Guide To Getting Hundreds Of
Valuable Goodies [By Patrick Vincent]

Free $tuff From The World Wide Web [By Patrick Vincent]

Free As In Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade For Free Software [By
Sam Williams] [Published by O'Reilly & Associates]

FreeBSD Unleashed [By Michael Urban and Brian Tiemann] [Published
by Sams]

FreeDOS Kernel: An MS-DOS Emulator For Platform Independence And
Embedded Systems Development [By Pat Villani] [Published By R&D
Books]

From ASICs To SOCs: A Practical Approach [By Farzad Nekoogar and
Faranak Nekoogar] [Published by Prentice Hall]

From Serf To Surfer: Becoming A Network Consultant [By Matthew
Strebe] [Published by Sybex]

FrontPage 98 Bible

Fundamentals Of Computer Security Technology [By Edward G.
Amoroso] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Fundamentals Of Database Systems, 3rd Edition [By Ramez A. Elmasri
and Shamkant B. Navathe] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Fundamentals Of Digital Logic And Microcomputer Design, Revised
Edition [By Mohamed Rafiquzzaman] [Published by Rafi Systems, Inc.]

Fundamentals Of Logic Design, 5th Edition [By Charles H. Roth, Jr.]
[Published by Thomson-Engineering]

Fundamentals Of Microfabrication [By Marc J. Madou] [Published by
CRC Press]

Fundamentals Of Semiconductor Fabrication [By Gary S. May and
Simon M. Sze] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Fundamentals Of Semiconductors: Physics And Materials Properties, 3rd
Edition [By Peter Y. Yu and Manuel Cardona] [Published by Springer
Verlag]

Fuzzy Logic: Dispatches From The Information Revolution [By Matthew
Friedman] [Published By Vehicule Press]

Fuzzy Logic: The Revolutionary Computer Technology That Is Changing
Our World [By D. McNeill And Frieberger] [Published By
Touchstone/Simon & Schuster]

Game Programming Gems [By Mark DeLoura] [Published by Charles
River Media]

Game Programming Gems 2 [By Mark DeLoura] [Published by Charles
River Media]

Game Programming Gems 3 [By Dante Treglia and Mark Deloura]
[Published by Charles River Media]

Game Programming Gems 4 [By Andrew Kirmse] [Published by Charles
River Media]

Garbage Collection: Algorithms For Automatic Dynamic Memory
Management [By Richard Jones and Rafael D. Lins] [Published by John
Wiley & Sons]

Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode The Internet Out Of Idaho [By Jon
Katz] [Published by Broadway Books]

Get Cisco Certified And Get Ahead [By Anne Martinez] [Published By
Osborne]

Getting Started In Computer Consulting [By Peter Meyer] [Published by
John Wiley & Sons]

Getting Started In Consulting [By Alan Weiss] [Published by John Wiley
& Sons]

Get Your IT Career In Gear! [By Leslie Jaye Goff] [Published by
Osborne McGraw-Hill]

GIFs, JPEGs & BMPs: Handling Internet Graphics

Gigabit Ethernet Networking [By David Cunningham and William G.
Lane] [Published by Pearson Higher Education]

GNU EMACS Manual For Version 21, 15th Edition [By Richard M.
Stallman] [Published by the Free Software Foundation]

Going On-Line With Your Micro [By Lou Haas] [Published by TAB
Books]

Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools [By Tara Calishain
and Rael Dornfest] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Google Pocket Guide [By Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest, and DJ Adams]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates] 

Go To: The Story Of The Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess
Wizards, Scientists And Iconoclasts Who Were The Hero Programmers
Of The Software Revolution [By Steve Lohr] [Published by Basic Books]

Great Web Architecture [By Clay Andres] [Published by IDG]

Grob Basic Electronics, 8th Edition [By Bernard Grob] [Published by
McGraw-Hill]

Growing Up Digital: The Rise Of The Net Generation [By Don Tapscott]
(Entertaining, intelligent, and and thought-provoking book, but too
optimistic.)

Grown-Up's Guide To Computers [By Mary Furlong And Stefan B.
Lipson] [Published By Microsoft Press]

GSM Networks: Protocols, Terminology, And Implementation [By
Gunnar Heine] [Published by Artech House]

GSM Switching, Services, And Protocols, 2nd Edition [By Joerg
Eberspaecher, Hans-Joerg Voegel, and Christian Bettstetter] [Published
by John Wiley & Sons]

GTK+/Gnome Development [By Havoc Pennington] [Published By New
Riders]

Hack Attacks Denied: A Complete Guide To Network Lockdown [By
John Chirillo] [Published by Wiley & Sons]

Hacker Disassembling Uncovered [By Kris Kaspersky, Natalia Tarkova,
and Julie Laing] [Published by A-List Publishing]

Hacker Proof: The Ultimate Guide To Network Security [By Renehan
Klander]

Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions, Fourth Edition
[By Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray, and George Kurtz] [Published by
Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Hacking Linux Exposed [By Brian Hatch] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Hackers Beware: The Ultimate Guide To Network Security [By Eric
Cole] [Published by New Riders Publishing]

Hacker's Delight [By Henry S. Warren, Jr.] [Published by Addison-
Wesley] (Not a book about security; It's a programming book.)

Hardcore Java [By Robert Simmons] [Published by O'Reilly]

Hard Drive [By James Wallace]

Hardening Cisco Routers [By Thomas Akin] [Published by O'Reilly And
Associates]

Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty [By Joe
Grand, Ryan Russell, and Kevin Mitnick] [Published by Syngress]

Hardware Hacking Projects For Geeks [By Scott Fullam] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Harley Hahn's Internet & Web Yellow Pages, 2001 Edition [By Harley
Hahn] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Hewlett-Packard LaserJet Family Technical Reference Manual [Published
By Hewlett-Packard Co.]

High Performance Cluster Computing, Volume 1: Architectures And
Systems [By Rajkumar Buyya] [Published by Prentice Hall]

High Performance Cluster Computing, Volume 2: Programming And
Applications [By Rajkumar Buyya] [Published by Prentice Hall]

High Performance Printed Circuit Boards [By Charles A. Harper]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

High Performance Windows Graphics Programming [By Stan Trujillo]
[Published By The Coriolis Group]

High-Tech Careers For Low-Tech People [By William A. Schaffer]
[Published by Ten Speed Press]

High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong In The Classroom,
And Other Reflections By A Computer Contrarian [By Clifford Stoll]
[Published By Doubleday]

High Technology And Low-Income Communities: Prospects For The
Positive Use Of Advanced Information Technology [By Donald A.
Schon, Bish Sanyal, William J. Mitchell, and Bishwapriya Sanyal]
[Published by MIT Press]

High Technology Crime Investigator's Handbook [By Gerald L.
Kovacich And William C. Boni] [Published By Butterworth-Heinemann]

History Of Computing: An Encyclopedia Of The People And Machines
That Made Computer History [By Mark W. Greenia] [Published by
Lexikon Services]

History Of Programming Languages, Volume 2 [By Thomas J. Bergin
and Richard G. Gibson] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Home-Based Newsletter Publishing

Home Hacking Projects For Geeks [By Eric Faulkner and Tony
Northrup] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Hooked On Java

Hooked Up, Get Hired! The Internet Job Search Revolution

Hosting Web Communities [By Cliff Figallo] [Published By Wiley]

Howard Aiken: Portrait Of A Computer Pioneer [By I. Bernard Cohen]
[Published By MIT Press]

How Computers Work, Fourth Edition [By Ron White]

How Computers Work, Millennium Edition [By Ron White] [Published
By Que]

How Stuff Works (From the enormously successful How Stuff Works
website (howstuffworks.com) comes this book, an everyman's "The Way
Things Work".) [By Marshall Brain] [Published by Hungry Minds, Inc.]

How The Internet Works [By Joshua Eddings] [Published By Ziff-Davis
Press]

How The Internet Works, Fourth Edition [By Preston Gralla]

How The Internet Works, Millennium Edition [By Preston Gralla]
[Published by Que]

How To Avoid Buying A New Computer [By Myles White] [Published
By McClelland And Stewart]

How To Be A Successful Computer Consultant, 4th Edition [By Alan R.
Simon And Walid Mougayar] [Published By McGraw-Hill]

How To Build A Mind: Toward Machines With Imagination [By Igor
Aleksander] [Published by Columbia University Press]

How To Build An IBM Compatible And Save A Bundle [By Aubrey
Pilgrim]

How To Buy A Computer [By Myles White] [Published By McClelland
And Stewart]

How To Do Everything With Your Treo 600 [By Derek Ball and Dayton
Foster] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

How To Use Linux [By Bill Ball]

How To Use Windows 95

How To Learn To Use And Even Program A Computer In One 
Day [Need To Join CompuClub (See Below) In Order To Get This
Book]

How To Make Money Right From Your Home With Your Personal
Computer [Need To Join CompuClub (See Below) In Order To Get This
Book]

How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult Of The Puzzle:
How The World's Smartest Company Selects The Most Creative
Thinkers [By William Poundstone] [Published by Little, Brown &
Company]

HTML 4 For The World Wide Web, 4th Edition [By Elizabeth Castro]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

HTML Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition [By Jennifer Neiderst] [Published
by O'Reilly]

HTML: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition [By Chuck Musciano and Bill
Kennedy] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates] (Outstanding HTML
book; Everything anybody could want to know on the subject)

HTTP: The Definitive Guide [By David Gourley and Brian Totty]
[Published by O'Reilly]

Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Edition [By Alan J. Dix, Janet E.
Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, And Russell Beale] [Published By Prentice
Hall]

HyperTransport System Architecture [By Jay Trodden and Don
Anderson] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

IA-64 Linux Kernel: Design And Implementation [By David Mosberger
and Stephane Eranian] [Published by Prentice Hall]

IBM Dictionary Of Computing [By George McDaniel] [Published by
McGraw-Hill]

IBM PC Assembly Language And Programming, 5th Edition [By Peter
Abel] [Published by Prentice Hall]

IBM PC/AT [Published By IBM]

IBM PC AT Technical Reference Manual [Published By IBM]

IBM PCJR Graphics [By Dan Illowsky And Michael Abrash]

IBM PCjr Technical Reference [Published By IBM]

IBM PCJR User's Guide [By Dan Illowksy And Michael Abrash]

IBM PCs And Compatibles: A Business User's Guide [By Colin Lewis]
[Published by Basil Blackwell]

IBM PC Technical Reference Manual [Published By IBM]

IBM PC Troubleshooting & Repair Guide [By Robert C. Brenner]
[Published By Howard W Sams & Company]

IBM PC/XT Technical Reference [Published By IBM]

IBM PS/2 Model 30 Technical Reference [Published By IBM]

IBM PS/2 Model 50 and 60 Technical Reference [Published By IBM]

IBM Redux: Lou Gerstner And The Business Turnaround Of The Decade
[By Doug Garr] [Published By Harperbusiness]

IBM's Early Computers [By Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, Emerson
W. Pugh, and John H. Palmer] [Published by MIT Press]

IC Mask Design: Essential Layout Techniques [By Christopher Saint and
Judy Saint] [Published by McGraw-Hill Professional]

IC Layout Basics: A Practical Guide [By Christopher Saint and Judy
Saint] [Published by McGraw-Hill Professional]

Illustrated Guide To HTTP [By Paul S. Hethmon] [Published By Prentice
Hall]

Illustrator 8 Bible

Implementing IPv6: Supporting The Next Generation Protocols, 2nd
Edition [By P. E. Miller and Mark A. Miller] [Published by IDG]

Incident Response And Computer Forensics, Second Edition [By Chris
Prosise, Kevin Mandia, and Matt Pepe] [Published by Osborne McGraw-
Hill]

Incident Response: Computer Forensics Toolkit [By Douglas Schweitzer]
[Published by Wiley]

[incr Tcl/Tk] From The Ground Up: The Accelerated Track For
Professional Programmers [By Chad Smith] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Information Masters: Secrets Of The Customer Race [By John McKean]
[Published By Wiley]

Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms [By David J. C.
MacKay] [Published by Cambridge University Press]

In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution In Photography [By F.
Ritchin] [Published By Aperture]

Insanely Great: The Life And Times Of Macintosh, The Computer That
Changed Everything [By Stephen Levy] [Published By Viking Penguin]

Inside DirectX [By Bradley Bargen And Terence Peter Donnelly]
[Published By Microsoft Press]

Inside Dreamweaver MX [By Laura Gutman, Patricia J. Ayers, and
Donald S. Booth] [Published by New Riders]

Inside Fractal Design Painter [By Karen Sperling] [Published by New
Riders]

Inside Network Perimeter Security: The Definitive Guide To Firewalls,
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Routers, And Intrusion Detection
Systems [By Stephen Northcutt, Lenny Zeltser, Scott Winters, Karen
Fredrick, and Ronald W. Ritchey] [Published by Sams]

Inside OLE [By Kraig Brockschmidt]

Inside PC: Upgrading And Repairing Windows 95 [By Peter Norton]

Inside System 7 [By Peter Norton And Dan Shafer]

Inside The Microsoft Windows 98 Registry [By Gunter Born] [Published
by Microsoft Press]

Inside The Windows 95 File System [By Stan Mitchell] [Published By
O'Reilly And Associates]

Inside The Windows 95 Registry [By Ronald Petrusha And Andrew
Shulmann] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Inside Visual C++, Fourth Edition [By David J. Kruglinski] [Published
By Microsoft Press]

Inside Windows 95 [By Adrian King]

Inside Windows NT [By Helen Custer]

Inside Windows NT, 2nd Edition [By David A. Solomon] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Insider's Guide To Windows 95 Programming

Integrating CORBA And COM Applications [By Michael Rosen, David
Curtis, And Dan Foody] [Published By John Wiley & Sons]

Intel 32-Bit Microprocessor: 80386, 80486, And Pentium [By Barry B.
Brey] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth Of Organizations [By Thomas A.
Stewart] [Published By Currency Doubleday]

Intelligent Peripheral Devices (IPD) Data Book [Published By NEC
Electronics, Inc.]

Intelligent Software Agents [By Richard Murch and Tony Johnson]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices [By Stephen McQuerry and John
Kane] [Published by Cisco Press]

Interfacing Your Microcomputer To Virtually Anything [By Joseph J.
Carr] [Published by Tab Books]

Internet And World Wide Web Simplified [Published By maranGraphics]

Internet Application Protocols: The Definitive Guide [By Eric Hall and
Mike Loukides]

Internet Core Protocols: The Definitive Guide [By Eric A. Hall and
Vinton G. Cerf] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates] (Outstanding,
in-depth coverage of IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, IGMP, and ARP. One of the
best for a thorough treatment of all of the Net's key protocols.)

Internet Directory For Teachers [By Grace Jasmine And Julia Jasmine]
[Published By IDG Books]

Internet Explorer 4.0 Fast & Easy [By Coletta Witherspoon] [Published
By Prima Publishing]

Internet FAQs [By Margaret Levine Young and John R. Levine]

Internet For Kids!: A Beginner's Guide To Surfing The Net

Internet Gizmos

Internet Graphics Toolkit [By Steve Rimmer]

Internet In A Nutshell [By Ed Krol] [Published By O'Reilly &
Associates, Inc.]

Internet Routing Architectures, Second Edition [By Sam Halabi and
Danny McPherson] [Published by Cisco Press]

Internet Secrets [By John Levine and Carol Baroudi] [Published By IDG
Books]

Internet Security For Business [By Bernstein, Bhimani, Schultz, And
Siegel]

Internet Security: Professional Reference [By Derek Atkins, Tom
Sheldon, Tim Petru, Joel Snyder, and Chris Hare] [Published by New
Riders Publishing]

Internet World: 60 Minute Guide To Java

Internetworking IPv6 With Cisco Routers [By Silvano Gai] [Published
by McGraw-Hill]

In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power
[By Shoshana Zuboff] [Published By Basic Books]

In The Beginning... Was The Command Line [By Neal Stephenson]
[Published by Perennial/Avon Books]

Intranet Security: Stories From The Trenches [By Linda McCarthy]

Introducing Microsoft FrontPage 97 [Published By Microsoft Press]

Introducing Windows 95

Introduction To 80X86 Assembly Language And Computer Architecture
[By Richard C. Detmer] [Published by Jones & Bartlett]

Introduction To Algorithms, Second Edition [By Thomas H. Cormen,
Charles E. Leiserson, and Ronald L. Rivest] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Introduction To Assembly Language Programming: From 8086 To
Pentium Processors [By Sivarama P. Dandamudi, D. Gries, and F. B.
Schneider] [Published by Springer Verlag]

Introduction To Automata Theory, Languages, And Computation, 2nd
Edition ("Cinderella Book") [By John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

Introduction To Computers [By Peter Norton]

Introduction To PC Communications

Introduction To Personal Computers, 2nd Edition

Introduction To Personal Computers: Self-Teaching Guide [By Peter
Stephenson] [Published By Wiley]

Introduction To Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology [By Hong
Xiao] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Introduction To The Team Software Process [By Watts S. Humphrey]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

Introduction To The Theory Of Computation [By Michael Sipser]
[Published by Pws Publishing Co.]

Introductory Techniques For 3-D Computer Vision [By Emanuele Trucco
and Alessandro Verri] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Intrusion Detection: Network Security Beyond The Firewall [By Terry
Escamilla] [Published By John Wiley & Sons]

Inside Active Directory: A System Administrator's Guide [By Sakari
Kouti and Mika Seitsonen] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Inside COM [By Dale Rogerson] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Inside CompuServe, Second Edition [By Richard Wagner] [Published by
New Riders Publishing]

Inside CorelDRAW! 4.0, Special Edition [By Daniel Gray] [Published by
New Riders]

Inside Netware 4.1 [By Doug Bierer] [Published by New Riders
Publishing]

Inside The Apple Macintosh [By Peter Norton]

Inside The IBM PC: Access To Advanced Features & Programming
Techniques [By Peter Norton]

Inside The IBM PC And PS/2 [By Peter Norton]

Inside The PC [By Peter Norton And John M. Goodman]

Inside The Windows 95 File System [By Stan Mitchell]

Inside The Windows 95 Registry [By Ron Petrucha And Andrew
Schulman]

Inside Windows NT, 2nd Edition [By Dave Solomon]

Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms The Way We
Create And Communicate [By S. Johnson] [Published By HarperCollins]

Introduction To Logic Design, 2nd Edition [By Sajjan G. Shiva]
[Published by Marcel Dekker]

Introduction To RISC Assembly Language Programming [By John
Waldron] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Inventing The Internet [By Janet Abbate] [Published by MIT Press]

IP Addressing And Subnetting, Including IPv6 [By J. D. Wegner, Robert
Rockell, Marc Blanchet, and Syngress Media] [Published by Publisher's
Group West]

IP Routing [By Ravi Malhotra] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

IPv6 Clearly Explained [By Pete Loshin] [Published By Morgan
Kaufmann]

IPv6 Networks [By Marcus Goncalves and Kitty Niles] [Published by
McGraw-Hill]

IPv6: The New Internet Protocol [By Christian Huitema] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

IPv6: The Next Generation Internet Protocol [By Stewart S. Miller]
[Published by Digital Press]

IRC Hacks [By Paul Mutton] [Published by O'Reilly]

IRQ, DMA & I/O: Resolving And Preventing PC System Conflicts, 2nd
Edition [By Jim Aspinwall] [Published By IDG Books]

ISA System Architecture, 3rd Edition [By Don Anderson, John Swindle,
and Tom Shanley] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

i sing the body electronic [By Fred Moody] [Published By Penguin]

I Speak Basic To My Atari [By Aubrey B. Jones, Jr.] [Published By
Hayden]

"It's Not A Bug, It's A Feature!": Computer Wit And Wisdom [By
David Lubar] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

I-Way Robbery: Crime On The Internet [By William C. Boni And
Gerald L. Kovacich] [Published By Butterworth-Heinemann]

Jamsa's 1001 DOS & PC Tips

Java In A Nutshell, 4th Edition [By David Flanagan] [Published By
O'Reilly And Associates]

Java Programming Basics

Java Programming On Linux [By Nathan Myers]

Javascript: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition [By David Flanagan]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

JavaScript Cookbook: Everything You Need To Program In JavaScript
[By Yosef Cohen]

JavaScript Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition [By David Flanagan]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

John Hedgecoe's Camcorder Basics

Just For Fun: The Story Of An Accidental Revolutionary [By Linus
Torvalds and David Diamond] [Published by Harperbusiness]

Kerberos: A Network Authentication System [By Brian Tung] [Published
by Addison-Wesley]

Kernel Projects For Linux [By Gary Nutt] [Published by Addison
Wesley]

Knoppix Hacks [By Kyle Rankin] [Published by O'Reilly]

LAN Wiring, 2nd Edition [By James Trulove] [Published by McGraw-
Hill]

Late Night VRML 2.0 With Java [By Bernie Roehl, Justin Couch, Cindy
Reed-Ballreich, Tim Rohaly, Geoff Brown, and Cindy Reed-Ballerich]
[Published by Ziff-Davis Press]

Learning GNU Emacs, 2nd Edition [By Debra Cameron, Bill Rosenblatt
and Eric S. Raymond] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Learning Java, Second Edition [By Patrick Niemeyer and Jonathan
Knudsen] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Learning Perl, 3rd Edition [By Randal L. Schwartz and Tom
Christiansen] [Published by O'Reilly & Associates]

Learning Red Hat Linux, 2nd Edition [By Bill McCarty] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Learning The Bash Shell, 2nd Edition [By Cameron Newham And Bill
Rosenblatt] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Learning The Unix Operating System [By Jerry D. Peek, Grace Todino
and John Strang] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Learning The vi Editor, 6th Edition [By Linda Lamb and Arnold
Robbins] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Leigh Weimers' Guide To Silicon Valley: An Insider's Tip For Techies
And Tourists [By Leigh Weimers and Nina Paley] [Published by Western
Tanager Press]

Lemon-Aid Personal Computers: Buying, Selling, And Upgrading Your
PC [By Jim Sanderson]

LEO: The First Business Computer [By Peter J. Bird] [Published by
Hasler Publishing]

lex & yacc, 2nd Edition [By John Levine, Tony Mason, and Doug
Brown] [Published by O'Reilly]

Life On The Screen: Identity In The Age Of The Internet [By Sherry
Turkle] [Published by Touchstone Books/Simon And Schuster]

Linked: How Everything Is Connected To Everything Else And What It
Means [By Albert-Laszlo Barabasi] [Published by Plume]

Linked: The New Science Of Networks [By Albert-Lszl Barabsi]
[Published by Perseus Publishing] (A book about linked networks of
individual nodes, and how network theory applies to them. Although not
explicitly about computer networks, this book derives a lot of theory
from computer networks and has a lot of applications for the field, as
well as other fields like biology, sociology, etc. It is not a pure computer
science book, but will be interesting to the computer science student.
Note that this book is non-technical in its approach; It is a "popular
science" approach to network theory for the lay masses.)

Linkers And Loaders [By John R. Levine] [Published by Morgan
Kaufmann]

Linking LANs, Second Edition [By Stan Schatt]

Linux+ Study Guide, Second Edition [By Roderick W. Smith] [Published
by Sybex]

Linux+ Study Guide [By Rod Smith] [Published by Sybex] (Covers
CompTIA exam XK0-002, the second version of the Linux+ exam.)

Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide, 2nd Edition [By Steve Shah]
[Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Linux Application Development [By Michael K. Johnson And Erik W.
Troan] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Linux Assembly Language Programming [By Bob Neveln] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

Linux Clearly Explained [By Bryan Pfaffenberger] [Published By
Morgan Kaufman]

Linux Clustering: Building And Maintaining Linux Clusters [By Charles
Bookman] [Published by Sams]

Linux Configuration & Installation, 4th Edition [By Patrick Volkerding,
Kevin Reichard, and Eric Foster-Johnson] [Published by IDG]

Linux Core Kernel Commentary, 2nd Edition [By Scott Andrew
Maxwell] [Published by Coriolis Group]

Linux Desk Reference, 2nd Edition [By Scott Hawkins] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition [By Alessandro Rubini and Andy
Oram] [Published by O'Reilly & Associates]

Linux Firewalls [By Robert Ziegler] [Published by New Riders]

Linux For Embedded And Real-Time Applications [By Doug Abbott]
[Published by Newnes]

Linux In A Nutshell, 4th Edition [By Ellen Siever] [Published By
O'Reilly And Associates]

Linux IP Stacks Commentary: Guide To Gaining Insider's Knowledge
On The IP Stacks Of The Linux Code [By Stephen T. Satchell and H. B.
J. Clifford] [Published by Coriolis Group]

Linux Kernel Development [By Robert Love] [Published by Sams]

Linux Kernel Internals, 2nd Edition [By Michael Beck, Harald Bohme,
Mirko Dziadzka, Ulrich Kunitz, Robert Magnus, And Harold Bohme]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

Linux Multimedia Guide [By Jeff Tranter and Andy Oram] [Published
by O'Reilly And Associates]

Linux Network Administrator's Guide, 2nd Edition [By Olaf Kirch]
[Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Linux Performance Tuning And Capacity Planning [By Jason R. Fink]
[Published by Sams]

Linux Programmer's Reference [By Richard Petersen] [Published By
Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Linux Socket Programming [By Sean Walton] [Published by Sams]

Linux Socket Programming By Example [By Warren Gay] [Published by
Que]

Linux System Administration [By Anne H. Carasik] [Published by IDG]

Linux System Administration, Second Edition [By Vicki Stanfield and
Roderick W. Smith] [Published by Sybex]

Linux TCP/IP Network Administration [By Scott Mann] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

Linux: The Complete Reference [By Richard Petersen]

Linux Unleashed, 4th Edition [By Bill Ball, David Pitts, and John
Goerzen] [Published by Sams]

Linux Unwired [By Roger Weeks, Edd Dumbill, and Brian Jepson]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Living At Light Speed [By Danny Goodman] [Published By Random
House]

Local Access Network Technologies [By P. France] [Published by IEE]

Local Area Networks: An Introduction To The Technology [By John E.
McNamara] [Published by Digital Press]

Local Area Networks: Making The Right Choices [By Philip Hunter]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

Look Your Best With WordPerfect 5.1 [By George R. Beinhorn and Julia
B. Beinhorn] [Published by Que]

Lotus 1-2-3 For Windows: A Tutorial To Accompany Peter Norton's
Introduction To Computers [By Jeff Mock]

Lotus 1-2-3 Release 2.4: A Tutorial To Accompany Peter Norton's
Introduction to Comuters [By Terrence P. O'Donnell And Peter Norton]

Lotus Domino Administration In A Nutshell [By Greg Neilson and
Robert Denn] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Lotus Notes & Domino Essential Reference [By David Hatter and Tim
Bankes] [Published by Que]

Lotus Notes And Domino R5 All-In-One Exam Guide [By Libby
Ingrassia Schwarz and Ben Malekzadeh] [Published by Osborne
McGraw-Hill]

Mac OS8 Bible [By Lon Poole] (NOTE: This book has to do with Macs.
(Specifically, the Mac's Operating System 8. Consequently, it's not
helpful. I include it here for amusement only.)

Machine Learning [By Tom M. Mitchell] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Make Money Selling Your Shareware [By Steven C. Hndgik]

Making Money In Cyberspace [By Paul Edwards, Sarah Edwards, And
Linda Rohrbough]

Making Money With Your Microcomputer, 2nd Edition [Published by
TAB Books]

Making MS-DOS & PC-DOS Work For You

Malicious Mobile Code: Virus Protection For Windows [By Roger A.
Grimes and Sue Miller] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Manager's Guide To Computer Security [By Donn B. Parker]

Managing 00: Surviving The Year 2000 Computing Crisis [By Peter de
Jager And Richard Bergeon]

Managing And Using MySQL, 2nd Edition [By George Reese, Randy
Jay Yarger, Tim King, and Hugh E. Williams] [Published by O'Reilly
And Associates]

Managing Brand Equity [By Professor David A. Aaker] [Published By
The Free Press]

Managing With Micros: Management Uses Of Microcomputers, 3rd
Edition [By Colin Lewis] [Published by Basil Blackwell]

Mandatory Package: Discrete Mathematics And Its Applications, 5th
Edition [By Kenneth H. Rosen] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

MAPI, SAPI, & TAPI Developer's Guide [By Michael Amundsen]
[Published by Sams]

Mastering Algorithms With C [By Kyle Loudon] [Published By O'Reilly
And Associates]

Mastering AutoCAD 2000, Premium Edition [By George Omura]
[Published By Sybex, Inc.]

Mastering Crystal Reports 9 [By Cate McCoy and Gord Maric]
[Published by Sybex]

Mastering Excel For Windows 95, Special Edition [By Thomas Chester]
[Published By Sybex]

Mastering Keyboarding Skills 1, 2nd Edition

Mastering Local Area Networks [By Christa Anderson and Mark Minasi]
[Published by Sybex]

Mastering Microsoft Office For Windows 95 [By Lonnie Moseley]
[Published By Sybex]

Mastering Network Security [By Chris Brenton]

Mastering Perl 5 [By Eric C. Herrmann] [Published By Sybex]

Mastering The 68000 Microprocessor [By Phillip R. Robinson]
[Published by TAB Books]

Mastering The 8088 Microprocessor [By Lanny V. Dao] [Published by
TAB Books]

Mastering The IBM PCJR Home Computer [By Peter Norton]

Mastering Windows 95: The Windows 95 Bible

Mastering Word For Windows 95 [By Ron Mansfield] [Published By
Sybex]

Mathematics For 3D Game Programming And Computer Graphics,
Second Edition [By Eric Lengyel] [Published by Charles River Media]

Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future [By Steve Roberts]
[Published by Vintage Books]

Maximum Linux Security: A Hacker's Guide To Protecting Your Linux
Server And Workstation [By Anonymous] [Published By Sams]

MC68HC11: An Introduction: Software And Hardware Interfacing, 2nd
Edition [By Han-Way Huang] [Published by Delmar Learning]

MC68HC12: An Introduction: Software And Hardware Interfacing [By
Han-Way Huang] [Published by Delmar Learning]

McGraw-Hill Dictionary Of Computers [By Sybil P. Parker] [Published
by McGraw-Hill]

McGraw-Hill Dictionary Of Electronics And Computer Technology [By
Sybil P. Parker] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

McGraw-Hill Illustrated Telecom Dictionary, 4th Edition [By Jade
Clayton] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

McGraw-Hill Telecom Factbook, 2nd Edition [By Joseph A. Pecar and
David A. Garbin] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Memoirs Of A Hi-Tech Hustler [By Gregory D. Evans] [Published by
Global Communications/Inner Light]

Memory Management: Algorithms And Implementation In C/C++ [By
Bill Blunden] [Published by Wordware Publishing]

Memory Management And Multitasking Beyond 640K

Men Are From Cyberspace: The Single Women's Guide To Flirting,
Dating, And Finding Love On-Line [By Lisa Skriloff And Jodie Gould]
[Published By St. Martin's Press]

Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book, Special Edition
[By Michael Abrash] [Published By The Coriolis Group]

Microchip Fabrication: A Practical Guide To Semiconductor Processing,
4th Edition [By Peter Van Zant] [Published by McGraw-Hill
Professional]

Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution In Economics & Technology

Microelectronic Circuits, 5th Edition [By Adel S. Sedra and Kenneth C.
Smith] [Published by Oxford University Press]

Microelectronics Packaging Handbook, Part 1: Technology Drivers, 2nd
Edition [By Rao R. Tummala, Eugene J. Rymaszewski, and Alan G.
Klopfenstein] [Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers]

Microelectronics Packaging Handbook, Part 2: Semiconductor Packaging,
2nd Edition [By Rao R. Tummala, Eugene J. Rymaszewski, and Alan G.
Klopfenstein] [Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers]

Microelectronics Packaging Handbook, Part 3: Subsystem Packaging, 2nd
Edition [By Rao R. Tummala, Eugene J. Rymaszewski, and Alan G.
Klopfenstein] [Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers]

Microprocessor and Peripheral Handbook [Published By Intel
Corporation]

Microsoft Access 97 Step By Step [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Access 97 Field Guide [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Access 2000 Bible [By Cary N. Prague and Michael R. Irwin]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Microsoft Access 2000 Development Unleashed [By Stephen Forte, Tom
Howe and James Ralston] [Published by Sams]

Microsoft Computer Dictionary, Fifth Edition [Published by Microsoft
Press]

Microsoft Excel 97 Step By Step [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Excel 97 Field Guide [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Exchange Field Guide [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Exchange Server In A Nutshell [By Mitch Tulloch] [Published
By O'Reilly And Associates]

Microsoft FrontPage 97 At A Glance [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft FrontPage 97 Step By Step [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Bible [By David Elderbrock And David
Karlins] [Published By IDG Books]

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 Step By Step

Microsoft Macro Assembler 5.0, Programmer's Guide [Published By
Microsoft Corp.]

Microsoft Manual Of Style For Technical Publications, 2nd Edition [By
Microsoft Corp.] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Mouse Programmer's Reference [Published By Microsoft
Press]

Microsoft MS-DOS 6 Companion [By JoAnne Woodcock] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Microsoft MS-DOS Programmer's Reference [Published By Microsoft
Press]

Microsoft Office 97 Starts Here [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Office 2000 Bible

Microsoft PowerPoint 97 Field Guide [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft PowerPoint For Windows Step By Step

Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, Third Edition [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Microsoft's 80386/80486 Programming Guide, Second Edition [By Ross
P. Nelson] [Published by Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Visual Basic .NET: Introduction To Programming, Second
Edition [By Michael Sprague] [Published by Thomson Course
Technology]

Microsoft Windows 3.1 Step By Step

Microsoft Word 97 Step By Step [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Word 97 Field Guide [Published By Microsoft Press]

Microsoft Word For Windows: A Tutorial To Accompany Peter Norton's
Introduction To Computers [By Heather Miletti Duggan]

Microsoft Word For Windows Made Easy, Third Edition

MIME, UUENCODE & ZIP: Decompressing And Decoding Internet
Files

MIT Project Athena: A Model For Distributed Campus Computing [By
George A. Champine] [Published by Digital Press]

MMURTL V1.0 [By Richard A. Burgess] (MMURTL stands for
Message-based MUltitasking Real Time kerneL.)

Model Checking [By E. M. Clarke, Orna Grumberg and Doron Peled]
[Published by MIT Press]

Modeling And Asynchronous Distributed Simulation: Analyzing Complex
Systems [By Sumit Ghosh and Tony Lee] [Published by Wiley/IEEE
Press]

Modeling Embedded Systems And SoCs: Concurrency And Time In
Models Of Computation [By Axel Jantsch] [Published by Morgan
Kaufmann]

Modern Cable Television Technology: Video, Voice, & Data
Communications [By James Farmer, David Large, and Walter S. Ciciora]
[Published by Morgan Kaufmann]

Modern Compiler Design [By D. Grune, H. Bal, C. Jacobs, and K.
Langendoen] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Modern Electronics Soldering Techniques [By Andrew Singmin]
[Published by Delmar Learning]

Modern Operating Systems, 2nd Edition [By Andrew Tanenbaum]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

Modern Systems Analysis And Design, 2nd Edition [By Jeffrey A.
Hoffer, Joey F. George and Joseph S. Valacich] [Published by Addison-
Wesley]

Modifying Windows

More Programming Pearls [By Jon Louis Bentley]

Moving To Linux: Kiss The Blue Screen Of Death Goodbye! [By Marcel
Gagne] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Mr. Bunny's Guide To ActiveX [By Carlton Egremont] [Published By
Addison-Wesley]

Mr. Modem's Internet Guide For Seniors [By Richard A. Sherman]
[Published By Sybex]

MS-DOS 6 Step By Step [Published By Microsoft Press]

MS-DOS And PC-DOS User's Guide [By Peter Norton]

MS-DOS To The Max [By Dan Gookin] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Multimedia: Making It Work, Second Edition

Multimedia Networking

Multimedia Programming For Windows

MVS JCL In Plain English [By Donna Kelly and Jim Harding]
[Published by Xlibris Corporation]

MySQL, Second Edition [By Paul DuBois] [Published by Sams]

MySQL And mSQL [By Randy Jay Yarger, George Reese, and Tim
King] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Nattering On The Net: Women, Power And Cyberspace [By Dale
Spender] [Published By Spinifex]

Nearly Roadkill: An Infobahn Erotic Adventure [By Caitlin Sullivan And
Kate Bornstein] [Published By Serpents Tail]

Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History Of The Internet [By Stephen Segaller]
[Published by TV Books Inc.]

