[comp.sys.mac] Apple Announces SE/30 at MacWorld

mithomas@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael Thomas Niehaus) (01/21/89)

Well, Apple finally announced the introduction of the new Mac SE/30 on Thursday
at MacWorld.  Since people on the net don't like ful press releases, here are
the major points:
 
Up to 4 times the speed of the Macintosh SE
Includes the FDHD drive that will read almost anything
Uses the Motorola 68030 (16MHz, not 8 as rumored on the net) microprocessor
  and 68882 math coprocessor (CPU is up to 4 times faster than SE; FP processor
  could add up to 100 times improvement over SE)
Has expansion capability up to 8MB of SIMM memory.
An upgrade kit will be available (in the spring) to current
  Macintosh SE users who want Macintosh SE/30 functionality.
CPU has separate 256-byte data and instruction caches.
 
The Macintosh SE/30 expansion slot architecture supports new types of
advanced expansion options not previously available on a compact Macintosh,
such as video, memory parity, high-speed communications and sound.
 
Several well-known hardware developers have already endorsed the 030
Direct Slot and are introducing products at MacWorld.  These cards expand
Macintosh SE/30 customers' options in networking and communications, allow the
addition of external color and gray-scale monitors, and let users work with
digital signal processing (DSP) based sound.  These companies include:  Avatar
Corporation, Creative Solutions, Digital Communications Associates, DigiDesign
Inc., Dove Computer Corporation, Epic Technology, Kinetics, MacPEAK Systems,
Micron Technology, and SuperMac Technology.  (See attachment for details.)
 
In addition to other advances, the Macintosh SE/30 includes an Apple
custom sound chip on the motherboard that provides four-voice stereo sound
capability and compatibility with sound applications.
 
 
Configurations:

1MB of RAM and a single 1.4MB FDHD floppy disk drive ($4369 retail)
1MB (does not agree with product sheet) of RAM and an internal 40MB hard disk
  ($4,869 retail)
4MB of RAM and an 80MB internal hard disk ($6,569)
Both hard disk configurations include the FDHD.  Keyboard options and other
peripheral devices are packaged and sold separately.
 
The upgrade kit for Macintosh SE users includes a Macintosh SE/30 logic
board and chassis.  Customers who upgrade to Macintosh SE/30 functionality, can
also elect to upgrade their internal floppy disk drive to 1.4MB capacity using
the optional FDHD Upgrade Kit.


Well, that about covers it.  If you haven't heard, Apple also announced A/UX
1.1, with the availability of an X windows package, price reductions on
memory upgrades, hard disks, Mac IIs, Mac IIx, and the 2MB Mac SE, new
developer services, new versions of MacWorkstation, MPW, System/Finder,
Apple File Exchange, etc.

Sounds like it is going to be a good year...

Michael Niehaus
Ball State University

ech@pegasus.ATT.COM (Edward C Horvath) (01/23/89)

From article <310@lakesys.UUCP>, by macak@lakesys.UUCP (James Macak):
> Here is Apple's own press release regarding System 6.0.3, as downloaded from
> AppleLink:
...
> The changes in 6.0.3 are for the most part specific to the Macintosh SE/30
> and offer no increased functionality to users in the installed base.  The
> changes made to the System were to the Time Manager...

I recently tried using the Time Manager with 6.0.2.  On both a II and an SE,
the results were frequent, reproducible bombs that even ate TMON's lunch
(a rare occurence indeed).  On the SE, the ONLY non-Apple INIT/cdev's were
TMON startup and the programmer key.

The Time Manager interface is dirt simple.  I looked at the code my compiler(s)
were generating, and it too was dirt simple.  The problems went away with
system 6.0.3B3 (I haven't tried the released 6.0.3 yet).

The upgrade may not be as optional as stated...

=Ned Horvath=

dudevoir@bernoulli.Stanford.EDU (Glen P. Dudevoir) (01/26/89)

In article <5399@bsu-cs.UUCP> mithomas@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes:
>Well, Apple finally announced the introduction of the new Mac SE/30 on Thursday
>at MacWorld.  Since people on the net don't like ful press releases, here are
>the major points:
>.... 
>Configurations:
>1MB of RAM and a single 1.4MB FDHD floppy disk drive ($4369 retail)
>1MB (does not agree with product sheet) of RAM and an internal 40MB hard disk
>  ($4,869 retail)
>4MB of RAM and an 80MB internal hard disk ($6,569)
>Both hard disk configurations include the FDHD.  Keyboard options and other
>peripheral devices are packaged and sold separately.
>...
>Michael Niehaus
>Ball State University

I just picked up the price list from our university micro sales office and
they have some slightly different retail prices.

