David@sri-unix (07/29/82)
I read an interview of Steve Wozniak(sp?) co founder of Apple in the latest issue of creative computing. In it he describes his woes of being an undergraduate at Berkeley (he has to take clases under a false name) and he talks a little about the Apple IV. The Apple IV is 68000 based (as was reported many times earlier) . He said that they had done some things to make in faster in transfering data through its 16 bit data bus (I'm not sure I understood). He said that it is in its final stages but that the last 10% might take any amount of time. Evidently they are mostly finishing up on software (like windowing, word processing, etc.) It looks like Apple is going to generate a lot of in house software and not rely on outsides vendors as it did with the Apple II. The only hardware not finished is the high density drives which he said they've had problems with for the past two years. (Is Apple really making its own drives?) The Apple IV looks very exciting and if they can keep it at a reasonable price (under 6K) it should do very well. I heard from someone that IBM came out with a 68000 box a couple of weeks ago called something like ADVENTURE. I haven't read anything about it and so really doubt it but the source sounded very sure about it. Replys to info-micro, not to me. Let's generate more rumors on this list.
grunwald (07/30/82)
#R:sri-unix:-230800:uiucdcs:10400008:000:669
uiucdcs!grunwald Jul 30 03:51:00 1982
>From what I have heard (very little) the IBM thing is put out by IBM
Instruments, a wierd little division of IBM which doesn't need to wait
years to get thing out on the market because of a buisness office. It
features a 68000 and a VERSAbus backplane, which is nice since the
VERSAbuss was designed for the 68000 and it allows the sucker to whip
at top speed. However, if my experence with a Motorola EXORmacs system
is of any use, the VERSAbus boards cost mucho $$ -- over half the board
(which is about 1.50 times the size of a multi-buss board) is crammed
with buss drivers. The drivers are Schotky (sp?) TTL, which is what makes it
all fast enough for the 68000.