Net Games

netguide: What's On In Cyberspace!

NetSlaves: True Tales Of Working The Web [By Bill Lessard and Steve
Baldwin] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

NetSlaves 2.0: Tales Of Surviving The Great Tech Gold Rush [By Bill
Lessard, Steve Baldwin, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones] [Published by
Allworth Press]

Net.Travel: How Travelers Use The Internet [By Michael Shapiro]

NetWare 4.1: The Complete Reference

Netware 4 For Professionals [By Doug Bierer, Timothy A. Gendreau,
Charles Hatch, and Karanjit S. Siyan] [Published by New Riders
Publishing]

NetWare 5 CNA/CNE Administration And Design Study Guide [By
Michael G. Moncur, James Chellis, John Hales, John W. Jenkins, and
Nestor Reyes] [Published by Sybex]

Network+ All-In-One Certification Exam Guide [By Michael Meyers and
Brian Schwarz] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Network+ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Second Edition [By
Michael Meyers] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill] (This second
edition of Meyers' excellent book covers the second revision of the
Network+ objectives, which were released in January 2002. This edition
of this book was released shortly thereafter.)

Network+ Exam Cram [By Scott Reeves And Kalinda Reeves]
[Published By Certification Insider Press]

Network+ Study Guide [By David Groth] [Published by Sybex]

Networking Device Drivers [By Sanjay Dhawan] [Published by John
Wiley & Sons]

Network Intrusion Detection: An Analysis Handbook [By Northcutt
Northcult]

Network Know-How: Concepts, Cards, & Cables [By Dan Derrick]
[Published By Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Network Programming For Microsoft Windows [By Anthony Jones And
Jim Ohlund] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Network Security In A Mixed Environment [By Dan Blacharski]

Network Security SECRETS [By David J. Stang and Sylvia Moon]
[Published By IDG Books]

Network Security With OpenSSL [By John Viega, Matt Messier, and
Pravir Chandra] [Published by O'Reilly]

Network Personal Computers, 3rd Edition

Network Troubleshooting Guide [By Digital Equipment Corporation

Network Troubleshooting Tools [By Joseph D. Sloan] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates] (DEC)]

Network Tutorial, 5th Edition [By Steve Steinke] [Published by CMP
Books]

Neural Networks For Pattern Recognition [By Christopher M. Bishop]
[Published by Oxford University Press]

Newnes Computer Engineer's Pocket Book, 4th Edition [By Michael
Tooley] [Published by Butterworth-Heinemann]

Newton's Telecom Dictionary, 19th Edition: Covering
Telecommunications, Networking, Information Technology, Computing
And The Internet [By Harry Newton] [Published by CMP Books]

Next: The Future Just Happened [By Michael Lewis] [Published by W.
W. Norton & Company]

Nightwork : A History Of Hacks And Pranks At MIT [By Institute
Historian T. F. Peterson] [Published by MIT Press]

Novell's CNA Study Guide For Netware 5.1 [By David James, IV
Clarke] [Published by Hungry Minds, Inc.]

Novell's CNE Study Guide For NetWare 5.1 [By David James, IV
Clarke] [Published by Hungry Minds, Inc.]

Now You Know Treo [By Patrick Ames and David Moloney] [Published
by Peachpit Press]

NT Server: Management And Control

Office 97 Annoyances [By Woody Leonhard] [Published By O'Reilly
And Associates]

Online Information Hunting

Online Research And Retrieval With Microcomputers [By Nahum
Goldmann] [Published by TAB Books]

Online Resources For Business

Online Seductions: Falling In Love With Strangers On The Internet [By
Esther Gwinnell; Edited By Nancy Cooperman Su] [Published By
Kodansha International]

On Peopleware [By L. Constantine] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Open Sources: Voices From The Open Source Revolution [Edited By
Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman, and Mark Stone] [Published By O'Reilly
And Associates]

Operating System Concepts, 6th Edition [By Abraham Silberschatz, Peter
Baer Galvin, and Greg Gagne] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Operating Systems: Design And Implementation, 2nd Edition [By
Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Albert S. Woodhull] [Published by Prentice
Hall]

Operating Systems: Internals And Design Principles, 4th Edition [By
William Stallings] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Optimizing Compilers For Modern Architectures: A Dependence-Based
Approach [By Randy Allen, Ken Kennedy, and John R. Allen]
[Published by Morgan Kaufmann]

Optimizing Windows For Games, Graphics And Multimedia [By David
L. Farquhar] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Optimizing Windows NT [By Sean Daily]

Oracle8 How-To: The Definitive Oracle8 Problem-Solver [By Edward
Honour, Paul Dalberth, Ari Kaplan, and Atul Mehta] [Published by Waite
Group Press]

Oracle8 PL/SQL Programming [By Scott Urman and Wendy Rinaldi]
[Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Oracle8: The Complete Reference [By George Koch and Kevin Loney]
[Published by Oracle Press]

Oracle8i: The Complete Reference, 10th Edition [By Kevin Loney and
George Koch] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Reference [By David
Kreines, Brian Laskey, and Deborah Russell] [Published by O'Reilly And
Associates]

Oracle Essentials: Oracle8 And Oracle8i [By Rick Greenwald, Jonathan
Stern, and Robert Stackowiak] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Oracle PL/SQL Interactive Workbook [By Benjamin Rosenzweig and
Elena Silvestrova] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Oracle PL/SQL Programming [By Scott Urman and Tim Smith]
[Published by Oracle Press]

Oracle PL/SQL Programming, 2nd Edition [By Steven Feuerstein, Bill
Pribyl, and Debby Russell] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Oracle Programming: A Primer [By Rajshekhar Sunderraman] [Published
by Addison-Wesley]

Oracle SQL & PL/SQL Annotated Archives [By Kevin Loney and
Rachel Carmichael] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Oracle SQL High-Performance Tuning [By Guy Harrison] [Published by
Prentice Hall Computer Books]

Oracle SQL Plus Pocket Reference [By Jonathan Gennick] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Oracle SQL Plus: The Definitive Guide [By Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan
Gemrick, and Deborah Russell] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference [By David C. Kreines and Ken
Jacobs] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Oracle Web Development Tips & Techniques [By Bradley Brown]
[Published by Osborne]

OSPF: Anatomy Of An Internet Routing Protocol [By John T. Moy]
[Published by Addison-Wesley]

Outlook Annoyances [By Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, and Timothy-
James Lee] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Outside The Apple Macintosh: Access To New Technology [By Peter
Norton]

Overdrive: The Race To Control Cyberspace [By James Wallace]
[Published By John Wiley And Sons] (Sequel To Hard Drive)

PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, Second Edition [By David Pogue]
[Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

PANIC! UNIX System Crash Dump Analysis Handbook [By Chris Drake
and Kimberley Brown] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Paradigm Shift: The New Promise Of Information Technology [By Don
Tapscott and Art Caston] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Parallel Computer Architecture: A Hardware/Software Approach [By
David E. Culler, Jaswinder Pal Singh, Anoop Gupta and Jaswinder Pal
Singh] [Published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers]

Parallel Port Complete: Programming, Interfacing & Using The PC'S
Parallel Printer Port [By Jan Axelson]

Pattern Classification, 2nd Edition [By Richard O. Duda, Peter E. Hart,
and David G. Stork] [Published by Wiley]

Paul McFedries' Windows 95 Unleashed, Professional Reference Edition
[By Paul McFedries] [Published by Sams]

PayPal Hacks [By Shannon Sofield, Dave Nielsen, and Dave Burchell]
[Published by O'Reilly]

PC Buyer's Survival Guide [By Harald Babiel and Rainer Babiel]

PC Guide: Introduction To Computers, 4th Edition [Published by Inter
Trade Corporation]

PC Hacks [By Jim Aspinwall] [Published by O'Reilly]

PC Hardware In A Nutshell, 3rd Edition [By Robert Bruce Thompson
and Barbara Fritchman Thompson] [Published by O'Reilly]

PC Hardware Library [By Scott Mueller] [Published by Que Corporation]

PC Hardware Projects, Volume 1 [By James Barbarello] [Published by
Prompt]

PC Intern [By Michael Tischer and Bruno Jennrich]

PCI System Architecture, 4th Edition [By Tom Shanley and Don
Anderson] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

PCI-X System Architecture [By Tom Shanley] [Published by Pearson
Education]

PC Magazine 1997 Computer Buyer's Guide [By Sally Neuman And
Allen Wyatt] [Published By Ziff Davis Press]

PC Magazine Guide To Connectivity, 2nd Edition

PC Magazine Guide To Notebook And Laptop Computers [By Bill
Howard] [Published By Ziff-Davis Press]

PC Magazine Guide To Using NetWare

PC Magazine Guide To Linking LANs

PCMCIA System Architecture: 16-Bit PC Cards, 2nd Edition [By Don
Anderson] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

PC Learning Labs Teaches Windows 95

PC PhD: Inside PC Interfacing [By Michael Predko] [Published by
McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing]

PC Programmer's Handbook, Second Edition [By Julio Sanchez And
Maria P. Canton]

PC Secrets, 2nd Edition [By Caroline M. Halliday] [Published by IDG]

PCs For Dummies, 6th Edition [By Dan Gookin] [Published By IDG
Books]

PCs Made Easy, Second Edition

PC Tuning: How To Improve Your PC'S Performance - The Smart Way
[By Anreas Voss] [Published By Abacus]

PC Upgrade And Repair Bible [By Barry Press] [Published by IDG
Books]

PC World DOS 6 Handbook, 2nd Edition

Pentium Pro And Pentium II System Architecture [By Tom Shanley]
[Published by Addison-Wesley]

Pentium Processor System Architecture, 2nd Edition [By Don Anderson
and Tom Shanley] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Peopleware: Productive Projects And Teams, 2nd Edition [By Tom
Demarco And Timothy Lister] [Published By Dorset House] (Book about
software development teams, focusing on the human aspect rather than
the technical.)

Periscope Manual [By Sharon Bailey] [Published By The Periscope
Company]

Perl 5 Programmer's Notebook [By Jesse Feiler] [Published By Prentice
Hall]

Perl And CGI For The World Wide Web: Visual Quickstart Guide [By
Elizabeth Castro] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Perl CGI Programming: No Experience Required [By Erik Strom]

Perl Cookbook [By Tom Christiansen And Nathan Torkington]
[Published By O'Reilly & Associates]

Perl Programmer's Interactive Workbook [By Vincent D. Lowe]
[Published By Prentice Hall]

Personal Computer Secrets [By Bob O'Donnell] [Published By IDG
Books]

Perv's Guide To The Net [By Cyberspace Consortium Staff] [Published
By Masquerade Books]

Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book For The IBM PC [By Peter
Norton] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Peter Norton's Complete Guide To Dos 6.22 [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Complete Guide To Office 97 [By Peter Norton And
James L. Mohler]

Peter Norton's Complete Guide To Windows 95 [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Complete Guide To Windows 98 [By Peter Norton And
John Mueller]

Peter Norton's Complete Guide To Windows 9X, Third Edition [By
Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Computing Fundamentals [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's DOS Guide [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's DOS 6 Guide [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Guide To Access 97 Programming [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Guide To Delphi 2 [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Guide To Java Programming [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Guide To Linux [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Guide To Unix [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Guide To Visual Basic 4 For Windows 95 [By Peter
Norton]

Peter Norton's Guide To Visual Basic X for Windows [By Peter Norton
And Michael Groh]

Peter Norton's Guide To Visual C++ 5 [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Inside The PC, 8th Edition [By Peter Norton and John M.
Goodman] [Published by Sams]

Peter Norton's Introduction To Computers: Essential Concepts And
Applications For MS-DOS [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Introduction To Computers, 4th Edition [By Peter Norton]
[Published by Glencoe McGraw-Hill]

Peter Norton's Introduction To Computers: Essential Concepts With
Microsoft Works For Windows [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Macintosh [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's PC Problem Solver, Special Edition Completely Updated
For DOS 6 [By Peter Norton And Robert Jourdain]

Peter Norton's User's Guide To Windows 3.1 [By Peter Norton]

Peter Norton's Windows 3.1 Power Programming Techniques [By Peter
Norton]

Peter Norton's Windows NT Tips And Tricks [By Peter Norton And
Peter Kent]

PGP: Pretty Good Privacy [By Simson Garfinkel] [Published by O'Reilly
And Associates]

Photoshop 5 For Windows Bible

Photoshop 7 Bible, Professional Edition [By Deke McClelland]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

PHP And MySQL Web Development, Second Edition [By Luke Welling
and Laura Thomson] [Published by Sams]

PHP Bible, 2nd Edition [By Tim Converse and Joyce Park] [Published
by John Wiley & Sons]

PHP Cookbook [By David Sklar and Adam Trachtenberg] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

PHP Functions Essential Reference [By Zak Greant, Graeme Merrall,
Torben Wilson, and Brett Michlitsch] [Published by Sams]

PHP Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition [By Rasmus Lerdorf] [Published by
O'Reilly]

Physics For Game Developers [By David M. Bourg] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Physics Of Microfabrication [By Ivor Brodie and Julius J. Murray]
[Published by Plenum Press]

Physics Of Semiconductor Devices, 2nd Edition [By Simon M. Sze]
[Published by Wiley-Interscience]

PIC Microcontroller: An Introduction To Software & Hardware
Interfacing [By Han-Way Huang] [Published by Thomson Delmar
Learning]

PICmicro Microcontroller Pocket Reference [By Myke Predko]
[Published by McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics]

Planning For Windows 2000 [By Eric K. Cone, Jon Boggs, And Sergio
Perez] [Published By New Riders]

Playing MUDs On The Internet

Pleasure, Power And Technology: A Sociological Investigation Of The
Attraction Of Technology [By S. Hacker] [Published By Unwin Hyman]

Plug And Play System Architecture [By Tom Shanley] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

PNG: The Definitive Guide [By Greg Roelofs] [Published by O'Reilly
And Associates]

Poor Leo's 2002 Computer Almanac [By Leo Laporte] [Published by
Que] (Leo Laporte is the popular host of two TV shows on TechTV
(which started life as ZDTV): "Call For Help" and "The Screen Savers".
His sense of humour and easygoing personality have earned him quite a
few fans, and as a result, this book sold amazingly well even though it's
really just a random collection of computer knowledge without any
correlation between the facts.)

PostScript Language Program Design [By Adobe Systems, Inc.]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

PostScript Language Reference Manual [By Adobe Systems, Inc.]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

PostScript Language Tutorial And Cookbook [By Adobe Systems, Inc.]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

Powerbuilder 5 How-To [By Daryl Biberdorf, Keith Glidden, and Shelley
Powers] [Published by Waite Group Press]

Power Graphics Programming [By Michael Abrash]

PowerPC System Architecture [By Tom Shanley] [Published by
Mindshare Press]

PPP Design, Implementation, And Debugging, 2nd Edition [By James
Carlson] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

PPP For Embedded Systems [By John Bartas] [Published by CMP
Books]

Practical Cisco Routers [By Joseph W. Habraken] [Published by Que
Corporation]

Practical File System Design With The Be File System [By Dominic
Giampaolo] [Published by Morgan Kaufmann]

Practical Interfacing Projects With The Commodore Computers [By
Robert H. Luetzow] [Published by TAB Books]

Practical Programming In Tcl And Tk, 3rd Edition [By Brent B. Welch]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

Practical Unix And Internet Security, 2nd Edition [By Simson Garfinkel
And Gene Spafford] [Published By O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.]

Preparing For An Outstanding Career In Computers [By Mohamed
Rafiquzzaman, Ph.D.] [Published by Rafi Systems]

Prides' Guide To Educational Software

Principles Of CMOS VLSI Design, 2nd Edition [By Neil H. E. Weste
and Kamran Eshraghian] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Principles Of Computer Architecture [By Miles Murdocca and Vincent
P. Heuring] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Printed Circuit Board Designer's Reference [By Chris Robertson]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

Printed Circuit Board Materials Handbook [By Martin W. Jawitz]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

Professional Active Server Pages 3.0 [By Alex Homer, Dave Sussman,
and Brian Francis] [Published by Wrox]

Professional JavaScript [By Nigel McFarlane] [Published by Wrox]

Professional PHP4 Programming [By Deepak Thomas, Wankyu Choi,
John Coggeshall, Ken Egervari, Martin Geisler, Zak Greant, Andrew
Hill, Chris Hubbard, James Moore, Devon O'Dell, Jon Parise, Harish
Rawat, Tarique Sani, Christopher Scollo, Chris Ullman, and Luis
Argerich] [Published by Wrox Press, Inc.]

Professional XML [By Stephen Mohr, Mark Birbeck, Michael Kay, Stev
Livingstone, Didier Martin, Dino Esposito, Steven Livingston, Brian
Loesgen, Nikola Ozu, and Mark Seabourne] [Published by Wrox Press]

Programmers At Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped
The Computer Industry [By Susan Lammers] [Published By Microsoft
Press]

Programmer's Guide to PC & PS/2 Video Systems [By Richard Wilton]
[Published By Microsoft Press]

Programmer's Guide To The EGA, VGA, And Super VGA Cards, Third
Edition [By Richard F. Ferraro] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC [By Peter Norton] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC & PS/2 [By Peter Norton and
Richard Wilton] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Programming & Customizing PICmicro Microcontrollers, 2nd Edition
[By Myke Predko] [Published by McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics]

Programming And Problem Solving With Ada [By Nell Dale, Chip
Weems, And John C. McCormick] [Published By Jones & Bartlett]

Programming And Problem Solving With C++ [By Nell Dale, Chip
Weems, And Mark Headington] [Published By Jones & Bartlett]

Programming Applications For Microsoft Windows [By Jeffrey Richter]
[Published by Microsoft Press]

Programming Embedded Systems In C And C++ [By Michael Barr]
[Published by O'Reilly]

Programming From The Ground Up [By Jonathan Bartlett and Dominick
Bruno, Jr.] [Published by Bartlett Publishing]

Programming In 3 Dimensions: 3-D Graphics, Ray Tracing, And
Animation [By Christopher D. Watkins And Larry Sharp] [Published By
Barnes & Noble]

Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets To Landing Your Next Job
[By John Mongan and Noah Suojanen] [Published by John Wiley &
Sons]

Programming Language Pragmatics [By Michael L. Scott] [Published by
Morgan Kaufmann]

Programming Pearls [By Jon Louis Bentley] [Published By
Addison-Wesley]

Programming Perl, 3rd Edition ("Camel Book") [By Larry Wall, Randal
L. Schwartz, Tom Christiansen, Stephen Potter, and Jon Orwant]
[Published By O'Reilly & Associates]

Programming PHP [By Rasmus Lerdorf and Kevin Tatroe] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Programming Python, 2nd Edition [By Mark Lutz] [Published by
O'Reilly]

Programming Spiders, Bots, And Aggregators In Java [By Jeff Heaton]
[Published by Sybex]

Programming The 80286, 80386, 80486, And Pentium Based Personal
Computer [By Barry B. Brey] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Programming The Perl DBI [By Alligator Descartes and Tim Bunce]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Programming The Microsoft Windows Driver Model, Second Edition [By
Walter Oney] [Published by Microsoft Press]

Programming The OS/2 Kernel [By J. Terry Godfrey] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

Programming Windows: The Definitive Guide To The Win32 API, 5th
Edition [By Charles Petzold] [Published by Microsoft Press]

Programming Winsock [By Arthur Dumas] [Published by Sams]

Protected Mode Software Architecture [By Tom Shanley] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

Protecting Networks With SATAN [By Bach Freiss]

Quality Of Service In IP Networks [By Grenville Armitage] [Published
by Pearson Higher Education]

Que's 1996 Computer Buyer's Guide [By Que Development Group]

Que's Computer User's Dictionary, 2nd Edition

Que's Guide To Data Recovery

Quicken 2000: The Official Guide [By Maria Langer] [Published By
Osborne]

Random House Personal Computer Dictionary [By Philip E. Margolis]
[Published by Random House]

Random House Webster's Computer And Internet Dictionary, 3rd Edition
[By Philip E. Margolis] [Published by Random House]

Random House Webster's Pocket Computer & Internet Dictionary [By
Philip E. Margolis] [Published by Random House]

RCA HB3 Tube Handbook CD-ROM [Published by Radio Era Archives]
(From RCA (Radio Corporation of America) comes the most complete
reference on tubes ever created. Includes cathode ray tubes (CRTs),
storage tubes, monoscope tubes, photosensitive tubes, thyratrons,
ignitrons, glow-discharge tubes, receiving tubes (industrial and regular
types), semiconductor devices, transmitting tubes, and "miscellaneous
tube types". Although the original paper format of this handbook has
pretty much faded into obscurity, all 10 volumes are still published in a
CD-ROM format by Radio Era Archives.)

Real Life Windows 95 [By Dan Gookin]

Real-Time Rendering, 2nd Edition [By Tomas Akenine-Moller and Eric
Haines] [Published by A. K. Peters, Ltd.]

Real-Time Strategy Game Programming Using MS Directx 6.0 [By
Mickey Kawick] [Published By Wordware Publishing]

Real Time Systems And Programming Languages: Ada 95, Real-Time
Java And Real-Time C/POSIX, 3rd Edition [By Andrew J. Wellings and
Alan Burns] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Reasoning About Rational Agents [By Michael Wooldridge] [Published
by MIT Press]

Red Hat Linux 6 Unleashed [By David Pitts, Bill Ball et al.] [Published
By Sams]

Red Hat Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide [By Narender Reddy
Muthyala] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Reflow Soldering Processes And Troubleshooting: SMT, BGA, CSP And
Flip Chip Technologies [By Ning-Cheng Lee] [Published by Newnes]

Release 2.0 [By Esther Dyson] [Published By Broadway Books]

Reuse Methodology Manual For System-On-A-Chip Designs, 2nd Edition
[By Michael Keating and Pierre Bricaud] [Published by Kluwer
Academic Publishers]

RF Circuit Design [By Christopher Bowick] [Published By
Butterworth-Heinemann]

RHCE: Red Hat Certified Engineer Exam Notes [By Bill McCarty]
[Published by Sybex]

RHCE Red Hat Certified Engineer Study Guide [By Bill McCarty]
[Published by Sybex]

Rights And Responsibilities Of Participants In Networked Communities
[By Dorothy Elizabeth Robling Denning And Herbert S. Lin] [Published
By National Academy Press]

Rise And Resurrection Of The American Programmer [By Edward
Yourdon] [Published by Prentice-Hall] (In 1992, Edward Yourdon wrote
"Decline And Fall Of The American Programmer", essentially a
doomsaying book. Rise And Resurrection Of The American Programmer
was published in 1997, right in the middle of the dot-com era, and is a
complete reversal of the first book, in which upcoming technologies like
the Web and Java are touted as creating a huge American programmer
job market. As it turned out, however, once the dot-com bubble burst and
U.S. employers started looking to get their talent from other countries
again, Mr. Yourdon's first book was and is more accurate.)

Robot Vision [By Berthold K. P. Horn] [Published by MIT Press]

Routing TCP/IP, Volume I [By Jeff Doyle] [Published by Cisco Press]

Routing TCP/IP, Volume II [By Jeff Doyle and Jennifer DeHaven
Carroll] [Published by Cisco Press]

Running Linux, 4th Edition [By Matt Walsh, Kalle Dalheimer And Lar
Kaufman] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Running Microsoft Access 97 [Published By Microsoft Press]

Running Microsoft Excel 97 [Published By Microsoft Press]

Running Microsoft FrontPage 2000 [By Jim Buyens] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Running Microsoft Office 97, Standard And Professional [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Running Microsoft Word 97 [Published By Microsoft Press]

Running MS-DOS, 6th Edition [By Van Wolverton] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Rx PC: The Anti-Virus Handbook

Sams Teach Yourself C In 21 Days, 5th Edition [By Peter G. Aitken
And Bradley L. Jones] [Published By Sams]

Sams Teach Yourself C++ In 21 Days, 3rd Updated Edition [By Jesse
Liberty] [Published By Sams]

Sams Teach Yourself Crystal Reports 9 In 24 Hours [By Joe Estes,
Kathryn Hunt, Neil FitzGerald, Ryan Marples, and Steve Lucas]
[Published by Sams]

Sams Teach Yourself Java 1.2 in 21 Days [By Rogers Cadenhead And
Laura Lemay] [Published By Sams]

Sams Teach Yourself PowerBuilder 4.0 In 14 Days [By Judah Holstein]
[Published by Sams]

Sams Teach Yourself SQL In 21 Days, 2nd Edition [By Ryan K.
Stephens, Ronald R. Plew, Bryan Morgan, And Jeff Perkins] [Published
By Sams]

Sams Teach Yourself Tcl/Tk In 24 Hours [By Lakshmi Sastry and
Venkat V. S. S. Sastry] [Published by Sams]

Sam's Teach Yourself The Internet In 24 Hours [By Ned Snell]
[Published By sams.net]

Sams Teach Yourself To Create Web Pages In 24 Hours, 2nd Edition
[By Ned Snell] [Published By Sams]

SAP Blue Book: A Concise Business Guide To The World Of SAP [By
Michael Doane] [Published by Doane Associates Press]

SAP R/3 Administrator's Handbook [By Jose Antonio Hernandez]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

Sap R/3 Certification Exam Guide [By Stewart S. Miller] [Published by
Osborne McGraw-Hill]

SAP R/3 Implementation Guide [By Bradley D. Hiquet] [Published by
Macmillan Technical Publishing]

Schaum's Outline Of Computer Architecture [By Nick Carter] [Published
by McGraw-Hill]

Schaum's Outline Of Computer Networking [By Ed Tittel] [Published by
McGraw-Hill]

Schaum's Outline Of Introduction To Computer Science [By Pauline
Cushman and Ramon Mata-Toledo] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Schaum's Outline Of Software Engineering [By David Gustafson]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

Secrets And Lies: Digital Security In A Networked World [By Bruce
Schneier]

Secrets Of RF Circuit Design, 2nd Edition [By Joseph J. Carr] [Published
By McGraw-Hill]

Secrets Of The Super Net Searchers: The Reflections, Revelations And
Hard-Won Wisdom Of 35 Of The World's Top Internet Researchers [By
Reva Basch, Mary E. Bates, And Howard Rheingold] [Published By
Information Today]

Security+ Guide To Network Security Fundamentals [By Paul Campbell,
Bel Calvert, and Steven Boswell] [Published by Course Technology]

Security+ Training Guide [By Todd King and David Bittlingmeier]
[Published by Que]

Security Warrior [By Cyrus Peikari and Anton Chuvakin] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

sed & awk, 2nd Edition [By Dale Dougherty, Arnold Robbins, And Gigi
Estabrook] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Semiconductor Device Fundamentals [By Robert F. Pierret, Katherine
Harutunian, and Ben S. Bernanke] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Semiconductor Devices: Physics And Technology, 2nd Edition [By
Simon M. Sze] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology [By Michael Quirk and Julian
Serda] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Semiconductor Micromachining, Volume I: Fundamental
Electrochemistry And Physics [By H. J. Lewerenz and S. A. Campbell]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Sendmail, 2nd Edition [By Bryan Costales And Eric Allman] [Published
By O'Reilly And Associates]

sendmail Cookbook [By Craig Hunt] [Published by O'Reilly And
Associates]

Serial Port Complete [By Jan Axelson] [Published by Independent
Publishers Group]

Serious Programming For The Commodore 64 [By Henry Simpson]
[Published by TAB Books]

Server+ Certification Bible [By Trevor Kay] [Published by Hungry
Minds]

Server+ Certification Training Guide [By Elton Jernigan] [Published by
New Riders]

Server+ Certification Training Kit [Published by Microsoft Press]

Server+ Study Guide [By Brad Hryhoruk, Diana Bartley, and Quentin
Docter] [Published by Sybex]

Short Order Adobe Photoshop 5.5 [By Michael Lennox] [Published by
Hayden Books]

Short Order Macromedia Fireworks 2 [By Ronnie Sampson and Nancy
Martin] [Published by Hayden Books]

Signaling System #7, 3rd Edition [By Travis Russell] [Published by
McGraw-Hill Professional]

Silicon Valley: Inventing The Future: A Contemporary Portrait [By Jean
Deitz Sexton]

Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs [By Anna Lee Saxenian]
[Published by Public Policy Institute Of California]

Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science [By Brian Harvey And
Matthew Wright] [Published By MIT Press]

Slackware Linux Unleashed [Published by Sams]

Smartcards [By Henry Driefus And J. Thomas Monk] [Published By
Wiley]

Smart Card Handbook [By Rankl Wolfgang And Wolfgang Effing]
[Published By Wiley]

Smart Cards: The Developer's Toolkit [By Timothy M. Jurgensen and
Scott B. Guthery] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Smart Home Hacks [By Gordon Meyer] [Published by O'Reilly]

Smileys [By David W. Sanderson] [Published By O'Reilly And
Associates] (A whole book on emoticons. Scary. And from a reknowned
publisher like O'Reilly, too. Oh well, I guess it was inevitable... At least
there's an authoritative source on this subject now.)

Social Issues In Computing [By Calvin Carl Gotleib]

Software Agents [By Jeffrey M. Bradshaw] [Published by AAAI Press]

Solaris 7 Reference [By Janice Winsor] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Soldering In Electronics Assembly, 2nd Edition [By Mike Judd and Keith
Brindley] [Published by Newnes]

Solders And Soldering, 4th Edition [By Howard H. Manko] [Published
by McGraw-Hill]

Son Of Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design By Looking At Bad
Design [By Vincent Flanders and Dean Peters] [Published by Sybex]

Sound Blaster: The Official Book

Source Code And Commentary On Unix Level 6 ("Lions Book") [By
John Lions]

Sparc Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, And C [By
Richard P. Paul] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Special Edition Using CorelDRAW! 6 For Windows 95 [By Steve Bain]
[Published by Que]

Special Edition Using Informix [By Ron Flannery] [Published by Que]

Special Edition Using Linux, 5th Edition [By Steven Burnett, Rob
Napier, Jeff Tranter, and Jack Tackett Jr.] [Published by Que]

Special Edition Using Lotus Notes And Domino 6 [By Jeff Gunther and
Randall Tamura] [Published by Que]

Special Edition Using Macromedia Director 7 [By Gary Rosenzweig]
[Published by Que]

Special Edition Using NetWare 4.1, 2nd Edition [By Bill Lawrence]
[Published by Que Corp.]

Special Edition Using Oracle8/8i [By William G. Page, David Austin,
Willard Baird, Mathew Burke, and Joe Duer] [Published by Que]

Speech And Language Processing: An Introduction To Natural Language
Processing, Computational Linguistics And Speech Recognition [By
Daniel Jurafsky, James H. Martin, and Keith Vander Linden] [Published
by Prentice Hall]

SQL From The Ground Up [By Mary Pyefinch] [Published By Osborne]

SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide [By Daniel J. Barrett and
Richard Silverman] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

SSL And TLS: Designing And Building Secure Systems [By Eric
Rescorla] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Start Your Own Computer Business: Building A Successful PC Repair
And Service Business By Supporting Customers And Managing Money
[By Morris Rosenthal and Reva Rubenstein] [Published by Foner Books]

Statistical Methods For Speech Recognition [By Frederick Jelinek]
[Published by MIT Press]

Stealing The Network: How To Own The Box [By Ryan Russell, Ido
Dubrawsky, Joe Grand, and Tim Mullen] [Published by Syngress]

Steal This Computer Book [By Wally Wang And Wallace Wang]
[Published By No Starch Press]

Step By Step Graphics

Steve Jobs: The Journey Is The Reward [By Jeffrey S. Young]
[Published by Glentop]

Stopping Spam [By Alan Schwartz And Simson Garfinkel] [Published by
O'Reilly & Associates]

Stop Stealing Sheep And Find Out How Type Works [By Erik
Spiekermann And E.M. Ginger] [Published By Hayden Books]

Structure And Interpretation Of Computer Programs, 2nd Edition
("Wizard Book") [By Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, And Julie
Sussman] [Published By MIT Press/McGraw-Hill]

Structured Computer Organization, 4th Edition [By Andrew S.
Tanenbaum] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Successful Web Sites

Surface Mount Technology: Principles And Practice, 2nd Edition [By
Ray P. Prasad] [Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers]

Surface Mount Technology Terms And Concepts [By Phil Zarrow and
Debra Kopp] [Published by Newnes]

Surviving Day 1 With Windows 95

Synthesis And Optimization Of Digital Circuits [By Giovanni De
Micheli] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

System BIOS for IBM PC/XT/AT Computers and Compatibles [Part of
the Phoenix Technical Reference Series] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Systems Analysis And Design [By Alan Dennis and Barbara Wixom]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Systems Analysis And Design, 6th Edition [By Kenneth E. Kendall and
Julie E. Kendall] [Published by Pearson Education]

Systems Analysis And Design In A Changing World, Second Edition [By
John W. Satzinger] [Published by Course Technology]

Systems Programming For Windows 95 [By Walter Oney] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

System V Interface Definition ("Purple Book")

Tales From The Tech Line: Hilarious Strange-But-True Stories From The
Computer Industry's Technical-Support Hotlines [Edited By David
Pogue] [Published By Berkley Publishing Group]

Talking Nets: An Oral History Of Neural Networks [By James A.
Anderson, Edward Rosenfeld, and Jack A. Anderson] [Published by MIT
Press]

Talking Tech: A Conversational Guide To Science And Technology [By
Howard Rheingold]

Tcl/Tk For Real Programmers [By Clif Flynt] [Published by Morgan
Kaufmann Publishers]

Tcl/Tk In A Nutshell [By Paul Raines and Jeff Tranter] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Tcl/Tk Pocket Reference [By Paul Raines] [Published by O'Reilly And
Associates]

Tcl/Tk: Programmer's Reference [By Christopher Nelson] [Published by
McGraw-Hill]

TCP/IP: Architecture, Protocols, And Implementation With IPv6 And IP
Security, 2nd Edition [By Sidnie Feit] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

TCP/IP Essentials: A Lab-Based Approach [By Shivendra Panwar,
Shiwen Mao, Jeong-dong Ryoo and Yihan Li] [Published by Cambridge
University Press]

TCP/IP Explained [Published by Digital Press]

TCP/IP For Dummies, 2nd Edition [By Candace Leiden And Marshall
Wilensky] [Published By IDG Books]

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols [By W. Richard Stevens]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2: The Implementation [By Gary Wright]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 3: TCP For Transactions, HTTP, NNTP, And
The Unix Domain Protocols [By W. Richard Stevens And Gary R.
Wright] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

TCP/IP Jumpstart: Internet Protocol Basics [By Andrew G. Blank]
[Published by Sybex]

TCP/IP Network Administration, 2nd Edition [By Craig Hunt And Gigi
Estabrook] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Teach Yourself C For Linux Programming In 21 Days [By Erik De
Castro Lopo] [Published by Sams]

Teach Yourself Java 1.1 In 21 Days

Teach Yourself Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2003 (VB .NET) In 24
Hours [By James Foxall] [Published by Sams]

Teach Yourself NetWare In 14 Days [By Peter T. Davis And Craig R.
McGuffin] [Published By Sams Publishing]

Teach Yourself Oracle8 In 21 Days [By Edward Whalen, Steve Adrien
Deluca, and Ed Whalen] [Published by Sams]

Teach Yourself Perl In 21 Days, 2nd Edition [By Laura Lemay, Robert
Kiesling, and Rafe Colburn] [Published by Sams]

Teach Yourself PL/SQL In 21 Days [By Tom Luers, Timothy Atwood,
Jonathan Gennick, and Jonathan Merrick] [Published by Sams]

Teach Yourself Sap R/3 In 24 Hours [By Danielle Larocca] [Published
by Sams]

Teach Yourself TCP/IP In 14 Days, Second Edition [By Tim Parker]
[Published By Sams Publishing]

Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6 In 21 Days [By Greg Perry] [Published
by Sams]

Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6 In 24 Hours [By Greg Perry] [Published
by Sams]

Teach Yourself VRML 2 In 21 Days [By Chris Marrin and Bruce
Campbell]

Teach Yourself... Windows 95

Teach Yourself Windows 95 In 24 Hours [By Greg Perry] [Published By
Sams Publishing]

Teach Yourself Windows 98 Visually [By Ruth Maran] [Published By
IDG Books]

Teach Yourself WordPerfect 6

Technical Reference: PC/AT [Published By IBM]

Technical Reference: PCjr [Published By IBM]

Technical Reference: PC/XT [Published By IBM]

Technical Reference: PS/2 Model 30 Technical Reference [Published By
IBM]

Technical Reference: PS/2 Model 50 and 60 Technical Reference
[Published By IBM]

TechnoStress: Coping With Technology @ Work @ Home @ Play [By
Michelle M. Weil And Larry D. Rosen]

Telecom Crash Course [By Steven Shepard] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Telecommunications Protocols, Second Edition [By Travis Russell]
[Published By McGraw-Hill]

Telephone Repair Illustrated [By Stephen J. Bigelow] [Published By
McGraw-Hill]

Telephone Switching Systems [By Richard A. Thompson] [Published by
Artech House]

Text, Context, And Hypertext: Writing With And For The Computer [By
Edward Barrett] [Published by MIT Press]

The 1997 Canadian Internet Directory

The 1998 Canadian Internet Handbook

The 3 Rs Of E-mail: Risks, Rights And Responsibilities

The 45-Minute Guide To Buying Your First Computer Or Upgrading
Your Old Computer [Need To Join CompuClub (See Below) In Order To
Get This Book]

The 8th Annual Computer Industry Almanac

The A+ Certification Success Guide For Computer Technicians

The Age Of Intelligent Machines [By Ray Kurzweil]

The Age Of Spiritual Machines [By Ray Kurzweil]

The Apple IIgs Book [By Jeanne DuPrau and Molly Tyson] [Published
by Bantam]

The Art Of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3, 2nd Edition [By
Donald Ervin Knuth] [Published By Addison-Wesley] (Utterly in-depth
discussions of the most important aspects of programming. Internationally
recognized as the final standard for computer science education, this
three-volume set of books contains the information every serious student
of computers must know.)

