OH, SAY YOU CD?

Looks like CD-ROM for PCs is finally out of the starting gate with the release of two home PC platforms from HeadStart Technologies.

The LX-CD has a suggested retail price of $1,995, without a monitor. It features a 5¼-inch CD-ROM drive with stereo sound, a 40-megabyte hard disk, a high-density 3½-inch floppy disk drive, VGA graphics, headphones, serial and parallel ports, and a mouse. It is powered by an 8088 microprocessor at 4.77/10; megahertz, comes with 768K of RAM and 256K of video RAM, and offers five expansion slots and a 101-key keyboard.

The HeadStart III-CD is an AT-class machine running at 8/12 megahertz with one megabyte of RAM. It adds to the LX-CD features a second serial port, a joystick port, an additional expansion slot, and a portable external modem. It retails for $2,995 without a monitor.

With both systems, users get a library of software on CD-ROM discs, including MS-DOS 3.3H (a special version for HeadStart that allows for partitions greater than 32 megabytes), GW-BASIC, Publish-It!, Splash!,

Twist & Shout, The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia, Microsoft Bookshelf, and several other packages.

HeadStart said that it had agreements with software publishers to release future CD-ROM disc-based packages at under $100. The company did not say that it would make its CD-ROM technology available on a 386 platform, although a spokesperson said the firm was considering it. Many industry observers think the 386 is a more suitable piece of hardware for CD-ROM applications.

—PETER SCISCO