January 1999

Test Drive

High-resolution 21" Monitor

The latest in the line of Professional Level monitors from Cornerstone (San Jose, CA 408-435-8900 www.bigmonitors.com) is the p1600 21ý color monitor. This compact giant has a high-contrast, anti-glare screen with a viewable area of 19.9ý, yet the unit has a short depth of 18.8ý, about the size of most standard 19ý monitors.

The p1600 supports resolutions of 1600 x 1200 at a horizontal scan frequency rate of 92 kHz, 1600 x 1280 at 87 kHz or 1856 x 1392 at 80 kHz. The vertical scan frequency range is 50-160 Hz and the horizontal dot pitch is 0.22 mm.

The comprehensive on-screen controls are easy to operate. Adjustments include brightness, contrast, size, centering, geometry, moirý reduction, degauss, color temperature, OSD position, OSD color and convergence. Control lockout function and store/recall functions are also included.

Controls on the p1600 require little navigation. Instead of two or three buttons and a layered menu, Cornerstone provides 12 clearly labeled buttons to give you direct access to controls. Users must hit the Store key to save new monitor settings.

I tested the p1600 against the battery of benchmarks offered in DisplayMate software from Sonera Technologies (Rumson, NJ 732-747-6886 www.displaymate. com). I was impressed with the results. The display was uniform and well focused across the screen, with clear detail in color images and black-and-white text. Geometric accuracy was high enough for any CAD or graphic design professional. There was little or no moirý or interference of any kind.

The p1600 is compliant with the latest standards, including VESA, TCO 95 and MPR-II. The monitor uses a Dual 15-pin mini D-Sub connection with a space saving right-angle cable included. A five-year warranty is included with next business day on-site replacement in the first year. In short, the $1,420 price tag buys you top performance and support.

--Liz Levy

Two Ways to Upgrade to 5.2-GB MO

I tested the Pinnacle Micro Ultra 5.2 GB and the Maxoptix T6-5200, new drives from two companies that have been in magneto-optical storage for a long time. Both drives are offered in desktop models and in internal versions for jukebox use.

The Pinnacle and Maxoptix drives are physically very similar. They are heavy units weighing about 3 lbs. each. Centronics style SCSI connectors and SCSI ID selector switches are all standard equipment. Each drive also has 8 dip switches on the back. These switches let you turn on/off write verify, read and write caches, and termination. The switches also let you modify how the drive reports itself to your computerýs operating system; you can choose removable or fixed storage and either optical or magnetic storage.

Write verification should normally be left on. However, write verification on non-LIMDOW disks slows down write performance by 50%. If you are comfortable with the reliability of MO drives, you can turn off write verification to speed up record operations. Leaving read and write caches active can speed up operations. You may want to turn a write cache off to force the drive to record all data immediately (which might save data in the event of a power failure).

Both drives will read and write to all magneto-optical disk formats, including LIMDOW disks and the oldest 650 megabyte disks. The ability to write to the oldest disk formats is a plus since most drive manufacturers usually restrict full read/write compatibility to just the last two generations.

Performance wise, the drives are about equally matched. Seek times for both were between 55 and 57 milliseconds. Connecting them was pretty basic. Most operating systems are able to use the drives right out of the box. Both drives should work equally well as independent drives under Windows or as part of a MO jukebox management system, provided the latter supports separate MO drives.

The biggest difference between the drives is the list price, but shop around for the best street deal. Rated mean time between failure for both is 200,000 hours, so you should get many years of dependable service. --Lowell Rapaport

Finish Line

Pinnacle Micro Ultra 5.2 GB
Irvine, CA 714-789-3000 www.pinnaclemicro.com
Capacity: 5.2 GB
Seek time: 55-57 milliseconds
Internal: $1,600
External: $1,700

Maxoptix T6-5200
Fremont, CA 510-353-9700 www.maxoptix.com
Capacity: 5.2 GB
Seek time: 55-57 milliseconds
Internal: $2,150
External: $2,250