Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (05/04/91)
Info-IBMPC Digest Sat, 4 May 91 Volume 91 : Issue 110
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
Today's Topics:
Murph's VAPORWARE Column for May 1991
Send Replies or notes for publication to:
<INFO-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Send requests of an administrative nature (addition to, deletion from
the distribution list, et al) to:
<INFO-IBMPC-REQUEST@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Archives of past issues of the Info-IBMPC Digest are available by FTP
only from WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL in directory PD2:<ARCHIVES.IBMPC>.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1991 20:26:12 EST
From: Murph Sewall <Sewall%UCONNVM.BITNET@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: Murph's VAPORWARE Column for May 1991
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the May 1991 APPLE PULP
H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
P.O. Box 18027
East Hartford, CT 06118
Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 569-8739
Permission granted to redistribute with the above citation
These are rumors folks;
we reserve the right to be dead wrong!
Proposed Slogan for Apple's May developers' conference "System 7 --
this time we mean it!" - PC Week 1 April
This is the 7th anniversary issue of the Vaporware column.
May '84 - the earliest Apple IIx (became the IIgs) rumors.
May '85 - Jazz for the Macintosh is late (and disappointing when it
finally did arrive) and IBM PC-2 rumors prove unfounded (or Big Blue
got "cold feet?").
May '86 - Rumors of a cartridge that makes an Atari ST Macintosh
compatible (if you can find an Apple dealer who'll sell genuine ROMs)
and announcement of the Migent "Pocket Modem" (both products now
exist).
May '87 - Details about Andy Hertzfeld's "Juggler" (became MultiFinder)
for the Macintosh and the introduction of the nicely designed, but too
late, National Semiconductor 10 MIP, 32-bit 32532 processor (twice as
fast as anything from Intel or Motorola).
May '88 - More details about the Intel 80486 (now known as the i486),
Motorola announces a 33 MHz 68020 (never made it into a Macintosh), and
MIPS Computer Systems announces the M3000 family said to be 20 times as
fast as a VAX 11/780.
May '89 - The American National Standards Institute X3T9.2 Committee,
commonly known as the SCSI Committee is nearing completion of a new
SCSI-2 standard. Formal adoption of the new 32-bit data path (the
existing SCSI path is 8-bit) is expected in 1990 or 1991.
May '90 - Although Apple officials continue to describe Macintosh
System 7.0 in public as "on schedule," private sources close to Apple
say the project is falling two or three days behind schedule each week
(as we now know, introduction is ten months behind last year's
schedule).
$1,000 Notebooks.
May is Spring Comdex month, and this Spring hardware makers will
introduce a spate of new, book sized computers leading to massive price
competition. Zenith, which has been losing share in the laptop market
since its purchase by Groupe Bull over a year ago, will be among the
first to offer an under six pound notebook machine based on the new
Intel 386SL (lower power consumption) CPU. Zenith and others will also
introduce Compaq Lite "me too" (20 MHz 386SX) notebooks with aggressive
price tags (list prices under $3,000). Manufacturing shortages of hard
drives and displays will continue to limit supply in the short run, but
deliveries should begin in earnest by the end of the summer when
analysts expect prices for 80286 notebooks to fall to about $1,000. -
PC Week 15 April
68040 Workstations.
Hewlett Packard is expected to release a pair of (relatively) low cost
Motorola 68040 workstations next month. Both will have 8 Mbytes of RAM
and 200 Mbyte (expandable to 400 Mbyte) hard drives. The desktop
version will list for about $6,000 and the tower will be priced at
$8,000. Apple's 25 MHz 68040 Macintoshes will arrive in August. The
$15,000 MacTower (IItx?) will be capable of supporting as many as 13
SCSI devices (five internal). The desktop version will match the
current Mac IIci in size and will carry an "under $10,000" price tag.
Both new Macs will have built in Ethernet and 20 MHz NuBus slots (which
can accommodate current NuBus cards). Parallel Integrated Circuits
(PIC) chips will serve as additional processors for tasks such as
AppleTalk calls, disk I/O, and display refresh (this technology is
already used in the Mac IIfx). Details such as the standard amount of
RAM remain to be decided; both models will be expandable to 64 Mbytes
(using 16-megabit DRAMS). - InfoWorld 18 March and PC Week 15 April
ACE in the Hole.
Vaporware champion Microsoft, along with Compaq, Zenith, DEC, and
seventeen others have announced the Advanced Computing Environment
(ACE) initiative for RISC workstations based on the forthcoming R4000
CPU (see last March's column) from MIPS Computing Systems. The
objective of the ambitious plan is to permit today's PC software to run
on tomorrow's RISC hardware. The operating system will be a choice of
Microsoft's forthcoming "portable" OS/2 3.0 scheduled for (would you
believe) late 1992 (read early 1993, maybe) or an Open Software
Foundation-compatible version of UNIX (Open Desktop) under development
by The Santa Cruz Operation (second quarter 1992?). The group's
Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) specification around which future systems
will be built won't be completed for at least another two months or so.
