MacWorld Expo Singapore — Day 2 Report

Jul 25, 1998

Publicity of the iMac moved up a notch on Day 2 of the Expo, in view of the weekend crowd. It was certainly more packed than yesterday as the Expo opens its doors to the public today and tomorrow. The string of promotional videos, from 'Think different' to 'Steamroller' to 'Simplicity Shootout' were being aired one after the other whenever presentations weren't going on at the Apple pavilion. The iMac attracted a fair amount of public attention (Where's the CPU? I overheard a lady asking) considering that publicity of its coming release was almost nonexistent until very recently, unlike in the US.

Anyway, coming back to the point of my unscheduled second visit in two days, which was to find out the things I forgot to yesterday...

Peripherals update
I've been able to confirm from Hewlett-Packard's product spec sheets that their HP Printer Cable Kit for the iMac, otherwise referred to as their USB-to-parallel adapter for the Deskjet 760 and 790 series printers, is powered via the iMac's USB port. This follows my earlier comments about this particular feature of USB technology. Also, the software driver accompanying the kit has ColorSync 2.0 support, in case you're interested. If you want more information, look up their July 6 press release.

On the other hand, on rechecking the Imation USB SuperDisk displayed at the Apple booth, I observed it was using its own power supply rather than drawing power from the iMac or its keyboard. The Apple staff there couldn't provide a definite answer when I asked about it, so this remains unconfirmed for now since there were no Imation people around to check with. And today, one of the staff there reckoned it would retail for S$260, when I didn't really ask. Go figure.

iMac specs update
Yes, the Bwonngg! startup chime's still there, but having tested the speakers today, I'm not exactly thrilled. There was a music CD playing on one of the iMacs, and I noticed that the bass was definitely lacking. Maybe it's not fair for me to comment because I've been so used to the sound of my AppleVision built-in speakers, and honestly speaking, in so small an enclosure, I shouldn't expect too much of the bass frequencies. That aside, sound clarity was pretty good despite the noise around me. But certainly not remarkable. Someone should think about marketing a translucent bondi-and-ice subwoofer for the iMac, a la Spartacus.

Here's some more information about the iMac's built-in display, with the standard hardware configuration:

Pixel Resolution	Colors	Refresh Rate
640 by 480	Millions	117Hz
800 by 600	Millions	95Hz
1024 by 768	Thousands	75Hz

RAM
Curious about the iMac's supposedly greater RAM usage due to its CHRP-like design, I decided to verify this. On the iMac I tested, with all extensions off, the system software (MacOS 8.1) took up 11MB, and when I allowed it to restart normally, about 15MB. By comparison, my PowerMac 8500/150 takes up only 7.8MB with Mac OS 8.1 running.

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