[net.micro] Who's seen a MacIntosh?

matt%ucla-locus@sri-unix.UUCP (01/19/84)

From:            Matthew J. Weinstein <matt@ucla-locus>

I may have missed it, but has someone posted a description of the
MacIntosh?  If not, has someone seen one?

Please reply to me directly, (I am not on the Apple list).  I will
summarize and post.

						Thanks,
						- Matt

Thomka.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA (01/19/84)

This week's issue of Electronic Engineering Times has a small (1.5"x2")
picture, on the front page, which is supposed to be of the Mac.  Also
the same rag has a large (~9" x 9") artist cutaway drawing of the "Mac".
Showing that it has a relatively small (~10" x 10") base and stands
approximately 14 inches tall.  There is a detached keyboard, using a
telephone style cable connection to the front of the case.

The back of the unit shows several connections.  One for a printer
(probably a parallel interface); another for an external disk drive
(maybe you can connect to more than one (?) and more than one type (?))
of drive; another, an RS-232; and finally an RS-422 (I think that that
is a *very* high speed serial interface).  Interestingly, there is also
a "polyphonic sound port" connection also.  (poly = more than one,
phonic = sound, so more than one sound?.  Note that two sound capability
would typically be called "stereo", so I read polyphonic as being at
least three sound channels).

There is one (Sony) 3.5" disk drive recessed into the front of the
cabinet of the main unit.  Since the main unit is so tall, with the
screen placed in the top half of it, and the approx. 80 sq. in
motherboard is in the bottom of the air cooled column, there appears to
be quite a lot of room between those two items.  More than enough for
that smallish Sony disk drive . . . perhaps, later, there will be a hard
drive to fill the void?

All in all, my first impression of this thing is that I thought it was
about one of the ugliest, production computers I have ever seen.  I sure
hope that the Mac has some truly fantastic software and firmware to make
up for the lack of looks and color capability!

	Chuck

porter@inuxd.UUCP (01/20/84)

The January 16th issue of the EE Times had
a short article and pictures on the Mac.

Jeff Porter  (inuxd!porter)
AT&T Consumer Products
Indianapolis

leavitt.guest@PARC-MAXC.ARPA (01/21/84)

I saw the sales brochure that will be on dealer floors on Tuesday or Wednesday.
To add to what Chuck said, the screen is about 512 x 350 (or so) bit mapped.
The SONY drive is 400kb, and you don't need another controller to 
add the second one.  It comes with a
one-button mouse, of course.  Standard
software will be MACwrite (like Lisa's)
MACproject (ditto), and MACdraw (or something).  Later there will be a 
Multiplan with Mouse/Window enhance-
ments.  Now available at extra cost is
MACterminal.  The basic package will be
$2,500; an Imagewriter printer will be another $500.  I 
don't believe there are any parallel ports.  No language support, except for
a Microsoft BASIC with Mice/Window support.  They will be on dealer shelves the
day of the announcement.

Mike

emjej@uokvax.UUCP (01/28/84)

#R:sri-arpa:-1570800:uokvax:3400034:000:259
uokvax!emjej    Jan 26 08:46:00 1984

Re Mackintosh software: considering *Newsweek*s suits against people
who tried to name magazines *Gaysweek* and *Newswreck*, I wonder if
MacDonalds will try to claim rights to product names matching the
regular expression Mac[A-Za-z]*? :->

						James Jones