It is a computerised atlas of the world, complete with political, economic
and demographic data, all available with a few prods of the keyboard. It
is fun and easy to use, and cheap too – geography has probably never been
brought to life in such a colourful and lively fashion.

PC Globe runs on any IBM PC or compatible machine under MS-DOS, and
does work on a monochrome screen, but the results are not as good. You do
need the colour to ge the most out of the package. The beauty of this program
is that you can display world, region and country maps with your own selection
of colours.

The first screen you see when you run PC Globe is a map of the world.
Using the cursor keys, or better still, a mouse, reveals a sequence of pull-down
menus. Three of these – world, region and country – allow you to move about
and home in on the country or area you want. You can select a country, region
or group of countries, such as all the countries in the European Community,
or all the Third World nations, by selecting from these menus, and by choosing
the program displays from lists.

Or you can select a country using a point-and-select option, which allows
you to point with cross-hairs at a country, and select it directly (you
do not need to know what it is called). A mouse is the best tool for this
job.

Chosing from the ‘world’ menu simply highlights a country on the world
map. The program considers this country to be the ‘active’ one for subsequent
operations – moving to the region menu allows you to blow up to a continent
or region, and moving to the country menu allows finer detail still. It
is possible to take short cuts and skip straight to a country, as all three
menus share some common options.

When selecting a country from lists, you have the option of typing in
the name, or paging through what can be a considerable number of names.
PC Globe has 177 countries (I would defy anyone to name them all), and devolutionists
will be happy to learn that the makers of the program consider Scotland
and Wales worth locating, although not so happy to find them firmly in the
United Kingdom. In this way, it is possible to locate a country that you
would be hard pressed to place; you could also spot a country you did not
know existed (hands up if you know where the Comoros or Burkina Faso are).

Basic geogrphy apart, PC Globe comes into its own with its fine detail.
The ‘country’ menu allows you to identify major cities, including the capital,
and distinct geographical areas like mountains, desert, forest and so on.
Another option displays elevation, a feature that looks remarkably good
in colour. (It is also possible to print most of PC Globe’s screens and
information.)

A slightly confusing aspect of displaying some countries arise because
the program takes the boundaries literally, and it also has to squash countries
with separate land masses together on the same screen. So Malaysia, for
example, has two areas, the mainland bit, and a section out of Borneo (Sarawak).
But this is not a major drawback.

Next comes the pgoram’s database, available from another pull-down menu.
There are 10 screens for each country, containing different sets of data.
These include population, age distribution, languages, religious and ethnic
groups and government. Other screens ad some remarkable information: health
statistics, for example, has the number of doctors and dentists, as well
as the number of hospital beds in the country, all of which are shown on
a per capita basis. Economic information gives the gross national product
for the years 1987 and 1989, details of the country’s industry and agriculture,
imports and exports.

You can make further comparative use of some of this data. A separate
submenu brings up a list of statistical items that the programs displays
as bar charts. For example, you can assemble a chart with the top 11 countries
by number of hospital beds a head, if you so wish (11 is the maximum number
– it incudes the top 10, and the current ‘active’ country). This is a powerful
feature, particularly since you can also ignore the top countries, an instead
choose any set ofcountries to go with your ‘active’ one.

As if these features were not enough, there is also a utiities menu.
One section of this allows certain changes to the way the program starts,
so you can display distances in miles or kilometres. An intresting option
here allows you to shift the centre of the world map. Instead of the traditional
layout (the US to the left, Australia to the right), any point can appear
in the centre.

Other utilities are a distance and bearing calculator for measuring
distance between cities, a routine to convert currency and a time-zone calculator.
Finally, options allow you to export data to other programs, as either text
or graphics.

PC Globe’s makers, PC Globe Inc, charge only $69.95 for the program.
It has to be a bargain – even though much of the data becomes out-of-date
quickly (witness East Europe). But registered users can obtain updates The
company says its users include students, travel agents and business people.
Listed among a sample of corporate users is Kentucky Fried Chicken International
– I imagine it wants to find out which countries do not yet have a finger-lickin’
outlet.

PC Globe runs on an IBM PC/XT/AT/PS2 or compatible with 512K memory.
It needs CGA/EGA/VGA colour graphis or Hercules monochrone. It costs $69.95
from PC Globe Inc, 4700 South McClintock Drive, Tempe, Arizona 85282. Shipping
is $10 extra to Europe.

