sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (08/15/88)
The MacWorld Expo closed at 6 p.m. last night, with the normal cheers from all the exhibitors (you get pretty tired by the end of four days...) This article contains some comments about what was there, and what wasn't! They're in random order, not in order of importance. Splitting the exhibits between two halls worked better than most people expected. There seemed to be plenty of shuttle buses (though the lack of transportation from South Station to the World Trade Center was a major oversight - the one mile walk in 90+ degree heat with dew points in the 70's was hard on everybody). Neither hall was as crowded as the Bayside was last year. It was much easier to talk to vendors and to move about. The air conditioning systems also had a better chance to keep things reasonably cool. Whoever was running the bag check operations scored a major coup. Not only would they guard your stuff while you wandered, but they were selling boxes and providing shipping so you didn't have to carry all your goodies on the plane with you. 1 meg SIMMs were everywhere. One fellow at the Bayside sat in a bare booth with four trays in from of him. His sign read "SIMMs". Need he say more? He wanted $425-450/meg. However, over at the World Trade Center, MacProducts USA had 1 meg SIMMS for $319. Apparently this is their standard price. They say that they make them themselves. The prize for the glitziest display goes to Informix, for their Wingz booth. The lines to go through their eight minute show were huge, primarily because you got a niftly shoulder bag when you came out. The show was an integrated video (narrated by Leonard Nemoy) and computer demo. As you lined up, Informix employees took names and addresses, promising to mail a demo disk. Informix also wins the prize for the most highly hyped vaporware - the same product called Wingz. (It's a "presentation spreadsheet", which means it's a spreadsheet with rather nifty graphics capabilities - if it ever loses its vaporware status.) Prize for the most effective booth goes to Claris. Their simple design really showed off their products effectively. No, it wasn't as flashy as Wingz, but it did the job. Prize for the most interesting contest goes to MacConnection. They printed up baseball cards which on one side had a head honcho of a company whose product they sell. On the reverse was a description of the product. The cards were then placed at the booths whose products were featured. Then, an Expo attendee had to collect a certain number of cards (by visiting the booths). Once they got the cards, then they could enter MacConnection's drawing. (I actually forget what the prize was; I was so taken by the whole concept of the contest). The baseball cards were really useful - it gave you something to give to little kids so they wouldn't destroy your booth while mom and dad were busy talking. Prize for the most obnoxious staff goes to Dayna. When I asked one of their technical people a question, he told me "it was in the manual", and proceeded to pull one out and show me. I explained that I read the section to which he referred, but that it was unclear, and that I didn't get what he was telling me from what was written. He then made me feel like I was an idiot because I couldn't decipher plain English. Not good, folks.... There seemed to be a lot of business people on Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday. Saturday, traditionally the day when the expo is mobbed by home users, hobbyists and their kids, was surprisingly light. A lot of people were mumbling that Apple is ignoring the home user. If the crowd at this Expo is any indicator, then that may be the case. This Expo wasn't as "exciting" as last year's; there weren't the major product announcements. However, there were a lot of good, solid products being shown (Ashton-Tate's FullImpact looks like it's going to give Excel a real run for its money, for example). People were buying (Odesta brought only 100 copies of my Double Helix book; we sold out before noon on Friday and had to resort to taking orders); people were asking intelligent questions. The bottom line - a good show, though I sure am tired. Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: husc6!amcad!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop BITNET: JHARRY@BENTLEY ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************
derek@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Derek J. LeLash) (08/16/88)
