Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac 1993 September/September 93.iso/Community/Media/US Magazine Index/MacWEEK 1992/MacWEEK 11⁄9⁄92

Text File | 1992-12-28 | 48KB | 971 lines

MacWEEK 11/9/92
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 News: Apple tries its hand at ergonomic devices

 Keyboard, mouse due for Macworld Expo

 By Nathalie Welch

Cupertino, Calif. - A radically new keyboard Apple is expected to unveil in
January may make typing less of a pain and in the process establish the company
as a leader in ergonomic design.

Like experimental and special-purpose developed by several small companies, the
new Apple model is divided into two hinged sections, sources said. Users can
keep it in a standard straight configuration or adjust the two pieces to an
angle of up to 30 degrees to suit their own comfort level.

Apple is expected to unveil the device, along with a new ergonomic mouse at the
upcoming Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The keyboard will retail for $219,
while the mouse should sell for $79, sources said.

In straight configuration the new keyboard complies with established
international ergonomic standards. The company reportedly believes that its
innovative features will make it the basis for future standards. No other
company currently offers a comparable product in the price range Apple is aiming
for, sources said.

In addition to the split design, the Apple Desktop Bus device features
adjustable feet and an optional wrist rest. It also will have sound keys that
can access mute and record functions, as well as volume control. A separate
extended key pad offers 15 function keys, four cursor keys, six screen-editing
keys and an 18-key numeric key pad, sources said.

Designed to replace Apple's current ADB mouse, the new mouse will be sold
separately and bundled with new Macs beginning in early 1993, sources said.

The mouse sports a new housing that acts as a palm rest. A larger button located
near its top allows for easier clicking and dragging. The mouse's ball is
farther up than in the current mouse to allow the user to make finer movements
with less effort. The device will offer 200 counts per inch with customizable
tracking.

Apple declined to comment.

"I think it will be a risk for Apple to release a split-design keyboard," said
Tim Holmes, a staff member at BMUG Inc., a user group in Berkeley, Calif. "There
have been a few to hit the market, but they were seen mostly as joke keyboards
and didn't do very well."

"I think an ergonomic keyboard could help reduce repetitive stress problems,"
said Karl Kroemer, director of the industrial ergonomics lab of Virginia
Polytechnic in Blacksburg.

MacWEEK 11.09.92

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: EO's pen-based gadgets focus on telecom

 By Stephen Howard

In the year since John Sculley began speaking publicly about personal digital
assistants, a debate has been simmering over what functions such machines would
possess and what roles they would fill. This week's announcement of the EO
Personal Communicators gives the world its first look at what could be a new
generation of portable computing devices.

We worked with prototypes of the Personal Communicator 440, the smaller of two
devices from EO Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. Both will ship with PenPoint, the
pen-centric operating system from GO Corp. of Foster City, Calif.

The 440 is mostly screen, with a fat upper lip where batteries are stored and
rounded "ears" on either side for speaker, microphone and hardware ports. The
440's 7.5-inch screen sports a remarkable 110-dpi resolution. This green,
reflective LCD screen is not backlit, which saves power but also means that the
440 isn't as readable in dim light or under bright overheads. The screen is
capable of eight levels of gray, but, according to EO, PenPoint uses only four.

You hold the 2.2-pound computer in one hand while wielding a special pen in the
other. The pen is basically the same stubby stylus used by other pen-based
computers.

The Personal Communicators come with a traditional apportionment of PC ports, a
PCMCIA slot and a built-in V.32bis and Group 3 data-fax modem. EO's unique
hardware additions are the CPU, a Hobbit RISC chip from AT&T Co., and a port on
the back for a lightweight cellular phone and cradle.

With a cradled Personal Communicator on your desk or car seat, you can pick up
the handset and make a call (you have to use the computer to dial), you can dash
off a note and fax it, and you can send and receive electronic mail. EO's
computers are designed for people who need to communicate all the time rather
than only during office hours.

The users. The question that dogs EO's device is: Who are these people? This is
a new twist on the question that has kept the entire pen-based computer industry
on the fringe.

EO wisely pursued mobile communications as a key extension to pen computing, and
its use of the analog cellular network is pragmatic. Bundling a high-speed fax
modem and a versatile E-mail account with the devices were all smart decisions.

But the Personal Communicators are not magic; you won't be able to wave them at
your most dunderheaded traveling executives and turn them into telecommunicating
wizards.

The challenges of communications are notoriously thorny, and the addition of
mobility makes them worse. From what we've seen, EO is not going to satisfy the
needs of corporations until third-party developers fill out some of the device's
communications abilities.

For instance, the Personal Communicator does not come with a terminal emulator.
There are no database-access tools or optional network protocol stacks. There
are no front ends to on-line services other than AT&T Mail, and there are no
remote clients for LAN-based E-mail. Third parties are working on some of these,
but EO's use of a non-Intel- compatible CPU means they will have to port their
software.