The Art Of Deception: Controlling The Human Element Of Security [By
Kevin D. Mitnick and William L. Simon] [Published by John Wiley &
Sons]

The Beginner's PC Shopping Guide [By Joe Diethorn And David Kaiser]

The BeOS Bible [By Scot Hacker, Henry Bortman, And Chris Herborth]
[Published By Peachpit Press]

The Best C/C++ Tips Ever

The Best Of Byte: Two Decades On The Leading Edge [Edited by Jay
Ranade and Alan Nash] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

The Book Of JavaScript: A Practical Guide To Interactive Web Pages
[By Dave Thau] [Published by No Starch Press]

The Book Of SCSI, 2nd Edition [By Peter M. Ridge and Gary Field]
[Published by No Starch Press]

The Business And Economics Of Linux And Open Source [By Martin
Fink] [Published by Prentice Hall]

The Cable Television Technical Handbook [By Bobby Harrell]
[Published by Artech House]

The Cathedral And The Bazaar: Musings On Linux And Open Source By
An Accidental Revolutionary [Edited By Eric S. Raymond] [Published
By O'Reilly & Associates]

The Chip: How Two Americans Invented The Microchip And Launched
A Revolution [By T. R. Reid] [Published by Random House]

The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History Of Secret
Communication From Ancient Times To The Internet [By David Kahn]
[Published by Scribner]

The Cognitive Connection: Thought And Language In Man And Machine
[By Howard Levine And Howard Rheingold]

The Coming Internet Depression: Why The High-Tech Boom Will Go
Bust, Why The Crash Will Be Worse Than You Think, And How To
Prosper Afterwards [By Michael J. Mandel] [Published by Basic Books]

The Complete Guide To Telephone Equipment Troubleshooting And
Repair [By John D. Lenk] [Published by Prentice Hall]

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Buying A Computer

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Buying And Upgrading PCs

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Java 1.2

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Linux, 2nd Edition

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Online Shopping

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Sex On The Net

The Complete Idiot's Guide To The Internet

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Upgrading And Repairing PCs

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Windows 95

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Windows 98

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Word For Windows 95

The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide [By Simon Roberts,
Philip Heller, And Michael Ernest] [Published By Sybex]

The Complete PC Upgrade & Maintenance Guide, 12th Edition [By
Mark Minasi] [Published by Sybex]

The Complete Tcl/Tk Training Course [By Brent B. Welch and Dave
Zeltserman] [Published by Prentice Hall]

The Computer Buyer's Handbook: How To Select And Buy Personal
Computers For Your Home Or Business [By R. Wayne Parker]

The Computer Consultant's Guide: Real-Life Strategies For Building A
Successful Consulting Career [By Janet Ruhl] [Published by John Wiley
& Sons]

The Computer Consultant's Workbook [By Janet Ruhl] [Published by
Technion Books]

The Computerese To English Translator [Need To Join CompuClub (See 
Below) In Order To Get This Book]

The Computer From Pascal To Von Neumann, Reprint Edition [By
Herman H. Goldstine] [Published by Princeton University Press]

The Computer Major's Guide To The Real World [By Alan R. Simon]
[Published By Barrons Educational Series]

The Computer Professional's Guide To Effective Communications [By
Alan R. Simon And Jordan S. Simon] [Published By McGraw-Hill]

The Computer Security Handbook [By Richard H. Baker] [Published by
TAB Books]

The Computer Support Directory: Voice, Fax, And Online Access
Numbers [By Kristy Fraser and Bill Adler, Jr.] [Published by McGraw-
Hill]

The Computer Virus Crisis [By Philip Fites, Peter Johnston, And Martin
Kratz] [Published By Van Nostrand Reinhold]

The Concise Guide To IPv6 [By Blair Rampling] [Published by Que]

The Connected Family: Bridging The Digital Generation Gap [By
Seymour Papert]

The Connection Machine [By Daniel W. Hillis] [Published by MIT
Press]

The Consultant's Quick Start Guide: An Action Plan For Your First Year
In Business [By Elaine Biech] [Published by Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer]

The CP/M Handbook [By Rodney Zaks] [Published by Sybex]

The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management [By Tom Demarco]
[Published by Dorset House]

The Design And Implementation Of The 4.3BSD UNIX Operating
System ("Devil Book" or "Daemon Book") [By Samuel J. Leffler,
Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J. Karels, And John S. Quarterman]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

The Designer's Guide To VHDL, 2nd Edition [By Peter J. Ashenden]
[Published by Morgan Kaufmann]

The Design Of The Unix Operating System [By Maurice J. Bach]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

The Desktop Style Guide

The DHCP Handbook, 2nd Edition [By Ralph Droms and Ted Lemon]
[Published by Sams]

The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage And The Quest To Build The
First Computer [By Doron Swade and Charles Babbage] [Published by
Viking Penguin]

The Digital Economy: Promise And Peril In The Age Of Networked
Intelligence [By Don Tapscott]

The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider And The Revolution That Made
Computing Personal [By M. Mitchell Waldrop] [Published by Viking
Press]

The Electronic Republic

The Elements Of E-Mail Style [By Brent Heslop & David Angell]
[Published By Addison-Wesley] (It was bound to happen sooner or
later...)

The Elements Of Programming Style [By Brian W. Kernighan and P. J.
Plauger] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, And The
Laws of Physics [By Roger Penrose] [Published By Oxford University
Press]

The Emperor's Virtual Clothes: The Naked Truth About Internet Culture
[By Dinty W. Moore] [Published by Algonquin Books]

The Encyclopedia Of Electronic Circuits, Volume 6 [By Rudolf F. Graf
and William Sheets] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

The Encyclopedia Of Networking, Second Edition [By Werner Feibel]
[Published By Network Press/Sybex]

The Essential Guide To Semiconductors [By Jim Turley] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

The Essential Guide To Telecommunications, 3rd Edition [By Annabelle
Z. Dodd] [Published by Prentice Hall]

The Existential Pleasures Of Engineering [By S. Florman] [Published By
St. Martin's Press]

The Expert Guide To Windows 95 [By Mark Minasi, Patrick Campbell
and Christa Anderson] [Published by Sybex]

The Fat Man On Game Audio: Tasty Morsels Of Sonic Goodness [By
George Alistair Sanger] [Published by New Riders]

The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story. [By Alice R. Burks
and Arthur W. Burks] [Published by University Of Michigan Press]

The ...For Dummies Books (PCs 7th Edition, DOS 5th Edition, MORE
DOS, Windows, Windows 3.1 2nd Edition, Windows 3.11 3rd Edition,
MORE Windows, Windows NT, Windows 98, Microsoft Windows
Millennium Edition, Linux 2nd Edition, UNIX 4th Edition, Upgrading &
Fixing PCs, QBasic Programming, C, C++ 2nd Edition, Visual C++ 5,
Java, Networking, Networking Home PCs, Modems, Internet 5th Edition,
Internet Games, America Online, Researching Online, Dynamic HTML,
Genealogy Online, WordPerfect 6.1 For Windows 2nd Edition,
WordPerfect 6, WordPerfect 4.2-5.1, Excel, 1-2-3, Word For Windows,
Quicken For Windows, Photoshop 5 For Windows, Illustrated Computer
Dictionary, Windows 95 2nd Edition, Windows 95 Quick Reference,
MORE Windows 95, TCP/IP 2nd Edition, SQL, A+ Certification,
Network+ Certification, Data Warehousing, Multimedia And CD-ROMs
2nd Edition, Access 2000 For Windows, Active Server Pages, America
Online, AutoCAD 2000, Building A PC, Beginning Programming,
Buying A Computer, Buying PCs, COBOL, CORBA, CorelDRAW 9,
Creating Web Pages 4th Edition, Delphi 3, Desktop Publishing And
Design, Digital Photography 2nd Edition, Dragon NaturallySpeaking,
Dreamweaver, Dynamic HTML 2nd Edition, E-Mail 2nd Edition, Excel
2000 For Windows, Excel 2000 Programming, Excel 2nd Edition,
FileMaker Pro 4, Firewalls, FrameMaker 5.5.6, FrontPage 2000, Games
Online, Genealogy Online, HTML 4 2nd Edition, HTML 3rd Edition,
ICQ, ISDN 2nd Edition, Internet Auctions, Internet Directory 3rd
Edition, Internet Explorer 4 For Windows, Internet Explorer 5 For
Windows, The Internet 7th Edition, Java 3rd Edition, JavaScript 2nd
Edition, Job Searching Online, Linux Administration, Lotus Notes R5,
Marketing Online, Modems 3rd Edition, Netscape Communicator 4.5,
Network+ Certification, Networking 4th Edition, Networking Home PCs,
Networking With NetWare 4th Edition, Object-Oriented Programming,
Oracle8i, PageMaker 6.5, Palm Computing, Perl 2nd Edition, PhotoShop
4 For Windows, PowerPoint 2000 For Windows, QuarkXPress 4,
QuickBooks 6, Quicken 2000 For Windows, Red Hat Linux, Researching
Online, RoboHELP 7, SQL 3rd Edition, Selling Online, Setting Up And
Internet Site 3rd Edition, TCP/IP 3rd Edition, Tcl/Tk, UNIX 4th Edition,
UNIX Programming, Upgrading & Fixing Networks 2nd Edition,
Upgrading & Fixing PCs 4th Edition, Virtual Private Networks, Visio 5,
Visual Basic 6, Visual FoxPro 5, Web Design & Desktop Publishing,
Web Graphics, WebTV 2nd Edition, Webmastering, Word 2000 For
Windows, WordPerfect 9 For Windows, WordPerfect Office 2000,
WordPerfect For Linux, XML, Yahoo!, Year 2000 Solutions, The iBook
(hahaha), The iMac (bwahahaha) And Macs 3rd Edition
(HAHAHAHAHA!) For Dummies)

The Future Of The Internet [Edited By Charles P. Cozic] [Published By
Greenhaven Press]

The Green PC, 2nd Edition

The Idea Factory: Learning To Think At MIT [By Pepper White]
[Published by MIT Press]

The Illustrated Dictionary Of Microcomputers, 2nd Edition [By Michael
F. Hordeski] [Published by TAB Books]

The Indispensable PC Hardware Book, 4th Edition [By Hans-Peter
Messmer] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

The Information Systems Security Officer's Guide: Establishing And
Managing An Information Protection Program [By Gerald Kovacich]
[Published By Butterworth-Heinemann]

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive
Us Crazy And How To Restore The Sanity [By Alan Cooper And Paul
Saffo] [Published By Sams]

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms
To Fail [By Clayton M. Christensen] [Published By Harvard Business
School Press]

The Intel Microprocessors 8086/8088, 80186/80188, 80286, 80386,
80486, Pentium, And Pentium Pro Processor Architecture, Programming,
And Interfacing, 6th Edition [By Barry B. Brey] [Published by Prentice
Hall]

The International Handbook On Computer Crime: Computer-Related
Economic Crime And The Infringments Of Privacy [By Dr. Sieber
Ulrich] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

The Internet [Published By Dorling Kindersley]

The Internet Business Kit

The Internet Companion, 2nd Edition [By Tracy LaQuey] [Published By
Addison-Wesley]

The Internet Complete Reference [By Harley Hahn] [Published By
Osborne McGraw-Hill]

The Internet For Everyone: A Guide For Users And Providers [By
Richard W. Wiggins]

The Internet Golden Directory, Third Edition [By Harley Hahn]

The Internet Guide For New Users [By Daniel P. Dern] [Published By
McGraw-Hill]

The Internet Jokebook [Edited By Brad Templeton]

The Internet Protocols Handbook [By Dave Roberts]

The Internet Yellow Pages, Third Edition [By Harley Hahn] [Published
by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

The IT Consultant: A Commonsense Framework For Managing The
Client Relationship [By Rick Freedman] [Published by Jossey-
Bass/Pfeiffer]

The IT Professional's Guide To Managing Systems, Vendors & End
Users [By Neil Plotnick] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

The Joy Of Cybersex: A Guide For Creative Lovers [By Deb Levine]
[Published By Ballantine Books]

The Laptop User's Guide [By H. J. Liesert] [Published By Abacus]

The Last Best Thing [By P. Dillon] [Published By Simon & Schuster]

The Learning Highway

The Linux Cookbook: Tips And Techniques For Everyday Use [By
Michael Stutz] [Published by No Starch Press]

The Linux Kernel Book [By Remy Card, Eric Dumas, And Franck
Mevel] [Published By John Wiley & Sons]

The Linux Network [By Fred Butzen and Christopher Hilton] [Published
by IDG]

The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses [By Mark Ludwig]
[Published By American Eagle Publications]

The Little Windows 98 Book [By Alan Simpson; Illustrated by John
Grimes] [Published by Peachpit Press]

The Mac Bathroom Reader [By Owen W. Linzmayer] [Published by
Sybex]

The McGraw-Hill Illustrated Dictionary Of Personal Computers

The Media Lab: Inventing The Future At MIT [By Stewart Brand]
[Published By Viking]

The Medium Is The Massage [By Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, and
Jerome Agel] [Published by Gingko Press, Inc.]

The Metaphysics Of Virtual Reality [By Michael Heim] [Published By
Oxford]

The Microcontroller Idea Book: Circuits, Programs & Applications
Featuring The 8052-Basic Single-Chip Computer [By Jan Axelson]
[Published by Lakeview Research]

The Microprocessor: A Biography [By Michael S. Malone] [Published
by Springer-Verlag]

The Microsoft Guide To Managing Memory With MS-DOS 6, 2nd
Edition [By Dan Gookin] [Published By Microsoft Press]

The Millennium Bug: How To Survive The Coming Chaos [By Michael
S. Hyatt] [Published By Regnery Publishing]

The MS-DOS Encyclopedia [Edited By Ray Duncan and Susan
Lammers] [Published By Microsoft Press]

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering [By
Frederick Brooks Jr.] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

The New Geography: How The Digital Revolution Is Reshaping The
American Landscape [By Joel Kotkin] [Published by Random House]

The New Internet Navigator

The New Way Things Work [By David Macaulay] [Published By
Houghton Mifflin Co.]

The Novell CNA/CNE Study Guide, 2nd Edition [By John Paul Mueller,
CNE And Robert A. Williams, CNE, CNI] [Published By Computing
McGraw-Hill]

The Official Hayes Modem Communications Companion [By Caroline
M. Halliday]

The Only DOS Book You'll Ever Need [By Doug Lowe And Patrick
Bultema] [Published By Murach]

The PC Internet Tour Guide: Cruising The Internet The Easy Way [By
Michael Fraase] [Published By Ventana Press]

The PC Is Not A Typewriter

The Personal Computer From The Inside Out: The Programmer's Guide
To Low-Level PC Hardware And Software, 3rd Edition [By Iii Sargent
Murray And Richard L. Shoemaker] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide To The IBM PC ("Pink Shirt
Book")

The Pocket Guide To The Internet [By Gary Gach]

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman To Master [By Andrew
Hunt, David Thomas, And Ward Cunningham] [Published By
Addison-Wesley]

The Programmer's Job Handbook

The Programmer's PC Sourcebook [By Thom Hogan] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

The Psychology Of Computer Programming, Silver Anniversary Edition
[By Gerald M. Weinberg] [Published By Dorset House]

The Psychology Of Everyday Things [By D. Norman] [Published By
Basic Books]

The Puzzle Palace: A Report On America's Most Secret Agency [By
James Bamford] [Published by Viking Press] (Book about the NSA.)

The Road Ahead [By William Gates (With Nathan Myhrvold And Peter
Rinearson)] [Published By Viking] (NOTE: This book sucks.)

The Second Self: Computers And The Human Spirit [By Sherry Turkle]
[Published By Simon & Schuster]

The Secret Diary Of Bill Gates [Supposedly By Bill G., Bill G, Bill
Gates, And Matthew Lombardi] [Published By Andrews & McMeel]

The Silicon Valley Edge: A Habitat For Innovation And Entrepreneurship
[By Chong-Moon Lee, William F. Miller, Marguerite Gong Hancock, and
Henry S. Rowen] [Published by Stanford University Press]

The Software Conspiracy: Why Software Companies Put Out Faulty
Products, How They Can Hurt You, And What You Can Do About It
[By Mark Minasi] [Published By McGraw-Hill]

The Spam Letters [By Jonathan Land] [Published by No Starch Press]

The Supermen: The Story Of Seymour Cray And the Technical Wizards
Behind The Supercomputer [By Charles J. Murray] [Published by John
Wiley & Sons]

The Ultimate Computer Buyer's Guide [By Greg Metz, Jr. Thomas, And
Greg M. Thomas Jr] [Published By Wordware Publishing]

The Ultimate Windows 95 Book [By Joanne Woodcock] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

The Unabridged Pentium 4: IA32 Processor Genealogy [By Tom
Shanley] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

The Underground Guide To Troubleshooting PC Hardware: Slightly
Askew Advice On Maintaining, Repairing, And Upgrading Your PC [By
Alfred E. Poor] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

The Underground Guide To UNIX

The Undocumented PC: A Programmer's Guide To I/O, Cpus, And Fixed
Memory Areas, 2nd Edition [By Frank Van Gilluwe] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

The Universal History Of Computing: From The Abacus To The
Quantum Computer [By Georges Ifrah] [Published by John Wiley &
Sons]

The Unix Hater's Handbook [By Simson L. Garfinkel, Daniel Weise, and
Steven Strassmann]

The Victorian Internet [By Tom Standage] (A look at the telegraph, the
19th-century Internet, and how it led to the digital Internet of today.
Interesting historical reading.)

The Virtual Community: Homesteading On The Electronic Frontier [By
Howard Rheingold] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

The Virtual Reality Primer [By L. Casey Larijani] [Published By
McGraw-Hill]

The Visual J++ Handbook [By Chris H. Pappas And William H. Murray]
[Published By Ap Professional]

The VRML 2.0 Handbook: Building Moving Worlds On The Web [By
Jed Hartman and Josie Wernecke] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

The Waite Group Black Art Of 3D Game Programming: Writing Your
Own High-Speed 3D Polygon Video Games In C [By Andre Lamothe]
[Published By Waite Group Press] (Possibly the best book on this
subject, this thing is huge and climaxes with making you build a space
combat game from scratch.)

The Waite Group's Discovering MS-DOS, 2nd Edition [By Kate O'Day
And Harry Henderson] [Published By The Waite Group]

The Waite Group's Java 1.2 How-To [By Stephen Potts] [Published By
Sams]

The Way Computers And MS-DOS Work

The Way Things Work [By David Macaulay] [Published By Houghton
Mifflin Co.]

The Web At Work

The Whatis?com Encyclopedia Of Technology Terms [Published by Que]
(From the creators and editors of the popular and excellent on-line tech
dictionary, whatis.com, comes this book. Yay.)

The Whole Internet: The Next Generation [By Kiersten Conner And Ed
Krol] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog, 2nd Edition [By Ed Krol
and Bruce C. Klopfenstein] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates and
Integrated Media Group (IMG)]

The Windows 95 Registry: A Survival Guide For Users [By John
Woram]

The Windows 95 Superbook [Published By Maran Graphics]

The Windows 98 Registry [By John Woram]

The Windows Internet Tour Guide: Cruising The Internet The Easy Way
[By Michael Fraase] [Published By Ventana Press]

The Windows NT Device Driver Book: A Guide For Programmers [By
Art Baker] [Published By Prentice Hall]

The Woman's Guide To Sex On The Web [By Anne Semans And Cathy
Winks] [Published By HarperCollins]

Think UNIX [By Jon Lasser] [Published by Que] (A book for both the
left and the right sides of your brain; Although it is a technical book, it
also appeals to the sensible side of your brain, encouraging you to,
indeed, think in Unix.)

Tom's Hardware Guide: High Performance PC Secrets [By Thomas
Pabst, Michael Desmond, Larry Barber, and Frederick G. Grosse]
[Published by Que]

Transistor Electronics [By Howard H. Gerrish and William E. Dugger,
Jr.] [Published by Goodheart-Willcox Co.]

Treo Essentials: Get The Most From Your Treo 600 [By Jeff Ishaq]
[Published by Que]

Treo Fan Book [By Jeff Ishaq] [Published by O'Reilly]

Tricks Of The Game-Programming Gurus [By Andre Lamothe, John
Ratcliff, Tyler, Denise Seminatore, And Ken Allen] [Published By Sams]

Tricks Of The Internet Gurus [By Philip Baczewski and Billy Barron]
[Published by Sams Publishing]

Troubleshooting & Repairing PC Drives & Memory Systems [By
Stephen J. Bigelow]

Troubleshooting And Repairing Compact Disc Players, 2nd Edition [By
Homer L. Davidson] [Published by Tab Books]

Troubleshooting And Repairing Computer Monitors, 2nd Edition [By
Stephen J. Bigelow] [Published By McGraw-Hill]

Troubleshooting And Repairing Computer Printers

Troubleshooting And Repairing Personal Computers, 2nd Edition

Troubleshooting, Maintaining, And Repairing Personal Computers: A
Technician's Guide [By Stephen J. Bigelow] [Published By Tab Books]

Troubleshooting Windows [By Mark Minasi] [Published By Sybex]

Troubleshooting Your PC, 4th Edition [By Jim Aspinwall And Mike
Todd] [Published By IDG Books]

Tuning Oracle [By Michael J. Corey, Michael Abbey, and Daniel J.
Dechichio] [Published by Oracle Press]

Tuning Windows 3.1 [By Steve Konicki, Doug Bierer, And Mike
Blaszczak]

Turbo C Reference Guide [Published By Borland International, Inc.]

Turing And The Computer (The Big Idea) [By Paul Strathern] [Published
By Anchor Books]

Turtle Geometry: The Computer As A Medium for Exploring
Mathematics [By Harold Abelson And Andrea Disessa] [Published By
MIT Press]

Unauthorized Windows 95: A Developer's Guide To Exploring The
Foundations Of Windows 'Chicago' [By Andrew Schulman]

Understanding ActiveX And OLE [By David Chappell] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Understanding Agent Systems [By Mark D'Inverno and Michael Luck]
[Published by Springer Verlag]

Understanding And Servicing CD Players [By Ken Clements] [Published
by Newnes]

Understanding Artificial Intelligence [By Sandy Fritz and Rodney
Brooks] [Published by Warner Books]

Understanding COM+ [By David S. Platt] [Published by Microsoft Press]

Understanding Digital Signatures [By Gail L. Grant] [Published By
McGraw Hill]

Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man [By Marshall McLuhan
and Lewis H. Lapham] [Published by MIT Press]

Understanding Network Management: Strategies & Solutions [By Stan
Schatt] [Published By Windcrest/McGraw-Hill]

Understanding PeopleSoft 8 [By Lynn Anderson] [Published by Sybex]

Understanding Silicon Valley: The Anatomy Of An Entrepreneurial
Region [By Martin Kenney and John Seely-Brown] [Published by
Stanford University Press]

Understanding Telephone Electronics, 4th Edition [By Stephen J.
Bigelow And George Allen] [Published By Butterworth-Heinemann]

Understanding The LINUX Kernel: From I/O Ports To Process
Management [By Daniel Pierre Bovet and Marco Cesati] [Published by
O'Reilly And Associates]

Understanding The Linux Virtual Memory Manager [By Mel Gorman]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

Undocumented DOS: A Programmer's Guide To Reserved MS-DOS
Functions, 2nd Edition [By Andrew Schulman] [Published By Addison-
Wesley]

Undocumented Windows: A Programmers Guide To Reserved Microsoft
Windows API Functions [By Andrew Schulman] [Published By Addison-
Wesley]

Undocumented Windows 2000 Secrets: A Programmer's Cookbook [By
Sven B. Schreiber] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Undocumented Windows NT [By Prasad Dabak, Sandeep Phadke, and
Milind Borate] [Published by Hungry Minds, Inc.]

Uninstalling Windows Applications

Universal Command Guide For Operating Systems [By Guy Lotgering]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons] (Exactly what the name suggests.
Virtually every command that exists for Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT,
ME, XP, and 2000, DOS 6.22, NetWare 3.12, 4.11, 5.1, and 6, OpenBSD
2.7, Solaris 7 and 8, AIX 4.3.3, (Red Hat) Linux 7.0, and MacOS 9.1,
although Macintosh people probably wouldn't be interested in a book like
this. ("Operating system? What's that?"))

Universal Serial Bus System Architecture, 2nd Edition [By Don
Anderson and Dave Dzatko] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

UNIX Backup And Recovery [By W. Curtis Preston and Gigi Estabrook]
[Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Unix Communications, 2nd Edition [By The Waite Group] [Published By
Howard W. Sams & Company]

Unix Hints & Hacks [By Kirk Waingrow] [Published by Que]

UNIX In A Nutshell [By Daniel Gilly] [Published By O'Reilly And
Associates]

UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers [By Uresh Vahalia] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

Unix Networking Clearly Explained [By Richard L. Petersen] [Published
By Morgan Kaufman]

UNIX Network Programming, Volume 1: Networking APIs - Sockets
And XTI, 2nd Edition [By W. Richard Stevens] [Published By Prentice
Hall]

UNIX Network Programming, Volume 2: Interprocess Communications,
2nd Edition [By W. Richard Stevens] [Published By Prentice Hall]

UNIX Power Tools, 3rd Edition [By Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly and Mike
Loukides] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Unix Security: A Practical Tutorial [By N. Derek Arnold] [Published By
McGraw Hill]

UNIX System Administration Handbook, 3rd Edition [By Evi Nemeth,
Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass, and Trent R. Hein] [Published by Prentice
Hall] (By all accounts, this is the best Unix book in the world. Really.)

Unix System Security [By Rik Farrow] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Unix System Security [By Patrick H. Wood and Stephen G. Kochan]
[Published by Hayden Books]

Unix System Security: A Guide For Users And Systems Administrators
[By David A. Curry] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

UNIX Systems For Modern Architectures: Symmetric Multiprocesssing
And Caching For Kernel Programmers [By Curt Schimmel] [Published
by Addison-Wesley]

Upgrade & Maintain Your PC, 2nd Edition [By James Carmly]

Upgrade Or Repair Your PC [By Aubrey Pilgrim]

Upgrading And Repairing Networks [By Craig Zacker And Paul Doyle]
[Published By Que Corporation]

Upgrading And Repairing Networks, Second Edition [By Terry Olgetree]
[Published By Que Corporation]

Upgrading And Repairing PCs [By Peter Norton And Michael Desmond]

Upgrading And Repairing PCs: A+ Study Guide, 2nd Edition [By Scott
Mueller] [Published By Que Corporation]

Upgrading And Repairing PCs, 14th Edition [By Scott Mueller and Craig
Zacker] [Published by Que Corporation] (Outstanding reference on every
aspect of troubleshooting PCs. A must for consultants. Widely regarded
as the most respected and comprehensive book on its subject in the
industry.)

Upgrading And Repairing PCs, Linux Edition [By Joe DeVita]
[Published By Que Corporation]

Upgrading And Repairing PCs, Portable Technical Reference [By Scott
Mueller] [Published By Que Corporation]

Upgrading And Repairing PCs: Quick Reference, Second Edition [By
Scott Mueller] [Published By Que Corporation]

Upgrading And Repairing PCs Using Windows 98 [By Scott Mueller]
[Published By Que Corporation]

Upgrading And Repairing Your PC Answers! Certified Tech Support [By
Dave Johnson and Todd Stauffer] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Upgrading To Windows 95

Upgrading Your PC Illustrated [By Allen Wyatt]

USB Complete: Everything You Need To Develop Custom USB
Peripherals, 2nd Edition [By Jan Axelson] [Published by Lakeview
Research]

User Friendly [By Illiad And J. D. Frazer] [Published By O'Reilly &
Associates] (A comic strip about a group of workers for an ISP, User
Friendly is the open-source counterpart to Dilbert.)

Using America Online 4.0 [By Gene Steinberg] [Published By Que
Corporation]

Using And Managing PPP [By Andrew Sun and Michael Loukides]
[Published By O'Reilly & Associates]

Using GCC: The GNU Compiler Collection Reference Manual For GCC
3.3.1 [By Richard M. Stallman and the GCC Developer Community]
[Published by the Free Software Foundation]

Using HTML 4, Special Edition [By Molly E. Holzschlag]

Using Java 1.2 [By Michael Morgan] [Published By Que Corporation]

Using Lotus Notes And Domino 4.6, Special Edition [By Cate Richards]
[Published By Que Corporation]

Using Microsoft FrontPage 2000, Special Edition [By Neil Randall And
Dennis Jones] [Published By Que]

Using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, Special Edition [Published By Que
Corporation]

Using Microsoft Office 2000, Special Edition [By Ed Bott And Woody
Leonhard] [Published By Que]

Using MS-DOS 6.2 [By Allen L. Wyatt Sr., W. Edward Tiley, and Jon
Paisley] [Published by Que]

Using Netscape 3, Special Edition [By Mark R. Brown, Steven Forrest
Burnett, Tim Evans, And Heather Fleming] [Published By Que]

Using Netware 5.0, Special Edition [By Peter Kuo, John Pence, And
Sally Specker] [Published By Que Corporation]

Using Networks [By Frank J. Derfler, Jr.] [Published By Que
Corporation]

Using OS/2 2.1, Special Edition [Published By Que]

Using The Windows 95 Registry, Special Edition

Using UUCP And USENET: A Nutshell Handbook [By Grace Todinao]
[Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Using Windows 95, Platinum Edition

Using Windows 98 Second Edition, Special Edition [By Ed Bott]
[Published By Que Corporation]

Using Windows 98, Special Edition

Uyless Black's Networking 101 [By Uyless D. Black] [Published by
Prentice Hall]

vi Editor Pocket Reference [By Arnold Robbins] [Published by O'Reilly]

Video Scrambling & Descrambling For Satellite & Cable TV, 2nd
Edition [By Rudolf F. Graf and William Sheets] [Published by Newnes]

Virtual Culture: Identity And Communication In Cybersociety [By Steve
Jones] [Published by Sage Publications]

Virtual Machine Design And Implementation In C/C++ [By Bill
Blunden] [Published by Wordware Publishing]

Virtual Reality [By Howard Rheingold] [Published By Touchstone
Books]

Virtual Reality Madness! 1996 [By Ron Wodaski] [Published by Sams]

Visual Basic For Windows [By Steven Holzner And Peter Norton]

VLSI Digital Signal Processing Systems: Design And Implementation
[By Keshab K. Parhi] [Published by Wiley]

WarDriving: Drive, Detect, Defend: A Guide To Wireless Security [By
Chris Hurley, Michael Puchol, Russ Rogers, and Frank Thornton]
[Published by Syngress]

Way More! Free $tuff From The Internet [By Patrick Vincent]

Weaving The Web [By Tim Berners-Lee And Mark Fischetti] [Published
By Harper San Francisco]

Web Database Applications With PHP & MySQL, 2nd Edition [By Hugh
E. Williams and David Lane] [Published by O'Reilly And Associates]

Web Design & Desktop Publishing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Web Hacking: Attacks And Defense [By Stuart McClure, Saumil Shah,
and Shreeraj Shah] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Webmaster Administration Certification Exam Guide [By Net Guru
Technologies] [Published By McGraw Hill] (Strongly recommended for
Webmasters and people who want to be Webmasters. Huge book that
explains everything.)

Webmaster In A Nutshell, 2nd Edition [By Stephen Spainhour And
Robert Eckstein] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design By Looking At Bad Design
[By Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis] [Published by Sybex]

Web Programming Secrets With HTML, CGI, And Perl

Web Publishing With Microsoft FrontPage 97, 2nd Edition

Webster's New World Dictionary Of Computer Terms, 6th Edition [By
Bryan Pfaffenberger] [Published By Macmillan General Reference]

Web Video COMPLETE [By Martin Nemzow] [Published By McGraw
Hill]

White House E-mail: The Top Secret Computer Message The
Reagan/Bush White House Tried To Destroy [Edited By Tom Blanton]
[Published By The New Press] (Extremely interesting. If you're an
American you must read this book.)

Who Gives A Gigabyte: A Survival Guide For The Technologically
Perplexed [By Gary Stix And Miriam Lacob] [Published By John Wiley
& Sons]

Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions: A Catalogue Of Modern
Software Engineering Paradigms [By Peter Degrace And Leslie Hulet
Stahl] [Published By Yourdon]

Windows ++: Writing Reusable Windows Code In C++ [By Paul
Dilascia]

Windows 2000 Active Directory [By Alistair G. Lowe-Norris] [Published
by O'Reilly And Associates]

Windows 2000 Graphics API Black Book [By Damon Chandler]
[Published by The Coriolis Group]

Windows 3.1 Quick Reference [By Timothy S. Stanley] [Published by
Que]

Windows 95: A Developer's Guide

Windows 95 Cheat Sheet [By Joe Kraynak] [Published By Que]

Windows 95 For Busy People [By Ron Mansfield] [Published By
Osborne/McGraw-Hill]

Windows 95 In A Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference [By Tim
O'Reilly (Editor), Troy Mott, And Andrew Schulman] [Published By
O'Reilly And Associates]

Windows 95 Instant Reference

Windows 95 Intermediate

Windows 95/Nt 4 Programming With MFC [By Robert W. McGregor
And Peter Norton]

Windows 95 Registry & Customization Handbook

Windows 95 Registry Troubleshooting [By Rob Tidrow]

Windows 95 Uncut

Windows 95 Unleashed [By W. Edward Tiley And Ed Tiley] [Published
By Sams]

Windows 95 Secrets, 3rd Edition

Windows 95 Simplified

Windows 95 System Programming Secrets [By Matt Pietrek]

Windows 95 Unleashed

Windows 95 Visual Solutions

Windows 98 Annoyances [By David A. Karp] [Published By O'Reilly
And Associates]

Windows 98 [Published By maranGraphics]

Windows 98 Bible [By Alan Simpson]

Windows 98 Registry Handbook [By Jerry Honeycutt] [Published by
MacMillan Publishing Company]

Windows 98 Registry Little Black Book: The Essential Daily Guide To
Cracking The PC Code And Personalizing A Computer [By Greg
Holden] [Published by Coriolis Group]

Windows 98 Simplified [Published By maranGraphics]

Windows 98 Superbook [Published By maranGraphics]

Windows Annoyances [By David A. Karp] [Published By O'Reilly And
Associates] (A highly successful book listing annoying faults and failures
of Windows, and how to deal with them. A must-have for OS tweakers.)

