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TidBITS#58/29-Apr-91
====================

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Topics:
    MailBITS/29-Apr-91
    The SE/30 Colorized
    The Scientific Mac
    Excel Upgrade Costs
    Open Letter To Apple
    Reviews/29-Apr-91


MailBITS/29-Apr-91
------------------
  Dave Kosiur writes, "I looked over your last few TidBITS and was
  taken in by the SentientNET April Fools' joke. However, even
  though you've now pointed readers towards the DCE stuff for other
  machines, there's something even closer to home - for Macs. Apple,
  through its Advanced Technology Group and university research fund
  (or whatever it's called), has been working with a group at the
  StatLab in Heidelberg on a project called NetWork. It's currently
  designed to work on AppleTalk networks and lets you distribute
  processing over the network to other machines. They've worked very
  carefully to insure that the extra processing does not interfere
  with the user's work - in this case, the network process backs off
  immediately if someone starts doing something on that Mac. The
  examples they provide with the code are: RemoteJob, a way to
  handle distributed use of MPW; Spinning Brain, a neural net that
  runs on the network; and ScreenSaver, an app that can be launched
  over the net when a machine is idle. The pertinent information and
  code has been available on the last two Developer's CDs. It's
  pretty interesting." [Would anyone who is familiar with this
  technology like to write an article about it?]

  And speak of the devil. Guenther Sawitzki writes in a recent
  Info-Mac Digest, " The new version 1.2b2 of the NetWork software
  for distributed computing is on our file server statlab.uni-
  heidelberg.de [129.206.113.100] and is accessible by anonymous FTP
  (binary!). The release version 1.2 is scheduled for Developer CD
  VII. Here are some rarely noticed features: If you have a folder
  "NetWork Idle Tools" in your system folder, any program which you
  have in this folder will be launched as your machine becomes idle.
  See the "Screen Saver" example. Any program in a folder "NetWork
  Startup Tools" in your system folder is launched when you start
  your system."

  Information from:
    David Kosiur -- [e-mail]
    G. Sawitzki -- [e-mail]


The SE/30 Colorized
-------------------
  The oldest Mac still in Apple's current product line is the
  venerable SE/30. When the SE/30 first came out, people quickly
  became fond of it because of its combination of IIcx power and SE
  size. It also gained a few converts later on in its lifetime when
  people who owned the SE decided to increase power by upgrading the
  SE to the SE/30, which is what we did last year. So why has the
  SE/30 been able to hang on while the IIcx and IIx have fallen by
  the wayside? Primarily, the SE/30 offers an attractive combination
  of small size, good speed, and acceptable expandability despite
  its lack of NuBus slots. The main problems facing the SE/30 these
  days are the small screen and the 24-bit ROMs that will not let
  you use System 7.0 to its fullest. With System 7.0, the 24-bit
  ROMs limit you to 13 MB of RAM (that's a maximum of 8 MB worth of
  DRAM SIMMs plus whatever virtual memory you need to have a total
  of 13 MB RAM - you probably wouldn't want to use a system
  configured to a total of 13 MB unless 8 MB of that RAM was from
  real memory). So if you install eight 4 MB SIMMs, you'll still
  only get 13 MB of usable RAM (that's one reason for petitioning
  Apple for new ROMs - see below). For the moment, I'll just address
  what can be done about the screen.

  The most common expansion that an SE/30 will experience is the
  addition of an external monitor. The compact size of the SE case
  restricts the SE/30 to the 9" monitor, but the Processor Direct
  Slot (PDS) can hold a video card to drive an external monitor. The
  PDS has never been as popular as NuBus, so you won't find as many
  choices of cards for the PDS, though several have appeared over
  the years. As far as video cards go, the most popular 8-bit card
  appears to be the Micron Xceed card (the one we have), which runs
  about $350 mail order and supports 640 x 480 color monitors.
  Micron also has an 8-bit card which supports 1024 x 768 monitors.
  Another popular card is the RasterOps 264/SE30 card, which costs a
  bit more than the Micron card but provides 24-bit color. SuperMac
  also may have a ColorCard SE/30, which is also slightly more
  expensive than the Micron Xceed, but I haven't heard much about
  this card in quite some time, so it may no longer be in
  production. Finally, Nutmeg Systems has two SE/30 video cards as
  well ($400 for an 8-bit color card or $500 for a card to drive a
  full page display), though we have no specifics short of a brief
  ad in the MacConnection catalog. MacConnection also mentions
  several MegaGraphics card/large monitor combinations, but no one
  on the nets had said anything about these.

