Adam Engst
Adam C. Engst is the publisher of TidBITS. He has written numerous books, including the best-selling Internet Starter Kit series, and many magazine articles thanks to Contributing Editor positions at MacUser, MacWEEK, and now Macworld. His innovations include the creation of the first advertising program to support an Internet publication in 1992, the first flat-rate accounts for graphical Internet access in 1993, and the Take Control electronic book series now owned and operated by alt concepts. His awards include the MDJ Power 25 ranking as the most influential person in the Macintosh industry outside of Apple every year since 2000, inclusion on the MacTech 25 list of influential people in the Macintosh technical community, and being named one of MacDirectory's top ten visionaries. And yes, he has been turned into an action figure.
Apple kindly provides an upgrade path from the Macintosh SE to the Mac SE/30, which uses the same case. However, as people on Usenet have recently discovered, the upgrade is not as straightforward as one might hope
In response to a number of suggestions, several small changes have been made in the TidBITS stack. They will not transfer to the previous stacks already in your TidBITS Archive, but they will be present from now on.
First, there is an invisible button at the top of the screen which shows the menu bar when you move into it and hides the menu bar when you move out of it
A number of people on Usenet have complained about Freesoft's White Knight's inability to display more than 24 lines in VT100 emulation mode. The White Knight window itself can be sized to display more lines, but doing so produces unexpected results
Since the introduction of the SuperDrive (officially known as the FDHD for a while), users have had mixed feelings. On the one hand, no one minds having 1.4 megabytes of storage on a single floppy
Ashton-Tate's new versions of dBASE for the Mac and PC will share the look and feel of the DOS command line environment and will be 100% data and program compatible with each other
The Usenet rumor mill has been grinding the low-cost Mac into a fine flour. Evidently, some people have heard that Apple is striking a deal with Tandy, the computer name behind Radio Shack, either to build and market or just to build a low cost Mac
With all the hullabaloo about the Mac IIfx, there has been much discussion from jealous Plus and SE owners on how to bring their Macs up to speed and snuff
Although IBM has not made an official announcement, a front page article in PC WEEK reveals IBM's plans for an August-release, low-cost home computer. This system, if released promptly, could steer potential buyers toward IBM if Apple cannot come through with its promise of a low-cost Macintosh
In response to the burgeoning laptop market, WordPerfect is putting together a new word processor called LetterPerfect. LetterPerfect files will be 100% compatible with WordPerfect IBM 5.1 files (and theoretically with WordPerfect Mac 1.0.4 files, but we don't know exactly how that will work and WordPerfect Mac should be at release 2.0 before LetterPerfect comes out)
Global Village Communications has introduced a unique modem that attaches to the Mac's ADB ports like a keyboard or mouse. The $225 TelePort modem does not require a power supply and communicates at 300, 1200, and 2400 baud with class 5 MNP
A new screen from Reflection Technology has the physical dimensions of a sugar packet, but the viewing dimensions of a 12" monitor. The screen uses a headband to attach to your head and extends a few inches out from the headband in front of one of your eyes
Microlytics Inc. has come up with the perfect desk accessory for folks who know perfectly well what they want to say but cannot think of the word. The dictionary allows you to type in definitions and then tells you what words you might be thinking of
For anyone working on a IIci with After Dark, the screensaver from Berkeley Systems, you should upgrade to version 1.1c. The new version fixes a bug that causes crashes when the screensaver kicks in while DAs are open
In a blow to industry leader Microsoft, Lotus and Novell merged last week to form a corporation worth about $1.5 billion dollars. The merger does not affect the Macintosh market as directly as the PC market, because neither Lotus nor Novell has been a major player in the Macintosh market despite several abortive attempts by Lotus
ACIUS, the developer of 4th Dimension, announced a host of new programs in many sectors of the market. Included in the product announcement are 4D Write, 4D Calc, Graph 3D, 4D Draw, 4D Compiler Kit, 4D External Kit, 4D SQL Server, and 4D Connectivity Kit.
All of the new products can be integrated tightly with 4D, and include the same sort of inter-application communication that Apple promises will be in System 7.0