Windows Assembly Language & Systems Programming: 16- And 32-Bit
Low-Level Programming For The PC And Windows [By Barry Kauler]
[Published by R&D Books/CMP Books]

Windows Batch File Programming, 2nd Edition [By Namir C. Shammas]
[Published By Computing McGraw-Hill]

Windows For Dummies

Windows Game Programming For Dummies [By Andre Lamothe]
[Published By IDG Books]

Windows NT/2000 Native API Reference [By Gary Nebbett] [Published
by Que]

Windows NT Desktop Reference [By Aeleen Frisch] [Published By
O'Reilly & Associates]

Windows NT File System Internals: A Developer's Guide [By Rajeev
Nagar] [Published By O'Reilly And Associates]

Windows NT Inside & Out

Windows NT Registry Secrets [By Paul Robichaux] [Published By
O'Reilly & Associates]

Windows NT Server 4.0 For NetWare Administrators [By Robert Bruce
Thompson] [Published By O'Reilly & Associates]

Windows NT SNMP [By James D. Murray] [Published By O'Reilly &
Associates]

Windows NT User Administration [By Ashley J. Meggit And Timothy
D. Ritchley] [Published By O'Reilly & Associates]

Windows NT Web Server Handbook

Windows 3.1: A Tutorial To Accompany Peter Norton's Introduction To
Computers [By Heather Miletti Duggan]

Windows 3.1 Demystified: Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

Windows 3.1 Programming For Mere Mortals [By Woody Leonard]

Windows 3.1 SDK Programmer's Reference

Windows Internals: The Implementation Of The Windows Operating
Environment [By Matt Pietrek]

Windows Network Programming: How To Survive In A World Of
Windows, DOS, And Networks [By Andrew Schulman]

Windows Sockets Network Programming [By Bob Quinn And Dave
Shute]

Windows Undocumented File Formats: Working Inside 16- And 32- Bit
Windows [By Pete Davis And Mike Wallace] [Published By R&D
Books]

Windows XP Annoyances [By David A. Karp] [Published by O'Reilly
And Associates]

Winn L. Rosch Hardware Bible, Fifth Edition [By Winn L. Rosch]
[Published By Que]

Wired Women: Gender And New Realities In Cyberspace [By L. Cherny
And E. Weise] [Published By Seal Press]

Wired Style: Principles Of English Usage In The Digital Age

Word 97 Annoyances [By Woody Leonhard] [Published By O'Reilly
And Associates]

WordPerfect 6 Made Easy

Wordperfect 6.0 MS-DOS: A Tutorial To Accompany Peter Norton's
Introduction To Computers [By Bob Goldhamer And Peter Norton]

WordPerfect 6 For Windows: The Complete Reference

World Wide Web Directory

World Wide Web Bible

World Wide Web Marketing, Second Edition [By Jim Sterne] [Published
By Wiley]

World Wide Web Secrets

Write Great Code: Understanding The Machine [By Randall Hyde]
[Published by No Starch Press]

Writing A Unix Device Driver, 2nd Edition [By Janet I. Egan and
Thomas J. Teixeira] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Writing Compilers And Interpreters, 2nd Edition [By Ronald Mak]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Writing Device Drivers, Tutorial And Reference [By Tim Burke, Mark
A. Parenti, and Al Wojtas] [Published by Digital Press]

Writing DOS Device Drivers In C [By Philip M. Adams and Clovis L.
Tondo] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Writing MS-DOS Device Drivers [By Robert S. Lai] [Published by
Addison-Wesley]

Writing Solid Code [By Steve Maguire] [Published by Microsoft Press]

Writing Testbenches: Functional Verification Of HDL Models, Second
Edition [By Janick Bergeron] [Published by Kluwer Academic
Publishers]

Writing Unix Device Drivers [By George Pajari] [Published by Addison-
Wesley]

Writing Windows Virtual Device Drivers, 2nd Edition [By David Thielen
and Bryan Woodruff] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Writing Windows VxDs & Device Drivers: Programming Secrets For
Virtual Device Drivers, 2nd Edition [By Karen Hazzah] [Published by
R&D Books]

XML Bible [By Elliotte Rusty Harold] [Published by IDG]

XML In Action [By William J. Pardi] [Published by Microsoft Press]

Yahoo! Unplugged

Yahoo! Wild Web Rides

Young@Heart: Computing For Seniors [By Mary Furlong And Stefan B.
Lipson]

Zap! How Your Computer Can Hurt You-And What You Can Do About
It

Zen And The Art Of The Internet: A Beginner's Guide, 4th Edition [By
Brendan P. Kehoe] [Published By Prentice Hall]

Zen Of Assembly Language: Knowledge [By Michael Abrash]

Zen Of Code Optimization [By Michael Abrash]

Zen Of Graphics Programming: Master The Art Of Creating Fast PC
Games And Graphics Applications [By Michael Abrash]

Zen Of Graphics Programming: The Ultimate Guide To Writing Fast PC
Graphics [By Michael Abrash]

Zeroes And Ones: Digital Women And The New Technoculture [By
Sadie Plant] [Published By Doubleday]

ZIP Bible

Electronics Books:

The Art Of Electronics, 2nd Edition [By Paul Horowitz And Winfield
Hill] [Published By Cambridge University Press]

The ARRL Handbook For Radio Communications, 2003 80th Edition
[By the American Radio Relay League; Edited by Dana George Reed]
[Published by the American Radio Relay League]

Basic Electricity, Complete Course: Volumes 1-5, Revised Edition [By
Nooger Van Valkenburgh And Van Valkenburgh] [Published By Prompt
Publications]

There Are No Electrons [By Kenn Amdahl] [Published by Clearwater
Publishing]

Electric Circuits, Revised Sixth Edition [By James W. Nilsson and Susan
A. Riedel] [Published by Addison-Wesley/Prentice Hall]

The Illustrated Dictionary Of Electronics, 8th Edition [By Stan Gibilisco]
[Published by McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics]

Modern Dictionary Of Electronics, 7th Edition [By Rudolf F. Graf]
[Published by Newnes]

Electronic Principles, 6th Edition [By Albert Paul Malvino] [Published
by McGraw-Hill]

TTL Cookbook [By Donald E. Lancaster] [Published by Sams]

CMOS Cookbook, Revised 2nd Edition [By Donald E. Lancaster]
[Published by Newnes]

Electronic Circuits: Fundamentals And Applications [By Mike Tooley]
[Published by Newnes]

Bebop To The Boolean Boogie: An Unconventional Guide To
Electronics Fundamentals, Components, And Processes [By Clive Max
Maxfield] [Published by Hightext Publications]

Applied Electricity and Electronics [By Clair A. Bayne] [Published by
Goodheart-Willcox Co.]

Teach Yourself Electricity And Electronics [By Stan Gibilisco]
[Published by McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics]

Tab Electronics Guide To Understanding Electricity And Electronics, 2nd
Edition [By G. Randy Slone] [Published by McGraw-Hill/TAB
Electronics]

Electricity And Electronics [By Thomas E. Newman] [Published by
McGraw-Hill]

Electronics Mathematics, 2nd Edition [By Robert Donovan] [Published
by Prentice Hall]

Electronics Math [By Bill Deem] [Published by Pearson Higher
Education]

Electronics And Computer Math, 7th Edition [By Bill R. Deem and Tony
Zannini] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Troubleshooting And Repairing Consumer Electronics Without A
Schematic [By Homer Davidson] [Published by McGraw-Hill/TAB
Electronics]

Electrical Engineering: Principles And Applications, 2nd Edition [By
Allan R. Hambley] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits [By Robert Pease] [Published by
Newnes]

Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science And Personalities [By Jim Williams]
[Published by Newnes]

Digital Communications: Design For The Real World [By Andy
Bateman] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Silicon Processing For The VLSI Era, Volume 1: Process Technology,
2nd Edition [By Stanley Wolf and Richard N. Tauber] [Published by
Lattice Press]

Silicon Processing For The VLSI Era, Volume 2: Process Integration [By
Stanley Wolf] [Published by Lattice Press]

Silicon Processing For The VLSI Era, Volume 3: The Submicron
MOSFET [By Stanley Wolf] [Published by Lattice Press]

Silicon Processing For The VLSI Era, Volume 4: Deep-Submicron
Process Technology [By Stanley Wolf] [Published by Lattice Press]

Verilog HDL Synthesis: A Practical Primer, 2nd Edition [By Jayaram
Bhasker] [Published by Star Galaxy Publications]

Algorithms For VLSI Design Automation [By Sabih H. Gerez]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Algorithms For VLSI Physical Design Automation, Third Edition [By
Naveed A. Sherwani] [Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers]

Introduction To Microelectronic Fabrication, 2nd Edition [By Richard C.
Jaeger] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Crash Course In Electronics Technology, 2nd Edition [By Louis E.
Frenzel, Jr.] [Published by Newnes]

Crash Course In Digital Technology, 2nd Edition [By Louis E. Frenzel,
Jr.] [Published by Newnes]

Crash Course In PC And Microcontroller Technology [By Louis E.
Frenzel, Jr.] [Published by Newnes]

Designing With FPGAs And CPLDs [By Robert Zeidman] [Published by
CMP Books]

The Design Warrior's Guide To FPGAs [By Clive Maxfield] [Published
by Academic Press]

Drafting For Electronics, 3rd Edition [By G. Louis Lamit and J. Sandra
Lloyd] [Published by Pearson Education]

Electronic Drafting: Printed Circuit Design [By Robert S. Villanucci,
Alexander W. Avtgis, and William F. Megow] [Published by Prentice
Hall]

Electronic Drafting And Printed Circuit Board Design, 2nd Edition [By
James M. Kirkpatrick] [Published by Delmar Thomson Learning]

Electronics Drafting [By John Frostad] [Published by Goodheart Wilcox
Company]

Industrial Control Electronics: Devices, Systems, & Applications, 2nd
Edition [By Terry L. M. Bartelt] [Published by Delmar Learning]

Digital Circuit Testing: A Guide To DFT And Other Techniques [By
Francis Wong] [Published by Academic Press]

The Audiophile's Project Sourcebook: 80 High-Performance Audio
Electronics Projects [By G. Randy Slone] [Published by McGraw-
Hill/TAB Electronics]

Signal Integrity Issues And Printed Circuit Board Design [By Douglas
Brooks] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Electronic Projects For Musicians [By Craig Anderton] [Published by
Music Sales+ Corporation]

RF Circuit Design [By Christopher Bowick] [Published by Newnes]

Radio System Design For Telecommunications, 2nd Edition [By Roger
L. Freeman] [Published by Wiley-Interscience

Sound Reinforcement Handbook, 2nd Edition [By Gary Davis And Ralph
Jones] [Published By Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation]

Electronic Gadgets For The Evil Genius: 28 Build-It-Yourself Projects
[By Robert E. Iannini] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Ham Radio Books:

All About Ham Radio [By Harry L. Helms] [Published By Hightext
Publications]

Now You're Talking!: All You Need To Get Your Ham Radio
Technician License, 3rd Edition [Edited By Larry D. Wolfgang And Joel
Kleinman] [Published By Amer Radio Relay League]

Game Books:

AI Game Programming Wisdom [By Steve Rabin] [Published by Charles
River Media]

Arcade Fever: The Fan's Guide To The Golden Age Of Video Games
[By John Sellers] [Published by Running Press Book Publishers]

COMPUTE's Adventure Game Player's Handbook

COMPUTE's Adventure Game Player's Handbook: Science Fiction And
Fantasy

Dungeons And Dreamers: The Rise Of Computer Game Culture From
Geek To Chic [By Brad King and John Borland] [Published by Osborne
McGraw-Hill]

Flight Simulator Odyssey

Game Architecture And Design: Learn The Best Practices For Game
Design And Programming [By Andrew Rollings and Dave Morris]
[Published by The Coriolis Group]

Game Design: The Art And Business Of Creating Games [By Bob Bates]
[Published by Premier Press]

Game Design: Theory And Practice [By Richard Rouse, Steve Ogden,
and Richard Rouse III] [Published by Wordware Publishing]

Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped An American Industry, Captured
Your Dollars, & Enslaved Your Children [By David Sheff] [Published
by DIANE Publishing Co.]

Game Over, Press Start To Continue [By David Sheff and Andy Eddy]
[Published by GamePress]

Game Programming Gems [By Mark DeLoura] [Published by Charles
River Media]

Game Programming Gems 2 [By Mark DeLoura] [Published by Charles
River Media]

Game Programming Gems 3 [By Dante Treglia and Mark Deloura]
[Published by Charles River Media]

Game Programming Gems 4 [By Andrew Kirmse] [Published by Charles
River Media]

High Score! The Illustrated History Of Electronic Games [By Rusel
DeMaria and Johnny Lee Wilson] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Internet Games Directory: Mega Directory To The Hottest Web Games
And Resources [By Marc Saltzman]

Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts,
And Rewired Our Minds [By J. C. Herz and Michael Pietsch] [Published
by Little, Brown & Company]

Project Arcade: Build Your Own Arcade Machine [By John St. Clair]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Learning To Fly With Flight Simulator

Masters Of Doom: How Two Guys Created An Empire And Transformed
Pop Culture [By David Kushner] [Published by Random House] (Book
about John Carmack and John Romero, who founded id Software, the
company that created Doom and Quake)

Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 Inside Moves [By Ben Chiu] [Published
by Microsoft Press]

Phoenix: The Fall & Rise Of Videogames, 2nd Edition [By Leonard
Herman] [Published by Rolenta Press]

SimCity 2000 City Design, PC & Macintosh Version [By Jason R. Rich]
[Published By Compute Books]

The Doom Hacker's Guide

Twisty Little Passages: An Approach To Interactive Fiction [By Nick
Montfort] [Published by MIT Press]

Myst: The Book of Atrus [Published By Hyperion Books]

Myst: The Book of Ti'ana [Published By Hyperion Books]

Myst: The Book of D'ni [Published By Hyperion Books]

Programming Linux Games [By Loki Software] [Published by No Starch
Press]

Supercade: A Visual History Of The Videogame Age 1971-1984 [By
Van Burnham] [Published by MIT Press]

The Complete Guide To Game Audio: For Composers, Musicians, Sound
Designers And Game Developers [By Aaron Marks] [Published by CMP
Books]

The Medium Of The Video Game [By Mark J. P. Wolf] [Published by
University of Texas Press]

The Official Book Of Ultima [By Shay Addams] [Published by
COMPUTE Books]

The Official Guide To Sid Meier's Civilization [By Keith Ferrell]
[Published by COMPUTE Books]

COMPUTE!'s Guide To Adventure Games, 2nd Edition [By Gary
McGrath] [Published by COMPUTE Books]

The King's Quest Companion, 4th Edition [By Peter Spear] [Published
by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

The Official Book Of King's Quest, 2nd Edition [By Donald B. Trivette]
[Published by COMPUTE Books]

The Official Book Of Leisure Suit Larry, 4th Edition [By Ralph Roberts
and Al Lowe] [Published by Alexander Books]

The Authorized Uncensored Leisure Suit Larry Bedside Companion [By
Peter Spear] [Published by Random House/Bantam Books]

The Official Doom Survivor's Strategies And Secrets

The Official Guide To Roger Wilco's Space Adventures, 2nd Edition [By
Jill Champion and Richard C. Leinecker] [Published by COMPUTE
Publications International]

The Space Quest Companion, 2nd Edition [By Peter Spear] [Published
by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Quest For Glory: The Authorized Strategy Guide [By Paula Spiese]
[Published by Random House]

The Quest For Glory Unauthorized Guide

The Ultimate History Of Video Games: From Pong To Pokemon--The
Story Behind The Craze That Touched Our Lives And Changed The
World [By Steven L. Kent] [Published by Prima Lifestyles]

The Video Game Theory Reader [By Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard
Perron] [Published by Routledge]

Castlevania: The Official Hint Book [By Donald McCrary and Kristin
McCrary] [Published by COMPUTE Books]

Pro Links: Official Guide To Links And Microsoft Golf [By Peter
Scisco] [Published by COMPUTE Books]

The Police Quest Casebook [By Peter Scisco] [Published by Osborne
McGraw-Hill]

The Official Book Of Police Quest [By Jill Champion] [Published by
COMPUTE Books]

The A-To-Z Book Of Computer Games [By Thomas C. McIntire]
[Published by McGraw-Hill/TAB Books]

Zap!: The Rise And Fall Of Atari [By Scott Cohen] [Published by
Xlibris Corporation]

Mathematica Books:

Exploring Mathematics With Mathematica

Mathematica: A Practical Approach

Mathematica For The Sciences

Mathematica In Action

Programming In Mathematica

The Beginner's Guide To Mathematica 3

Mathematica Add-Ons:

MathTensor

Nodal

Computer Business Books:

Accidental Empires: How The Boys Of Silicon Valley Make Their
Millions, Battle Foreign Competition & Still Can't Get A Date [By
Robert X. Cringely] [Published by Harperbusiness]

After The Gold Rush: Creating A True Profession Of Software
Engineering [By Steve M. McConnell] [Published By Microsoft Press]
[A call for "professionalizing" software engineering, making it into an
established, mainstream job rather than the disorganized,
oft-misunderstood muddle the author currently considers it to be.]

aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed The Netheads, And
Made Millions In The War For The Web [By Kara Swisher] [Published
by Random House]

Apple Confidential 2.0: The Real Story Of Apple Computer, Inc. [By
Owen W. Linzmayer] [Published by No Starch Press] (A book which
explores the history of Apple in extreme, meticulous detail. This is the
book for people who like a lot of depth in their history.)

Backfire: Carly Fiorina's High-Stakes Battle For The Soul Of Hewlett-
Packard [By Peter Burrows] [Published by Wiley]

Barbarians Led By Bill Gates: Microsoft From The Inside, How The
World's Richest Corporation Wields Its Power [By Marlin Eller And
Jennifer Edstrom] [Published By Henry Holt And Company]

Bell Labs: Life In The Crown Jewel [By Narain Gehani] [Published by
Silicon Press]

Big Blues: The Unmaking Of IBM [By Paul Carroll]

Big Shots, Business The Cisco Way: Secrets Of The Company That
Makes The Internet [By David Stauffer] [Published by Capstone
Publishing]

Blue Magic: The People, Power And Politics Behind The IBM Personal
Computer [By James Chposky And Ted Leonsis]

Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled The Future Of Microsoft
[By David Bank] [Published by Free Press]

Bulldog: Spirit Of The New Entrepeneur [By Ellie Rubins] [Published
By HarperCollins]

Burn Rate: How I Survived The Gold Rush Years On The Internet [By
Michael Wolff] [Published By Simon & Schuster]

Business The Sony Way: Secrets Of The World's Most Innovative
Electronics Giant [By Shu Shin Luh] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Cisco UnAuthorized [By Jeffrey S. Young] [Published by Prima
Publishing]

Competing On Internet Time: Lessons From Netscape And Its Battle
With Microsoft [By Michael A. Cusumano And David B. Yoffie]
[Published By Free Press]

Dealers Of Lightning: Xerox PARC And The Dawn Of The Computer
Age [By Michael A. Hiltzik] [Published By Harperbusiness]

DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy Of Digital
Equipment Corporation [By Edgar H. Schein, Paul J. Kampas, Peter
Delisi, and Michael Sonduck] [Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers]

Digital Darwinism: Seven Breakthrough Business Strategies For
Surviving In The Cutthroat Web Economy [By Evan I. Schwartz]
[Published by Broadway Books]

Direct From Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized An Industry [By
Michael Dell And Catherine Fredman] [Published By Harperbusiness] [A
236-page ad by Michael Dell for his company]

Dot.con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold [By John Cassidy] [Published by
HarperCollins]

dot.bomb: My Days And Nights At An Internet Goliath [By David Kuo]
[Published by Little, Brown, & Company]

Dvorak Predicts: An Insider's Look At The Computer Industry [By John
C. Dvorak] [Published by Osborne McGraw-Hill]

eBoys: The First Inside Account Of Venture Capitalists At Work [By
Randall E. Stross] [Published by Crown Publishing]

Fire In The Valley: The Making Of The Personal Computer, 2nd Edition
[By Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine] [Published by McGraw-Hill
Professional Publishing] (The book which was used as research material
for the movie "The Pirates Of Silicon Valley"; Of all the books
chronicling the history of the microcomputer revolution (and there are
several), this is one of the best, due largely to its sweeping scope and
size. Although it was first published in 1984, the second edition,
published in 2000, is fully updated. It begins with Babbage, and
continues to the Internet craze, documenting Tim Berners-Lee's
development of HTTP and HTML, and the Netscape war. Truly one of
the finest histories of the computer industry available in print.)

Free For All: How LINUX And The Free Software Movement Undercut
The High-Tech Titans [By Peter Wayner] [Published by Harperbusiness]

Fumbling The Future: How XEROX Invented, Then Ignored, The First
Personal Computer [By Douglas K. Smith And Robert C. Alexander]
[Published By William Morrow & Co.]

Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry And Made
Himself The Richest Man In America [By Stephen Manes and Paul
Andrews] [Published by Touchstone Books]

Hard Drive: Bill Gates And The Making Of The Microsoft Empire [By
James Wallace and Jim Erickson] [Published by Harperbusiness]

High Noon: The Inside Story Of Scott McNealy And The Rise Of Sun
Microsystems [By Karen Southwick And Eric Schmidt] [Published By
John Wiley & Sons]

High-Output Management [By Andrew S. Grove] [Published by Vintage
Books/Random House]

High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale Of Greed And Glory In The
Internet Wars [By Charles H. Ferguson] [Published by Times Books]
[Insightful and sometimes abrasive book by a guy with a lot of
experience in Silicon Valley; You can tell this guy knows what he's
talking about.]

How The Web Was Won: Microsoft From Windows To The Web: The
Inside Story Of How Bill Gates And His Band Of Internet Idealists
Transformed A Software Empire [By Paul Andrews] [Published By
Broadway Books]

IBM And The Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany
And America's Most Powerful Corporation [By Edwin Black] [Published
by Three Rivers Press]

Infinite Loop: How The World's Most Insanely Great Computer
Company Went Insane [By Michael S. Malone] [Published by
Doubleday]

Inside Cisco: The Real Story Of Sustained M&A Growth [By Ed
Paulson] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Inside Intel: Andy Grove And The Rise Of The World's Most Powerful
Chip Company [By Tim Jackson] [Published by Plume]

Inside Intuit: How The Makers Of Quicken Beat Microsoft And
Revolutionized An Entire Industry [By Suzanne Taylor, Kathy Schroeder,
and John Doerr] [Published by Harvard Business School Press]

Inside The Minds: The Semiconductor Industry: CEOs From Micron,
Xilinx, ON Semiconductor & More On The Future Of The
Semiconductor Revolution [By Jack Guedj, Steven R. Appleton, Wim
Roelandts, Igor Khandros, Rajeev Madhavan, Steve Hanson, Eyal
Waldman, Bob Lynch, and Satish Gupta] [Published by Aspatore Books]

John Chambers And The Cisco Way: Navigating Through Volatility [By
John K. Waters] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

La Vallee Du Risque: Silicon Valley [By Jacques Gauchey]

Making The Cisco Connection: The Story Behind The Real Internet
Superpower [By David Bunnell, Karen Southwick and Adam Brate]
[Published by John Wiley And Sons]

Net Ready [By Amir Hartman, John G. Sifonis, and John Kador]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

Netscape Time: The Making Of The Billion-Dollar Start-Up That Took
On Microsoft [By Jim Clark And Owen Edwards] [Published By St.
Martin's Press]

Once Upon A Time In Computerland: The Amazing, Billion-Dollar Tale
Of Bill Millard [By Jonathan Littman] [Published by Price Stern Sloan,
Inc.]

Only The Paranoid Survive: How To Exploit The Crisis Points That
Challenge Every Company [By Andrew S. Grove] [Published by Bantam
Books]

On The Firing Line: My 500 Days At Apple [By Gil Amelio and
William L. Simon] [Published by HarperCollins/Capstone Publishing,
Ltd.]

Overdrive: Bill Gates And The Race To Control Cyberspace [By James
Wallace] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina And The Reinvention Of Hewlett-Packard
[By George Anders] [Published by Portfolio]

Portraits Of Success: Impressions Of Silicon Valley Pioneers [By
Carolyn Caddes]

Pride Before The Fall: The Trials Of Bill Gates And The End Of The
Microsoft Era [By John Heilemann] [Published by HarperCollins]

Random Excess: The Wild Ride Of Michael Cowpland And Corel [By
Ross Laver] [Published by Penguin Books Canada]

Rebel Code: Linux And The Open Source Revolution [By Glyn Moody]
[Published by Perseus Press]

Regional Advantage: Culture And Competition In Silicon Valley And
Route 128 [By Anna Lee Saxenian] [Published by Harvard University
Press]

Route 128: Lessons From Boston's High-Tech Community [By Susan
Rosegrant and David R. Lampe] [Published by Basic Books]

Saving Big Blue: Leadership Lessons And Turnaround Tactics Of IBM's
Lou Gerstner [By Robert Slater] [Published By McGraw-Hill]

Silicon Valley Fever: The Growth Of High-Technology Culture [By
Everett M. Rogers and Judith K. Larsen] [Published by Basic Books]

Softwar: An Intimate Portrait Of Larry Ellison And Oracle [By Matthew
Symonds] [Published by Simon & Schuster]

Sony: The Private Life [By John Nathan] [Published by Houghton
Mifflin]

Speeding The Net: The Inside Story Of Netscape And How It Challenged
Microsoft [By Joshua Quittner and Michelle Slatalla] [Published by
Atlantic Monthly Press]

Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure [By Jerry Kaplan] [Published by
Replica Books]

Steve Wozniak: A Wizard Called Woz [By Rebecca Gold] [Published By
Lerner Publications]

The Alta Vista Search Revolution [By Richard Seltzer, Eric J. Ray and
Deborah S. Ray] [Published By McGraw-Hill]

The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story Of Silicon Valley [By Michael
Malone]

The Cult Of Mac [By Leander Kahney] [Published by No Starch Press]

The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett And I Built Our Company [By David
Packard] [Published by HarperBusiness]

The Little Kingdom: The Private Story Of Apple Computer [By Michael
Moritz]

The Macintosh Way [By Guy Kawasaki]

The Monk And The Riddle: The Education Of A Silicon Valley
Entrepreneur [By Randy Komisar and Kent L. Lineback] [Published by
Harvard Business School Press]

The New Alchemists: Silicon Valley And The Microelectronics
Revolution [By Dirk Hanson]

The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story [By Michael Lewis]
[Published by Penguin Books]

The Perfect Store: Inside eBay [By Adam Cohen] [Published by Back
Bay Books]

The Ultimate Entrepreneur: The Story Of Ken Olsen And Digital
Equipment Corporation [By Glenn Rifkin and George Harrar] [Published
by Contemporary Books]

The Valley [By John Heilemann] [Published by Harpercollins]

Under The Radar: How Red Hat Changed The Software Business And
Took Microsoft By Surprise [By Robert Young And Wendy Goldman
Rohm] [Published By The Coriolis Group]

Webonomics [By Evan I. Schwartz] [Published By Broadway]

Hacker Books:

The New Hacker's Dictionary, 3rd Edition ("Yellow Book")
[Compiled/Edited By Eric S. Raymond] [Published By MIT Press]

Gdel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid [By Douglas Hofstadter]

Illuminatus! [By Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson]

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy [By Douglas Adams]

The Tao Of Programming [By James Geoffrey]

Hackers: Heroes Of The Computer Revolution [By Steven Levy] [Epic,
detailed history of the computer revolutionaries, beginning with the pre-
transistorized days at MIT and concluding with the dawn of the home
microcomputer revolution. Covers a huge array of little-known historical
details. Definitely shouldn't be missed by any computer historian.]

The Devil's DP Dictionary

The Devouring Fungus: Tales From The Computer Age [By Karla
Jennings] [Published By W.W. Norton & Co.]

The Soul Of A New Machine [By Tracy Kidder] [Published By Little,
Brown & Co.] (A 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner, this is the classic tale of
the group of hardware hackers that made the MV-8000 Eagle. One of the
most loved non-technical computer books ever written.)

Life With UNIX: A Guide For Everyone [By Don Libes And Sandy
Ressler] [Published By Prentice-Hall]

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet, Reprint
Edition [By Katie Hafner And Matthew Lyon] [Published By Touchstone
Books/Simon & Schuster]

True Names... And Other Dangers [By Vernor Vinge] (In 1981, a good
three years before Neuromancer was published, True Names came out.
It is considered by many to be the first "cyberpunk" book, with the
possible exception of "The Shockwave Rider"; It was certainly the first
well-known book which seriously explored a matrix-style net which users
connected to with brain electrodes hooked up to a computer. Read True
Names and you'll realize that maybe William Gibson wasn't so visionary
after all, and certainly not as meaty a writer as Vinge, even though True
Names is actually very short as sci-fi novels go.)

Cyberpunk: Outlaws And Hackers On The Computer Frontier [By Katie
Hafner And John Markoff] [Published By Touchstone Books] [NOTE:
Of all the books on hacker culture, this is possibly the best. Very highly
regarded by both actual hackers and analysts of the culture, this may be
the only book on the subject you need.]

Cyberpunk Handbook: The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook [By St. Jude, R.
U. Sirius and Bart Nagel] [Published by Random House]

Mondo 2000: A User's Guide To The New Edge: Cyberpunk, Virtual
Reality, Wetware, Designer Aphrodisiacs, Artificial Life, Techno-Erotic
Paganism, And More [By Rudy Rucker, R. U. Sirius and Queen Mu]
[Published by HarperCollins]

Cyberwars: Espionage On The Internet [By Jean Guisnel, Winn
Schwartau, And Gui Masai (Translator)] [Published By Plenum Press]

Information Warfare: Chaos On The Electronic Superhighway [By Winn
Schwartau] [Published By Thunder's Mouth Press]

Internet Besieged: Countering Cyberspace Scofflaws [By Dorothy
Elizabeth Robling Denning And Peter J. Denning] [Published By
Addison-Wesley]

Information Warfare And Security [By Dorothy Elizabeth Robling
Denning] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

At Large: The Strange Case Of The World's Biggest Internet Invasion
[By David H. Freedman and Charles C. Mann] [Published by Simon &
Schuster]

The Art Of Information Warfare: Insight Into The Knowledge Warrior
Philosophy [By Richard Forno And Ronald Baklarz]

Cyber Crime: How To Protect Yourself From Computer Criminals [By
Laura E. Quarantiello] [Published By Tiare Publications]

The Hacker Ethic: A Radical Approach To The Philosophy Of Business
[By Pekka Himanen; Prologue by Linus Torvalds; Epilogue by Manuel
Castells] [Published by Random House]

Maximum Security: A Hacker's Guide To Protecting Your Internet Site
And Network, 2nd Edition [By Anonymous] [Published By Sams]

Hacking Exposed, 2nd Edition [By Joel Scambray, Stuart McClure,
George Kurtz, and Bruce Schneier] [Published by McGraw-Hill
Professional Publishing]

Hacking: The Art Of Exploitation [By Jon Erickson] [Published by No
Starch Press]

Hackers: Crime In The Digital Sublime [By Paul A. Taylor] [Published
by Routledge]

Masters Of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace [By Michele
Slatalla And Joshua Quittner] [Published By Harperperennial Library]
(An ultra-hip account of the MOD. The writing style tries to be cool, and
succeeds in this, but fails to provide much real information. Most of the
text is posing babbling, which takes a while to get anywhere, and the real
information it finally gets around to providing is so basic and readily-
available that you could get it anywhere else for less reading time. The
result is an amazingly low signal-to-noise ratio. This book is for the
wannabees who think they can appear knowledgeable with big-talk rather
than actual knowledge. A prime example of flash over substance.)

Snow Crash [By Neal Stephenson] [Published By Bantam Books] (It has
been said that Stephenson writes like a hacker thinks, and this is true. It's
no secret that William Gibson doesn't know much about computers and
isn't really interested in them. Thus, he is primarily a literary author, and
his books reflect this with an emphasis on atmosphere and minimal
techo-thrills. This is fine for his intended audience. However, Stephenson
really is a hacker, and his writing reflects this as well. It is clear as one
reads his novels that he is in fact clued in to the technical aspects of
technology, and thus is uniquely qualified to write "cyberpunk" in a way
that the first-generation cyberpunk authors were not. This novel, his
breakthrough that shot him to global fame among the tech crowd, is a
fine example of this.)

Cryptonomicon [By Neal Stephenson] [Published By Avon Books]
[Huge, detailed novel about cryptography. Equal parts how-to and story.]

Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller [By Neal Stephenson]

The Diamond Age [By Neal Stephenson]

Headcrash [By Bruce Bethke] [Published by Warner Books] [A book like
Snow Crash, except with better humor.]

Technobabble [By John Barry] [Published by MIT Press]

The Cuckoo's Egg [By Clifford Stoll]

Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts On The Information Superhighway
[By Clifford Stoll] [Published By Doubleday]

Neuromancer, Reissue Edition [By William Gibson] [Published By Ace
Books] [Hey, how could I possibly leave this out?]

Count Zero, Reissue Edition [By William Gibson] [Published By Ace
Books]

Mona Lisa Overdrive, Reissue edition [By William Gibson] [Published
By Bantam Spectra]

Burning Chrome, Revised Edition [By William Gibson] [Published By
Ace Books]

Virtual Light [By William Gibson] (First book in the bridge trilogy)

Idoru [By William Gibson] (Second book in the bridge trilogy)

All Tomorrow's Parties [By William Gibson] (Third book in the bridge
trilogy)

Altered Carbon [By Richard K. Morgan] [Published by Del Rey]

Software [By Rudy Von Bitter Rucker] [Published By Avon]

Wetware [By Rudy Von Bitter Rucker] [Published By Avon]

Freeware [By Rudy Von Bitter Rucker] [Published By Eos]

Realware [By Rudy Von Bitter Rucker] [Published by Avon]

The Hacker And The Ants [By Rudy Von Bitter Rucker] [Published
By Avon]

The Hollow Earth: The Narrative Of Mason Algiers Reynolds Of
Virginia [By Rudy Von Bitter Rucker]

The Shockwave Rider [By John Brunner] [Considered the first
"cyberpunk" novel; Preceded "Neuromancer" by several years.]

The Difference Engine [By William Gibson And Bruce Sterling] (More
notable for its authors than its content, this was, as of this writing, the
only collaboration between cyberpunk's two biggest founders.)

Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology [By Bruce Sterling] [Published
by Ace Books]

Schismatrix Plus: Includes Schismatrix And Selected Stories From
Crystal Express [By Bruce Sterling] [Published by Ace Books]

Islands In The Net [By Bruce Sterling] [Published by Arbor House]

Holy Fire [By Bruce Sterling] [Published by Bantam Books]

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? [By Philip K. Dick] (Basis for
the movie "Blade Runner")

Blade Runner 2: The Edge Of Human [By K. W. Jeter] [Published by
Bantam Spectra] (After the movie Blade Runner came out, based upon
Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?", it
gained a cult following, but it left a few plot threads untied. Since the
movie never got a sequel, K. W. Jeter felt the need to make a book
sequel instead. That's exactly what he did, and exactly what this is; It's
a sequel to the movie, not the original book.)

Ubik [By Philip K. Dick] [Published by Vintage Books]

1984 [By George Orwell]

Approaching Zero: Data Crime And The Computer Underworld [By
Bryan Clough and Paul Mungo] [Published by Faber And Faber/Random
House]

Starship Troopers [By Robert A. Heinlein]

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress [By Robert A. Heinlein]

Stranger In A Strange Land [By Robert A. Heinlein] [Published By Ace
Science Fiction]

O Pioneer! [By Frederik Pohl] [Published by Tor Books] (A sci-fi story
by the prolific author Pohl, about a brilliant computer hacker who
becomes ruler of a distant alien world.)

