Olivetti UK Ltd claims to be the most successful personal computer vendor on the UK high street with a 100% sales growth since Christmas. On the back of this supposed sales explosion, it has launched a range of consumer personal computers, the piece de resistance of which is its PCS Television. If you become a proud owner of a PCS you too will be able to watch television while updating your diary on the pre-installed Lotus Development Corp Organizer. But if you really want some fun, this personal computer has teletext, can receive satellite television programmes and has a video play-back facility for recorders or camcorders. It has a built-in television tuner and Digital Video Overlay boards that enable the screen image to be manipulated under Windows, either in the application or full screen mode. As the PCS Television runs Windows, digital video sequences can be captured using the Digital Video Overlay and saved to the hard disk. MS-DOS 6.2, Windows 3.1, MS-Works 3 for Windows and Lotus Organizer are pre-loaded on all the PCS personal computers.

Techno wizardry

So if you feel capable of tearing yourself away from playing with all the latest techno wizardry you can actually settle down to some real work. Olivetti is currently adding the final touches to PCS Television for shipping in September; all other PCS 42 personal computers are available now. At this point it might be worthwhile to clarify the difference between its so called consumer and professional personal computers. Olivetti explains patiently that it is all down to the pre-installed software: the former run only MS-DOS and Windows, the latter has more uniquely configured packages for first time users. Given Olivetti’s differentiation, it is hard to see why it has brought out a Pentium-based machine for the home market, when most first time users are still grappling with the concept of Windows. Olivetti would probably argue that its product will sell because at UKP1,800, it is relatively cheap for a Pentium-based personal computer. A step down from the PCS52E Pentium is the PCS 42 range, five 80486 processors which all have a VESA 32-bit local bus to handle high resolution graphics: these range in price from UKP900 to UKP1,400. Olivetti has also jumped on the multimedia bandwaggon. The PCS 42 SX/33 and PCS 42 DX2/50 both have dual speed CD ROM drives, 16-bit SoundBlaster-compatible boards and plug in 5W speakers at UKP1,200 and UKP1,400 respectively.