Here are some of my subjective impressions, based on one day (Friday) of hoofing around in the exhibition areas. What was good: - VideoWorks demos on giant Mitsubishi monitors. - Colony, a game from MindScape (a must-buy for II-owning game players) - SuperPaint 2 - the MegaZot card from MegaGraphics, which generated amazing Mandelbrot plots - RasterOps' 24-bit color monitors (even if I couldn't bear to look at them :-) - Symantec in general, and for an effective booth and neat contest. - MacConnection, where you could buy all the neat stuff you saw everywhere else. What was not-so-good: - Microsoft's booth - it was not conducive to the small-group demos they wanted - Many of the people staffing booths, especially of the larger companies, who acted more interested in selling things than in answering detailed questions. - The person who demo-ed SuperPaint 2 (If only I'd had 5 minutes with it... :-) - The weather...ACK! At least the air conditioning worked all day. - Apple's presentation - I'd have rather seen more announcements of new stuff as opposed to celebrations of old, but I guess that can't be helped much. Overall, I found the show to be much better put-together than I'd expected, considering its size - congrats to the organizers. And special repeated kudos to Rich Siegel and the Symantec people. The folks in our development team had a number of questions and concerns about Symantec products, which I'm told were well answered. Derek // Derek J. LeLash /|\"Every male in the Urga family has gone\\ // Derek.LeLash@Dartmouth.EDU //|\\ mad before the age of fifty. It's the \\ // Mercenary TechWriter, &c. // | \\ reason we make such good kings." (DE) \\ // "Welcome to BlitzNuke!" //dj|88\\ ==> DISCLAIMER: Oh, get real. <== \\
paul@mit-caf.MIT.EDU (Paul Meyer) (08/16/88)
In article <9808@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> derek@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Derek J. LeLash) writes: >- Colony, a game from MindScape (a must-buy for II-owning game players) ^^^^^^^^^ Does this game run on the SE or the Plus? Or is it to slow on those machines? I thought I saw it running on an SE at the show, but I'm not sure. Care to give a description of the new features slated for Superpaint 2? Somehow I missed that booth at the expo, but I'm a Superpaint fan looking forward to the update. How does it measure up to Canvas 2.0? Paul Meyer paul@caf Microsystems Technology Lab MIT
derek@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Derek J. LeLash) (08/16/88)
In article <1235@mit-caf.MIT.EDU> paul@mit-caf.UUCP (Paul Meyer) writes: >In article <9808@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> I wrote: >>- Colony, a game from MindScape (a must-buy for II-owning game players) >Does this game run on the SE or the Plus? Or is it to slow on those >machines? I thought I saw it running on an SE at the show, but I'm >not sure. Sorry, I should have specified this. Yes, it runs on other Macs, but my friend and I both found the animation a little too "chunky" to justify our buying it for our (non-II) machines. Animotion on the II is wonderfully smooth. > Care to give a description of the new features slated for Superpaint >2? Somehow I missed that booth at the expo, but I'm a Superpaint fan >looking forward to the update. How does it measure up to Canvas 2.0? Sure. Some of the features are (from memory and their handout): - Auto-trace of bitmapped objects - 3-dimensional dragging of objects, which means that if you drag a square in this way, you get lines connecting the vertices of the original and the dragged shapes, for a 3-d effect. You can do this with or without hidden- line removal. - Color preview, although you still can't work directly with colors in the drawing itself. - Bezier paths - support for plug-in "modules" (additional tools programmed by third parties). This sounds really neat...apparently, the release will include a few of these tools with it. - "SuperBits," bit-mapped objects in the draw layer that can be edited at high resolution. - Transformation functions in both layers - Mixing fonts, styles, etc. in text blocks - customizable airbrush - many selection tools - "Multigon" tool for drawing equilateral polygons with any number of sizes. Overall, it looked really good. Canvas, I thought, was leaning very much toward becoming a high-end draw program, almost the draw equivalent of PixelPaint. Since I don't have a Mac II, the (admittedly great) color support that will be in Canvas 2 doesn't interest me. What was true with the original versions is even more true now: if you do more painting than drawing, SuperPaint is probably your best bet, if vice versa, look seriously at Canvas. One caveat, for those who may not be aware of it, is that Canvas upgrades will be *free* to registered owners, while SuperPaint upgrades will cost $50. In fact, this makes the final price of the new versions (using current Mac- Connection prices) $129 for SuperPaint and $109 for Canvas. Something to think about, although those of us who own Microsoft Word will (eventually) be receiving SuperPaint 1.1, so going in that direction looks financially attractive... :-) Derek [tired feet] LeLash // Derek J. LeLash /|\"Every male in the Urga family has gone\\ // Derek.LeLash@Dartmouth.EDU //|\\ mad before the age of fifty. It's the \\ // Mercenary TechWriter, &c. // | \\ reason we make such good kings." (DE) \\ // "Welcome to BlitzNuke!" //dj|88\\ ==> DISCLAIMER: Oh, get real. <== \\
drc@claris.UUCP (Dennis Cohen) (08/16/88)
