Macworld Staff

Macworld has created blueprints for two totally new Macs--one desktop named Enterprise and one notebook named Galileo--to help Apple again take the lead in the computer industry. These innovative systems--which Apple could develop in time for release at the August 1997 Macworld Expo, if it chose to--resurrect the wonder and excitement of the past's best Macs, providing a model platform for the next decade. With these designs, the Mac is reborn.

Inside, these Macs take advantage of the best technologies now or soon to be available that we believe are practical yet a significant step forward. On the outside, they combine a head-turning, assumption-challenging look created by Frogdesign, the internationally acclaimed product-design firm that created the Mac SE's design, with a strong focus on ease of use.

Innovation has always been the Mac's hallmark, but in the last few years Apple's emphasis on toeing industry standards has made some products too staid. Now is the time to reignite our hopes and reveal once again all that a Mac should be.

As exciting and innovative as Macworld's model systems are, we harbor a hope that Apple will outdo even our ambitions in its next-generation Macs. But whether or not Apple does, there's now a benchmark against which both Apple and the Mac-clone industry can measure their leaps forward--and something for all Mac aficionados to lust after. Prepare to lust.

A Better Design

Beyond its head-turning look, our proposed Power Mac introduces a challenging new approach to computer design. We break the pattern of bigger and bigger boxes on your desk and separate the Mac into the three essential clusters: the drive pod, which contains the peripherals you use every day; the accessory rail, which is the home for your audio and video accessories; and the control tower, which contains the motherboard, PCI cards, and internal drives you don't need in front of you.

The New Power Mac

Even as the Mac evolved from a unique system to a PC-like box, one thing remained true: Apple's focus on how users work with computers. Call it ease of use, call it ergonomics, call it the Macintosh spirit--it's fundamental to the Mac identity no matter what CPU, bus, or drives Apple may use. In designing the next-generation Mac desktop system, we kept that principle central.

How People Should Interact

Our new desktop, code-named Enterprise, has a radical new approach to case design: the components you work with every day are on your desktop in the drive pod, while the engine is in a separate case, called the control tower, that you can store under your desk, leave in a closet, or put to the side.

Dealing with Data The swoopy curved pod that anchors the Mac to the desktop holds your removable media. Two drives come with our new Macs. One is an LS-120 floppy drive, which handles a new 120MB disk developed by Matsushita and 3M, as well as today's standard 1.4MB floppies.

The other is a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) drive, a new type of CD-ROM drive whose discs hold seven times the information a standard CD-ROM holds and run faster than an 8 CD-ROM drive. And a DVD drive can read today's CDs.

There's a third bay in our drive pod, so you can add a removable drive specific to your work: a SyQuest, Zip, recordable CD-ROM, magneto-optical, or tape.

Interaction Panoply At a time when the Internet and digital media are exploding, a desktop computer is defined as much by its links with other data sources as by how it processes the data. The Macworld vision for the Power Mac supports a variety of common ports for devices you interact with: serial (for pointer and keyboard), audio input and output (for speakers or headphones, and microphones), video (for monitors), infrared (for wireless communication with notebooks and some printers), radio (for wireless mice and keyboards), and Firewire (the upcoming high-speed SCSI standard, for storage devices, digital cameras, scanners, and even other computers). We use Intel's Universal Serial Bus instead of Apple's GeoPort serial port, and RCA audio jacks instead of miniplugs, to give the best performance for such devices. But one miniplug remains for typical headsets and headphones.

We also include an empty 32-bit PCI slot that holds a small card for a special-purpose port. Such a port might come with a particular product--perhaps for digital video editing--or could be used to add ADB or standard SCSI-2, at the desktop, for people who don't want to give up their old peripherals.

And a bundled remote-control device operates the DVD drive and a TV-tuner card (if you add one to the control tower).

Note the use of adjustable, ergonomic input devices: there's no reason to shave a few dollars off the cost and put people's health at risk. Such devices are now affordable, and should be standard. People with special input needs can replace or add devices as they do now, using the built-in Universal Serial Bus or the optional ADB.