Storming The Reality Studio: A Casebook Of Cyberpunk And
Postmodern Science Fiction [By Larry McCaffery] [Published by Duke
University Press]

Art And Science Of Dumpster Diving [By John Hoffman and Jim
Broadstreet] [Published by Breakout Productions]

Dumpster Diving: The Advanced Course: How To Turn Other People's
Trash Into Money, Publicity, And Power [By John Hoffman] [Published
by Paladin Press]

The Money Culture [By Michael Lewis] [Published By Penguin USA]

Steal This Book [By Abbie Hoffman] [Published By Four Walls Eight
Windows]

Big Secrets: The Uncensored Truth About All Sorts Of Stuff You Are
Never Supposed To Know [By William Poundstone] [Published By
William Morrow & Co.]

Bigger Secrets: More Than 125 Things They Prayed You'd Never Find
Out [By William Poundstone] [Published By Houghton Mifflin Co.]

Biggest Secrets: More Uncensored Truth About All Sorts Of Stuff You
Are Never Supposed To Know [By William Poundstone] [Published By
Quill]

The Straight Dope Tells All [By Cecil Adams] [Published By Ballantine
Books]

The Straight Dope: A Compendium Of Human Knowledge [By Cecil
Adams] [Published By Ballantine Books]

Nudist On The Late Shift: And Other True Tales Of Silicon Valley [By
Po Bronson] [Published By Random House]

The Silicon Boys And Their Valley Of Dreams [By David A. Kaplan]
[Published By William Morrow & Company]

Cyberia: Life In The Trenches Of Hyperspace

Netizens: On The History And Impact Of Usenet And The Internet [By
Michael Huben, Ronda Hauden, Ronda Hauben, And Michael Hauben]
[Published By IEEE Computer Society]

Anarchy Online: Net Sex, Net Crime [By Charles Platt] [Published by
Harper Prism]

Structure And Interpretation Of Computer Programs ("Wizard Book")

Microserfs [By Douglas Coupland] [Published By HarperCollins]

The Hacker Ethic [By Pekka Himanen, Manuel Castells, and Linus
Torvalds] [Published by Random House]

The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier
[By Bruce Sterling] [Published By Bantam Books]

The Well: A Story Of Love, Death & Real Life In The Seminal Online
Community [By Katie Hafner] [Published by Carroll & Graf]

Cyberpunk: Outlaws And Hackers On The Computer Frontier [By Katie
Hafner And John Markoff]

Takedown: The Pursuit And Capture Of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most
Wanted Computer Outlaw--By The Man Who Did It [By Tsutomu
Shimomura (With John Markoff)] [Published By Hyperion]

Fighting Computer Crime: A New Framework For Protecting Information
[By Donn B. Parker] [Published By Wiley]

The Happy Hacker [By Carolyn P. Meinel]

berhacker!: How To Break Into Computers [By Carolyn Meinel]
[Published by Loompanics]

Secrets Of A Super Hacker [By The Knightmare] [Published By
Loompanics]

The Hacker Diaries [By Dan Verton] [Published by Osborne McGraw-
Hill]

Hacking Exposed [By Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray, George Kurtz,
And Eric Schultze]

Hackers: Crime In The Digital Sublime [By Paul A. Taylor] [Published
by Routledge]

Hackers Beware: Defending Your Network From The Wiley Hacker [By
Eric Cole and Jeff Riley] [Published by Macmillan Publishing USA]

Hack Proofing Your Wireless Network [By Christian Barnes, Tony
Bautts, Donald Lloyd, Eric Ouellet, and Neal O'Farrell] [Published by
Syngress Media, Inc.]

The Ultimate Internet Terrorist: How Hackers, Geeks, And Phreaks Can
Ruin Your Trip On The Information Superhighway... And What You Can
Do To Protect Yourself [By Robert Merkle]

The Day The Phones Stopped [By Leonard Lee]

The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick [By Jonathan Littman]
[Published By Little, Brown And Co.]

The Watchman: The Twisted Life Of Serial Hacker Kevin Poulsen [By
Johnathan Littman] [Published By Little, Brown And Co.]

The Cyberthief And The Samurai: The True Story Of Kevin Mitnick-And
The Man Who Hunted Him Down [By Jeff Goodell] [Published by Dell
Books]

How To Mutate And Take Over The World [By R. U. Sirius And St.
Jude] [Published By Ballantine Books]

Jargon Watch: A Pocket Dictionary For The Jitterati

Rainbow Books:

The so-called "Rainbow Books" are a collection of documents published
by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the U.S. Department of
Defense (DoD) on computer security. Of these books, the most important
is the DoD's Orange Book, on standards for security systems in
computers. (All the other books basically expound on this one.) The
following are the colors and titles of these Rainbow Books:

Aqua: Understanding Security Modeling
Blue: Product Evaluation Questionaire
Bright Blue: Trusted Product Evaluation
Bright Orange: Understanding Security Testing
Brown: Understanding Trusted Facilities
Burgundy: Understanding Design Documentation
Dark Lavender: Understanding Trusted Distrobution
Dark Red: Interpretations Of Environments
Gray: Selecting Access Control List
Green: D.O.D. Password Management (DoD)
Green: Understanding Data Remanence (NSA)
Hot Peach: Writing Security Features
Lavender: Data Base Management Interpretation
Light Blue: Understanding Identification And Authentication In Trusted 
 Systems
Light Pink: Understanding Covert Channels 
Neon Orange: Understanding Discretionary Access
Orange 1: D.O.D. Trusted Computer Systems
Orange 2: Understanding Configurations
Pink: Rating Maintenence Phase
Purple: Formal Verification Systems
Purple 1: Guide To System Procurement
Purple 2: Guide To System Procurement
Purple 3: Guide To System Procurement
Purple 4: Guide To System Procurement
Red: Interpretation Of Evaluation
Tan: Understanding Audit In Trusted Systems
Teal Green: Glossary Of Computer Terms
Turquiose: Understanding Information Security 
Venice Blue: Computer Security Sub-Systems
Violet: Controlled Access Protection 
Yellow: Computer Security Requirements
Yellow 2: Computer Security Requirements
Yellow 3: Understanding Trusted Recovery
Yellow-Green: Writing Trusted Facility Manuals

Fictional Computer Books:

The First $20 Million Is Always The Hardest [By Po Bronson]
[Published By Random House] [Funny, fictional but seemingly based on
a well-known true story novel about a group of Silicon Valley kids trying
to startup a new computer company. Insightful, interesting, and cynical.]

Watch Me [By A.J. Holt] [Published By St. Martin's Press] [FBI/Interent
thriller. Very well-plotted.]

e [By Matthew Beaumont] [Published by Plume] [Funny novel about
people in an advertising agency; The book is entirely e-mail messages
sent among the characters. Very original book, easy to read, and
amusing. Yes, "e" really is the full title.]

Hardwired: A Silicon Valley Mystery [By Sally Chapman] [Published by
St. Martins Press]

Cyberkiss [By Sally Chapman] [Published by Harlequin Retail]

Love Bytes [By Sally Chapman]

Raw Data [By Sally Chapman]

The Last Best Thing: A Classic Tale Of Greed, Deception And Mayhem
In Silicon Valley [By Patrick Dillon]

The Blue Nowhere [By Jeffrey Deaver] [Published by Simon & Schuster]

The Expert [By Lee Gruenfeld] [Published by Onyx Books]

Silicon Follies [By Thomas Scoville] [Published by Washington Square
Press]

Shutdown [By R. J. Pineiro] [Published by Forge]

Breakthrough [By R. J. Pineiro] [Published by Tor Books]

Exposure [By R. J. Pineiro] [Published by Forge]

Firewall [By R. J. Pineiro] [Published by Tor Books]

Cyberterror [By R. J. Pineiro] [Published by Tor Books]

Killer App [By Barbara D'Amato] [Published by Tor Books]

Hardwired [By Walter Jon Williams]

Flame War: A Thriller [By Joshua Quittner and Michelle Slatalla]
[Published by William Morrow & Co.]

Slaughtermatic [By Steve Aylett] [Published by Four Walls Eight
Windows]

Bad Memory: A Novel Of Suspense [By Duane Franklet] [Published by
Pocket Books]

Ulterior Motive [By Daniel Oran] [Published by Kensington Publishing
Corp.]

The Termination Node [By Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg]
[Published by Del Rey]

Resource Kits:

Microsoft Office 97 Resource Kit [Published By Microsoft Press]

MS-DOS 6.2 Resource Kit

Windows 95 Resource Kit

Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server 4.5 Resource Kit

BASIC Programming Books:

Running QBasic

Advanced Basic [By Steven Holzner And Peter Norton]

QBasic: Programmer's Quick Reference

The Waite Group's QBasic Reference Plus

Do It Yourself Visual Basic for MS-DOS

Microsoft Guide to Visual Basic for MS-DOS Programming

Peter Norton's Guide to Visual Basic for MS-DOS Programming

Teach Yourself Visual Basic for MS-DOS

Teach Yourself Qbasic In 21 Days [By Namir Clement Shammas]
[Published by Sams]

Visual Basic for MS-DOS by Example

Visual Basic for MS-DOS Inside and Out

Visual Basic for MS-DOS Uncovered

Microsoft QuickBASIC (Third Edition)

The Waite Group's Microsoft QuickBASIC Bible

The Waite Group's Microsoft QuickBASIC Primer Plus

Visual Basic For DOS

Visual Basic 5 Bible

QBASIC Made Easy [By Don Inman And Bob Albrecht] [Published By
Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Qbasic Programming 101 [By Greg Perry] [Published by Sams]

QBASIC By Example [By Greg Perry] [Published by Que]

Using Qbasic [By Phil Feldman and Tom Rugg] [Published by Que]

Serious Programming In BASIC

Pascal Programming Books:

Computer Programming In Pascal The Easy Way [By Mark Yoshimi and
Douglas A. Downing] [Published by Barrons Educational Series]

Computer Science: A Breadth-First Approach With Pascal [By Paul
Nagin and John Impagliazzo] [Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Fundamentals Of Data Structures In Pascal, 4th Edition [By Ellis
Horowitz and Sartaj Sahni] [Published by W H Freeman & Co.]

Fundamentals Of Pascal: Understanding Programming And Problem
Solving, 3rd Edition [By Douglas W. Nance] [Published by South-
Western Publishing]

Introduction To Algorithms In Pascal [By Thomas W. Parsons]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

Learn Pascal [By Sam A. Abolrous] [Published by Republic Of Texas
Press]

Mastering Turbo Pascal 6, Fourth Edition [By Tom Swan] [Published By
Hayden Books]

Numerical Recipes In Pascal: The Art Of Scientific Computing, Revised
Edition [By William H. Press, Brian P. Flannery and William T.
Vetterling] [Published by Cambridge University Press]

Pascal, 5th Edition [By Elliot B. Koffman] [Published by Addison-
Wesley]

Pascal: An Introduction To The Art And Science Of Programming, 4th
Edition [By Walter J. Savitch] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Pascal Precisely For Engineers And Scientists [By Judy Bishop and Nigel
Bishop] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Pascal Programming And Problem Solving With Software, 4th Edition
[By Sanford Leestma and Larry R. Nyhoff] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Pascal User Manual And Report ("Silver Book")

Schaum's Outline Of Programming With Pascal, 2nd Edition [By Byron
S. Gottfried] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Scientific Pascal, 2nd Edition [By Harley Flanders] [Published by
Springer Verlag]

Turbo Pascal 7: The Complete Reference [By Stephen K. O'Brien And
Steve Nameroff]

C, C++ And Windows Programming Books:

The Waite Group's C Primer Plus, 3rd Edition [By Stephen Prata]
[Published By MacMillan]

The C Programming Language, First Edition ("White Book") [By Brian
W. Kernigan And Dennis M. Ritchie] [Published By Prentiss-Hall]
(A.K.A. The Old Testament)

The C Programming Language, Second Edition [By Brian W. Kernigan
And Dennis M. Ritchie] [Published By Prentiss-Hall] (A.K.A. The New
Testament)

C How To Program, Third Edition [By Harvey M. Deitel and Paul J.
Deitel] [Published by Prentice Hall]

Annotated ANSI C Standard

The C Workbook [By Sathis Menon]

C Memory Management Techniques

C: The Complete Reference, Third Edition

C: The Complete Reference, 3rd Edition [By Herbert Schildt] [Published
By Osborne McGraw-Hill]

C++ From The Ground Up, 2nd Edition [By Herbert Schildt] [Published
By Osborne McGraw-Hill]

C++: The Complete Reference, 2nd Edition [By Herbert Schildt]
[Published By Osborne McGraw-Hill]

C/C++ Programmer's Reference [By Herbert Schildt And Megg Bonar]
[Published By Osborne McGraw-Hill]

Accelerated C++: Practical Programming By Example [By Andrew
Koenig and Barbara E. Moo] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

The C++ Standard Library : A Tutorial And Reference [By Nicolai M.
Josuttis] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

C++ Templates: The Complete Guide [By David Vandevoorde and
Nicolai M. Josuttis] [Published by Addison-Wesley]

Object Oriented Programming In C++ [By Nicolai M. Josuttis]
[Published by John Wiley & Sons]

C++ From Scratch [By Jesse Liberty] [Published By Que]

The ABCs Of Turbo C [By Douglas Hergert] [Published By Sybex]

Programming Windows 3.1 [By Charles Petzold]

Windows API Bible

Exceptional C++: 47 Engineering Puzzles, Programming Problems, And
Exception-Safety Solutions [By Herb Sutter] [Published By
Addison-Wesley] [A sort of puzzle book for programmers, these are
challenging questions which frequently touch on important subjects
which are mostly overlooked by other programming books, particularly
exception safety.]

C Programming Guide, Third Edition [By Jack Purdum] [Published By
Que Corporation]

The C++ Programming Language, Third Edition [By Bjarne Stroustrup]
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

The C++ Annotated Reference Manual

Teach Yourself C++, Second Edition

The Waite Group's C++ Primer Plus, 3rd Edition [By Stephen Prata]
[Published By MacMillan/Waite Group Press]

C++ From The Ground Up

Microsoft Foundation Class Primer

Inside Visual C++

Advanced C [By Peter D. Hipson] [Published By Sams]

Advanced C Programming [By Steven Oualline]

Problem Solving And Program Design In C, 2nd Edition [By Jeri R.
Hanly And Elliot B. Koffman] [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Undocumented Windows: A Programer's Guide To Reserved Microsoft
Windows API Functions (Also Called Just Undocumented Windows)

Windows Internals: The Implementation Of The Windows Operating
Environment (Also Called Just Windows Internals)

Programming Windows: The Definitive Guide To The Win32 API [By
Charles Petzold] [Published By Microsoft Press]

Windows 32 API Reference

Programmer's Guide to Windows 95

Programming Windows 95 [By Charles Petzold And Yao] [Published By
Microsoft Press]

Programming Windows 95 With MFC [By Jeff Prosise]

Inside Visual C++ (for VCC 5.0) [By David Kruglinski]

MFC Internals [By Scott Wingo]

Professional MFC With Visual C++ 6 [By Mike Blaszczak] [Published
By Wrox Press]

C By Dissection, Third Edition [Published By Addison-Wesley]

The Art And Science Of C [Published By Addison-Wesley]

Schaum's Outline Of Programming With C, 2nd Edition [By Byron S.
Gottfried] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Schaum's Outline Of Programming With C++, 2nd Edition [By John R.
Hubbard] [Published by McGraw-Hill]

Schaum's Outline Of Data Structures With C++ [By John R. Hubbard]
[Published by McGraw-Hill]

Windows 3.1: A Developer's Guide

Mastering Borland C++ 4.5, Second Edition [By Tom Swan] [Published
By Sams Publishing]

Borland C++ Programming For Windows

C: The Complete Reference, 2nd Edition

Teach Yourself C++ In 21 Days

The Design And Evolution Of C++ [By Bjarne Stroustrup]

Introduction To Problem Solving, Abstraction And Design C++
[Published By Addison-Wesley]

Introduction To Object-Oriented Design In C++ [By Jo Ellen Perry And
Harold D. Levin] [Published By Addison- Wesley]

Windows 95 And NT 4.0 Registry & Customization Handbook

Assembler Programming Books:

Art Of Asm (Distributed online as a set of freeware PDF files; Not
published in paper format)

The Art Of Assembly Language [By Randall Hyde] [Published by No
Starch Press]

8086/88 Assembly Language Programming [By Leo J. Scanlon]
[Published By Robert J. Brady Co.]

Advanced Assembly Language [By Steven Holzner And Peter Norton]

Advanced Assembly Language [By Allen L. Wyatt]

Assembly Language For The PC, 3rd Edition [By John Socha And Peter
Norton]

Assembly Language For Intel-Based Computers [By Kip R. Irvine]
[Published by Prentice Hall]

Assembly Language Quick Reference [By Allen L. Wyatt, Sr.]
[Published by Que Corporation]

Mastering Turbo Assembler, Second Edition [By Tom Swan] [Published
by Sams Publishing]

Mastering Turbo Debugger [By Tom Swan] [Published By Hayden
Books]

Using Assembly Language [By Allen L. Wyatt Sr.] [Published by Que]

Apple Roots: Assembly Language Programming For Apple IIe And
Apple IIc [By Mark Andrews] [Published By Osborne McGraw-Hill]

LISP Programming Books:

Common LISP: The Language, 2nd Edition ("Aluminum Book") [By
Guy L. Steele Jr.] [Published By Digital Press]

ANSI Common Lisp [By Paul Graham]

Lisp [By Winston And Horn]

On Lisp: Advanced Techniques For Common Lisp [By Paul Graham]

Paradigms Of AI Programming: Case Studies In Common Lisp [By Peter
Norvig]

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach [By Russell And Norvig]

Essentials Of Artificial Intelligence [By Matt Ginsberg]

Artificial Intelligence Theory And Practice [By Dean, Allen, And
Aloimonos]

Artificial Intelligence: Structures And Strategies For Complex Problem
Solving [By Luger And Stubblefield]

Artificial Intelligence [By Patrick Henry Winston]

Other Programming Books:

Compilers: Principles, Techniques And Tools ("Dragon Book") [By
Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi And Jeffrey D. Ullman] [Published By
Addison-Wesley]

Programming Primer: A Graphic Introduction To Computer
Programming, With BASIC And Pascal [By Robert P. Taylor] [Published
By Addison-Wesley]

More Programming Pearls [By Jon Bentley]

Computer Movies:

The Net: One of the best-known computer movies, largely thanks to the
fact that it stars Sandra Bullock.

WarGames: Although many of them are embarrassed to admit it, this
1983 movie was the inspiration for many of the greatest hackers of the
80s. It was probably the first hacker movie (certainly the first major one).
The movie introduced hacking at a time when the general public knew
very little about it, or indeed what it even was. In fact, it started an
investigation by Congress to see if the events of the movie were actually
possible. It can also be blamed for a major rise in purchases of modems
during the early 1980s. Truly ahead of its time, and it's almost funny to
watch today for that very reason. The protagonist, a teenage hacker kid
named David, was played by (a surprisingly young) Matthew Broderick.

Hackers: OK, so it's not technically accurate (as its detractors are always
quick to point out), but it's still a fun movie. Besides, it has Angelina
Jolie in it.

Swordfish: A rather more modern-day "hacker" thriller movie, Swordfish
was reasonably popular, although it was about as dumb as movies get.
It was a typical no-brainer action movie, and it seems that most people
who saw it remembered it mainly because of Halle Berry's brief topless
scene.

Office Space: Essentially "Dilbert" made into a movie, this was the first
big-name movie to try and portray cubicle life.

Sneakers: An oddly low-profile hacker movie of 1992, possibly because
it was actually good.

The Pirates Of Silicon Valley: The infamous made-for-TV movie
chronicling the birth (and rivalry) of Apple and Microsoft in the early
days of the GUI. A fun view for Mac users of that era.

Revolution OS: A documentary about how GNU, Linux, and the Open
Source movement in general became significant forces in the computer
industry. Obviously this film has a significant bias, but it's still an
interesting view.

The Matrix: Well, it's not all about computers, but it's about a computer
conspiracy. Also a fun movie.

Blade Runner: The movie which pretty much started "cyberpunk" as far
as movies go (books and computer games were a different story, of
course). This movie is now considered to have been "cyberpunk" long
before that term came into common parlance, due to its dark, futuristic
cityscapes and cyborg characters. (William Gibson, as famously noted in
the alt.cyberpunk FAQ, has said that "Blade Runner" looks like his
vision of the world of "Neuromancer".) Essentially, Blade Runner is the
story of a man tasked with hunting down a "Replicant", an android which
is virtually indistinguishable from a real human being.

eXistenZ

The Thirteenth Floor: A sci-fi movie that was quickly forgotten, T13F is
a story in a circa-1930s Los Angeles that has been created inside a
computer virtual reality, into which a computer tech must enter to solve
a murder mystery. The plot is subtle and the special effects make the
movie's virtual world look great.

Tron: A movie about a world-class video game player who gets digitized
into a computer and ends up being a character inside a virtual world of
video-game players. The movie's special effects must have been pretty
impressive when it came out in the early 1980s, but the plot is still
plodding and boring as any.

The Lawnmower Man: This 1992 sci-fi movie is probably best
appreciated for its special effects, even though the storyline is interesting,
if recycled: A brilliant scientist develops a machine to make people more
intelligent, and begins testing it on a rather dull-witted man named Jobe
Smith who makes a living pushing a lawnmower. The experiment is a
success, turning Smith into a being with super-human intelligence, but
the results, as one might guess, are not what the doctor intended. This
movie originally tried to pass itself off as being based on a story by
Stephen King. In truth, although King did write a short story called "The
Lawnmower Man", it had nothing to do with this movie. King sued to
get his name disassociated with the film.

Tom Clancy's Netforce: Tom Clancy is well-known as an author of
military thriller novels which are supposed to be well-researched, and
therefore grounded in reality. It's ironic, then, that this movie about the
Netforce, a fictional government agency tasked with Internet security, is
about as far removed from reality as conceivably possible. To be fair to
Clancy, he probably didn't have much to do with this movie beyond
getting his name stamped on it for publicity (he's credited as executive
producer, but that's it). Even so, Clancy should be ashamed to have his
name associated with a movie like this. I can honestly say that this is a
movie which makes "Hackers" look like a documentary. It's *that* bad.
The eponymous Netforce makes raids armed with SWAT-style weapons
but Duke Nukem-style tactics, led by Scott Bakula's character, who's
simply impossible to take seriously after he promotes his romantic
interest to be his second-in-command. (Umm, conflict-of-interest,
anybody?) Most of the posturing is dismal. (To call it "acting" would be
an insult to actors everywhere.) And, of course, the technical details are
nonexistant: At one point in the movie, the term "networking" is actually
brought up and discussed as if it were a breakthrough new technology.
Add all this to the fact that the movie is much, much too long (about two
and a half hours) and you've got a movie that sounds like a disaster.
Now that I've explained how bad this movie is, I recommend that you
watch it, because it's simply hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Falling
squarely in the "so bad it's good" league, those who come to Netforce
expecting a movie that they can laugh at and make fun of won't be
disappointed.

Max Headroom: The Original Story: Before the cult classic TV show
Max Headroom became a series, it was a made-for-TV movie. This
movie was made available on VHS videotape, with a running time of 60
minutes. It's pretty rare now.

Electric Dreams: A mid-'80s movie about a computer which takes over
its owner's house. It's one of those cliched "technology taking over
humans" movies, but with a twist: This one's a clever comedy.

Disclosure: Anyone who sees this movie doesn't usually remember the
computer aspect that much, as it's mostly a movie about a woman (Demi
Moore) sexually harrassing a man (Michael Douglas) at work (now that's
role reversal for ya).

Ghost In The Shell: It's been called "the Anime movie which people
have seen even if they haven't seen any other". GITS is an odd mixture
of fairly typical Anime with cyberpunk; The result is a little better than
a typical Anime movie, but not a whole lot.

Jumpin' Jack Flash: Another mid-'80s movie which stars Whoopi
Goldberg (not Mick Jagger as you might expect). It's actually a comedy,
which is less of a surprise.

2001: A Space Odyssey: A pioneering movie which changed how the
world thought about computers and artificial intelligence, back in the
days when AI was still mostly a dream.

Tron

The Thirteenth Floor

Antitrust

You've Got Mail
           GLOSSARY OF SOME COMPUTER TERMS

1GL: First-generation programming language. A 1GL is defined as
machine language, the pure, raw bits that make the opcodes that are sent
to a computer's CPU.

286: The first AT processor. Now obsolete.

2GL: Second-generation programming language. A 2GL is "assembler"
or "assembly" language, which is a language which uses mnemonics for
the CPU's opcodes, but is directly translatable into or from machine
language.

386: More advanced processor. Also now obsolete.

3GL: Third-generation language. A 3GL is a high-level programming
language, such as C.

486: The follow-up to the 386. Even today, a 486 is still pretty good, but
really, not many people buy them anymore. That's partly because not
many stores sell them anymore.

4GL: Fourth-generation language. 4GLs are similar to 3GLs, but with
simpler statements that are closer to normal, everyday human speech.
The distinction between the two is open to debate, and some languages
are considered to be 3GLs by some people and 4GLs by others. COBOL
is probably considered a 4GL by most people.

586: Many people think that a 586 is the same as a Pentium, but
actually, it's not. Look under "Pentium" for an explanation of the
difference.

5GL: Fifth-generation language. An environment in which you use a
graphical user interface to create an application instead of programming
the actual code. "Visual" development environments, like Visual Basic,
are 5GLs.

Abandonware: Software which has been "abandoned" by its publisher.
Usually older programs which are too old to be commercially viable, and
which have simply stopped being manufactured or sold. This is an
important sub-category of software piracy. Although abandonware is still
technically illegal to copy because the software companies still own the
copyright, it is more freely copied and traded with less fear of legal
consequences because the software companies usually do not care enough
to pursue legal action (after all, they're the ones who chose to stop
selling the program because they didn't think they could make any more
money off it). Abandonware is almost exclusively games, although there
are exceptions. Abandonare traders often justify their breach of the law
by saying they are keeping historical culture alive, by distributing classic
software which would otherwise have no way of reaching the masses.
This raises an interesting parallel between computer software and other
media such as movies and books: Many old movies and books are still
available at a video store or bookstore, but old software is very difficult
to find at any software store. Some abandonware pirates thus see
themselves as the defenders of computing history.

ACIA: Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter. An ancient
name for what is today called a UART.

ACPI: Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. The successor to
APM.

Active Matrix: See TFT.

ActiveX Control: An OLE control which has been extended for use in an
Internet environment. (OLE controls have an OCX extension.)

Address Bus: The part of a CPU which controls the memory location the
computer is currently reading from or writing to. The size of the address
bus limits how much RAM a computer can access. The original 8088 and
8086 chips had 20-bit address buses, allowing them to only access up to
1 MB of RAM. The 286 and low-end 386 chips had 24-bit address
buses, allowing up to 16 MB of RAM. The 386DX, all 486s, and the
original Pentiums all had 32-bit address buses, allowing up to 4 GB of
RAM. The Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and (as of this writing) all Intel
CPUs from there on had 36-bit address buses, allowing for up to 64 GB
of RAM.

Adventure Game: An entertainment program which generally requires
walking from place to place, solving puzzles, picking up objects and
using those objects, carefully examining just about everything, and
talking to just about everybody. Adventure games usually take place in
old times, like around the Medieval days, or in the future, but there are
some present-day ones as well.

Aeron: The definitive office chair of the dot-com world. The Aeron chair
became a symbol of the good life in Silicon Valley during the dot-com
era of the late 1990s, as well as of the subsequent downfall of the tech
industry and the people within it. *Extremely* comfortable, ergonomic,
adjustable, and expensive, the Aeron remains a great chair, but its days
as a status symbol are largely past.

AGP: Advanced Graphics Port. A bus type specifically for video cards.
Provides a 66-MHz connection to the system bus (as opposed to the 33-
MHz connection of PCI).

AGP Aperture: A BIOS setting which controls the amount of system
RAM available to your AGP video card. Generally speaking, the more
memory the video card can access, the better it performs. However, this
takes away from system RAM of course, so it's best not to set the
aperture too high unless you have a ton of system RAM.

AI: 1. Short for Artificial Intelligence. The art and science of writing
computer programs that attempt to be intelligent. Although computers
have an easy time making mathematical calculations, they are not so
easily made to calculate things that humans find easy, like distinguishing
a square from a circle; Complex algorithms are used to make the
computer do this kind of thing. Of course, AI is also used for much more
complicated things, like figuring out the best move to play in a chess
game, or analyzing a molecule's chemical structure. 2. In cyberpunk
science fiction, an "AI" is usually a singular object rather than a general
concept. An AI is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence,
and has been programmed with a life of its own. AIs are given faces,
names, and personalities, making them seem like living beings, even
though technically they are not. Of course in real life, people usually do
not program personalities into their software programs, since doing so is
not useful; It's just used as a plot device in books.

ALU: Arithmetic Logic Unit. A type of chip used for arithmetic
calculations, usually integrated into the CPU on a computer.

American Standard Code for Information Interchange: See ASCII.

AOL: America On-Line, an information service.

APA: All Points Addressable. Said of video modes which support
graphics, as opposed to text-only video modes. (It means that all points,
i.e. pixels, on the screen can be addressed.)

API: Application Program Interface

APM: Advanced Power Management

Apple: The company which makes the Macintosh. They also used to
make other computers (like the famous Apple I and Apple II lines of
systems) but not anymore.

Application: A program that does stuff. All software is applications,
except for operating systems.

Arcade Game: The kind of game kids love to play. Usually fast-paced
and often involving a lot of gore and guns and ripping out the intestines
of anybody who you see or any object that moves (assuming it has
intestines).

ARPANET: Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The
predecessor to the Internet, the ARPANET was the world's first large-
scale global computer network. Begun in 1969 as a research project, it
changed the way in which hackers thought about computers. At that time,
computers were not in general public use, and so for many years the only
people using the Net were people actively involved in computer research
or development. But the idea was big enough that it just kept growing,
eventually splitting into other networks, particularly MILNET (for use by
the military) and NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network). The
ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990, having been largely replaced
by NSFNET.

Artificial Intelligence: Also called AI. Actually a self-explanatory name.
Artificial intelligence is what makes computers appear to "think". In a
chess game, for example, a computer can be a very good player, often
being much better than most human players, and appearing to exhibit real
intelligence. But of course, computers cannot truly think, in the same
sense that humans can. That's why it's called artificial intelligence.

ASCII: Short for American Standard Code for Information
Interchange. A widely used code for storing data and stuff. Pronounced
askee.

ASCIIZ: (of a string) ASCII Zero-terminated. Ending in a null (zero-
value) character. For example, normally the string "HELLO" would be
stored as a series of five bytes, which in hexadecimal notation would be
48 45 4C 4C 4F. To make this into an ASCIIZ string, you'd add a null
byte onto the end, making the string stored as 48 45 4C 4C 4F 00.

ASP: 1. Application Service Provider, a company which offers the
service of remotely using applications. In other words, you connect to a
server and use your application (be it a word processor, spreadsheet,
database, or whatever) over a network connection, rather than having to
have the application installed locally on your own computer. Although
ASPs aren't very useful for individual home users, businesses are getting
into them because it gives them access to applications without having the
buy those applications, or maintain the computers they're installed on. 2.
Active Server Page, a weird type of HTML page which has something
to do with Microsoft.

Aspect Ratio: The ratio of width to height of a screen or image. For
example, an aspect ratio of 2:1 indicates that the width is twice the
height. Aspect ratio generally refers to the image area (the frame that
holds the image) rather than the image itself. It is an important factor in
maintaining correct proportions when a graphic is printed, resized, or
incorporated into another document.

ASPI: Advanced SCSI Programming Interface

AT: Advanced Technology.

ATA: AT Attachment interface. Essentially a newer name for what used
to be commonly called IDE.

ATAPI: AT Attachment Packet Interface. ATAPI is basically the SCSI
command set, adapted for IDE.

ATM: 1. Automated Teller Machine. 2. Asynchronous Transfer Mode.

AUI: Attachment Unit Interface. A type of network cable which uses 15-
pin connectors and is used for very short-run connections between
components in the same room. Typically they are used to connect a drop
cable (bare cable coming from the wall) to a network interface card
(NIC).

AUTOEXEC.BAT: The batch file which MS-DOS runs on bootup. Runs
after CONFIG.SYS (which isn't a batch file and has its own peculiar
syntax).

AWFL: Acronym With Four Letters. See also TLA.

B2B: Business to business.

B2C: Business to consumer.

Backup: To copy data somewhere else in case the other copy should be
lost somehow.

Backup File: A file containing a backup.

Bad Sector: A sector of a disk (can be either hard disk or floppy disk)
which is physically incapable of storing data. This sometimes happens as
a manufacturing defect, or it can result from damage to the disk.

BASIC: Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. A
programming language.

Bezos, Jeff: Founder of amazon.com.

BGI: Borland Graphics Interface.

BGP: Border Gateway Protocol. An extension of EGP which offers
additional functionality.

Big Blue: Nickname for IBM.

Bill Gates: See Gates, Bill.

Bill Hewlett: Born on May 20, 1913, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Died on
January 12, 2001 at the age of 87. Full name: William Redington
Hewlett.

Biometrics: Security which uses a person's body, rather than access
devices like keycards or passcodes, for authorization. The most common
biometric devices are fingerprint scanners. Retina scanners and voice-
activated systems which only respond to a particular person's voice are
the other two main kinds of biometric security.

BIOS: Basic In-Out System. The firmware of your computer. Pronounced
"bye-oss".

Bit: Binary Element. The smallest piece of data a computer can work
with. Can be either 1 (on) or 0 (off). 8 bits make one byte.

bitblt: BITmap BLock Transfer. A function of high-performance
(relatively speaking) video cards which aids the CPU in moving and
displaying bitmaps in Windows. This is a common function of many
early or cheap "Windows accelerator" video cards.

Black-Hat Hacker: A cracker who hacks to do damage, often deleting
files on hacked systems or crashing them. Compare White-Hat Hacker.

BLOB: Binary Large Object. A large binary object.

BNC Server: A server which is used as a gateway to an IRC server. The
purpose of BNCs is to permit the chatter to avoid having their real IP
address shown to other IRC users (because the BNC server's address is
what appears on IRC, not the actual user's address). BNCs are most
popular among lamers for obvious reasons related to avoiding bans and
K-lines, but they also have some use in avoiding denial of service
attacks. BNCs do not just let you use any hostname you want, however;
the domain name must have actually been registered and put on a DNS
server. (In other words, they cannot be used to just make up nonexistant
domain names.) Thus, they are most often used with shell Internet
accounts, on which the shell provider has already created several clever
host names for IRCers to use with a BNC server. (BNC is a contraction
of "bounce". This is not to be confused with a BNC connector, a type of
connector used for coaxial cable on LANs.)

Board: See Card.

Boot: To start up a computer.

Bottleneck: A point in a computer where performance is reduced,
slowing the whole system down. For example, in a high-end 3D game,
a fast processor and tons of RAM won't help much if your video card is
sluggish. And data-intensive applications may be slow if your hard disk
(or its I/O interface) is slow. Meanwhile, computers with an ISA bus
have an inherent bottleneck because of ISA's slow speed.

Box: 1. Computer. 2. Box.

Brouter: A piece of networking equipment which combines the functions
of a bridge and a router.

Buffer Overrun: A condition in which a buffer is being sent more data
than it can hold. When a buffer is full and something tries to put more
data into it, the data is lost and the buffer is said to have overrun
(consider it a synonym for "overflow"). A relatively common example is
when the keyboard buffer overflows: The keyboard has a buffer which
stores keystrokes which cannot be immediately sent to the computer. If
this buffer gets full and you keep on pressing keys, the buffer overruns
(most BIOSes indicate this situation by beeping or clicking with each lost
keypress). Compare Buffer Underrun.

