FEBRUARY 95 / $3.95 FEBRUARY 1995 FEBRUARY Mac Clones / Removable-Media Drives Buyer’s Guide / Internet CLONES Apple and IBM Join Forces to Build the Ultimate PC

PLUS 27 Macs Rated How to Buy and Configure the Right One for You Expert Troubleshooting Techniques Tips That Will Fix Almost Anything Make the PowerPC Switch Upgrade-Card Shoot-out CONTENTS FEBRUARY 1995 / VOLUME 11 NUMBER 2

REVIEWS & QUICK CLICKS Apple LaserWriter 16/600 PS, QMS 1660, Being There Pro Videoconferencing tool and Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8200 Three lets users share documents and work 600-dpi, 16-ppm laser printers offer solid together over a network. / 54 feature sets at good price points. / 37 Apple Power Macintosh Upgrade Card Painter 3.0 Powerhouse paint program and DayStar 80 MHz PowerPro 601 27 / Turn a IIci into a Power Mac. gains new animation tools and a revamped Supercharge your Quadra with one of interface. / 40 these accelerator cards. / 56

FileMaker Pro Server New client/server VideoShop 3.0 Bargain-priced, feature- NEW ON THE MENU architecture boosts multiuser rich video-editing program is a little rough performance. / 42 around the edges. / 58

Power Mac Upgrades Triple your speed. / ArchiCAD 4.5 From sketch to blueprint to Seiko Professional ColorPoint 2 PSF SoftWindows Run Windows on 68040 virtual tour, Graphisoft’s integrated 2-D/ Model 14 Top-of-the-line switch-hitting Macs. / Zip Drive Unlimited storage. / 3-D architectural-CAD system makes dye-sub/thermal-wax color printer CD-ROM Easy access to seven discs. / ZMac the grade. / 46 delivers quality good enough for graphics Utility of the Month Throckmorton professionals. / 60 Power Pack. / Plus Macintosh price Fargo Primera Pro Low-cost dye-sub/ index. / 27 thermal-wax color PostScript printer Coda Vivace Personal Accompanist The features support for networks. / 47 ability to listen intelligently makes this COLUMNS autoaccompaniment system indispensable for music classrooms. / 65 Letters Readers express Dvorak delight and Word 6 dismay and pose their PLANMaker How to write a business plan questions to Dr. Power Mac. / 11 that will at least get you started. / 65

Maggie Canon Fine print. / 17 Scenery Animator Create and animate virtual landscapes. / 66 Andy Ihnatko Up, up, and away. / 21 PowerAGENT Leverage AppleScript’s John C. Dvorak Acquisition fever. / 196 power without learning to script. / 66

Product Index / 159 Virex Administrator If securing a virus- free network is a high priority, then this Advertiser Index / 162 detect-and-repair tool is a must. / 67

Marketplace / 169 Troubled Souls Moody, gothic Tetris-like 37 / Laser-printer competition heats up. game is highly addictive — you’ve been

ERAY95 FEBRUARY 68 On the cover / warned. / / $3.95 There may be a FEBRUARY 1995 FEBRUARY non-Apple Mac InfoDepot 2.0 Featuring support for Menu Master Mac Lite Access-limiting a lns/RmvbeMdaDie a Buyer Mac / Drives Media Removable / Clones Mac in your future. multiple users and impressive versatility, tool maintains the Finder’s look and CLONES this information-management tool excels feel. / 68 Apple and IBM Cover photo / 48 Join Forces to at complex project coordination. / Build the Diane Dempsey FileWave Centralized-software- ’ ud Internet / Guide s Ultimate PC MacDraft 4.0 Entry-level drafting tool is PLUS management and -distribution program 27 Macs Rated How to Buy and Configure the Right One for You first in its class to incorporate a database makes life easier for network Expert Troubleshooting Techniques Tips That Will Fix and a report generator. / 53 73 Almost Anything managers. / Make the PowerPC Switch Upgrade-Card Shoot-out DESKTOP PUBLISHING / 104

Page Layout Pump up your PageMaker layouts with Additions technology. / 107

COVER STORY Graphics How-To Blends versus gradients — and the difference between the two. / 111 Here Come the Clones Expert Tips Image-replacement strategies, such as DCS, can ease work-flow Apple strikes an unprecedented agreement bottlenecks. / 113 with PowerPC partners IBM and Motorola. ONE PLATFORM, MULTIPLE OS CHOICES. That’s the heart of the announcement presented at a historic November NETWORKING / 114 meeting of the PowerPC partners. But what does this mean Network Help How to diagnose for you? Better prices, for one; the future of the Macintosh, nonfunctioning zones, and more. / 117 for another. BY HENRY NORR / 76 Mac to PC Cross-platform strategies to tide you over until 1996. / 121 FEATURES How to Buy Your Perfect HANDS ON / 124 Macintosh Six Super Fixes Try these terrific tips ZD This Macintosh Buyer’s before you take your Mac to the mechanic. / 124 86 / How to buy Macs, LABS guide will tell you all you need to know about processors, Mobile Mac Is it time to switch to memory, SCSI, video, and expansion System 7.5? It all depends. / 129 slots before you make your purchase and includes not only performance Net Traveler Five must-see sites for statistics for every shipping Mac users. / 133 Macintosh but also all the specs. 133 / New Help Folder Bob and Andy answer all your 88 / . . . storage, BY DREW J. CRONK / 82 Internet column. questions. Plus hot tips on your favorite programs. / 134 A Removables Feast ZD High-capacity remov- LABS able-storage systems 90 / . . . monitors, let you take your data with you. MacUser Labs puts the three tech- nologies for removable media to the test by placing more than 50 drives with capacities of 200 to 270 mega- bytes through a series of challenging speed tests. Find out which one is 92 / . . . and more. best for you. BY JIM SHATZ-AKIN / 94 How to Reach Us Subscription problems? Call 800-627-2247.

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4 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 Group Publisher ZIFF-DAVIS PUBLISHING COMPANY David J. Ezequelle Chairman Eric Hippeau

Editor-in-Chief Business Media Group Maggie Canon President Ronni Sonnenberg Group Vice President Jeff Ballowe Editorial Group Vice President Claude P. Sheer Editor James S. Bradbury Vice President, Magazine Networks Joseph Gillespie Managing Editor Nancy Groth Vice President, Central Advertising Sales Bob Bader Technical Director Henry Bortman Vice President, Editor-in-Chief, PC Magazine Michael Miller Executive Editor Rik Myslewski Vice President, Editor-in-Chief, PC Week Dan Farber Senior Editors Cheryl England, Mark Frost, Susan Janus, Vice President, Editorial Director, PC/Computing Paul Somerson Karen J. Ohlson, Pamela Pfiffner Vice President, Group Publisher Al DiGuido Technical Editor John Rizzo Vice President, Publisher, PC/Computing J. Samuel Huey Senior Associate Managing Editor Claire H. Breen Vice President, Publisher, PC Magazine Jim Stafford Chief Copy Editor Eva Langfeldt Vice President, Publisher, PC Week Don Byrnes Associate Technical Editor Rhoda Simmons Director of Corporate Marketing Susan Delman Associate Editors Carolyn Bickford, Shelly Brisbin, Director of Public Relations Brenda Wheeler Nancy Peterson, Sean J. Safreed, Jim Shatz-Akin Director of Training Ellen Atkinson Assistant Editors Patty Ames, Kristin M. Balleisen, Jason Snell Director of Ziff-Davis Preferred Customer Program (ZDPC) Contributing Editors Sharon Zardetto Aker, David Biedny, Celia Canfield Christopher Breen, Don Crabb, Bruce Fraser, Andy Ihnatko, Ted Landau, Bob LeVitus, Stephan C. Somogyi, Sales Development Manager, Ziff-Davis Magazine Networks/ZDPC Jeff Bruce Michael Swaine, Gregory Wasson Codirectors, ZD Benchmark Operation Contributing Anti-Editor John C. Dvorak Bill Catchings, Mark L. Van Name Executive Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief Teresa Campbell Ziff-Davis Publishing Company MacUser Labs President, Consumer Media Group J. Scott Briggs Labs Director Jeffrey S. Pittelkau President, Computer Intelligence/InfoCorp Bob Brown Associate Labs Director Mark Bieler President, Information Access Company Robert Howells Project Leaders Tony A. Bojorquez, Roman Victor Loyola, President, International Media Group J. B. Holston III Jeffrey K. Milstead President, ZD Expos Bill Lohse Lab Administrator James Galbraith President, Ziff-Davis Interactive Michael Kolowich ZD Labs President, Ziff Technology Group Ken Jeffers Director Robert W. Kane Senior Vice President, Circulation Baird Davis Test Manager, MacUser/MacWEEK Paul R. Freedman Senior Vice President Rachel Greenfield Vice President, Assistant to the Chairman Tom McGrade Design Vice President, Circulation Services James F. Ramaley Art & Design Director Lisa Orsini Vice President, Creative Services Herbert Stern Senior Associate Art Director Diane Dempsey Vice President, General Manager Bruce W. Bourne Art Production Manager Jan McKenzie Rogers Vice President, Human Resources Rayna Brown Technical Illustrator Mark W. Sweeney Vice President, Production Roger Herrmann Vice President, Research Rolf M. Wulfsberg Advertising/Sales Vice President, Strategic Planning Robert Ziff Advertising Coordinators Jennifer Sawyer, Elizabeth Turney Vice President, Technology Bill Machrone Production Chief Information Officer Wellington Y. Chiu Production Director Carlos Lugo Internal Marketing Consultant Paul H. Chook Production Manager Jill Waldman Editorial Director Lewis D’Vorkin Assistant Production Manager Monique Risso Executive Director, Information Systems Owen Weekley Executive Director, Marketing Services Jim Manning Marketing Production Director Walter J. Terlecki Marketing Manager Laurel Skillman Director of Licensing Jean Lamensdorf Public Relations and Events Manager Laura Beraut Director of Public Relations Gregory Jarboe Marketing Coordinator Stephanie Arnold Ziff Communications Company Operations Chairman and CEO Eric Hippeau Business Manager Cynthia Mason Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Bruce R. Barnes Assistant to the Group Publisher Grace Jue Senior Vice President Steven C. Feinman Assistant to the Group National Ad Director Casie Davis Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary J. Malcolm Morris Assistant to Account Representatives Deborah Monaghan Vice President, Business Manager T. L. Thompson Vice President, Controller and Treasurer Timothy J. Mitchell On-Line: ZiffNet/Mac Director of Macintosh Services Ben Templin Chairman Emeritus William B. Ziff, Jr. Managing Editor Shafath (Shef) Syed Product Manager Mark Simmons Associate Editors Tom Geller, Andrew Kim, Scott Love, Crystal Waters Entire contents © 1995 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, L.P. All rights Assistant Editor Kathy Tafel reserved; reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. MacUser is a registered trademark of Ziff-Davis Publish- ing Company, L.P. MacUser is an independent journal, not affiliated In Memory of John J. Anderson 1956 – 1989 in any way with Apple Computer, Inc. and Derek van Alstyne 1967 – 1989 Printed in the USA

6 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 LETTERS @@@@@€€€€€ÀÀÀÀÀ

Power Full BRUCE FRASER’S article THE POWER MAC TEST (“Power Imaging on Photoshop and the for Power Publishers,” November ’94, page Power Macs was help- 72) was terrific. In-depth data comparing ful, but I missed two the Power Macs to machines such as real-world considerations: Pentium-based PCs and the SGI Indy are The author didn’t dis- very important. Keep up the good work. cuss the possibility of using Richard A. Hyman Connectix’s@@@@@@@@€€€€€€€€ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ RAM Doubler to achieve the via the Internet huge RAM sizes needed by Photoshop and its plug-ins. Does RAM-doubling software AS MANAGER of an in-house advertising work in the uses he discussed? OPEN FOLDER department that recently upgraded to He also didn’t directly point out that the Dell PC might be the best-value machine for Does PC mean personal computer or political Power Mac 8100s, I read “Power Imaging for correctness? According to Karl Ulrich, of Char- Power Publishers” with great interest. someone on a tight budget. It costs about LET-lotte, North Carolina, it’s both: “I never Nonetheless, I was dismayed to see that half what the other machines do when they thought I’d be hearing about political cor- your cross-platform comparison tests in- are all decked out. Was this a problem of rectness from my Mac!” Karl writes. He re- cluded various Mac configurations using political correctness — not being able to ports that WordPerfect’s grammar checker recommend, even with qualifications, a PC? suggests woman in place of girl but passed third-party add-ons but none for the over boy without suggesting man — a clear Pentium PC. By ignoring performance Art Dechene double standard to Karl, who also points out [email protected] gains available via add-ons to both plat- that WordPerfect’s spelling checker has a vo-

forms, you missed an opportunity to hon- / RAM @€ÀDoubler is fine as a means of keeping other cabulary of four-letter words guaranteed to estly and fairly compare both machines. applications open when you’re working in Photo- make a schoolwoman blush. “It’s a great late- night party game for nerds,” Karl says. Nerds? Kent Lufkin shop, but you shouldn’t use it to allocate more RAM You mean the socially challenged. via the Internet to Photoshop than you actually have. If you do, A bleary-eyed Denis de Castro, of Auckland, / We set out to examine several options available for speed will suffer seriously, because you’ll confuse New Zealand, describes a vision of his alarm people using Adobe Photoshop on the Mac, from Photoshop’s own virtual-memory scheme. clock as a modal dialog box — “Sorry, but it’s adding RAM to using DSP accelerators to looking at As for the pricing, what we have here is a case of time to get up, OK?” — with no cancel but- other platforms. If you decided to switch to a Apple and oranges. The prices cited were for sys- ton. Thanks for the report, Denis, but how about a real interface improvement for life: Pentium-based system after reading the story, you tems as sold by the manufacturer. Apple doesn’t sell an Undo command, maybe? could then look at ways to make that machine run the Quadra 950 or the Power Mac 8100 with our test One of our readers wishes he could undo a monitor (we listed its price separately) or with 72 Photoshop faster — although when it comes to major error: Jeff Melrose, of Iowa City, Iowa, Photoshop-specific accelerators, the selection is MB of RAM. Because RAM prices fluctuate, we did threw out years’ worth of past MacUser issues limited. / PP not add on the cost of third-party RAM. only to discover a few weeks later that he The Apple advantage is that the Mac is truly needed to use them for reference. “I could Write to Letters plug-and-play, allowing buyers to choose from a kick myself for not saving those issues now!” he writes. Meanwhile, Michael Kirby, of New variety of equipment at a variety of prices while c/o MacUser York City, writes that he is looking for a good 950 Tower Lane knowing that what they purchase will work with home for his collection of every MacUser 18th Floor their system. As the story indicated, the Dell system since October 1985, because he’s moving to Foster City, CA 94404 clearly gets the nod for price. But although a Power the Philippines. More profit-minded is Rich- Mac configuration may cost 20 percent more than ard Morse, of Ventura, California: “I have the To send your letter electronically via premier issues of MacUser, Macworld, The the Dell system, our tests show that you’ll get at least the Internet, MCI Mail, CompuServe, or MACazine, and St. Mac. Are these precious ZiffNet/Mac (our on-line service), see 30 percent more speed with the former. / BF & PP gems worth any money to anyone, or should I toss them?” Let Jeff’s plight be a lesson to “How to Reach Us,” on page 4. All D’lightful, D’lerious, Dvorak letters become the property of MacUser, you both. and we reserve the right to edit any IF I DIDN’T KNOW BETTER, I would After all, you never know when something from the past will become important again. letters we print. Include a return think that Apple had kidnapped John C. Dvorak and replaced him with one of the Just ask Kenneth Macdonald, who wrote to address and a daytime phone number. us via the Internet with a question that If you write to us on-line, please specify new clones we’re hearing so much about. I chilled us to the bone: “I’ve forgotten my SAM whether you want your electronic mean, the November ’94 column (“Seven [Symantec AntiVirus] password; what can I address printed. Big Myths,” page 224) can’t be by the real do?” Hmm . . . the answer must be in a back

ILLUSTRATION / MORTENSBAK NYC Dvorak, can it? It’s positive, upbeat, and — issue somewhere.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 11 LETTERS

dare I say it? — optimistic about the Mac ASK DR. POWER MAC and Apple’s future. IN ALL THE HOOPLA about the Power If this “new” Dvorak is indeed Apple’s Macs and the speedy native software first experiment with a clone, I think that’s available for them, I haven’t seen mention of whether the new software MacUser should keep him. He’s better than works on non-PowerPC Macs. For ex- the original and will certainly appeal to ample, if I get a Power Mac and buy soft- more of the marketplace. ware for it, will the same software run on Marc LaFountain my old PowerBook? [email protected] Richard Hutson via ZiffNet/Mac I HAVE A CURE for all the readers of your / Software designed specifically for Power Macs cannot run on 680x0 Macs. However, most soft- magazine who can’t read John C. Dvorak ware vendors offer a smart installer that lets you without going mad. Each time I’m furious choose to run either a 680x0-only version or a about what Mr. Dvorak is writing about my PowerPC-only version, or they provide what is beloved Mac, I put the magazine down and known as a Fat Binary, which runs on either chip. go for a walk. The walk invariably takes me In the future, however, software vendors may implement features that require a PowerPC chip, to the magazine vendor down the street. I because it is so much faster than the 680x0. read his column in the latest issue of PC/ Computing, and as soon as I start reading it, I’M RUNNING A RADIUS 21-inch gray- I become happy again. He is even more scale monitor on a Centris 610 with 1 MB zealous in his criticisms of the PC side of the of VRAM. I want to put in a logic-board up- world than he is of the Mac. grade to a Power Mac 6100 but have been Martin Chaput advised that the Power Mac architecture via the Internet will not support my monitor. I need a large monitor and don’t feel like shelling out another $800 or so for a new one. Will I REALLY LIKE John C. Dvorak’s column. a Power Mac 6100 support my monitor? His fresh views on a subject and his ability Mike Duggan to size up an issue are superb. He’s not San Francisco, CA afraid to express an opinion that runs / If you own a Radius Two Page Display 21GS, you counter to popular trends. And often he’s can get a Power Macintosh 6100/60AV Logic right! Board Upgrade and use the AV video card to drive Scott Mesch your monitor. Unfortunately, an older Radius via ZiffNet/Mac gray-scale monitor (which I suspect you have) won’t work with either the 6100’s built-in DRAM video or with the AV card. Your best option in this Radius Redux case is to get the Power Macintosh 6100/60 Logic I JUST FINISHED reading “Choosing the Board Upgrade and buy a Radius Precision Color Right Monitor” (November ’94, page 94) 8XJ card, which retails for $599, although it should be cheaper on the street. and found the article to be very informa- tive. However, I was quite surprised at the results of the MacUser Poll at the end of the WHAT’S THE NORMAL frame rate for video recording on a Power Mac 7100/ article. Specifically, it was difficult for me to 66AV ? I’ve read 30 frames per second (fps) comprehend all the poor marks tallied for at 640 x 480 pixels, and Apple says 25 fps Radius. I manage a desktop-publishing- at 160 x 120 pixels, but I’m lucky to get 10 training facility in which we heavily use 16 fps at 160 x 120 pixels, recording directly Radius 20-inch color monitors for demand- to RAM. I’m using Fusion Recorder with an allocation size of 12 MB, and I’m using the ing graphic-arts work. We have nothing but video compressor set to normal. Is my ex- praise for the quality of these monitors and perience usual, or did I get the bad Apple especially the excellent Radius service and of the bunch? support we have experienced. Byron Miller Mike Blum Hickory, NC via the Internet / The Apple figure you quote is actually Apple’s estimated playback speed for QuickTime 2.0. Your Ihnatko’s Instant Karma recording figures seem about right — with a postage-stamp-sized window, our Power Mac I FIND MYSELF TAKING exception to 7100 also recorded at 10 fps. Andy Ihnatko’s “Karmic Strip” (November ’94, page 23). The piece was extremely

12 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 LETTERS unfair, offensive, and degrading. Windows Emulation Address Unknown He goes so far as to call PC/Windows us- WE ALL KNOW the excitement of getting I’VE NOTICED THAT when people write ers stupid. The people he mentions are at a some fancy new program we’ve heard and to you via electronic mail, you print their PC convention to talk about and gawk at PC read so much about. So imagine my thrill e-mail address. This seems a little strange technology; they are not prepared to dis- when I installed Microsoft Word 6.0 on my to me. Can you imagine a magazine posting cuss Mac trends and are probably not very Mac. First, I found that I had to delete Word someone’s home address below every letter interested in that subject. I imagine that I 5.1 to free up enough disk space to install it, they send? would obtain similar results if I went to a but hey, the more space an application This isn’t customary, because the writers Mac trade show and walked up to attendees takes, the more things it can do. would either get letters from people who and asked them if they thought EISA’s So I double-clicked on the icon, and after probably shouldn’t be sending them letters clock-doubled, half-duplex architecture a few moments, it was there — Windows or because they’d receive just too many let- was an acceptable substitute for a true pre- running on my Mac. And I didn’t even have ters as a result. You might reconsider print- emptive, full-duplex expansion bus such as to buy a Power Mac! ing the writers’ e-mail addresses in the in- MicroChannel or PCI. Rob Verkooyen terest of privacy. The article would have been much fun- via the Internet Matt Johnson nier had it been less derogatory. [email protected] Trevor Schroeder I OPENED THE BOXES for Word 6.0 and / We try to recognize the privacy of our letter writ- [email protected] Excel 5.0 with great anticipation. But upon ers — we print an e-mail address only if the writer loading Word on a Quadra 800 and Excel on has explicitly said that we can publish it. / JS IHNATKO’S ARTICLES bring to mind lis- a IIci, I began my journey into Microsoft tening to a neighbor discourse on the topics hell. It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane... of the day at a picnic — very casual and Printing a 35-page document in 2 hours I GOT MARRIED a couple of weeks ago and down to earth. He recognizes the everyday and 48 minutes was beyond infuriating. It took my PowerBook 165 along [on the hon- Joe Macintosh user as one not so greatly im- cost my company thousands of dollars in a eymoon] to keep up with e-mail. On the last pressed with (or even well versed in) the week to deal with the slow processing, slow day of the trip, I drove over my PowerBook technical jargon and internal workings of printing, and continual calls to technical- with my father-in-law’s Mercedes. My wife the Mac. support representatives who kept espous- had put it by the front tire, and I unknow- I have always enjoyed MacUser because ing the virtues of Windows. We finally re- ingly backed up the car over it. I’m just what the name says — a Mac user. turned the products and reloaded the older I jumped out of the car to assess the dam- Not a programmer, not a systems analyst versions. age and gulped as I pulled the torn carrying — a regular guy. A beer-drinkin’, politically Bottom line, Microsoft: If we wanted PCs, case off the PowerBook. I opened it and hit incorrect, cartoon-watchin’, not-quite-fin- we’d have them. We want Mac products for the power button, and it booted right up, ished-college, still-livin’-with-the-folks, our Macs, not bastardized versions of Win- smiling Mac and all. There wasn’t even a eatin’-CheezWiz, usin’-my-Mac kinda guy. dows that barely run on a Mac. Shame on crack in the case! MacUser entertains me as well as informs you, Bill Gates! Maybe next week I’ll drop it off the top of me. Your magazine is user-friendly. I enjoy Yvonne Walker my office building… . that. San Mateo, CA Sky Dayton Jason D. Signore [email protected] [email protected] An eWorld Ticket / Perhaps your wife was trying to tell you something FRANKLY, MICHAEL SWAINE, although about the wisdom of bringing the PowerBook along Download Free or Die eWorld may not have the complete feature on your honeymoon? / JS WHAT’S THE DEAL with the ZMac Utility set just yet (“An eWorld Ride,” October ’94, of the Month? In the November ’94 issue page 25), that’s coming, and I’m glad there CORRECTIONS (New on the Menu, page 30), you state that is another — competitive — game in town. The design-and-construction rating for “The Cheaper Image is available, for only Maybe now CompuServe will indeed serve the La Cie Joule 1080 (“Big Gigs,” October ’94, the cost of download time ....” What’s up our needs; clean up that obsolete, cumber- page 92) should have been Acceptable; with that? Weren’t free downloads of the some, stumblebum interface; and respond its mouse rating is adjusted upward to wonderful ZMac exclusives one of the sell- to competitive pressure with a new and 3.5 mice. ing points for ZiffNet/Mac? I hope this was a more realistic price structure. The correct price per package for StarNine’s misprint. I subscribe to both services and find I get Mail*Link SMTP 3.0 for QuickMail and John Thoo virtually everything I need on eWorld, Mail*Link SMTP for Microsoft Mail (“File [email protected] Enclosures Cross Boundaries,” September including an e-mail gateway to all my ’94, page 133) is $595 for ten users. Current / It depends on which on-line service you use. There CompuServe addresses. What more could I users can pay $195 for a limited upgrade is no connect-time charge if you access ZiffNet/Mac ask for? or $495 for a site license. via CompuServe. On eWorld and AppleLink, con- William J. Martin The actual price for Tree Professional (Octo- nect-time charges apply. / JS [email protected] ber ’94, page 63) is $695.

14 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 MAGGIE CANON Byte, Book, and Candle OT OFF THE PRESS!” I WONDER sometimes whether that phrase from Xerox PARC features 300-dpi resolu- tion, about four times that offered by com- will eventually become nothing puter screens. The idea of a featherweight H electronic tablet that could deliver custom- more than a quaint figure of speech, as There are many answers to that question: ized news to me on a sharp, colorful screen printing presses, ink, and paper give way to It would be prohibitively expensive to at- is exciting. I could learn to prefer this to the bustling data lines, electronic files, and tempt to cram the huge amount of sound, crisp, inky pages of my morning paper. digital documents. Here at MacUser, we’re text, and art you can pack onto a CD-ROM As for today’s literary offerings — well, I heading further and further into cyber- into a print medium. Sound adds an extra have my doubts about whether I’ll be read- space: We’ve been on-line since May 22, dimension, and the colors in backlit digital ing the next Tom Wolfe novel on-screen. I 1990, with ZiffNet/Mac, and we’ve been on images can bring to will treat my monitor- Apple’s eWorld since day one. This month mind the vibrance of weary eyes to some we’re debuting a new Internet column (Net stained glass. The par- The promise of new plain paper, thanks. Traveler), and we’ve got our own page on ticipatory experience Sometimes, though, a the World Wide Web (check it out at http:// of interactive titles, media is not about print novel truly gains www.ziff.com/~macuser). Soon we’ll be especially educational value in its translation venturing into electronic media in the form ones, is shaping a gen- competing with print. to electronic format, of CD-ROM publishing. eration of children. with the addition of It’s fashionable to debate the changes that The searching effi- It’s about firing up images and sounds. new media are bringing to the publishing ciency and branched our imaginations. But does this rob you industry and the reader experience. For information of on-line of the pictures and now at least, the cheap, lightweight port- reference materials is sounds you would cre- ability of paper remains a solid argument phenomenal. Indeed, ate in your own imagi- for books, newspapers, and magazines. As CD-ROM encyclopedias are already outsell- nation? Who should determine the images publishing people are fond of saying, ing their traditional counterparts, encour- that resonate in your mind after you read “There’s no better compression algorithm aging the publishers of such references as one of Ray Bradbury’s novels? than the printed page.” The Oxford English Dictionary and The Co- The promise of new media is not about But questions about the survival of print lumbia Encyclopedia to head toward pub- competing with print. It’s about firing up miss the point. It’s not about one medium lishing only on CD-ROM in future editions. our imaginations to find the best uses of rendering another obsolete. There’s a place We should also focus our energy on de- great tools and content. And it’s about cul- in the world for energy-efficient fluorescent manding excellence in electronic content. tivating an aesthetic for electronic infor- lighting and beeswax candles, a market for Not bits and bytes of best-sellers, slammed mation that can be cherished in the way VCRs and Bette Davis videos on rainy together into digital blue-plate specials, but people value their bedside novels, their nights and one for movie theaters that show careful attention to detail and aesthetic — mothers’ old cookbooks, and their No. 2 aerial shots of Meryl Streep shooting Class 5 the kind Gutenberg employed when he Ticonderoga pencils. rapids on an 18-foot screen. placed a sheet of paper onto the first printing It’s going to be a long time before we see We’ve barely begun to tap the potential of press and pressed the hot inked type onto a flat-panel display tucked under every electronic publishing and interactive me- the pages, making the very best product he arm. Today, you can buy a newspaper or an dia: Our energy would be better spent con- could with his technology. old copy of Atlas Shrugged for a quarter, sidering the very best use of electronic me- Convenience demands excellence in the and you’ve bought a passport to another dia as it exists today than debating whether hardware “wrapper” for electronic content. world. And last time I checked, everything electronic information will supplant print. Much money and energy is being invested in in that newspaper and on that 25-cent We must ask ourselves what an interactive the pursuit of the perfect flat-panel screen book rack ran on the same operating sys- title can do, because of its medium, that’s for use as a slim, light substitute for our Sun- tem, same hardware, same instructions: different from print. day paper, among other things. A prototype Open mind, open cover, turn pages.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 17 ANDY IHNATKO Upping Yours OLKS, I’VE DECIDED TO FINALLY come clean and reveal the Dark, older machines than WordPerfect Mac or Word 6.0 and is file-compatible. Really, put Brooding Secret I’ve desperately the magazine down right now and start trying out some of these ideas; they’re the Ftried to conceal from you lo these many your highly appreciated questions and con- cat’s pajamas. years. Honesty, after all, is the keystone of cerns about how much longer you can limp After you’ve exhausted that reliable and any successful columnist/reader relation- along with your Quadra 840AV and whether practical first step, the next thing is to see ship and, besides, this thing has been eating you should accept your parents’ offer to buy what a simple little procedure will do for me up inside. Seven years ago, I killed a guy you a new Power Mac you .... OK, now that in a knife fight during what was, I now real- 8100 for your next we’ve gotten rid of ize, a silly argument concerning which year of high school, PROBLEM: those people, let me Dead End Kid John Sculley most closely re- please be understand- say that the preceding sembled. All I can do is humbly admit that I ing. If my response is Your poor old Mac can’t advice is nuts. Yes, you have Sinned, promise to do better next prefaced by an essay keep up anymore. can boost the perfor- time, ask for your understanding, and men- on what I had to do to mance of your Experi- tion in passing that the gentleman I sliced get access to an Apple SOLUTION: enced Macintosh to open was a cad of the worst order anyway. II (without the lan- tolerable levels, but do Well, of course, none of that’s true, but guage card, I might Choose one of Andy’s easy you really want to be now when you read that the most powerful add) when I was your upgrade options. stuck in 1990 for the Mac I — an industry columnist beloved by age, it’s nothing per- rest of your life? Un- dozens of loyal readers as well as his mother sonal and you should less your needs are — actually own is a puny LC III, you’re not feel the need to start a clothing drive on fairly utilitarian — you treat your Mac as a likely to react more gracefully than you oth- my behalf. I’m just being grumpy. simple piece of office equipment — you’re erwise might. Like most of us in the com- For the record, I’m writing this on a going to have to blow some dough on addi- puter dodge, I’ve learned that it’s far easier loaned Power Mac 7100, but nonetheless, tional hardware. to get Apple or one of your employers to the question that seems to be furrowing the By far the cheapest upgrade path avail- lend you something fast and tawdry than it brows of lots of Mac users today is, “What- able for certain models is an age-old tech- is to actually go out and buy one of the ever will become of my Mac?” There are a nique known as chipping. The basic proce- things. I’m not the only one in this predica- bunch of ways to respond to this problem. dure is to yank out the Mac’s oscillator, ment. Take the longtime president of one of First on the list is to do what you would if which defines the tempo at which the pro- the Mac industry’s most successful compa- you were experiencing chest pains: doggedly cessor handles things, and solder in a nies: After many years at the top, he decided deny that you need to do anything. [Andy is faster one. It’ll cost less than $20 in parts, to chuck it all and experience life on that using a metaphor. Andy is not licensed to and on some machines it’ll actually boost great open highway called Earth. There practice medicine, at least not within the con- performance by about 20 percent. All the didn’t seem to be a downside until he real- tinental U.S. and most of Canada. — Ed.] same, I can’t recommend it. Unless you ized that literally overnight he’d gone from This is cheap and, on occasion, highly suc- were the kid on your block who could re- having a houseful of the ginchiest Power- cessful. Often, the simplest way to fix speed move the wrenched ankle from the Opera- Books and desktop Macs on the planet to problems on older machines is to lower your tion game and never make the guy’s nose nothing more than a beach umbrella with expectations. Switch back to System 7.01, for light up, you’re likely to seriously thrash the Apple logo on it. And what, I ask, is the starters, and see how performance abso- your motherboard in the process, and re- final score when you have gained six lutely soars when you don’t sandbag it with a placement motherboards do not come months on the beaches of Australia but have ton of system extensions. Switch to older cheap. lost a totally cherried-out 540c? versions of most of your applications or to Accelerator cards don’t come cheap, ei- I’m telling you about all this for a Darn less ambitious applications entirely. Nisus- ther, but they usually offer the lowest-cost Good Reason. When you e-mail me with Writer, for instance, is far more agile on solution with the least muss and fuss. Most

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 21 ANDY IHNATKO people know how they work by now: You purchase based on the strength of the com- completely new Mac was back when there plug a daughtercard into your Mac’s expan- pany producing it. Every time there’s a sig- was a Republican — no offense — in the sion slot, and it takes over for your pathetic, nificant new release of system software, it White House, it’s time to start shopping. simpering little excuse for a CPU. It’s a slick seems like there’s a technical note right be- Up until now, most improvements in Mac solution. As opposed to an official Apple hind it announcing that Macs with certain hardware have been incremental; this one is upgrade or a whole new Mac, an accelerator accelerator cards go nuts when the software a little bit faster, this other one has a better can give you just a little or a lot of added is installed. Most of the major producers drive controller, and so on. With the excep- power, depending on what you think you work to make sure these problems don’t oc- tion of the sad little IIvx, there hasn’t been need and can afford, anywhere from spend- cur. If you bought a card from two guys who a compelling reason to beat your head ing a hundred bucks for a faster version of were in the pants business last year, your against the wall two months after making a your existing CPU to having an utterly Mac could become a permanent doorstop major purchase. crankable Power Mac, or anywhere in be- awfully fast. Power Macs, however, changed all that. tween. Also, folks with upgrades on their Second, it’s just as much of a nuisance to At some point in your life, you will be using mind sometimes overlook the fact that the witness pals of yours cruising by with SCSI- a Power Mac. This is your destiny, my child, $2,000 worth of memory they’ve stuffed 2 interfaces, EtherTalk, better onboard and I’ve always found that the thing about into their old machines might be incompat- video, and stereo sound while you’re tooling destinies is you’re better off getting started ible with brand-new Macs; an accelerator along in a Gran Fury. It’s got a killer new on ’em as soon as possible. If you’re using card saves you from having to make that engine and runs just as fast, sure, but the the same hardware you’ve had since 1989, nasty investment all over again (although fact remains that it has none of the way-cool suffice it to say that you won’t know what to be fair, there are one or two products that new hardware features of the latest models. you’re missing until the first time you fire can adapt old-style SIMMs for use on Thor- Also, when you start looking at boards from up your new Mac, pick up a book to read oughly Modern Macs). reputable outfits that offer truly killer during the startup process, and then realize There are only two serious drawbacks to speed, you’ll quickly notice you’re only a 9- that the Finder is waiting for you even as popping in an accelerator. First, an accel- iron away from the cost of a whole new Mac you’re trying to remember whether or not erator is one of those accessories where you as it is. Which is why I apply this general you’ve read this Dilbert before. really have to ignore prices and make your rule of thumb: If the last time you bought a Now that’s progress.