The number 2100 refers, perhaps optimistically, to the playing strength
of the program on the US Chess Federation scale. An expert rates between
2000 and 2199; someone with a playing strength of 2200 or above is a master.
Judging from my own standard as a medium-strength club player, I would place
the program lower, as I found no great difficulty beating it over the usual
time limits (40 moves in two hours), even when I had set the program to
play at its strongest level, championship play.

Like most commercial chess programs, Chessmaster is weak at forming
plans during the middle-phase of a game, while it excels at spotting short-term
tactical advantages. It also has an extensive repertoire of openings, but
these do not extend very far, and the program has to stop and ‘think’ hard
if you deviate early from a common opening. (The authors say the program
checks against 150 000 opening positions, but it is not hard to find alternatives.)
This is not to say that the program did not prove a challenge: when set
to play games over shorter time limits, the program soon became an equal,
as I blundered into tactical traps under pressure. This was particularly
so in complex positions.

The program needs to be displayed with colour graphics or Hercules monochrome
graphics. When you run it, the program shows the board with a new game ready
to go. You can view the board in two or three dimensions. The quality of
the graphics is excellent, even if mono. The piece display is Staunton based
on a well-known standard set, but another program (sold separately) allows
you to design your own pieces.

There is a plethora of settings, available through pull-down menus or
directly from the keyboard. These include: sound choices – there is a voice
option where the program informs you of interesting events; a choice of
notation; a teaching mode; set-up of positions; time controls; and rating
of your playing strength. The program can also suggest how you can improve
your game, allowing you to take moves back, and you can also ask for your
play to be rated.

The playing strengths include a newcomer mode, where the program looks
only at your response to its move and no further. More advanced levels allow
the program to look ahead – an interesting setting called ‘thinking’ displays
a window showing Chessmaster’s current thinking, and shows the number of
moves it is looking ahead.

You can enter moves using usual notation (e4, P-K4 and so on), or use
the cursor keys to move a ‘hand’ icon to grab and move pieces. It is more
fun to do this with a mouse or joystick when it becomes just like moving
real chess pieces.

Some features that I have not seen in other programs include blindfold
chess, where either the white, black or both sides can be hidden, and there
is a special ‘peek’ option that allows you to cheat and look at the board.
It also has a panic button that you hit when the boss comes by. A spreadsheet
showing financial forecasts instantly springs up on the screen. You can
also set the program to enforce the ‘you touch it, you move it’ rule.

These facilities – and there are several others – undoubtedly make the
program the best chess package I have tried. Serious players could use it
not only to play, but also to store and retrieve game positions.

It is a strong program, particularly when the shorter time limits are
used, and beginners may find it discouraging. It is galling to be beaten
by a machine every time. On the other hand, a machine cannot intrude into
private grief if you lose.

Chessmaster 2100 costs about $40 and runs on IBM PC/XT/AT/PS2 with 512
K memory; it needs CGA/EGA/VGA or Hercules graphics. It is available from
The Software Toolworks Inc, 19808 Nordhoff Place, Chatsworth, California
91311-9931, US.

COMPUTER departments in research institutions have a problem. Do they
leave their systems open to free communication, or censor the data traffic
to trap hackers? In this true-life detective story, Clifford Stoll wrestles
with the dilemma.

An astronomer seconded to help to run computers at the Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory, California, Stoll discovers a discrepancy of 75 cents on a system
that charges for time on a computer. He accepts the intellectual challenge
to find the reason, and discovers a hacker has infiltrated his system by
breaking in through a hole in a text-editing program running on the computer’s
oper ating system, Unix. The hacker, coming in over a national data network,
has complete control if desired.

Others are not interested in tracing the hacker. Stoll persists, and
buys time to run a trace. The bulk of his book relates, in conversational
style, his extra ordinary efforts to escalate the chase: after finding the
hacker has broken into numerous ‘non-sensitive’ military computers, he tries
to interest the FBI, the CIA and other American government agencies in trapping
the hacker. He receives little encouragement, although he has great help
from people running Tymnet, the data carrier. Meanwhile, he eavesdrops on
the hacker, printing reams of the data thief’s computer sessions.