Buffer Underrun: A condition in which all of a buffer's data has been
exhausted, when it should still have some data in it. Nowadays, the most
common example is when burning a CD-R: The CD-R drive has a buffer
where it keeps the data it's burning to the disc. If it runs out of data in
the buffer (if the data leaves the buffer faster than it's coming in), the
buffer will underrun (because it's empty and expecting more data) and
the disc will be ruined. Compare Buffer Overrun.

Bug: A flaw in hardware or software that affects how it works in a bad
way.

Bus: Any physical pathway between the various physical hardware
components of a computer. However, "bus" by itself very often refers
specifically to the expansion bus. (See Expansion Bus) "Bus" is a
shortened form of the full, official term "omnibus connector".

Bus Mastering: The technique used by some expansion cards to
communicate directly with each other, without the intervention of the
CPU or RAM. Normally, devices communicate with each other via the
CPU, but bus mastering is basically bypassing the middleman. Most post-
ISA expansion buses support bus mastering (PCI, VL-bus, EISA, and
MCA all do), but ISA does not.

Byte: The amount of storage space needed the store one character.

C: A programming language. For some reason, a lot of people don't like
programming in C, which is a bit odd to me. C is actually not a bad
language.

C++: Another programming language, an extension of C.

C: Prompt: See DOS Prompt.

Cache: See CPU Cache and Disk Cache.

CAD: Computer-Aided Design.

CADD: CAD And Drafting.

CAE: Computer-Aided Engineering.

CAI: Computer-Aided Instruction.

CAM: Computer-Aided Manufacturing.

Capacitor: An electronic component which functions as a tiny container
for electricity. You might think of it as an extremely low-capacity
battery; It stores small amounts of electrical power for a specific use, but
it can't hold enough to actually work as a main power source. Capacitors
are most often used in power supplies to stabilize the stream of
electricity. If the power to an electrical device is cut, normally the device
turns off immediately, but with a capacitor in line with the circuit, the
capacitor will keep the device powered for a little longer. This time space
is generally just a second or two, but this serves the capacitor's purpose
of smoothing out any brief interruptions or variance in the power. Many
blackouts last for a fraction of a second. (This is why many radios will
keep playing for a couple of seconds even after you unplug them.)
Capacitors come in two main varieties: Ceramic capacitors look like
small brown flat circles; They are unpolarized, and usually have very
little capacitance (typically less than 1 microfarad). Because of their low
capacitance, they are usually used for smaller electronic and logic
functions. Electrolytic or tantalum ("tantal") capacitors are polarized and
have higher capacitance. Electrolytic capacitors are shaped like tiny cans
or barrels, while tantal capacitors are shaped like little candy drops.
Because of their higher capacitance, they are typically used in electrical
applications like stabilizing a power supply. Capacitors tend to block DC
and let AC go through. (Inductors do the opposite.)

Card: Also called a Board. A little thingy that's sort of flat (but not
exactly), and which plugs into your computer. Cards include Video
Cards, Diskette/Fixed Disk Controller Cards, and Sound Cards.

CardBus: A standard for PCMCIA cards (or "PC cards") which is
essentially the same as a normal PC card, except that it supports DMA,
and it uses a 32-bit bus, so it runs much faster. CardBus cards will not
quite fit into a normal non-CardBus PCMCIA slot; They are the same
size, but CardBus cards have an additional tiny protrusion which prevents
them from being fully inserted.

CAS: Column Address Strobe. Compare RAS.

CASE: Computer-Aided Software Engineering.

Case: The main box of your computer. The one which contains the
motherboard, expansion cards, power supply, internal drives, etc. Also
called CPU, even though that term properly refers specifically to the
processor chip.

Cathode-Ray Tube: The modern-day term for a vacuum tube.
Abbreviated CRT. CRTs are still used to display images on most TVs
and computer monitors.

CD: Compact Disc.

Cellular Modem: A modem which connects to a cellular phone to make
data calls wirelessly. Although the term "cellular modem" might suggest
a modem which has built-in wireless capability, cellular modems don't
actually have any wireless capability of their own. Rather, they simply
connect (using a special cable) to a cellular phone, then the cell phone
must be dialed to reach a data line. Note, also, that each model of
cellular modem only supports certain models of cell phone, and so you
must make sure your cellular modem and cellular phone will work
together before you buy them.

CGA: Color Graphics Adaptor.

CGC: Clock Generator/Controller.

Character: One digit of text, such as a letter, number, punctuation mark,
or some other such thing. Spaces are characters, too.

Chicago: The code name for Windows 4.0 while it was in development;
It eventually was renamed to Windows 95 before it was released.

Chipset: A set of chips inside your computer. Specifically, two of them.
They control several major system functions, including DMA, bus I/O,
IRQ, cache control, and system timing. They don't have any special
function of their own, but they are the glue that holds just about
everything else in the computer together.

CHS: Cylinders/Heads/Sectors. The old way of specifying a hard disk's
size in a BIOS. Limited to disk sizes of 504 MB or less, which is why
LBA was invented.

CIS: CompuServe Information Service.

CLI: Command-Line Interface.

CLSID: Class ID. A 16-byte value which identifies an individual object
in Microsoft Windows. The most commonly-used type of GUID.

Cluster: The smallest unit of disk space that DOS can allocate. A cluster
may take up one sector on the disk, or it may take up more, depending
on the disk type. Floppy disks use clusters which are one or two sectors
in size (depending on the size of the floppy), while hard disks use more
(sometimes several dozen) sectors per cluster.

CMOS: 1. Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor. The place where
the BIOS stores its configuration information. Pronounced "see-moss".
2. Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor. The new breed of ICs,
which are well-known for their amazingly low power consumption.
However, this low power consumption brings with it lower speed; CMOS
chips cannot run as fast as most TTL chips. Also, CMOS chips are
notoriously sensitive to static electricity damage, while TTL chips are
much more robust. See also RTL, DTL, and TTL.

CMOS Battery: The battery which stores your CMOS values. These tend
to go dead after 3 to 5 years, necessitating a replacement.

COBOL: COmmon Business-Oriented Language. A very easy-to-use
programming language.

Command Interpreter: A program which accepts commands from the
user. COMMAND.COM is MS-DOS's command interpreter.

Compiler: A program which converts a programming language into
machine code. Programs written in languages other than machine
language (for example, BASIC, C, Pascal, etc.) must be compiled before
they can run.

Computer: If you don't know what a computer is, why the HECK are
you reading this? A computer is a modern, sophisticated machine which
can greatly help you in writing, drawing, playing, calculating,
negotiating, or doing just about anything that you can do with a machine.
Computers are characterized by their remarkable ability to go obsolete
and get replaced by newer, more expensive technology 4 seconds (or
less) after they hit the market.

Computer Science (CS): The science of computers, comprising several
broad fields, including computer programming, information management
(which includes gathering, organizing, processing, and presenting data),
artificial intelligence (AI) including natural-language processing (NLP),
and human-computer interaction (HCI), including virtual reality (VR).

CONFIG.SYS: A file in the root directory of a hard disk which contains
data telling the computer how it's configured. The other user-
configurable startup file besides AUTOEXEC.BAT.

Configuration: The way your computer is set up, or "configured".

Console: The two parts of the computer the user interacts with the most:
The monitor and keyboard. In the very basic classical computer setup,
the computer consists of three components: The main case which houses
the data-processing circuitry, the monitor, and the keyboard. The case is
the "computer" itself, and the other two parts make up the "console".

Cooperative Multitasking: The multitasking system used by Windows 3.X
and below. Under Cooperative Multitasking, the applications decide when
they will run, and for how long. Compare with Preemptive Multitasking.

CORBA: Common Object Request Broker Architecture.

CPS: Characters Per Second.

CPU: Central Processing Unit. The processor. This term is also
sometimes used to refer to the case as a whole. (See Case)

CPU Cache: Special memory designed to speed up your computer's
CPU. This cache memory is divided into two kinds: Level 1 (L1), which
is built right into the CPU chip itself, and Level 2 (L2), which is in the
form of separate chips on the motherboard.

CRC: Cyclic Redundancy Check. An error-checking method.

CRM: Customer Relationship Management. A category of e-commerce
software.

CRT: 1. Cathode-ray tube. 2. A TV or computer monitor which uses a
cathode-ray tube to display its image. These are gradually being phased
out by the new-generation LCD displays, as well as new technologies
like plasma displays, but CRTs are still popular because they're much
cheaper.

CS: Computer Science.

CSU/DSU: Channel Service Unit/Data Service Unit. A hardware device
very similar in form and function to a modem, except that while a
conventional modem acts as a translator between a computer and a
telephone line, a CSU/DSU acts as a translator between a (usually
Ethernet) LAN and a WAN technology, such as a T1 line, T3 line, or
Frame Relay line.

CTC: Counter/Timer Channel.

Cursor: The little thing on your screen which indicates where text would
appear if you were to type something on the keyboard right now. Cursors
can vary in shape. Most of them blink so they're easier to notice.

DAM: See RAM.

DART: Dual Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter.

Data: Information. "Datum" is a word for one piece of information, and
data is the plural. You'll find it's a word that comes up quite a bit in the
world of computers.

Data Bus: The path by which data arrives at (and leaves from) the CPU.
Processors are rated according to their data bus size. In fact, whole
computers are rated by their processor's data bus size. For example, if a
computer is deemed "an 8-bit computer", that means it has a processor
which can send or receive 8 bits (to or from the memory or I/O ports) at
a time.

Dave Packard: Born on September 7, 1912, in Pueblo, Colorado. Died on
March 26, 1996 at the age of 83.

DBA: Database Administrator

DBR: DOS Boot Record.

D-Connector: A connector in the shape of a capital letter "D", like the
kind used for parallel and serial cables.

DDE: Dynamic Data Exchange.

DDR SDRAM: Double Data Rate SDRAM. A type of SDRAM which
runs twice as fast as regular (SDR, or Single Data Rate) SDRAM.
Although many people are making the move to RDRAM, DDR is still
popular as a cheaper alternative.
  DDR SDRAM DIMMs and regular SDRAM DIMMs are physically
incompatible. However, they are fairly easy to physically distinguish, as
SDRAM has 168 pins, while DDR SDRAM has 184 pins. Also, while
plain SDRAM has two notches on the DIMM (one very close to the side
so it's easy to quickly tell which way it fits into the slot), DDR SDRAM
has only one notch mounted slightly off-center, so it's a little harder to
get it properly into place at first glance. In addition, regular SDRAM
DIMM slots are usually black, whereas DDR slots are usually some
brighter color (typically blue). SDR SDRAM is 3.3 volts, and DDR
SDRAM is 2.5 volts.

"Dead Zone": A range around the center of a joystick in which all inputs
are ignored. This is no negate annoying "drift" caused by tiny variances
or pressures on the stick. The dead zone is usually adjustable through
software. Although increasing it may eliminate drift, it also increases the
minimum possible input, making delicate maneuvers more difficult.

DEC: Digital Equipment Corporation, a company with a long and
important history in the computer industry, with products that include the
PDP family of computers (and the TOPS operating systems that went
with them), VAX and VMS, and most recently the Alpha chip.

Dedicated: Doing (or intended to do) just one thing.

de facto standard: (from Latin "de facto", roughly translated, "in fact")
A standard which is not the official standard for an industry, but so
widely-adopted that it may as well be. Examples include the 80x86
design for PC CPUs, Microsoft Windows for operating systems, the
Sound Blaster specification for sound cards, and PCL for printer
page-description languages.

Delete: The neophyte's terror. Delete is a verb which means to remove
a file from some storage media. Unfortunately, for beginners, it's all too
easy to erase a critically important file. Undelete utilities were created
for this reason.

Desoldering Braid: A strip of paper-like material which is highly
absorbent, intended for use when de-soldering electronic components.
The braid is pressed between a hot soldering iron and the solder to be
removed, and the solder is sucked into the braid, leaving a solder-free
component which can then be easily pulled off.

DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Essentially a protocol for
assigning IP addresses over a LAN. DHCP is *not* used over WANs
(for example, it is not used to assign IP addresses using PPP).

Differential Backup: A type of backup which backs up all files with the
archive attribute set, but leaves the archive attribute on when the backup
is over. Compare Full Backup, Incremental Backup.

DIMM: Dual Inline Memory Module. The type of RAM module which
superceded SIMMs. Unlike SIMMs, DIMMs can be installed one at a
time. They have 168 pins.

DIP: Dual In-Line Package. The kind of chip package which has two
rows of pins on it, parallel to each other, mounted on opposite sides of
a flat rectangle holding the actual microchip. DIPs make it easy to
connect to a microchip because it uses those pins, which are big and easy
to connect to (they usually plug into a socket). Most chips are DIPs, but
CPUs are not: They have lots of tiny little pins arranged in a grid pattern.

DIP Switch: A switch mounted on a DIP. These switches are usually
very tiny and need something like the tip of a pen to flip (unless your
fingers are unusually nimble).

Directory: An area on a disk. Instead of just heaping files together in a
jumble on a disk, directories are created so that files can be kept in
groups. Directories are usually made to keep programs in. Think of a
directory as a folder in a file cabinet, and a file as a document in a
folder.

Disc: A CD (Compact Disc). This is spelled with a C at the end, whereas
other types of computers disks are spelled with a K.

Disk: A general term which usually refers to either a floppy disk or a
hard disk. Not to be confused with disc.

Disk Cache: Like CPU Cache, except built into a Hard Disk. Serves the
same purpose, however.

Disk Drive: A term which encompasses both Hard Disks and Floppy
Drives.

Divx: 1. (short for DIgital Video eXpress) Formerly, a type of DVD
which was coded to "self-destruct" after 48 hours of the first play. The
user would then have to pay to view the disc again. Divx players require
a connection to a phone line (that's right, they need a special Divx
player; They do not play in normal DVD players), so they can dial out
and contact the billing office to charge you for additional views of the
disc. Although heavily marketed by Circuit City, Divx was a much-hated
system right from the start, as consumers did not go for the "pay per
play" video model, preferring simply to buy a normal video with the
ability to play it as much as they wanted forever. Divx is now almost
dead. 2. More recently, a compression format for movies which makes
them about 8 to 12 times smaller than a DVD; Approximately 600 to 700
megabytes, or in that range, meaning one would just about fill a standard
CD-ROM. Basically, DivX is to movies what MP3 is to music and other
audio: The format of choice for sharing them on the Internet. The fact
that DivX has the same name as the other Divx confuses people to no
end. (Hint: DivX, the compression format, used BiCapitalization on the
X, whereas Divx, the rental format, usually doesn't.)

DLL: Dynamic Link Library. Used by Windows. DLL files usually have
a DLL extension, but they don't have to. A DLL contains functions used
in programming. They are libraries of programming functions which you
can access so you don't have to create your own function to do
something while you're writing a program.

DMI: Desktop Management Interface. A specification which is essentially
a way of examining a PC's insides and reprogramming it from a remote
location. The latest version of DMI is version 2.1. It's usually only used
on LANs.

DMR: Dennis M. Ritchie, designer of C (the programming language) and
considered co-author of Unix (along with Ken Thompson). Ritchie also
co-wrote the famous book "The C Programming Language" with Brian
Kernighan. (The book is commonly known as "K&R".)

DNS: Domain Name System. The system used by the Internet to keep
track of human-readable domain names (like foo.com) and their
corresponding IP addresses (like 1.2.3.4). See also InterNIC.

Documentation: The manuals for something.

DOS: Short for Disk Operating System. A software program designed to
help you use your computer. DOSes usually include a number of utilities
and assorted goodies. The term is also sometimes used to refer
specifically to MS-DOS.

DOS Prompt: The command prompt for MS-DOS. Also called "C:
prompt", because you're usually in drive C: (the first hard disk on the
system) when you're there.

Download: To copy something into your computer through a modem.
Some people spend all day doing this, getting the latest games from the
Internet.

DPI: Dots Per Inch.

DRAM: Dynamic RAM. Your basic RAM. In DRAM, information is
stored as a series of charges in a capacitor. Within a millisecond of being
charged, the capacitor discharges and needs to be refreshed. This constant
updating is the reason for the use of the term "dynamic".

Drive: See Disk Drive.

DSTN: Dual-Scan Twisted Nematic. The new term for what used to be
called "passive matrix". See TFT for more info.

DSU: See CSU/DSU.

DTL: Diode-Transistor Logic. An IC logic family newer than RTL, but
still considered obsolete. Most DTL devices have 900-series numbers.
See also RTL, TTL, and CMOS.

DTP: DeskTop Publishing.

DTV: DeskTop Video.

DVD: Digital Video Disc, or Digital Versatile Disc. Just like a CD, but
lots bigger.

DX: A normal processor with its math coprocessor working. Used to
distinguish from SX chips.

Dynamic RAM: See DRAM.

Dynamic Register: A register on a CPU which behaves like dynamic
RAM (DRAM) in that it must be constantly refreshed or it loses its data.
The registers are refreshed each time the CPU receives a clock pulse on
its clock input pin. Very nearly all computer CPUs in microcomputers
use dynamic registers, and therefore cannot be run below a certain clock
speed without becoming useless. Probably the only major computer CPU
ever made which did NOT use dynamic registers was the Z80; It can
actually be stopped by simply stopping its clock input, without losing the
data inside its registers. Attempting to do this with any other CPU would
result in an instant system crash.

EAX: Environmental Audio Extensions

ECP: Enhanced Communication Port. A type of parallel port. Some older
devices don't support ECP parallel ports, so to use them, you'll need to
set the port mode to Normal, assuming your BIOS lets you do this
(which it should).

EDO: Extended Data Out. A type of RAM which is faster than regular
DRAM.

Edutainment: Combination of the words "education" and "entertainment".
Refers to software (usually games) which, while being fun, also teach
math, or reading, or whatever.

EGA: Enhanced Graphics Adaptor.

EGP: Exterior Gateway Protocol.

EIDE: Enhanced IDE. EIDE is like IDE, except it supports LBA, and it's
faster.

ELF: 1. Extremely Low Frequency. In the range of 5 Hz to 2,000 Hz (2
KHz). 2. Executable and Linking Format. A format of binary file used
for executables under Linux. Essentially, ELF files are to Linux what
.EXE files are to MS-DOS.

Ellison, Larry: CEO of Oracle and friend of Scott McNealy. Full name:
Lawrence J. Ellison.

EMI: Electromagnetic Interference. "Noise" created by electrical fields
which can interfere with data transmission. This is exactly the reason
why some data cables are often shielded against interference. Not to be
confused with ESD.

EMS: Expanded Memory Standard.

End User: See also Hacker. The kind of person who doesn't care about
how computers work or what's going on behind the screen. End users
want to get in, get the job done, and get out, without doing anything with
the guts of the computer. In general, end users tend to be technologically
uneducated.

Engelbart, Douglas: Inventor of the mouse in 1968. He went on to work
for Logitech, the world's best maker of mice and mouse-like input
devices.

EPP: Enhanced Parallel Port. A type of parallel port similar to (but older
than) ECP.

Error: Something that goes wrong. There's about a million and one errors
that can occur inside any computer, no matter how reliable and carefully
put-together the components may be.

Error Message: An onscreen message informing you that an error has
occurred.

ESD: Electrostatic Discharge. A jolt of static electricity, one of the most
common causes of physical damage to electronic components. Not to be
confused with EMI.

ESDI: Enhanced Small Device Interface (or Enhanced System Device
Interface).

ESR: Eric S. Raymond, author and contributor of several books, most
notably "The New Hacker's Dictionary".

Ethernet: A networking standard, specifying both cabling types and data-
link protocol. As such, it occupies Layers 1 and 2 (the Physical layer and
the Data-Link layer, respectively) of the OSI model. An almost Ethernet-
like protocol is specified in IEEE 802.3. Ethernet is the most popular
networking flavor among LANs today, and has been for several years.
Unlike most protocols, it uses the CSMA/CD technique for MAC rather
than the "token" system, which basically means that on an Ethernet
network, any computer can start transmitting over the network at any
time, but this raises the possibility of network "collisions".

EULA: End-User License Agreement.

Expanded Memory: Also known as EMS.

Expansion Bus: A bus which connects specifically to the expansion slots.

Expansion Card: A card which you plug into your motherboard's
expansion slots. Very often shortened just to "Card". (See Card)

Expansion Slot: One of the slots on the motherboard. Used for plugging
in expansion cards. Usually called just slots.

Extended Memory: Also known as XMS.

External: An adjective usually used to refer to peripherals. It means
outside the case of the computer, rather than inside.

Fab: Short for Fabrication Plant.

Fabrication Plant: A chip manufacturing factory, which creates chips all
the way from the raw silicon wafer stage to the final chip. Fabrication
plants cost billions of dollars to build. They are called "fabs" for short.

Falling Edge: A transition from a logic 1 to a logic 0. Also called
negative edge.

FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions. Despite the name, however, FAQs
are not actually frequently-asked questions, but FILES which CONTAIN
frequently-asked questions (along with answers to those questions). FAQs
often have an extension of FAQ (appropriately enough) even though
they're usually plain text files.

FAT: See File Allocation Table

FCC: Short for Federal Communications Commision.

FDC: Floppy Drive Controller. The device which controls a floppy drive.

Federal Communications Commision: Also Known As FCC.

File: See Directory for a little analogy of what a file is like.

File Allocation Table: The place where your computer keeps info on
where all your files are stored on a disk.

FILE_ID.DIZ: The filename of the "descriptor" file often included with
archived files (such as ZIPs). It's basically a simple ASCII text file
which describes the contents of the archive. Many BBS software
packages search uploaded archives for FILE_ID.DIZ and will
automatically use it as the file description.

Firmware: Software which actually takes the form of hardware. Firmware
is usually a ROM chip which contains code for the software. The only
type of firmware in general use is the BIOS, which is the startup
program which boots up your computer before control goes to the OS.

Floppy Disk: One of those flat things which holds data. Floppy disks are
now outdated.

Floppy Drive: A machine which can read from and write to floppy disks.

Font: A style of text. When you're writing an invitation to have dinner
with the Queen, you might use a fancy font, for example. Some people
have thousands of fonts on their computer, because different styles of
text are important for different purposes.

Format: 1. (verb) To basically place a grid on a disk so the computer
knows where to put data. The computer can't just throw data anywhere
on a disk, it needs a logically-organized grid to neatly fit the data into.
Most operating system come with utilities to format disks for you. Disks
must be formatted before they can be used on a computer. Disks can also
be bought preformatted, so they're ready-to-use right out of the box. 2. 

FPGA: Field Programmable Gate Array.

Frame Relay: A data transmission standard which is based on the older
X.25. However, frame relay is a "fast-packet" system designed for digital
networks, while X.25 was designed for analog networks.

Freeware: Software which is just the same as shareware, except even
cheaper: You don't pay anything for it. They don't even ask money after
you've tried the program out to see if it looks good. Of course, as you
may have guessed, most freeware sucks. But, surprise: There really are
some very good freeware programs that exist, made by people who just
like to help out without getting anything in return for it.

FSB: Front-Side Bus.

Full Backup: A type of backup which simply backs up the whole disk.
Compare Differential Backup, Incremental Backup.

Function Key: The 12 (or sometimes 10) keys which are in a row on the
top of your keyboard (or sometimes in two columns on the side), and
which are numbered F1, F2, F3, etc. up to F12 (or F10). Function keys
are so vaguely-named because they have no set functions. They are the
keys usually used for special purposes. See, when you press the letter A
key on your keyboard, usually what that does is it types in a letter A.
Most of the keys have particular functions that they usually do. But not
the function keys: They can do anything, and their functions sometimes
vary wildly from program to program. However, some function key
generalizations can be made: The F1 key is often used for getting help,
and the F2 key is sometimes used in games for turning sound effects on
or off. Other than that, though, function key functions will vary.

GAL: Generic Array Logic. See also PAL.

Gates, Bill: Big, important, president, chairman, CEO, and general head
guy of Microsoft Corp. Gates is currently the richest man in the world,
because he really knows how to play his cards. Full name: William
Henry Gates III.

GDI: Graphics Device Interface.

Gigabyte: A little more than a billion bytes.

GLS: Guy L. Steele Jr., author of "Common LISP: The Language" (the
Aluminum Book). Also known as "The Great Quux", the nickname he
used when creating the semi-infamous "Crunchly" cartoons.

GPF: General Protection Fault. A type of error caused by a program
which tries to access a section of RAM which does not belong to it.
Running programs are given a particular section of memory with which
they can work; When they try to write to memory outside that area, the
operating system usually shuts down the program and gives a GPF error.

GPU: Graphics Processing Unit. The graphics chip of a video card.

GUID: Globally Unique Identifier. A 16-byte data structure for holding
IDs of OLE controls. The most commonly-used GUID in today's Win32
programming world is a CLSID (Class ID), but there are also IIDs
(Interface IDs), REFIIDs (Reference Interface IDs), and UUIDs
(Universally Unique IDs).

Hacker: See also End User and Wannabee. Hackers are very technical
and knowledgeable people in the world of computers. They're not
content to just USE their computers, they have to OPEN UP the
computers and SEE what's actually INSIDE the computers. They
WALLOW in computers. The term is also sometimes used in a
derogatory way to refer to someone who gains unauthorized access to
computer systems and/or data banks. Hackers have a tendency to be
notoriously insensetive to other people's feelings (because they're more
concerned about the feelings of their computers), and most have a very
strange sense of humor. They are actually a distinct culture unto
themselves and deserve to be recognized as such. Hackers have a set of
stereotypes that they tend to conform to. While I think it's going a bit
far, they are contained in The New Hacker's Dictionary, Third Edition,
which I found to be a fairly comprehensive and entertaining book about
hackers. Note that the term "Hacker" can also refer to people who
illegally break into computer data... But that's a completely different
meaning.

Hacking Run: What happens when you have a big project to work on. A
hacking run is basically a prolonged period of computer usage, which can
last several days (during which time the user does not sleep).

Hard Copy: A printed paper copy of something, as opposed to "soft
copy", which is an image on a screen.

Hard Disk: A disk drive permanently installed in a computer which stays
there and is not removed much.

Hard Drive: Same as Hard Disk.

Hardware: The actual, tangible physical components of your computer.
See also Software.

HDC: Hard Drive Controller. The device which controls a hard drive.

HDL: Hardware Description Language. A computer language, similar to
a programming language, that describes an electronic circuit. Very
commonly used in specifying chip functionalities when working with
FPGAs and the like. The two most common HDLs are Verilog and
VHDL.

Heat Sink: A thingy attached to modern CPUs to keep them away from
other things, to protect from melting or burning. (The Pentium creates
very high temperatures when it runs.)

Hertz: A unit of frequency. Transtales to "cycles per second". A CPU
which runs at 33 MHz runs at 33 million hertz, or 33 million cycles per
second. Yes, that is fast, but modern CPUs run much faster than that.

Hewlett, Bill: Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, along with Dave Packard.
Full name: William R. Hewlett.

HR: Human Resources. A company department.

Hub Server: See Leaf Server

Huffman Coding: (named after David Huffman, a student who published
a paper on this technique in 1952) A compression scheme which assigns
a short code to every letter in a file, and uses these shorter codes to
effect compression. Distinguished from LZW Coding.

Hz: Short for hertz.

IBM: Short for International Business Machines. IBM was, for years, the
leader in the computer industry, and they invented the original IBM PC.
Today, however, IBM has become a has-been. They've been overcome
by Microsoft.

IC: Integrated Circuit.

ICMP: Internet Control Message Protocol. An Internet protocol similar
to TCP and IP, except used specifically for control and error information
around the Internet regarding the transmission of IP packets.

IDE: Integrated Drive Electronics. The most popular hard drive interface.

IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. An organization
that defines standards for network cabling schemes. The IEEE is
affiliated with the ISO.

IGMP: Internet Group Management Protocol.

IGP: Interior Gateway Protocol. There are currently two IGPs in common
use: OSPF and RIP.

IGRP: Interior Gateway Routing Protocol.

IID: Interface ID. A 16-byte value which identifies an interface. A type
of GUID.

Illegal: (of an instruction or command) Invalid or incapable of being
carried out. Illegal instructions are usually ones which the computer will
not "allow", either for safety reasons or because of hardware or software
limitations. In the computer world, this term does not usually have its
real-world meaning, although it has led to confusion when "This program
has performed an illegal operation" errors lead users to believe they have
broken actual law.

Impedance: A property of an electrical/electronic circuit, measuring how
much opposition the circuit presents to electricity. Impedance is a
combination of resistance and reactance. However, since reactance is a
property that only applies to AC (alternating current), you can pretty
much equate impedance with resistance if you are using DC.

Incremental Backup: A type of backup which backs up all files with the
archive attribute set, and turns off the archive attribute afterwards.
Compare Differential Backup, Full Backup.

Intel: A megagiant company which is the head producer of computer
processors. They patented the 8086, 8088, 80286, 80386, 80486, and
80586 (now called the "Pentium") design. Intel has made a few attempts
at doing other stuff besides processors, but the truth is, processors is all
they do well. And boy, they REALLY do it well!

Interactive Fiction (IF): Completely text-based adventure games. Used
almost exclusively by die-hard fans of these kinds of games.

Intermediate Bus: A bus which connects to the CPU through a buffering
controller. This controller is responsible for the speed and timing of data
operations, unlike a Local Bus, which allows a device to operate at the
same speed as the CPU.

Internal: Inside the computer.

Internal Speaker: The really bad little speaker that comes with all
computers. It was never meant to produce really fancy music or sound
effects. Its whole purpose was to make beeps or other basic noises.
Computers still have them today, although modern software doesn't use
them. Sound cards have taken over.

Internet: A computer network which consists of a lot of computers
around the world communicating with each other. See IP, PSN, SLIP,
and PPP.

InterNIC: Internet Network Information Center. A joint venture between
the United States government and Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) which
operates the database storing all the domain names on the Internet.
Registering domains is done through NSI, and thus they have the sole
monopoly on domain name registration. (NOTE: This has since changed.
As of October 1998, a new, non-profit, global organization called the
Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will
handle the registration process.) See also DNS.

Interrupt Request: A connection to your computer from a device. The
IRQs are the data lines through which your computer's components
communicate.

Intersetion Point: A very fancy name for the cursor.

Inverter: Common name for a NOT gate, a logic gate which simply
reverses its input. (i.e. it outputs a 1 if it receives a 0, and outputs a 0 if
it receives a 1.)

I/O: Input/Output.

IOPL: I/O Privilege Level. On Intel protected-mode CPUs, a level of
control given to a program that affects what it is allowed to do. There are
four IOPLs, called simply IOPL 0 through IOPL 3. Code that runs at
IOPL 0 can use any CPU instruction and access any I/O address, while
code that runs at IOPL 3 is more restricted. IOPLs are often called
"ring"s, for example, "ring 1" or "ring 2".

IO.SYS: The first file MS-DOS loads when it boots up.

IP: Internet Protocol. The main protocol for the Internet which servers on
it use to communicate with each other. IP is in layer 3 (the Networking
layer) of the OSI model. See also TCP and PSN.

IPC: Intelligent Peripheral Controller.

IPCP: IP Control Protocol, an NCP used with PPP. See PPP for more
information.

IP Masquerading: A form of Network Address Translation (NAT) which
allows a LAN of several computers to access the Internet using a single
"gateway" machine, and "piggybacking" on that machine's IP address. IP
masquerading will allow all the computers involved to access the Internet
even though they don't have actual IP addresses; All their traffic goes
over the IP address of the gateway machine. Besides saving on Internet
connections and IP addresses (you only need one to connect a whole
LAN of computers), IP masquerading also creates a very secure network,
because since none of the machines behind the gateway have "real" IP
addresses, it is hard for attackers to get at them.

IPsec: A scheme to incorporate Internet security at the network layer
(layer 3 of the OSI networking model), which in the Internet's case is IP
(Internet Protocol). Previous attempts at implementing Internet security
have focused on layer 7, the application layer. Although layer 7 security
is effective when properly implemented, the need has been recognized to
imbue the Internet with security by changing its fundamental structure,
rather than using techniques which simply tack security on top of the
protocols. IPsec is, as of this writing, very much still a work in
development and has not yet been officially defined or implemented, but
it's sure getting a lot of attention.

IPX: Internetwork Packet Exchange. A LAN protocol. Specifically, a
NetWare protocol for moving information across the network. IPX is in
layer 3 (the Networking layer) of the OSI model. Historically, IPX has
been important because it was the native protocol of Novell NetWare,
and NetWare was the most popular NOS. In the mid-1990s, however,
with the uprising of Windows 95 and the Internet, this began to change:
NetWare 5 uses IP by default, making IPX effectively obsolete and IP
the virtually-universal protocol for both LANs and WANs. See also SPX.

IRQ: Interrupt ReQuest

IRS: Short for Internal Revenue Service. A widely-despised organization
which collects taxes. Why did you look this up? It has nothing to do with
computers.

IS: Information Systems. A company department. See also MIS.

ISA Bus: Industry-Standard Architecture. A type of bus. Now outdated.
Should no longer be kept, as it creates the dreaded IRQ limitation which
had existed for many decades in PCs.

ISO: International Standards Organization. A worldwide organization that
defines standards for communications, such as the OSI model.

ISP: Internet Service Provider

IT: Information Technology.

J-Card: 1. A template of paper format used for the back covers of "single
slim-line" CD cases, which are like jewel cases except about 75% as
thick. See also Tray Card. 2. A sheet of paper printed using this
template.

JEDEC: Joint Electronic Devices Engineering Council.

JScript: A scripting language made by Microsoft and based on
JavaScript, but slightly different in some ways. Early versions of JScript
were terribly incompatible with JavaScript standards, leading to stacks of
errors on most JavaScript-using pages. Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0,
the first browser to use JScript, is particularly vulnerable to these
problems. IE 4.0 and subsequent versions have had their JavaScript
support cleaned up, resulting in a more-or-less JavaScript-compatible
browser.

JWZ: Jamie W. Zawinski, a semi-famous hacker for writing the Unix
version of Netscape and founding mozilla.org. Runs a personal website
at www.jwz.org, which proudly bears a quote from an anonymous
Slashdot poster reading: "I have yet to come across so much self-
righteous bullshit as when I gaze upon the massive heap of crap that is
the jwz web experience."

K: Short for Kilobyte.

Kerberos: A system of network security in which every connection to a
host computer requires a "ticket" of authenticity, which can be gotten
from a ticket-granting server (TGS), which is turn requires a ticket from
an authentication server (AS) first. Obviously, Kerberos is a complicated
system, but it is remarkably effective in promoting network security,
which explains its widespread usage. It was first developed on the
Athena Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). (The
name originates from Greek mythology, in which Kerberos was a three-
headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades.)

Kernel: (In Unix/Linux) The part of the OS which contains the main
startup code. Basically the heart of the entire OS, and one of the three
main parts of it (the other two being the shell and the file system).

Keyboard: The board with keys on it.

Kilobyte: 1,024 bytes.

KVM: Keyboard-Video-Mouse. Used in reference to KVM switches.

L2TP: Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol. Essentially an extension of PPTP.

LAN: Local Area Network. A relatively small computer network which
is usually owned by a single organization (such as a business) and
usually confined to one building. Used for things like company
employees exchanging messages and files with each other. Compare with
WAN.

Laptop: A cute little computer that fits in your hand and which you can
carry around with you. In this age of computer-mania, the idea of laptops
has become enourmously popular. Just about every businessman has one.
The term "laptop" often encompasses the entire range of portable
computers, including Notebooks (which, officially, are actually smaller
than real laptops), and sometimes Subnotebooks (which, as you may
have guessed, are smaller still).

Laptop Computer: See Laptop

Large Mode: Often used in the BIOS as a synonym for LBA mode
(referring to the way the BIOS accesses the hard disk).

Latch: An electronic logic device which can store a logic bit (1 or 0)
until it is needed. A latch usually has three connections: An input, an
"activate" line, and an output. Normally the latch contains whatever is on
the input line. When the "activate" line goes high, the latch outputs
whatever value it is storing. When the activate line goes low again, the
latch goes back to storing the input state.

LBA: Logical Block Addressing. The new standard in translating a hard
drive's specifications for the BIOS. Used instead of old-fashioned CHS
mode because it supports drives larger than 504 MB. LBA is sometimes
informally called "Large Mode".