22 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 NEW ON THE MENU POWER MAC UPGRADES / PowerPC Card Resurrects Mac IIci DayStar’s Turbo 601 transplant for IIci offers Power Mac 6100 speeds. DON’T TOSS YOUR MAC IIci into the 601 will become available from DayStar as 4.0, the Turbo 601-equipped IIci was ap- dustbin of technology. Turn your Mac IIci upgrades for current customers. proximately 20 percent slower than the into a PowerPC screamer with the DayStar Installation of the Turbo 601 card shows Power Mac, and in the ClarisWorks 3.0 test, Turbo 601 upgrade, a PDS accelerator with off the Mac’s plug-and-play simplicity. You it was only half as fast as the Power Mac. a PowerPC 601 chip onboard. A IIci loaded plug the card in to the PDS and install the Compared to an unaccelerated IIci, how- with a Turbo 601 charged through MacUser included control panel and extension, and ever, the Turbo 601-equipped IIci was as Labs’ test suite and came close to equaling your Power PC-acceler- much as 11 times as fast. The Turbo 601- the speed of a Power Macintosh 6100/60. ated IIci is ready to go. equipped IIci’s slower speeds DayStar Digital is also introducing a 100- To get an idea of stem primarily from MHz version of the PowerPro 601 accelera- the speed gains limitations in the IIci’s tor for the Macintosh Centris and Quadra that were pos- architecture that affect lines. sible, we tested the card’s retrieval of data The Turbo 601 uses a 66-MHz PowerPC the DayStar Turbo 601 in from the IIci’s memory. chip that has the same speed as that of the a IIci equipped with 20 MB of RAM, We did not have a chance Power Mac 7100/66. The card, which also a 160-MB hard drive, and an Apple 8•24 to test DayStar’s newest accel- includes a 256K cache to help keep the pro- Display Card. System 7.5 — required for erators, the 75 MHz PowerPro 601 and the cessor humming, sports a list price of using the Turbo 601 — was installed on the 100 MHz PowerPro 601, both for the $1,199 — a bargain, considering the speed hard disk. Quadra and Centris lines, but they show the card provides and the price of used IIci’s So how did the Turbo 601 perform? The promise. Similar to Apple’s original Power these days. Turbo 601-equipped IIci kept pace with the Macintosh Upgrade Card, the cards install Although the current version works only Power Mac 6100 on processor-intensive in the PDS and have a built-in 1-MB cache. in the PDS of the IIci, DayStar has stated tests, such as running a filter operation in Available by the time you read this, that the Turbo 601 will start supporting the Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1 and applying light- DayStar’s PowerPro 601 is $1,499 and IIsi, IIvi, IIvx, and Performa 600 in the first ing in Fractal Design’s Painter 2.0. When re- $2,199 for the 75- and 100-MHz versions, half of 1995. Faster versions of the Turbo drawing a complex graphic in FreeHand respectively. 404-967-2077. / Sean J. Safreed PowerPC Upgrade Turbocharges the IIci Application-based tests ZD Adobe Photoshop Aldus FreeHand ClarisWorks 3.0 Fractal Design LABS 2.5.1 4.0 Finding and Painter 2.0 The IIci with the The IIci with the replacing text was Using the Apply DayStar Turbo 601 DayStar Turbo 601 three times as fast on Lighting filter, the IIci applied an Unsharp was nearly six times the IIci with the with the Turbo 601 Mask filter seven times as fast at redrawing Turbo 601 as it was achieved an amazing 11x as fast as the IIci. a graphic as the IIci. on the IIci. speed gain over the IIci. SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER Power Mac 6100/60 8.8 12.1 24.9 21.7 IIci with Turbo 601 card 9.1 15.8 47.9 21.7 IIci 64.5 91.1 150.6 240.4 03570 0 50 100 0 75 150 0 125 250 TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS

MacBench 2.0 Indexes The revised MacBench, version 2.0, reports normalized scores (longer bars are better), using the Quadra 630 as a baseline PROCESSOR FLOATING POINT DISK VIDEO 0...... 40 0...... 120 0...... 15 0...... 20 machine; this machine is assigned a score of 10. MacBench 2.0 tests the various subsystems of a Macintosh, including the IIci with Turbo 601 card29 94 5 8 processor, floating-point unit, disk, and video. Notable among Power Mac 6100/60AV 27 97 7 13 these numbers is the processor score. The IIci with the DayStar Quadra 630 10 10 10 10 Turbo 601 demonstrated triple the processor speed of a Quadra IIci 2 4 4 4 630, a machine equipped with a 33-MHz 68040.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 27 NEW ON THE MENU

VIDEO CARDS / Expand Your Monitor Get bigger screens from small cards. FEELING CRAMPED by limited screen real technology. Finally, all the cards use a 10-bit estate? Desktop publishers and others who digital-to-analog converter that provides CD-ROM / want to see more pixels and multiple pages more-accurate on-screen color. Smell the Disc on their monitors will want to check out What differentiates the cards from each TREADING THE FINE LINE between stupid Radius’ new line of high-resolution Thun- other is the resolutions they support at 24- and clever was what the legendary heavy- der cards and EA Research’s EAsycolor 24/ bit color and whether or not they come with metal band Spinal Tap did best — a fact 1360 card. These cards support standard Radius’ four-DSP PhotoEngine daughter- on display in Voyager’s new CD-ROM 21-inch monitors at a resolution of 1,152 x card. The Thunder/24 GT ($1,999) supports based on the classic 1984 mockumentary 870 pixels and top out at 1,600 x 1,200 pix- only 1,152 x 870 pixels at 24 bits, and the This Is Spinal Tap. The two-disc set ($35) els. Better yet, they fit into any NuBus- PhotoEngine is optional. The Thunder IV features the entire movie in QuickTime equipped Mac or Power Mac, thanks to GX•1152 ($2,599), Thunder IV GX•1360 (including two alternative soundtracks their 7-inch form factor. ($3,299), and Thunder IV GX•1600 featuring running commentaries by the Radius Thunder IV Series. The line of Thun- ($3,999) include the PhotoEngine and sup- production crew and the actors) plus der cards starts with the low-end Thunder/ port 24-bit-color displays at 1,152 x 870, more than 90 minutes of never-before- 24 GT and peaks with the Thunder IV 1,360 x 1,040, and 1,600 x 1,200 pixels, re- seen footage cut from the original. On a scale of 1 to 10, these discs go to 11. GX•1600. All four cards offer QuickDraw spectively. 408-541-6100. 212-431-5199. / Jason Snell acceleration and 1,600-x-1,200-pixel reso- EA Research EAsycolor Card. The EAsycolor lution at 8-bit color. The entire line also of- 24/1360 card ($1,999) duplicates the func- fers Dynamic Desktop software, for switch- tions of the Radius cards but at a lower Photoshop filters and supports resolution ing resolutions and bit depth on the fly. Ra- price. It supports displays with resolutions switching on the fly. It too has a special chip dius includes ColorComposer software, as high as 1,360 x 1,040 pixels at 24-bit color for RGB-to-CMYK conversion for users which produces better screen-to-print fi- and includes QuickDraw acceleration. It working in CMYK mode in Photoshop. 510- delity through proprietary color-matching uses an LSI RISC chip to accelerate 867-0967. / Sean J. Safreed

OPERATING SYSTEMS / emulating a PC’s video circuitry. In addition, this Run Windows on 68040 Macs version uses the built-in floating-point unit in the QUADRA, PERFORMA, AND LC owners who are MS-DOS 6.21 and a ver- 68040 to perform Intel envious of the Power Mac’s ability to run Win- sion of Windows 3.1 that 287 FPU functions. dows now have a SoftWindows of their own — has been optimized for SoftWindows for Mac- SoftWindows for Macintosh, from Insignia So- 68040-based Macs come intosh includes Novell lutions. According to Insignia, the new program with the SoftWindows for NetWare client software is 30 percent faster than Insignia’s older 68000 Macintosh package. Soft- for both Ethernet and to- SoftPC products, which ran most DOS and Win- Windows’ speed gains are ken ring. In addition, us- dows applications at speeds similar to those of a result of rewritten video drivers that make di- ers can install other PC networking software, in- a 25-MHz 386-based PC. rect calls to the Mac’s QuickDraw rather than cluding Windows for Workgroups, on top of SoftWindows. MACUSER/ZMAC UTILITY OF THE MONTH Like the Power Mac version, SoftWindows for Macintosh doesn’t support Windows’ 386 En- Big Mac Pack Attack hanced mode, so it’s incompatible with some Windows applications. Insignia plans to add THEY’RE BACK. They’re lean and mean, and they’re going native. This month ZMac Enhanced-mode support to SoftWindows for presents a package of three updated utilities by programmer extraordinaire Mike Power Macintosh in the first quarter of 1995 but Throckmorton. All have been rewritten for complete System 7.5 compatibility and enhanced has not announced when the 68040 version will performance. The Throckmorton Power Pack has new versions of BackSplash, a desktop picture include Enhanced-mode support. utility; Back2TheFolder, which lets you return instantly to recent files and folders from within SoftWindows for Macintosh retails for $499. Open and Save dialog boxes; and HideAlways, an extension that does away with window clutter The upgrade price is $79 for owners of SoftPC when you switch applications. All three have native Power Mac code for maximum speed. with Windows, $99 for owners of SoftPC Profes- The Throckmorton Power Pack is available exclusively from the ZiffNet/Mac service on sional, $129 for owners of SoftPC 3.0, and $149 CompuServe (GO ZMC:MACUSER), ZiffNet Selections on AppleLink, and ZiffNet/Mac services for owners of older SoftPC versions. 415-694- on eWorld (Shortcut: MacUser). / Mark Simmons 7600. / John Rizzo

28 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 POWER MAC UPDATE Low-End Macs Get Speed Boost Apple and DayStar cards clock 3x speeds on LC, Performa, Quadra. LOW-END MACS don’t have to mean low-end This flexibility lets you run applications on performance, thanks to the long awaited either processor for the maximum speed of PowerPC upgrades from Apple and DayStar 680x0 or Power Mac-native applications. Digital for LCs, Performas, and Quadras. The The card doubles the clock speed of the Apple Macintosh Upgrade Card and the Day- machine’s motherboard. On the LC 550, 575, Star PowerCard 601 offer 68040-based Macs and 630; the Quadra 630; and the Performa the ability to run Power Mac-native applica- 550, 560, 570, and 630, the card operates at 66 tions at speeds three times as fast as those of MHz. Only the LC 475 and 520, the Quadra 605, their unaccelerated/non-native counterparts. and the machines in the Performa 470 series Each company sells the upgrade package operate at 50 MHz. This card doesn’t support under a different name, but the product is identical. That’s not sur- any other LCs or Performas, however. $659. Apple, 408-996-1010; prising, because Apple and DayStar jointly developed the PowerPC DayStar Digital, 404-967-2077. / Sean J. Safreed upgrade. Each upgrade ships with a full version of System 7.5, without which the card cannot be used, and Claris- ZD Works 3.0, a fully native application. Apple recommends LABS Power Mac Time Trials that the Macintosh Upgrade Card be installed by an autho- The revised MacBench, version 2.0, reports normalized scores (longer bars are better), using the Quadra 630 as a baseline machine; this machine is assigned a score of 10. rized dealer. DayStar, on the other hand, ships an illus- MacBench 2.0 tests the various subsystems of a Macintosh, including the processor, trated manual for those interested in install the product floating-point unit, disk, and video. Notable among these numbers is the processor themselves. score — the Apple Macintosh Upgrade Card tripled the processor score of the Quadra 630, and the Quadra 630 with the card installed even bested the Power Mac 6100/60. Unlike the Power Macintosh Upgrade Card, which fits into a Quadra’s PDS, Apple’s and DayStar’s new cards fit di- MacBench 2.0 Indexes PROCESSOR FLOATING POINT DISK VIDEO rectly into the 68040 socket. The 68040 is still available, 0...... 40 0...... 120 0...... 15 0...... 20 because of a pass-through connector on the upgrade card Quadra 630 with Apple 29 68 9 10 that allows the machine to boot from either the 68040 or the Macintosh Upgrade Card PowerPC 601. The system can’t use both processors simul- Power Mac 6100/60 27 97 7 13 taneously, however; to switch back to the 68040, you must Quadra 630 10 10 10 10 turn off the PowerPC through a control panel and reboot.

NATIVE POWER MAC APPLICATIONS THE FOLLOWING IS a list of recently shipped native Banish Them Ol’ Emulation Blues Power Mac applications. STILL HAVE 680X0 APPLICATIONS running on necessary to cache the recompiled code. Since Business your Power Mac? Give them a speed boost by much of Mac system software (such as Word 6.0 Microsoft 206-882-8080 replacing Apple’s emulator with 68K Faster, AppleTalk, SCSI Manager, and the like) runs in Games from Itty Bitty Software. Later in 1995, the next emulation, the result of using Itty Bitty’s 68K Glider Pro Casady & Greene 408-484-9228 generation of the Power Macs should arrive, Faster is a faster Power Mac, not just faster Multimedia with an enhanced emulator from Apple that 680x0 applications. StudioPro 1.5.1 Strata 801-628-5218 improves 680x0-application speed. Apple is also exploring dynamic recom- WalkThrough Pro 2.0 Virtus 919-467-9700 68K Faster uses a faster but more complex pilation — the tech- method of executing 680x0 code on the nique that 68K Faster Networking/Communications FileWave Wave Research 510-704-3900 PowerPC chip. The Apple emulator employs an uses. Some parts of interpreter that looks up 680x0 instructions in a this technique may Publishing/Graphics table, finds the equivalent PowerPC instruc- enhance the perfor- Live Picture 1.5.5 HSC Software 805-566-6200 tions, and executes them. The Itty Bitty product mance of 680x0 code PageTools 1.0 Extensis 800-796-9798 takes a 680x0 instruction and recompiles it di- in the next genera- Painter 3.0 Fractal Design 408-688-5300 rectly into PowerPC code, which can then be tion of Power Macs. Utilities cached and reexecuted as needed. Itty Bitty planned MacTools 4.0 Central Point Depending on the 680x0 code, 68K Faster to ship 68K Faster before year’s end for less than Software 503-690-8090 can deliver speed gains as great as 200 percent $60. As its name suggests, Itty Bitty is a small RAM Doubler 1.5 Connectix 415-571-5100 over Apple’s current emulator’s speeds. How- company, so try contacting it via e-mail at StuffIt Deluxe 3.5 Aladdin Systems 408-761-6200 ever, the cost of extra speed is in RAM, which is [email protected]. /SJS

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 29 NEW ON THE MENU

STORAGE SYSTEMS / UTILITIES / Lock Down That New Iomega Zips Along Hard Drive UNLIMITED STORAGE software. With Zip Tools, THE MAC INTERFACE might be easy to use, but for under two hundred Iomega’s goal is to enable it’s also easy to abuse, especially if your Mac is bucks — that’s the prom- users to easily manage all shared with others. To protect your hard disk ise of Iomega’s Zip Drive. A their files and applica- from mischief or unauthorized access, check new flexible-disk technol- tions on multiple Zip out these updated utilities that help keep your ogy crams as much as 100 Disks, either shared be- Mac secure. DiskGuard 1.0. ASD Software’s disk-security MB onto a rugged 3.5-inch tween home and office or package works on all SCSI disks, including re- Zip Disk, with a drive all at one site. movable media, and can protect disks at speed comparable to that Zip Drives will be sold startup, at PowerBook wake-up, or after a user- of a slow hard drive. in two configurations: one defined period of inactivity. Users can even be Iomega expects 100-MB with a Centronics parallel limited to access only during certain hours or disks to be widely available for $19.95 port for PCs and the other with a SCSI port days of the week. $60. 909-624-2594. apiece and 25-MB disks for $9.95 apiece; for Macs and PCs equipped with SCSI cards. FolderBolt Pro 1.0.1. This new version of Kent each size will be sold separately and in dis- By using disk-sharing software such as PC Marsh’s FolderBolt allows users to password- count five-packs. Exchange, Mac and PC users can swap Zip protect folders and make them read- or write- When Zip Drives hit the market in early Disks. SCSI-equipped Zip Drives will be only. Among the enhancements in FolderBolt 1995, at street prices expected to hover bundled with driver software for Macs and Pro are improved network-administration abili- ties and Power Mac-native encryption modules around $199, they’ll include a 100-MB disk PCs, so a drive can be moved between a Mac for ensuring file security. $129. 714-522-5625. loaded with Zip Tools, Iomega’s new file- and a PC running Windows. 800-777-6654 Mac Control 1.8. This utility from BDW Software management, organization, and backup or 801-778-1000. / Rik Myslewski protects files and folders from alteration while allowing users to move them around in the TECHNOLOGY TRENDS / Finder. It restores files to their original locations at restart. $59. 612-686-5462. Storage Vendors Gear Up for 1995 MacPrefect 2.4. Also Power Mac-native, Hi IT’S A GREAT YEAR for buying a hard drive. single platter or 720 MB onto two platters. But Resolution’s folder-management utility Mac- Thanks to some technologies that have been perhaps the most exciting ones coming from Prefect now lets administrators choose what kicking around for years but are only now be- IBM are its two UltraStar mechanisms. Due by windows will open at startup, determine what coming practical, hard drives will be faster, the end of 1995, both are 3.5-inch mechanisms, Chooser devices are accessible, and limit how cheaper, and more capacious than ever. one with a capacity of 11 GB and the other with many copies of a document a user can print. As So what’s new? IBM and Quantum are intro- 8.7 GB. IBM claims that the 8.7-GB version will always, it restricts the moving and editing of ducing mechanisms that take advantage of be similar in speed to Seagate’s twin-head par- files and folders. $61. 508-463-6956. magnetoresistive (MR) head technology. The allel Barracuda, at a much lower cost. And what On Guard 1.1. This utility from Power On Soft- heads that employ this technology are more about reliability? IBM is claiming that these new ware controls where users can open, save, or sensitive than normal thin-film heads, so they mechanisms have an MTBF of a million hours. view files and folders and launch applications. require less power to write data and the heads These mechanisms will be available in hard Setting up individual accounts and passwords fly closer to the disks and write data in smaller- drives from many manufacturers. / Mark Frost is optional. $57. 612-946-1272. / Jason Snell sized blocks. All this means data density goes up, throughput goes up, and costs go down. CLIP-AND-SAVE Both of these companies’ mechanisms will also be integrating PRML (partial response The Urge to Merge maximum likelihood), a new channel architec- CONFUSED BY MERGERMANIA? Here’s your clip-and-save guide to where to find products ture that allows for greater efficiency in moving from your favorite companies, now that someone else is selling them. data within a drive. ✚ ✚ ✚ ✚ Adobe = Adobe* Quantum, thanks to its acquisition of Digital ✚ = Equipment’s storage division, is shipping to manufacturers its Capella Series of 1- and 2-GB ✚ = mechanisms, which use MR heads and PRML ✚ = channels. Like all other MR mechanisms, ✚ FIFTH GENERATION SYSTEMS ✚ Quantum’s offer state-of-the-art performance = at a lower spin rate, thus demonstrating in- ✚ ✚ = creased reliability and reduced power require- ✚ ✚ ments, noise, and heat. = IBM will also ship 2.5-inch PowerBook ✚ = ✚ mechanisms that pack 350 MB of data onto a *But: FreeHand ➛ Adobe FreeHand ➛ FreeHand ➛ FreeHand

30 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 DESKTOP VIDEO / Budget AV Card Captures Quality DESKTOP-VIDEO PRODUCERS usually have to choose between compromising on quality to save money or buying the best equipment and busting their budgets. The Radius Spigot AV Producer, however, delivers full-screen, full- motion, 24-bit-video output for Macs and AV Power Macs at a price that won’t jeopardize your credit rating. The Spigot AV Producer ($1,799) is in the CD-ROM CHANGER / midrange of the Radius line of video-produc- tion products. Although the company’s lower- cost SpigotPower AV offers users of AV Macs Load 7 Discs at Once full-motion video capture, it compromises on output quality by using the Macintosh AV-out- put circuitry. Nakamichi MusicBank system changes in a flash. To achieve 24-bit output at 640 x 480 pixels WELL RESPECTED BY AUDIO enthusiasts, each disc’s directory is cached in RAM. The and 60 fields per second, the Spigot AV Pro- Nakamichi is now entering the computer system is easier to use than a multidisc ducer uses its own video-output circuitry and features S-video and composite-video options. domain with a fast CD-ROM changer based caddy and offers a disc-to-disc access time The resulting video quality is comparable to on its MusicBank mechanism. The MBR-7 of 2.5 seconds. that of VHS, but it’s not as crisp as the quality offers the convenience of keeping seven Bulkier than the average external hard of the S-video output possible with the com- discs on your desktop simultaneously and drive, the MBR-7 contains a double-speed pany’s top-of-the-line VideoVision Studio. Un- has a bargain street price of $499 ($649 list). CD-ROM mechanism with a SCSI-2 inter- like the VideoVision Studio, though, the Spigot The MusicBank mechanism uses robot- face. The drive reads all major CD formats, AV Producer takes advantage of the AV Mac’s ics that can load as many as seven discs via including audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and Photo built-in 16-bit-sound capability. The Spigot AV a front-loading tray — no caddy is re- CDs. It comes with an audio-CD-player Producer is compatible with QuickTime 2.0. quired. Seven buttons on the front panel application, much like Apple’s CD Audio 408-541-6100. / Sean J. Safreed correspond to seven slots inside. To load a Player, although not as feature-laden — for CD-ROM into the drive, you press a num- instance, it lacks repeat and shuffle-play bered button, place the CD-ROM in the tray, controls. and press the button again. All discs are au- OCEAN Microsystems is the exclusive tomatically mounted on the desktop, and distributor. 714-898-1340. /Mark Frost DOCUMENT EXCHANGE / Common Ground 2.0 Stays True to Doc NOT CONTENT TO PLAY second fiddle to Adobe Another aid in retaining fidelity is Common Acrobat in the portable-document-tool cat- Ground’s improved PostScript support. The egory, No Hands Software’s Common Ground program can convert raw PostScript files into CD-ROM / 2.0 has new document fidelity and annotation Common Ground format and now uses a Tales of the Macabre features and an improved text-search engine. PostScript Chooser extension, meaning that Improved Fidelity. Previously restricted to a vector graphics in documents remain resolu- ARE THERE GHOSTS in your machine? You fixed set of output resolutions, Common tion-independent. might think so when you load Media Design Interactive’s CD-ROM Ghosts. The Ground documents can Annotation Features. Common Ground 2.0 horror-movie veteran Christopher Lee now be printed with fi- adds annotation features such as hypertext plays Dr. Marcus Grimalkin, who leads you delity at any resolution, links, text notes, bookmarks, and colored high- on a tour of the world’s most haunted thanks to the TrueDoc font lighting of selected passages. house, Hobbs Manor. Here you’ll discover technology from venerable Search Capability. Users will be able to perform an apparition in every room, listen to typography company full-text searches using Boolean, Proximity, and eyewitness accounts, view spooky Bitstream. By using a proprietary technology to other techniques courtesy of the Verity search photographs, and gawk at authentic record font characteristics, TrueDoc eliminates engine in Common Ground 2.0. Common ghost-busting equipment. Leave the hall font embedding. No Hands says that TrueDoc Ground now includes a 150K freely distribut- light on .... $49. Distributed by data takes up a quarter of the space embedded able Common Ground MiniViewer. $190. 800- Psygnosis; 051-709-5755. / Kristin Balleisen fonts would consume. 598-3821 or 415-802-5800. / Jason Snell

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 31 NEW ON THE MENU

ScreenReady. Aimed at multimedia designers MACINTOSH PRICE INDEX NEW & NOTABLE who produce works for screens instead of pa- THE UNITED COMPUTER EXCHANGE index HARDWARE / per, ScreenReady is a Chooser extension that reflects average sales prices of new and ▼ Kensington Thinking Mouse. An ergonomic creates an anti-aliased PICT or TIFF image when used Macs as of November 4, 1994. Prices design and an easy-to-grip rub- a user issues a Print command. It supports (except those for compact models and berized surface highlight screen sizes from 640 x 480 pixels to 1,280 x Performas) do not include a monitor or a this new four-button 1,024 pixels and processes EPS graphics based keyboard. The United Computer Exchange mouse. Included is soft- on their PICT previews, not their embedded is a national clearinghouse of used micro- ware for assigning various PostScript information. $99. Adobe Systems. computer equipment. functions — key equivalents, clicks, double- 206-622-5500. clicks, and more — to the buttons. $100. 415- ZipQuest Pro. For those who need the ZIP code, Mac Model New Used 572-2700. area code, local time, or county of Anytown, SE/30 (5/40) • $525 Fargo Pictura 310. Featuring the ability to act USA, this utility delivers. ZipQuest Pro provides Classic II (4/40) • $475 as either a dye-sublimation or thermal-wax contact information, including a city’s state; the Color Classic (4/80) • $700 printer, the Pictura 310 prints at 300 dpi on pa- distance from your location; and in some cases, LC II (4/40) • $400 per sizes as large as 12 x 20 inches, allowing the even the latitude and the longitude. You can LC III (4/80) • $500 printing of full tabloid-sized bleeds. The printer access ZipQuest Pro information via Apple Performa 475 (4/160) $1,299 $1,050 connects to a Mac via an included NuBus card. events, QuicKeys 3.0, or AppleScript. $50; bian- Performa 550 CD (5/160) $1,599 $1,375 Adobe PostScript Level 2 is a $699 option. nual updates, $20 each. Montage Software Sys- Performa 575 CD (5/250) $1,849 $1,550 $4,995. 612-941-9470. tems. 203-834-1144. IIsi (5/40) • $400 DEClaser 3500. Rated at 12 pages per minute, NoteScan. With a musical spin on OCR, Tempo- IIci (5/80) • $625 this printer ($2,099) is designed for small and ral Acuity Products’ NoteScan allows users to IIfx (8/160) • $875 medium-sized workgroups. The DEClaser 3500 scan in sheet music and convert it into a format IIvx (4/80) • $800 includes 3 MB of RAM (expandable to 19 MB) readable by the company’s Nightingale music- Quadra 605 (4/80) • $650 and Adobe PostScript Level 2. It prints at 600 dpi notation software. The scanned music can then Quadra 610 (8/160) • $975 and can send and receive faxes directly via a be reorganized, edited, printed, or converted to Quadra 650 (8/230) • $1,550 PostScript fax option ($349). A networked ver- a MIDI file. $95; bundle with Nightingale, $495. Quadra 660AV CD (8/230) • $1,400 sion ($2,199) includes simultaneously active Acuity Products. 206-462-1007. Quadra 700 (8/230) • $1,375 serial, parallel, and LocalTalk ports as well as CalLANdar 2.30. This scheduling program is Quadra 800 (8/230) • $2,150 support for TCP/IP, EtherTalk, and NetWare. designed for use in a cross-platform environ- Quadra 840AV CD (8/230) • $2,325 800-777-4343 or 508-493-5111. ment. It includes messaging and office schedul- Quadra 900 (8/230) • $1,700 Micropolis Capricorn and Taurus. Each of these ing functions and supports a host of cross-plat- Quadra 950 (8/230) $3,599 $2,400 two multigigabyte hard-disk drives has a fast, form e-mail products, including cc:Mail and Power Mac 6100 (8/250) $1,749 $1,500 7,200-rpm spin rate and transfers data through Microsoft Mail. Price varies by server, e-mail sys- Power Mac 7100 (8/250) $2,499 $2,150 a SCSI-2 bus. The drives are available in versions tem, and number of users. Microsystems Soft- Power Mac 8100CD (8/250) $3,899 $3,400 optimized for digital-audio and -video applica- ware. 508-879-9000. PowerBook 145 (4/40) • $825 tions. The Capricorn ($3,765; $3,895 with AV ▼ Morph 2.5. This morphing and warping util- PowerBook 145B (4/80) • $800 optimization) provides 4.29 GB of storage, PowerBook 150 (4/120) $1,449 $1,300 whereas the capacity of the Taurus ($2,320; PowerBook 160 (4/80) • $1,275 $2,410 with AV optimization) is 2.1 GB. 818- PowerBook 165 (4/80) • $1,350 709-3300. PowerBook 165c (4/80) • $1,400 Conner Peripherals Disk•Stor. Intended for use PowerBook 170 (4/40) • $1,325 with Power Mac 8100s, these self-cooled disk PowerBook 180 (4/80) • $1,700 arrays use both SCSI ports and offer 2 or 4 PowerBook 180c (4/80) • $1,975 gigabytes of disk space. A Wide SCSI-2 option, PowerBook 520 (4/160) $2,099 $1,925 including a NuBus adapter, is available, as are ity now includes a Curve tool, which enables PowerBook 520c (4/160) $2,699 $2,500 external as well as internal configurations. users to outline images instead of setting many PowerBook 540 (4/240) $3,099 $2,925 Prices of the arrays range from $1,570 to $3,825. morphing points. It supports System 7.5 Drag PowerBook 540c (4/320) $4,699 $4,500 408-456-4500. and Drop, Apple Guide, and AppleScript. $149; Duo 210 (4/80) • $775 SOFTWARE / upgrade, $49. Gryphon Software. 619-536- Duo 230 (4/120) • $950 Virex 5.5. Native Power Mac support and the 8815. Duo 250 (4/200) • $1,475 ability to scan compressed files are among the Discovering Utah. Skiers can hit the slopes with Duo 270c (4/240) • $1,875 new features in this antivirus utility. Sporting a a wealth of information from this CD-ROM, Duo 280 (12/240) $3,099 $2,550 new interface, Virex now automatically scans which provides more than an hour of video Duo 280c (4/320) $3,599 $2,975 for viruses in archives created by StuffIt Deluxe, clips, photos, maps, and reviews of ski resorts in • = discontinued model Compact Pro, and other compression pro- Utah. Included in the package is a digital direc- For more pricing information on these and other models, call 800-755-3033 or 404-955-0569, or find it grams. Updates on new viruses downloaded tory of lodging, transportation, dining, and on ZiffNet/Mac, in Library 1 (Special Reports) of the from on-line services can be added to Virex’s li- entertainment options in Utah ski areas as well MacUser Forum (GO ZMC:MACUSER). On AppleLink, brary through a simple drag-and-drop opera- as a book of two-for-one ski coupons. $45. look for it in ZiffNet Selections:MacUser Software: Refer- tion. $100; upgrade from Virex 5.5, $25. Mountain View Media. 800-241-8824 or 415- ence. On eWorld, go to shortcut MACUSER, in MacUser Datawatch. 919-549-0711. 961-5409. Software Library:MacUser Special Files.

32 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 REVIEWS & Quick Clicks

of RAM, expandable to 32 MB. Network support is what you’d want from an office printer — built-in Ethernet, LocalTalk, and parallel interfaces, all active simulta- neously — and the ability to automatically switch between PostScript and PCL 5. The printer is smaller than its three com- petitors — it weighs 40 pounds and mea- sures 17 inches wide, 17 inches deep, and 12 inches high. It can handle letter, legal, A4, A5, and B5 paper and comes standard with a 250-sheet letter cassette and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray. For font storage, you can opt for Apple’s $399 245-MB internal hard drive or plug an external hard drive in to the printer’s HDI- 30 SCSI port. An added plus is the ability to install the optional $309 Fax Card, which lets you send and receive PostScript and Group III faxes.

QMS 1660 Print System The QMS 1660 Print System uses the same Apple LaserWriter 16/600 PS, QMS 1660, type of Canon BXII engine as the HP LaserJet 4MV, but it can print at a higher and Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8200 / New class resolution (1,200 x 600 dpi). Like the HP of office printers shines. LaserJet printer, it can handle tabloid-sized paper. FOLLOWING CLOSELY on the heels of the decide which printer is right for you, Mac- The QMS 1660 Print System has a 33- HP LaserJet 4MV, a trio of new 600-dpi laser User Labs ran the new printers through a MHz IDT 3081 RISC processor. Priced at printers is heating up the race in the mid- series of tests and compared the results $4,199, the base model comes with 12 MB of volume-printer class. Called midvolume with those of the HP LaserJet 4MV, the first RAM and supports a resolution of 1,200 x because they offer speed and capacity that printer to stake a claim on the midvol- 600 dpi for letter-sized output and a resolu- are midway between those of workgroup ume-printer turf (see review, December tion of 600 x 600 dpi for tabloid-sized out- and departmental printers, all three of the ’94, page 58). put. If you want to print at 1,200 x 600 dpi on new 16-ppm Adobe PostScript Level 2- tabloid-sized paper, you’ll need to spend capable printers — the Apple LaserWriter Apple LaserWriter 16/600 PS $900 on an additional 12 MB of RAM. 16/600 PS, the QMS 1660 Print System, and Priced at about $2,400, the new Apple laser For networking, the QMS printer comes the Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8200 — offer solid printer is the least expensive midvolume with a LocalTalk and a parallel interface; a feature sets at good price points. To help you printer we evaluated, but it has the best $599 Ethernet kit is optional. The printer overall speed and delivers the best output can automatically switch between Post- Reviews Rating Key quality at 600 x 600 dpi. The trade-off is in Script and PCL 5 and also provides HP-GL its paper handling and high-resolution emulation. For paper handling, you receive mmmmm Outstanding printing — unlike the new printers from both a 250-sheet tray and a 100-sheet fold- mmmm Very Good HP, QMS, and Xanté, the Apple printer down tray. For font storage, QMS offers an mmm Acceptable doesn’t support tabloid-sized output nor optional $599 127-MB internal hard drive. mm Poor does it offer resolutions higher than 600 x One slight drawback to the QMS printer m Seriously Flawed 600 dpi, as do the QMS and Xanté printers. is that it’s not as plug-and-play as its com- b Dangerous The Apple printer has a 25-MHz AMD petitors — configuring it properly can be a

PHOTOGRAPHY / LEON 29030 RISC processor and comes with 8 MB little confusing.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 37 REVIEWS PRINTERS

QuarkXPress document. Off to the Races / midvolume-printer speed At 600 x 600 dpi, the HP ZD 5-page 1-page 50-page QuarkXPress LaserJet 4MV was the fast- LABS PageMaker Illustrator Word text tabloid-sized est of the three, followed document document document document by the QMS printer. SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER Apple LaserWriter 16/600 PS (600 x 600 dpi) 2:19 4:40 3:25 * QMS 1660 Print System (600 x 600 dpi) 2:01 9:44 3:36 2:05 The Bottom Line QMS 1660 Print System (1,200 x 600 dpi) 2:28 9:44 3:36 2:53 For high-quality letter- Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8200 (600 x 600 dpi) 2:05 9:49 3:42 2:24 Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8200 (1,200 x 1,200 dpi)3:24 10:00 5:24 4:10 sized output and excellent HP LaserJet 4MV (600 x 600 dpi) 1:33 9:41 3:41 1:36 speed, you can’t go wrong 0240510036024 with an Apple LaserWriter TIME IN MINUTES TIME IN MINUTES TIME IN MINUTES TIME IN MINUTES *This printer doesn’t support tabloid-sized output. 16/600 PS. For those who require tabloid-sized out- put, the HP LaserJet 4MV Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8200 Xanté printer, with its 1,200-x-1,200-dpi is our pick at 600 x 600 dpi, but it doesn’t The Accel-a-Writer 8200 also has a Canon setting and support for 116 shades of gray, support the higher resolutions that the QMS BXII engine, and it offers an excellent price/ produced the best-looking output overall 1660 Print System and the Xanté Accel-a- performance ratio. With the highest reso- — for gray-scale as well as text and line art. Writer 8200 do. The QMS printer provides a lution in the midvolume-printer class, The results of our speed tests using a nice balance of speed and output quality for Xanté’s top-of-the-line 1,200-x-1,200-dpi Quadra 650 equipped with 16 MB of RAM a midvolume office printer, but if you need model comes with 64 MB of RAM and costs and an Ethernet connection showed the the very-best-quality printouts, we highly $8,795. Xanté also sells a $4,495, 600-x- Apple printer to be the fastest overall — it recommend the Xanté printer. /Susan Janus 600-dpi model with 12 MB of RAM and a took the lead in all of our tests except the and Roman Loyola $5,295, 800-x-800-dpi model with 20 MB of one with the 5-page PageMaker document RAM — each can be upgraded to higher (the Apple printer doesn’t support tabloid- Apple LaserWriter 16/600 PS resolutions by the addition of RAM. All sized output and so was excluded from models can print full-bleed, tabloid-sized the QuarkXPress test). The Apple printer’s Rating: mmmmh output. speed advantage is partially a result of the Price: $2,430 (estimated). Equipped with a 33-MHz AMD 29030 shorter paper path it uses, compared with Pros: Affordable. Fast. Excellent output quality. Fax option. RISC processor, the Xanté printer comes that of the devices that print tabloid-sized Cons: RAM upgrade required for with basic networking features — a Local- output. PhotoGrade. Talk and a parallel interface — and the Our PageMaker document tested the Company: Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA; ability to automatically switch between printers’ ability to handle multiple file types 800-538-9696 or 408-996-1010. PostScript and PCL 5. Support for HP-GL (PICTs, TIFFs, gray-scale art, and down- Reader Service: Circle #401. emulation is also included, and an Ethernet loadable fonts) within a single document. QMS 1660 Print System kit is available for $395. One caveat: Once The clear winner in this test was the HP you’ve installed Ethernet, you cannot si- LaserJet 4MV. For higher-resolution print- Rating: mmmh multaneously activate LocalTalk and Ether- ing of the PageMaker document, the QMS Price: $4,199 (list). net. The printer comes with a 250-sheet pa- printer delivered the best speed, but what it Pros: Good balance of speed and output per tray and a 100-sheet fold-down tray. For gained in speed over the Xanté printer it lost quality. Flexible paper handling. font storage, the printer comes with a SCSI in print quality. Cons: Configuration options can be confusing. Mediocre high-resolution output. port for connecting an external hard drive. To test speed for processor-intensive Company: QMS, Mobile, AL; 800-523-2606 PostScript output, we used a 1-page Adobe or 205-633-4300. Print Quality and Speed Illustrator document. The Apple printer Reader Service: Circle #402. At 600 x 600 dpi, the Apple printer, with its blew past the other printers in this test, PhotoGrade technology, delivered the high- completing its print job in about half the Xanté Accel-a-Writer 8200 est-quality gray-scale output of all the time required by the HP, QMS, and Xanté Rating: mmmmh printers in the midvolume-printer class printers. Price: Base model, $4,495; 1,200-x-1,200-dpi (the HP printer was a close second). How- To check pure engine speed, we used a model, $8,795 (list). ever, you need to equip the Apple printer 50-page Microsoft Word document. Not Pros: Highest-quality full-bleed tabloid- with a total of 12 MB of RAM (it comes stan- surprisingly, the three printers with the same sized output. Flexible paper handling. dard with 8 MB) to activate PhotoGrade. type of Canon engine — the HP, QMS, and Cons: LocalTalk and Ethernet can’t be activated simultaneously. Gray-scale output from the QMS and Xanté Xanté printers — garnered similar results. Company: Xanté, Mobile, AL; 800-926-8839 printers was acceptable, and all the printers To test the speed of the HP, QMS, and or 205-476-8189. produced clean, sharp text and line art. Xanté printers for tabloid-sized output, we Reader Service: Circle #403. As we expected, at higher resolutions, the used a halftone image that was saved as a

38 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 REVIEWS PAINTING & IMAGE EDITING

instance, if you spray arrows onto an im- Painter 3.0 / Multimedia wizardry and a age, the arrows will point in the direction new look mark the latest release of you move the mouse. This is a fun feature for creating original textures and back- Fractal’s razzle-dazzle paint program. grounds, and you won’t find anything like it in any other Macintosh graphics or anima- FIRST DESIGNED to imitate natural me- (Tools, Brushes, Art Materials, Brush Con- tion package. dia, Painter has grown into an enormously trols, Objects, Controls, Advanced Controls, powerful and complex special-effects pro- and Color Set), each of which uses a drawer Animated Art gram. Painter 3.0 boasts new features for metaphor. In each of the palettes, the five Multimedia artists and animators will be animation and cartooning, a completely most recently used tools appear on the particularly pleased with Painter’s new fea- new interface, layers support, and refine- drawer’s top level and are immediately ac- tures for adding painting effects to Quick- ments to the program’s already impressive cessible. But if you want to use another tool, Time movies and for creating cartoons. paint tools. Icing on the cake is the new na- you have to “open” the drawer. With Painter 3.0, you can create your own tive Power Mac version, which gives Power And although Painter has some truly animations by drawing a series of frames Mac users an extra boost in speed. useful features for customizing its inter- and saving them in QuickTime format. A face, such as the ability to tear off a set of terrific onionskin feature allows you to Painting the Picture tools from a drawer and move it to a sepa- view as semitransparent overlays a combi- At its core, Painter consists of an excellent rate floating palette, other features, such as nation of five frames before and after the set of paint tools, such as chalks, crayons, the ability to change the drop-shadow char- current frame. A VCR-like interface makes oil paints, and pencils, that behave on- acteristics of the buttons or apply a different it simple to flip between the animation screen just as they would on paper and re- pattern to the drawers, seem downright frames. spond to changes in pressure if you’re using frivolous. If you prefer more-realistic action, you a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet or pen. Incorporating the features of its former can import a QuickTime movie into Painter Its special-effects filters range from the or- add-on product, PainterX2, Painter now and work with it as a series of still images, dinary to the psychedelic. You can also add supports layers. You can convert any selec- painting on the images or applying filters Photoshop-compatible plug-in filters for tion into a floating object and place it in a to them. Our only complaint is that you even more effects. In addition, Painter pro- layer. Painter’s layering includes basic hier- can’t paint directly on a movie while it’s ac- vides a variety of simple image-enhance- archical grouping that lets you create par- tually playing. As a workaround, you can ment features, such as those for selective ent/child relationships among layers, which record a painting session and play it back color correction. neither Photoshop 3.0 nor HSC’s Live Pic- over a movie, although you have no control Painter 3.0 has an entirely new look that ture can do. Beyond this, however, Painter’s for synchronizing the session with the departs noticeably from the standard Mac layers lack most of the sophisticated layer movie. design. We found that the program’s new in- features, such as selective color blending, of Painter’s brushes have also been greatly terface makes it hard at times to get to the Photoshop. enhanced in version 3.0. In addition to pro- tools you need. Earlier versions of Painter A new tool, the Image Hose, lets you viding the simple circle brush included in had 14 separate palettes, which could clut- spray a variety of shapes and textures onto previous versions, the new release lets you ter the screen. Painter 3.0 has all of its tools, the screen. The shapes and textures follow create your own custom brushes from any both new and old, consolidated in 8 palettes the direction of your mouse or stylus — for paint image. And you can opt for bristle ef- fects as you paint, so your strokes look even A new interface more realistic than before. that uses a drawer You can create custom paths and turn metaphor is one them into masks, using path-creation of the most tools, which include an Illustrator-like pen striking changes editing tool. Gradient Composer lets you in Painter 3.0. fill selections with customizable linear, sweeping, or radial gradients and change the colors in an image by remapping them according to a color gradient. Other note- worthy additions include a drop-shadow tool and an image-warping feature. One very unusual feature in Painter 3.0 is the Weaves palette, a “virtual loom” that lets you create your own patterns and use them as fills. The program comes with two libraries of traditional weaves that you can

40 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 The new Weaves palette is a virtual weaving loom that lets you create a wide variety of fabric and tiling patterns. modify, and you can create your own from scratch. Although it’s serviceable, Painter’s docu- mentation is poorly organized and at times unclear. It does a less than successful job of explaining some of the more complex as- pects of the new Painter, which is a pity, considering the sheer depth and power of the latest release.

The Bottom Line Painter 3.0 is a powerhouse addition to the Mac’s graphics toolbox. Although the pro- gram’s new interface and complex features take a bit of time to master, you are re- warded with dazzling special effects and features other programs don’t have. And Painter is unmatched in its ability to make the most of pressure-sensitive drawing tablets. /David Biedny

Painter 3.0 Rating: mmmm Price: $499 (list). Pros: New animation and rotoscoping features. Built-in layers. Fun Image Hose tool. Power Mac-native. Cons: New interface can be cumbersome. Inadequate documentation. Company: Fractal Design, Aptos, CA; 408-688-8800. Reader Service: Circle #404.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 41 REVIEWS DATABASE MANAGEMENT

FileMaker Pro Server / The Mac’s premier database program gets a big speed boost.

