Sewall@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (04/28/91)
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the May 1991 APPLE PULP
H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
$15/year U.S. - $18/year Canadian
P.O. Box 18027
East Hartford, CT 06118
Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 569-8739
Permission granted to redistribute with the above citation
These are rumors folks;
we reserve the right to be dead wrong!
Proposed Slogan for Apple's May developers' conference
"System 7 -- this time we mean it!" - PC Week 1 April
This is the 7th anniversary issue of the Vaporware column.
May '84 - the earliest Apple IIx (became the IIgs) rumors.
May '85 - Jazz for the Macintosh is late (and disappointing
when it finally did arrive) and IBM PC-2 rumors prove
unfounded (or Big Blue got "cold feet?").
May '86 - Rumors of a cartridge that makes an Atari ST
Macintosh compatible (if you can find an Apple dealer who'll
sell genuine ROMs) and announcement of the Migent "Pocket
Modem" (both products now exist).
May '87 - Details about Andy Hertzfeld's "Juggler" (became
MultiFinder) for the Macintosh and the introduction of the
nicely designed, but too late, National Semiconductor 10
MIP, 32-bit 32532 processor (twice as fast as anything from
Intel or Motorola).
May '88 - More details about the Intel 80486 (now known as
the i486), Motorola announces a 33 MHz 68020 (never made it
into a Macintosh), and MIPS Computer Systems announces the
M3000 family said to be 20 times as fast as a VAX 11/780.
May '89 - The American National Standards Institute X3T9.2
Committee, commonly known as the SCSI Committee is nearing
completion of a new SCSI-2 standard. Formal adoption of the
new 32-bit data path (the existing SCSI path is 8-bit) is
expected in 1990 or 1991.
May '90 - Although Apple officials continue to describe
Macintosh System 7.0 in public as "on schedule," private
sources close to Apple say the project is falling two or
three days behind schedule each week (as we now know,
introduction is ten months behind last year's schedule).
$1,000 Notebooks.
May is Spring Comdex month, and this Spring hardware makers
will introduce a spate of new, book sized computers leading
to massive price competition. Zenith, which has been losing
share in the laptop market since its purchase by Groupe Bull
over a year ago, will be among the first to offer an under
six pound notebook machine based on the new Intel 386SL
(lower power consumption) CPU. Zenith and others will also
introduce Compaq Lite "me too" (20 MHz 386SX) notebooks with
aggressive price tags (list prices under $3,000).
Manufacturing shortages of hard drives and displays will
continue to limit supply in the short run, but deliveries
should begin in earnest by the end of the summer when
analysts expect prices for 80286 notebooks to fall to about
$1,000. - PC Week 15 April
68040 Workstations.
Hewlett Packard is expected to release a pair of
(relatively) low cost Motorola 68040 workstations next
month. Both will have 8 Mbytes of RAM and 200 Mbyte
(expandable to 400 Mbyte) hard drives. The desktop version
will list for about $6,000 and the tower will be priced at
$8,000. Apple's 25 MHz 68040 Macintoshes will arrive in
August. The $15,000 MacTower (IItx?) will be capable of
supporting as many as 13 SCSI devices (five internal). The
desktop version will match the current Mac IIci in size and
will carry an "under $10,000" price tag. Both new Macs will
have built in Ethernet and 20 MHz NuBus slots (which can
accommodate current NuBus cards). Parallel Integrated
Circuits (PIC) chips will serve as additional processors for
tasks such as AppleTalk calls, disk I/O, and display refresh
(this technology is already used in the Mac IIfx). Details
such as the standard amount of RAM remain to be decided;
both models will be expandable to 64 Mbytes (using
16-megabit DRAMS).
- InfoWorld 18 March and PC Week 15 April
ACE in the Hole.
Vaporware champion Microsoft, along with Compaq, Zenith,
DEC, and seventeen others have announced the Advanced
Computing Environment (ACE) initiative for RISC workstations
based on the forthcoming R4000 CPU (see last March's column)
from MIPS Computing Systems. The objective of the ambitious
plan is to permit today's PC software to run on tomorrow's
RISC hardware. The operating system will be a choice of
Microsoft's forthcoming "portable" OS/2 3.0 scheduled for
(would you believe) late 1992 (read early 1993, maybe) or an
Open Software Foundation-compatible version of UNIX (Open
Desktop) under development by The Santa Cruz Operation
(second quarter 1992?). The group's Advanced RISC Computing
(ARC) specification around which future systems will be
built won't be completed for at least another two months or
so. As presently envisioned, data storage formats will be
the same across different hardware platforms but users will
not be able to directly share media between OS/2 and UNIX.
