Peaking at Apple's New Bushel

Sorry, but all of our public relations staff is at Appleworld. We'll have one of them call you back shortly." The Happy Hacker felt stupid.

Not only had Apple refused to pay for first-class airfare to California so that the Hacker could see the official announcement of the new Macintosh computers, but nobody from "little beige" (Big Blue's major competitor in the personal computer market) was even available to talk about the new line of computers--they were too busy playing with them.

Frequently the Happy Hacker receives calls requesting advice on which computer to buy. And, just as the Hacker advises people to wait until all the potential presidential candidates have announced before jumping on a particular bandwagon, he recommends waiting until April 2 when IBM rolls out its new models before choosing a new personal computer. It's not that Apple's new entries are not impressive, but a little patience never hurts.

Even for purchasers not interested in the latest technology, it pays to wait a few weeks. With the announcement of the new models will come a lowering of price (and value) of the old standards. Also several good deals in used computers will become available shortly after the new machines are shown to the public.

Of course those interested in selling their personal computers should put them on the market now. Used Macintoshes and IBM compatibles are bound to decline in resale value real soon. Other than posters around campus and classified ads in local newspapers, the Boston Computer Exchange has been very successful at selling several of the Happy Hacker's friends computers.

The Happy Hacker has yet to sell his old computer, but he does have some insights into the latest offerings from Apple as well as some Boeskyesque information on IBM's planned offerings.

The new Apples

Apple has expanded its Macintosh family with two new machines, the Macintosh II and the Macintosh SE. They have stopped selling the Macintosh with 128K memory, and the entry level model is now the Macintosh 512KE (basically a Mac with 512K of memory and 800K disk drives).

Above the 512KE is the Macintosh Plus. The Mac Plus allows for an additional 1.5 megabytes of memory and also has an SCSI port which is convenient for hooking up hard disk drives and other peripherals.

The Macintosh SE (SE for Slightly Expanded or Somewhat Expensive) is a Macintosh Plus with a few extra features. The primary addition is a system expansion slot (SE slot). The SE also comes with two 800K internal disk drives (the Plus can only hold one internal drive). Additionally, the SE can handle an internal SCSI hard disk drive.

Finally, at the head of the new family, is the Macintosh II, an extremely powerful personal computer/workstation that is similar to the IBM in its openly expandable design, but similar to the Macintosh in its primary operating system. The most exciting of the new features are the six expansion slots which will allow the Mac II to hook up with various peripherals such as full-page displays.

Both the Mac II and the SE will be able to be connected with color video monitors and IBM disk drives. But, the MS-DOS (ie. IBM) connection will cost upwards of a thousand dollars.

Although computer costs are decreasing, the new Macintosh models are not the Happy Hacker's idea of cheap. The Macintosh II starts at $3898 list, and the SE starts at $2898. Although Harvard's Technology Product Center remains secretive about their planned pricing policy, they will offer the new computers at a discount. The prices should be available within a week, and if they are anything like the present discounts, an SE could sell for around $2000.

As for today's students, the Happy Hacker recommends staying with the 512KE for simple wordprocessing. For other applications, such as data base programs or large compilers, the additional memory of the Plus and SE could be useful.

Additionally, the extra memory is helpful for running Switcher, a program that allows several different software packages to run at the same time. A ramdisk can also take advantage of the increased memory. Anyone requiring a color monitor or wanting to run MS-DOS programs will need to shell out the additional dollars for an SE or a Mac II.

New from Big Blue

As for IBM, their new computers should be available sometime in May (around the time the Mac II is scheduled to appear in stores). According to the Happy Hacker's not-yet-caught-for-trading-insider-information source, the new computers will be much faster and will have a smaller footprint.

They will use 3 1/2 inch disks and will come with a new operating system that will be much more `closed' than MS-DOS. IBM will also introduce a machine based on Intel's 80386 microprocessor, this machine will be able to operate at more than twice the speed of the IBM AT.

Like the new Apples, brother blue's models will also start out very expensive. And the Happy Hacker isn't holding his breath for prices to go down. All of the new systems promise to truly advance the state of personal computing technology.

Of course, if all of the company employees are unable to help the Happy Hacker and other computer users because they're too busy playing with their new computers, it could retard the acceptance and spread of the new machines.

But that's a risk that IBM and Apple seem willing to take.