The Personal Communicators have many things going for them. First, a lot of
computer users want this kind of device. Although there's no announced Mac
connection, EO expects Mac users and corporations to form the majority of its
first adopters.

Second, AT&T is working to extend the reach of AT&T Mail through new services
and gateways. For instance, in the first quarter of 1993, Microsoft Corp. will
begin bundling a gateway with Microsoft Mail, according to AT&T.

AT&T Mail also has real advantages today. The mail system is based on X.400, so
linking to the largest corporations and other on-line services should be easier.
And the mailbox can handle both incoming and outgoing faxes. Better, EO
customers don't have to pay the monthly minimum fees.

Third, GO's PenPoint provides a good basis for communications applications. GO
Mail uses one interface for all mail services it interacts with. PenPoint shares
one address book systemwide, and because the OS is object-oriented, the standard
address book can be replaced by a better one, as EO did.

The EO address book is a part of Personal Perspective from Redwood City,
Calif.-based Pensoft Corp. The program also includes a calendar and notebook
that automatically share data, in a manner not unlike the functionality Apple
promised would be in Newton devices.

Conclusions. EO's Personal Communicator should not be thought of as a personal
digital assistant; it is a smartly shaped, RISC-based personal computer running
PenPoint. While it provides a nice package for mobile E-mail, fax and phone, the
platform faces an array of telecommunications complexities.

The cellular hook-up and bundled E-mail account may be sweet, but it'll be up to
third parties to determine whether EO's platform has substance.

MacWEEK 11.09.92

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: Oracle seals gaps in net apps

 Glue API simplifies client-server bond

 By Mitch Ratcliffe

Redwood Shores, Calif. - Did you ever wonder why client-server computing is such
a pain to implement? Or ask yourself why those smart software companies don't
come up with some kind of glue to bind together clients and servers?

Oracle Corp. has an answer to the Andy Rooneys in the IS world who spend their
days ruminating over enterprise network applications.

The company this week will introduce Oracle Glue, a portable cross- platform
application programming interface (API) that will give developers communications
hooks to Oracle6 and Oracle7 databases and Oracle Mail, IBM Corp.'s DB2
databases, Borland International Inc.'s dBASE and Paradox, and handheld
computers such as the Sharp Wizard 7000 and 8000.

Oracle Glue for Windows is due in April, with a Macintosh version to follow
within two months, according to the company. The Unix implementation of the API
will not be available until later next year.

Because the Glue API provides a uniform syntax, scripts written on a Windows
workstation will run on Macintosh and Unix clients, according to Marc Benioff,
vice president of Oracle's New Technology Division.

"We are collecting the drivers to all the different components of client-server
computing into a single API," he said. "All the developer will have to know are
four [Glue] commands."

The four calls cover database, messaging, file-system and communications
services.

Macintosh developers will implement the calls through HyperCard external
commands (XCMDs), while Windows applications can hook into Glue via Microsoft
Visual Basic or Dynamic Link Library and Dynamic Data Exchange calls.

Glue-compatible applications will let users retrieve data from corporate
databases, send documents to associates and export data via serial connection to
Sharp organizers - all without leaving their desktop application.

Glue is, in part, an attempt to circumvent the API wars raging on the frontiers
of enterprise computing, such as the ongoing conflict between Microsoft Corp.
and Lotus Development Corp. over their respective messaging APIs: Microsoft's
Messaging API (MAPI) and the Vendor Independent Messaging (VIM) API, which has
been endorsed by Apple, IBM, Borland, Novell Inc. and WordPerfect Corp., as well
as Lotus.

A version of Glue due in the third quarter of 1993 will add VIM and MAPI support
within a single API. By writing to Glue, developers will be able to standardize
connections to a variety of services.

"Various discreet APIs are not truly portable," Oracle's Benioff said. He added
that the company will probably ship new versions of Glue every six months to
provide support for new APIs as they appear.

Oracle Glue and Apple's upcoming OCE (Open Collaboration Environment) represent
different approaches to the problem of sharing data across programs and
platforms. Programs compatible with either API will let users mail a document
from within the application. To reach a database, however, OCE developers will
need to use Apple events and a separate gateway or API.

Oracle will license the Macintosh and Windows versions of Glue 1.0 for $2,995,
which will entitle developers to sell unlimited runtime versions of applications
that use Glue. Unix license pricing has not been set.

Oracle Corp. is at 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, Calif. 94065. Phone (415)
506-7000; fax [phone].

MacWEEK 11.09.92

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: Level 2 driver in beta; release months off

 By Matthew Rothenberg and Neil McManus

Mountain View, Calif. - Users who purchased PostScript Level 2 printers since
their 1991 debut will have to wait until at least early 1993 for a driver that
takes advantage of enhancements to Adobe Systems Inc.'s page-description
language.

Apple and Adobe recently released an early version to developers, and new
details about the driver have emerged. But Adobe said it has postponed the
release, previously slated for year-end, to ensure software compatibility.

Ed Lee, applications engineer at printer vendor Dataproducts Corp. of Woodland
Hills, Calif., said customers are impatient for the upgrade.

