The Computer Chronicles - MacWorld San Francisco (1994)

it was exactly 10 years ago during the 1984 Super Bowl that Apple first introduced the now famous Macintosh computer with the then famous 1984 style Macintosh commercial well during these 10 years the Mac has established itself as a unique computer and while only capturing about 15% of the marketplace it has in many ways set the standards for all of today's personal Computing we'll see what's new on the Macintosh today as we take you to the 10th anniversary macor expo here in San Francisco on this special edition of the computer [Music] Chronicles computer Chronicles is brought to you in part by Intel microprocessor technology for the software of today and tomorrow Intel the computer inside additional funding provided by Dana Macintosh networking Specialists and by hulet Packard personal computer division welcome to the computer Chronicles I'm steuart cha here at macor Expo 94 in San Francisco along with Tim baharan hi president of creative strategies Tim there are really not a lot of new products important products being introduced at this Mac world yet it's your view this is nevertheless a very important show yeah it's a very important show for a couple reasons this is a transitioner period for apple apple has had to take the Macintosh and try to convince everybody that it's still a very important platform and yet at the same time tell everybody that oh there's a new Macintosh about to come out called the power PC so it's a very delicate scenario for them where they've got to convince everybody that they're still committed to the Mac platform and all of the existing software world to keep that platform going and yet at the same time they've got to tell everybody that yes the power PC is a very powerful platform and we want you to move forward with us what about Newton here at Ma World Newton's important too this is the first so that we're going to be able to actually have Newton software where people can play with it the last time when Newton was at the Mac World in Boston it was just the Box itself now we've got software and examples for people to actually look at so it's important for Apple to be able to take Newton show some of the applications so how we can make it more productive and put it the put the right perspective on it that says this is a very important platform and we're going to support it as well finally Tim what about the Macintosh GUI a big Advantage Windows catches up we're not seeing any real change on the Macintosh right in the past and it's actually amazing that in a 10-year time period that MC andosh graphical interface hasn't changed that much but the thing that's important is that now that they get new processing power with the power PC Apple can do things like add voice sound video voice recognition Etc and take that graphical interface to a new level so the power PC is key to that sure okay today we'll see the newest hardware and software for the Macintosh for the Newton multimedia and more at macworld 94 this year's Expo featured 500 140 exhibitors and over 700 new products 70,000 attendees filled the Halls to capacity during the 4 days of macw world alongside the traditional Macintosh vendors there were some new exhibitors more commonly associated with PCS than with Macs digital equipment and Texas Instruments were among those showing Mac compatible peripherals such as scanners and high resolution printers macor is still a Macintosh showcase however and Apple computer took center stage with more than just new hardware this year's show highlighted the decade long history of the Mac with conferences stressing the achievements of the original MacIntosh and the future potential of the Next Generation Mac to add to the nostalgic feeling Apple replayed its most famous Macintosh ad the Super Bowl commercial featuring orwellian 1984 theme one cause our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we them with their own confusion we shall prail maor's theatrical side was overshadowed by the excitement surrounding the Next Generation Macintosh dubb the power PC although no formal announcement was made about a release date or Price Power PC demonstrations much an Evidence at the Apple Pavilion and a broad range of software companies had power PC applications on on display we're seeing a lot of power PC applications on the floor however there's a sense of anticipation that when this spring when in the spring the power PC is released you're going to see a lot more activity this show is holding its breath while Apple was not selling any new power PCS at this show the company did have some new products Apple launched a new online service called eworld featuring an especially friendly interface modeled around a kind of electronic Village of information the different services are grouped in building icons such as Marketplace news stand and Library according to Apple the real world metaphor is meant to bring order to the chaos that usually results from a glut of information providers making it difficult to locate data and navigate the system eworld will be available for Mac users this spring with a Windows version due shortly afterward apple is planning to offer worldwide access by the end of this year on the hardware side Apple introduced a new combination computer and television receiver called the Macintosh TV the unit features a 14-in monitor combined with a CD player and an interface for VCR camcorder video dis player or video game console since it's also a computer the Macintosh TV has software functions as well users will be able to freeze and capture television images display closed captions and activate a password protection device the computer comes with a 32 MHz microprocessor preloaded software and a 160 MB hard drive the cable ready Macintosh TV will sell for about $22,000 Apple was also showing off a new model 270c dockable Powerbook Duo the first