The Apple of Everyone's Eye

In a few months, the dining halls will not be the only places on campuses serving cheap apples.

At about $1000 apiece. Apple's new Macintosh personal computers "will be an absolute steal," says John Dvorak, a columnist for Info World, a weekly magazine for computer users.

Harvard students can take delivery of the units at reduced prices as a result of a deal with Apple Computer Company completed last month. The agreement will provide Harvard and 23 other universities with large quantities of the Macintosh, which they will resell to students at approximately half the retail price of $2500.

In return, Apple hopes that students and professors at the universities will develop software and hardware gadgets for the Macintosh system, which currently comes with little more than text editing software and very sophisticated graphics.

Most experts call the model extremely easy to operate ("user friendly"), very well-priced, and highly powerful.

"It's a great buy--for $1000 you can't even get an IBM Selectric typewriter," says John Markoff, West Coast editor of Byte magazine, another weekly journal for computer users. He adds that "it's not a mainframe computer on a desktop, but the Macintosh people did the most they possibly could within the price restrictions."

Graphics

"It's strong points are its graphics capabilities, and its power, but it is questionable whether people will need that much power," says Dvorak, noting that the computer could benefit from better software and another floppy disk drive.

Aside from the lack of software, experts overwhelmingly agree that the main drawbacks include a small screen size and lack of memory.

"It's got a great word processor, but it can only work on 20 pages at a time," Markoff says.

But, according to Daniel Lewin. Apple's college marketing manager. "You make intelligent tradeoffs. You just couldn't have the advantages without the disadvantages."

Revolution

The Macintosh may presage a revolution in personal computing. But like all major innovations, it also entails a high risk for failure. Apple suffered big losses from its first revolutionary model, the $10,000 Lisa. In this, the second round, it has bounced back with a machine only a fourth the cost of Lisa and with almost as much versatility.

The computer is designed to occupy minimal desk space. Noticeably square, with a high profile and an off-center screen, the machine definitely has a personality.

Most obvious, the Macintosh has a unusually small screen size. A nine-inch diagonal, it presents a five-by-seven viewing image.

"Personally, I like the small size, but a lot of people think it's just too small for day-to-day use as a word processor," Dvorak says.

Despite the small image, the Macintosh delivers remarkable definition and clarity on the screen, which clearly puts the Macintosh a step ahead of its competitors.

The computer screen has a 512-line horizontal by a 342-line vertical grid, and the use of square dots--rather than the standard rectangular ones--at each of the almost 200,000 line crossings adds to the sharpness of the picture.

However, only black and white screens now come with the machine, probably because Apple has aimed the computer at small businesses and educational markets.

"No color is a bogus complaint. Most color displays now available are so terrible you can't even do word processing on it," Markoff says. "If I had a choice between the high resolution of the Macintosh and poor color, I'd take the black and white."

In any case, less color on the screen will certainly mean more money in one's pocket.

"But the really striking thing about the Macintosh," Markoff says, "is that you can use it to drive a typesetter directly. No other computer can do that."

Another unusual feature, which should make the machine highly useful in a dorm, is the Macintosh's lack of fan noise. The annoying hum prevalent in many small computers--not to mention the commonplace Smith-Corona--has been designed away. The Macintosh cools itself.

The keyboard shows more versatility and a better "touch" than those found in the Apple II system. Moreover, it is light enough to rest on one's lap.

In a move displaying a high degree of commonsense, the designers have the keyboard cord plug into the front--not the rear--of the computer. As a result, this simple improvement avoids common problems of snarled cords cluttering the desktop.

Unfortunately, though, the board does not include a numeric keypad. A separate one can be attached, but this means additional space and cost.

Squeak

Perhaps the most innovative and unique aspect of the Macintosh is the "mouse," a small box with a button which controls the image on the screen.

To tell the Macintosh what to do, one moves the pointer on the screen by sliding the mouse across the desk. Once the pointer reaches the desired item on the display, a click of the button on the mouse sets the machine in motion.

But this innovation has received some criticism.

"The mouse can be very annoying because you have to get up to use it," Dvorak says.

"The reason for the detachable keyboard is so you can lie back and get comfortable instead of hunching over a desk. But with the mouse you have to get up and move it on the desk. I guess you can run it up and down on your thigh, but after a while it might become very endearing," he adds.

The mouse accounts for the main difference between the Macintosh and other personal computers: It is "visually-oriented," not word oriented."

Instead of entering words to command the computer, the user chooses from a menu of picture and selects one by pressing the mouse.

The cut-rate Macintosh should be available to students late this spring or by next tall, administrators say (see accompanying article).

Although the latest quoted discount for the machine puts the price at $1300, officials have confirmed that the cost will probably fall closer to $1000.

The 23 other schools participating in the consortium include Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale.

Harvard has other marketing agreements with IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation, whose machine it sells through its Equipment Management Store at 23 to 27 percent discounts.

These, however, cover only marketing and not software development.