mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) (07/25/89)
Hot off of AppleLink...
APPLE AND KINKO'S CALL FOR NEW ACADEMIC
SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM
Increasing Demand for Faculty-Developed Software on Campuses
Prompts Change
CUPERTINO, California--July 24, 1989--In a move to further accelerate
distribution of faculty-developed software to colleges and universities
nationwide, Apple Computer, Inc. and Kinko's Copies announced their intention
to replace the Academic Courseware Exchange with a new distribution system that
will make academic software distribution more responsive to demands from the
colleges of the 1990s.
The Academic Courseware Exchange was established by Apple and Kinko's in
1986 to make faculty-developed software readily available to faculty and
students at a reasonable cost. Since that time, software development on
campus has flourished well beyond the two companies' early expectations.
To meet the growing demand for academic software in the future, a more
sophisticated distribution and marketing system is now necessary. It will
require substantial resources for product management, marketing, developer
support and consultation. Kinko's has decided not to take this next step in
the software business because it would move the company away from its core
business, a nationwide network of 450 copy centers located near college
campuses.
"It's time to take the business past the pioneering phase. When we
examined our own strengths in light of the needs of growing the Exchange, we
determined that Kinko's is not in the best position to further develop the
business," said Keith Lawrenz, managing director of the Academic Courseware
Exchange for Kinko's.
The Academic Courseware Exchange, the first distribution service of its
kind, makes over 200 faculty-developed software products available through
Kinko's Copy Centers and by mail, at a cost of under $40 per package. Its
best-selling packages include "Tarski's World" and "Turing's World" for
philosophy courses and "Tools for Writers" for writing instruction.
"Kinko's has been a leader in serving the academic courseware needs of
universities and colleges. Through the Academic Courseware Exchange, Kinko's
has been instrumental in building a strong distribution system for courseware
where none previously existed," said Burt Cummings, director of higher
education marketing for Apple. "As a partner, they've been invaluable in
helping us establish Macintosh as a courseware development platform and an
integral part of the curriculum. Apple is committed to continuing to provide a
robust means for faculty to create, distribute and acquire curriculum
software."
During the next six months Kinko's and Apple will work together to select
a distributor to develop the new software distribution and marketing system.
Kinko's will continue to provide specific services to its Academic Courseware
Exchange customers during the interim period before a new distributor is
selected. These services include filling orders for products, providing
catalogs, and product support.
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-Michael
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Michael Niehaus UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mithomas
Apple Student Rep ARPA: mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu
Ball State University AppleLink: ST0374 (from UUCP: st0374@applelink.apple.com)mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) (07/25/89)
In article <8398@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes: >Hot off of AppleLink... > >APPLE AND KINKO'S CALL FOR NEW ACADEMIC >SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM > Just a reminder that this, and other press releases are available in ASCII format for FTP access at Apple (130.43.2.2). Look in the dts/press directory. Mark B. Johnson AppleLink: mjohnson Developer Technical Support domain: mjohnson@Apple.com Apple Computer, Inc. UUCP: {amdahl,decwrl,sun,unisoft}!apple!mjohnson "You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it worth it?" - Richard Bach, _One_
sbchanin@hathor (Steve Chanin) (07/28/89)
Two completely unrelated points:
Point 1
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First, I recently bought a Taxan Crystal View 19" Monocrome monitor for the Mac
SE/30. It is 72dpi, 78Hz refresh, 1024*768 pixels. I comes with a built in
tilt & swivel stand, a removable (velcro) glare filter, and a video card for
the SE/30. All for $1399 (including FedEx shipping) from MacZone in Redmond,
WA. It is also available for the SE and the II(x)(cx).
The screen is flicker free and clear. The glare filter works pretty well also.
However, it does have a few problems. First, the menu bar distorts when there
are open windows below it. Second, the screen area for about an inch in from
both sides is somewhat out of focus. Usable, but annoying. Third, slight
distortions appear on screen next to vertical areas of high contrast (i.e. on
the desktop next to an open window).
Overall, its a decent monitor. It is cheaper than anything else for the SE/30
and very compatible (it uses the standard Monitors cdev for configuration and
allows you to use both your SE screen and itself). Installing the video card
in the SE/30 is piece of cake. I don't have experience with any other two page
displays (except my Sun 3's which is bigger, bows less, and is focused over the
whole screen, but doesn't have as sharp and contrasty an image) so I can't
compare it to anything else, but I thought I'd share my observations after day
1 of ownership.
Point 2
-------
Apple should add another zoom box like entity to window to shrink them down to
icons. When you're using a TPD or FPD with your Mac, having a bunch of open
windows isn't so bad. However when your working with a small screen machine,
it really is a pain to not be able to "iconify" your windows. For example,
when I'm running multifinder (w/o the two page), I switch back to finder, but
can't get at any of the disk icons because they are hidden behind windows.
Sure I could just resize the windows, but that is a much bigger pain than
automatically being able to shrink them (and restore them to the correct size)
with a single click. If my description of iconification hasn't been clear,
just remember the shrink window program posted in binaries a few months ago and
imaging that rather than using the grow box, you used another menu bar button.
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