Surrounding Experience The architectural bridge that extends from the drive pod, called the accessory rail, not only stabilizes the desktop system but also extends its reach. Through it you connect other peripherals: phone, microphone, speakers, video camera, and monitor. This raises these common peripherals off your work surface, leaving it free for papers, books, and other materials. Of course, you don't have to use this accessory rail--the drive pod can sit by itself or on top of the control tower.

The monitor could be a standard CRT monitor or an LCD monitor. Whichever display you prefer, the desktop system uses a standard VGA connector, so you can buy displays from any monitor maker. Our Mac comes with a Mac-to-VGA adapter so you can still use your current Mac monitor.

In support of these accessory-rail add-ons, a bay in the control tower lets you add a shielded subwoofer, for truly wall-thumping audio when combined with quality external speakers.

Also in the control tower, MIDI synthesis is built into the motherboard circuitry.

Communications Built In We fully expect to see computers and phones merge, even if you still have a separate phone somewhere else in the office. The real issue is not where the phone handset is but where the communication is managed. It makes more sense for your Mac, with which you manage your textual and graphical communication, to be that center.

A directional microphone is standard equipment, so you can use your Mac's modem to place voice calls. (A traditional wireless phone or headset can be used as well, so you can listen in private.) We also expect Apple to include voice-message-handling capabilities in Mac OS 8, the new operating system (previously code-named Copland).

All systems come with a PCI card for personal communications, sporting a 33.6-Kbps fax modem (this new standard was approved in late June) and phone-management and voice-mail features. Dealers could substitute a card that also offers high-speed ISDN or the newer asymmetric data subscriber line (ASDL) connections for heavy Internet users.

Always On Because the Mac could also be a phone, which you don't turn off, we do away with the Finder's Shut Down menu item--the Mac puts itself to sleep after a user-specified time, so it's always ready to wake up to handle calls without wasting energy. If the system crashes, it turns itself back on automatically and restarts.

There's still a power key on the control tower in case you truly want to turn the system off; activating the power key on a running system engages the standard Mac shut-down process.

Behind the Scenes The control tower holds the motherboard, two CPU slots (one used by the CPU card), six PCI slots (one used by the communications card), up to three internal drives, network and communications ports, and the power supply. An umbilical cord from the tower to the drive pod provides all power, video, audio, Firewire, and PCI-bus connections.

Reduced Clutter Notice the extensive use of wireless connectors. Why have a ton of cables on your desk if you don't need to? No reason we can think of. The accessory rail also helps eliminate clutter, as does separating the engine from the devices you use every day. In fact, you could have as few as one cable on your desk--the umbilical that connects the tower to the drive pod.

High Performance at a Good Price

Computers only go faster, and for years Apple has struggled to keep the Mac competitive with PCs. It's scary to realize that Intel expects the entry-level PC to have a 133MHz Pentium by the time you read this, and Intel has a whole slew of faster CPUs waiting in the wings. Fortunately, thanks to IBM and Motorola, the PowerPC 604 and 603 families should reach speeds as fast as 300MHz by the end of 1997. In fact, the new PowerPC 604e already runs as fast as 225MHz (see News, elsewhere in this issue)--faster than any Pentium or Pentium Pro.

To deal with this speed, the entire system must be optimized for performance. Luckily, that's not so hard anymore, with the arrival of fast buses for almost all system components. And because these buses all rely on industry standards, competition in the PC market will keep prices down, even for Macs.

Faster Bus First, there's the system bus itself. PCs reach 66MHz, while the Mac was stuck at 50MHz until this spring, when Power Computing pushed it to 60MHz. In 1997, there's no reason the Mac bus shouldn't work at 66MHz. A speed of 66MHz is great for PCI-based systems: having a system bus that runs at an even multiple of the PCI bus's 33MHz reduces bus-synchronization overhead.

CPUs beyond 200MHz We easily expect to see a version of our proposed Mac system sporting a 264MHz PowerPC 604e, running four times as fast as the system's 66MHz bus.

A New DIMM To keep up with PowerPC CPUs running between 200MHz and 300MHz, the Mac will need fast mem-ory. To handle that need, Apple will provide DIMMs with a new type of memory chip: synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), which can increase memory performance as much as 400 percent in some operations. SDRAM removes the need for a cache card as in today's systems, but a cache slot is retained on the new Macs for people who use today's asynchronous RAM. (The two kinds of DIMMs fit in the same RAM slots.)

