SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (10/24/87)
OK, I've had one complaint of the "What does this have to do with
Apple II" variety, and one "what happened to this month's Vaporware"
request. In truth, rumors about new Apple II products are
substantially outnumbered by those about Macs and PS/2's. However,
here is the (belated) October column. What say the rest of you;
do you want to see November's (and subsequent) or not?????
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the October 1987 APPLE PULP
H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
$15/year
P.O. Box 18027
East Hartford, CT 06118
Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 569-8739
Permission granted to copy with the above citation
Year After Next?
Steve Job's plan to deliver a low-cost, high-power academic
work station in time for this school year (see December 1986
Vaporware column) has proven overly ambitious (are you
surprised?). Recently, his company, Next, and Adobe Systems
announced joint development of "Display Postscript" as the
operating interface for the workstation. The screen image
will closely resemble Postscript printer output. Adobe
President John Warnock says that Display Postscript will be
demonstrated on the Next machine next Summer, although it is
possible that other companies (Commodore and Atari?) could
implement it before then. A related, far-out, rumor is that
the Next machine will use a proprietary RISC (Reduced
Instruction Set Computer) CPU that emulates the 68030.
- InfoWorld 14 September
Mac Family Offspring.
According to whispers from Apple's orchards in Cupertino, a
low-end version of the Mac II with two slots and a price
only slightly above the Mac SE is on the way. Apple also
has shown select industry journalists a color-SE (an SE with
a built in nine inch color screen) with a proposed list
price of about $4,000 -- look for it in about six months or
so. - InfoWorld 24 August and PC Week 1 September
Apple II Emulation.
While Apple works at penetrating the corporate market by
making their computers MS-DOS compatible, IBM is said to be
working on Apple II compatibility for the education market.
An Apple II emulation board for the PS/2 models 25 and 30 is
rumored to be at beta test sites. - InfoWorld 24 August
Macintosh OS Upgrades.
Charles Oppenheimer, Macintosh's group product manager, has
announced a policy of updating System and Finder software
under a single version number at a rate of twice a year.
Currently, the System Update package contains system
software on two disks, two disks of utilities, documentation
and installation instructions for $49. Users will be able
to continue downloading revisions from on-line services or
obtain them from user groups. - InfoWorld 7 September
Beyond Desktop Publishing.
Two years after pioneering desktop publishing, Apple
computer is promoting the benefits of the Macintosh in
creating business presentations. Supermac of Mountain View,
California, among others is offering large Macintosh
compatible color screens and projectors for use with
"desktop presentation" software. - InfoWorld 7 September
Mac-2-3?
Although it was shown at Mac Expo, don't expect to see the
Lotus spreadsheet, called Galaxy, for the Mac any time
soon. Lotus apparently believes the program does not
compare favorably to Excel. - PC Week 25 August
1-2-3 Clones.
Borland International has confirmed plans to offer a 1-2-3
spreadsheet clone in the last quarter of this year. In
addition to 1-2-3 compatibility, the program will offer
superior presentation quality graphics, a complete macro
development environment and a customizable user interface.
Meanwhile, a start-up company named Surpass Software Systems
has announced a program designed not as a substitute for
1-2-3 but as the "next step beyond it." The Surpass
spreadsheet will carry the same $495 list price as the Lotus
product but offer better graphics, faster recalculation, and
the ability to link multiple worksheets.
- PC Week 25 August
Year of the Laptop.
Industry forecasters expect several vendors to release 80286
based laptop PC's this Fall, and a number of 80386 based
laptops, including one from General Technologies of
Bloomfield, New Jersey, may be announced. Within a year,
look for Toshiba laptops sporting a 40 Mbyte hard disk and 2
to 4 Mbytes of RAM as well as an 80386 processor.
- InfoWorld 7 September
Apple's New LaserWriter.
Apple is expected to announce its LaserWriter built around
the new Canon SX "engine" (current models are based on the
CX printer technology which is being phased out). In
addition to being smaller and lighter, the SX offers
improved paper handling (such as collated output), memory
expansion capabilities, and increased yield of the toner
cartridge (4,000 pages per cartridge compared to 3,000).
- PC Week 25 August
Color Upgrade.
Apple expects to have an adequate supply of color monitors
for the Mac II after Halloween. If you buy a monochrome
monitor for your Mac II before October 31, a new Apple
program will let you upgrade to an Apple high-resolution RGB
monitor between January and March of 1988.
- InfoWorld 24 August
Computerized Marching Band.
The Japanese electronics company Akai hopes to do for wind
instruments what Seiko and Yamaha have done for keyboards.
The firm plans to release an electronic "valve" instrument
and an electronic "woodwind" - basically digital trumpet and
saxophone respectively. Tone is controlled by blowing into
the instruments; each features 64 preset sounds.
- Random Access 22 August
International Calls.
The British claim to have invented the first translating
telephone. Speaking into the handset in English results in
a synthesized voice in French, German, or one of three other
languages on the other end. The system is designed for a
Merlin 5200 personal computer. At present, the vocabulary
is only about 1,000 words. - Random Access 22 Augustkamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath) (01/05/88)
So, I want to get a nice hard drive for my //e. I thought about it, and I
really want DOS to reside on it as well as proloss, so I decided on the
Sider. So, I got all the literature I could find (a good deal of it at
AppleFest) and called them up. What's that? You don't make the 40 meg 28
ms seek time SCSI drive yet? OK, I'll talk to my local dealer. Hello,
dealer? What's that? You ordered 40 of them, only then finding out you'd
get them sometime in 88?