PowerBook with 16bit color the backlit active Matrix display offered sharp clear graphics and the subtle gradations of color usually found only on desktop systems the 270c is available for around $3,000 this may be the last Mac World Expo that's all about 68,000 based computers by the time Mac world gets to Boston later this year it's likely the star of the show won't be the Macintosh but the new Power PC power PC demonstrations were evident all around the show most often featuring familiar software running at unfamiliar speeds fractal designs showed a version of its painter program for power PC and video Fusion did the same with its QuickTime video editing and special effect software other vendors with power PC demos included Dana Aldis Claris Delta Point radius macromedia and frame technology one of the big advantages of the power PC's risk processor is its vastly increased speed two to four times faster than today's best 68040 and 486 systems Apple says it has simplified the task of new software development for the power PC what we've done is we've made it for a developer that their source code for their 68,000 and their power PC can be identical so for the developer he can actually do both versions in parallel in fact most developers tell us they'll probably put both versions in the same cardboard box to just simplify the the life for everybody while the promises of power PC produce the most tantalizing talk at the show most Macintosh users had other concerns usually related to upgrade paths and future software availability but Apple claims it has no intention of leaving current users out in the cold there are three three major things that we're doing with the upgrades one is we have logic board upgrades for a wide variety of our systems it's about 10 different systems and it's Bas basically on a lot of the 040 systems so products like the quad 610 Centra 650 the 2vx the quad 700 800 900 950 we've announced upgrades for all those products so it covers a lot of products the other thing that we've done is a lowcost upgrade card and that card goes into a lot of 040 products and then lastly we're working of third parties who also do upgrade cards according to Apple at least 60 software developers are working on power PC versions of existing product that will run in so-called native mode meaning they'll take full advantage of the the power PC processor in many cases vendors plan to ship one set of diset including an intelligent installer program that automatically installs the correct software version after determining whether the system is a Mac or a power PC since the first indications that apple and IBM were working together on the power PC there was speculation that the chip would eventually power a hybrid machine that could work in both the IBM and Macintosh worlds but that is not the case instead Mac users will need software emulators to run PC or Windows programs power PC has so much horow that we can actually run Doss and windows applications at very good speeds so now we can run Doss and windows at 386 to 46 speeds depending on the software so that means if you like the Macintosh you can get our power PC Macintosh but still run your dos and windows applications that in some cases maybe don't exist on Macintosh [Music] the Macintosh Rose to Glory thanks to its Graphics power both in its user interface and in its ability to do Graphics intensive applications like desktop publishing and despite the advances and graphics on the Dawson Windows platform it's pretty clear at this Mac World Expo that the Macintosh is still the dominant Graphics box at the low end fractal design introduced dabbler learn to draw program designed for butting artists and non-artists dabbler pull down menus resemble drawers from which you can choose brushes inks and textures the program includes tutorials for beginners and Sample brush Strokes of Master artists like van go and surra the intuitive nature of dabbler commands was authentically demonstrated by some of Mac world's youngest visitors dabbler will sell for 99 fractal was is also showing a power PC version of its Flagship painter software the kind of application that benefits most from increased processing speed what we did is we uh took the code of painter and and ped it over so it's running native on powerpc uh speed is one big Advantage I noticed you know if you've got um a quader 700 and you know the speed of that then you can say the power PC floating point is 10 times the speed of that so things like our lighting command and plain old painter 2.0 Run 10 times faster with that power production software featured another kind of drawing package for wouldbe computer artists who feel uneasy about any kind of drawing storyboard quick is for directors producers and media designers who need a quick representation of their story or visual layout storyboard quick includes pre-drawn characters locations and props that you can move in and out of frames by pointing and clicking With a Mouse characters can be rotated to face left or right front or back and resized to create just the right perspective more sophisticated presentations the program can incorporate picked files scanned images or captured video frames storyboard quick is available now for $199 a new player in the multimedia field called video Fusion demonstrated version 1.5 of its special effects and editing program the software package called video Fusion is aimed at high-end QuickTime users need color correct output to television and vide tape video Fusion sells for $695 it offers Dynamic morphing of images and an extensive library of unusual transitions such as por Splash and raindrops video Fusion actually had two versions of its Flagship product one running on a Quadra and the other on a power PC according to the company the power PC version runs three to four times faster than on the Quadra Griffin software rolled out its own image