SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (12/23/89)
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the January 1990 APPLE PULP
H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
$15/year
P.O. Box 18027
East Hartford, CT 06118
Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 569-8739
Permission granted to copy with the above citation
Computing in the 90's.
Even though most people aren't aware of it, 1990 is the last
year in the decade, not the first (birthdays occur at the
end of the year, and decades end in a number divisible by
10). Nevertheless, NeXT chairman, Steve Jobs, has opined
that "The era of personal computing has ended. The 1990's
will be the era of interpersonal computing."
- PC Week 11 December
Turn-of-the-Century Computing This Year.
Hewlett-Packard has announced plans for a new HP-PA (for
Precision Architecture) line of high performance, single
processor workstations. By the end of the year, HP intends
to offer a line of RISC CPU's for desktop workstations which
will run in excess of 50 MIPS with a floating-point
performance of 12 to 16 megaflops. Submicron fabrication
techniques already are in use making test chips which
operate at 60 to 90 MHz. By 1993 HP expects the HP-PA
workstations to be processing at powers beyond 100 MIPS.
- InfoWorld 11 December
21st Century Computing.
Dreamers at Intel expect CPU speeds of 250 MHz and
performance in excess of 2,000 MIPS by 2,001. The vision
includes software compatible with 80386 architecture.
- PC Week 4 December
PC on a Card.
Chips & Technologies has developed a complete XT-clone
on-a-card. The motherboard with 8086 CPU, ROM, 512K RAM,
CGA-compatible graphics adapter, floppy disk controller,
hard disk controller, parallel and serial interfaces and I/O
connectors is only slightly larger than a bank credit card
and 1/4 inch thick. The card makes an shirt pocket XT-clone
technically feasible. An 80286-based device is under
development. - InfoWorld 27 November
IBM Development Plans.
IBM has been telling large customers that a 386 version of
OS/2 that will run in 2 Mbytes (perhaps even with an
application in memory) by the end of the year. Plans to
offer a low-end six page per minute laser printer to compete
with Hewlett-Packard's LaserJet IIP have been postponed
until sometime later this year. The delayed RT-3 (see last
October's column) now is scheduled to be announced in
February (maybe March) with initial shipments in April. The
next version of the PS/2 Model 80 (planned for later this
year) is a 20 MHz 80386 unit with eight 32-bit slots and a
SCSI interface which passed FCC Class B tests (under the
model designation of "85-90") last September. A 25 MHz
version of the same machine may be along by year's end. A
color laptop with display by Toshiba should be available by
mid-summer. Big Blue also plans to phase out all 8088,
8086, and even 80286 systems by 1992. The low-end systems
targeted for home use will have 80386SX processors.
- InfoWorld 11 & 18 December
and PC Week 20 November and 11 & 18 December
i486 Delay (Continued).
Problems continue to plague Intel's i486 production line
(see September's column). True volume production could be
delayed by as much as a year. - InfoWorld 20 November
i586 (Continued).
Think of the forthcoming i586 CPU (see last August and
October columns) as three 386's, two 387's, and a 64K memory
cache (compared to 8K in the i486) with vector processing
(similar to the i960). - PC Week 20 November
OS/2 RISC System.
Microsoft is working on an operating kernel for the Intel
i860 RISC chip (see last February, May, and December
columns) that will support either an OS/2 coprocessor (with
this operating system who needs an i486?) or an Unix
substitute. - InfoWorld 20 November
"Standard" But Not Compatible.
Apparently key parts of the the Extended Industry Standard
Architecture (EISA) specifications are ambiguous enough that
expansion boards may not be compatible among vendors. The
lack of an independent certification and testing
organization for EISA products is cited as a major reason
why third-party boards may not work with some EISA
computers. - PC Week 4 December
Many Gigabyte Hard Drives.
IBM scientists have unveiled an experimental hard drive that
stores a gigabyte (1,000 Mbytes) per square inch of disk
surface. The read-write heads operate at only
two-millionths of an inch above the disk surface (compared
to six to 15 millionths for current drives). An IBM
spokesman said that "several years" of additional
development work will be needed before this technology can
be incorporated in commercial products.