"It's crazy. [The driver] was supposed to come out a year ago with our first
Level 2 printer," he said. "We've been just waiting and waiting and waiting."

The new driver features:

> Faster printing. The driver first spools each page to disk as a QuickDraw
image, then uses this information to select only the PostScript code necessary
to send to the printer to cut output times.

Apple will rely on the Level 2 driver to make Mac output speeds more competitive
with Windows. Adobe and Microsoft this fall released to developers a Windows
3.0-compatible Level 2 driver. At Comdex/Fall '92 in Las Vegas next week,
Microsoft is expected to announce new system software that dramatically speeds
Windows printing.

> Streamlined interface. Printer effects such as font substitution and text and
graphics smoothing have been grouped into an Options dialog box, accessible from
Page Setup.

> More output options. The driver supports two- and four-up printing. Users also
can print different pages of a document via different paper trays or manual
feed.

> Easier access to custom features. The Options dialog box can display controls
for special printer functions provided by each vendor. Users can access
printer-specific features such as extended paper sizes and multiple paper bins
via the driver dialogs. A Chooser dialog provides detailed information on the
printer.

> Modular communications architecture. The new driver communicates with printers
on AppleTalk networks in the same manner as before, but the architecture will
let developers add support for other protocols.

> Encapsulated PostScript output. The driver can print EPS files to disk from
virtually any application, according to the developer notes. Users can choose
between 72-dpi bit-mapped or slimmer, higher-quality object- based PICT previews
for EPS documents.

MacWEEK 11.09.92

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: ESD pushes up cost of MacTCP driver

 By Leonard Heymann

San Francisco - Apple's effort to make money on its networking and
communications products may raise the cost to users of running Macs on TCP/IP
networks and shortsheet developers who now bundle MacTCP with their products.

The company's Enterprise Systems Division recently doubled the price of annual
MacTCP site licenses for commercial sites to $5,000 when it released Version
1.1.1, which is recommended for System 7.1. Licenses for educational sites
jumped from $1,500 to $4,000.

Many users whose organizations lacked site licenses have until now obtained the
driver bundled with third-party TCP/IP applications. In the future, however,
such users may be forced to buy the stack directly from Apple.

The company plans to offer MacTCP as part of TCP/IP Connection for Macintosh
through retail channels sometime next spring at $59 for a single-user version,
$500 for 20 users and $3,000 for 200 users. A contract addendum recently sent to
developers who now bundle the driver warns that Apple can prohibit third parties
from selling the stack starting six months after the retail release.

Alistair Woodman, Apple's MacTCP product manager, said Apple is considering
taking over sales of the TCP/IP protocol to gain direct contact with end users
and provide them with better support. "My desire is not to annoy end users,"
Woodman said.

Not surprisingly, however, Apple's plan has alarmed some developers.

"Apple is saying, 'Thanks for making this large market for us. Now we're going
to make some money off of it,' " said Kurt Baumann, president of InterCon
Systems Corp. of Herndon, Va., which makes a number of Mac TCP/IP products. "It
ends up costing users more money, and we think that's bad."

The prohibition on developer bundling of MacTCP would follow a flurry of similar
moves from Apple to create revenue streams from communications products. In the
past month, the company has unbundled the Data Access Language client from
System 7.1 and stopped including AppleTalk Remote Access software with
PowerBooks.

"I'd be really disappointed if they unbundle everything and nickel and dime us
for communications software," said Karl Dahlin, senior systems analyst at Raynet
Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif. "Where does it stop?"

But Reese Jones, president of Farallon Computing Inc. in Emeryville, Calif.,
said Apple's pricing policies should benefit users in the long run. "It's
probably good for the Mac networking business," he said, "since it opens a more
even playing field where more companies will create products and give users more
choices."

MacWEEK 11.09.92

News Page 1

(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


-----------------------
 Gateways: Server vendors to support ARA

 Xylogics, Centrum, Cisco plan updates

 By April Streeter

San Francisco - Providing remote access to the growing number of mobile
PowerBook users was a top priority of vendors at the recent Interop 92 Fall
conference.

A new crop of servers will add ARA users to the wider circle of remote users
accessing multiple-protocol Ethernet networks over public or leased lines.

Xylogics Inc., Centrum Communications Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. all said they
plan to add support for AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA) to their remote
communications servers in the first half of 1993.

"Right now when people want to do ARA, it's a separate and special phenomenon,"
said Tom Deboni, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in Livermore, Calif. "If we have a general-purpose server that could handle the
AppleTalk stuff as well as other [remote] users, it would be more happily
accepted by our networking staff."

Next year's ARA product lineup includes:

> MicroAnnex XL and Annex 3. Based on a 32-bit, 16-MHz Intel-based 376
processor, Xylogics' MicroAnnex XL terminal server has an Ethernet port plus
eight or 16 RJ-45 serial ports for $2,195 and $2,695, respectively. With three
separate Intel 376-based processors to control the serial traffic, the Annex 3
can support from eight to 64 ports through its 50- pin Telco connectors; prices
range from $3,995 to $6,990. Both models support Serial Line Internet Protocol
(SLIP) as well as Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP).

