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- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU!Sewall
- From: Sewall@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (Murph Sewall)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
- Subject: Murph's VAPORWARE Column for September 1992
- Message-ID: <9208272249.aa17622@WHARF.BRL.MIL>
- Date: 28 Aug 92 03:50:13 GMT
- Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
- Distribution: world
- Organization: The Internet
- Lines: 232
-
-
- VAPORWARE
- Murphy Sewall
- From the September 1992 APPLE PULP
- H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
- $24/year
- P.O. Box 18027
- East Hartford, CT 06118
- Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 257-9588
- Permission granted to redistribute with the above citation
-
- These are rumors folks;
- we reserve the right to be dead wrong!
-
- Coming to a Mass Merchandiser Near You.
- September 14 is the expected date for Apple's new line of consumer
- computers (see last February and March's columns) under the brand name
- Performa. The Performa 200 and 400 are the Mac Classic II and LC II by
- other names. The Performa 600 (and 600 CD) is a new three-slot model
- that also will be added to the Macintosh line in October (see below).
- The three NuBus slot Performa 600 will have a 32 MHz 68030 CPU without a
- math coprocessor or CPU cache. The 600 CD will have an internal CD-ROM
- drive along with a 3.5 inch floppy drive, 4 MBytes of RAM, and an 80
- MByte hard disk. The Performa models will ship with Apple's new,
- simplified At Ease user interface (previously known as Tiny Toons, see
- last April's column) on top of System 7 and other bundled software.
- While some speculate that the Performas will ship with ClarisWorks,
- Apple has cut a deal to bundle BeagleWorks with Classic II and LC II
- models. That package, which already is available at Philadelphia's Silo
- stores, could be the test case for the Performas. Pricing has not been
- set, but insiders say that the Performa 400 will be such a bargain that
- prototypes of the Color Classic (see February's and May's columns) have
- been withdrawn from developers (there simply isn't enough profit
- potential for it)
- - MacWeek 3 and 10 August plus a note in my electronic mailbox
-
- Hardware by Claris?
- Apple's software subsidiary, Claris, has completed a study indicating
- that a mail order line of Macintosh models built by overseas contractors
- with a Claris brand name can be successfully marketed without undue
- negative impact on the Macintosh brand line. Apple hasn't decided
- whether to endorse this proposal or one of several other avenues for
- legitimizing mail order Macs. - MacWeek 17 August
-
- IBM's Value Line Intro.
- If you don't buy a Performa on the 14th, you may still be in the market
- when IBM introduces it's low-end, AT-bus Value Line on the September 22.
- Big Blue's economy computers will be sold by phone. The line features a
- 25 MHz 386SLC model with a 60 MByte hard drive and color VGA for less
- than $1,200. - InfoWorld 3 August
-
- Apple Price Cuts Planned.
- The PC clone price wars have not gone unnoticed at Apple which plans to
- remain competitive as an upgrade path for 286 and 386SX owners. Apple
- will soon announce price cuts of fifteen to twenty percent on most
- models with reductions up to thirty percent for some Quadra
- configurations. - MacWeek 17 August
-
- October Macintosh Introductions.
- October 19 is the date for the announcement of two new desktop
- Macintoshes and four new PowerBooks. The desktop units, currently
- referred to as the IIxi and IIxv (codename "Brazil"), share their form
- factor and motherboard with the Performa 600. The low-end IIxi will
- have a 16 MHz 68030 without math coprocessor or CPU cache, but it will
- be upgradeable to the IIxv which will have a 32 MHz 68030 with matching
- math coprocessor and a 32K CPU cache. Some have noted that "IIxi" and
- "IIxv" lack pizazz, and those names may change before October. The new
- Powebook 160 and 180 are upgrades of the current 145 and 170 models with
- no change in price. The big differences will be the 16 grayscale
- displays and integrated video out. The PowerBook 180 will also clock at
- 33 MHz and be approximately fifty percent faster than the PowerBook 170.
