Mar 87 Mousehole
Volume Number: 3
Issue Number: 3
Column Tag: Mousehole Report
Mousehole Report 
By Rusty Hodge, Contributing Editor, Mousehole BBS
Summary of the New Mac Announcements
From: Misc. Posts by David E. Smith
AppleShare, the Apple networking software, was announced at the Seybold
conference, but it apparently requires it’s own dedicated Mac, which seems like you
give up something here compared to TOPS. One thing is sure, networking has been
given the green light by Apple and we can expect to see a busy market for high density
“library” disks to service those networks.
Yesterday Apple put on a sneak preview of their new hardware. They had a couple
of production units along with a prototype Mac II. Here are the details on the new
machines expected at the March 2nd product roll out.
The “Alladin’s” official name will be Macintosh SE. The SE sits 1.5" higher than
the Plus, to provide room for adding either a hard disk, or second floppy to the internal
800K floppy drive. Memory is expandable from 1 to 4 mb RAM. The CPU is not a
68020, but simply a 68000 running at the same clock speed as the Plus, 8 mHz.
However, a single 16 bit 96 pin slot is available to add third party “Prodigy” type
accelerator boards with 68020/68881 chips and several will be available shortly. It
is possible these accelerator boards will also be able to increase the clock speed to 16
mHz. The slot is not user accessible which means you have to open the case to get to it.
A knockout is provided for cables. The motherboard is similar in function to the Mac
Plus, but a new design. ROM memory is increased to 256K, the internal hard disk
option is supported by an internal SCSI bus in addition to the external SCSI port. Two
serial ports are provided as are two Desktop Bus ports for the mouse and keyboard like
the Apple II GS. This bus provides for chaining additional mouse type devices. The
display is a 9" B&W monitor with 73 dpi but with an improved display sweep said to
provide a 20% increase in screen updating. The battery is a 7 year battery contained
in a soldered battery holder inside the machine. In other words, not easily replaced.
The infamous power supply has been beefed up to 80 watts. The cabinet is platinum in
color and similar in shape to the present Mac case. However, there will be no upgrade
path from the Mac Plus. An ominous development is the availability of 5 1/4 inch disk
drives for MS DOS, and third party 80286 accelerator cards.
The Mac II code named “Paris” is expected to be in limited supply until at least
June. The features however, appear to be what everybody wants. The processor
includes a 16 mHz 68020 with a 68881 FP co-processor. 256K of ROM same as the
Mac SE, but with an additional 256K ROM socket for a page memory management unit.
Memory will be expandable from 1 to 8 megabytes using 1 mbit chips! The open
architecture consists of six NuBus type 32-bit slots. The I/O configuration is similar
to the SE with 2 SCSI ports, 2 serial ports, and 2 desktop bus ports for the mouse and
keyboard. Two keyboard options include 81 or 105 keys. The built-in 5 1/4 inch
hard disk comes in 20, 40 or 80 mbyte configurations. A four voice stereo sound chip
is included. The video options include a 12" Monochrome 640 by 480 display with 16
gray scales or a 13" Sony trinatron color monitor with the same resolution supporting
256 colors from a pallet of 16 million using an 8 bit plane. Quickdraw toolbox support
provides for 32 bit planes for third party video cards. The vertical scan rate is 66.7
Hz. A 20" monochrome monitor with 1120 by 880 resolution is in the works for a
December release. The notorious SANE floating point package has been speeded up by a
factor of five in this machine. Calling the 68881 directly is expected to increase
performance by a factor of 20. A UNIX system 5 release 2 operating system with
Berkeley enhancements will be available with Sun network support. A 40 mb tape
backup unit will also be available. Those who have seen the machine report they were
“completely blown away” by the color and the speed of this baby.
Rumors on the new printer are that it will be a postscript printer, but not an
Appletalk device. Also it won’t be available for a year yet.
A new version of MacTerminal (2.2) will support user defined macros or
function keys. They reside on the bottom of the screen.
A new MacDraw will fix the old text bug, does free rotation and multiple scaling.
And it will cost plenty!
From: The Atom
WHAT?
You mean the awesome SE we’ve been waiting for is simply a larger Mac+ with a
single slot? WHOOPIE! I sure hope thats a rumor, since I can’t afford $5000 for a
Paris and I was definitely looking forward to 16 mhz on some type of lower end
machine. [Sorry Charlie, but the thrid party people will bail you out. -Ed.]
From: Macowaco
In my opinion, the SE is a step in a good direction...if you work for a big company.
If you’re like most of us here....no, it stinks. It will sell and sell big. Our company
already plans on buying more SEs than IIs and we’re buying lots of IIs. The SE is
basically all that the + still lacks before it can become a truly systems oriented
workstation. The main difference will be the Ethernet card, and later the addition of the
CD ROM. The CD can contain Inventories, Tax tables, HUGE dBs while the Ethernet
connection allows for REAL data and resource sharing and at high speeds. For an
Engineer.....no, for an officeworker in any of hundreds of settings where they
currently use PCs, or dumb terminals (I equate them) all tied together....a big yes.
