A Big Birthday Bash for Macintosh
The Apple Macintosh turned 5 years old this month and, as if to celebrate, tens of thousands of Mac users descended on San Francisco for the winter MacWorld Exposition. Apple used the occasion to unveil a new machine.
The new Macintosh SE/30 looks just like the standard Mac SE, but it’s much faster. It sports a Motorola 68030 central processing unit (CPU) that operates about four times faster than the chip in the earlier models. It also has a “math co-processor” chip that, with some programs, increases calculation speed by a factor of 100.
Like the older SE and Mac Plus, the machine has a compact design consisting of a single unit that houses the disk drives, monitor and all the electronics. Only the keyboard and mouse are external to the main unit. That makes the machine relatively portable. It is widely rumored that Apple will introduce a battery-operated laptop machine later this year.
In addition to the faster chips, the new machine’s disk drive is able to read and write 3.5-inch diskettes that have been formatted for the IBM PC. That makes it easy to transfer data between the Mac and any of IBM’s Personal System/2 machines as well as most laptops and many other PC-compatible systems. The Mac cannot run IBM software unless it is equipped with special hardware or software designed for that purpose.
This is not the first Mac to use the faster chips and the IBM-compatible drive. Last fall, Apple introduced the Mac IIx, which offers similar performance. As a member of the Mac II family, the IIx looks more like an IBM PC than a traditional Mac. It has an external monitor and a large system chassis that can accommodate up to 6 add-in cards. The SE/30, like the older SE, can accommodate only one expansion card. Unfortunately, it cannot accept cards that are designed for the regular SE or for the Mac II. Apple now has three “standards” for plug-in cards.
Apple is not offering an internal color display for the SE/30, but SuperMac Technology, a Mountain View, Calif., company, has already announced a large external color screen for the new machine. A stripped-down SE/30 with no hard drive and one megabyte of memory has a suggested price of $4,369. The top-of-the-line model, with four megabytes of memory and an 80-megabyte hard disk, will cost $6,560.
The new machine represents an evolution in the Macintosh family. It’s a good step, but nothing to get excited about. In general, it typifies the mood at the exposition and the tenor of the community of companies that develop Macintosh software and add-on hardware. Five years ago, the Mac was seen as a hacker’s machine. It was revolutionary new technology that attracted excitement. But the machine, along with the community that surrounds it, has grown up. The Mac, like most personal computers these days, is aimed at the corporate end user.
In fact, if there was a theme at the exposition, it was, “Hail to the volume buyer.” Vendors no longer cater to the individual user. They’re out for the big sale. As one marketing representative told me, “I can make a lot more money scoring one giant sale than hundreds of little ones.” For Apple and the hundreds of Macintosh developers, this represents a great opportunity. Corporations have embraced the machine and are giving it its rightful place alongside the IBM PC as a standard for business computing.
Most of the booths I visited were showing new versions of old products--like faster disk drives, glitzier spread sheets and souped-up word processing programs. I saw very little of what I would consider new applications or new technology. A lot of companies, including Salt Lake City-based Dayna Communications, were showing network products to link Macs to other Macs or to IBM PCs.
An increasing number of Mac programs display color on screen. There were no color Macs until the Mac II was introduced in 1987, and it has taken awhile for software developers to add color. Desktop publishing programs, such as Aldus PageMaker and Quartz Express, make it possible to preview color documents on screen.
Hardware developers, including SuperMac Technology, RasterOps and Radius, introduced high-end color screens with special adapter boards that allow them to display as many as 16 million shades of color. Most people cannot distinguish among such subtleties, but graphic artists tell me that it helps to have access to an almost infinite variety of shades. These boards and monitors add as much as $5,000 to the cost of a Mac II, but think of what it would cost to buy 16 million crayons!
Until recently, color printers have been either very crude or extremely expensive. Even now, the top-of-the-line color printers are not good enough to reproduce professional-quality artwork suitable for reproduction. For the most part, they’re used as proofing systems to get a good idea of what a document will look like when it is finally printed.
Tektronix, a Beaverton, Ore., company, is distinguishing itself as a pioneer in color computer printing with models for the Mac and the IBM PC. The company introduced two new machines--one, which sells for $16,000, is designed for high-end professional applications.
The other new model, called the “QuickColor Ink-Jet printer,” costs only $2,500. It is slower and more expensive to operate than a standard black-and-white laser printer, and it does not work with the “PostScript” page description language that gives the Apple LaserWriter its enormous flexibility. Nevertheless, with a resolution of 216 dots per inch, it produces very impressive results for a modest cost and should be popular for creating pre-publication proofs and making color transparencies. It will be available in March. Tektronix can be reached at (800) 835-6100.
Desktop publishing on the Macintosh has changed the way many companies produce publications. If a former Apple executive has his way, the Mac will do the same for video production. John Scull (not to be confused with Apple President John Sculley) recently left his job as manager of Apple’s desktop publishing marketing group to become president of MacroMind, a Chicago software company that will soon release “MacroMind Director.”
The program, which is based on the company’s existing product, “VideoWorks II,” can be used to create multimedia presentations that mix still graphics, computer animation, real-life video and stereo sound. A Mac equipped with an optional large projection screen can serve as the production center for impressive presentations. It is also possible to connect the Mac to a videotape recorder or a TV control room to produce broadcast-quality television productions.
This technology, according to MacroMind Chairman Marc Canter, can be used to create TV commercials and other productions at a fraction of the cost of a conventional TV studio. The program, which will cost $695, will be available in March. MacroMind can be reached at (312) 871-0987.
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