Xylogics said ARA protocol support will be available as a software upgrade next
year. Pricing has not been set.

> CentrumRemote. Centrum's CentrumRemote Access Server, with a RISC- based
architecture for fast packet processing, functions as a multiprotocol router for
Internet Protocol and IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange) data and bridges all
other protocols via SLIP or PPP connections.

A version with four RJ-45 ports is $3,495, an eight-port version is $4,495, and
a 16-port server is available for $6,295. Each unit has one Ethernet port.

AppleTalk and ARA will be added to the list of routed protocols by the end of
the first quarter of 1993 as a free upgrade for users purchasing the company's
maintenance warranty.

> Cisco 500 CS and ASM CS. Cisco's 16-MHz, 68331-based 500 CS terminal servers
provide IP routing and remote access over SLIP or PPP via one Ethernet and eight
RJ-45 ports for $3,295 or one Ethernet and 16 RJ-45 ports for $3,995.

The ASM CS is available with a 25-MHz 68020 or 68040-based processor and in
configurations for as many as 112 ports for between $11,995 and $15,995.

ARA support will be available by the middle of next year, Cisco said.

Centrum Communications Inc. is at 2880 Zanker Road, San Jose, Calif. 95134.
Phone [phone]; fax [phone].

Cisco Systems Inc. is at 1525 O'Brien Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94028. Phone
[phone] or [phone]; fax [phone].

Xylogics Inc. is at 53 Third Ave., Burlington, Mass. 01803. Phone [phone]
or [phone]; fax [phone].

MacWEEK 11.09.92

Gateways Page 20

(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


-----------------------
 ProductWatch: Shareware; It's a good find

 Utils offer managers a low-cost option

 By Clay Andres

Some managers say that shareware and freeware utilities are OK to play around
with, but many users feel safer paying for software that comes in a
well-designed box with a glossy manual and a technical-support telephone number.

Yet, according to users, shareware, freeware and public-domain utilities are an
important part of corporate software libraries.

"Corporations are afraid of shareware, but I've been dealing with shareware in a
business environment since the early Apple IIs," said Phil Reed, PC support
specialist at Clark Material Handling Co., a forklift manufacturer based in
Lexington, Ky. "There's no denying that there's a lot of junk. But the good
[shareware] is just as good as the commercial programs."

Where to buy or browse. Literally thousands of shareware, freeware and
public-domain utilities are available. For example, there are dozens of
libraries on CompuServe, including a library specifically for utilities.

Other on-line services and user-group bulletin boards have similar arrangements
and offerings: gigabytes of software in libraries arranged by topic for easier
access.

To keep up with the latest offerings, some users log onto CompuServe two or
three times a day to check for the new programs.

If you don't have the time to spend downloading software, shareware and freeware
also are available on disks. Several user groups publish catalogs of their
ever-expanding disk libraries. Both BMUG Inc. of Berkeley, Calif., and the
Boston Computer Society have more than 100 disks available, as well as CD-ROM
collections of their entire libraries.

Shareware variety. While there's a wide variety of commercial software, there's
also a diversity of shareware and freeware utilities, including Iconder, an
application that turns file icons into folder icons, and Eyeballer, a desk
accessory and system extension. Written by Marcio Luis, Eyeballer puts a pair of
eyeballs on the screen that follow the cursor. It may sound silly, but Kerry
Lanz, director of computer operations at Graystone Cos., a pre-press company in
Waterbury, Conn., said it helps him find his cursor on his multiple-monitor
setup.

Many shareware utilities have much more obvious practical applications. For
example, SCSIProbe, written by Robert Polic, finds, identifies, mounts and
dismounts devices on your Mac's SCSI chain. Ilene Hoffman, an associate with IMH
& Associates, a database development and systems configuration consulting
company in Needham, Mass., said she likes all of her clients to have an
emergency start-up disk with a copy of SCSIProbe on it. "It's great for finding
your hard disk after a crash."

How shareware compares. Some managers avoid shareware because they don't want to
worry about the source of their software support. "Kodak prefers us not to use
shareware or public-domain software when there is a commercial alternative,"
said Chris Barrett, supervisor of the software design center at Eastman Kodak
Co. of Rochester, N.Y.

However, Darren Tong, a principal with Process Communications, a graphic design
and consulting company in Concord, Mass., said he doesn't think that commercial
support is any better. "With large companies, you dial and dial, and it takes
hours to get somebody," he said. "Many shareware authors are pretty good at
support, and you can [often] get somebody right away."

Another freeware-shareware advantage is the dedication that many of the authors
bring to their programs. For many authors, it's a matter of personal pride,
rather than commercial profit.

Timeliness of shareware. Reed said all 150 Macs at Clark Material Handling run
Disinfectant, a freeware anti-virus program by John Norstad, who works in the
academic computing and network services department at Northwestern University in
Evanston, Ill.

