Macintosh beefed up

Press, 10 March 1987, Page 38

Macintosh beefed up

Apple has announced a beefed-up ' Macintosh which keeps Apple in contention as a business machine against the new super micros powered by the Intel 80386 chip. Apple has launched two new Macintoshes. The Macintosh II is powered by the Motorola 68020 processor running at 15.7 MHz, can run Unix and is compatible with network and communications requirements such as Ethernet, SNA, and X--25. It has a 68881 float-ing-point co-processor, six expansion slots, and a 32-bit bus capable of supporting multiple processors. The Macintosh II will come with IMb of RAM memory expandable to BMb on the main board, and up to 2 gigabytes on expansion boards. ROM is 256 K. An internal 40Mb hard disk is optional. Colour will be optional. The other new Macintosh, the SE, has the same processor as the Macintosh Plus, but will run up to 20 per cent faster. It will have one

expansion slot Both of the Macs will be able to use a card enabling the machines to run MS-DOS software, from the IBM PC and compatibles family. Until now it has been possible to transfer only text files between a Macintosh and an MS-DOS machine. The first Macintosh SE will be in the warehouse of the New Zealand agent CED Distributors, Ltd, about April 1, but the Macintosh II will take another two or three months to arrive. Mr Mai Thompson, the general manager of CED, said on Friday on his return from the launching in Los Angeles that pricing was still in the pipeline. However, it is believed that the Macintosh II will sell for two to two and a half times present Macs — about the equivalent of a 386 machine. Mr Thompson said software firms planned to introduce a wide range of products for the new machine.