  Once you have a video card, you need a monitor. The Apple 13"
  color monitor is always a good choice, though it tends to be more
  expensive than others. That's the one we bought because of the
  educational discount. Other popular monitors include a Magnavox
  13" color monitor (about $530 from MacConnection), the Sony 1304
  for a bit more than $600 from various places, and the Seiko
  CM1445C (about $600 from MacAvenue). Those three monitors all use
  the same Sony Trinitron guts that Apple puts in its 13" color
  monitor, and thus should be fairly similar in picture quality.
  Another popular monitor is the NEC MacSync, but its lower price
  (about $500 from Mac's Place) seems to be reflected in lower
  quality - people on the nets have been less pleased with the
  MacSync. Of course, a monitor is a subjective beast, so if it's at
  all possible, use the monitor before buying or at least make sure
  you can return it if you don't like it. Also keep in mind that
  installing a video card in an SE/30 is not a trivial job and you
  probably don't want to mess with it unless you're quite familiar
  with discharging monitors and connecting cables in irritatingly
  small places. It took me a while to install my Micron card, and
  while it wasn't hard, it was a pain.

  It's relatively easy to add a larger color monitor, and the dual
  monitors are well worth the cost. I'm completely addicted to the
  dual monitor setup because it allows me to keep Remember?,
  Timeslips III, QuickMail, and ThoughtPattern open on the little
  monitor and use the large monitor for my primary work (i.e.
  writing TidBITS in Nisus :-)). You will notice that many programs
  are not smart about remembering their window positions or zooming
  to the correct monitor size, but these are minor drawbacks
  considering how much more productive you become when you have a
  lot of windows open at once.

    Micron Technology -- 800/642-7661 -- 208/386-3800
    Nutmeg Systems -- 202/966-3226
    RasterOps Corp. -- 408/562-4200

  Information from:
    Pythaeus
    Dieder -- [e-mail]
    Paul Jacoby -- [e-mail]
    David Hightower -- [e-mail]
    Puneet Pasrich -- [e-mail]
    Pottie Karl -- [e-mail]


The Scientific Mac
------------------
  Every now and then a scientist or engineer complains about how the
  Mac is lousy for scientific and engineering applications. That
  certainly was more true a few years back, before the Mac II and
  large color monitors, but we hope that the gap is narrowing. A
  recently formed group, MacSciTech (the Macintosh Scientific and
  Technical Users Association), will try to aid this trend, planning
  to "enhance the effective utilization of the Macintosh within the
  scientific and engineering communities." Nothing like a little
  engineering-speak to round out a meal of business-speak.

  Apple and the Consortium for Laboratory and Industrial
  Applications of the Macintosh, Inc. announced MacSciTech's
  formation at the recent AppleTech '91 show. MacSciTech will try to
  merge the realms of the user group and the professional
  association. In its user group hat, MacSciTech will open up
  channels of communication on various electronic services,
  administrate public domain software archives on the Internet, and
  publish a quarterly newsletter. The professional association hat
  will focus more on official communications with Apple and will
  host an annual technical conference. Sounds like fun all around.

  I'm neither an engineer nor a scientist, but I think that this
  group will do a great deal of good for the Mac in the scientific
  and engineering fields. My impression is that the Mac fares poorly
  in such fields in comparison to machines like Sun's workstations.
  Since people do a great deal of interesting work solely on high
  end computers, it's in the interests of all Macintosh users to
  cultivate high-end research as well as the low-end marketing that
  Apple has concentrated on recently. MacSciTech's Board of
  Directors sounds like a group that can help the Mac out, including
  people from academia, business, and government, including Cliff
  Stoll, who probably wants to return to being an astronomer
  already.

