SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (01/28/89)
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the February 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
Laptop Supercomputing!
Texas Instruments is developing an entirely new class of
semiconductor devices that, in the next decade or two, could
result in battery operated, laptop computers that rival the
performance of today's supercomputers. The device,
demonstrated by the Advanced Concepts Branch of TI's Central
Research Labs, is a "quantum effect transistor," the first
true "tunneling transistor." This new transistor is about
100 times smaller than conventional integrated circuits of
the same capacity and operates at 1,000 times the speed of
conventional transistors. Mark Reed, a senior member of
TI's technical staff, said that a number of significant
hurdles need to be overcome before the device can be
manufactured in quantity. Mr. Reed estimates that practical
applications of this new technology are probably a decade or
so away. - InfoWorld 2 January
Monster Floppy.
Tejiin Ltd., a $4 billion a year Japanese synthetics
materials manufacturer, and Optical Data, developer of a new
erasable optical media that has been licensed by Tandy,
Philips, and DuPont Optical, have announced an agreement to
develop a high capacity floppy disk. Donald Matson, CEO of
Optical Data, said his firm hopes to offer a 500 Mbyte 5.25
flexible disk for the same price as one of today's floppy
disks. - InfoWorld 2 January
Software Disk Drive Upgrade.
The Kennect Technology division of The Engineering
Department of Campbell, California will release "Lumpy" (at
$295) at about the time this column appears. Lumpy is a
program that increases the density of Macintosh floppy
drives and allows Mac's to read MS-DOS disks. The program
will format standard Mac drives to 1.4 Mbytes. The same
firm also will offer Drive 2.4 (at $495) that will let Mac's
format disks at 2.4 Mbytes (primarily for hard drive
backup). - InfoWorld 9 January
Photo Quality Color Printing.
ICI Imagedata has demonstrated a dye-diffusion thermal
transfer printer that allows creation of output limited only
by the resolution of the output device. Traditional thermal
printers transfer pigments in true binary - all or nothing
(dot or not) - a method that provides poor color saturation
and limits shading control. ICI Imagedata's D2T2 (sounds
like a robot from Star Wars) achieves true color mixing and
offers a wide range of color saturations. At present, costs
are prohibitive compared to binary thermal transfer
printers, but they seem likely to fall to a competitive
range in the future. - InfoWorld 19 December
Laserjet Driver for Macintoshes.
Insight Development is offering a $149 printer driver and
cable called Mac Print that permits transparent printing on
a Hewlett-Packard Laserjet from any standard Macintosh
application via the printer dialog box. Mac Print supports
Quickdraw, text, and graphics at 75, 150, and 300 dots per
inch. Release 1.1, scheduled to ship in April, will offer
support for soft fonts, the Laserjet 2000, and the Deskjet.
A version for popular 9-pin and 24-pin dot matrix printers
is planned for August release. - InfoWorld 9 January
Not a Laptop.
IBM's portable Model 70, rumored for February 7, will weigh
20 pounds and won't run on battery power. It will have 3
slots, a gas plasma display, a full-sized keyboard, and
Micro Channel Architecture. It's designed to offer the same
functionality as a desktop with the advantage of being
readily moveable. - InfoWorld 16 January
New CPU's Under the Sun.
Sun Microsystems plans to upgrade its 386i to Intel's 80486
chip (the 486i?) and its 3/50 workstations from the Motorola
68020 to the 68030 later this year. The 486 machine will be
twice as fast as the 20 MHz 386i but will carry a price tag
that "closely resembles" the present $7,990. The new
workstation will run both Unix and MS-DOS applications (as
does the 386i). - PC Week 19 December
Topping the Sun Killer?
DEC insiders view its new line of workstations announced
last month as "Sun killers" (offering roughly twice the
performance and about 60% of the price). However, an even
better system is about to be introduced by Data General.
DG's Motorola 88000-based little wonder running at 14 MIPs
with 8 Mbytes of RAM and a 16-inch color monitor will be
offered for under $10,000. - InfoWorld 16 January
Taking a RISC.