Part No.  	Description   	Retail	Student
M5361		SE/30 HD80/4	$4999.	$3863.
M5390		SE/30 HD40/1 	$3999.	$2864.
M5392		SE/30 1 Meg.	$3499.	$2570.

All listed prices exclude shipping, handling, and sales tax.
Keyboards are separate as noted above.  I was a little hesitant
to post the student prices, but they are freely available to anyone
(the price lists that is), so here they are.  I think the SE/30
is going to put a huge dent in the market for the II.

Glen (dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu)
	

hgw@julia.math.ucla.edu (Harold Wong) (01/27/89)

This may be a silly question but is a SE30 faster than a Mac II?  68030 vs 68020
Just wondering.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harold Wong         (213) 825-9040 
UCLA-Mathnet; 3915F MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA 90024-1555
ARPA: hgw@math.ucla.edu          BITNET: hgw%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT

jamespa@csuf3b.UUCP (James Paul) (01/28/89)

In article <17@bernoulli.stanford.edu> dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu (Glen P. Dudevoir) writes:
>
>I just picked up the price list from our university micro sales office and
>they have some slightly different retail prices.
>
>Part No.  	Description   	Retail	Student
>M5361		SE/30 HD80/4	$4999.	$3863.
>M5390		SE/30 HD40/1 	$3999.	$2864.
>M5392		SE/30 1 Meg.	$3499.	$2570.
>
>...
>
>Glen (dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu)
>	
We haven't received the price list yet here in Fresno, but these retail
prices _sure_ aren't what is on my Certified Developer price list dated
January 19. These are the retail prices on my Developer price list:

Part No.        Description     Retail
M5361           SE/30 HD80/4    $6569.00
M5390           SE/30 HD40/1    $4869.00
M5392           SE/30 1 Meg.    $4369.00

Obviously, I'm not allowed to post the Developer prices. I suspect,
though, that the 'slightly' different prices at your university are
in error. ($1500 difference is not 'slight' to me! :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
James L. Paul            ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac |
CIS: 72767,3436                lll-lcc!csustan | !csufres!jamespa
GEnie: J.Paul               hplabs!hp-sdd!sdsu |

DISCLAIMER: I said it. If I'm wrong, well, oops.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

macak@lakesys.UUCP (James Macak) (01/29/89)

In article <379@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> hgw@math.ucla.edu (Harold Wong) writes:
>This may be a silly question but is a SE30 faster than a Mac II?  68030 vs 68020
>Just wondering.

Not only is the new SE/30 supposed to be faster than the Mac II, but also the
Mac IIx.  The reason for this is the lack of the NuBus in the SE/30.  Sticking
in the bus adds a few CPU cycles of overhead here and there.  Hence, without
the bus, the SE/30 is marginally faster.  (The slot on the latter is upposed
to have "direct" access to the 68030 CPU.)

By the way, this is obviously a fairly non-technical description of the
situation as I understand it, though I believe this info is basically correct.

Jim

-- 

Jim Macak  <lakesys!macak@csd1.milw.wisc.edu>

holland@m2.csc.ti.com (Fred Hollander) (01/29/89)

In article <379@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> hgw@math.ucla.edu (Harold Wong) writes:
>This may be a silly question but is a SE30 faster than a Mac II?  68030 v 68020
>Just wondering.

It runs at the same clock speed, but, I've heard that it's slightly faster
because it doesn't have any wait states for the PMMU, and it doesn't have to
wait for the NuBus.

Fred Hollander
Computer Science Center
Texas Instruments, Inc.
holland%ti-csl@csnet-rela

The above statements are my own and not representative of Texas Instruments.

ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (01/30/89)

In article <1425@csuf3b.UUCP>, jamespa@csuf3b.UUCP (James Paul) writes...
 
>In article <17@bernoulli.stanford.edu> dudevoir@bernoulli.stanford.edu (Glen P. Dudevoir) writes:
>>
>>I just picked up the price list from our university micro sales office and
>>they have some slightly different retail prices.
>>
>>Part No.  	Description   	Retail	Student
>>M5361		SE/30 HD80/4	$4999.	$3863.
>>M5390		SE/30 HD40/1 	$3999.	$2864.
>>M5392		SE/30 1 Meg.	$3499.	$2570.
>>	
>We haven't received the price list yet here in Fresno, but these retail
>prices _sure_ aren't what is on my Certified Developer price list dated
>January 19. These are the retail prices on my Developer price list:
> 
>Part No.        Description     Retail
>M5361           SE/30 HD80/4    $6569.00
>M5390           SE/30 HD40/1    $4869.00
>M5392           SE/30 1 Meg.    $4369.00
>                                                                           


Could someone from Apple give us the retail prices?  Does anyone at other
Universities have their University's student price?

Here's hoping it's the cheaper prices!
                                      

                                      
Robert
------
ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu
------
generic disclaimer: all my opinions are mine