HIGH TECH CORNER: HOW TO DETERMINE IF YOUR COMPUTER WILL DIE JAN 1, 2000

With the desire for speed on the Internet growing every day, the FCC has decided to give us a little help. In 1976 the FCC had decided modems could never go above 53K to prevent interference to people's telephone conversations. But a lot has happened with audio and modems since this law was enacted. So Bill Kennard, the FCC chairman, has decided to open the flood gates to 56K both ways. This little difference does not seem much unless you are the type of Internet surfer that always wants more power.

So the FCC voted to permit two-way uses on wireless, for the Internet at speeds of more than 100 times faster than ISDN. To receive the communications' high-speed service, you simply need an Internet antenna on your roof. Expect to see the service in our area soon.

But as in Oliver Twist (BOLD) I WANT MORE, SIR, (UNBOLD) there is a cheap answer. A new software package entitled Speedlane software optimizes your Windows95/98 Internet access to be up to 200 percent faster, depending on your operation. Speedlane optimizes 15 variables inside the Windows95/98 system that are normally inaccessible. Speedlane fine-tunes them to let your system operate at top speed. You can get it for $19.95 at (BOLD) http://157.151.73.111/sales.html (UNBOLD). Products like ICQ seem to double in throughout while Web page downloads improve about 62 percent. This is a must have utility.

On the Windows 98 frontier, sales of 2.5 million copies have actually passed Windows 95 for the same period. And even with the Asian economic flu affecting the world economy, Windows 98 sales in Japan have passed more than a half a million, which is much higher than expected by Microsoft. Even though the Yen has been devalued so much compared to the U.S. dollar, the Japanese are looking towards high tech as the economic answer.

Year 2000 compliant computers unfortunately are not the norm. BIOS chips used in 486 and older systems hold the century information (such as 19) in one area of memory and the year data (such as 98) in another. Unfortunately, the two don't interact much. When the year value changes from 99 to 00, the century area will be clueless, stubbornly claiming it's still the 1900 or even 1980. 1980 was the year IBM created the original IBM PC. But the hardware problem is even evident in Pentium computers. If your motherboard is older than July 1995, then it has the exact same bug. But hardware is not the only problem. If your computer hardware is Y2K compatible, you might be able to squeak by the year 2000 rollover, even if you are running DOS, Windows 3.1, or even Windows 95. However, if you turn your DOS PC off on Dec. 31, 1999, and turn it back on the next day, your system will think it's Jan. 1, 1980. And if your system is busy at midnight on Dec. 31, 1999 -- defragging your hard drive, running a backup, receiving a fax -- the CPU could be too tied up to change the clock properly.

To check out your hardware BIOS and clock chip you need to do the following. To check your system's CMOS clock chip, first restart Windows and stop at the DOS prompt. (Press F8 when you see the "Starting Windows 95" message.) Then type DATE 12-31-1999 and press Enter. Type TIME 23:59 and press Enter. This not only resets the clock maintained by the BIOS but passes these values onto the clock chip. Turn the system off for five minutes. Then turn it back on and stop the system at the DOS prompt. Type DATE and press Enter. The date should be 01-01-2000. If it's not, the CMOS clock chip has the year 2000 flaw. Test No. 2 is very simple. At a DOS prompt, type DATE 02-29-2000 and press Enter. If you get an error, the BIOS is flawed and should be replaced. One of the Year 2000 problems is that it is also a leap year. Windows 3.1's date applet doesn't recognize the leap year in 2000. Windows 95 does, but if the BIOS doesn't, you'll still get errors.

And finally a Y2K philosophical question came to mind as I was standing at the stage of the Willie Nelson concert. Do you think his guitar is Y2K compliant? Let me know what you think.

As always, feel free to contact me at DIGITAL@ldd.net.

Rich Comeau is an electronics scientist and owner of Digital Labs of Cape Girardeau.