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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  Mac the Knife: The Motorola
SCROLL 10
Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-20

 Mac the Knife: The Motorola 88110 solution

 While most will admit that it's much more fun to float rumors than to shoot
them down, there comes a time in the course of every rumor column when it's
necessary to do just that. This week Mac the Knife is compelled to take aim at a
happy, yet totally groundless rumor making the rounds since the news leaked out
that Apple is planning to lay off as many as 1,500 employees right in the middle
of this summer's continuing economic retrenchment.

 Put bluntly, the rumor that Apple, after considering its position as a company
in possession of a rather substantial chunk of cash and no debt, has decided to
retain the soon-to-be-furloughed workers and employ them in a community-service
program code-named Fifteen Hundred Points of Light is, alas, groundless.

 There is, on the other hand, a great deal of foundation to a couple of rumors
currently popular among the otherwise idle. First, Apple has indeed stepped back
from plans to develop and introduce a CD-ROM-based CPU aimed at the consumer
market. Sources say that while the consumer project may not be completely dead,
its ultimate fate rests with a new business plan currently under development.

 Chip of choice. Then there's the rumor that Apple is settling on the Motorola
88110 chip as the heart of the first iteration of its planned line of RISC-based
post-Mac (1992 or 1993) computers. This one is also based in fact. As is well
known, one of the more intriguing aspects of the Apple RISC computer will be the
portability of the new Mac's operating system. Another more intriguing aspect is
performance. Well-tanned Knife informants in sun-drenched Arizona report that
Motorola employees have been spotted there sporting T-shirts heralding the new
model and its current code name, Hurricane. The front of the shirt features a
stylized Apple logo, with the rainbow replaced with a version of the registered
AT&T death-star logo. The back of the shirt announces "Hurricane: Its
performance will blow you away."

 A bad Premise. While code names rarely end up gracing the actual released
product, the Knife is betting that Apple could do a lot worse than to go with
the Hurricane moniker. At least, that's a reasonable conclusion to be drawn from
the reports of the telephone surveys Apple has commissioned to judge buyer
reaction to potential names for the coming '040 twins. According to several
incidents reported to the Knife, Apple is half seriously considering such losers
as "Evo 200" and "Premise 500" for the next-generation Macs. Then again, a
super-fast Mac by any other name ...

 MS-Spock. Sources familiar with Microsoft's secret entry-level
page-layout-application development effort (code-named Spock) tell the Knife
that the company is shooting for an October release of the Windows version and
an early 1992 release of the Mac version. Notable on the list of features is a
gateway for transferring Spock documents to PageMaker. The present development
version includes a Save As PageMaker format option.

 And yes, there is a new version of PageMaker under development at Aldus Corp.
The Knife has learned that both the Windows and the Mac versions of PageMaker 5,
code-named Dessert Cart, are well into alpha development, although the projected
simultaneous release of the two products is at least a year away. The new
verions share completely new core code and a significantly expanded feature set.
Sources who should know say that Aldus is doing a good job of enhancing the
feature set. Among the high-profile improvements are new graphics-manipulation
tools, most of which look suspiciously like those found in FreeHand. All in all,
it looks like things are going to get pretty interesting in the high-end
page-layout market. This assumes, of course, that Quark developers aren't
sitting on their keyboards - a fairly sure bet, according to the Knife.

(MacWEEK Mac the Knife, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All
rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without
permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  Review: ElectricImage worth
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Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-19

 Review: ElectricImage worth anticipation

 By Michael D. Murie
 Three-dimensional rendering and animation programs are spinning out of science
fiction and onto the sophisticated user's desk, offering increasing complexity;
power; and, incidentally, price. The latest entrant is the ElectricImage
Animation System from Electric Image Inc. Originally named Spotlight, this
product appeared almost two years ago at a trade show, and modelers and
animators have been anticipating its availability ever since.

 ElectricImage offers a sophisticated interface for creating still images and
animations. It can render objects created in almost any 3-D modeling program.

 Hardware, copy protection. ElectricImage requires a hardware key plugged into
the Apple Desktop Bus port of the computer. The software also comes with the
user's name preloaded. The box has an ADB-out port for Macs with only one ADB
port. The program runs on the SE/30 and ac II-family machines (the IIsi requires
the addition of a floating-point math coprocessor) with a minimum of 4 Mbytes of
memory, although 8 Mbytes are recommended. Since ElectricImage does not include
a modeling package, a 3-D modeler is also needed.