- InfoWorld 18 December
New Toshiba Laptops.
Toshiba plans to market a 33 MHz 80386 laptop during the
first quarter. An i486 model with a color display exists,
but a decision on introduction timing has not been reached.
- PC Week 4 December
Projecting Color.
Nview Corporation will soon ship a flat panel device that
uses an overhead projector to display screens in 16 colors
with a 640 by 480 pixel resolution. The View Frame RGB
electronic transparency panel will list for $4,495.
- InfoWorld 18 December
VAX-Mac Link.
Dec is beta testing software for running Macintoshes
connected to a VAX host under its Personal Computing Systems
Architecture which until now has supported only MS-DOS PCs.
- PC Week 18 December
A LapMac Worth Having.
Dynamac has been authorized by Apple to incorporate the
Apple SE/30 logic board in a portable computer. Dynamac is
awaiting FCC approval of the Dynamac SE/30 with a 180 Mbyte
hard disk, internal 2400 baud modem, and internal FAX
modem. A first quarter introduction is planned. Meanwhile,
Apple's next enhancement of the Mac II series is tentatively
labeled the IIxi. - InfoWorld 4 December
LapLink Mac.
Traveling Software should begin shipping a new version of
LapLink Mac this month. The $299.95 (specially reduced from
$300 in honor of the end of the decade) file transfer
program will support up to five users on an Appletalk
network and can transfer single and multiple files at up to
230 Kbits per second. - InfoWorld 4 December
Mac Agenda.
February 1 is said to be the date for Mitch Kapor's On
Technology's first product introduction (a Macintosh
utility). However, the company is pinning its future on its
second product (due in March) - a revamped Macintosh version
of Agenda. - InfoWorld 27 November
Apple RISC Taking.
Sales figures indicate that Apple has purchased more
Motorola 88000 RISC processors than all other customers
combined. Is Apple planning to build the "World-wide
Information System" for the "rest of us" as well as the
Defense Department (see last month's column)?
- InfoWorld 4 December
Apple Warranty.
Bill Coldrick, Apple's senior vice president for sales, says
that his company is reconsidering its 90 day warranty policy
for Macintoshes and peripherals. Coldrick indicated that
Apple may announce a one year warranty program similar to
that of other manufacturers early in the next fiscal year.
- InfoWorld 20 November
High Speed Cellular Phone Modem.
Telebit may already be shipping its Cellblazer modem capable
of speeds of up to 16,800 bps over a cellular phone system.
The Cellblazer is backward compatible with Bell 103, Bell
212, V.22, and MNP 4 and 5. The V.32 standard, however, is
not supported. The Cellblazer lists for $1,295 and requires
an RJ-11 interface (a $350 cellular phone option).
- InfoWorld 18 December
Fableware.
IBM and other large firms now stage "technology
demonstrations" at trade shows such as Comdex. The
demonstrations provide a glimpse of the potential of
technology under development, but the real purpose is to
establish "mind space" in the hearts (and hopefully budgets)
of corporate buyers and consumers. Examples of
demonstrations that resulted in products are IBM's i860
Wizard Card (shown at Comdex a year ago and announced last
month) and the i486 Power Platform (shown last Spring and
announced three months later). A demonstration does not
commit vendors to a time frame or price, and the product may
never be announced (hence, "fableware"). For example,
Lotus's "Notes" (touted for more than a year) and
Microsoft's "Windows 3.0" (now anticipated for March; stay
tuned) remain "unannounced." - InfoWorld 20 November
Prolog Update.
Prolog Development Center (PDC), an Atlanta company, is
assuming responsibility for development and sales of
Borland's Turbo Prolog. DOS and PS/2 updates of PDC Prolog
are expected next month. The price of the DOS version will
be up $100 to $249 and the OS/2 version will be $599. A $79
upgrade will be offered to the estimated 100 to 200 thousand
users of Turbo Prolog (Borland will continue to support
Turbo Prolog). - InfoWorld 18 December
1-2-3 for Windows.
Lotus has not made a final decision about releasing their
popular spreadsheet product for the Microsoft Windows
environment. Design work is underway so that the company
can market a product quickly if they decide to do so.
- InfoWorld 18 December
/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.)