It's The Time For A Bargain Plus
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday September 9, 1990
THE day of the cheap Macintosh has arrived ... a little early. The Macintosh Plus is being slashed to about half-price in some quarters as the most basic Mac enters the last days of its product life.
The Plus carries a list price of $2,795 in Australia, but last week it was being advertised as low as $1,395 by some dealers.
Production of the Plus is believed to have already been terminated. Along with the SE, it is to be replaced by a model called the Macintosh Classic - a name for which Apple is said to have paid $1 million.
As revealed in these pages last week, the Classic will make its bow when Apple unveils three new lower-cost models in mid-October. (The date October 15 is being openly mentioned in the trade press and on electronic bulletin boards.)
At anything under $2,000, the Mac Plus is a snap. At $1,395 it is a stupendous bargain, probably the best-value personal computer on the market today.
A question your columnist has been asked by many people is, "At that price I'd love to buy a Mac, but should I really buy a model that's about to disappear?" There's no reason why not.
Nobody knows for sure how much the new Classic will cost in Australia. It will certainly be cheaper than $2,795, but few observers expect it to go as low as $1,395.
And while the Plus may be discontinued, that doesn't make it obsolete. Apple's policy of ensuring that all models are completely compatible and upgradable ensures that no Mac is ever obsolete.
The Plus may be a little slower than other models, but it enjoys the reputation of being the most reliable Mac. Kerry Timmins of the North Sydney service bureau Artwave Graphics, for instance, will use no other model for most of the workstations in his network.
And the Plus is blessedly silent: unlike the faster, more powerful SE or Mac II models, it needs no cooling fan - the major source of noise in personal computers.
Anyone buying a Mac Plus should consider investing a further $100-$200 for an extra megabyte of random access memory. The Plus comes with one meg as standard fitting, which is certainly more than adequate for word processing or many other home, educational or small business applications.
But with two megs you can use MultiFinder, the inbuilt multi-tasking software that enables Mac users to open more than one application at once and switch effortlessly between them.
It also enables you to run memoryhungry programs like the new 1.5megabyte PageMaker 4.0, and manipulate large graphics files and spreadsheets.
And it makes the Plus ready for Apple's new operating System 7.0, expected about the end of the year, which will offer many new benefits and needs a minimum two megs of memory.
That's about all the upgrading many users will ever need. But if you do want to take a Plus further there are many options.
These include the Gemini, Dove Marathon and Radius Accelerator 16 boards which replace the Plus's 8-megaHertz Motorola 68000 chip with either a 16-MHz 68020 or 68030.
At prices in the $1,400-$2,500, these boards can give the Plus performance approaching the SE/30 or IIcx models at a very much lower all-up cost. The IIcx, for instance, lists at $7,395, and that's without a monitor.
By contrast, while these bargain prices last, you could buy a $1,395 Mac Plus, equip it with a Gemini or Dove board and an extra meg of memory - all for about $3,000.
You will have a machine that in terms of performance, consistency, reliability and ease of use will beat the socks off the average 386 IBM clone, with or without Windows 3.0.
The recently announced Dove Marathon 030 board for the Plus sells for$1,448.
Its 030 processor runs at 16MHz and it has a paged memory management unit(PMMU) which will allow it to use some of the advanced features of System 7.0
One is the ability to access up to 16 megabytes of virtual memory, four times the normal limit for the Plus.
Virtual memory, which will be a feature of System 7, uses spare hard disk storage space as system memory. It's a very cheap way to get the effect of extra Ram.
Those who can't wait for System 7.0 can have virtual memory now, using the Connectix Virtual software. In the US, this program is bundled free with the Dove Marathon 030 card - but, alas, this is not so far the case in Australia.
Dove products are distributed in Australia by Sysygy Computers of Chatswood (4131588). Gemini boards - which topped a recent Macworld performance rating of Plus accelerators - are marketed by Scarlan of Drummoyne (819 7032). Radius products are handled by Allaw Technologies(4159111).
The Plus may not be the only Mac product to disappear in the wake of the October releases. The IIcx may also be on the way out.
While it is currently one of the most popular Macintosh models, especially among desktop publishers, the IIcx will sit uncomfortably close to both the existing IIci and the IIsi (one of the October 15 trio of new models) in Apple's new line-up.
All three models use the 68030 chip, running at 16MHz in the case of the IIcx, 20MHz for the IIsi and 25MHz for the IIci. Something has to give in the interest of product rationalisation, and it seems likely to be the IIcx. This move would presumably be accompanied by some downward revision of the IIci price structure.
In basic form it is listed at $9,650, compared with $7,395 for the IIcx, but the prices are really closer than that because a separate video card to suit your monitor has to be bought with the IIcx at a cost of $995. Video is built into the IIci and si.
In the US, the IIcx outsells the IIci three to one. That is not only related to price: it's because the IIcx has the reputation of being a trouble-free performer: the IIci initially had some incompatibility problems with a few programs.
Your columnist is much attached to a IIcx. With the CPU stashed under the desk and Apple's A4-sized Portrait Monitor sitting on the desktop, it's close to the ideal personal computer - fast, smooth, easily expandable and virtually silent.
We also use it with an Apple Two-Page Display for magazine and newsletter layout purposes, but for everyday use - writing letters, invoices and stories and handling simpler desktop publishing tasks, the Portrait display is faster and occupies a lot less space.
Speaking of monitors, Apple is said to be planning to launch two new displays to go with the new October models. Made by Mitsubishi, they are slightly smaller than the current Apple 13-inch colour monitor, and will cost considerably less.
The new models will also be accompanied by a new interim version of the system software, System 6.0.6.
This will include audio compression and expansion software for digitising sounds, better floppy disk management and an end to the mysterious error-code messages that appear when your Mac bombs.
The code numbers will replaced with a short message that explains what just happened when the machine bombed. Let's hope that isn't too often.
© 1990 Sydney Morning Herald