SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (12/01/87)
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the December 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
What's NeXt?
Although Display Postscript isn't scheduled for unveiling
until next Summer (see October's column), the first computer
from Steve Job's new NeXt Corporation is anticipated in
February. The computer will feature impressive graphics and
sound. Speaking to educators, Mr. Jobs said the goal of
his company's educational computer of the future is to
improve the useability of the Macintosh.
- Random Access 14 November
[Editorial Note: After this month's PULP deadline, the 23
November issue of InfoWorld carried a front page story with
many more details about the forthcoming NeXt computers.
More in next month's column]
Mac II+ (continued from last month).
Motorola now has officially unveiled both 20-MHz and 25-MHz
versions of the 68030 processor said to be twice as fast as
the 68020 that powers the Mac II. The 20-MHz version lists
at $400 and the 25-MHz chip will set you back $550 (lets
hope mass production eventually does something about those
prices). Apple CEO John Sculley has said that his firm will
be among the first to introduce products using the new
chip. However, he is also quoted as saying that the Mac II
will stick with the 68020 until "shortly after 1988."
Having it both ways may mean a 68030 coprocessor board for
existing Mac II's. Motorola also announced a full 32-bit
math coprocessor companion, the 68882, for the 68030 (the
memory mananagement functions of the 68851 already is built
into the processor).
- PC Week 27 October and 3 November, InfoWorld 2 November
Intel's New Processors.
David House, a senior vice president for Intel, says the
next generation 80486 processor, a 32-bit chip derived from
the current 80386 series (see last last July's column), will
be in production in 1989 or 1990. Intel is also working on
a low-end 32-bit microprocessor that may allow manufacturers
to sell an 80386 compatible computer for less than $1,000.
In all, Intel plans to introduce four different 32-bit 80386
software compatible microprocessors (including the 80486) in
the next two or three years. - PC Week 17 November
Synthetic Hardware.
When the long rumored A/Ux (the Unix operating system)
finally sees the light of day, one of the first applications
specifically designed for that environment will be PC Soft
from Insignia Solutions. On a Mac II, PC Soft (without any
additional hardware) will run MS DOS software at the speed
of a PC XT. When the Mac II+ arrives, the program will
perform at the speed of a PC AT. The Unix version of the
program should be available in January for $595 including
MS-DOS (compared to $1,499 for the DOS coprocessor card from
AST). Insignia already has announced plans for a version
for the standard Mac operating system. Although presently
designed for Motorola 68000 based systems, the program can
be ported to any 32-bit platform. - InfoWorld 2 November
Coming Soon, REALLY BIG Stackware.
Apple finally is nearing release of a CD ROM drive for the
Macintosh which will be accompanied by a new version of
Hypercard that will enable the program to work with
read-only devices. Apple's drive is a half-height SCSI
device made by Sony which has an average access time of 500
milliseconds and a planned price of $1,500. Several sources
say Microsoft will introduce Bookshelf Mac (a collection of
reference material on CD ROM) simultaneously with Apple's
introduction. Lodown of Scotts Valley California which
already has a Macintosh compatible CD ROM has announced
plans to offer its drive bundled with 100 megabytes of
shareware and 10 to 15 megabytes of stackware it's already
received from Apple for use with Hypercard. Lodown's drive
is both quicker (average access time of 200 milliseconds)
and less costly ($1,100). - InfoWorld 8 October
IBM Gets Hyper.
According to an announcement made by IBM France at the Paris
Auto Show (I've heard of "rolling out" products, but this is
ridiculous), IBM will be offering its own Hyper Document for
PS/2 Models 50 and 60 equipped with a CD ROM drive, Windows,
a mouse, and the high-end 8514 monitor (for the price of all
that you could get a Mac SE). IBM's Hyper Document is a
version of Owl's Guide Hypertext program bundled with a
painting/drawing program called Rasit which Owl developed
exclusively for Big Blue. The software alone (which has
been adopted by French automaker Renault -- the reason for
the Auto Show announcement) has a price tag in France of
$180 at October's exchange rates. IBM has refused comment
(naturally) on possible availability on this side of the
Atlantic. - InfoWorld 2 November
1-2-3 Release 3.0
The next version of 1-2-3 is scheduled for the middle of
next year for $495 (less for owners of previous versions).
The program features faster recalculation time, improved
graphics, the ability to link multiple worksheets, and a
feature enabling up to three worksheets to be on-screen
simultaneously. - PC Week 17 November
A Big Database.
Ashton Tate's new dBase IV is coming "real soon." According
to trade sources, the program will be shipped on 23 (that's
nearly two dozen) separate disks and have a 3,000 page
manual. It appears dBase IV will be needed just to keep
track of dBase IV. In spite of the megasize of the program
and manual, the planned price remains $700 (same as for
dBase III+). - InfoWorld 9 November
Phoenixscript.
Phoenix Technologies has announced a successful clone of
Adobe's Postscript page printer control system. Several
vendors, including Japanese printer giant Canon, have
announced plans to ship laser printers with Phoenix's
interpreter by the middle of next year. Substantial
reductions in prices for high-end laser printers should
following these introductions. - PC Week 9 November
PS/2 Rumors of the Month.
Western Digital demonstrated its PS/2 motherboard clone
(said to work better than IBM's own) at Comdex last month.
Although IBM's earlier press releases threatened to sue
microbus copiers, spokesmen now admit that the company has
never believed its system is clone proof. Meanwhile the
PS/2 operating system, OS/2, has been announced for initial
release before Christmas, but applications software written
for OS/2 isn't expected to become available for from six
months to a year.
- Random Access 31 October, InfoWorld 16 November, and
PC Week 17 November
Shifting the Keys.
Stuart Herzog, president of Herzog Research in Tucson, says
the standard typewriter keyboard forces the left hand to
move repeatedly outward and upward leading to compression of
the nerves in the hand and fingers associated with painful
carpal tunnel syndrome. His solution is a new keyboard that
shifts the lower left keys further to the left. Daniel J.
Habes, an industrial engineer at the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, says that the biomechanical
basis for Herzog's claim is unproven. So far, there is no
information about whether the proposed Keyboard is QWERTY or
Dvorak. - Business Week 30 November
Unobtainable for Now.
The 80286 IBM laptop (AT compatible but not PS/2 compatible)
currently on sale in Japan (see last month's column) may be
available in this country in the Spring.
- PC Week 17 November
"Roll Your Own" Microprocessor.
LSI Logic Corporation, the leading U.S. supplier of gate
arrays, has announced a on million transistor version of a
generic gate array which will yield as many as 100,000 gates
(current chips are limited to roughly 20,000 transistors and
fewer than 5,000 gates). The new high density gate array
has enough capacity to build circuits as complicated as a
32-bit microprocessor. LSI will begin shipping the chips
early next year for around $600 each.
- Business Week 9 November
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ARPA: sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu Murphy A. Sewall
BITNET: SEWALL@UCONNVM School of Business Admin.
UUCP: ...ihnp4!psuvax1!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL University of Connecticut