Cupertino, Calif. - February may be short on days, but it's going to be long on new Macs.
Apple reportedly plans to debut at least five new color Macs on Feb. 15, including two new desktop 68040-based Macintoshes, called the Centris 610 and Centris 650, and a new '040 "minitower," called the Quadra 800. As previously reported, the company also will introduce a 25-MHz 68030 version of the LC, the LC III, and a color version of the Classic II.
Apple is hurrying to move its mainstream lineup to the '040 to stay competitive with 486-based PC clones, sources said. The company also said the power '040s can deliver for mips-hungry system software extensions such as QuickTime, OCE (Open Collaboration Environment) and QuickDraw GX.
> Centris 610. Holding up the bottom of Apple's '040 line will be the Centris 610, a "pizza-box" Mac that will use a stripped-down 20-MHz Motorola '040. The chip lacks the full '040's on-board FPU (floating- point unit) but still delivers about 70 percent greater performance than a 33-MHz 68030, thanks largely to the two 4-Kbyte caches built into the '040. The chip also costs less than the '030.
The 610's box, which sources said looks like a "fat LC," will have a slot that with the proper adapter can take either a NuBus or an '040 processor direct card. It will come with 4 Mbytes of RAM soldered to the board and two RAM expansion slots. It reportedly will be able to display up to 16-bit color on a 16-inch monitor or eight-bit color on a two-page display.
> Centris 650. At last month's introduction of the IIvx, Apple rather mysteriously suggested that users would soon have a way to upgrade the new Mac to an '040 system. That system, according to sources, is called the 650. It will use the same CD-ROM-ready case as the IIvx but will be powered by the 25-MHz '040 used by the Quadra 700.
The 650 reportedly will include an '040 processor direct slot and will come with 4 Mbytes of RAM soldered to the logic board and four RAM SIMM slots, just like the IIvx. The new model will have only two NuBus slots, compared with the three in the IIvx. In place of the third slot, Apple will put Ethernet. The 650 will offer the same display capabilities as the 610.
> Quadra 800. At the top of Apple's new mainstream '040 line is the Quadra 800, a shorter version of the 950. Features include a 33-MHz '040, an '040 PDS, three NuBus slots and Ethernet. It also will display 16-bit color on monitors up to 16 inches and eight-bit color on 21-inch monitors.
Although the 800 will have performance comparable to a Quadra 950, sources said Apple expects that many users will still opt for the larger tower because of its greater expandability.
> LC III and Color Classic. Also due in February, sources said, are a 25-MHz version of the LC, offering a 32-bit data path for greater performance, and a color version of the 16-MHz Classic II.
Apple's drive to meet the need for speed at a reasonable price, sources said, is intended to complement its new focus on imaging as a key use for desktop Macs.
MacWEEK 11.02.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: PB 145, Quadra 950 in short supply
By Jon Swartz
San Francisco - Apple last week confirmed what dealers and users have been complaining about for months: It's hard to get your hands on a PowerBook 145 or Quadra 950.
"It is an issue of demand outstripping supply," said an Apple spokeswoman. She said the company expects supply on both models to remain "constrained" until early 1993, when it will re-evaluate the situation.
Up to 50,000 PowerBook 145 machines and 20,000 Quadra 950 machines have been placed on back order by dealers nationwide, sources estimate. Even the PowerBook 170 - discontinued last month - has a backlog of 30,000 units.
Analysts pointed to Apple's current focus on the low end as a possible explanation for the continuing shortages. They said the company may be using its limited manufacturing capacity to ramp up production on Performas and LC II and IIvx machines for the lucrative Christmas season at the expense of some of its other models.
"Apple is going after the consumer market in a big way. The potential revenues are higher than they are for the Quadra," said Amy Wohl, president of Wohl Associates, a market research company based in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
The shift in Apple's infrastructure also may be related to the recently announced phase out of the company's Fremont, Calif., plant, which was initially the primary production facility for Quadra 950 machines, sources said. The plant will be fully closed by June of next year, Apple said.
However, the company said neither Mac shipment forecasts nor the Fremont closure caused the recent supply problems.
> PowerBook 145. Demand for Apple's entry-level portable computer has been brisk since it was introduced in August.
