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Sequels are the Best (8/9/98)
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For those of you who are sitting out the whole iMac frenzy in favor of waiting to see what the future holds for the inevitable "iMac II," Mac the Knife may have a little glimpse into the crystal ball. Granted, it's pretty speculative, but that's never stopped any of us before...
First of all, let's talk expansion. As far as the original iMac goes, there's pretty much none of it. The only announced expansion options are the ones available via the iMac's USB interface, which is fine for lots of cool stuff-- scanners, digital cameras, removable storage devices, and the like. But there are no PCI slots for additional graphics cards, 3D accelerators, audio cards, fast SCSI, or any of the other cool things that you can slap into a Power Mac G3. Well, apparently that's going to change with the next iMac, which will "pack a slot or two," making more kinds of expansion possible. (Don't write off the current iMac just yet, though, considering all of the anonymous confirmations we're getting that the mysterious "proprietary expansion slot" in the iMac will accept an Apple-developed FireWire card, allowing fast transfer to and from high-bandwidth devices like fast hard disks and digital camcorders.)
Of particular interest to gamers will be the rumor that "Son of iMac" will include "fast 3D," whatever Apple thinks that means. (Their idea of 3D acceleration in the original iMac-- a Rage II chipset that was considered old and slow two years ago-- leaves a lot to be desired, but there's always hope.) The news that the next-generation iMacs will contain "third-party 3D acceleration hardware" is sure to spark some buzz in the Mac games newsgroups. Will it be the Rage Pro, already included in every new Power Mac G3, including the All-in-one? Or will it be a 3Dfx Voodoo-based system, which is pretty much useless for working in modeling applications and the like, but hell on wheels for straight-out 3D gameplaying? Seems like we're all just going to have to wait and see.
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SceneLink (923)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 8/9/98 episode: August 9, 1998: Stores are scrambling to plan their iMac rollout promotional events, but is Apple's anticipated supply problem putting a damper on the festivities? Meanwhile, a week before the first iMac comes out, people are already talking about what will be in the next iMac, and Microsoft takes a beating in court and gears up for the big September battle...
Other scenes from that episode: 922: Best Laid Plans (8/9/98) With all the last-minute bustle gathering steam before next week's iMac rollout, you'd think it were a wedding approaching instead of a computer introduction. In fact, some stores are even going beyond a "standard" level of hoopla entailing giveaways, products demos, and the usual promotional stuff... 924: Setting Up, Knocking Down (8/9/98) In the world of "Redmond Justice," Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson continues to make things interesting. The most recent little spurt of drama occurred last Thursday, when he dealt a triple blow to Microsoft regarding various requests they made in the case...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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