Norstad regularly updates Disinfectant, and it is widely available from on-line
services, user groups and commercial distributors of noncommercial software.

Reed said he prefers Disinfectant over commercial programs because "it's
transparent, it runs well and it's free. If it weren't freeware, I'd have the
company pay for it in a flash."

And because of the variety of freeware and shareware, Graystone's Lanz said he
has found several utilities that don't have commercial equivalents.

Risks of using shareware. There are less-tangible risks that cause users to be
afraid of shareware. Foremost for many is the risk of viruses. However, Stefan
Pagacik, director of marketing for the Boston Computer Society, said you are
more likely to get a virus from a colleague's disk or over a LAN than from a
reputable on-line service or bulletin board. "We don't let anything with the
hint of a virus onto our boards," he said. "It's all triple-checked."

Eastman Kodak's Barrett purchased a collection of noncommercial programs on
CD-ROM: The System 7 Super CD from Quantum Leap Technologies Inc. Said Barrett:
"It was inexpensive, and I don't have to worry about downloading or viruses."
Barrett said he can easily find a utility to suit his users' needs or let users
search the CD themselves.

Another concern for users is that shareware authors come and go, as do their
programs. "I've dealt with companies whose bias is that shareware is not
supported," said Kerry Clendinning, a shareware author and manager of network
systems development at Southwest Network Service, an Austin, Texas-based
installer of large, private networks.

Clendinning has written several shareware programs: HeapTool, MenuChoice,
EasyKeys and DAPiggyback. "I try to make it clear that shareware is likely to
get released more often, and commercial software is equally likely to be
dropped."

The cost of shareware. While freeware is free, shareware isn't. Yet the costs of
shareware are still minimal when compared with commercial equivalents.

You can download freeware and shareware free from several Internet archive
sites, though non-Internet users have to pay for connect time, membership fees
or disks.

Iconder is an example of the freeware subcategory, postcardware. "If you like
it, please send me a postcard," writes Iconder author Steve Riha in his Iconder
help file.

There also is the Nautilus CD-ROM subscription service, which provides different
utilities every month, along with many other selections. "I subscribe to an
on-line service, but many of the utilities I got from them are on the Nautilus
disk," said Shawn Bishop, a Macintosh store manager and president of the local
user group in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Bishop said that his on-line costs have
almost disappeared since he began subscribing to Nautilus.

It's a shareware kind of world. The shareware market is broad, with shareware
authors active all over the world. Because their work is distributed over
networks, it can be updated and distributed worldwide in minutes.

Besides, no commercial program can match the freeware-shareware guarantee. If
you don't like it, pay nothing and throw it away. If you think it's worthwhile,
send in your shareware fee. Ultimately, users are finding that the low cost,
ease of access and variety of applications make shareware viable for the
corporate market.

MacWEEK 11.09.92

ProductWatch Page 73

(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


-----------------------
 Review: Kodak's DCS 200 is a digital pro

 Nikon-based camera limited by focal length

 By Sean Wagstaff

Eastman Kodak Co.'s DCS 200 line is the first professional-level digital camera
to offer a combination of portability, compatibility with an existing camera
system, high-quality color images and a price of less than $10,000.

Catalog photographers are the most obvious users for the DCS 200, but anyone who
needs high-resolution digital images on the go is a likely candidate. Newspapers
and magazines will find it suitable for portraits and product photos but not for
action shots. The color version of the camera, the DCS 200ci, lists for $9,995,
and Kodak also sells a black- and-white version, the DCS 200mi, for $9,495. For
our tests, we used the DCS 200ci.

The DCS 200 uses Nikon Inc.'s 8008 camera with the film back replaced by a
custom digital back built by Kodak. The back holds six AA batteries (in addition
to the four required by the body), and it contains a tiny 80-Mbyte Quantum hard
disk that holds 50 images. On the back is a 25-pin SCSI port, a small data
display panel and a pen-point switch. Assembled, the DCS 200 looks and feels
much like a Nikon with a motor drive.

(Kodak also sells two versions of the camera without the internal hard disk.
They require a direct connection to a Mac to operate. These versions, the $8,995
color DCS 200c and $8,495 monochrome DCS 200m, are intended solely for studio
use.)

The lens issue. Because of an anomaly at the heart of the DCS 200, its CCD
(charge-coupled device) sensor chip, the camera ships with a 28mm Nikkor lens
instead of the standard 50mm lens that ships with most 35mm cameras.

The Nikon 8008 is an excellent, flexible camera with a large, bright viewfinder,
and it is compatible with the whole range of Nikon lenses. The Kodak digital
back's tiny 1.5-million-pixel CCD, however, is only about half the size of a
35mm film frame. This means that the area viewed by your lens is about twice as
large as that captured by the camera (Kodak says the magnification is 2.6x).