 ElectricImage is made up of five separate programs:

 >Transporter converts 3-D models created in modeling programs to the
ElectricImage format.
 >Mr Font creates 3-D letters using PostScript Type 1 fonts.
 >The ElectricImage program itself arranges models within a coordinate system
and defines the lighting, shading and movement of these models.
 >Camera performs the rendering of the images.
 >Projector displays the resulting images and animations.

 Import and export. Transporter's Spartan interface presents a dialog box that
lets you select the file format to open and define options about how the file is
to be converted. Transporter reads files created by almost every 3-D modeling
program. Unfortunately, you must select the right file type before Transporter
will recognize it. We would prefer that the program listed all models it
understands. Options for the conversion include removing duplicate polygons,
merging polygons on the same plane and merging edges that fall within a certain
tolerance.

 Transporter opens a model in 3-D space. The orientation can be changed, and the
object can be saved in a number of formats. You can specify the maximum number
of sides a polygon is allowed and whether to output points, lines or polygons.
Mr Font also has a Spartan interface that presents a dialog box when opened.
Text is typed into the field in the dialog box, then the PostScript font file is
opened. Mr Font creates a 3-D model of the entered text with options for depth
of character, smoothness and bevels.

 Lights, camera, action. The ElectricImage module stores information about the
orientation of models in a project file. This file contains light-source, camera
and animation information as well. ElectricImage presents three standard views
(top, front and side) and a camera view. When the program first opens the
project, models appear as an extent box - a wireframe rectangle that represents
the volume of the object. It progressively adds the vertexes of the polygons,
and finally adds the actual skin of the object. While this is going on, the
objects can be moved and manipulated, which causes ElectricImage to start
redrawing, beginning with the extent boxes. This means a detailed view of the
project appears after a time, but you can continue working without waiting. To
speed performance, the program can draw only extent boxes in specified windows.

The camera object defines the image to render. A line in each view shows the
camera's direction of view. When moving the camera, it remains oriented on the
center point in view. This makes maneuvering the camera easy. The camera can be
adjusted for lens, focal length and aspect ratio, and the Camera Info window
includes a visual camera-roll indicator that can be dragged to change the angle
of view. There are five types of lights: spot, parallel, radial, camera point
and ambient. Lights can be added at any location.

 Adding motion. Key frames define the animation of objects. Each frame stores
the position of an object at a point in time. The program interpolates between
the original and the new location to create an animation. ElectricImage draws a
gray line showing the motion path of an object; additional points will result in
splines, or curves, which can be manipulated into any shape. The Velocity Graph
also uses curves to represent the speed and acceleration of objects; adjusting
the shape of the curve defines the speed of the object over time.

 Maps and textures. Electric-Image uses texture mapping and reflectance mapping,
which involve applying a bit map to the surface of the object. The program
offers four types of mapping for placing a 2-D plane onto a 3-D object: flat,
cylindrical, spherical and cubic. A Group window sets shading characteristics,
texture mapping, reflectance mapping and the orientation of mapping. The
Materials Editor modifies the shading characteristics of any group in a model,
and you can define the ambient, specular, reflectance, transparency and
luminance values of an object.

 ElectricImage makes extensive use of the alpha channel for texture and bump
mapping as well as digital composition. In bump mapping, brightness determines
the amplitude of the bump. We were surprised that ElectricImage doesn't come
with a library of surfaces, particularly since the manual suggests that it does.
ElectricImage has a complete scripting language that can be used to define an
animation using a text file. It can load objects, define positions, and define
texture mapping and animation.

 The Camera module performs the actual rendering, displaying status, information
about the objects in the scene and the time to completion. Images can be
rendered up to 16,000 lines square. Electric Image claims its program uses
improved algorithms that make rendering faster than in other programs. While
other renderers don't use the same mapping techniques, ElectricImage did render
a scene of comparable size and complexity two to 10 times faster.

 Viewing the scene. Projector displays images and performs post-production
effects, such as combining images (called digital composing), adding motion blur
and controlling basic video editing for outputting frame by frame to videotape.
Projector also can convert images and animations to PICT, Targa and PICS
formats. The ElectricImage system does not support System 7, although it is
32-bit clean and, in use, the programs link from one to another automatically.
Unfortunately, we found that more than half the time, they didn't link
successfully and exited back to the Finder. Camera will render in the background
- with a performance hit to other applications.

