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The "Not-So- Weird"
Science of Creating
the Ideal Computer
System

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The Lowdown on

Is your PC plain vanilla while you
long for a banana split? Have you be-
gun to take another look at your hard-
working, faithful, original equipment
and wondered whether or not it's time
to add on and/or upgrade the system?
Pitfalls abound. One person's need
for speed is another's waste of money.
In a quest for increased memory, do
you simply need to add 64K's worth of
inexpensive memory, or must you part
with megabucks for megabytes of
memory expansion? Let's face (or in-
terface) it-adding on takes a little
thought.
First, you need to sit down and ana-
lyze your specific needs. Exactly how
are you going to use your computer?
Does word processing comprise more
than 90 percent of what you do, or do
you now need a color/graphics
monitor to create dazzling graphics
for art class, draw blueprints for your
architecture course, or even tap into
information resources other than

those which the campus library can
supply?
Memory: How Much Is
Enough?
Most PCs come with between 64K
and 640K of memory, which can be
significantly increased without having
to buy a whole new machine. If you
want to soup up your comput-
er's existing memory, the fastest and
least expensive way is to add an "ex-
pansion card." Expansion cards often
provide additional capabilities, in-
cluding an extra serial or parallel port
(socket) for attaching peripherals-
such as modems, printers, and joy-
sticks-to your system unit. Before
purchasing expansion cards, however,
check to see if your computer has emp-
ty slots.
The backbone of your computer is,
of course, its system board (also
known as the "mother board"); and
the second way to boost your PC's

14 plus/SPRING 88

ILLUSTRATION BY RICHARD MCNEEL