In addition, there will be two optional bus I/O
architectures, EISA and DEC's turbochannel. Skeptics don't
expect to see actual hardware for at least two more years.
- PC Week 8 and 15 April and InfoWorld 15 April
More i486 Versions
IBM, Compaq, AST, Everex and most others should announce 50
MHz i486 PCs before next fall's Comdex. Base prices for
these systems probably will start at around $10,000.
Vendors may put new life into current 25 MHz i486 machines
by offering Intel's planned 50 MHz internal, 25 MHz external
version of the processor (which can yield improved
performance by simply replacing the existing 25 MHz CPU).
Intel also showed a 100 MHz prototype i486 at the recent
International Solid State Circuits Conference.
- PC Week 1 April, TidBITS 8 April, and InfoWorld 15 April
Mac Lite.
Just a bit from an Apple Student Rep: one of the new,
aggressively priced Mac notebooks (expected by November)
will have a 68030 CPU and ship to educational markets for
under $2,000 for the base model. [the low price and 68030
together is more than other sources are willing to admit to -
Ed] - Found in my electronic mailbox
Big Blue Goes Hollywood.
IBM has announced a new presentation graphics program that
seeks to merge the structured outlining of Aldus Persuasion
and with the flexibility of Microsoft PowerPoint. Beta
testers have expressed great delight with the sophisticated
graphics, font handling features, and user friendly
interface of the $495 program named Hollywood which is
slated for shipment on May 32.
- InfoWorld and PC Week 15 April
Full Motion Compression.
Apple plans to release "Road Pizza" (the current codename),
a full motion video and audio compression system, as early
as August. Apple intends to market two systems, one to
create and manipulate video files and a second for users who
only need playback. - InfoWorld 8 April
Apple IIgs to Inherit Significant Mac-like Features.
The new, nearly twice as fast Apple IIgs System Disk 6.0 is
scheduled for release at KansasFest this summer (mid-July).
In addition to Andy Nicholas's revamped GS Finder, major new
features will include: Mac and IBM FSTs (permitting reading
and writing of disks in those formats), support for the
SuperDrive (1.44 Mbyte disks - see last month's column), an
Animation Toolkit, midiSynth Tool, and interapplication
communication (similar to Windows 3 and Mac System 7).
- found in my electronic mailbox
Apple II(gs) Forever (but by Mailorder).
Last month's Apple II's for sale at Sears rumor was off the
mark (Sears is busy trying to peddle PS/1s). J.C. Penney's
wouldn't even discuss a deal with Apple. However, Apple
hasn't given up; they're said to be dickering with Quality
Computers, Applied Engineering (some insiders say AE is a
long shot), and Soft Warehouse.
- found in my electronic mailbox
Paradox for Windows.
Borland International plans to separate its Paradox database
engine from its user interface so that Quattro Pro and its
ObjectVision programming tool can work with Paradox. The
new structure will be put in place when Paradox for Windows
is released. Borland previewed an alpha version of its
Windows product at last month's International Paradox User
Conference. Unlike most other Windows programs, Paradox for
Windows will operate as fast or even faster than the current
DOS software according to CEO Philippe Kahn.
- InfoWorld and PC Week 15 April
Really Mac-like Windowsware.
After some vacillating over strategy, Claris finally is
working on applications for Windows. It won't be long
before there are Windows versions of MacDraw Pro, FileMaker
Pro, and (still under development for the Macintosh)
MacWrite Pro, along with the as-yet-unnamed spreadsheet
using technology acquired from Wingz. - TidBITS 8 April
Finally! Color HyperCard.
HyperCard 2.1 for the Macintosh may be ready about the same
time as System 7, or shortly thereafter. This latest
version of the popular software is said to contain HyperTalk
as well as color. - found in my electronic mailbox
If We Can't Sell it Let's Give it Away.
