Apple Shows Off New Products at Exposition
Last month, Apple Computer Inc. held its 1986 AppleWorld Conference, where company President John Sculley announced the expanded Macintosh Plus and the enhanced LaserWriter Plus printer. The PR extravaganza, which was attended by more than 3,000 dealers, distributors and reporters, was Apple’s opportunity to hype its new products and let the world know that the company had emerged from its traumas and reorganization of late last year after Chairman Steven P. Jobs resigned.
The product announcements came as no surprise. For weeks before the event, trade papers had been carrying detailed reports about Apple’s new products. The news leaks, which came mainly from companies that had been given advanced versions of the products, were very accurate.
The Mac Plus isn’t all that new. It’s an evolutionary enhancement of the current Mac. The new machine has 1024 kilobytes (K) of “random access memory” (RAM), double the capacity of the 512K Mac. It also sports an 800K internal disk drive, twice the storage of the current 400K drive. The new machine has a larger keyboard that includes a numeric keypad and arrow keys. The number pad is a welcome addition for anyone working with numbers, and the arrow keys will lessen the dependance on the mouse.
The most significant hardware modification is the inclusion of a connector, or port, at the back of the machine, which makes it easier to connect the Macintosh to hard disks, tape backup devices and other computers. The “Small Computer System Interface” (SCSI) port represents the first step in Apple’s commitment to develop an “open” Mac capable of connecting to a variety of other company’s devices, including other computer systems such as the IBM PC.
Several companies, including Irvine-based AST Research, have announced hard-disk systems that will connect to the Mac’s new SCSI port. The AST is offering a 74-megabyte hard disk, expandable to 370 megabytes, with a 60-megabyte tape backup. That’s an enormous amount of storage, even by IBM PC standards. At a starting price of $6,995, the AST system will have a limited appeal, mostly for large companies.
Several companies announced smaller hard disks at more affordable prices. Hard disks connected to the SCSI port load and save data significantly faster than those plugged into the Mac’s serial port, as is the case with most existing hard disks.
Two Different Standards
Owners of the existing Macintosh won’t have to buy new machines to get the benefits of the Mac Plus. Beginning in March, Apple dealers will, for $299, outfit an older Mac with the 800K internal drive and the necessary “read only memory” (ROM) chips to allow it to use disks prepared for the Mac Plus. For $599, Apple will upgrade a 512K Mac to 1024K and throw in an SCSI interface. Owners of the 128K Mac--or Macs that have been modified by companies other than authorized Apple dealers--will pay $799 for such an upgrade. The Mac Plus keyboard is available for $129.
Apple will keep the 512K Mac on the market, providing a less expensive entry point ($1,995 suggested retail) with an upgrade path to the Mac Plus ($2,499). The only problem with such a plan is that there will be two different standards for disk storage. Some users will have single-sided 400K disks while others will have systems with double-sided 800K drives. Double-sided drives will read single-sided disks, but not the other way around. This will no doubt create problems for software vendors and people who wish to exchange data disks. I would like to see Apple phase out single-sided disks completely.
As I reported in an earlier column, my Mac has already been upgraded from 512K to 1024K. No, I didn’t have an advance version of Apple’s new product. I took my machine to Beck-Tech, an Oakland-based company that has been offering a “MacMegabyte” upgrade for several months. Owner Steve Beck says that the Macs that he and his dealers have modified are 100% compatible with Apple’s new 1024K Mac. Beck-Tech will continue to offer the megabyte upgrade and will soon offer a 2.5-megabyte upgrade.
Faster Chip Offered
San Diego-based Levco Enterprises has announced that it will upgrade the new Mac Plus with a faster processing chip and up to 4 megabytes (4096K) of RAM. Levco offers several Mac upgrade products, including a hard disk and extra memory.
Both Levco and Beck-Tech have announced that they will release an SCSI port compatible with the one announced by Apple. It’s too early to say, but before buying a Mac Plus or upgrading an old Mac, I would check out the enhancements offered by other companies. If past practice prevails, shopping around for an upgrade may save you money and provide you with options such as more memory or faster processing. Unauthorized upgrades, however, may void Apple’s 90-day warranty.
Magazine’s Exposition
While Apple was making its announcements, MacWorld magazine was holding the first day of its three-day MacWorld Exposition at San Francisco’s Brooks Hall. The show had the excitement and electricity that is sadly missing from most of the IBM PC-dominated computer shows that I attend. It’s fun to be among programmers, engineers and entrepreneurs from both big and small companies.
Conventional wisdom these days says that the success of a product comes from large corporate sales. That may be true, but before a machine can become popular, it must first gain the support of the people who write the programs and design the hardware. The Mac is popular among the creative set but, with a few notable exceptions, it has yet to break into the IBM-dominated corporate “buy list.”
As I prowled through the expo, I took notice of several powerful business application programs. I was very impressed by Interlace, an easy-to-use database management program from Singular Software of San Jose. Interlace sets up “relational” databases, making it possible not only to enter and report data but to show the relationship between data in more than one file at a time.
This capability allows users to link separate data files that share common fields, or attributes. A law office, for example, could maintain a separate file for each client while each attorney maintained a database file for all of his or her time and billing. When necessary, data from the two files could be combined to show how each attorney’s time is being allocated to the client’s various matters.
Friendly to Pocketbook
Interlace has much of the power of dBase III, the popular IBM PC database program, while maintaining the friendliness and ease of use that Macintosh users expect. At $95, it’s pretty friendly to the pocketbook, too.
The Macintosh, which just celebrated its second birthday, is an adult by personal computer standards. With plenty of good software, it has almost as much business savvy as the IBM PC.
What’s more, its graphic display, the near-typeset quality of the LaserWriter printer and sophisticated page layout software, such as PageMaker from Seattle-based Aldus Corporation, make it an excellent tool for creating publications ranging from company newsletters to tabloid newspapers.
Nevertheless, skeptics in key corporate buying positions continue to view the machine as a toy or bemoan that “it’s not compatible with the IBM mainframe.” But that’s nothing new. It took years for the Apple II to be accepted as anything more than a programmable video game, and it wasn’t until IBM entered the market in 1981 that many companies took personal computers seriously.
