spock@wrkof.incom.de (Martin Georg) (12/08/90)
------------ Category 35, Topic 11 Message 1 Fri Dec 07, 1990 L.BOTEZ [Lucky] at 12:24 PST ------------ Category 35, Topic 11 Message 1 Fri Dec 07, 1990 L.BOTEZ [Lucky] at 12:24 PST Applefest 1990 has started in Long Beach. While it is somewhat smaller than the previous Applefest in San Francisco last year, it nonetheless has all the regular excitement and energy. A large crowd has shown up for the first day. Matt Gulik, from Apple, said they were "quite pleased" with the reaction so far to the 'fest. Original expectations were for approximately 5,000 people, but it looks like much more than that will show up. From what I can tell, it looks as crowded as any other Applefest I've attended. Applefest is being held in conjection with Mac/LA Fest. However, both shows are being held in separate areas in the Conference Center, and have different entrances. Attendees to either can wander into both shows, however, at no cost. There are several interesting things going on today. The keynote speech was given by Topher Hagemeier, the Teacher Trainer for National Geographic Educational Media. A demonstration was given using their multimedia product for schools for Apple II's and Macintoshes. At 10:00 am, Ralph Russo introduced Hypercard GS officially. After a brief demonstration of the Hypercard GS capabilities (he showed off a few of the stacks which come with Hypercard (such as the neat "Birds" stack which shows several different pictures of birds and plays bird sounds on demand, gives detailed information on them, and allows you to click forward or backward in the stack or go home). Also, Calendar and the Help Stack were demonstrated. At the end of the half hour talk, the Hypercard GS team was introduced. Talking with Tim Swihart of Apple, I learned that Hypercard GS is actually an Apple product (not a Claris product). Hypercard GS will be available from official Apple dealers or directly from Apple in February (perhaps earlier). The product will sell for a list of $99.00. It is composed of 6 disks. One disk contains the program and the home stack. Another contains the help stack (the help is quite extensive, and is written in Hypercard GS format). Others contain support files such as XCMDS (external command program files), XFCNS (external function files), an Icon Editor, a sound creator editor. The official product will ship with three reference manuals: 1) Getting Started with Hypercard IIGS, 2) Hypercard IIGS Reference, and 3) HyperTalk Beginners Manual (which gives the user lessons in scripting Hypercard). HyperCard IIGS will not ship with new IIgs's (The current ROM 3 GS has 1.125 megs, and HyperCard IIGS REQUIRES 1.5 megs). It is ONLY available through the stand- alone product, dealers can not give away copies without manuals. Hypercard GS supports use of multiple media (buzzword: Multimedia) such as video, sound, etc. Unlike the Macintosh version (HA HA HA HA HA!!), it supports color graphics and comes with built-in stacks ready to use. It also comes with the Hypertalk scripting language. More later from the show!
spock@wrkof.incom.de (Martin Georg) (12/08/90)
------------
Category 35, Topic 11
Message 2 Fri Dec 07, 1990
T.TOBIN at 13:23 PST
Applied Engineering News from Applefest '90
A. New Floppy Drives
According to Phil Montoya of A.E., one of the two new items they have for us
is the AE 3.5" drive and AE High Density Drive. Retail prices are $289 for
the AE 3.5" and $339 for the AE HD drive. The upgrade price is $79 to take
the AE 3.5 to the new AE HD. The upgrade consists simply of replacing a
programmable gate array chip in the AE 3.5 with a new version. After upgrade
a sticker which says "HD" is affixed to the front panel.
The drive worked well when it was demonstrated to me. The disk loading
mechanism seems to work similarly to the MS-DOS 3.5" drives. That is the drive
does not grab the disk and pull it in with a 'kerchunk'. You push the disk in
until it clicks in. On eject, the unit I viewed literally threw the disk out.
This did not happen with each eject, but enough that you should put your hand
to the disk port to catch it. Since the drives are not yet shipping, this may
be a feature which will be corrected.
Shipping is supposed to start by the end of the month; they are shooting for
delivery before Christmas. They are taking orders now, however.
In order to use the AE HD, a new APPLE3.5 driver is required. This is
provided along with the drive, and replaces the APPLE3.5 driver provided with
GS/OS. Interestingly, the new driver will also support the Apple brand Apple
3.5 drives, and is supposedly faster, so a mixed drive system should not be a
problem. The driver will support ProDOS 8, but will require booting into
GS/OS first, so the driver will be available to it. A direct boot into ProDOS
8 will not work with the AE HD drive. If you are using the AE 3.5" drive, then
the driver is not required, though it will speed up disk access, according to
Mr. Montoya.