Stoll paints an amusing picture of himself as the archetypal, long-haired,
hippie campus radical. Berkeley is still full of them – everything stops
for a Grateful Dead concert. While not actively involved in politics, the
idea of cooperating with the FBI is anathema to Stoll. He could have shut
the hacker out but keeps the door open because of the thrill of the chase
and a growing realisation that the hacker may not be benign. Stoll watches
as the hacker searches for data on the Strategic Defense Initiative, the
Stealth bomber and Strategic Air Command. He is especially incensed when
the hacker gains access to data on brain scans on another in-house computer.

Data networks make it easy to disguise the origin of inquiries so initially
Stoll was convinced the hacker must be in the US. After setting a trap –
Stoll invented a Strategic Defense Initiative network to keep the hacker
hanging on – the trail led to Hanover in West Germany. Stoll’s government
contacts, now extensive, took time to organise a raid on foreign soil. Several
hackers stood trial earlier this year on espionage charges.

The Cuckoo’s Egg is a fast-moving read that succeeds brilliantly in
bringing the complex, closed world of computer systems to life. Networks
and operating systems become close friends in the space of a paragraph.
You may not feel the same, however, about Stoll’s frequent descriptions
of home life with partner Martha.

The lessons from the book are clear. Too many computer sites ignore
simple controls for passwords, leaving factory-supplied names for logging
in, such as ‘System Manager’, on tap for a hacker. Most large computer sites
have been penetrated at some point, which helps to explain why Stoll’s pleas
for help fell on deaf ears. And while most hackers get bored fairly quickly,
nothing will stop the dedication of someone like Stoll’s personal foe, who
clocked up hundreds of hours of illegal access.

Stoll’s spy hacker, however, did not destroy valuable research data.
Others have tried, by planting ‘worms’ and ‘viruses’. The era of academic
glasnost over worldwide computer networks may not survive on trust alone.

At first sight, the software looks like a grand scientific calculator;
indeed, the core module is called the Desk Calculator. When you load the
software, it displays a cluttered screen of options. This seems complicated
at first sight, but it is well designed. There are five windows, three for
data, one for calculator functions and one for main options such as graphics,
curve fitting and wave generation.

You can switch the calculator window through four screens in all, giving
a vast choice of mathematical functions. Above this, there is an empty window
for the stack, containing up to five registers where numbers can be entered,
as with a calculator. A simple selection from the calculator functions,
like square root or sin, will immediately act on the top register in the
stack, and keyboard commands such as add (+) and divide (/) also act on
the stack.

The other two windows contain memory slots: the top one (parameters)
can contain numbers of any type of data, the bottom (variables) holds arrays
as well as numbers. A command line mode allows calculations to be carried
out in one go, without manipulating the stack. You can also evaluate algebraic
expressions. A confusion is that RPN and algebraic operations differ in
the precedence of operations; for example, RPN always executes commands
from left to right, but algebraic syntax will run bracketed expressions
first. So be careful if you are mixing these methods.

Asystant handles arrays as if they are single numbers. It is the array-handling
that is one of the package’s more interesting and powerful features. A user
creates and stores an array as a variable by simply entering a number, selecting
the ‘n:ramp’ option from the array operations menu in the calculator, and
then storing it. You can also edit any element in the array with the ‘aedit’
option. Twodimensional arrays can also be set up. From here, it is a simple
matter to plot a function such as y = 2 X 2 + 3 over an interval (1,2).
The graphics part of the package takes y and x values stored as arrays and
generates plots on the screen; you can also send your results to a plotter
or a laser printer.

The main menu options include a waveform generator and analyser, processing
from data files, equation solving (including differential equations), curve
fitting and statistical analyses.

This is just a brief taste of Asystant. It is the core module of a family
of products: there is an extension for data acquisition, for example. My
impression is that it is a powerful, welldesigned product. Users do need
good maths to work with it. The screen interface and graphics are very good,
and it is a pleasure to report that the two manuals, reference and tutorial,
are excellent. At the special offer price of Pounds sterling 195, Asystant
is a bargain.

