Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!emory!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!clarkson! From: anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu (Jason W. Anthony) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: The New Macs: Greedy Compromises? Message-ID: <1990Nov29.203507.25984@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu> Date: 29 Nov 90 20:35:07 GMT Sender: @grape.ecs.clarkson.edu Organization: Clarkson University Lines: 82 I must admit, I am not thrilled with Apple's new machines either. One of the nice things about Macintosh computers was that they did what you wanted them to do, without a whole lot of hastle. Like the wonderful GUI. But these new machines... yikes! Just keeping up with all the little "oddities" of each machine is enough to make you go crazy. Like.... * "OK the LC has at 68020 so that puts it in line with Mac II power, but oh, is has 16-bit pathway instead of 32-but, but it does has 32-bit to the ROM." * "And "The IIsi comes with 2 meg and has color, but unlike the other machines, it uses main memory for video, so you loose up to 320K for 256 colors. So 2 meg on a IIsi isn't like 2 Meg on another machine. Will it have enough room for System 7.0?" * "Then the IIsi is very fast and has color, but Mac II machines with seperate NuBus video cards do graphics faster because they have their own memory." * "To get a numeric coprocessor for the IIsi you have to buy an adapter card. Either one which allows you to connect a NuBus card, or one that allows you to connect an SE/30 board. The LC has no Numeric Coprocessor option, unless someone comes out with one on an expansion card. The Classic doesn't have one, as expected." * I won't even try to sort out all the monitor options for the LC. Yikes! * The Mac Classic has 1 Meg soldered to the board, expandable to 4 Meg, and can't use 4 Meg SIMMS. The LC comes with 2 Meg soldered to the board, expandable to 10 Meg. To IIsi has no memory soldered on board, and is expandable to 17 Meg. Then there are all the different configurations and new SIMM sizes.... And one thing you almost never had to worry about on any computer was power. Expansion cards on the LC and IIsi will have to have very small power budgets, and it looks like many NuBus cards will have problems. To quote Andrew Lewis, president of DayStar Digital (MacWeek 11/6/90), "'Almost all the products we've done have busted the power budget.'" According to MacWeek, many times when this happens, you'll have to replace the whole motherbaord! How many NuBus cards available now list power useage? Yet another thing we have to watch out for.... My point is this. Indeed, as many people have pointed out, much of this complexity is a result of Apple trying to minimize cost. Apple has always been expensive, and I've always been willing to pay their prices, because you would get a machine that was powerful and yet elegant. It had much of the hardware abilities of AT clones, but it wasn't such a mess to get a full system together. On top of its GUI, I felt it was well worth it. But now that Apple is making life much more complicated (in my opinion), espcially considering that at least two of these machines are meant for people who don't want to buy big complicated systems, and the recent advent of that "new machine" (I won't dare mention it's name :-) with, what I consider, as good and maybe better GUI, I'm not as pro-Mac as I used to be. Not to mention its price.... I teach introductory computer courses to some people who have never even used a computer before. One lady came and took one of my classes because she couldn't use the computer card system in our local library. At the end of the course, I usually give the students a run down of the Macintosh line, because many enjoyed using it so much they wanted to buy one. It was getting a little difficult for a while there with so many different models. But trying to explain the differences and little things to be aware of about these new machines is going to give me one big headache. With the original Macintosh lines, there wasn't all these "catches" you had to watch out for. As I've said before, I don't think Apple is the same company it used to be. They used to be very concerend with quailty and innovation. You had to pay for it, but I thought it was worth it. Now Apple is showing signs of making the Mac line look as clouded as the IBM clone market. Money is more important to them than it used to be. This I think is at our expense. And except for maybe the Classic, these machines still aren't as super-cheap. If anyone can cheer me up now ;-( I'd really appreicate it.... :-) __________________________________________________________________ Jason W. Anthony anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu //// /| Computer Engineering / / | Clarkson University, Potsdam N.Y. / / /--| ____________________________________________________ ///. / |.