the new Apple iMac

From: Keith Whitehead <K.J.Whitehead_at_massey.ac.nz>
Date: Thu May 7 18:56:03 1998

>On Fri, 8 May 1998, Keith Whitehead wrote:
>
>> Yep...a VERY souped up Mac 128...infact this one expands up to 128 Meg
>> Ram..coincidence (or hey a really neat conspiracy theory).
>
>Woah. That got me thinking. It'll be scary when they come out with the
>512MB Fat-iMac.
....let me guess...we'll end up with a "Power Plus" machine that has
up to 4 Gig Ram, SCSI port, new expanded keyboard, etc

>
>> How can you share data with a PC owner with no magnetic media for transport
>
>Simple, use the internet. That's what its there for.

Well I take plain text files home between the PC at work and my Mac at
home, Reason
I like EditII on the mac and use this to generate my 68HC11 assembly code,
however
the programmer is on the PC at work, so I transport S1-S9 files too. Why
the hell
would I want to dial into the internet to do that OR share text files with
freinds (who
don't have email anyway).

>
>> With all of the missing bits, and obviously a home machine, have 10/100
>> ethernet rather than firewire seems...well....stupid!
>
>10/100 is a commerical reality. Firewire is still unproven in the
>marketplace. You can hook an iMac up to TCI's cable modem service for
>instance. How many telephone/cable companies are supporting firewire?
>What was that? None?

Ahh the great chicken and egg argument....However apple took the risks with
 3 1/2 inch floppies, GUI OS,Postscript,SCSI,AppleTalk,Truetype,etc..etc..etc
so now we are left with we "won't use it untill everyone else does", a
commercial
success always starts with a small beginning. I think there is a chinese
(?) saying
"the longest journey begins with the first step" .

>I think you've missed the point. The iMac is more of an internet
>appliance than a PC made for upgrading everytime a new Pentium comes out.
>The whole point is that you install it and go.

Adding a SCSI/Firewire/Expansion port does not prevent this, but say in 2-3
years time
when DVD becomes prevalent the way that ZIP drives have what then..sell the
whole
machine and buy a whole new one just to add one more function...NOT, I
don't have that
sort of money to write a whole machine off every 3 years (Thats why I still
run my TRS80
4P ;-) )

I still believe that apple have grossly underestimated what the markets
expectations for
a "computer" are...even if you call it an appliance, I have a toaster, I
have a microwave, I
have plenty of appliances...what I want is a computer.

Cheers



+----------- Keith Whitehead -----------+
| Physics and Chemistry Depts |
| Massey University |
| Palmerston North |
| New Zealand |
| |
| Ph +64 6 350-5074 Fax +64 6 354-0207 |
+------------------------------------------+
Received on Thu May 07 1998 - 18:56:03 BST