distorting programs one product is called Dynamic effects described as a set of 20 plug-in modules for Adobe Premiere the other is morph 2.0 for transforming one image into another morphing has a special effect you've probably seen a lot in films and television television commercials music videos where an image smoothly transforms into another and while that you see this a lot you don't realize that there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes on this we produced a very inexpensive uh product for both the Macintosh and the PC that allow us to to deliver this power to users at home Griffin is planning a power PC version of morph and the company expects the graphics speed of the new chip to make their software run three to five times faster than on today's Max morph 2.0 is available now for $239 Dynamic effects is a package of filters and effects for producing QuickTime movies volume one includes animated special effects and Distortion filters which are installed as modules in Adobe Premiere QuickTime movie makers can then twist distort discolor and twirl images around like a cork screw Dynamic effect sells for $19 for computer artists who prefer type faces to human faces Pixar introduced typist stre 2 a program that turns postcript type one Adobe Illustrator and true type font into threedimensional images the $299 package lets users skew and rotate typ like objects in addition to 3D effects typist 3 2 controls the image's mass elasticity colors and density you can add fob Sparks Bubbles and you can even produce animated QuickTime movies starring your favorite letters ald dis operation introduced new versions of two old standards freehand 4.0 for design and illustration and persuasion 3.0 for creating and managing computer presentations the latest version of freehand features a new user interface with floating pallets which can be collapsed to reduce screen clutter new text functions include automatic copy fitting and multicolumn text blocks there are two new drawing tools called polygon and bason the president of ald dis Corporation Paul Brainard sees the increased sophistication of desktop graphics and page layout programs as a natural Evolution from traditional desktop publishing toward professional electronic publishing we're finding that our customers are increasingly interested in electronic distribution of their Publications uh they want to take advantage of multimedia because it's a more powerful more emotional medium to be able to incorporate Sound and Motion and video into their presentations into their publications of all types and you'll see within all the several products coming out in 1994 1995 that reflect this new direction we have a whole new group within all this that's focused exclusively on the what we call Interactive publishing tools games and entertainment software also depend heavily on graphics and color and this year's Mac World entries added several new CD ROM titles Mac play introduced an interactive disc called explor one Peter Gabriel's secret world the dis is built as an interactive music Adventure in which users can remix a hit single visit backstage at the Grammy Awards and learn how a recording studio works this is the production room I'm having some trouble with a mix of digging in the dirt come on in and give me a hand the disc contains over two hours of video and audio including full length Rock videos and eight Mouse controlled instruments explor one is available now for about $60 pop rocket previewed its new Total Distortion CD ROM an adventure game in which the player must pursue a new career as a music video producer while stranded in another dimension called the plane of distortion the goal of the game is to sell these unearthly music videos to Earthbound producers players willing to submit to this trial and buy the game for $99 beginning in April for CD ROM fans more interested in producing their own discs Eastman Kodak unveiled some new software for creating interactive photo CDs the photo CD portfolio combines three different software tools create it arrange it and build it create it is a $245 editing package for creating simple presentations users can select photos add text and graphics and import digital audio files arrange it is targeted at more advanced users who want to make interactive presentations with multiple branching options the $395 program will collect all of the content files and output the disc as a photo CD portfolio script finally build it is a Production Tool for writing the actual CD aimed at service bureaus and corporate users build it CS for $5,000 since the early days of personal Computing more powerful CPUs have meant more sophisticated output devices and peripherals this year is no exception Suma Graphics made its first entry in the color output Market with a large format thermal wax transfer printer the sumac Chrome Imaging system is capable of producing prints up to 24 in wide and 40 in Long new technology is called ribbon printing A system that uses contiguous 2in ribbons and a stationary print head to print on a moving sheet of paper the company believes the $330,000 printer is a viable alternative to screen printing offset and photographic reproduction I think what you're seeing in the large format color is is a professional tool that distinction be between uh between the high-end professional and the low-end uh playaround with the graphics packages is merging together and you're seeing the power by virtue of the convenience and ease of use of the software and the power of the uh platforms be being available to the user at the Supermac Booth Mac World visitors got an early look at a graphics card with a power PC supermax Spectrum power 11 52 available now for macintoshes will be shipped with a software upgrade once the power PC becomes available new card is a 24-bit color graphics and quick draw accelerator the first generation of power PCS will have