Chicago - Apple shed light on its vision of how people and technology will work together in the future when it switched on its "intelligent" Newton technology at the Consumer Electronics Show here.
The working Newton prototype resembled a cross between a communicator from the original "Star Trek" television series and a black Porsche 928. Under its flip-up hood was a HyperCard-like interface that hid a sophisticated operating system with handwriting and graphics recognition, object- oriented data, and agent-assisted navigation and task- management capabilities.
Although company officials were not clear on what capabilities would be included in its first Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), most people at the debut said they were impressed with the technology. Apple is not expected to deliver its first Newton device, which will be priced at less than $1,000, until next year.
Some questioned whether Newton represented a new technological paradigm, as Apple CEO John Sculley suggested.
"Sculley has been talking about how [Newton] will change the world, but we should take that with a grain of salt," said David Baron, associate editor of Digital Media, a Seybold Report based in Malibu, Calif. "It's a step up from a Wizard and a step below a personal computer in terms of functionality."
Corporate users with large Macintosh installations weren't oblivious to the implications of the PDA. They expressed the most interest in the communications features that will be offered in Newton devices.
"Over the next few years, PDAs will allow us access to corporate databases in new ways," said Jim Young, assistant to the chairman at Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Dallas.
Alan Kay, an Apple fellow and one of the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) scientists who pioneered many Mac and Newton concepts, said Newton was "in many ways more powerful than a Quadra."
He also said that "the sorry state of networks" and the development of intelligent agents would be gating factors in the success of Newton-type devices. "The first products will be the equivalent of word processors compared to page-layout programs, with agents good at only one thing," Kay said. "A lot has to happen with artificial intelligence in the next 10 years to reach the next level.
"It took 15 years for PCs to pass mainframes in worldwide revenues," Kay said. "Somewhere around the year 2000, [PDAs] could eclipse PC revenues."
Apple can't possibly achieve this ambitious goal alone, according to several company executives. It will take many partners building devices based on Newton technology to make that economic dream come true.
The company has licensed the technology to Sharp Electronics Corp., for example, for use in Sharp's PDA product. Sharp also will manufacture Apple's first Newton.
According to Hugh Hempel, Newton's market-development manager, Apple selectively will seek to license Newton to other companies. The company wants licensees who will build special-purpose devices that take advantage of the technology.
Examples in an overview on Newton technology distributed by Apple included a fax/phone that could store and retrieve personal and local telephone listings, an electronic map that could display the user's position using satellite positioning, and a networked whiteboard for teachers and students to share information in a classroom.
Hempel said that Apple might work with a partner to build a Newton-based draw and spell device that could teach language and writing skills.
Apple also is looking at new sales channels, including consumer electronics, mail-order catalogs and on-line services, to distribute products.
The company is even considering allowing Newton owners access to AppleLink to buy software for their PDAs, Hempel said.
"Clearly we are investigating new forms of fulfillment for software, and they'll run the gamut," he said.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
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(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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MacIS: Apple corporate support leaves room for improvement
By Carolyn Said
San Francisco - Getting better support from Apple remains a critical concern for Mac managers.
Members of MacIS (Managing Apple Computers in Information Systems), meeting here last week, repeatedly called on the company to improve its support for institutional customers.
"Apple has yet to offer a true support strategy," said Bob Anderson, senior analyst for information services at A.O. Smith Automotive Products Co. in Milwaukee. "They throw balls at the wall and see which ones stick."
The organization wants Apple to develop a "commercial- strength" infrastructure for supporting its corporate customers. Many members said they are particularly eager to get more and better information from Apple. "We want to know where things are going. It costs a lot of money to upgrade everyone; we need more information [about Apple's product plans] to make decisions," said Mike Deardorff, senior computer systems analyst at Union Carbide Corp. in South Charleston, W.Va.
As one step toward improving support, Apple launched a new Enterprise Computing area on AppleLink, its on-line service. The area will include service and support information, a searchable database of technical information, and discussion areas, as well as a new MacIS forum.
Overall, both MacIS and Apple representatives said their relationship has grown stronger. Reflecting their closer connection with Apple, the MacIS board declined to release the results of its membership's vote to prioritize issues until it had shared them with Apple.
Other themes discussed at the group's sessions included:
> Network communications.
Managers said they want improved network security. "Apple should provide better encryption capabilities than free ASCII transmission of passwords whenever users log into an AppleTalk network," said Ray Phillips, director of computer services at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
Eyeing the proliferation of multimedia data, such as QuickTime movies, MacIS members want Apple to help managers plan for "the explosion in demand for network capacity." They also said they would like Apple assistance in building AppleTalk wide-area networks, supporting cross- platform networks and integrating OCE (Open Collaboration Environment) with existing directory services.
Members said they are still waiting for Apple to deliver SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) network-management tools. Morris Taradalsky, Apple vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Systems division, said such a product would be available "this year."
Attendees also asked for improvements in TCP/IP support, remote access and AppleShare, as well as tools for centralized software updates, distribution and license sharing.
> Distributed computing.
Data Access Language (DAL) remained an important concern. Members said Apple should improve DAL support and should enhance security and connectivity. Apple said that DAL 2.0 will be out "quickly" and that its DAL servers for IBM mainframes would be upgraded first, with VAX then A/UX servers following. Apple said it will probably charge for DAL technical support.
Although Apple recently began releasing VITAL (Virtually Integrated Technical Architecture Lifecycle), its guidelines for client-server computing, MacIS members said they need more complete information, training, standards and reference materials to make VITAL useful.
> Server Mac.
Members said they want a true server Mac. "I have 10 Quadra 900s running AppleShare 3.0. It's just not an industrial-strength file server," said Mike Keithley, IS manager at Creative Artists Agency Inc. of Beverly Hills, Calif. "I want a bare-bones, really fast file server with really fast network OS. We need a more-robust AppleShare 4.0 with the server."
In response, Taradalsky said the company will deliver a server early next year that will provide file, print and database services. Apple is working with Oracle Corp. on the database component, he said.
> Operating system.
MacIS would like to see a number of OS improvements, including pre-emptive multitasking, A/ROSE on A/UX and a "mini System 7" that would fit on a floppy disk.
> Performance.
Managers called for Macs with built-in token ring, faster I/O, dedicated video processing and a 1-Gbyte Apple drive. Mem-bers had a long list of desired PowerBook bug fixes and new features, and also said they'd like an Apple portable printer.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
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(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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Newton may bring high-tech help to everyday tasks
Software optimized for small bits of data
By Henry Norr
Cupertino, Calif. - "At Apple, all hardware projects are thinly veiled software projects," observed Michael Tchao, product-line manager for Apple's Newton devices, and users lifting the lid on one of the new Personal Digital Assistants next year are likely to agree.
At a glance, the device's screen easily could be mistaken for a HyperCard stack in portrait mode. But closer inspection reveals a fundamental break with current computing paradigms.
Newton's premise is that most people spend much of their time trying to capture, organize, retrieve and communicate small bits of data - jotting down and looking up names and numbers, taking and reviewing notes, making lists and reminders, and sketching maps and models.
Those are the kinds of tasks Newton is intended for. The software consists of a completely new, object- oriented operating system optimized for storing, finding and linking small pieces of information. The system stores all data in one free-form repository; "applications" are simply different forms, or ways of entering, seeing and manipulating information from this data store.
> Built-in apps.
The prototype shown last month had seven icons - Who, What, When, Files, Format, Find and Assist - across the bottom of the screen, along with a two-headed scroll arrow.
