SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (05/28/88)
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the June 1988 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
Premature.
Even in a business where vaporware is a way of life, Tandy's
surprise late-April announcement of the 550 Mbyte THOR-CD
(Tandy High-Intensity Optical Recorder Compact Disk)
rewriteable laser disk technology has been widely
criticized. Tandy's announced release date for an audio
recorder version (at less than $500) of 18 to 24 months in
the future already is regarded as optimistic, and a CD ROM
version (at a considerably higher price) isn't expected
before 1991, at least. - PC Week 26 April and 17 May
Optical-Magneto for Fall 1988.
Maxtor, of San Jose, California, already has demonstrated
two hybrid magneto-optic large capacity data drives which it
plans to offer for sale this October. The 160 Mbyte "Fiji"
will retail for $1,995 and disks will be priced at $85. The
gigabyte "Tahiti" will have an access time nearly three
times quicker than the Fiji with a price tag of $5,995 and
$250 disks. Sharp will introduce a 380 Mbyte SCSI
magneto-optical drive early next year.
- PC Week 17 May and InfoWorld 16 May
Look Ma, No Coprocessor.
VM Technologies, a Tokyo-based joint venture of several
Japanese PC companies, is designing a "breakthrough" CPU
that will be able to emulate more than one competing 32-bit
CPU. VM claims to have pioneered a technique based on
programmable logic arrays (PMAs) which will allow processor
emulation microcode to be downloaded. The VM8600S will then
be able to execute instructions in a manner identical to the
emulated CPU. VM is expected to ship sample quantities of
the VM8600S by the end of this year. Manufacturers could
use the chip to develop a microcomputer capable of being
both a Macintosh and PS/2 (80386) clone. - PC Week 17 May
Clone in Mac Clothing.
Six different Asian computer manufacturers are said to have
developed Macintosh clones which are awaiting copyright
clearance for their ROMs. In the meantime, a few are making
MS-DOS PC clones available in the Mac look-alike cases.
- Random Access 14 May
PS/?
Only a handful of vendors showed PS/2 clones at last month's
Comdex; none is ready to begin shipping product. Among the
reasons: 1) legal threats and licensing delays - IBM is
requiring that potential PS/2 licensees pay royalties on
past sales of PC, XT, and AT clones, 2) sluggish demand -
although IBM has shipped two million PS/2's, a substantial
number of those machines remain in dealer inventories, and
3) enigmatic technology - Micro Channel architecture is more
complex than that in the original PC line, and IBM has
labeled numerous PS/2 components as "reserved for future
use," making it impossible to certify a clone as "fully
compatible." - PC Week 17 May
Spin Control.
Earlier this Spring, IBM's Entry Systems Division president
William Lowe announced to the press the firm's intent to
replace the present Model 30 with an 80286 machine this year
and an 80386 model by the end of next year (last March's
column). Last month, Lee Reiswig, director of IBM's Entry
Systems Division laboratory in Austin, Texas affirmed the
company's continuing commitment to 8086 machines. Reiswig
says IBM plans to "add functionality" rather than cut
prices. Major announcements are expected from Big Blue this
month including the PS/2 Model 70, a desktop 80386 machine
with at 20 MHz clock. - PC Week 10 May and InfoWorld 16 May
Latest IIgs+ Rumors.
San Francisco AppleFest in September may be the time when a
faster version (with 1 Mbyte of memory standard) of the IIgs
(already rumored to be in the hands of select developers)
will be announced. Perhaps not, as rumors persist that some
very senior Apple marketing managers want to deep-six the
whole idea and concentrate as much energy as possible on the
Macintosh line. The introduction of the Apple CD ROM
creates a problem for Apple's current ProDOS operating
system which is unable to address a device with more than 64
Mbytes (two 32 Mbyte volumes). The fix is said to be
ProDOS/16 HFS which will port the Macintosh Hierarchical
Filing System (HFS) to the IIgs. As a side benefit, the
IIgs will be able to read and write disks in the Macintosh
format. A mid summer intro for the new ProDOS/16 is
possible. - Pro-Carolina.CTS (BBS) 6 May
The Alternate Interface.
IBM has signed an agreement with Metaphor Computer Systems
for a joint development of a new software interface using
graphics and icons. The joint-venture might be a way to
avoid dependency on Microsoft's Windows technology which is
the subject of litigation by Apple.
- Random Access 30 April
Vaporpatch.
