rock@warp.Eng.Sun.COM (Bill Petro - SunOS Marketing) (05/10/90)
San Francisco MACWORLD Expo 1990
review and commentary by Bill Petro
CONTENTS:
Overview
What's Hot
CD-ROM
Keyboards, etc.
Frame
Outbound Portable
What's Not
No Shows
What's Bogus
Game Cards
Badges
Kodak's Demo Dollies
Apple Announcements
A/UX 2.0
Mac IIfx
Product Reviews
MacroMind
Studio/32
Stratavision
Magneto-optical Disks
ALSoft
Norton Utilities
Now Software
On Location
StuffIt Deluxe
DiskDoubler
WordMaker
WORD Processors
Overview
If a show can be accurately measured by how much literature I brought home,
then this year's show was twice last years show. I brought home over 23
pounds of literature, compared to last year's 10 pounds. Each year the
MACWORLD Expo gets bigger and better, but mostly bigger. Or at least
heavier. This year there were 60,000 visitors expected at the 3 day April
show for the two locations in San Francisco. I spent two full days
visiting just the exhibits. The bigger displays were in Moscone Center,
the area where exhibitors who have appeared numerous times in the past get
first shot. The rest were in Brooks Hall.
The show continues to mature, or at least grows up. Almost entirely gone
are the days of rampant "gee-whiz" booths, where every booth has a new and
inventive product for the Mac junkie. Mac users are not so much customers
as they are enthusiasts or religious converts. Some call it a cult, but in
any case they love their Mac and want new toys, programs, and utilities for
it. This year saw an increasing number of big ticket items with price tags
up at the nose-bleed altitude. You saw fewer Fans and more Suits. The
booths are manned (or womanned) by people with decreasing knowledge of the
product. There are a few notable exceptions like ALSoft or Symmantic,
where you'll find company execs or engineers, but usually you'll find a Mr.
or Miss America who look good but you can easily exhaust their knowledge of
the product. TOPS fortunately got rid of the embarrassing song-and-dance
duo. And WingZ did without the Leonard Nimoy video.
What's Hot
CD-ROM
It is once again the "Year of the CD-ROM", but this year, we actually see
some interesting products. Together with Lotus, Apple will be involved in
a "desktop information" campaign.
Lotus Marketplace
This product has a HyperCard-based navigation tool with databases of names,
addresses and marketing information for 7.5 million businesses and 80
million households. This would most likely be used for direct marketing
and prospecting, marketing research and analysis, etc. It will also
include demonstration versions of Chang Labs' CAT, Synex's MacEnvelope Plus
and Odesta's GeoQuery. There will be a total of 10-20 megabytes of
documentation, demos, and on-line help.
It is not due until the third quarter, when it will be available in both a
Business and Household version priced at $695 each. The initial purchase
gives the customer 5,000 names, and additional 5,000-name increments are
available by getting authorization codes by phone from Lotus at $400. A
subscription service providing four quarterly updates to any individual
disc will be available for $150 per disc. Additional regional household
data discs will be available at $100 per disc.
Microsoft Office
This bundling of 4 Microsoft applications contains some of the most
popularly used programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Mail. The CD version
is $100 more than the floppy version. The reason why is because the CD
offers on-line documentation and megabytes of other stuff. I was impressed
by the documentation, what I was unimpressed with is that both times I
asked what the megabytes of other stuff it contained, the people in the
booth didn't know. I was asked to come back later. When I did, that
person didn't know either. Is this supposed to be their flagship product?
Also, from what I could tell, neither this disc, nor the Lotus MarketPlace
disc are produced in ISO 9660, or what is sometimes called High Sierra
format. They use the proprietary Macintosh HFS file format. This is not a
problem, if you are only going to offer your product on the Macintosh.
Apple's Technical Information Source
For $400, this CD provides software utilities and tools as well as a
technical library of reference materials and articles. It covers the Apple
II and Macintosh lines, Apple peripherals, and 3rd party applications. At
a cost of $95 each, Apple will release updates at least twice a year, with
the first one scheduled for July.
It includes system software for the Macintosh 128K all the way up to System
6.0.4, the penultimate release. System 6.0.5 did not make the freeze date
2 months ago. The CD also includes networking diagnostic software, Apple
utilities such as Virus Rx and ResEdit, explanations of about 50 of the
most encountered error codes, a reference stack containing overviews of
products and technology, and answers to more than 4,000 support questions.
