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From: saw@cbnews.ATT.COM (stephen.a.wilkus)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: comp.sys.mac
Keywords: Mac-II/ci
Message-ID: <10453@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 22 Oct 89 00:22:26 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 42

I've had a brand new MAC-II/ci now for a little over two weeks now 
(ordered the day it was announced), and thought others might be 
interested in some peculiarities I've noted.

First of all, it is fast.  The response is indeed impressive about 50% faster 
at some FFT benchmarks than my MAC-II, and Mathematica calculated Pi to 5000 
digits in 3.4 minutes instead of the 7 minutes on the Mac-II/cx.  It is 
interesting to note that these times were wht black and white graphics, the 
times are slower the more colors displayed as the graphics steals memory 
cycles from the CPU on the MAC-II/ci.

Unfortunately, I've had some problems with the SCSI port.  I have connected 
two external hard disk drives to the /ci and the machine (intermitantly) 
either failed to boot (sad MAC with 0000000F/0000001 displayed) or else it 
booted up without recognizing the hard disk. I tried various cables, 
terminators, and SCSI addresses all to no avail.  Both drives work on Mac
Pluses, Mac-II's, and MAC-II/cx's. 

The distributer replaced my computer but that didn't help any, which makes 
me think there is a design problem with the /ci.  I have since tried 
connecting a tape drive the SCSI port (IRWIN 40MByte) and to my suprise it 
worked perfectly.  Now, I (and the repairperson) are thinking that the 
/ci may Apple will not consider this a design problem but a lack of following 
the full specifications by the hard disk makers.  Sigh....


Most significant software seems to port over to the /ci fine with the exception
of the ussual collection of freeware games that fail on the most recent 
MAC generation.   I was disappointed to find that MAC-Vision 2.0, a video 
digitizer that connects to the serial port, did not work.  Koala Inc. tells me
that it doesn't yet work on the Mac-II/cx either but that they are working on
it.

The problems seem to be the sort that seems to accompany any new generation 
of computer, and are not too unanticipated, but I was disappointed to see
the hardware incompatibility with the SCSI port.

Steve Wilkus
AT&T Bell Labs,
North Andover, Ma
(508) 960-6033
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