As presently envisioned, data storage formats will be the same across
different hardware platforms but users will not be able to directly
share media between OS/2 and UNIX. In addition, there will be two
optional bus I/O architectures, EISA and DEC's turbochannel. Skeptics
don't expect to see actual hardware for at least two more years. - PC
Week 8 and 15 April and InfoWorld 15 April
More i486 Versions
IBM, Compaq, AST, Everex and most others should announce 50 MHz i486
PCs before next fall's Comdex. Base prices for these systems probably
will start at around $10,000. Vendors may put new life into current 25
MHz i486 machines by offering Intel's planned 50 MHz internal, 25 MHz
external version of the processor (which can yield improved performance
by simply replacing the existing 25 MHz CPU). Intel also showed a 100
MHz prototype i486 at the recent International Solid State Circuits
Conference. - PC Week 1 April, TidBITS 8 April, and InfoWorld 15 April
Mac Lite.
Just a bit from an Apple Student Rep: one of the new, aggressively
priced Mac notebooks (expected by November) will have a 68030 CPU and
ship to educational markets for under $2,000 for the base model. [the
low price and 68030 together is more than other sources are willing to
admit to - Ed] - Found in my electronic mailbox
Big Blue Goes Hollywood.
IBM has announced a new presentation graphics program that seeks to
merge the structured outlining of Aldus Persuasion and with the
flexibility of Microsoft PowerPoint. Beta testers have expressed great
delight with the sophisticated graphics, font handling features, and
user friendly interface of the $495 program named Hollywood which is
slated for shipment on May 32. - InfoWorld and PC Week 15 April
Full Motion Compression.
Apple plans to release "Road Pizza" (the current codename), a full
motion video and audio compression system, as early as August. Apple
intends to market two systems, one to create and manipulate video files
and a second for users who only need playback. - InfoWorld 8 April
Apple IIgs to Inherit Significant Mac-like Features.
The new, nearly twice as fast Apple IIgs System Disk 6.0 is scheduled
for release at KansasFest this summer (mid-July). In addition to Andy
Nicholas's revamped GS Finder, major new features will include: Mac and
IBM FSTs (permitting reading and writing of disks in those formats),
support for the SuperDrive (1.44 Mbyte disks - see last month's
column), an Animation Toolkit, midiSynth Tool, and interapplication
communication (similar to Windows 3 and Mac System 7). - found in my
electronic mailbox
Apple II(gs) Forever (but by Mailorder).
Last month's Apple II's for sale at Sears rumor was off the mark (Sears
is busy trying to peddle PS/1s). J.C. Penney's wouldn't even discuss a
deal with Apple. However, Apple hasn't given up; they're said to be
dickering with Quality Computers, Applied Engineering (some insiders
say AE is a long shot), and Soft Warehouse. - found in my electronic
mailbox
Paradox for Windows.
Borland International plans to separate its Paradox database engine
from its user interface so that Quattro Pro and its ObjectVision
programming tool can work with Paradox. The new structure will be put
in place when Paradox for Windows is released. Borland previewed an
alpha version of its Windows product at last month's International
Paradox User Conference. Unlike most other Windows programs, Paradox
for Windows will operate as fast or even faster than the current DOS
software according to CEO Philippe Kahn. - InfoWorld and PC Week 15
April
Really Mac-like Windowsware.
After some vacillating over strategy, Claris finally is working on
applications for Windows. It won't be long before there are Windows
versions of MacDraw Pro, FileMaker Pro, and (still under development
for the Macintosh) MacWrite Pro, along with the as-yet-unnamed
spreadsheet using technology acquired from Wingz. - TidBITS 8 April
Finally! Color HyperCard.
HyperCard 2.1 for the Macintosh may be ready about the same time as
System 7, or shortly thereafter. This latest version of the popular
software is said to contain HyperTalk as well as color. - found in my
electronic mailbox
If We Can't Sell it Let's Give it Away.
IBM is considering a plan to bundle the forthcoming OS/2 2.0 with every
386 and 486 PS/2 (the entire PS/2 line once the current model 30 is
retired; even the PS/1 will offer 386SX processors by year's end). - PC
Week 1 April
Who Needs a DOS Box?