Corporate Software
As a value-added reseller (VAR) that focuses on direct sales to business
sites, Corporate Software introduced a technical-support database that it
will offer free to its customers. Interactive Tech Notes for the Macintosh
runs under Claris' FileMaker II database and contains 5,000 technical tips
for Macs, IBM PS/2s, PCs and compatibles.
BMUG PD ROM
Berkeley Macintosh User Group, one of the most respected user groups in the
nation, and perhaps the best in the West, offers their complete software
collection on a compact disc. It holds 500 megabytes of publicly
distributable software, articles from their excellent Newsletter and other
special material. It has a custom HyperCard stack for browsing the
collection.
New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia
At $395, you can get the 21 volume encyclopedia on CD-ROM. It offers
Boolean searches and two- and three-word search combinations, as well as
allowing the user to set the specifications to narrow or broaden searches
to articles or paragraphs. It provides a notebook to store data while
conducting research, bookmarks to save and retrieve references, and
hypertext links.
Talking Dictionary
For $199.95, you can get the Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary on
CD-ROM that will talk to you. The folks at Merriam-Webster got a
professional radio announcer to pronounce over 160,000 entries on this 600
megabyte disc. It also includes all the graphics that you'd expect in the
printed version and choice of font size.
NEC's Intersect CDR-35
This new CD-ROM reader is only 2.2 pounds and will connect to Macs, IBM PC
XT/ATs, PS/2s, MultiSpeeds, UltraLites, and ProSpeed computers. And with
an optional battery pack, it becomes portable so that you can listen to
your favorite audio CDs.
Virtual Valerie
This CD is new from Mike Saenz, one of the first Macintosh comic book
artist. Michael used to do work for First Comics, and "Shatter" was one of
the first comic books produced on a Macintosh. He is also responsible for
MacPlaymate, a program that got the MACWORLD Expo a visit from the police a
few years ago because of the graphic sexuality portrayed. Now comes
Virtual Valerie, a full-color, full-screen program with sampled sounds and
music... all on a CD-ROM. The animation was done in MacroMind Director and
is slow. The navigation is equally slow. While the art is up to Saenz'
usual standards, I did not stay for any of the more prurient events.
Keyboards, Rats, Bells, and Whistles
This year saw a variety of new input devices, not just keyboards and
rodents, but some non-traditional beasts.
Switchboard
A new entrant in the Macintosh keyboard arena is the Switchboard from
Datadesk. Its unique modular design allows the user to completely
rearrange the layout of the keyboard with a variety of modules. It is
available with a trackball, a vertical set of 15 function keys, a cursor
cluster, a 24-key module of programmable macro keys which would be
particularly nice for 3270 emulation, and a dvorak keyboard. Other modules
are under consideration. It also is compatible with IBM computers. I
tried the feel of the keyboard and it is different than the standard Apple
keyboard, but what isn't. It had an audible click, which I learned could
not be turned off.
MacPro
From Key Tronic comes a Mac keyboard that boasts of exceeding the features
of both Apple's keyboards and the Mac-101 from Datadesk. MacPro combines
things that each of the above have - like separate cursor pad; control,
option, and command keys on both sides of the space bar, a large L-shaped
return key, etc. But it also comes with Tempo II macro software, a 3-year
warranty, unlimited toll-free tech support and adjustable key feel. It
could be a contender.
Little Mouse
Mouse Systems, a leader in mouse products, featured an optical mouse. That
is, the mouse sits not on the desk, but a precision MousePad with an
optical grid. At 300 cpi (counts per inch) it offers 50% more resolution
and control than other Apple alternatives. It is 22% smaller in size and
38% lighter than the standard Apple mouse. It has no moving parts and a
lifetime warranty.
Trackball/ADB
Also from Mouse Systems is an opto-mechanical trackball. It is only 200
cpi, but with two buttons offers a "cursor lock" for fast scrolling and
"hands-free" trackball manipulation.
The Cordless Mouse
Using an infrared beam, this mouse replacement glides on four special
Teflon pads. It can be held about 5 to 6 feet away at a 45% angle to the
receiver. It runs for about 4 to 6 weeks on two AAA batteries.