THE LAST WORD in flat-file database But what’s frustrating is that the server programs for the Mac, Claris’ FileMaker Pro software doesn’t let you see or modify infor- is a great single-user program, but it suffers mation in database files, and you can’t alter from poky performance in multiuser envi- the database by, for example, adding or de- ronments. FileMaker Pro Server remedies leting fields. To do these things, you must that problem with a client/server archi- first close the server application, open the tecture that significantly boosts multiuser database file with the client software, make performance. your changes, and then open the server ap- plication again. Server Statistics FileMaker Pro Server requires a dedicated FileMaker Pro Server Performance Mac. It can support as many as 100 concur- 200

rent Mac and Windows users over an SLOWER

AppleTalk network (compared to the previ- 150 ous version’s 25). The package comprises the server software and the latest version of 100 the FileMaker Pro client software. You must 50 use version 2.1v3 or later of the client soft- FileMaker Pro Server FileMaker Pro 2.1v3

ware with the server application to benefit TIME IN SECONDS 0 51020 from the server software’s performance NUMBER OF USERS improvements. ZD To see what speed gains FileMaker Installing the server software is a snap — LABS Pro Server gave us over FileMaker we had it running in minutes. Once you’ve Pro, we ran a variety of real-world scripts with 5, installed the server software, any FileMaker 10, and 20 users. database file that’s in the same folder as the server software opens automatically with FileMaker Pro Server is available for the the server application. 680x0 as well as the Power Mac platform. In our speed tests comparing FileMaker Because it’s a highly disk-intensive applica- Pro Server with FileMaker Pro 2.1v3 using a tion, we recommend running FileMaker Quadra 840AV and an 8,000-record data- Pro Server with a hard drive that supports base, we experienced impressive speed asynchronous disk I/O. gains with the server software. We varied the number of clients simultaneously ac- The Bottom Line cessing our test database, using 5, 10, and FileMaker Pro Server is an exceptional ap- 20 clients, and ran a series of real-world plication for workgroups of five or more scripts. When we averaged our test results, users who require simultaneous access to FileMaker Pro Server showed as much as a FileMaker Pro databases. The server soft- 100-percent speed improvement over File- ware’s administration tools fall short, but Maker Pro. The biggest jump in speed oc- the speed gains FileMaker Pro Server deliv- curred when we increased the number of ers over FileMaker Pro more than make up users from 5 to 10. for its lack of tools. /Blake Roberts We liked the speed improvements File- Maker Pro Server offers but were disap- pointed with the functionality of its admin- FileMaker Pro Server 2.0v1 istration tools. The server software presents Rating: mmmmh a bare-bones interface that provides net- Price: $1,499 (list). work administrators with basic informa- Pros: Substantial speed improvements over tion, such as the number of users accessing FileMaker Pro. Easy to set up and use. each database and the number of open Cons: Limited administration tools. databases. You can also disconnect users, Company: Claris, Santa Clara, CA; 800-325-2747 or 408-987-7000. limit the number of concurrent users, and Reader Service: Circle #405. open additional databases from the server.

42 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 REVIEWS CAD / PRINTERS

capabilities. You can put a variety of sur- ArchiCAD 4.5 / Every detail, from floor faces, such as iron, leather, marble, wood, plan to walk-through, has its place in this and plaster, on your elements as well as use bit-mapped images to represent wallpaper powerful architectural-CAD program. or stucco, for example. Besides being able to put any color onto a surface, you can desig- THREE TIMES AS FAST in native Power variable width measurement.) ArchiCAD nate its reflectivity (diffuse or specular), Mac mode than on a Quadra 800, ArchiCAD can also generate bills of materials, making transparency, and emissivity. You can also 4.5, Graphisoft’s integrated 2-D/3-D archi- the process of tallying door and window put in more than one light source and have tectural-CAD system, takes advantage of all schedules a trivial process instead of a the lights cast shadows. And whereas previ- the processor power it can get. Additionally, chore. ously you had to place cameras at various ArchiCAD now keeps track of more infor- With the new Section/Elevation tool, you places throughout your design and switch mation for each detail of your building in its can draw lines to define offset sectional views among them to create a walk- internal database, uses flexible parametric views and sectional elevations directly on through, the Camera tool is now completely library symbols, gives you a wide variety of your 2-D floor plan. Since ArchiCAD is a interactive and follows the animation path you set. Offset sectionals in Although ArchiCAD 4.5 can run on most the 3-D view are 68040 Macs (or 68030 Macs with a math created instantly as you coprocessor), we strongly recommend us- draw your floor plan ing a Power Mac with at least 32 MB of with ArchiCAD 4.5. RAM. Like many high-end CAD programs, ArchiCAD 4.5 can import a variety of for- mats, including DXF, GDL, PICT, Swivel, and ZOOM files, and it can export DXF, EPS, GDL, HP-GL, PICS, QuickTime, RIB, Strata- Vision, and topCAD files. It’s also fully cross-platform: ArchiCAD for Windows is able to read any files created in ArchiCAD for Mac and vice versa. Unfortunately, ArchiCAD 4.5 also comes with hardware copy protection. construction materials to work with, and true solids-based modeler, sectional views shows the reflectivity and optical transmit- of construction materials appear solid in The Bottom Line tance of surfaces. 3-D and contain the appropriate fill pattern For those who need to create only 3-D walk- in 2-D. You can use ArchiCAD’s drafting throughs on their Macs, Alias UpFront, From Sketch to Blueprint tools in sectional views to create detailed Virtus Walkthrough, and Artifice’s Design- Unlike less expensive architectural-CAD working drawings marked with dimen- Workshop are easier to learn and less ex- programs, such as Artifice’s DesignWork- sions, your notes, and standard architec- pensive than ArchiCAD 4.5. But for those shop and Alias UpFront, both of which pri- tural symbols. ArchiCAD 4.5 now also has a who want to create blueprints at the same marily create 3-D walk-throughs of build- continuous-curve tool — missing in ear- time, ArchiCAD’s integration between 2-D ings for architects’ clients, ArchiCAD lets lier versions — that you can use to create and 3-D, its speed on the Power Mac, and its you create designs and blueprints for engi- curved elements. ability to keep track of each design detail neers and construction contractors. As you You have to make all changes in the 2-D make it an indispensable architectural create a floor plan in ArchiCAD’s 2-D view, window and enter information about each tool. /Jim Anders the program automatically generates a 3-D element in your design in dialog boxes. Al- model. Every element in your design — though many architects will prefer working ArchiCAD 4.5 doors, windows, walls, roofs, and floors — on a familiar floor-plan layout in the 2-D Rating: mmmmh has corresponding data stored within window, we would also like to be able to Price: $4,450 (list); upgrade from 4.0, free. ArchiCAD about its height and volume and place and edit elements in the 3-D window, Pros: Workstation-level speed on Power the material it’s made of. Graphisoft in- a feature Graphisoft says it plans to include Macs. Excellent 2-D/3-D integration. cludes more than 600 3-D and 2-D para- in a future version. Cross-platform support. metric symbols in its Geometric Descrip- Cons: No editing in 3-D view. tion Language, all of which you can edit as A Virtual Tour Hardware copy protection. you use them to fit your design. (For in- Creating an impressive walk-through of Company: Graphisoft, South San Francisco, CA; 800-344-3468 or 415-737-8665. stance, you might have a parametric win- your design is easier now with ArchiCAD Reader Service: Circle #406. dow symbol with a fixed height but with a 4.5’s improved presentation and rendering

46 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 / Fargo does itself one 5 minutes to print the Photoshop document Fargo Primera Pro whereas the Primera finished in 4 minutes. better with a successor to the Primera The Primera Pro took 10 minutes to print our two-page PowerPoint document; the color printer. Primera required 8 minutes. The printers produced similar results in NOT EXACTLY A SPEED DEMON from To make setup of the Primera Pro easy, dye-sub mode. The Primera Pro took 15 the start, the Fargo Primera dye-sublima- Fargo provides an installer that automati- minutes to print the Photoshop document, tion/thermal-wax printer nonetheless gave cally places the printer software in the ap- compared to the Primera’s 11 minutes. The cost-conscious business buy- propriate places on your hard disk. To PowerPoint document took 50 minutes to ZD LABS ers an affordable option for switch between dye-sub and thermal-wax print with the Primera Pro and 45 minutes photo-realistic color print- printing, you change the ribbon and then to print with the Primera. ing. But the printer lacked both PostScript switch modes with the driver software. One Overall, compared with more expensive, and networking support. Now, for about caveat: Monitor your options carefully, lest faster, and more conventional thermal-wax $400 more than the price of the original you find yourself, as we did, accidentally and dye-sub printers, both the Primera Pro Primera, you can buy the new Primera Pro, and the Primera operate, on average, which not only comes equipped with a about 50 percent slower. LocalTalk connection and Adobe Post- However, if you can put up with Script Level 2 but can also print at a higher the Primera Pro’s snail-like perfor- resolution than its predecessor. mance, you’ll find that it delivers quite acceptable output for business Alike but Different documents. Color gradations, tones, As with its predecessor, the beauty of the and clarity are much improved, and Primera Pro is that you are able to print in text boasts smoother curves and thermal-wax mode until you’ve perfected serifs. Moreover, when we printed your document and then switch to dye-sub complex images, although some of mode (which uses expensive consumables) the minor registration problems we for your final printout — all with one noted with the Primera’s output printer. were still present in the Primera Pro, PostScript and networking support are hallmarks The Primera Pro looks just like the origi- of the new low-cost Fargo Primera Pro dye-sub/ the new printer produced consider- nal Primera, and it has the same compact thermal-wax printer. ably less banding and gave us deeper 14-x-6-x-10-inch dimensions as its prede- blacks. cessor, but the similarities end there. printing in thermal-wax mode using ex- Unlike the original Primera, the Primera pensive dye-sub consumables and vice The Bottom Line Pro comes equipped with a LocalTalk con- versa. To eliminate this hassle, we’d like to If your office is looking for an inexpensive nection. You’ll probably want to buy the op- see Fargo add a sensor to the printer that color proofing device, you should check out tional Ethernet connection ($499.95), how- tells you what kind of ribbon is being used. the Fargo Primera Pro dye-sub/thermal- ever, considering that the Primera Pro is To gauge the speed trade-off involved in wax printer. It won’t give you the output even slower than the Primera. boosting the Primera’s print resolution, we quality and speed that graphics profession- The Primera Pro takes a speed hit due to compared the Primera Pro with the Pri- als demand from the printer’s higher- its higher, 600-x-300-dpi resolution, com- mera, using test documents created with priced competitors, but if your main con- pared with the original printer’s 203 dpi Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Power- cern is cost, the Primera Pro is well worth (which earned it the nickname “the color Point. We tested each printer in thermal- considering. / Roman Victor Loyola fax”). But the Primera Pro not only pro- wax as well as dye-sub mode. For all tests, duces higher-quality color and better-look- the Primera Pro’s resolution was set at 600 x ing images than its predecessor but it also 300 dpi (the Primera’s resolution was, of Fargo Primera Pro Color Printer produces crisper and cleaner text. You also course, a fixed 203 dpi). Our test platform Rating: mmmh have the option of printing at 300 x 300 dpi was a Quadra 650 that had 16 MB of RAM Price: $1,895; optional Ethernet connection, or in draft mode at 75 x 75 dpi. and a Quantum 500-MB drive. We used the $499.95 (list). Last but far from least, the Primera Pro LocalTalk connection with the Primera Pro Pros: Inexpensive photo-realistic color supports Adobe PostScript Level 2. The and a serial-to-parallel cable with the output. PostScript and networking support. Primera Pro’s PostScript interpreter is soft- Primera to connect the printers to our test Cons: Slow. Relies on host Mac for ware-based and lacks both on-board Macintosh. processing. No consumables indicator. memory and a processor, relying on the Not surprisingly, the Primera Pro was Company: Fargo Electronics, Eden Prairie, MN; 800-327-4622 or 612-941-9470. processing power of your Mac to render slower than its predecessor in all our tests. Reader Service: Circle #407. images. In thermal-wax mode, the Primera Pro took

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 47 REVIEWS ORGANIZATIONAL TOOLS

program with scripts, attach scripts to cells, InfoDepot 2.0 / Chena serves up a and record scripts that automate tasks. smorgasbord of powerful tools for They can even write scripts that modify or extend InfoDepot 2.0’s own commands. managing project details. The program supports all major Apple- events suites, including the charting, table, MIX ONE PART OUTLINER and one part click to other documents in other applica- word-services, and collaborative-informa- table generator. Blend in a dollop of data- tions. You can create formulas for numbers tion suites. base and a spoonful of spreadsheet. Add a and dates and use operators such as After Compiled scripts stored in a special Info- calendar and Gantt charts, and drench with and Start + x to define project-manage- Depot Additions folder appear in a menu drag-and-drop. Season to taste with Power- ment-style dependencies for events. Cus- within the program. Predefined additions Talk, Apple events, and AppleScript. Pour tom columns let you set up special-purpose can pull in address and phone information over custom forms. Decorate with color counting systems in your tables — a col- from Apple-events-aware PIMs, send data graphics, movies, and customized tool pal- umn that works with SMPTE time codes, to Now Up-to-Date, or use Microsoft Excel ettes, and what do you end up with? Chena for example. to produce 3-D charts. A Picture Grabber Software’s InfoDepot. Chena’s concoction But the real fun begins when you switch script places a thumbnail view of a selected takes some getting used to, and it may to InfoDepot’s remaining views. The Time- graphic into an InfoDepot cell, along with prove too rich for many palates. But for line view turns date information in your a connection icon that opens the original those who acquire the taste, InfoDepot table into a Gantt chart, with intervals rang- image. adds up to one amazing information- ing from half an hour to a century. (Dated InfoDepot is a powerful tool for manag- management tool. items also appear in a standard calendar, ing lots of related tasks, but its wealth of although in InfoDepot’s occasionally con- options can make it confusing. Moreover, Views R Us fusing terminology, that’s a palette, not a tool and command icons are often cryptic The best way to grok InfoDepot 2.0 (called view.) and have no text labels or even Balloon version 2.0 because it’s the successor to In the Form view, you can design a cus- Help. And instead of pop-up menus for Chena’s Fair Witness package) is to con- tom layout for displaying or editing data changing numerical formats, the program one row at a time. You can choose which makes you type in gibberish (such as columns you want to include, add color and $#,###,##0.00). New documents open with graphics, and use rulers and a snap-to grid their title bar under the InfoDepot com- to get just the look you want. mand palette, so you have to move one or The free-form Chalkboard view displays the other to get to the close box. data from multiple rows, but only from the outline column. It lets you highlight ideas The Bottom Line and visualize relationships without the Interface shortcomings aside, InfoDepot outliner’s constraints. Tablets are special offers extraordinary range and flexibility. Chalkboard documents that resemble legal It’s overkill if all you want to do is maintain pads — anything you jot down on a tablet a routine to-do list, but if you need to coor- Managing big projects and diverse information is shows up in the underlying outline. dinate a big project and lots of diverse infor- InfoDepot’s forte. The Timeline view, shown here, There’s more. You can make InfoDepot mation, there’s nothing else like it. Fair Wit- takes date information from the program’s Table documents available to your colleagues by ness users can upgrade to InfoDepot for view and turns it into a Gantt chart. simply clicking on the Share button, which $89. A native Power Mac version should be saves documents to a shared volume. Mul- available by the time this review appears. sider the array of views it offers. New docu- tiple users can open and edit a shared docu- /Henry Norr ments open in Outline view. Switch to Table ment at the same time. For confidential view, and InfoDepot starts to look like data, an administrator can create pass- Attain’s In Control — to the right of your words that limit read and write access on a InfoDepot 2.0 outline, you can add more information to column-by-column basis. If PowerTalk is Rating: mmmm any number of columns. To speed data en- installed, you can use digital signatures to Price: $295; five-user pack, $1,050 (list). try, you can create custom pick lists or have certify the integrity of any portion of a Pros: Numerous views of diverse data. the program complete your words as you document or of the whole thing. Highly customizable. Multiuser. type. InfoDepot makes extensive use of drag- Strong support for Apple events. But InfoDepot’s columns offer many and-drop — you can drag rows, events, and Cons: Options can be confusing. Quirky interface. more options than In Control’s. Any cell in glossary items — even style sheets. But the Company: Chena Software, Allentown, PA; any column can contain pictures, movies, program’s most impressive use of Apple 215-770-1210. or sounds as well as text and numbers. You technology is its Apple-events implementa- Reader Service: Circle #408. can add icons that take you with one mouse tion. System 7 users are able to control the

48 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 REVIEWS CAD

manufacturer, for attaching information to MacDraft 4.0 / IDD’s entry-level drafting objects. The Find/Replace function lets you tool gains a new look and sophisticated reassign information if you decide you want to make global changes to a drawing, such reporting capabilities. as changing the manufacturer for a group of objects. However, if you want to change the A DATABASE WITH A REPORT generator percentages for object groups. attributes for some, but not all, of a group of plus new floating palettes and additional Another welcome new feature is Mac- objects by using Find/Replace, MacDraft tools for drawing and editing mark the lat- Draft’s sophisticated duplication tool. Us- doesn’t make it as easy as it could be. First, it est release of Innovative Data Designs’ ac- ing the Linear Duplication option, you can would be helpful to be able to view the ob- cessible drawing and drafting program. duplicate objects linearly in rows and col- jects you want to edit, so you can determine With its well-designed interface and easy- exactly which ones you want to to-use tools, MacDraft 4.0 is tailor-made change and exactly how you want to for users who have little or no drafting change them. In addition, the Edit experience. Object Info command works with only a single object at a time, which More Palette-able makes the process of reassigning in- MacDraft 4.0’s new floating palettes let you formation to multiple objects tedious. complete drawings faster and more easily MacDraft’s report generator uses a than before. In place of the previous spreadsheetlike window. You can cre- version’s single tool palette, version 4.0 dis- ate multiple reports from a single plays several well-organized smaller pal- drawing and extract object informa- ettes that expand and enhance the pro- tion such as area, height, length, pe- gram’s functionality. New floating palettes make MacDraft 4.0 even rimeter, width, x dimension, and y di- The main tool palette contains several easier to use than previous versions. mension. If you need report functions new tools, including ones for drawing par- that are more powerful than those allel offsets for lines, circles, and arcs. Miss- umns. The Circular Duplication option cre- provided by MacDraft, you can replicate a ing, however, is a tool for creating general ates an array of shapes around a specific report as an Excel worksheet by simply offsets. Additionally, to help you navigate point. clicking on MacDraft’s Apple events-driven within your drawings, the palette includes a MacDraft 4.0 also adds DXF (Document cloning button. You can even create live new 1:1 button that gives you a nonmag- Exchange Format) import and export for links between your drawing and the Excel nified view of the area you’re working on. users who need to exchange drawings with worksheet so that when you make changes Other palettes include one for dimension other CAD programs. This feature is useful to your drawings, the corresponding object tools and one that groups general tools, for those who are not CAD professionals but information also will be updated in the such as the fillet and the chamfer, with need to use technical drawings. Space plan- worksheet. MacDraft’s new Boolean tools. The Boolean ners, for example, may want to use DXF tools let you either add two objects together building layouts as a starting point for fa- The Bottom Line to form a new polygon or subtract one ob- cilities management. In our tests, MacDraft MacDraft is an excellent tool for creating ject from another to form a new shape. Al- was able to import our DXF test files, al- floor plans and technical drawings and is though these tools are useful, they have sev- though we did have to remove some ele- the best program we’ve seen for users with eral limitations that make them unsuitable ments from the original drawing, because little or no drafting experience. It’s also the for creating complex shapes. Once you’ve MacDraft doesn’t support all DXF object only program in its class that incorporates a used them to create an object, you lose the types. database and report generator — both of ability to edit it — you can only resize it. In which are extremely useful tools for doing addition, the subtract tool doesn’t work Database and Reports cost estimation. / Sean J. Safreed with objects that have holes. IDD has done a good job of refining Mac- A big plus with MacDraft 4.0 is that it Draft’s basic functionality, but the most sig- MacDraft 4.0 overcomes the limitations on object scaling nificant enhancement in version 4.0 is the and duplication that existed in the previous addition of a database with a report genera- Rating: mmmm version. Resizing objects is a snap with the tor. You can now assign information to ob- Price: $449 (list). new Resize palette, which lets you enter nu- jects in a drawing and extract it in report Pros: Well-designed interface. Easy-to-use tools. Database and report generator. meric values for object dimensions. Mac- format, so, for example, you can determine Cons: Can’t create complex shapes. Draft displays the correct measurement pa- the cost of a project or how many items of a Company: Innovative Data Design, Concord, rameters in the palette, based on the type of specific kind are in a drawing. CA 94520; 510-680-6818. object you have selected — width and MacDraft’s database provides five user- Reader Service: Circle #409. height for rectangles, for example, and definable fields, including name, type, and

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 53 REVIEWS VIDEOCONFERENCING

input port. For a good video image, we rec- Being There Pro / Videoconferencing tool ommend using a medium- to high-end that’s not quite ready for prime time. video camcorder, such as the Sony Hi-8MM and JVC SVHS; cheaper cameras in the $100 VIDEOCONFERENCING SOFTWARE may more configuration pains. The manual range produced grainy images that were sound like a practical solution to the prob- doesn’t mention how to handle PAL, hard on the eyes. lem of trying to get several people in an of- SECAM, or other kinds of non-NTSC video. fice together for a meeting. But as Being Once set up, Being There worked reliably The Bottom Line There Pro demonstrates, it’s still a nascent in normal peer-to-peer collaboration mode If you really need videoconferencing and technology that promises more than it on our Quadra AV and Power Mac test plat- have the hardware and net in place, Being delivers. forms. Over an Ethernet network, sound There Pro will do fairly well. But, as Being Being There Pro allows networked Macs quality was about on a par with that of an There Pro’s speed, configuration, and reli- to exchange digitized video images and AM radio and video quality was about as ability problems demonstrate, Mac video- sound, so you can watch, listen to, and good as that of a QuickTime movie. conferencing isn’t good enough yet to sub- speak with other users on your network. To use it, you need an AV Mac or a Mac stitute for a face-to-face meeting. /Don Crabb You can also share, mark, and annotate with a video-digitizing card as well as a documents on-screen. video camera and an Apple microphone. Being There Pro 1.0 Setting up Being There isn’t easy: The The program works over any AppleTalk- Rating: mmm video-configuration dialog boxes do a poor compatible network — we recommend us- Price: $599 (list). job of helping you sort out the configura- ing an EtherTalk network, however, because Pros: Usable audio/video/document tion options. You must set your video-in- sound and video quality degraded signifi- conferencing. put-signal type (composite or S-Video 1), cantly on slower LocalTalk networks. Cons: Complicated setup. and the thin manual provides little straight- Being There Pro isn’t bundled with any Nonfunctioning broadcast mode. forward help. If you have older video equip- hardware, but it works with any video cam- Company: Intelligence at Large, Philadelphia, ment or it doesn’t conform to the NTSC era or camcorder that can plug in to your PA; 800-425-7638 or 215-387-6002. (U.S.) video standard, you’re in for even Mac’s (or video-digitizing board’s) video- Reader Service: Circle #410.

54 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 REVIEWS ACCELERATORS

present in your computer and features four Apple Power Macintosh Upgrade Card and 72-pin SIMM slots that may be filled with as DayStar 80 MHz PowerPro 601 much as 128 MB of RAM that can be ac- cessed directly with the PowerPC chip’s fast Supercharge your Quadra with a PowerPC 64-bit capability — a must-have option for upgrade card. prepress users who want to squeeze every bit of speed out of the card. The PowerPro’s control panel not only GREEN WITH POWER MAC envy? If you advantage of either card, because those ma- lets you switch between 68040 and Power- are a Quadra owner, you can upgrade your chines lack a PDS). A potential drawback of PC mode (not as important a feature now as machine to Power Mac status by installing a both cards is that although the PowerPC it was six months ago, when few native PowerPC-based upgrade card. Cost-con- chip on each comes with a 64-bit-wide bus, Power Mac applications were available) but scious buyers can opt for the Apple Power the PDS data path is only 32 bits wide, so it it also lets you control various aspects of the Macintosh Upgrade Card, street-priced at creates a performance bottleneck. To help card. The PowerBoost option, for example, about $600. Prepress professionals who fre- alleviate this problem, the Apple card copies system-ROM code into any RAM in- quently do CPU-intensive image processing comes with 1 MB of secondary-cache RAM, stalled on the PowerPro card. Cache-related may want to consider the $1,899 DayStar 80 but it isn’t otherwise expandable. controls include those for motherboard MHz PowerPro 601. The DayStar card is Each card lets you switch between 68040 RAM caching and PowerPro RAM caching, pricey — especially after you’ve added the and PowerPC mode by using a control as well as a safe-cache mode for potential RAM required for optimal performance — panel. The Apple card’s control panel pro- compatibility problems with some NuBus but even with the cost of the additional vides a rudimentary on/off toggle that en- cards. RAM factored in, the DayStar card still ables and disables PowerPC mode. The As an added incentive, registered Power- saves you approximately $2,000 over the Apple card also requires that you shut down Pro users are given the option of receiving purchase price of a brand-new Power Mac completely to switch processors, whereas free copies of either PhotoMatic and 8100/80 equipped with enough RAM for the DayStar card lets you switch between ColorMatch or PowerStart and Power- prepress applications. PowerPC and ’040 modes immediately after Preview. Another key advantage of the restarting. PowerPro is that you can upgrade it with Apple Power Macintosh Unfortunately, because of the Apple faster PowerPC chips as they become avail- Upgrade Card card’s clock-doubling scheme, you’ll likely able — DayStar expects to have a 100-MHz The Apple upgrade card employs a clock- be disappointed with the speed boost the version available by the time you read this, doubling scheme that allows the computer card provides on low-end, 25-MHz Macs for example. Apple doesn’t offer Power Mac to run at twice the clock speed of the host such as the Centris 650, Quadra 610, and owners the ability to upgrade to faster computer, so if you own a 33-MHz Quadra Quadra 700. PowerPC chips. 950, it will run at 66 MHz when equipped with the Apple upgrade card running in DayStar 80 MHz PowerPro 601 Compatibility and PowerPC mode. The PowerPro 601 card always runs at its Performance Although the Apple upgrade card is maximum 80-MHz clock speed, no matter In our software-compatibility tests, we smaller than the DayStar card, each card what Macintosh model it’s installed in. To found both cards to be solid for running plugs in to the PDS of your Mac and blocks alleviate the PDS bottleneck, DayStar has Macintosh applications. the use of one NuBus slot (unfortunately, if equipped the card with a 1-MB secondary To gauge the speed provided by the you have an AV Quadra, you can’t take cache. The card works with RAM already PowerPro and the Apple upgrade card, we

Supercharge Your Quadra / PowerPC-based upgrade cards

ZD Apply Unsharp Apply Gaussian The speed boost with the Apple Power LABS Mask filter Blur filter Mac Upgrade Card wasn’t as impressive as SLOWER SLOWER those with the DayStar 80 MHz PowerPro Apple Power Mac 8100/80 with 144 MB of RAM 57.8 52.5 601, but budget-conscious buyers will like DayStar 80 MHz PowerPro 601 with 128 MB the Apple card’s $600 price tag. The Quadra of RAM in Quadra 950 with 16 MB of RAM 57.5 51.0 950 containing a PowerPro card configured DayStar 80 MHz PowerPro 601 with 0 MB 68.4 60.0 with 128 MB of RAM successfully kept pace of RAM in Quadra 950 with 144 MB of RAM with the Power Mac 8100/80, but the card Apple Power Mac Upgrade Card in Quadra 950 with 144 MB of RAM 74.4 65.7 is pricey — it will appeal most to high-end prepress professionals. 0408004080 TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS

56 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 installed each separately in a Quadra 950 The Bottom Line Apple, its cards will continue to offer com- equipped with 144 MB of RAM. As a test The Apple Power Macintosh Upgrade Card patibility equal to that of a genuine Apple file, we used an 18-MB Photoshop docu- offers the most affordable route toward product. / Jeffrey K. Milstead ment, which we ran in a 72-MB memory Power Macintosh speed for Quadra 650, partition, using Photoshop 3.0. To see how 800, and 950 owners. However, it doesn’t Apple Power Macintosh additional RAM affected the speed boost provide much of a speed boost in 25-MHz Upgrade Card the PowerPro provided, we tested it with Quadras, such as the 700, and it won’t be and without its maximum 128 MB of local able to meet the demands of high-end Rating: mmmh 64-bit RAM. When we added the 128 MB of prepress professionals. Price: $600 (street). RAM to the card, we removed that much If that description fits you, the DayStar 80 Pros: Easy installation. Inexpensive. from the Quadra, maintaining a total of 144 MHz PowerPro 601 is worth considering, Cons: Provides little speed boost on 25-MHz Quadras. MB of RAM in the system. We then com- but only if you add 72-pin RAM to the card Company: Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA; pared our results with those of a Power — the same RAM you’d be adding to a new 800-767-2775 or 408-996-1010. Macintosh 8100/80 with 144 MB of RAM. Power Macintosh. Configuring the card Reader Service: Circle #411. with the maximum additional RAM boosts The Quadra with the PowerPro fully con- DayStar 80 MHz PowerPro 601 figured with 128 MB of RAM yielded results its price to about $2,700 — an expensive nearly identical to those of the Power Mac- approach, to be sure, but if you want the ul- Rating: mmmh intosh 8100/80. Without the additional timate in speed without trading in your Price: $1,899 with secondary cache RAM, the speed boost the card provided high-end Quadra for a Power Macintosh, it’s (estimated). Pros: Provides impressive speed boost, even wasn’t nearly as impressive. The Quadra the only way to go. DayStar offers excellent in slower, 25-MHz Quadras. Well-designed with the Apple upgrade card installed didn’t technical support and a three-year war- software controls. Upgradable. match the speed of the Power Macintosh, ranty. An added plus is DayStar’s upgrade Cons: Expensive. Additional RAM required but considering the card’s low price, the policy, which lets you upgrade the for maximum speed boost. Apple upgrade card came close enough to PowerPro with faster PowerPC chips as they Company: DayStar Digital, Flowery Branch, make it a worthwhile investment for buyers become available. And because DayStar GA; 800-962-2077 or 404-967-2077. on a budget. uses ROM code licensed directly from Reader Service: Circle #412.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 57 REVIEWS VIDEO

We found the Sequencer window to be VideoShop 3.0 / Bargain-priced QuickTime the source of most of VideoShop’s short- video editor is feature-rich but rough comings. When you drag a clip to it, the pro- gram doesn’t give you any visual feedback around the edges. or control over where the clip is placed; in contrast, Premiere highlights the frames in WITH AN AGGRESSIVE $395 price, new are anything but static. By default, 60 its construction window to show you ex- features, and bundled sound and royalty- frames of a movie loop when you select a actly where your clip goes. The Sequencer free movie files, VideoShop 3.0 could rank Micon. window has 17 icons around it for video- with Adobe Premiere 4.0 in the field of top To begin editing a movie, you can either editing features such as Apply Filter and video-editing tools, especially for desktop- drag the file from VideoShop’s Desktop win- Jump to Next Clip and includes two new video hobbyists, who don’t require high- dow into the Sequencer window or use the icons for Quick Fade-in and Quick Fade- quality output to video. But, unfortunately, Open command to show a QuickTime clip out. As you move the cursor over the icons, in its player window and their names show up in the new Info pal- then drag the clip to the Se- ette. At first we found the icons a bit confus- quencer window. Although ing; some hot tips or Balloon Help would be Avid’s internal drag-and- very welcome here. drop works well, we would VideoShop’s PowerPC plug-in speeds up like to have seen support for the time it takes the program to apply filters Apple’s drag-and-drop ar- and transitions from 100 to 150 percent, ac- chitecture from the Finder. cording to Avid, and in this aspect, Video- You do most of your work Shop was fairly quick with simple movie in the Sequencer window, constructions on our Power Macintosh where you splice clips to- 8100/80. gether and add effects. VideoShop plays the results Keep It Simple of your edits in the Canvas Version 3.0 is considerably more stable than window. The program has version 2.0, but it still isn’t as robust as it an excellent collection of fil- should be. Large audio clips and compli- ters and transitions, and it cated film constructions severely degraded The new Info palette in VideoShop 3.0 can give you useful supports a wide variety of VideoShop’s speed and caused our machine information about your movie projects, but it doesn’t make the program easier to use than competing products. file formats, including AIFF, to crash when we applied transitions, using PICS, Audio CD and MIDI the high-quality setting. Avid says using this latest release suffers from inconsistent for sound, and PICT and PhotoCD for QuickTime 1.6.2 or earlier corrects these performance and some buggy behavior. graphics. For those who do And contrary to Avid’s claim that Video- rotoscoping, VideoShop comes Shop is “the video software anyone can use,” with excellent QuickTime im- learning how to use it is not exactly an easy port/export plug-ins that let process. Adobe Photoshop and Fractal Design’s Painter import and Drag-and-Drop Editing export QuickTime movies. It If you’re using a specific folder to store all even has a special Titling win- your QuickTime-media files, you can see dow you can use for adding and sort all the files in that folder in fixed and scrolling titles to VideoShop’s Desktop window. In addition your movies. to being able to sort your folders and files by Instead of piecing together a type, size, date, and other criteria, you can QuickTime movie with transi- double-click on items in the Desktop win- tions and filters in one window dow to have VideoShop open them in a and then spending several QuickTime player window. What makes the minutes — or hours — ren- Desktop window more practical than a dering your final construction, Finder-within-a-program is its ability to VideoShop breaks the time- show VideoShop’s unique moving icons, consuming process into bite- called Micons. Other programs show the sized pieces, rendering just the With the new Trim Dialog window in VideoShop 3.0, you first frame of a QuickTime movie as a static current selection as you apply can crop the in and out points of any two abutting film clips thumbnail picture, but VideoShop’s Micons an effect to it. — especially useful for creating smooth transitions.

58 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 problems, even though VideoShop 3.0 clear. Avid’s technical support, however, is more intuitive. There are some problems supports only QuickTime 2.0. VideoShop superb — we spoke to a real person and re- with inconsistent performance, and the 3.0.2, due out by the time you read this, will ceived thorough answers to every one of program could be more robust. Still, if also support QuickTime 1.6.1. Addition- our questions. you’re only dabbling in QuickTime movie- ally, we experienced intermittent screen making, using short clips and few transi- problems: VideoShop sometimes lagged in The Bottom Line tions, and you don’t foresee a need for com- its on-screen response when we selected VideoShop could truly be great if the com- mercial-quality video, VideoShop 3.0 is a information in the Sequencer window. pany solved some interface problems, mak- cost-effective alternative to Adobe’s Pre- ing it not only more responsive but also miere or CoSA’s After Effects. /Blake Roberts Video-Hardware Support VideoShop works with any QuickTime- video card, and if you use a top-of-the-line card, such as the Radius VideoVision Stu- dio, it can turn your QuickTime movies into 640-x-480-dpi, 60-fps videotape. But because VideoShop does not support subpixel interpolation, some finished mov- ies don’t play smoothly. Applications, such as Premiere and CoSA’s After Effects, that support subpixel interpolation produce higher-quality movies, because they break each pixel down into tiny pieces, allowing much more accurate blends, colors, and movement. VideoShop’s Logging window lets you catalog and select clips from a videotape for batch digitization — in the order and with the effects you denote — into a VideoShop QuickTime file. Although the scripts in the Logging window are now analogous to EDLs (Edit Decision Lists), VideoShop’s Logging scripts support only VISCA (Video System Control Architec- ture) devices and Sony serial-protocol de- vices. You can’t create EDLs that would let you use professional video-production sys- tems such as those from Grass Valley Group or even those from Avid. VideoShop’s documentation is fairly comprehensive. The user guide appears to cover all of VideoShop’s features, but some of the feature explanations are incomplete. The slim tutorial is also unnecessarily vague, and its explanations are not always

VideoShop 3.0 Rating: mmmh Price: $395 (list). Pros: Powerful tools for the price. Large selection of filters. Cons: Slow on-screen response. Crashes with some transitions. Can’t create high-quality video. Company: Avid Technology, Tewksbury, MA; 800-949-2843 or 508-640-6789. Reader Service: Circle #413.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 59 REVIEWS PRINTERS

Printing to the ColorPoint works exactly Seiko Professional ColorPoint 2 PSF Model like printing to any other PostScript printer 14 / Thermal-wax/dye-sub printer. does, except that you can choose among several color-rendering modes. However, a SWITCH-HITTER is the perfect moniker color or three-color ribbon is loaded. potential Achilles’ heel of the dual-technol- for the new Seiko Professional ColorPoint 2 Setting up the printer is straightforward. ogy design, particularly on busy networks, PSF Model 14, a printer that can print full The printer driver is a modified version of is that the printer doesn’t let network users bleeds on tabloid-sized paper and is able to the LaserWriter 8.1.1 driver that’s easy to know which type of media is loaded. That switch between thermal-wax-transfer and install and configure. The removable rib- means if you want a dye-sub print but your dye-sublimation printing technologies. The bon-carrier tray, for either dye-sub or ther- coworker loads thermal-wax media with- ColorPoint is designed to let you use less mal-wax ribbons, is easy to load, and the out telling you, you’ll find out only when expensive thermal-wax media for interme- hubs on the ribbon rollers are made so it’s you go to collect your print job. If the re- diate proofs and then switch to more ex- virtually impossible to load the rollers the verse happens — you opt for thermal-wax pensive dye-sub media for higher-quality wrong way. The paper tray automatically output but your coworker loads dye-sub final prints. Although it’s not the first such senses which type of paper is loaded, and media — it’s a more expensive mistake. dual-technology device, the big news with the printer returns an error message if the The ColorPoint’s PostScript interpreter, the $16,499 Seiko is that it can deliver quality ink ribbon and the paper are mismatched. based on a 33-MHz Intel 80960CA RISC that’s good enough for graphics pros. The final setup step is to make the physi- processor, is quite speedy. The printer The Seiko Professional ColorPoint 2 PSF cal connection to the Mac. The printer handled our one-page test document, com- Model 14 is a 300-dpi printer with a built-in comes standard with LocalTalk and Cen- posed primarily of text and vector graph- RISC-based Adobe PostScript Level 2 inter- tronics parallel ports, but anyone printing ics, in less than five minutes. But although preter. It has all the features associated with tabloid-sized color pages will almost cer- the ColorPoint has one of the fastest en- high-end network-savvy color printers, in- tainly want the speed provided by one or gines on the market for printing on tabloid- cluding a full range of network connectivity both of the printer’s Ethernet options — sized paper, its speed for printing scanned options with automatic port switching and EtherTalk and TCP/IP are available for $699 photographic images is another story. media sensing, so it knows whether a four- each or $999 for both. The printer ships with 24 MB of RAM

60 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 and an internal 160-MB hard drive, which good, but it has noticeably less shadow de- fully configured for heavy-duty tabloid serves as a memory-overflow buffer. In our tail than output from competing dye-sub work, the Seiko printer will cost you as tests, this configuration produced agoniz- printers from Tektronix and Radius for tab- much as two printers — one dye-sub and ingly slow print times with image-heavy loid-sized printing. In addition, ColorPoint one thermal-wax. At its less expensive pages. Our worst-case scenario — printing output suffers from a slight magenta cast in base configuration, the ColorPoint may a tabloid-sized, 300-dpi, 50-MB Photoshop light neutral areas, even when you use the be a good fit if your primary need is for a document — required more than an hour. EfiColor color-management system with thermal-wax printer and you require only Moreover, unlike other dye-sub printers for the EfiColor profile for the printer. Given occasional dye-sub output. But if you’re tabloid-sized output, the ColorPoint lacks a more time to experiment, we should have looking for a dye-sub printer that is able to Photoshop Export filter, which speeds print- been able to improve the accuracy of our print on tabloid-sized paper and you’re ing by bypassing the PostScript interpreter color matches, but be prepared for some planning to use it for either digital photog- and sending image data directly to the printer. trial and error. As a proofing printer, the raphy or prepress, you should most likely That said, for reasonable speed when ColorPoint also lacks one important feature look elsewhere. /Bruce Fraser printing tabloid-sized pages containing set: the ability to show overprinting and scanned images, we recommend adding at traps and the related ability to print five-file least 64 MB of RAM, for a total of 88 MB. EPS DCS files from full-resolution data. Seiko Professional ColorPoint 2 PSF But you pay dearly for the extra RAM — a Model 14 The Bottom Line 64-MB expansion kit from Seiko costs Rating: mmm $5,995. All in all, configuring the printer By combining dye-sub and thermal-wax- Price: $16,499 (list). with Ethernet and 88 MB of RAM brings the transfer printing technologies, the Seiko Pros: Easy to set up and use. price to a hefty $23,193, putting the Professional ColorPoint 2 PSF Model 14 Cons: Costly extra RAM and high-speed ColorPoint in the same price bracket as the occupies a unique niche in the world of network interfaces required for 3M Rainbow — the state of the art in dye- professional-level desktop color-proofing prepress applications. sub proofing devices. systems. However, it’s difficult to see the Company: Seiko Instruments USA, San Jose, The thermal-wax-output quality is ex- advantage of the Seiko Professional Color- CA; 408-922-5800. cellent. The dye-sub output is also very Point when you consider that when it’s Reader Service: Circle #414.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 61 QUICK CLICKS

Coda Vivace Personal Accompanist / Mac maestro and music coach UNTIL NOW, IF YOU wanted to rehearse an playing with you. As you change tempo, The selections include everything from orchestral piece, you had to either use re- Vivace does too. pieces easy enough for junior-high-school corded music, which doesn’t make allow- The Vivace box contains a 32-voice syn- musicians to compositions that will chal- ances for tempo changes or creative impro- thesizer, based on E-mu Systems’ Proteus lenge professionals. visation, or do without accompaniment modules, that accompanies you with full or- Digital Maestro. In the Vivace package, you altogether. Since you can’t hire an entire chestral, continuo, piano, or jazz-trio ar- also get a software strobe tuner that works symphony orchestra to practice with you, rangements. You’re limited both visually and aurally; Coda Music Technology has put one in to the musical pieces avail- an on-line dictionary of its outstanding intelligent autoaccompani- able on the Vivace car- musical terms; and fea- ment system, Vivace. tridges, which cost $30 to tures that let you add and Unlike accompaniment software such as $80 each and contain a subtract instruments from PG Music’s Band-in-a-Box, which forces single piece or a few dozen, the jazz-band accompani- you to play with the accompaniment rather depending on the music’s ment, transpose a piece than lead it, Vivace actually “listens” to density and length. while a tune is playing, what you play and adjusts the tempo of the Vivace can also play great and loop particular sec- accompanying music accordingly. jazz accompaniments to tions of a piece so you can Following the Leader. You install the the Jamey Aebersold jazz- practice difficult passages. Vivace software on your Mac, connect a improvisation library. But when in Jazz An incredible tool for beginning and ad- cable between one of the Mac’s serial ports mode, the system works like any other vanced musicians, Vivace is an ideal addi- and the serial port on the back of the Vivace music-minus-one system — it does not tion to school music programs. It should be box, attach speakers or headphones to the support intelligent tempo changes. in every music classroom, from junior high box to hear Vivace’s accompaniment, and Vivace currently supports over 1,100 solo to college. / Christopher Breen clip the included microphone to your brass accompaniments for brass and wind in- or woodwind instrument. Slide one of the struments. In Coda’s current catalog, the Coda Vivace Personal Accompanist mmmmm / Price: $2,295 (list). Company: Coda Music Technol- Vivace music cartridges into the box, and as classical selections are particularly strong ogy, Eden Prairie, MN; 612-937-9611. Reader Ser- soon as you start playing, Vivace starts and range from Baroque to contemporary. vice: Circle #415.

