info-mac@uw-beaver (01/25/85)
From: Ron Thielen <SYSTEMS.RJT%UChicago.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
Deep Throat called me this afternoon with a sixth row synopsis of the Apple
shareholder's meeting. The highlights as given me from a phone booth
somewhere in Funnyvale are as follows:
- Appletalk (nee AppleBus) is a reallity. Imagine, John Sculley is
editing a document. He wants to send it to Steve Jobs. He selects
"send" from the Appletalk menu. The document folds itself into
the shape of an envelope and mails itself to Steve's Mac where it
unfolds. Once at the destination, it can be cut, pasted, etc.
- DealerTalk was announced. This is supposed to be 24 hour dealer
support via a G.E. information systems supplied online system.
Consortium members may have access to DealerTalk, but that was
unclear.
- 20mb and 40mb Appletalk file servers will be available 2nd quarter.
- An AppleTalk interface card for PC and PC/XTs was announced.
- Sculley and Jobs swore up, down, left, and right that there would
be
no changes in the Macintosh hardware during 1985. All of their
development plans are timed for '86 and '87. However, the Apple II
group may do something new this year (seems I've heard this
before).
- Andy Hertzfeld's Application Switcher was demoed. This product
was reviewed on page 9 of the January Club Mac News. It allows
512K Mac owners to flip between multiple applications in memory
in 1/10th of a second. It sounds basically like a Ramdisk which
discards the artificial construct of a "disk" in memory. This
soon-to-be-in-the-public-domain program may be the best reason yet
for fattening your Mac.
- Apple will provide support for Sunol, IOmega, Tecmar, and one other
hard disk. (I didn't get the name of the fourth company, but it
wasn't Corvus or Davong.) I interpret this support to mean a new
Finder which we've all been waiting for anyway. The four companies
named are the ones which have agreed to support Appletalk by the
end
of 2nd quarter. Apple will support other hard disk manufacturers
as
they commit themselves to Appletalk.
- Microsoft Word will be out this week. (seems I've heard this
before)
- Lotus Jazz will be out by the end of 1st quarter.
- Ashton Tate will be bringing out a package for the 512K Mac.
- All three of the above will be shipped with support for the
Laserwriter.
- Typesetting software for the Laserwriter will be available by the
end
of the year.
Over 85% of Apple's stock was represented at the meeting. Only 10% of that
by
proxy. They filled one large auditorium and two movie theaters which TV
hookups to the auditorium.
If any contributors to the b-board attended the meeting, I would appreciate
verification and/or amplification of any of the info presented here.
Thanks,
Ron Thielen <Systems.RJT%UChicago.Bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
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