If I say the word Apple, you say the word Macintosh.
But if I played the same game just a few years ago and said Apple,
you would probably say 2 or 2E or 2+, for it was the Apple II that started this company.
But with the recent success of the Macintosh and the Mac II in particular,
there have been rumors that the old Apple II was headed for the orphanage.
Not so, for there's a new Apple IIc and a new Apple IIgs.
Today we take a look at the new generation of Apple II computers on this edition of the Computer Chronicles.
♪♪
The Computer Chronicles is made possible in part by McGraw-Hill,
publishers of Byte Magazine, and Bix, the Byte Information Exchange.
In print and online, Byte and Bix serve computer professionals worldwide
with detailed information on new hardware, software, and technologies.
♪♪
Welcome to the Computer Chronicles. I'm Stuart Shiffey.
And this is Gary Kildall.
Gary, what I've got over here in this little briefcase is an original Apple I computer.
Before they thought about cases for computers, this guy put it into his briefcase.
This is literally a museum piece, but it's only about 10 years old.
And of course it represents state-of-the-art technology at the time for personal computers.
Knowing what we know about technology and PCs today,
what is the point in coming out with a new 8-bit computer like the 2C Plus?
Well, Stuart, it's important to understand what the Apple really, where it came from.
Steve Wozniak is the guy that engineered this thing,
and he was a video person as well as a computer person.
He realized you could put these two things together.
Great for playing games, real low cost because you hook it to your TV set.
As a result, they got a head start on a lot of the other PC computer manufacturers.
A lot of software was produced, good customer base.
This is a sufficient machine for a lot of people to use in education, in the home, and so forth.
And Apple said, well, why not serve a set of customer base and give them a new machine?
Well, we're going to take a look at that new machine today.
It's the Apple 2C Plus, and we'll see how it has improved on its ancestors.
We'll also take a look at GSOS, the new operating system for the Apple II GS,
and its new ability to work with a CD-ROM drive.
Now, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were the architects of this early generation of Apple II computer.
John Scully is the driving force behind Apple now,
and we're going to start out this program by visiting John Scully in his office at Apple
to find out about the company's real commitment to the future of the Apple II.
Since its introduction over 10 years ago,
the Apple II has proven to be a sturdy and persistent computer
with a loyal following of devoted fans.
There are now about 4.5 million of them scattered around the world.
But company support for the Apple II line, at least in the eyes of its owners,
hasn't always been evident, as Apple president John Scully admits.
Well, I think in many ways that Apple II users have felt abandoned by Apple
because they haven't heard many messages from the top people in our organization
to give them encouragement that the Apple II was important.
And to be perfectly honest, this was a very conscious direction on our part
as we were trying to convince business users that Apple wasn't in the home computer business only,
that we were also able to provide very powerful business workstations.
Without the success of the Macintosh in business, we couldn't afford
the huge investment we have in research and development
and the support of proprietary technologies for Macintosh and the Apple II.
Today, the Apple II has become three machines,
including the little-changed IIe, the colorful IIgs, and the portable IIc+.
But increasingly, the Apple II series appears to be headed in a different direction
from the company's most powerful and expensive computer, the Macintosh.
The best way to really understand the two products is to look at the software bases that they have.
The software base for the Apple II is largely educational software and enthusiast software,
and it continues to have a tremendous amount of new software as well as many popular titles from the past.
The Macintosh, on the other hand, from the start was a computer that was aimed at higher education,
colleges, universities, as well as business.
Apple Computer has other reasons, beside owner loyalty, to keep the Apple II line moving forward.
For one, it's a billion-dollar industry all by itself,
and the machine has captured over 60% of the educational market.
Moreover, the installed base is enough to keep users and suppliers busy for many more years.
There are a lot of businesses that adopted the Apple II a long time ago,
that already had made the investment in Apple IIs, don't want to give up that investment.
They have their files on Apple II computers, and so the Apple IIgs has found its way into many small businesses.
As with any other kind of computer product, the marketplace determines whether a computer will live or die,
and John Scully believes that customers for the Apple II will be around for some time to come.
We're going to do everything we can to make the Macintosh as powerful as we can,
but it doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who like a stick shift,
who want to have the real feel of the chips, and that's the experience that you get with an Apple II.
You're close to the technology.
♪♪♪
Joining us in the studio now is Laura Kurohara, product manager for the Apple IIc Plus,
and next to Laura is Bill Cleary, formerly with Apple, formerly with the Apple division of Activision,
and now out on your own with Bill Cleary Communications. Gary?
Laura, I'd say there's quite an improvement over the Apple that was in the briefcase.
That Apple.
