Windows On A New Crop In The Apple Orchard
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 23, 1992
APPLE Computer, buoyed by growing acceptance of the Macintosh in the corporate world, unleashes today an onslaught of new products designed to increase its market share.
They include a long-expected more powerful version of its low-cost LC colour model, faster printers and - a real surprise - the first products Apple has made specifically for the rival Windows market.
First, the new Macintosh LC Model II.
As predicted in these pages in the past few months, it will have a Motorola 68030 chip in place of the old model's 68020. This should speed performance by at least 10 per cent.
More importantly, it should finally open up the LC to the full potential of Apple's System 7 operating system, introduced last year.
The LC is the lowest-priced colour Macintosh and arguably the best looking personal computer on the market. Its central processing unit is contained in a slim grey "pizza box" that occupies little desk space.
It was aimed at the education and home user market and has also found wide corporate acceptance.
But some business buyers have been disappointed with the LC's performance. Some unkind souls have even called it crippled.
The fact is the 68020 chip - chosen to keep the original LC's price down -lacks the grunt to tackle heavy business computing tasks.
It has been unable to take advantage of significant System 7 features, like virtual memory: the ability to use spare hard disk space to fool the computer into thinking it has more random access memory than is installed.
In its standard configuration with two megabytes of random access memory, a 68020 LC can barely run the memory-hungry System 7 at all.
The new 68030 model should prove much classier. The 16-megaHertz 68030 chip not only runs faster - about three times the speed of a Mac Classic, Apple says - but allows use of virtual memory.
The LC II will come with four megabytes of RAM as standard, and can be expanded up to 10 megabytes. System 7 will run in all its glory.
Buyers will have their choice of a 40Mb or 870Mb hard disk drive for storage of files and programs.
Owners of 68020 LCs won't be left behind. They will be able to buy a 68030 logic board upgrade.
Last week the Apple headquarters at Frenchs Forest was in turmoil as pricing proposals were tossed back and forth with corporate HQ in Cupertino, California. Late Friday the base price of the LC II was decided - $2,695.
The 68030 LC was a widely anticipated development. The big surprise is Apple's move into the Windows world.
Microsoft's Windows is a graphical user interface which gives IBM-compatible computers a point-and-click environment similar to the Macintosh.
At Cupertino, Microsoft has been regarded for some years as the enemy. Apple has even taken Microsoft to court in the US, claiming that some parts of Windows infringe Apple's copyrights.
That case is due to reach a climax later this year. In the meantime Apple has sent Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, a preliminary bill for a cool $A6 billion: the amount of Macintosh sales estimated to have been lost due to Windows.
Apple isn't relenting on that claim, but it has tacitly acknowledged with today's announcements the marketplace power of Windows. Sleeping with the enemy, if you like.
The new products include a scanner designed for Windows users and a fast new laser printer which can be used by users of both Macintosh and Windows/DOS computers.
Scanners are devices which resemble photo-copiers. They provide a way to get images of photographs, drawings or even objects into a computer for use in desktop publishing, graphics programs, or even to enliven a word processing document.
They can also be used to scan printed text into the computer.
Apple's move into the Windows market has been made inevitable by the growing acceptance of the Macintosh in the corporate world.
This process began with the launch of the first low-cost Macs about 18 months ago; it received further impetus with last year's announcement of the IBM-Apple joint venture on future products. Big Blue's imprimatur has made the Apple logo much more acceptable in the corporate boardroom.
Now many businesses install both Macintoshes and Windows-based computers on the same network.
According to Tony Fraser, Apple Computer Australia's marketing director, almost half of all Macintoshes are now being used in these mixed environments
"We're moving to provide support for Macintosh owners operating in those situations by providing peripherals that will work seamlessly on other systems," he says. "Apple clearly sees the opportunity of selling to this broader base of users."
You can bet it does.
The all-new Personal LaserWriter NTR is the first Apple laser printer to have a parallel port for the Centronics interface used by DOS and Windows personal computers.
It also has an RS232 serial port and an AppleTalk connection for Mac networks.
It's not the first printer to offer all these sockets, but it does claim to be the first which has all ports simultaneously active.
That means Macintosh and Windows users can both send documents to the printer without needing to change switches or settings.
The printer is also the first Apple model to feature a reduced-instruction-set-computing (RISC) chip: the model 29005 from Advanced Micro Devices.
RISC processors work at very much faster speeds than conventional chips.
Apple claims the NTR can print graphics and text-based documents three times faster than competing models, thanks largely to use of this RISC chip. The NTR will cost $3,995.
Apple's OneScanner for Windows has the same Ofoto "one-button" technology that makes scanning on the Mac as easy as using an automatic camera. Apple claims that the Ofoto software lets even novices give flair to documents and presentation graphics by incorporating professional looking photography and graphic illustrations. OneScanner's price is set at $2,395.
When being used for scanning text, it can automatically straighten documents that have been scanned slightly off-skew - a common scanning problem that affects accuracy.
Other announcements from Apple:
* The LaserWriter IIf and IIg have been upgraded to 4Mb and 8Mb of RAM respectively. Previously they came with a standard 2Mb and 5Mb.
The configurations should allow the LaserWriters to print complex documents faster; use more fonts; and print closer to the edges of pages.
Upgrade kits will be available for owners of existing IIf and IIg LaserWriters.
* The Personal LaserWriter LS, Apple's cheapest laser printer for the Mac at $1,995, gets new software which Apple claims will double its performance, along with bigger paper trays. It will also come with 22 new TrueType fonts.
* A new CD-ROM drive, the CD 150, is said to be faster and more reliable than the CD SC Plus which it replaces, and about 25 per cent cheaper at $995.
CD-ROM drives give computer users access to vast amounts of data, text and graphics stored on disks that resemble audio compact discs.
© 1992 Sydney Morning Herald