Author: Lewis Bright
Date: March 1987
Keywords: announcement of Macintosh SE and Macintosh II
Text: Dateline: March 2 1987, Universal Studios Amphitheatre, Hollywood, California. Here's Hollywood! Apple computer took over the Universal Studios Amphitheatre to present in a glitzy exciting presentation the newest Mac computers for the rest of us. With the help of showmanship, beautiful music, a forty-foot screen and 2 twenty-foot screens, Apple put their best foot forward. S.M.U.G. President Lewis Bright phoned in the latest scoop on the new Macintosh models from AppleWorld this a.m. while your editor contacted AppleLink this p.m.. We now have the full story. Yes, it's true! There are two new Macintosh computers: the Macintosh SE and the Macintosh II. The SE is mildly expandable. It has the same features as the Plus including: the same compact design, a 68000 microprocessor, one megabyte of memory (expandable to four megabytes), a connection for SCSI peripherals. Other features include: the Macintosh SE-Bus Expansion Slot. Accessory access allows external products to be directly connected to an internal card. Users can add: accelerator cards, external monitor adapters, MS-DOS co-processor cards, networking and communication cards and a 5.25 inch MS-DOS disk drive controller card. It has seven built-in ports including: one SCSI port, one drive port, two RS422 serial ports, one sound port and two Apple Desktop Bus Ports. Also included is a 256K ROM chip which includes support for internal and external SCSI connectors and internal drives. The SE comes standard with either two 800K internal drives or one 800K internal drive and one internal 20MB SCSI hard drive. Processing speed is improved 15 to 20 percent over previous models allowing faster recalculation of spreadsheets and faster document processing. SCSI performance is up to two times faster allowing faster launches and quits, data base searches and document retrieval. The Mac II has a 68020 microprocessor with a 32-bit data bus that operates at 16 Mhz. The Macintosh II can open and close applications and files, access data and execute graphics and calculations up to four times faster than the Macintosh Plus. Its 68881 floating point co-processor works with the 68020 microprocessor to perform operations such as multiplication, division, sine and cosine. The 68881 co-processor enables the Macintosh II to carry out mathematical calculations 40 to 200 times faster than the 68020 microprocessor. You'll find 6 Nu-bus expansion slots. Each expansion card can be placed in any of the slots, avoiding the need for dip switches. Any card can take control of the system from the main logic board, allowing users to work within other operating environments. The Mac II is notable for it's open architecture. It has one built-in internal 800K floppy drive, along with the capability of adding another drive as memory requirements grow. An enhanced internal SCSI connector allows users to increase their storage capacity by installing an internal SCSI hard disk. Six built-in ports include: one SCSI port (internal and external), two Rs 422 serial ports, one stereo sound port and two Apple Desktop Bus ports. The II comes with one megabyte of RAM, expandable to two, four, five, or eight megabytes. The Apple digital sound chip provides four-voice stereo sound. According to Lew the sound system is surprisingly capable. You can add a video card for terrific color (same resolution as present Mac). Apple said that they were trying for compatiblity. That has always been their policy. This may be hard with these new machines. Steve Wozniak got a standing ovation for his announcement that he was working on achieveing an elementary school teaching credential.
Copyright © March 1987 by Lewis Bright