russ@Alliant.COM (Russell McFatter) (02/02/90)
A while ago I asked for a few suggestions regarding a particular
Mac recommendation. The replies turned out to be useful and
interesting. To summarize:
1: Everyone who answered was in favor of the Mac IIci. The
speed, and "new" architecture were given as reasons.
2: Disk drives: Internal drives should be small (to avoid power
and heat problems); External drives should be large (lower
cost per megabyte). Starting with one and adding the other if
"necessary" is a good idea.
3: Monitors / 24 bit color cards: more varied suggestions here than
anywhere else. Important to watch the refresh rate (RasterOps 224
has a refresh of 60Hz, as do most others that I've seen. Radius and
SuperMac both support higher rates.)
New questions:
These are a little more specific.
1: One mailorder place I talked to suggested the SuperMac Spectrum/24
Series III monitor, thanks to a special price and a built-in accelerator.
The cost for the board is $3049, and $2999 for the monitor ($6048 total),
which is about $370 more than the RasterOps 224. The Series III SuperMac
monitor has a 75Hz refresh, which just might be worth the difference, but
I don't have the details on the newer SuperMac. (It's on the way,
supposedly). Anybody have any experience with this? Would I give up
the future NTSC capability that the RasterOps board provides?
2: Keyboards: One suggestion for the Key Tronics MacPro instead of the
Apple Extended keyboard. About the same price, but the Key Tronics
comes with some free software. (Is "Key Tronics" (as published) =
"Keytronics"? I would imagine so. I've been happy with Keytronics'
IBM keyboards, but is the "Apple" look/feel something not worth giving
up?) Anyone out there have experience with the MacPro?
3: Tape drives: (for future reference) are the 60MB and 150MB Teac drives
generally compatible (i.e. can the 150MB drive read/write 60MB tapes)?
--- Russ McFatter [russ@alliant.Alliant.COM]
Std. disclaimer.