PLANMaker / Business-plan writing observe that these are among the most popular stops with cel- ENTREPRENEURS WHO NEED help getting a business plan to- ebrants, often people congregate 3 and 4 deep around the stands gether will probably find PLANMaker useful, especially if they lack clamoring for service, as the delectable smoke and fragrance waft formal business training. But more-sophisticated businesspeople into the surrounding air.” Excessive reliance on only these examples looking for help beyond a first draft will be disappointed with the could also rob your plan of distinctiveness. program’s limitations. POWERSolutions claims that PLANMaker requires no additional PLANMaker is a collection of HyperCard stacks designed to teach software, but the program’s bare-bones word processor can’t check you how to write a business plan. The best part of the program is spelling, much less create attractive layouts. Moreover, you can’t that it imposes structure on a potentially tedious, open-ended task, adjust column widths in financial tables or export financial-state- breaking it down into steps by asking you thought-provoking stra- ment data into more-powerful spreadsheet programs. And PLAN- tegic and financial questions. PLANMaker turns your responses Maker has no charting capability. into four linked, calculated Terminologically Challenged. The documentation’s clumsy writ- financial statements and cat- ing; disorganized design; and abundant errors, misspellings, and egorized text that you can redundancies make reading it arduous. Even standard accounting use for drafting your busi- terminology challenges the writers, who call a 12-month projected- ness plan. income statement a “proforma.” For $100, users have a right to ex- Although this structure is pect documentation better than a bad first draft. helpful, it also gives you Whether or not you should buy PLANMaker depends on how some less-than-helpful in- quickly you want to produce a first draft of a business plan. If you flexibility. You can’t extend your projections beyond three years, in- consider the completion of a first draft to be the most difficult phase clude more than 11 marketing-expense accounts, or apply a depre- of business-plan preparation and if you’re willing to sacrifice flex- ciation method other than straight-line. ibility, PLANMaker may be useful. But for those who view their first Sampled Abstruseness. PLANMaker has three sample plans from draft as a document to be refined, PLANMaker’s poorly imple- which you can copy text and paste it into your plan. But the samples mented features and its rigidity outweigh its ability to turn an os- struck us as far from models of good writing. For example, a sample tensibly overwhelming project into a feasible one. / Doug Dominic plan for a restaurant has the following passage referring to compe- PLANMaker 1.1 mmh / Price: $129 (list). Company: POWERSolutions for Busi- tition from other food vendors at an outdoor festival: “It is easy to ness, St. Louis, MO; 800-955-3337 or 314-421-0620. Reader Service: Circle #416.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 65 QUICK CLICKS

Scenery Animator / And on the seventh day . . . SLIGHTLY EASIER to use than Vistapro (see Quick Clicks, October ’94, page 63) but lacking the realistic scenery of KPT Bryce, Scenery Animator is an acceptable, but not outstanding, tool for creating virtual landscapes. To create 3-D terrains, you use U.S. Geological Survey Digital El- evation Mapping (DEM) data, gray-scale PICT files in which the brightest parts are the highest, or the built-in fractal generator. You then add oaks, redwoods, clouds, and water to your scene. You can also specify tree- and snow-altitude lines for your world. But the program restricts you to choosing from existing elements; Scenery Animator has little in the way of useful or creative customization tools. As a result, the trees look unnaturally similar and rendered water looks unusably unrealistic. Scenery Animator has some great sample terrains, and you can render your scene at three levels of de- tail or export it as a DXF file for rendering in another 3-D program. Flyby Viewing. You can create still images as well as animated fly- ing sequences you save as QuickTime movies. Setting up keyframes for your animation is easy, especially compared to doing so in Vistapro, and Scenery Animator does a good job of creating in-be- tween frames, complete with camera moves such as autobanking. The program also has good camera-positioning controls. And for speed mavens who have Power Macs, the package includes a native Power Mac version. /David Biedny Scenery Animator 1.1.2 mmm /Price: $149 (list). Company: Natural Graphics, Rocklin, CA; 916-624-1436. Reader Service: Circle #417.

PowerAGENT / Apple events for the rest of us IF YOU WANT TO harness the power of AppleScript and Apple events to automate tasks on your Mac but don’t have the time to delve into scripting, consider PowerAGENT. This applica- tion/extension combination lets you set up “jobs” composed of a trigger (a specific time, for example) and a task (bringing up a re- minder to make a phone call, perhaps). FileMaker Fireworks. PowerAGENT adds an exciting new dimen- sion to FileMaker Pro in particular, because of that program’s Apple-events capabilities. For example, PowerAGENT can monitor an inventory database every day and notify the purchasing depart- ment by e-mail when inventory falls below a designated level. You simply choose triggers and tasks by clicking on buttons — this pro- cess and many others require no knowledge of AppleScript. Once you move away from database programs, some scenarios do require scripting skills. We also found that the initial release had a few quirks, mostly related to a conflict with the Reminder control panel in Now Up-to-Date. When Up-to-Date’s Reminder control panel was active, PowerAGENT wouldn’t run scheduled jobs. Other minor quirks and bugs included the program’s occasional habit of making customized job names revert to their default names. PowerAGENT is an example of Apple’s hottest technology at its best. Once its bugs have been fixed, we hope to see this utility ma- ture and prosper. / Gregory Wasson PowerAGENT 1.1 mmm /Price: $159 (list). Company: SouthBeach Software, Coconut Grove, FL; 305-858-8416. Reader Service: Circle #418.

66 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 Virex Administrator / Keeping networks virus-free DATAWATCH’S NEW Virex Administrator makes it easier than ever for network administrators to secure a virus-free network. Used in conjunction with Datawatch’s speedy antivirus utility, Virex, Virex Administrator initiates scans and repairs on clients si- multaneously from one central remote terminal rather than indi- vidually on each local machine. Remote Administration. Included in the Virex Administrator package are TechWorks’ GraceLAN Responder and GraceLAN Mes- senger, which serve as the communications channel between the administrator and the client machines. Once these two programs have been installed on each client machine, a network adminis- trator can accomplish a myriad of tasks from a remote location. For example, a network administrator is able to remotely install Virex, send update packages and messages, and reboot clients to ensure that new resources are loaded into memory. Before Virex Administrator can initiate any scans, you will have to add each client to a user list. Each of these lists automatically provides general information about the users included on it, such as network zone and result of last action taken. Any infected com- puters — as well as those machines whose scans were canceled before completion — are highlighted on the list. Virex Administra- tor uses the list to generate a detailed report that it then saves as a text file. Quick and Convenient. Of course, network virus scans and repairs can cause major disruption to users’ work, but Virex Administrator avoids this problem in several ways: First, Datawatch’s SpeedScan technology is lightning-fast. When we tested Virex Administrator on Macintoshes ranging from an LC to a Power Mac 7100, the aver- age time for a volume scan was 10 to 25 seconds. Using the shareware program Disinfectant 3.5., the same scan took 2 to 4 minutes. Second, a network administrator has the capability to allow us- ers to postpone scans until off-peak hours or to cancel a remotely instigated scan altogether. And finally, the administrator can keep Virex running in the background while local applications are being installed. Despite all its virtues, Virex Administrator is not without its faults. Here’s an example: A network scan can be delayed in incre- ments of hours and minutes, but it cannot be scheduled by indicat- ing a specific time. This means that you are able to schedule a scan in, let’s say, 2 hours, 40 minutes but not at 5 P.M. As new viruses make an appearance, Datawatch will post the search strings on various on-line services, but you will be expected to fork out $75 a year for this service. These shortcomings aside, Virex Administrator’s speed and ease of use make the program a tool no network administrator should be without. /Alan M. Chan

Virex Administrator 1.0 mmmm /Price: Virex Administrator with 25-user li- cense, $200; Virex with 25-user license, $950; Virex, $99.95 (list). Company: Datawatch, Triangle Software Division, Research Triangle Park, NC; 919-549- 0711. Reader Service: Circle #419.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 67 QUICK CLICKS

Troubled Souls / Gothic twists Menu Master Mac Lite / Secure TETRIS FANS have had their share of knockoffs, but nothing your files and folders comes close to the invention and beauty of Troubled Souls. IF YOU LIKE WHAT At Ease does — limit users’ As in Tetris, the goal is to arrange descending segments into access to certain files and applications through whole units. Unlike the horizontal/vertical approach Tetris takes, the Finder — but don’t like the way it changes the however, Tortured Souls is all circles and loops. You put together entire look of the desktop, or if you wish it would work under Sys- closed loops with the quarter-circles, bars, and crosses you get; the tem 6, you may want to consider Menu Master Mac Lite. more twisted they are, the more points you earn. When users view a Mac running Menu Master Mac Lite, the Crossed Bones. Segments plunge down into a tube, and you place Finder seems basically unchanged. It’s only when they pull down a them by clicking on the playing field. As you create a closed loop menu or open a folder that they see they have access only to selected with the pieces, it disappears. At first you get generic pieces for Apple-menu items, programs, and files. They can shut down and easy-to-figure circular combinations, but then restart the Mac and, using the Personal File Utilities dialog box, cre- things get more engaging and bizarre as intricately ate new folders and copy, delete, and rename files in a personal depicted body parts start falling down the chute as folder on the Mac or on a floppy disk. well. Eyes and ears and hands and skulls don’t mix: Hide and Secure. As the administrator, you can use Menu Master Only like (and generic) parts can come together to form closed ob- Mac Lite to password-protect menus and files, make them read- or jects. As putting together loops becomes harder, you run out of field write-only, or hide them altogether. space and the tube starts filling up with pieces that have no place to Administering Menu Master Mac Lite can be awkward at times, go. When the tube overflows with parts, you lose one of your three in no small part due to the confusing manual, which calls the lives. When you lose your last life, the game ends. program’s windows menus. And unlike its more expensive parent, What makes Troubled Souls unique is its darkly gothic look, its Menu Master Mac, the program can’t log printer or computer use or moody musical score, and its icy sound effects. The only trouble do automatic log-offs. But for those who don’t need a lot of features, with it is that it’s highly addictive — just try not to keep playing Menu Master Mac Lite delivers as promised. / Jeffrey Sullivan when it’s time to get back to work. / Joe Hutsko Menu Master Mac Lite 2.1 mmm /Price: Single-user version, $49; site li- Troubled Souls mmmmh /Price: $49.95 (list). Company: Varcon Systems, San cense, $299 (list). Company: Electronic Learning Systems, Gainesville, FL; 800- Diego, CA; 800-266-6700 or 619-563-6700. Reader Service: Circle #420. 443-7971 or 904-375-0558. Reader Service: Circle #421.

68 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 QUICK CLICKS

FileWave / Painless software distribution for networks IF YOU’RE A NETWORK MANAGER, making sure everyone has the latest versions of software as well as all the software they need can be one of your most challenging responsibilities. Users often forget to use the network installers you’ve set up on your server. Also, most software-distribution utilities send out huge packets of software that slow your network and your users’ Macs. Moreover, you can’t update Macs that are turned off or removed from the net- work. FileWave not only automates software distribution but also gets around these problems ingeniously. FileWave has three components: the user software for each net- work client, the server software, and an administration tool. The server software turns your server into a “repository” that distrib- utes files automatically throughout your network. You can use the administration tool to control the content of the repository from any Mac on the network. Bit by Bit. Unlike other software-distribution tools that copy files to networked Macs en masse, FileWave trickles little pieces of a file to each client over time, resulting in negligible network slowdown. Furthermore, FileWave doesn’t start updating a Mac until the ma- chine is idle. The updating stops, even in midtrickle, if the com- puter is being used or is shut off, and resumes, right where it left off, when the computer is on and idle again. The user software keeps track of the trickling process, ensuring that each user receives complete files, no matter how long it takes. Following the well-written documenta- tion, installing both the user and the server software takes only a few minutes per machine. The installer places a system extension and an application into the System Folder on each Mac; however, it puts the application into the Control Panels folder, although we thought it would be more appropriate under the Apple menu, if anywhere. Once a Mac has the FileWave user software installed, an addi- tional volume called FileWave appears on its desktop. This volume is a generic delivery destination in which the repository deposits files. You can also configure distribution so that the repository de- livers files to a specific destination, such as the Extensions folder. Wave Research has a novel approach to administration. You con- trol users, groups, applications, and all software from a Finder-like environment. At first glance, we found this approach appealing, but in use, we discovered that having to open multiple folders just to get to a file made it difficult to get a quick overview of the system. We would prefer to use a dedicated administration interface that shows user and repository information in a single dialog box. FileWave makes software baseline management an easy task for network administrators and painless for users. For those who need centralized software management and distribution, FileWave is the best of the bunch. /Blake Roberts FileWave 2.0 mmmm /Price: 20-user starter kit, $895; 10-user add-on, $395; 50-user add-on, $1,795 (list). Company: Wave Research, Berkeley, CA; 510-704- 3900. Reader Service: Circle #422.

Demo versions and QuickTime movies of selected programs mentioned here are available in the MacUser and ZiffNet/Mac areas on CompuServe and eWorld. See page 4 for instructions regarding on-line access.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 73 CLONES

Here Come the CLONES IMAGINE YOURSELF TWO YEARS from now, wandering the workstation that costs $10,000 and a fault-tolerant server that goes aisles of a 1997 Mac trade show. Right away, you notice that it’s big- for $15,000; off in the distant fringes, you run across a company ger and busier than ever, and when you look closely, you note some from Taiwan that’s selling bare-bones desktop boxes for $500 and crucial differences from the expos of old: The second-biggest booth subnotebook computers for $850. And large or small, the vendors in the hall belongs to IBM, and it’s packed with high-powered ma- are clamoring to show you how well their systems can run your Mac chines stamped with the Big Blue logo — some running OS/2, some software — unless, of course, you’d rather run something else. running AIX, but most running the latest release of Mac OS. A far-fetched fantasy? Six months ago, it certainly would have Over in the Apple pavilion, the marketeers are staging a shoot- seemed so; today, it appears that something close to that scenario out between a Power Mac 9900 and some hot new Intel box — each may come true, if Apple, IBM, and Motorola have their way. running Windows NT. Then they reboot the Mac in preparation for In a historic announcement on November 7, 1994, the three the next demo, and this time, it comes up under Sun’s Solaris oper- PowerPC partners began a new stage in their relationship. After ating system or suddenly becomes a NetWare server. three years of working together to design and promote their new Around the show floor, you see hardware companies you’ve pre- RISC processor, they agreed on a common hardware platform — a viously encountered only in PC magazines. In a big booth in the specification all three will support as they design future PowerPC

center of the hall, someone’s showing a dual-processor graphics computers. And they proclaimed it an open standard, one other / DIANE DEMPSEY PHOTOGRAPHY

76 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 Apple, IBM, and Motorola the deal of the decade? HERE’S WHAT THE AGREEMENT between the three PowerPC partners spells out: þ A shared hardware design. Apple, IBM, and Motorola agree on a common minimum hardware platform for future PowerPC computers. Other manufacturers will be free to build their own systems based on the standard. Machines based on the standard will begin reaching users sometime in 1996. þ OS options. Apple will adapt Mac OS to run on the new platform, and IBM will do likewise with OS/2 and AIX. Motorola will take responsibility for porting Windows NT; Sun will deliver Solaris, its UNIX implementation; and Novell will port NetWare for PowerPC (to be released this summer) to the new platform. Each of these operating systems should run on any machine that complies with the new hardware, regardless of manufacturer. þ Open licensing of Mac OS. Apple promises to license Mac OS, including ROM code, to any manufacturer building computers based on the new spec. þ Compatibility. All software and peripherals that work with Power Macs or with IBM’s original PowerPC Reference Apple, IBM, and Motorola intend Platform (PReP) systems should work on machines de- to define a new kind of PC that signed to the new standard. þ Short-term plans. Apple will proceed with plans to re- lease second-generation Power Macs, including Power- will run Mac OS, OS/2, and Books and desktop systems with PCI buses, this summer. It will also move ahead with plans to license these hardware Windows NT. The implications designs, along with Mac OS software and ROMs, to a limited number of other manufacturers. Meanwhile, IBM is ex- are profound — for the industry pected to deliver systems based on PReP this spring; operat- and for Mac users. ing-system options will include AIX, OS/2, and Windows NT.

platform. And two other companies have already thrown their hats into the same ring: Sun Microsystems has said that it will port By Henry Norr Solaris, the UNIX implementation it offers on its SPARC worksta- tions, and Novell has promised a version of Processor-Independent NetWare, the portable version of its market-leading network oper- manufacturers will be free to copy in designing their own systems. ating system. Because all machines built with the new architecture will rest on For most of the companies involved, the new standard represents common hardware foundations, an operating system that runs on only a tactical maneuver; for Apple, it’s a wrenching, although not any of them will run on all of them. Specifically, Mac OS, after some entirely unexpected, change in strategic direction. Since its found- relatively modest changes, will run on the new platform, and Apple, ing in 1977, the company has kept most of its technology to itself. in a dramatic break from its traditions, has agreed to license its For more than ten years, it resisted pleas from customers, analysts, operating system to any other company that’s building hardware and some of its own officers that it license other manufacturers to that complies with the new spec. In short, any other company will build Macs. soon be able to build Mac-compatible hardware and license Mac OS All that’s over now. The age of clones is upon us. to run on it. While Apple adapts its system software to the new standard, IBM Hold Your Horses will do likewise with its two PowerPC operating systems, AIX (its It will take a while, though, before the versatile new machines hit version of UNIX) and OS/2. Motorola, which was already working dealers’ shelves. The new spec — so far known only as the common with IBM and Microsoft to bring Windows NT to PowerPC ma- hardware reference platform — won’t be final until later in the first chines, will make Windows NT run on the common hardware quarter of this year. Developers have been told that they should be

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 77 CLONES

Building a Clone / custom Macs for custom needs THERE’S STRENGTH IN BOTH UNITY AND DIVERSITY — and the specifica- Although Apple will almost certainly say that the vendors to whom it tion for the common hardware reference platform will encourage both. licenses Mac OS will adhere to certain minimum hardware capabilities, It will promote unity by creating an open standard that enables system the growing variety of components points to a diverse future. manufacturers to design desktop computers that can run a variety of This illustration shows the range of options available to clone vendors. popular operating systems. If they mix and match components, they can meet a vast range of user It will promote diversity by confining the essential elements of the needs. For example, one vendor might pair a PowerPC processor with a standard to core considerations such as the flow of data between the CPU few megabytes of onboard RAM and add only the most basic ports, thus and RAM. More-mundane considerations, such as the number and type of producing an education Mac for well under $1,000. Another might com- ports, slots, caches, and storage, will be left to the discretion of individual bine multiple processors with the latest in high-speed data-transfer tech- manufacturers. nology and find graphics and DTP buyers eager to pay five figures.

PORTS AND INTERFACES Clone manufacturers will have a rich menu of interfaces from which to choose. Expect all Mac clones to include, at minimum, ADB, LocalTalk, and/or Ethernet ports. High- DRAM video VRAM video performance clones may include such top- ADB SCSI end interfaces as FireWire, which can transfer IDE either digital or analog data at rates ranging from 12.5 to 50 MB IDE GeoPort LocalTalk per second, and Fibre Channel, Ethernet which starts at 25 MB per second PCI EXPANSION SLOTS and tops out at an astounding Expansion cards will be added to 200 MB per second. Floppy drive FireWire clones in PCI local-bus slots. The Fibre Channel 16-bit stereo 32-bit PCI bus’s 132-MB-per-second data-transfer rate is vastly higher than the 40-MB-per-second top transfer rate of NuBus. Three PCI slots will be common, but configurations of six or nine are possible.

PCI slots

ROM SIMM containing RAM soldered onto SIMM slots Mac OS motherboard SYSTEM RAM Level 2 cache System RAM can be soldered directly System-logic onto the chip set motherboard, to reduce costs, or SIMM sockets can be PowerPC added, to increase processors PROCESSOR RAM capacity. Expect the first clones based on the specification of the common hardware reference platform to use PowerPC 603 MULTIPLE-OPERATING-SYSTEM CAPABILITY or 604 processors — and expect some System logic that will allow a clone to run Mac OS will be high-end units to use more than one. contained in one or more support chips. The common hardware High-powered systems will include a reference platform will also be likely to support Windows NT, hefty Level 2 cache to improve speed. OS/2, Solaris, and AIX. Mac OS may be in ROM or — in the future — loaded directly from the hard disk.

78 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 able to get prototypes of the hardware in the third quarter of 1995, Compatibility but the systems probably won’t actually ship to customers until sometime in the second half of 1996. but will they do Windows? In the meantime, the partners will proceed with other hardware WILL MACS AND OTHER MACHINES based on the common they’ve already been working on. Later this year, Apple is expected hardware platform run DOS and Windows 3.1 or Windows to deliver a slew of new Power Macs, including PowerBooks that in- 95? Not directly, but users of common-platform machines corporate the low-power-consumption PowerPC 603+ chip and who need to run PC software shouldn’t have much trouble desktop systems built around a fast industry-standard expansion finding a solution. bus known as PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) in place of Software emulators, such as Insignia Solutions’ Soft- NuBus. These machines, which have been under development for Windows for the current Power Macs, should continue to several years, will not comply with the new spec, but they will in work on the new hardware. The other desktop operating effect represent a transitional stage, because PCI is also one of the systems expected for the common platform — OS/2, AIX, core features of the common platform. Windows NT, and Solaris — also support applications that Under agreements Apple negotiated before arriving at the com- run under DOS and the current, 16-bit version of Windows mon hardware standard with IBM and Motorola, Apple will allow a through emulation. few companies to copy its first-generation PCI-based designs and New 32-bit applications designed to take advantage of ship a version of System 7.5; unless plans change, these earliest Mac Windows 95 will also run under Windows NT. (Microsoft re- clones may be released by the fall of this year. But these systems are quires developers to test their code on Windows NT before not expected to have a major impact on the computer marketplace, it will authorize use of the Windows 95 logo.) Once an appli- at least in the U.S. Apple’s primary goal in negotiating them, offi- cation is running under Windows NT for Intel-chip systems, cials said, was to find partners to market the Mac in areas where the porting it to other versions of Windows NT, including the company itself has had relatively little success, such as German PowerPC common-platform version, should require little business and Japanese education. According to Apple, six major more than recompilation. Since most PC developers are ex- manufacturers have agreed to participate in this limited licensing pected to support Windows 95, it’s likely that nearly all program, but it declined to name them. [At press time, Bandai, a major new Windows applications will be available in native Japanese manufacturer, announced that it had reached an agreement form under Windows NT for the new platform. with Apple to produce a RISC-based machine based on Mac OS and PCI, the bus that’s the backbone of the new platform, will designed for children. — Ed.] provide a fast and standard interface for add-on cards with Meanwhile, IBM is expected to deliver its long delayed Power x86 processors. Apple is rumored to be planning a PCI ver- Personal systems — its first PowerPC models for the mainstream sion of the DOS Compatibility Card it currently offers for the business market — this spring. Those machines, running either Power Mac 6100, and other vendors are developing com- AIX, Windows NT, or a new microkernel-based version of OS/2, are peting cards with additional features. based on the PowerPC Reference Platform (PReP), a proposed hard- ware standard that was introduced by IBM in 1993 but never ac- cepted by Apple. operating system, which they’ll specify when ordering the equip- ment. But users who require more than one OS will be able to keep Share and Share Alike additional systems on-disk and select the one they want at boot Until the new spec is complete, Apple, IBM, and Motorola are refus- time. For the foreseeable future, you’ll have to restart the machine to ing to disclose details about the common platform. But some fea- change operating environments, but IBM officials said that they are tures are known: In addition to a PowerPC processor and a PCI bus, exploring some technologies that may eventually allow true dy- it will have SCSI, an enhanced version of the PC-standard parallel namic switching. printer port, and both Apple Desktop Bus and PC-style mouse and Just as with previous Macs, you’ll need Mac ROMs as well as the keyboard connectors. The standard makes provisions for Mac system software to run Mac OS. According to Jim Gable, manager of ROMs as well as an IBM ROM BIOS (basic input/output system) as Apple’s Power Mac product line, the common-platform standard well as low-level hardware registers the two companies’ systems re- requires a socket for the Mac ROMs, but system makers may leave it quire. System startup and configuration of PCI cards will be man- empty when shipping a machine configured for another OS; cus- aged by OS-neutral code based on a new industry standard called tomers who later wish to run Mac software will need to order the Open Firmware. ROMs from their system supplier. The partners said that they hope to “achieve 100-percent compat- Support for the new standard will be rolled into the system-soft- ibility with current PowerPC-based hardware and software applica- ware release code-named Copland, which is due late in 1995, ac- tion products” by incorporating technology from both Apple and cording to current plans (although many developers say that it’s IBM. The formal announcement leaves a little wiggle room; it says, likely to slip into 1996). In light of the hardware changes required “the vast majority of applications written to current specifications under the agreement, Apple will have to produce some new drivers will run largely unmodified” (emphases added). But Apple sources as well as modify some of its ASICs (application-specific integrated said that they did not expect significant compatibility problems. circuits), but Gable said that those tasks will not substantially delay Officials said that they expect most customers to run only one the release.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 79 CLONES

In addition to support for the new standard, Copland will include current Macs do, Apple’s cost of goods should decline, and in- more native PowerPC code, a new networking architecture and file creased competition will likely force the company to share the sav- system, OpenDoc, and some significant interface enhancements. ings with its customers. Until now, Apple has been subject to price pressure only indirectly, through competition from PC vendors; What It Means for You starting in 1996, even Mac loyalists will have other choices, and The most obvious impact of clones on the people who currently use Apple will have to adapt to the same kind of brutal market discipline Macs is that their choices of computer hardware will no longer be that governs the PC world. limited to what Apple offers. That’s because IBM and probably doz- In addition to affecting prices, the existence of alternatives may ens of other manufacturers will be offering machines capable of force Apple to improve in other areas — longer warranties, for ex- running Mac OS and Mac applications. That should mean a wider ample, and better phone support. Customers fed up with hour-long range of options in terms of price, performance, features, and style. waits at 800-SOS-APPL may try another vendor the next time. Look for dirt-cheap entry-level systems, high-priced workstations capable of running Mac software at previously unheard-of speeds, Application Benefits and a variety of specialized systems targeted at vertical markets. If you need an application that’s not available for Mac OS but that The benefits don’t stop with more hardware, though. Because the runs under one of the five other operating systems so far announced new design relies more on industry-standard components than for the new platform, you should have no trouble running it on your

OS Options / what operating system will run on the new machines Mac OS and intelligent agents. networking, multiprocessor sup- the third platform for Solaris, his For current Mac users, the choice Although the selection of off- port, and extensive security, some company’s current UNIX version. should be easy: The 1996 hardware the-shelf software for OS/2 on consider it a rival to UNIX. Windows The PowerPC common-platform will run Mac OS and, according to Intel-chip machines is sparse, OS/2 NT sales so far have been modest, version is expected to be compiled Apple, any applications that run on runs 16-bit DOS and Windows ap- mostly for server rather than desk- from the same code base as the 1994 and 1995 Power Macs. The plications (and, through emula- top applications. But the latest up- upcoming version 2.5 for SPARC machines are likely to ship initially tion, will continue to do so on the grade, version 3.5, has been well and Intel chips. As the dominant with the version of the operating new platform). received, and the impending re- player in the workstation market, system Apple code-named Cop- AIX lease of Windows 95 is likely, para- Sun boasts a huge base of software land, which is slated to include the Under the original 1991 Apple/IBM doxically, to give Windows NT for financial, technical, and com- OpenDoc component-software ar- agreements, the two companies more mass appeal by increasing munications tasks. chitecture, a new networking ar- were to have collaborated on de- the software selection — applica- Processor-Independent NetWare chitecture called Open Transport, a velopment and marketing a new tions rewritten for Windows 95 will Novell’s NetWare has become the much improved file system, and a version of AIX for the PowerPC, also work on NT. And once a pro- networking king of the Intel-chip host of interface improvements. which would have been the basis gram is running under Windows PC world, but the company has Based on an Apple-developed mi- for the PowerOpen standard; Ap- NT with an Intel processor, devel- been working for years on a pro- crokernel, Copland will mark a ma- ple was to provide software, which opers will need only to recompile cessor-independent version of its jor step in the process of giving the was later dubbed Macintosh Appli- their code for a RISC processor. network operating system. Origi- Mac a modern, industrial-strength cation Services (MAS), that would By this roundabout route, appli- nally, the primary target was operating system — a process that let UNIX users run the Finder and cations previously available only Hewlett-Packard’s Precision Archi- should be completed the follow- Mac applications. A PowerPC ver- for x86 systems or via emulation tecture, but when HP dropped out ing year, when another major up- sion of AIX, version 4.1, has been for RISC systems will become avail- of the project in 1993, Novell des- grade, code-named Gershwin, is shipping since last summer, but it able under Windows NT for the ignated Apple’s PowerPC Work- due. won’t run on Power Macs until common platform running in full- group Servers as its new focus. OS/2 for the PowerPC sometime this spring. speed native PowerPC mode. That When the common hardware The PowerPC version of IBM’s OS/2, An estimated 9,000 applica- could be a big advantage for Win- platform was announced, Novell scheduled to first ship this spring tions, most of them scientific or dows NT, since these packages will promptly promised to put its soft- on Big Blue’s PReP machines, will technical, have been written for run only in emulation under the ware there as well. be based on an advanced architec- AIX, and they should all run on the other operating systems for the The success of NetWare for ture IBM calls Workplace OS. IBM’s common hardware platform. new hardware. PowerPC, however, will not de- management has said repeatedly Windows NT Solaris pend on Novell alone. Corporate that it considers OS/2 a “strategic” Windows NT shares its name and Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems’ managers value NetWare not only operating system, and the com- GUI but little else with Windows outspoken CEO, has long argued for its own sake but also because it pany is investing heavily in the 3.1. It’s a portable, 32-bit operat- that only three processor architec- supports a whole industry’s worth technology. OS/2 is also the foun- ing system available not only for tures can survive as mainstream of add-ons, known as NLMs (Net- dation of the company’s work on Intel’s 486 and Pentium chips but products, so it was a tribute to the Ware Loadable Modules). So far, “human centered” technologies, also for the Digital Alpha and MIPS PowerPC when he picked it (way though, few NLM developers have such as voice recognition and syn- RISC processors. Because of its back in 1993) to join Sun’s own committed to porting their prod- thesis, handwriting recognition, high-end features such as built-in SPARC chips and the x86 family as ucts to the PowerPC.

80 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 common-platform machine, once you’ve purchased and installed Six Years the required OS and rebooted your system under it. Most major commercial applications are likely to be offered in native PowerPC the long and winding road to clones versions for one or more of these operating systems, although you’ll 1991 still have to turn to PC-emulation software or a card (or OS/2 or JULY / Apple, IBM, and Motorola announce alliance, plans Windows NT) to run vertical-market and in-house applications for PowerPC processor. written for DOS or Windows 3.1. At the same time, software developers who have abandoned or 1992 avoided the Macintosh thus far may now discover that it’s time to SEPTEMBER / IBM delivers first working prototypes of take a second look. By itself, the existence of a common hardware PowerPC 601. platform won’t be enough to change their minds; the key factors, as 1993 always, will be market share first and foremost, followed by confi- SEPTEMBER / IBM ships PowerPC 601 workstations. dence in the platform vendor’s prospects and strategic vision, the OCTOBER / IBM announces PowerPC Reference Platform quality of the development tools and developer support available, (PReP), a proposed standard for PowerPC computers. and the appeal of the underlying hardware and software environ- Apple refuses to endorse it. ment. But if the agreement and Apple’s licensing plan work as in- tended, market share for Mac OS should increase steadily after the 1994 new hardware appears, and that in turn should engender more con- JANUARY / Apple CEO Michael Spindler pledges to fidence, better tools and support, and a continuing flow of innova- announce plans for licensing the Mac operating system tive technology. within the year. In the corporate market in particular, the common platform is MARCH / Apple ships first Power Macs. sure to have more appeal than the proprietary Mac has had. That’s SEPTEMBER / Apple announces plans for limited licensing likely to spur interest in supporting the platform on the part of of Mac OS and Mac hardware designs in 1995 but names developers offering enterprise-oriented products, such as client/ no licensees. IBM postpones release of its mainstream server, work-flow, and network-management software. (The same PowerPC machines. goes for hardware such as high-speed networking products.) Of NOVEMBER / Apple, IBM, and Motorola announce course, even developers who make a commitment to the new hard- agreement on common hardware platform for Mac OS, ware platform won’t necessarily deliver Mac OS client software; OS/2, AIX, Windows NT, Solaris, and NetWare. Apple Windows NT will be the nearest port for developers already sup- pledges open licensing of Mac OS. porting Intel-chip-based client software. But if Mac OS becomes the 1995 dominant choice among users of common-platform machines, FIRST QUARTER / First Mac clones due, probably not in U.S. there will at least be strong pressure on enterprise developers to Developers slated to get prototype machines based on offer Mac OS support. common hardware platform. SPRING / Details of common hardware platform due. Mix and Match Release of IBM PReP machines expected, with choice of Managers at sites that have a mix of computing environments will OS/2, AIX, or Windows NT. gain new flexibility in how they deploy their hardware. Common- SECOND HALF / Second-generation Power Macs due, platform machines will be ideal for training facilities and computer including notebook computers with PowerPC 603+ and labs: If multiple operating systems are installed, a simple reboot will desktop machines with PCI bus and PowerPC 601 or 604 be able to convert a machine from a Mac to a Windows NT or OS/2 processor. Will run Mac OS only. PC or to a UNIX workstation. If a Mac-oriented corporate graphics END OF YEAR / Copland (System 8) release of Mac OS due. department moves up to a faster machine, the company will be able to reconfigure the old one to run another OS in another department. 1996 Educators who believe that students learn more when using the Mac MIDYEAR / Systems based on common hardware platform but face pressure to prepare them for the Windows-dominated busi- due from Apple, IBM, Motorola, and others. Customers will ness world will no longer have to lock themselves in with inflexible be able to run Mac OS (Copland), OS/2, AIX, Windows NT, hardware choices. Even people working out of home offices will be Solaris, or NetWare. able to run vertical applications under OS/2 or Solaris by day and END OF YEAR / Gershwin release of Mac OS planned. Mac software in the evening. Again, the only real limitation is that unless you add a co- Wait and See processor card to the machine, existing DOS and Windows 3.1 pro- Only time will tell how successful Apple, IBM, and Motorola will be grams will work only in emulation on the common platform. But in taking the common hardware reference platform from specifica- with the PC world finally beginning to move to 32-bit code that can tion to actual machines to viable new market. By 1997, we ought to easily be ported to the common platform, that problem is likely to know whether the reality has lived up to the promise. be much less critical by the time the new machines arrive in 1996 than it is today. Henry Norr is editor emeritus of MacWEEK.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 81 YOUR PERFECTZD MACINTOSH LABS HOW TO BUY Your Perfect The face of an authorized Apple dealer will turn pale if you ask for The specifications, such help. At best, you’ll walk away with a handful of inadequate cheat sheets containing only the “marketable” specifications for a performance statistics, and select few Macs. In this, our most extensive Mac comparison to date, we provide key facts you need to know an exhaustive compendium of specifications, performance statis- tics, and tips and hints that will be worthy of your reference shelf for about today’s Macintosh some time to come. For starters, we used a new and improved ver- sion of the Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operations’ MacBench bench- lineup. By Drew J. Cronk marking utility to find the relative speeds of currently shipping Macs and some of the most popular Macs of yesteryear. Unlike most THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE of quantum physics befuddling, acronym-filled benchmark utilities, MacBench gives states that it is impossible to precisely know both the position and simple, readable, usable results. We also rated each Mac on its suit- the velocity of a particle at the same instant. And so it is with the ability for various tasks and gave each an overall mouse rating. state of the Mac: At any given moment, it seems that it’s impossible Next, we tore the currently shipping Macs apart, breaking them to recite the current lineup’s specific attributes and compare speeds. into their main components: processor, memory, SCSI, video, and

PROCESSOR AND MEMORY page 86 SCSI AND STORAGE page 88 PHOTOGRAPHY / GIAMPIERO BENVENUTI / GIAMPIERO PHOTOGRAPHY

82 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 t Macintosh expansion slots. We tell you — and show you — what you need to Library:MacUser Utilities/Ziffware. On CompuServe, type GO: know to work successfully with these components. You’ll see easy- MACUSER and search for DBMACS.SEA in Library 1. And while to-read tables that include key specifications for each of the compo- you’re rummaging around in ZiffNet/Mac, you might also want to nents, and you’ll find fistfuls of tricks and techniques that will make browse through its extensive collection of handy utilities, helpful your life with a Mac a whole lot easier. You’ll even find all that never- applications, and way-cool entertainment software. around-when-you-need-it information: tidbits such as how to read So now you’re armed with all the facts you need to choose the the arcane identification system stamped on a SIMM and how to perfect Mac — and help it lead a long and happy life. You don’t have deal with finicky SCSI devices. any more excuses; the information is here — now it’s up to you to Finally, if you’re a newcomer to the family of Mac users and you use it. want a crash course in Mac history, or if you’re a Mac veteran who wants the most comprehensive collection of Mac specifications ever Drew J. Cronk swears that the only reason he wears that propeller cap is cuz his mom gave it to him for Christmas. (Mom concurs but adds that the assembled, you can download the Mac Catalog Database from Christmas he’s referring to was over 30 years ago.) ZD Labs project leader ZiffNet/Mac. This FileMaker Pro database contains a wealth of Kristina De Nike managed the testing for this report, and Mark Simmons, specifications on every Mac ever released (yes, even such flashes in product manager for ZiffNet/Mac, compiled the Mac specifications. the pan as the IIvx and the Mac TV). The Mac Catalog Database is MacBench 2.0 is available on-line on ZiffNet/Mac. See page 4 for available on eWorld at Shortcut:MACUSER, path:MacUser Software instructions on accessing ZiffNet/Mac.