Ashton-Tate broke new vapor ground last month by issuing bug
fixes for dBase IV, a product that doesn't exist
(officially) yet. - InfoWorld 16 May
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
Although some industry rumor mongers tout June as "NeXt
month," when Steve Jobs oft' rumored workstation will debut,
others point out that software developers who had been
planning demonstrations at this month's PC Expo have been
told the machine will not be available. Odds are quoted at
9 to 5 that NeXt will not survive 1989 and 4 to 1 on 1990.
- PC Week 19 April and 3 May and InfoWorld 16 May
Sun Rise.
More than 100 software companies have announced Unix
versions of existing PC programs, including Lotus 1-2-3,
that will be able to run on Sun's new 386i workstations.
- PC Week 19 April
Color LCD.
Hatichi demonstrated a working color LCD display at Comdex
last month. A ten inch laptop version is expected to be
offered for sale within 18 months. No price estimates are
available at present. - PC Week 17 May
Video Capture.
Data Translation will offer an add-in card for the Mac II in
July that allows users to display live-motion color video
images. Called the Colorcapture, the 16-bit color card will
display 640 by 480 pixel resolution in 32,768 colors. The
product is intended for video production and advertising
applications and will be priced at $2,995.
- InfoWorld 9 May
AT Coprocessor for the Mac II.
Perfectek Corporation has announced an AT coprocessor board
for the Mac II for August shipment. The board will have a
12.5 MHz one wait-state CPU, 1 Mbyte of RAM, and IBM
compatible parallel and serial ports. The price is expected
to be about $1,500 (subject to fluctuating DRAM prices).
- InfoWorld 16 May
Multiprocessor Workstation.
In response to an Air Force RFP (Request For Proposals),
Zenith is developing a 15 MIP computer expected to use as
many as five 25 MHz Intel 80386 processors. The operating
system will be a custom version of Unix V. Commercial
versions of this workstation are expected to retail for
"considerably less than $20,000." - PC Week 17 May
Faster Macintosh II.
The good news is that a single DMD 29000 coprocessor add-in
board from Yarc Corporation will make a Mac II capable of 17
MIP performance and that four such boards could boost speed
to as much as 68 MIPS. The bad news is that the coprocessor
does not run standard Macintosh software. Yarc already is
working with developers to write graphics programs and other
processor intensive applications for the board which will be
shipped with 2.5 Mbytes of RAM and will retail for $4,295.
- InfoWorld 9 May
Power in the Next Decade.
Data General and Motorola have announced a joint development
pact to produce a 100 MIP computer using a version of the
new Motorola 88000 RISC chip series (see the April and May
columns) by 1991. - InfoWorld 25 April
New Laptop Technology.
In six to nine months NEC will be ready to market an 80286
laptop computer weighing only 6.5 pounds. Meanwhile, Sonic
Electric Energy of Atlanta has announced a revolutionary new
method of converting radio waves into electrical energy.
The company says they are developing a laptop computer that
will be powered by radio waves and won't need a battery.
- PC Week 17 May and Random Access 30 April
HP's Printer Control Language (PCL).
Hewlett-Packard marketing manager Bill McGlynn is quoted as
saying that the PCL language used in the firm's popular
Laserjets will not be upgraded to compete with Adobe's
Postscript. The next version of PCL, Level 5, is scheduled
for shipment this Fall. Level 5 will mimic some of the
popular features of Postscript but will fall far short of
Postscript's high-end functionality. - InfoWorld 25 April
Laser Typesetter.
Lasermaster Corporation plans to begin shipping a 2,400 dots
per inch laser typesetter within the next two months. The
LM-Typemaster will incorporate drivers for Ventura Publisher
and Aldus Pagemaker, making it possible to produce
high-quality, camera-ready output with PC desktop publishing
software. The printer will have 4 Mbytes of RAM upgradable
to 8 Mbytes and will cost approximately $30,000.
- InfoWorld 25 April
Microsoft's Macware Plans.
Microsoft has plans to enhance the firm's entire line of
Macintosh software during the next 12 months. Word 4.0 will
include full WYSIWYG, enabling on-screen document editing.
A revision of Excel will be along by the end of the Summer
with 48 new worksheet functions and 29 new macros. A later
version of Excel will support 3-D charts and up to 4 Mbytes
of memory. - InfoWorld 18 April
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ARPA: sewall%uconnvm.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu Murphy A. Sewall
BITNET: SEWALL@UCONNVM School of Business Admin.
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