From: Sewall@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (Murph Sewall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Murph's VAPORWARE Column for September 1992
Date: 28 Aug 92 03:50:13 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet


                              VAPORWARE
                            Murphy Sewall
                 From the September 1992 APPLE PULP
           H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
                              $24/year
                           P.O. Box 18027
                        East Hartford, CT 06118
                 Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 257-9588
      Permission granted to redistribute with the above citation

                       These are rumors folks;
                we reserve the right to be dead wrong!

Coming to a Mass Merchandiser Near You.
September 14 is the expected date for Apple's new line of consumer
computers (see last February and March's columns) under the brand name
Performa.  The Performa 200 and 400 are the Mac Classic II and LC II by
other names.  The Performa 600 (and 600 CD) is a new three-slot model
that also will be added to the Macintosh line in October (see below).
The three NuBus slot Performa 600 will have a 32 MHz 68030 CPU without a
math coprocessor or CPU cache.  The 600 CD will have an internal CD-ROM
drive along with a 3.5 inch floppy drive, 4 MBytes of RAM, and an 80
MByte hard disk.  The Performa models will ship with Apple's new,
simplified At Ease user interface (previously known as Tiny Toons, see
last April's column) on top of System 7 and other bundled software.
While some speculate that the Performas will ship with ClarisWorks,
Apple has cut a deal to bundle BeagleWorks with Classic II and LC II
models.  That package, which already is available at Philadelphia's Silo
stores, could be the test case for the Performas.  Pricing has not been
set, but insiders say that the Performa 400 will be such a bargain that
prototypes of the Color Classic (see February's and May's columns) have
been withdrawn from developers (there simply isn't enough profit
potential for it)
- MacWeek 3 and 10 August plus a note in my electronic mailbox

Hardware by Claris?
Apple's software subsidiary, Claris, has completed a study indicating
that a mail order line of Macintosh models built by overseas contractors
with a Claris brand name can be successfully marketed without undue
negative impact on the Macintosh brand line.  Apple hasn't decided
whether to endorse this proposal or one of several other avenues for
legitimizing mail order Macs.  - MacWeek 17 August

IBM's Value Line Intro.
If you don't buy a Performa on the 14th, you may still be in the market
when IBM introduces it's low-end, AT-bus Value Line on the September 22.
Big Blue's economy computers will be sold by phone.  The line features a
25 MHz 386SLC model with a 60 MByte hard drive and color VGA for less
than $1,200.  - InfoWorld 3 August

Apple Price Cuts Planned.
The PC clone price wars have not gone unnoticed at Apple which plans to
remain competitive as an upgrade path for 286 and 386SX owners.  Apple
will soon announce price cuts of fifteen to twenty percent on most
models with reductions up to thirty percent for some Quadra
configurations.  - MacWeek 17 August

October Macintosh Introductions.
October 19 is the date for the announcement of two new desktop
Macintoshes and four new PowerBooks.  The desktop units, currently
referred to as the IIxi and IIxv (codename "Brazil"), share their form
factor and motherboard with the Performa 600.  The low-end IIxi will
have a 16 MHz 68030 without math coprocessor or CPU cache, but it will
be upgradeable to the IIxv which will have a 32 MHz 68030 with matching
math coprocessor and a 32K CPU cache.  Some have noted that "IIxi" and
"IIxv" lack pizazz, and those names may change before October.  The new
Powebook 160 and 180 are upgrades of the current 145 and 170 models with
no change in price.  The big differences will be the 16 grayscale
displays and integrated video out.  The PowerBook 180 will also clock at
33 MHz and be approximately fifty percent faster than the PowerBook 170.
The two new lightweight PowerBook Duo's (the 25 MHz 210 and 33 MHz 230)
will be dockable designs with 16 grayscale supertwist displays.  Both
will have math coprocessors and support up to 24 MBytes of RAM.  The Duo
Dock contains the floppy drive, two NuBus slots, video out, and a second
hard drive.  The MiniDock has no floppy or extra hard drive, but does
provide video out and a SCSI connector.  Apple also plans to introduce a
24-bit, 300 dpi color scanner bundled with a color version of Light
Source's Ofoto, a new 13 inch display priced around $600 that also will
be VGA compatible, and Apple's first color printer based on Canon's
BJC-820 Bubble Jet engine  - MacWeek 10 August

