Technical information

6.90 A2·CentraJ
$99 (for six 3.5 disks and three manuals) and should be available by
mid-February 1991.
Apple's booth at AppleFest was very active, especially where
HyperCard IIgs was being shown, and Apple had reserved a large seat-
ing area to do presentations on interactive multimedia featuring
HyperCard IIgs, Yes, there were many Macs in Apple's booths, but sev,
eral Apple II systems were also there and the layout of the booths
seemed to give the systems more parity since the two product lines
were interspersed rather than segregated,
Apple also brought large numbers of copies of tbe promised
Apple H
Guide. This 231 page book is being distributed through
Apple II dealers and user groups as a resource guide for the Apple II
end user. It contains profiles of Apple II users, general information
regarding Apple II capabilities and system enhancement, a history of
the Apple II. and a set of information resources for locating assis-
tance, If you are an active App!e II user, get to your user group or
dealer and get your copy; in addition to being a useful publication,
every copy Apple sees go out the door is a vote that says "I want
more Apple II support',
One tbing I noticed about this ApplePest was a number of
bona fide Apple n companies tltat are becoming notable partici,
pants. As in the early months of the Macintosh, the Apple II has not
seen many "established' companies bring out appropriate products
developed for other systems, Developers seeking opportunities are
starting to coalesce into a few new hard-core Apple II companies,
Vitesse (13909 Amar Road, Suite 2A, P,O, Box 929, LaPuenta, Calif.
91747-0929) was present demonstrating their salvation series of disk
utilities,
the Quickie scanner, and their Harmonie printer drivers. A
Hewlett-Packard PaintJet XL large-bed color ink jet printer was crank-
ing out Apple IIgs color graphics wonderfully, But the booth really
overflowed the second day when a demo of the In Words optical char-
acter recognition software was conducted (In Words is still being
refined, but WestCode hopes to ship the f:nal version shortly after the-
first of the year),
Seven Hills Software (2310 Oxford Road, Tallahassee, Fla, 32304)
showed examples of their IIgs printer driver utility for Hewlett-Packard
printers, Independence, working with a DeskJet 500 injet printer,
Independence does not support the range of printers that Hannonie
does, but some samples of graphics and columnar text that Seven
Hills had looked better than the samples they displayed of competing
drivers, We hope to get a DeskJet in our office to do some indepen-
dent comparisons of the two programs.
Zip Technology (560 I Slauson Avenue, Suite 190, Colver City,
Calif. 90230) was selling the ZipGS at their booth, On the first day of
AppleFest. they sold out of the stock they had brought to the show,
Applied Engineering (3210 Beltline Road # 154, Dallas, Tx, 75234)
had a large booth, featuring their sound cards (the Audio Animator
and Sonic Blaste.1 and their IIgs send-only FAX option for the
DataLink Express modem (the FAX product is IIgs-specific since it is
hardware and software based), The FAX option is not shipping yet. but
Applied Engineering hopes to have it out later this month,
The Visualizer video digitizer resurfaced at New Concepts (665 IV,
Jackson, Woodstock, N,J, 60098) booth, New Concepts was also
demonstrating Emerald Paint. a IIgs paint program designed to work
in 3200 colors,
SSSi (4612 North Landing Drive, Marietta, Ga, 30066) had a booth
showing their development tool. Genesys, as well as their set of IIgs
New Desk Accessories, DeskPak, SSSi also sells a IIgs memory card
from Harris Laboratories called GS Sauce that holds up to 4
megabytes of memory using the SIMM memory used in many current
computers, A SIMM is a memory module consisting of RAM chips
installed on a standardized compact daughterboard; installing this
daughter board into a SIMM slot is easier for neophyte users than
installing loose RAM chips, Another interesting Hanis Labs product
announced was the Velocitas, a RAM disk card for the IIgs or lie which
uses pseudo-static RAM SIMM's for battery-powered backup of up to a
month, The card is expandable to 8 megabytes with currently avail-
able SIMMs.
