The review was written bearing in mind the statement on the book’sback cover: “exactly how to troubleshoot andrepair all of the components and peripherals that comprise today’s PCsystems” (my italics).

I do take the point that there is a place for a book that allowsone to repair older PC systems (in fact, I found the book useful forjust that, on one of my own older PCs); unfortunately, it is presentedas rather more than a repair guide for older machines. In a book meantto include today’s systems, even allowing for the author’s comments, Iwould have expected coverage of MCA systems (some of which are now asmuch as six or seven years old); there are many 80386 systems of similarage, yet, as the review stated, there are only passing references evento these.

In chapter 4, the simple flowchart does indeed cover over threepages; it is merely a walkthrough of the use of a typical hardwarediagnostic utility, however, for example telling the reader to press Yor N in response to questions whose answers are generallyself-evident.

I agree that much of chapter 5 would also apply to 3.5-inch disks;the point made was that these disks have been predominant for someyears, yet are treated less fully than the older types. Chapter 6 is 24pages in length, but less than one page covers the combined topics ofmultisync, multimode, and high-resolution monitors (which are mentionedin the context of CAD). The same page states that “VGA monitorsare the latest in the IBM PC graphics standards,” but Super VGAhas been a de facto standard for some years; the statement is misleadingat best.

The review may have been misleading in its comments on chapter 7,covering printers. I did not mean to imply that laser printers are notcovered; however, the coverage is largely limited to user-level faultfinding and rectification (such as changing the toner cartridge). Mycomments on chapter 8 were that modern Ethernet technology is notincluded, and although some of the tool descriptions mention media otherthan 10Base5, such media are not mentioned elsewhere; the differenttopology of 10BaseT is not included.

I would concede that much of the material in the last two chaptersis still relevant; however, the chapter on input devices is largelydescriptive and does not contain much practical repair advice.

Overall, I stand by the review; it does after all say that the bookhas reasonable value for those with older machines.