X-POP3-Rcpt: jaques.law@louise Date: 16 Feb 96 00:17:50 EST From: "Brian A. Fouhse" <75771.1445@compuserve.com> To: "Kevin Jaques, B.A., LL.B., of the Jaques Law Office" Subject: Feb MUGORS newsletter Hardware February 1996 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. Some interesting tidbits of information for you this month. Highlights: MacOS on PPCP More PCI on Macs Newer CD format LC5200 enhancements - more acronyms 1. Apparently, every year, companies demonstrate their wares at the "Demo [year here]" show. Last month, Apple gave a 12 minute demonstration of the Macintosh operating system running on an IBM model PowerPC computer designed to meet the recently agreed upon PPCP or CHRP specifications. Comments from the Mac knowledgeable audience included: "damn fast" - in comparison to the observer's 132 MHz Power Computing PowerWave 604 model. What surprised these people I guess, is that in the past, if a product is shown at this show, it normally appears on the market within about 6 months. This could mean that when the PPCP computers are available (from a variety of manufacturers including Apple, IBM, Motorola, Canon, Power Computing, Radius, DayStar Digital, IPC Technologies, Pioneer (of stereo equipment fame), etc) later this year, the Mac software should also be ready for us to load on them. This is another twist to the "clone" or "compatible" market. It will allow, to coin the phase from MacWeek, a line of "Mac-capable" machines. It may be easier to get the software into corporations after the hardware is already there and waiting. To qualify with the PPCP specifications, a unit must be capable of running MacOS, Windows NT (the one that replaces Windows 95), OS/2, Solaris (Sun Micro's UNIX), AIX (IBM's UNIX) and Novell NetWare. 2. As publicly stated previously, I still admire machines like the LC5200, given to us by some of the creative minds at Apple. This machine is now available in Canada as a 5300. It includes a more powerful 603e PowerPC chip, a 1.2 gig hard drive, internal television tuner, 28.8 modem, microphone, stereo speakers, swivel tilt base, keyboard, mouse, etc. To me this is the ultimate one piece Mac. This sentiment was echoed by MacUser in the March 1996 issue, when they chose the Performa 5215CD as their system of the year. The 5215 is the US version of the LC5300 more or less. This enhancement is also available in the 6200 series without the monitor, microphone, or speakers. It is referred to as a 6300 model. 3. On the horizon, at least according to the information I read, another batch of Power Macs are soon to be released. These could include the following - a consumer priced tower model, PCI slots, etc - desktop PCI model like the current 6200 - integrated model with PCI slot like the current 5200 One thought is that these models may become available in Europe and Asia this spring, and the US (and Canada?) this fall. Stay tuned. 4. The next generation CD-ROM format has been tentatively agreed upon by Apple, Sony, Toshiba, Phillips, JVC, etc. It will start out as a 4.7GB unit. What would a new gizmo be without another name / acronymn for it? They'll call this one a "DVD." Sorry, no clues yet, all abbreviations are explained at the bottom of this article. In the future, as compression techniques and better, smaller, lasers are developed, and they double side the disks, capacities of a single 5.25 inch disk should be about 18 GB. This is about 30 times the information stored on todays 650 MB CD's. Speculation has it that they will appear within a year, should be able to hold a full-length, full-screen, full-motion feature film on one disk., and might be available from your local video rental store. I wouldn't hold my breath on all these counts folks. The plan is for all the new drives to read all the older formats of CD including your audio disks. At least this keeps your investment of all the original programs and songs intact. 5. More ZIP manufacturers have arrived. The very popular external disk drive holds 100M disks. Refer to the Oct 95 issue where I described my purchase of one. I love it, my PowerBook's 80M disk has been FULL forever, at least I now have room to expand my storage. March 96 MacUser picked the ZIP drive as hardware product of the year. Power Computing will mount a ZIP drive internally in their new line of Mac compatibles. 6. More PowerPC models from Power Computing - 150 MHz 604, upgradeable 601/120 to compete with the Apple 7200. More details as I get them. 7. Did I tell you about the removable hard drives in the latest PowerBook models? They can be swapped out "Hot", that is without shutting down or sleeping the unit. Don't try this at home until you've confirmed that the instructions also say it, I don't want to cover your warranty. 