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Report
Southern California Distribution Issue 02 Part 06
-Industry Trends December '90
RAM RAM RAM!
RAM Chips are just getting larger and larger. Toshiba is going
to be shipping the first 16 Megabit chips in 1991, and will be in
large volume production by 1992. NEC is developing 1 GIGABIT chips,
and that should prove to be an interesting product. Soon we'll be
using only four RAM SIMM sets that capacitate 4 Gigabytes, sounds
good.
CD-ROM
Kodak is currently developing a PhotoCD system based on CD-ROM XA
standard. This will enable albums of photos to be stored on CDs, and
each will be able to hold 100 high quality photos. The system might
be ready in 1992, but no promises. CD-ROM XA and DVI continue to grow
as time pass by. Soon CD-ROM XA drives will be available in mass volumes,
and the price will probably drop significantly(XA and DVI both cost much
more than conventional CD drives).
Unix
Unix attacks again, but this time, the company only says
"The price will be competitive". Just what is competetive? For these
people, probably $400+. They never can understand what the term
"Desktop Market" mean.
Floppies
Floppy Drives are on the move again, first with the 2.88 MB drive from
Toshiba, then the 20 MB Floptical, and now with the 4 MB TEAC FD-235J.
Hardware wars are going, but this is rediculous, even floppies have started
a war among standards.
Desqview /X
This X Windows alike for DOS will raise many hype, and from their
technical reference, it seems like a good shell. DESQView/X is just another
pretty face, DESQView patched with graphics interface, added a few more
functionalities, networking, not much else.
V.32Bis
V.32Bis rose hypes and confusions. The new USR Dual Standards will
soon sport v.32bis compatibility. This will enable 14400 BPS operation
in true full-dulplex mode. This is not a big deal, unless someone is
either a mass transfer freak or stupid enough to use Bimodem on 400K files
at 14400 BPS. No upgrades will be offered, only trade-in's possibly.
Dying Companies
Activision is fading out, at least in some ways. It recently sold its
mail order sub-division, and have cut their staff greatly.
