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From: dplatt@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: New Macs, HyperCard, Multifinder, and Memory Constraints
Message-ID: <17751@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 8-Oct-87 13:31:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: teknowle.17751
Posted: Thu Oct  8 13:31:35 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Oct-87 08:48:32 EDT
References: <544@atux01.UUCP>
Organization: Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 41
In-reply-to: jlc@atux01.UUCP's message of 7 Oct 87 14:15:19 GMT


Sigh... the old problem... Parkinson's Law applies to computers as
well as to bureaucratic organizations (the contents expands to fill
the available space, plus 10%).  You can't get power without paying
for it, and HyperCard and MultiFinder are providing a _lot_ of new
power (with more to come in the future, presumably).

I'm not holding my breath waiting for a MultiFinder/HyperCard
combination that will run acceptably in 1 meg with the current ROMs; I
suspect that Apple would have to move a lot of the MultiFinder code
into ROM (1-meg ROMs, anyone?) to make room for HyperCard.  Perhaps
they can do something to trim down HyperCard's current piggish
behavior, though... seems like an area worth addressing.

For what it's worth, Apple just cut its RAM-upgrade prices by about
40%, due to the dropping prices of DRAM chips on the market today.
Current MSRPs are:

Mac II 1Mb->2Mb         $349    $249

Mac Plus 1Mb->2.5Mb     $999    $599

Mac Plus 1Mb->4Mb,      $1998   $1198
Mac II   1Mb->5Mb

This is _lots_ more reasonable.  Apple (and the rest of the industry)
was hurt rather badly by the sharp increases in DRAM prices due to the
anti-dumping "fair market value" regulations imposed by the government,
and I imagine that it put a bit of a crimp into their long-standing plans
to supply Mac users with very-powerful tools (which inevitably eat memory
as if it were candy).  Now that DRAM street-prices are coming back down,
things should ease up quite a bit.  [I just bought a Mac II, and ordered
the 1-to-5-meg expansion;  got a 25% corporate discount from a local
dealer, and ended up paying $900 for 4 megs of memory.  It stung a bit,
but not more than I could stand].

I imagine that Apple will continue to release 1-meg machines as their
"bottom of the line" systems for quite some time... if they up the size
of the smallest machine to 2 megs, they'll get lots of howls from people
who can't justify the expense of the larger machine.  They may make
a "Mac SE+" available, with 2 megs to start;  this might be attractive
for power users.