Now that, by all reasonably believable accounts, Apple's PowerExpress project has been killed, folks are still waiting to see what G3-based systems will step in to stake their claim on the high end of the Mac lineup. If Mac the Knife is correct, we can expect to see the first heavy-duty configuration to stroll the catwalk on February 12th. Mark your calendars, because now you know what to get your sweetie for Valentine's Day-- provided he/she's a graphics maven with a need for speed, and you use hundred-dollar bills as kindling in your fireplace because "you can't beat the smell of burning money to set the mood."

According to that saucy edged implement of division, the new box will feature a 266 MHz G3 chip, 128 MB of RAM, 512 KB of backside cache (running at an unknown speed), 100-Mbit ethernet, and-- most importantly, perhaps?-- a Wide Ultra SCSI hard drive for the crowd who still turns up its collective nose when it comes to that wimpy IDE stuff. Cost? A paltry $3700. (Reserve two for us.)

Keep in mind that this is a Gossamer-based Powermac G3, so it inherits the expansion restrictions that hobble its punier siblings. First of all, it can't take more than 384 MB of RAM. Sounds like plenty to you and me, but the folks who sling pixels around for a living might find that as binding as red leather pants that are two sizes too small. (We've heard rumors that Apple may be selling some really expensive DIMMs that'll let the G3 systems go to 768MB-- better, but still less than many tower systems will take.) Secondly, it has only three PCI slots; that's plenty for most people, but the digital-video studs/studettes are screaming bloody murder, because some professional video editing systems start with four cards to install-- that fact locks out a whole high-end market segment. For an Apple that's supposedly refocused on retaining its core market of content creators, this next G3 system seems a wee bit less "focused" than it should be.

Of course, if you actually want to buy a G3 system instead of just drooling over its specs, you might have a harder time than you bargained for. MacInTouch says that many readers are reporting "availability problems" that are making Powermac G3's the "Sing 'n' Snore Ernie" of the computer world.

Hey... wait a minute... the Macs that are most in demand are the hardest to find. Does that sound familiar to you? Like, for instance, the Apple of yore, who consistently had warehouses full of dorky Performas while people were stabbing each other in the eyes in the mad rush to grab that last 8600? You remember, the Apple who couldn't forecast its way out of a paper bag and who was so pathetically out of touch with what its customers wanted? The Apple who supposedly fixed that problem with Build-to-Order at the Apple Store? Nahhhh... Must just be déjà vu.

Okay, so were being a little harsh; Apple's forecasting problem does seem to have improved slightly, but this report shows there's still an uphill battle ahead (and those of you cool enough to be playing Myth know that uphill battles usually just end with the limbs, heads, and torsos of your own units strewn all over the hillside by the Molotov cocktails of your own dwarves). By the way, if anyone wants to trade their G3 system for a "Sing 'n' Snore Ernie," drop us a line. The little guy's cute, sure, and we'd hate to see him go-- but horsepower comes first. Sorry, Ern, them's the breaks.

Hands up, who here remembers Netscape? They used to be pretty well known for their web browser, you know, before Microsoft's Internet Explorer got up to speed. Well, anyway, apparently a few people still use their browser, so it may interest you to know that Netscape is drastically reducing their Java development in an effort to reduce costs, following their recent shambles of a financial quarter. The San Jose Mercury News has some details.

Netscape was the very first company to license Sun's run-anywhere Java technology, and it was Netscape's support of Java that enticed many developers to embrace the language. Unfortunately, Netscape's implementation of the Java virtual machine is pretty slow-- especially on the Mac. And whenever they needed to update their JVM, they had to do it for seventeen different platforms-- not a happy task, by any account. So they're dropping that expensive prospect and leaving the development of better JVM's to other vendors. On the Mac side, for instance, future versions of Netscape will probably use Apple's Mac OS Runtime for Java, which we've wanted to be able to do for quite a while. Netscape's spin on the decision is that customers get better, faster Java more quickly. Microsoft's take on the whole thing is that Netscape is finally coming to its senses and realizing that no one actually wants Java. (Big shocker on that opinion.)

Incidentally, we know one market in which Internet Explorer isn't catching on so quickly: faithful viewers of AtAT. A few months ago we did a survey which showed that a whopping 85% of you used a Netscape browser. When analyzing our Nielsen logs a few days ago, we found that the percentage of the Netscape-enabled had only dropped to 79%. Apparently AtAT viewers are a little more discriminating about their software choices than most mere mortals. Oh, wait, did we say "discriminating?" Sorry, we meant to say "paranoid." Yes, Virginia, they are out to get you. RUN!