mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) (05/04/89)
Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Excel 2.2 for the Macintosh will be out
sometime around the end of the second quarter. It finally lifts the 1MB memory
limit, and has other new functions, including increased speed and mixed
fonts/styles.
This release is supposed to use the main "engine" of the upcoming version of
MS-DOS and/or OS/2 Excel. That seems kind of strange to me, but if they say
so...
Maybe someone can answer this: How does Microsoft come up with numbers for
their applications? It seems strange to go from 1.5 to 2.2...
-Michael
--
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)captkidd@athena.mit.edu (Ivan Cavero Belaunde) (05/04/89)
In article <7091@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes: >Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Excel 2.2 for the Macintosh will be out >sometime around the end of the second quarter. It finally lifts the 1MB memory >limit, and has other new functions, including increased speed and mixed >fonts/styles. Well, they say so, but then again, Word 4.0 was supposed to be out Real Soon Now about a year ago. I'll believe it when I see it. They better get it out soon, though, or Wingz is going to give them a real run for their money. Its power as an application-development tool should trounce Excel, just like Excel's overall performance is crushing 123 in the MSDOS world. Excel's upgrade should have not only fancier visuals, but better performace on higher-level (ie 881/2 equipped) Macs than now (possibly including an INIT similar to Radius' to patch SANE calls?). Granted Wingz is SLOW on a +/SE, but a lot of # crunching is done on higher performance Macs these days (II[x/cx]/SEx). The Benchmarks in the current MacUser show that Wingz is significantly faster than Excel and Full Impact on high performance machines (testing was performed on a 5MB Mac II). >This release is supposed to use the main "engine" of the upcoming version of >MS-DOS and/or OS/2 Excel. That seems kind of strange to me, but if they say >so... I read something about this in PC Week. It seems that they are designing the internal structure so that their PC and Mac programs share as much code as possible. I assume they do this by using an identical "engine" written in C and then having other sections of code for the actual IO/user interface/operating environment interface. Remember their MSDOS stuff runs under Windows, a MacOS copy. >-Michael -Ivan Cavero Belaunde "Sir Francis Drake and all his ships set out for Calais Bay They'd heard the Spanish rum fleet was headed out that way. But the Engineers had beat them, by a night and half a day, And though as drunk as ptarmigans, you still could hear them say: Chorus: We are, we are, we are, we are, we are the Engineers, We can, we can, we can, we can demolish forty beers. Drink rum, drink rum, drink rum all day and come along with us, 'Cause we don't give a damn for any old man Who don't give a damn for us!" -The MIT Engineers' Drinking Song EMail: captkidd@athena.mit.edu USnail: 407 Memorial Dr., Cambridge, MA 02139 Ph: (617) 621-0312
s160041@castor.ucdavis.edu (Greg DeMichillie) (05/05/89)
In article <7091@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes: >Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Excel 2.2 for the Macintosh will be out >sometime around the end of the second quarter. > >Maybe someone can answer this: How does Microsoft come up with numbers for >their applications? It seems strange to go from 1.5 to 2.2... > >-- >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) Ah yes, the ever popular "How the hell does Microsoft come up with` version numbers" question. They are trying to make their version numbering consistent across the Mac and PC/Windows Platforms. Cases in point: - The first version of Excel for Windows was 2.x Why? Becaus it was more powerful than the Mac version (1.03 at that time) - There never was Word version 2 for the Mac, they went directly from 1.05 to 3.0(1) Why? Because they were bring the level of features up to Word 3.x on the PC I guess in an general way this makes sense, but it sure confuses the heck out of Mac users who couldn't give a rat's rear end about what the current version for the PC is. Now, you`re all set for the Computer Software category on Trivial Pursuit :-) Greg DeMichillie * Apple Student Rep - UC Davis lgdemichillie@ucdavis.edu * AppleLink : ST0178 Disclaimer: If you've seen one disclaimer, you've seen them all. Greg DeMichillie * Apple Student Rep - UC Davis lgdemichillie@ucdavis.edu * AppleLink : ST0178 Disclaimer: If you've seen one disclaimer, you've seen them all.
stuartb@microsoft.UUCP (Stuart Burden) (05/05/89)
In article <7091@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes: | Maybe someone can answer this: | How does Microsoft come up with numbers for | their applications? It seems strange to go from 1.5 to 2.2... It's a game of tag. The next version will leapfrog the current PC version, which is 2.1. The major jump is due to the inclusion of the core engine. | -Michael Stu. __Paths to my door:_______________________ microsoft!stuartb@beaver.cs.washington.edu - Usual disclaimer, that all microsoft!stuartb@uw-beaver.arpa - the above is pure fantasy microsoft!stuartb@uunet.UU.NET - and Microsoft only [DE01HB]stuartb@DASNET# {from AppleLink} - gave me the Mountain Dew stuartb@microsoft.uucp {well connected} - to dream it all in a D2012 {@applelink.apple.com - shared acct} - caffeine haze :-) __________________________________________________________________________