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