Scott Harris, an employee at The Computer Edge, said the Mount Kisco, N.Y., specialty store hasn't received the 145 machines it ordered in August and doesn't expect to see any until later this month.
"It's been a nightmare," Harris said. "When the PowerBook 100 was discontinued, the only choice users had was between the 145 and the 170."
Despite rumors that Apple would "roll over" outstanding 170 orders to 180 machines, Apple said it was up to dealers to make the exchange. The company doesn't plan to offer dealers any incentive to give buyers upgrades.
The arrival of the Duo 210 and Duo 230 on dealers' shelves last week is expected to ease the supply-and-demand crunch, assuming users buy into the products' unique design concept.
> Quadra 950. Two engineering glitches - one in June traced to a batch of defective power supplies and a more recent delay for an unspecified reason - created a sizable backlog in orders for Apple's top-of-the-line system.
Although some Quadra 950 machines found their way to dealers and users in the fall, Apple is still short an estimated 20,000 units to meet market demand.
"It took us three months to get one," said Roy Roper, an information- systems specialist in the School of Life Sciences for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Three months is an eternity for a faculty whose science depends on having a machine delivered in a timely fashion."
In the meantime, Roper said, he and other university administrators have bought NeXT Computer Inc. workstations instead of additional Quadras because "we couldn't afford to wait."
"Ironically, we placed an order for another 950 two weeks ago, and it just showed up yesterday," Roper said last week.
MacWEEK 11.02.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: OCE for Q1 '93?
Apple says yes, developers say no
By Mitch Ratcliffe
San Francisco - Apple last week continued its campaign to convince users that 1993 will be the Year of Collaboration, and the company said it will back up its claims by shipping new system software early in the new year.
Prerelease copies of OCE (Open Collaboration Environment) will be in selected customers' hands in January, according to Veronica Dullaghan, an OCE product manager at Apple. Some developers, however, said they doubt Apple can meet that timetable.
The company has been talking about OCE in public forums since last spring. Last week the technology was on display again at the Electronic Messaging '92 conference here.
The core OCE client software will ship as a set of Finder extensions and service access modules, which users install to add distributed directory services, messaging and authentication capabilities to System 7. While the company's marketing plans have not been finalized, Apple previously has said it will offer dedicated OCE server software for larger networks and client front ends for peer-to-peer OCE networks.
Dullaghan said the OCE front-end and back-end application programming interfaces (APIs) for third-party developers had been finalized within the past two weeks. Developers, however, said they have not received the frozen APIs.
Apple expects to finish OCE by March, sources said, but some expressed doubts that the OCE server software will ship before mid-1993 because of technical and scalability problems that impair performance.
"Hey, let's face it," one source familiar with the project said. "It's a hog."
Apple last week demonstrated the OCE server running on a Mac IIci to support three clients. Several third parties, including StarNine Technologies Inc. of Berkeley, Calif., and Beyond Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., were on hand with OCE-savvy applications.
"The client and server will ship together," Apple's Dullaghan said. "It would be pointless to do it any other way."
During last week's demos, conference attendees also got a look at an OCE-savvy version of WordPerfect Corp.'s word processor. The future WordPerfect can add a "mailer" banner to a document window, letting users address and mail the document from within the application.
Take a business letter composed in WordPerfect, for example. When mailing the letter, the user can stamp the document with a digital signature by clicking a check box in the mailer. The invisible signature code can be verified to prove that the document was sent by the person whose name is on it and that the contents have not been altered since it was signed. Users will have options to send a letter as a normal WordPerfect document or as a PICT image, which can be opened by many applications.
Dullaghan also said last week that OCE will play a large part in Apple's mobile computing pitch.
OCE users will be able to customize their access to network services by dragging icons in the Finder from the OCE directories browser into personal directories. OCE then will confirm the existence of those chosen services on start-up.
For instance, a PowerBook user could collect a group of commonly used databases and file servers from two different networks. When attached to either of those networks, the user will be able to jump to those preferred services instantly, rather than having to browse through the longer, all-inclusive list of services that an OCE network maintains. The user also would be able to create electronic-mail messages off-line and have the operating system deliver them automatically when the PowerBook reconnects to the appropriate network.
Dullaghan also said Apple has overcome a major barrier to exporting OCE. The company last week received permission from the federal government to export OCE, despite the fact that the software includes encryption capabilities that are more secure than those normally approved for U.S. export.