 Conclusions. ElectricImage is a powerful program that can be used to create
complex animations quickly and easily. It is easy to use, and while we might
quibble with the placement of some options and parameters, it is easy to learn.
The manual is sparse, containing six tutorials that only scratch the surface.
The index is poor (hundreds of entries appear under "ElectricImage"), and there
are many typos. The texture-mapping controls and options are complete, although
we would have liked to play with the missing surface library. More-serious
problems are the high cost of the program and the annoying hardware copy
protection. We couldn't help thinking that you could buy copies of most of the
competing programs for the cost of this one, or you could buy just one and a
machine to run it on.

 However, the ability to import models from just about any program makes
ElectricImage particularly attractive, and we also like being able to create 3-D
objects from PostScript fonts. The ease with which animation can be defined and
the speed of rendering are also big pluses. Electric Image Inc. is at 9690
Telstar Ave., Suite 225, El Monte, Calif. 91731. Phone [phone]; fax (818)
444-1135.

(MacWEEK Reviews, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  PacerTerm opens Comm Toolbo
SCROLL 8
Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-18

 PacerTerm opens Comm Toolbox

 By Raines Cohen
 La Jolla, Calif. - With System 7.0 the new standard operating environment on
many Macs, developers can build programs that depend on 7.0 components. Pacer
Software Inc. has done just that with its new PacerTerm terminal-emulation
software based on Apple's Macintosh Communications Toolbox, which is part of
System 7.

 PacerTerm is due to ship this month for $249. A number of features set it apart
from other communications packages, including:

 >Communications. PacerTerm communicates entirely using Apple's Mac
Communications Toolbox, a core technology in System 7 that is also available
separately. It provides Mac applications with standardized access to terminal
emulation, data connection and file transfer services. Users need only drop new
terminal, connection and file transfer tools into a subfolder of the System
folder.

 PacerTerm includes VT320, VT102 and TTY terminal tools; Local-Area Transport
(LAT), TCP/IP, ADSP (AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol), PacerCT (for connection to
PacerLink servers on host systems), serial and modem connection tools; and FTP
(File Transfer Protocol), Xmodem, Zmodem, PacerFT, Kermit and text file transfer
tools.

 >Flexibility. PacerTerm can open multiple windows, simultaneously communicating
with one or several hosts, each with its own connection and protocols. Users can
create on-screen buttons, called SoftKeys, to perform terminal functions, issue
host commands, execute scripts and remap the keyboard.

 >Scripting. PacerTerm includes PacerScript, a scripting language based on
Claris Corp.'s HyperTalk 2.0, for front-end creation. Commands have been added
to the language to set communications parameters, log onto a host, operate a
modem and create dialog boxes for display. It can run HyperCard 1.x-format
external functions and commands.

 Scripts can be created with the program's record mode, which captures a user's
actions and translates them into standard script commands. A built-in script
editor supports multiple editing windows and on-line help and includes a tool
that creates PacerScript commands.

 Pacer has been selling its Mac-to-mainframe connectivity products, including
PacerLink, PacerShare and PacerPrint, directly to customers for the past five
years. PacerTerm is the company's first retail-distributed product.

(MacWEEK Gateways June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  E-Machines boosts multimedi
SCROLL 7
Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-17

 E-Machines boosts multimedia line

 By Neil McManus
 Beaverton, Ore. - Continuing its advance into Mac multimedia, E-Machines Inc.
has added QuickTime and stereo sound support to its QuickView Studio video
digitizer and has released a new video encoder and a stereo sound digitizer.

 >QuickView Studio 1.1, a new version of the company's $2,495 video digitizer,
now has stereo sound-editing capabilities and sound controls for volume,
balance, bass and treble. It also supports QuickTime, Apple's multimedia
extension, due late this year (see story, Page 1).

 Video digitizers will be the key component to authoring QuickTime movies, said
Jonathan Seybold, publisher of the Seybold Reports in Malibu, Calif. "A lot of
software applications will be able to play digital movies [when QuickTime
ships], but how are you going to get the video into the computer?" he asked.
"For that, you need hardware digitizers."

 >QuickView Video, E-Machines' new $575 video encoder box, allows users to
output animations, videos and 24-bit color graphics from a Macintosh to video
recorders and television sets. The company also is offering a PAL version of the
encoder for international use.

 When used with the company's $1,495 ColorPage XL24 24-bit display card,
QuickView Video offers switching among composite video, S-Video and the Mac's
monitor without swapping cables.