Faster, Less Expensive CD ROM Drives.
NEC, Sony, Texel, and Philips are all planning to ship a new generation
of faster CD ROM products by year's end.  The data transfer rate of 300K
bits per second is nearly double that of existing drives and the average
access time of less than 300 milliseconds is about two-thirds the
performance of existing devices. The data transfer rate is sufficient to
support full-motion video, and the new drives are seen as capable of
making desktop multimedia a widespread reality.  Apple is expected to be
the most aggressive supplier of the new drives and the main reason why
sales volume is expected to be great enough to make them affordable.
Apple plans to market an external model for about $300 as well as offer
internal models in the Performa line.
- InfoWorld 17 August

More Reliable, Less Expensive Hard Drives.
Manufacturers are already receiving the new Quantum ProDrive ELS series
of SCSI and AT-bus drives with capacities of 42, 85, 127, and 170
MBytes.  The new drives have a mean time between failures rating of
250,000 hours and are expected to be priced five to ten percent less
than the models they replace.  - MacWeek 27 July

PowerPC Upgrades for Older Mac IIs.
Apple is negotiating to license the PowerPC processor, System 7
microkernel, and Mac compatibility module to third party developers to
make RISC boards for NuBus slots on existing Macintoshes.  The upgrade
products, expected to sell for approximately half the price of a new
PowerPC, will deliver 50 to 100 MIPS depending on which CPU model is
installed.  - InfoWorld 3 August

Intel's Hottest New CPU.
As many as 35 manufacturers may begin offering computers based on the
new Intel i486DX2/66 by the end of the month.  The new CPU operates
internally at 66 MHz but communicates with the system bus at 33 MHz.
Performance improvements of six to thirty percent over a 50 MHz i486
system is expected on older 33 MHz systems designed to accept the new
clock doubling processor.  However, the DX2/66 runs about one-third
hotter than the 50 MHz i486 and may need additional cooling.  The
manufacturer's price for the DX2/66 will be about $650.
- PC Week 4 August and InfoWorld 10 August

P5 Delayed.
Intel has decided to delay official introduction of its next generation
P5 CPU (also referred to as the 586 chip) until the first quarter of
1993.  The delay is said to be based on the a desire to wait until
volume shipments are ready to begin.  Analysts say that a premature
announcement of the new processor could hurt the current strong sales of
the company's i486 line.  - InfoWorld 27 July

Newton Delayed.
Apple's top three executives recently told a group of financial analysts
that the Newton PDA introduction, originally expected right after the
new year will be delayed until mid-1993.  - MacWeek 17 August

Eighty CPU, 10 Gigabyte RAM Workstation.
Sun Microsystems' Dragon project, which is rumored to be a 20 processor
system is even more impressive. Sun is developing a massively parallel
workstation with four boards of 20 SPARC processors each.  Those CPUs
might be hyperSPARCS rather than superSPARCS.  The motherboard will be
based on the new Xbus developed by Sun and Xerox.  There could be as
much as 10 Gigabytes of RAM using Sun's new 64 Mbyte SIMMS.
- found in my electronic mailbox

One Pass Color Scanner.
Sharp Electronics will introduce its model JX-610 one-pass color flatbed
scanner in the fourth quarter.  The 600 dpi, increased to 1,200 dpi by
software interpolation, 24-bit color scanner uses a proprietary CCD
(Charge-Coupled Device) array.  - MacWeek 17 August