MacWEEK 11.02.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: Photoshop 2.5 built for speed
Adobe to open tools to DSP acceleration
By Carolyn Said
Mountain View, Calif. - Adobe Photoshop users next year will gain across-the-board speed increases - for the price of a digital signal processor card.
With Version 2.5, reportedly to debut next week and ship in 1993, Adobe Systems Inc. has opened up the $895 color-editing application's architecture so virtually any feature can be accelerated by DSP boards, sources said.
Several third parties, including SuperMac Technology of Sunnyvale, Calif.; Spectral Innovations Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif.; and Newer Technology of Wichita, Kan., currently offer DSP-based Photoshop- acceleration boards, which are priced at about $1,000.
But with the current Photoshop, only selected functions, such as compression and Unsharp masking and Gaussian blur filters, are accelerated; many everyday functions, such as the program's Magic Wand and Histogram tools, are unaffected by the boards.
SuperMac, Spectral and Newer Technology all reportedly plan to ship new versions of their DSP boards with acceleration for numerous additional functions, when Photoshop 2.5 is released.
For example, SuperMac's ThunderStorm 2.5 reportedly will accelerate rotation and RGB (red, green, blue)-to-CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) conversion. Current ThunderStorm users can upgrade their boards' software to take advantage of the new features.
"A more open [Photoshop] architecture would translate to hardware support for features medium-size shops need," said Joe Burke, president of Spectral Innovations. "Support for paint tools, selection tools, smooth fields and retouching tools would let medium [shops] justify spending the money" for DSP cards.
Photoshop 2.5, rewritten in C++, also will mark the program's cross- platform debut. Adobe will announce a Windows version next week, and editions for Silicon Graphics Inc. and Sun workstations are already in the pipeline. All three new versions are due in 1993.
Featurewise, Photoshop 2.5 doesn't represent a major advance over the current version, sources said. "It's a pretty incremental update. I was underwhelmed," said one source who had seen the product.
Enhancements reportedly will include:
> Interface. Users will be able to see changes to hue and saturation interactively on screen as they drag a slider to control these functions.
> Screen redraw. The screen now draws in tiles, resulting in a faster redraw when users zoom in.
> Painting masks. Users will be able to directly paint masks on images, which previously required more-complex manipulations.
> Channels. Photoshop 2.5 will have a Channels palette. Users will be able to name alpha channels and make them editable or visible; they can go to a channel by clicking on the palette.
> Dodge and Burn tool. This new tool will mimic two darkroom functions: dodging, whereby a user underexposes part of an image to make it lighter; and burning, by which a user overexposes part of an image to make it darker.
> Brushes. Photoshop 2.5 will add soft-edge and hard-edge brushes and will let users more easily save custom brushes.
The relatively short list of new features leaves out several other enhancements users said they had hoped to see in the new version, including software acceleration, color management and macros.
Adobe declined to comment.
MacWEEK 11.02.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: Borland counts Mac in for Quattro
By Lisa Picarille
Scotts Valley, Calif. - After years of ignoring the Mac, Borland International Inc. is getting ready to play ball with Apple.
The company is now working on a Mac version of its Quattro Pro spreadsheet, which it hopes to release by the end of 1993, sources said.
Borland reportedly has assembled a three-person Mac development team, significantly smaller than its DOS and Windows teams. The group, led by an ex-Apple employee, is in the initial stages of tinkering with the object-oriented code base of the Windows version of Quattro Pro to see what will translate well to the Mac.
Borland declined to comment.
After a few failed efforts to penetrate the Mac utilities, database and language markets in the late 1980s, Borland has focused on developing database and spreadsheet applications and languages and tools for IBM PCs and compatibles.
After being lambasted for delays in development of the Windows version of its $495 Quattro Pro spreadsheet, which shipped in late September, Borland is keeping a tight lid on its Mac development efforts.
"If they have really developed a true object-oriented environment, porting to the Mac should not take more than a year or so," said Jeffrey Tarter, editor of Soft*letter, an industry newsletter in Watertown, Mass. "But if they are untangling spaghetti code, they will have the same problems as some of their peers."
Mirroring the intense rivalry in the DOS spreadsheet market, on the Mac side Borland will face off against Microsoft Corp., Lotus Development Corp., Claris Corp. and Informix Software Inc.