In article <639@stech.UUCP> sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) writes: >Informix also wins the prize for the most highly hyped vaporware - the same >product called Wingz. (It's a "presentation spreadsheet", which means it's >a spreadsheet with rather nifty graphics capabilities - if it ever loses its >vaporware status.) > Informix told me the same thing at this show as they did at the SF Expo in January -- that they plan to ship the product by end of third quarter. Since they haven't yet slipped a delivery date, I believe that the appellation of "vaporware" is undeserved. They have not taken out ads in any of the trades promoting the product or implying that it was available -- they've merely done what the TV industry does in the summer each year, give "previews" of a coming attraction and announce the date when it will become available. >Prize for the most effective booth goes to Claris. Their simple design >really showed off their products effectively. No, it wasn't as flashy as >Wingz, but it did the job. Thank you from all the folks here. Kind words are always appreciated. >This Expo wasn't as "exciting" as last year's; there weren't the major >product announcements. However, there were a lot of good, solid products >being shown (Ashton-Tate's FullImpact looks like it's going to give Excel >a real run for its money, for example). I agree, IF it can overcome the fact that Excel is entrenched as the "standard" much like 1-2-3 in the DOS world. On the basis of technical merit, ease of use, functionality, and performance Full Impact should trample Excel into the ground; however, Excel has the name recognition. Full Impact will be the first spreadsheet I've ever wanted to own (VisiCalc was bundled in the purchase of my first Apple and is still shrink-wrapped six years later). Dennis Cohen Claris Corp. ------------ Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (lots of 'em today)
vita@lansoar.steinmetz (Mark F. Vita) (08/16/88)
In article <9810@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> derek@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Derek J. LeLash) writes: >In article <1235@mit-caf.MIT.EDU> paul@mit-caf.UUCP (Paul Meyer) writes: > >>In article <9808@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> I wrote: >>>- Colony, a game from MindScape (a must-buy for II-owning game players) > >>Does this game run on the SE or the Plus? Or is it to slow on those >>machines? I thought I saw it running on an SE at the show, but I'm >>not sure. > >Sorry, I should have specified this. Yes, it runs on other Macs, but my >friend and I both found the animation a little too "chunky" to justify >our buying it for our (non-II) machines. Animotion on the II is wonderfully >smooth. I purchased Colony at the Expo for my SE, and yes, it is a lot nicer on the II. I spoke to the author and he claimed that the speed on a SE/Plus was about 85% of that on a II. However, I find that the game is certainly playable and enjoyable on an SE. One thing that helps is selecting the "Faster" option from the menu. This turns off the filling of objects (i.e., wireframes only). It isn't as pretty, but the speed with this option on seems to be roughly the same as the speed on a II with it off. ---- Mark Vita ARPA: vita@ge-crd.ARPA General Electric Company UUCP: vita@desdemona.steinmetz.UUCP Corporate R & D vita@desdemona.steinmetz.ge.com Schenectady, NY desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP
brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu (08/17/88)
paul@mit-caf.MIT.EDU writes: >In article <9808@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> derek@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Derek J. LeLash) writes: >>- Colony, a game from MindScape (a must-buy for II-owning game players) > ^^^^^^^^^ >Does this game run on the SE or the Plus? Or is it to slow on those >machines? I thought I saw it running on an SE at the show, but I'm >not sure. [text deleted...] >Paul Meyer >paul@caf >Microsystems Technology Lab >MIT Yes it works on the 512E on up (or so they claim). I have tried it on a Mac II and a Mac+ myself and it worked okay. I think I have a bad copy of it, as I kept on getting bombs with it on my Mac II. Does anyone know if it is System 6.0 hostile (and, yes I tried it without all my ten zillion INITs)? For those of you who haven't seen it, The Colony is quite awesome. The game is a realtime 3D simulation. Move the mouse forward, and you move forward. Move the mouse to the side, and you turn to the side. It looks very nice. On an Mac Plus it can be a little sluggish. However there is an option to turn off shading and do only wire framing, which is faster. So you can turn it on depending on whether you are exploring or just cruising. On a Mac II it is quicker and more fluid. It also makes use of all that extra screen real esate. Unfortunately, no color. *Sigh*. The game takes place in the future. The premise is that a colony has been overrun by aliens, and you as Space Ranger (or something similar) must go down and find out what's what. But, as you approach the planet, you get sucked in by a black hole, towards the planet (don't ask me why, I didn't write it...) You manage to crash land your ship, but go unconscious in the process. The game begins with you waking up and finding yourself on the bridge with the lights out. Another of the interesting features are the control panels. When you approach something interesting in the 3D view, it expands into a little dialog where you can manipulate things (open drawers, read screens). Everything is done with the mouse pretty much. I haven't gotten into it much yet, but it looks like a great game, and well worth the $30 I paid MacConnection at the Expo. Robert Brewer brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!brewer
dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David Williams) (08/17/88)
in:comp.sys.mac / paul@mit-caf.MIT.EDU (Paul Meyer) / asks: >>In article <9808@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> derek@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Derek J. LeLash) writes: >- Colony, a game from MindScape (a must-buy for II-owning game players) ^^^^^^^^^ >>Does this game run on the SE or the Plus? Or is it to slow on those >>machines? I thought I saw it running on an SE at the show, but I'm >>not sure. Yes, it runs on a Plus! --David
jwhitnell@cup.portal.com (08/17/88)
Dennis Cohen writes... |Informix told me the same thing at this show as they did at the SF Expo in |January -- that they plan to ship the product by end of third quarter. Since |they haven't yet slipped a delivery date, I believe that the appellation of |"vaporware" is undeserved. VaporWare is anything annouced but not yet shipped. Hence Wingz is definitly vaporware. It doesn't matter whether they've slipped a delivery date or not. And it's the worst sort of vaporware, a company's first product. You have no idead whether or not they will ship on time or a year late or whether they'll go out of business before they ship. That is what is wrong with vaporware annoucments. It's the old IBM ploy of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). -- Jerry Whitnell jwhitnell@cup.portal.com
dtani@bbn.com (Dan Tani) (08/18/88)
Hey you forgot Mirrus ... Mirrus !! This exhibit, although entertaining and the product does look good, reeked of Big Blue. I predict that right before Rome fell, there was an exhibit/presentation just like Mirrus's. Oh well, the price we pay for success and acceptance into the business world. Mirrus! (clap) (clap) Mirrus !!!!! dmt
jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) (08/19/88)
Jerry Whitnell writes: >VaporWare is anything annouced but not yet shipped. Hence Wingz is definitly >vaporware. It doesn't matter whether they've slipped a delivery date or not. >And it's the worst sort of vaporware, a company's first product. You have >no idead whether or not they will ship on time or a year late or whether >they'll go out of business before they ship. That is what is wrong with >vaporware annoucments. It's the old IBM ploy of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and >Doubt). A little harsh, aren't we Jerry? I think that you will find agreement among most people in the industry (and particularly those in the media) that Vaporware is software announced, and slipped. The monetary realities of this world require that software be announced prior to its first customer ship. Most firms announce during the final integration or first q/a cycles. This allows the distribution channels to begin to adapt to the new product. It is usually impossible to wait for the final q/a to be finished before announcing the product - it just doesn't pay to have all those people sitting around on their hands waiting to get to work. Only a company with IBM's (past) strangle-hold on its customers and the industry could get away with the FUD business - and for years they did just that. FUD was, however, principally a strategy aimed at their potential competitors, not their customers. -- These opinions are solely mine and in no way reflect those of my employer. John M. Pantone @ GE/Calma R&D, 9805 Scranton Rd., San Diego, CA 92121 ...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jnp jnp@calmasd.GE.COM GEnie: J.PANTONE
mls@mhuxu.UUCP (Michael Siemon) (08/21/88)
In article <15@calmasd.GE.COM>, jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes: > A little harsh, aren't we Jerry? I think that you will find agreement > among most people in the industry (and particularly those in the > media) that Vaporware is software announced, and slipped. From the standpoint of the CUSTOMER, vaporware is indeed anything we have been told about (to pre-empt interest and of course -- the producer hopes -- commitments to something else) that we can't get, and can't even get a reliable date for. The media, given often special "preannouncement" info are in at least as damnable a postion on this as the rest of the bloody "industry." Or doesn't the customer count for anything but his sucker value? -- Michael L. Siemon contracted to AT&T Bell Laboratories ihnp4!mhuxu!mls standard disclaimer