Because we are in need a second computer, I sent my husband out today to look for a cheap system. He came back with some specs on a piece of paper for a computer in the price range I want.

It is an Intel Pentium 4 2.6 Ghz which is fine, as is the amount of menory and the size of the hard drive.Modem is fine.

I don't know much about hardware so I am not sure anout some other things

Optical Drive - DVD Super Multi Drive (supports DVD+/-RW and DVD-RAM formats) - I have never had a DVD drive before so it might seem like a silly question but - does it read CD-ROMS and other CDs? All our software is on CD-Roms.

and can we look at movie DVDs on it?

The specs say it doesn't have a CARD READER or IEEE1394 PORT. What are these two? I know about serial ports, parallel ports and USB port but no idea what a IEEE1394 PORT means.

R\Thanks in advance for any advice.

A DVD drive can read CD-ROMS and other CD's and a DVD burner will burn both CD's and DVD's which a CD Burner can't do.
Yes, you should be able to watch movie DVD's on it, I don't see why not.

As for a CARD READER, FingerTech says this:

Quote:

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A Card Reader is an external flash card reader that connects to your computer. It provides the ability to write data to and read data from flash memory without connecting your digital device (digital camera, handheld computer, digital music player, etc.) directly to a computer. Card Readers are the fastest way to transfer pictures, music, data and more to and from your computer.

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From here


An IEEE 1394 PORT is explained at this
web page

Hope this helps.

Looks like I hung around too long but there's the answers anyway.

Thanks for the info. I guess I will buy this computer. The card reader sound like a good feature to have but it isn't essential to me.

I have decided to keep the new computer for myself (and the children) and my husband can have the old one.All I have to do is mention that all his work is one the old one and he should be happy.

What else does the computer have?

My parents' last computer had 128MB of RAM, an integrated video card and just a CD-ROM and 3.5" floppy. So they found a good deal on an external CD burner that they can transfer to their next new computer, and on Friday we upgraded it to have 512MB RAM and a 128MB video card for only $90. It turned a cheap computer into an affordable one that works great.

For the extra card reader things, it sounds like all you'd need is a USB port and you can just get one of those jumpdrives.

It has 256 MB PC2700 DDR-SRAM
USB PORT - 6 X USB 2.0
AGP SLOT - 4x/8x AGP slot for video upgradability
Video - Integrated Ultra AGP II graphics

It is costing $AUS798 dollars without a monitor (we have a spare monitor we can use). We probably could get it cheaper on the Mainland (most things are dearer here).

Sounds good - the AGP slot is good because it's better for video cards.

Sounds like a good computer to me. If you want to look for some deals, slickdeals.net can be very helpful. I recently bought a laptop for $800 with 512 RAM and a DVD burner.