_{Cover of the June 1988 issue of PC World}

In the 1980s, there wasn't much of an Internet to speak of so you got pretty much all of your computer related info from magazines. Hence the large size of what was probably the most popular PC specific magazine with this one coming it at about 400 pages. Contents for the June 1988 issue includes:

Review

LAN Servers for Less - Using cheaper general purpose 386 machines including the Dell 386 and Blackship 386 as file servers vs. machines designed for the task including the Novell Server 386A and Compaq 386. It turns out the cheaper machines performed just as well.

Share the Wealth! - A review of three multiuser databases including Advanced Revelation, Paradox 2.01, and R:base for DOS.

Hard Disk Housekeepers - A comparison of the defragmentation aspect of several utilities including Disk Optimizer, DS Optimize, FastTrax, Vopt, The Norton Utilities Advanced Edition, and The Mace Utilities.

_{Table of Contents from the June 1988 issue of PC World}

Departments

Top of the News - Dell and Tandy announce PS/2 compatible machines with MCA bus; Ashton-Tate to enter spreadsheet battle; Compaq plans PC based on new 25-MHz 386 chip...for under $10k; AST logs record sales; Maxtor and Verbatim to release erasable optical drives; Sun announces family of high-end PCs including the Sun386i/250 and Sun386i/150; and more.

David Bunnell - On the Apple and Microsoft battle over the GUI.

Letters - Letters from readers about IBM, the Hayes Smartmodem III, SQL, the PS/2 and OS/2, and more.

Richard Landry - Integrated software packages as a cheaper alternative to OS/2.

Stewart Alsop - Struggles with network administration.

On IBM - The upcoming release of OS/2 Extended Edition 1.0 and IBM's PS/2 strategy.

Industry Outlook - Apple's lawsuit attacking Microsoft Windows and HP's NewWave; the growth of presentation software; AT&T revamps computer line; and more.

Preview - A look at Dell's new PC line-up including the 8088-based System 100, 80386-based System 310, and 80286-based System 200. Dell was the 7th largest PC maker at this time.

_{Table of Contents from the June 1988 issue of PC World (continued)}

Feature

Closer to the Promised LAN? - OS/2 promises to revolutionize networking on PCs. Up to this point, most PC networking was done through DOS which was less than ideal.