What is the new features of the Plus?
Okay, just to start off with, we used to have in the IIc a 5 1⁄4-inch disk drive,
and now we have a 3 1⁄2-inch disk drive.
So what that offers is five times the storage capacity and three times faster than 5 1⁄4
accessing your programs.
We used to have a power supply that was external on the IIc.
We all remember the power supply.
Yes, brick on the leash.
What we've done is internalized the power supply, and it resides right here inside the case.
So we've done the obvious changes to the C, to the C Plus,
so that they're obvious but they were important features that we needed to do to improve the C.
Just to be clear, that's not part of the new IIc.
No, it's not.
It's the old generation.
It's the old generation, and it has gone away.
How about speed improvements? Is it a faster processor now?
Yes. What we have done is we have a custom accelerator chip that is in the C Plus,
and what it does is help perform a 4 MHz operation function for the user.
So instead of running at 1 MHz where the IIc originally ran at,
you are running at 4 MHz operational mode, and this is optional to the user.
So you cold boot the machine, and you're coming up in 4 MHz,
and then you can do a keystroke selection and go into 1 MHz operation.
So those programs that are dependent upon timing can still run in the new?
You've got a demo, I think, in which you can show us the difference in those two speeds, could you?
Yes. What I've done is this is going to be operating in 1 MHz,
so you get an idea of where we were at and where we're coming to.
So what I did is this is Math Blaster Plus.
It's a popular software application for education.
It's a game on learning your math.
So we'll go into here, and we'll be able to see across here.
If you take a look at this little guy running across here, and I turn the volume up,
you're going to get an idea of what look and sound of 1 MHz look like.
Now, if I go in and I reset the machine, I'm going to reset the program into 4 MHz.
While we're waiting for it to reboot, then, you're mentioning the 3 1⁄2-inch floppies now.
Are you concerned at all that, I mean, the whole issue with the Apple II, of course,
is the gigantic amount of software out there, all of which is on 5 1⁄4.
Aren't you concerned now that by switching disk formats,
this sort of throws out that whole advantage to the user?
Well, we were real concerned about that during our development process.
So what we did is we seeded over 200 of our software and hardware developers,
the majority of them being software developers.
And what we wanted to assure is going from a transition of 5 1⁄4-inch media to 3 1⁄2.
And what we did is, during this development process, encouraged developers to move to the 3 1⁄2
and make it available in their separate kit units on the dealer's shelves.
So on the day of introduction, we were real proud of the fact that we were able to announce
over 500 software applications available on 3 1⁄2-inch media in that separate box.
So the user could walk in and purchase that software application, walk home,
and you'll have this 3 1⁄2 there without having to send a coupon in.
Okay. Can you show us 4 MHz now?
Yes. Now we reboot it, and we'll go back into the game portion selection.
And we're going to see this little guy running around again.
Yeah, you'll be able to hear it and see it.
Watch him run at 4 MHz.
You're right.
Back into here and choose Level 1.
And here it's obviously showing you a faster speed. That's three times the performance of the original.
Now, Bill, obviously, I'm not going to buy a new computer to have this little guy run faster.
What are the advantages, really, to the 2C+, and the kinds of users who would use that,
to the greater speed, to the 3 1⁄2-inch floppy, and so on?
I think there's a lot of, you know, the real excitement about Apple's Apple II line, I think,
over the years has been the large number of third-party solutions out there.
Products like AppleWorks, which provide, from Clarus, which provide incredible functionality
in terms of home productivity or even running a small business.
There's just a large number. Everything from PrintShop, which is really an Apple II prototype
for desktop publishing, which actually impacted the high end of the business.
The Apple II is just a phenomenal machine, and the real mystery or the real secret about it,
I think, can be summed up in a phone conversation, just paraphrasing what happened a few years ago
when I was working as a vice president of marketing at a software company here in Silicon Valley.
And I was asked, why isn't the Amiga going to knock off this machine?
And the answer was real simple. I said, I think the Amiga can knock off the Apple II
if it does the following things.
If it can before, within the next two months, get 60% of the education market,
if it can get 10,000 software programs out there, and if it can get, at the time,
2 1⁄2 million loyal users to support it. And I think that's part of the magic of the Apple II.
And there's a lot of reasons why I think people continue to buy them.
Laura, you talked about, and we talked about the 3 1⁄2 inch floppy.
You've got some more options now with the IIc Plus in terms of peripheral drives and so on, don't you?
Yes, we did. What we added to the line with the original IIc,
if you wanted 3 1⁄2 inch media compatibility, you use the Unidisc.
