Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!daredevil!vita
From: vita@daredevil.crd.ge.com (Mark F. Vita)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Printer advice needed (really SE vs. Plus)
Message-ID: <1756@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 18 Aug 89 18:49:55 GMT
References: <36400005@hpindwa.HP.COM> <3943@phri.UUCP>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Reply-To: desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP (Mark F. Vita)
Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 69

In article <3943@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>In <36400005@hpindwa.HP.COM> sgordon@hpindwa.HP.COM (Shaun Gordon) writes:
>> I am trying to put together an SE system for my parents and am looking for
>> a low cost alternative to buying an Imagewriter II.
>
>	What I want to know is why anybody would buy an SE?  For $800 or so
>(after the $300 price drop) more than a Plus you get exactly the same
>processor, an expansion slot that will probably never be used, and the
>ability to have an internal hard drive (convenient, but certainly not
>something which improves the machine substantially).  With the new SEs, you
>also get a marginally better floppy drive (BFD).  Get a Plus and use the
>money you save over the SE to buy a good printer, more memory, and/or a
>bigger/faster disk drive, any of which will substantially improve the
>system.

There are several things which could justify the additional expense of
an SE over a Plus:

1) About 20% faster overall processing speed, due to the redesign of
the video circuitry in the SE.

2) Ability to run hard disks at 2:1 interleave, rather than 3:1 as
required in the Plus, which has a significant impact on drive
performance.

3) Heftier power supply.  You can put all kinds of junk (hard disks,
cards, etc.) in the box without having to worry about the power supply
crapping out.

4) The Apple Desktop Bus, which supports Apple's new keyboards and
mouse, which in my opinion are much improved over the Plus versions.
Also, the vast majority of new input devices (trackballs, tablets,
joysticks, etc.) are being designed for ADB first, and (maybe) the
Plus interface second.

5) Similar comment as above for the SE's slot.  Many of the new large
displays and accelerator cards have interfaces for the SE and II, but
not for the Plus.  Designing a card for the SE's slot is so much
easier than kludging up the Plus motherboard that many vendors are
forgoing doing a Plus version, despite the huge installed base.  I'm
not saying that large displays and accelerators aren't out there for
the Plus, but your options are likely to be much more limited in
number, more expensive, and less reliable.

6) The SE gives you much more storage flexibility than the Plus (in
fact, the SE's may be the most flexible of any Macintosh).  You can
have two internal floppy disks in addition to a third external floppy
disk, as well as an internal and/or external hard disk.  At home I
have two internal floppys and an internal 45MB hard drive, which is a
pretty nice setup; gives you a lot of storage capability without
sacrificing any portability (as external drives do).  And
theoretically, I could attach an external floppy and an external SCSI
hard disk, for a total of five (!) disks.

7) The SuperDrive(s) on the new SEs are nothing to sneer at.  This
gives you almost 3 MB of online storage on the most basic model.
Also, the ability to read and write DOS and ProDos disks might come in
very handy.

8) Perhaps most important of all, an SE allows you to have an
Apple-approved upgrade path to their most recent technology via the
SE/30 upgrade.  This gets you the 68030, Color Quickdraw, stereo sound
chip, SuperDrives and the guaranteed ability to take full advantage of
System 7.0 (virtual memory and all).

----
Mark Vita                              vita@crd.ge.com
General Electric CRD               	..!uunet!crd.ge.com!vita
Schenectady, NY