Plug and Perform We've put the CPU and its cache on its own card, so you can benefit from faster CPUs as they are developed, without replacing your motherboard. While we like how PC makers have made it easy to replace a slow Pentium with a fast one right on the motherboard, that approach still requires fiddling with DIP switches and jumpers. By putting all the CPU-related components (CPU, oscillator, and cache slot) on a card, we make such upgrades truly plug and play, since the cards will provide the information the motherboard needs to reconfigure bus speeds.

We've extended this approach to multiple CPUs--you can add a second CPU card to the Macintosh, making it a dual-processing system. Or you can replace the single-CPU card with a dual-CPU card and add a second dual-CPU card to get a four-CPU system.

Faster PCI A slew of companies are working on a new version of the PCI bus that takes it from a 32-bit design to 64 bits. Apple has also been urging such a change. Having 64-bit PCI means that throughput could double to a theoretical maximum of 267 MBps. Our Mac uses the new 64-bit design, which means that an adapter will be required to connect today's 32-bit PCI cards into the new 64-bit slots. Our case leaves headroom for such an adapter.

We have six 64-bit PCI slots in the control tower, so you can load your Mac with high-performance options.

Fast Video A fast system with mediocre video display is a waste, so we've put high-speed video-display circuitry on the motherboard (with 2MB of VRAM standard for thousands of colors on a 17-inch display, upgradable to 8MB maximum for fast display of millions of colors on a 21-inch display).

We've also put a QuickDraw 3D accelerator on the motherboard, which will all but make this intriguing technology a new, widely installed standard, so that developers know they can safely incorporate support for it in their products.

In another attempt to encourage a key video technology, we include an MPEG-2-playback accelerator chip on the motherboard, to make full-motion video possible for everyone. Intel's next generation of Pentiums, the P55C series (due in early 1997), will include on-chip acceleration features to boost 3-D and MPEG performance, so Apple should do at least as well.

Fast Storage Today's SCSI is out and Firewire is in. Don't be fooled by the slim cable and port: Firewire carries power directly to devices and delivers 2.5 times the speed of SCSI-2, with cables as long as 4.5 meters (versus SCSI-2's 1m). That's more than sufficient for most uses, even in digital video and multimedia. For faster performance, we expect to see people use Fiber Channel cards and connectors; this SCSI variant is 10 times as fast as SCSI-2 and supports cables as long as 100m. Both Firewire and Fiber Channel are hot-pluggable, so you can add and remove devices without rebooting.
Of course, there's a huge number of SCSI-2 drives out there, so we include both external and internal SCSI-2 connectors for compatibility.

Fast Communication To complete the performance features, our system includes a 100-MBps Ethernet connector that also works automatically with today's standard 10-MBps Ethernet lines. The Ethernet circuitry is on the motherboard.

The PCI card-based 33.6-Kbps fax modem with integrated telephony features, mentioned earlier, rounds out the communications-oriented performance features.

The Mac Advantage

So far, everything we've described could as easily be added to a Windows system. So why a Mac? That's a question Apple really needs to answer. Let's help out.

* Greater ease of use. An integrated hardware-and-software design has always been a key Mac strength, and Mac OS 8 had better take smooth advantage of all these technologies. Neither Windows 95 nor Windows NT does yet, but they're trying. Ease of use also comes from the industrial design--the hardware interface--and our design makes everything as simple and straightforward as possible: easily accessed ports, wireless technologies, flexible configuration, elimination of clutter.

* Real solutions. Our in-the-box telephony support will let Macintosh users take advantage of the computer as a communicator, just as the late-1980s Macs made publishing a natural Mac endeavor.

Apple can go a step further here and include a bundle of software that lets you use the Mac out of the box. Such a bundle shouldn't be one of those everything-but-the-kitchen-sink CDs that overwhelm most buyers, but a well-conceived set of integral programs. What should Apple include?

* Forget SimpleText--bundle a good midrange word processor from Claris that supports the latest Microsoft Word.

* Ditto for faxing: Mac fax programs are mediocre, so Mac OS 8 should include faxing in its standard print services.

* Apple should also include basic utilities for data protection and recovery--not to compete with Symantec and Dantz Development, but to assure a basic level of security. In fact, it should include "lite" versions of these companies' products, with the full version on CD that you can unlock after paying by credit card via a toll-free number.

