jhs@ccieng5.UUCP (John Sentiff) (01/17/84)
[]
A friend of mine has just finished a product familiarization
course for a local computer store that carries APPLE computers (He is
a salesman there). He has told me that APPLE will announce the MacIntosh
computer on Tuesday, January 24, 1984. He has already placed an order
for himself but he would not reveal much about the MAC (Big Brother IS
watching, you know :-)).
He did say it was a portable, 68000-based system with 128K of
memory. It is set up to accomodate 256K DRAMs when they become available
and should cost about $3K when configured with a printer and interface.
He then told me that I probably would NOT want one because of another
announcement due out around the same time. I had told him earlier that
I thought a $7,000 LISA was priced about twice what it was worth. His
parting words to me were that after the new announcement I would be
priced about what I thought it was worth.
Dare we believe ... a $3500 LISA.
Has anyone heard anything concerning either of these?
John Sentiff
{seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccieng5!jhs}tbm@hocda.UUCP (01/20/84)
The EE TIMES has a fairly descriptive article on the Macintosh in the 1/16 issue. Also the WSJ for 1/19 has an add by Apple saying it is coming. Tom Merrick AT&T Bell Laboratorie,.
preece@uicsl.UUCP (01/24/84)
#R:ccieng5:-23200:uicsl:7000043:000:959 uicsl!preece Jan 23 08:59:00 1984 Apple is spending A LOT on promoting the Mac (NY Times says about $25,000,000). Local dealers are participating, too. Our local Apple dealer has been running ads for several days telling the world that something new is coming, "make appointments now to see it after Tuesday." That TV commercial reportedly cost $400,000 and is being used only 18 times in 11 markets. It is a remarkable commercial. The machine looks interesting. The small size is nice for home use (presumably Mac is to play the same domestic version of Lisa role that PCjr does with the PC). The pre-release to software sources should help them get a foothold. It's nice to see a real alternative to the PC 'standard.' It's a little pricey for the true home market, though, and the lack of color seems odd in a home-oriented machine. My principcal question is, can the Earth's crust support the weight of yet another computer magazine market? scott preece ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece
kds@intelca.UUCP (01/25/84)
there was a front page article in last Sunday's San Jose Mecury News
describing what they thought the MacIntosh was...in a nutshell, a 68K
with 128K memory, one integrated disk drive (additional drives must
be external) for $2500, add two software packages and a printer to
get to $3000. Apparently, the Lisa people have had to modify their
systems to run Mac software, but the result is the software that
runs on a Mac will run on a Lisa, but not vice versa (I hope I got
the direction right...). I think the disk for the beastie is a
3 1/2" Teac (if my memory serves me right). For more info, you might
try to dig up a copy of the article (well, ok, the Mercury is not
one of your major national newspapers, but I am too lazy to and most
would not appreciate my entering the text of the article).
--
Ken Shoemaker, Intel, Santa Clara, Ca.
{pur-ee,hplabs,ucbvax!amd70,ogcvax!omsvax}!intelca!kdsphipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (01/31/84)
The Mac looks like a technically virtuous machine in many ways.
What I personally find astounding is its total lack of expansion slots.
I'm convinced that the ability to expand the capabilities of a machine
without having to go to the original vendor is one of the major reasons
for the popularity of the IBM, Apple ][, and S-100 micros.
[this is a personal opinion that may or may not reflect the point of view
of Fortune Systems]
Having taught IBM that important lesson, I'm astonished that Apple
abandoned that principle for the Macintosh, a machine which I believe
to be intended for head-on competition with the IBM PC (not PCjr).
I'm not a hardware person, but how much can a handful of expansion slots cost ?
The lack of color graphics in a non-business-oriented machine by Apple
also comes as a surprise, as has been observed elsewhere.
Is the presently available model of the Macintosh really the machine
that Apple intends to use to keep IBM PCs away from home and university ?
-- Clay Phipps
--
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