The Who button brings up a set of Rolodex-style cards, animated to represent a rotating file. Tapping a phone icon dials the contact; notes can be scribbled right on each card. Clicking on What produces a to-do list screen. When calls up a calendar; circling a date or any range of dates produces a list of appointments, scaled to fit the space available, for a particular time.
The Files button brings up a window in which additional applications are represented by icons. Add-ons shown in Apple's demonstrations included a maze generator, a database about Paris (featuring a map of the Metro transit system), and a pizza-ordering form; users would drag icons for cheese, pepperoni, etc., onto an image of a pizza, then tap a button to fax the order to a favorite pizza house.
The Format button automatically puts newly entered or selected text into any of several customizable formats, such as a business letter, memo, fax or electronic-mail message.
> Intelligent assistance.
Newton's Assist button is probably the single most compelling feature of the system. The user jots a word or two on the screen and taps the button; Newton then checks its database for related information and, based on what it has learned about your habits and preferences, sets out to execute the appropriate operations.
Writing "Jane lunch Thurs" and hitting the Assist button, for example, would automatically generate an entry reading "Lunch with Jane Green" in the 12:00 slot on the calendar for Thursday, June 11. Highlighting some text and writing "send to Bob" would put a formatted, preaddressed business letter on the screen for approval.
Sometimes Newton might guess wrong about what's intended and the user will have to redirect it. But when it guesses right, it gives the whole system a fluidity and convenience lacking from desktop computing. It's hard to believe that the technology will "free owners from having to worry about the minutia of life," as Apple's press materials claim, but it could be a real step in that direction.
> Custom tools.
Apple plans to offer a tool kit that will give professional programmers, in-house developers and skilled hobbyists a way to create custom forms - in effect, additional Newton applications.
The development software, which will be sold separately, won't run on Newton itself, at least at the outset, but on the Mac and Windows. An Apple official said creating a form would require skills comparable to those involved in creating a HyperCard stack or building a suite of database scripts in Claris Corp.'s FileMaker Pro.
Expected custom applications include expense forms, inspection reports and order-entry screens. Custom forms also would serve as front ends to specialized "content" stored on cards, such as dictionaries, city guides, catalogs, specialized databases and technical documentation.
While content cards could be a viable market for third-party developers, forms might be too small and specialized for traditional software channels. To address the issue, Apple said it is considering a number of new approaches, such as a company-chartered dial-up service or CD-ROM-based kiosks placed in retail outlets.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
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(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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Users adrift in OS deluge
By April Streeter and Jon Swartz
San Francisco - In most market-driven economies, customers greet choice with open arms.
In the computer industry, however, a proliferation of operating systems - and the promise of many more to come - has information-systems managers befuddled, anxious and in some cases fighting mad.
"This plethora of OS crap has got to stop. It stops when the user says no more, and that will happen soon," fumed an IS manager at Citibank Corp. in New York. "Corporate America will no longer be hornswoggled by the technical bureaucrats."
Bob Bowman, vice president and manager of PC support at Seattle First National Bank (SeaFirst), said: "Let's see. There's Windows 3.1, Windows NT, OS/2, System 7.0, Unix, Pink, not to mention the Newton OS. It creates a support nightmare."
Just supporting various versions of the Mac operating system is a burden for managers. According to Bowman, SeaFirst has 4,000 Macs running on five different operating systems, from 3.2 to 7.0.1.
Long-term planning can become frustrating for IS managers dealing with a lengthy list of current and future OS options. "A five-year plan is like science fiction. A six-month or two-year plan is more realistic," said M.K. Starling, digital systems steward for Union Carbide Chemicals and Plastics Co. Inc. of South Charleston, W.Va.
The ongoing battle between the Macintosh, Windows and OS/2 platforms, in particular, has resulted in political infighting at IS departments.
"We've always had a proliferation of operating systems," said Ray Kirtland, manager of business systems for Sprint Corp. of Kansas City, Mo. "But now there is a running battle. It's such a hot issue that everyone is trying to hang tough."
"We've got too many options right now," said Michael McDuffy, computer-equipment technician at the University of Texas in San Antonio. "I've got a fairly good feeling for A/UX and RISC- based machines, but I'm hedging my bets a lot more that I ever have in the past."
Rich Ragin, computer manager at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said he's waiting to see which technologies emerge from the OS dogfights. "We'll probably wait a couple of years, but I suspect Pink will be a winner," he said.
Rikki Kirzner, a senior industry analyst at Dataquest Inc. of San Jose, Calif., said IS managers for the first time are basing their systems purchases on certain criteria - including client- server support, industry standards, interoperability and multitasking - rather than a single-vendor solution.
Kirzner said several major companies, such as K-Mart Corp. of Troy, Mich., and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, Ark., have switched to Unix formission-critical applications over the past two years.
In the meantime, Apple, Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. all are moving toward more interoperable systems, Kirzner said.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
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(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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FileMaker Pro 2.0 to cross platforms
By Andrew Gore
Santa Clara, Calif. - Promising "a true cross-platform solution without compromise," Claris Corp. will officially announce FileMaker Pro 2.0 for Macintosh and Windows.
Aside from cosmetic details such as button styles, a FileMaker record displayed on Windows is almost indistinguishable from the same record displayed on a Mac. The Windows and Mac versions share the same file format and have 85 percent common code, according to Claris.
"This is the best example of software that has tried to run on both platforms," said Jonathan Yormark, director of information resources at University of Southern California School of Business in Los Angeles. "It's the first I have seen that really looks and feels essentially the same on both platforms."
> Cross-platform translation.
The latest version of the flat- file database translates all graphics and font information on the fly between Windows and Mac systems.
FileMaker converts Mac PICT screen images to Windows bit- mapped metafile images, and vice versa. It compares fonts to a table to choose the best substitution font across platforms. FileMaker supports TrueType, Bitstream Facelift and Adobe Type Manager fonts.
Colors in FileMaker's new 88-color palette are calibrated to match on both platforms.
FileMaker on the Mac does have some capabilities not available under Windows, however. For example, the Mac version can play QuickTime movies from a database record; until Apple ships its QuickTime player for Windows, FileMaker on Windows can display only the movie's PICT poster.
> Networking.
Up to 25 simultaneous users on either platform can access the same FileMaker file over the network.
Version 2.0 maintains a host/guest structure, but performs searches at the local workstation where, according to Claris, they can be executed much faster. For example, a multi-user search that used to take a server 27 seconds to execute now takes nine seconds on the user's system.
FileMaker requires either Novell NetWare products or Farallon Computing Inc.'s PhoneNET Talk for cross-platform environments.
> ScriptMaker. FileMaker offers a new scripting engine called ScriptMaker. The ScriptMaker dialog consists of three windows. The first lists all the scripting steps available at that point in a script. Steps are broken down into logical groups, such as pausing, editing or executing other scripts. Most FileMaker commands are available as ScriptMaker steps.
The second window contains script step options, such as specifying field names. The third window contains the step list for a script. Users can rearrange steps or remove them from the Step list.
Finished scripts can be attached to buttons. They will execute identically on both Windows and Mac. Scripts even can look up data in fields across platforms, and can replace a value in a field if changed at the script's destination.
ScriptMaker also can call other Mac applications using Apple events and use them to process and return information to the database. Similar functionality isn't available in the Windows versions as Dynamic Data Exchange, Window's equivalent to Apple events, isn't yet sufficiently robust, according to Claris.
> Other enhancements.