Kodak has modified the camera's viewfinder prism, graying out the area that
falls past the edges of the CCD. The remaining clear area shows you what you are
actually shooting, but this is too small for many eyes. Supplementing the normal
viewfinder lens with a $66.50 Nikon DG-2 helps you see more of the area of
interest, and we think the camera should ship with this option.

Another way to look at the image area problem is that it effectively increases
focal length of your lens: The 28mm lens emulates a 72mm lens on a normal
camera, and a 50mm normal lens shoots like a 135mm telephoto. This is good if
you feel your lenses are too short, but most photographers pay handsomely to own
a collection of lenses that are just the right length. The DCS 200 makes it
virtually impossible to do very wide angle photography, although for catalog
work this is probably not an issue.

Kodak acknowledged the problem but said that increasing the size of the imaging
chip would be prohibitively expensive.

Another problem inherent in the size of the imaging chip is that the Nikon's
sophisticated Matrix Metering scheme is crippled, forcing you to use less
foolproof center-weighted or spot metering.

A measure of quality. The DCS 200 captures an image of 1,524 by 1,012 pixels.
The array captures only eight bits of color per pixel, but Kodak has implemented
an interpolation scheme that simulates 24 bits of color when the image is
imported into Photoshop. This provides a 4.5-Mbyte image, which, at 100 lines
per inch, is suitable for a 7.5-inch-by-5- inch halftone. Among the advantages
of an eight-bit original are that you can fit 50 images on the camera's internal
disk, and the small image size makes possible high "film" speeds of 50, 100, 200
or 400 ASA.

The DCS 200 relies on a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop (it also ships with a
plug-in for Aldus Corp.'s PhotoStyler for Microsoft Windows), but it does not
come bundled with the application. The software allows you to preview the
camera's archive as black-and-white or color thumbnails, copy all or parts of
the archive to your Mac's disk (as an archive file that is accessible through
the plug-in), and delete images from the camera. It provides a number of
color-correction filters that let you prefilter the image as it is acquired into
Photoshop to adjust for different types of lighting.

An Info button provides a time and date stamp, f-stop, shutter speed and ISO
(ASA) settings, and image catalog number for each thumbnail; there is also room
for you to enter your own notes. We wish there were a way to export this
information to a database, along with the image thumbnails.

Our other criticisms of the plug-in software are that you can't change the size
of the thumbnail window; you can't crop, flip or rotate the image prior to
importing; and there is no provision for importing the image as
black-and-white-only or for selecting an alternate lower resolution. We also
would like to be able to acquire and save batches of images unattended. Because
it takes more than one minute to acquire each image from the archive on a Mac
IIfx, batch import could save at least an hour of wasted operator time for every
diskful of images.

Kodak has done an exemplary job of interpreting the colors captured by the DCS
200, and the color is generally true-to-life and fairly well- saturated in the
midtones. The place you'll most notice the limitation of the eight-bit capture
is in areas of smooth color gradations: A slight posterizing or banding is
sometimes noticeable in areas where the gradation goes from very dark to very
light. Also, because of the interpolation, you will notice some noise in the
form of wildly off- colored pixels along boundaries of light and dark areas,
especially in fine light-colored lines over dark backgrounds. The other place
where the CCD's limitations are noticeable is in the limited contrast range.

Energize me. Assuming you can live with the focal-length limit, eight- bit to
24-bit interpolation and narrow exposure range, the last hurdle you'll have to
overcome with the DCS 200 is battery life. Kodak claims you can shoot about 90
images on a fully charged set of nickel-cadmium AA batteries. But in our
experience, the figure is more like 40, particularly if we acquired images
directly from the camera's disk, instead of copying a whole archive to our Mac's
disk. Kodak offers no provision for external power. This is unfortunate because
the supplied power cable recharges only the digital back's batteries, which,
according to Kodak's directions, takes 14 hours. A Kodak product manager said
that a solution will be provided in the near future to allow photographers to
use an external rechargeable battery pack, or AC adapter, to power the digital
back, Nikon body and a flash. For our tests, however, our gadget bag was weighed
down by several sets of spare batteries.

Although the software has a Take Picture button that lets you fire the camera
directly from the Mac, the short battery life means most users will prefer to
fill the camera's disk, transfer the image archive to the Mac and acquire the
images from the Mac's disk.

Kodak has provided a simple process for updating the firmware in the DCS 200:
The user alerts the camera via the pen-point switch on the camera back, then
clicks the Update Camera Firmware button in the plug-in's Control Panel. The
sole hardware switch also is used to set the camera's SCSI address, but the
camera must be at the end of the SCSI chain.

You can use an external hard disk, such as La Cie Ltd.'s PocketDrive or Mass
Microsystems Inc.'s HitchHiker, as a "film pack" for the camera, and a mounting
strap is provided for this purpose. You need to format the disk to work with the
camera, at which point it is no longer mountable except through the Photoshop
plug-in. Most of these portable drives require an external power connection -
either AC or through the Apple Desktop Bus - so they actually have limited
portability.

