Sewall@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (09/28/90)
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the October 1990 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 copy with the above citation
A Real 3-D Display.
Texas Instruments has shown a "bubble" display two feet in
diameter which "floats" three dimensional images within a
volume. Multiple viewers can see the display from any side
without special goggles or eyeshades. Dubbed "Omniview,"
TI's patent application describes the technology as a
"real-time, auto-stereoscopic, multiplanar 3-D display
system." Initial commercial applications may appear as
early as next year. - InfoWorld 20 August
Motorola 68040 Delayed Again.
Although volume production had been planned for last month,
Motorola officials found a few last minute bugs (described
as "very minute") to correct. Volume production of the chip
for machines already introduced by Hewlett-Packard and NeXT
and anticipated from Apple is now scheduled for the end of
October or early in November. NeXT's planned October 15
shipping date seems likely to slip.
- InfoWorld 17 September
Intel's 50 MHz i486 Delayed.
Intel's microprocessor group president, David House, has
admitted that plans to deliver a 50 MHz i486 CPU this year
were "overzealous." Large PC manufacturers have been told
that volume production will not begin until sometime in
early 1991. Meanwhile, PC manufactures will also have to
adapt to Intel's soon to be announced decision to streamline
their product line. By the end of next summer, Intel plans
to slim down to only three CPU's -- the 20 MHz 80386SX, the
25 MHz 80386, and the 33 MHz i486.
- PC Week 27 August and 10 September
i486 Clone.
Integrated Information Technologies has confirmed that it is
working on an i486 CPU clone. The company already clones
the 80287 and 80387 math coprocessors and the 8514/A
graphics processor. Sample quantities of the i486 clone are
expected sometime during the first quarter of next year.
- InfoWorld 27 August
Intel i586 Design Note.
Microsoft's William Gates and Intel's David House are
discussing whether to build the graphics primitives of
Windows 3.0 and OS/2's Presentation Manager into the mask of
the forthcoming i586 chip. Such a decision would markedly
improve the performance of both graphic user interfaces.
- PC Week 27 August
Miniature Production Studio.
Newtek Inc. of Topeka, Kansas will offer a $1,595 VLSI board
named the "Video Toaster" for the Amiga Computer. When used
with Newtek's point-and-click Light Wave software (bundled
with the Toaster), the Amiga becomes a miniature production
studio for less than $5,000 that can perform numerous
editing functions at a professional level. Newtek's Toaster
is a video switcher, effects generator, dual frame buffer,
and character generator with a 16.8 million color, RT-170
resolution NTSC output. The largely intuitive New Wave
software is accessible to users without specialized video
training. - InfoWorld 3 September
Video Explorer.
A professional quality video card for the Macintosh from
Intelligent Resources called the Video Explorer is scheduled
to ship early in 1991. The Video Explorer allows digital
special effects such as blending, mixing, and fading of
multiple live and recorded images as well as standard fades,
wipes, and dissolves. At "under $10,000," the card is
somewhat more pricey than Amiga's Video Toaster.
- InfoWorld 17 September
Where's Hobbes?
Look for an announcement this month of a 40 MHz Sun color
system known as Calvin. The 28 MIP workstation based on a
Cypress Semiconductor RISC CPU will compete with IBM's
RS/6000 and Digital's DECstation 5000 lines. An aggressive
price below the $12,995 for IBM's least expensive RS/6000 is
anticipated. Calvin's floating performance is expected to
be between four and five megaflops (compared to 7 MFlops for
IBM's POWERstation 320). - PC Week 27 August
NeXT Generation Spreadsheet.
Lotus's Improv for the new color NeXT computer may represent
the next generation of spreadsheet-graphic software. Improv
features three-dimensional graphics with the capability to
change views simply by clicking on one axis and dragging it
to another axis. It isn't yet known how many of Improv's
new features will be incorporated in the company's Macintosh
and Window's 3 products which are expected in early 1991.
- InfoWorld 17 September
Macintosh Introductions.
