i held off answering this question, because it is really a hard question to
answer.
but here is my long winded answer.
software i suggest one of 2 uninstallers.
cyber media uninstaller which has instructions on the web.
norton uninstaller, the one formerly sold by quarter deck, clean sweep.
plus norton utilities.
norton does sell both for 59 dollars in their system works package 2.
because norton utilities 4 comes with that, i have to be honest it is so new
that nobody has tested it yet.
norton 3 was somewhat speech friendly.
and i think norton system works version 1, also has clean sweep included in
it.
if you purchase 1 you should be elidgible for a free upgrade to 2, according to
what their sales person told me.
of course they want to see a copy of the receit.
if you have win 98, you will find one really only needs the registry tool in
norton utilities, it is called win doctor.
the registry tool in 98 is only good for backing up the registry file.
the windows 98 tool never even revealled that i have a mistake.
be sure that if you get office 97 that you also get service pack 2 for it, it
has 600 bug fixes in it.
also get outlook 98 for 10 dollars, that is if you decide to use microsoft for
e mail.
eudora and p m mail and pegasus are also being used.
outlook express is also speechfriendly, though it lacks a cursor and requires
more keystrokes to getthings done.
plus if your office uses microsoft e mail server and possible they also use
microsoft fax, outlook express will not work with microsoft fax, though outlook
98 will.
yes outlook 98 has a cursor.
also outlook 98 address book can also be used with the stand alone fax program,
from symantec.
that program is win fax pro 9, i here 9 works great untill one gets to the
telephone stuff, some users on this list have a problem their.
so my advice if you use win fax, buy the version with no phone features.
or just buy norton system works, which has a limitted functioning version with
it for free, well actually 59 dollars for the whole package.
get norton system works professional if you decide to use
disk imageing to back up your system, it cost 79 dollars and has ghost
included.
ghost is a dos gui interface, but it also has command line prompt.
if you are not a dos user, you may want to get
sea gate back up exec 98 and its instructions are also on the web
now if you want to buy a system already built, when approaching these shops the
first question you should ask is how big is the power supply.
see note attached below to determine if you need a bigger supply.
its all depends on how much you are going to cram into the box.
most gateways use 200 watts, this is simpley not enough to stuff everything
into your system.
packard bells used to use 150 watt power supplies.
gateway got big building systems with knowledgeable end users, back then they
shipped 300 watt power supplies in their systems.
so look past the home p c market and look at systems like the h p vector.
my a s t, which is a business model came with a 230 watt transformer design
unit, its a premia model.
gate way now is makeing a higher end system since they recently acquired A L
R.
though those systems usually come with either network cards pre installed.
the next question you need to ask, after you figure out all the stuff you want
to put into your machine.
is to look at the mother board, what and how many slots do you need.
i personally recommend the person buy all p c i cards, though you are aware of
the fact older
equipment blind people use is not always going to be p c i.
it is possible for p c i cards to share an irq, for that reason, plus
performance, i recommend that one get as many p c i cards as possible.
the other mother board question, is do i want scsi.
the third mother board question is can all this fit into one system, the real
answer may be no.
so here i shall give several tips, buy the most flexible equipment.
braille display, get the alva
reason being jfw supports it with both serial port andparrallel port.
be sure to buy the one with extra cells, 43 cells or 85 cells.
they have more than one line, get the newest line with all the bells,
nost of the newer bells make using it in windows easier.
get a internal synth, i used to recommend the keynote, but pulse data stopped
makeing it.
be sure that your internal synth not use an irq.
both dec talk and double talk meet this requirement.
now realize this card is i s a, and it will not work with n t down the road.
i am only makeing this recommendation based on the fact you want a no
expenses spared system.
get the h p scanner, i think it is the 6200 that supports both,
universal serial bus or scsi.
if you go scsi, buy a scsi zip drive, a scsi cd rom drive, or a scsi burner.
also get a adaptec scsi p c i card.
adaptec now has less costly p c i cards, like the 2910 which is only scsi 2
which is all you need, unless you want to also get a scsi harddrive.
personally if you have a cd r drive, also called a burner, one can forget the
zip, unless zip is popular in the office.
so if you need files from another user and they do not have a burner, then one
can use zip.
of course if you have a burner, they proble have a cd rom drive that can read
your disk.
bottom line here you probley will need scsi to make all this stuff fit.
also by now you should realize that the cost is going to be pretty high.
plus you will need at least a mini tower, and for the very ultimate system a
full tower.
by the way if you do go scsi, or if you need scsi plus either net, both in the
same system, i recommend you get it integrated into the mother board.
the compaque desk pro line has a model with both inside integrated.
not sure if their box has enough slots and bayh space.
that is up to you to check out.
now if you are starting to wonder where one can get everytning.
you may conclude building is the way to go.
now the system descussed below with the asus mother board is a great way to
start with.
personally i would buy one of the following boards, asus, micronics, intel, or
epox.
if i want integrate scsi, especially if i am using a scsi harddrive then asus
stands alone.