Asystant runs on IBM PCs or compatibles. It needs 640K memory, a numeric
coprocessor (for example, 8087, 80287), and CGA, EGA or Hercules graphics.
Asystant is produced by Asyst Software Technologies Inc and distributed
in Britain by Keithley Instruments, Reading. Tel: 0734 861287.

It is a two-pronged attack. From the bottom, there are IBM and the other
manufacturers of personal computers which have used successive generations
of microcomputer chips to achieve impressive ‘number-crunching’ ability.
They started with 8-bit processor chips, which could usually only cope with
64 kilobytes of computer memory, through 16-bit devices up to 32-bits, with
memory sizes running into many megabytes. The processor chips in personal
computers, most commonly the Intel series, have also become much faster.

The original 8-bit IBM PC had a ‘clock’ speed of 4.77 megahertz: the
‘frequency’ of the processor is an indication of the speed it carries out
instructions. The latest machines boast 33 megahertz 32-bit chips which,
when packaged with other fast components such as disc drives, memory and
maths coprocessors, can take on jobs like computer-aided design and many
scientific and statistical routines without sending the operator to sleep.

Meanwhile, from above come the vendors of workstations. These include
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and its more recent rivals such as Sun
Microsystems. These companies have adopted a much more proprietary approach
to attacking the ‘desktop’: some started with their own 32-bit designs and
repackaged them into smaller and smaller boxes; others, like Sun, use off-the-shelf
processors from Motorola with their own internal connection schemes.

These workstations have a big lead in ‘serious’ research and engineering
uses; from the start, they were equipped for the job, with speeds in excess
of 1 MIPS (one million instructions per second), mature operating software,
networking, and sufficient memory and screen graphics resolution.

Hewlett-Packard, which has just bought Apollo, one of the pioneers in
workstations, now joins DEC and Sun as the workstation kings; these three
account for 75 per cent of sales. For once, IBM is nowhere, and there is
a host of other specialist and general-purpose manufacturers with the common
bond of the Unix software operating system, which is the equivalent in this
sector of the ubiquitous DOS on IBM PCs and compatibles.

An interesting crossroads is now in sight: the price of the more expensive
personal computers is comparable with the cheaper workstations from DEC
and Sun. Take the latest Sun: Pounds sterling 5000 or so buys a Motorola
68030 machine running at 25 megahertz, with a MIPS rating beginning at 3.5.

The same money easily secures one of the latest Intel 386-based PCs
running at a similar speed.

But can the PC match workstations in networking, graphics, floating-point
number processing and, crucially, in operating software and applications
packages? Evidence that these new PCs can more than hold their own comes
from companies like the Continental Computer Bureau, which is carrying out
simulations of oil reservoirs for the oil industry. This type of job has
normally been done on Cray and Convex supercomputers, but CCB has kitted
out a Compaq 386 personal computer with the Intel 80387 and Weitek 1167
maths coprocessors, and a Fortran-386 compiler to host a Fortran simulation
program that needs 2 megabytes of memory. Although there are many much larger
applications which would be beyond this set-up, this is the sort of job
that could only have been run on minicomputers and mainframes two years
ago.

Top-range personal computers can also run the Unix operating system,
which gives them the ability to handle more than one task at a time, and
opens up a wealth of scientific and engineering software. Unix, though,
makes heavy demands on machine resources, and it may take the next generation
of processors to stamp out the final distinction between personal computers
and workstations, and indeed with full-scale minicomputers.

Intel has recently announced two new chips which have created much interest.
The 80486 integrates the processor, memory management and numeric coprocessor
parts of the 80386, making it much faster; the 860 is a reduced-instruction
set chip (RISC – see Box) suitable for workstations. Both new chips have
more than one million transistors. Intel, which supplies chips for the IBM
PCs, appears to be lining up against Motorola and Sun for future dominance
of the ‘mainframe-on-a-chip’ market.

Another interesting approach to beefing up desktop performance is to
keep the existing machine as a host but to plug in a fast processor board.
Several ‘go-faster’ boards based on the Inmos transputer chip are available
for the IBM PC range and for DEC and Sun workstations.

These boards, from companies such as Meiko, Caplin and Cesius, can load
software designed for the transputer, and use the normal data storage and
displays of the host. The Cesius Scientific Accelerator, for example, costs
a hefty Pounds sterling 8500 for a version with 16 megabytes of on-board
memory, but can run applications such as the Spice electronic simulation
package several times faster than its host PC.