The introduction of three new Macintosh's on the 15th is
still on (see last month's column). Apple has decided to
offer all three with a minimum of 2 Mbytes of RAM in
anticipation of System 7 (by Valentine's Day, maybe). The
company also has decided to respond to industry pressure by
lowering the price of the basic Mac Classic (one 3.5 inch
SuperDrive, no hard disk) to $995. The lowest price color
model, the modular 68020 CPU Mac LC, may not actually ship
until January. An Apple //e emulation board will be offered
for the Mac LC -- something less than the "no compromises"
Apple II card John Sculley promised last April (see July's
column). Perhaps IIgs software will run on the
configuration. There is a rumor that a new IIgs based on a
Motorola 68020 with 4-bit color and a $2,500 list price will
be announced after January 1 (someone may have confused the
Mac-LC with Apple II card, also known as the Macintosh IIgs
with a new IIgs). A new high-end Macintosh built around a
25 MHz Motorola 68040 and priced in the $9,000 to $11,000
range is planned for the first half of next year.
- InfoWorld 20 August and PC Week 3 September
Executive Pen-Based Computer.
Active Book Company will introduce a pen to glass input
(with optional keyboard) computer next spring. The four
pound notebook sized machine will cost about $2,000 and
receive FAX and record voice mail as well as edit documents
and search data bases. The CPU will be an Acorn RISC
processor and the planned operating system is UNIX-based
Helios, but licensing Go Corporation's technology (see last
month's column) has not been ruled out. Active Book's
computer also will come with an MS-DOS emulator and battery
life of eight to ten hours is anticipated.
- InfoWorld 20 August
Downward Compatibility.
Microsoft's MS-DOS 5.0 will contain a Set Ver (set version)
command that will allow users to make the operating system
emulate earlier MS-DOS versions from 2.0 up for those
applications that turn out to be incompatible with DOS 5.0.
- InfoWorld 20 August
IBM/Macintosh Data Compatibility.
All the new Macintoshes read IBM 3.5 inch floppy disk
format, and now IBM plans to introduce a drive for the
RS/6000 work station that will read and write Macintosh 1.44
Mbyte floppies. The capability to read Mac disks also will
be available for Sun SPARCstations by the end of the year.
- InfoWorld 17 September
PageMaker 4.0 for Windows.
Aldus was expected to announce PageMaker 4.0 for Windows at
last May's introduction, but the product was delayed. The
program which takes advantage of Window's 3.0 features,
dynamic data exchange, and improved font handling now is
slated for release by the end of the year.
- PC Week 27 August
Even Larger Capacity Hard Drives.
IBM is said to be planning to announce a 200 MByte
magneto-optical drive with a $1,500 retail price. Only 10
years ago the 2 Mbyte hard drive introduced with the Morrow
computer was viewed as large enough to meet anyone's storage
needs. Now hard drives with capacities exceeding the
Morrow's by over 1,000 times (2 gigabytes) are described as
"just around the corner."
- InfoWorld 10 September and PC Week 27 August
Another Source of Laser Printers.
Compaq appears to be planning an aggressive entry into the
laser printer business. The company will manufacture
printers in Mexico that will print faster and cost less than
the popular HP III. - PC Week 27 August
ClarisShare.
Now that Apple has decided not to spin-off it's software
division after all, the Claris label will begin appearing on
important Apple software including HyperCard, AppleShare,
and probably, the as yet unannounced AppleMail program. A
Windows 3.0 version of Claris's FileMaker product is in the
works, and Claris executive want to proliferate Apple
technology onto other platforms and create "interoperable
superworkgroup applications" (applications that could be
shared among Macintosh, PC, and Unix workstations connected
to a network). - InfoWorld 27 August
HyperCard 2.0 Delayed (Again).
Apple tried and failed to get numerous Apple publications to
delay for a month advertising that will appear in the November
issues. The guess is that the ads (and stories) will be about
HyperCard 2.0 which has been delayed until November, at least.
The "final" beta version was sent to developers in late
September. - read on AppleLink 19 September
dBase for UNIX.
Now that Ashton-Tate has finally shipped dBase IV 1.1, the
company has begun beta testing a version for UNIX. No
definite release date or price has been set as yet.
- InfoWorld 20 August
/s Murph <Sewall%UConnVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.Edu> [Internet]
or ...{psuvax1 or mcvax}!uconnvm.bitnet!sewall [UUCP]
+ Standard disclaimer applies ("The opinions expressed are my own" etc.)