Today's magazine we're looking at is PC Magazine, from January 1995!

Forgot to post the link.
https://archive.org/details/pc-magazine-best-products-of-1994-jan-1995

Here's ATI offering their 64bit graphics accelerators. These are accelerators in the 2D sense, not 3D (yet).
These are really for fact windows performance, not gaming yet.
They've got them in PCI, ISA, and VLB versions, fancy.

heres's how 1995 was working:
you'd pay 180$ for just the software to be able to use your CD burner. God only knows how expensive those were.

There's a lot of two-page ads in this issue which is annoying because I have to manually edit them together to post and some don't match up right because each half was scanned at different sizes.
Anyway, AST is advertising some neat computers WITHOUT PRICES. fuckers.

Some lovely cases here.
That Commercial Mini-Tower is sweet, I want one for my next build.

Getting software by downloading it really quickly over satellite networking? that'll never happen.
I do like the picture of floppies flying through the air.

And apparently dial-up banking won't happen until next year (1996)

Here's a neat little listing of the top retail software.
Turbo Tax was #1, since even in 1995 Intuit had a stranglehold on the tax industry.

Interesting that MS-DOS 6.22 is still on there. MS-DOS 6.2 was released in 1993, and the 6.22 version was a relatively minor update

but I guess that's just all the people upgrading off DOS 5.0 and such really late.

Zeos is offering some pentiums.
P60 for 2695, P100 for 3445
Otherwise they've got 16mb of ram, 528mb hard drive, 2X CDROM, 15" SVGA monitor.. Powerful!

The Z-NOTEFLEX! It's a modular laptop.
Powered by pentium (up to 100mhz), you can swap in batteries, floppies, port replicators, networking, CD-ROM drives, speakers, more PCMCIA slots.

PCMCIA modems, advertised with Frankenstein. It's a 14400 bps modem with a big ol' dongle that everyone will instantly lose.

32bit Excel and Word aren't faster than the 16bit versions, apparently.
Win95 not being out yet, they're talking about the NT vresions.

This is interesting.
The Shablamm NiTro-VLB Windows NT Booster.
It's a vesa local bus board board that retrofits a 486 into a high-speed MIPS machine for running Windows NT really fast. only 3,495$!

NetCruiser! Anyone remember that web browser?
And SounText, a text to speech tool that's software AND hardware. I bet it's that TI speech chip, the one from the Speak'n'Spell.

Hey, remember when I said no one knows how much CD-burners cost?
Well, now I do!
The PlayWrite 4000, only 5,995$! (about 10k$ today)
Burn a CD-R in only 30 minutes!

man I remember how fucking scary it was trying to burn CD-Rs on windows 98, can you imagine doing it on Windows 3.1?
I wonder how expensive the media was, back then?

Sound Blasters! The lowest end one is an 8-bit card for only 70$, with the high end being a 16bit AWE32 for 400$

ahh, the era when you'd have software for sale, and you could call in to get a free VHS tape advertising it to you.

The Infogrip BAT keyboard! This is another chorded keyboard, now with "WordChords" to let you set up macros to type entire words by doing short combos.
200$

Matrix MGA cards!
They're are advertising hardware accelerated 3D, but I'm not sure what kind of hardware 3D existed in January 1995.

Hey, it's the Zip Disk, coming soon!

This is the original advertised version where they were planning 25mb and 100mb disks, but 100mb seems to be the only ones that launched (with later versions of the drive upgrading to 250mb and 750mb)

Some AcerNote laptops.
75mhz Pentium with 8mb of ram, 9.5" color LCD, 500mb hard drive, 3995$
and a 50mhz, 4mb ram, 340mb hard drive, 2995$
And a sidenoted 486/33mhz, 4mb ram, 210mb hard drive, 1795$.

And here's Acer's desktops.
Your low end is a 90mhz Pentium, 8mb ram, 850mb hard drive, 4x CD, 15" CRT, 2595$
high end is a 90mhz pentium, 16mb ram, 850mb hard drive, 4x CD, 17" CRT, 3445$

I'm gonna tell my kids about Floppy Santa someday

John C. Dvorak talking about the upcoming video conferencing systems.
That'll never catch on!

The Toshiba T4580CT! It's got a 75mhz 486, 8mb RAM, 772mb hard drive, 10" color LCD, weighs only 6.9lb

Very 90s Advertising

Best of 1994: The Thingpad 775C and the Toshiba Protege T3600CT! Both very nice laptops, and I think I have both.

One of the best databases of 1994: Microsoft Access 2.0! Only 495$

They have a "fun games and more" section, which only lists TWO games you might recognize:
The aimed-at-young-kids SCUMM engine adventure Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon, and the obvious Myst.
Myst came out in 1993, but I guess they're counting it because the PC version was '94.

It makes sense that those are the only two games they're mention, since 1994 was a very bad year for games, only containing Doom II, Elder Scrolls: Arena, Jazz Jackrabbit, Magic Carpet, Master of Orion, Rise of the Triad, Sid Meier's Colonization, System Shock, WarCraft, X-Com...