Borland is looking to duplicate the success of Quattro Pro for DOS, which has more than 25 percent of the market and accounted for about 20 percent of Borland's $482 million revenues for fiscal 1992, according to Peter Rogers, an analyst with the San Francisco investment-banking company of Robertson Stephens.
"I think the Mac is gaining so much support in corporate accounts that any company needs to have leading products on both the Mac and the PC," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Research International Inc., a market research and consulting company in Santa Clara, Calif.
"One of the reasons Quattro Pro has had little success in the Fortune 500 is [that Borland] needs better cross-platform support," Rogers said.
Microsoft Excel's stranglehold on the Mac spreadsheet market may make it difficult for Quattro Pro to make headway. "If Borland is serious about not getting into the Mac [spreadsheet] market until late in 1993 - forget it - by then Microsoft will have a 101 percent share," Rogers said.
Tarter said, "There are only two time frames for getting out a Mac product - about a year and a half and never."
MacWEEK 11.02.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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News: Easing data transfer across borders
European laws can present roadblocks
By Mitch Ratcliffe and Mitzi Waltz
San Francisco - There's more to sending corporate data across international borders than dealing with noisy telephone connections and language conflicts. International data transfers are hampered by a variety of factors, including foreign laws restricting the use of personal data, phone-tapping governments that hand stolen competitive information over to their local industries and even U.S. government red tape.
Data protection. The first consideration when sending data across borders must be to ensure that the kind of data you want to transfer is not prohibited in the destination country.
U.S. companies are accustomed to buying and selling personal data files, such as credit, medical and demographic information, about customers. But in many countries, notably Canada and members of the budding European Economic Community, stringent data-protection laws restrict the use of such information.
For example, the personal data provided by a German consumer who returns the warranty card for a new Sony Walkman to Sony Germany - information that U.S. companies often sell through mailing list brokers - is sacrosanct in that country. Before the German distributor can sell a name and address to the Columbia Record Club, it must ask the consumer's permission.
More importantly, Sony Germany cannot export the consumer data to the United States because German laws prohibit the exchange of personal information with countries that do not provide stringent privacy safeguards. Most countries consider the U.S. Privacy Act of 1974 to be a poor excuse for a data-protection law.
"Eight of the EEC countries have national laws that regulate the collection, use and transfer of name-linked information," said Russell Pipe, publisher of the Transnational Data Report, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Washington, D.C. "There must be a specific reason for collection, it ought to be collected in a legal and honest manner, [and] it should not be released without the subject's approval."
Europe learned its lessons about personal privacy during the terror of Nazi Germany, Pipe said. Information such as marital status, religion, race or military history can be collected only from the data subject because that kind of information was used by the Nazis to identify Jews and other "enemies of the German state" in each country their armies conquered.
Today, most European countries protect personal data with a vengeance. And now, as the continent struggles toward a single market, data protection may be standardized across the EEC. The first draft of the continental privacy legislation conformed to the most stringent laws in Europe, Pipe said, but the European Parliament is now rewriting the legislation.
Restricted business. "We've been following the progress of the EEC's privacy proposals, and the original version is basically unworkable from a business point of view," said Nanette DiTosto, manager for telecommunications at the U.S. Council for International Business, a New York policy-making organization representing 300 U.S.-based multinational companies. "It's extremely restrictive on the transfer of data. Data can be transferred to non-EEC countries only if they have an adequate level of protection." However, DiTosto said, pressure from multinationals may be softening the EEC's stance.
The reworked legislation should allow stricter privacy laws in Germany, for example, to coexist with less-restrictive laws in countries such as Italy.
Some U.S. businesses, most notably banking-related companies, for which personal data is stock-in-trade, already have learned to comply with German restrictions and suffered no ill effects, according to Stephen Katz, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based American Bankers Association's Information Security Committee.
"What has been legislated there reflects sound business practices in most U.S. banks anyway," Katz said. "If you don't hold to those standards, you risk jeopardizing your relationship with clients and employees."
Business problems, solutions. International companies that need to transfer employee files across national borders face a special challenge. Foreign law often demands that corporations allow only restricted access to internal files, such as employee records, and that the company report any transfer of information to data-protection authorities.
