MacEdition Pro News : August 1, 2001
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Everybody loves a good sonnet – particularly our ProNews inbox of late. Sonnet Technologies has been a bunch of busy little boffins recently, announcing four, count 'em, four new products.
Treat me like the SCSI ATA that I am
First up on the list of Sonnet's new offerings is the Sonnet Tempo ATA100.
From the press release:
NEW YORK: July 18, 2001. Sonnet Technologies, the worldwide market share leader in processor upgrade cards for Apple Macintosh™ computers, announces an addition to its industry leading ATA drive controller line with the Tempo ATA100 Macintosh PCI host adapter. This new Tempo host adapter offers enhanced speed and performance of the latest-technology storage, and supports up to four internal ATA/IDE devices. It ships with one cable, which allows up to two drives, one master and one slave.
Like the Tempo Ultra ATA66, the Tempo ATA100 mimics a SCSI controller under OS 8.6 and OS 9, providing compatibility with virtually all ATA hard drives, even in pre-G3 machines. Under OS X, however, the Tempo ATA100 is recognized as a native ATA controller, supporting not only ATA hard drives, but also DVD ROMs, CD-RWs and other removable devices previously only supported via the internal Macintosh ATA bus.
A new utility, exclusive to the Tempo ATA100, allows the user to select optimal performance for audio and video playback on older systems with a simple mouse click, without restarting the system.
Upgrade your 'street – Wallstreet, that is
Second up is a product that should please Wallstreet PowerBook owners – the Sonnet Crescendo/WS G3. From the press release:
NEW YORK: July 18, 2001. Sonnet Technologies, the worldwide market share leader in processor upgrade cards for Apple Macintosh™ computers, announces the Crescendo/WS G3, Sonnet's first upgrade for the PowerBook G3 "Wallstreet" models and the latest addition to its product line of Crescendo processor upgrade cards. This upgrade offers a powerful 500 MHz PowerPC G3 processor with 1MB Level 2 backside cache, which roughly doubles the performance of a stock machine.
The Crescendo/WS is compatible with the PowerBook's existing hardware, software, RAM and peripherals. It integrates with your system software, supporting Mac OS 8, OS 9, and the latest innovations of OS X.
Compatible Macintosh Models:
- Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series 233
- Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series 250
- Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series 266
- Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series 292
- Macintosh PowerBook G3 Series 300
Availability and Pricing
Crescendo/WS will be available in late Q3, 2001.
Estimated price: $399.95
Piccolos don't need choosers
We now have another device to debunk the ever-popular, "Where's the floppy?" argument, the Sonnet Piccolo:
NEW YORK: July 18, 2001. Sonnet Technologies, the worldwide market share leader in processor upgrade cards for Apple Macintosh computers, announces its latest enhancement solution with the introduction of Piccolo, a line of flash drives about the size of a car key. Piccolo connects flash RAM to any USB port, providing convenient plug-and-play storage. Piccolo is available in sizes from 32MB to 256MB and can be used like any removable media. It is cross-platform compatible with any computer that has a standard USB connection, including most Macs and Windows PCs.
[...]
The computer sees Piccolo as a drive once it is plugged into any USB port, including Sonnet's Tango FireWire/USB combo card. On a Macintosh or Windows PC it mounts and appears on the desktop with no further user interaction, and can be written to or read from like any other volume. The Piccolo draws needed power from its host computer and requires no cables, diskettes, discs, readers, adapters or batteries. Piccolo comes in four capacities of 32 MB, 64MB, 128MB and 256MB. The first three capacities are expected to ship in August of 2001, and the 256MB version will arrive later this year.
Estimated List Prices
- Piccolo 32MB $ 99.95
- Piccolo 64MB $189.95
- Piccolo 128MB $349.95
- Piccolo 256MB $599.95
Sonnet claims the Piccolo will have universal compatibility, no drivers required.
Meet your old iMac, same as the new iMac (Dalmation spots not included)
Last but not least is something that will please owners of tray-loading iMacs everywhere – the Sonnet HARMONi:
NEW YORK: July 18, 2001. Sonnet Technologies, the worldwide market share leader in processor upgrade cards for Apple Macintosh computers, introduces the HARMONi processor upgrade/FireWire combo card, the first complete upgrade for the original iMac. HARMONi doubles the performance of these early iMacs with a powerful 500 MHz IBM PowerPC G3 processor with 256K Level 2 backside cache operating at full processor speed (1:1). Additionally incorporating a FireWire port, HARMONi gives the first-generation iMacs the plug-and-play connection of high-performance peripheral devices such as digital cameras, DV camcorders, and CD-RW drives. This added FireWire feature of the HARMONi combo card finally allows purchasers of the original iMac to work with digital video using iMovie™ and other popular applications.
Compatible iMac models for the HARMONi are: iMac 233 MHz, 266 MHz, 333 MHz (Rev A-D). The combo card operates with the iMac's existing hardware, software, RAM and peripherals. It integrates seamlessly with the system software, supporting from Mac OS 8.1 through the latest innovations of OS X.
Availability and Pricing HARMONi G3 500/FireWire combo card will be available in early Q4 2001. Estimated price: $299.95
iMovie 2™ sold separately...
Looking for old ProNews segments? Check out our index at http://old.macedition.com/news/. Do you have news releases or tidbits of interest to the Macintosh professional? Send them to pronewsnotes@macedition.com.