Claris claims to have added some 75 new features to FileMaker 2.0. They include: a picture look-up table, which allows different database forms to share graphics; support for Apple's Data Access Manager; the ability to call external scripts from Claris Resolve, HyperCard, QuicKeys and Tempo II+; the addition of wild-card searches; and the ability to reorder layouts and reserialize records.
FileMaker Pro 2.0 will retail for $399, $100 more than the current version. Upgrades are $89.
Claris Corp. is at 5201 Patrick Henry Drive, Santa Clara, Calif. 95052-8168. Phone (408) 727-8227.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
News Page 1
(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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No-risk RISC makes faster, better printers
By Bob Weibel
Not long ago the use of high-speed RISC processors was a revolutionary new direction for desktop PostScript printers. Now it's almost standard equipment in a speed-conscious marketplace.
Look around, and you'll see that RISC-based machines quickly are becoming the best-reviewed and most popular class of PostScript printer in every price category.
Vendors are going for RISC because, for about the same development cost of using general-purpose chips such as the Motorola 68000 family, they can design a better-performing machine and get it to market faster. It's a very competitive market, yearning for faster printers at lower prices.
"Applications are now more complex, and people expect printers to do more when it's time to print," said Peter Stolinsky, marketing director with the Image Products Operation at Adaptec Inc. of Milpitas, Calif., the company that manufactures the RISC-based controller board for Apple's new Personal LaserWriter NTR.
As the term RISC (reduced instruction set computing) implies, RISC processing chips require a smaller set of computer instructions, which are designed to execute quickly.
For printers, this extra horsepower means more features, such as:
> Quicker printing of PostScript jobs.
> Extra muscle for PostScript Level 2.
> Automatic port and emulation switching.
> Multitasked processing of jobs in high-demand network environments.
While the printers we profile have deluxe features, some are unbelievably low-priced.
Personally priced. The Printer Works' $1,295 LX-29000 is the lowest-priced PostScript-compatible RISC printer at press time. The LX-29000 is not available in stores; instead, it's sold direct from The Printer Works, with no dealer markup.
Basing the LX-29000 design on Microsoft Corp.'s TrueImage PostScript-compatible interpreter also helps shave a fistful of dollars from the price.
The LX-29000 also sports automatic port switching between AppleTalk, serial and parallel ports.
Jeremy Stratton, partner in the design and pre-press company Admac of Berkeley, Calif., loves the LX-29000. "For print jobs requiring only two or three fonts, the LX-29000 prints faster than our LaserWriter IINTX," Stratton said.
Despite the slower engine speed, the LX-29000's RISC processor simply tears through the complex graphics Admac throws at it, which is why it is buying another one.
No matter how reliable PostScript clones have become, many folks still yearn for Adobe-licensed machines, chiefly because of compatibility concerns, especially with PostScript Level 2, which still is available only from Adobe Systems Inc.
The first PostScript Level 2 printers on the market - Hardware That Fits' RealTech Laser and Dataproducts Corp.'s LZR 960 - also are bargains. Although they have different names, the RealTech Laser and the LZR 960 are the same printer.
Under a direct-sales marketing agreement, Hardware That Fits slaps its own logo on the Dataproducts machine, tosses on a second paper bin and tray, and sells through the mail at a discount. Available through dealers, the LZR 960 also comes from Dataproducts in an LZR 960+ configuration of 3 Mbytes (instead of the standard 2 Mbytes), plus an additional paper bin and tray.
Dataproducts also sells an 11-by-17-inch version, the 400- dpi LZR 1560, with single-, double- and triple-tray models.
Newsweek, based in New York, purchased 13 RealTech Lasers and six LZR 1560s to spread around its huge networked Mac- and Atex-based production department.
According to Joe Bingham, manager of editorial systems, "We had four criteria in choosing printers - PostScript Level 2, SCSI port for external font disks, a 500-sheet paper capacity and price." Bingham said the production staff proofs full pages with graphics and images, with no PostScript bottleneck.
Spotting the trend, Apple introduced the RISC-based Personal LaserWriter NTR. The NTR is faster and $400 cheaper than the Personal LaserWriter NT it replaces - a great testimonial for RISC-based printers.
For the record, Michael Weiss, president of MWA Consulting, the Palo Alto, Calif., company that benchmarked the NTR for Apple, said the Personal LaserWriter NTR "sets a whole new performance standard for Apple printers."
"It's almost twice as fast as the Personal NT, and it's only 10 percent slower than the IINTX," he said. Weiss said most of that advantage is because of RISC processing.
Like the RealTech Laser, the NTR uses a RISC processor to speed PostScript processing so that overall speed, despite the lower-cost 4-page-per-minute Canon USA Inc. LX engine, doesn't lag.
This is the first Apple printer to sport a Centronics port for DOS and Windows users, and its automatic port switching makes it a good choice for mixed Mac/PC workgroups.
Small workgroup. The top RISC contenders in the midprice lane, the 8-ppm EPL-7500 from Epson America Inc. and the Silentwriter 2 Model 990 from NEC Technologies Inc., both demonstrate how RISC processing gives more PostScript speed for the buck.
More-expensive printers, such as the non-RISC 68020-based Apple LaserWriter NTX, simply can't compete in either speed or quality. According to users, the Epson and the NEC printers produce better-than-average type and graphics via Canon's LBP-UX engine, which uses an extra-fine toner.
These advantages aren't lost on Stephanie Stromire, desktop publishing manager at Andover Printing of Seattle. "We use the Epson EPL-7500 to proof PostScript imagesetter jobs - most with lots of complex graphics - and it chews right through them. It seems much faster than the LaserWriter IINTX I've used before," Stromire said.
Departmental PostScript. For good price and rugged 17-ppm performance, check out Hewlett-Packard Co.'s LaserJet IIIsi for Macintosh, featuring PostScript Level 2. Especially for the mixed Mac/PC departmental networks, you can't get better HP compatibility than this.
Priced at $12,995, the QMS-PS 2000 from QMS Inc. really gets RISC architecture strutting in high gear, partly because of its 25-MHz MIPS 3000 RISC-based controller driving a 20-ppm Ricoh Corp. print engine.
But there's more: Like a multitasking three-ring circus, the PS 2000 accepts print jobs from any active port and stores them in available RAM (with overflow onto a SCSI hard disk). Meanwhile, the printer keeps grabbing jobs off the queue, processing them into pages and storing them in an intermediate compressed format for final printing.
While a fresh page is processing in center ring, the finished page hits the printer drum. Put simply, no part of the process gets to rest, and the result is very fast printing. In addition to automatic port switching, the QMS has highly reliable automatic emulation switching.
Greenstone Roberts Advertising/Florida's office in Coconut Creek, Fla., has two QMS-PS 2000s connected to its 16-Mac graphic arts production department. "We're proofing tabloid- size page spreads with scanned images and very complex PostScript graphics, so we need the fastest printer we can afford," said Gary Ramey, Greenstone Roberts' applications specialist.
According to Ramey, "The toughest pages take five to 10 minutes on the PS 2000, but they'd take over 40 minutes on a Personal LaserWriter NT." This explains why the company opted for two workhorse printers over a bunch of less expensive, slower printers.
Although it doesn't quite match the industrial strength of the IIIsi or QMS-PS 2000, Texas Instruments Inc.'s microLaser Turbo XL (with AppleTalk option) is lightweight and inexpensive in comparison, with some workgroup pluses of its own.
For starters, its 16-ppm Sharp Electronics Corp. engine is kept busy with a dual-processor arrangement that gives PostScript (RISC-based) processing its own memory, separate from that used by HP LaserJet-compatible jobs.