Two work-arounds are available. Employees can sign away the right to protect their corporate files as a condition of employment. Companies following this road must be careful to document that employees have been informed they are sacrificing their rights to data privacy.
There is also a legalistic work-around. Branch offices in different countries can sign a "corporate contractual agreement" that protects data from improper use after it has left a country with strict data- protection laws. This kind of legally binding agreement lets employees sue under EEC laws if personal data is transferred illegally or misused.
Easing traffic headaches. As corporate networks expand their reach across national borders, transborder data traffic will become an everyday occurrence and, possibly, an everyday headache. The federal government could enact data-protection legislation that assures foreign governments that data will be safe in American hands, but the issue has not fared well in Congress. Information systems managers hoping to navigate the patchwork of data regulations might want to turn to international law as a guideline when tackling their international networking problems.
Encryption raises special hurdles
Businesses that transmit encrypted, or scrambled, data across national boundaries often find themselves under the scrutiny of government intelligence agencies. In particular, high-tech and oil companies with divisions spread across the globe are learning that encryption is a red flag that draws attention to their communications.
"When you use encryption, there has to be some coordination with governments," said Ruthann Kidd, press officer for British Petroleum's London headquarters. "During the Gulf War, for example, Middle Eastern countries asked us to stop using encryption because any encrypted information was going through the [U.S.] military."
But the biggest opponent of corporate privacy through encryption is the U.S. government. The National Security Agency reportedly doesn't want to let encryption technology out of the United States because it fears it won't be able to monitor international communications.
The most effective cryptographic systems, the Data Encryption Standard (DES) and Redwood City, Calif.-based RSA Data Systems Inc.'s public-key scheme, cannot legally be incorporated into software that will be exported from the United States. (The public-key scheme will ship in the United States as part of Apple's Open Collaboration Environment system extensions and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows for Workgroups.)
The intention of the restriction is to ensure national security; the effect is to force encryption users and vendors to "dumb down" their private communications security.
The Digital Signature Standard (DSS), which the federal government has proposed as a competing technology to RSA's public-key scheme, was revealed last year to have been developed by the NSA. Two researchers at Bellcore, the research arm of the Bell operating companies, reported that they discovered in the first version of the DSS a "back door" that could permit encoded transmissions to be decrypted easily by a third party.
Encryption keys. When does encryption threaten corporate interests? When national security agencies demand that companies doing business within their borders supply the government with their encryption keys. Encryption, in this case, serves to point out messages that are particularly sensitive, and an unscrupulous government with access to the keys might want to peruse the contents.
Companies that surrender their encryption keys are depending on the honesty of their host governments. Unfortunately, some government agents may moonlight as spies for other corporations or state-sponsored commercial enterprises, said Wayne Madsen, author of "The Handbook of Personal Data Protection."
In France, for instance, where anyone who uses encryption must provide encryption keys to the government, the intelligence agency reportedly delivered high-tech secrets stolen from foreign companies to Groupe Bull, the leading French computer maker.
"It's really bad in Taiwan, where the government puts agents in [telephone and satellite] switching stations," Madsen said. Companies that fear economic espionage may wish to move data by methods other than the telephone, he said. - By Mitch Ratcliffe and Mitzi Waltz
MacWEEK 11.02.92
News Page 20
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Gateways:DAL unbundled
New client pack to support ODBC
By Mitch Ratcliffe
Cupertino, Calif. - Apple's Data Access Language extension has moved back out of the Mac operating system to begin a new life that will include support for Microsoft Corp.'s Open Database Connectivity.
DAL was unbundled from System 7.1 to save system memory in the new, bulkier operating system, Apple said. Before System 7, DAL was available separately from Apple.
Version 2.0 of the DAL extension will be available by year-end in a package called DAL Client for Macintosh, which will include existing network protocol adapters, support for the upcoming DAL Server for AS/400 and new user documentation. Pricing has not been set.
DAL Client will be rolled out at the same time Apple introduces its AS/400 server product and will support ODBC-compatible applications, sources said.
ODBC also will provide access to Oracle Corp.'s SQL*Net and Sybase Corp.'s Open Client software. Users who load DAL, SQL*Net and Open Client drivers into their system will have seamless access to all three database servers from an ODBC-compatible application.