The UnMouse
From MicroTouch comes a compact touch-sensitive glass tablet that uses your
finger as you slide it across a glass grid. To make a selection just
press. You can slip templates under the glass to use as a function keypad
for rapid menu and command selection. You could also put an image under
the glass and trace it with your finger. And by picking up your finger,
you can instantly go to the other side of the 1,000 by 1,000 point grid. I
found it a little difficult to get used to, and accidentally changed the
name on a folder.
The Mac'n Touch Screen
Also from MicroTouch is a touch screen that would be ideal for public
kiosks or training purposes. It is available for the Mac SE and above.
MacSema
As far as whistles go, Ringo from MacSema allows you to wake up your Mac II
with a phone call from a remote location. You can startup you Mac and
launch an application via a phoneline plugged into Ringo and a cable
attached to an ADB (keyboard or mouse) port on the Mac II.
Smart Strip from the same company is a microprocessor controlled power
outlet strip that provides the same functionality as Ringo, but more. It
will not only startup the Mac (Plus or SE) and run an application, but it
will also shutdown after a programmed time period or an end of
communication from a telecommunications program. You can also sequence the
power to your Mac and peripherals.
The Voice Navigator
This box allows voice recognition of commands on your Macintosh. With
spoken commands you can execute any function normally performed with your
keyboard or mouse. And it can work with any application, responding to
dialog boxes, clicking on HyperCard buttons, or even entering data. Using
Language Maker you can create new voice commands and "train" the Navigator
to recognize your voice. You can even adjust the sensitivity by making it
distinguish between similar sounding commands, or by making it more
forgiving if you have a head cold.
PowerKey
From Sophisticated Circuits comes PowerKey, a box that you plug your Mac
and peripherals into and use the keyboard's "power on" key to control the
Mac and up to three peripherals. Available for Mac SEs and above, which
use the ADB keyboard, this box is programmable for scheduled on/off
functions and supplies surge suppression, overload protection, noise
filtration, and saves you wear and tear on your peripheral switches.
Frame
The hot workstation publishing tool, FrameMaker make its debut on the
Macintosh. A powerful, yet easy to use full-featured document processor,
FrameMaker is best known for its prevalence on the Sun computer.
FrameMaker 2.0 is now available on the Macintosh. It is available for less
than $1,000 and supports color. It should be quite exciting to see how
Frame fares in the Macintosh market, compared to the earlier introduced
Interleaf.
Outbound Portable
Once called the Wallaby, this portable offers things the Apple Portable
doesn't: price and lightness. For a few thousand less and at only 9 pounds
it might be more popular than the Apple Lugable. It is also smaller and
will fit inside a briefcase. It offers a "silicon drive" (a RAM disk) or
optional 40 megabyte hard drive. The Outbound lists at $2,999 with an
extra $1,000 for the optional hard drive. It also has a unique alternative
to the mouse - the IsoPoint. It is a built-in cursor control device that
sits below the space bar, and with a rolling pencil-like mechanism,
replaces the mouse. An optional mouse can be attached. It also has a
detachable cordless keyboard.
What it doesn't have is a Macintosh ROM. The "crown jewels" of the
Macintosh ToolBox are contained in the ROM and Apple has been reluctant to
sell this to 3rd parties. So the Outbound requires that you remove the ROM
from your current Macintosh and plug it in to the Outbound. However, you
can then "dock" the two machines and have the advantages of the power and
features of both.
What's Not
No Shows: There were a number of notable no shows this year.
Interleaf
Two years ago, Interleaf had a large and impressive booth in Moscone
Center. Last year they had a small and sparsely attended booth in Brooks
Hall. This year they didn't show up at all.
Symmetry
The publishers of Acta Advantage, the powerful outlining application/DA
that I wrote this review with were not there as they have been in the past.
I later learned that they had a hospitality suite in a nearby hotel.
Preferred Publishers
While they have recently upgraded Vantage, the powerful text editing DA,
they were not in attendance this year.
What's Bogus
Game Cards
One gimmick that is being used this year is the game card. The idea is
that you are given a "bingo" card that you need to have stamped at
different stations or participating booths, after you hear their demo of
course, in order to be qualified to enter a lottery. These were used by
Microsoft, MacUser, and Hewlett-Packard. MacUser's card, for example,
required you to visit "just" 10 booths at Brooks Hall and 40 at Moscone
Center. After hitting all the participating booths, you don't have much
time left.
