SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (03/30/89)
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the April 1989 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
Costly Software!
Vaporware isn't amusing to everyone. Microsoft announced
that, indeed, shipping of the latest versions of Word would
be delayed, and profits were expected to be disappointing as
a consequence. Microsoft's stock fell 14% in one day's
trading giving chairman Bill Gates (who owns 38% of the
firm) an on paper loss of $174.2 million! - Time 20 March
LapTop Mini.
Toshiba plans to begin shipping its 20 Mhz 80386 (with 32K
of fast cache memory) Unix laptop, the T5200 CWS, this
month. The basic 18 pound unit with 100 Mbyte hard disk,
and gas plasma (16 gray levels) VGA display will retail for
$10,999 (with 2 Mbytes of RAM expandable to 8 Mbytes at
$1,299 per 2 Mbyte expansion module). Although MS-DOS will
be bundled with the T5200, the computer really is designed
for AT&T's Unix V, Release 3.2 (Toshiba's T/PIX at $495)
which requires at least 4 Mbytes of RAM.
- InfoWorld 20 February
Motorola 88000 Workstation.
Data General plans to begin shipping the first of its
"Aviion" Motorola 88000 RISC chip family later this month.
At 17-MIPS (with a 20 MIP option for an additional $2,500),
the "low end" single processor "Maverick 88000" is even more
powerful than reported earlier (February's column). The
base price for a 4 Mbyte, diskless model with a 20 inch
1,280 by 1,024 monochrome display is $7,450. The Maverick's
closest competitor appears to be the similar Sun 4/60 "NeXt
killer" (14-MIPS) which will be introduced at Comdex. The
monochrome version with 8 Mbytes of RAM and a 100 Mbyte hard
disk will be under $10,000. - InfoWorld 6 and 13 March
Comdex Introductions.
At least a dozen PC makers are expected to show 33 MHz 80386
computers at Comdex in Chicago beginning April 10. IBM and
Compaq head the list. Intel plans to deliver production
quantities of the faster '386 chip to manufacturers by
midyear. 33 MHz PCs will resemble the 25 MHz versions but
cost from $500 to $2,000 more. IBM also will introduce the
20 MHz, 20 lb portable model 70 (accurately described in
February's column) with a list price of just under $8,000.
Street prices of IBM's entire line may soon fall as much as
30% when dealers pass along to consumers some of the $30
million in promotional discounts being offered by Big Blue.
- PC Week 13 March
A New Model 30.
Sometime this Spring, IBM is expected to announce the PS/2
Model 30-386 (AT-bus architecture) using the 80386SX (a '386
with a 16-bit bus) chip. The Model 25 and original Models
30 and 50, which have not been selling very well, will be
phased out. The 30-286 and 60 models may not survive beyond
Christmas as IBM enters the 90's with an entirely
80386-based PC line. - PC Week 20 February
Intel's Next CPU.
Although no products will be ready to demonstrate the 80486
chip at Comdex, Intel is expected to announce shipping dates
for the new processor which will have four times the power
of today's 80386 (see Vaporware columns of March and July
1987, October and May 1988, and last January). Compaq and
other members of the EISA consortium (last October's column)
are expected to demonstrate their new bus technology along
with the 80486 at next Fall's Comdex, but boxes containing
the new processor aren't expected to be available in
quantity until the 90's. Analysts say that to really take
advantage of the processors power, the "power user" will
need at least 8 Mbytes of RAM and a high capacity (300+
Mbytes) disk drive. 80486 workstations are likely to retail
for more than $15,000. - PC Week 13 March
Motorola's Next CPU.
Keeping pace with Intel, Motorola plans to begin shipping
the 68040 (Vaporware, November 1987) by the end of this
year. The 1.2 million transistor CPU is expected to offer a
fourfold increase in throughput over the 68030.
- Electronic Design 26 January
Mac Clones.
A tiny Utah manufacturer, Powder Blue Computer, appears to
be the first to offer a competitively priced Macintosh
clone. The BlueMAQ looks like an IBM-PC on the outside, but
the inside is a 68000, 68020, or 68030 Mac clone (priced at
$3,000, $5,000, and $7,500 with 14 inch Samsung monitor and
65 Mbyte hard drive). Powder Blue is obtaining the ROM and
I/O (BIOS) chips from Apple VAR's (Value Added Retailers).
Meanwhile, Akkord Technologies, a Taiwanese firm is awaiting
U.S. Customs approval of allegedly legally cloned Macintosh
ROMs. - InfoWorld 27 February and PC Week 13 March
Macnews.
Apple CEO John Sculley has confirmed plans to offer a
RISC-based Macintosh (presumably using the Motorola 88000
family; he wouldn't say) but offered no clue about when.