Conclusions. The DCS 200 is a very promising product, with applications in
publishing, database systems, medicine and image analysis. While other excellent
high-end products are on the market, the DCS 200 is the first to offer
portability and acceptable high-resolution image- capturing capabilities for
less than $10,000.

The DCS 200 offers many advantages: It is consistent and acceptably fast to use;
it avoids the pitfalls of chemical photography and the environmental problems of
waste disposal and water usage; because there is no film, processing or
development and the camera uses rechargeable batteries, it is virtually
cost-free to operate; it is based on the excellent Nikon camera system and
supports all of Nikon's related lenses and accessories; and it provides nearly
instant access to your images.

Battery life, focal length, image quality and high price are all significant
concerns, and we would like to see a features upgrade to the software, but for
many users this is a breakthrough imaging tool that should only get better with
time.

Eastman Kodak Co.'s Professional Imaging Division is at 343 State St.,
Rochester, N.Y. 14650-0406. Phone [phone].


 Score Card

 Kodak DCS 200ci

 Eastman Kodak Co.
 List price:     $9,995*
 Overall value   ***

The DCS 200ci is a Nikon 8008 35mm camera that has been modified to accept
Kodak's high-speed digital film back. With a storage capacity of 50 images and a
plug-in interface to Adobe Photoshop, the DCS 200ci provides portability and
quick turnaround of quality images for such applications as catalog and
newspaper publishing, as well as for more specialized work, such as medical
imagery. While it doesn't offer true 24-bit color, its image resolution and
color quality are very good. Battery life is poor, and no provision exists for
AC or external battery power. But the camera's biggest problem lies in the small
size of the imaging chip; this significantly alters lens and camera qualities.

 Performance             ***
 Ease of use             ****
 Features                ***
 Configuration           ****
 Compatibility           ****
 Documentation/support   ****

* DCS 200mi, a monochrome version, is $9,495. Versions without the internal hard
disk also are available.

MacWEEK 11.09.92

Reviews Page 53

(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


-----------------------
 BusinessWatch: Adobe's hopes ride on Carousel

 Despite steady growth, Wall Street is cautious

 By Jon Swartz

Mountain View, Calif. - With its 10th anniversary looming, Adobe Systems Inc.
should have plenty of reasons to celebrate.

Sales for the first nine months of 1992 are up; the company has announced a
string of major software applications; and next week it will offer a "peek
behind the kimono" of Carousel, a technology that could revolutionize the
paperless office.

But several disturbing developments could spoil the party. Application sales for
Windows products have been disappointing; competition with Microsoft Corp. over
the font market remains fierce; R&D expenditures are rising because of Carousel
development, which has required as many as 120 people for a year and a half; and
analysts are split on the fate of Carousel, which some claim could make or break
Adobe.

"It's a tough market but one that can pay off significantly," CEO John Warnock
said. "Cross-platform development is the No. 1 concern of corporate users, and
that is something we have striven to do with all our products."

Warnock and company President Charles Geschke can take heart in a 33 percent
increase in applications sales to $84.6 million this year. While applications
comprise a growing percentage of Adobe sales, about 60 percent of its revenues,
or $110.6 million, have come from PostScript licensing fees.

Riding Carousel. Adobe's new PostScript software technology, code-named
Carousel, won't be available until next year. But it promises to let users of
all computer makes - Macs, DOS- and Windows-based IBM PCs and compatibles, and
Unix machines - exchange documents effortlessly.

Moreover, Adobe has extended its original PostScript technology to include
digital video and audio data, making it a contender for status as the general
standard for multimedia information as well. (Warnock said a market showdown
with Kaleida Labs Inc. is "inevitable.")

If it succeeds, Carousel will alter the way computers are used in offices,
according to analysts and users.

"The implications are staggering," said Jonathan Seybold, publisher of Seybold
Publications in Malibu, Calif. "Previously, paper was the repository for
information. Now data is increasingly being stored electronically."

Said Gene Panhorst, an executive at Simon & Schuster Inc. of New York, "What's
fundamentally important about Carousel is that it is platform- independent."

Adobe executives stop short of proclaiming that Carousel heralds an all-
digital, paperless future, but they believe it could have a profound impact on
both commercial and corporate publishing.

Big reward, big risk. Despite generally good sales of current Mac products and
the promise of future technologies, Adobe's stock has been battered the past
several months over questions about the company's future. And analysts contend
more is riding on Carousel than Adobe is willing to admit.

"Carousel has the potential to be bigger than PostScript," said Will Fastie, an
analyst for Alex Brown & Sons Inc. of Baltimore. "But it is an extremely
complicated, risky process that will be a serious emotional problem for the
company if it fails. They'd have to rethink their long- range plans."

Industry observers agree Adobe needs something new to boost sales. The $230
million company has made much of its money from licensing PostScript and sales
of Illustrator, Premiere and Photoshop. But the business is beginning to mature,
and formidable competitors such as Microsoft, with its TrueType fonts, are
catching up.

"Carousel is really important. PostScript is maturing, and they need to invest
in another business to replace it within three years," Fastie said.

