"c|net central"
TRANSCRIPT
-Episode 19-

Original air date:  8/5/95


HOSTS: RICHARD HART and GINA ST. JOHN


GINA:  Take to the skies, online. And pump live concerts straight into 
your computer using the Internet. Hi, I'm Gina St. John. Those stories, 
plus John C. Dvorak takes you on an in-depth tour of Windows 95, all 
when we return on "c|net central."

(COMMERCIAL)

RICHARD:  Welcome to "c|net central." Hi, I'm Richard Hart. World 
Wide Web software has made it so easy to put multimedia onto the 
Internet that many of us have created our own personal home page 
or Web site. Now, what if you could broadcast live video and audio 
on such a Web site? It would be like having your own private 
television channel! Well, thanks to something called the MBone, that 
could be in your future.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

There had been other events at World Wide over the Internet with 
live audio and video before, but until the Rolling Stones rocked the 
so-called MBone, most computer users had never heard of, or seen, 
this experimental multimedia area of the Internet.

STEPHAN FITCH (PRESIDENT, THINKING PICTURES):  It's the dawn, 
really, of a new era. We're talking about, the first thing that we're 
talking about is...digital audio and digital video, broadcast television 
is analog. It's an old, obsolete dinosaur on its way out. This is the new 
thing.

RICHARD:  Stephen Fitch coordinated that historic Stones Netcast 
from this computer in New Jersey. But to avoid literally overloading 
the Internet with digital data from the Stones, he used a distribution 
technique called multicasting. Instead of sending everyone who 
wanted to watch the free show his own live feed by using 
multicasting, only one initial copy was sent out from Jersey onto the 
Net. That digital data was then rapidly duplicated at each succeeding 
connection along the targeted distribution route and the Stones show 
was able to stretch around the globe without ever overloading any 
one part of the Net, which it might have otherwise done. This ad hoc, 
high speed network of computers forms the multicasting backbone, 
better know as the MBone.

It is some version of the MBone that eventually will make real-time 
multimedia available to all of us over the Internet. That means live 
video, live audio--whether it's from a concert, or a classroom, or a 
computer game. All instantaneous--no downloading. The MBone is 
part TV, part radio, part videoconference. But more than that, it's 
interactive. Anyone who is on an MBone channel can talk back and 
forth and draw on this chalkboard called a white board, and if the 
video is turned on, they can see each other.

LANCE BURKE (COMPUTER SCIENTIST):  Hi, Richard, how are you 
doing. It's really a nice day here in Palo Alto. How are things in 
Berkeley?

RICHARD:  Lance Burke is a computer scientist working with the 
MBone at Digital Equipment. I'm at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs a 
few miles away and we're connected on a special MBone fiber optic 
network called BAGNet. With the current state of the art, how many 
people could join us in a conference at the same time?

LANCE BURKE:  If you're having video, you can only really have four 
or five simultaneous video streams going over the Internet 
simultaneously.

RICHARD:  If they were just using audio and didn't have to see each 
other, how many could join in simultaneously?

LANCE BURKE: If you had a conference that was just audio and only 
one person was going to talk at a time, you could have hundreds or 
even thousands of people participating in the conference.

RICHARD:  Designed originally in 1992 as a low-cost way for 
engineers to hold just such worldwide conferences, much of the 
MBone content today remains research and education oriented. But, a 
recent MBone channel surf turned up some interesting programming. 
There's the weekly garage rock of California band Severe Tire 
Damage, brought to you by Lance Burke. We found President Clinton 
celebrating the United Nation's fiftieth anniversary. From outer 
space, the historic docking of the shuttle "Atlantis" and Russian space 
station, Mir. And live radio shows from both houses of Congress, plus 
the World Radio Network. Today's typical MBone channel may be OK 
for a conference call or a lecture, but it's nowhere near ready for 
flashy prime time entertainment. Even the recent shuttle docking 
multicast was full of jerky video with freeze-frames and dropout. 
And even to get this quality multicast requires powerful high-end 
computers and high-speed connection lines. And that's why only 
about 10 percent of the entire Net even has access to the MBone.

LANCE BURKE: The biggest limitation is bandwidth. It's like you have 
the opening of a straw and you want to take the data of a bucket and 
shove it through there.

RICHARD:  But within five years the MBone designers hope 
bandwidth rich, fiber optic cable, and newer hardware and software 
will ease that crunch for hope users. And when it all starts looking 
like our experimental connection on BAGNet, expect an explosion of 
interest.