That's important for Mac users in mixed computer environments since the Turbo can automatically switch to PCL printing without erasing any PostScript fonts downloaded from your Mac. Combined with automatic switching between active ports, this printer should keep a six- to eight-person Mac/PC workgroup quite happy.
Finer type. Several companies squeeze high resolution out of inexpensive laser engines. Still, with all those extra dots to process, high resolution is a processing challenge with RISC written all over it.
It's no surprise that LaserMaster Corp. uses a proprietary RISC processor in its PostScript-compatible high-resolution printer. The LaserMaster 1000 controller mounts in a Mac expansion slot and connects to the printer engine via a high- speed video cable.
Larry Cobb, principal of Larry Cobb Associates, a marketing and advertising company in Grand Junction, Colo., raves about the LaserMaster 1000. "It's terrific. It's fast and prints very fine type and graphics; we use it as final art in most of our work."
NewGen Systems Corp. was another pioneer in the low-cost high-resolution game, with several RISC-based models. Its latest, the TurboPS/880, is a true feature creature.
The 25-MHz Weitek XL-8220 RISC-based controller drives a Canon SX engine using NewGen's IET II (Image Enhancement Technology) to give you 800-by-800-dpi quality. IET Level II includes gray-scale halftone enhancement.
In addition to LocalTalk, parallel and serial ports, standard Ethernet thick, thin and twisted-pair connectors also are built in (EtherTalk, TCP/IP and Novell protocols included). And there's more: Automatic port and emulation switching are built in, and the TurboPS/880 uses double buffering to process one job while printing out another.
Future speed. So if speed, price and good print quality drive today's printer market, RISC processing is the key to most successful products.
But high-volume CISC (complex instruction set computing) vendors such as Intel Corp. are quickly adding RISC speed tricks to their advanced designs. Competition and volume pricing will drive high-speed processing costs even lower, so stay tuned.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
Special Report Page 50 (Printers)
(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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Video preproduction planning with Mac software tools
Programs help save time and money
By Steve Rosenthal
Ask any corporate video producer: Good preproduction planning, which includes writing a script, budgeting and scheduling, can mean the difference between excellent productions or overbudget mediocrity.
To help automate this process, several Mac programs developed for the professional film and video markets can help independent and in-house corporate producers develop, script and plan their productions.
"Particularly on small-budget productions where every dollar counts, [preproduction programs] provide you with a framework with which to contain thousands of important details," said John Copeland, executive producer for Rattlesnake Productions Inc., an independent corporate video-production house in North Hollywood, Calif.
Copeland, whose industrial clients include Boeing Co., Lockheed Corp., and General Dynamics Co., said that only careful preproduction planning can save you from the deadly business practice of "going back to your client midway through the project and asking for more money."
>Script development.
Creating the best central premise is one of the most crucial phases in any video project, because everything from script and budget through final edit depends on the story line.
While designed for organizing Hollywood-style script ideas, John Truby's StoryLine, a HyperCard-based program, helps you fine-tune the premise of your industrial or corporate video productions.
Within the program, you can find out how your concept fits with the seven steps that Truby said comprise most successful films, and then flesh out those elements with more details.
"For a lot of corporate videos, one of the problems has been that they are just too stiff," said David K. Caldwell of Caldwell and Associates, a corporate communications company based in Valencia, Calif. "StoryLine has helped me focus on the direction of the show based on what the client needs and on the best way to write that script."
Also of note is Collaborator from Collaborator Systems Inc., which walks you through a story analysis using a traditional dramatic paradigm.
> Storyboarding.
Once a broad story line has been developed, many producers create a storyboard, a series of sketches to show the story in shot-by-shot or scene-by-scene sequence. Several Mac storyboard programs are available.
American Intelliware Corp.'s Storyboarder includes painting and drawing image tools, along with transition effects, frame numbering and timecoding to help create detailed storyboards.
However, American Intelliware's program-distribution policies have made its Storyboarder and Scriptwriter programs quite controversial.
According to the company, the user-license agreement explains that each copy of the two programs comes with two encrypted key disks that expire after a combination of elapsed time and uses that are supposedly equivalent to two years of "average" use. Users who want to continue with the programs can renew their disks but must purchase any upgrade that has been released over the interim.
Steve Nelson's shareware Storyboarder HyperCard stack will be available this summer as Storyboarder Professional from Brilliant Media. The stack allows the user to paste in drawings or use HyperCard's built-in drawing commands; it also can print results in either single-card or two-cards-to-a-page format.
Storyboarding is one of the key elements in Lake Compuframes Inc.'s ShowScape package. The program, which can be ordered with optional formatted, preprinted storyboard paper sheets and even adhesive frame-format stickers for correcting errors, provides a choice of formats ranging from three images per page to a 16-image-per-page style meant for video walls.
Interactive Video Design Tool-kit from Electronic Vision Inc., a set of templates that runs on top of the highly visual FileVision IV database, produces storyboards as one of a number of linked documents and formats. Originally designed for authoring videodiscs, the program also can be applied to any other type of project with an intricate script.
>Real-world storyboarding.
Nelson's Storyboarder enabled John Collins, a producer/director for Happy Medium Productions in Kensington, Md., to organize his thoughts and obtain approval for his approach from the client quicker than with a written script.
"I was able to sit them down and step them through on the production shot by shot," Collins said. "Because we had such a time constraint, it was important for them to get an idea of what I was going to do visually."
At Florida Power & Light Co.'s Saint Lucie nuclear plant in Fort Pierce, Fla., where audiovisual coordinator Mark Stocker produces training and public-information videos, ShowScape has proven a big hit. Stocker said he especially likes the program's Link File feature, which allows him to print sections of the script according to specific production areas, making it easier to explain specific visuals to his production crew. "It's a great product," Stocker said.
>Script formatting.
Just about every type of production needs to produce a script in standard formats to break down scenes for the production crew and on-screen talent.
American Intelliware's Scriptwriter includes full word processing capabilities, plus specialized video-production features such as the dual-column formatting needed for standard video-production scripts.
If you're willing to accept scripts in single-column screenplay format rather than the dual-column format more popular in video production, MacToolkit's Final Draft also can fill the bill. Along with the full range of word processing commands, special scripting features include page breaks, scene numbering, character lists and quick switching among customizable paragraph formats.
A lower-cost approach, however, is to pair a standard word processing program with special templates, macro packages or format programs.
One package that works with Microsoft Word, for example, is Scriptwriting for High Impact Videos from John Morley & Associates. This formatter aims to provide most of the benefits of full formatting programs at a lower cost.
Paired with WordPerfect for the Macintosh, ShowScape produces scripts in a variety of two-column audiovisual formats, as well as in single-column screenplay style.
In a third approach, Screenplay Systems Inc.'s Scriptor formats documents from Word, WordPerfect, T/Maker Co.'s WriteNow and Claris Corp.'s MacWrite into standard one- column script formats. By identifying standard indentations, it can format a file even if it hasn't been marked up with any special formatting characters.
Leesa Kelly, creative director for Horizons Television Inc., a documentary and industrial video-production company in Washington, D.C., uses ShowScape for both scriptwriting and tape logging.
She said although her company does most of its paperwork with standard Mac programs and its own templates, Horizons has been happy with ShowScape because it makes it easy to produce scripts in the two-column video-production format.
>Budgeting and scheduling.
Producing the budget and schedule are intricate but essential tasks.