8. What do you put in all those new fangled PCI slots? How about an additional 4 serial ports, a 100M Ethernet card, an Intel 486 or Pentium to run Windows / DOS? Some more acronyms for your consideration: (those stupid 3 letter or so abbreviations that replace the phrases that are too long to say) PPCP - PowerPC platform (new name for CHRP) CHRP - Common hardware reference platform, original name to the specifications meant to standardize on a PowerPC computer that any company could manufacture or assemble, that would be guaranteed to run brand XX software. DVD - Digital video disk ZIP - brand name of iomega made 100Meg removeable disk drive unit CD - Compact disk (like your stereo tunes) 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 the lazer light. In this way, your computer can read the bunch of 1s and 0s (binary) that make up all computer files. M or MB or Meg - Megabyte, 1 million bytes of information, your computer might have 8 MB of memory, and 100 MB of hard disk space. A byte is roughly equivalent to one character of a letter. A five letter word that you typed into some correspondence would require 5 bytes, 1 byte per character. G or GB or Gig - Gigabyte, 1 thousand MB, see above. Again a measure of memory or disk space. It is a very expensive computer that has 1 GB of memory, but increasingly common place to have 1 GB of disk space. (about $50,000 to buy that much memory, but only $1000 or so for a hard disk of that capacity) PCI - Peripheral control interface - type of connector that an add in card might use. This style of connector is used in the newest Macs, and also in the newest IBM and compatible computers. MacOS - New name for the old Macintosh Finder and System combination. It was meant to put a more generic name to the Macintosh mystique and allow more clones to experience the Macintosh way. UNIX - Operating system of other systems, typically larger than desktop models. Very powerful, but often said to be very unfriendly Sun - Manufacturer of Unix machines Sparc - A model of Sun manufactured RISC processor RISC - Reduced instruction set computer. A processor designed to do a limited number of things well, and thus faster. It is often simpler to design and build. The entire PowerPC line is of this type (601, 603, 603e, 604). Contrast with CISC. CISC - Complex instruction set computer. A processor that can perform many varied complex instructions. It is often also more complex to design and build. The most obscure instructions may not need to be used very often leading to waste of design. The original Mac used this type (Motorola 68000, 68020, 68030, 68040) as do the IBM's of old (8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium.) Contrast with RISC. AIX - Don't know what these initials stand for, but it means the IBM brand of Unix Windows NT - The next generation of Windows. It currently needs lots of machine horsepower to run, and there is limited software to use. The NT stands for "New Technology" - I'm not sure how it's considered NEW? As a matter of interest - Insignia (makers of SoftPC and SoftWindows - programs that let Mac users run DOS programs on their machines) had been hired by Microsoft to develop an emulator for Windows NT so that older Windows programs could run in the newer operating system. Windows 95 - If you believe all the hype from last summer (August 24th to be exact), this is the best and only software you'll ever need or want. Of course, Microsoft sells it, but most of the ideas in it are a direct steal from the Mac. It is much more like the Mac than the older Windows 3 or 3.1 Novell - Company that makes the major networking software for IBM side of the fence. They also developed and sold WordPerfect, but have since sold it to Corel of Ottawa. CorelDraw for Windows currently has about 85% of the graphics program market on Windows. NetWare - The name of the Novell made operating system that a lot of IBM systems use. Recently, Novell has upgraded their Macintosh version, so that all functions are capable from the Mac as well. It used to be somewhat limited in comparison to the DOS machines. DOS - Disk operating system. Old term dating back to the dawn of the disk drive. In the olden days, even a disk drive was special, and many machines used a cassette tape recorder instead. FireWire - one of the proposed methods of connecting hard disks, scanners, etc. to a computer. It would replace or suppliment the SCSI port now on your Mac. A FireWire could have 63 devices in the chain, and termination is a thing of the past. They could also be starred together, daisy chaining them one after another is not required. This type of connection might appear first on portable video cameras Other stuff If you notice any errors or omissions in my presentation, please let me know. I am also open to any and all suggestions for format or content. Till next month, Brian Fouhse