BUILT-IN VIDEO page 90 EXPANSION SLOTS page 92

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 83 YOUR PERFECT MACINTOSH Speed Tests Four fine-tuned MacBench tests tell you how fast the Mac’s main components run. BY HENRY BORTMAN

EVER WONDERED just how fast your Mac is? Or whether whole process is what makes MacBench’s Power Macs are really worth the money? Or if that zippy new hard Disk Mix and Video Mix tests such accu- Quick Guide drive you’ve been reading about would do much for your Performa? rate predictors of performance. ZD Here’s the key Well, we wondered about these things too. That’s why, in Decem- Of course, you may not be a typical LABS information you ber 1993, we unveiled MacBench 1.0, an application developed by user. No problem: MacBench 2.0 has a need to choose the right Mac. Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation (affectionately known as Zee- host of more specific disk and video Based on our experiences, we DeeBop) that measures the performance of Mac computer systems. tests as well, so you can select a suite of gave each currently shipping Now the folks at ZDBOp have done it again. A warm welcome, tests tuned to your specific needs. nonserver Mac an overall please, for the new and improved MacBench — version 2.0. mouse rating to reflect its Like its predecessor, this new version measures the performance The Smaller Changes value in today’s lineup and of the Mac’s four major subsystems. The MacBench Processor test Improved tests are the main news in then rated the Macs according measures the speed of a Mac’s central processing unit and its inter- MacBench 2.0, but there are other to their suitability for a variety of common tasks. We also action with both system RAM and cache RAM. The MacBench changes too. One important point to collected test results for each Floating Point test measures floating-point-math operations such note is that version 2.0 uses a different Mac, even including a few as the trigonometric calculations used heavily for 3-D-rendering baseline Mac from the one for version old-timers to see how their tasks. The MacBench Disk Mix test measures the speed with which 1.0. For MacBench 1.0, we used an LC performance stacked up. a Mac’s hard drive, driver software, and SCSI bus or IDE connector III as a baseline, or reference, Mac, as- For our tests, we set each can move data to and from the disk. And the MacBench Video Mix signing it a score of 10 for each of the Mac up in the configuration test measures how quickly a Mac’s video-display hardware and four major tests. Scores for all the other listed, running System 7.5 and driver software can handle graphics and text operations. Macs were normalized to those of the with its display set at 640 x LC III. With version 2.0, we have 480 pixels. We then ran Plenty That’s New changed the reference Mac to a Quadra MacBench 2.0 to find the We’re most excited by the new Disk Mix and Video Mix tests in 630, again assigning it a score of 10 for speed of the Mac’s processor, floating-point unit, and disk MacBench 2.0. Although these tests were created in much the same each of the four major tests. So don’t try and video subsystems. The way as those for MacBench 1.0, we performed even more exhaustive to compare scores from MacBench 1.0 reference Mac for MacBench research this year. We began by gathering market-share data on 12 and 2.0 — it won’t work. 2.0 is a Quadra 630, which of the most popular Mac applications: Word and WordPerfect, Ex- MacBench 2.0 also sports an im- gets an index of 10 for each of cel, ClarisWorks, FileMaker Pro, Persuasion and PowerPoint, Page- proved interface. Its snazziest new fea- the four tests; all the other Maker and QuarkXPress, Illustrator and FreeHand, and Photoshop. ture is support for System 7.5’s Drag indexes are normalized to the We contacted the vendors of these applications — and did a little and Drop. If, for example, you drag a Quadra 630’s. Because the investigation of our own — to find out what tasks people most com- previously saved test-results file from reference Mac for MacBench monly perform when they use these programs. From this informa- the Finder directly into a performance 1.0 was an LC III, MacBench tion, we developed a sequence of typical tasks a user might perform graph in MacBench, the graph will up- 1.0 and 2.0 scores cannot be with each of them. ZDBOp monitored the disk- and video-related date instantly. compared. calls these tasks generated within the Mac’s operating system (a pro- As part of our annual state-of-the- cess called profiling) and used the results to design MacBench 2.0. Mac roundup, we ran MacBench 2.0 on all of Apple’s currently ship- When you run MacBench’s Disk Mix and Video Mix tests, you are ping Mac models (with the exception of the Power Mac 8100/110, actually playing back a distillation of the system calls that typical which wasn’t shipping at test time; the Performas, which are identi- tasks in the most popular Mac applications generate. The frequency cal to the LCs we did test; and the Workgroup Servers, which are of each call is in proportion to the frequency with which it occurred used differently from desktop Macs). We also retested a few repre- during profiling. In other words, MacBench’s Disk Mix and Video Mix sentative old-time standards to see how they stacked up. No big tests exercise your Mac’s disk and video subsystems in the same way surprises were in store, however: The speed of Power Macs on the as typical tasks with typical applications. We weighted the results to Processor and Floating Point tests has shifted the entire Mac perfor- reflect each application’s share of the Mac-software market. The mance curve so dramatically that machines such as the IIfx, which

84 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 in its day was considered “wicked fast,” barely make a showing on more than one occasion, it has revealed some little detail about a today’s chart. new Mac that Apple would have preferred we didn’t discover. Over Some less obvious results emerged in the Disk Mix and Video Mix the course of the next year, we will use MacBench 2.0 extensively to tests. In the Disk Mix test, our reference Mac, the Quadra 630 (and test new Macs; processor upgrades; and peripherals such as video the similarly configured LC 630), outperformed nearly every other cards, disk drives, and even CD-ROM drives. Mac, including the Power Mac 8100/80 (see “SCSI and Storage” to There’s also the do-it-yourself plan. Interested in a new piece of find out why). From the Video Mix test, we learned that although the hardware but unsure how well it performs? Take a copy of MacBench AV and non-AV models of the Power Mac 7100/66 and 8100/80 come to your local dealers, ask them to configure the system you’re inter- with VRAM, video tasks on the AV models run upwards of 10 per- ested in, and run the tests yourself. You can get a free copy of cent faster than the same tasks on non-AV models. MacBench 2.0 by faxing a request directly to ZDBOp at 919-380- MacBench is an extremely sensitive benchmark-test utility. On 2879 or by downloading it from ZiffNet/Mac.

Macs Tested Suitability Configuration Tested MacBench 2.0 Indexes 3 = OUTSTANDING 2 = ACCEPTABLE RAM HARD-DRIVE MECHANISM VIDEO SOURCE PROCESSOR FLOATING POINT DISK VIDEO SMALL 1 = POOR BUSINESSGRAPHICS OFFICE (MB) (CAPACITY IN MB) (BIT DEPTH) 0...... 40 0...... 120 0...... 15 0...... 20 mmmmh Power Mac 8100/80 231 16 Seagate ST11200N (1,000) DRAM (8) 36 103 7 15 mmmmh Power Mac 8100/80 231 16 Seagate ST11200N (1,000) VRAM card (8) 36 103 7 18 mmmm Power Mac 8100/80AV 231 16 Quantum LPS540S (540) AV card (8) 36 103 9 16 mmmm Power Mac 7100/66 332 8 Seagate ST3600N (500) DRAM (8) 26 97 5 12 mmmm Power Mac 7100/66 332 8 Seagate ST3600N (500) VRAM card (8) 27 97 5 13 mmmm Power Mac 7100/66AV 332 16 Quantum LPS540S (540) AV card (8) 27 98 7 12 mmmmm Power Mac 6100/60 322 8 Quantum LPS270S (270) DRAM (8) 23 88 7 11 mmmmh Quadra 950 131 16 Digital DSP3105S (1,000) VRAM (8) 10 10 11 11 mmmmm Quadra 630 213 8 Quantum IDE LPS270A (270) VRAM (8) 10 10 10 10 mmmm Quadra 605 213 8 Quantum CTS160S (160) VRAM (8) 71 59 mmmmh PowerBook 540c 322 12 IBM H2344-S4C (320) VRAM (8) 91 47 mmmm PowerBook 540 312 12 Conner CFN250S (250) VRAM (4) 91 59 mmmm PowerBook 520c 312 12 Quantum GO160S (160) VRAM (8) 7<15 6 mmmh PowerBook 520 312 12 IBM H2172-S2C (160) VRAM (4) 7<14 7 mmmh PowerBook 150 212 8 Quantum IDE GLS127A (120) VRAM (2) 3<16 5 mmmm PowerBook Duo 280c 322 12 IBM H2344-S4C (320) VRAM (8) 91 49 mmmm PowerBook Duo 280 312 12 IBM H2258-S3C (240) VRAM (4) 91 411 mmmmm Mac LC 630* NA NA NA 8 Quantum IDE LPS270A (270) VRAM (8) 9 1 10 10 mmmmh Mac LC 575* NA NA NA 8 Quantum LPS270S (270) VRAM (8) 91 811 mmm Mac LC 550* NA NA NA 8 Quantum CTS160S (160) VRAM (8) 3<15 4 mmmh Mac LC 475* NA NA NA 8 Quantum CTS160S (160) VRAM (8) 7<15 9 mmm Mac LC III* NA NA NA 8 Quantum CTS160S (160) VRAM (8) 2<14 4 mmmmm Performa 6100 series† 322 mmmmm Performa 630 series§ 213 mmmmh Performa 570 series§ 213 mmm Performa 550§ 113 mmmh Performa 475/476§ 113 DISCONTINUED MACS TESTED Quadra 840AV 16 Seagate ST3600N (500) VRAM (8) 12 12 6 11 Quadra 700 8 Quantum LP240S (240) VRAM (8) 88 78 Quadra 610 8 Quantum LP240S (240) VRAM (8) 88 79 Mac IIfx 8 Quantum Pro (80) display card (8) 56 55 Mac IIci 8 Quantum CTS160S (160) DRAM (8) 23 44 Mac II 8 Quantum Pro (80) display card (8) 12 42 Mac LC 10 Quantum CTS80S (80) VRAM (8) <1 <1 3 2 Mac Classic 4 Quantum LPS (80) VRAM (1) <1 <1 1 1 Mac SE 4 Quantum Pro (80) VRAM (1) <1 <1 1 1 *LCs are currently available only through the Apple Educator Program. †We did not test this Mac, but since it uses the same hardware as the Power Mac 6100/60, its performance should be the same. § We did not test these Macs, but since they use the same hardware as their LC equivalents, their performance should be the same. FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 85 YOUR PERFECT MACINTOSH Processor and The Mac’s mind and soul — the processor and RAM — are the Memory two most important system components to

CURRENTLY SHIPPING MACS understand. Although there’s a lot to say

PROCESSOR CLOCK SPEED MAXIMUM RAMSIMM TYPE SIMM SPEED SIMM SLOTS L2 CACHE FPU about these parts, Power Mac 8100/110 PPC 601 110 MHz 264 MB 72-pin 80 ns 8 ++ we’ve narrowed down Power Mac 8100/80 PPC 601 80 MHz 264 MB 72-pin 80 ns 8 ++ Power Mac 8100/80AV PPC 601 80 MHz 264 MB 72-pin 80 ns 8 ++ the list to our Power Mac 7100/66 PPC 601 66 MHz 136 MB 72-pin 80 ns 4 +* + top hints. Power Mac 7100/66AV PPC 601 66 MHz 136 MB 72-pin 80 ns 4 +* +

Power Mac 6100/60 PPC 601 60 MHz 72 MB 72-pin 80 ns 2 +* +

Quadra 950 68040 33 MHz 256 MB 30-pin 80 ns 16 +

Quadra 630 68040 33 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 + Quadra 605 68LC040 25 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 PowerBook 540c 68LC040 33 MHz 36 MB card 70 ns 1 PowerBook 540 68LC040 33 MHz 36 MB card 70 ns 1 PowerBook 520c 68LC040 25 MHz 36 MB card 70 ns 1 PowerBook 520 68LC040 25 MHz 36 MB card 70 ns 1 PowerPC 601 68040

PowerBook 150 68030 33 MHz 40 MB card 70 ns 1 NUMBER OF TRANSISTORS PowerBook Duo 280c 68LC040 33 MHz 40 MB card 70 ns 1 2.8 million 1.2 million PowerBook Duo 280 68LC040 33 MHz 40 MB card 70 ns 1 CACHE SIZE 32K 8K PowerBook Duo Dock II NA NA NA NA NA NA ++ DATA BUS PowerBook Duo Dock NA NA NA NA NA NA * + 64 bits 32 bits

Mac LC 630 68LC040 33 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 DIE SIZE Mac LC 575 68LC040 33 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 11 x 11 mm 14.5 x 15.5 mm Mac LC 550 68030 33 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 +* Mac LC 475 68LC040 25 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1

Mac LC III 68030 25 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 +*

Performa 6100 series PPC 601 60 MHz 72 MB 72-pin 80 ns 2 +* + Performa 630 series 68LC040 33 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 Performa 570 series 68LC040 33 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1

Performa 550 68030 33 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 +* Force applications to load into RAM. Performa 475/476 68LC040 25 MHz 36 MB 72-pin 80 ns 1 Some applications let you force all Workgroup Server 9150 PPC 601 80 MHz 264 MB 72-pin 80 ns 8 ++ their resources into RAM, thereby Workgroup Server 8150 PPC 601 80 MHz 264 MB 72-pin 80 ns 8 ++ saving unnecessary, battery-sapping Workgroup Server 6150 PPC 601 60 MHz 72 MB 72-pin 80 ns 2 ++ trips to the disk. Look for this

Workgroup Server 95 68040 33 MHz 256 MB 30-pin 80 ns 16 +* + option under Preferences. DETAIL PHOTOGRAPHY / FRED STIMSON TECHNICAL ILLUSTRATION / GIAMPIERO BENVENUTI, MARK SWEENEY / GIAMPIERO BENVENUTI, ILLUSTRATION TECHNICAL / FRED STIMSON PHOTOGRAPHY DETAIL *Optional.

86 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 functionality as enabling virtual measured in nanoseconds.) more RAM later, you’ll be stuck Processor and memory; you can’t use both at Don’t expect a speed boost with unused RAM. Memory Tips once, however. if you install SIMMs that You must install SIMMs in pairs Add a Level 2 cache card if your are faster than the ones in the Power Macs. You can, Setting the disk cache Mac supports one. You’ll gain an recommended for your Mac. however, install SIMMs of correctly can improve overall overall processor-performance The only reason to purchase different sizes and speeds in system performance. You can boost of 10 to 40 percent — for faster-than-required SIMMs is if different banks — as long as change the size of the disk cache under $300. you need more RAM for your they’re a match within each bank. via the Memory control panel. As Avoid memory fragmentation. present Mac but plan to upgrade For example, you can use two a general rule, you should allot Launch applications that have the to a faster Mac soon. In that 60-nanosecond, 8-MB SIMMs in 32K for every 1 MB of installed highest memory allocations first, case, buy RAM that is rated fast the first two adjoining slots; two RAM, to a maximum of 128K. (If and quit the applications in the enough for the new Mac. 80-nanosecond, 4-MB SIMMs in you use System 7.5, there is no reverse order. For example, Don’t skimp when adding the next two adjoining slots; performance penalty for using a launch Photoshop first, then RAM to a Mac that contains and so on (no descending or higher setting.) When you use Word, and then SimpleText; only one RAM-expansion slot. ascending order of SIMM-pair Photoshop, which has its own quit SimpleText first, then Word, Otherwise, if you need to add sizes is necessary). memory schemes, leave the disk and finally Photoshop. cache set to 32K. Install Connectix’s RAM Turn on virtual memory on Doubler. If you’re running low on If you get this dreaded message when you try to launch an application your Power Mac. Yes, you read RAM, try installing RAM Doubler. (and you know you’ve got plenty of RAM), then try quitting the last correctly. Because of the manner It’s cheaper and easier to install application you opened. If a similar message occurs within an in which native Power Mac than a bunch of new SIMMs. application, quit the application and then try increasing the applications store their code, Before buying SIMMs, find application’s enabling virtual memory makes out what type and speed your memory partition applications launch faster — and Mac requires. Most currently via the Get Info allows them to run in a smaller shipping desktop Macs use box. If neither memory partition. Try setting 72-pin SIMMs, but the speed remedy works, virtual memory to 1 MB more requirements vary. Be sure that you’ll need to than the installed RAM (for the SIMMs you buy are fast restart your Mac. example, on a machine with 8 enough for your Mac — MB, set virtual memory to 9 MB). otherwise, you’ll encounter Note that Connectix’s RAM crashes or your Mac may fail PowerBook RAM Doubler offers the same to boot. (SIMM speeds are 1 1.2 mm

2 2.5 mm

3 2.7 mm 1.2 mm

1 TSOP (thin small-outline package) RAM-expansion cards are almost always small enough to fit into any PowerBook. In fact, they are the only cards that do fit in a 500-series PowerBook. How to Read a SIMM 2 SOJ (small-outline J-lead) RAM-expansion cards are thicker The numbers on than TSOP cards. Be sure to ask vendors if their cards will fit in your SIMMs aren’t PowerBook before you purchase them. meaningless — if 3 Flat-pack RAM-expansion cards are somewhere between SOJ you can decode and TSOP cards in size. Again, ask vendors if their cards will fit in them. This NEC SIMM your PowerBook before you purchase them. has eight 4-megabit NECUSA chips. Since there 424400 -70 MacBench 2.0 are eight bits in 9317MVB24 Speed in nanoseconds No surprises here. Power Macs overwhelmed all other Macs in the a byte, simple Circuit design specs arithmetic tells us Size of chip in megabits MacBench 2.0 Processor and Floating Point tests, with the Power Mac DRAM chip 8100/80 leading the pack. Macs that use 68040s (the Quadra 950 and this is a 4-megabyte NECUSA Date 630) followed. chip. Unfortunately, 424400 -70 Lot number To get an idea of how powerful the Power Macs are for floating- each manufacturer 9317MVB24 has its own codes. point-intensive tasks such as rendering, check the MacBench Floating Point Indexes. Macs that lack an FPU, such as the 500-series Power- Books, which use a 68LC040 processor, had a score of 1 or less; Power Macs, on the other hand, had indexes of 88 and above.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 87 YOUR PERFECT MACINTOSH

A Field Guide to Terminators

SCSI and Standard external terminators use resistors to keep Internal terminators also SCSI signals from use resistors, but they can be running amok. These more effective. On the minus terminators are the side, you can’t remove them Storage most common. easily. CURRENTLY SHIPPING MACS The Mac’s main connector to the

MAXIMUM SCSI MANAGER HARD DRIVES CD-ROM DRIVE THROUGHPUT DUAL SCSI BUSES4.3 IN ROM AVAILABLE INCLUDED outside world of Power Mac 8100/110 5 MB/sec 22 2 GB 2

Power Mac 8100/80 5 MB/sec 22 500 MB, 1 GB 2* peripherals, the Power Mac 8100/80AV 5 MB/sec 22 500 MB 2 SCSI port, is Power Mac 7100/66 5 MB/sec 2 500 MB 2*

Power Mac 7100/66AV 5 MB/sec 2 500 MB 2 notoriously finicky. Power Mac 6100/60 5 MB/sec 2 250 MB, 350 MB 2* Here are rules to Quadra 950 5 MB/sec 2 230 MB, 500 MB, 1 GB Quadra 630 3 MB/sec 250 MB know and use. Quadra 605 3 MB/sec 160 MB, 250 MB PowerBook 540c 5 MB/sec 320 MB, 500 MB High-Quality Cable PowerBook 540 5 MB/sec 240 MB Shielding PowerBook 520c 5 MB/sec 160 MB, 320 MB (braid over foil) PowerBook 520 5 MB/sec 160 MB PowerBook 150 1.5 MB/sec 120 MB PowerBook Duo 280c NA 320 MB Plastic sheath PowerBook Duo 280 NA 240 MB PowerBook Duo Dock II 5 MB/sec none PowerBook Duo Dock 5 MB/sec 230 MB 28-gauge wire Mac LC 630 3 MB/sec 250 MB 2*

Mac LC 575 5 MB/sec 160 MB 2 Mac LC 550 1.5 MB/sec 160 MB 2 Impedance rating of 100 – 150 ohms Mac LC 475 5 MB/sec 80 MB, 160 MB Mac LC III 1.5 MB/sec 40 MB, 80 MB, 160 MB Use high-quality cables. Conventional wisdom says that thick Performa 6100 series 5 MB/sec 2 250 MB, 350 MB, 500 MB 2 cables are better than thin ones. But the only real way to identify

Performa 630 series 3 MB/sec 250 MB 2* a high-quality cable is to buy one; cut it open; look for the characteristics shown here; and if it passes the test, buy more. Performa 570 series 5 MB/sec 250 MB, 320 MB 2

Performa 550 1.5 MB/sec 160 MB 2 Performa 475/476 5 MB/sec 160 MB, 230 MB Attach an AC adapter when you use

Workgroup Server 9150 5 MB/sec 22 1 GB, 2 GB 2 external devices with your PowerBook. Otherwise, you’ll notice a definite drop Workgroup Server 8150 5 MB/sec 22 500 MB, 1 GB 2* in battery life. SCSI devices require Workgroup Server 6150 5 MB/sec 500 MB 2 2 a great deal of battery power for Workgroup Server 95 5 MB/sec 2 1 GB, 2 GB 2* termination.

*Optional. BENVENUTI / GIAMPIERO TECHNICAL ILLUSTRATION / FRED STIMSON PHOTOGRAPHY DETAIL

88 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 SCSI Tips Always terminate the first and last devices on the chain. Keep your SCSI chain short. Drives purchased specifically for Official SCSI specs say a SCSI internal use nearly always arrive chain should be no more than 20 with terminators installed. If in feet long. Practical experience doubt, call the vendor you says the shorter, the better. purchased a device from. Keep your cables short. The If the last device on the chain maximum length you should has two SCSI connectors, allow between devices is 3 feet. attach the cable to one and a Black terminators use Any type of terminator can Never assign the same SCSI- terminator to the other. capacitors as well as resistors. provide active termination, ID number to two devices Otherwise, you’ll have an open Although designed for (and which actively works to residing on the same bus. SCSI connector that may cause noise required by) the Mac IIfx, you regulate voltage, thereby uses these numbers as addresses on the SCSI chain. can use them with any Mac. cutting down signal noise. to ensure that information goes Upgrade to SCSI Manager 4.3. to the correct location. Giving If you have a 68040 Mac or a two devices the same address can Power Mac, SCSI Manager 4.3 will result in lost information. give your drive asynchronous- Know that some SCSI-ID transfer ability — your Mac will numbers may be preassigned. be able to continue processing The Mac’s internal hard drive is while the drive reads and writes usually set to 0 (if your Mac has data. Some Macs come with SCSI two internal hard drives, the Manager 4.3 in ROM; others must second one will be set to 1), the be upgraded with System 7.5, Duo Dock’s internal hard drive is which includes SCSI Manager 4.3. set to 1, an internal tape drive is If you use SCSI Manager 4.3, set to 2, an internal CD-ROM make sure your SCSI device drive is set to 3, and the Mac’s drivers are fully compatible motherboard is set to 7. with it. Although most vendors If you don’t have an internal have upgraded their driver hard drive, have your dealer software to be compatible with install an internal terminator. SCSI Manager 4.3, not all have Some Macs, such as the Power upgraded their code to take full Macs and the Quadra 950, already advantage of its new capabilities. have termination on the It’s worth a phone call to find out motherboard, but most other if you’ve got a version that does. Macs benefit from the addition of Always turn off the power to an internal terminator. your Mac and your SCSI devices There’s more than one way to before swapping cables or choose a startup disk. Your moving devices around. SCSI Mac’s startup procedure includes devices aren’t as tough as If you live in a rural area, consider “bug a sequential search for a startup bowling balls. And SCSI proofing” your SCSI devices. Arachnids like to disk. First, the Mac checks the cables contain sensitive data- set up house in warm and cozy places — such internal floppy drive; then the transmission lines and one or as electronic devices. You can thwart their SCSI device you’ve selected as the more live power wires. efforts by encasing SCSI devices in pantyhose. startup drive; and finally, other Turn on your SCSI devices attached SCSI devices, starting before you turn on the Mac. with SCSI-ID 0, jumping to 6, and Some SCSI devices won’t mount if MacBench 2.0 then working its way down to 1. they’re not running when you Check out the MacBench 2.0 Disk Mix test results for the Quadra 630 Here’s how you can alter that power up your Mac. Shutting and the LC 630. The hard drives of these Macs outran those in nearly sequence: down your Mac and then the every other Mac because the internal drive in the 630 is connected via 1. To bypass an internal floppy attached SCSI devices allows your an IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) interface, the standard on PC and drive, hold down the mouse system to completely “flush” itself. Windows machines, not via SCSI, common on most Macs. Drives that button when you power up. Don’t buy a superfast hard can connect via an IDE interface operate more efficiently than SCSI 2. To bypass an internal hard drive if your Mac’s SCSI drives, and they also have a speed-enhancing write cache enabled. drive, hold down the Shift, connection can’t keep up. (You can enable the write cache on any Apple internal drive via FWB’s Option, Command, and Delete Use the table to find your Mac’s Hard Disk ToolKit.) Note that the 630s still have an external SCSI port keys simultaneously. (Release the maximum throughput. Or buy like the rest of the Mac family. keys when the flashing question a Fast or Wide SCSI-2 card to mark appears.) increase your Mac’s throughput.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 89 YOUR PERFECT MACINTOSH Built-in Video We used to complain about the Mac’s tiny, 9-inch screen. Now we complain about the complexity of understanding VRAM, bit depths, and resolutions. Here’s some help with those complaints. Single-mode dongles emulate only a single CURRENTLY SHIPPING MACS type of Apple monitor. MAXIMUM BIT DEPTH AT If, however, you have a INSTALLED MAXIMUM 640 X 480 832 X 624 1,024 X 768 Quadra, a Power Mac, VRAM VRAM PIXELS PIXELS PIXELS Power Mac 8100/110 2 MB 4 MB 24-bit 24-bit 24-bit or a PowerBook and you use a single-mode Power Mac 8100/80 2 MB 4 MB 24-bit 24-bit 24-bit dongle that emulates Power Mac 8100/80AV 2 MB 2 MB 24-bit 24-bit 16-bit Apple’s new Multiple Scan Power Mac 7100/66 1 MB 2 MB 24-bit 24-bit 16-bit monitors, you can still switch resolutions Power Mac 7100/66AV 2 MB 2 MB 24-bit 24-bit 16-bit on the fly. Power Mac 6100/60 DRAM DRAM 16-bit 8-bit NA Quadra 950 1 MB 2 MB 24-bit 24-bit 16-bit Quadra 630 1 MB 1 MB 16-bit 8-bit NA Quadra 605 512K 1 MB 16-bit 16-bit 8-bit PowerBook 540c 512K 512K 8-bit 8-bit NA PowerBook 540 512K 512K 8-bit 8-bit NA PowerBook 520c 512K 512K 8-bit 8-bit NA IF YOUR MONITOR PowerBook 520 512K 512K 8-bit 8-bit NA is an immigrant from the PC world PowerBook 150 128K 128K 2-bit NA NA of Windows and PowerBook Duo 280c 512K 512K 8-bit NA NA DOS, you’re Versatile — if complicated — dongles, PowerBook Duo 280 512K 512K 8-bit NA NA almost certain to such as the Sony model shown here, support PowerBook Duo Dock II 1 MB 1 MB 16-bit 16-bit NA need a dongle, or many frequencies and resolutions and can be used with just about every monitor and PowerBook Duo Dock 512K 1 MB 16-bit 16-bit NA adapter, before it’ll work correctly Mac — a great convenience if you’re Mac LC 630 1 MB 1 MB 16-bit 8-bit NA with your Mac. managing an office full of equipment. Mac LC 575 512K 1 MB 16-bit NA NA Dongles emulate Mac LC 550 512K 768K 16-bit NA NA the three “sense Mac LC 475 512K 1 MB 16-bit 16-bit 8-bit code” pins on You don’t need a Apple monitors. Mac LC III 512K 768K 16-bit 8-bit NA dongle if you use NEC’s These pins tell Performa 6100 series DRAM DRAM 16-bit 8-bit NA MultiCable, which has a your Mac’s video Performa 630 series 1 MB 1 MB 16-bit 8-bit NA VGA connector on one circuitry what end and a Mac connector Performa 570 series 1 MB 1 MB 16-bit NA NA resolution and on the other. New high- Performa 550 768K 768K 16-bit NA NA frequency to end NEC monitors that enable. A dongle Performa 475/476 512K 1 MB 16-bit 16-bit 8-bit use this cable have VGA also allows a PC Workgroup Server 9150 DRAM 4 MB 24-bit 24-bit 24-bit as well as Mac video monitor’s VGA- Workgroup Server 8150 DRAM 4 MB 24-bit 24-bit 24-bit ports: To switch your style connector to monitor from a Mac to a PC — or vice versa Workgroup Server 6150 DRAM 1 MB 16-bit 16-bit 8-bit work with the — you simply turn the cable around. Workgroup Server 95 1 MB 2 MB 24-bit 24-bit 16-bit Mac’s video cable. DETAIL PHOTOGRAPHY / FRED STIMSON PHOTOGRAPHY DETAIL

90 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 Mies van der Rohe was wrong: To use the AV functions on Power Macs, When it comes to choosing a you must attach your monitor to the AV Mac video system, more is card. Among other things, this means that it’s most definitely more. The not all that wise to buy an expensive video 1,600-x-1,200-pixel superhigh accelerator, thinking you can tap into the AV resolution provided by the technologies with it. But if you upgrade to a SuperMac Thunder II GX•1600 large-monitor/video-card combo, you should card, for example, provides keep your old monitor around for video over six times as many image- captures and other assorted AV novelties. carrying pixels as the Mac’s Don’t use the HDI-45 connector on the AV longtime 640-x-480-pixel Power Macs unless a monitor is attached standard. The more pixels to the AV card. If you do, be prepared for your display has, the more some spooky stuff. For example, the Monitor you can see of the image control panel will assume that a device is you’re working on. attached to the video-out connector on the AV card, resulting in the creation of a The original Macs nonexistent monitor. Phantom that it is, this used only 1-bit ghost monitor can do scary things, such color — in other as suck up files, folders, and even entire words, they used windows you may inadvertently move to it. monochrome You may have more resolutions available displays. We’ve than you know about. If you’re using your come a long way Mac’s built-in video, click on the Options since then. Many button in the Monitors control panel. A Macs now can list of available resolutions will appear. This display millions of works only if you have the appropriate colors, although multifrequency dongle or cable and the appropriate on-the-fly resolution-switching 1 bit, 4 bits, 8 bits, 16 bits, 32 bits, most people will 2 colors 16 colors 256 colors thousands millions find thousands of Monitor extension. (The extensions are of colors of colors colors enough. included in System 7.5.) Use several monitors as one. If you have a Video Tips few monitors and two or more video ports on your Mac, you can use the Monitors control Match your VRAM to your Mac very panel to set up one big, virtual desktop. carefully. The match between VRAM SIMMs Open the Monitors control panel and click on and Mac model is critical. For example, the Identify. Drag the monitor tiles and the menu VRAM SIMMs used in the Power Mac 7100/66 bar to their appropriate locations. If you’re and 8100/80 VRAM-expansion cards have running System 7.5, you’ll see changes the same pin assignments and external immediately; if not, you must restart. dimensions, but they are not interchangeable. Using multiple monitors near each other When buying VRAM, always specify the Mac may cause interference. If you experience you intend to install it in. this, try repositioning the monitors so their DRAM SIMMs can’t be used to expand backs are as far away from each other as video RAM. We’re still hearing false claims possible. Also, if your monitors have a variety about those old leftover 256K DRAM SIMMs of refresh rates, try repositioning them so being recyclable as VRAM in LCs and Quadras. that those with the most divergent rates are The truth is this doesn’t work, so don’t try it. farthest from each other. Before you buy a third-party video card, How to get your old monitor to work with MacBench 2.0 make sure you’ve installed all the VRAM your new Mac. Older Macs use the green- you can. Find out what the maximum VRAM We tested the Power Macs in all of their output pin to synchronize video signals. All is for your Mac and what bit depth that will video configurations: running video from new Macs, however, spread sync signals give you on the monitor you want to use. You DRAM, running video from standard VRAM, across more pins. Thus older monitors that may find that you can get by with a simple and running video from an AV card that con- require sync on green will not work properly VRAM upgrade rather than a costly video-card tains VRAM. Power Macs equipped with with many new Macs. (Of the currently upgrade. standard VRAM video were the fastest in the shipping Macs, only the Quadra 950 and the Adding DRAM to a Mac with DRAM-based MacBench 2.0 Video Mix test. In fact, a Workgroup Server 95 support sync on green.) video won’t improve its video speed. The Power Mac 8100/80 using standard VRAM to If you are a victim of this old-monitor/new- non-AV Power Macs use a portion of their main run a monitor can display 24-bit data as fast Mac mismatch, you’ve got two choices: memory for video. Adding more DRAM SIMMs as a 68040 Mac running an older Quick- Upgrade to a newer monitor (expensive), or will neither affect the amount of memory Draw-accelerator card can. purchase a $40 video adapter from Griffin allocated to video nor improve video speed. Communications (615-259-0090).

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 91 YOUR PERFECT MACINTOSH Expansion Slots Upgrading your Mac via plug-in cards is a great idea — but unfortunately, it can be harder than it sounds. Here are some hints.