Apparently the two best input devices are a trackpad and a trackball.
Regular mice are clearly on the way out and won't be around 26 years later, for sure!

They've got a page of thumbs up and thumbs downs, and one of the downs is f or Win95 for taking forever:

The two best operating systems of 1994 are Windows NT 3.5, and OS/2 Warp version 3, which they say is "an outstanding platform for playing DOS games"
uh-huh.

The weird and dangerous ads

AOL pre-assigned a great password...

Can't be late 1994-early 1995 without mentioning the OJ Simpson trial!

They're making fun of usenet groups here, especially the "adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb" joke that was big back then, but the buried lede is "alt.binaries. pictures.furry"
hah, furries! how silly, those weirdos won't be around 25 years later... oh wait.

The last page of this Micron ad is advertising some gaming machines, which include some games. All from LucasArts, for some reason...
Day of the Tentacle, Rebel Assult, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

Peachtree Accounting! They were huge in early PC accounting. My grandmother built her business on them.
They're now merged in with Sage.

Dell's showing off the most expensive laptop I've seen yet.
The Latitude XP, which is a 100mhz 486, 9.5" color LCD, 8mb ram, 340mb hard drive, weighing only 6.17lb for 4799$

I love the very windows 3.1 look of Quicken 4.
Definitely made with Borland, given those buttons.

3M is advertising how reliable their floppies are
this is how I use floppies, btw.
I rollerblade around in a suit

There's a bunch of not-super-interesting wireless networking products in here, all pre-wifi radio things, but here's a fun one: Diffuse infrared! You do networking using LIGHT!

Hey, check it out! That's the Proxim RangeLan... look familiar?

It's clearly the same as the Zenith CruiseLan "SECRET 386" that I found back in 2017! https://twitter.com/Foone/status/884166421327904768

which inspired a Lazy Game Reviews episode:

Hey, they advertise Computer Gaming World, which apparently DOES care about Doom 2.

have you ever wanted to make windows useless? just change your fonts!

Some CompuAdd generic desktops.
I really like that Pentium tower on the left.
5995$ for a DUAL PENTIUM 90mhz, 16mb of ram, 1gb of hard drive? Sexy.

Check out the SoundPro CD! It's a laptop with a top-loading CD drive, you lift the keyboard and stick it in there.
Fancy.

RoboTech Inc (anime fans, much?) have some fun editing here because it makes it look like the sound blaster boxes are REALLY FUCKING HUGE

it comes with Doom, Kings Quest 5, Space Quest IV, and 3-D Dinosaur Adventure!

Whoa, check out this keyboard! it's egonomic, built in trackball, and it's got a circular key pad on the left for function keys? huh!
( @pancake_ke, check it out!)

Check this out! The Twin Sound Slip-In Stereo Speaker.
Because why not have speakers in a spare 5.25" drive bay?
Alongside a FM radio ISA card.

Hey, it's Walnut Creek CDROM, owners of cdrom .com! I love these. They're total shovelware, but they're great.

Turtle Beach clearly wasn't doing great, advertising their Monte Carlo sound card in a 1/4th page ad on page 322.
Interestingly it comes with 50 demo games, 15 of them being "full working versions for one-time play", and an unlockable Incredible Machine game for 5$?

A 1/6th ad for a Macintosh pinball game now ported to Windows (3.1), Crystal Caliburn.
Never heard of it, I wonder if it is any good?

MIDI ON FLOPPIES? I'LL TAKE TEN!

Hey, an FMV game!
Under a Killing Moon by Access Software.

Same page advertises VORTEX, with an early showing of the Exocet font, famously used by Diablo.

KILA's PC-in-a-box.
Neat.
It's got a little text LCD, and some IBM-PC equivalent CPUs. I want one, even with that terrible keyboard.

Speaking of things I want, check this out! The UBI MaxiLAN, it's a 386SX PC with a small character LCD, SSD, with DOS 6.0 running from ROM.

Floppy disk duplicators! They only mention 3.5" but that one looks like it can do 5.25" too.
I've not seen "Champion Duplicators" as a name before... I obviously want one.

Check out this one from RImageDatapath, which is basically just four 5.25" disks in a box.
And note that they're showing it next to a PC/XT... remember this is 1994! THAT COMPUTER IS AT LEAST A DECADE OLD

over here we've got the CopyPro duplicator.
CopyPro is what mine are, and I've visited their HQ!
They're now mainly BioMicroLab, making laboratory automation stuff.

And the MediaFORM which does both 3.5" and 5.25" disks.
Fancy! I want one, obviously.

The GAY Online Center of the Universe! It's a BBS called "Eye Contact", available on the internet too over telnet.
I like how they list their domain name and then their IP address, just in case.
(in case what? you don't have DNS?)