- The two new lightweight PowerBook Duo's (the 25 MHz 210 and 33 MHz 230)
- will be dockable designs with 16 grayscale supertwist displays. Both
- will have math coprocessors and support up to 24 MBytes of RAM. The Duo
- Dock contains the floppy drive, two NuBus slots, video out, and a second
- hard drive. The MiniDock has no floppy or extra hard drive, but does
- provide video out and a SCSI connector. Apple also plans to introduce a
- 24-bit, 300 dpi color scanner bundled with a color version of Light
- Source's Ofoto, a new 13 inch display priced around $600 that also will
- be VGA compatible, and Apple's first color printer based on Canon's
- BJC-820 Bubble Jet engine - MacWeek 10 August
-
- Faster, Less Expensive CD ROM Drives.
- NEC, Sony, Texel, and Philips are all planning to ship a new generation
- of faster CD ROM products by year's end. The data transfer rate of 300K
- bits per second is nearly double that of existing drives and the average
- access time of less than 300 milliseconds is about two-thirds the
- performance of existing devices. The data transfer rate is sufficient to
- support full-motion video, and the new drives are seen as capable of
- making desktop multimedia a widespread reality. Apple is expected to be
- the most aggressive supplier of the new drives and the main reason why
- sales volume is expected to be great enough to make them affordable.
- Apple plans to market an external model for about $300 as well as offer
- internal models in the Performa line.
- - InfoWorld 17 August
-
- More Reliable, Less Expensive Hard Drives.
- Manufacturers are already receiving the new Quantum ProDrive ELS series
- of SCSI and AT-bus drives with capacities of 42, 85, 127, and 170
- MBytes. The new drives have a mean time between failures rating of
- 250,000 hours and are expected to be priced five to ten percent less
- than the models they replace. - MacWeek 27 July
-
- PowerPC Upgrades for Older Mac IIs.
- Apple is negotiating to license the PowerPC processor, System 7
- microkernel, and Mac compatibility module to third party developers to
- make RISC boards for NuBus slots on existing Macintoshes. The upgrade
- products, expected to sell for approximately half the price of a new
- PowerPC, will deliver 50 to 100 MIPS depending on which CPU model is
- installed. - InfoWorld 3 August
-
- Intel's Hottest New CPU.
- As many as 35 manufacturers may begin offering computers based on the
- new Intel i486DX2/66 by the end of the month. The new CPU operates
- internally at 66 MHz but communicates with the system bus at 33 MHz.
- Performance improvements of six to thirty percent over a 50 MHz i486
- system is expected on older 33 MHz systems designed to accept the new
- clock doubling processor. However, the DX2/66 runs about one-third
- hotter than the 50 MHz i486 and may need additional cooling. The
- manufacturer's price for the DX2/66 will be about $650.
- - PC Week 4 August and InfoWorld 10 August
-
- P5 Delayed.
- Intel has decided to delay official introduction of its next generation
- P5 CPU (also referred to as the 586 chip) until the first quarter of
- 1993. The delay is said to be based on the a desire to wait until
- volume shipments are ready to begin. Analysts say that a premature
- announcement of the new processor could hurt the current strong sales of
- the company's i486 line. - InfoWorld 27 July
-
- Newton Delayed.
- Apple's top three executives recently told a group of financial analysts
- that the Newton PDA introduction, originally expected right after the
- new year will be delayed until mid-1993. - MacWeek 17 August
-
- Eighty CPU, 10 Gigabyte RAM Workstation.
- Sun Microsystems' Dragon project, which is rumored to be a 20 processor
- system is even more impressive. Sun is developing a massively parallel
- workstation with four boards of 20 SPARC processors each. Those CPUs
- might be hyperSPARCS rather than superSPARCS. The motherboard will be
- based on the new Xbus developed by Sun and Xerox. There could be as
- much as 10 Gigabytes of RAM using Sun's new 64 Mbyte SIMMS.
- - found in my electronic mailbox
-
- One Pass Color Scanner.
- Sharp Electronics will introduce its model JX-610 one-pass color flatbed
- scanner in the fourth quarter. The 600 dpi, increased to 1,200 dpi by
- software interpolation, 24-bit color scanner uses a proprietary CCD
- (Charge-Coupled Device) array. - MacWeek 17 August
-
- Some Current Windows Apps Are Not NT Compatible.
