_{Cover of the September 1997 issue of PC World}

As can be seen by the page count at nearly 400 pages, the late 1990s were probably near the height of popularity for PC World. This is probably true of most computer related magazines (PC ones anyway). The September 1997 issue of PC World includes:

Cover Story

Windows 98: A Convenience You Can Live With...Or Without - A first look at Windows 98. At the time, it wasn't seen as a major upgrade over Windows 95.

Features

Inside Office 97 - Tips for the new Office 97 including how to mix and matchi Office 97 and Office 95 files, removing unneeded components, and much more.

Bigger Is Better - At the time, you basically had a choice between 15-inch, 17-inch and 21-inch CRT monitors. 15-inch monitors were for bargain hunters while 21-inch monitors were extremely expensive. 17-inch was the sweet spot and this round-up includes a variety of 17-inch monitors including the IBM P70, Liyama VisonMaster Pro 17, Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 87TXM, ViewSonic PT775, Samsung SyncMaster 700b, Princeton Graphics Systems E075, Dell UltraScan 1000HS, Compaq V70, Hansol Multitech 17PX and Sony CPD-220VS. Prices ranged from $638 to $899.

What a Pain! The First Six Months of Owning a PC - An article that follows the adventures (and misadventures) of 25 new PC buyers.

_{Table of Contents from the September 1997 issue of PC World}

Special Report

Servers With Room To Grow - A look at low cost workgroup servers. At the top of the list is the Digital Prioris MX 6200 SMP. It includes a Pentium Pro-200 (expandable to dual processors), up to 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage with up to 36 GB (4 x 9 GB) for $5300. Others looked at here include the Compaq ProLiant 800, HP NetServer LD Pro 6/180, HP NetServer LH Pro 6/200, and HP NetServer E 40 6/200.

Eight Ways to Work Across The Web - A look at various software that helps you to collaborate with others over the web.

Top of the News

56-kbps Illusions: High Speed Access Not as Advertised - At this point in time, there were two competing 56K modem standards, one from U.S. Robotics and one from Rockwell/Lucent, and not all ISPs supported both...or either.

The NetPC Arrives: Back to the Future for User Control - The NetPC concept was for typically lower end PCs in a small form factor with limited upgrade potential and sometimes missing floppy and optical drives or missing local storage altogether...but were easier for businesses to manage.
USB Gives You a Rough Ride - The early days of USB on Windows 95 was not a great experience. Hot swapping frequently caused problems as did driver support.

_{Table of Contents from the September 1997 issue of PC World (continued)}

New Products

Digital 6166K AMD K6 system, USA Flex 6x86MX-PR200 Cyrix 6x86MX system - A look at two machines with non-Intel Pentium MMX class processors. While these systems tended to be cheaper than their Pentium counterparts and even sometimes faster for certain tasks, they tended to be slower (sometimes much slower) for FPU intensive tasks including multimedia and games.

CSA-6700 USB add-in card - A $59 add-in card that provides your system with two USB ports.

Gateway 2000 G6-266XL PC - Featuring a Pentium II-266 CPU, 64MB of RAM, 9 GB SCSI hard drive, 21-inch monitor, 64-bit 3-D graphics card, and a 56K modem for $5128 this was a very high end but expensive PC. A couple of months later I would get a Gateway machine with a 300 MHz Pentium II and 32 GB of RAM for less than $3000.

Toshiba PDR-2 digital camera - A 640x480 digital camera designed to work with a PC Card slot for $499.

Reunion online BBS/chat rooms - Software that allows you to host chats and browsable bulletin boards on your PC.

Top 100

Power Desktops - At the top of the list this month is the Dell Dimension XPS H266. My favorite on the list is in 3rd place, the Gateway 2000 G6-233. It features a Pentium II 233 MHz processor, 3.2 GB hard drive, 64 MB RAM, STB Virge 4MB 3D PCI video card, 16x CD-ROM drive and more for $2899. I would own a slightly later revision with a 333 MHz CPU.

Budget Desktops - At the top of this list is the Dell Dimension XPS M166s featuring a Pentium 166MMX processor, 32 MB RAM, Matrox Millennium II video card and 12x CD-ROM drive for $2199.

Notebooks - At the top of the power list is the WinBook FX featuring a Pentium 166MMX CPU for $3999. At the top of the budget list is the Compaq Armada 15200M featuring a Pentium 133 CPU for $2199.