applefest - Gassee Guffaw
Lynda Botez
seemed to be a proliferation of Macintoshes around, I managed to ignore most
of them and had a good time.
Apparently the question and answer session after Jean Claude's opening remarks
were one of the highlights of the Fest... Unfortunately, I wasn't there
until Saturday, but what I heard was (I love rumors... heh heh)
Someone got up and asked Jean Claude why the GS Rom 3 (for lack of a better
name for this new machine) was not released with faster speed. After all,
inquiring minds want to know!
Gassee immediately entered Robot emulation, and started spouting his recorded
message about how Apple has to acquire an enormous number of chips to supply
all the new machines, and as this was not possible, they had to leave it at
2.8 mhz, etc. etc. etc. Well, apparently Bill Mensch from Western Design has
had about enough of being blamed for Apple's foibles, and stood up in the
audience and started shouting back at Jean Claude ... "you never return my
phone calls!" "I have 100's of thousands of chips!" (I would assume he's
referring to the 6 mhz variety.) Anyway, it went on for awhile; someone at
Apple conveniently cut the mike so all you could see were these two arguing;
eventually Bill Mensch was escorted back to his seat (most likely by a member
or two of the Apple Thought Police)... and Jean Claude stomped off the scene
with his hands up in the air.
Ha ha ha!
I thing Gassee was burnt out from all of Wednesday's activities at the "Power
in Motion" Macathon. He had to assemble that "Paul Bunyan" Mac in front of
everyone... :-)
Lynda
ps. By the way, I heard this GREAT rumor about another company that has
developed a 65816 - compatible chip that runs at 20 mhz. Is this wild, or
what?
UUCP: {ames!elroy, <routing site>}!gryphon!pnet02!lbotez
INET: lbo...@pnet02.gryphon.com
Michael Steele
presentation Apple had Nucleus running on the Big screen TV's, this was the
first time I'd seen this program, it was amazing.
Gasse had nothing new to present but the question/answer was GREAT! Gasse
said that the ROM 3 Gs was the "next CPU" that Sculley refered to at the
last San Fran Applefest. Boy what a disappointment, but he emphasized that
there were a lot of underlying changes to the hardware that weren't readily
apparent...right (a grad student could've made the mother board changes).
The real interesting part of the Q/A was when Bill Mensch bumped in front of
this poor kid and responded to a remark Gasse made about not being able to
get fast enough chips to speed up the GS. WELL boy was Bill ready, he
jumped up and told Gasse that he had a bag full of 12Mhz 65816's if Apple
was willing to buy them (he held up a bag of chips). Gasse responded with a
remark that if WDC produced reliable silicon that Apple would be to get
faster chips, but you could see the steam rising from Gasse, especially on
the large screen TV. The shouting match continued and finally ended with
Bill storming/being escorted out.(I didn't actually see the gaurds although
others attest to their presence) The flare up really saddened me though, it
shows the friction between Apple and the sole chip manufactor for the
GS....not good. Hopefully they will patch things up. I still tend to side
with Apple on the chip issue though, because after talking with AE they said
that chips stamped 12Mhz really only ran at 10 ro 8Mhz. And Bill Mensch has
always been a WEE bit on the optomistic side of things.
After this opening tirade, things settled down for a usual Applefest. I
personally felt like there were lots of Macs there, but was probably
paranoia on my part. Apple had nothing new to introduce and I was
disappointed. On the Rumor side though we did get an Apple person to admit
that they were developing a HFS driver (no duh) and were using it in house.
I also got the feeling that they are trying to get the Superdrive to work on
the GS (a paraphrase:"it would be the next logical step to add the
superdrive to the GS").
Sound: Boy now this was new. One of the conferences featured the Apple
sound specialist showing a product that's UNDER DEVELOPMENT. AMAZING!
Apple will actually tell us about something before the day of the release!
This guy is Good, he is writing additions to the sound tools to help create
nifty instruments. His ?8 min demo was fantastic using all GS generated
sound and input using a MIDI keyboard. The complete sound file for 8min was
about 64k he said and everything could be done in the background. His
software was fairly simple but I saw an interesting change in the interface.
He said that he wrote it himself but it was just like the NeXT. A grey
background with 3D buttons that would sink into the screen when you clicked
them, the pull down menus were standard, but the screen with the buttons was
very impressive.
