whitney@think.COM (David Whitney) (05/21/88)
Well, I went to the Applefest today (well, yesterday) and was pretty
much unimpressed. The Hynes Convertion Center is still under
construction, and as a result the show itself occupied a pretty small
space on the second floor. I haven't attended such a small show in a
long time. It's size reminded me of the second Applefest in Boston way
back in 1983 or something.
New products being displayed:
GSWorks was out there. It crashed a lot. They had several people
desperately trying to show off this potentially great product and it
continually crashed or just plain wouldn't work right. It's entirely
graphics-based (how'd you guess?) so it runs pretty slowly. But there
is hope for that...
Applied Engineering had a prototype accelerator card on display. Looks
like it makes things about twice as fast. It literelly was a protoype -
the board was wire-wrapped and was too big vertically to fit in the
machine. It did work very nicely though. If the hot rumors of the GS+
don't come together, it looks like I'll buy one. The guy had no specs
on it. They Fed Ex'd it out to him the day before and said "if you
break it, don't bother coming back to Texas." No other info was sent
along with it (like release date,price,speed,etc). I get the feeling
that the very card I saw was AE's only working version.
Checkmate Technology doesn't seem to have any plans for accelerators
for the GS.
The Boston Computer Society had at least one Apple //e charged up with
a Zip Chip. Yes, they do exist and they are FAST. Flight Simulator was
actually playable. The guy told me the the company actually had some
chips at the SF fest and sold them to people on the spot. SO, it seems
there have been some lucky souls who have had them all along.
The manufacturers of the Rocket chip were there. Looks like it's a Zip
Chip. I haven't gone through their literature yet.
Apple is releasing AppleLink for general use by the public. I'm not
sure of the details, but it looks like the general schmuck who
subscribes won't get exactly the same kind of service that the
developers have been getting. Forums and the like from the developers
will be summarized and posted for your perusal. Looks to be a big
money source for Apple. Also, Applelink software exists for the //.
Don't know which versions of the //, or when it will be available for
// users (it may already be out - I don't know).
As for the rest of the show, there wasn't much to go "ooh aah" about.
Nothing really new aside from what's mentioned above.
On a personal note, I stopped by the Genie booth, and they were
perpetually logged in. I picked up their current catalog of software,
and my creation, Z-Link was there since April (early). 99 people have
downloaded it so far, and not one of them has sent me money. Makes me
upset, but what can you do? It happened that the Genie people were
using ProTerm, and I've picked up on some ideas to incorporate into
Z-Link. You watch - Z-Link will become a pretty good deal when I'm
done with it.
David Whitney, MIT '90 Still learning about my Apple //GS
{the known universe}!ihnp4!think!whitney and all of its secrets. Any and all
whitney@think.com technical info appreciated.
DISCLAIMER: If they only knew what I was doing and saying here...spike@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Spike) (05/22/88)
In article <21000@think.UUCP> whitney@think.UUCP (David Whitney) writes: >The Boston Computer Society had at least one Apple //e charged up with <a Zip Chip. Yes, they do exist and they are FAST. Flight Simulator was >actually playable. The guy told me the the company actually had some <chips at the SF fest and sold them to people on the spot. SO, it seems >there have been some lucky souls who have had them all along. Maybe the Zip people read this group somewhere, because this time all of there machines where open so that you could see that they did have the chips in them. They even gave some away through InCider. <The manufacturers of the Rocket chip were there. Looks like it's a Zip >Chip. I haven't gone through their literature yet. I skimmed it. The Rocket Chip is like the 'Zip Chip' but runs at 5MHz, where the Zip Chip runs at 4MHz. I don't have the price with me. They are real, as they had a number of different Apple running them. (Guess what? You can't play Load Runner at 5Mhz. ;-) <As for the rest of the show, there wasn't much to go "ooh aah" about. >Nothing really new aside from what's mentioned above. I would not say that. There where many new things to play with. New drives from Sider. GEOS was out in force (and is much more usable with a Zip Chip than without.) New games from everybody. For hardware hacks there was a board for //e or //GS to help develop 6502 and 65C02 based systems. When hooked up, you could watch and control the Processor in the target system, and upload to and download from its memory. The had it hooked to a Asteroids Machine (did you know it was 6502 based?). There where good deals to be had. I picked up ORCA/M 4.1 for Byte Works for $50. They normally sell it for $99, tho it can be had through mail order for ~$75 and from APDA for $69. The rumor from some friends in the BCS, is that Apple has brought a GS+ with them to show to select developers. But, of course, no details. More new from AppleFest later as I'm going back now. "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss 3 bucks goodbye." UUCP: ...!harvard!bu-cs!bu-it!spike INTERNET: spike@bu-it.bu.edu CSNET: spike%bu-it@bu-cs BITNET: spike%bu-it.bu.edu@BOSTONU
kreme@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Lewis Carter Butler) (05/22/88)
In article <22782@bu-cs.BU.EDU> spike@bu-it.bu.edu (Joe Ilacqua) writes: > The rumor from some friends in the BCS, is that Apple has brought >a GS+ with them to show to select developers. But, of course, no >details. I have a friend who has seen the specs for the GS+. I think it will run at normal, Fast, and Faster (4.77Mhz??) and there are plans to make a Mac compatible board for it. It will have 1 Meg standard, and is expandable to 8 (maybe more 12?). the announcement is supposed to be October, with shipping for Christmas. They'll probably be late though.... Hit 'n' sig follows: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!kreme |There are places I'll remember, | |ARPA: kreme@ucscb.ucsc.edu |All my life, though some have changed, | |BITNET: kreme@ucscb@ucscc.BITNET |Some forever, not for better | |Kreme Korp Computers (an imaginary |Some are gone, and some remain... | | company created by me, for me) | PM/JL | |These views are not those of my school, my country, my employer, or me ;-) | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------