CURRENTLY SHIPPING MACS NUMBER NUMBER OF NUMBER OF DAV/ COMMUNI- OF 12-INCH 7-INCH VIDEO CATIONS PDSs NUBUS SLOTS NUBUS SLOTS SLOT SLOT Power Mac 8100/110 1* 3 0 Power Mac 8100/80 1* 3 0

Power Mac 8100/80AV 1* 3 0 2† Power Mac 7100/66 1* 3 0

Power Mac 7100/66AV 1* 3 0 2†

§ § Power Mac 6100/60 1 01 Understanding PCMCIA Cards Quadra 950 1§ 1§ 0

Quadra 630 1 0 0 22 Quadra 605 1 0 0 PowerBook 540c 1◊ 00 PowerBook 540 1◊ 00 PowerBook 520c 1◊ 00 PowerBook 520 1◊ 00 PowerBook 150 0 0 0 PowerBook Duo 280c 1 0 0 PowerBook Duo 280 1 0 0 PowerBook Duo Dock II 0 2 0 Type 1 and Type II PCMCIA Type III PCMCIA cards, which PowerBook Duo Dock 0 2 0 cards are 3.3 millimeters and 5 are 10.5 millimeters thick, millimeters thick, respectively. generally contain a hard drive Mac LC 630 1 0 0 22 Generally, these cards contain or other rotating storage Mac LC 575 1 0 0 2 memory that increases your device. Mac LC 550 1 0 0 PowerBook’s storage capacity Mac LC 475 1 0 0 or they contain modems. The Mac LC III 1 0 0 500-series PowerBooks can Performa 6100 series 1§ 01§ hold two of these cards at a time but may not be able to Performa 630 series 1 0 0 22 run both at once. Apple Performa 570 series 1 0 0 2 publishes a list of cards that Performa 550 1 0 0 can run together. To get the Performa 475/476 1 0 0 list, call 800-462-4396 in the Workgroup Server 9150 1 4 0 U.S. and ask for Document #10307. Workgroup Server 8150 1 3 0 Workgroup Server 6150 1§ 01§ Currently, only the 500-series Workgroup Server 95 1 5 0 PowerBooks use PCMCIA *Filled with either a VRAM or an AV card. cards, but we expect a lot †With optional AV card. more Macs to support them in §You can choose between a PDS and a NuBus slot. the future. ◊ You can choose among a PDS, an extra battery, and a PCMCIA cage. MARK SWEENEY / GIAMPIERO BENVENUTI, TECHNICAL / FRED STIMSON ILLUSTRATION PHOTOGRAPHY DETAIL

92 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 A Field Guide to Connectors Expansion-Slot Tips ▼ NuBus connector ▼ DAV connector When upgrading to a Power Mac, find out if you need native Power Mac drivers for your NuBus cards. Some NuBus cards need native drivers in order to run at peak speed; others don’t. Check with the vendor for upgrades. The Quadra 840AV has the highest NuBus speed of any Mac. With the Quadra 840AV, ▲ PDS connector NuBus drivers can use the 68040’s MOVE16 ▲ Communications connector instruction to transfer data in 16-byte bursts. The PowerPC 601 does not support a similar If you popped open the lid on your Mac, instruction. would you recognize the connectors? Bigger isn’t necessarily better. NuBus slots If not, here’s how to identify them. can be either 7 inches or 12 inches long. You can get the same types of expansion cards, with the same features, for a slot of either size. Look for upgrade options that don’t Power Mac Trade-Offs require an expansion slot — especially if NuBus adapter card your Mac has only one. For example, if you want to upgrade to Ethernet, consider purchasing an external Ethernet box. AV card Alternatively, if you must fill the slot (say, with a video card), look for a card that offers other features, such as Photoshop acceleration. You’ll want to equip your Mac with an AV PDS slot card only if you plan to work with video frequently. The DAV connector on AV Macs was designed to address the speed concerns of users who need quick access to video. Most cards that use the DAV connector provide video compression and decompression. The DAV slot is not the same as the video slot on the 630-series Macs. The 630 series Macs contain a new video slot that you can fill with Apple’s Video System card for digitizing video and sound. Decisions, decisions. The Power Mac 6100/60’s Fill the left battery compartment of a slim design means that it has room for only one 500-series PowerBook with a battery or a of the following cards: a 6100 PDS card (only a PCMCIA cage. Don’t hold out for expansion DOS-compatible card is currently available), a cards for these PowerBooks. To date, vendors 7-inch NuBus card, or an AV card. have not opted to reengineer their PDS cards to fit into their tiny compartments. If you want a low-cost option for adding a modem or Ethernet, check out Macs that have a communications slot. Starting with the LC 500 series, Apple began including a special communications slot that users could fill with either the Apple Express Modem or an Ethernet card. These options cost less than they do in external versions. Unused expansion slots can get If you have a choice between a PDS and a dusty. Too much dust (or cat hair, if NuBus slot, choose a NuBus one. PDS cards, you work in a pet-filled household) can foul a although faster, must be designed with a slot’s connections, thereby preventing cards from specific Mac and processor in mind. As a working properly. To clean your Mac’s expansion result, several different shapes and sizes of slots, spray compressed air at an angle to the PDS cards — very few of which are truly slot. Compressed air is readily available at interchangeable — are available today. NuBus photographic-supply stores. cards, on the other hand, vary only in size and are interchangeable.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 93 REMOVABLE-MEDIA DRIVES ZD LABS Removablesa Now you can store over 200 MB of data on a single SyQuest, Bernoulli, or feast magneto-optical cartridge. If you play your cards right, strengths and weaknesses; before settling on a removable- you can save some money too. media drive, get to know each type and see how well each is suited to the sort of work you do. To help you find a drive By Jim Shatz-Akin that meets your particular requirements, we tested 51 drives that use cartridges with capacities in the range of he stories are all too familiar: You’re a graphics pro 200 to 270 MB — greater than those of many installed needing to transfer ever larger files to a service bu- Macintosh hard disks. reau, or you’ve just landed a contract with a cus- tomer that requires you to send large amounts of An Overview of the Technology T time-critical data overnight. Maybe you are an Thirty-five of the drives we tested for this report use engineer working on high-security projects that require SyQuest mechanisms and have much in common with con- you to lock up sensitive data every night. Or perhaps you ventional hard drives: Each cartridge encloses an alumi- simply need somewhere to park data you don’t require all num disk covered with a microscopic coating of magnetic the time, so that it doesn’t end up crowding your hard disk. material. Data is written to and read from the disk by a pair The answer to your problems could lie with a high-capacity of electromagnetic heads mounted on the ends of radial removable-storage system. arms that travel just above and below the disk’s surface. We Removable-storage drives are functionally (although tested drives based on two varieties of SyQuest mecha- not technically) analogous to floppy-disk drives. When you nisms — 17 of the drives have 5.25-inch, 200-MB mecha- insert a formatted cartridge into a removable-media drive, nisms, and 18 have 3.5-inch, 270-MB ones. the cartridge mounts as a volume on your Macintosh’s Like SyQuest drives, Bernoulli removable-media drives desktop. Just like floppies, cartridges can be used for use cartridges that contain disks coated with magnetic backup or for storage. material; however, these disks are made of a flexible plastic This repor t focuses on removable-media drives based on similar to that used for floppy disks. Each cartridge con- three types of mechanism — SyQuest, Bernoulli, and mag- tains a pair of disks sandwiched together. The drive con-

neto-optical. Each removable-media technology has tains a pair of read/write heads, one on each side of the disk / STEVEN UNDERWOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

94 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 95 REMOVABLE-MEDIA DRIVES

sandwich. Bernoulli systems take their name from a metal’s magnetic properties change, so the drive’s elec- phenomenon known as the Bernoulli effect: As the disks tromagnet can influence the domain’s magnetic polar- spin, air moves from the center outward over them, ity. The drive takes advantage of the Kerr effect to read passing between the disks and the heads. The resulting data: A low-intensity laser beam reflected through a reduction in air pressure between the disks and the domain’s polarized magnetic field twists clockwise or heads causes the disks to separate slightly, which moves counterclockwise, depending on the domain’s polarity. the magnetic surfaces close enough to the heads to al- A sensor on the drive interprets the direction of the low data transfer. The only Bernoulli drive we tested is twist as a 1 or a 0. sold by Iomega, the developer of the Bernoulli mecha- Optical mechanisms are manufactured by a variety nism. Expect to also see Bernoulli drives from other ven- of firms. (The 15 drives we tested contained mecha- dors soon, however. As we went to press, Spin Peripherals nisms from five manufacturers.) Most manufacturers announced plans to sell a Bernoulli drive for $399. have developed systems that use 3.5-inch cartridges Magneto-optical drives, commonly called optical with capacities of 230 MB each. drives, use cartridges that each contain a plastic disc All the optical drives we tested, with the exception of with metal particles embedded in its surface. The drive OCEAN’s, conform to an industry standard agreed on writes data to a given spot (domain) on the disc by using by numerous mechanism manufacturers. Mechanisms a tightly focused laser on one side of the disc and a high- from companies such as Fujitsu, Laserbyte, Olympus, intensity electromagnet on the opposite side: An in- and Panasonic can all read from and write to the same tense laser pulse momentarily heats a sector of the disc 230-MB cartridges as well as to the older 128-MB vari- to the Curie point of the embedded metal particles (302 ety. (SyQuest mechanisms are manufactured only by degrees Fahrenheit). At this critical temperature, the SyQuest, and Bernoulli mechanisms are made only by

The Bottom Line

PRICE/ CUSTOMER CONSTRUCTIONDOCUMENTATION ZD ONCE YOU DECIDE on the removable-media technology 270-MB SYQUEST DRIVES, CONTINUED PERFORMANCESERVICE AND DESIGN AND SOFTWARE LABS that meets your compatibility, speed, and reliability re- mmmh Prima PDQ Portable 270 MB 2322 quirements, you’ll need to pick a drive. Weigh price, customer service mmm Dynatek RMD 270 1322 (tech support and warranty), software features, and case design. mmm FWB HammerDisk PE 250 1222 mmm Liberty 50 Series 270 SyQuest 1231 3 = OUTSTANDING mmm PLI Infinity 270 Turbo 2221 2 = ACCEPTABLE 1 = POOR 200-MB SYQUEST DRIVES mmmmh APS SQ 5200 3332 PRICE/ CUSTOMER CONSTRUCTIONDOCUMENTATION 270-MB SYQUEST DRIVES PERFORMANCESERVICE AND DESIGN AND SOFTWARE The quick, well-constructed APS SQ 5200 ($499 direct) mmmmh MacProducts Magic tops our list of 200-MB SyQuest drives. The drive has a good SyQuest 270 3322 price as well as bells and whistles such as active termina- A low price and lots of zip make MacProducts’ Magic tion, and APS provides excellent tech support. SyQuest 270 ($399 direct) our choice for a 270-MB SyQuest mmmmh MacProducts Magic drive. MacProducts’ customer service is good, and the SyQuest 200 3322 drive’s case is nicely constructed. mmmmh Spin SyQuest 200 3322 mmmmh Spin SyQuest 270 3322 mmmm ClubMac SyQuest 200 3222 mmmm APS SQ 3270 2332 mmmm Mac Zone Performantz mmmh ClubMac SyQuest 270 2222 200MB Removable 3222 mmmh La Cie Joule 270MB mmmh La Cie ZFP SyQuest 200MB Removable Drive 2322 Removable Drive 2322 mmmh Mac Zone Performantz 270MB mmmh MacConnection MDS Removable 2222 SyQuest 200 2322 mmmh MacConnection MDS SyQuest 270 2322 mmmh MacWarehouse PowerUser mmmh MacWarehouse PowerUser 270MB 200MB SyQuest Drive 2222 SyQuest Drive 2222 mmmh MASS Microsystems DataPak mmmh MASS Microsystems DataPak 5.25" Removable 2222 3.5" Removable 2222 mmmh MaxConcept LP-SQ200C 2322 mmmh MaxConcept SL-SQ270C 2322 mmmh Microtech RS 200 2322 mmmh MicroNet Advantage 270 mmmh Mirror 200 MB SyQuest 2222 Removable 2222 mmmh Prima PDQ Classic 200 MB 2322 mmmh Microtech RS 270 2322 mmm FWB HammerDisk PE 200 1222 mmmh Mirror 270 MB SyQuest 1222 mmm Liberty 115 Series 200MB SyQuest 1231

96 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 Iomega. All SyQuest cartridges are manufactured by $80 apiece, 270-MB SyQuest cartridges are a little SyQuest or its licensees, and all Bernoulli cartridges are cheaper than 200-MB ones but are still significantly made by Iomega.) costlier than optical cartridges. Only when you buy The OCEAN Vista V256 uses a mechanism that for- enough cartridges to total about 2 GB do optical mats a 3.5-inch optical cartridge to hold 256 MB of data. systems start to compare favorably on a cost- This drive can read from and write to 128-MB car- per-megabyte basis with 200-MB SyQuest tridges but cannot read from the 230-MB cartridges and Bernoulli systems. Optical systems most other 3.5-inch optical drives use. don’t begin to equal the low cost per megabyte of 270-MB SyQuest Most optical A Cartridge to Count On systems until you reach ap- drives support the For most Mac users, the price you pay for the conve- proximately 5 MB’s worth nience of removable storage has more to do with the of cartridges, however (see same industry- cost and reliability of the cartridges you buy than with figure 1). standard cartridge the initial price of a removable-media drive. Perhaps If you frequently send media the most important thing to consider before you buy a through the mail — to service bu- format. removable-media drive is the storage capacity you’ll reaus or to colleagues across the coun- need — not just now, but over the life of the drive — try, for example — the price of a single car- and what you’re willing to pay for it. A SyQuest or Ber- tridge begins to take on special importance. noulli drive is about half the price of an optical drive. Packages can easily get lost or damaged in transit, But at $45 each, optical cartridges are half the price of and the cost of a missing optical cartridge is easier to 200-MB SyQuest and 230-MB Bernoulli cartridges. At take than the bite you’ll feel from a lost SyQuest or Ber- noulli cartridge. If you do plan to move cartridges from place to place — say, send them through the mail or via messenger —

PRICE/ CUSTOMER CONSTRUCTIONDOCUMENTATION or if you plan to keep them around for a long time, you 200-MB SYQUEST DRIVES, CONTINUED PERFORMANCESERVICE AND DESIGN AND SOFTWARE may be concerned about durability. A while back, we mmm MicroNet Advantage 200 investigated the durability of various types of car- Removable 1222 mmm PLI Infinity 200 Turbo 1221 tridges (see “Tough Enough?” July ’94, page 143). We dropped them; exposed them to extreme heat, cold, and 230-MB BERNOULLI DRIVE humidity; mailed them across the U.S.; and sent them mmmh Iomega Bernoulli 230 through airport security systems — and they all sur- Transportable 2322 vived, with their data intact. Our testing didn’t verify 230-MB AND 256-MB MAGNETO-OPTICAL DRIVES the lifetime guarantee many optical-cartridge makers mmmm Pinnacle Micro Tahoe 230 3232 offer or even the five-year guarantee that SyQuest and This small, portable optical drive ($999 list, $940 Iomega each offer on their media, but we did conclude street) offers good speed at a fair price. The Tahoe 230 can that removable media are well suited to the stresses of run off batteries as well as from a standard AC outlet. office use. Nevertheless, optical cartridges offer at least one mmmm APS 230MO 2332 data-integrity advantage over their magnetic competi- mmmm ClubMac Olympus 230MO 3222 tors. Magnetic cartridges are more vulnerable to con- mmmh Dynatek ROS 230 2322 tamination by dust and fingerprints than are optical mmmh La Cie Joule 230MB ones. Because the read/write heads of a magnetic drive Optical Drive 2322 mmmh Liberty 50 Series 230 travel only millimeters from the surface of the disk, a Rewritable Optical 2231 fingerprint looms like a mountain on the disk’s surface mmmh MicroNet Advantage 230MB and can cause a head crash that irreparably damages the Optical 2222 cartridge. mmmh Mirror 230 MB Optical Drive 2222 Optical-drive lasers operate at a far greater distance, mmmh OCEAN Vista V256 3221 so the worst a fingerprint can do is interfere with the mmmh Olympus Deltis 230 MO/Mac 2223 data-transfer process until you open the shutter and mmmh Optima MiniPak 230 MO 2222 clean the disc’s surface. (You cannot clean magnetic mmmh Prima PDQ Portable 230 MO 2322 disks.) SyQuest has tried to diminish the possibility of mmm ADPI RO230 One for All contamination by making it difficult to open the spring- Rewritable Optical 1322 loaded metal cover that conceals the disk inside its 3.5- mmm Fujitsu DynaMO 230 2212 inch cartridge. Similar covers on 5.25-inch magnetic mmm PLI Infinity Optical 230 2221 media can be opened more easily, exposing the disks to Listing is alphabetical within groups of equal mouse ratings. contamination.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 97 REMOVABLE-MEDIA DRIVES

Matching Speed to Need separately from CharisMac for a list price of $149.) When it comes to performance, no removable-media SyQuest and Bernoulli drives can be made to perform drive can match the speed of a hard drive. If you need write verification too, but write verification is turned the speed of a hard drive and the convenience of remov- off in their default settings to maximize speed. If you ability, get a hard drive with a rugged, compact case or enable write verification on a Bernoulli or SyQuest a removable-hard-drive subsystem (see “Choosing the drive, its speed drops by about half, although the drive Right Removable,” November ’93, page 106). But if the is still faster than an optical drive. ability to transport data is your main requirement, speed takes a backseat to price and reliability. A Question of Compatibility The best strategy for using a removable-media drive If you send files to service bureaus or share them with is to keep your working files on your hard disk and move collaborators or if you have an older removable-media less frequently used data to cartridges as necessary. drive, compatibility concerns should factor into your Therefore, if you’re a graphics professional, use your buying decision. fastest storage device — your hard drive — to do all of The SyQuest 5.25-inch-cartridge format is the de your Photoshop and DTP work. And when you need to facto standard in the publishing world. The 200-MB move data to another site, such as a service bureau, SyQuest drives we tested build on this standard, with move the files to cartridges. their ability to read from and write to (but not format) Of course, some of us simply don’t have enough room older 44- and 88-MB cartridges. (The converse is not on our hard disks to work this way. If you need to keep true, however: Older 44- and 88-MB drives don’t sup- working files on a cartridge, the speed of the removable- port 200-MB cartridges.) We expect most service bu- media drive is a more important consideration. To see reaus to begin using the 200-MB drives soon, but check how the drives we tested stack up in terms of speed, we with yours before you buy one. subjected them to a battery of tests with real-world ap- Less pervasive in the service-bureau world are 3.5- plications (see figure 2 for the results of our tests). The inch SyQuest and optical drives and 5.25-inch Bernoulli drives that have 200- or 270-MB SyQuest mechanisms drives. Bernoulli drives are the predominant remov- are the overall speed leaders. The Iomega Bernoulli able-media option in the PC world, which makes them a drive proved slightly slower in our tests than logical choice if you need to share data with users of the SyQuest ones. non-Mac systems. Optical drives are gaining popularity The two SyQuest with printers and publishers. The 270-MB SyQuest The Optical Slowdown drives can read from and write to 105-MB SyQuest car- cartridge types The drives with optical mecha- tridges, and the Iomega Bernoulli 230 Transportable share the same nisms were generally the can read from and write to all previous-generation Ber- slowest in our tests, for sev- noulli cartridges. The 230-MB optical drives can read technology and eral reasons. For starters, the from and write to the 128-MB cartridges used in the similar storage lens assembly that travels over an previous generation of optical drives. optical disc’s surface to read and write Note that unless you’re using an optical cartridge, capacities. data is far heavier (and therefore slower) even if the new, higher-capacity drive you want can read than the tiny magnetic heads SyQuest and data from and write it to older, lower-capacity car- Bernoulli mechanisms use. Optical drives are tridges, you pay a substantial speed penalty when you also slower because of the manner in which they use a higher-capacity drive to write to older, lower- perform write operations: Magnetic drives can write capacity cartridges: In our tests, a 200-MB SyQuest data in one pass that transfers data in a burst of 1s and drive took more than five times as long to write to an 88- 0s, but optical drives require a two-pass process: an MB cartridge as it did to a 200-MB one and Bernoulli erase pass that resets target domains to 0s, followed by a 230-MB and SyQuest 270-MB drives took nearly three write pass that fills in the 1s. times as long when writing to 150-MB and 105-MB car- One more reason for optical drives’ relative slowness tridges, respectively, than when writing to their native- is their default usage of a write-verification mode: This capacity cartridges. The lower the capacity of the older safety operation entails reading back a block of data to cartridges, the more dramatic this speed hit became. ensure its integrity after it’s been written, which adds an extra pass to every write operation, exacting a signifi- Choosing Your Drive cant speed penalty. (CharisMac’s Anubis Turbo MO Once you’ve settled on a technology that meets your driver, which ships with the Fujitsu DynaMO 230, can price, reliability, and speed criteria, how do you zero in shave as much as one-third of the time off the writing on the drive that’s best for you? Focus on case design process by preerasing unused portions of the disc while and construction, software features, and the quality of the drive is idle. The Anubis Turbo MO driver, which the vendor’s tech support. works with other optical drives as well, is available Among drives based on the same technology, the

98 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 figure 1 ZD LABS Cost per Megabyte / your best removable-media buy

$5,000 SyQuest and Bernoulli cartridges can 1-GB hard drive(s) Optical media cost twice as much as optical ones. ($700) Optical-drive prices, though, are twice $4,500 Magnetic media those of magnetic-media drives. As you 200-MB SyQuest drive ($409) and cartridges After a high initial investment, purchase more cartridges, your cost of $4,000 ($92 each) optical media provide a relatively ownership shifts in favor of 270-MB low price per megabyte. SyQuest and optical technology. We added $3,500 230-MB Bernoulli drive the cost of media to the purchase price of ($505) and cartridges ($99 each) the least expensive SyQuest (200-MB and $3,000 270-MB), Bernoulli, and optical drives in 256-MB optical drive this report. We also plotted the cost of $2,500 ($890) and cartridges using hard drives to transport extremely ($68 each) large digital-video and prepress files to $2,000 service bureaus or production facilities. 270-MB SyQuest drive ($399) and cartridges A SyQuest system is cheaper than an $1,500 ($79 each) optical one for less than 2 GB (seven to ten cartridges) of storage. If you need 5 GB’s 230-MB optical drive $1,000 worth, a 270-MB SyQuest system is still ($895) and cartridges less expensive than an optical system. ($45 each) $500 Below 2 GB, a large hard drive costs less than a removable-media drive and the TOTAL COST OF DRIVE(S) AND CARTRIDGES cartridges needed to equal that storage $0 1 GB 2 GB 3 GB 4 GB 5 GB 6 GB 7 GB capacity. Beyond 2 GB, all removable- Drive and one cartridge media options beat hard drives. STORAGE CAPACITY

most significant differences we noticed involved case battery pack and carrying case. Taking your drive with design. Most of the 5.25-inch drives have mechanisms you can end compatibility worries, if a colleague doesn’t housed in horizontal, zero-footprint cases — so named use the same removable-media technology you do. for their ability to sit beneath the old compact Macs without occupying any additional desk space. (Iomega Drives with a Lot in Common puts a twist on this time-tested design with a foldout Except for aesthetic differences, the drives we reviewed carrying handle built in to its Bernoulli 230 Transport- were very similar. Each ships with a cable that lets you able drive.) The 3.5-inch SyQuest and optical drives are connect it directly to your desktop Mac’s 25-pin SCSI smaller than the zero-footprint drives, and some can be connector. Only Microtech ships its drives with a sec- placed either horizontally or vertically on your desk. ond cable, which lets you daisy-chain a Microtech drive Some drives include extra AC outlets that can reduce to another 50-pin SCSI device. The Iomega Bernoulli power-strip tangles and have helpful indicator LEDs 230 Transportable comes with a 25-to-50-pin adapter that inform you when the drive is on and when your Mac that allows its cable to be used at the beginning or in the is accessing the disk. middle of a SCSI chain. Several drives boast extraordinary case designs. La Most drives use standard external terminators, al- Cie’s sleek Joule case, for example, is part of a line of though a few — such as those from Iomega and PLI — modular storage devices that includes hard drives, tape have a handy switch you can flip to turn termination on drives, and 3.5-inch removable-media drives. Your first or off. Some drives, such as those from APS and La Cie, Joule device must include a Joule base, which contains a go a step further by having active termination, which power supply and a Joule cap containing a terminator intelligently cancels electrical noise on the SCSI bus. and a built-in SCSI cable. You can add more devices to All the drives we tested come with driver software the stack for a relatively low cost, because they don’t re- that lets you create multiple partitions. This can come quire a power supply or termination. Liberty’s 270-MB in handy if you need to store confidential files on the SyQuest and 230-MB optical drives are outstanding not same cartridge as shared files — you can password- only for their compact size but also for their ability to protect one partition while leaving others accessible. run on built-in rechargeable batteries. The Pinnacle The Olympus Deltis 230 MO/Mac’s software (Soft- Micro Tahoe 230 is also designed for portability and ware Architects’ Formatter Five) lets you create PC and is available with an optional rechargeable, external Mac partitions — a convenience if you share data with

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 99 REMOVABLE-MEDIA DRIVES

figure 2 ZD LABS Scrutinizing Removable-Media Drives / how they compare

It’s a close race among SyQuest,

Bernoulli, and magneto-optical drives. Switchable Active Has extra Money-back Toll-free List price Street price termination termination AC outlets guarantee tech supportWarranty Many drives sport the same features, and 270-MB SYQUEST DRIVES price gaps are narrowing. If you need ✓ MacProducts Magic SyQuest 270 $399 $399 222222 years storage capacities of under 5 GB, SyQuest Prima PDQ Portable 270 MB $688 $580 221 year and Bernoulli drives are most cost- Spin SyQuest 270 $429 $429 222 years effective. For larger capacities, optical Mac Zone Performantz 270MB Removable $488 $488 222 years drives begin to be the best value in cost Dynatek RMD 270 $714 $620 22 * 2 2 years per megabyte. MaxConcept SL-SQ270C $645 $570 222 years APS SQ 3270 $529 $529 22 222 years As for speed, the SyQuest drives were La Cie Joule 270MB Removable Drive $569 $569 222221 year the overall leaders, with the Iomega Microtech RS 270 $627 $590 222 years Bernoulli 230 Transportable close behind. MicroNet Advantage 270 Removable $609 $570 2 1 year To find out how quickly the drives run in Mirror 270 MB SyQuest $599 $599 2222 years a variety of situations, we performed six FWB HammerDisk PE 250 $829 $650 2 2 years tests. First, we copied an 18-MB file from MASS Microsystems DataPak 3.5" Removable $764 $580 223 years MacWarehouse PowerUser 270MB SyQuest Drive $579 $579 2222 years a hard disk to a cartridge to give us an Liberty 50 Series 270 SyQuest $699 $699 22 2 1 year indication of how the drives perform as PLI Infinity 270 Turbo $651 $600 2221 year backup or archival devices. Next, we ClubMac SyQuest 270 $489 $489 22 2 2 years opened a 10-MB Photoshop file to find MacConnection MDS SyQuest 270 $539 $539 222 years out how quickly the drives read a large contiguous file (this test is a good 200-MB SYQUEST DRIVES indicator of how well the drives perform ClubMac SyQuest 200 $488 $488 22 2 2 years MacProducts Magic SyQuest 200 $449 $449 2 years for playing back video or audio data). We 22222 La Cie ZFP SyQuest 200MB Removable Drive $599 $599 2† 2† 2221 year saved the same file to find out how MaxConcept LP-SQ200C $749 $600 222 years quickly the drives write a contiguous file. Prima PDQ Classic 200 MB $719 $610 221 year We also saved a PageMaker file that MASS Microsystems DataPak 5.25" Removable $785 $610 22 23 years consisted of several elements — text, Mac Zone Performantz 200MB Removable $488 $488 2222 years photographic images, and graphics — to Spin SyQuest 200 $409 $409 222222 years find out how quickly the drives perform PLI Infinity 200 Turbo $775 $680 2222 years ✓ APS SQ 5200 $499 $499 22 222 years when they have to both find and write FWB HammerDisk PE 200 $849 $700 2 2 years data. By sorting a database in 4th Mirror 200 MB SyQuest $599 $599 2222 years Dimension, we were able to find out how Liberty 115 Series 200MB SyQuest $699 $699 22 2 1 year quickly the drives find and read MacConnection MDS SyQuest 200 $529 $529 2222 years randomly located data. Finally, we ran Microtech RS 200 $655 $600 2222 years MacBench 1.1, our standard testing tool MacWarehouse PowerUser 200MB SyQuest Drive $579 $579 2222 years MicroNet Advantage 200 Removable $719 $700 2 1 year (available from ZiffNet/Mac), on each drive to determine each drive’s overall 230-MB BERNOULLI DRIVE speed for a variety of common Iomega Bernoulli 230 Transportable $582 $500 2222 years productivity tasks. The drives in these charts are ranked in order of overall 230-MB AND 256-MB MAGNETO-OPTICAL DRIVES performance for each category. Prima PDQ Portable 230 MO $1,214 $1,020 221 year Liberty 50 Series 230 Rewritable Optical $1,099 $1,099 22 2 1 year Dynatek ROS 230 $1,099 $1,000 22 * 2 1 year PLI Infinity Optical 230 $1,298 $1,070 2221 year APS 230MO $999 $999 22 222 years MicroNet Advantage 230MB Optical $1,075 $1,000 2 1 year ClubMac Olympus 230MO $895 $895 22 2 2 years Olympus Deltis 230 MO/Mac $1,195 $1,000 22 22 years La Cie Joule 230MB Optical Drive $1,069 $1,069 222221 year ✓ Pinnacle Micro Tahoe 230 $999 $940 221 year Optima MiniPak 230 MO § $1,110 2 1 year Fujitsu DynaMO 230 $1,195 $890 22 * 1 year Mirror 230 MB Optical Drive $979 $979 221 year OCEAN Vista V256 $1,123 $890 221 year ADPI RO230 One for All Rewritable Optical $1,389 $1,389 2† 2† 221 year ✓ MacUser RECOMMENDS *Depends on the dealer. †Optional. §Optima does not provide list prices.

100 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 Finder copy Photoshop open Photoshop save PageMaker save 4D sort MacBench 1.1

SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER SLOWER FASTER 28 19 29 41 62 15 27 20 30 40 63 15 28 19 29 41 62 14 28 19 29 41 63 14 28 20 30 40 62 15 28 19 29 41 63 14 30 19 30 42 61 14 27 21 30 40 63 14 29 19 30 42 61 14 28 20 29 41 63 14 28 19 31 41 64 14 28 20 30 40 64 14 28 19 30 40 66 13 30 19 30 43 64 14 31 19 31 43 65 13 33 19 32 44 63 14 33 19 32 44 62 14 33 19 32 45 65 13

25 22 26 42 79 13 25 21 27 42 76 13 26 22 27 43 74 13 25 22 27 43 78 13 24 23 27 42 78 13 24 22 27 41 81 13 25 22 27 43 79 13 25 22 27 43 79 13 25 22 27 43 79 13 25 22 27 43 79 13 25 22 27 42 80 13 24 22 27 42 81 13 25 22 27 43 81 13 26 22 27 43 81 13 25 22 27 44 83 13 26 22 27 43 83 12 25 24 27 43 81 12

28 26 30 36 62 10

79 21 74 98 75 6 79 21 71 98 79 6 79 21 71 100 79 6 79 22 69 99 81 6 69 30 62 88 77 6 79 23 70 98 79 6 69 29 64 88 77 6 69 29 64 89 78 6 87 23 71 102 78 6 88 22 73 104 79 6 86 22 75 101 79 6 79 25 71 98 78 6 87 23 76 101 85 6 86 31 67 98 100 5 89 32 76 110 103 5 0 45 90 0 15 30 0 40 80 0 60 120 0 50 100 0 8 16 TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS TIME IN SECONDS DISK MIX INDEX

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 101 REMOVABLE-MEDIA DRIVES

people who use other platforms. For about $300 more, depends on your budget (for a drive today as well as for you can get the same drive with Formatter Five Pro, additional cartridges tomorrow), your requirements which creates Mac, PC, Scitex, and Crosfield partitions for compatibility with others’ systems, drive speed, (the latter two are important for prepress users). drive-case design and construction, and “intangibles” Olympus drives also come with file-format-translation such as customer service and tech support. software that lets you convert files between standards. A 230-MB optical drive costs considerably more than Even tech support is becoming more homo- a SyQuest drive. But for those whose storage needs ex- geneous. Most vendors now offer two-year war- ceed 5 GB, the lower cost of optical cartridges compared ranties and toll-free tech support. Money- to SyQuest media can make an optical system a good in- back guarantees are common; only four vestment in the long run. Some users also favor optical Sturdy construction vendors do not offer them. media’s invulnerability to dust and fingerprints. and a unique airflow To test each vendors’ techni- The 230-MB Bernoulli drive we tested is a solid prod- cal competency, we made uct and is compatible with older Bernoulli cartridges, system are the two anonymous phone calls, which may be important for users who have already hallmarks of Iomega’s asking typical questions (Why bought into Bernoulli technology. Although Bernoulli won’t the cartridge mount? and drives aren’t particularly well accepted among graphics Bernoulli technology. Why doesn’t an old removable-media users, they are extremely popular among PC users and drive work since we added a new one to might be the best option for those whose Macs are step- the SCSI chain?). Twenty-one vendors an- children within PC organizations. swered both questions correctly; only FWB, Finally, if it boils down to speed, stick with a SyQuest OCEAN, Olympus, and Pinnacle Micro were able drive. The 270-MB drives are the speediest overall, but to answer only one of the two. But we gave an Out- the 200-MB drives give them a run for their money and standing rating in this category solely to those vendors offer the benefit of reading from and writing to older, whose staff not only answered the questions correctly established 44- and 88-MB cartridges. but also did so promptly and courteously. Jim Shatz-Akin is a MacUser associate editor. ZD Labs project The Endgame leader David Kison supervised the testing for this report. All three types of removable-media drives — SyQuest, MacBench 1.1, the benchmark software used to test the removable-media drives for this report, is available Bernoulli, and magneto-optical — can meet your on-line on ZiffNet/Mac. See page 4 for instructions on needs for data portability. Which type is best for you accessing ZiffNet/Mac.

Directory / vendors of removable-media drives tested

ADPI Fujitsu Computer MacConnection MASS Microsystems OCEAN Microsystems PLI (Peripheral Troy, OH Products of America Marlow, NH Milpitas, CA Cypress, CA Land, Inc.) 800-758-1041 San Jose, CA 800-800-2222 800-522-7970 800-944-6232 Fremont, CA 513-339-2241 800-626-4686 603-446-7711 408-956-5999 714-898-1340 800-788-9440 513-339-0070 (fax) 408-432-6333 603-446-7791 (fax) 408-956-5995 (fax) 714-891-8484 (fax) 510-657-2211 408-894-1706 (fax) 510-683-9713 (fax) APS Technologies MacProducts USA MaxConcept Olympus Image Kansas City, MO FWB Austin, TX San Diego, CA Systems Prima 800-233-7550 San Francisco, CA 800-624-9307 619-530-9014 Woodbury, NY International 816-483-6100 415-474-8055 512-892-4070 619-530-9032 (fax) 800-347-4027 Santa Clara, CA 816-483-3077 (fax) 415-775-2125 (fax) 512-892-4455 (fax) 516-364-3000 800-737-7462 MicroNet Technology 516-677-1699 (fax) 408-727-2600 ClubMac Iomega MacWarehouse Irvine, CA 408-727-2435 (fax) Irvine, CA Roy, UT Lakewood, NJ 714-453-6100 Optima Technology 800-258-2622 800-777-6654 800-255-6227 714-453-6101 (fax) Irvine, CA Spin Peripherals 714-768-8130 801-778-1000 908-370-4779 714-476-0515 Newton Upper 714-768-9354 (fax) 801-778-3450 (fax) 908-905-9279 (fax) Microtech 714-476-0613 (fax) Falls, MA International 800-466-1200 Dynatek La Cie The Mac Zone East Haven, CT Pinnacle Micro 617-630-1200 Automation Beaverton, OR Bellevue, WA 800-626-4276 Irvine, CA 617-630-1201 (fax) Systems 800-999-0143 800-248-0800 203-468-6223 800-553-7070 Halifax, NS 503-520-9000 206-603-2550 203-468-6466 (fax) 714-727-3300 Canada 503-520-9100 (fax) 206-603-2500 (fax) 714-789-3150 (fax) 800-461-8855 Mirror Technologies 902-832-3000 Liberty Systems Edina, MN 902-832-3010 (fax) San Jose, CA 800-643-2680 408-983-1127 612-830-1549 408-243-2885 (fax) 612-832-5709 (fax)

102 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 DESKTOP PUBLISHING ILLUSTRATION / FreeHand 5.0 Adds Features, Plug-ins New version ups the ante for Illustrator. PROFESSIONAL ILLUSTRATORS used to you can use the Graphic Se- buy both Aldus FreeHand and Adobe Illus- lection and PathFinder plug- trator, because each program had tools the ins from Illustrator on any other lacked. Now back in the hands of its object in FreeHand 5.0. Its plug-ins go be- without developer, Altsys, FreeHand 5.0 may put an yond filters, encompassing 30 new tools as having to use an individual palette. end to that purchasing practice, because it well. Among the new tools are a fish-eye Responding to user complaints about supports the Illustrator plug-in format and tool that distorts selected objects just like a certain features having been removed in offers unique tools that Adobe’s product fish-eye lens does and a new eyedropper version 4, Altsys reinstated the Text Editor currently lacks. that picks up color from drawn objects as dialog box, control of spreads and chokes, FreeHand’s open architecture supports well as imported TIFF files. and a line-weight pop-up menu. It also all current Illustrator plug-ins, meaning Plug-ins are great, but FreeHand 5.0 also made the interface configurable. offers a host of features that put it on a par The feature set alone makes FreeHand with Illustrator 5.5, including multicolor 5.0 an enticing upgrade. Upgrade pricing Prepress-Quality Scans gradient fills, multiple views of a drawing, had not been set at press time, but the retail for Desktop Publishers objects as guides, and layer-by-layer pre- price remains $595. 415-252-2000. view. In addition, Altsys offers an interac- Note: At press time, Altsys agreed to PREPRESS SHOPS are where you find most tive spelling checker; a search-and-replace merge with Macromedia, giving FreeHand PixelCraft scanners. Now the company has decided to bring high-end features to a low- tool for text; magnification as great as the distinction of being the only major Mac cost scanner, the Pro Imager 4000. 25,600 percent; and a new Style browser software product to be published by three The $2,995 Pro Imager 4000 is a boon for that gives you a handy way to change any major companies — Aldus, Adobe, and designers who work with hard copy as well feature of an object, such as the fill color, Macromedia. / Sean J. Safreed as transparencies. It scans reflective art as large as 8.3 x 11.7 inches and transmis- IMAGE DATABASES / sive originals up to 8 x 10 inches. The Pro Imager captures 10 bits Drag-and-Drop Image Cataloging of data per color in a SYSTEM 7.5 INTEGRATES numerous prior en- how to integrate images from any catalog into single pass and boasts hancements to the system, such as AppleScript your page-layout program automatically. For and Macintosh Drag and Drop, into one unified instance, with a sample script included with a resolution of 600 x release. Cumulus PowerPro 2.1, from Canto Cumulus, you can use your photos to produce a 2,400 dpi (with a top Software, exploits both of these technologies contact sheet in PageMaker. resolution of 2,400 x to make image cataloging easier. Cumulus also allows you to import images 2,400 dpi through soft- AppleScript, Apple’s scripting language, au- into QuarkXPress through Drag and Drop. For ware interpolation). tomates tasks within an application and across example, dragging a picture from the Cumulus A key feature of the applications that support it. Cumulus ships window to an open layout in QuarkXPress auto- Pro Imager 4000 is its bundled software. with a variety of sample scripts that show you matically creates a picture box and drops in a PixelCraft’s scanning and color-correction photo. Cumulus extends the drag-and- software is some of the best in the business, drop metaphor a step further by turning and the Pro Imager 4000 ships with the any picture or piece of text into a drag-and- drop element. So the tedious chore of as- same package as its big brother, the $12,995 signing keywords can become a one-step Pro Imager 8000. QuickScan lets you pre- operation; all you have to do is drag key- view, crop, and scale images before scan- words from a list into any database field. ning; you can also set it to batch-scan a se- Besides running native on the Power ries of images. Color Access converts RGB Mac, this version has an improved client/ data into CMYK data for color correction in server architecture that speeds searches. the program. Both programs also work as Cumulus PowerLite — a single-user ver- plug-ins to Adobe Photoshop. 800-933- sion — lists for $199; the five-user client/ 0330 or 510-562-2480. / Pamela Pfiffner server PowerPro version is $1,495. 415- 431-6871. / SJS

104 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 FINE PRINT Where to Find Hot Type Image Editing Without Photoshop LOOKING FOR SOME FUNKY FONTS? Then ALTERNATIVES TO PHOTOSHOP abound these pictures in a catalog that look like a sunset. order FontBook, FontShop International’s days. If you work with photos, check out Apple’s PhotoFlash now offers rudimentary color catalog. Founded by Erik Spiekermann PhotoFlash 2.0 or Microspot’s PhotoFix. correction through a new color-correction fil- PhotoFlash 2.0. Not an image-editing ap- ter, although it doesn’t let you edit CMYK im- in Berlin six years ago, plication per se, PhotoFlash makes it simple to ages. It also comes with new scripts for placing FontShop distributes cut- put pictures into any document. The new ver- photos in FileMaker Pro and Word 6.0 and a CD- ting-edge typefaces from sion allows multiple open catalogs and drag- ROM of images from Clement Mok Designs. small foundries such as and-drop among catalogs, and it offers more Apple has lowered the price to $129; upgrade, Emigre, The Font Bureau, AppleScript features than its predecessor did. $39. 408-996-1010. and Carter & Cone as well It additionally has a nice search feature that PhotoFix. This new $250 program offers im- as mainstream fonts from looks at a picture and identifies matches by ap- age cataloging, via Kudo’s Image Browser. It the usual suspects. Font- pearance, so, for instance, you can locate all the also includes multicolor gradients, filters for Shop’s exclusive blur and sharpen, and advanced color-correc- FontFont collec- tion capabilities. PhotoFix enables you to use Photoshop plug-in filters and switch among tion offers fonts folders instantly. created by such The program includes a High Quality Print- enfants terribles of Euro- ing feature, which allows you to get a better pean type design as Neville color match between your printer and your Brody, Erik van Bloklund, monitor. In addition, an extended color picker Just van Rossum, and Pierre lets you create your own color picker by select- di Sciullo. FontBook costs $39, ing a range of colors from an open image. You but it’s worth it. Call FontShop’s new U.S. can’t work in CMYK mode, although you can office, in Chicago, at 800-897-3872 or 312- export images as CMYK files. 800-622-7568 or 360-1990. ✧ For a dose of irreverence 408-253-2000. / Jason Snell along with your fonts, try a package from GRAPHIC TOOLS / House Industries. This design shop sells witty, eponymously named font families (Doghouse, Housemaid, and so on) in ultra- hip packaging. Order ten faces ($150), and Polish Up Your Granite get a killer T-shirt. (Call for the new catalog WOOD AND MARBLE backgrounds make variety of looks. $199. 206-622-5500. featuring Housewear, a complete line of clothing.) 800-888-4390 or 302-888-1218. an elegant statement in any presentation. Alien Skin, from Virtus, lacks Texture- ✧ Rather than purchase a CD-ROM of static Maker’s easy customization, but it produces Linotype-Hell may be one of the oldest type foundries around, but its new Face2- textures, you can use texture-making soft- otherworldly textures with one-button sim- Face collection ($120) is anything but ware to create your own. There’s been a slew plicity. A click of the texture-generator but- stodgy. Face2Face includes eight original of texture generators recently, including ton produces several variations on the cur- display fonts with a decidedly modern bent two new programs from Adobe and Virtus. rently selected texture. Drag-and-drop packaged with an eye-popping poster and Adobe TextureMaker 1.0 focuses on swatches allow you to save textures in cus- a matching T-shirt. 800-799-4922 or 516- unique natural textures. It ships with more tom libraries. Alien Skin offers hundreds of 434-2000. ✧ Less avant-garde but just as than 100 templates in categories such as textures and is available as either a stand- fresh is Eaglefeather, a new font from Agfa marble, wood, granite, and fabric. All the alone application or as a Photoshop plug-in. textures use a layering method that uses $99. 919-467-9700. prebuilt texture generators and filters to You might recognize Alien Skin as the achieve a natural look. For instance, you name of a company. Alien Skin Software can use a granite generator in combination wrote Virtus’ Alien Skin application, and with a noise filter in order to create stone. the company additionally publishes a set When you apply the of Photoshop filters custom lighting con- called The Black Box. based on the lettering of that 20th-century trols and engraving ef- The filters are Power radical Frank Lloyd Wright. Designed by fects of TextureMaker, Mac-native and in- David Siegel (the man behind Adobe’s you can render a pro- clude such operations hugely popular Tekton), Eaglefeather is fessional-looking tex- as automatic creation sanctioned by the Wright Foundation and is ture. You can use Photo- of drop shadows and sold exclusively through Agfa. The font has shop-compatible filters instantaneous text em- 15 faces with formal, informal, and small- with TextureMaker too, bossing. $89. 919-832- cap styles. $45 each, $345 for all 15. 800- 424-8973 or 415-431-6871. /PP to provide an endless 4124. / SJS