Almost every research organisation which has scientists and engineers
who submit their number-crunching jobs to central machines will benefit
from giving people personal power. A major teaching and research organisation,
London’s Imperial College, is evaluating just such a change: by 1991, the
college will implement a network of distributed workstations, ‘downgrading’
the central computer support to that of a ‘file server’ (see also page 6).

The college recognises the massive need for heavyweight numerical processing,
and will provide it by access to specialist national or in-house machines.
The workstations themselves are likely to be several hundred DEC Vaxstations
and Suns – two reasons for choosing these are their advanced networking,
and support for international software standards like GKS graphics. If personal
computers provide these, then they are likely to be in the running too.

Whichever approach proves dominant in the science or office markets,
it is certain that more and more people engaged in scientific and technical
fields will soon be sitting in front of the latter-day equivalent of a mainframe.
Access to heavyweight personal computing power will be available to all,
and not just the more privileged researcher or engineer.

Web is a software tool that offers more advanced management of information.
It allows the user to create logical links between disparate pieces of information
in ‘webs’, frames of information that are connected by associations, or
‘threads’. Webs developer describes this as building multidimensional views
of information, and considers the software to belong to a new genre called
‘hypertext’. It comes with an example of an extensive web to show the idea,
the London Underground.

London’s underground railway system is big. It has nine major lines
and 255 stations. Web’s developers have built a web of the system where
each frame of information contains a station referenced by threads, one
for each line (and subthreads for branches in the same line). The user can
then stroll around the system on screen, by reading the data in a frame
(the stations) and then ‘changing’ lines by selecting a different thread,
which leads to a new set of frame data.

Web runs on IBM PCs and compatibles, and needs the Gem window interface
to organise the display. A mouse pointing device is not essential, but I
would not resort to the keyboard for either Web or Gem. It is easy to install,
and an existing set of web data is brought up simply by typing WEB LONDON,
for example. The linking threads are shown in a panel on the left, alongside
a wider panel for frame data. ‘Pull-down’ bars at the top reveal the search
and mangement options for the web.

You build a new web by first constructing a ‘base’ frame, labelling
it with the words ‘master thread’ and then spawning off more frames. Each
frame is linked automatically to the master thread, but can be given any
number of other threads. I built my own thread for my contacts and address
book. Each frame contains the name, address and telephone number, and is
linked by threads such as ‘computers’, ‘academics’ and so on. Another sample
web that come with the package is a 1989 diary (each day has its own frame).

Building a web from scratch is time-consuming and needs careful thought.
Unlike setting up a normal database file with keyword searches, all manner
of textual information can be associated in a huge matrix. Whether it is
a logical web or a complete mess is entirely up to the forethought that
you put into selecting and allocating the threads.

Apart from the direct entry of data into the web’s frames, a feature
I found particularly interesting is the ability to run other applications
from within the web. This means that once set in a particular frame, the
external application such a directory listing or a spreadsheet is displayed
automatically.

When you view the web, you open a ‘window’ on certain frames, and label
the top of the window with the name of the ‘active’ thread. At any point,
a new window can be created, containing a completely different view, and
with assiduous use of the mouse and window-sizing icons, several windows
can appear on the screen, although only one is ‘active’. A criticism is
that very little text can actually be displayed at a time.

Other useful features are: keyboard-and-mouse accelerators for speeding
up command entry; the ability to split and join existing frames of information;
and a function for opening multiple webs. It is not clear how links can
be set up between different webs.

The package does not really compete with text-retrieval software and
the many relational databases on the market, although these can be built
to look like Web. Web’s great advantage is that it requires no programming
or advanced knowledge. However, Web is not an easy package to learn to use.

I feel it will be spurned by the time-and-project managers, for whom
Lotus Agenda and its imitators are plenty powerful. Instead, Web is for
those who want order out of chaos, like researchers and journalists, and
perhaps planners of London’s Underground. But first you must create order
out of the software . . .

The Web is supplied by Octave Associates, Graphic House, 21 Normandy
Street, Alton, Hampshire GU34 1DD. The price is Pounds sterling 240, or
Pounds sterling 280 with Gem (prices exclude VAT).