PHILHARMONIC CHIEF-TO-BE LOVES VARIETY IN KEYBOARDSDATE: Monday, May 29, 1995      By Jim Dillon DAYTON DAILY NEWS                              DAYTON DAILY NEWS                   Copyright (c) 1995, Dayton Newspapers Inc.   WHAT'S UP: Neal Gittleman, music director designate of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, is just as comfortable in front of a computer as he isin front of a piano. A dedicated Macintosh user, Gittleman said life would be more difficult without his Apple PowerBook 280C laptop computer and docking station.   "Because I'll be assuming the conductorship of the (Dayton Philharmonic) and while I'm still serving as associate conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony and will commute back and forth between Milwaukee and Dayton for about a year before my wife and I move to town for good, a portable computer became an absolute necessity," Gittleman said in a recent e-mail message.   During a follow-up interview, Gittleman said he became interested in computers about nine years ago when he was an assistant conductor in Oregon. He was working on some arrangements for the orchestra to play during the upcoming season when heard about some "music processing" software.   "Knowing how lousy my music penmanship was, I knew I should investigate it."   Gittleman tried it and liked it. He has not beeen without a computer since.   Having a computer became particularly handy in February when Gittleman served as guest conductor in London, Ont. He needed to make a music insert in the violin portion of a performance. So he used the Mac and a program called Finale to write the insert full of eighth and sixteenth notes and fax it to the symphony's office. There, staffers duplicated and inserted it into the performance.   "That took me 20 minutes all together to do. To do it neatly by hand, it would have taken me an hour if I didn't make any mistakes," Gittleman said.   Gittleman also uses his laptop to write letters, visit music-related sites on the Internet, send and receive e-mail, access America Online and update hisdaily planner. Rarely, however, does he use it to exchange e-mail with his wife, Lisa Fry.   "She's strictly a DOS baby," Gittleman said.   * Feel the need for speed? Dayton-based AT&T Global Information Solutions (awkward name, isn't it) announced last week it will be the first to sell a 120MHz Pentium-based personal computer through retail stores.   The 120MHz denotes the computer's clock speed or internal heart beat, a steady frequency that is converted into digital pulses. A faster clock speed means faster processing of instructions and data. MHz is shorthand for MegaHertz, 1 million cycles per second.   The Globalyst 380TPC is geared toward those who work at home or must work at home after the office closes. It has special electronics and software that lets users perform many tasks, such as listening to Mozart or voice mail, updating a general ledger and sending faxes, simultaneously.   "This is not a toy. This is a serious business machine," said Rob Howe, vice president of worldwide PC marketing for AT&T GIS. The potential market for this machine is huge, Howe added. International Data Corp. recently estimated that 40 million Americans will work out of their homes to some degree or another this year, he said.   "In this segment, people really want the latest and greatest equipment because they're buying it with their own money and they want it to have the longest life possible," Howe said.   The Globalyst 380TPC comes with a 1.08GB hard drive and a bunch of other features. AT&T GIS also announced 120MHz versions of its Globalyst 620 and 630business-oriented desktop systems. The computers will be available later this month. Prices start at $2,999.   Meanwhile, even faster versions of the Pentium processor are on the horizon, according to Byte magazine. Pentiums clocked at 133MHz and 150MHz will be available by year's end, and 166MHz and 180MHz Pentiums will appear next year.   That means prices for perfectly good but slower Pentium-based machines willcontinue to fall. Byte noted that Pentium systems fell below $2,000 about twice as fast as 486 systems did after the 486 processor was introduced.   Best Buy, for example, is selling an Acer 75MHz Pentium-based multimedia computer with 850MB hard drive, 8MB RAM, 1MB video memory, quad-speed CD-ROM drive, 16-bit stereo sound card and speakers, 14,000-baud internal fax/modem, 14-inch .28 SVGA monitor telephone answering system for $1,999. That same system would have been hundreds more last May.   * A reader lamented last week that he doesn't like to use America Online anymore because the commercial on-line service seems to have forgotten DOS operating system users. Everything seems geared toward graphical interfaces, such as Windows for PCs and OS/2 found on Macintosh computers.   That's the cut-throat computer industry for you. Large companies that survive on low-margin products and services can't afford to serve dwindling market segments forever. As a result, they stop making and supporting productsthat once generated healthy revenues.   Some of those dinosaurs include DOS, the Intel 386 and 286 chips, dot-matrix printers, 5 1/4-inch disks and drives and interlaced monitors with greater than .28 dot pitch. Dot pitch is distance between the colored dots on a color monitor. The smaller the dot pitch, the crisper the image.   OTHER STUFF: With Windows 95 operating system set to debut Aug. 24, Microsoft Corp. is previewing the product in 23 North American cities, including Columbus, through July 24. The Columbus preview is 7:30 p.m. to 9:30p.m. Wednesday at the Ohio Theater, 39 E. State St. The event is free and opento the public.   * Envisions Solutions Technology (Oh, no. Not another "Solutions" company.)says it has a revolutionary new program called Presto! that manages the process of scanning, filing, faxing and copying photos and paperwork on a PC.   Starting June 15, 100,000 free copies of Presto! will be available through the Presto! Hotline (800/436-4360), the Envisions' web site at http://www.ocm.com/envisions/ and on the company's CompuServe forum (Go Envisions). After the initial free distribution, the program will be priced at$149.q*********************************************************************- Jim Dillon, staff writer, covers the local computing scene and loves to hearfrom local PC and MacIntosh users. Know of some good new software, online finds or tips on how to get the most from your computer? Call Dillon at 225-2393 or send e-mail to 76676,101 on Compuserve or JDILLO@aol.com.LENGTH: Long  :  120 LINESSUBJ: COMPUTERSNA: NEAL GITTLEMANGEOG: DAYTON AREA      MEMO: SMARTBytes ENHANCER: REF2