We have the last of the news from Macworld Expo this week, with information on PageMaker 5.0. We also have an article about new products for Wallpaper from Thought I Could, useful System 7.1 enabler information, upgrade information for Canadians who want System 7.1, news of new low-end LaserWriters, yet another ATM hack, and finally, a long-awaited table of benchmarks from BYTE Labs and Tom Thompson.
A friend writes, "As of 10-Feb-93, Apple will remove the Mac IIci line from all price lists. The IIci is still considered to be a mainstream business solution although Apple will no longer be able to support the growing demands that have accumulated over the past few weeks."
Correction/LC III -- Oops, we said last week that the LC III could take a single NuBus card. Wrong - we mixed that information up with the Centris 610, which can take a single NuBus card as long as it's short enough
Disclaimer -- As some of you may have noticed, I now write the Beating the System column for MacUser. I don't know what to disclaim, but since I'm identified as the editor of TidBITS at the end of those columns, it seems only right to mention it here
StyleWriter II driver -- Dieder Bylsma wrote to tell us that he tried the head cleaning option from the StyleWriter II driver on his StyleWriter I, and although the printer itself seems OK, the process ruined the ink cartridge
Apple has released new versions of the System 7.1 Enablers for the IIvx and the PowerBook 160 and 180. They're available on AppleLink, so your dealer should be able to snag them for you
Connectix seems to continually fix something in the Macintosh system software that Apple should have done right in the first place. Virtual was the first (see TidBITS-160 for details of the latest version), and Connectix has filled Apple's potholes with MODE32 and CPU as well
Macintosh users were outraged when not only did Apple charge for System 7.1 upgrades, but also they offered upgrades in the United States only. Users in other countries had to buy the System 7.1 Personal Upgrade Kit, which retailed for $99 in the US
Jonathan Jacobs writes:
In TidBITS-157 Jim Burmeister reposted the hack that you can perform on ATM 2.0.2, 2.0.3, and 2.0.4 to make it work correctly with System 7.1
You've heard about the new LaserWriter Pro 610 and 630, and the latest news is that Apple will ship the 610 with 8 MB of RAM all the time, which allows the 610 to print at 600 dpi
[My apologies for sitting on this for so long, but I wanted to get these numbers out before the new machines come out. As you can see, creating an ASCII table of so many numbers is a major chore, and for that I thank Ian Feldman
Perhaps the most impressive upgrade I saw at Macworld was Aldus PageMaker 5.0. On the whole, PageMaker's enhancements fall in the category of "It's about time," but it's not worth complaining now that they're here
Like the little train that chugs along as their motto, Thought I Could doesn't give up. To judge from president Linda Kaplan's postings on CompuServe, a small company like Thought I Could faces innumerable obstacles in creating a successful mass market utility