Badges, We Don't Need No Steenkin' Badges
One "improvement" over last years imprinted plastic credit-card style
badges is the economical pre-printed paper style name card. It comes along
with a number of pre-printed name and address stickers so the conferee need
not fill out all the cards at each booth, just attach an address sticker.
When you walk in, you get a special high-tech black plastic clip to attach
your name card to your shirt. It was not clear that there was a special
technique to locking the device and I lost my card more than once, but
friendly people caught it for me. One of my friends lost his and couldn't
get back it.
What was particularly interesting about the high-tech paper name tags is
that they could be easily duplicated by a low-tech photocopier or high-tech
scanner. It would have been an interesting demo at one of the Macintosh
scanner booths.
Kodak's Demo Dollies
A demo dolly is a sharply dressed person (male or female) who looks good
and, it is assumed, will make the product they are demoing look good. This
is usually the case only with an ignorant audience. Sharp looks don't help
when they can't answer your questions.
In the April 10 Expo preview issue of MacWEEK, there was mention that Colby
Systems would demo the 10-pound Stealth laptop with a 20 megabyte floptical
in the Kodak booth. I went to the Kodak booth and was sent to the opposite
side of the booth twice by the demoers there, and still couldn't find
anyone who knew anything about this 20 megabyte floptical.
Apple Announcements
Much has been said elsewhere in the way of the recent announcements from
Apple. I will confine my comments to the implications of just two of them.
A/UX 2.0
A year or so ago Apple introduced A/UX 1.0. While A/UX was a full
implementation of AT&T's UNIX(R) System V, Release 2, Version 2 with the
expected BSD 4.3 extensions, it was "only" UNIX. The Macintosh "added
value" that one would expect of a "Macintosh" UNIX had not been evident.
Only a limited amount of the Macintosh ToolBox was available from A/UX, and
printing was not easy. A/UX 1.1 last year supported a lot more of the Mac
toolbox than 1.0, including color and printing. It did not support 100% of
the toolbox: in particular, low level, hardware specific code like the SCSI
Manager, the Time Manager, and the Serial driver were not supported.
Much of this has been addressed with A/UX 2.0, which will be introduced
this summer. While what was shown at the Expo was a beta version, the
final release promises much of Apple's added value. Not only is the UNIX
interface much more Mac-like, with point-and-click access to files on the
system, but the user can use a Macintosh mouse-driven editor for text
files, and cut and paste between applications in each environment. One
could say there are three environments that can exist simultaneously on the
Macintosh. First the A/UX UNIX environment, secondly Macintosh 32-bit
environment, and thirdly, MacX, an X11 environment (an add-on package).
There is also an X11 environment, but it takes over the entire console and
Macintosh applications cannot operate at the same time. It is more the
industrial strength version, providing X Window System Version 11 Release
4. Demos have been given that show A/UX with MacX, MacOS, MacOS with
SoftPC (an MS-DOS emulator), and MacOS with SoftPC running Windows.
Macintosh "32-bit clean" applications are those that adhere to the
specifications for the Macintosh 32-bit environment as documented in the
Inside Macintosh developers guide. Many of the major Mac applications do
(including Microsoft Word 4.0, WingZ, MacWrite II, and HyperCard). Many
other applications did fancy things that wrote directly to hardware or did
not fully conform to the 32-bit specification, but instead used 24 bits and
took advantage of the remaining 8 bits for other things. There is also a
24-bit mode that can run under A/UX 2.0, but not at the same time as the
32-bit mode. One must log out of the UNIX session and log back in under
24-bit mode. Not all of this is for free, however. There is a penalty to
be paid for running Mac applications under A/UX rather than running them
under the standard Mac Operating System. On a Macintosh IIfx the
difference is hardly noticed, but on slower machines, the Macintosh
applications run appreciably slower under A/UX.
As far as standards go, A/UX conforms to the usual standards including FIPS
(Federal Information Processing Standard) #151, and the IEEE POSIX
1003.1-1988 Full-Use Standard (FUS). It also includes extensions from BSD
(Berkeley Software Distribution) 4.3 on top of its AT&T SVID (System V
Interface Definition) specification. But to say that it is SVID conformant
does not say what level of SVID it adheres to. The person at the Expo did
not know the answer to that (let alone understand what I was even referring
to) though he said he would email me an answer (I'm still waiting).
