Apple Polishes Image With Schools
While the presidential candidates were stumping the primary states in recent weeks in search of votes, Apple Computer’s chief operating officer, Delbert Yocam, was on a campaign tour of his own.
His constituents were the nation’s educators, not its voters, and his audiences were big and friendly. No computer company has catered to the classroom more than Apple.
Perhaps the politicians could take some lessons from Apple in how to preserve and enhance old traditions while introducing new ideas. The venerable Apple II series of computers, the mainstay of Apple’s presence in elementary and high schools, is being given new life with a networking system that can be used to connect them to each other and to newer products. Educators also were enticed with an exciting new technology called CD-ROM.
At the conferences with educators, Yocam described and Apple displayed a flurry of software and hardware intended to foster these advances.
Yocam has been involved in educational issues for some time. He just finished a term as an adviser to the congressional Office of Technology Assessment and serves on the board of the Technology Center of Silicon Valley in San Jose, where he also is a member of that organization’s Education Advisory Council. He said he believes that computers in the classroom are the key to tailoring education to each student’s style, personality and ability.
He pointed out that Apple funds 15 so-called Classrooms of Tomorrow in eight schools across the country. In each classroom, every student gets to use two computers, one for school and one for home.
Before Yocam graduated to his current No. 2 position behind Apple President John Scully, he headed the division that makes Apple II products. It may not have been the most exciting place to be at a time when the Macintosh computer was new and getting all the publicity. But it was the source of the revenue that built the new Apple Corp.
Now it turns out that the older design, eight-bit machines still make an important contribution to the bottom line. Apple II computers accounted for $1 billion in sales in the last fiscal year, Yocam said.
Of course, Macintosh brings in the bulk of the revenue these days. One reason undoubtedly is the ease with which Macs can be linked into networks. That same easy system of hardware and software will now allow Apple IIe and Apple IIGS computers to be linked together and to other computers, including the Macintosh, Digital Equipment’s VAX computers and IBM PCs and compatible machines.
The newer IIGS models come equipped to hook into the AppleTalk network. The Apple IIe computers need a $249 Apple II Workstation Card, a special circuit board, to tie into AppleTalk. The required software is packaged with the card. (The card does not work with Apple II or II+ or IIc computers.)
Other networking systems have been available from third-party suppliers before, but now Apple is going to provide its own solution.
When computers are hooked together in a network, one of the machines acts as a central dispatcher to maintain electronic order among them. In the AppleTalk world, that function is performed by a Macintosh. Such a Macintosh would have to be outfitted with the new AppleShare File Server 2.0 software, which carries a list price of $799. If Apple II computers are included in the network, a separate software package, Apple IIGS Workstation software ($99), also would have to be installed on the Macintosh file server.
It is important to remember that even though Apple’s new products allow the linking of its series II computers to the newer Macintosh line, the two still cannot share programs or files. The Macintosh simply acts as a storage bin for the series II programs and files--something that its greater speed and power allows it to do much better than either a IIe or a IIGS could.
In answer to my question, Yocam suggested that the time will come when Apple IIs and Macintoshes can share the same files, but he coyly stopped short of making any promises.
Another new piece of software, the $299 AppleShare Print Server, lets a Macintosh file server control up to five printers, giving access to each of the computers hooked into the network.
Yet another important software tool for the expanded networking system is called Inter-Poll Administrator’s Utility ($129). It allows a person to control who can use the network and how.
All of these products can be used by anyone who has Apple IIs and Macintoshes to connect, not just educators. But there is a new program aimed just at primary and high school teachers. It is called Aristotle ($199), and it lets teachers specify what programs each student can use.
If Apple II networking is a way of letting old technology keep up with new, the CD-ROM system that Apple also announced two weeks ago is definitely a futuristic product.
The name stands for Compact Disc/Read-Only Memory. It uses the same kind of compact discs on which stereo music albums are recorded but fills them with other kinds of data such as text, graphics, photos, sound and even video. A single disc holds 550 megabytes of data, or the equivalent of about 700 floppy Macintosh disks. (Note that floppy disk is spelled with a “k” since the formal name is diskette, but CD-ROM disc is spelled with a “c” since it is a round, disc-shaped object, just like a record.)
Apple’s new $1,199 CD-ROM player, which will be available in May, can be programmed with a mix of text, images and sounds that can be retrieved easily by the user, who can pick and choose what material to tap with HyperCard software. The CD-ROM drive also will play standard stereo CDs.
Several intriguing CD-ROM discs have been announced for the drive. The CD-ROM version of Merriam-Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary will have everything the standard version has, plus pronunciations of all entries. A special feature will let visually impaired users view the dictionary text in large type on a Macintosh screen.
A version of the Whole Earth Catalog, called the Whole Earth Learning Disc, will be available that will, for example, let users listen to a bird call while reading a review of Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds or hear snippets of blues music while perusing a list of music mail order catalogues.
Grolier’s Electronic Encyclopedia, containing more than 30,000 entries, is available, along with a separate sampler of U.S. history from 1800 to 1850 called the Americana Series.
Apple is showing its CD-ROM to educators as a tool for using a new type of educational software yet to be developed that mixes text, voice and images.
Several other companies also have introduced CD-ROM products for the personal computing world. But Apple’s CD-ROM player, when teamed with HyperCard and the Macintosh graphics standard and method of operation, has an ease-of-use advantage that others may come to envy.
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