Sound beginning for a well-spoken 'pizza box'
From DAVID FRITH in Cupertino
The Sydney Morning Herald — Computers - October 22, 1990 [OCR text]
In Apple Computer Inc's headquarters in Cupertino, California, the standard
nickname for the all-new Macintosh LC is "The Pizza Box". That's a pretty apt
description of the size and shape of the newest Mac: at roughly 30 by 30
centimetres square and 5 centimetres high, you'd just about get a medium-size
thick-crust Domino's into an otherwise empty LC casing. To pack this much
computer into such a slim and elegant casing is a remarkable achievement and a
credit to the ingenuity of Apple engineers. To price it, as Apple Australia has
done, at $A2,695, is almost as remarkable. To this price, please note, you must
add the cost of a screen. Apple now offers the choice of three: a monochrome
display at $545, a 12-inch colour monitor at $995, or a high-resolution 13-inch
colour display at $1,895. Most LC users are expected to choose one of the colour
displays.
The LC also comes with a microphone that makes it simple to add a spoken message to files created with-word processing, spreadsheet, electronic mail, business presentations and other programs able to deal with sound. All Macs have built-in speakers which can replay sounds voice, music or sound effects recorded in software. But to add sounds of your own, you previously had to buy and plug in a device like the Farallon company's MacRecorder. The LC and the Mac Ilsi, another new model released last week, are the first Macs to come with their own microphone. Users will be able to add a few choice comments to their files by simply picking up the mike and speaking. Unkind souls may prefer to add a raspberry.
The sad news is that only a trickle of Mac LCs will reach Australia over the next few months. The Macintosh LC will not be available in volume until February. Release of the LC, it should be noted, marks the start of a completely new line of Macintoshes. It is neither one of your standard one-piece Macs (henceforth known as the Mac Classic) nor a Mac II. Like the Mac II, it is of modular design: that is, it has a separate monitor and central processing unit. It uses the Motorola 68020 chip, running at 16 megaHertz, a speed which these days is considered useful rather than spectacular. The LC is now the only Macintosh to use this chip, following replacement of the basic Macintosh II with the new 68030-based IIsi. Standard features of the LC include two megabytes of random access memory (RAM), enough to run Apple's new operating system System 7.0, due for release in the first half of 1990; and a 1.44-megabyte SuperDrive floppy disk drive. The SuperDrive, now standard on all Macintoshes, allows users to read and write not only Mac disks, but also disks from MSDOS, OS2 or Apple II computers.
Apple Computer is aiming the LC at both the educational and business markets. Schools are a prime target though few Australian schools could match the buying power of the Belle Valley School in Pennsylvania which ordered 290 Mac LCs on day one. "We think of computers as productivity tools," said the school's technology co-ordinator in a press release circulated by Apple. "The students use them for writing, databases, spreadsheets and graphics. They're actually beginning to create, solve problems and improve their critical thinking skills." The school has also computerised its library media centre. Instead of a conventional Dewey Decimal card system, the library's resources are catalogued on CD-ROM disks. Students and staff can access the information from the Macs in the classroom, or even from home. Australian school administrators who have trouble enough funding one or two computers, let alone a technology co-ordinator, can only drool.
Many schools, both in the US and Australia, have a large investment in Apple II computers and software. For them, Apple offers an optional card which will allow the Macintosh LC to run IIe software. Apple says when this card is fitted, most of the 10,000-odd Apple II software programs will run on the LC, at the same or better speed and image quality than on an Apple II. Apple Computer chief executive officer John Sculley has reaffirmed that there is no plan to phase out the Apple II line. "We're not discontinuing the Apple II by a long shot," he told last week's press conference. "What we are doing (with the LC) is providing a bridge between the Apple II and the Macintosh world that will enable schools to leverage up their investment in Apple II software."
The launch of the new Macs was accompanied by a flurry of new third-party software and hardware announcements particularly from companies eager to provide a use for the new sound input facilities. Articulate Systems of Minnesota announced Voice Navigator SW, a software package that makes the Mac obey spoken commands. Instead of using the mouse or keyboard to make a command, you can just speak into the microphone. After writing a report with a word processing program, for instance, you could simply say "Check spelling" - and the Mac will do just that. Articulate Systems says the program will work with any standard Macintosh application and will recognise any voice, any accent or any language. An example shown at Apple's press conference had a businessman filling in an electronic expenses form only to be told by a voice message that he'd gone above the company limit on lunch expenditure. Sound is a two-way street: he was able to file his expense claim with a few barbed words of his own on company policy.
Mainstay of California announced a new version of MarkUp, its workgroup editing program. It now incorporates "VoiceNotes", which the company described as the electronic spoken equivalent of a Post-lt note. MarkUp itself is sometimes described as an electronic red pencil which fulfils that deepest of human desires: the wish to edit other people's copy. It allows a number of workers to edit a document on a sort of transparent overlay - the original version itself is untouched. Now, executives who are too busy, or too lazy, to type in their changes can simply add a spoken annotation. Most electronic mail packages for the Macintosh, like Microsoft Mail or CE Software's Quick-Mail, already have a similar ability for the recording of voice notes. Such attributes make the Mac LC the best-spoken pizza box in the business.