What we've added to the line is still the option of using the Unidisc,
the Apple 3.5, which you can use on the Apple IIgs, and then the Apple 5.25.
So now you have all three drives that are compatible for the product,
for the Apple IIc product in our line.
It's amazing how large that looks now, isn't it?
Yeah.
That's a new size disk.
Bill, what do you think about the positioning of this particular machine, the IIc Plus?
Is that going to be in the same traditional niche where the II has been?
Well, you look at the evolution of machines.
You've got the IIgs, which provides improved sound and graphics,
and the mouse interface that people are familiar with on the Macintosh computer.
I think the difference, I think the IIc makes a lot of sense for people,
and I don't know from a positioning standpoint what this means,
but for people whose kids may be in K-12 using an Apple IIe,
which is the standard in schools, to go home and to buy for the home an Apple IIc,
it makes a lot of sense. It's a logical choice at Christmas time.
What other products would you like to see coming out from Apple?
Personally, because I have a lot of Apple IIc software
that's been associated with the machine for eight years now,
the Apple II family of products, not just the IIc.
I would say I'd like to see a machine that has,
where I could run all the high-end Macintosh stuff
and also could run all the Apple II stuff.
It's probably an unmissable dream.
You want the Apple Master Machine.
The Master Machine.
It's about the size of the IIc Plus there with a flat panel screen
on plane trips and whatnot, or if I wanted to run some old II stuff,
I could still do that. I think it would be a fantastic product.
I know Apple can't formally comment on this, but what would you think about that?
A laptop Apple IIc, battery-powered, flat screen and so on,
would that be a sensible product?
I think from a cost standpoint, it would be very difficult for Apple to do a product like that.
I see the GS as sort of an evolutionary step in terms of giving people the Macintosh interface,
but I don't know whether or not from a cost standpoint you could do a machine that had a coprocessor
that could accommodate both sides of the Apple family.
But to me, it would be the ideal machine.
Personally, I would love to buy one.
Okay, Bill, Laura, thank you very much.
Now, the Apple IIc Plus is not the only new II coming out of Apple these days.
There's a new Macintosh II, the Mac IIx, and Wendy Woods takes a look at that new machine.
The top-of-the-line Apple model, the Macintosh IIx, breaks new ground for the company.
It's the first Apple Mac to use Motorola's powerful new 68030 microprocessor.
It's got a standard memory of 4 megabytes, runs at 16 megahertz, is 10 to 30 percent faster than the Macintosh II,
and most importantly, is the first Apple product to read and write to the IBM MS-DOS format.
The message we get most clearly is people love our technology and they want to use it,
and the less painful we can make it for them to transition out of an old technology,
the easier it is for us to sell our technology.
The Macintosh IIx drive is operated by Apple's file exchange software,
which can read and write 3.5-inch MS-DOS or OS II diskettes, Macintosh diskettes, or Apple II ProDOS diskettes.
In this demonstration, the IIx is reading and converting a Lotus 123 file made on an MS-DOS laptop
to a file that can be used in Microsoft Excel on the Macintosh.
Within a few years, this top of the line will become the middle of the line,
and you can see the direction in which Apple is heading,
a future of powerful color Macintoshes in which the data from many kinds of machines will be interchangeable.
In Cupertino, California, for the Computer Chronicles, I'm Wendy Woods.
[♪ music playing ♪
With us in the studio now is Anne Bachtold, product manager for the Apple IIgs,
and next to Anne is Stu Roberson, director for marketing with Activision.
Anne, over the years we've seen various versions of the Apple II.
We just saw the C-plus and so forth.
How do you differentiate the GS from the rest of the Apple line?
The GS is the top of the line for the Apple II product family,
and it sells into both consumer as well as education markets,
but it's really the most powerful platform we have.
But it is still an Apple II.
Oh, it's definitely an Apple II, and it runs all the Apple II software that's available.
Can you show us what it looks like?
Sure, sure.
The key thing, Anne, is really the operating system.
It's not a new machine, it's a new operating system.
The GS has been out for almost two years,
and what I'm booting up right now is the new Apple IIgs system software, version 4.0,
which we recently introduced about a month ago at Apple Fest.
While it's booting up, have you identified the customer base?
Now, obviously you have over the past two years.
Who buys the GS?
People who are interested in doing home productivity, families,
and we have a very large education base in both K-12 areas as well as some college base,
but it's primarily a K-12 machine and home productivity machine for families.
So what we're booting into right now is basically the heart of the new system software, which is GSOS,
the new operating system.
And some of the improvements that GSOS brings to the GS are, first of all, increased disk access,
which, as you can see, definitely speeds the boot time of the system over our previous system software.