 "With QuickView Video, you can record your business presentations with
animation, sound and graphics onto videotapes for clients to play on their
VCRs," said Bob Lightman, E-Machines' product marketing manager. "We're the TV
generation. We relate to video presentations; they get our attention."

 >QuickView Sound. This new $395 daughterboard for the QuickView Studio NuBus
card lets users capture and digitize eight-bit stereo sound at 22 kHz from
sources such as microphones or videotape.

(MacWEEK GA, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  Users count on 1-2-3's comp
SCROLL 6
Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-16

 Users count on 1-2-3's compatibility

 By Andrew Gore Cambridge, Mass. - If Lotus 1-2-3 for Macintosh ships on time
and bug-free this fall, the name "Lotus" could be the ticket that wins the $495
spreadsheet a lot of sales.

 "With a little cagey marketing, such as sidegrades [trade-ins], I think Lotus
could capture 20 [percent] to 30 percent of the Mac spreadsheet market without
much effort," said Pieter Hartsook, manager of Macintosh research for
International Data Corp. in Mountain View, Calif. Microsoft Corp. claims that
Excel 3.0 holds 90 percent of the Macintosh spreadsheet market.

 Lotus is a name most computer users automatically associate with spreadsheets,
said Dave Kulbarsh, Apple's manager of office management and financial
solutions. That's not the only reason, though, that Apple is excited about 1-2-3
for the Macintosh.

 "If it was a poor product, it would probably just be a checklist item, but
since it is a good product, we are going to include it in our marketing
campaigns," Kulbarsh said. Because 1-2-3 has been especially successful in small
businesses, Apple expects the Mac version to help Mac sales in that market,
according to Kulbarsh.

 In fact, Apple is so excited about the introduction of 1-2-3 for the Mac that
Apple CEO John Sculley will speak at this week's Lotus Week conference in
Boston, where the product will debut. Users also expressed excitement over the
debut of Lotus' Mac spreadsheet, but for different reasons.

 "I think it looks like a Mac program, but it still looks familiar to Lotus DOS
users," said Trish Elste, presentation analyst for Pacific Gas Transmission Co.
in San Francisco, who was an alpha tester of the program. "I also think our
Excel users who move over to Lotus won't have a problem learning it."

 Because Pacific Gas has standardized on Lotus 1-2-3 for its primarily DOS-based
operations, Elste said the company will most likely install 1-2-3/Mac rather
than upgrade to Excel 3.0. Even Excel-heavy sites said they would consider
Lotus' Mac spreadsheet because 1-2-3's pre-eminence in the DOS world makes it
the spreadsheet most new employees know best.

 "We're pretty dominated by Excel, but we do have a number of [IBM] PCs that use
Lotus," said Brad Henson, systems administrator at Pacific Missile Test Center
in Point Mugu, Calif. "I think we would consider changing over [to 1-2-3/Mac],
primarily to work cross-platform with Lotus."

 Lotus shipped Jazz, its first Macintosh product, in 1985, but the integrated
package garnered lackluster reviews and sales. Modern Jazz, a sequel intended to
address the original version's interface and performance problems, never made it
out of beta testing. And last January Lotus was forced to pull its CD-ROM-based
Mac demographic database, Lotus Marketplace, after highly publicized protests
over the data the product contained.

 "The biggest challenge is getting the word out," said Rob Adams, Mac product
evangelist at Lotus. "Once we show it to people, any old baggage is gone."

(MacWEEK News, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  Smaller, lighter notebooks
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Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-15

 Smaller, lighter notebooks to get Mac users moving

 By Andrew Gore
 Cupertino, Calif. - Apple's three new notebook computers are on target for fall
delivery. If Apple has its way, sources said, the smaller, lightweight notebook
Macs will satisfy a range of users much broader than the limited few who bought
the Mac Portable.

 >Performance. The notebook lineup includes a 5.3-pound Sony-built unit with a
16-MHz 68000 and higher-end units, to be assembled by Apple, that are powered by
16- and 25-MHz 68030 processors.

 >Display. The two lower-end notebooks use a backlit display technology never
before seen on the Mac: a Film SuperTwist Nematic (FSTN) LCD. The
top-of-the-line model uses a backlit active-matrix LCD like the current Mac
Portable's. Unlike all the other integrated displays Apple introduced in the
past few years, the new ones use manual brightness controls.

 >Power management. All three notebooks use sealed lead- acid batteries like the
Mac Portable's, but smaller, lighter and shorter-lived than their older cousin.