LCP: See PPP

Leaf Server: In IRC networks, a type of server which other IRC servers
cannot connect to. Leaf servers are used for lower-bandwidth servers
which probably couldn't handle the added load of other servers
connecting to them. This is opposed to a hub server, an IRC server
which other IRC servers can link to. (The name is by analogy with a tree
branch: Leaves cannot connect to other leaves, only the branch. Hence,
a leaf is a stand-alone outcropping which cannot have anything else
growing from it.)

Legacy: Old. A polite euphemism. The term "legacy systems" is often
used to describe systems which are obsolete, but still in use because they
still work, and newer equipment would be too expensive.

LFN: Long Filename. A filename which takes advantage of Windows
9x's ability to store filenames longer than the DOS limit of 8 characters
plus a 3-character extension.

Light Pen: The pen-like stylus that you use to write directly on the
screen. You need a special monitor to use these pens. Most computers
don't have them.

Linmodem: A modem which was designed to only work with Windows
and normally requires Windows device drivers, but which can be used
under Linux through Linux device drivers which emulate the Windows
ones. This term derives from Winmodem. You can find out more about
Linmodems and the Linux drivers that have been created for them at
www.linmodems.org

Local: On this computer (the one you're sitting at right now). Opposite
of remote.

Local Area Network: A network of computers which is almost always
confined to a single building, and if not, certainly not very far beyond
that building (less than 1 kilometre). Used in businesses where all the
computers in the building are linked together through wires in the walls.

Local Bus: An expansion bus which is directly wired between the
connector and the CPU. A local bus connects a device directly to the
CPU. Compare Intermediate Bus.

Logic Bomb: A computer program (usually a virus) which is set to
trigger when certain conditions have been met. This is similar to a time
bomb, except a time bomb's trigger is a particular time, whereas logic
bombs are triggered by "logic", such as a particular program being run
or other non-time-related conditions. See also Time Bomb.

Lord British: Pen name of Richard Garriott, designer of the legendary
Ultima series of computer role-playing games and a computer gaming
legend; Given the nickname by college buddies because of his polite
manners.

LPB: Low-Ping Bastard. Used in online action games to describe
someone who is thought to be doing well simply because of lower ping
latency (usually caused by a fast Internet connection).

LPT: A parallel port. DOS supports up to 3 parallel ports and labels them
from LPT1 to LPT3. This stands for "line printer".

LUN: Logical Unit Number. A number assigned to a non-physical device
which is part of a SCSI device. Devices with LUNs are not attached
directly to the SCSI bus, as devices with PUNs are (see PUN). Instead,
they are connected to the SCSI device, and that device, in turn, is
connected to the bus. A maximum of eight LUNs can be attached to any
device with a PUN. In most cases, however, a single LUN is simply used
as the logical device for the physical device (much as a physical hard
disk often has just one "logical" hard disk).

LVD: Low-Voltage Differential. Usually used in reference to Ultra2
LVD SCSI drives, which have two advantages over drives using other
interfaces: They have higher burst transfer rates (80 MB/second), and
longer maximum cable lengths (almost 30 feet).

LZW Coding: (named after Lempel, Ziv, and Welch) A compression
scheme which attempts to find commonly-recurring groups of letters in
a file, and then uses a single token to represent these groups.
Distinguished from Huffman Coding.

Mac: Short for Macintosh

MAC Address: An address used to identify a physical network device on
a network. MAC addresses are sometimes called BIAs (Burned-In
Addresses), because they are set inside a NIC (Network Interface Card)
at the factory by being burned into ROM. A MAC address is
permanently set in a network device's ROM chips and cannot be changed
other than by altering those chips. So how do people avoid getting
conflicting MAC addresses on the same network? The answer is simple
but amazing: Every NIC in the world has a different MAC address
burned into it. Although it seems hard to believe that every NIC ever
made could have a different address built into it, it becomes easier when
you understand the mechanics of a MAC address. A MAC address is 48
bits (6 bytes) long, and those 48 bits are divided in half: The first 24 bits
are an identifier for a particular NIC's manufacturer. Every manufacturer
is assigned an ID by the IEEE (that's right, NIC manufacturing is
partially regulated by the IEEE), and they must use their own 24-bit ID
in those first 24 bits. (This 24-bit identifier which each manufacturer has
is called an Organizationally Unique Identifier, or OUI.) Then, the last
24 bits form each individual card's address. As long as the manufacturer
keeps track of what addresses it has already manufactured and makes
each one unique, global uniqueness of each card's BIA is assured.

Macintosh: Apple's signature computer. Also the most successful.

Main Menu: The central menu of a program, usually displayed when it
first starts and which you can go back to from more specific menus.

MAPI: Messaging Application Programming Interface.

Markham: A city in Canada, directly north of Toronto's east end, and
famous (at least locally) as "the Silicon Valley of the North". Several
major high-tech companies, including IBM, Compaq, Apple, Novell, Sun
Microsystems, Motorola, ATI, Canon, Autodesk, Lucent Technologies,
Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Philips, Hyundai, and Borland have their Canadian
headquarters in Markham. It probably has the highest concentration of
such companies of any city in Canada, although the high-tech industry
is also unusually prominent in Richmond Hill, just west of Markham.

Max Headroom: A TV show of the 1980s which was the first (and,
nearly 20 years later, still the only) cyberpunk TV program. Being well
ahead of its time and too intelligent for the typical TV viewer, it was
canceled after a single season, producing only 14 episodes, which
originally aired in 1987. (Prior to that, Max Headroom actually began as
a made-for-TV movie in the UK.)

MBR: Master Boot Record.

MCAD: Mechanical CAD.

McNealy, Scott: CEO of Sun Microsystems and friend of Larry Ellison.

MDA: Monochrome Display Adaptor.

MDI: Medium Dependant Interface. A port or socket on an Ethernet
network attachment unit which uses a regular wiring diagram. Compare
MDIX.

MDIX (also spelled MDI-X): MDI crossover. A port on an Ethernet
attachment unit which has its wiring internally crossed, negating the need
to use a crossover Ethernet cable. Note that many modern Ethernet
devices support auto-MDI/MDIX switching, meaning that they will
automatically detect whether crossing over is necessary or not; Such
devices can use either straight-through or crossover twisted-pair cables
to connect devices, regardless of whether they are computers or other
network devices (like hubs, switches, routers, etc.)

Megabyte: 1,024 Kilobytes, or 1,048,576 bytes.

Megahertz: 1 million hertz.

Memory-Mapped I/O: A system in which the CPU performs I/O
(input/output) via the memory buses (the address bus and the data bus).
It is necessary to do I/O this way if the CPU has no separate I/O bus. A
small portion of memory space is reserved for I/O space, and the CPU
reads from/writes to peripheral ports in the same way as it reads or
writes the memory. Thus, the memory space is usually divided into three
main areas: RAM, ROM, and I/O. "Memory" addresses used for I/O
cannot be used for RAM/ROM access, and so steps must be taken to
ensure that the CPU does not try to store information in these addresses,
leading to "holes" in the actual RAM space. Typically, the memory
controller chip will disable the RAM/ROM chips while I/O addresses are
being accessed so they will not interfere. The classic Z80 CPU as well
as Intel's famous 80x86 CPU lineup have separate "memory access" and
"I/O access" output pins, allowing the hardware designer to activate or
de-activate devices depending on whether the CPU is performing a
memory access or an I/O access; Under such a system, creating "holes"
in the actual memory is not necessary. Although this is not technically
a dedicated I/O bus, since the information is still traveling over the same
buses used to access memory, this feature means that the x80 CPUs are
usually considered to have separate memory and I/O spaces. The 6502
does not have this feature, and thus must use true memory-mapped I/O.

Memory-Mapped Video: A method of displaying stuff on a monitor in
which each pixel corresponds to a particular location in the computer's
memory. The PC and most other modern computers use memory-mapped
video. Some pre-PC computers used "terminal" systems in which letters
were produced, but the computer had no "memory" of what was being
shown on the screen.

Menu: A list of choices, much like the analogous menu of a restaurant.

Mess-DOS: Old slang name for MS-DOS, so named back then because
it was a clunky OS with stupid limitations (and, in a few ways, still is).

Metastable: In a state between two stable points. In the context of digital
electronics, this refers to a part of a circuit which is neither "high" (1)
nor "low" (0), but some state in between. For example, many electronics
run on 5 volts; In these electronics, 5 volts is a binary 1 and 0 volts is
a binary 0. If any part of the circuit is at 2.5 volts, it is in a metastable
state, and any electronics affected by it will be confused. Is it 1 or is it
0? In computers, metastable states are usually a problem when a circuit
receives input when it's not supposed to, as a result of bad timing. If a
circuit is supposed to be at 0 volts and something else sends it 5 volts,
for instance, it will probably end up being at some voltage in between,
which will probably make the whole computer crash. This is supposed
to be avoided with proper timing implementation, ensuring that the
system timers "wait" before doing anything to make sure that they will
not be hit by a metastable condition. This kind of synchronization
problem is one of the most confounding and frustrating problems in
digital computer hardware design because of its unpredictability and
difficulty in diagnosing or analyzing.

MFT: Master File Table.

MHz: See Megahertz

Micron: A unit of measurement, one thousandth of a millimetre. Yes,
that's very small.

Microsoft: The current leader in computer productivity stuff. As it is
owned by Bill Gates, Microsoft is a multibillion-dollar business. They're
the ones who stole IBM's thunder.

Microsoft DOS: See MS-DOS.

Microsoft Windows: The most commonly-used OS on home computers
today. This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you
are and what you use computers for.

Millisecond: 1/1000 of a second. Used to measure seek times of disk
drives.

MIS: Management Information Systems. A company department. See
also IS.

MMU: Memory Management Unit.

Mobo: Slang for motherboard.

Modem: Short for "modulator-demodulator". A modem converts
("modulates") computer data into signals that can be sent over telephone
wires, and it also re-converts ("demodulates") signals from the phone line
back into computer-speak. The modem itself has a cable running out of
it that you plug into a phone jack, and another cable that you plug into
your computer (or, some modems plug directly into the inside of your
computer without any cables). So the modem actually acts as a translator
between your computer and the phone system.

Momentary Switch: A switch which is meant to be only triggered for a
moment before going back to its "normal" state. A button which does not
stay in when you push it is a momentary switch. Compare Toggle
Switch.

Monitor: The television-like device on your computer which shows stuff.

Monochrome: One-color. A monitor can be monochrome, or a Video
Card can be.

Moore's Law: In 1975, Gordon E. Moore (who was, at the time,
chairman of Intel) predicted that the density of transistors on
microprocessor chips would double approximately every 18 months.
Although at the time, he intended this only as a general rule of thumb,
the next several years showed chip development that stayed incredibly
true to this forecast. Indeed, whenever transistor density is charted on a
time graph, it is seen that Moore's prediction was so uncannily accurate
that it has since been informally known as "Moore's Law". This "law"
has since become legendary in the computer and microprocessor
industries. Moore, for his part, admitted he had no idea his statement
would be so well-remembered decades later. (Historical note: Moore's
1975 statement was actually a revision of an earlier prediction he had
made in 1965, in which he had forecast only 12 months for each
successive doubling of transistor density.)

Motherboard: The biggest board inside your computer.

Move: I was going to define this, but it has basically the same meaning
in computers as in other areas of life, so I'll just leave it at that and no
further definition is necessary.

MPC: 1. Multimedia PC. 2. Can also refer to the MPC Multimedia PC
standard, which was a very funny joke that came out several years ago.
The idea was to create a standard which computers should adhere to, so
they could ensure good multimedia performance. The standard was
laughable, because its specifications were woefully low, and also because
nobody seemed to know what it was: Ask 10 different people what the
MPC standard was, and you'd get 10 different answers. Some said it
specified something, others said it needed something else. There were
also MPC-2 and MPC-3 standards which came out later, and which were
intended to be updated versions of the MPC standard but which suffered
from the same problems. For a while, computers even started getting a
cute MPC logo on them (which was more "multimedia" than the standard
itself) which was intended to indicate that the computer adhered to the
standard. If you see such a logo, the computer you're looking at is not
something you would want to have.

MPEG: Motion Picture Experts Group

MRU: Maximum Receive Unit. See also MTU.

MS-DOS: Microsoft DOS, the classical operating system for computers.
DOS is text-based, so it's not nearly as graphical and cutesy-easy-to-use
as Windows, but it's also generally faster than Windows, and it gives
you more direct control over the computer, which is why some advanced
computer users prefer it.

MS-DOS Compatibility Mode: A disk-access mode in which Windows
uses 16-bit disk access rather than 32-bit. This will cause your disk
drives to be slower, but should otherwise function identically to normal
32-bit mode. This is usually caused by a driver problem (e.g. a drive
using 16-bit drivers).

MTU: Maximum Transmission Unit. The largest unit of data a
communications terminal (usually a modem) is allowed to transmit.
Usually expressed in bytes. See also MRU.

Multisync: (of a computer monitor) Able to automatically detect and
synchronize with any video mode it receives from the video card. This
is important because older monitors had limited ranges they could
support; Some couldn't go up to 70 Hz vertical refresh rate, for example,
and many didn't support high resolutions. In fact, some monitors would
get permanently damaged if you tried to set them to a refresh rate higher
than they could support. Modern monitors, however, are all multisync,
and will automatically adjust to just about any refresh rate and resolution
you can throw at them.

Multitask: To do more than one thing at once. Multitasking is not used
to refer to PEOPLE doing two or more things at once (except
humorously), it refers to COMPUTERS doing several things at once.

Nanosecond: One billionth of a second. Used to measure speeds of chips.

NBM: Nothing But Microsoft.

NCP: See PPP

NDS: Novell Directory Services.

NDPS: Novell Distributed Print Services.

NEPS: Novell Enterprise Print Services.

NetBEUI: NetBIOS Extended User Interface. A newer version of
NetBIOS. Pronounced "net-BOO-ee".

NetBIOS: Network BIOS. A BIOS (developed by IBM) which allows a
computer to boot from an operating system on a network. In other words,
the computer doesn't need the OS installed locally on itself to work.

NIC: 1. Network Interface Card. The attachment that connects a device
(usually a computer) to a network. NICs usually take the form of a PC
expansion card. 2. The Network Information Center, which maintained
and distributed the complete host name and address database of the
Arpanet (back when the Arpanet still existed). The NIC was located at
SRI International in Menlo Park, California (a part of Silicon Valley,
near San Francisco). Its network address was SRI-NIC.ARPA. (The
.ARPA top-level domain no longer exists, of course, as it belonged to the
Arpanet). The reliability and bandwidth problems associated with housing
the entire network's host table on one computer eventually led to the
DNS system which is in use today.

Norton, Peter: The man who first invented undelete programs, thus
gaining a reputation as a computer utility genius. He has a collection of
utilities named after him: The Norton Utilities.

NOS: Network Operating System.

Notebook: See Laptop

Notebook Computer: See Laptop

Novell Netware: The most commonly used NOS for adding LAN support
to a computer already running MS-DOS.

NPC: Non-Player Character. Used in computer games to refer to
characters other than yourself. (Also sometimes said to stand for Natural
Player Character (In Role-Playing Or Adventure Games) or Normal
Player Character (In Simulation Games).)

NVRAM: Non-Volatile RAM (i.e. RAM which doesn't go empty when
the computer is turned off).

Object Code: Code within an Object File.

Object File: A file which is half-way on the journey from source code to
executable file. When source code is compiled, it is usually not
immediately made into an EXE file; Instead, it is placed into what's
called an object file. The object file contains the machine-language code
for the program routines in it. Object files are later linked into executable
files with a program called a linker. The reason this is done is because
the executable file must contain the code for all the functions it will
need. As an example, suppose you write a program in C and you use the
printf function. You do not define the routine for printf since it already
comes with C. The printf code is stored in an object file that already
comes with your C compiler. Later, after you've compiled your program,
it will be in another object file, and the object files your program needs
(like the one with printf in it) are linked with the object file that is your
program, and the linker makes a ready-to-run EXE out of them. Object
files are usually signified with a .O extension, so your compiled program
might be (for example) MYPROG.O before it's linked into
MYPROG.EXE. The code inside object files is called Object Code.

OCR: Optical Character Recognition.

OCX: A file extension which indicates a custom OLE control.

ODBC: Open Data Base COnnectivity. A programming API which
allows applications to access the data in a database created by a database
application. ODBC is SQL-centric, meaning that the database application
which created the database usually needs to use SQL for ODBC to work
with it; However, this is not a problem, since most database programs do
use SQL, as it is the standard database query language. ODBC could be
used to allow a programmer to write a program in (for example) C, and
have this program access the data in a database made by (for example)
Microsoft Access via SQL. ODBC can be used with any programming
development tool that supports it, although in today's Internet age,
ODBC is probably most often used with e-commerce sites to allow Perl
scripts on a website to access the company's database.

OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer.

OOPS: Object-Oriented Programming System.

OLE: Object Linking and Embedding. Sometimes spelled out, O-L-E, but
usually pronounced like the Spanish word for bull (which is spelled
exactly the same way).

OnBoard: This means "built into the motherboard". In the old days,
computers had a very important card inside them which controlled the
floppy drives, hard drives, and ports. Nowadays, however, it's customary
to build these functions into the motherboard instead of on a separate
expansion card, so they're said to be "OnBoard".

On The Fly: (adverb) Performed without a need for interruption in
service. For example, if you could change a computer's configuration
without rebooting it, that would be changing the configuration on the fly.

Onscreen: An adjective, meaning that something is being shown on the
monitor of a computer.

Op Amp: Operational Amplifier.

Operating System: The piece of software which basically runs your
programs. DOS is an operating system, and so is Windows. Operating
systems don't do anything by themselves, they still need applications to
perform useful tasks.

Optical Character Recognition: See OCR.

OS: Operating System.

OS/2: IBM's failed attempt to make an OS more popular than MS-DOS
or Windows.

Oscillator: An eletrical circuit that "oscillates" its output, meaning the
output switches on and off at a rapid frequency. Oscillators are needed
by analog speakers (which produce a tone that varies by the frequency
of the oscillation).

OSI Model: Open Systems Interconnection Model. A seven-layer model
developed by the ISO that describes how a terminal and computer
communicate on a LAN. The actual layers are (in order, from layer 1 to
layer 7): Physical, Data-Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation,
and Application. Adherence to this model provides a foundation for
different vendors' products to interoperate. The Physical layer defines the
hardware; The raw bit-level handling of the data. Common protocols
which exist in the Physical layer include IEEE 802 and ISDN. The Data-
Link layer is the layer which creates data frames, often referred to as
"packets". It creates the packets from the raw bits. A common protocol
that exists in the Data-Link layer is the LCP (Link Control Protocol)
used with PPP. The Network layer is responsible for addressing and
routing the packets. Common protocols which exist in the Network layer
include IP, IPX, ICMP, and IGMP. The Transport layer handles
transmission issues, like flow control and error-detection and -correction.
Common protocols which exist in the Transport layer include TCP and
SPX. The Session layer is responsible for synchronization of the various
nodes on the network. The Presentation layer handles translation from
one protocol or language to another. It translates from the network
transmission format to the application's format, and vice-versa. Lastly,
the Application layer handles the actual user interface. Common
protocols which exist in the Application layer include Telnet, FTP,
SMTP, and DNS.

OSPF: Open Shortest Path First. A routing protocol. Specifically, an IGP.

Packard, Dave: Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, along with Bill Hewlett.

Packet: See under PSN.

Page: 1. A graphics screen stored in the computer's memory. In a
memory-mapped video system (like the IBM PC and compatibles), there
are certain sections of memory which contain the image that actually gets
sent to the computer's monitor; The image is manipulated by simply
changing those memory values. However, although only one set of
memory values can be displayed on the screen at a time, many computer
architectures have more than one separate video page in memory, so that
different images can quickly be changed on the screen by simply
changing the active video page. This way, the entire screen does not have
to be re-created in memory; You can change what's on the screen simply
by switching from one active page to another. This can be used to create
various effects via "page-flipping". This is mostly obsolete information,
however; Page-flipping was an important video trick in the early days of
home microcomputers, but it is rarely used today. 2. A unit of EMS
memory.

PAL: Programmed Array Logic. See also GAL.

Palmtop: A palmtop computer.

Palmtop Computer: One which fits in the palm of your hand.

PAN: Personal Area Network. A network with functionality restricted to
a single individual. PANs are used for connecting individual devices used
by a single person; For example, networking your notebook computer to
your desktop computer. PANs also often involve linking of PDAs and
cellularphones.

Parallel Cable: One which connects to a parallel port.

Parallel Port: A type of port on the back of the computer, usually used
for printers.

Passive Matrix: See TFT.

Patch Panel: A panel with rows of modular telephone-style jacks, roughly
analogous to the "breadboards" used in electronics work, which allows
one to connect and disconnect wires at will. See also punch-down block.

PC: Personal Computer

PCB: Printed Circuit Board.

PCI Bus: Peripheral Component Interconnect. A type of bus. Current
standard.

PCMCIA: Personal Computer Memory Card International Association.
A standard for small (roughly credit card-sized) cards which can connect
to a special slot on a computer and act as peripherals. PCMCIA cards are
usually used only in laptop/notebook computers because of their
compactness, and they generally serve purposes like being modems or
removable hard drives. One thing that really appeals about them is that
they're truly plug-and-play, and were that way long before USB existed;
It's a bit of an oddity that USB became an industry standard years later,
but PCMCIA was pretty much relegated to portables. There are three
types of PCMCIA card standards: PCMCIA Type I was often used for
flash RAM; Its cards had a thickness of 3.3 mm. (Past tense is used for
PCMCIA Type I because it is no longer in general use.) PCMCIA Type
II cards are usually used for PCMCIA modems and NICs; Their cards
are 5 mm thick. PCMCIA Type III cards are usually hard drives; They
are 10.5 mm thick. There are currently no plans to create a PCMCIA
Type IV standard. Because of the somewhat long-winded acronym, the
term "PC Card" has become preferred over "PCMCIA" in recent times;
This, however, has led to some confusion, since PCMCIA cards are
certainly not the only cards you might find in a PC.

Peltier Cooler: A cooling device placed over a computer's CPU to cool
it down. Peltier coolers provide heavy-duty cooling power, and are
usually considered extreme for end users. They are used almost
exclusively by people doing things like heavy 3D gaming, overclocking,
or filling their systems with a lot of devices which generate heat. Peltier
coolers work using the Peltier effect, named after the Frenchman Jean
Peltier who discovered it. It makes it possible to create a solid-state
electrical device which can efficiently transfer heat from one place to
another; Peltier coolers have a cold end (the one you put next to the
CPU), and a hot end (the other end, which collects all the heat
transferred from the CPU). Although they are very powerful, they have
been plagued in the past with some serious problems. First and foremost,
they tend to create condensation droplets on the CPU, and any water
getting on electronic circuitry is a serious thing. Secondly, when the
computer is turned off, generally the Peltier cooler's heat (at the hot end)
dissipates throughout it, and it ends up getting pretty hot for a while until
it can cool down, meaning that for several minutes, a hot object is
pressed right next to the CPU. This usually isn't a huge problem, since
by that time the CPU isn't generating any more heat of its own, but even
so, it's not something to be ignored. Then there's the massive power
requirements. A Peltier cooler may be solid-state, but that doesn't mean
it doesn't need much power. On the contrary, some of them need huge
amounts of power, often more than the average power supply can spare.
(In the ballpark of 70 watts or more.) And finally, Peltier coolers are
huge, and finding room to mount them on a CPU inside today's already-
cramped computer cases is no small trick sometimes.

Pen: In computers, refers to the light pen.

Pentium: A processor from Intel. Currently the most popular type of
processor for PCs. Some people know that a Pentium is NOT the same
as a 586. During the era of the 286, 386, and 486, Intel just kept
bumping up the numbers by 100, always keeping the "86" ending.
(Actually, interestingly, the proper terms for these processors are the
80286, 80386, and 80486, which is why they're sometimes called the
80x86 family of processors, but most people drop the 80 at the
beginning.) Anyway, after the 486, Intel decided to use a name instead
of a number. You see, numbers cannot be trademarked. Names can. So
Intel used the name Pentium instead of 586. So if you see a computer
which has a 586, that means it's not an Intel chip. It's most likely either
from AMD or Cyrix. But if you see a computer which declares it has a
Pentium, you can be assured, it's a genuine Intel piece of work.

Peter Norton: See Norton, Peter.

PHP: A Web scripting language which is server-side, meaning it runs on
the Web server rather than the browser's computer (unlike client-side
languages like JavaScript or VBScript, which do run on the client's
computer). In this respect, PHP is similar to Microsoft's ASP (Active
Server Page) and JSP (JavaServer Pages), with one important exception:
It's open-source. The PHP homepage can be found at www.php.net or
www.php.org

PIA: Peripheral Interface Adapter. A chip in ancient computers which
had the job of interfacing with the keyboard, ports, etc. Interface chips
for peripherals still exist in today's computers, but are usually built
separately instead of as one central peripheral controller.

Ping: 1. A function which checks to see if there is a route to a particular
computer. Ping tries to connect to another computer, and then reports
whether the connection was successful or not. It's usually used as a
diagnostic tool to see if a connection between two systems is possible.
On the Internet, ping is done with the ICMP Echo function. (The word
"ping" itself is not used in RFC 792, the RFC which defines ICMP.)
Ping is sometimes said to stand for "Packet INternet Groper". 2. A
program which performs this function.

PIO: 1. Programmed I/O. A method for accessing hard disks in which the
disk is access through the system's I/O ports, meaning the CPU is used
as a messenger. PIO is much slower than DMA mode, in which the hard
disk reads and writes directly to/from memory, without intervention from
the CPU. Maximum data transfer speeds for each of the PIO modes are
as follows: PIO0 = 3.3 MB/s; PIO1 = 5.2 MB/s; PIO2 = 8.3 MB/s; PIO3
= 11.1 MB/s; PIO4 = 16.6 MB/s; PIO5 = 22.2 MB/s. 2. Parallel I/O. (As
opposed to serial I/O.)

Piracy: The practice of illegally copying programs and giving them to
other people. While some programs can be legally copied and given to
others (See shareware and freeware), programs that you buy from the
shelves of your local software store are copyrighted by the company that
makes them, and if you make copies of the disks in there, you're
breaking the law. Well, actually, it's OK to make copies for yourself, just
in case you want to create a backup of that program or whatever, but if
you give copies to somebody else, it's piracy, and it's illegal. See also
Warez, Abandonware.

Pirate: Someone who engages in piracy. Some pirates form groups and
they create huge BBSes which contain freely downloadable copies of
many commercial programs (most often games). These BBSes are very
secretive affairs, since they would be shut down by the police pretty
quick if anybody found out about them. Pirates often want to help out
others by giving them free software, and some are pretty good at
computer programming, so they reprogram software to remove all "copy
protection" from it, then give it to others or upload it to their BBS.

Pixel: Picture element. One of the tiny dots on your computer's screen
which make up the whole image.

Platform: A frame of computer system. Platforms generally are not
compatible with one another. Examples of platforms include the IBM PC,
Macintosh, Atari, Amiga, and Commodore. In addition, in PCs, MS-DOS
and Windows are sometimes (note I said sometimes) considered to be
two different platforms. There is some confusion in the industry over
whether this term refers to hardware only, or if it includes operating
systems. Classically, the term only refers to hardware, meaning that (for
example) DOS, Windows, Linux, and OS/2 are all part of the same
platform because they all run on IBM PC-compatibles. However, the
term is sometimes used to refer to operating systems as well, in which
sense DOS, Windows, Linux, and OS/2 *ARE* platforms.

Platter: A flat, circular plate inside hard disks. Platters are coated with
magnetic particles and they are the parts that actually hold the data inside
the disk. They are usually made of aluminum.

PLCC: Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier.

Point: A unit of measurement for measuring text. One point is 1/72 of an
inch.

Polling: A method of data transfer in which the receiving device
repeatedly checks if data is available from the sending device, or,
inversely, in which the sending device repeatedly checks if the receiving
device is ready to receive data. For example, a CPU might receive its
data from a modem by constantly asking the modem if it has any data.
Polled I/O is the way peripherals used to communicate with the CPU in
the early days of computers, but it is rather inefficient because it ties up
a lot of CPU cycles just polling devices. The alternative is interrupt-
driven I/O, which is much more popular than polled I/O today. Interrupt-
driven I/O uses interrupts, which are announcements that a particular
waiting period is over. For example, a modem might use an interrupt to
let the CPU know that it has data which it wants to send to the CPU.
Interrupts are so named because they cause the CPU to interrupt
whatever it is doing to attend to the peripheral; The CPU actually stops
executing instructions from memory and performs a specific routine that
attends to the needs of the peripheral, then goes back to executing
instructions normally when the interrupt routine is over.

Portable Computer: Just what the name says.

POST: Power-On Self Test. The test performed by the BIOS every time
you turn on the computer or reboot.

Power Macintosh: The final laughable attempt by Apple to kill the PC.
The ridiculously-named "Power" Macs could run software written for
both the Macintosh and the PC platforms, but they ran PC software at a
speed about equivalent to a 25 MHz CPU. They were a complete joke,
and the killing blow to Apple, which had already been faltering badly at
the time.

Power Supply: The unit which converts the AC power from your
electrical socket in the wall to DC power which the computer uses.

PPP: Point-To-Point Protocol. Currently the most popular protocl for
establishing dial-up connections the the Internet. PPP is similar to (but
more robust than) SLIP, which lacks support for data compression, error
detection, and multiple protocols on a single line. PPP is not a complete
protocol unto itself. It is a layered protocol, beginning with LCP (Link
Control Protocol), to establish the link. After the link has been initialized,
a variety of NCPs (Network Control Protocols) can be employed to use
a particular protocol over the link. For example, IPCP (IP Control
Protocol) is used to transport IP over PPP. As you might guess, LCP is
in layer 2 of the OSI model (the Data-Link layer), and the NCPs are in
layer 3 (the Network layer).

PPTP: Point-To-Point Tunneling Protocol. A somewhat enhanced form
of PPP that uses "tunneling" (encapsulating packets of data written for
one network protocol inside packets used by another) to basically allow
TCP/IP data to be sent over non-TCP/IP networks. The most common
use of this is to join physical networks together to form "virtual
Internets" using the actual Internet as a go-between.

PR: Public Relations. A company department.

Preemptive Multitasking: The multitasking system used by Windows 95
and up. Under Preemptive Multitasking, the OS decides what programs
will run, and for how long. Compare with Cooperative Multitasking.

Preformatted Disk: See under Format.

Printer: A device that attaches to your computer and prints things on
paper. Printers vary wildly in image quality, speed, and price.

Processor: The chip inside your computer, on the motherboard, that
handles the processing of most of the data that travels through your
system. It's the most important chip on a motherboard, and usually the
largest.

Program: 1. (noun) A software tool designed to let you do something
with your computer. A program could be a thingy for drawing, a thingy
for writing text, or a thingy for playing games, or something else. 2.
(verb) To write programs on a computer.

Programmer: A person who programs (definition 2). Programmers are,
almost without exception, hackers.

Proxy Server: A computer which serves as a gateway between computers
or networks. Usually, proxies are used in LANs to join the LAN to the
Internet (or another network). Proxies are usually used as a security
measure. Proxies which are mostly for security are called firewalls. (The
terms "proxy server" and "firewall computer" are sometimes used
interchangeably, even though technically speaking, a firewall is a specific
type of proxy, and not all proxies are firewalls.) Proxies can also be used
to provide several computers access to one network access point. For
example, on a dial-up Internet connection, only one computer at a time
can actually use the phone line, but a proxy server could be used to
provide several computers with access to the same connection. (The
proxy would be be physically connected to the phone line, and all the
other computers would connect to the proxy and get the Internet access
through it.) In addition to connection sharing and security, a proxy server
can have a third purpose: Caching. Some proxies store frequently-
accessed websites in memory, so that whenever a computer on the LAN
requests it, the proxy can immediately retrieve it without actually having
to go out and download it from the Internet. If some sites are very
frequently-accessed, this can significantly speed things up. Proxies which
do this are also called cache servers.

PSN: Packet-Switched Network. A type of network (the Internet being
the world's largest example) in which information is not sent as a whole,
but is instead split into smaller bits of information (knows as "packets"),
and then sent out in many packets, which are re-assembled upon hitting
their destination into the information they're supposed to represent. The
Internet's protocol for packet transmission is IP.

Pull-Down Resistor: A resistor which works much like a Pull-Up
Resistor, but in reverse: It connects a particular point to the negative side
of the power supply at a point which might be joined to the positive end.

Pull-Up Resistor: A resistor used on an "open collector" part of a circuit
to draw it up to a particular voltage. In a case where the particular part
of a circuit may be directly joined to the negative side of the power
supply, to directly connect that part of the circuit to the positive end
would result in a short-circuit; In these cases, a pull-up resistor is used,
which is simply a resistor between the positive end of the power supply,
and the location where a higher voltage is needed. The resistor result in
a gentle rise to the desired voltage, providing enough resistance to avoid
damage caused by a short circuit. See also Pull-Down Resistor.

PUN: Physical Unit Number. A number assigned to a physical device on
a SCSI chain. Up to eight such devices can be attached to one SCSI bus.
PUNs are much more commonly called "SCSI IDs", but the term PUN
may be used to distinguish from LUN. PUNs (SCSI IDs) are numbered
from 0 to 7. Normally, the SCSI host adapter takes SCSI ID 7 for itself.
See also LUN.

Punch-Down Block: A device for connecting wires which uses metal
teeth that are punched into the wire; The teeth pierce the insulation,
making contact with the wire's conductor and thusly they are connected.
Most often used with telephone wiring and other forms of twisted-pair
wiring. Because they are not often designed to be connected and
disconnected repeatedly (which is something you must allow for in a
network environment), punch-down blocks are generally eschewed, and
patch panels preferred, when working with LANs.

QA: Quality Assurance. A company department.

Radix: The next-highest number from the highest single-digit value that
exists in a number system. This is the point where the digit rolls over to
zero and the digit in the next column to the left is incremented. For
example, in the common, everyday decimal number system, the radix is
10. Below 10 is 9, which is the highest single-digit number. Increment
9 and you get 10, which is the result of resetting the digit which held "9"
to zero, and incrementing the next column to the left. In hexadecimal, the
radix is 16. In octal, the radix is 8. In binary, the radix is 2. Radix is
often referred to as "base", for example, "base 10" for decimal or "base
2" for binary.

RAM: Short for Random Access Memory. RAM is the computer's
internal workspace, where it stores all info about what's going on right
now. Anything stored in RAM is lost when you shut off the computer,
so before turning it off you must transfer the data in there into a place
where it can be kept for longer, such as a disk.
  One of the most common questions people ask about RAM is "Why is
it called random-access?" Most people know what RAM is by now, but
few seem to understand why it's actually called by its name. After all,
access to RAM isn't random. If it were, how would you know what data
you were getting from it? Quite to the contrary, access to RAM is very
organized. The answer is that it *can* be accessed randomly. Any
program can access any part of RAM at any time. It can do so randomly
if it so wishes, but most programs don't. The term was actually originally
used to distinguish from tape storage drives, which are notoriously slow
because they store data on a long strip of media, which takes a long time
to spin around to the various storage positions. RAM was dubbed
"random-access" because any program could randomly jump to any part
of it. Because of the confusion over the so-called "random" nature of
RAM, IBM sometimes has preferred to use the term "direct access
memory" (DAM). Other people refer to RAM more specifically as
"read/write memory", as distinguished from ROM.

RAMDAC: Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter. A
RAMDAC is most often used in a computer's video card, where it is
used to convert the contents of the video RAM (where the screen image
is stored) from digital data into an analog signal (since most computer
monitors are analog).

RAS: 1. Row Address Strobe. Compare CAS. 2. Remote Access Server.
3. Remote Access Service.

Raster Burn: An eye disease hackers get from staring at a computer
monitor for too long a time. Often shows up during hacking runs.

R&D: Research And Development. A company department.

RDBMS: Relational Database Management System.

RDRAM: Rambus Dynamic RAM.