Third party: This was the only good thing about the show. Graphicwriter III
was running and looked really cool, much better than AWGS. AND it only
crashed once while we were playing, new features are a filter to input just
about any kind of picture you can imagine and a compression feature that
displays every other line on the screen but prints the picture compressed on
the printer. They didn't have a printer but this would allow you to shrink
images yielding higher resolutions. The upgrade is ?$25? (real cheap) and
should be ready in Nov.
ORCA/C should be ready in a couple of weeks.
Orca was showing a new product Design Master that is a resource
editor/interface builder. It was REAL nice and will generate the source for
whatever window/button combo you create. It will be ready sometime
beginning of next year.
Andy Nicholas is SELLING the GS version of Shrinkit through L&L who
didn't have a booth but were using part of Zips booth. LLuce the GBBS
upgrade that was showing in Boston and will support UUCP will be done
sometime in Nov according to Lance.
Talked to the AE guys and they said upgrading your Transwarp GS to a
faster speed will merely entail replacing the processor and the
clock crystal assuming that you have the W roms.
AI is finally coming out with their VCR tape backup for $199.
should store 250 meg on a 6hour tape? (don't have the spec sheet with me).
Should be ready in a couple of months.
Zip is fixing the final revision of their Zip GS accelerator Board
(note that this is a board not a chip) and will send it to mass production
within a month barring mishaps. The president of Zip gave a really long
spiel (looked like a used car salesman in a $500 suit). He explained that
the reason the Zip chip was in limbo was due to a problem with one of thier
chip manufactors (yeah, right:-) but now that they have 2 manufactors to
alleviate that product. He also said that they plan to go into the Mac and
IBM accelerator markets next year. The 8Mhz versions of the Zip Chip were
on display and very impressive and he mentioned the possibility for even
faster versions.
The Game conference consisted of several Game makers, all kids (ie
college) displaying their wares and FUTURE wares. Several very nice new
games are in store. Someone did a direct conversion of some coin operated
game with Conan like man running around slashing up creatures/people. It
was very fast, very good graphics, and great sound. A Co demoed Task Force
being marketed by Britannica which is another shootem up and western shootem
up that was pretty boring for plot but took advantage of the 3200 colors and
had some AMAZING pictures. Someone ported Battle Chess that will work over
a modem to any other Battle Chess, this was really neat for the chess
player in you. It was chess with a twist, the peices were fully animated in
3d complete with sounds and the battle gruesome with heads flying. When a
pawn took a knight he reached down and hit the knight between the legs where
it REALLY hurts! (didn't mean to get graphic BUT the author was the one who
pointed out the feature). The Xenocide people tried to show off their
program but it doesn't run yet on the ROM 3 machine, they did say that they
were contracting the Nucleus folks to write a Flight simulator for the GS.
It was implied that this would be a killer program and would be out in 6
months.
BEST OF ALL: Goodness, I saved the best until last. This was the
developers conference on Sunday morning. Rather the first official meeting
of the Developer's Club(name?). The board consisted of Gary Little, Roger
Wagnor, and 3 others who I recognize but whose names I can't recall(gosh
look in Incider December issue for REAL facts!). This was essentially a
gathering of all the developers to get Apple of it's behind and support the
Apple II. The meeting was a GREAT show of comradery and frustration of
Apple's marketing policies. The board had met with the Apple marketing
folks in Sat and discussed several key issues, ie the dealers unwillingness
to sell the GS, the overwhelming amount of developer info for the mac, the
lack of the II in Apple's announcement of the future and the sorry marketing
approach towards the GS. Apples response to the board was very good, as
they seemed somewhat ignorant to some of the complaints and were open to
suggestions on others. The END was once again the best part though. The
director of Apple Marketing USA was sitting at the back of the room and he
stood up to make some closing remarks. He basically said that Apple would
look at remarketing the II via mom and pop stores or via mass marketing (ie
Sears or Kmart) assuming a feasable business plan could be created that
didn't stomp the dealers toes. He said that Apple was ignorant to the lack
of willingness to sell the GS and would try to alleviate that problem in
various ways. As far as developers go the suggestion was made that there be
to developer groups one for Mac and one for Apple, and since the material fo
the Apple is less volumnous the $600 fee could be lowered to allow the
little guy to get developer support. He was very sensible a little nervous
(I guess he was afraid that the crowd might lynch him if he said anything
too stupid) and implied that things were going to change for the II in the
marketing department. An interesting side note, when the developers were
asked if they stopped developing for the GS, would they switch to the Mac NO
ONE raised their hand. Out of a crowd of possible 50 of the top developers
for the GS NO ONE wanted to develop for the mac. I think this news will
surprise the Mac crazed Apple people. Essentially the jist of the meeting
was that the developers were going to band together and from what I
ascertained Apple is going to work with the board and try to comply with the
developers' wishes as much as possible. The group is going to start a
mailing and I will post everything I get to the net.