An advanced version of Insignia Solutions' SoftPC which will supply
full VGA emulation is slated to be released for the NeXT workstation in
the fourth quarter. A Macintosh System 7 version is anticipated at
about the same time. SoftPC will be able to run the entire Microsoft
Windows 3.0 environment in a 640 by 480 pixel window of the 1,120 by
832 pixel NeXTStation display. Although the new version will be more
efficient than the old, it will slow a workstation by about 60 percent
(or roughly 20 MHz 80386 speed on a 25 MHz 68040 CPU). - InfoWorld 18
March
Mac vs Nintendo?
Someone may have sold InfoWorld's rumor monger a late April Fool's gag
when they slipped him the notion that Apple and Sony will be offering a
Macintosh OS version 6 compatible home video game this Christmas.
According to Cringeley, the game module with one Mbyte of RAM, Mac ROM,
a 3.5 inch disk drive, and NTSC video output will be offered for less
than $500 (keyboard and RGB monitor for word processing and
spreadsheets will cost extra). - InfoWorld 15 April
New Lotus 1-2-3s.
Lotus Development plans to ship upgrade versions 2.3 and 3.1+ next
month along with 1-2-3 for Windows. The new versions offer a number of
enhancements including the capability to add-in Lotus Magellan viewer
technology. Version 3.1+ will add the solver feature of 1-2-3/G for
OS/2 but not the 1-2-3/G user interface. - PC Week 1 April
Visual Basic.
Microsoft will release Basic for Windows, codenamed Thunder, at the
Windows World Conference in Atlanta this month. Microsoft is
considering marketing the product as Visual Basic. Beta testers say
they can create Windows programs in a half hour without writing any
code. - InfoWorld 8 April
dBase for Windows.
Ashton-Tate has been showing a prototype of dBase IV for Windows with
icons, scroll bars, and resizable input and output windows. The
Windows program has not entered beta but version 1.2 of the regular DOS
version is in beta and should be released soon (have we heard that
somewhere before?) - PC Week 1 April
WP 6.0
WordPerfect 6.0 with a redesigned, more attractive, user interface is
planned for the second quarter of next year. The interface, dubbed
Text User Interface (TUI), is designed to give users easier access to
WordPerfect functions through dialog boxes. - PC Week 18 March
Flash Frozen.
MIT and IBM are rumored to be working on a chip that turns on and off a
single electron, which is far more efficient than today's technology.
So far, the commercial potential is limited by the required operating
temperature - less than 10 degrees Kelvin (brrrr). - TidBITS 8 April
Random Access Tape.
In the next month or two JVC will begin shipping the first digital
audio tape (DAT) drives with random write compatibility (a feature not
available in digital data storage, or DDS, see the February 1990 and
last December's columns). The random access mode makes the tape like a
(very) slow hard drive. The penalty for this feature is somewhat less
capacity (just under one gigabyte instead of the 1.36 gigabytes per
tape available for the DDS format). - PC Week 15 April
Colors Beyond Count.
MIPS and National Semiconductor are both working on 64-bit RISC graphic
chips. A 64-bit chip could provide for 280 trillion colors. It may be
some time before anyone offers a monitor with enough pixels to display
all those shades. - TidBITS 8 April
Worm Holes.
Evidently Windows 3.0 has lots of unused spaces (reserved for future
development) in its code which could be used to hide a virus. Current
virus protection software, even programs designed specifically for
Windows, offer no protection against a Windows specific virus (so far,
none of those nasties has been detected). - InfoWorld 1 April
Best April Fool's Joke.
Rumor has it that the top 2 inches of Apple's upcoming 25 MHz 68040 Mac
Tower (see above) actually will be a pop-out 7 pound portable Mac. The
notebook sized unit will contain the CPU for the Tower and one of four
memory banks. The two sections of the computer can share the processor
and RAM due to the technology that Apple purchased from Outbound. Also
thanks to Outbound, when the portable is not attached, the Tower can
still function as an AppleShare server, though it's useless for desktop
work. Someone sent this one to Cringely and he published it straight
in his 8 April InfoWorld column (ah, the rites of Spring). - TidBITS 1
April
-----------------
TidBITS from Penguin Things Software is a weekly Macintosh HyperCard
stack edited by Adam C. Engst and Tonya Byard. TidBITS is currently
available for anonymous FTP at sumex-aim.stanford.edu,
rascal.ics.utexas.edu, America Online, CompuServe, Genie, and from the
Memory Alpha BBS in Ithaca, NY at 607-257-5822.
/s Murph <Sewall%UConnVM.BITNET@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> BITNET/Internet
...!uunet!uconnvm.bitnet!sewall UUCP
+ Standard disclaimer applies ("The opinions expressed are my own" etc.)
------------------------------
End of Info-IBMPC Digest V91 #110
*********************************
-------