* And, of course, an Internet browser and V-Twin search engine should be integrated into the Finder.

With these kinds of built-in technologies, Apple would make the Mac platform richer in new areas, beyond its graphics base. For example, imagine what you could do with a PaperPort-type scanner integrated into a keyboard, document management supported by Mac OS 8's V-Twin searching, and OS-level faxing. More power to communicate.

Apple succeeds by being first with the best, not by creating technologies for their own sake. The PC industry copies Apple, and the Mac community grumbles. Why? Imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery. Keep the flatterers busy.

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Sidebar

A Real Web Strategy

Bong! Welcome to the Internet

More than a decade after the Macintosh first rode into battle against the forces of the command-line interface, another technology with the power to change our lives--the Internet--is being similarly obscured by the technical elite that seems to take puritanical delight in forcing everyone to learn complicated, arcane incantations.

While Apple has offered a broad Internet strategy anchored in content creation, distribution (serving), and browsing, the company should focus its efforts on driving the Internet deep into the heart of the Macintosh experience. With the hardware in place (fax modem, Ethernet, and plenty of RAM), Apple's Internet strategy becomes a question of software and service. The Internet should be ubiquitous, pervasive, and convenient.

For Every Mac, a Connection Every Macintosh purchased should be connected to the Internet. From a physical standpoint, if you're not on a LAN, plugging the telephone cord into your new Mac should be as automatic as plugging in the power cord. To complete the loop on the service end, Apple should make a deal with one or more of the telecommunications giants (AT&T;, MCI, or Sprint) to provide free (and preferably unlimited) Internet access for six months, with server space for a personal Web page.

For Every Connection, a Use Internet services should be woven so tightly into the fabric of the Mac OS that the line between local and distant resources is blurred almost to nonexistence. On the client side, this means that Internet services should appear as part of the basic OS. For example, the Find command should include an option to search the Internet with a metasearch tool, a utility that queries multiple search engines and then assembles and ranks the results. Apple should also revive the PowerTalk-style unified in-box for E-mail, voice mail, and the like, but build it out of OpenDoc parts.

On the server side, Apple should concentrate on what it does best: peer-to-peer, personal networking. During his speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference in May, Apple Internet czar Larry Tesler said that every Mac sold should be able to act as a Web server, and publishing your Web page should be as simple as dragging the appropriate files into a folder and flipping a software switch a la the File Sharing control panel. This personal server strategy is where Apple has the most chance to add value and make the Macintosh shine above other PCs, rather than chasing the high-bandwidth server market.

With Every Use, a Smile When presenting the Internet on the Mac, Apple must go beyond easy-to-use services and offer convenient ones: services so uncomplicated and handy that it's easier to use them than it is not to. One of the most glaring examples is file transfer--no Macintosh user should ever have to consider compressing or encoding E-mail enclosures or Internet downloads. Apple should ship those services with every Mac. When sending or retrieving files by E-mail or transfer methods, users should have to choose only whether they're talking to a PC or another Macintosh, and the OS should handle the rest.

Apple must also ensure that it quickly and capably implements on the Mac the latest Internet technologies, another area where OpenDoc will help by providing a framework for small, quickly developed components.

All these goals are eminently achievable, particularly given the flexibility afforded by OpenDoc and Apple's proven ability to put an elegant face on technology. It's almost laughably ironic that the Internet today is posing many of the same interface and ease-of-use problems that personal computers presented a decade ago. Once again, Apple and the Macintosh stand poised to answer the challenge.

The New PowerBook

Portable, powerful, and personal--that's the challenge of making a competitive notebook. As we did in our desktop design, Macworld focused on delivering high performance, innovation, and style at a decent price in our notebook, code-named Galileo. For a notebook, decent is still expensive, but the cost is worth it for a top-notch system.

How People Should Interact

Today's notebooks are based on a rare requirement: that the notebook be the same size as a stack of papers so it fits in a standard briefcase and leaves room for another stack. That means a crammed keyboard and small screen. We beg to differ.

Human-Size Interface Our notebook uses a standard-size keyboard, complete with F-keys and cursor controls (the four arrow keys, page up, page down, home, and end) so you can navigate a text document from the keyboard.