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 105 DESKTOP PUBLISHING

PAGE LAYOUT / BY KATHLEEN TINKEL Pumping Up PageMaker Left in the dust by other plug-in technologies, Additions are growing up, filling out, and ready to add muscle to Adobe’s page-layout workhorse.

upgrade version 3 files). DisBatch ($99) PAGEMAKER’S TREK on the comeback trail has runs scripts and can perform almost un- been long and frustrating. Despite real advances, the limited operations on PageMaker files — that is, if you can write scripts in Page- program has been criticized for its apparent inability to Maker’s scripting language. The DisBatch package includes a helpful booklet, Script cater to power users on the one hand and to the niche Addendum, along with seven useful scripts. marketplace on the other. No program can now that Adobe has acquired Aldus. Adobe Adobe sells a book called Script Language be all things to all users, but PageMaker is has announced plans to strengthen and Guide to help you master PageMaker’s extending its reach with clever add-ons. expand the Additions effort by encourag- scripting language. Like Photoshop’s plug-ins and Quark- ing developers of plug-ins for Photoshop Zephyr’s Specs ($199), which should be XPress’ XTensions, PageMaker’s Additions and Illustrator to participate. In the mean- shipping by the time you read this, is a technology can turn a slow-and-steady time, most users will find useful tools superlibrary in which you can store sets of workhorse into a rocket ship. among the current crop, some of which we mixed page elements or styles for use later PageMaker’s Additions effort got off to a explore here. or elsewhere. Double-clicking on any of the faltering start. Developers were not given The Aldus Developers Cooperative (800- elements brings up the appro- the keys to the kingdom — access to Page- 685-3547 or 206-343-4221; 206-233-7404 priate dialog box — for Maker’s core code — but rather had to [fax]) sells most of these Additions. example, select- fumble around outside the program, auto- Some of them may also be available mating functions users could already per- from the developers, and one or two form manually. In contrast, Quark’s XTen- — including Extensis’ PageTools — sions use a technology that lets them send are sold through software retail software hooks deep into QuarkXPress’ channels. heart to drive the program into completely SmartAlign, Layout Grids, Clean- new territory (see “XTraordinary XTen- Sweep, and DisBatch. All of Zephyr sions,” November ’94, page 109). Design’s Additions ease bottlenecks But as the Additions technology evolved, and speed up work flow. Among Aldus worked one-on-one with developers, them, SmartAlign ($89) makes up for one of giving them deeper access to PageMaker PageMaker’s more irritating shortcomings functions when necessary. The Additions by letting you automatically align or distrib- ing a type item brings up the Type Specifi- technology is still fairly young, but we’re be- ute objects by edges or centers. Layout Grids cations dialog box. ginning to see both highly focused utilities ($89) makes the grid and guide situation Zephyr Design, Seattle, WA; 206-324- — such as the small, inexpensive Additions more rational, so it is easier to position 0292; 206-324-0995 (fax). from Mapsoft that automate a single chore guides. You can save your setups and apply PageTools. A breathtaking $129 collection of (Style Report, for example, prints out an ex- them to other pages and even to other files. new functions and new iconic access to ex- haustive list of text styles, with complete SmartAlign, Layout Grids, and CleanSweep isting functions in both PageMaker and its definitions) — as well as high-end produc- are offered in the Zephyr Essentials pack- Additions, PageTools is an irresistible prod- tion workhorses, such as Integrated Soft- age, which costs $149. uct. PageTools’ icon bar lets you move regu- ware’s $2,000 Ad Maker, which turns DisBatch and CleanSweep are batch pro- larly used but hard-to-access commands PageMaker into an effective classified-ad- cessors. CleanSweep ($49) opens Page- into plain sight. Although PageTools’ default production tool. Maker files from a previous version and icon bar can be confusing, you can custom- It’s still early for Additions, but if any- converts them to version 4 or 5 (it can run ize it by adding or removing as many icons thing, the technology’s future looks rosier under PageMaker 4.2, in case you need to as you like. In fact, it’s a good idea to remove

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 107 DESKTOP PUBLISHING rarely used icons from the icon bar and then file’s styles. Style Report reads a document TrapMaker. The domain of expensive appli- add icons for more-common functions as and then creates a PageMaker file contain- cations such as Adobe’s TrapWise, trapping you use them. The ability to place hidden- ing a formatted listing of all the details, from comes to PageMaker with TrapMaker ($79). away functions within reach is just one of style name, to type settings (including sub- Trapping is the process of adjusting colored PageTools’ virtues — it has many more ordinate settings for super/subscripts and objects on a page to compensate for the strengths than can be detailed in this space. the like), to hyphenation-and-justification misregistration that can occur in offset For more information on PageTools, see settings, to space before-and-after. printing. Depending on the relationships the review in the January ’95 issue, page If anything, Style Report goes too far — between adjacent colors, trapping software 61. it would be more useful if you could specify slightly expands backgrounds (chokes) or Extensis, Portland, OR; 503-274-2020; which settings you care about to avoid objects (spreads) to make unobtrusive over- 503-274-0530 (fax). amassing unwanted data. It would also be laps that prevent distracting slivers of blank ScanTastic-ps. This $99 collection of tools helpful if you could ask for an ASCII file in- paper from showing through. includes an Addition, an XTension, a plug- stead of a formatted PageMaker document. An answer to the autotrapping function- in, and some DAs that let you scan images Mapsoft Computer Services, Newbury, ality built in to QuarkXPress 3.2, Trap- directly into PageMaker as well as into Berkshire, UK; 011-44-635-43-855; 011-44- Maker is elegant and effective for simple QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop. (A new 635-550-097 (fax). chokes and spreads, and it goes the compe- version in the form of a single extension is Fræmz, Arrowz, and Starz. These simple Ad- tition one better in that it can trap parts of slated for release by the time you read this.) ditions ($39 each) provide easy access to objects (stopping when an object passes ScanTastic-ps doesn’t include a straighten- borders, star shapes, and arrows — scroll- from a colored background out onto blank ing tool, nor does it give you the option of ing menus offer a reasonable variety of paper, for example) as well as trap type applying PageMaker’s built-in compression choices and styles. For the arrows and stars, effectively. to scans before import, but it’s relatively fast there are also options for line weight, color, Adobe Systems, Seattle, WA; 800-628- and gives you control over resolution, scale, head and tail shape for the arrow, number 2320 or 206-622-5500. brightness, and contrast. and style of points for the stars, and whether PDF Navigator. This single-minded $69 Ad- ScanTastic-ps’ compact scan-control the shapes are outlined or filled. The arrows dition radically eases the process of turning dialog box is also a surprisingly good tool and stars are vector graphics, stored in a PageMaker files into Adobe Acrobat interac- for introducing the complexities of scan- PICT file. tive portable documents. PDF Navigator ning to a novice. In fact, the program’s small The Fræmz Addition (three libraries sold translates PageMaker’s indexing markers manual offers one of the best brief explana- for $99 per volume or as a bundle for $207) and tables of contents into PDF (Portable tions of halftoning and scanning resolution is actually a series of libraries of preformed Document Format) bookmarks and hyper- available and includes a useful table of out- borders useful for ads, coupons, and certifi- text links, taking a great deal of the tedium put line frequencies with the appropriate cates. The interface is a bit odd — you cre- out of this task. (Using PDF Navigator re- scanning rates. ate a throwaway rectangle, select it, and quires Acrobat Distiller.) Second Glance Software, Laguna Hills, then activate Fræmz. The border fits itself XMan, San Francisco, CA; 415-626-3359. CA; 714-855-2331; 714-586-0930 (fax). to the selected box, which you can then Style Report. This obsessive $29 single-task throw away. Kathleen Tinkel, who writes frequently about desktop publishing for this and other publications, wrote Addition is useful for anyone who needs to Shadetree Marketing, Phoenix, AZ; 602- about QuarkXPress XTensions in MacUser’s November record every jot and tittle of a PageMaker 279-3713; 602-279-1874 (fax). ’94 issue.

figure 2 / ScanTastic-ps’ compact figure 1 / SmartAlign should be spec box lets you control built in to PageMaker, since resolution, halftone frequency, figure 4 / TrapMaker has a and other scanning essentials figure 3 / Fraemz is a aligning and centering objects deceptively simple dialog box from within PageMaker. straightforward time-saver is an essential part of page that lets you apply simple for anyone who needs to use layout. The well-illustrated chokes and spreads on an borders to embellish ads, dialog box gives clear choices. object level as well as by color. coupons, or certificates.

108 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 DESKTOP PUBLISHING

GRAPHICS HOW-TO / BY JANET ASHFORD Blends Versus Gradients What’s the difference between a blend and a gradient? An artist uses each to good effect.

THIS STYLIZED MONOCHROMATIC illustration of Los Angeles circa 1930 by New York illustrator Daniel Pelavin consists of layers of overlapping shapes, most of which are defined by carefully crafted blends in Illustrator 5.5. Using gradient fills, which create blends between colors, would have been easier, but Pelavin had better con- trol of color gradations with the blend tool, which blends objects and colors. For each blend, Pelavin drew starting and ending lines, giving each a colored stroke. With the blend tool, he selected each line and then chose the optimum number of intermediary steps suggested by Illustrator. The result is smooth color gradations that follow the shapes’ forms. Pelavin filled some areas with radial gradients, which allowed him to shift the gradients’ centers so that they provided a more modeled effect. The finished illustra- tion Lost Angeles rivals a traditional airbrushed work, with its glowing, rounded forms.

Janet Ashford is the coauthor, with Linnea Dayton, of Adobe Illustrator: A Visual Guide for the Mac, distributed by Addison-Wesley.

c

a 1. Constructing the background. d The bottom layer of Lost Angeles consists of overlapping shapes that depict a stylized sky and clouds. ab e Making each shape means blending two lines stroked with color, here 2. Using blends, not gradients. If Pelavin had filled each shape with a shades of yellow and gold. Viewing a b linear gradient ( ), the results would not have been as subtle as with each shape in Artwork mode shows color blending between two stroked lines (b). For example, compare how it is constructed (a). An exploded preview over a dark background the appearance of one of the large shapes that make up the sky when reveals the 12 blends that make up the sky background (b). Notice how it contains a gradient (c) with the way it looks with a blend (d). Artwork the color gradations follow the wavy contours. mode shows the blend’s construction (e).

ab c

3. Modeling the car. To create a sleek, stylized 1930s-era automobile, Pelavin used the pen tool to draw several simple rounded shapes and then overlapped them (a). To add a three-dimensional effect to the car, Pelavin filled main shapes such as the back fender with radial gradients from light gold to dark gold. Illustrator automatically centered the gradients in the shapes (b). Pelavin then chose the gradient-fill tool, clicked on the left side of the fender to define a new center point, and dragged to the right to repaint the gradient in that direction (c). The wheels were modeled with blends.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 111 DESKTOP PUBLISHING

EXPERT TIPS / BY BOB SCHAFFEL AND CHUCK WEGER Send In the Substitute! Desktop Color Separation and other image-replacement strategies cut down computer overhead and network traffic by giving you small files for proofing images.

If something happens to the master file, PAGE-LAYOUT FILES from programs such as you can recover it by some trickery — open PageMaker and QuarkXPress are fairly small in terms any one of the DCS high-resolution files in a word processor, copy only its opening com- of megabytes, but the continuous-tone images (“pic- ments to a new file, manually add the DCS linking code shown below to the comments tures” for those of us not in the service-bureau biz) (making sure you get the capitalization, can be huge — overwhelmingly so. When master file can then be used in page layouts punctuation, spacing, and naming correct), turned into a high-resolution, four-color in the design, proof, and approval stages — and then save it as a new master file by giving file, a 4-x-5-inch image swells to 7 MB. If meanwhile, the four high-resolution files it the proper filename. The proofing data and you’re working on a 32-page catalog with are safely tucked away on a server some- the preview will not exist, but the appro- four 4-x-5 color pictures on each page, where, sparing the network a lot of traffic. priate links will. You can then either print that’s 28 MB per page times 32 pages — al- When it’s time for the final separations, the the separations most 900 MB of data that must be passed links point the system to the four high- or, if you want from computer to computer. resolution files. For proofing, only the mas- to restore the These days, a plethora of solutions is ter file need be available on your machine, master file for available to let you avoid having to pass that but for final separations, all five files must proofing and much image data around on your network. be present in the same folder or else the viewing, sim- We group them under the loose category Macintosh will provide a rather nonde- ply reopen the image substitution. This month, we’re going script error message — a beep — to let you master file in Photo- to discuss one of them: Desktop Color know there’s a problem. Renaming the shop and then resave it as an intact DCS file. Separation (DCS). In future columns, we’ll high-resolution separation files (which ap- The point is, there’s no need to trundle talk about OPI (Open Prepress Interface, pear as filename.c., filename.m, and so on) your high-resolution images around along developed by Aldus) and APR (Automatic also destroys the links. with your page layouts. Using DCS can give Picture Replacement, developed by Scitex). Because they’re in EPS format, DCS files your Mac and network a rest. With DCS, a high-resolution image contain special information that permits yields five EPS files. Four separation files the high-resolution data linking. The Post- Bob Schaffel is technology director of the Professional Prepress Alliance. Chuck Weger is an independent contain the high-resolution data for each of Script code shown in “The DCS Link” was consultant and publisher of the Photoshop Monitor the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black com- produced by Photoshop for a sample DCS newsletter. ponents. The fifth file — the master file — master file. Lines that begin contains a screen preview, proofing data, with % are called comments. THE DCS LINK and (most important) links to the high- Applications such as Quark- %!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0 resolution files. XPress and PageMaker use com- %%Creator: Photoshop Version 2.5.1 Because DCS separation files are just EPS ments to handle image substi- %%Title: MacUser DTP Tips files, they can contain clipping paths (al- tution correctly, but the output . . . lowing the definition of silhouettes within device ignores the comments. %%DocumentProcessColors: Cyan Magenta the file). The lines of code that provide Yellow Black %%CyanPlate: MacUser DTP Tips.C The proofing data in the master file is for links to individual files are high- %%MagentaPlate: MacUser DTP Tips.M low-resolution output, so the master file is lighted in blue. They notify the %%YellowPlate: MacUser DTP Tips.Y typically much smaller than the high- page-layout application that the %%BlackPlate: MacUser DTP Tips.K resolution original image (an 8-x-10-inch file has process colors and indi- %%EndComments image in Photoshop might be 27.5 MB, but cate which files contain the high- %%BeginProlog . . . its DCS master file is only about 2 MB). The resolution data.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 113 NETWORKING NETWORK MANAGEMENT / System 7.5 Loses Macs’ Identities APPLE GIVETH AND APPLE TAKETH AWAY, as least as far as report the model number if you install System 7.5 over your existing System 7.5 goes. For all its new features, Apple’s latest system soft- system software instead of installing it on a hard disk that doesn’t ware removes (under certain installation conditions) a feature net- have a previous version of the system. If this type of install doesn’t work managers work or if you’ve already installed 7.5 the other way and lost the have come to rely model name, a freeware extension called MacIdentifier, from on: the ability to Flux Software ([email protected]), can report the model report a Mac’s name to the About This Macintosh dialog box — but not to model name. In- AppleTalk responders. To get full reporting ability, try a utility stead, System 7.5 called MacID, from Neon Software (800-334-6366 or 510- refers to the ma- 283-9771); it comes with Neon’s LAN- chine generically surveyor package. as either a Mac- MacIdentifier and MacID are also intosh, Power Macintosh, or Macintosh available from on-line services; see PowerBook. With previous system soft- page 4 for instructions on accessing ware, the model name was reported to the MacUser’s on-line areas. About This Macintosh dialog box and to Apple told us it was investigating AppleTalk responders — Apple’s own ways to resume providing model and those used in network utilities such as Techworks’ (and now names. If you want to encourage the company in this direction, Saber Software’s) GraceLAN products, Sonic Systems’ Radar, and send e-mail to [email protected]. /Mark Bieler Neon Software’s Traffic Watch. These applications use the Mac- model information to draw maps, update software, and perform MODEMS / inventories. Apple decided not to have System 7.5 report model names be- The Future Is Here (Almost) cause now that the company is using the same motherboard for V.34 MODEMS are proliferating, leery of the new V.34 standard at models in different product families, the model-name information but there’s still cause for caution press time, although it planned in some Macs’ ROMs is no longer reliable. In Apple’s view, no infor- among Mac users hankering to to introduce a V.34 model some- transfer data at rates as high as time in the first quarter of 1995. mation is better than possibly erroneous information. 28.8 kbps. The company said it was being Fortunately, there are ways to prevent or correct model-name Although there’s been a flood cautious out of concern about loss when you upgrade the system software on a Mac that didn’t of V.34 modems available for Macs potential interoperability prob- come with System 7.5 preinstalled. Such Macs will usually still since U.S. Robotics’ Sportster hit lems with so many new, untested the market — with AT&T, E-Tech, products. Hayes, Logicode, Motorola, Multi- One more word of caution for NETWATCH / Tech, Practical Peripherals, and Mac users purchasing V.34 mo- Zoom all joining the fray — keep dems for ARA connections: The A Banner Year for New Technology in mind that the first-wave prod- CCL (connection control language) ucts may require revisions. Rock- files ARA uses to issue modem SINCE WE FIRST REPORTED on these products, some of the ship dates well International, which supplies commands need to be supplied by have slipped. Novell has decided to base its Power Mac NetWare the chip set that controls modems modem vendors at present, since server on the delayed version 4.11 of NetWare. OpenDoc will be sup- from Hayes and Zoom, among Apple has yet to supply them. If ported first in the Mac OS and then in Windows and OS/2 later in the others, experienced some firm- you buy a V.34 modem, make sure year. SoftWindows 2.0 is the version that will support 386 Enhanced ware problems with early versions it comes with the CCLs you mode operation. Some of these ship dates were given by the vendors; of its V.34 chip, causing some mo- need. / Shelly Brisbin others are MacUser’s projections. dems to fail to work properly. At press time, Rockwell announced ORIGINAL ESTIMATED SHIP DATE 1994 1995 that new versions of its chips CURRENT ESTIMATED SHIP DATE NDJFMAMJ JASOND would be backward-compatible to AppleShare for Windows V.FC; look for vendors of Rock- NetWare for PowerPC server well-based modems to offer up- OpenDoc for Mac grades to V.34 from their cur- rent V.FC products. Power Mac-native AppleTalk Global Village, the maker PowerOpen (UNIX) for Power Mac of popular PowerBook mo- SoftWindows 2.0 dems and Mac-friendly desktop models, was still

114 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 ETHERNET HUBS / NET BYTES High-Speed Options Some Notes on Lotus FOR THOSE WHO NEED BANDWIDTH at any cost, AFTER SOME PRODDING by Apple, Lotus Grand Junction Networks (800-747-3278 or has changed its mind about the Power 510-252-0726) is offering one of the first Mac; it will deliver a Power Mac-native 100BASE-T Ethernet hubs — that’s 100 Mbps. For those with more traditional Ethernet LANs Notes client this summer. Lotus had previ- (and budgets), Tribe Computer Works (510- ously announced that the company would 814-3900) and Lantronix (800-422-7055 or for 25 10BASE-T ports and 2 100BASE-T ports). not support the Power Mac. ➥ PBS is cre- 714-453-3990) are offering new switched Not ready for 100BASE-T? Improve Ethernet ating a nationwide viewer-communica- Ethernet hubs that bring 10-Mbps bandwidth speed with a switched hub such as Tribe’s five- tions system, using one million licenses of to each Mac on a LAN. port TribeSwitch EN ($1,995; SNMP version, SoftArc’s FirstClass. The deal with PBS Grand Junction’s FastHub 100 ($3,995) is a $2,495) or Lantronix’s four-port LSB4 Ethernet gives the groupware package a larger in- 16-port nonswitching repeater compatible Switch ($1,995). The TribeSwitch EN learns LAN stalled base than that of Lotus Notes. PBS with the new 100BASE-T standard. Although configurations and uses on-the-fly switching, Online, to be offered by local PBS stations, Macs can’t take advantage of the increased checking only the packet header to minimize will provide educational information and bandwidth directly until vendors ship a packet-switching delay; the LSB4 reads all 100BASE-T adapter card for the Mac — possi- packets in their entirety to filter out the incor- conferences. The United Nations is also bly in the first quarter of 1995 — you can con- rect ones. You can manage the LSB4 via Telnet using FirstClass for a public-access system, nect to a 100BASE-T Ethernet backbone with a and DECnet log-ins, SNMP, and Novell PC or Mac called TogetherNet. ➥ Control Data Sys- Grand Junction FastSwitch 10/100 hub ($79.95 software. / Nancy Peterson tems (800-257-6736 or 612-482-6736) is now offering a Notes gateway module COMMUNICATIONS / ($6,500) and a directory-synchronization module ($3,250) for Mail*Hub, its UNIX- Easier Connections based mail-gateway system for enter- FOUR COMPETING COMPANIES recently for SAA as well as over TCP/IP, and it pro- prise networks. With released communications programs with vides FTP file transfer to IBM hosts. In ad- the directory mod- similar improvements: easier access to dition, a new 3287-host-printer emulation ule, Mac users can TCP/IP networks and mainframes and sup- lets you preview, format, and print terminal access the Notes di- rectory from within QuickMail, Microsoft port for new Mac OS features such as Quick- documents to AppleTalk printers. 800-426- Mail, and other mail systems. ➥ To aid 6283 or 206-644-4010. Draw GX, AppleScript, Drag and Drop, and roving net managers, version 3.2 of Net- PowerTalk. 5PM TermOffice 3.0 ($375), from About Minder Ethernet ($695), the network Wollongong’s PathWay Access 3.0 ($350) Software, also adds new scripting capabili- analyzer from Neon Software (800-334- has expanded its traditional TCP/IP func- ties. Using an expanded version of Hyper- 6366 or 510-283-9771), features support tions to include mainframe-terminal emu- Talk, users can put scripts and macros onto for 500-series PowerBooks and for Newer menus and link them to hot Technologies’ Ethernet docks for Duos. ➥ spots on the screen. Users can Saber Software has acquired GraceLAN also generate scripts automati- Network Manager, GraceLAN SNMP, cally and exchange them with and GraceLAN Update Manager from the new Windows version of TechWorks for $850,000 in cash. Saber plans to merge the Mac software with its lation over TCP/IP and PPP connections. 5PM TermOffice. Both versions provide a SaberLAN line of management/work- wide range of terminal emulations, includ- Version 3.0 also includes access to Usenet group software for PCs. ➥ Mac users ac- newsgroups; built-in e-mail using the ing those for IBM mainframes; AS/400 cessing UNIX machines via the X Window SNMP, POP, and IMAP standards; and a midrange computers; and VAX, UNIX, interface have two new products for Macs new graphical interface for FTP that in- Unisys, and Honeywell/Bull hosts. 800-557- and Power Macs. MachTen X Software cludes drag-and-drop file transfer. 800- 6389 or 408-725-4242. Release 3.0 for Mac ($350), from Tenon 962-8649 or 415-962-7100. Pacer Software’s PacerTerm 3.0 ($249) Intersystems (805-963-6983), runs on top Attachmate’s EXTRA! for Macintosh 2.0 also uses HyperTalk scripting. It supports a of Tenon’s MachTen UNIX environment for ($295 through March) is a TN3270 emula- variety of communication tools, including Macs. Tenon says the X Software provides tor that features full support of AppleScript; FTP, Telnet, PPP, SLIP, LAT, Xmodem, and speed similar to that of Sun SPARC ma- it’s scriptable, recordable, and attachable. Zmodem. New in version 3.0 are support for chines, even on 68040 Mac hardware. AGE (619-455-8600) has acquired MacX from Included AppleScript “droplets” provide the PC-ANSI graphics standard (so you can Apple, added security features, and claims log on to BBS systems running on PCs) and such features as drag-and-drop file transfer to have doubled the product’s speed. Now for users and examples that help adminis- for VT420 terminals. In addition to having a called XoftWare for Macintosh, the soft- trators use AppleScript to automate user spruced-up interface, PacerTerm 3.0 sup- ware is expected to ship in the first quarter setup over a network. Version 2.0 lets Mac ports PowerTalk and System 7.5’s Drag of 1995. /JR

ILLUSTRATION /ILLUSTRATION O’BRIEN JAMES users connect to mainframes over NetWare Manager. 508-898-3300. / John Rizzo

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 115 NETWORKING

NETWORK HELP / BY KURT VANDERSLUIS Network Help The industry’s leading LAN-troubleshooting sleuth diagnoses nonfunctioning zones and helps you decide when to use SNMP and segment a network.

Who Needs SNMP? figure 1 Q. I have a small network of about 80 Getting a Zone / when NetWare makes trouble workstations, mostly Macs. Is SNMP im- portant or useful for me? Zone C Seth Bender Boulder, CO

A. Because your network is mostly Macs, May I be SNMP (Simple Network Management Pro- Router in Zone E? tocol) cannot provide system and network management that is as easy or as in-depth as what AppleTalk-only products provide. However, should you decide to expand your

network to a mix of platforms, vendors, and Zone B Zone D Zone E Mac at network protocols, SNMP would provide a Yes. startup

standard way to manage and retrieve infor- Default Zone A mation from those devices at a single point. No — there is no An SNMP system has three components: Zone E. You are in Misconfigured Default Zone A. the console, a workstation on which the net- NetWare server work-management software retrieves and manages information from other network When a Mac starts up, it asks the network if it is in the correct zone. Since a NetWare devices; the agent, usually a background server’s router responds faster than most other routers, a misconfigured NetWare server process running on each of the devices that will give the Mac wrong information before the other routers can give it the correct answer. must be managed; and the MIB (Manage- ment Information Base), a set of data defi- nitions describing the information that the UNIX-based, a few network-management when the Novell technician setting up the console can access and manage. For Macs, applications support some SNMP-console NetWare server’s router misunderstands the SNMP agent and MIB components are functions on Macs. These include two prod- the concept of AppleTalk zones and defines now included in each of two software pack- ucts from Neon Software (510-283-9771) only the default zone and not the zones for ages from Apple — AppleTalk Administra- — LANsurveyor ($395 for 5 zones, $695 for an existing network. tion for Macintosh 1.1 and TCP/IP Admin- unlimited zones) and RouterCheck ($649) When you start up your Mac or when you istration for Macintosh 2.0.4 ($199 each). — as well as WatchTower ($2,495), from switch from one zone to another, your Mac Although most full-function consoles are Intercon (703-709-5500), and NetWORKS tries to confirm the validity of your desired ($2,495 for 100 nodes), from Caravelle zone. The Mac broadcasts a ZIP (Zone In- (613-596-2802). formation Protocol) GetNetInfo packet that Write to Network Help says, “May I be in the zone?” All Twilight Zones c/o MacUser the routers on the network respond to this 950 Tower Lane Q. Our Ethernet network has five zones broadcast, but the Mac listens only to the 18th Floor defined. Lately, we’ve been able to use only first response it gets (see figure 1). Foster City, CA 94404 the default zone. What’s going on? Because the NetWare server’s router typi- You can also send your question to Barbara Cox cally responds a little faster than the other Cambridge, MA Kurt VanderSluis on AppleLink routers on the network, it is usually the one at KVANDERSLUIS. A. This sounds like a classic mistake in the Mac listens to. A misconfigured Net-

ILLUSTRATION / VICKI SWART / ILLUSTRATION NetWare-server installation. It happens Ware server informs the Macintosh that the

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 117 NETWORKING

figure 2 produce collisions. When a node Network Utilization and Collisions / when to segment sends a signal to a hub over poor wiring, the transmit pair causes As long as the collision rate is low, cross talk on the receive pair, Segment. Don’t segment. you don’t have to segment your which your transceiver inter- 5% network even if network utilization prets as a collision. is high. However, a high collision Another possible source of a Don’t segment. Check for a network problem rate and a low network-utilization before segmenting. rate can indicate a collision- high collision rate is a node that is broadcasting some sort of

Network-utilization rate generating problem instead of the need to segment. lookup question to which all the Collision rate .1% other nodes are simultaneously responding. You’ll have to use a protocol analyzer to spot this. desired zone is not valid and tells it to use watch is the average collision rate (the per- Processes that broadcast these kinds of the default zone instead. Users then see a centage of collisions relative to the number questions include QuickMail’s Quick- dialog box telling them they have been of total packets, averaged over a five-minute Conference feature and Apple’s Auto- placed in the default zone. When they try to period). As long as your average collision Remounter (version 1.0). Another culprit is use the Network control panel, they’re un- rate stays at less than .1 percent, your Ether- the Chooser, which broadcasts lookups for able to select any zone but the default zone. net network is running fine and you don’t servers within one zone. If you have a lot of Although this problem can occur with need to segment it. servers within one zone, the Chooser will any router, the existence of nonfunctioning However, a high collision rate might not be flooded with simultaneous responses, zones is epidemic with NetWare servers. A indicate the need to segment the network which is why you want to keep the number NetWare server doesn’t check to see if other but instead could indicate that a problem is of servers in each zone low. An open System routers have already defined zones; it causing excessive collisions (see figure 2). 6 Chooser continues to broadcast; the Sys- checks only to see that the NetWare-defined For example, if your utilization is below 5 tem 7 Chooser, on the other hand, doesn’t zones are valid. In addition, Novell techni- percent and your collision rate is above .1 bog down the network, since it searches the cians tend to be relatively new to AppleTalk. percent, it’s possible that your system has network for only a couple of minutes and It’s not all their fault, though, since the some bad or low-grade wiring, which can then goes to sleep. NetWare configuration files don’t make clear how multiple zones are defined. You can use Neon Software’s Router- BREAKING THE RULES / multiple bridges Check to find out if any of your routers (in- Q. We have a large bridged network, and we are currently at the Ethernet limit of seven cluding the NetWare server’s) have been bridges between two Ethernet nodes. Some are remote bridges between Regina and other misconfigured. To check a NetWare server’s cities throughout Saskatchewan. Is there a danger if we exceed seven bridges? router, you can also go through the NetWare Rick Black setup files and look for zones. The first file Regina, SK, Canada to look in is AUTOEXEC.NCF, where most A. The seven-bridges rule can sometimes be broken, depending on your network configu- Novell technicians seem to prefer to put the ration. Each bridge introduces a latency as it forwards a packet from one Ethernet segment to AppleTalk network and zone definitions. another. If the travel time between two nodes becomes too long, it can interfere with an However, this file cannot accept network AppleTalk-network process. For instance, a delay of over 2 seconds can result in duplicate and zone definitions (called Bind State- AppleTalk addresses, because Macs obtain their AppleTalk address by choosing a temporary address and searching the network to see if another node already has this address. If the Mac ments in NetWare-speak) longer than 82 doesn’t get a response within 2 seconds, it will adopt the temporary address. characters; if they are longer, they must be When there is little traffic, an Ethernet bridge’s latency may be only a millisecond or so, but defined in the ATZONES.CFG file. under heavy traffic loads, the latency may be much longer, possibly several tenths of a second. To see how much delay is added by your bridges, run the Inter•Poll echo test (see Network Segmented Networks Help, November ’94, page 147) from the center of your bridged WAN in Regina. You should run Q. What kind of utilization rates should I the test during normal business hours. Suppose, for instance, that the round-trip time ranged see on Ethernet before I consider segment- from .01 second for nodes on the Regina network to as much as .78 second for Ethernet nodes ing my network or getting switching hubs? at the farthest reaches of your bridged WAN. Since the data is being taken from the center of David Morton your WAN, the round-trip time between distant sites on opposite ends of the WAN would be Seattle, WA about two times .78 second, or about 1.5 seconds. A. I’ve heard many answers to this ques- Because traversing the entire WAN under normal conditions can take 1.5 seconds, it’s not too hard to imagine that there would be times when a Mac could not finish searching the tion and have done some research on this entire network for a node number within its allotted 2 seconds. If further investigation with issue. Here’s my answer: The level of Ether- a Network General Intelligent Sniffer reveals a few duplicate AppleTalk addresses located at net utilization, taken by itself, is not that the fringes of your WAN, I’d have to say that you’ve already reached your bridge limit. important. The more important statistic to

118 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 NETWORKING

MAC TO PC / BY JOHN RIZZO Report from the OS Wars As the makers of Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp blast each other, Apple is countering with 486 cards for Macs and other strategic cross-platform tactics.

THE LANGUAGE WAS HOSTILE, with incumbents systems by joining them — using strategies designed to help the Macintosh fit more and challengers hurling sleazy innuendos and half- smoothly into corporate cross-platform environments. truths at each other. No, I’m not referring to the Novem- Apple’s arsenal contains three main strategies. The first is the licensing of Mac ber elections but to the latest battle in the operating- OS and the Mac ROM to other hardware system wars. IBM launched the first volley The Wall Street Journal. “They’ve basically vendors and the eventual development of a when it released its OS/2 Warp operating taken what we’ve announced and said ‘me PowerPC machine that will run both OS/2 system. Along with the release came some too.’” (An interesting comment, considering and Mac OS. The second is offering more harsh words about its soon-to-be competi- all the ideas Microsoft has pilfered from the ways to get Windows running on Macs. The tor, Windows 95. IBM said that Windows 95 Mac over the years — File menus, cut- was merely old Windows 3.1 code wrapped and-paste, plug-and-play.) in a new package. It claimed that Windows For its part, Apple shot off the 95’s biggest new feature, multitasking, was marketing equivalent of a popgun, only “semipreemptive,” meaning that Win- releasing a new smiley-face logo dows applications were as likely to crash as to represent compatibility with ever. IBM also predicted that OS/2 Warp Mac OS, the new name for the would soon outsell Macintosh. Mac’s system software. The reason The Microsoft counterattack on OS/2 for Apple’s relative silence is that Warp was as tough as anything California its big gun in the OS Wars, the pre- senate candidate Mike Huffington ever emptive-multitasking operating dished out. “It’s a cheap imitation” of the system code-named Gershwin, still unreleased Windows 95, said Microsoft won’t appear until 1996. Until then, Apple’s third is developing software for better

ILLUSTRATION / LIN WILSON ILLUSTRATION vice president Brad Silverberg, according to battle plan is to beat the PC operating cross-platform networking.