 One of the critical design goals of both '030 notebooks, however, was to get
maximum battery life from the new battery. Both models include power
conservation features, implemented with several new custom application-specific
integrated circuits (ASICs) as well as the Power Manager that Apple developed
for the original Portable. A new power-cycling feature reduces current to the
CPU whenever it has been inactive for two seconds; the new approach reduces CPU
power consumption by 90 percent, compared with the 10 percent saved by the Mac
Portable's idle mode.

 >RAM. All three machines have a new 70-pin memory-expansion slot that supports
cards with 2, 4 or 6 Mbytes of 100-nanosecond pseudo-static RAM.

 >Storage. The 68030-based notebooks support low-power, 2.5-inch internal
drives. To save scarce space on the back panel, all three notebooks use a new
square 30-pin SCSI connector for external devices. Most existing drives should
work with the new connector (unless they are internally terminated), but a new
cable will be required.

 The higher-end notebooks will come with internal SuperDrives, but they have no
provision for external floppy drives. The low-end notebook has no inter- nal
floppy drive, but it does include a port for one external floppy drive.

 >Trackball. The notebooks' mouse substitute is centered below the space bar. A
standard mouse can be added through the Apple Desktop Bus port.

 >Floating point. The 25-MHz unit will come with the 68882 floating-point unit;
the others will not.

 >Modem. All three support an optional internal modem, like the current
Portable.

 >ROM. All the systems use a new 1-Mbyte ROM. It includes support for
CPU-specific features such as power management, the optional internal modem,
backlighting and sound I/O.

 >Pricing. The Sony notebook should retail for about $2,400 with 2 Mbytes of RAM
and a 20-Mbyte hard drive. The midrange unit should cost about $3,100 in the
same configuration as the Sony unit. The high-end notebook is expected to retail
for $5,200 with 4 Mbytes of RAM and a 40-Mbyte hard drive.

(MacWEEK News, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  QuickTime brings motion to
SCROLL 4
Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-14

 QuickTime brings motion to desktop

 By Ric Ford
 In 1984, when Steve Jobs had the Macintosh introduce itself to the world by
speaking words, it was a stunning use of digital audio, a medium that
traditionally lay outside the realm of computing.

 This week Apple officially introduces QuickTime, the system software extensions
that will make our most powerful media - film, video and animation - part of the
Mac. QuickTime builds on Apple's audio work and extends it to create a new
general architecture for multimedia.

 Like the system-software routines that for years have enabled Mac applications
to work with digitized sound, QuickTime is a set of software modules that
isolate programmers from the tedious details of managing real-world devices and
information.

 Using QuickTime tool kits, it finally should be practical for programmers to
create applications that can incorporate moving images as easily as still
images. Presentations, science, education and communications applications should
be the first to benefit.

 Architecting the future. More than just dressed-up sound routines, QuickTime is
an innovative system for dealing with several of the fundamental problems of
multimedia. The biggest problem is managing the dimension of time. The Mac has
included timing services since the beginning, and its hardware provides the
necessary interrupt mechanisms. But its software has been inadequate for precise
multimedia timing and synchronization.

 System 7.0 introduced an extended Time Manager, and QuickTime goes even
further, with new features such as TimeBases, TimeScales and Time Coordinate
Systems that provide a flexible, multilayered approach. Eventually, QuickTime
will synchronize audio, video, animation and other media on a wide range of
systems from stripped Classics to loaded 68040-based Macs.

 Device controllers will be critical to QuickTime's success. People rely on
CD-ROMs, laser discs, videotapes, radio signals, telephones and other systems
for communication, but the Mac by itself is incapable of handling such media.
Special hardware also will be required to get digital video quality that
approaches the quality of real television, just as you need special hardware now
to get high-fidelity sound on the Mac.

 The QuickTime architecture handles additional hardware and media through
generalized "components" similar to MacroMind Inc.'s XObjects and HyperCard's
XCMDs. Among other duties, components control devices and perform services such
as compressing, timing and digitizing. Apple itself is supplying proprietary
components for compressing both still and moving images. Future components will
support faster compression and decompression using special hardware. Apple also
plans to ship a component to standardize video capture.

 Despite their importance, QuickTime controllers may be slow in coming. Many
will have to be written by third-party developers, and creating robust examples
of such specialized programs is a demanding job.