Some Current Windows Apps Are Not NT Compatible.
Synchronous communications, fax board, and scanner software along with
other Windows and DOS applications which write directly to hardware will
need new device drivers to work with Windows NT.  Microsoft plans to
offer drivers for most well-known products and also help other vendors
write and debug drivers.  Microsoft expects most DOS and Windows
applications will be able to run under NT either directly or with new
drivers.  - InfoWorld 3 August

Are You Ready for OS/2?
By the end of the year, IBM will bundle OS/2 with all PS/2's and some
PS/1's.  IBM will also increase the standard memory and hard drive
capacity for those systems to 8 MBytes of RAM and 80 MBytes of disk.
Meanwhile, code which will permit Windows 3.1 applications to run under
OS/2 2.0 recently entered beta testing.  - InfoWorld 3 and 17 August

New Virus Detection Technology Rejected.
As reported last month, Microsoft plans to bundle Central Point's
antiviral technology with the next major revision of MS-DOS.  Recently,
Microsoft is said to have spurned a researcher's offer of what is
claimed to be an new, elegant solution to boot sector viruses, such as
the much publicized Michelangelo virus.
- found in my electronic mailbox

Visual Basic for DOS.
Microsoft has confirmed that a DOS version of its popular Visual Basic
programming product is in beta test and may ship before the end of the
year.  MIcrosoft executive vice president Mike Maples indicated the
program uses the Windows "event driven model" and described it as an
"upgrade" of his company's current Quick Basic.  - InfoWorld 27 July

Apple II - Still Improving.
At the Apple II Developers Conference (also known as KansasFest),
Apple's Tim Swihart stated that "the hottest selling Apple II" is the
IIe card for the Mac LC II.  However, he also confirmed that System
6.0.1 for the IIgs (yes, it's still in production) will be released at
the same time as the Apple II Ethernet Card. That card is nearing the
beta testing stage, and if no major problems are found, should be
released before Christmas. In addition to fixing some bugs, System 6.0.1
will contain an MS-DOS FST for the IIgs SuperDrive or Applied
Engineering's Transdrive.  The initial release of this new FST written
by Greg Branche will be "read only,' but read and write is planned for a
future release.  Apple II developer, Procyon, was showing off Switch It,
a cooperative multi-tasking program akin to the old Mac program,
Switcher.  - reported by Joe Kohn

Beyond QuickTime and Kaleida.
Apple and at least one Japanese consumer electronics giant are already
at work on a next generation multimedia standard under the codename
Galaxy.  Look for it in a forthcoming major operating system revision.
- found in my electronic mailbox

Mac LC II with Two Slots
Sonnet Technologies Inc. will soon ship an adaptor that allows two
expansion cards to be used in the Mac LC and LC II.  The $549 Twin Slot
LC includes a new high-capacity power supply and a raised top to
accommodate the additional card.  It is compatible with DayStar Digital
Inc.'s Power Cache card; Farallon Computing Inc.'s Ethernet card; and
video cards from E-Machines Inc., Lapis Technologies Corp., Radius Inc.
and SuperMac Technology as well as Apple's //e card. - MacWeek 3 August

Electronic Shopping.
Apple and Bellcore, the research arm of the regional telephone
companies, are cooperating on a billing scheme that will enable online
ordering, billing, and distribution of software from the comfort of your
own home.  - MacWeek 10 August

PageMaker 5?
Industry analysts suspect that recent layoffs of 11 percent of its U.S.
workforce by Aldus Corporation has slowed development of new company
products.  With Quark shipping a version of QuarkXPress for Windows, a
significant delay in shipping the new version of PageMaker, which will
begin beta testing soon, could threaten Aldus's 69 percent desktop
publishing market share, which has already diminished to 54 percent of
the Macintosh market.  - InfoWorld 17 August

Enterprise Toolbox.
Apple plans to replace the Macintosh's current Communications Toolbox by
integrating software currently known as the Enterprise Toolbox into
System 7 next year.  The new toolbox will be part a set of system
extensions supporting the Open Collaboration Environment (see the March
and June columns) which is due in early 1993.  - MacWeek 27 July