Subject: Nov hardware article - sorry about lateness

>Date: 13 Nov 95 18:42:14 EST
>From: "Brian A. Fouhse" <75771.1445@compuserve.com>

>Hardware
>November 1995 issue
>(c)1995 Brian Fouhse. All rights reserved excepting that this file may be copied for non-commercial purposes, unchanged. No warranties apply. I am just a user volunteering my observations. 

>Wow, has a month gone by already? It doesn't seem that long ago that our last meeting was held.

>As promised, this time I want to mention a bit about the new PowerBooks 

>They include models with a PowerPC chip inside. 

>One joke I read a few years ago, as the original powerPC chips came out, went something like this:
>"If a PowerBook is made with a PowerPC inside, would it be called a Power PowerBook?
>"And if someone wrote a book about this computer would it be called a Power PowerBook book?
>"And if someone published a power users guide to this computer, would it be called a Power Power PowerBook book?" 

>Back to the topic - the least expensive is the PowerBook 190 (still with a 68040 chip, but a lower power model without an FPU) can be upgrade in stages to a PowerPC model.
>The top of the line PowerBook 5300ce has a 117Mhz PowerPC 603e processor, 10.4 inch active colour matrix screen, 1 Gig hard disk, removable floppy drive (a 230 Meg magnetic optical drive can fit in the same hole), slots for PC Cards (the little credit card size disk drives,modems, Ethernet adaptors, etc. Also introduced is a Duo model, that is approximately the same but without the internal floppy, or PC Card slots, and is lighter by about a pound.

>Except for the Duo, these machines also include (optional on the 190) an infrared (like your television remote control) transceiver (do-dad) that lets you set up a temporary network with another PowerBook. A desktop connection can also be had, if you buy from Farallon (same company that makes PhoneNet connectors as I mentioned last month) an AirDock. It creates on your desk Mac, the same type of infrared connection. 

>You may have heard, that the 5300 series PowerBooks were temporarily recalled as the lithium - ion batteries were suspected of being a fire hazard. Apple released this model (for now?) with the basic nickel - metal halide battery from the 190 series. Battery life isn't as long, but at least the NiMH battery is better than the old nickel cadmium (NiCad.) These batteries had a problem of remembering the last discharge amount. If you didn't fully wear them down, they wouldn't hold as long a charge the next time. For an example - my PowerBook is over 2 years old, and the original battery runs out in about 30 seconds. Needless to say, I use it on my desk, so this isn't a big problem. The only way to recover the battery life, is to get a new one. [Editors note - devices are available which offer a Œdeep discharge¹ (or Œrefresh¹) which puts back some life. I understand the problem is that a molecular layer is laid down by a recharge which is difficult but not impossible to burn away.] The NiCad can only be recharged about 500 times effectively.

>The trackpad (introduced on the 540 powerbooks) now lets you perform mouse clicks directly on the trackpad, something the originals wouldn't do. If you haven't tried a trackpad, you should. They offer a much slicker feel than the trackball on my PowerBook, and they shouldn't get dirty and start slipping.

>Some editors of computer magazines have criticized the new model for not including a CD option. It doesn't bother me, how do you feel? I don't suspect many people NEED a CD while on the road anyway. 

>In the removable floppy disk hole, can be placed another battery (different shape and type I believe,) another hard drive, a magnetic optical disk drive, and other things that 3rd party developers come up with. You can also get a caddy of sorts, to hold your extra PC Cards. 

>For the PC Card slots, you can buy a variety of attachments. The most common will be a modem or Ethernet card. The design of these slots is meant to allow hot-swapping, that is, inserting or removing them without turning the power off. The card is automatically configured when it is inserted. I believe that Apple has built in a software eject mechanism for their version of the PC Cards. In this way, the user or program can control when the card is removed. On IBM machines, they are removed manually (kind of like their floppy disk handling.) Two type 2 cards or one type 3 card will fit at the same time. 