VAN JACOBSON (MBONE FOUNDER):  It should be as easy or easier to 
use than the Web.

RICHARD:  So, for all of you who thought having your home page on 
the World Wide Web was cool, how about having for your whole 
family, your very own TV channel. Expect to see a Windows and Mac 
version of MBone software in just a matter of months. You will need 
a cable modem or at least a digital phone line for good video pictures, 
but one day going online might be like going on the air. Gina?

GINA:  When c|net central continues, will Windows 95 change the 
way you compute?  John C. Dvorak has the answer.

(COMMERCIAL)

RICHARD:  Now, here's a quick look at news in the digital world for 
this past week. As expected, Prodigy Services this week unveiled its 
new interface for Windows PC users. The new interface will include 
improved controls for parents to oversee their kid's Net access. 
Members will be able to download the new software on August 
ninth. It's being called the largest photo-digitizing effort ever. Time 
Inc. has teamed up with Sun Microsystems to build a digital library 
of 20 million photos dating back to the turn of the century. And, two 
major media mergers took place this week. Disney acquired Capitol 
City's ABC in a deal valued at $19 billion, and Westinghouse acquired 
CBS in a deal worth $5.4 billion.

GINA:  John C. Dvorak is with me today for something special. Now, 
he won't be doing his typical multimedia review where he says "Buy 
It, Try It, or Skip It."  Today, it's a special demonstration of Windows 
95. Glad to have you here, John.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Thanks, Gina.

GINA:  Now, I understand Windows 95 is being heralded as the 
greatest single upgrade of an operating system in personal 
computing history.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Yeah, that's what Microsoft hype would have you 
believe. And in fact, it may have something, but I think we're going 
to be sick to death of hearing about Windows 95 over the next 30 
days. Although, I've had my gold copy now since the middle of July, 
which means they will be shipping on August 24, and I like this 
thing.

GINA:  Now, is it true that it's better-er, and faster, and smarter, and 
all of those thing we're hearing?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Well, you know, I think it is. It seems to be 
snappier than the regular Windows and it doesn't crash as much, 
which is a big boon to everybody out there. Also, they've taken and 
incorporated the best features of both OS/2 and the Macintosh and 
they've put them in to Windows 95 and added a lot of little other 
features that are kind of cool and make the operating system kind of 
interesting. I believe that everyone who runs Windows now will 
probably switch to Windows 95 within the 30 days and if they don't 
they'll be forced to switch within the next 6 months no matter what 
they tell you.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

Windows 95. Say good-bye to your Program Manager and hello to a 
new functional desktop. This Recycling Bin is familiar to you Mac 
users, along with these folders on the desktop. You can even nest 
folders within folders. And check out the long file names. No more 
silly 8 characters dot 3 characters. Go wild, you've got up to 255 
characters per filename. Applications can be dragged to the desktop-
-this is called a shortcut. Double click on the icon and--BOOM--your 
application is up and running. You can set up shortcuts for services 
like printing and faxing and then you can drag a file and drop it in. 

The Task Bar shows what's open on the desktop. It's a cinch 
switching between programs, just click on the item of choice and it 
pops to the foreground. The start button lets you launch programs 
retrieve documents, change settings, find files and, of course, get 
help. My computer, which sounds juvenile, lets you view what's 
stored on your drives. And then there's the Explorer. Basically, it 
replaces File Manager, but it's still abysmal.

GINA:  Now, Win 95 seems like it's a Mac. You consider that Recycling 
Bin versus the Mac trash can, what's the difference?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  They've taken a lot of ideas from the Mac. There is 
no difference. It is a Mac. They've done everything they can to make 
it like a Mac. It competes with Apple, I think, more than anything 
else.

GINA:  Really. Now, what about multimedia?  Now, you are the 
multimedia guru.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  You know, multimedia on this thing is better than 
ever. They've managed to take and put in something called Plug and 
Play, which people will find out more and more about, which allows 
you to put any old card in there, supposedly. I'm not so sure this 
actually works because my Pioneer deck wasn't recognized properly, 
but supposedly you put a card in there and it presets everything. 
You don't need jumpers or anything else, so multimedia should be a 
lot better in the future. 