Having a large keyboard means there's room for a large LCD panel, which we also offer, running at 800-by-600-pixel resolution. Users can choose between models that have active matrix panels, for top quality, or passive matrix, for lower cost. For better viewing, our panel swivels, so you can orient the LCD to another person, such as when giving a presentation.

Multiple-Choice Input Our keyboard--shaped so it is more ergonomic along all axes--comes standard with a touchpad, the pressure-based system favored by Apple. Also standard is a trackpoint, the little eraser-like puck that IBM introduced several years ago. Both are active, so you can use whichever works best for you at the moment. But even better, the touchpad snaps out, so you can replace it with a trackball or even a joystick. And of course you can always plug a mouse, other pointer device, other keyboard, or numeric keypad into the Universal Serial Bus port.

An Unusual Shape The curved keyboard is made possible by a curved bottom. This curve raises the notebook's screen and keyboard and makes the notebook hug your hips when you carry it.

Multimedia Standards The LCD screen remains flat, so when the notebook's closed, the curved bottom leaves a gap on both sides of the notebook. We use those gaps for the stereo speakers to reside in, and they in turn support the LCD screen when the case is closed.

If you have speakers, you should support a CD. And we do. Although our case is flatter than a typical notebook, ultrathin drives still fit. We provide a DVD drive to handle both the new DVD discs and regular CDs. Just like the desktop system, the notebook comes with a remote control for the DVD drive and your presentation software.

A built-in microphone is standard equipment. And there are RCA audio-input and -output ports, so you can make a presentation or listen to good music. If you have a typical headphone, there's also a stereo miniplug near the LCD panel.

All the Expansion Although its case is slimmer, our notebook provides all the expansion options you've come to demand. All drive bays are swappable, so you can put a CD-ROM drive in the floppy bay or vice versa. Even a Zip drive could be made to fit, although a SyQuest or Jaz drive would be too thick. As in the desktop, we provide an LS-120 floppy drive, supporting both 120MB and 1.4MB disks. Unlike in previous PowerBooks' design, we've put the floppy in the front, so disks don't sail into the airline tray next to you. The DVD drive is likewise up front.

There is of course a lithium-ion battery to provide long usage. And the notebook will be able to accept the forthcoming lithium-polymer batteries that may be available by 1998.

Two PC Card slots let you add networking and modem support. In the back, we have ports matching those in the desktop: Firewire SCSI, high-density SCSI-2, USB serial, RCA audio input and output, VGA video, and infrared. There's also a power switch, a security-lock slot, and a docking connector.

RAM is easily expandable, using memory cards that will not change in subsequent models (unlike Apple's past approach): just remove the touchpad and keyboard.

A Permanent Home Apple's Duos introduced a good approach to using a notebook both on the road and on your desk: the docking station. But the Duos made compromises when used away from the desk, while Apple's full-size notebooks didn't offer the benefits of docking when used on the desk.

We took a different route. You can get a docking station for our PowerBook, and it connects very simply through the same umbilical as the desktop Mac's drive pod does. In fact, you could connect the notebook directly to our desktop Mac.

Our docking station simply holds PCI cards (three) and drives (two). The notebook does everything else--no compromises when it comes to ability or connectivity. If you want permanent connections from your notebook to the network and other peripherals (like mice and keyboards), you can get an optional port replicator that attaches to the docking station. When connected, it bypasses the ports on your notebook and routes everything through the umbilical to the dock's ports.

High Performance at a Good Price

While notebooks have extra cost because of their miniaturized components, prices don't have to be outrageous. Again, we use industry-standard components wherever possible.

Fast CPU Rather than stick with the relatively anemic PowerPC 603e series, we considered moving our notebook to the same PowerPC used by the desktop models: the 604e. Alas, it takes too much power and radiates too much heat--and its architecture simply won't allow development of a mobile version, a la Intel's mobile Pentiums. So we selected a 300MHz 603e, which is about as powerful as a 166MHz 604e.

Fast Buses The internal peripheral bus on the notebook is PCI-based, so video, drives, and the like don't get bogged down. The drives themselves use Firewire connectors, again for high performance. We said no to the Enhanced IDE standard that Apple has adopted from PCs--it's fast enough, but why add the expense of a new technology to the motherboard?

