Presenting 20 Firsts from PCQUEST

Over the 20 glorious years of its existence, PCQuest has been a pioneer in just about everything it's done. Here are 20 of them

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

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1987: India's first technology magazine, PCQuest, is launched as PC World India

That's right, when PCQuest was first launched, it was called PC World India, with the name being licensed from the international PCWorld magazine. The actual name PC Quest came into being two years later. Earlier there was a space between PC and Quest, which was removed later. Even the logo was different

PCQuest Online BBS
Before Internet came to the country, technology enthusiasts and IT users used something called a Bulletin Board System (BBS for short) to interact with each other, share information, answer technical queries, debate over things, etc. PCQuest became the first Indian magazine to launch a BBS, called PCQuest Online. It ran on a 386 machine with a modem, and was first setup into the then editor, Prasanto Kumar Roy's home. Later, it was brought into the PCQuest office. Users would use their machines to dial into the BBS and exchange information.

PCQuest distributes CDs with every copy
In August 1995, PCQuest came out with its 100th issue, and to commemorate the occasion, distributed a free CD with it. This trend had a significant impact on the sales of CD-ROM drives in the country, and in a way helped bring the CD revolution to the country. The first CD itself contained IBM's OS/2 Warp OS, Lotus Notes, Vn'gineer, PC DOS 7, and lots of demos from leading software giants like Microsoft, Novell, Aptech, SCO, Ramco, Tata Unisys, Wipro, and Aztech Labs, among others. Incidentally, the CDs became so popular that they were sold in black in the market.

First magazine globally to distributePC DOS 7
On the first CD that PCQuest gave out, it distributed the then very popular Operating System for IBM PCs-PC DOS version 7.

PCQ Labs
PCQuest was the first Indian magazine to have setup its own independent test lab facility. Called PCQ Labs then, the facility helped PCQuest become a credible authority for product purchase decision making. Today, the entity is called CyberMedia Labs, and caters to other publications of the group as well.

DVDs with every copy
When even multiple CDs became insufficient, PCQuest moved to DVDs. The first DVD was called DVDXtreme, and like the CD, helped significantly ramp up DVD drive sales in the country.

Dual layer DVDs with every copy
Again, as software grew larger, and users found it difficult to download from the Internet, PCQuest started distributing dual-layer DVDs, which could hold 8.4 GB of data. Today, every copy of PCQuest ships with a CD and a dual-layer DVD.

India's first multi-boot DVD for penetration testing
This was a boon for all security professionals, because it contained five live Linux distributions having the best collection of security tools. Moreover, the DVD was configured as multi-boot, meaning you just had to insert it into your system and boot from it. A multi-boot menu would pop up from where you could select the Live Linux distro to boot into. The five distros were ChaOS, PHLAK, Whoppix, Auditor and L.A.S.

Enterprise class product shootouts
While most other test labs in the country were busy doing comparatives of PC-based products and peripherals, PCQuest moved to testing enterprise class products like hardware servers, tape drives, NAS boxes, firewalls, UTM devices, and even software products like enterprise class anti-virus software, etc.

Creates its own videos for distribution with its DVDs
We caught all the excitement from labs, created a video out of it and gave it on our DVDs. Initially called QTv, and later TechLive, this video comprised of a variety of useful videos. We've given a collection of the 20 best videos from TechLive on this month's DVD.

Institutes the Best IT Implementation Awards
Launched four years ago, PCQuest introduced the Best IT Implementation Awards as a mechanism to recognize and honor all the good work going on inside IT projects in the country. The latest issue of Best IT Implementations carried more than 250 IT projects.

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