Oh, well, it seems the norm these days is to say you got it, then make it.
Sean Kamath
BTW: If FCP does get their act together, they will be makeing a 140 meg
with streaming tape backup. I;d love one for christmas, maybe '91? Anyone
care to buy me one?
--
UUCP: {decvax allegra ucbcad ucbvax hplabs ihnp4}!tektronix!reed!kamath
CSNET: reed!kamath@Tektronix.CSNET || BITNET: reed!kamath@Berkeley.BITNET
ARPA: tektronix!reed!kamath@Berkeley <or> reed!kamath@hplabs
US Snail: 3934 SE Boise, Portland, OR 97202 (I hate 4 line .sigs!)mdavis@pro-sol.cts.COM (Morgan Davis) (01/06/88)
> I really want DOS to reside on the drive as well as proloss, so I decided > on the Sider. > What's that? They don't make the 40 meg 28ms seek time SCSI drive yet? What a laugh. DOS 3.3 on a hard disk (compared to ProDOS) is a slug. No amount of tweaking of milleseconds for access time is going to improve it very much, if at all. Furthermore, DOS on a hard disk is practically a joke in and of itself, due to the fact that you're limited by storage restrictions imposed by ancient floppy-disk technology. Give me one or two large ProDOS volumes with a hierarchical filing system over dozens of fixed-sized, file-count-limited DOS 3.3 volumes any day. Then again, I'll bet there are those who still think cassette storage is superior over disk drives. Gads.
kamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath) (01/14/88)
OK, folks, I'm in a bad mood, so flames on . . . In article <8801052337.AA15312@crash.cts.com> pnet01!pro-sol!mdavis@nosc.MIL writes: >> I really want DOS to reside on the drive as well as proloss, so I decided >> on the Sider. >> What's that? They don't make the 40 meg 28ms seek time SCSI drive yet? > >What a laugh. If I were in a better mood, I'd make up something cute to say, istead of "go scr*w yourself." > DOS 3.3 on a hard disk (compared to ProDOS) is a slug. No >amount of tweaking of milleseconds for access time is going to improve it >very much, if at all. If you read your own quote above, I said "as well as ProDOS. And there are many reasons why DOS 3.3 is slow, most of which are gone now, what with Diversi-DOS and other hand patches. > Furthermore, DOS on a hard disk is practically a joke >in and of itself, due to the fact that you're limited by storage restrictions >imposed by ancient floppy-disk technology. Whilst true in one sense, in that I'm limited to 400K per volumn, I can have 254 volumns. . . But that's not the point. The point is, I have a *lot* of DOS 3.3 stuff, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give them up. So there. >Give me one or two large ProDOS volumes with a hierarchical filing system over >dozens of fixed-sized, file-count-limited DOS 3.3 volumes any day. Even ProGloss has it's own stupid 32M limit. So there. And I'd be willing to bet I can get a hierarchical file system running under DOS 3.3. Not that'd it'd be particularly fun to do. >Then again, I'll bet there are those who still think cassette storage >is superior over disk drives. Gads. And when your drives all magically fail, and you've just finished typeing in your 20 page grant proposal due tomorrow at 8 am, and it's 4 am, how are you going to save it and get it to a working computer? I bet you don't even know how to use the tape drive. Flames off. I'm sorry Morgan for being so nasty. But, well, it's been a tough day, and it's only noon. You may very well know how to use the tape drives. I don't even have one, but I have done it with my ancient tape player (wouldn't think of using my brand new Nakamiche!). I did not say I was going to use *nothing _BUT_ DOS 3.3*, I said I wanted it on there as well. And besides, on a //e, the old sider has to wait on the CPU anyway. Realy. Regardless of the OS. Sean Kamath -- UUCP: {decvax allegra ucbcad ucbvax hplabs ihnp4}!tektronix!reed!kamath CSNET: reed!kamath@Tektronix.CSNET || BITNET: reed!kamath@Berkeley.BITNET ARPA: tektronix!reed!kamath@Berkeley <or> reed!kamath@hplabs US Snail: 3934 SE Boise, Portland, OR 97202 (I hate 4 line .sigs!)
kamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath) (01/16/88)
OK, folks, I've cooled down a bit. I also got a letter from Mr. Davis
about my post. Basically, he said that using such words as "ProLoss"
and "ProGloss" is infantile, and that was what really got him about my
post. Whilst I shall not attempt to refute this matter, I do feel that
my response to his response was more than what was called for, and I
hereby appologize to Mr. Davis for my language and my manners. If
anyone wants to yell at me, please do it privately (on this matter
anyway), so that this will not clutter up comp.sys.apple.
I'm sorry that all of you were subject to my bad mood that day, though
the non-nasty stuff in the post I still mean.
Sean Kamath
--
UUCP: {decvax allegra ucbcad ucbvax hplabs ihnp4}!tektronix!reed!kamath
CSNET: reed!kamath@Tektronix.CSNET || BITNET: reed!kamath@Berkeley.BITNET
ARPA: tektronix!reed!kamath@Berkeley <or> reed!kamath@hplabs
US Snail: 3934 SE Boise, Portland, OR 97202 (I hate 4 line .sigs!)