NewsBITS/14-Oct-91
Apple’s becoming kinder and gentler in its old age. First Apple admitted that the dirty ROMs were a problem and licensed MODE32 from Connectix to give away for free. Apple will be doing something similar with Adobe Type Manager. After October 15th, you can call Adobe at the 800 number below and order a special version of ATM 2.02 that includes four Adobe Garamond typefaces for a whopping $7.50 for postage and handling. I called Adobe, and the rep indicated that this package would also be available through the normal Apple software sources. Since it may take between six and eight weeks for normal delivery, I hope Apple will post ATM online on the commercial services and via anonymous FTP from ftp.apple.com. I checked there, and it wasn’t up yet, but that’s not too surprising. Apple products shipping this month will include a coupon you can send in with a check for $7.50, but it’s just as easy to use the 800 number and plastic money, assuming you’re in the US or Canada. Supposedly the offer isn’t valid in other countries, but I hope Apple doesn’t restrict electronic distribution of ATM because of that. Do keep in mind that ATM will suck enough memory (200K) that you won’t be able to use it with most applications on a 2 MB machine under System 7. Buy more memory – it’s worth it. Once again, thank you, Apple. Keep it up and you’ll give computer companies a good name despite themselves. 🙂
Adobe — 800/521-1976, ext. 4400
A quick reality reminder among the waves of CD-ROM frenzy. Information on CD is only as good as that information could be in another format. Just putting lots of information on CD does not make it good. The latest instance of this came when I heard that the Bureau of Electronic Publishing (a commercial firm with a nice governmental-sounding name) announced that it was releasing on CD-ROM the entire Monarch Notes series of "study aids" (better known in schools as "cheat sheets"). Wonderful. Just peachy. Now we can have a whole slew of students who can use a CD-ROM player but aren’t bright enough to work through Shakespeare or Hemingway on their own. Sheesh. Now a decent use of CD-ROM would be to provide the entire work in question with essays and criticism by people who study that author. Instead we get annotated summaries and plot synopses. And no, I’m not going to include the contact information for this CD-Schlock.
A while back we published some addresses of organizations that would accept old computer equipment and would in turn let you write it off on your taxes. Sometimes that’s the most economical way of selling an old computer. Another organization that accepts donations of old computers and peripherals is the National Cristina Foundation, a non-profit organization which doesn’t use the computers itself but instead passes them out to member organizations. You can contact them using the information below. Another organization that accepts used equipment but which is not an official non-profit (which prevents you from writing donations off on your taxes) is Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg is dedicated to creating and distributing electronic texts. Their goal is to have 10,000 etexts available by the year 2000, and so far they are on schedule with the ones that are currently available. As I said before, Project Gutenberg is not officially non-profit, but it is an extremely good cause and one to which many people have donated large amounts of time and effort. You can contact them by email at the address below.
National Cristina Foundation
42 Hillcrest Drive
Pelham Manor, NY 10803
800/274-7846
914/738-7494
914/738-1571 (fax)
Michael Hart
Project Gutenberg
405 West Elm St.
Urbana, IL 61801
217/344-0367
217/344-5009
[email protected]
Information from:
Gar — [email protected]
MacWEEK — 30-Jul-91, Vol. 5, #26, pg. 3
Michael Hart — [email protected]