  On to the details. For the rest of 1991, charter member dues will
  be $25 per year with the starving student rate being $15 per year.
  Hmm, that wasn't much in the way of details. If you want more of
  them, you can contact Shari Worthington at the addresses below.

    MacSciTech -- 508/755-5242
      cons.lab.mfg on AppleLink
      SciTechMac on America Online
      [e-mail]

  Information from:
    MacSciTech propaganda (complete with organizational chart)


Excel Upgrade Costs
-------------------
  Ah, it's spring, the season of the year when a company turns its
  thoughts to software upgrades. I was going to say "when young
  companies..." but since the company I have in mind is Microsoft, a
  relative geezer at 15 years old, it wasn't quite appropriate.
  Macintosh Excel 3.0 will be out very soon, and 2.2 owners have
  started receiving upgrade letters. The letter we saw gave the
  owner the chance to upgrade for a "truly exceptional price - only
  $129." And that's for the academic version - it might be different
  for the real one (I have heard numbers like $149 floating around,
  so perhaps that's the price for the normal-people version.)
  "Exceptional" is right! That's a lot of money for an upgrade!
  Actually the real price is $129 plus $5.50 for shipping and
  handling and sales tax where appropriate (I assume in Washington
  state, but I'm not sure). If you bought Excel after Pearl Harbor
  Day (Microsoft just said December 7th, for those of you not in the
  US) you luck out and get the upgrade for free. The deal is good
  through Halloween (OK, so they only put October 31st as the date -
  but it is Halloween). It would have been funnier if Microsoft had
  actually said Pearl Harbor Day and Halloween, but as it stands,
  all you can really laugh at is the "exceptional" price, and that's
  only funny if you don't have to pay it.

  The upgrade price raised a ruckus on Usenet, where people started
  complaining quickly. The upgrade price for 2.2 was $99, so another
  $129 struck most people as steep. Many got Excel 2.2 at
  educational prices, which in many cases are lower than the upgrade
  fee - at least one person said he could buy another copy 2.2 at
  the campus bookstore for $105 and upgrade to 3.0 for free, saving
  money in the process. A number of people wondered about Claris's
  forthcoming spreadsheet, Resolve, which should be System 7.0-
  compliant, if not System 7.0-studly. Resolve uses the Wingz
  technology that Claris purchased from Informix a while back, so it
  might be pretty snazzy. Wingz has a HyperTalk-like language called
  HyperScript, and since Claris now controls HyperCard, I'd like to
  see HyperScript disappear in favor of HyperTalk along with
  spreadsheet-specific extensions to the language. Now that would be
  snazzy! If Claris was smart and sleazy, they would use a standard
  Microsoft ploy and announce Resolve now so lots of people would
  hold off upgrading to Excel 3.0. Microsoft does that all the time
  - announcing a product too early to gain a competitive advantage.

  What especially galls about this upgrade price is that Microsoft
  is making a bundle on it - far more, in fact, than on a new
  package. New packages often must go through a national distributor
  and a dealer or mail order firm, so everyone gets a slice of the
  price, and new packages usually have more packaging and more
  manuals than upgrades, so they cost more to produce. One person on
  Usenet intelligently anticipated this and other high upgrade
  prices (want to bet on how high the upgrade price for Word 5 will
  be?), saying, "I just knew this would happen after their last
  upgrade so I made my Mac a "Microsoft-free zone" a year ago."

  To be fair, Excel 3.0 does look like a nice program, and Microsoft
  has a history of getting it right on the third try. But such
  upgrade policies will not endear the company to anyone and will
  leave the market wide open for a touch of Borland-style marketing
  for Claris's Resolve when it comes out. I'd recommend complaining
  to Microsoft directly - they will notice  if enough complaints
  come in. Heck, I'd complain even if you plan on upgrading.