the same bus or the same slot that you plug the card into as all the current macintoshes high-end macintoshes do so the Spectrum power 1152 card our this very fast card is 7 in long so it will fit into the power PCS and it will fit by definition into the same bus across the hall at the Dana booth there was less emphasis on color and more on communication especially wireless communication Dana's pocket scuzzy link is a portable ethernet adapter for PowerBook users the pocket adapter comes with a reversible scuzzy cable that connects with either a desktop Mac or a PowerBook the basic Dana Port pocket link sells for $299 [Music] they don't call the show Newton world at least not yet but this is the first Mac World Expo at which there really is support for two Computing platforms as lots of software developers introduce application titles specifically for the new PDA for frequent trade show Travelers Avail technology introduced G goo assist a trip planner and mobile reference library for the Newton Geo assist contains a database of time zone maps air travel data and Newton mail access numbers the program offers information on 1,000 cities including seasonal temperatures and map locations for air Travelers a feature called flight track allows you to follow a flight's progress across the globe and to find the most direct route between two points Geo assist sells for $59 for for travelers who spend more time in conference Halls than in airplanes Avalon engineering offered the presenter pad a portable teleprompter and slideshow assistant forgetful public speakers can rehearse time and even read their speeches right off the screen presenter pad sells for $139 Helios gave a boost to the Newton's communication capacity with its egis mail Communications package egis is the network company's first fora into mobile Computing but Helios sees it as a natural progression well it's actually a logical extension for what we do what we do today is we provide complete Network systems for macintoshes to connect to Unix systems and uh we also provide tcpip systems for PCs The Next Step was what with the mobile Computing environment how do we connect these mobile Community people with the standard Unix Mail system and consequently our services so it seemed logical to take a widely available server system like pop and to go ahead and provide that service over a Serial line so people can dial in and get their mail now egis mail features a standard interface for any mail system using the generic po or post office protocol mail server the package includes up to six email addresses and a message query system Macintosh users obviously love their Macs but apparently they also love the large selection of applications available for dosson Windows so one of the hot items at this Mac World Expo is boards like this one that essentially let you drop a 486 PC into your Macintosh the orange PC is a computer on a card that fits into a standard newus slot the card comes with either a 386 or 486 processor onboard RAM and an at bus slot orange micro says that for the first time Mac users can view full VGA graphics on any Mac monitor orange PC Cards start at $1,100 and are shipping now the other way to run dos and windows on your Mac is through software emulators and Insignia Solutions had some new Solutions using that approach for future power PC users Insignia demonstrated soft windows for running dos and windows applications off the power PC's risk chip Insignia says that users can run Mac dos and windows applications side by side switching from one to the other by clicking in the chosen window the software approach to Hardware shortcut comings was also the theme at connectic where Mac users lined up to buy Ram doubler a $99 software utility that doubles your computer's available memory RAM doubler is a system extension so no controls or new configurations are needed Ram doubler uses a virtual memory manager to make use of reserved but otherwise unused memory locations 4 days spent marching through the Mac World Expo is a test of stamina and patience for even the hard EST computer Enthusiast so to relieve trade show fatigue for attendees who have had enough of crowded aisles pushy vendors and noisy demos an Australian company called expand introduced a virtual computer trade show on a CD ROM the expand Expo is an electronic Macintosh trade show on CD complete with virtual aisles exhibition booths and product demos the expand Expo CD is free of charge to Shoppers but virtual exist iors pay $2,500 per calendar quarter to exhibit the exhibitor's fee is actual not virtual that's our look at San Francisco's 1994 Mac World Expo for the computer Chronicles I'm Stuart chaet computer Chronicles is brought to you in part by Intel microprocessor technology for the software of today and tomorrow Intel the computer inside additional funding provided by Dana Macintosh networking specialist and by huet Packard personal computer division video cassette copies of this program are available computer Chronicles also publishes a companion newsletter containing details on products demonstrated and information on program topics to order a video cassette or a newsletter call 1 1800799 4949 or write computer Chronicles please specify program subject for tapes all orders include a free software program for auditing software use and information on the definitive guide to keeping your organization's software legal [Music]

Channel: The Computer Chronicles

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Keywords: the, computer, chronicles, stewart, cheifet, gary, kildall, cp/m, vintage, computing, computers, old, ms-dos, dec, vax, mainframe, unix, tv, show, public, access, pbs, bill, gates, ms, dos, microsoft, amiga, commodore, 64, vic20, vic, 20, episodes, full, high, quality, hd, danooct1, tct

Id: CnzzxY5QO3I

Length: 26min 31sec (1591 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2013