What's new with Mac???
14-Mar-94 03:53:52
Sb: #163762-What's new with Mac???
Fm: John MacVeigh 72467,2141
To: David Parker 70650,1526
David,
1) The two-non Apple dev. environments for C/C++ are Symantec's Think C and
Metrowerk's Code Warrior (the latter is brand new and is shipping a "developer
release", with free update to final version). They are very similar (many MW
developers used to work on Think C), but MW already has PowerPC code
generation. There are other langauges as well: look in this forum for notes
about SmallTalk Agents from QKS and Prograph CPX from Prograph International.
2) "PowerPC" is the name of the chip that the new Macs will use. It is the one
based on IBM's POWER architecture and fab'd by IBM and Motorola. To get PowerPC
code generation you can get Metrowerks now, wait till May or so for Symantec,
or spring for Apple's MPW and PowerPC SDK, available now, for a price.
3) I know nothing about Unix on the Mac (or most anywhere else, for that
matter). [But I'd be surprised if you could run AU/X _from_ a CD, I think it's
just shipped that way and then you load it onto a hard disk.]
4) The new Macs use the same ADB keyboards: the small compact one, the regular
extended one, and the rather larger "ergonomic" one. Check your local dealer
this week!
5) The OpenDoc SDK is not available yet. I have somehow managed to leave my
notes about OpenDoc at the office, perhaps someone else has dates or AppleLink
addresses for getting on their mailing list.
6,7) Taligent will never be incorporated into the present System 7, as Taligent
requires memory protection, better VM, threads/multiprocessing support, etc.
This does not mean that System 7 won't be updated to this level of support in
the future, but the dates for this are not at all encouraging (like late '95).
OTOH, parts of Taligent's technology are already shiping to their cusomers
(Apple, IBM, and now HP) and IBM looks to be the first to start shipping things
(low-level drivers) to customers, later this year. So Taligent seems to be
doing ok, but Apple's support for it on the Mac seems to be lagging (so what
else is new?)
8) Dylan is still in the works, not yet released. It has a new infix notation,
and Mike Lockwood, author of SourceBug, has worked on a framework built with it
(this is NOT a product announcement). Next word on what Apple may do with Dylan
would probably come out during their World Wide Developer's Conference (May).
The assumption is that they have a development environment for it (or are
working with a 3rd party to make one) but nothing's been seen yet.
BTW, AppleLink is Apple's electronic mail and bulletin board system (based on
GE's Information Services system) and has been around longer than the Mac. In
fact, it is being replaced this year (in stages) with a new setup called
e-World, built by Apple and based on America Online software.
Hope this fills in some gaps,
–John