Quarterly dip. And the company's latest results reflect it. For the third
quarter ended Sept. 30, sales increased 10 percent to $63 million, but profits
fell 48 percent to $6.7 million because of lackluster Windows applications
sales, soft U.S. and European markets, flat font sales, and a $6.3 million
one-time charge related to the acquisition of OCR Systems Inc. this summer. At
the same time, Adobe's stock - which sold at $68.50 per share last December -
has plummeted to $33.75.

Although overall applications sales were up 15 percent for the quarter,
Illustrator 4.0 for Windows sales were down $3.4 million from the previous
quarter, and Adobe Type Manager sales declined $1.1 million.

"We haven't seen a return on Windows yet," Warnock said. "The cultural mass of
apps isn't there. However, QuarkXPress [for Windows] is just shipping, and we
expect Illustrator sales to pick up in the long range."

Product diversity. Warnock and Geschke insist Adobe is not betting its future on
Carousel. They maintain the company has steadily diversified its software
applications since 1987, when it released Illustrator. In 1989, it unveiled
Photoshop and last year it acquired Premiere from SuperMac Technology.

Adobe's business mission is to digitize everything from text to pictures to
video and - one day - to sound. "We're at the beginning of a long journey down a
digital highway," Geschke said.


 Adobe Systems Inc.

 > Founded: 1982
 > CEO: John Warnock
 > Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.
 > Products: PostScript, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, fonts
 > Employees: 900
 > 1991 revenues: $230 million

MacWEEK 11.09.92

BusinessWatch Page 42

(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.


-----------------------
 Mac the Knife: Multimedia Mac for the masses

As the man from Carthage, Tenn., will gladly (if somewhat woodenly) tell you,
being No. 2 on the winning team beats the alternative hands down.

The same holds true as Apple inches toward a firm commitment to new multimedia
Macs, the impending white-wine trade war with Europe notwithstanding.

The Knife is happy to report this week that Apple has a more consumer- oriented
multimedia Mac in the works to accompany the high-end multimedia machine
code-named Cyclone. Cyclone will include such exciting (and expensive) features
as the fastest 68040 Apple can acquire in quantity, built-in Ethernet, DMA and
the like. The new consumer Mac will be less ambitious but much more affordable
to the hip-hop-nation types and Axl Rose groupies that Apple is betting will be
the first major wave of CD-I consumers.

Sources familiar with this new Mac describe it as sporting an integrated 14-inch
color monitor, which the Knife later learned uses a Trinitron tube with standard
640-by-480-pixel resolution. Unlike the '040-based Cyclone, this model is slated
to be driven by a 25-MHz 68030, which although perhaps not as exciting as the
Cyclone CPU, should be adequate for the intended applications.

This lowest-cost multimedia Mac also is supposed to include a slot compatible
with the Mac LC III, the 25-MHz LC that is expected to be announced in February.
At this point, Apple plans to make the CD-ROM drive optional, but the built-in
stereo speakers, which are angled to reflect sound off the top of your desk,
will be standard. Expect both models at midyear.

Adobe merry-go-round. Hard as it may be to believe, the Las Vegas Comdex
commences next week. Among the gambling, glitter and other forms of purely
American, family-oriented entertainment, there certainly will be a lot of
announcements, both about products and strategies. The Knife reports that in the
latter category, Adobe will be announcing what sources at the company call a
"global strategic path" for Carousel. (The name Carousel, by the way, will be
abandoned shortly.)

Whatever Adobe calls it, the technology is designed to let users on different
platforms exchange fully formatted, editable documents. Target platforms include
DOS, Windows, Unix and the Mac.

The announcement will be made in several phases. The Knife has even learned the
list of the possible beta sites, which include Simon & Schuster, Dow Jones and
General Motors. Of course, at the rate GM has been going, the beta testing will
probably include a lot of cross- platform resume preparation.

In praise of the finger. It doesn't take a Phrygian king to recognize that the
human finger is a quite effective pointing device. Two years ago Apple figured
that finger pointing might be a good idea for its planned notebook Macs. As a
result, it paid the big bucks to a small Salt Lake City company for a two-year
exclusive on a device that uses the capacitance of the human finger to move the
cursor - the same kind of technology used in many elevator buttons.

The marketing folks, however, eventually decided that the whole concept was too
radical for those notoriously conservative Mac buyers, so they sat on the
exclusive for the life of the agreement. But if you want to see what the Knife
is talking about, look for notebooks with the Midas touch from Dell and Austin
Computer.

Regarding the detailed plans for drilling a hole in your Duo to access the
hidden reset switch: Sure, you can use the standard Control-Option- power-on
switch to reset, but power tools are such fun toys.

Jeans and Southern drawls might be back, but the stylish MacWEEK mug has always
been in vogue. If you've got the proper currency, y'all can contact the Knife at
[phone], fax [phone], MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and
CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.

MacWEEK 11.09.92

Mac the Knife Page 126

(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
-----------------------