Standard project-management and spreadsheet software can be used for smaller shows, but corporate productions that have large budgets, complex contractual work rules and critical schedules make targeted packages a must.
Both Screenplay Systems and MacToolkit offer budgeting and scheduling packages, and in both cases the planning packages can import much of their starting data from scripts formatted with their own company's script formatting or scriptwriting programs. Both sets of programs also can be used independently, with all information entered directly by the user.
"Using computer programs for scheduling and budgeting takes all of the busywork out of your hands," said Copeland, who uses MacToolkit's Professional Scheduler and Budgeter. "The MacToolkit programs leave me free to concentrate on the production-management tasks without being overtasked."
Mohammad Naficy, senior producer and director for the visual communications department at the Great Western Bank of Northridge, Calif., uses Screenplay Systems' scheduling and budgeting programs only for the company's larger training and video newsletter productions.
"If you have a really small production, with one or two setups at one location, then the scheduling program is not very helpful," Naficy said. Still, he said using the Mac for preproduction has become an essential part of his work style.
"Before these programs, I had to do this [preproduction work] manually or by using other programs such as Excel," Naficy said. "My work has tripled since last year; without the software I have, I couldn't really handle it."
(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
-----------------------
Review: Scanning the color market
We rounded up 10 scanners with claimed resolutions of more than 300 dpi and ran them through an exhaustive battery of tests.
By Bruce Fraser
The 300-dpi resolution of most flatbed color scanners is high enough for print reproduction at the same size as the original, but it doesn't leave much leeway for enlarging images or for cropping a detail and blowing it up.
A trend toward higher-resolution flatbeds has grown more pronounced over the past year, so we rounded up 10 scanners with a resolution higher than 300 dpi and put them through their paces.
Our selection criteria for the high-resolution flatbed color scanners we tested were simple - a list price less than $6,000 and true optical resolutions higher than 300 dpi in at least one direction.
To get a clear picture of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the scanners, we put them through an exhaustive battery of synthetic and real-world tests at Ziff- Davis Labs' state-of-the-art facilities, then subjected the results to painstaking analysis.
The scanners subjected to our scrutiny were the UMAX Tech- nologies Inc. UC630, the HSD Microcomputer U.S. Inc. Scan-X Color, the DPI Electronic Imaging Co. Art-Getter and the Mirror Technologies Inc. Mirror 600
Color Scanner, all four of which are based on the same 600-dpi UMAX engine; the 1,200-dpi UMAX UC1200; the 400-dpi Hewlett-Packard Co. ScanJet IIc; the 300-by-600-dpi Sharp Electronics Corp. JX-320; and three scanners based on the same 600-dpi Microtek Lab Inc. engine, the Microtek ScanMaker 600ZS, the Mustek Inc. MFS-6000CS and the X-Ray Scanner Corp. 6c OmniMedia.
>Overview points.
The general quality of the scanners was high, although all could use better software, and the differences between them were relatively minor. Given sufficient patience and expertise, satisfactory scans can be produced from any of these scanners. The main limitation of the scanners is that they won't capture as much shadow detail as more expensive drum scanners.
We were pleased to note that all the scanners featured external termination and had either multiple SCSI ports or supplied a SCSI pass-through cable. Likewise, the SCSI ID switch was external on all the scanners. The days of scanners that insist on being the final item in the SCSI chain seem behind us.
Some scanners did perform noticeably better than others, and we did find a few surprises, particularly in our resolution test. It became strikingly clear that resolution - the number of pixels per inch in the scan - does not equal resolvability - the smallest detail the scanner can discern. Resolvability is important mainly in scanning line art with fine detail: Interpolated resolutions will smooth jagged edges, but interpolation can't capture details below the limit of resolvability.
Only one of the scanners, the HP ScanJet IIc, actually was able to resolve line pairs at the frequency of its claimed resolution.
For color images destined for output in print, resolution is more important than resolvability: Scans for print usually are made at a resolution of 1.5 or 2 times the screen frequency used for output, so each halftone dot in the printed piece represents three or four pixels in the scan. All the scanners had a high enough resolution for output at actual size to a 133-line screen. Two of the scanners, the ScanJet IIc and the UMAX UC1200, provided sufficiently high resolutions to reproduce artwork at larger-than-original size using a 133- to 150-line screen.
We also noticed considerable variation between scanners based on the same OEM engine. We attributed this to differences in software, and in the case of some vendors, to custom ROMs. In general, the original vendors' implementations of the engines in question - UMAX and Microtek - fared somewhat better than the third-party versions.
>Registration and resolution.
Our registration test, scanning the one-eighth-point grids, didn't turn up any serious registration problems. The HP's unique three-level CCD (charge-coupled device) array showed more-pronounced colored fringes on the black lines than the other scanners, but not enough to cause problems.
Likewise, none of the scanners displayed any objectionable color shift from highlight to shadow in our gray linearity test, using Eastman Kodak Co.'s SR-37 target. The HP, UMAX UC1200 and Sharp scanners were slightly more capable than the others when it came to distinguishing the darkest gray levels. The UMAX and the HP distinguished all 37 swatches on the target successfully, while the Sharp distinguished 36. The other scanners' responses flattened out slightly earlier.
The resolution test proved particularly revealing. When we scanned the resolution target containing sets of alternating black and white lines at progressively higher frequencies, we found that only two scanners, the HP ScanJet IIc and the UMAX UC1200, were able to resolve line pairs at frequencies much higher than 300 lines per inch. The UMAX could resolve finer detail than the HP, but certainly not three times as much, despite its claimed 1,200-dpi resolution compared with the HP's 400-dpi. The other scanners either started plugging up or dropping out at around 300 dpi, depending on the threshold setting we used.
The one exception was the XRS 6c OmniMedia. When we first tested this scanner, we noticed extremely severe jitter, so we called the vendor. XRS sent us a ROM upgrade designed to fix the problem, and when we installed it and retested, we found that the jitter had been brought under control. However, the scanner couldn't resolve line pairs above 203 lines per inch. It seems that the scanner's resolving power has been reduced severely in the process of wringing faster performance out of the engine.
>Color consistencies.
In our repeatability test, the characteristics of the different engines were revealed. The Sharp JX-320 had very little noise in the CCD and only slight variations in the auto-thresholding. The HP had similarly low noise levels but slightly more variation in auto-thresholding.
The scanners based on UMAX engines all had similar results, with moderate amounts of noise, and variation primarily in the lighter areas of the Kodak Q60 scanner-calibration target. Horizontal lines in the difference image at abrupt color transitions on the target indicated slight amounts of jitter.
The Microtek engines were noticeably noisier than the others and had about the same amount of variation in auto- thresholding as the UMAX engines.
The XRS scanner, again, was the exception, performing significantly worse than the other two Microtek engines in both noise levels and threshold variation.
The only scanners that produced obvious noise artifacts on the screen image were the three Microtek-engine scanners, the OmniMedia, the MFS-6000CS and the ScanMaker 600ZS. The noise in the other scanners was invisible in the real-world image.
Interestingly, none of the noise artifacts was visible in the Chromalins or the film negatives, even from the XRS scanner. This is attributable to the fact that we scanned at 300 dpi and printed the image using a 150-line screen, so each halftone dot in the printed image was built from four pixels.
While noise might not be a problem in printed output, assuming a high enough scanning resolution, it's certainly objectionable in images designed for viewing on the screen, as in multimedia applications. It also could have an undesirable effect on operations such as unsharp masking.