reason being they offer adaptec newest ultra 2 wide controller built in for
about 100 dollars extra.
that card if bought as a seperate product, is 400 dollars.
only that scsi card, allows all scsi devices to operate at their fastest
speed.
all other cards will operate at the speed of the slowest device.
so an ultra wide card, like the 2940 u w will work only at scsi 2 speed.
reason for this is that all devices are scsi 2 except harddrives.
now if you decide to use i d e drives,
i recommend you get a mother board with ultra a t a 66.
this is the fastest newest i d e drive, it uses a new 80 pin cable.
it also introduces error checking to i d e drives.
it used to be i d e drives did not do error checking.
scsi always did.
now one can buy the diamond s 90 sound card for 50 dollars or the creative labs
live value for 99 dollars.
both allow software and wave sound at the same time.
personally i like quantum harddrives, especially if they are i d e, they are
not the fastest, but have a longer m t b f rateing.
plus i never have trouble reaching their tech support, while their
competition, i b m is not so easy to reach.
that is a major issue when paying somebody else.
plus their newest drives are integrateing shock features into them so movement
will not hurt them.
with all that said, if you want dvd get the matrox 200 g,
if no dvd get the 100 g matrox card.
the mother boards i recommend above work with matrox.
now for a modem, buy the u s r modem that is p c i and speaker phone.
its brand new, and it is not a wind modem, most p c i modems are.
well they actually now are owned by 3 com, so call them for the exact model
number.
here is a list to consider before buying a power supply,
i state the approximent wattage used by differant devices, of course this rough
estiments.
25 watts for mother board
15 for video card, or 20 for one with lots of memory.
now we are at 40
add 10 watts for each card installed
synth 10
sound card 10
modem 10
now we are at 70 watts.
80 if you have a scsi card or scanner
now the cooling fans are about 7,
so figure 3 of those at 21
one for c p u, 2 for case
101 watts
now each device with moter uses 25 watts.
126 with hard drive
151 with cd rom drive
176 with zip drive
now memory can really vary, but lets say 20 for memory and 20 for c p u.
your memory will be higher if you have a lot of memory.
216 watts
10 watts for floppy
226 watts
now realize that your power supply must be able to produce 20 percent more than
this during the boot cycle.
the reason is motors use a lot of juice getting up to speed.
because a transformer designed power supply is a high current design
it can produce about 20 percent more power for short burst.
solid state supplies just can not do this.
so a transformer power supply 230 would work find in this system.
with no ability to add anything,
so tell me how the typical
200 watt solid state power supply in gateways is going to get it done.
the cheaper gateways use a solid state power supply.
bottom line if you go solid state get at least a 250, better yet get the 300
watter.
if you want one that delivers super clean power, with plenty of upgrade
ability, get the 300 watt super cool power supply, from p c power and cooling.
the fan in the supply is a 70,000 m t b f fan, mean time between failures.
of course this option is not for everybody, because transformer power supplies
cost way more mony, but do filter voltage better than solid state ones.
they also seem to last longer.
of course if you buy a u p s, then some of the advantages of the transformer
design are not really beneficial, especially if it is a A P C ups.
reason being, A P C ups have 2 transformers in them to regulate the voltage.
so the computer receives perfect sine wave voltage.
bill cameron
bill cameron
At 02:28 PM 2/28/99 +0100, Daine Pearson wrote:
>Ivan
>
>First, Boy do I get tired of people asking to be replied to privately. Yes,
>it is perfectly appropriate when you know that you are discussing something
>that should not be on this list. Of course one would argue that you should
>never have started to begin with but... Most of this information is of use to
>other people so please, if it relates to JAWS, keep it on list and if it is
>totally outside the JAWS arena, well... you know in your heart what you should
>do.
>
>Ok, enough preaching
>
>This is only my opinion mind you but really, the only name brand (not clone)
>computer out there is IBM. In reality all the rest are clones however I
>suppose
>one could argue at this point that the HP, Compaq and Hewlett Packard's of the
>world are not clones and that the Dells & Gateways are close behind.
>
>Anyway... The most important thing is what the assembler put in the box. Is it
>put together with well known, good reputation, name brand parts or is it full
>of junk. The next thing to realize is that indeed, as you said, technology
>changes to fast to keep up so often the latest products have not been tested
>with much main stream software, let alone something like JAWS.
>
>In general, I would suggest trying to set your self up with a supplier who is
>willing to swap things out if they do not work for you. As I understand
>things, some here on the list have had good results with Dell and Gateway in
>that regard and some have had a hard time so it may be better to buy locally.
>That can be especially useful if you are talking several systems and will be
>needing after purchase service. If you shop well, you will find a company that
>will work with you, learn with you and deliver what you want and need at a
>fair
>price. Remember, you get what you pay for and cheap is not generally good.
