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We take a look at Sony's new
D-R
If you thought that the CD ROM was just a clever
toy with no real place to go, then think again.
Now, more than ever, CD ROM brings a whole
new world of information as close as your PC.
By DARREN YATES
Remember back to those grand old
school days when you had to do those
natural science assignments and you
spent hours looking up books for information on all sorts of animals?
Often you found one photo and only
a couple of paragraphs of information
when you had to write four pages! If
you think about it, it's amazing how
things have changed in just the last 10
years, let alone the last 50!
The CD ROM makes it possible to
store 680 megabytes of information
on a single compact disc - or, in other
words, a complete edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica from A to Z.
But if that isn't your cup of tea,
then what about desktop publishing,
wildlife, history, music, engineering?
- the list of titles now available for CD
ROM is growing all the time in a wider
area of subjects.
So, when we were offered the
chance to review the latest Sony package from Pelham Pty Ltd, it was a case
of "who's first to play with it?" For
just $1140, you can purchase everything you need to get their CD ROM
up and running; from cables to the
software and the CD ROM card.
But of course, the whole package is
useless unless you've got software to
go with it. Fortunately, they've covered this end of the wicket as well by
providing a package containing six
discs, each in its own container.
The titles included are Compton's
Illustrated Encyclopaedia, National
Geographic Society's Mammals, Languages of the World, World Atlas and
CD Player Simulator software. This
selection is claimed to be valued at
over $3000.
The CD ROM drive itself is very
compact, measuring approximately
320 x 180 x 50mm, and it contains its
own power supply so that it doesn't
have to reply on the computer's supply. The front panel of the drive contains a thumbwheel volume control,
the CD eject button and a 3.5mm stereo
socket for a pair of
headphones. A dualcolour LED shows
when the CD is being
accessed by the computer; orange for access
and green for ready.
Sony have done their
best to make sure that
installing the CD ROM
is as easy as installing
any other peripheral
into your PC. They've
even given you the corBoth the software & the
hardware for Sony's
CD ROM are easy to
install. You can use it
with just about any
computer from an XT
up, although at least an
AT with a VGA
monitor & driver card
is recommended.
6
SILICON CHIP
rect Phillips-head screwdriver to undo
the computer case!
The CD ROM card is a half-width
unit that will fit into any expansion
socket on an XT through to a 486.
There are no DIP switches to set and
it's very easy to install.
The socket at the end of the card
simply connects to either one of the
sockets on the back of the CD ROM
drive. After that, it's just a case of
connecting up the power cable and
you're ready to go.
Installing the software
The driver software for the CD ROM
comes on a single 5¼-inch or 3½-inch
floppy disc. All you have to do is load
in the disc, type "llinstal" and press
return.
The installation software automatically loads in and then asks you what
sections of the 6-pack CD-ROM software you wish to load into your hard
disc. There's a very good reason for
this, too. The demo program, which is
a top-grade mix of high-resolution
graphics and digital stereo sound, is
about eight megabytes (8Mb) long and
when you add that to everything else,
the total comes to about 17Mb!
Once you have decided on what
software you want loaded in, the
driver software prompts you to load
in the correct CD and away it goes.
When it's completed, it also automatically reboots your computer so
that changes it has made to the
CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files
take effect.
If you had enough room on your
hard disc to load in the demo program, go to the LASERLIB directory
and type "lldemo" and press return
and you'll learn briefly how the CD
ROM system works.
Six-pack software
As mentioned before, there are six
CDs provided with numerous reference titles. To give you a taste of what
you can expect, we'll take a brief look
at a couple. To load in one of the CDs,
you have to load it into a plastic caddy
which then fits into the CD ROM drive.
When you consider that some CD
ROM drives now do without this
caddy system and no CD players have
it, you wonder why Sony has persisted with it. From our point of view,
it was about the only negative feature
of the whole package.
But that aside, you only need to
change discs when you change applications.
CD music sampler
Although not one of the bigger programs, this is one that is sure to be a
hit in just about every workplace (including here in our editorial offices)!
WHERE DO YOU GET IT?
o~
(<,~
The unit is supplied complete with six CDs, including Compton's Illustrated
Encyclopaedia, National Geographic Society's Mammals, Languages of the
World, World Atlas and CD Player Simulator software.
QLD'S LARGEST SUPPLIER OF MICROWAVE OVEN PARTS & ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS
REPLACEMENT
PARTS
DISTRIBUTORS
FOR
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SHARP
Panasonic
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A RANGE OF MAGNETRONS, DIODES, CAPACITORS & SHEET MICA TO SUIT
MANY MODELS & BRANDS OF MICROWAVE OVEN
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EDSON FIELD PTY LTD (A.C.N. 010 378 588). Trading as:
ECONOMIC ELECTRONICS,
24 Campbell Street, Bowen Hills, Old 4006.
PO Box 481, Fortitude Valley, 4006
Telephone (07) 252 3762.
SOUTHPORT ELECTRONIC SHOP,
Shop 1/ 10 Welch St, Southport, Old 4215. Telephone
(075) 32 3632
Fax (075) 51 0543
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VlSA
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e VAST RANGE OF COMPONENTS e TEST EQUIPMENT e TOOLS e SOLDERING EQUIPMENT
e DATA BOOKS e AUDIO/VIDEO ACCESSORIES e CABLE & CONNECTORS
MAY 1992
7
You can now
afford a satellite
TV system
For many years you have probably
looked at satellite TV systems and
thought "one day".
You can now purchase the following K-band system for only:
$995.00
These two off-screen shots are from
the National Geographic Society's
Mammals & from World Atlas.
Here's what you get:
*
A 1.8-metre prime focus dish
antenna, complete with all the
mounting hardware.