Beyond the wonderfulness of all this, it should also be pointed out that
A/UX with its System V 2.2 is not really the leading-edge in UNIX. Most
advanced UNIX companies are developing or delivering platform based on
AT&T's latest version, System V Release 4.
The GOOD NEWS. It is a nice UNIX, and as friendly as you'll encounter for
a sometimes "user-hostile" environment like UNIX. It has "Commando" a
fill-in-the-blanks kind of UNIX command builder. It has a Macintosh-style
startup and shutdown so you don't blast out of applications without saving
your work or settings. It offers Bourne, Korn, and the C Shell
environments for users. It offers the usual UNIX development tools like
vi, ex, ed, ditroff, nroff, tbl, eqn, and pic. It provides an assembler
and C compiler, as well as lint, lex, and yacc. It also offers the adb,
sdb, and MacsBug debuggers. It comes with the ld linker and source control
like SCCS, make, etc. For system administrators it has Autorecovery (using
redundant files), Autoconfiguration, and helpful scripts for common system
administration functions.
The BAD NEWS. There is no true pre-emptive Macintosh multitasking.
Beyond being able to run MultiFinder from A/UX, there is no UNIX-like
multitasking on the MacOS side. It does not give the MacOS any Inter
Process Communication. It does not support Personal Appleshare or
outline fonts. It does not run on all Macintoshes, only those with a
PMMU chip added (Mac II with upgrade) or a 68030 (Mac SE/30 or IIcx,
IIci, IIfx). And it won't be cheap. Most workstations come with the
operating system. An unconfirmed university price I saw was:
A/UX 2.0 Media Only $760
X windows for 2.0 $285
Manual kit $668
----
TOTAL $1713
Mac IIfx
On the subject of workstations, all the trades continue to call the new
Mac IIfx a workstation while Apple tries to avoid calling it one. It may
be that Apple is not yet ready to make a full frontal assault on the
workstation market. It would appear that it is sneaking up on it though.
The reports on the Mac IIfx is that it runs like the proverbial winged
mammal out of the nether realm. However, simply calling it a workstation
does not make it one. As Abraham Lincoln said, "If you call a tail a leg,
how many legs does a horse have? Four, calling a tail a leg does not make
it a leg." It may be priced like a workstation, and offer a form or UNIX,
but more is needed yet before it takes a place in the workstation market.
Product Reviews
With hundreds of booths, it was hard to see it all, let alone comment on it
all. Here are some of the more interesting ones that caught my eye.
MacroMind
In four years, MacroMind has produced four generations of leading edge
software. Four years ago, one of the first programs I bought for the Mac
was VideoWorks. I had asked one of the developers and now president of
MacroMind, Marc Canter, how he came to develop the program interface that
looked like a music score. He said that his great love is music, and that
he had always been a Disney kid. This application allowed a person to
animate like a pro. Two years ago saw the release of VideoWorks II, a more
powerful upgrade to the original. At the show last year, MacroMind
Director allowed you to do even more. Now, MacroMind introduces not only
MacroMind Director II, but also MacroMind Three-D.
MacroMind Three-D is a three-dimensional animation, rendering and image
manipulation tool for the Mac. It lets you import images from Super3D,
Swivel 3D, MicroStationMac, and AutoCad. It will also export Pixar
RenderMan compatible scene descriptions in the RIB format. There are three
components to the package. 3DWorks has a "Score" window that is a
tine-line notational system giving you complete control over every aspect
of the animation and allows you to manipulate objects in space over time.
RenderWorks renders animations in 24-bits or 8-bits for use in MacroMind
Director. A variety of wood, metallic, or transparent textures can be
applied to objects. ImageWorks assembles the complete animations and
prepares them for output to screen, video or file.
Studio/32
Last year saw Electronic Arts introduce a high-end color program called
Studio/8. This year goes beyond the 8-bit to a 32-bit tool that gives you
control over shape filling, bordering, or transparency. Studio/32 can
create effects like blend, watercolor, neon, smear, smooth, shade, tint,
and darken. It is most impressive in its ability to create color effects
like butterfly wings and the folds of a curtain with powerful mask,
anti-aliasing and dithering control. It supports incredible 3-D
perspectives that were demonstrated by Pepe Moreno, author of "Batman,
Digital Justice", a graphic novel for DC Comics.