Just go to the Control Panel, select "Add New Hardware," and the 
hardware wizard sets to work. It's equipped with an extensive 
database of peripherals, and it directs you through the installation 
process. Your multimedia peripherals get their drivers clumped 
together in one easy-to-find location. Click on any one to view or 
change the settings. See drive D. It's your CD-ROM drive. It changes 
when you drop in a new CD-ROM, and you're greeted with a dialog 
box. Click "Set Up" and your CD-ROM gets installed. 

If you pop in an audio CD, something called the CD Player 
automatically pops up and your CD starts playing. You can create a 
Playlist, plus Windows 95 remembers the disc Playlist for the next 
time you play the disc. The speaker icon on the Task Bar is quick 
access to volume control.

GINA:  Now that Playlist feature, I think I'm liking that. It seems 
cool.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  It's corny. This kind of feature's been around for a 
while. And who wants to listen to their CDs anyway on those dinky 
little multimedia speakers?

GINA:  I would have to buy more speakers for my computer, yeah.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Now, one thing I can say is that the multimedia 
software that's been developed for Windows should run fine under 
Windows 95. But you're going to have problems with those DOS 
programs. I had a few problems myself with a few DOS programs. 
They simply don't run.

GINA:  OK, now give me the real scoop on the Microsoft Network. I 
need to know about that one.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Well, the Microsoft Network is somewhat 
controversial because the Justice Department is threatening to make 
Microsoft pull it out. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen. 

Microsoft Network is a new online information service. It offers 
news, sports, special interest, discussions, and technical support for 
computer software products. It's linked to the Internet and, yes, you 
can get your newsgroups and access to the coveted World Wide Web. 
Microsoft plans to add direct links to its network in upcoming 
versions of popular applications. Just click on a menu command and-
-BAM--you're on the network. It's seamless integration: the desktop 
in cyberspace. 

Now, the content on Microsoft Network is not going to be that much 
different than what is on Prodigy, America Online, or CompuServe. 
Those services believe that Microsoft Network is going to destroy 
them because at any given time you can click on your desktop and 
the next thing you know, you're hooked up to Microsoft Network. So, 
why would you use these other guys?  I don't think that's going to 
necessarily happen because there's always exclusive things on the 
different services that you're going to want. And the one thing that 
may effect it is that Microsoft Network is supposed to be cheaper. 
But because you can get to it so easily by accident, it seems to me 
they'll probably run up the bill. I don't think people are going to like 
that too much. 

Now, something else that's on Windows 95 that we should talk about 
are the applets. Win 95 scores a word processor, a paint program, a 
communications program, and a phone dialer that automatically calls 
any number you've entered. Microsoft Exchange is a new program 
that lets you send and receive email across a local area network or 
on the Internet, CompuServe, or Microsoft Network. If your PC is 
equipped with a fax-modem you can even send and receive faxes. 
Now, these so-called applets are no big deal. In fact, they're basically 
the same programs that were Windows 3.11. There's this fax 
program, but I'd never gotten it to work right. The applets in OS/2 
are a lot better. But what Microsoft really wants you to do is go out 
and buy Office 95, which is a follow-on product; you're going to be 
seeing it pretty soon. And that's going to cost you some money, but it 
has got real applications in it.

GINA:  Now, we all would like to know, what's your summary on this. 
Do we "Buy It, Try It, or Skip It?"

JOHN C. DVORAK:  I though we weren't going to do that. 

GINA:  We've got to!  That's your thing. Besides, a lot of people want 
to know if Windows 95 is for them.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Well, I'll tell you, I think you should put it in a 
separate subdirectory and keep your old operating systems, but I 
have to give it a "Buy It."

GINA:  I am really amazed. That's great. This is an OS/2 guy, right 
here.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  And that's despite all the little bugs and stuff that 
it has.

GINA:  Terrific. Well, we're so glad you told us what to do. I am sorry 
we missed your reviews this week but we all wanted to know what 
you thought of Windows 95.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Thanks.

(COMMERCIAL)

RICHARD:  Until recently, to fly in the best flight simulators you had 
to devote six years of your life to the Pentagon--the home versions 
just didn't compare. But that's changing. With more powerful PCs, 
networking, and motion simulation, millions of sim heads around the 
world are beginning to kick in the afterburners.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

Today's flight simulators are truly advanced, taking you very near 
the actual experience of flying an F-16. But, in the end what really 
makes it even better is the capability through--I guess you'd call it 
networking--to play your buddies, to play other people. That makes 
it even better. Top Gun's Toxic, Indie, Frasier, Goose, and Cyclone 
have a regular need for speed several times a week.