And we've also introduced the concept of file system translation.
Essentially what file system translation allows us to do is access data files from other operating systems.
And what we've done is we've created new tools called FSTs or file system translators, which allow us to do that.
And one of the things I'd like to demonstrate today is the file system translator for the High Sierra file system.
As you can see, we've got a system right here that's configured with CD-ROM.
And one of the things that we can do is through using the High Sierra FST,
we can actually access applications, CD-ROM applications, such as Bookshelf, which is from Microsoft.
And bring it right into Multiscribe.
Multiscribe is a very popular GS word processing program. A lot of our users have it.
So what I am right now, I'm in a Multiscribe file.
And what I'm going to do is go into my disk area,
and I'll go ahead and scan through some of my different volumes here until I bring up Bookshelf.
And I'll go ahead and open a Bookshelf file.
Let's just say I want to access Bartlett's quotations, for instance.
And I've actually imported a data file from Bookshelf into my Multiscribe package.
And this really opens up the world of CD-ROM for our users,
and especially our education customers are very interested in being able to access all the data that you can find on CD-ROM applications.
What other kind of applications do you really see in the CD-ROM area?
Well, CD-ROM is really a new industry for us, and it's really exploding.
And we're supporting it now with the CD-ROM drive that we introduced in March.
This is the first time that we've actually supported it on the Apple II line.
So any large storage application, this one is a good example.
I guess Encyclope is that one.
Exactly.
Could you run us back to the operating system and show us some of the new tools that are in the OS?
Yeah. In addition to the new operating system,
we've created two new utilities that will really help our users better manage their hard files,
as well as configure their systems.
As you probably know better than I, computing is becoming much more complex.
So two of the new utilities that we have that I'm launching right now is the installer.
The installer is a great program because it allows the user to really easily configure their systems.
If you start adding hard drives and CD-ROMs and various other things,
it becomes somewhat complicated to make sure you have the right drivers.
So on the left-hand side right here, I have some of the different drivers that you can add to your system,
everything from MIDI to image writer support to CD-ROM support.
I'm going to click on CD-ROM and install this driver.
That way I know I'll definitely be able to run this program.
What you can see right now is a little box that's giving you feedback on the process of adding the driver,
as well as what files are being added.
So you don't have to worry about the different system file management.
It's taking care of it for you.
You've got one other new utility in there, don't you?
Sure. Let me get out of this, and we'll go into the advanced disk utility.
And that lets you do what?
The advanced disk utility really helps you set up your hard drive
and manage the information that's found there.
Users, when they first start setting up their hard drive,
they'll need to either initialize it or zero it out if it has other information.
But another important element to this is partitioning,
and that's something we haven't supported prior to today, or actually in the last month.
And what I'm showing you right now is a new partitioning utility.
What I have on the right side here are three different partitions
that we've set up on this particular hard drive,
and I'll show you that we can change the partition size as well as...
And why are you partitioning the disk?
Sure. One of the reasons you might partition a disk is to have different file formats.
Maybe you want to mix pastel files with Proto files, things like that.
So I can add and delete partitions and change the partition sizes.
Okay, Ann, can I ask you to load up Stu's program while I talk to Stu?
How important is the 2GS as a product line to software developers like Activision?
Well, Activision is really dedicated to the Apple IIGS
and to that education and home marketplace that Ann had mentioned.
To the large, growing developer base, I think you're seeing a lot more activity in the GS
as some of the original Apple II developers have now started shifting their emphasis over to the new machine.
Do you have any idea what the size of that market is now?
Right now there's over 300,000 2GSs installed, and that's growing.
We anticipate, as what happened last year, that during the Christmas quarter,
they'll sell more Apple IIGSs than any other Apple CPU.
Stu, you've got a paint program from Activision, which takes advantage of the graphics of the GS.
Describe it and show it to us.
Yeah, this is Paintworks Gold, and Paintworks Gold is one of eight products that we make for the Apple IIGS.
Paintworks Gold was derived from Paintworks Plus, which is a 512K version of the product for ease of use
and has made its way into many schools.
What we're going to take a look at here are some of the advanced features that you can do with the 2GS using Paintworks Gold.
Now, the image it's going to load is one that you may have seen.
It's the Taj Mahal.
And we're going to use two features, slippy colors, which is a unique feature,
and then masking colors to make the Taj Mahal actually reflected in the pool below.
What slippy colors actually allows you to do is define colors for your lasso tool to slip around.
So we're going to define all the colors that are used in the sky.
Then we're going to choose our lasso tool and select the Taj Mahal.
You'll note, once I have released this, that just the Taj Mahal is selected.