Pepe is almost the stereotypical right-brained artist, dressed completely
in black with pointed sideburns. But he had an incredible grasp of the
program and showed its intuitive power. The full-color hardbacked graphic
novel is most impressive as well. He did all but the faces using the
original Studio/8, having only recently gotten a beta version of Studio/32.
The penciled faces were scanned in and manipulated with Studio/8 and a host
of other Macintosh programs to create a unique movie-look graphic novel. I
started reading Batman over 30 years ago, and Pepe Moreno has brought him a
long way since then.
Stratavision
Have you ever wondered how they do the incredible computer graphics on ABC
TV's rotating 3-D logo? It was done using Stratavision 3d, a modeling,
scene composition, and rendering graphic tool. It imports all the popular
file formats, including DXF, IGES, PICK, EPS, RIB and others. Its
collection of surface materials allows the user to apply predefined
textures to any object. You can choose from various woodgrains or stone
cross sections.
Magneto-optical Disks
The show last year saw the first introduction of magneto-optical disks,
popularized by the NeXT machine. These disks are generally not as fast as
magnetic Winchester technology drives, but they have great capacity and are
rewritable, where CD-ROM is read-only. This year saw a plethora of
devices. To name just a few ... Dot (Digital Optical Technologies) the
people who provide a floppy drive to the floppy-less NeXT machine, offer a
650 megabyte device 5.25 inch rewritable optical disk cartridge. Pinnacle
Micro offers the REO-6500, a 6.5 gigabyte Erasable Optical Desktop Storage
System. Using a robotic jukebox, you can shuttle up to ten optical disks
for under $10,000. Interface kits are available for the Mac, Sun, Dec, and
IBM systems from $995.
ALSoft
The company known for its pioneering disk defragmenter DiskExpress, ALSoft,
has recently upgraded its program to DiskExpress II 2.04. Although there
were a few reported problems with version 2.0, this one looks like a
winner. While there are now other disk defragmenters and optimizers on the
market (like S.U.M. II and the new Norton Utilities), DiskExpress II is
different. It works in the background automatically. Safely, one file at
a time, it defragments and consolidates any file regardless of size or
freespace. Additionally, it logs all file activity to ascertain the
optimum file placement priority on the disk and then groups frequently used
files together to increase disk performance. And it does this in idle time
and is will instantly interrupt itself when the user resumes any activity.
The only thing I have seen it slow down are "screen savers" like AfterDark,
which is as it should be, screen savers should have the lowest execution
priority.
Norton Utilities
While well known in the PC world (and for Dewer's advertisements :-) Peter
Norton is just now making an entree into the Macintosh world, and it is
quite impressive. The "Norton Utilities for the Macintosh" offers an
impressive set of disk and data recovery tools. It offers three levels of
unerase to recover depending on the circumstances. For example, if you
accidentally erase your entire disk, the "Format Recover" can rebuild your
entire disk in seconds.
There are a number of other interesting tools that are part of the package,
that while interesting are also available elsewhere in a similar form as
shareware (deja vu?) or in other programs you may already have. For
example, Directory Assistance adds move, copy, and delete to any Open or
Save dialog boxes. This is available from a number of places already,
including the shareware Boomerang. DiskLight provides a visual indicator
showing disk access in progress, for those who are missing a floppy light
or hard disk light. There already exists a shareware program to do this.
Norton's primary competitor is going to be S.U.M. II (Symmantic Utilities
for the Macintosh) which does most of the same things. They both have disk
and file recovery, disk defragmentation (with nice disk maps) and optimization,
as well as disk and file code editors that the naive could use to great
damage. Norton's folks told me that they could recover a disk that the
S.U.M. people couldn't. I was listening to the S.U.M. people tell me that
they could recover a disk that the Norton Utilities couldn't save.
I did have a chance to test it out myself. One of the utilities that comes
with Norton is FileSaver, an INIT/cdev that makes a backup of the file
directory and the files deleted. It is similar to S.U.M.'s Guardian. I
was evaluating a beta version of Norton and dropped FileSaver into my
System Folder and opened it before I rebooted (which is generally not a
good idea). When I did this my Mac froze up (bug or feature?). When I
rebooted I was told that my Mac could not read the hard disk and asked me
if I wanted to initialize it. Since I had Guardian installed, I ran a
Volume Restore from S.U.M. This took 3 hours to scan my entire 66 megabyte
disk. At the end of 3 hours it couldn't recover it. When I tried the
Norton Utilities, it worked.