 It's show time. The simplest part of QuickTime perhaps will grab the first
headlines. Apple has designed a very flexible new file format, called a movie,
as a container for all sorts of dynamic media, such as video and sound.
QuickTime's Movie Toolbox gives programmers tools for storing, manipulating and
retrieving this data, and a simple application can create a tantalizing
miniature theater on the Macintosh.

 Movies can be composed of many tracks, each with its own timing and medium. The
movie structure serves as a way to separate editing and control information,
files, sequences of data, and physical media from one another. This modularity
makes it easier to mix and match different devices and types of information
freely within a production. The format supports extra features, such as
previews, posters, track selection and multiple edits within one movie.

 Sound - the Mac's first multimedia technology - has had little impact on our
everyday applications and the user interface of the Mac, but QuickTime's moving
images and expansive architecture may produce a bigger hit.

 Availability. At the moment, QuickTime is alpha software, but within a year it
should mature into real system software that greatly facilitates the creation of
multimedia applications. Apple will distribute QuickTime system software
extensions, but it will be up to third-party developers to produce the
multimedia editing and production applications that bring QuickTime to life.

 The current plan calls for a beta release to developers this summer, with a
final version by the end of the year. QuickTime runs under both System 6.0.7 and
System 7. Support for 68000-based Macs is delayed until later.

(MacWEEK News, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  Photoshop edits CMYK on scr
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Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-13

 Photoshop edits CMYK on screen

 By Carolyn Said
 Mountain View, Calif. Q Adobe Systems Inc. this month will release a new
version of Photoshop, the image-processing software that has become a de facto
standard for color separations and creative work at many sites.

 Photoshop 2.0, still priced at $895, adds the following:

 >CMYK editing. Adobe said Photoshop 2.0 will be the first microcomputer product
to let users edit color images on-screen in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black),
the scheme used for four-color separations, rather than RGB (red, green, blue),
the standard for computer display. Previously, on-screen CMYK editing was
possible only with high-end pre-press systems. The new release also supports the
industry-standard Pantone Matching System.

 ROn-screen CMYK editing is a huge step forward to color accuracy among scans,
display and output,S said Lance Hidy, a graphic artist in Newburyport, Mass.,
who has been beta testing the product.

 RConverting CMYK scans to RGB (for display and editing) and then back to CMYK
for output was always a surprise,S said beta-tester Peter Truskier, plant
manager at Star Graphic Arts Co. Inc. in Foster City, Calif. The new CMYK
editing, he said, tightens PhotoshopUs integration with his Scitex system.

 >Illustrator compatibility. New synergy with AdobeUs drawing package include a
Bezier selection tool in Photoshop identical to the one in Illustrator and the
ability to import Illustrator artwork into Photoshop at any resolution using
anti-aliasing to soften the imported artworkUs edges.

 >Duotone images. Users can create accurate duotones, as well as monotones,
tritones and quadtones, with any Pantone or process color ink and preview the
result on screen and in color.

 >System 7.0 compatibility. The update, which is 32-bit clean, will support
TrueType, publish and subscribe, and core Apple events, Adobe said.

 Other new features include custom color dithering, new special-effects filters,
on-screen editing of tonal values, the ability to calibrate separations to match
specific monitors and output devices, and support for the pressure-sensitive
tablet from Paramus, N.J.-based Wacom Inc.

 Hidy said he found the interface easier for new users to understand. RThere is
just one menu item rather than three dialog boxes for resizing images,S he said
RFilters are now organized by category in a new menu, and the Preferences
interface is better.S

 Truskier also pointed out some interface improvements. RCalibration controls
are split into more logical divisions,S he said. Photoshop users can upgrade for
$149 until Aug. 31, when the upgrade price will rise to $199. Customers who
purchased Photoshop after April 15 can upgrade for free.

(MacWEEK News, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  Lotus puts true Mac face on
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Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-12

 Lotus puts true Mac face on 1-2-3

 By Rick LePage
 After a series of false starts and disappointments in the Mac market, Lotus
Development Corp. has finally come through with 1-2-3 for the Macintosh. The
company is bringing the product, which made it one of the largest software
companies in the world, into a Mac market already crowded with spreadsheets. And
1-2-3/Mac will be scrutinized severely. It will be evaluated not only on its
merits as a spreadsheet, but also on how it performs as a Mac application, its
success as a "bridge" between the Macintosh and DOS platforms, and whether it is
innovative enough to make users of Microsoft Corp.'s Excel and other
spreadsheets move to the newcomer.