This allows you to pick out objects that you want from any painting.
So we're going to go ahead and flip this Taj Mahal around to paste it down below.
So we'll just flip it vertically.
Now we have our Taj.
Now I'm going to move the screen around a bit.
So first we'll cut this out, grab our handle.
Now let's paste in the Taj Mahal.
As we move it up, now we have a perfect reflection.
Well, near perfect because you can see it's overlapping the grass.
Well, that's where masking colors comes in.
You can actually mask these colors so that you can paint behind them or around them.
Show us how you do that.
I'll go ahead and mask some colors here.
I'm going to mask every single color and then unmask the colors that may be in the water.
Now you'll note as it has made its selection that instantly the Taj goes behind.
In fact, you can actually paint behind the other objects that you see here on the screen.
The last thing that we're going to do here is just make this a nice sunset picture.
And we'll do that by changing the colors.
Now the sky was actually created using some gradient colors.
We'll go in and change those colors.
We'll choose a color of red, and I want to adjust my entire palette to it.
And I'll start picking out some oranges that might work well in a sunset sky.
And there you have it.
That's an impressive product.
Stu, thank you very much.
It's a nice looking machine and operating system, and thank you.
That's our look at the new Apple IIc Plus and the new Apple IIgs.
Hope we'll see you here again next week on the Computer Chronicles.
♪♪
In the random access file this week, an announcement from Toshiba that could replace
floppy and hard disk drives in the near future.
Toshiba says it has developed a 4 megabit electronically erasable,
programmable read-only memory chip.
The chip provides a readout time of 1.6 microseconds.
This is approximately 1,000 times faster than conventional floppy disk,
and it takes the chip 1 microsecond to erase or store data.
Toshiba says the chip eliminates the need for floppy or hard disk drives,
and Toshiba believes without the cumbersome disk drives,
drastically smaller computer systems could be on the market within three years.
A new Macintosh laptop should be out by this summer.
Still no specific launch date has been announced, price range,
or specifications for the system.
But there have been leaks by a Dillon Reid analyst who says the new model should be
introduced in June and cost about $6,000.
And the word is the launch of the laptop has been delayed by problems with screen display.
President Bush has okayed the foreign takeover of the U.S.'s last major producer
of silicon wafers used to make computer chips.
A West German firm has bought the California Monsanto electronic company.
The U.S. now produces none of the silicon wafers made in the world,
while the Japanese provide 70% and European companies 26%.
The sale of Monsanto, the world's sixth largest producer of the wafers,
was announced last November.
TV newsman in St. Petersburg, Florida, has been arrested for allegedly cracking
his former employee's computer system.
Michael Shapiro left his station for a competitor four months ago.
In January, an investigation showed that files were missing from his former station's
newsroom computer.
A probe by the phone company led police to Shapiro.
Shapiro is now on a leave of absence from his current job.
He is facing 14 counts of computer-related crime.
His bond is set at $14,000.
Making long-distance phone calls and charging them to your home
couldn't get much easier than this.
U.S. Sprint is testing a telephone calling card that can only be used when the
cardholder's voiceprint is verified.
The voice card, as it's being called, is being tested by employees and selected customers.
Here's how it works.
Dial the 800 number, then dial in an easy-to-remember number, like your birth date,
then give a two-second verbal password.
Your voice is then compared to your voiceprint on Sprint's record.
If it matches, the call goes through.
If not, it's blocked.
Here's something students may be interested in.
Microsoft and Simon & Schuster's Prentice Hall College Book Division will publish
a student version of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet.
The release date is scheduled for April.
The student edition will include all the features of the retail edition.
Candelia, a vast kingdom, a peaceful, futuristic world,
ruled by the Lockarm Dynasty for ages.
Its secrets are locked in the Sword of Power.
Its creation is from the imagination of one 15-year-old, Jeffrey Campbell of Colorado.
Campbell just won first prize for his story.
He was competing in a contest by Nintendo.
The contest was to come up with the wildest plot for a new video game.
Campbell did and won.
Campbell's game idea was just one of over 10,000 entries by youngsters ages 8 to 15.
That's it for this week's Computer Chronicles.
I'm Cynthia Steele.
The Computer Chronicles is made possible in part by McGraw-Hill,
publishers of Byte Magazine,
and Bix, the Byte Information Exchange.
In print and online, Byte and Bix serve computer professionals worldwide
with detailed information on new hardware, software, and technologies.
For a transcript of this week's Computer Chronicles,
send $4 to PTV Publications, Post Office Box 701, Kent, Ohio, 44240.
Please indicate program date.
Computer Chronicles