Of tbe Apple n Old Guard. Koger Wagner Publishing and Bea·
g1e Bros were prominenL Roger Wagner (1050 Pioneer Way, Suite p,
EI Cajon, Calif. 92020) was demonstrating Hyper5tudio in a series of
sessions both days, and promoting third-party enhancements includ-
ing a new Xcmd (HyperSludio external command) to control Apple's
Vol. 6. No. 12
new MlDlsynth sound synthesizer tool (part of HyperStuff ClipTunes,
$39.95 from Triad Venture, P.O, Box 1220 I, Hauppage, N.Y, 11788),
Beagle Bros (6215 Fenis Square, Suite 100, San Diego, Calif.
92121) was demonstrating their new Outliner (acquired from JEM
Software) and TimeOut Superrorrns (form layout and generation utili-
ty for AppleWorKs) products, But the most popular new item was Plat-
inum Paint for the IIgs, a IIgs paint program with loads of features and
obvious heir to the stagnating Paint Works Gold and DeluxePaint ll.
Br0derbund Software (17 Paul Drive, San RafeaI. Calif. 9490 I) was
demonstrating a new Print Shop Companion for the IIgs ($49,95), The
Print Shop Companion can be operated alone or with Print Shop IIgs,
and includes utilities for printing Print Shop images to paper for refer-
ence, designing and printing envelopes and labels, and an enhanced
layout editor,
A company that has achieved success on other computers and is
now coming to the IIgs market is PC Globe, Inc (4700 South McClin-
tOCk, Tempe, Ariz, 85282, 602-730-9000), They were demonstrating
GeoPuzzle USA (a puzzle created from the USA map that also tests
your knowledge of U,S, geography) and GeoQuiz (a quiz program
using an integrated set of maps and questions) on the IIgs,
Digital Data Express (13636 S, Western Avenue, Suite 28, Blue
Island, III. 60406, 708-389-7744) was selling the NAUGC Generous
Efforts of l1any CD-ROM disc of freeware/shareware and also had two
NEC CD-ROM models that will work with a forthcoming IIgs driver, The
NEC 350 I is a $400 CD-ROM built around a detachable drive that can
double as a portable (audio) battery-powered CD player (the battery
pack is $70), The drawback is that this drive is slow (access time of
1500 milliseconds, about twice as slow as the AppieCD SCI, If you
sacrifice portability, you can look to the NEC 72 drive (which is about
twice as fast as the AppieCD SCI priced at $625, These drives will be
useable on a IIgs with the Apple High-Speed SCSI Card when you add
a IIgs driver expected to be available later this month at $59, A driver
for the Ramrast SCSI interface is expected in January 1991; there
was no information on Apple II (non-lIgs) compatibility,
Tbis
ApplePest was tbe most upbeat I have attended since tbe
fall
of 1988. when GS/OS (System Software 4,0) and the IIc Plus
were introduced, Even there, users were cynical about Apple's com-
mittment to the Apple II. At this show, the feeling was different
System software is often overlOOked because it is considered to be
part of the price of the computer, In HyperCard IIgs, Apple has deliv-
ered a product that users know Apple did not have to produce, One
might question whether such an effort might have been better spent
on other projects, but there is no question that Apple would have to
be very stupid to throw that kind of investment away with continued
ineptitude in marketing the IIgs, Most people refuse to believe Apple
is that dense,
Many feared that the Mac/LA exhibition would overshadow the
Apple II area, But the exhibition areas were comparable (the Mac side
was a little larger, but then most of the Mac booths took up more
space), l1any Mac/LA badges were spotted in the AppleFest area, And
they must have decided to take a while to look around, since most of
us who walked over to the Mac side noticed thinner crowds than the
AppleFest area,
Apple maintains that AppleFest is a regional show; it's unfortunate
that Apple can't seem to muster enough support for at least one
exclusively Apple II national event But the Long Beach AppleFest
demonstrates that a Mac presence does not have to be oppressive, It
can even be enlightening-for both sides.-DJD
The envelope, please
Everyone knows there is a problem with the generai perception of
the Apple II's visibility among the rest of the microcomputer commu-
nity, This absence has affected the Apple II's credibility in that com-
munity and, over the extended period thatlhe problem has persisted,
the viability of the Apple II product line as well.
We often point to Apple Computer itself as the source of many of
these problems, This year. at AppleFest Apple took a simple yet bold
step to reverse this trend: an Apple II Achievement Awards ceremony
held at Apple's own party for Apple II and Macintosh notables,