Reboot: To start your computer over from the beginning. This is usually
done either by pressing the RESET button on the front of your computer
(if there is one), or by pressing CTRL, ALT, and DEL on your keyboard
together. Rebooting is usually done either when you have made changes
to your computer configuration (rebooting is necessary for configuration
changes to take effect), or when the computer locks up.

REFIID: Reference Interface ID. A 16-byte value which identifies a
reference interface. A type of GUID.

Remote: On another computer which you're connected to via a network.
This term is often used with phrases like "remote access", which means
accessing a computer other than the one you're at right now (over the
network). Remote is the opposite of local.

Reset: To reboot with the RESET button.

Resolution: A measure of the number of pixels per row and per column
in an image. For example, an image with a resolution of 320x200 has
320 horizontal pixels, and 200 vertical ones. The term is used to apply
to screen modes, image file sizes, etc. The higher the resolution, the
clearer the image (and the more data needed to store it).

Ring: 1. A network topology in which workstations are arranged in a
circle, with each being connected to two neighbours. Used with Token
Ring, FDDI, and similar protocols. 2. Commonly-used term for what is
more properly (and distinctly) known as an IOPL (I/O Privilege Level).

RIP: Routing Information Protocol. A routing protocol. Specifically, an
IGP.

Rising Edge: A transition from a logic 0 to a logic 1. Also called positive
edge.

RMS: 1. Root Mean Square. Used a lot when talking about speaker
voltages. (Which means that the power rating applies to *each* audio
channel, rather than the total power of all channels.) 2. Richard M.
Stallman, famous for being founder of the GNU Project and for writing
EMACS.

ROM: Read-Only Memory. Memory which cannot be written to, only
read from. (Hence the name: It's not memory you can WRITE to, you
can only READ it: READ ONLY memory.)

Root Directory: The central directory of any disk. Any directories on a
disk are actually subdirectories of the root directory. The root directory
usually doesn't contain much except directories, system files, and a few
other files which don't really fit into any other directory.

Rotary Modem: A modem which works on a rotary, which in turn is a
phone number that connects to more than one phone line. ISPs use rotary
modems so that users can all call the same number, but each gets a
different modem.

Rotoscoping: A technique to make realistic-looking animation by
capturing a series of still-image shots and stringing them together, similar
to the way those "claymation" movies are made. Rotoscoping was
extensively used in computer games in the mid-1990s to create characters
that animated smoothly, but was eventually overtaken by the pure-3D
graphics revolution which uses polygon-based objects rather than flat
sprites.

Route 128: The famous road running through the Boston, Massachusetts
area on which many large computer companies placed their headquarters.
By far the most famous of these was Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC), but there were many others, including Wang Laboratories, Prime
Computer, Data General, Apollo, Computer Control Corporation, and
Computervision. In the days when the computer revolution was still in
its infancy, Route 128 was the east coast's counterpart to Silicon Valley.

Routing Table: A table stored within a router which tells it where to send
packets it receives. A routing table contains two basic items for each
entry: Address, and exit interface. The "exit interface" is the path which
the router should send a packet to get it one step closer to its destination.
A router does not really know where the target computer is, nor does it
care; The router is only one link in the chain, and its only job is to know
where to send the packet next. The routing table lets it know exactly
where to send packets for each address on the network. As an example,
suppose a router receives a packet with a destination IP address of
1.2.3.4. The router checks its routing table, and finds that the exit
interface specified for 1.2.3.4 is line 3. Because of this, the router sends
the packet down line 3, probably to another router, which will be one
hop closer to the destination. In many cases, the router does not hold
complete IP addresses in its table, but rather network domains. In the
above example, the router might not have an entry specifically for
1.2.3.4, but rather a network entry specifying that all traffic to addresses
beginning with 1.2.3 should go to line 3.

RPI: 1. Rockwell Protocol Interface. A modem protocol interface. 2. A
type of modem which uses RPI. RPI modems are similar in concept to
what are commonly called "Winmodems" today (though RPI modems
precede Winmodems by a few years). RPI modems require software to
run; In other words, they are not completely hardware-based modems,
using software to do some of the processing that's usually done by chips
on the modem. This is done solely to reduce the price of the modem (by
about $5).

RPM: 1. RedHat Package Manager. A compression format used by Red
Hat Linux. 2. (in car racing games) Revolutions Per Minute, the same
thing as in real-life car racing.

RTL: Resistor-Transistor Logic. One of the earliest IC logic families.
Now obsolete. See also DTL, TTL, and CMOS.

S-100 Bus: A very old type of bus which absolutely nobody has on
modern computers and which most people have never even heard of. (It
was used on the Altair 8800.)

SAM: Synchronous Address Multiplexer.

SAN: Storage Area Network. A network of data storage devices, usually
connected to a more general-purpose network.

Sand Hill Road: A road in Silicon Valley, famous for its concentration
of venture capital (VC) companies. This is significant to Silicon Valley,
since the Valley tends to run on startups with plenty of ideas but a need
for money to put those ideas into action. Thus, Sand Hill Road has
become a local icon, the fabled place where dreams become reality.

SAPI: Speech Application Programming Interface.

SC Connector: "Subscriber Connector", a type of fiber-optic connector
which directly connects two components together.

Schmitt Trigger: A handy electronic circuit used to "clean up" noisy
signals for use with a digital circuit. The Schmitt Trigger has two certain
threshold voltages which dictate at what point its output will go to a
digital high, or a digital low. For example, suppose the Schmitt trigger's
"high" threshold is 80 volts and its "low" threshold is 20 volts. If the
input voltage starts at 0 volts and goes to 50 volts, the output will remain
low. Only when the input goes above 80 volts will the output go high.
However, if the voltage then drops to 50 volts again, the output will
remain high; Only when the input goes below 20 volts will the output go
low again. Schmitt Triggers are widely used to dampen "switch bounce"
for digital circuits or to stabilize waveforms which exhibit fluctuation.
Not to be confused with Schottky Diode.

Schottky Diode: A type of diode notable mainly for its very high speed.
This high speed makes it popular in logic circuits where fast, precise
timing is required. Schottky diodes also have a remarkably low forward
voltage drop, meaning that it will not reduce its forward-direction voltage
much (as opposed to zener diodes (the other popular type of diode),
which may reduce their forward voltage more). "Schottky" is pronounced
"shot-key". Not to be confused with Schmitt Trigger.

SCO: Santa Cruz Operation. A company that makes a type of UNIX.

Screen: The screen is the glassy part of the monitor. "Monitor" refers to
the entire big box as a whole, but the screen is just the glass at the front.

SCSI: Small Computer System Interface. Pronounced "scuzzy". SCSI is
basically made a big deal out of for two reasons: First, it is fast (and of
course speed is essential to the computer industry). Secondly, its much-
hyped ability to let you attach several devices (up to 8 of them) to a
single SCSI chain which then connects to a single port on the computer.
This combination of high speed with multiple device connectivity made
SCSI the ancestor of USB. Indeed, SCSI wanted to be the global
standard that USB ended up being, but SCSI was killed by several
important problems: First and foremost was the very high cost of SCSI
adapters, cables, and peripherals. Second was a strange lack of
standardization that meant devices made to work with SCSI did not
necessarily work with every SCSI-using computer, whereas USB was
standardized to the point where just about any USB peripheral will work
with just about any USB-supporting computer. There was also a lack of
robustness in the mechanics of SCSI that made it rather flaky in nature,
and difficult to expand because it needed very short cables. And finally,
unlike USB, SCSI was definitely not plug-and-play. Each SCSI device
needs its own unique ID on the chain, which is usually configured
through a jumper. Although this is not really a big deal, it's too much
trouble for the casual computer user, who would really rather just plug
something in and have it start working right away,  la USB. SCSI may
never have become a household acronym had it not been for Apple's
support of it as a way to expand the rather closed-ended Macintosh. SCSI
was an important element in the development of the PC industry, but
ultimately it never stopped being a niche product.

SCUMM: Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion. A scripting
language designed by Ron Gilbert and used in many Lucasfilm/LucasArts
adventure games, beginning with their classic Maniac Mansion (for
which it was originally designed) and later several others, including the
celebrated "The Secret Of Monkey Island".

SDRAM: Synchronous Dynamic RAM. A new, fast type of RAM which
has recieved a lot of hype. It can handle bus speeds of up to 100 MHz
(which is impressive), and it is synchronized with the computer's system
clock itself, a feat which had previously eluded computer engineers.

Sector: An area on a disk which is usually 512 bytes. They are organized
into clusters, which are the smallest unit of space that can be allocated
to a single file. (No, you can't allocate a single sector, except on some
floppy disks which use single-sector clusters.)

Shadowing: The practice of copying the contents of the BIOS ROM into
part of RAM when the computer boots. This is done to speed things up,
as RAM is usually two or three times faster than ROM.

Shareware: Software which can legally be copied from one computer to
another. However, shareware is not "free" software. If you get shareware
and you like it and decide to keep it and continue to use it, the person
or people who made the program ask that you send them money for it.
Shareware can quite legally be put available for download on the
Internet, and thrown all over the place on disks. That way, you can
download it in the comfort of your own home, and you don't have to get
up to go to a software store to buy anything. Another advantage of
shareware is, it lets you try the program BEFORE you buy it, so there's
no chance of buying a program and discovering it's not for you
(something which is very possible with store-bought software). One
disadvantage to shareware is that it is somewhat prone to being virus-
filled. After all, shareware passes through many hands because it costs
nothing, so if a friend of yours gives you a disk with shareware, you
never know what other computers that disk has been in. Another little
problem with shareware is that most of it (or at least, a lot of it) is
garbage. Any goof who can program can write up a little program which
is incredibly lame, and ask $5 for it. Many people release some of the
most impossibly dumb programs into the shareware world. That's why
shareware is often worth exactly what you pay for it: Nothing. However,
there are some people who go to the trouble of writing really excellent
shareware programs, in the hopes that at least a few people will be
honest enough to send the requested $10 or whatever, instead of ignoring
the money requests and just using the program without paying. See also
Freeware.

shellcode: [Unix] Machine-language code which is directly inserted into
memory to get the computer to run it. This is almost always done as a
cracking technique, to get the system you are attacking to do something
it would not normally let you do. Generally, the machine-language code
is stored in an array, and the array is somehow inserted into memory
using pointer variables. Shellcode is closely related to buffer overflows
(because buffer overflows are usually the method used to insert the
shellcode into memory). As such, they are documented in the classic
buffer-overflow tutorial file, "Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit",
by Aleph One. Briefly, the method to getting shellcode to run works like
this (the following was actually borrowed from Mr. One's fine file):
char shellcode[] = "(YOUR SHELLCODE HERE!)";
void main() {
  int *ret;
  ret = (int *)&ret + 2;
  (*ret) = (int)shellcode;
}

Shell Script: A series of Unix shell commands, put into a text file and
run collectively as a program. Basically what MS-DOS users would call
a "batch" file.

SID: Sound Interface Device. A term used for the built-in sound chip on
old computers such as the Commodore 64.

Signed: (in programming, of an integer variable) Having a plus or minus
sign attached to it to indicate whether the integer is positive or negative.
A signed variable can be either positive or negative. See also Unsigned.

Silicon Valley: 1. The Santa Clara Valley in California between Palo
Alto and San Jose near the San Francisco bay area, about 40 miles
southeast of San Francisco in Santa Clara County, consisting chiefly of
the cities of Cupertino, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose,
Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale, as well as less significant cities like
Campbell, Fremont, Menlo Park, and Stanford, and possibly including the
offshoot areas of Santa Cruz and San Mateo, through which highway 280
North runs west and 680 North runs east (that highway, along with
US101 (the Bayshore Freeway as it's called there, which also goes all the
way south to Los Angeles), joins the Valley to San Francisco County).
Nearest airports: San Jose International Airport, Palo Alto Airport Of
Santa Clara County, and Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View. So
named because of its extremely high concentration of
electronics/computer companies (from the silicon in computer chips).
Contains a host of some of the largest and most important companies in
the computer industry. The biggest are (city names in parentheses): Apple
(Cupertino), Sun Microsystems (Palo Alto), Intel (Santa Clara), Oracle
(Redwood Shores), Adobe Systems (San Jose), Inprise (Formerly Borland
International) (Scotts Valley), Hewlett-Packard (Palo Alto), Silicon
Graphics Inc. (Mountain View), Maxtor (Milpitas), Creative Labs (U.S.
Headquarters in Milpitas), Yahoo! (Santa Clara), AltaVista (Palo Alto),
Netscape Communications (Mountain View), Excite (Redwood City),
Infoseek (Sunnyvale), 3Com (Santa Clara), Cisco (San Jose), Adaptec
(Milpitas), Zilog (Campbell), Award Software (Mountain View), ABIT
Corp. (Fremont), VIA Technologies (Fremont), Trident Microsystems
(Mountain View), S3 (Santa Clara), National Semiconductor (Santa
Clara), Cirrus Logic (Fremont), Chips & Technologies (San Jose), Oak
Technology (Sunnyvale), 3Dfx (San Jose), nVidia Corporation
(Sunnyvale), VESA Standards (San Jose), Samsung (San Jose), Advanced
Micro Devices/AMD (Sunnyvale), VLSI Technology (San Jose),
Diamond Multimedia Systems (San Jose), Fujitsu (San Jose), Hyundai
(San Jose), Wyse Technology (San Jose), Electronic Arts (San Mateo),
Symantec (Cupertino), Santa Cruz Operation (SCO, the SCO-UNIX
company) (Santa Cruz), Phoenix Technologies (San Jose), Network
Associates (Santa Clara), Intuit (Mountain View), McAfee Associates
(Santa Clara), Acer (San Jose), Plextor (Santa Clara), MediaVision
(Fremont), PCMCIA (Yes, the company that sets the PC Card standards)
(San Jose), Seagate (Scotts Valley), and Syquest (Fremont). (Note,
however, that contrary to what some people may believe, Silicon Valley
is not just a big gathering of computer companies. People still need to
live there, and so it has many large residential districts, along with the
kind of mainstream businesses that every city needs. Silicon Valley may
have more computer-related jobs, companies, and people than any other
region in the world, but even computer people need places to sleep and
buy other necessities of life.) See also Route 128. 2. (from this valley)
The computer industry in general. 3. Any place (either an actual physical
location or a chat room or similar area in cyberspace) where computer
enthusiasts gather.

SIMM: Single Inline Memory Module. A type of RAM module which
has 30 or 72 pins. They must be installed in pairs (i.e. you can't have an
odd number of them in your computer). They used to be the most
popular form of memory module, but have now been replaced by
DIMMs.

Simulation: A Simulation Game.

Simulation Game: A game which simulates something. The most
common type of simulation is a flight simulation (which simulates flying
an airplane or helicopter or something like that), but there are also car
simulators, boat simulators, tank simulators, and simulations of lots of
other things, too.

SIO: Serial Input/Output. (As opposed to parallel I/O.)

SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol. A common but somewhat outdated
protocol for establishing dial-up connections to the Internet. Technically,
SLIP is a "packet-framing" protocol that defines how IP datagrams
(Internet data packets transmitted with IP) are packaged for transmission
over serial data lines (usually the one between your computer's modem
and your Internet service provider). See also PPP.

Slot: Usually-used term for Expansion Slot.

SMART: Self-Monitoring And Reporting Technology. An advanced hard
drive technology that allows the drive to monitor its own operation and
predict most hardware failures before they occur. It can give you a
warning shortly before disk breakdown. For SMART to work, the hard
disk and the BIOS must both support it.

SMP: Symmetric Multiprocessing.

SNMP: Simple Network Management Protocol.

Socket: A hole which you plug something else into.

SO-DIMM: Small-Outline DIMM. A type of DIMM with a small size,
used for portable computers.

Soft Copy: See Hard Copy

Software: The non-physical parts of your computer (your programs and
data). Compare with hardware. When you buy programs at a computer
store, that's software... But you're actually buying the computer disks,
aren't you? And disks are an actual, physically real thing aren't they?
Well, yes, and you are paying for the disks, too, but the majority of the
price of software is the data. So while you are buying hardware as well
(the disks), mostly what you're paying for is the stuff on those disks.

Software Piracy: See Piracy

Software Pirate: See Pirate

Software Program: Program (definition 1)

SOIC: Small Outline Integrated Circuit. The type of chip profile used for
surface-mount chips. (As opposed to DIPs, which are through-hole-mount
chips.)

Solder Flux: A substance used in soldering which serves two purposes:
First, it cleans the surfaces to be soldered to promote a clean bond.
Secondly, it promotes even flow of the solder itself, resulting in a
smoother solder joint. (Technically, it improves the "wetting" of the
solder, which is the tendency of the solder to flow over surfaces rather
than sticking to itself in a solder ball.) Solder flux may be applied
separately before soldering is performed, or it may be blended in as part
of the solder itself.

Sound Card: A card which serves to produce sound. Used because the
IBM PC has no sound system other than the extremely poor-quality
internal speaker.

SPICE: Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis. A
computer program used to simulate electronic circuits. Although there are
several programs which do this, SPICE is generally considered the most
prestigious and powerful, the Cadillac of circuit simulation programs.

Sports Game: A computer game which is about sports.

SPX: Sequenced Packet Exchange. A LAN protocol. SPX works on top
of IPX and adds extra commands. In the OSI model, SPX conforms to
the transport layer.

SQE: Signal Quality Error.

Square Wave: An electrical wave which has only two levels, and very
rapid (near-zero) rise and fall times. Square waves are often seen in
digital electronics, since digital electronics use only two voltage levels,
one for a logical high and one for a logical low. Square waves are so
named because they form a distinctive pattern of square or rectangle
shapes when viewed on an oscilloscope, as opposed to the curvy sine-
wave pattern typical of analog electronics.

SRAM: Static RAM. Like DRAM, except that while DRAM constantly
updates, SRAM never gets refreshed except if it happens to get written
to. SRAM is much faster than DRAM, but also much more expensive.
It's usually used only as Level 2 cache memory.

SSL: Secure Sockets Layer. A widely-used protocol to secure
connections over the World Wide Web. SSL uses public-and-private-key
encryption for fairly secure security. It is commonly used on e-commerce
websites to secure private information like credit card numbers, etc.

Status Message: An onscreen message informing you of the status of
something to do with your computer.

ST Connector: Straight Tip connector, the standard type of connector
used for plugging in fiber-optic cables, as well as for joining together
lengths of fiber-optic cable to extend their length.

Strategy Game: Nearly every computer game will involve some form of
strategy, so all games can really be considered strategy games to some
degree, but the term "Strategy Game" is usually used as a category for
games which don't really fit too well in any other category, or those
which are PURELY strategy.

Subdirectory: A directory inside a directory. Yes, directories can hold
other directories as well as files.

Superconductor: A substance that conducts electricity well.

Support: A mythical thing which does not exist in the computer world
but which is often spoken of in fearful tones.

SX: A type of chip made by Intel (either a 386SX or a 486SX) which
has the math co-processor masked off. Sometimes called the "brain dead"
equivalents of the fully-functional chips, these were failed attempts to
make a cost-effective processor. The opposite of DX.

System: A computer. Used when saying "computer" would be repetitive
or uncool.

System Files: Files which the computer needs to get itself started. These
files are kept in the root directory, and contain critical operating system
info. If these files are erased, your computer won't work. If you're using
MS-DOS, your system files are IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and
COMMAND.COM.

TAPI: Telephony Application Programming Interface.

TCP: Transmission Control Protocol. A protocol (besides IP) used on the
Internet. TCP is in layer 4 (the Transport layer) of the OSI model.

Terminal: 1. Synonym for computer. 2. A small computer which is
hooked up to a network and is, for the most part, a slave to a server
somewhere.

Text: A collection of characters (words, numbers, etc.) The words on
your computer screen are text, the words in a book are text, just about
everything that's writing is text.

TFT: Thin-Film Transistor. A type of LCD display which a transistor for
each pixel on the screen. This means that the pixels can be turned on or
off more quickly. TFT screens used to be called "active matrix" screens,
but now the term TFT seems to be in fashion. Such screens are better
than "passive matrix" screens (which do not have a transistor for every
pixel), because on passive-matrix screens it takes a while to update a
pixel, which leads to effects like "mouse trails" in which the mouse
pointer seems to leave "ghost" pointers behind it as it moves. Passive
matrix displays are now called DSTN, which has replaced "passive
matrix" much like TFT has replaced "active matrix", proving that it's
fashionable to use acronyms rather than terms which make sense.

Thermistor: A resistor which varies in resistance according to its
temperature. (Usually, as the temperature rises, the resistance is reduced.)

Tilde: The squiggly line ~ character, found next to the 1 at the top of
most keyboards. Used mostly for some Internet addresses and DOS
storage versions of Windows 95 long filenames.

Time Bomb: 1. A computer program (usually a virus) which is set to go
off at a certain time. When that time comes, whatever the program does
when it's triggered will depend entirely on the program itself. Many
famous viruses have been programmed to go off on particular dates, like
Friday the 13th, or every Sunday. See also Logic Bomb. 2. A demo of
a full-version program which is scheduled to stop functioning when the
user's trial period has expired. A lot of commercial software is available
in demo versions these days, and most of the demos give you only a
specific time frame (like 30 days) before they stop working, to encourage
you to buy the full program.

TLA: Three-Letter Acronym. See also AWFL.

TLD: Top-Level Domain. Examples: .com, .net, and .org.

TOC: Table Of Contents.

Toggle Switch: A switch which stays where you set it. A button which
stays in when you push it, and must be pushed again to have it pop back
out, is a toggle switch. Compare Momentary Switch.

Torvalds, Linus: A Finnish guy who created Linux. Later went on to
work for Transmeta Corp. in Santa Clara, California.

TOS: 1. Terms Of Service. 2. Type Of Service.

Transistor: The word "transistor" initially comes from "transfer resistor".

Tray Card: 1. A template of paper format used for the back covers of CD
jewel cases. See also J-Card. 2. A sheet of paper printed using this
template.

Tri-State: (Of a logic component) Having an input which can disable the
component so that it produces no output. For example, a NOT gate has
two inputs. If the tristate control is on, then the NOT gate will produce
a low output if the input is high, and a high output if the input is low.
However, if the tristate control is off, then the NOT gate will not
produce any output at all.

TSR: Terminate-And-Stay-Resident Program.

TTL: Transistor-Transistor Logic. A wildly popular IC logic family for
many years. TTL devices usually have 7400/74000 series numbers. They
may also have 5400/54000 series numbers, which are generally
functionally equivalent, but able to meet military specifications. For
example, a 5400 chip is basically a heavy-duty 7400 chip. See also RTL,
DTL, and CMOS.

Turbo Mouse: Older term for a trackball.

Typeface: Font.

Type Mismatch: A programming error in which an attempt is made to
have two variables operate together which are of an incompatible type.
This is a common error when trying to operate on a string variable with
a numeric variable, or vice-versa. For example, the command "a% = a$"
gives a type mismatch error in BASIC, because the % suffix indicates a
numeric variable, while $ indicates a string variable, and you cannot set
a numeric variable to be a string. A type mismatch can also occur with
constants; For example, the command "a% = "Hello, world!"" also gives
a type mismatch, because it attempts to assign a string value to a numeric
variable.

UART: Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter.

UDF: Universal Disk Format.

UDP: User Datagram Protocol. A protocol sometimes used on the
Internet, which rides on top of IP in much the same way as TCP does.
UDP, however, is connectionless (it only send packets, without
establishing a connection first, as TCP does), it doesn't sequence the
packets as TCP does (meaning it can be tricky to make sure they arrived
in the right order), and it doesn't even acknowledge sent packets (as TCP
also does), meaning you can't really be sure they arrived in the first
place. So why use UDP? In situations where speed is more important
than making sure every byte arrives correctly, UDP is popular, because
it is somewhat faster than TCP (because it doesn't send all the
acknowledgement/sequencing data that TCP does). Thus, UDP is often
used for media streaming (where a few blips in a video or audio sample
won't make a huge difference), or online action gaming (where speed of
data transmission is paramount). Why use UDP at all when you can use
raw IP? Well, UDP does offer two features that plain IP doesn't: Ports
(to distinguish different user services), and a checksum capability, so the
system on the receiving end can at least verify that the data it's receiving
didn't get corrupted.

UMB: Upper Memory Block.

Unformatted Disk: A disk which has not yet been formatted.

Unicode: The successor to ASCII. Whereas ASCII is limited to only 256
characters (because it's 8-bit, and that's as many combinations as you
can get from 8 bits), Unicode is a 16-bit character code, meaning it can
support up to 65,536 different characters. This is more than sufficient to
support every character in every world language used by humanity,
including Oriental characters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.), Cyrillic,
Hebrew, Arabic, and others, hence the name "Unicode": Only one
computer character code needed to support every language in the world.

UNIX: An operating system which is popular in the business sector. It
is not very popular among home-based systems (except for people who
use it at work, or who like to have their computer be hard to use)
because of its difficult-to-learn commands and text-based interface.
Despite this, it is favoured in the high-tech industry for its power and
flexibility.

Unsigned: (in programming, of an integer variable) Lacking a plus or
minus sign to indicate whether the integer is positive or negative.
Unsigned integers are always positive, and simply written without the
plus sign on them. See also Signed.

Upload: The opposite of download. Nobody ever does this, but BBS
sysops tend to wish people would.

User-Friendly: Easy to use. (No, it's not impossible to have a user-
friendly computer.)

Utilities: Plural of Utility.

Utility: A software program which, rather than being designed to help
you do something useful with your life such as calculate finances or
write letters, is simply intended to help you use your computer. Utilities
may delete files for you, check for viruses, or do a bunch of other things
which are DIRECTLY related to computers.

UUID: Universally Unique ID. A 16-byte value which identifies a type
library and/or its individual components. A type of GUID.

Van Jacobsen: Someone who did a lot of work on TCP. Jacobsen has
been immortalized by having his method of TCP header compression
named after him. Van Jacobsen (VJ) compression is also commonly
known as CSLIP (Compressed SLIP).

VCPI: Virtual Control Program Interface. A specification for managing
extended memory or expanded memory (i.e. memory beyond the first
megabyte of RAM) on DOS computers. The MS-DOS expanded memory
emulator EMM386 is a VCPI server.

VDG: Video Display Generator. An ancient name for what is today
simply called a video chip.

Vectorscope: An electronic measurement instrument similar in form to
an oscilloscope, but intended specifically for reading the chrominance
(colour signal) of a video signal.

Verilog: An HDL (Hardware Description Language). Originally created
as a commercial product, Verilog is now maintained by OVI (Open
Verilog International), a not-for-profit organization. Verilog source files
are designated by a .v extension. See also HDL, VHDL.

VESA: Video Electronics Standards Association

VFAT: Virtual FAT. A file system introduced in Windows 9x and
marked chiefly by the advantage of supporting LFNs (Long Filenames)
while still maintaining backward compatibility with MS-DOS. VFAT
stores its long filenames as additional directory entries, and these entries
are given a combination of attributes which are not possible for normal
files: Read-only, hidden, system, and volume label. This causes DOS to
ignore those long filename entries.

VGA: Video Graphics Array. (Not Video Graphics Adaptor, as you
might expect after MDA, CGA, and EGA.)

VHDL: VHSIC Hardware Description Language. An HDL (Hardware
Description Language). VHDL source files are designated by a .vhd or
.vhdl extension. See also HDL, Verilog.

VHSIC: Very High Speed Integrated Circuit.

VIA: Versatile Interface Adapter. An old name for an I/O chip. This term
was used with reference to computers like the Commodore 64.

VIC: Video Interface Chip. An old name for the video chip. This term
was used with reference to computers like the Commodore 64.

Video Card: The card which controls everything you see on your
monitor.

VJ: See Van Jacobsen.

VLB: VL Bus.

VL Bus: VESA-Local Bus, and older type of local bus which has now
been replaced by PCI.

VLF: Very Low Frequency. In the range of 2 KHz to 400 KHz.

Voice Recognition: Can be used as a noun, to refer to the ability of a
computer to recognize and understand spoken words, or as a verb, to
describe the action of a computer recognizing speech using voice
recognition.

VPN: Virtual Private Network.

VRAM: Video RAM. A type of RAM which is specifically used to try
and improve video performance and is usually used only for the memory
on video cards (not main system memory).

VXD: Virtual Device Driver. A lot of virtual device drivers have VXD
for their filename extension.

WAN: Wide-Area Network. A computer network which is big. The
Internet is the world's largest WAN. Compare with LAN.

Wannabee: A person who isn't a hacker, but wants/pretends to be.
Wannabees overuse computer slang and thus quickly identify themselves.

WAP: Wireless Application Protocol.

Warez: Copyrighted software which has been pirated, or which is
available for others to pirate.

War Game: A computer game which simulates war.

WDT: WatchDog Timer.

White-Hat Hacker: A "cracker" hacker who hacks not to do damage, but
to uncover security holes and report them (usually either to the company
responsible for them, or to mailing lists like Bugtraq, or both). Compare
Black-Hat Hacker.

William (Bill) Gates: See Gates, Bill.

Windows: See Microsoft Windows.

Winmodem: A modem which requires Windows to work. "Winmodem"
is actually a registered trademark of U.S. Robotics for a particular line
of modems they manufacture, but the term Winmodem is more frequently
used to refer to modems which require Windows. See also Linmodem.

WINS: Windows Internet Naming Service. A naming system similar to
DNS: It assigns names to IP addresses of computers, and keeps track of
them so you don't have to remember a computer's IP to connect to it,
just its name. WINS is part of Windows NT Server.

Winsock: Refers to WINSOCK.DLL, which is the Windows DLL for
TCP/IP (Internet) stuff. The 32-bit version of WINSOCK.DLL comes
with Windows 95. There was also a 16-bit version of it (for earlier
versions of Windows), but that version didn't come with the earlier
versions of Windows; You had to get it elsewhere (usually from a friend
who had it).

Wintel: Refers to Microsoft and Intel collectively, and their domination
of their respective markets.

Word: (in assembler programming) Two bytes, or 16 bits.

Word Processor: A program that lets you type in stuff.

Workstation: A client on a LAN.

WPA: Windows Product Activation. First introduced in Windows XP,
WPA is a "feature" of Windows that requires the OS to be registered
with Microsoft. (If it is not registered with Microsoft after a certain time
period, the OS will stop working.) WPA records several aspects of
hardware configuration in its database, to prevent someone from
installing the same copy of Windows on two different computers.
Although it has always been illegal to use the same copy of Windows on
different computers (if you own two computers, you're supposed to buy
two copies of Windows), before Windows XP, there was nothing
preventing people from doing so.

WRAM: Windows RAM. A type of RAM which is a lot like VRAM,
and used for the same thing, but WRAM is somewhat faster.

WYSINWYG: What You See Is Not What You Get. The opposite of
WYSIWYG.

WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. This is a condition that
means what appears on the screen will appear the same when it's printed
out on the printer. Pronounced "wizzywig".

X.25: A data transmission standard which has been largely superseded
by frame relay. (See Frame Relay.)

XML: Extensible Markup Language. A language for the WWW,
essentially the successor to HTML. In terms of end-user benefits, XML
offers nothing, as an XML document looks the same to the user as
HTML. However, XML allows you to put "structured data" into a
document. Perhaps not surprisingly, XML documents have an .xml
extension.

XMS: eXtended Memory Standard

XT: eXtended Technology
About The Author:

Name: Adam Luoranen
Gender: Male (In case you couldn't guess)
Interests: Computers.
Favorite Music: Soundgarden, Alanis Morissette, Crash Test Dummies,
Edvard Grieg, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc.
Favorite Computer Program: System Commander 3.05
Favorite Computer Game: The Incredible Machine

Contacting The Author:

Adam Luoranen may be contacted by e-mail at:

aluoranen@hotmail.com

I am also currently operating a Website. The URL for it is:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2072/index.html

Also, I am on a few BBSes in the 416/905 (Toronto) area codes. I use
the alias "Hackman", so if you ever see anybody by that name on a
Toronto BBS, it may be me. But, it could also be somebody who just
happened to use the same name. (I just moved out of that area, however,
and I am not an active BBSer anymore. You may still see me on some
BBSes there as I plan to continue calling them, but only infrequently.)

At one time, this file was shareware. It asked anybody who felt it was
worth money to send in contributions (with $20 suggested). However,
I've since decided to make it free. There are a few reasons for this. First
of all, I haven't received one contribution yet, which is hardly surprising
since the general public is known for not registering anything that isn't
nagware. But a more important reason has been a shift in how I think
about money. I used to think that every little bit counts and that even if
I made a few extra dollars from GCOMP, it would be worth it. But
really, an extra $20 or so doesn't buy you anything in today's world, and
since I'd've been lucky to even get that much, the notion that I could
make any significant amount of profit from GCOMP is ludicrous. Hence,
it may as well be free, since the idea of asking people to pay for a text
file seems rather dubious anyway.

*Please* let me know if there are any mistakes that require correcting,
or if you can think of important additions or changes that I ought to put
in this file. Thank you kindly!!!

Greets And Thanks Go Out To:

-Christina (for giving me a reason to get up in the morning when I had
no other)
-Toe_Bot_C (for providing me with plenty of end-user perspective)
-shufler (for being one of the last standoffs of the Toronto area's
computer underground, and for owning possibly the world's only 1337
goat as a pet)
-Paradox (for finally going off JavaScript, even if it was because he
stopped work on his website entirely)
-DeWW, cooks, FrdPrefct, and all the other people who make #help a
place worth helping in
-Scott Mueller (for writing a truly stunning book on every aspect of PCs,
including historical and obscure information that can only come with
experience)
-Warren Spector (for producing not one, but two of the most absolutely
fascinating, open-ended, and playable computer game series ever made:
System Shock and Deus Ex)
-Jeff K. (for making an art form out of being brilliantly stupid)
-All the people who contribute to the free exchange of information in
cyberspace (and the real world as well), especially the IRCers who so
graciously stay in help channels and offer assistance to those who need
it
-All the programmers, artists, and designers who've worked so hard to
make the software that has made the world of computing a diverse and
interesting place
-Everyone who understands that knowledge is power, and that the
difference between wisdom and mere trivia lies in the applicability of the
information
-Everyone who's ever fought for something worth fighting for, especially
those who've lost the battle and paid the ultimate price for a truly worthy
cause
-Everybody who actually read all this stuff

Legal Disclaimer Thingy etc.:

No part of this document may be reproduced in part (i.e. NOT IN
ITS ENTIRETY), by computer or by photocopier or by any other means,
except for short passages for the purpose of quotes, without the
given written consent of Adam Luoranen.

Every effort is made to ensure that the information in this document
is correct and accurate. However, Adam Luoranen shall not be held
responsible for any damages resulting from incorrect information in
this document. For that matter, I ALSO will not be held responsible
if anything happens even from CORRECT information. I am reasonably
confident that no harm could come to a person from reading this file,
or attempting some procedures described in it, provided you know what
you are doing, but just to cover myself I may as well say it. I will
not be held responsible for ANYTHING that goes wrong. I have to say
this just in case somebody screws up something somehow and sues me.
Don't sue me, I'm broke.

I don't describe any procedures in this file that are very risky,
and frankly I have trouble seeing how anything seriously bad could
happen as a result of them.

The author grants the right to owners of this document to copy
information into separate files for their own purposes, for
example batch files, and the like. However, no information
may be transmitted, uploaded to BBSes, or anything else similar
without the written consent of Adam Luoranen, unless they are
transmitted as a whole, with this ENTIRE file being transmitted, not
just part of it.

The author grants the right to owners of this document to copy
this document onto floppy disks for their own backup and archival
purposes. Copying this document around (giving it to other people,
uploading it to BBSes, etc.) is perfectly fine (in fact, encouraged)
as long as it is distributed in whole, with the filename GCOMP70.TXT,
and along with its FILE_ID.DIZ file in an archive of either ZIP or LZH
format named GCOMP70.ZIP (or GCOMP70.LZH if LZH archive format).

All trademarks and/or registered trademarks, including product names
and company names, are or may be the property and/or trademarks of
their respective companies and/or owners.

Copyright (C) 2004 by Adam Luoranen

Version Number History: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5,
2.6, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0

File Date: December 30, 2004

The above is the date on which I last worked on this file you now read.