Norton has a slick and easy user interface, and the one for S.U.M. could
stand a little improvement. One of my friends saw the Norton demo and
wants to put his S.U.M. up for sale.
Now Software- "It's like deja vu all over again"
Now Utilities from Now Software is a collection of a dozen desktop
utilities. The curious thing about them is that experienced Macintosh
users have seen most of them before as shareware. The reason is because
they are the same utilities that have been redone and renamed. Now
Software went to the original developers and offered to clean up their
code, standardize the user interface, support the product, and publish it.
NowMenus is a hierarchical menu that displays all desk accessory menus as
sub-menus under the Apple menu. It is very similar to hierDA, written by
the same author, jbx. jclock, also by jbx, is now AlarmClock, a utility
that places a digital clock in the menu bar - but now you can set alarms
that display messages either one-time, daily, weekdaily, weekly, biweekly,
monthly, or yearly.
Preview from Software by Design is now Print Previewer, a utility that
shows on screen what a final printout would look like on paper. We've seen
this already in some products already, but not all have it.
WYSIWYG Menus (What You See Is What You Get) is an enhancement to the Font
menu that shows you your list of fonts, displayed in the actual font.
We've seen this before in MenuFonts, Suitcase and Master Juggler.
Instant Access is a way of setting default folders for each application, so
you could have Excel's open dialog always open to you Budget folder when
you save or open a document. This is a new version of the old DFaultD
shareware program by the same author, John Gotow.
StartUp Manager is much like the commercial INITPicker 2 from Microseeds.
Both allow the user to select which INIT (startup) files should load when
the system is booted. Either are invaluable for managing these wonderful
but tricky little programs that you can never have too many of, INIT files.
INIT files are small startup documents or programs for the Macintosh.
INITs can conflict with each other or must be loaded before one another.
Both of these managers allow the ability to create custom "sets" of INITs
for different environments, but INITPicker 2 offers the ability to display
which INIT causes a conflict with its new BombGuard Incompatibility
Detection.
Customizer is like the shareware Layout INIT and can change the default
display of icons, fonts, and windows on your desktop. Profiler is like the
shareware MacEnvy and displays an analysis of your system configuration.
RearWindow is like the shareware program my the same name, and allows you
to move things from inactive window s(behind the current active window)
without activating them. But MemorySetter is something that I have seen no
where else. It allows you to specify the memory allocation of a single
document on-the-fly, before opening it. This can be invaluable in using a
spreadsheet which may need more memory only for a particular document, but
not all the time. The alternative until "Now" has been to increase the
memory in MultiFinder for the application.
On Location
The first eagerly awaited product from On Technology, a company started by
Mitch Kapor, is On Location. It is a very powerful search and retrieval
program for the Mac Plus and above. You can search for either filenames or
text in files, and does so as you type, matching as much as you have typed.
It is similar to the isearch function in emacs. On Location can search
several volumes, including network servers, diskettes, and CD-ROMs. Once
it has found what was requested, it can display it in a viewer, often with
the correct font, style, and format of the original application. It can
display all the files by name, size, kind and last modified date. From
this list you can move, copy, rename, and delete files. It does all this
blindingly fast by creating an index of all the filenames and text on a
volume at a time when the computer is idle. This index takes about 2% of
the volume.
While this is an impressive tool, with a NeXT-esque look to it, it doesn't
really do much more than the venerable DiskTop 4.0 bundled with GOfer. It
does have a whizzier interface, and is quite fast using new technologies,
but is probably best used by someone who generates or uses a great deal of
text.
StuffIt Deluxe
One of the most popular and widely used shareware programs is StuffIt. It
is an easy to use compression program that is the default standard used in
private and public bulletin boards (CompuServe, GEnie) and electronic mail
systems for making files smaller for transmission. It replaced the earlier
PackIt program and is best recognized by the ".sit" signature that it
affixes to filenames that it has compressed. This program was written by
the young Raymond Lau, who is now a student at M.I.T.
Raymond is now marketing his products through Aladdin Systems, Inc., of
Aptos CA. Coming soon will be StuffIt Deluxe, the next generation of
archiving. The demo I saw was most impressive. The new StuffIt Deluxe
will now read Zip and Arc compressed format files, which will be familiar
to the IBM PC users. It now supports a "Finder" style of interface (View
by Name) that allows the user to copy, move, and rename files between
archives as well as view, sort, and print certain types of documents from
within StuffIt Deluxe archives without the original application. Using new
compression methods, you can now compress files either "faster" or
"smaller". There are also specialized optimizers that improve compression
for specific types of files, including color graphic compression.