Users who upgrade from System 7.0 will be able to use the current DAL extension with the new OS. According to Apple, the 7.1 Installer does not remove existing DAL extensions. Users who receive their Mac with System 7.1 preinstalled will need to purchase applications that ship with the DAL extension, which include ClearAccess Corp.'s ClearAccess data dipper, Microsoft Excel and Lotus 1-2-3.
Unbundling DAL will enhance end-user support from Apple because the company will be able to ship upgrades to registered DAL owners, said Jerry Caussade, president of Fairfield, Iowa-based ClearAccess.
"DAL client upgrades come out more often than system-software upgrades," he said. "We've been shipping the latest version of the DAL extension and telling our users to ignore what's in their system software because it's outdated."
MacWEEK 11.02.92
Gateways Page 26
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Review: WriteMove for portable printing
By Dale Coleman
PowerBook users who want the capability to print documents on the road now can make room in their luggage for GCC Technologies Inc.'s WriteMove II. This is a 360-dpi, plain-paper printer that directly addresses portable printing.
Raw specs. The WriteMove II is a trim 11.7 by 3.5 by 2 inches and weighs just 2.5 pounds (not counting the AC adapter). Its rechargeable nickel- cadmium battery is good for printing between 12 and16 pages.
The AC adapter recharges the battery while the printer is turned on; recharging stops automatically when the battery is fully charged. The printer's LCD display warns you when battery charge is down to about 20 percent. Recharging at this level takes two hours. Recharging a completely discharged battery takes six hours.
Several design features make the WriteMove II's diminutive dimensions possible. It uses a customized version of the Citizen PN-48 print engine and uses QuickDraw for imaging, which is handled by the Mac.
It uses thermal-fusion technology and small ribbon cartridges. The single-strike ribbon offers excellent print quality and lasts for about 20 pages of text. Graphics in documents usually will reduce the page life of the ribbon, however.
At $5 per cartridge, you can anticipate a per-page printing cost of about 25 cents. The WriteMove II also will print on standard laser printer transparency paper.
A multistrike ribbon, which is appropriate only for drafts and documents whose appearance is not critical, will print about 80 similar pages.
Printing performance is good for this class of printer. It produces a page of double-spaced text in about two minutes. Pages that contain graphics, particularly if those graphics include large filled elements, print in about four to five minutes.
Of LEDs and paper feeds. We're all perhaps a bit spoiled by modern laser printers. You never have to give them a thought except for periodically refilling paper tray or toner cartridge, fixing a paper jam or tracing down a network problem. Using the WriteMove II is much more interac- tive, and thus provides a high level of feedback.
The front panel consists of a darkness control, a power switch, buttons for positioning paper and controlling on-line status, a charge indicator light, and an LED display.
The LED display is the main way the printer reveals its status. The single-character LED uses codes to report, among other things, on- and off-line status, low battery charge, sleep mode, paper out, ribbon out, low battery and micro adjustment modes. A handy reference inside of the top cover makes interpreting less-frequently encountered modes a snap.
There is a mind inside this small box. As a charge-saving feature, the printer goes to sleep after a minute of inactivity. It can report four levels of battery charge, and it's not shy about admitting that it's out of paper.
There are two paper-feed entry points. For regular paper, you'll use the drop-down door at the rear of the unit. The WriteMove II senses that paper has been inserted when it reaches the rollers, then automatically rolls it forward to the proper position. It then changes to micro- adjustment mode, at which point you can move the paper in small steps by pushing the up or down buttons. The bottom feed is for heavy paper stock, envelopes and transparencies.
All in all, the physical unit is very impressive. Its small size means you should be able to find a place for it on even the most cluttered desk. If you must, you can hold it in your hand.
Overall, the case seems rugged enough for its intended use, but it's not at all as sturdy as the PowerBook's. In particular, the top lid is flimsy, and it shouldn't be too hard to break it off. The release lever to the rear paper feed tray didn't work as advertised on the review unit; this is annoying, but it didn't really hinder performance. With extra care the unit should hold together.
Software. The software to control the WriteMove II is critical to its performance. A standard Apple Installer script installs the basic Adobe Type 1 outline fonts (Times, Courier, Helvetica, Helvetica Narrow, Symbol and Palatino), Adobe Type Manager and the GCC Print Manager Version 4.2.1.
