peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (09/10/83)
A rumour with some plausibility and a slight amount of confirmation: IBM will announce the Peanut in about 3 weeks (beginning of October) and will likely announce a new display card for the PC at the same time. Another rumour is that the Peanut will have a 3" microfloppy. Yet another is that it will sell in the $700-$800 range (up from an earlier rumour of around $600). Take these as you will, but they have influenced my feeling about buying a higher-res display card. A very-likely-true statement: A Microsoft rep., speaking in Toronto this past week, said about 50-65% of PC's have graphics capability. This is much higher than early figures, which put text-only systems at around 80%. More on display cards: Also in Toronto, I saw the "new, improved" Tecmar Graphics Master, running on a medium res. monitor which it was not suited for. Thus, it's hard to tell how well it works. Further, a dealer thought that the product might not really be ready yet, due to some software problems, though they are being sold at around $800-$900 here. Word is that the Plantronics Colorplus board is in very short supply, at least in Canada, and that the Amdek card (apparently similar to the Tecmar) is available and works; I've seen it listed for US$475 in mail- order ads. peter rowley, U. Toronto, utcsrgv!peterr