The system bus and memory bus run at 50MHz to 66MHz, depending on the CPU speed, supporting fast PowerPCs and RAM, including the new SDRAM used in our desktop Mac. There's no cache card, since SDRAM doesn't need it. As you'd expect, the CPU is upgradable, since it rests on a daughtercard.

The Mac Advantage

As with the desktop, our notebook's main advantage is in the Mac OS, coupled with better interface design and better hardware-and-software integration. Plus it looks terrifically cool.
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Sidebar

Technical Highlights

The New Power Mac

The Drive Pod

Why have the entire Mac on your desk? Our new design places just the components you use every day, leaving your desk more open. Strategic use of front-panel connectors and wireless ports keeps clutter down even more.
An umbilical cord containing the necessary power and bus connections runs from the back of the drive pod to the control tower, which you can place under your desk, to the side, or in a closet.

The Accessory Rail

We all have a set of peripherals we place around us to enrich the experience of using the Mac. The accessory rail, a powered extension bar that plugs into the drive pod, provides the power and the ports for such devices: speakers, phone, microphone, video camera, and monitor.

The monitor uses standard power and VGA connectors, but the other components plug into the rail's track. You'd use the drive pod's and the control tower's connectors for standard peripherals.

The Control Tower

The heart of the Mac, as well as its brains, reside in a tower case that you can keep out of the way--or use with the drive pod in a traditional setup.
The tower's design focuses on top performance and upgradability. The use of industry-standard parts keeps costs down while letting us exploit high performance. The technologies used are leading-edge but not esoteric. And as technologies improve, you can update components individually or eventually replace the entire motherboard.

Lifeblood Connection The drive pod won't function on its own--it needs power and the data for its components. That's where the umbilical comes in--it brings all the power and extends all the required buses from the control tower to the drive pod.
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Sidebar

Vision Becomes Reality

The Journey to the New Macs

Innovation isn't easy. The two systems you see on these pages are the results of months of research and analysis. Macworld began this effort in fall 1995, after it was clear that Apple really would move to the new CHRP design for future Macs. That begged the question: How could Apple use an industry-standard platform and still offer innovation worthy of the name Macintosh?

We assigned two Macworld journalists highly knowledgeable in systems technologies--senior informational graphics designer Arne Hurty and executive editor Galen Gruman--to interview engineers throughout the Mac and PC communities, to assess where systems technologies are heading and how they might fit into the CHRP platform and the Mac's ambitions.

With a basic architecture in mind, Hurty and Gruman consulted with other Macworld journalists savvy in specific technologies, such as 3-D, storage, and communications. These included editor-in-chief Adrian Mello, senior editors Charles Piller and Howard Baldwin, associate editor Cameron Crotty, assistant editor Jim Feeley, and contributing editors Jim Heid and Cary Lu. They also consulted with Macworld Lab's experienced analysts, including lab director Lauren Black, senior analysts Mark Hurlow and Jeff Sacilotto, and analyst Chris Uiterwijk.

With the technical details ironed out, Macworld contacted Frogdesign--whose product designs include the original Macintosh in 1984, the Next machine in 1990, and the Acer PC in 1995--to develop an exterior for our new Macs. At Frogdesign, a team of designers created sketches of possible looks. The Frogdesign team met with Macworld's Hurty, Gruman, designer Tim Johnson, and art director Joanne Hoffman to hash out the final designs.

At that point the real hard work began. In the following week, all the designers furiously worked on sketches, refining the vision. Then a team of model makers at Frogdesign worked day and night for three weeks to produce physical models of the two new Macs--a breakneck pace even by the computer industry's standards.

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Meanwhile, Macworld's Hurty drew the technical illustrations of the new Macintoshes' insides and Gruman wrote the bulk of the article (Crotty wrote the segment on Internet technologies). Johnson created the article layout, ensuring that the photography directed by Hoffman, the illustrations, and the text combined to be greater than the sum of the parts.

Meanwhile, Macworld's Feeley produced a Web page featuring images you can download, message boards, and other explorations on these new designs. Access the Mac Reborn Web page.

MacWorld September 1996 page: 104

Copyright © 1996 Mac Publishing, L.L.C.