From: jelmore@nyx.cs.du.edu (John Elmore)
Subject: Re: Brace yourselves, ladies and gentlemen
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Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 19:31:29 GMT

In article <1993Jan28.064647.14159@ultb.isc.rit.edu> sjk6119@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:
>Would you rather that Apple held off on their new machines and instead
>left us with what we've got now?? I wish that Apple would keep a low end,
>but keep the new stuff coming too! :-)
>
>(not a flame, just a thought)

Yes, but even if 35 of the supposed 70 new products coming out are new
CPUs, there's a pretty limited set of features that can be implemented:

	a) 68030 vs. 68040*
	b) Amount of on-board RAM plus number of SIMM sockets
	c) On-board video and amount of VRAM allowable
	d) PowerPC support (can anyone explain what this means? It's a new
buzzword that's been floating around the past few months...)
	e) Powerbook (Duo?) vs. desktop Mac
	f) drive bay for AppleCD 300i or other such storage device
	g) Built-in Ethernet networking
	h) Add your own or any I might have overlooked...

	*According to MACWORLD, Apple is building prototype CPUs using the
new 68060 processor. But these aren't expected to ship until 1994.

  Although we may know what all of these features mean, the average
computer-illiterate person probably won't. And the odds are that these new
platforms will only differ by a thousand dollars or so.
        
  So instead of giving us new and different Macs (what happened to the
"Server Mac", anyway?), we're going to get the computer equivalents of 
chocolate vs. Dutch chocolate vs. chocolate chip vs. chocolate fudge.    

  One thing that astonished me is that in the fall of 1989, the newest Mac
to come out was the IIci. And now, almost 4 years later, that machine is   
in danger of becoming obsolete. And now, we have Mac models that are 
lasting less than a year (the LC, for example). Will this get worse in the
future? I can't see Apple having a line of 40+ CPUs (assuming my 35 new    
CPUs theory is valid). So that means older (not read as "obsolete") Macs 
will be dropped from the line. Which will leave users (like my roommate,
who bought an LC only to find it didn't handle virtual memory, and to see
it get dropped from the product line almost a year later!) feeling
disgruntled.

	One option: These new Macs might be designed with "upgradeability"
in mind. That is, a person who buys a Mac IIgx (a fictional CPU) in
January might be able to upgrade to a Mac IIgi (another fictional CPU) in
December. But there should be a definite advantage to upgrading (as in the
IIcx->IIci->Quadra 700 upgrade, the II->IIx->IIfx upgrade, or the SE->SE/30
upgrade. Anybody know if Apple plans an upgrade path for the PB 140->PB145?
It can't be that hard...)

Look at the product line in late 1989. You had the Mac Plus, Mac SE, Mac
SE/30, Mac II, Mac IIx, Mac IIcx, and the Mac IIci (and maybe the
Portable. My memory is getting hazy...) And most of these
machines were still in the product line. (I can't remembers when they
officially dropped the Mac II or the Mac Plus...)
In 1993, you can add the Classic, Classic II, LC, LC II, IIsi, IIfx,
Quadra 700, Quadra 900, Quadra 950, PB 100, PB 140, PB 145, PB 160, PB
170, PB 180, and the PBD 210 and PBD 230. And a third of these have
already been dropped from the line, along with everything from the 1989
line except the IIci. And rumors are that it won't last much longer, either.

So the moral to my story is:
Please Apple, give us new Macs, by all means. Just make sure that when we
DO buy a Mac, that we won't regret the decision.

Jay (=

--
    John W. "Jay" Elmore Jr. (=            Email: johnel@linfield.edu
      "Why, it's just a matter of time before the Hulk..." "Ducks."
  "You'll shriek on defeat! You'll howl in anguish!" "Ouch." --HULK #398
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