Running the gamut. When we plotted the color gamuts of the scanners, we found that the HP had the widest gamut but was still well-balanced. The Sharp had a very exaggerated response in the reds compared with the rest of the spectrum. The UMAX-based scanners all had very similar gamuts, not particularly wide but extremely well-balanced. The HSD Scan-X was somewhat stronger in the blues than the other scanners using the UMAX engines, and we attribute this to HSD's software, which is different from that used by the other UMAX-based scanners.
Of the Microtek-engine scanners, the ScanMaker 600ZS had the widest gamut, the OmniMedia had the narrowest, and the MFS- 6000CS fell between the two. The gamuts of all three were similarly shaped, with a slight imbalance in favor of the yellow-green range of the spectrum.
>Real-world records.
The synthetic test results are interesting in their own right but especially provide insight into the scanners' performance on real-world images.
Our real-world image, Kodak's Musicians print, was a particularly challenging one, containing bright colors from every part of the spectrum; plenty of detail in both highlight and shadows; a range of skin tones; and a neutral, textured dark-gray background.
We output the scans to film negatives on an Agfa Corp. SelectSet 5000 using Agfa's Balanced Screen Technology, then had Chromalins made from the negatives. We examined the resulting images closely for color fidelity, sharpness, shadow detail and artifacts caused by noise or jitter.
The ScanJet and the UC1200 had the best color fidelity, followed by the UC630, then the MFS-6000CS. The JX-320 had the poorest color fidelity, with a severe pink color cast. The remaining UMAX-based scanners gave a slightly muddier image, and the ScanMaker and OmniMedia scanners exaggerated the yellows.
Given the challenging nature of the image, you shouldn't judge the scanners too harshly: Our task was to find fault, but overall we were quite impressed by the scanners' color performance. The Sharp produced the only image that clearly was unacceptable in terms of color fidelity.
The ScanJet, UC1200 and JX-320 produced a somewhat sharper image than the others, but none of the scanners produced an unacceptably fuzzy image. These scanners, along with the other UMAX-engine scanners, did a noticeably better job of capturing shadow detail than did the Microtek-engine scanners.
Three scanners, the Scan-X Color, the Art-Getter and the OmniMedia, displayed noticeable jitter, which is caused by unevenness in the movement of the scanning head and manifests itself as faint horizontal lines across the image.
In the case of the OmniMedia, we suspect it's because of XRS speeding up the Microtek engine - neither of the other Microtek engines displayed any jitter. With the UMAX-based engines this could be due simply to variation between different scanner samples. The Mirror 600 had no trace of jitter, and the UC630 betrayed only slight jitter. None of the output samples displayed any trace of noise artifacts - even those that had obvious noisy pixels in the screen image.
We also printed a low-resolution scan of the same image on a Tektronix Inc. Phaser III Pxi and found the low-resolution image and the wider color gamut of the Phaser tended to exaggerate the differences between the scanners. Again, the HP had the best color fidelity, with both UMAX engines also doing well. The pink color cast from the JX-320 was even more pronounced, the Scan-X had a slight cyan cast, and the ScanMaker, MFS-6000CS and OmniMedia had a slight pink cast.
>The scanners and their software.
The test results tell only part of the story. The software that accompanies a scanner can make a great deal of difference to the usefulness of the entire package. In general, we found that the software is lagging behind the hardware. All the scanners, with the exception of the ScanJet IIc, included a full version of Adobe Photoshop 2.0.1 and offered a Photoshop plug-in to control the scanner. HP's software functions as a desk accessory under System 6 and as an application under System 7.
The UC630 received favorable reviews when it debuted in 1989 and has since picked up a sizable list of OEM vendors. It suffers from a rather ugly Photoshop plug-in that cheerfully violates user-interface guidelines - we don't expect a dialog box to appear when we click a check box, for example - and doesn't quite speak English - producing messages such as "Link is failure!" - but nonetheless gets the job done.
We found it slightly annoying that the final scan doesn't appear automatically in a Photoshop window - you have to scan the image to disk then open the file from the File menu. The preview image is in gray scale rather than color, so it's impossible to use the color-correction features intelligently without first performing a full scan, but this is mitigated by the fact that the scanner's color fidelity is generally excellent.
The Mirror 600 scanner package is identical to the UC630 in both hardware and software. The slight differences in the results we obtained most likely are because of variations from different samples of the same scanner model.
The Art-Getter uses the same engine and control software as the UMAX and Mirror packages but also supplies a Photoshop filter designed to apply color correction to improve the quality of the final scan. When we tried this we got decidedly mixed results, aggravated by the fact that DPI sent us three different upgraded filters during the testing period.
We found that the filters tended to throw some part of the image out of whack and exaggerate the jitter in the scanner we tested. The filters might work better on a less-challenging image, and undoubtedly would work better on a scanner that was free of jitter, but based on our testing of what we had at hand, we'd have to say that DPI's automatic color correction is a promising approach that needs more work.
The HSD Scan-X uses the same engine as the three aforementioned scanners but substitutes its own Photoshop plug-in control software. HSD's Scan-X module improves on the UMAX plug-in in several respects: It conforms more closely to Mac interface guidelines; it has a color preview rather than the UMAX's gray scale; and it scans directly into a Photoshop window, making those trips to the File menu unnecessary.
However, the sample we reviewed displayed more jitter than the other similar engines. Given the variation we found between the four UMAX 600-dpi engines, we suspect that UMAX needs to tighten up its quality-control procedures. These scanners are capable of giving excellent results when they arrive in tiptop condition, but, alas, they don't seem guaranteed to do so.
DPI, HSD and Mirror offer 30-day money-back guarantees on their scanners, so if you purchase a model from them you will have time to test for jitter and return the scanner if necessary.
The UMAX UC1200 is based on a new UMAX engine that seems very promising. It suffers from the same idiosyncratic software as its lower-resolution sibling but overall gave the best results in our testing.
The premium performance comes at a premium price, though. We tested only one example of this scanner so we can't say whether the same quality-control caveats will apply to this engine as to the lower-resolution UMAX, but based on our results, this scanner is definitely one to watch. Shortly before press time, Agfa announced its Arcus scanner, which will be based on the same engine but will use Agfa software and firmware. We hope to test the Arcus when it ships.
The three Microtek-engine scanners displayed more variation between themselves than did the UMAX-based scanners. The ScanMaker came with newer software than the other two, and this offered several advantages, among them a zoomable color preview.
The ScanMaker package also includes ScanMatch, Savitar Inc.'s scanner-calibration utility, which gives it even more of an edge over the OEM offerings.
The older control software offered by Mustek and XRS has one glaring problem: It isn't smart enough to scan the SCSI bus and ascertain the identity of the scanner, so you must choose the correct SCSI ID from a menu before you scan. We found out the hard way that if you inadvertently try to scan with the ID set to that of a mounted hard drive, you will hang the machine and cause irreparable directory damage to the hard drive.
The OmniMedia was the only scanner we tested that includes a built-in transparency-scanning feature, but based on our results we conclude that XRS is simply trying to push the engine harder than it will go comfortably. The severe jitter and noticeable lack of resolving power make this one of the two scanners that we cannot recommend.
The other scanner we cannot recommend is the Sharp JX-320. The Sharp one-pass engine is slower than the other one-pass engines and also is slower than the three-pass UMAX engines. The software is decidedly minimalist in approach, with only a gray-scale preview.
But most important, the color fidelity obtained was by far the poorest of the scanners we tested, displaying a distinct pink cast. The scans displayed very little noise, and the scanner was quite good at capturing shadow detail, but until Sharp improves the color accuracy, these capabilities are wasted.
