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Burn Baby Burn (8/8/98)
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As for what that much-discussed proprietary expansion slot in the iMac is supposed to be for, well, Apple's not talking. At least, not on the record. But off the record, things are little more fleshed out: just check out Lucas Carlson's report over on the iMac NewsPage for a firsthand account of his experience with the iMac-- and how to get an Apple employee to open up about "unannounced" projects.
As it turns out, the Apple rep's "no comment" melted away when Lucas started chatting him up about FireWire, Apple's pet high-speed expansion bus architecture. Apparently Apple has definite plans to use that expansion slot to add FireWire to the iMac, putting to rest the complaints that USB is fine for peripherals like scanners and digital cameras, but too slow for fast hard disks and the like. The vast majority of iMac owners will probably be perfectly satisfied with the expansion options that USB will offer them, but for those who need a faster transport mechanism, FireWire will be a welcome option.
For those of you who want to hook SCSI devices to the iMac, you'll be all set if and when the iMac FireWire interface becomes available, as a FireWire-to-SCSI bridge is expected to be a relatively simple solution. And for those of you who think that FireWire is overkill for a consumer-level system like the iMac, don't forget-- every consumer Mac that Apple's ever shipped has had SCSI on the motherboard, which many people considered to be overkill from the very beginning. Besides, with FireWire, you can plug a Digital Video device directly into your iMac to transfer your video data straight into your editing software. No digitizing necessary; everything's already digital. With more and more consumer-priced camcorders becoming available with that little "DV out" port, FireWire might be a major draw for home video nuts. Sounds like heaven to us.
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SceneLink (921)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 8/8/98 episode: August 8, 1998: The Kinko's defection rumor was hogwash, at least according to their own website-- but was it hogwash before some Kinko's higher-ups received a telephonic tongue-lashing by Captain Steve? Meanwhile, one lucky iMac-tester reveals the secrets of that machine's monitor connections, and someone manages to pump an Apple rep about the same system's mysterious "proprietary expansion port..."
Other scenes from that episode: 919: Pulling Strings (8/8/98) A couple of days ago, we broadcast an episode of AtAT that dealt with the rumors surrounding a possible Windows defection by longtime Mac supporter Kinko's. In fact, though at the time of writing Kinko's had yet to address the issue, by the time the episode hit the airwaves, the home page of Kinko's web site became a vehement denial; Kinko's publicly denounced the rumors as false, and claimed that they would continue to support Macs at all of their full-service locations... 920: Hacking the iMac (8/8/98) While the rest of us shmoes are still waiting around for another week before being able to get our hands on an iMac, certain lucky testing-type folks out there not only have iMacs in their possession, but are also already pulling the things apart to see just how far they can push the lovable little blue lumps...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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