& LIGHT-YEARS! - TRS-80 Color Computer Archive

upgrade options, depending on your
artistic bent. Your first step: Boost
your system's memory to 640K.
If it's music you're after, you'll
want to add a sound board like the Ad
Lib or, even better, the Roland MT-32
Multi-Timbre Sound Module, from Si
erra. The Roland will set you back
$550 if you buy it at full retail price.
That leaves you about $400 for a
MIDI interface like Midiator, from
Key Electronics (interface, sequencer,
and software for about $130), or
PC/Musicpak, from Voyetra (retail
price, $249). The rest of the money
you can sock away for a sampling
keyboard.
If computer art is your passion,
then you'll need the cream of displayadapter
technology: VGA. The Video
Seven Vega ($499, retail; $259, mail
order) or another VGA card will get
you started. Back your choice with the
Amdek Monitor/632 ($595, retail) or
the NEC MultiSynch II ($949, retail;
$570, mail order). Keep in mind when
matching cards with monitors that the
display quality is tied to the highest
resolution common to both products.
Macintosh
You probably thought your Macintosh
was powerful enough to last a lifetime.
Although it's a highly sophisticated
computer—one that includes a stateof-the-art
interface and sports more
RAM than most MS-DOS machinesit's
not, as the saying goes, everything
it wants to be. You'll have to make
some tradeoffs as you plan your sys
tem expansion (don't expect to turn
your Mac Plus into a Mac IIx), but
with around $1,000, you can dramati
cally transform your machine.
Writer's Wonder
Your Macintosh may be a premier
writer's tool and a robust word proces-
38 COMPUTE!
For example, a board that supports a
color resolution of 640 X 350 pixels
won't drive an 800 X 600 pixel mon
itor to its full potential. You can save
money by matching a lower-resolution
board to a comparable monitor. Use
your last $100 for a Microsoft Mouse
($99 from some mail-order houses,
including a copy of PC Paintbrush).
To make your PC a publishing
system worthy of any potential Alfred
Knopf, you'll want to add a 20megabyte
hard disk to hold a desktop
publishing program and a collection of
fonts and art. A mouse will help you
design the next Pulitzer winner. You
won't be able to afford a full-page dis
play with the $575 you have left, but
you can upgrade your monitor to
VGA status if you stick with a crisp,
paper-white phosphor display like
Samsung's ML4571 (14-inch screen;
$249, retail). After you've paid for a
VGA card, you'll still have enough
cash left over for a multifunction card
that will equip your PC with a serial
port (just in case you can spring for a
laser printer next year).
— Peter Scisco
sor, but it can be even more help to
anyone who puts words on the screen
if you punch up its power.
Speed, print quality, and more
storage are three of the most im
portant things writers demand from a
computer. Speed, because time is
really money. Print quality, because
editors have a nasty habit of not read
ing illegible print. And more storage,
because a good writer is a prolific
writer.
The easiest way to boost the
speed of your word processor is to put
as much of your document as possible
into RAM, where it's instantly acces
sible. Your first step to power writing,
then, is to add memory to your Mac.
Bumping up your Mac to 2.5 mega
bytes (the most efficient path) will run
$899 from your local Apple dealer, but
you can do better by going to a thirdparty
source. Levco's One-Plus-One,
which turns a Mac Plus into a 2-megabyte
machine, costs just under $400.
Taking an SE to 2.5 megabytes costs
around $470 when you use third-party
RAM; one source among many is the
Hardware House, of Philadelphia.
You can also use some of the
added RAM to run print spoolers and
ram caches. Print spoolers let you
keep working with your computer
while you print by writing the file to
disk or to memory. As you work, the
printer retrieves the file, bit by bit,
during the tiny increments of time
when your computer isn't busy. Some
recommended spoolers are Mainstay's
MacSpool ($79.95) and SuperMac's
SuperSpool ($99.95). Both work with
the ImageWriter, but SuperSpool also
works with LaserWriter printers. Disk
caches store frequently used parts of a
program in RAM, which the computer
can access more quickly than it can
access a disk drive. A disk cache is
available via your Mac's Control
Panel; if you have more memory, you
can simply set aside more RAM for
the cache.
Once your Macintosh's memory
needs are satiated, you can head for
higher-quality printing. You won't find
a laser printer for your $1,000, and the
difference between your ImageWriter
and a 24-pin printer is probably not
enough to justify the expense. But you
have other options. One printer to
consider is the Hewlett-Packard
DeskJet, an ink-jet printer that retails
for $999 ($680, mail order). Add a
Grappler LQ interface ($149, retail;
$98, mail order), from Orange Micro,
and the DeskJet prints pages that rival
a LaserWriter in quality if not in
speed. Another ink-jet printer is the
made-for-the-Mac WriteMove printer,
from GCC Technologies. A small-
sized printer, WriteMove retails for
$699 but requires special paper—
something the DeskJet can do without.
If topnotch printing isn't a prior
ity, you'll want to spend the rest of
your $1,000 for a hard disk drive. Not
only does a hard disk drive hold more
than an 800K floppy disk can, but it
also can load and save files far, far
faster. Just as important is the fact
that today's high-octane word proces
sors take up three or more floppy
disks, leaving you with some disk
swapping to do unless you have a hard
disk. Moving up to a hard disk is one
of the smartest things you can do to
power up your system.
Hard disks come in different
capacities; the 20-megabyte size is the
most common. A 20-megabyte hard
disk holds the equivalent of about 25