Apple this summer will fine-tune its clone strategy and tempt licensees with a new, scalable, low-cost Mac logic-board design code-named Tanzania.
Designed for entry-level and midrange systems, Tanzania will offer developers a wide range of options, Apple said. The design can handle PowerPC 603e and 604e processors with speeds up to 200 MHz and includes one, three or five PCI slots. Vendors can choose between PS/2 keyboard or ADB connectors and Enhanced IDE or SCSI internal hard drives. It will also include LocalTalk, GeoPort and SCSI connectors as well as an ATAPI CD-ROM drive. Tanzania will support either the Mac's auto-ejecting floppy drive or the manual-eject mechanisms common in Intel-standard PCs. It will come with a pair of DIMM slots as well as a single SIMM slot; it will handle up to 160 Mbytes of RAM. The system will use the less expensive EDO memory found in PCs.
Developers will receive the reference design around September, Apple said. Clones based on the platform will find their way into distribution in early 1997.
According to Steve Bernstein, Apple licensing marketing manager, the company's licensing is now divided into three phases that span the current Mac-only designs to the PowerPC Platform (PPCP), which can run multiple operating systems. Phase One encompasses Apple's first licensees, which offer clones based on the Power Mac 7500 and 9500.
Phase One Plus will offer a pair of platforms designated the Mac OS Licensing Design (MLD), previously called the Low End Reference Platform. The first MLD will be based on the Power Mac 5400; the second will use the Tanzania board.
Phase Two of the plan will be PPCP.
With a 40-MHz system bus, Tanzania will be slower than the 66-MHz PPCP machines, but Bernstein said it will be easier to engineer.
"It's a healthy sign," said analyst Amy Wohl, principal in Wohl Associates of Narberth, Pa. She said the low-cost designs will attract new licensees. "Power [Computing] is having a bonanza. If economic principles haven't been voted out of office, and they haven't, other players will enter the market."