Prototyper
From: Lsr
I talked to one of the people involved with Prototyper. (Either Smethers or
Barnes, I forget which.) You can build an application very quickly, but as far as
making it into a real program you have to work from the block diagrams that
Prototyper generates. They don’t have any way of generating code or of getting a
textual description of the interface. (My interest was in prototyping with Prototyper
and writing a translator to Object Pascal/MacApp.)
On the other hand, ExperTelligence was demo-ing something called
Exper-Interface-Builder. This is a system developed by a person in France that lets
you prototype an interface. (I didn’t see the demo at the Expo, but I did see it once at a
conference.) The difference here is that it generates Lisp code as output, so you can
incorporate it into a real application.
From: Dr. Dog
Nevertheless, an application like Prototyper could be pretty helpful. I work at a
medical computing department at the University of Utah. We have developed several
Mac programs under grants from the National Library of Medicine. The hardest thing
we do is trying to get the type of interface desired standardized. Usually, by the time
the program is far enough along to test the interface on prospective end-users,
hundreds of hours of code-writing have gone by. We often end up making major
changes after getting user suggestions. I think Prototyper could be very useful to
“dummy” up an application. One could then try out the “feel” of the program on the
user before code writing even begins in ernest.
MPW ver 1.0
From: Randy Saunders
I just got my MPW update from APDA. I have new versions of MPW and MPW
Pascal. What I am trying to figure out is, what’s new. It seems that nobody at APDA
knows what bugs are fixed. At least I got a known bug list with the B2 version. The
manuals are bigger, but the type is smaller and there is still no index. Almost all the
files say they were created 9/4/86, with the interesting ones (Shell and Pascal) dates
about 10/2. [MacTutor has also received our 1.0 MPW update. Thank you APDA! -Ed]
CricketDraw and GreyPaint
From: Macowaco
CricketDraw is far from complete. It takes too long to print the good stuff
(probably for good reason), but more importantly it can’t read large Postscript files a
la Pro3D for text annotation. Too Bad!
Try GreyPaint’s RubberStamp tool then Laserwrite it. It maintains the gradual
grey scale the way Pro3D and Cricket do. It looks like someone smeared toothpaste on
the paper!
MacExpo and various other things
From: Michael J. Wallace
At the Expo , there was a guy at the BMUG booth trying to get dealers to sign up
and buy his service. What were these services ? Colored Macs:
Green/Red/PINK!/Black/ Yellow/ Platinum/ White. Totally psychadelic ! I prefer Red
or Pink. Then you go to C.ITOH and get one of their FIVE pack color Pastel disks (single
now, double soon) and be totally for real.
Prototyper: I do want to see more. But they had a big booth and ONE repeat ONE
lousy Mac. Won’t be ready until Spring - read June. Those who saw VIP think it’s
pretty lousy! Good ideas, just bad implementation. [Others came by the MacTutor booth
and said they thought it was great! -Ed.]
Mac Expo hits: Hard disks EVERYWHERE. The LOWEST is Jasmine at $585 for a
20 meg. Be REAL careful, they were collecting money with NO FIRM ship dates,
everyone ELSE had them in the booth! I got a Reflex 30 meg for $895. Northern Calif.
brand. Bit noisy, but just as fast. [A new company has announced a 10 Meg SCSI hard
disk for just $399! The idea is to push it as an external disk drive replacement, same
price. Watch for more info in MacTutor. -Ed.]
FullWrite Professional
From: Bob Denny
I am REALLY surprised to see no messages about FullWrite. I saw the demos at
MacWorld & was blown away. It’s everything Word 3.0 is and more (MacDraw built
in, auto wrap around irregular objects like RSG only better, VASTLY easier user
interface and much more). Scott Weiner & gang have outdone themselves. Watch for
this RSN.
LISA Hard Drive
From: mouseFur
To everyone who answered my plea for help about the hard drive problems,
THANK YOU very much. I am still on hold and have been told that APPLE is not
presently shipping parts, i.e.. the replacement H.D. (for Lisa) that I ordered. The
truth is the dealer that I have using appears to be on hold for slow payment. It’s a
shame that they couldn’t be more up front. Their situation would certainly be easy to
understand in view of current day events.
Sun up in Utah has been heavily advertising all sorts of LISA configs. for sale. (&
parts). When I called them, they said that a hard drive is only available in a machine
purchased from them. Are they supposed to be the folks that bought up all of the
remaining LISA goodies?
NetWorkers in San Leandro seems all LISA knowing and has a good supply of
working information and parts. They are advertising a 20 & 40 Meg replacement hard
drive as a LISA update. When I inquired, they reported they are still in the
development phase!
NetWorkers does have a release version of a modified or fixed MacWorks that is
reported to allow the finder to manipulate more desktop files than it was designed to do.
Their fix is claimed to eliminate the crash to a dark screen, with a sad Mac icon and
code F00064. I have ordered a copy and will keep M-Hole members advised if there
should be any continuing interest.
F00064 Bomb