- Synchronous communications, fax board, and scanner software along with
- other Windows and DOS applications which write directly to hardware will
- need new device drivers to work with Windows NT. Microsoft plans to
- offer drivers for most well-known products and also help other vendors
- write and debug drivers. Microsoft expects most DOS and Windows
- applications will be able to run under NT either directly or with new
- drivers. - InfoWorld 3 August
-
- Are You Ready for OS/2?
- By the end of the year, IBM will bundle OS/2 with all PS/2's and some
- PS/1's. IBM will also increase the standard memory and hard drive
- capacity for those systems to 8 MBytes of RAM and 80 MBytes of disk.
- Meanwhile, code which will permit Windows 3.1 applications to run under
- OS/2 2.0 recently entered beta testing. - InfoWorld 3 and 17 August
-
- New Virus Detection Technology Rejected.
- As reported last month, Microsoft plans to bundle Central Point's
- antiviral technology with the next major revision of MS-DOS. Recently,
- Microsoft is said to have spurned a researcher's offer of what is
- claimed to be an new, elegant solution to boot sector viruses, such as
- the much publicized Michelangelo virus.
- - found in my electronic mailbox
-
- Visual Basic for DOS.
- Microsoft has confirmed that a DOS version of its popular Visual Basic
- programming product is in beta test and may ship before the end of the
- year. MIcrosoft executive vice president Mike Maples indicated the
- program uses the Windows "event driven model" and described it as an
- "upgrade" of his company's current Quick Basic. - InfoWorld 27 July
-
- Apple II - Still Improving.
- At the Apple II Developers Conference (also known as KansasFest),
- Apple's Tim Swihart stated that "the hottest selling Apple II" is the
- IIe card for the Mac LC II. However, he also confirmed that System
- 6.0.1 for the IIgs (yes, it's still in production) will be released at
- the same time as the Apple II Ethernet Card. That card is nearing the
- beta testing stage, and if no major problems are found, should be
- released before Christmas. In addition to fixing some bugs, System 6.0.1
- will contain an MS-DOS FST for the IIgs SuperDrive or Applied
- Engineering's Transdrive. The initial release of this new FST written
- by Greg Branche will be "read only,' but read and write is planned for a
- future release. Apple II developer, Procyon, was showing off Switch It,
- a cooperative multi-tasking program akin to the old Mac program,
- Switcher. - reported by Joe Kohn
-
- Beyond QuickTime and Kaleida.
- Apple and at least one Japanese consumer electronics giant are already
- at work on a next generation multimedia standard under the codename
- Galaxy. Look for it in a forthcoming major operating system revision.
- - found in my electronic mailbox
-
- Mac LC II with Two Slots
- Sonnet Technologies Inc. will soon ship an adaptor that allows two
- expansion cards to be used in the Mac LC and LC II. The $549 Twin Slot
- LC includes a new high-capacity power supply and a raised top to
- accommodate the additional card. It is compatible with DayStar Digital
- Inc.'s Power Cache card; Farallon Computing Inc.'s Ethernet card; and
- video cards from E-Machines Inc., Lapis Technologies Corp., Radius Inc.
- and SuperMac Technology as well as Apple's //e card. - MacWeek 3 August
-
- Electronic Shopping.
- Apple and Bellcore, the research arm of the regional telephone
- companies, are cooperating on a billing scheme that will enable online
- ordering, billing, and distribution of software from the comfort of your
- own home. - MacWeek 10 August
-
- PageMaker 5?
- Industry analysts suspect that recent layoffs of 11 percent of its U.S.
- workforce by Aldus Corporation has slowed development of new company
- products. With Quark shipping a version of QuarkXPress for Windows, a
- significant delay in shipping the new version of PageMaker, which will
- begin beta testing soon, could threaten Aldus's 69 percent desktop
- publishing market share, which has already diminished to 54 percent of
- the Macintosh market. - InfoWorld 17 August
-
- Enterprise Toolbox.
- Apple plans to replace the Macintosh's current Communications Toolbox by
- integrating software currently known as the Enterprise Toolbox into
- System 7 next year. The new toolbox will be part a set of system
- extensions supporting the Open Collaboration Environment (see the March
- and June columns) which is due in early 1993. - MacWeek 27 July
-