There is also government-standard DES encryption or the fast NewDE method
that allows password protection. You can even authenticate archives with
an actual hand-drawn signature.
Now StuffIt Deluxe comes with Magic Menu, an INIT loaded program that is
always available from the Finder menu bar. With it the user can Stuff a
file by selecting it and compressing it without leaving the Finder. There
is also now a QuickStuff and QuickUnStuff command.
DiskDoubler
Following on StuffIt's heals is DiskDoubler from Salient of Palo Alto, CA.
It offers a number of improvements in compression over the original
StuffIt, but is comparable in function and features to the new StuffIt
Deluxe. Although less expensive than StuffIt Deluxe ($59 vs. $99), it
offers a couple of advantage. It preserves the original filenames and
revision dates of a compressed file, where StuffIt will change the filename
to "filename.sit". It will automatically open a file after it has been
expanded, and launch the application that created the file.
Where is trails StuffIt Deluxe is that you cannot have multiple files in a
single archive. I asked the DiskDoubler person how his program compared in
speed and compaction to the unreleased StuffIt Deluxe. He did not know.
But neither did the StuffIt Deluxe demo folks know how their product
compared to the already released DiskDoubler.
WordMaker
New on the word processor horizon is New Horizons Software's WordMaker, an
entry-level word processing program. When all the rest in the field are
undergoing "feature-itis", here is a new, low-end program. It offers the
things you'd expect of a word processor but adds text wrap around graphics,
8 documents open at a time, a 95,000 word dictionary and color support,
even on a non-color machine like a Mac Plus or SE! It will be interesting
to see how this low-end entrant survives in this crowded market.
WORD Processors
The last word in this review is not about word processors, but processors
for the Word. In last year's review I mentioned The PerfectWORD, a
remarkably fast Bible search and processing program. It allows rapid word
and phrase Boolean search, in English, Greek or Hebrew. It will display
the verse text and word count statistics in English, with the original
Greek or Hebrew in another window. Last year this was a rather expensive
product. This year, it has been renamed to "macBible" and is now
distributed by Zondervan, a highly respected Bible publisher. It is also
repriced from the old $299 price to a more affordable $99.95 for either the
New International Version, King James Version, or Revised Standard Version.
They still don't offer my favorite, the New American Standard Version.
This program is available with add-on modules to the basic program. The
Greek New Testament (USB 3rd Edition -corrected) or the Hebrew Bible
(Biblia Hibraica Stuttgartensia) are repriced at $174.95.
This year's show also saw the HyperBible from Beacon Technology. It takes
a different approach and places the entire Thompson Chain-reference Bible
in a series of HyperCard stacks. As such it is very large, 15 megabytes.
Since the ASCII Bible is only 4.4 megabytes in size, this is quite a bit of
added value. The Thompson Chain-reference Bible is recognized as one of
the very best study Bibles for the layman. It has chains that link over
4,000 themes and 8,000 words and phrases through the entire Bible. This
was a printed version of hypertext before the computer came along and
originally took Dr. Thompson almost 40 years to do by hand. With the
HyperCard links, this allows you to follow these links with the click of a
mouse. Additionally, there are animated maps of the various travels of
Biblical characters and the wealth of other study helps that can only come
with the Thompson Chain-reference Bible. It is available in either the
King James Version or the New International Version. I have used the
Thompson Chain-reference Bible for almost 20 years, and this computerized
version is quite impressive. On a Macintosh Plus though it is rather slow,
much slower to navigate around with than macBible, but with much more in
the way of features and function.
Microlytics, Inc. showed off a number of their calculator-style tools.
They had the first pocket-sized Electronic Bible. It has every verse in
the Bible that is available with word or topic searches. You can also mark
up to 18 passages for fast reference (not much considering the thousands of
verses) and add study notes. It comes standard with a built in clock,
calendar, and calculator. Optional cartridges are available for adding
additional notes, and an English dictionary/thesaurus. This takes the
verse, "Thy word have I hid in my heart" and puts it in your breast pocket.
Bill Petro
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Bill Petro {decwrl,hplabs,ucbvax}!sun!Eng!rock
"UNIX for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 19:12