After the print engine itself, the heart of this printer is the GCC Print Manager, which is mostly excellent. It boasts many features that are critical to successful printing away from the office, including background printing, batch printing, enlargement and reduction (from 20 percent to 400 percent in 1 percent increments), and on-screen preview.
The GCC Print Manager requires a minimum 500-Kbyte memory partition. In low-memory situations, print jobs are held in queue until enough memory is available, but you'll probably tire of not always being able to print on demand.
The WriteMove II relies on the GCC Print Manager for background printing rather than System 7's PrintMonitor. It creates an image of the file on disk, which is then sent to the printer (at 38.4 Kbps).
Of the three levels of background printing priorities - high, medium and low - only the low setting is acceptable, at least on a PowerBook 140. The other settings draw too much CPU power and make it difficult to work in a foreground application.
Batch processing offers many options, including setting the print time and deleting the print file. Users in a hurry or perhaps running low on ribbon cartridges can take maximum advantage of the Preview feature. It is similar to the Print Preview feature included in Microsoft Word.
Initially, the first page of the document is displayed in a "fit-to- window" mode, but you can zoom the image to full size. You can print directly from the Preview window.
Some of the defaults settings that GCC Print Manager ships with are a bit annoying, but you can reconfigure them to suit your needs, so this is a minor point.
Documentation and support. The documentation mirrors the product: It's small and to the point. In the 130-plus pages, you'll find clear instructions for installing and operating both the printer and accompanying software. It includes a good index and a glossary. Toll- free technical support is available 50 hours per week, Monday through Saturday, and you can leave a message.
Conclusions. Just as PowerBook users have willingly given up a few features for the pleasures of portability, the WriteMove II sheds some beloved but ultimately non-critical features, such as sheet feeding and PostScript, in favor of a small, lightweight design.
Other than that, however, you won't give up much. And the print quality is such that many who view documents printed on the WriteMove II will never notice the difference.
Dealing with feeding individual sheets of paper into a printer can be tiring, but not as tiring as having no printer at all. We wish the case felt a little more rugged, but overall, the WriteMove II is very well- suited to its intended task.
GCC Technologies Inc. is at 580 Winter St., Waltham, Mass. 02154. Phone (617) 890-0880 or (800) 422-7777; fax (617) 890-0822.
Score Card
GCC WriteMove II
GCC Technologies Inc.
List price: $599
Overall value ****
The GCC WriteMove II is a capable 2.5-pound, 360-by-360-dpi QuickDraw printer with a rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery. It delivers on its design goal to let PowerBook users who are on the road create attractive hard copy. It incorporates a Citizen PN-48 engine and uses thermal- fusion technology and prints on both plain paper and transparencies. Background printing and print queuing is managed by the GCC Print Manager, which is a very good utility. When totaled, this is one impressive little machine.
Performance ***
Features ****
Configuration ****
Compatibility *****
Documentation/support ****
MacWEEK 11.02.92
Reviews Page 67
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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BusinessWatch: Performas met with enthusiasm
New line 'strikes chord' with users
By Lisa Picarille
San Francisco - As Americans go to the polls to cast their votes, Apple is already receiving a vote of confidence of its own for the new consumer Macs.
So far, Apple's new Performa line of 68030-based consumer Macs has been well-received by users, based on preliminary sales estimates by dealers and analysts.
Last month Apple unveiled the Performa 200 and 400, revamped versions of the Mac Classic II and LC II, respectively. "We are meeting our projections on the 200 and exceeding our estimates on the 400," said John Lord, senior product manager for Staples Inc., a retail office- products chain based in Framingham, Mass.
The Performa 600, which offers an optional internal CD-ROM drive, is expected to ship this month.
Initial sales volumes are sometimes deceptive since vendors are filling the pipeline and not necessarily selling a lot of product, according to Ray Boggs, director of small business and home office research for BIS Strategic Decisions Inc., a market research company based in Norwell, Mass. "But the Performas seem to have struck a very responsive chord with customers."
Although Boggs said it was too early to gather actual sales figures, he noted on several recent trips to Boston-area stores that initial shipments of the Performas had sold out.
"Two or three days after Apple's initial introduction, most stores had massive in-store display advertising, newspaper ads and some really attractive pricing," Boggs said.
