If It Helps, Plug It In

The Sunday Age

Sunday February 9, 1997

John O'Meara

Peripherals are those devices that plug into a computer to extend its usefulness. Last week we looked at printers, the most common of all peripherals. This week John O'Meara gives us a quick survey of the rest of the pack.

With the rise of the Internet, the modem has come to rival the printer for ubiquity. The modem has two jobs. It takes the digital signals from a computer and converts them into analog signals so that they can travel over the phone lines. And it takes analog signals from that line and converts them back into bits. The process is known as modulation/

demodulation and it's from the initial letters of those two words that the modem takes its name.

Modems have been at it for years. Where they have improved is in the speed with which they can handle the data. Today's top speed for conventional modems is 33,600 bits per second, usually abbreviated as 33.6kbps. There are still a few modems that are survivors of an earlier age (1996) and are rated at 28.8kbps but they are rapidly fading away. If you are buying a modem, nothing but 33.6 will do.

Modems can either be inside the computer's main box or external. The appeal of an internal modem is that it doesn't take up desk space or require yet another power point but the great majority of modems sold are external and connect to the PC through the serial port or to the Mac via the modem port.

In the past, modems have been hell. They speak a truly frightening language known as the Hayes command set and anyone who has spent hours trying to figure out the right sequence of instructions to get an unruly modem to behave will know that the Hayes was not designed to be easy on humans.

Fortunately, operating systems and communications software have got better at detecting the brand of modem you have and then setting things up. Even so, there can be some nasty moments. Fortunately again, manufacturers have got better at supplying documentation that home users can understand.

The modem that is doing great business at the moment is an innovative device from an Australian company. The Banksia Wave SP has a lot about it to like. It is a 33.6kbps modem with all the usual bells and whistles.

What makes it a little unusual is that it also works as a hands-free phone. The attractive triangular box is designed to sit between your keyboard and monitor and its built-in microphone and speaker provide the telephone part of the business.

Modems universally have the ability to send and receive faxes. This sounds attractive but a fax modem is only a makeshift substitute for a real fax machine. For one, your computer has to be on to receive a fax. For two, fax software stinks.

For three, you can only send something that is in the computer in digital form: unless you have a scanner it is impossible to get a fax, scribble some comments and fax it back. (Yes, most fax software allows the on-screen mark-up of received faxes but that part stinks too and scribbling with a mouse is like typing in heavy gloves.)

The Wave SP sells for about $380. It will work with a Mac but the Mac can't make use of its PC-only software, which allows it to work as an answering machine.

SOUND CARDS.

The sound that emanates from that modem's small speaker is hardly hi-fi but remember that it is, after all, telephone quality. The built-in sound of the average PC is equally cheap and nasty, amounting to little more than squeaks and pops scratched out from a twopenny speaker.

The Mac is better equipped for generating sound but its speaker, too, is a hangover from the days when computers were expected to do little more than beep rudely. As computer games grew more sophisticated and realistic sound became an important component, reasonable audio performance became mandatory.

One company, Creative Labs, leads the way with its SoundBlaster add-on cards. It remains important for other manufacturers to be able to advertise their product as SoundBlaster-compatible in the same way that, in earlier years, clone makers advertised their computer systems as "IBM-compatible" until compatibility came to be taken for granted.

Many corporate buyers eager to save a few pennies and fearful of an outbreak of liveliness in the workplace still buy PCs without sound cards but most home PCs bought within the past two years come with one. If you have a newish PC, you probably have a sound card. If you have an older PC that still does what you wish of it and isn't otherwise in need of an upgrade, it is not hard to add a card to it.

Sound cards provide better sound than the PC's standard sound system because they incorporate a synthesiser that generates instrument noises. The process is known as FM synthesis, the "FM" standing for "frequency modulation", just as in FM radio.

FM radio was a big quality improvement over AM but, for true high-quality computer sound, FM synthesis is only the entry level (street price for a SoundBlaster 16 is about $200). The true computer sound snob craves a card that has samples of real instruments stored within its circuitry.

The most popular card at this level is the SoundBlaster AWE 32, which sells for about $400 and also offers a MIDI port into which you can plug a music keyboard and any number of other instruments available with MIDI output.

SPEAKERS.

A card that generates good sound deserves equally capable speakers. For a quick and easy solution you can simply plug a lead between the output port of the sound card and the auxiliary port of your stereo amplifier and play your computer through your existing speakers, which are likely to be better than anything you would think of buying exclusively for your computer.

The trouble is that, for realistic surround sound, the speakers need to be spaced equidistantly on your desk and home speakers usually take up too much real estate.

The choice, then, is between using headphones (something that will be appreciated by the household if you play games at thunderous levels into the morning) or buying multimedia speakers, which have a built-in amplifier and are designed to deliver reasonable bass in a small box.

As with audio speakers, computer speakers are a matter of perception and budget. They range in price from about $40 to the-sky's-the-limit. In the end you have to let your ears and your wallet decide.

AppleDesign power speakers at an RRP of $295 are towards the top of the range but provide a good rich sound that is more than adequate for games and has enough finesse to bring out the best in audio CDs.

CD-ROMs.

A CD-ROM player is another essential for a multimedia PC. Prices start at about $150 for a basic player and go upwards according to speed. The original computer CD was capable of 150kbps and was thus single speed.