 Based on our initial observations of a beta-test version of 1-2-3, Lotus
appears to have done its homework on almost all counts. The most impressive
aspect of the program is its implementation of the Macintosh interface. Mac
aficionados will have no problem with the program - 1-2-3/Mac is a Mac
application to its core.

 The program makes judicious use of floating palettes, customizable menus, and
essential point-and-click techniques. Even the 1-2-3 Classic mode, which allows
users familiar with other versions of 1-2-3 to use "slash" commands in place of
Mac menu operations, is implemented in a clean, Mac-like manner via a floating
palette that stays out of the user's way.

 The basic worksheet. The basic structure of the 1-2-3/Mac worksheet is similar
to most of the Mac spreadsheets on the market today. It has a useful array of
built-in functions, all of which are accessible from a pop-up menu on the
formula bar, or console. Mixed fonts, sizes, colors and styles can be used
throughout a worksheet.

 The most important innovation in 1-2-3/Mac is the 3-D worksheet, which allows
as many as 256 worksheets to be layered together in a single document. This
feature is helpful for reducing the multiple-document sprawl users often
encounter when building complex models. Another unique 1-2-3/Mac feature is
in-cell editing. Formulas are displayed in the cell as you enter them,
liberating users from having to use the console for input. The console can still
be used, but it can be shrunk to display only pop-up menus of 1-2-3/Mac
functions and the named ranges in the current worksheet.

 Exceptional charting. The chart module in 1-2-3/Mac is as good as any we have
seen. Charts available include the standard bar, line, area, pie scatter and
hi-lo stocks found elsewhere, as well as true 3-D chart types and depth effects
that can be applied to any 2-D chart type. A Chart palette makes it easy to
change chart types without having to resort to menus and dialog boxes.

 Chart titles, legends and plots can be moved easily by clicking and dragging;
other elements can be selected by simple mouse clicks. Text boxes, lines and
shapes can be added to a chart and grouped with a chart to form a single object,
which is another long-overdue spreadsheet feature. Any chart created in
1-2-3/Mac can be shrunk to the size of a small icon to help reduce worksheet
clutter - yet another innovative feature.

 Other areas. 1-2-3/Mac's macro-creation facility is unlike any of its
competitors'. While the program is running, it maintains a log of nearly every
user action, except drawing. To record a macro, you perform the actions you wish
to use, open the Translator window, select the lines you wish to use in your
macro and paste them into a worksheet. Macros can be modified and entered
manually as well.

 The Mac version boasts complete compatibility with 1-2-3 Release 2 and Release
3 in other environments, down to the macro level. The program also will be able
to open Excel Version 2.2 and 3.0 files and macros when it ships this fall.
System 7.0 users will find that 1-2-3/Mac supports publish and subscribe, Apple
events, and Apple's Data Access Language (DAL) for linking to remote databases.

 Conclusions. Lotus has done a fine job with the first Macintosh version of its
flagship application. The basic spreadsheet itself is not as flashy as Excel or
as feature laden as Informix Software Inc.'s Wingz. Lotus has focused on
functionality and ease of use, rather than packing 1-2-3/Mac with features. The
interface is much more straightforward than either Excel's or Wingz's, and
palettes are used appropriately. Anyone who has ever complained about Excel's
rigid charting structure will immediately appreciate 1-2-3/Mac's chart module,
and Lotus has made it very easy for users familiar with other versions of 1-2-3
to jump right in.

 There are a few omissions in 1-2-3/Mac that might make Mac spreadsheet junkies
pause. Some operations (such as Fill Right or Down) take additional steps to
perform in 1-2-3/Mac. We also were disappointed to find that 1-2-3/Mac had fewer
worksheet auditing features than either Excel or Wingz. In general, though,
1-2-3/Mac seems to have a well-chosen feature set and a decent mechanism for
getting at those features. Given the increased competition in the spreadsheet
market, Lotus definitely has the look of a major player. We think 1-2-3/Mac will
be more likely to snare new Mac buyers than sway the hard-core Excel user, at
first. In the long run, however, Lotus' well-tempered use of the Mac interface
should be its ace in the hole.

(MacWEEK News, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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From:  (6/2/91)
To: Custodian
From MACWEEK                  Inside Apple's '040 tower
SCROLL 1
Zmac                  ZMC:LAT-11

 Inside Apple's '040 tower

 By Andrew Gore
 Cupertino, Calif. - As Apple's two new 68040-based Macintoshes approach their
October debut, one is destined for the desktop while the other is headed for the
floor.

