acm@valhalla.cs.ucla.edu (Association for Computing Machinery) (09/19/88)
A SPECTRE COMES BACK TO HAUNT APPLE
Gadgets by Small was showing Release 1.0 (?) of Spectre 128 at the "Southern
California Atari Computer Faire, Version 3.0". It is now selling.
Dave Small has outdone himself again, coming out with a superior product in
an incredibly short amount of time.
What warrants the word 'superior'? In addition to the things you might
expect, like being 20% faster than the hardware it emulates, having a
larger screen with a mono monitor, being compatible with SC1224 monitors,
Translator 1, all Mack System and Finder versions, HFS, and the 128K (not to
mention the 64K) ROMS, Dave's Cartridge now refreshes the screen 400% faster
and writes to floppies 800% faster than the Sac. In addition, you can use
Apple's own SCSI HD's with it if you want. Admittedly not a godsend to most
ST owners (who would balk at Apple's prices, for one thing), but most
probably useful for current Mack users who already have the HD, either at
home or at work.
Where the Spectre really shocked me, though, was when I heard about its HD
transfer speed, which, according to Dave's modest figures, is fully 2.5 times
faster than the Mack itself. Much to the delight of the crowd at the seminar,
and as you could imagine, Dave commented that Apple's ghostbusting lawyers are
*furious*. I think the decision to release the Spectre now at this
comparatively small Faire (as opposed to say, Comdex in the Fall) was a good
way to keep the lawyers from showing up to harass him. Dave is betting that
word of mouth and the networks are going to spread the news of this
development further and faster than trade publicity anyway.
I almost forgot: yes, it runs hypercard (with a mere meg, even)...and
pagemaker, and adobe illustrator, and...well, in Dave's own words, it
is "...far more compatible" than the last mack emulator to appear on the
market. Of my own first-hand experience with the setup there, its speed
and its (larger screen) appearance made it subjectively very reminiscent
of the feel of a monochrome Mack II.
There is a downside to everything, hard to find to be sure, but still there.
Dave said that version 1.0 has a minor bug in it, but he noted that
updates that contain bug fixes will be free (as usual, right?), and that
update charges in the future will be smaller than what Data Pacific levied.
The initial cost for the Spectre, however, will be more expensive. It is
currently listing at $179.95. But my guess is that this compares favorably
with Apple's charge to 'enhance' a 512K mack.
One thing that bugged me is that I didn't see anywhere a list of the software
that doesn't run (the list of software that DOES run would probably be
too obnoxiously big). But surely something must break? According to Dave, he
said he actually finished Spectre "last Tuesday," so just maybe they haven't
had the time to compile a long impressive list suitable for printing.
A couple other things: still no support for Mack sound or MIDI. Dave
said that he's working on getting the sound to work, but that at present
enabling it uses up too much CPU and eventually crashes the machine (funny, I
thought that the former was true of the real Mack). As for MIDI, I forgot
exactly what reason he gave, but the bottom line is "no go".
Since some of you probably would have asked, here is the address that was
given for ordering purposes:
Gadgets by Small, Inc.
40 W. Littleton Blvd. #210-211
Littleton, Colorado 80120
Plinio Barbeito
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