With Sun, DEC, and DG announcing new high-end work stations
built around RISC processors, an update to IBM's RT line is
overdue. Intel plans to announce it's own RISC chip
(code-named the N10) in March. Intel reportedly will
promote the chip as a coprocessor for the 80486, but it can
be used as a stand alone processor, and IBM is expected to
announce an N10-based product as early as April.
- InfoWorld 16 January
Are We on the Right Bus?
Apple's new 68030-based Macintosh SE line doesn't support
either existing Mac SE or Mac II (or IIx) expansion cards.
In order to speed I/O processing, the new Macs use a 110-pin
bus architecture to be named the 030 Direct Connection. The
030 Direct Connection avoids the bus arbitration required by
the Mac II Nubus architecture. The result is improved I/O
performance (at the sacrifice of potential parallel
coprocessing). Meanwhile, Orchid Technologies will soon
deliver Mac Sprint II, a $350 Nubus hardware cache, for the
Mac II that speeds processing by up to 40%.
- PC Week 12 December and InfoWorld 19 December
3-Slot Mac.
Apple's "year of the CPU" continues at the Hanover Computer
Show in Germany with the introduction of a three-slot
Mac-030 replacement for the Mac II (Nubus architecture, but
slots approximately two-thirds as long as the Mac II). This
new, smaller footprint, Mac family will have both 16 MHz and
25 MHz versions, and a 25 MHz Macintosh IIx (6-slot) also is
expected. A 2 Mbyte (16 MHz) system with a 40 Mbyte hard
disk and 68882 math coprocessor (along with the standard
68030 CPU and internal Super Drive) could retail for less
than $6,000. The 73 pound floor standing 68030-based
Macintosh "tower," code-named Columbo (see last month's
column) is due in August.
- PC Week 26 December and InfoWorld 16 January
Big Blue's 80386 Operating System.
IBM has developed a prototype 32-bit '386 operating system
that can run several MS-DOS as well as OS/2 programs within
its windows. The software does not actually run MS-DOS
itself, rather it emulates MS-DOS. The operating system
also permits users to allocate variable amounts of memory to
individual windows. Both IBM and Microsoft have promised a
future release of OS/2 which has these features, but the
prototype appears to be a separate development and may never
be released as a commercial product. - PC Week 12 December
Microsoft Does Windows.
Microsoft is planning a new releases of both Windows 286 and
386 in August that will dramatically improve memory
management. Windows 3.0 (the current version is 2.1) will
use RAM above 640K (extended memory) more efficiently. The
new Windows 386 also will take advantage of the 80386 CPU.
- PC Week 26 December and InfoWorld 2 January
Managing Some Presentations.
Microsoft's Bill Gates says 1989 will be the year of OS/2
applications (at last). Microsoft expects to bring out "a
critical mass of applications" within the next six months.
There will be both OS/2 and DOS (Windows) versions (packaged
as separate products) of PC Word 5, Multiplan 4, and all of
Microsoft's character-based development tools.
- InfoWorld 16 January
1-2-3 Version 3.0.
Lotus is seriously considering releasing 1-2-3 Version 3.0
as a program which will not run on the 8088 and 8086 based
machines that make up nearly two-thirds of the present
installed base. Lotus is considering using a DOS extender
to avoid having to squeeze the new version into 640K, but
the DOS extender will rely on the protected mode of 80286
and 80386 processors. However, Lotus vice president Frank
Ingari asserts that Version 3.0 will run on the 8088 and
8086 PC's and that the DOS extender is simply a way of
providing greater support for "power users." Lotus has said
all along that they will continue to enhance version 2 for
the less powerful PC's.
- PC Week 12 December and InfoWorld 19 December
Exploring the DOS World.
Lotus Development's powerful DOS shell and hard disk
organizer, Magellan ($139), is scheduled to ship by the end
of this quarter. The program has a tree structure
directory, a macro language, point-and-shoot DOS commands,
and a "browse" feature that lets users "peek" inside files.
The software is designed as a time-saver for "power users."
- InfoWorld 2 January
Chipping In.
