imp@crayview.msi.umn.edu (Chuck Lukaszewski) (08/05/88)
MacWorks Plus is now available from Sun Remarketing in Utah at (800) 821-3221. It is a complete emulation of the Macintosh Plus for the Lisa/Mac XL computers. It has been thoroughly tested with just about every available Mac software package, including System Software 6.0 (the only bugs here are Apple's...), Hypercard 1.2, Excel 1.5, Tops 2.0, Inbox, Microsoft Mail, Appleshare, Full- Write Professional, Word 3.02... MacWorks Plus requires a Lisa/Mac XL with 1Mb RAM (expandable to 2Mb). It will support an internal 400K or 800K drive (including booting directly from floppy disks). It supports internal 5, 10, 20, 30 or 40 Meg hard disks, and auto- matically drives as many external hard disks as you have connected (the lisa supports up to six external hard disks in addition to the internal). All hard support full HFS, with *minimal* (~200K) loss to the operating system. At home I run a 2Mb Mac XL with an internal 800K drive, an internal 20Mb hard disk and an external 10Mb hard disk. Via Tops, I mount the 170Mb fixed disk and 40Mb removable disk that are connected to my Mac SE. I observe that IO-bound development systems like MPW (bleachk!) complete compile-link cycles on large compiles/links 45 seconds to a minute faster on the Lisa. This is due to the on-board caching in the 20Mb hard disk. Why bother? Because you can buy a brand new (box has never been opened) Lisa or Mac XL with a 20Mb hard disk, 800K floppy and MacWorks Plus from Sun Remarketing for $1595. Even if you cannot stand the idea of using a Lisa for application work, it is a really competitive option for an Appleshare or Tops fileserver. Put it in a back room, hook up as many hard disks as you want, and run an AppleTalk line out. Unless you are a certified developer, that price is going to be at least a couple of hundred dollars less than the comparable Mac Plus/SE system. Or, let's say you need a 2Mb RAM machine to run FullWrite on, and you cannot get the SIMMs for your machine. Well, Lisa memory expansions are available now (it's an obsolete machine, remember? it doesn't use SIMMs). ****** I guess I'll get the bias out of the way. Yes, I am an interested party. I wrote the program. But my interest is in the technical chore of getting the Lisa to be a Plus. I don't carry an American Express card. ---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===--- ARPAnet/NSFnet/MRnet: AppleLink: SnailMail: Ma Bell: imp@crayview.msi.umn.edu UG0138 Minneapolis MN 55418 612/789-0931
britt@venera.isi.edu (Benjamin Britt) (08/19/88)
MacWorks Plus- the compatibility package transforming an XL into a MacPlus- could be a good deal to us orphaned Lisa owners but I am wary of the $200 Sun Remarketing is charging--particularly so since I already bought Sun's HFS product and will have to essentially buy it again in MacWorks Plus (Sun offers no software trade-in allowance for it's customers). The cost of a real MacPlus is just over $1K and the thought of getting a much faster processor, real Apple ROMs, sound, a SCSI interface, an 800K disk drive, multiple-vendor SIMM memory to 4 Megs, and not having to worry about buying yet-another-upgrade-hack in another few months is very tempting. Ben -- Benjamin Britt USC/Information Sciences Institute
DLE@KL.SRI.COM (David L. Edwards) (08/23/88)
I recently received and installed MacWorks+ and I was impressed. It seems to run faster and supports everything I through at it including Excel 1.5. I agree that the price is a bit steep esp since I bought the 800K floppy in preparation and then learned of a package deal. But it does add to the resale value of your XL. I do recommend it.... usual disclaimers. -dle