The bad news is that earlier speculation that the new drives will support
other disk formats is in error. The following are the supported formats:
ProDOS only
800K 2:1
800K 4:1
400k 4:1
1600K 2:1
1600K 4:1
Macintosh or MS-DOS FSTs are not available and not planned. According to
Montoya, this is because of limitations in the IWM disk controller chip in the
IIgs, which is unable to read/write to MFM encoding (used in MS-DOS and Mac
High Density drives). The AE HD is available only for the Apple IIgs. The 8
bit Apples will not be able to use the new drive.
B. Fax Modems
The other product Applied Engineering is getting ready to ship is their new
product SendFax. This will be an Apple IIgs only product. It will consist of
a set of chip upgrades to their existing Datalink Express and Datalink GS.
Software will also be provided which will allow access to the fax
capabilities. The software will consist of a printer driver which will be
selected under the GS applications' Page Setup menu item. They are attempting
to have the SendFax ready to ship by 15 Dec 90, but Mr. Montoya was not real
definite about that. I did not test out SendFax so I cannot assess its
capabilities.spock@wrkof.incom.de (Martin Georg) (12/08/90)
------------ Category 35, Topic 11 Message 3 Fri Dec 07, 1990 L.BOTEZ [Lucky] at 13:40 PST Tony Fardella from Brodebund Software, showed me their latest new products for the Apple II computers. One is Print Shop Companion IIGS. This is more than just another Print Shop IIGS disk with additional graphics and borders. It is a completely new program with some exciting new features that make Print Shop even more exciting than before! Print Shop Companion IIGS can be purchased alone; even if you don't own Print Shop IIGS. It prints entire libraries of Print Shop graphics to paper for easy reference (so you can locate a graphic easily and quickly by printing them to paper). It also can print envelopes and labels which you can design yourself. One of the more exciting new features is called "Quick Page"; where you can design your own flyer by selecting a graphic, dragging is around on the screen, and typing in your text all on a blank screen of paper (not as cumbersome as the Print Shop IIGS version; and you can see everything on the screen at once). This product will also inport double high res and super high res pictures and original print shop graphics into Print Shop. Other new features are a built-in editor that edits graphics and fonts. This product lists for $49.95, and is well worth it if you already own Print Shop, or even if you do not. The other product on display is Playroom for all Apple II computers. This product is aimed at preschool to kindergarten. Basically, it's a point and click program that includes animation and sound; and operates somewhat like a low level hypermedia program for youngsters. Bannermania is a new product that prints all types of banners. This product is for all Apple II's, and is quite versatile; you have a good selection of fonts and styles to choose from, and two different lines to work with to print almost ANY banner imaginable. This product sels for $34.95. Brodebund was also displaying their game Prince of Persia for all Apple II computers. They do not intend to publish it for the Apple IIGS, however.
spock@wrkof.incom.de (Martin Georg) (12/08/90)
------------ Category 35, Topic 11 Message 4 Fri Dec 07, 1990 L.BOTEZ [Lucky] at 15:42 PST Vitesse, Inc., though a relative newcomer on the Apple II scene, is probably one of the most prolific developers, regularly coming out with new and innovative software and hardware. The Quickie hand scanner is selling like hotcakes. Their utility software makes maintaining an Apple IIGS with a hard drive a breeze. Right now they are offering all their utility software under one package; with one low price. It is called "Salvation Supreme". The retail price is $199.00, and for that you get 1) Guardian - an easy to use backup utility; 2) Renaissance - a disk optomizer; 3) Exorciser - a virus detector and correction program; 4) Wings - an incredibly versatile program launcher; and 5) Deliverance - a hard drive repair program, which will allow you to copy retrievable files over to disk before you actually execute the program. Vitesse has a special show price of $125.00 for the entire package; a real bargain if you're looking for any of these programs. You can also purchase each utility separately. They are also offering the Apple Quickie hand-scanner for $205, and include a free Vitesse T-shirt. The Vitesse people are also talking a lot about Inwords, a new optical character recognition program that is being developed by Westcode (a couple of former Beagle Bros programmers). It will run on the Apple IIGS and will be compatible with the Quickie scanner from Vitesse. This OCR software will be able to convert text you scan with the Quickie (and probably other IIgs graphics scanners) to standard text files. It will sell for $129.00 and should be available soon. Vitesse is also demonstrating their new Harmonie printer drivers with the HP PaintJet XL printer. It's really amazing to see the quality of the pictures. One picture I saw which was quite impressive was the infamous "King Tut" color image from Deluxe Paint II. Besides the HP Deskjet, and Laserjet printers, there is an improved Imagewriter II driver which offers more control over your printer. Harmonie sells for $30. OK, Guys that's all what I've picked up here in Frankfurt/Germany so far. Interesting to see that these mails are sent on Genie from the USA to Europe just to make their way back to the US :-) Martin Georg Frankfurt, Germany ----> Apple II forever! <---- GEnie: A2.Martin