  Information from:
    Kevin -- [e-mail]
    Rich Long -- [e-mail]
    Jeff Hexter -- [e-mail]
    Derek Fong -- [e-mail]
    Patrick Hoepfner -- [e-mail]
    Rick McCormack -- [e-mail]
    Jeff Wiseman -- [e-mail]


Open Letter To Apple
--------------------
  Editor's Note: Below is the final draft of the letter I will be
  sending to Apple and many of the Macintosh publications. If you
  support the letter as it stands and desire to be included as a
  signatory, please send me an email message stating that you
  support the letter and wish to be included as a signatory. Please
  include your full name and snail/email addresses - I want this to
  be as official as possible. If you do not wish to use your work
  address, fine by me - I don't want to get anyone in trouble.

  Many thanks to all of you who have already sent email supporting
  the letter, and I wish to thank Jim Gaynor especially for doing
  most of the work. I am merely picking up where he was forced to
  leave off, and I hope I will be able to produce as fine a finished
  product as he would have.

  Sincerely, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS Editor and pseudo-chair of the
  NewROMs group.


An Open Letter to Apple Computer, Inc.

  With the advent of System 7.0, 32-bit Addressing, and the new
  low-cost Macintoshes, Apple Computer has shown that it remains
  committed to enhancing the capabilities of the Macintosh line of
  computers without abandoning its users. However, in that effort to
  advance technology, past technologies should not be abandoned
  haphazardly, nor should unfulfilled potentials be left unrealized.

  Apple advertised and documented the Macintosh II, IIx, IIcx, and
  SE/30 as having the capability to address as much as 128 MB of
  memory, an amount that should be sufficient for most users years
  into the future. In addition, Apple had the foresight to
  manufacture the Macintosh IIx, IIcx, and SE/30 with their System
  ROMs on SIMMs. This feature, touted by Apple as a selling point,
  was to allow these machines to easily upgrade their System ROMs at
  such time as that became necessary. That time rapidly approaches.

  Users discovered that the current System ROMs for these
  Macintoshes are not "32-bit Clean."  Thus, rather than having 128
  MB of memory space available as they believed, users of these
  Macintoshes are limited to 16 MB - even less after the addition of
  expansion cards. Businesses, educational institutions, and
  individuals have invested in these Macintoshes, and although 16 MB
  may be adequate for many users, many others already find that
  limit restrictive. As Apple continues to move towards full 32-bit
  Cleanliness in its software and hardware, more users will
  encounter this 16 MB barrier, and find their otherwise capable
  Macintoshes hamstrung by "dirty" ROMs.

  Users and administrators have looked to Apple for an initiative,
  for some plan of upgrading the ROMs of these Macintoshes, but none
  has come forth. Apple designed the Macintosh II, IIx, IIcx, and
  SE/30 to be easily upgraded but has neither utilized the upgrade
  potential of these systems nor announced an intent to do so.

  We, the users, owners, and administrators of these Macintosh
  computers, would like to see Apple make a public statement
  regarding its plans to make a ROM upgrade available. We would hope
  that this upgrade be made available within a reasonable time
  frame, and at a reasonable cost to businesses, educational
  institutions, and individuals alike. We understand that Apple may
  wish to implement a strict return policy on the old ROMs to
  prevent unauthorized Macintosh clones. We also understand that
  Apple may wish to add additional features to such an upgrade, and
  that those features may add to the time required. A quality
  product is worth the wait required for its production, as is shown
  by the eagerly-anticipated System 7.0. Still, we hope that Apple
  Computer will recognize the unfulfilled potential of those
  Macintoshes with "dirty" ROMs and provide them with the means to
  realize their full 32-bit potential.

  We thank you for your commitment to the Macintosh User Community.


Reviews/29-Apr-91
-----------------

* MacWEEK
    JPEG Compressors, pg. 29
      Colorsqueeze
      ImpressIt
      Image Compressor
      PicturePress
      PicturePress w/Accelerator
    NewTek Video Toaster, pg. 29

* InfoWorld
    FreeHand 3.0, pg. 83

References:
    MacWEEK -- 23-Apr-91, Vol. 5, #16
    InfoWorld -- 22-Apr-91, Vol. 13, #16


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