This program allows you to play your
favourite music CDs through your CD
ROM and even has a VGA screen display of one of Sony's CD players, complete with shuffle play, repeat and all
the standard CD player features.
But the best thing from a work point
of view is that the software is clever
enough to be able to play your CDs in
the background while you get on with
other work on the computer. That's
pretty clever stuff. And what's more,
the sound quality is just as good as
from any conventional CD player.
Sony even provide you with a pair
of stereo headphones that plug straight
into the front of the CD ROM for private listening while you work.
* One super low-noise LNB (1.4dB
or better).
*magnetic
One Ku-band feedhorn and a
signal polariser.
* 30 metres of low-loss coaxial
cable with a single pair control line.
* lnfrared remote control satellite
receiver with selectable IF & audio
bandwidth, polarity & digital readout.
Your receiver is pre-programmed
to the popular AUSSAT transponders via the internal EEPROM
memory. This unit is also suitable
for C-band applications.
Call, fax or write to:
AV-COMM PTY LTD
PO BOX 386, NORTHBRIDGE
NSW 2063.
Phone (02) 949 7417
Fax (02) 949 7095
All items are available separately.
Ask about our C-band LNBs, NTSCto-PAL converters, video time date
generators, FM 2 & EPAL & Pay TV
hardware.
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----------Name ...... .. .... ... .. ... .. .. ............... ... ....
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II Phone .... ...... .. ..... ....... .... ...... ..... .......
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YES GARRY, please send me more information on K-band satellite systems.
. ___________ .I
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ACN 002 174 478
SILICON CHIP
01/92
CD player software, you'll hear a
myriad of animal sounds in both ears.
CD ROM catalog
National Geographic
Also included in the "6-pack" is a
CD ROM catalog which shows the
CDs currently available from Sony.
The list is truly diverse and includes,
among other things , an aircraft registration compendium, Battle Chess ,
CIA World Fact Book, Variety's Video
Directory, Shakespeare on Disc and
Coate's Art Review. They're priced at
between $80 and $500, depending on
the application.
One CD contains the complete 26volume edition of Compton's Family
Encyclopaedia with over 32,000 articles, 1500 illustrations and sound recordings. What's more, you don't have
The most spectacular package
comes from the National Geographic
Society. Called "Mammals " the program contains information on over
200 mammals, all complete with full
colour photographs.
But this is where the CD ROM leaves
books behind. Also included are
sound recordings and real life footage
from some of the National Geographic
films on a large number of mammals.
You can even get a printout of the
information provided on a particular
screen by clicking on the PRINT tile.
To be able to store so many audio
recordings of the mammals shown,
the right and left channels contain
different tracks. For example, when
you listen to what an old-world monkey sounds like, the sound is reproduced in the left ear. If you listen to,
say, a moose later, you may hear that
in the right ear.
If you play the Mammals CD via the
The CD is placed in a plastic caddy
before being inserted into the player.
to flip through reams of pages; instead, you just follow the pathways to
the particular subject of interest.
Again, the same method of storing
so many sound tracks has been used
here. If you play this disc through the
CD player software, you'll hear two
separate tracks in both right and left
ears. The program, of course, only
allows you to hear the sound recording of interest.
Play CD's On Your Computer
World Atlas
One way to help with geography
assignments is to have a good atlas
and this CD ROM system has one. It
gives you a picture of the world and
by using either the keyboard or a
mouse, you can select any region of
interest and it will display that almost instantly on screen. You can then
select any country from that particular region and look at it more closely.
Overall, the CD ROM system allows you to instantly access a whole
world of information previously only
available at large reference libraries.
As a teaching tool, it provides students and teachers alike with fast,
instant information on the latest topics from music, science, art, biology,
history and geography - the list goes
on.
With the way that CD ROM is expanding, it won't be long before you
can buy the software as easily as you
can buy music CDs.
The Sony CD ROM package from
Pelham is areal winner. At only $1140,
it represents terrific value for money,
particularly when you consider the
amount of information being made
available and the current cost of many
of the reference works provided.
Although many of the CDs available use high-resolution VGA graphics, many CDs also support CGA and
EGA standards as well and there are
plenty that don't even require graphics cards. So there are lots of good
reasons to consider a CD ROM for
your computer.
If that doesn 't interest you, think of
the complexity of the games that will
be possible - at the very least, you
should get digital stereo sound and
motion picture graphics.
The system reviewed here comes
complete with drive, CD ROM card,
installation software, the "six pack"
reference library, CD cassette tray,
cables, headphones, screwdriver and
user manuals. The system require-
THE LATEST
MULTIMEDIA SENSATION
..... CD-ROM
YOU GET ...
•3
-
• Textual Information
• CD quality audio sounds
• Photographic Images
• Motion Video
• SOUND BLASTER PRO
Short Version
SENSATIONAL CD TITLES
Creative's Sounds
Microsoft Windows 3.0
Microsoft Bookshelf,
includes Atlas,
Encyclopedia & more!
Cat X-2250
DISK STORAGE BOXES
5.25" Holds 50 disks Cat X-3531
5.25" Holds 100 disks Cat X-3534
Mini IBM Joystick Cat X-3581
For more information on your nearest store location
Phone: (02) 888 3200
PHONE ORDERS: SYDNEY AREA 888 2105 OUTSIDE SYDNEY (FREE CALL) 888 22 6610
81319
DICK SMITH (WHOLESALE) A.C.N. 000 908 716
ments are an XT or AT personal computer, 512Kb RAM minimum,' DOS
3.1 or higher, a hard disc, and a VGA
card and monitor (recommended).
For more information, contact
Pelham Pty Ltd on (02) 980 6988; or
see them at 1st Floor, 100 Yarrara Rd,
Pennant Hills, NSW 2120.
SC
MAY 1992
9
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