The HP ScanJet IIc was the biggest surprise of the lab. We were extremely impressed with the capabilities of the scanning engine: It's quite fast, has excellent color fidelity, captures shadow detail well and resolves line pairs slightly beyond its claimed optical resolution.
The DeskScan software is somewhat idiosyncratic - you set the scanning resolution by defining characteristics for a printer path, then the printer path name appears in a pop-up menu - but it offers a zoomable color preview and fast auto- exposure controls. It also offers color-printer users a means of calibrating the scanner to match their particular printer by scanning, printing and rescanning a calibration target.
>Conclusions.
Two scanners, the HP ScanJet IIc and the UMAX UC1200, stand out from the rest of the pack. The UC1200 offers 1,200-dpi maximum resolution (using interpolation) compared with the interpolated 800 dpi of the HP, but the two are very similar in terms of actual resolving power for detailed line art, with the UMAX coming out slightly ahead.
They were also the best in color fidelity and in capturing shadow detail. Given the UMAX's much higher price ($5,995), the ScanJet IIc is an excellent deal at $1,995. The UC1200 is capable of slightly better overall performance, but we suspect that most people in the market for a flatbed scanner will be happy with the ScanJet IIc.
Although it is possible to get serviceable scans from both the XRS and Sharp scanners, the high level of competition in today's market makes it hard to recommend either one. The Mustek, while noticeably better than the XRS and Sharp scanners, also has little to recommend it.
The four scanners based on the UMAX 600-dpi engine are decent scanners, although the HSD ships with much better software than the others. However, we remain concerned about the variation we saw in the mechanical behavior of the engines. All four are potentially excellent scanners, but some of those we tested were marred by jitter in the engine. If you buy from a source that will guarantee that any problems with the scanner will be taken care of, any of these scanners is still a good buy, and the Mirror 600 is a very good buy for its price.
The Microtek ScanMaker 600ZS deserves an honorable mention. While the scanner has been around for a while and is slower than newer engines, the addition of ScanMatch to the bundle makes it a good value.
Microtek obviously understands its own engine better than its OEMs do, and the color is pleasing, however it is not as accurate as some of its UMAX competitors or the HP. Its rather noisy CCD might make it less than ideal for multimedia use, but it seems to have little effect on printed output.
The undoubted price-performance leader is the Hewlett- Packard ScanJet IIc. Even though the DeskPaint image-editing appli-cation included in the bundle is a poor sub-stitute for Photoshop, and it's the only scanner we tested that didn't have a Photoshop plug-in, the combination of low price, high resolution and excellent color fidelity makes it a winner.
****
On Balance: High-resolution flatbed color scanners
We tested 10 flatbed scanners, all with resolutions higher than 300 dpi in at least one direction, and all costing less than $6,000. The overall quality of the scanners was high, and the problems we've noted in the past with awkward SCSI configurations largely have been solved, but some of the scanners clearly were better than others.
> DPI Electronic Imaging Co.'s Art-Getter is a stock UMAX UC630 with one addition - a Photoshop filter that applies a calibration transform to the image. This seems a promising approach but isn't quite ready for prime time. It doesn't detract from an otherwise very good scanner. The sample we reviewed had some jitter in the engine, though.
> Hewlett-Packard Co.'s ScanJet IIc, despite being the only scanner we reviewed that lacked a Photoshop plug-in or a full-featured image-editing application, performed so well that we found it to be the best of the bunch in overall value.
> HSD Microcomputer U.S. Inc.'s Scan-X Color also seems to be a stock UMAX UC630 engine, but HSD's control software offers several advantages over UMAX's, including a color preview. The sample we reviewed suffered from jitter in the engine, which raises concerns about UMAX's quality control. The combination of the HSD software and a jitter-free engine should beat the stock UMAX package.
> Microtek Lab Inc.'s ScanMaker 600ZS is beginning to show its age but still gets an honorable mention. The latest Microtek software features a zoomable color preview and includes Savitar's ScanMatch calibration package. Its main drawback is a rather noisy CCD (charge-coupled device) that produced some visible noise artifacts on screen but not in print.
> Mirror Technologies Inc.'s Mirror 600 Color Scanner is identical to the UMAX UC630 package in both hardware and software. The sample we reviewed was entirely free of jitter and performed very well despite the quirky UMAX software.
> Mustek Inc.'s MFS-6000CS uses the Microtek 600ZS engine but with older software that lacks a lot of the convenience offered by the new Microtek version. It has nothing to recommend it over the Microtek package.
> Sharp Electronics Corp.'s JX-320 proved disappointing in several respects. The one-pass engine was surprisingly slow, the accompanying software provided rather minimal features, and the scans all had a severe pink color cast. The CCD has very little noise, and the scanner captures shadow detail well, but the whole package needs more work before we can recommend it.
> UMAX Technologies Inc.'s UC630 is an excellent scanner engine accompanied by somewhat basic and idiosyncratic software that nonetheless gets the job done. Despite being a three-pass scanner, it's fast and exhibits no registration problems. Our only reservation, which applies to all the UMAX- engine scanners, is that some of the samples we've seen display jitter, which seems to indicate poor quality control on UMAX's part. This one had very slight jitter, less than the DPI or the HSD, but more than the Mirror.
> UMAX's UC1200 is a very impressive engine that turned in performance that bettered even the Hewlett-Packard but with a much higher price tag. This one-pass scanner was the fastest of the ones we tested, had the highest resolution and gave excellent color fidelity. The software is similar to its sibling's, which is rather disappointing - at this price, we expected more. If you're prepared to pay premium prices for premium performance, the UC1200 will deliver.
> X-Ray Scanner Corp.'s 6c OmniMedia is based on the Microtek engine but has undergone some significant modifications, including custom ROMs and a built-in transparency-scanning feature. Alas, XRS seems to have pushed the engine further than it can reasonably go. Unlike the other Microtek engines, it displayed severe jitter, it had a very narrow color gamut, and it performed very poorly in our resolution test.
****
Speed issue: One-pass vs. three-pass
By Bruce Fraser
You might expect three-pass scanners to be slower than one- pass scanners, but our speed tests revealed that this isn't necessarily the case. Speed shouldn't be the determining factor in choosing a scanner, but it isn't by any means irrelevant, either.
The fastest scanner was indeed a one-pass, the UMAX UC1200, which scanned our 4-by-5-inch test document at 400 dpi in 73 seconds. But three scanners based on the three-pass UMAX 600-dpi engine, the DPI Art-Getter, the Mirror 600 and the UMAX UC630, turned in identical 93-second times for second place, finishing about five seconds ahead of the ScanJet IIc.
A fourth scanner based on the UMAX engine, the HSD Scan-X, came with software that didn't sup-port the 400-dpi resolution we used in the test, so we were unable to obtain an accurate result for it, but it seemed to perform similarly to the other UMAX engines.
The XRS 6c OmniMedia, which uses a modified version of the three-pass Microtek engine, didn't support 400 dpi either. We timed it at 480 dpi, the closest resolution available, and it proved much faster than the other Microtek engines, even scanning at a higher resolution.
However, our other tests revealed that XRS seems to have compromised other aspects of scanning performance, such as jitter and lower resolvability, in its attempt to get greater speed from the engine.
The Sharp JX-320 one-pass came next, taking just more than a minute longer than the HP. The Microtek and the Mustek, which both use the same engine, came in last at 174 and 178 seconds, respectively.
Clearly a three-pass scanner isn't necessarily slow, and a one-pass scanner isn't necessarily fast.