As many as seven manufacturers are poised to release 33 MHz
80386 computers once Intel officially announces the chip and
begins shipping production quantities. Prices haven't been
set, but expect 33 MHz systems to cost $1,000 to $2,000 more
than similar 25 Mhz pc's. IBM's 33 MHz model, scheduled for
mid-year introduction will feature the enhanced (MCA2) bus
(see last month's column) according to industry sources.
- PC Week 2 January
The Mac FAX.
Apple's $699 Fax Modem (originally announced in August 1987,
shipped last summer but withdrawn in October due to hardware
incompatibility with several popular fax machine brands) has
a new ROM and may be shipping by the time this column
appears (if some remaining software bugs are eradicated).
Meanwhile, Orchid Technologies should be beginning shipments
of its Macintosh fax (which also doubles as a data modem)
with Solutions International's Backfax software (capable of
faxing in background without requiring MultiFinder) for less
than $600. - InfoWorld 19 December
Compaq Graphics to Outperform IBM's 8514/A.
By the time this column appears Compaq should have announced
its Texas Instruments 34010 graphics chip board that both
emulates and outperforms IBM's top-of-the-line 8514/A
graphics adapter. The $1,500 board, scheduled for shipment
before all the snow melts, supports both 640 by 480 VGA and
800 by 600 Super VGA.
- PC Week 19 December and InfoWorld 16 January
SPSS Mac and OS/2.
SPSS Inc. has announced plans to offer a Macintosh version
of its multivariate statistical software by mid-1989.
Because the Macintosh is not bound by the 512K memory
limitation of MS-DOS, SPSS-Mac will have the "full
functionality of SPSS mainframe statistical products" and a
Macintosh user interface. SPSS also is working on an OS/2
Presentation Manager program which will have a similar user
interface. - InfoWorld 2 January
High Resolution Mac II Graphics.
Matrox Electronic Systems is developing a high speed
graphics board for the Macintosh with a resolution of 1,280
by 1,024 pixels. The Matrox NG-1281 graphics board is
primarily for computer-aided design applications and should
be available in the second quarter for under $5,000.
- InfoWorld 19 December
Handwritten Input.
California's Go Corporation is showing a prototype of a
digital "notebook" which resembles an Etch-a-Sketch pad with
a stylus. The product stores handwritten notes until it's
convenient to attach it a microcomputer for long term
storage. Commercial release is about a year away.
- PC Week 19 December
AppleWorks GS Tips and Tidbits.
Addison-Wesley is scheduled to publish "Using AppleWorks GS"
by Douglas L. Brown this month. The 450 page paperback
($19.95) contains tutorial, tips, and advanced guides to
making the most of this integrated software. Douglas Brown
was a member of the original documentation team for
AppleWorks GS and also authored "From Pascal to C: An
Introduction to the C Programming Language." - A+ February
The Latest (Late) Word (Perfect).
Microsoft Word 4.0 for the Macintosh has been delayed again
(until at least the end of February). When the program,
originally scheduled for October and then "before the end of
1988," finally does arrive, it will offer support for
creating tables, the ability to edit while working in
columns, and easier commands for positioning graphics. Word
Perfect 1.0.2 for the Macintosh was scheduled for "January
3, or later" (anyone seen it?). Along with interim releases
of the MS-DOS version, (to purge some bugs, add
functionality, and standardize operations between different
PC configurations), the new Macintosh version offers
optional backup files, enhanced graphic line editing, faster
line editing operation. - InfoWorld 2 and 9 January
I bought the latest computer;
it came fully loaded.
It was guaranteed for 90 days,
but in 30 was outmoded!
- The Wall Street Journal passed along by Big Red Computer's SCARLETT
Murph Sewall Vaporware? ---> [Gary Larson returns 1/1/90]
Prof. of Marketing Sewall@UConnVM.BITNET
Business School sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu [INTERNET]
U of Connecticut {psuvax1 or mcvax }!UCONNVM.BITNET!SEWALL [UUCP]
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(subject to change without notice; void where prohibited)
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