IBM is considering a plan to bundle the forthcoming OS/2 2.0
with every 386 and 486 PS/2 (the entire PS/2 line once the
current model 30 is retired; even the PS/1 will offer 386SX
processors by year's end). - PC Week 1 April
Who Needs a DOS Box?
An advanced version of Insignia Solutions' SoftPC which will
supply full VGA emulation is slated to be released for the
NeXT workstation in the fourth quarter. A Macintosh System
7 version is anticipated at about the same time. SoftPC
will be able to run the entire Microsoft Windows 3.0
environment in a 640 by 480 pixel window of the 1,120 by 832
pixel NeXTStation display. Although the new version will be
more efficient than the old, it will slow a workstation by
about 60 percent (or roughly 20 MHz 80386 speed on a 25 MHz
68040 CPU). - InfoWorld 18 March
Mac vs Nintendo?
Someone may have sold InfoWorld's rumor monger a late April
Fool's gag when they slipped him the notion that Apple and
Sony will be offering a Macintosh OS version 6 compatible
home video game this Christmas. According to Cringeley, the
game module with one Mbyte of RAM, Mac ROM, a 3.5 inch disk
drive, and NTSC video output will be offered for less than
$500 (keyboard and RGB monitor for word processing and
spreadsheets will cost extra). - InfoWorld 15 April
New Lotus 1-2-3s.
Lotus Development plans to ship upgrade versions 2.3 and
3.1+ next month along with 1-2-3 for Windows. The new
versions offer a number of enhancements including the
capability to add-in Lotus Magellan viewer technology.
Version 3.1+ will add the solver feature of 1-2-3/G for OS/2
but not the 1-2-3/G user interface. - PC Week 1 April
Visual Basic.
Microsoft will release Basic for Windows, codenamed Thunder,
at the Windows World Conference in Atlanta this month.
Microsoft is considering marketing the product as Visual
Basic. Beta testers say they can create Windows programs in
a half hour without writing any code. - InfoWorld 8 April
dBase for Windows.
Ashton-Tate has been showing a prototype of dBase IV for
Windows with icons, scroll bars, and resizable input and
output windows. The Windows program has not entered beta
but version 1.2 of the regular DOS version is in beta and
should be released soon (have we heard that somewhere
before?) - PC Week 1 April
WP 6.0
WordPerfect 6.0 with a redesigned, more attractive, user
interface is planned for the second quarter of next year.
The interface, dubbed Text User Interface (TUI), is designed
to give users easier access to WordPerfect functions through
dialog boxes. - PC Week 18 March
Flash Frozen.
MIT and IBM are rumored to be working on a chip that turns
on and off a single electron, which is far more efficient
than today's technology. So far, the commercial potential
is limited by the required operating temperature - less than
10 degrees Kelvin (brrrr). - TidBITS 8 April
Random Access Tape.
In the next month or two JVC will begin shipping the first
digital audio tape (DAT) drives with random write
compatibility (a feature not available in digital data
storage, or DDS, see the February 1990 and last December's
columns). The random access mode makes the tape like a
(very) slow hard drive. The penalty for this feature is
somewhat less capacity (just under one gigabyte instead of
the 1.36 gigabytes per tape available for the DDS format).
- PC Week 15 April
Colors Beyond Count.
MIPS and National Semiconductor are both working on 64-bit
RISC graphic chips. A 64-bit chip could provide for 280
trillion colors. It may be some time before anyone offers a
monitor with enough pixels to display all those shades. -
TidBITS 8 April
Worm Holes.
Evidently Windows 3.0 has lots of unused spaces (reserved
for future development) in its code which could be used to
hide a virus. Current virus protection software, even
programs designed specifically for Windows, offer no
protection against a Windows specific virus (so far, none of
those nasties has been detected). - InfoWorld 1 April
Best April Fool's Joke.
Rumor has it that the top 2 inches of Apple's upcoming 25
MHz 68040 Mac Tower (see above) actually will be a pop-out 7
pound portable Mac. The notebook sized unit will contain the
CPU for the Tower and one of four memory banks. The two
sections of the computer can share the processor and RAM due
to the technology that Apple purchased from Outbound. Also
thanks to Outbound, when the portable is not attached, the
Tower can still function as an AppleShare server, though
it's useless for desktop work. Someone sent this one to
Cringely and he published it straight in his 8 April
InfoWorld column (ah, the rites of Spring).
- TidBITS 1 April
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