>
>Having said all that, I am running JAWS with the software synth Access32
>The system is a Pentium II 233mhz with 64MB of Ram in a
>ASUS motherboard with onboard SCSI running an ultra wide SCSI hard disk and a
>Matrox Millennium AGP video card with 4MB or ram
>My PCI sound card is the only generic item which I tried as an experiment as
>it
>was sooo much cheaper at the time. Mind you, I tried it with the understanding
>that I could return it if it failed to do the job. As it ends up I am
>extremely happy with it as it has multi channel capability which allows JAWS,
>the CD and the system sounds to be heard simultaneously and clearly.
>
>As far as I can tell, if you are going to use a software synth, the important
>items are system RAM, the sound card, the systems main processor, the video
>card and the hard disk, in that order though I may be wrong on this?.
>
>It seems to me that 32Meg of ram works but considering how cheap it has become
>I would really suggest a minimum of 64. This will give the system a bit of
>breathing room to have several applications open without doing much swapping
>to
>disk. Having said that, Microsoft's main products and the combo pack
>MS-Office
>are system and memory hogs. If you plan to use several of them I might suggest
>adding even more RAM.
>In any case, if the sound card is not up to the task, it is all over.
>As the whole speech operation does put a drain on the system, the main
>processor should be fast. I would suggest nothing below 233mhz but actually
>233
>is already getting hard to find.
>The video card is what JAWS is looking at so it needs to be compatible with
>JAWS. HJ is trying to keep a list of compatible hardware but as you can
>expect,
>it is always out of date. The AGP Matrox I have is great but I believe it has
>also been superceded
>The hard disk tends to kill system performance when it is actually reading,
>less so when writing. For everything about your system, the faster the disk
>the better the system performance. That does not mean you need SCSI but it
>can
>help and if you want to run other peripherals like CD writers and scanners,
>SCSI is a better performer.
>
>I also have a Compaq Armada 150mhz laptop running JAWS and the Access32
>software synth. That system is really not up to the task. As far as I can
>tell, the biggest problem is the internal sound card, partly as it is single
>channel so only allows JAWS sounds through but also I don't think it has much
>onboard processing. That aside, I think the video is the other big problem.
>It
>only has 1.5MB of ram and on top of that, Compaq is well known for doing al
>sorts of strange things with their drivers.
>Anyway, it works but the difference between it and my desktop is like night
>and
>day.
>
>If you are going to use a separate synthesizer card than the rest of the
>system
>does not need to be so strong. Virtually all the voice sound work is done by
>the card so the only really important item is the video card and system RAM.
>
>As far as hard disk size, again personally, I have no idea what the average
>user does with all the gigabytes of storage available today. I have a 4 gig
>drive and it is perhaps 30% full.
>
>Software really depends on your needs. the Microsoft Office stuff as I said is
>bloatware but JAWS does come more or less ready to deal with Word, Access,
>Excel etc. Also, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4x is pretty well supported.
> Scanning and Braille I can't help with and you would have to explain what you
>mean about Education or training environment.
>
>One last thing you did not mention that is certainly a must in my book...
> Something that is often overlooked, especially by computer sellers as they
>don't like to admit that things can go wrong is a backup system. In days past,
>a few floppies were all you needed to backup everything. Today, one floppy can
>be hard pressed to hold one MS-Word file. So, you need to be using at a
>minimum
>a Zip drive but at 100 or 200 MB per disk they also generate allot of disks,
>especially for a total backup. Personally, I am using a NS8 SCSI tape drive
>with hardware compression. It gets about 8 Gigs onto one tape and does my
>daily
>backup of about 300MB in a few minutes. Actually, it takes almost as long for
>the tape to forward fast and get the correct cue point as it does for the
>actual backup. No matter what, you need to do something because though
>computers are fun, helpful and well simplified when things go wrong, there is
>often no way back unless you have a good backup. It is a lesson many have
>only
>learned the hard way but I suggest you try to deal with it now
>
>Daine
>
>On Thursday, February 25, 1999 11:02 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ivan
>Pineiro)
>wrote:
>
>**** Please write to me privately to avoid cluttering the list. ****
>
>My employer wants me to put together a wish list of equiptmentt
>(hardware and software) compatible with JAWS for Windows. This list
>is to include an ideal computer system. The problem is thatt with so
>many changes in technology and all the different things that are
>necessary for JAWS to work properly, I don't know where to start.
>That's why I'm appealing to the list for suggestions/recommendations.
>
>What kind of processor? Is proprietary system such as DELL or Gateway
>better than a Clone? How fast can the computer be before problems
>start appearing? Are synthesyzers better than sound cards? If so,
>which kind? How much memory and hard disk space could be consider
>optimal for JFW to run?
>
>What kind of software can we use for word processing? What kind of
>software can we use for Internet Access and e-mail? What kind of
>software can we use for scanning and what kind of scanners? What
>other type of software is available that can be used on an educational
>and/or training environment?
>
>How about Braille displays? What's best with JFW?
>
>As you can see, any information will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
>
>Ivan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-
>Visit the jfw ml web page: http://jfw.cjb.net
-
Visit the jfw ml web page: http://jfw.cjb.net