It wasn't long before double speed (300kbps) became the standard and stayed so for a while but, in the past couple of years, the progress has been rapid. An eight-speed CD (usually designated 8x) is now the entry level and 12x drives are common. If you intend to use CDs primarily as a source for software installation, an 8x drive is fine.

CD-ROMS can be controlled either by an existing IDE hard drive controller, by a SCSI controller or by a sound card. A sound card-CD bundle is a good choice to ensure easy installation and configuration.

Again, Creative Labs has most of the market, with its SB16 and 8x CD combination retailing at about $440. The same package with 11 Microsoft CDs - including the excellent Encarta encyclopedia, MS Works, MS Money and MS Golf - can be had for about $500. If you are keen on the software, the $60 extra for the bundle is good value.

SCANNERS.

One area of growing interest in the peripheral market is scanners. Until a year or two ago, scanners were seldom seen outside professional graphics shops but they are on the verge of becoming household items.

Kodak's Snapshot Photo Scanner 1 is an example of how the scanner will enter our homes. This device plugs into the parallel port of the PC and scans pictures and other reflection art in true color at 600 dots per inch (for home use, 600dpi is excellent resolution).

It accepts documents of up to 4in x 11.5in (panoramic photos) and comes with Pictureworks Photo Enhancer, an easy-to-use image editing program, and Kai's Power Goo, a quirky but fun piece of software that lets you lengthen your friends' noses and narrow their eyes on screen.

At $295 the Kodak scanner is in the hours-of-family-fun category but the money would go a long way towards a generally more useful flatbed scanner, a neat box like a dumb photocopier that's able to scan A4-size documents or images. Flatbed scanners have come within reach of the home budget, exemplified by the Mustek 600 II CD, which sells for about $500.

Despite its name, this scanner is not true 600dpi; it scans at 600dpi horizontally but 300dpi vertically. Nevertheless, that is more than enough for home and, if you really do want to use your fax modem, a scanner is essential.

Beware, though, that scans take up lots of disk space. Even in these days of cheap and large hard drives, graphics files can quickly eat what free space you have. The answer is to use software compression to squash down the files you are not immediately using. A program like PKZIP for the PC or Stuffit for the Mac can reduce graphics files to as little as 1/10th their original size.

STORING FILES.

There's a tried-and-true maxim in the world of work that goes: "Work expands to fill the time available." The same goes for data. There was a time, not so many years ago, when data storage measured in kilobytes was sufficient. When 100-megabyte hard drives hit the market, it seemed all our file management woes had been solved.

Today, most computers come standard with at least a gigabyte (1000 megabytes) of hard drive space and still we wonder where we're going to keep our valuable information, not to mention all the junk we suck off the Internet every day.

The fact is, you'll never have enough room for all the stuff you want to keep in your computer. And that's only for storage. What about backing up?

Most people who are diligent about backing up the contents of their hard drives have one thing in common: at one time or another they've lost valuable software and data in a disk crash.

Even if you've only got a 500MB hard drive, backing up to 1.4MB floppies is a gruesome task. Happily, there are numerous solutions to the problem of external storage.

* Zip Drives. Iomega's Zip Drive is the handiest form of external storage. Somewhat limited by the 100MB capacity of its disks, which resemble thick 3.5-in floppies, the Zip compensates by being terrifically portable and affordable. It retails for $350 but can often be had for less than $300 with rebates. The 100MB disks sell for $33 each.

* Jaz Drives. The Jaz Drive gives serious storage with 1GB disks. It is a very fast drive and only slightly less portable than the Zip. The Iomega Jaz retails for $899 and the disks will cost $239 each. A competing company, Performantz, also makes a 1GB Jaz drive, which retails for slightly less than the Iomega.

SyQuest is Iomega's main competitor in this area. Against the Zip, SyQuest has recently improved upon its EZ135 with the new EZ Flyer 230, which retails for $599. EZ Flyer disks hold 235MB and retail for $45. Nomai makes a 540MB drive that is compatible with SyQuest disks and retails for $790.

In the Jaz market, SyQuest has just released the SyJet 1.3, which has 1.3GB capacity disks and retails for $1031.

* Tape drives. Like the Thermos vacuum flask, the SyQuest name became synonymous with removable tape-storage drives, although there are several other reputable manufacturers. Media for storing computer data on magnetic tape have been around for much longer than the high-capacity Zip and Jaz disks.

The first SyQuest cartridges held 44MB. The next generation went up to 88MB, then 200MB. All three sizes are reliable, if rather awkward in size and lacking in speed.

If you can find a good deal on a second-hand SyQuest tape drive (no more than $500 for a 200MB unit), make sure you can get plenty of tape cartridges, because the technology is rapidly being replaced by Zip- and Jaz-style disk storage and it might be difficult today to find a new tape drive for sale.

* External hard drives. The advantage of the above media is that, with disks or tape, you really don't have a limit to the amount of data you can collect. If you're an efficient data manager who just needs more space, an external hard drive might be the answer. There are dozens of reliable disk makers, and even more price structures, but a general rule is that more memory will cost less. In the Seagate range, for example, a 1.08GB disk will cost about $450; a 2.14GB disk will go for about $800; and a 4.5GB can be had for about $1700.

* CD-ROM burners. The ultimate in storage is to buy your own CD-ROM burner - burner being the word nerds use when they mean "record" on to CD. CD capacities vary, up to 650MB, and if they are maintained properly are a very reliable means of long-term storage, especially for photographs. Sony, La Cie, Yamaha and Optima are just a few of the companies that make good CD burners, which retail for around $1700.