Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!bu-cs!husc6!nakada From: nakada@husc4.harvard.edu (Paul Nakada) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: AppleFest Message-ID: Date: 6 May 89 12:06:35 GMT References: <302@tree.UUCP> Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu Distribution: na Organization: Harvard University Science Center Lines: 100 i actually thought it was a pretty damn good success.. considering the sentiment about the death of the apple ][, i was warmed by all the enthusiasm.. some highlights.. zip chip 8.. i bought one.. should be here very early june... it looked pretty fast.. the demo was a series of normal hires screens, (maybe partial hires screens) being displayed sequentially in a bit mapped animation sequence.. the front end was written in basic, with a ( i assume) machine language memory move routine to shuffle the images.. the normal speed version shows artifacts of the apple's weird hires memory order (things filled in like venetian blinds).. the zip version was pretty smooth,, with little or no venetian blind effect... they also had a full blown appleworks/timeout setup (didn;t everyone?) which was quite impressive... spreadsheet recalcs were up to PCAT speeds, and i was equally impressed with a 30 page timeout page preview which took less time than MS Word 3.0 on the mac... (i know they are quite different, but still) so that's why i got one.. ($179)... i'll tell you how it goes when i get it.. the new apple video overlay system was everywhere.... i like the excitement that seemed to be shown by apple.. they were really pushing this product.. as far as i can tell, it looks like a shot in the arm for us apple ][ forever fanatics... the main idea behind the card is to give full control of a laserdisc player to the apple (//c ro above).. this includes direct access to hundreds (thousands?) of individual clips of video... the cards other purpose is to integrate computer generated video and laserdisc video in some useable form..... this basiclly involved putting menu bars over video, or a video backdrop to the finder.. i'll let others elaborate.. tutortech (a hypercard-a-like whicha may have predated hypercard) showed a short demo of ABC's election 88 disc interfaced with tutortech.. this is how i envision the use of the overlay board... the user could easily browse through many clips covering numerous issues and news stories.. there were definitely some bugs.. but the concept is intriguing.. (and cheap too!) applied ingenuity... they make the innerdrives.. pretty much you basic overpriced apple harddrive maker.. but we're getting closer.. they are really trying to cut the price down to affordable prices.. I managed to get alittle info on the upcoming //c innerdrive.. this is for the rumormill, but it's straight from an AI engineer... the innerdrive //c will replace the //c's internal 5.25 drive.. the 5.25 can then be moved outboard, still functioning as slot6 drive 1.. the innerdrive will then directly interface to the bus (through some sort of piggyback scheme..) and should be compatile with zip and rocket chips... this appears to give them the edge over the smartport drives, because it avoids the bottleneck created at the smartport.. but alas ... it's still vapoerware... so who am i to judge... bill basham was in prime form... he's such a wonderful person.. and his diversitune program was selling like hotcakes... i was amazed to see him being asked to sign copies as they sold.. he's definitely a class act... hyperstudio was selling like crazy as well.. it's a hypercard lookalike with sound capabilities.. i didn;t see this to extensively, so i'll defer... laser was pretty blah... apple DTS was out in force... i really felt that they cared about the people there.. saw Dave Lyons, but he was pretty busy the whole time.. GSOS v5.0.. i don;t have a GS, but i use Mac's a lot.. i was impressed by the Finder, and its increased speed... there are definitely some insightful ideas included in this package... the Mac's chooser is gone.. it's where it always shoukd have been, in the control panel... the getinfo boxes are paged with tabs... ever see how useless a Mac getinfo dialog is? a great insight.... Appletalk/Appleshare is in full glory... I've seen a classroom of Mac II's served off a Mac.. what a sight it would be to see 3 times as many GS's served off the same mac for the same price... and to top it off... the nada chair.. you have to wear one to believe it.. anyone who has seen or has one will understand.. those who havn't... just plain won't understand... i can't wait til SF applefest.. i'll be there.... -paul nakada -- __ | Paul Nakada '89 #8-) | North House | nakada@husc4.HARVARD.EDU Harvard College | seismo>!harvard!husc4!nakada.UUCP Cambridge, MA 02138 | rutgers/ nakada@husc4.BITNET 617/498-6255 || 6264 | __|