****
Glossary
> Color gamut - Total range of colors a scanner can recognize.
> Gamma - Total range of image tones, defined in scanners by the relationship between the amount of voltage that the CCD generates compared with the brightness level on the image.
> Gray linearity - The ability to scan a range of neutral grays from light to dark without introducing spurious color.
> Interpolation - Software feature that averages an image's gray-scale or color values to enhance the resolution of the image and help smooth curves and improve detail.
> Repeatability - Level of consistency between different scans of same image from same scanner.
> Resolution - Number of pixels in a measured area, usually per inch, that a scanner can distinguish.
> Resolvability - A scanner's ability to discern detail at a given resolution.
> Threshold - The level at which scanner software defines all pixels above or below a certain range as either black or white5.
****
Contributors:
Paul R. Freedman, ZD Labs' Macintosh system integrator, and Bruce Fraser were responsible for script development, testing and data analysis for this review.
Jennifer Ambrulevich, MacWEEK editorial assistant, was responsible for the initial scanner research and product acquisition.
19310 Pruneridge Ave., Cupertino, Calif. 95014 Phone (800) 752-0900 One-year warranty (parts and labor); money-back guarantee only through third-party distribution
HSD Microcomputer U.S. Inc.
Scan-X Color: $1,995
1350 Pear Ave., Suite C, Mountain View, Calif. 94043 Phone (415) 964-1400 or (800) 828-5522; fax (415) 964-1538 One-year warranty (parts and labor); 30-day money-back guarantee
Microtek Lab Inc.
ScanMaker 600ZS: $1,995
680 Knox St., Torrance, Calif. 90502 Phone (213) 321-2121 or (800) 654-4160; fax (310) 538-1193 One-year warranty (parts and labor); money-back guarantee only through third-party distribution
Sharp Plaza, Mahwah, N.J. 07430 Phone (201) 529-9593; fax (201) 529-9637 90-day warranty (parts and labor); money-back guarantee only through third-party distribution
UMAX Technologies Inc.
UC630: $1,995; UC1200: $5,995
3170 Coronado Drive, Santa Clara, Calif. 95054 Phone (408) 982-0771 or (800) 562-0311; fax (408) 982-0776 One-year warranty (parts and labor); money-back guarantee only through third-party distribution
X-Ray Scanner Corp.
6c OmniMedia: $3,000
4030 Spencer St., Torrance, Calif. 90503 Phone (310) 214-1900; fax (310) 214-1474 One-year warranty (parts and labor); money-back guarantee only through third-party distribution
MacWEEK 06/08/92
Reviews Page 64
(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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Two suspects held in Adobe abduction
FBI agents rescue Charles Geschke
By Jon Swartz
Mountain View, Calif. - The FBI has arrested two suspects in connection with the May 26 kidnapping of Adobe Systems Inc. co-founder Charles Geschke.
Mouhannad Ali Bukhari, 26, and Jack Mohd Sayeh, 25, are being held in Santa Clara County jail and were arraigned June 2 in San Jose, Calif., each on separate counts of abduction, false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit the crime.
Bail has been set at $2 million. If convicted, the suspects could face life imprisonment, said Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy.
Geschke, 52, allegedly was abducted at gunpoint by the two men as he arrived for work at the company, based here. He was rescued by FBI agents May 30 at a house rented by his captors in Hollister, some 50 miles south. Geschke's wife had called the FBI after she received a phone call instructing her to bring $650,000 to a deserted beach 10 miles from Monterey, Calif.
After Geschke's daughter dropped off the money at the appointed spot, Bukhari was caught by FBI agents while attempting to pick up the ransom. Sayeh was apprehended later in Hollister.
The Adobe executive, whose worth is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars, could not be reached for comment. Last week he and his family were under private security protection.
Most high-tech companies declined to comment on executive protection but did say that it was a high priority.
An Apple spokesman said security for CEO John Sculley, who has been the target of two unsuccessful kidnapping attempts, remains tight.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
Business Watch Page 40
(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (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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Purloined press release saga
Whenever Apple introduces a spanking new platform, there is no end to the flow of words from the nimble fingers of computer writers who are anxious to add their precious thoughts and observations. The Knife, however, having reported on this particular PDA for quite some time now, has sworn off all PDA items, at least until next week.
Of course, incidents surrounding the Newton announcement still are fair game. For instance, one of the Knife's many reports this week included a detailed account of a heroic (though ultimately unsuccessful) attempt on the part of Microsoft's Rob Glaser to acquire a Newton press kit. Judging from the descriptions the Knife received of the incident, Apple felt strongly enough about the sanctity of its Newton introduction guest list that it hired the Wackenhut security team to police the proceedings. (For the uninitiated, Wackenhut serves as an unofficial haven for several retired CIA agents who made their mark at The Company as bit players in the unfortunate Iran-Contra drama.)
According to the Knife's sources, Glaser, purloined press release in hand, was seen running from the site of the event toward a waiting cab. Running was necessary because four Wackenhut guards were closing in quickly on him. After a fair amount of pushing and shoving, the guards retrieved the sensitive press materials and allowed Glaser to proceed.
Glaser, a native New Yorker, was overheard to comment that he appreciated the direct approach, while one of the guards was said to have observed that the incident was the most excitement he'd experienced since the recent Guns 'N' Roses Chicago gig. Is there a meaningful allegory here? Probably not.
>Pizza boy delivers.
The Knife has heard a number of complaints about the performance level of Apple's Road Pizza QuickTime compressor-decompressor. On the other hand, the reports coming in about SuperMac Technology's Compact Video codec are all good, particularly in terms of superior quality and significantly smaller disk files.
Thus no one should be surprised to learn that conversations are being held between Apple and SuperMac to license Compact Video as an alternative to Road Pizza. This should be a win- win situation for all the players, despite the fact that, at least in its current alpha incarnation, Compact Video takes several times longer to accomplish the compression.
>The discovery channel.
This week marks the beginning of the discovery phase of Quorum Software's legal action in U.S. District Court to head off any possible Apple lawsuit about its Quorum Latitude software.
The Knife hears that some at Apple are a little nervous about what Quorum's attorneys might ask for. The fear is based on the very real possibility that some of Apple's most important corporate secrets might be revealed.
On the Top 10 list of things that Apple would prefer to keep out of the public record is Roger Heinen's E-mail. Some speculate that Apple's vice president and general manager of Macintosh software architecture's electronic messages could contain a lot of pertinent information about many interesting subjects.
>Recurring karma.
As you have certainly already read elsewhere in this volume, NeXT has lost Bud Tribble, the chief architect of its acclaimed NeXTstep system software, to archrival Sun Microsystems. And if the Knife's sources are to be believed, the parting was not entirely friendly. They tell the Knife that NeXT CEO Steve Jobs offered many inducements, including a chunk of time off and some Perot-style big bucks to keep Tribble.
But alas, all of Jobs' efforts were in vain, so now NeXT's lawyers have gotten into the act, rattling their legal sabers at both Tribble and Sun. But wait, wasn't it Jobs, Tribble and friends who departed from Apple not so long ago to the accompaniment of similar sabers sounds? Is this just another case of what goes around comes around coming around again? n
You might be able to buy your way into high elected office with a couple of billion green ones and a certain glib flair for sound bites, but MacWEEK mugs go only to those in the know. If you qualify and you can share, flag down the Knife at (415) 243-3500, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
MacWEEK 06/08/92
Opinion Page 142
(MacWEEK, June 8, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
