🚀 go-pugleaf

> The following views expressed are my own and do not necessarily make
> sense.
> 
> Since I bought my skinny, colorless mac a lot of new stuff has been
> coming out or rumored to be coming.  Now it seems, the going price for
> my used mac is slightly less than $1200 if I believe the classifieds.
> Now my question is this, does anyone have advice on whether we should
> sell our macs, upgrade (throw good money after bad), or wait till the
> competition catches up and then take more of a loss by selling then, or
> love it and keep it as it is.  I prefer the last but I'm concerned.  It
> seems that this GEM based stuff I hear about is slightly inferior to
> what the mac runs.  However, I haven't seen the commodore amiga yet or
> the atari one.  Spare me the highly detailed technical stuff but what
> do the pros and cons look like on the balance sheet?

Yeah, the Mac is becoming obsolete...but so, according to my sources, are
the Amiga and "MacTari;"  rumour around the computer sci types here is that
about 18 months down the road there's a SERIES of products coming from
a company-that-I-can't-name (but the initials are...no, never mind) that takes
advantage of some ULSI defense spin-off technology that will revolutionize
the personal computer industry.

Some of the purported features of the main unit:

    o   an opthalometric input device (OMID) based upon the "helmet-mounted
	sights" used by helicopter pilots, but without the clumsy headgear.

    o   a CPU based on ultra-pipelined architecture and a 45 MHz clock.
	The implications of this are obvious.

    o   emulation of both 68000 and 8086 microprocessors, thus enabling it
	to run PC-compatible software, as well as Mac stuff.

    o   ~8MB of RAM, using 25ns 1Mb GaAs chips, with (remember, this is
	only a rumour) the first multi-layer surface-domain magnetic memory
	using laser-scan read/write technology.  Media will be credit-
	card-sized encapsulated magnetic cards, each storing about 2 MB
	with access times nearly an order of magnitude faster than anything
	available today.

    o   Finally, indications are that the price of this unit will be
	considerably BELOW that of the fat Mac (in constant dollars,
	of course).

So, if you're thinking of waiting for the Commodore or Atari miracle machines,
or are jealous of those who have patiently bypassed the Mac to wait for
better magic later,  this new box may be the one for you.  And cheer up:
given Commodore's track record with its much-vaunted, rarely-seen products,
the Concept 5000 may well be in your local Safeway before Amiga rubber ever
meets the road...

Cheers!

				    The Magic Christian