 While the smaller '040 machine will be the next step up Apple's desktop
performance ladder (see story, Page 99), the '040 tower will be something
completely new to the Mac line: a floor-standing server, complete with built-in
Ethernet, keylock security, ample power supply and bays for a variety of storage
devices.

 >Fortysomething. At the heart of the Macintosh tower will be a 25-MHz 68040
processor. The chip, which Motorola says offers roughly three times the
performance of a 68030 running at the same clock speed, incorporates a
floating-point unit (FPU), a memory-management unit (MMU), and 4-Kbyte caches
for data and instructions in one integrated circuit.

 With the addition of several new Apple custom application-specific integrated
circuits (ASICs), a higher-speed NuBus, on-board Ethernet and dual SCSI
controllers, the '040 tower should deliver performance about double that of a
Macintosh IIfx, sources said.

 >Born to serve. In addition to its vertical orientation ("Imagine a fat IIfx
standing on its side," one eyewitness said), there is other evidence that the
'040 tower will be Apple's first server. A keyswitch on the machine's front
panel, for example, offers a secure setting in which the Apple Desktop Bus and
SuperDrive are disabled, so only networked users can access the system.

 >Massive storage and dual SCSI. The machine comes equipped with two SCSI
controllers, one for an external-device chain and one dedicated to devices
installed inside the tower.

 By separating the SCSI chains, Apple has not only doubled the number of SCSI
devices a Mac normally can handle - from seven to 14 - but also made it
unnecessary to limit the speed of the internal SCSI controller to allow for
variations in external cabling and termination. The system will accept data from
internal SCSI devices at up to 5 Mbytes per second; the external SCSI connector
supports transfers of up to 4 Mbytes per second.

 The tower has room for four half-height storage devices, including the
removable SuperDrive. Two can be accessed from the front panel, allowing for use
of removable-media devices such as SyQuest drives, tape backup units or CD-ROM
drives.

 >Slots, ports and power. The tower comes with five NuBus slots that conform to
the NuBus '90 standard, which operates at 20 MHz, twice the rate of the standard
NuBus. The design leaves room for cards that are as much as 2 inches taller than
NuBus boards for previous Macs, allowing developers to cram more functions onto
each card. The logic board also offers an '040 processor direct slot (PDS). The
PDS is lined up with the first NuBus slot; users who install a PDS card will be
limited to four NuBus boards.

 To support the additional power drain from bigger NuBus cards, the tower comes
with a 300-watt power supply, capable of supporting two 25-watt cards and three
15-watt cards. The tower also sports an Apple Ethernet Port and a built-in
Ethernet controller. Users will have to add an external transceiver, however.

 >Audio and video. The tower can play back, digitize and mix sound from an audio
CD running in an internal CD-ROM drive, if one is installed. It has back panel
inputs for a microphone, which is included; two stereo connectors that are
converted to mono internally; and a standard Mac II speaker connector. The
computer also comes with an oversized speaker on the front panel. Three new
Apple custom ASICs control the tower's sound.

 Like the IIci and IIsi, the tower will have a built-in video controller. Unlike
those earlier Macintoshes, this one can drive 24-bit color on a 12-inch Apple
monitor and eight-bit color on monitors measuring as much as 21 inches. With
additional video RAM installed, the tower will drive 24-bit color on 16-inch
monitors. The on-board video is also supposed to deliver video acceleration
approaching that of Apple's Display Card 8*24 GC.

 >RAM, ROM and I/O. The tower comes with four RAM-expansion banks that take
standard SIMMs (single in-line memory modules), not the special modules required
by the Mac IIfx. The machine can have 4 to 256 Mbytes of dynamic RAM.

 Both the tower and its '040 desktop brother use the new 1 Mbyte Apple ROMs. The
new ROMs add support for the 68040, the new dual SCSI, sound ASICs and the
Ethernet controller, as well as a new real-time clock and memory-addressing
ASICs. The I/O processors that first appeared on the IIfx handle traffic from
the tower's floppy drive and ADB and serial ports.

 >What price, power? Apple is expected to offer the tower in two configurations:
One will have 4 Mbytes of RAM and a SuperDrive for about $7,700, and the other
will also include a 160-Mbyte hard drive and sell for about $8,900.

(MacWEEK News, June 4) (c) Copyright 1991 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights
reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


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