Sources within Apple indicate that development is underway
to support X-Window within the Mac operating system (mainly
to provide for a relatively seamless Mac to VAX interface,
although it may also be able to communicate with A/Ux
applications as well). The remaining piece of new Macintosh
hardware scheduled for this year, the Mac Tower (the IItx?),
might not be ready for its scheduled August debut.
- InfoWorld 27 February and 13 March
(IPC) InterProcess Communications.
A third party developer, Userland in Palo Alto, may provide
software that permits applications to automatically exchange
data (IPC, or InterProcess Communications) before Apple
offers it in a system update later this year. IPC is
considered important to Apple's ability to compete with
IBM's Presentation Manager which has the capability.
- InfoWorld 13 March
Assorted Hyperstuff.
Apple is trying to decide whether to make HyperTalk a
standard user language across applications and incorporate
part of it into the Macintosh operating system. The
language could become a component of Apple's implementation
of IPC (see above). A number of developers are considering
HyperTalk extensions as alternatives to their macro
languages, and a HyperTalk Standards Committee has been
formed. A growing number of firms are working on providing
HyperCard like capabilities for IBM-PCs. Owl has announced
major enhancements of its Guide program, Brightbill-Roberts
has released Hyperpad (January's column), Interactive
Engineering of Boulder Colorado is working on a clone that
will challenge the "look and feel" lawyers (color under
MS-DOS and a monochrome Windows version). Dubbed "Flexcard"
the under $200 program will have a scripting language
described as "more 'C-like' than Apple's HyperTalk."
Asymetrix of Bellvue, Washington is planning to release a
HyperCard-like "applications generator" in late Spring or
early Summer. - InfoWorld 20 February and 13 March
Slip it in Your Poquet.
Poquet Computer is planning to announce by June an eight
inch long (yes, 8-inch) MS-DOS compatible computer with an
80 column by 25 line LCD display weighing less than one
pound (yes, under 16 ounces). The 70 key miniaturized
keyboard won't really be large enough for normal typing but
will suit the "hunt and peck" executive in need of a
personal PC secretary. The Poquet uses integrated-circuit
software cards (Lotus 1-2-3 is will be available at
introduction and WordPerfect, Word Star, Word, and XY-Write
are all under development). At $2,000 the palm size
computer has a lap size price. - PC Week 13 March
Will Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3.0 Be Superfluous?
Sites which are beta testing both version 3.0 and 2.2 (for
the 8088 and 8086 PC's, see February's column) of Lotus
1-2-3 say that version 2.2 provides almost all of the new
features users want (elements of the HAL "natural language"
interface, "undo," single-cell information linking,
on-spreadsheet searches) and is bundled with add-ons Learn
and Speedup. Since version 2.2 will run on '286 and '386
computers as well, users may find it difficult to justify a
purchase of Release 3.0. - InfoWorld 13 March
Latest Buzzphrase.
Several revisions of a product in a matter of days or weeks
have become known as "hiccup updates." Some recent examples
include WordPerfect 5.0 which has had "interim" releases in
July, October and January following it's May 1988 release,
Central Point's PC Tools which changed from version 5.0 to
5.1 in less than four weeks, and Microsoft which pulled
Multiplan 4.0 from dealer's shelves at the end of last year
came out with version 4.1 at the end of February. Paper Bag
Software's UnShrink II+, for pre-IIgs Apple 2 models, took
only two days to upgrade from version 1.0 to 1.1.
- InfoWorld 6 March
dBase IV 1.1.
Dbase IV is only four months old, but version 1.1 (which
will fix a number of bugs users have encountered in version
1.0) isn't really a hiccup update because it's designed as
an OS/2 native application (although there will be a DOS
version too). - InfoWorld 20 February
Sound and Feel?
Lawyers for the Beatles' Apple Core Ltd. have filed suit
against Apple Computer for alleged violation of a heretofore
secret 1981 agreement wherein Apple Computer promised to
stay out of the music business (specifically reproducing or
synthesizing music). Apple Core claims the IIgs, Mac SE,
and Mac II models as well as Apple's promotion of the
Macintosh as a "music composition workstation" violate the
agreement. The Beatles' company seeks to have the computer
company change its name, or to sell sound devices under a
different name, along with royalties of one to five percent
on past sales of products found to violate the agreement.
- InfoWorld 27 February
___________________________________________________________
(~~~~) / \
( 0 0 ) | (Prof) Murph Sewall <Sewall@UConnVM.BITNET> |
(| > |) ___/ Marketing Department <Sewall%UConnVM.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.Edu> |
( \__/ ) <___ School of Business ...psuvax1!uconnvm.bitnet!sewall |
(____) \_ U. of Connecticut *standard disclaimer applies* /
\__________________________________________________________/
(This .sig "borrowed" from Johnson Earls <Jearls@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu> Thanx!)