FASTER WINDOWS ON MACS / second-generation models outrun Apple’s first DOS card WE TESTED PRERELEASE VERSIONS of Apple’s new DOS Compatibility Apple card in a Power Mac 6100 and the Reply card in a Centris 610 were Card and the first clone card from Reply, the DOS on Mac card. The new significantly faster than Apple’s discontinued DOS Compatibility Card in a Quadra 610, although still not as fast as a high-end 486 PC such as the 486DX2/66 Dell ZD OptiPlex we tested. Like the OptiPlex, the LABS PC Bench 8.0 WinBench 4.0 Disk Mix WinBench 4.0 Video Mix new cards contain a 66-MHz 486DX2 chip, FASTER FASTER FASTER Dell OptiPlex PC 486DX2/66 whereas the original Apple card has a much with 16 MB of RAM 607 901 4.1 slower processor — a 25-MHz 486SX. PC Reply DOS on Mac in a Centris 610, Bench 8.0 measures speed for DOS tasks, 8 MB of RAM on card 414 613 3.0 and the WinBench tests measure speed Apple DOS Compatibility Card/Power Mac 6100, 16 MB of RAM on card 409 512 3.1 for disk-intensive and graphics-intensive Apple DOS Compatibility Card (dis- Windows tasks. All of the PC applications continued)/Quadra 610, 16 MB on card 215 241 1.0 we ran with the cards (including the all- 0 300 600 0 500 1,000 024 DOSMARKS DISK INDEX GRAPHICS INDEX important Solitaire) ran smoothly and with- out problems.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 121 NETWORKING

If You Can’t Beat ’Em .... and-guts game, for free. Stripped of Win- For the many Macintosh users who were dows, Doom, and the Sound Blaster mod- disappointed when Apple suddenly an- ule, the product drops to $595 in price — or nounced that there just weren’t any more $495 if you opt for a slightly slower 50-MHz DOS Compatibility Cards, there is good 486DX2 chip. news and better news. The good news is The DOS on Mac card is also available for that Apple is back in the 486-card business, more Mac models than the Apple DOS Com- with an improved DOS Compatibility Card, patibility Card. Reply offers cards for the this time for running DOS and Windows on Quadra/Centris 610 and the following other the Power Mac 6100 instead of on the Quadra models: 650, 660AV , 700, 800, 900, Quadra 610. The better news is that Apple and 950. has licensed the basic design to people who Notably absent from the preceding list know how to build 486 systems — and who are the Power Mac 7100 and 8100. Although will build DOS cards for more Macintosh it has not announced any products for models. them, Reply does have the experience Apple’s Souped-up 486 Card. The new DOS needed to develop DOS on Mac cards for Compatibility Card, which fits in the 6100’s these Power Macs. Known for building PDS (processor-direct slot), features several logic-board upgrades and accelerators for improvements over the original DOS Com- IBM PS/2 PCs, Reply also has some experi- patibility Card. First, it uses a 66-MHz ence with the PowerPC architecture, since 486DX2 chip rather than a 25-MHz 486SX. the company builds a PowerPC-based PC Our tests show that this chip difference for Motorola. makes the new card about two to three times What About Orange Micro? Both the DOS faster than the discontinued card (see the Compatibility Card and the DOS on Mac “Faster Windows on Macs” sidebar). In card are cheaper than the OrangePC cards addition, the new card includes a 16-bit offered by Orange Micro, which are higher- Sound Blaster-compatible module (play- end products. Orange Micro’s cards are de- back only), so you can run all the popular signed for a NuBus slot, which allows slower politically incorrect Windows games. The data transfer than a PDS but is more versa- new card’s SIMM slot can also hold twice as tile, because it lets you move the card among much RAM as the old card’s — as much as several Mac models. Orange Micro also of- 32 MB — or it can share the Power Mac’s fers faster processors than Apple or Reply, as RAM, if you don’t mind slower speed. An- well as PC expansion slots. Still, there is other new feature is the addition of ODI nothing preventing Orange Micro from li- (Open Datalink Interface) drivers for Net- censing the DOS Compatibility Card tech- Ware and TCP/IP, so you can run DOS and nology to fill out the low end of its product Windows networking software. line, although the company admitted no These improvements aren’t free; the new such plans at press time. $699 price tag is $300 higher than that of the first DOS Compatibility Card. Also, the Join Together Better price doesn’t include the cost of Windows, For users more interested in Mac-and-PC because Apple doesn’t want to be in the networks than in Mac-and-PC Macs, Apple business of selling a competing operating is working on two key projects: new system. AppleTalk client software for Windows ma- Reply’s Cornucopia of Clones. Apple’s new chines, and Open Transport, Mac software card has many virtues, but you can get more that will make it easier to put Macs on PC DOS for your dollar from Reply (408-942- networks. 4804), the first announced licensee of the AppleTalk Does Windows. The first AppleTalk card. Reply offers a clone of the DOS Com- Windows product, AppleShare for Win- patibility Card, called DOS on Mac, for ap- dows, is expected to appear sometime in the proximately the same price as Apple’s card. first quarter of 1995 (its ship date having Reply charges $50 extra for the network ODI slipped from the fourth quarter of 1994). drivers that are included in Apple’s product, Following on its heels will be Windows client but the company more than makes up for software for AppleSearch and for Apple Re- this charge by throwing in Windows 3.1 as mote Access. What all three products have in well as Doom, the ever popular 3-D blood- common is a faster, more efficient AppleTalk

122 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 protocol stack that will offer a more attrac- Customers at sites Finally, Open Transport will offer a bo- tive PC networking option. Still, AppleTalk nus in the Power Mac area: Its native Power is not likely to be widely accepted on PCs, where Macs are Mac drivers will give networked Power particularly at sites where Macs are in the in the minority Macs a significant speed improvement minority. Customers at these sites are more over the speed of today’s emulated network likely to be interested in Open Transport, are more likely system software. since its goal is to fit Macs more easily into to be interested in the non-AppleTalk networks prevalent in When the Smoke Clears many corporations. Open Transport Will any of these strategies help Mac OS sur- Open Transport to the Enterprise. Open than in AppleTalk. vive the OS Wars? Apple has set its goals Transport is a major reengineering of Mac pretty high: It hopes to gain an additional OS’s networking software, with cross- 25 to 30 percent in the operating-system platform compatibility as the goal. In user Open Transport will allow developers to market over the next few years. But with interface, management, and programming, use a single API to write Mac networking Gershwin delayed until 1996, it seems to me Open Transport will be multiprotocol in software for various protocols, instead of that Apple should set its short-term sights nature, as opposed to today’s AppleTalk- having to use a separate API for each proto- on cooperation, not domination, and de- centric system. col. This added capability comes at the ex- liver cross-platform technologies such as When it is released (probably in the pense of the Communications Toolbox, Open Transport as soon as possible. After middle of this year), Open Transport will which Apple is planning to abandon. How- all, it’s not clear that any of the new operat- support AppleTalk, TCP/IP, and serial con- ever, users will be able to run their old soft- ing systems — Gershwin, OS/2 Warp, or nections, with Point-to-Point Protocol ware with the first release of Open Trans- Windows 95 — will succeed against the (PPP) and IPX coming later as plug-in port. And developers who create network mightiest competitor of all in the OS Wars: modules. In addition to supporting mul- software for PCs and UNIX machines will Windows 3.1. tiple protocols, Open Transport will let a find that Open Transport uses industry- Mac run multiple protocols simultaneously wide network programming standards that MacUser technical editor John Rizzo is the author of with multiple Ethernet cards. they’re familiar with. MacUser Guide to Connectivity and How Macs Work.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 123 HANDS ON

Six Super Fixes YOU’VE TRIED ZAPPING the parameter RAM, rebuilding the desktop, disabling your extensions, and doing a clean reinstall of the system software, but your Mac still won’t do what it’s supposed to. Is the repair shop your next stop? Not necessarily. Those common repair techniques may be too basic for some problems you’re encountering with your Mac. Here are six methods that, although they’re still simple, go beyond the well-known fixes. / BY TED LANDAU

Detonate the Desktop Zap All the Parameter RAM Rebuilding the desktop is the aspirin of the Mac If your Mac won’t recognize connected SCSI and serial world, known to cure such ills as missing custom devices, such as modems, printers, and external drives, icons, applications that won’t launch, and even a or if some of your control-panel settings are suddenly Mac that won’t start up. But if the standard rebuild wrong, the cure may be zapping the parameter RAM remedy (holding down Command-Option during (PRAM). This clears the data in the PRAM and enters 1startup) doesn’t fix your Mac, going one step fur- default data. The documented method (holding down ther may do the job. Command-Option-P-R at startup) may not cure all The standard rebuild only updates the Desktop files PRAM problems, because it clears only (one or two invisible databases); for instance, it clears some of the data stored in the PRAM. To zap out information about deleted documents. If the Desk- all the PRAM data, you need a utility such top files are damaged, you may need to delete them en- as TechTool. tirely and start with new ones. The easiest way to delete TechTool can also help you prevent the them is to use a utility, such as MicroMat’s freeware loss of your control panels’ customized set- TechTool (available on-line; see end of article). When 2tings. To do this, you must use TechTool to save PRAM you use this type of utility, your Mac will create new data when your Mac is healthy. When the big crash

Desktop files the next time you start up. comes, you simply zap the PRAM and then instruct / LEON PHOTOGRAPHY

124 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 Control-panel settings are wrong A document won’t print (try technique 2) (try techniques 2 and 5)

Applications won’t launch The Mac won’t recognize an external hard drive (try techniques 1, 4, and 5) (try technique 2)

Custom icons turn drab (try technique 1)

The Mac won’t delete a file (try technique 6)

The Mac won’t start up (try techniques 1, 2, and 3)

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 125 HANDS ON

TechTool to restore the data you saved be- is sure to be among them. (If you have Sys- directly from the System Folder.) fore the trouble began. If you didn’t save tem 7.5, you don’t need FindPro — the 7.5 A more general solution in the case of al- your settings and have to restore them Finder has the ability to search by creator most any file your Mac won’t delete is to cre- manually, don’t forget to turn on 32-bit ad- code.) ate a dummy file with the same name as the dressing in the Memory control panel; oth- problem file. Drag the dummy file to the erwise, you won’t be able to access more Find Faulty Fonts folder that contains the problem file, and than 8 MB of RAM. A damaged font file is another possible rea- click on OK when you get a message asking son for application-specific problems, such if you want to replace the problem file. De- Bypass Your Internal Drive as apps that won’t launch or documents that lete the dummy file, and you’re done. If your Mac crashes at startup and turning won’t print. You can find out if a off all your extensions at startup (by hold- font file is damaged by quitting The End to Your Troubles ing down the Shift key) doesn’t prevent the all of your currently open appli- Although they’re not tricky to try, these re- crash, the next step is to try starting up cations and then dragging the pair tricks, along with dirt-cheap share- from another disk. To bypass the internal Fonts folder out of your System ware (see the “Low-Budget Repairs” side- drive, just hold down Command- Folder and into any other folder bar), provide powerful protection against Option-Shift-Delete at startup. 5on your disk. If the problem application Macintosh crankiness and may even keep It’s more convenient to start up works after you’ve moved the Fonts folder, your Mac out of the repair shop. from an external disk that con- it’s likely you have a damaged font file. tains a System Folder than it is if (Some system software stores fonts in the Contributing editor Ted Landau offers much more troubleshooting advice in his book Sad Macs, Bombs you do so from a special floppy. If System file. If moving the Fonts folder and Other Disasters. A second edition is due out in 3you don’t have a copy of your System Folder doesn’t work, remove the fonts from the mid-1995. on an external disk, create one now, before System file and put them elsewhere on your your next crash. Macintosh. ) You can find the programs referenced in this article in the MacUser and ZiffNet/Mac areas Figuring out which font is the culprit re- on CompuServe and eWorld. See page 4 for Purge Bad Preferences Files quires the time-consuming process of re- instructions on accessing ZiffNet/Mac. Damaged preferences files are a notorious turning the fonts to their original location source of application-specific problems, one by one and testing your application Low-Budget Repairs such as an application that won’t launch or each time. You can save some time by mov- REPAIRING YOUR MAC doesn’t have to be one in which the Open and Save commands ing half the fonts back to their original loca- expensive. Besides using the techniques don’t work. The standard fix for these types tion as a single batch. If the application suggested in this article, there’s a wealth of problems is to replace the application, works after you’ve moved that batch of of inexpensive — and totally free — using the original disks. However, this fonts, then you know that your problem font shareware to help you make your Mac run method doesn’t work if the problem is due is in the group you didn’t move. Move half of the way it should. to a damaged preferences file, because re- the remaining fonts back to their original We’ve already mentioned TechTool, GetMoreInfo, and FindPro, but those are placing the application doesn’t replace the location, and test the application again. just the beginning. Other favorites include preferences file. Instead, you need Continue this process until you’ve isolated SCSI Probe, which lets you mount SCSI de- to delete the file. Your application the faulty font. When you do find the cul- vices not mounted at startup, and Apple’s will probably create a new prefer- prit, delete it. If it’s a font you treasure, re- MacCheck, which can diagnose a variety ences file the next time you launch place it from the original disks. of software and hardware problems. it. If it doesn’t, you’ll have to copy Also consider lesser-known utilities; for the preferences file from the origi- Deep-Six Stubborn Files example, using Bomb Shelter sometimes 4nal or backup disks. If your Mac tells you it can’t delete a file enables you to recover from a system Deleting a preferences file is as simple as you’ve dragged to the Trash and you’ve al- crash without having to restart. And if dragging the file to the Trash, but the file ready tried to fix it by making sure the file is you’re plagued by “out of memory” mes- isn’t always easy to locate: Usually the pref- unlocked (the Locked check box in the file’s sages, check out Finder Fixer, which can eliminate those messages in System 7 by erences file is in the Preferences folder in Get Info window is unchecked) and by increasing the Finder’s memory allocation the System Folder; however, sometimes it’s making sure the file is not “in use” (it’s as needed. System 7.0 users may also find not there or has a coded name. If you’re un- closed), you can resort to a couple of other Volume Name Unlocker a useful utility; it able to find the file, try two utilities — techniques that should get rid of that pesky unlocks volume names that get inadver- GetMoreInfo and FindPro (available on- file. If it’s a font file, try the solution in tech- tently locked as the result of a System 7.0 line) — to locate it. GetMoreInfo will help nique 5 above — that is, drag the entire bug. (The bug was fixed in version 7.1.) you learn the creator code of your problem Fonts folder out of the System Folder and These and other shareware programs application — for example, MSWD is the then drag the individual font offer some of the most practical and inex- code for Microsoft Word. Once you know file to the Trash. (Sometimes pensive ways to keep your Mac running the code, you can use FindPro to search for your Macintosh does not allow smoothly. All these programs can be files based on that code. The preferences file you to drag separate font files found on-line.

126 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 6 HANDS ON

MOBILE MAC / BY SHARON ZARDETTO AKER Savvy System Hopping Old PowerBooks and new system software don’t always mix. Here’s some advice on making — or resisting — the switch.

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, it will be safe to an 80-MB hard drive gives up a significant portion of its capacity to accommodate the make the 7.5 leap. System 7.5 will have been out for system software. And by the way, we haven’t even men- nearly six months, so tens of thousands of jump-on- tioned sharing disk space and RAM with some heavyweight upgrades to two high- the-bandwagon enthusiasts will have tested it for you. profile programs: Excel 5 and Word 6. Here’s And updates should be available to fix any Immense Installs some interesting math about full installs problems they found — such as the A full install of System 7.5 — including and basic memory usage: QuickDraw GX incompatibility with fax- PowerTalk and QuickDraw GX — gives you SYSTEM 7.5 EXCEL WORD TOTAL modem software, reported at press time. a System Folder that takes up more than 27 DISK 27 MB 22 MB 22 MB 71 MB But although it’s finally safe to advance to MB (about five times the size of the basic RAM 5.5 MB 3 MB 3 MB 11.5 MB System 7.5, is it necessary? Practical? Truly System Folder for 7.1!) and uses 4.5 MB of Of course, you may choose less than full advantageous? The answers to these ques- RAM. Since you’re bound to have a few installs of some software — but that’s the tions lie mostly in the limits on your Power- third-party extensions, let’s call it 28 MB point. For many PowerBook owners, using Book’s RAM and the size of its hard drive. If on-disk and 5.5 MB in RAM overall. System 7.5 is going to feel like the early you have a PowerBook 150, a 500-series The original PowerBooks (and the mi- PowerBook days, when 20- and 40-MB model, or a Duo and if you have lots of nor-improvement models that followed) drives meant trimming the System Folder RAM, you can consider System 7.5 on its each have a limit of 8 MB of RAM. That size and when models with 2 or 4 MB of own merits — which include some handy means running System 7.5 requires the RAM forced us to conserve memory. PowerBook-specific utilities as well as dedication of nearly 70 percent improved communications (Power- of RAM; a second-wave model The Slimmed-Down System Talk), printing (QuickDraw GX), and that can go to 14 MB of RAM OK, let’s quit whining and get to work. You on-line help (Apple Guide). If you still sacrifices almost 40 per- have at least a 40-MB hard drive and 8 MB of don’t have lots of RAM and cent of that total to the system RAM (anything less just won’t work for Sys- hard-disk space, you software. As for disk space, there tem 7.5), but you’re not in the high-RAM should consider how are still 40-MB PowerBooks out bracket of Duo and 500-series PowerBook much of System 7.5 it’s there, and a full system-software in- owners. How do you squeeze everything in? practical to install. stall uses 70 percent of that space. Even First, you might as well forget both

POWERBOOK SECRETS /avoiding that snap, crackle, and .... IF YOU CAN HEAR the little crackle of static electricity when you touch and alone in a tiled bathroom — with your head shaved. But it’s probably something, that’s the effect of about 10,000 volts of electricity jumping more practical just to get off the carpet and avoid touching your hair. from, say, a doorknob to your fingertip. So? So it can take as little as 10 Grounding provides a safe route for a static discharge if one builds up (count ’em, 10) volts to ruin some of the circuits inside a PowerBook. despite your precautions. A grounded workstation pad is a conductive mat Here’s a two-pronged approach to protecting your PowerBook from that can be attached to a grounded outlet; a grounding wrist strap is a static damage if you’re going to work inside it: Prevent the static charge band of conductive material that goes from your wrist to a grounded pad from building up, and provide a way for any buildup to discharge. or outlet. Together, these items should safely discharge any static, and Environmental factors that encourage static buildup include low hu- both are available from electronics stores and catalogs. At the least, use a midity; carpeted areas; and wearing fabrics such as nylon, polyester, or wrist strap; you can find them for less than $10 from some suppliers. Don’t wool. Shuffling across a floor, touching another person, or running your try to make your own, since a wrist strap is more than a just a chain or fingers through your hair can build up a charge too. Yes, this does imply band; a grounding wrist strap includes a safety resistor that will keep a that the safest way to work on your PowerBook is standing still, naked, direct electrical short from electrocuting you. / Rich Wolfson

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 129 HANDS ON

PowerTalk and QuickDraw GX. Since they Strip, included in 7.5 (as well as in versions need to be installed separately from the sys- of System 7.1 preinstalled on 500-series tem software, you don’t have to remove PowerBooks), is also available as part of the them — just don’t put them in to start with, $99.95 PBTools battery-management util- and you’ll save about 3 MB of RAM and 15 ity, from VST (508-287-4600). By opting for MB of disk space. Although I think that some of the freeware mentioned here, you PowerBook users are more likely to network can avoid the 7.5 upgrade cost (which can and telecommunicate than most desktop- range from $10 to $99) and spend your Mac users do and that it’s a shame to have to money on PBTools — or on a file-syncing forgo PowerTalk’s promise of easily man- utility that’s more full-featured than System ageable communications, some sacrifices 7.5’s File Assistant (for example, the $129 have to be made. As for QuickDraw GX, PowerMerge, from Leader Technologies; you’ll have to do without its type-handling 714-757-1787). and printing niceties — such as the ability to queue up documents to various printers Just Do It! while you’re on the road — until you have For those who decide to move to System 7.5 more RAM and disk space. despite the obstacles early PowerBook Removing PowerTalk and QuickDraw GX models present, here are some tips to help puts a 7.5 install in the same RAM ballpark ease the transition: as a 7.1 install: about 2.5 MB for a system Get a larger hard drive if yours is smaller with a few can’t-live-without-them exten- than 80 MB. You can get an internal Power- sions. The hard-disk footprint is still more Book drive from a company such as APS than twice the size of 7.1’s 4-to-5-MB sys- Technologies (800-235-2753 or 816-483- tem-software install, but you can regain 6100), which can also sell you a case and a more than 5 MB just by cutting out a few power supply for the old one so you can use more disk-hogging amenities: Apple Guide it as an external drive for any Mac. (2,185K), AppleScript (1,090K), QuickTime Upgrade your RAM if your PowerBook can (1,690K), and CD-ROM support (415K). handle more than it already has. Run the Installer to deinstall these items Strip your System Folder of items you don’t if you’re going to dump them, because each need, to save disk space and RAM. item is actually more than one file. Use a RAM-increasing utility such as RAM Extra printer drivers, which take up 50K Doubler or Maxima, both from Connectix to 500K apiece, are also expendable. If (800-950-5880 or 415-571-5100), to fool you’re using only one printer, you need only your PowerBook into thinking it has more its driver — trash the rest from your Exten- RAM than it really does. sions folder; and if you don’t use the Use a compression utility such as Norton LaserWriter 8 driver, get rid of the Printer DiskDoubler Pro, from Symantec (800-441- Descriptions folder, which takes up 545K. 7234 or 503-334-6054), so you can store Finally, there are the old standbys: fonts. more on your hard disk. Trim them down, throw them out. And be sure to follow the directions! Es- pecially the ones in the ReadMe file for Sys- Alternative Routes tem 7.5 that tell you to check the disk with Should you decide not to install System 7.5, Disk First Aid and update the disk’s driver you can still get many of its handy ameni- with Apple HD SC Setup (or HD IDE Setup if ties in shareware form or as separate prod- you have a PowerBook 150) before you do ucts. Three freeware programs that provide the installation. Otherwise, you’re asking features rolled into 7.5 are the Window- for trouble: crashes, disk-access difficulty, Shade control panel, which lets you collapse and other problems you don’t need. any window down to its title bar; Super- Clock, which puts a battery-level indicator Sharon Zardetto Aker’s new book, The Mac Almanac, onto the menu bar; and FindPro III, which has a chapter on PowerBooks. A teacher at Montclair State University, Rich Wolfson insists that he does not improves the Finder’s finding capabilities perform PowerBook repairs naked in the bathroom. (all available on-line; see end of article). The improved PowerBook control panel in You can find WindowShade, SuperClock, and FindPro III in the MacUser and ZiffNet/Mac System 7.5 comes in the 3.0 update to Sys- areas on CompuServe and eWorld. See page 4 tem 7.1. And the flawed-but-useful Control for instructions on accessing ZiffNet/Mac.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 131 HANDS ON

NET TRAVELER / BY MICHAEL SWAINE An Internet Hot List Five must-see Mac sites on the Internet, why you may not need an Internet book, and how to read Mosaic addresses.

ARE YOU READY FOR the Internet? Both Microsoft are Mac-specific. Conclusion: Think twice before buying an Internet book. and Apple plan to make Internet access a standard fea- For those who feel they must buy one, the advice in Adam Engst’s Internet Starter Kit ture of their operating systems in the next 12 months. for Macintosh (Indianapolis: Hayden Books, 1993) is excellent, and the book comes with Make no mistake — you’re probably going to end up the software you need in order to make use using the Net. The real question is, What www.dartmouth.edu/pages/TidBITS/ of a private Internet account. will you do once you get there?This column TidBITS.html), along with a fine collec- is a traveler’s guide to site-seeing on the Net. tion of Internet wares of the free and share Tip of the Month This month, I’ll start out by listing the five varieties. Future tips will tell how to get the most out of Internet Mac sites I believe every Mac trav- 4. Mosaic was created at the National the Internet, but in the first installment of eler should visit. Think I missed one? We’ll Center for Supercomputing Applications this column, I thought a tip on reading URLs talk later. (NCSA), at the University of Illinois at would be helpful. URLs are Mosaic-style 1. Ever noticed how the most widely recom- Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and all things addresses, a convenient lingua franca, be- mended travel locations always turn out to Mac-ishly Mosaical (except for Mosaic’s cause Mosaic can ac- be overbooked and overcrowded? For any- commercial progeny) reside at http:// cess most services one looking for Macintosh shareware and www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/ freeware, the Info-Mac archive is probably Software/MacMosaic/ the best source on the Net. Unfortunately, MacMosaicHome.html. everyone thinks so. Fortunately, the Info- 5. You might call the Info-Mac Mac archive is available at 50 mirror (alter- Archive’s bounty of third-party native) sites worldwide. Get the list of sites freeware and shareware a wind- from gopher://sumex-aim.stanford.edu/ fall, but keep in mind that you can info-mac/help/mirror-list.txt. also shake the Apple tree itself at ftp:// 2. With more than 9,000 in existence, there’s ftp.apple.com/dts/mac/ (as well as on the no such thing as the best newsgroup; if Web at http://www.apple.com/). Again, you’re looking to see if someone is selling a you’ll want to look for mirror sites. used Quadra 950, the best group for you might be on your local (business, school, or Internet Unplugged on the net, including FTP, Gopher, and community) server. Or maybe you don’t An avalanche of Internet-related books is WAIS. For those who don’t have Mosaic, a think any Usenet group can measure up to now crashing onto bookstore shelves every- URL such as gopher://stateu.edu/software/ ZiffNet/Mac, because your favorite guru where. Why so many? The answer is greed, mac or ftp://stateu.edu/software/mac just hangs out there. The point is, newsgroups not need. To book publishers, the Internet is means to use Gopher or FTP to get to the are only as good as their participants. The the biggest thing since DOS, and they all stateu.edu server and then follow the hierar- Usenet comp.sys.mac.* hierarchy, open to want a piece of the action. The first wave of chy to software/mac. the entire Usenet-using universe, may not books explained how to get on the Net, make your best-of-the-Net list, but it is a something your service provider should be Don’t Know a URL from a UFO? definite must-see. able to walk you through. The second wave MacUser maintains a list of frequently asked 3. Back issues of Adam Engst’s informative tells where to go once you get on, informa- questions (FAQs) about the Internet, Mac- TidBITS newsletter can be located at tion that is fresher and cheaper on the Net User itself, and this column specifically at ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/ (as well itself. Another consideration is that only [email protected]. You can reach me at

ILLUSTRATION / LIN WILSON ILLUSTRATION as on the World Wide Web at http:// approximately half a dozen of these books [email protected].

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 133 HANDS ON

BY ANDY IHNATKO AND BOB LEVITUS / Tips compiled by Christopher Breen Help Folder Results of our stereogram contest, how to equip your Mac for System 7.5, and what happens when you rebuild the desktop.

3-D Deluge ✽ ANDY: I thought there were five or six dozen . . . BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK people reading this column — a hundred, This is the place where we’re delighted to answer questions that readers deem too simple, too tops. I stand corrected: there are at least 819 hackneyed, or even too dang weird to want to have their identity revealed. So by all means, regular readers of Help Folder, because as of query us. If you’re feeling sheepish, we’ll gladly cover your tracks by substituting an assumed this writing, that’s how many people have name. We’ll say your question was submitted by someone who, in his own small way, helped entered our October ’94 stereogram contest Arnold Schwarzenegger avert Earth’s nucleoapocalyptic destruction in Terminator 2. (page 145). Helen Hunt, if you’ve been try- SYSTEM 6.0.5 HOLDOUT ing to get in touch with me via CompuServe, Q. How much longer do you think I can hold out with don’t blame me — blame all the folks who System 6.0.5 before upgrading to System 7? mailed me, seeking a free T-shirt. Bud Brigman The hidden message was MST3K, the ac- Benthic Petroleum ronym for the popular cable-TV show Mys- ANDY: You can hold out indefinitely, as long as you tery Science Theater 3000. Hundreds of you have supplies of oxygen, food, and water; stable and identified the message correctly, but there reliable AC power; and most important, body armor to protect you from the abuse and derision of the remaining 99.44 percent of the Mac community, which switched to System 7 years ago. can be only two winners. Charles Stines, of I recommend the Special Operations Jacket, from Second Chance Body Armor (800-253-7090). Modesto, California, and Jason Miller, of Its Kevlar panels afford NIJ-approved II, IIA, and IIIA ballistic coverage. Eden, New York, got their responses to me If you plan to buy more software before you die, the day will certainly come when you’ll have the quickest and should already be wearing to upgrade. But while you’re holding out, be sure to back up the software you’re running under their new T-shirts to swanky affairs on ei- System 6 — it can be painfully hard to replace versions that are no longer shipping. ther coast. The most popular question asked was, “What does this have to do with universal a less expensive product than Kai’s Power you know it, there’s no RAM left for your peace and brotherhood?” — referring to Tools 2.0 for creating stereograms — programs. I recommend at least 5 MB; 8 or the clue I gave. Well, I guess if you stay home Pointillist ($39.95), from Pictor GraFX more is much better. watching a cool TV show every night, you (310-865-0495). For those who can’t afford the RAM can’t be out hitting people on the head or chips, the RAM Doubler software package something. How Much RAM for System 7.5? from Connectix (800-950-5880 or 415-571- Thanks to all the readers who pointed out Q. How will upgrading to System 7.5 affect 5100) is almost as good. For about $50 my Mac’s performance if I have only 4 MB of (street), it can make your 4-MB Mac believe Write to Help Folder/Tips RAM installed? it has 8 MB. It’s not quite as good as real Haseeb Omar RAM, but it’s an inexpensive next-best c/o MacUser Cupertino, CA thing. 950 Tower Lane BOB: You can successfully run System 7.5 ANDY: I’d go further to say RAM Doubler is 18th Floor with 4 MB of RAM, according to Apple, but better than the next-best thing — if you’re Foster City, CA 94404 I wouldn’t do it. Although System 7.5 itself typically running lots of modest applica- Don’t want to wait for an answer? uses less than 3 MB of RAM (without tions as opposed to a few memory-hungry Post your question on ZiffNet/Mac, PowerTalk or QuickDraw GX, of course), programs, you won’t notice the difference. MacUser’s on-line service, and get a that doesn’t leave much RAM for programs reply from Bob (76004, 2076) or Andy on a 4-MB machine. Toss in a few of those Why Rebuild the Desktop? (72511,204). We pay $25 – $100 for any essential control panels or extensions — Q. I know it’s good practice to rebuild the undocumented tips we publish. Send Now Utilities, QuicKeys, After Dark — that desktop periodically, but I don’t know why. them to Christopher Breen (72241,1036).

ILLUSTRATION / JAMES O’BRIEN ILLUSTRATION each gobble up a chunk of RAM, and before Does it free up memory? Can I use Norton

134 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 HANDS ON

Utilities or Apple’s ResEdit to figure out the relationships among them. Like most than that of the 68030 machines to the ar- when it’s time to rebuild the desktop? databases, these desktop databases don’t chitecture of Power Macs), that a pretty Also, is it better to rebuild the desktop get rid of data they don’t need, such as infor- simple microprocessor arrangement and a just before performing a Norton backup or mation about deleted items. This clutter PDS card are all you need. Also, Apple’s not just after a Norton restore? takes up hard-disk space unnecessarily and terribly keen on developing PowerPC solu- Stan Heaps may slow down the Finder. I recommend tions for the myriad of 68030 products it Boutiliers Point, NS, Canada rebuilding the desktop (by holding down made years ago. BOB: The rationale for rebuilding the desk- Command-Option during the entire start- Why bother when you’ve got DayStar top is to purge unneeded information from up process) every month or two. And I’d do Digital ready, willing, and able to step into the hard disk. The Finder relies on invisible it after a restore rather than before a backup the breach? Last year it signed an exclusive desktop databases to keep track of applica- so the databases contain the most-current agreement with Apple to develop a PowerPC tions, icons, documents, and aliases and information. card for the Mac IIsi, IIci, IIvi, and Performa ANDY: There are ways to use ResEdit and a 600. At this writing, DayStar (800-962-2077 cast of other programs to determine when or 404-967-2077) says the PowerCard 601 TIPS / PowerBook you should rebuild the desktop, but the pro- ($599) will be available sometime during DEACTIVATING DUO BUTTONS cess is so complicated that it’s hardly worth the first quarter of 1995. Working with my PowerBook Duo while it. It’s better to forget about keeping track of BOB: Unfortunately, there is no PowerPC sitting on the couch used to be difficult. the desktop databases and think of rebuild- upgrade path, nor does it look like there will It’s easy to unintentionally press the ing in the same way I think of repairing my ever be, for us unfortunate II, IIx, IIcx, and trackball’s bottom button with your stom- car. When my car won’t start, I just get out IIfx owners. If you’re one of us, you’ll have to ach, no matter what your body type. To fix and kick the dented fender as hard as I can buy new to get PowerPC performance. this, I use the freeware extension Power- over and over again. It makes me feel a Click (available on-line; see end of article). whole lot better, and through some process Thesaurus Recs It lets you assign Click Lock, Double Click, I don’t fully understand, the car often starts Q.Which thesaurus do you recommend Single Click, or Nothing to each of the two Duo buttons. I right up on the next try. Similarly, when for the Mac? assigned Nothing to your Mac’s acting up — for instance, when Daryl R. Herzog Nipomo, CA the bottom button so document icons turn generic or an applica- it doesn’t matter if I tion won’t launch — try rebuilding the BOB: I’ve tried a bunch of them and have accidentally press it. Desktop. Since so many of the Mac’s opera- settled on The Deluxe American Heritage Joseph O. Holmes tions rely on an accurate desktop file, some- Dictionary ($129), a combo dictionary and New York, NY times that fixes the problem. thesaurus from SoftKey International (800- 227-5609 or 617-494-1200). It has 200,000 VALUE-PACKED BOOT DISK PowerPC Envy A bootable System 7 floppy disk usually has little space left for other software you Q. I’ve read with envy about upgrade paths might want at boot time, such as disk- to the PowerPC processor. Unfortunately, optimizer utilities and network-access all the upgrade boards marketed so far are software. Here’s a trick to free up an addi- for 68040-based Macs, such as the Quadra, tional 60K. AutoDoubler comes bundled leaving IIsi owners such as me out in the with a utility called AutoDoubler Internal cold. Is the incompatibility between the two Compressor (AIC), which compresses the designs too great for an adapter card to resources inside an application and in- bridge? serts a decompression engine into the fin- Rick Steffens ished compressed file so it can run without Girard, KS AutoDoubler. AIC can compress the Finder by about 60K — if you can get the Finder ANDY: Naw, there is no incompatibility so to appear in AIC’s window as a compress- savage that a big pile of hardware can’t ible file. To do this, make a copy of the bridge the gap. If only the nations of the Finder and use DiskTop or a similar utility world could follow the example of the hum- to change its type and creator from FNDR ble microcomputer, especially now, a time and MACS to something like APPL and when human life is so cheap, and.... ttxt. Then, use AIC to compress it, and Sorry, I always get that way right after I lis- figure 1 / If you need a thesaurus or a change the type and creator back to FNDR ten to a Sting album. and MACS. (This trick won’t help you com- dictionary, either The Deluxe American Anyway, the reason Apple’s PowerPC up- Heritage Dictionary or Thunder7 should suit press the System file or system enablers, grade card is only for 68040 machines is however.) you. Choosing between them depends on that those machines are just so jolly your needs — American Heritage has a David Atkinson Seattle, WA friendly, hardwarewise (the hardware ar- comprehensive list of words; Thunder7 works chitecture of the 68040 machines is closer with almost any program.

FEBRUARY 1995 / MacUser 135 HANDS ON

TIPS / Graphics SPEEDIER PRINTING IN FREEHAND blue 3-D glasses. Just follow the steps listed here: You can speed up printing of FreeHand 4.0 documents that include Open a 24-bit-color image — nonabstract images such as land- placed EPS files by converting the files to FreeHand art. That’s the easy scapes and portraits work best. Press Command-1 to edit the red chan- part. The trick is to make FreeHand do the conversion automatically nel, and then select the entire image by pressing Command-A. Go to whenever you place an EPS file. Other, on the Filter menu, and select Offset. In the To set the conversion up, open the FreeHand dialog box that comes up, enter negative values Preferences file, in the Aldus folder in your System into the offset boxes to offset the selection a few Folder. Change the line (CrackPlacedEPS) pixels (use values between –2 and –5) up and to (No) to (CrackPlacedEPS) (Yes). Now the left. Now press Command-3 to edit the blue whenever you place an EPS file in your document, channel, and offset this channel by the opposite, the file automatically converts to FreeHand art. positive values — causing the channel to move Joe Block down and to the right. Miami, FL Press Command-0, and — presto — your Although blurry to the naked eye, Photoshop image appears in quasi-3-D when PHOTOSHOP 3-D EFFECT this image created in Photoshop viewed through the proper eyewear. I’ve found a way to use Photoshop to approximate comes into focus in 3-D when you Roy Rodenstei the 3-D effect you can see through those red-and- wear 3-D glasses. via America Online words and 500,000 synonyms, and al- trouble-free life expectancy of a Mac LC? reason your keyboard doesn’t work is that though it uses only 14 MB of hard-disk Richard Plourde it’s broken. space, it’s the most complete, easiest-to- Edmundston, NB, Canada BOB: To answer your second question, the use, and most convenient dictionary/the- BOB: Whether you really need a utility pack- trouble-free life expectancy of any Mac is saurus I’ve tried (see figure 1). age such as Symantec’s Norton Utilities or directly related to when you decide to sell it ANDY: I heartily second the recommenda- MacTools depends on if you prefer (A) lug- — your Mac will die right before you place tion of the American Heritage Dictionary, ging your broken Mac down to the repair the ad. Even though a warranty would come but I also suggest Thunder7 ($99), from shop and paying a technician $100 to fix it in handy in that situation, I think AppleCare Baseline Publishing (800-454-9333 or 901- and possibly losing all the data on your hard and other extended warranty plans are a 527-2501). Although its list of words isn’t disk or (B) fixing it yourself with $100 rip-off. My out-of-pocket expenses for re- terribly exhaustive, it can work with just worth of software without losing the con- pairs for the Macs I’ve owned, even for the about any program. This control panel can tents of your hard disk. Mac Plus that went through three power add on-the-fly spell checking as well as the- Even with good backups, which would supplies in four years, have been much, saurus and dictionary features to such pro- make the whole thing a little less painful, much lower than the cost of AppleCare. grams as databases and communications I still go for answer B every time. Disk- packages. diagnosis and -repair utilities are cheap You can find the programs referenced in this BOB: There’s always Microsoft Bookshelf, insurance against common problems. For article in the MacUser and ZiffNet/Mac areas on CompuServe and eWorld. See page 4 for which includes all kinds of cool modules, instance, directory damage occurs all too instructions on accessing ZiffNet/Mac. such as a thesaurus, the American Heritage often — damage so severe that the only re- Dictionary, an encyclopedia, an atlas, and course is to erase the hard disk and TIPS / Clarifications an almanac. But it has some serious draw- reinitialize. Norton Utilities or MacTools backs — it requires a CD-ROM drive, and can monitor your hard disk, automatically MODEM SILENCING because it’s on CD-ROM instead of your diagnose directory damage, and repair it The tip in the October ’94 “TIPS / Telecom” hard disk, it’s horrifyingly slow. The biggest before you lose data. sidebar (page 139) had a confusing instruc- drawback for me is I can’t quickly switch to ANDY: Agreed. Just as you ought to know tion for silencing your modem. For this tip to work, you should add the letter M and the Myst, because the Bookshelf CD-ROM is where your fire extinguisher and first-aid number 0 (zero) to the end of the line of code occupying the drive. kit are in your house, every Mac user should specified in the tip. have quick access to a hard-drive-format- Protecting Your Mac ting utility, such as Casa Blanca Works’ FORCE QUIT Q. I see ads and reviews everywhere for Drive7 or FWB’s Hard Disk ToolKit; a data- A few readers wrote in with warnings against disk-repair utilities, but do I really need recovery package; and a virgin set of sys- using the Force Quit command, recom- mended in the “TIPS / System Software” one? I have had my Mac for only a year, back tem-software installation disks. sidebar in October ’94 (page 145). Bear in up regularly, have never had problems, and As for hardware-diagnosis programs, al- mind that Force Quit is likely to make your have my computer only for personal use. though they’re useful for measuring overall Mac unstable and should probably be used Also, my dealer is offering me an ex- system performance and checking on your only to save changes to files when your Mac tended warranty on my Mac for $350. Is it current configuration, on the whole, they’re crashes. Other uses are risky. worth it, and do you happen to know the just a high-tech way of determining the

136 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1995 JOHN C. DVORAK Templates of Doom

First Year. Announces plans to turn Mac DON’T UNDERSTAND into set-top box and outlines elaborate but idiotic scheme to capitalize on media con- why everyone is preoccupied with vergence and the interactive-TV revolution. Two dozen other companies follow this lead Apple’s fate as a buyout candidate. and make a similar announcement. I Second Year. Wants to change name from But they are. Apple fans should hope that to explain why it bought Apple in the first Macintosh to simply MAC. New York ad Apple itself goes on a buying binge just to place. Stock goes up. agency gets involved, and somehow the make itself a little more indigestible. We all name gets changed to Mac! with an excla- know that if Apple is taken over by, merged Sony mation mark. Suddenly decides Mac Davis with, or simply bought out by a large indus- Initial Action. Makes public statement to the would be a good spokesman. trial-strength corporation, it’ll soon be just effect that the company has good manage- Third Year. Falling sales prove intolerable, another footnote in computing history. ment and users can expect no changes at and the entire division is folded. Executives The players most often mentioned in Apple that will affect them or the platform. takeover scenarios are IBM, Sony, AT&T, First Six Months. Announces new lap- and Motorola. Here are the chronologies, as tops, which all experience software I see them for Apple, if any of the gang of anomalies that it promises to fix. four managed to buy Apple. Second Six Months. Moves produc- tion of all Macs to Asia and Mexico. IBM Says it will relocate Corporate HQ Initial Action. Makes public statement to the to Osaka. effect that the company has good manage- First Year. Not one single new prod- ment and users can expect no changes at uct but lots of celebrity endorsements Apple that will affect them or the platform. for current products. Billy Joel and Barbra First Six Months. In a reorganization, drops Streisand, both claiming to be computer say the computer was ahead of its time. Apple name in favor of IBM Cupertino. users, figure prominently. Scandal ensues Second Six Months. Announces Macintosh/ when, during a demo, Streisand is captured Motorola Personal PowerPC/RS 6000 strategy for up- on tape jumping onto a desk screeching, Initial Action. Makes public statement to the ward-mobility path. “Mouse! Where?” effect that the company has good manage- First Year. IBM makes one-year-anniversary Second Year. Drops Apple name and calls the ment and users can expect no changes at announcement at Super Bowl mocking machine the Sony Macintosh. Decides to Apple that will affect them or the platform. famous “1984” commercial by having the use x86 architecture to make computer First Six Months. Raises Macintosh prices 30 hammer-wielding woman from the com- more compatible with IBM PC. percent. mercial beat the crap out of various Apple Third Year. Discontinues Mac OS and forms Second Six Months. Raises Macintosh prices executives in a pointless mock boxing strategic alliance with Microsoft. Renames another 30 percent. match. IBM wastes $500,000,000 on the computer Mac PC. Reviewers call it a “lesser First Year. Sees error of price increases and sponsorship. clone.” Sales plummet. drops Macintosh prices 50 percent. Second Year. Mer- Second Year. Hires new VP from a lobster ges Macintosh in- AT&T company who devises new daily-fluctua- to PowerPC line. Initial Action. Makes public statement to the tion pricing scheme. “They price lobsters Drops Macintosh effect that the company has good manage- that way, and it works!” Sales fall. name and labels ment and users can expect no changes at Third Year. After executives complain that both systems Power Apple that will affect them or the platform. the market is too volatile, sells Apple to Computer. First Six Months. Remodels the cases for all Compaq, which closes it down after six Third Year. Closes the Macs and paints them all flat black. months. down IBM Cup- Second Six Months. Moves entire company to As you can see, the best company to buy

ertino, unable northeastern New Jersey. Apple would be RJR Nabisco. ZIMMERMAN / ROBERT ILLUSTRATION

2 MacUser / FEBRUARY 1994