Hey, more Gay! it's GAY MODEM which sounds like an awesome cyberpunk nickname.
They've even got gay GIFs and leather shopping!

And nice as it is that they have some gay BBSes listed, it's in the "porn shit" page.
Like this one, which is kinda amazing...
They are censoring a lot of things, and it makes NO SENSE.

like how they're censoring "butt" in "Baby's Got Butt" but not in Buttman or Seymore Butts.
They also seem to be censoring Tush, Moons, and Hookers?
really?

also, wow. "TRANZ GAY Photos"
now that could in theory be not as offensive as it sounds like it is... but are you really gonna bet that it's a bunch of gay trans men? (or lesbian trans women, for that matter?)
IN 1994?

also they're listing "TRACI, I LOVE YOU Movie"
THAT'S THE LAST TRACI LORDS MOVIE, aka THE ONLY ONE IT'S LEGAL TO OWN. It's from 1987! Why are they still advertising a film from someone mainly known for doing porn while underage?

fun fact: traci lords got the rights to that film back in 1996, and has not allowed it to be sold.
So these 1994-era copies are the only ones you could get.

Anyway, same page lists Trapeze, which is a free-access BBS for "alternative lifestyles", those being
Gay, Straight, Bi, and Swingers (AHH YES THE FOUR ORIENTATIONS)

JOHN HOLME FANTASIES
because why bother getting the name of one of the most famous porn stars right? IT'S HOLMES.

I'm surprised they listed it as Debbie Does Dallas, and not Debra Does Denver.

Hotel California BBS!
Well, the Eagles are gonna sue somebody...

oh man I didn't notice they advertise Free Accounts For Women.
wow.

Are you sure "imfamous" is the right word to be using to advertise your adult BBS?
eww.

Here's a bunch of adult CD-ROMs.
I'm slightly confused by "Big B***m Buddies"
I assume they mean "Big Bosom Buddies"?
Is that supposed to be an, uh, "alternative" CD?

Because Bosom Buddies was a sitcom of two guys who had to crossdress for Hilarious Reasons.

And here's some more CDs.
I like how much they have to abbreviate them.
And hey, Urotsukidoji! That's the manga/anime that popularized tentacle porn. (and "Tracy I love you", again, but mispelled)

and also check out "Princess of Persia"
I really hope that's just a genderswapped version of the game, and not what it obviously is, some terrible porn thing with some persian porn star (or white people in questionable person attire)

BTW it turns out there is a Princess of Persia mod!
https://retroreloader.itch.io/princess-of-persia-pop

Anyway, we get out of porn to get to... kids!
KidMail Connection! A special email client(/service?) for kids to do email.

MusicACE! it's a music learning-composing program for kids. Looks fun.

Check this out: How Computers Work/How Multimedia Computers Work, an educational CD-ROM to explain PC internals, apparently with a lot of mid-90s raytracing. I should find a copy...

US Robots advertising their external 28800 bps Sportster modem.
Another use of that weird colorized-B&W photo look, huh.
Only 329$!

AHHH it's reel magic. I hate these guys. Their ads were weird and vaguely disturbing.
This is an MPEG decoding card, for watching videos on your PC... like VideoCD!

Hey, they DO mention Doom II! So apparently it's great and all but they're just not gonna put it on their best-of-1994. Huh.

And the Notebook Gameport, from Colorado Spectrum.
This is an adapter to let you hook up PC gamepads/joysticks through the serial port, for notebooks that don't have gameports.

They also provide patches to fix games that won't work with the TSR, like some flightsims and... Doom?

Ah yes, Doom, that classic game best played with a joystick...

And the dark secret of how ergonomic split-keyboards are made...

"For a deal like this, you usually have to sit on some fat guy's lap."

uhhh, I need an adult, Dell...

So let's zoom in and see what's going on with these Dells.
The Dimension XPS P100, a Pentium 100mhz, 8mb of ram, 1gb hard drive, 15" CRT, 3X (3!?) CD-ROM, 3899$

And the low end is a Dimension 433SD, a 33mhz 486DX, 4mb ram, 340mb HD, 14" CRT., no CD-ROM.

Then they've got two laptops, a 50mhz and a 100mhz 486, with 4mb/8mb RAM, 200/340mb HD, 9.5" color LCD, 2299$ and 3499$

The page before is the close-up on that XPS P100, complete with weird robot guy.
Nice looking case and monitor!

And finally, from their funny-times page, the time a magazine forgot how to spell "magnate" and called Bill Gates a "computer magnet"

It's a bad headline anyway because Bill Gates isn't a computer magnate... he didn't get his billions by selling computers.
He sells operating systems, and software, and accessories, and eventually video game consoles... but not computers.

although I guess they were eventually correct, given that Microsoft does sell computers now.

Anyway, that's all the interesting stuff I found in PC Magazine for January 1995!
Here's the link again, for easy access:
https://archive.org/details/pc-magazine-best-products-of-1994-jan-1995