"We are meeting expectations." said Perry Chlan, a spokesman for Sears, Roebuck & Co., which is carrying Performas in 650 of its 860 Brand Central stores and Office Centers nationwide. "We expect an increase during the holidays."
Boggs agreed: "The fourth quarter is a traditionally strong quarter. From the business side, there are end-of-the-year tax considerations and - given the consumer orientation of these machines - they are likely to be purchased as family gifts."
The recent introduction of consumer PC lines from Compaq Computer Corp. and IBM Corp. has prompted BIS Strategic Decisions to increase its forecast for the number of units shipped in 1992 to 11.9 million, an increase of more than 150,000 units.
That also puts increased pressure on Apple to keep supplies in line with demand, analysts said.
"Being out of stock is a big risk," Boggs said. "If the salesperson knows you're dead set on buying a Performa that is out of stock, he probably won't pressure you. But if the buyer is just looking, the salesperson is knowledgeable enough about the Performa's competition not to let the customer walk out the door empty-handed."
MacWEEK 11.02.92
BusinessWatch Page 58
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Mac the Knife
Tomorrow's Duo displays
There was so much commotion surrounding the new PowerBooks last week that it was almost a relief to return to the nest late at night and bask in the warm glow of Larry King's inquisition of the candidates. But even that simple pleasure will become history in a twinkling.
Which, for now anyway, leaves us with the question of the Duos. The Knife received lots of mail speculating about the Duo displays. They're nice enough, goes the consensus, but they pale in comparison to the crisp display on the new PowerBook 180. So the Knife figured it was a safe time to let the cat out of the bag concerning Apple's immediate plans for what is turning out to be the most popular new Mac line in memory.
According to pristine sources, Apple has scheduled a new Duo with an active-matrix gray-scale PowerBook 180-style display for next spring. (A 160-Mbyte drive option also is scheduled to debut at the same time.) The seers claim that a color active matrix won't arrive until the end of next year.
As for the deafening demand for Ethernet, sources say that a Duo Dock so equipped also is booked for a late 1993 engagement. And wherever the Duo Dock performs, can the Mini Dock really be that far behind?
To some it might appear that Apple has gotten a tad product-happy. If you add the new imaging products to the scheduled new CPUs, you come up with 20 new products slated for the first three months of the new year alone.
Power tool. Then there's the burning question of the missing Duo interrupt switch. Turns out that it's in there, all right, but you just can't get to it. But for those of strong constitution and great power- drill dexterity, the Knife is happy to report the solution. Simply drill a small hole in the case just to the left of the reset switch. You should be strongly cautioned, however, that if you execute this procedure, you'll probably have to do some incredibly fast talking the next time you do Duo business with an Apple service technician.
There's good news for those of you who can't keep enough PowerBook batteries around. The Knife has learned of a third-party replacement battery with a special poly-switch fuse that obviates the need for special handling. And best of all, it should be less than $50 when it ships next January at Macworld Expo.
Tight squeeze. Word is that Stac Electronics is developing a Mac version of Stacker, a driver-level compression program that's a best seller in the DOS world. Sources say that Stac purchased the code from MindVision Software, the company that introduced Developer VISE, a compression routine for - surprise - developers. Release currently is scheduled for early next year.
In other Mac utility news, the Knife reports rumors are flying that After Hours Software is looking seriously for a buyer for its GUM PowerBook utilities. There's also a lot of speculation that Symantec is interested.
Meanwhile, Claris and two or three other vendors are competing for rights to a different PowerBook utilities collection from Billy Steinberg, Emmy-winning video producer and man about CompuServe. The dollar figures being tossed around aren't quite in Perot territory, but they're surprisingly substantial.
Yo, EO. The speculation about what EO has been up to should be laid to rest next week when the company announces its new device, which it's calling a personal communicator. Unlike the Newtons, which will be based around a computer, the EO device is based around the common telephone, although it includes a number of built-in functions similar to the Newton's. Best of all, it's compatible with AT&T's cool new universal mail system. Check it out.
If you're thinking of offering a toast at the inauguration, you'll have to be like the Knife's Belgian buddy Benoit and get with the program. You'll find the Knife at (415) 243-3544, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
MacWEEK 11.02.92
Mac the Knife Page 134
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