To those who attended Applefest please make any corrections to what is said
here, I wrote it in a stream of conciousness and probably got some of the
facts wrong. Also if anyone has any questions feel free to email me.
Michael Steele
mi...@shumv1.ncsu.edu
Michael Steele mi...@shumv1.ncsu.edu
mi...@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu
neto...@ncsuvm.bitnet
Mike Jetzer
> Zip is fixing the final revision of their Zip GS accelerator Board
>(note that this is a board not a chip) and will send it to mass production
>within a month barring mishaps. The president of Zip gave a really long
>spiel (looked like a used car salesman in a $500 suit). He explained that
>the reason the Zip chip was in limbo was due to a problem with one of thier
>chip manufactors (yeah, right:-) but now that they have 2 manufactors to
>alleviate that product. He also said that they plan to go into the Mac and
>IBM accelerator markets next year. The 8Mhz versions of the Zip Chip were
>on display and very impressive and he mentioned the possibility for even
>faster versions.
Speaking of their 8 mhz chip ...
Does anyone know if/when this will be shipping? I called them sometime in
June, and they said that they'd be shipping by about July 15 (not that
I believed them, because I waited over 9 months before I got my 4 mhz
chip last year). I tried calling them back in July, but their phone
number (800-628-FAST, or somesuch; at the time I knew the number) was
disconnected with "no additional information available."
Do they have a new number? Are they actually shipping the 8 mhz chip?
--
Mike Jetzer
"Hack first, ask questions later."
Scott James Klafke
Zip Technologies current phone/address is:
5601 W. Slauson Ave. Suite 190
Culver City, California 90230
(213) 337-1734
They really are having problems with ALL of their chips. They have had my 4mhz
chip since August 13th, and repetative calls to them have gotten me nowhere.
Everytime they promise 2-4 weeks more, and they say that (in a semi-snotty
tone) since they cannot get the RAM they need, they cannot send the chips out.
I guess they have something like a 7% failure rate with the 4mhz. Even the
people who have had their chips for a while might run into problems. I have had
mine about 8 months, and then it died.
Remember: A lifetime guarantee of a product also means the lifetime of a
company! I hope that is not the case!
--
Scott James Klafke _| (sjkl...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu)
Scott & Company |_ Business Phone Home Phone
372 E. Bay St. | (414) 438-1790 (414) 744-9058
Bay View, WI 53207-1236 -- It isn't creative, but it's MINE! --
Jeff Stern
Great review, Michael: Thanks! In response to the marketing guy at the
developers' conference on Sunday saying they're considering moving the
II to mom and pop places or Sears, I'm dissapointed. Also, that Apple
pleads ignorance of the dealers' pushing the Mac over the II. Assuming he
is telling the truth, Apple doesn't take the II seriously. Sears is
rinky-dink, and ignorance is disinterest. A while back there was some
mention of a possible contest soliciting suggestions for what we would
have Apple do with the II, and I was going to suggest that they split into
three divisions, Mac, Claris, and II, and let the II people decide, because
they'd have the desire, ability, and resources to make those decisions.
Now I'm not sure even that would help. Jeff Stern.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet: | "But the curves, if they meant anything at
jst...@orion.cf.uci.edu | all, included free will... Every morning three
CompuServe: | million 'free wills' flowed toward the center
72647...@compuserve.com | of the New York megopolis; every evening they
| flowed out again- all by 'free will,' and on
| a smooth and predictable curve."
| -Robert A. Heinlein ("The Year of the Jackpot")