leue@galen.crd.ge.com (Bill Leue) (08/16/89)
Gee, it's been almost a week since MacWorld folded its tents in Boston, and there's hardly been any net chatter about it! Come on, people, let's talk it up a little! :-) Or was it just too boring/overwhelming/expensive/ rainy for everyone? :-( For what it's worth, here's some random notes about what impressed me. (I was only there for one day -- Friday) Biggest case of techno-lust brought on by a new product: for MacroMind Director. It's just miles better than VideoWorks II, and Sagans more expensive, too. More realistic for us on finite incomes is Studio 1, which does real neat animation, but it's only monochrome, sob. Neatest new hardware product: DeskWriter from HP. Beautiful output, quiet, affordable, and really not too slow for most applications. Also impressive for those with big bankroles is the new Seiko color printer. It does both Quickdraw and PostScript output with the help of Freedom of the Press' Mac-resident PostScript interpreter. By the way, Freedom of the Press is also selling their PS interpreter for the LaserGraphics slide maker. That should be a boon, considering how poor it's Quickdraw performance is. Most ludricrously inept salepeople in a booth: CalComp, demoing their color printer. When asked what the hardware connection between the Mac and the printer was, the salescritter ventured, "ADB?" (I looked -- it was SCSI). Really, folks -- one hour of pre-show instruction for your staff would make a pretty good investment. The days when a major company can get away with Mac-ignorance at a trade show are long gone. (Actually, most of the people in the larger booths seemed to have been drafted from the shipping department, as far as their technical knowlege went.) Best overall booth: friendliness, knowledge, presentations, etc.: Symantec, hands down. What a great outfit! I tried to meet Rich Siegel face to face, after all these months of net traffic, but he'd taken off Friday for some well-deserved rest. David Neal's (last name?) presentation on Think Pascal was very impressive. When are we going to get that kind of power in the Think C debugger? Favorite tiny company: Imagine That! software, with their (only) product, "Extend". This is basically a two-person outfit; husband and wife as president and CEO, respectively. "Extend" is a general-purpose simulator which can do almost any kind of continuous or discrete simulation, complete with simulated plotter output. Their application-specific libraries now include statistics, queuing, electronics, factory floor stuff, etc. The only real missing piece I saw was that they can't animate the graphical model itself, only provide simulated plotter and numeric output from it. I would like to see the ability to animate (in simple ways) the icons that make up the model itself, so that, for instance, you could watch a state machine goe through its changes. They say that ability is coming in Rev 2.0. Best giveaways: shopping bags from MacUser and Addison-Wesley. Biggest disappointment: All the book sellers kept running out of Guy Kawasaki's book; I couldn't get one anywhere. (Of course, if I had been able to read it, that might have been the second-biggest disappointment :-). Biggest change from last year: it was cool inside the buildings. -Bill Leue leue@ge.crd.com (Disclaimer: these opinions are mine -- who else would want them?)
ack@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Andy J. Williams) (08/17/89)
In article <1696@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> leue@galen.crd.ge.com () writes: >Gee, it's been almost a week since MacWorld folded its tents in Boston, >and there's hardly been any net chatter about it! Come on, people, let's >talk it up a little! :-) Or was it just too boring/overwhelming/expensive/ >rainy for everyone? :-( Please, don't say "Rain" when we tried to go from WTC to Bayside, we got on the wrong bus. So, we got stuck in the middle of Boston in the rain. And with all that paper we got... ;-) >Biggest case of techno-lust brought on by a new product: for MacroMind >Director. It's just miles better than VideoWorks II, and Sagans more >expensive, too. More realistic for us on finite incomes is Studio 1, which >does real neat animation, but it's only monochrome, sob. Hey, I have a plus. Studio/1 is impressive! I bought it a few days before the Expo and went to the Electronic Arts booth with beaucoup de questions. They were very helpful and were able to answer all of them. Biggest case of techo-lust for me was the Pixar movies. All I need now is a IIcx and Renderman... *sigh* >Favorite tiny company: Imagine That! software, with their (only) product, >"Extend". How about the Computer Giftware (I think that's their name) with the Graphic Mouse pads, disk coasters etc? And of course, did everyone get their Smack-a-mac? I did and I am glad. I got a system bomb over something or other and beat the living crap out of that stuffed mac. Saved myself at least $1000... :-) >Best giveaways: shopping bags from MacUser and Addison-Wesley. Farallon too. In fact, it took three bags stuffed one in the other to keep all the stuff dry in the rain... >Biggest disappointment: All the book sellers kept running out of >Guy Kawasaki's book; I couldn't get one anywhere. (Of course, if I had >been able to read it, that might have been the second-biggest disappointment >:-). Yes! Actually, the show itself was a disappointment. There was nothing really new or exciting. Oh well at least it was cool this year. Last year was a nightmare... >-Bill Leue >leue@ge.crd.com -ajw Andy J. Williams '90 | <hello> | ack@dartvax.dartmouth.edu 31 North Main Street | set $NAME='inigo_montoya' | Systems Programmer Hanover NH, 03755 | You kill -9 my ppid | Kiewit Computation Center 603-643-2177 | prepare to vi | Dartmouth College