>There are actually 4 different 5300 series PowerBooks available. They differ in processor speed (100 or 117 MHz) and in the type of screen. A passive matrix grey scale or colour display are in the lower models, while an active matrix colour is used in the top two models. Disk drives vary from 500 Meg, 750 Meg and 1G. Memory is standard at 8, 16 or 32Meg and expandable to 64.


>Some more acronyms for your consideration: (those stupid 3 letter or so abbreviations that replace the phrases that are too long to say) 

>NiCad - nickel cadmium, as in type of battery used in rechargeable toys, computers, razors, etc.
>NiMH - nickel metal hydride, as in another type of rechargeable battery. More expensive than NiCad but longer life and better recharge characteristics.
>LiIon - lithium ion, as in yet another type of rechargeable battery. These offer even longer life than NiMH. While we're talking batteries, a zinc-air model is also available. It would run your computer about 8 or more hours but because it uses air to generate its power, it must be built to have lots of air exposure. Traditionally, that has meant it has a large surface area. One model for the Mac is the same size as the PowerBook itself, it attaches underneath it and is about 3/4 inches thick. PC Card - new name for the PCMCIA. They are available in type I, II, or III, which vary by their thickness, and therefore functionality. Most are of the type 2 size, not that many of the skinny type 1 are around, and the type 3 thicker ones are most likely used for hard disks in this form factor or shape. These same cards also fit in the Newton. One of the most interesting ones works as a alphanumeric pager with its own battery. If used by itself, it works like a normal pager. If inserted into a computer or Newton, the message received is trasnferred to the memory of the computer.
>PCMCIA - I don't want to remember what this was meant to mean, I think it was the name of the committee that came up with the idea for a standardized size (credit card), removable attachment for laptop computers. They just recently changed the name to PC Card as mentioned above.
>IR - Infrared (pronounced in-fer-red.) Method, like your television remote control or grocery store scanner, to transmit or receive data in short bursts of light beams.
>FPU - floating point unit. A part of a microprocessor that is best suited for number crunching. It can be a separate chip, like the optional 68881 FPU used with the original Macintosh II's 68020, or the next in line 68030. It is built in to the 68040, and is especially powerful in the PowerPC. Simple addition and subtraction involves integers, and is not helped by the presence of an FPU. More complex calculations, involving sine, cosine, and exponentials are greatly accelerated by the abilities of the FPU. Three dimensional drawings and animation are also examples of programs that run much faster (5 times) in a PowerPC than in a regular 68040 even with its built in FPU.
>CD-ROM - Compact disk, read only memory. Probably everyone has heard of this. They are the same size as your favourite music CD, but contain programs instead of songs. A laser inside your CD-ROM drive shines a light beam onto the surface of the disk. It can either be reflected back from the shiny surface, or not. The disk has many little holes melted in it that will not reflect thee lazer light. In this way, your computer can read the bunch of 1s and 0s (binary) that make up all computer files. ADB - Apple desktop bus, a protocol and type of connector that lets you add keyboards, mice, trackballs, light pens, bar code readers, etc to the same cable connection on your computer. While able to handle more, you shouldn't install more than about 5 devices on a single run or you risk power problems and poor reliability.
>SCSI - small computer systems interface. A standard method of attaching disk drives to a Mac. Almost first used on the MacPlus in 1986. Almost all CD-ROM drives for IBM and Macs are built using this interface. Transceiver - not an acronym but it might not hurt to give a meaning for anyway. A transceiver is a collection of electronic components that can transmit and receive data to or from some other device. The two words were just stuck together to describe their dual function. Modem - while talking about two words stuck together, modem is also comprised of the words modulate and demodulate. In layman's terms, a modem changes electric signals (1s and 0s) into noise of varying frequencies. These tones travel through the phone system and into the modem at the other end where they are converted back into the original 1s and 0s that the first computer and modem had sent. If anyone is interested, I can brush up on my Modem 101 and discuss some of the variations in modem speed, error correction, and compression techniques. For now, we'll leave it at that.


>Other stuff
>Suggestions are welcome, maybe a Christmas wish list. The December meeting is December 20th, maybe that's a little late. 

>Till next month,
>Brian Fouhse