FRASIER (LEAGUE PLAYER):  We're yuppies so we're like basically 
full of stress and we'll kick their ass, basically.

GOOSE (LEAGUE PLAYER):  Some people race cars, some people go 
bowling, some people have...why are you doing this?

FRASIER :  Where else can you kill somebody for real but they can 
come right back the next time and kill you?

CYCLONE (LEAGUE PLAYER):  And you can crash and burn and you 
don't get hurt.

FRASIER:   And you don't hurt yourself.

RICHARD:  Strapping oneself into an F-18 Hornet, full-motion 
simulator at Magic Edge in California's Silicon Valley is about as close 
as you can get to the real thing. Sixteen free access motion platforms 
are linked so that you and your friends can fly in a squadron against 
computer enemies or against each other. The bottom gun bar is a 
debriefing room here for aviators like Jana Clark whose call sign is 
DV-7. Get it?  Almost DV-8. And for Michael Green, known as Doom 
in aviation parlance.

JANA CLARK (LEAGUE PLAYER):  I drive in to work every day. I saw 
the Magic Edge and wanted to try it, and so we came here for lunch 
one day. The rest is history.

MICHAEL GREEN (LEAGUE PLAYER):  And never left.

JANA CLARK:  That's right. Just about.

MICHAEL GREEN:  I really enjoy killing her because we work together 
and, you know, sometimes you can get a lot of hostility worked out.

VOICE-OVER:  And DV-7's flesh is doom. Nice shot.

RICHARD:  Jana and Mike have been known to drop several hundred 
bucks a week cyberfighting at Magic Edge...

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

...If that's not in your budget, inventor Marty Arant has figured out a 
way to accomplish almost the same thing with an ordinary PC. His 
virtual air combat system adds two access motion to games such as 
Spectrum HoloByte's Falcon. Take a cheap ride in restaurants and 
arcades or buy a personal motion simulator for $45,000.

MARTY ARANT (MAGIC EDGE):  We had a launch, a SAM [surface air 
missile] launch from those ships right here.

RICHARD:  If that still isn't in your budget, for the rest of us the 
closest thing to an arcade experience at home has to be something 
like this set up for Strike Eagle 3 for the home PC. So this is your 
game room?

GABE TURK (LEAGUE PLAYER):  Yes.

RICHARD:  Gabe Turk regularly flies with Ed Bowser, who is in 
another city. How?  With a modem. Furthermore, they can link with 
as many as six other cyberpilots to comb the skies for bogies around 
the globe. Oh!  Good-bye!

GABE TURK:  You've got 4 hats, which are 8-way programmable, so 
you've got 32 functions on only those 4 here.

RICHARD:  Gabe's additions to his 486 include external stick and 
throttle that combine to amount to an amazing number of functions. 
So we have about 40 different functions. 40 functions with these 2.

ED BOWSER (LEAGUE PLAYER):  Probably more. You got over 100. It 
gets pretty intense.

RICHARD:  Long-distance wingman Ed even added a set of foot 
pedals. They've formed the 5-10 squadron "Semper-Bootus" and they 
fly with other Net pilots from around the world.

ED BOWSER:  Two from Japan, a couple from Germany, a lot from 
England. England is real big on that.

GABE TURK:  This is your air speed right here, your altitude. This is a 
range between the target and you can see we're closing down on him.

RICHARD:  Whoa, he's passing under the... Whoa!

GABE TURK:  He launched a missile at you. Oh, man, he's all over you. 
He's on your sixth and he's got the advantage. He definitely has the 
advantage...

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

...You got hit. Well, that tells you.

RICHARD:  What do I do now?  Gabe?

GABE TURK:  Bail. Bail out!

RICHARD:  Of course, there's the unwritten rule among cyberjocks 
that you never bail.

GABE TURK:  We don't eject because, you know, we have a reputation, 
like...

RICHARD:  Honor?

GABE TURK:  See, you got it. Either kill or die.

RICHARD:  I'm going in. The digital tarmac is covered with more than 
50 high-end flight simulators with more and more complex additions 
over the horizon. Hundreds of Internet newsgroups keep pilots 
posted with changes, shareware, and upgrades. But we'll warn you, if 
you've got the need for speed, you and your wallet could get hosed. 

I think I'm going in.

GABE TURK:  That's not really good.

GINA:  That's it for "c|net central" this week.

RICHARD:  Thanks for tuning in and logging on.

(END OF TAPED MATERIAL)