No-frills Classic sweeps the field
By GARETH POWELL
The Sydney Morning Herald — Computers - October 22, 1990 [OCR text]
Photo caption: The new Apples (from left) the Macintosh Classic, the Macintosh LC and the Macintosh IIsi
The man who jointly founded Apple was Steve Wozniak. This unassuming genius - the precise word - was as much responsible for the explosive growth of personal computers as any man in the industry. He retired from Apple to become a schoolteacher. This week, he came back to computers in a supporting role. He drove a truck in the Apple presentation of its new Macintosh line to carry Macintosh Ilsi product manager Karen Ebert and a hot-off-the-production-line Macintosh IIsi from the assembly line in Fremont, California, to a nearby Apple warehouse. This warehouse had been converted into a theatre and television studio for the occasion. There, John Sculley, chief executive officer of Apple, launched the new Macintosh machines before a crowd of glitterati and adorati. This was a slick, professional presentation with all the glitz and shine of an American television spectacular. And a difficult spectacular to present because this production involved satellite link-up between the main studio in Fremont and Singapore, East Germany and several towns in the United States. (It is a sad reflection on the transitory nature of fame that almost no-one recognised Steve Wozniak.)
Was the product worth all the hoopla? Most certainly. In the audience at the launch were many dealers from all over the US. They believed that the Classic, the low-entry level model which has, in the US, a recommended retail price of $US990 would outsell even Apple's wildest estimates. Since talking to Apple dealers and to customers, I am also quite certain that Apple has massively underestimated the potential market. Apple has been producing this low-end Mac for over two months but, according to John Sculley, pressed into a figure after much questioning, Apple is holding over 110,000 orders. Note that is not number of machines that is number of orders. Sculley could not be drawn into putting a number of machines to that figure. John Sculley admitted the Mac Classic has attracted more advance orders than any other machine in Apple's history.
Ian Diery, responsible for Asia and the Pacific, is willing to agree that the Macintosh Classic will sell something under one million but is not willing to be quoted on how far under one million. Compared with many Apple executives, he is a cockeyed-optimist. One has a feeling that some Apple people would have preferred this low cost Mac to have appeared under a different name. There seems to me no doubt whatsoever that in the first 12 months of its life the Mac Classic will sell over 1,000,000 units. To get that figure into perspective, note that the projection for the sale of the software program Windows 3.0 is almost exactly the same.
The three computers that were launched represent a dramatic change in Apple policy. Until only a year ago, there was a strong feeling in Apple that its total market lay in big business where margins and profits were high. No doubt at all that Apple started to neglect the low end where the mass public wanted "the computer for the rest of us." This was what the Macintosh was called when it was launched by Steve Jobs. Pricing and pricing alone prevented it from reaching that goal. The entry level Macintosh is not at all dissimilar to the Mac Plus, which was the machine that the rest of us mostly used. But this new aggressive pricing policy makes it very affordable.
At the launch, I talk to several dealers including Ed Anderson, the chief executive officer of Computerland in the US, and all said it was still early to talk about street, as opposed to recommended, prices. Most of them believed the Classic was the machine which, with or without hard disk drive, would be the computer most in demand but all were impressed by the Macintosh LC which has colour, two megabytes of memory and a SCSI port. This would seem also true of Australia where, ex screen, it will cost $2,695. But they were wrong about the street prices. From the moment the two first machines appeared in the stores discounting, strong discounting, was the order of the day. According to the San Francisco Chronicle machines were advertised in New York the day after the launch at over 20 per cent off the list prices. The Mac Classic was offered at $US749. Note that this was for the basic no-frills machine without the hard disk drive. The Mac IIsi, with a recommended retail price of around $US4,000, was being advertised at $US2,300.
Home PC market set for a boom
The much maligned home personal computer market is poised for a resurgence, according to the normally reliable Dataquest, international computer analysts. Dataquest forecasts that over the next five years, revenues from this market segment, which have never fulfilled expectations, will grow at a compound rate of 16.4 per cent, making it one of the strongest growing areas of computing. Recent product and distribution announcements from major vendors (such as IBM, Tandy and Apple) "underscore a belief in the strength and potential of this market", according to Dataquest. What's changed lately is that hardware which can run decent software is being offered at prices previously reserved for games machines. Dataquest says: "Based on the data collected, the most important factor in the decision to purchase is price, followed by software availability, and the ability of the machine to run the required software." Other factors that are important in sustaining the growth of the PC home market include ease of use and the increasing number of users doing computer work brought home from the office. Dataquest says this last group showed a larger combined increase in number of users than any other segment. Looking at a different field, Dataquest also confirms the opinion often expressed in these pages that EDI, or Electronic Data Exchange, which replaces many paper-based business transactions with computerised versions that flow along electronic networks, is going to be absolutely vital to the future of business and commerce. "In the not-too-distant future, EDI in some manifestation will be as pervasive within business, as say, accounting systems are today and will be a major influence in the way business transactions are conducted around the world," Dataquest points out. A $170-million industry in 1987, according to Dataquest, EDI is expected to be worth around $2.5 billion by 1995. According to Dataquest: "EDI implementation can be expensive, depending on the level of sophistication of the system installed." But according to a recent survey, a company's initial investment in EDI pays off within the first three years. "Seven per cent of corporate spending goes for sending invoices, processing sales orders, and other similar administrative functions. In most implementations, EDI can cut spending for these tasks in half." "A total commitment is paramount to reaching the ultimate in performance. We have that commitment''
TONY SARNO
Setting Up Your Macintosh LC manual (1990) - complete scan [7MB PDF]
Part 2 of this video - Mac LC Apple IIe Card booting off Apple 5.25 Drive - is HERE
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→ VIDEO The Print Shop (1986 Apple II color version) printing to ImageWriter II on Mac LC is HERE |
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→ VIDEO ImageWriter II printing MouseText from Mac LC with Apple IIe Card is HERE |
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