MacEdition Pro News : November 15, 2001: Doctors, winners, and losers
by MacEdition Staff (feedback)
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The Doctor is in the house
The folks at Dr. Bott have been busy little boffins of late. Aside from their flagship product, DVIator (a DVI/ADC adaptor and general panacea for Apple’s shortsightedness), Dr. Bott has recently produced a slew of other goodies.
First off though is a move that will surely horrify Messrs. Jobs and Ive alike: Dr. Bott has found a way to sully the good looks of Apple’s flat panel displays by enabling them to be hooked up to (gasp!) beige PC boxes. From the “sacrilegious” press release:
Wilsonville, OR – October 30, 2001
Dr. Bott is pleased to announce that they are now shipping a version of DVIator with a 4x AGP video card that is compatible with Windows PCs.
“One of the most significant requests we’ve received since the release of DVIator has been for a way to connect them to a Windows PC. We’re pleased that the ELSA card offers such complete support for the Apple displays including support for resolutions other than the native resolution of the display.”
DVIator allows the use of Apple’s LCD displays with the proprietary ADC (Apple Display Connector) on computers with a compatible DVI video signal. The ELSA Gladiac 511 is powered by the NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 chipset, offers the required DVI port, 32 MB SDRAM and offers phenomenal performance for the price.
Bundled with DVIator the complete solution for driving Apple’s ADC Cinema Display from Wintel PCs lists for $289.
Dr. Bott also offers the Gladiac 511 alone for $139 – this supports the older DVI Cinema Display directly in the same way that DVIator does for the ADC Cinema Display.
DVIator and the Gladiac 511 function with Windows®98, Windows® 2000, Windows NT® 4.0, & Windows® Me.
Note: Apple ADC Studio Displays in 15" and 17" sizes will display standard resolutions correctly with the above DVIator/ELSA bundle. However the brightness level cannot be changed for these displays when used on a PC. The preset brightness level is acceptable for most users.
Dells with Apple Cinema displays? Oh, the humanity...
Also in response to user feedback, Dr. Bott has also updated its TiCase – custom designed for Apple TiBooks. Dr. Bott has also recently become the exclusive distributor for TechTracker Pro and MacSpeech. Last but not least is Dr. Bott’s T3Hub, an extremely small “semi-self powered” USB hub. Its September 19 press release explains this in greater detail:
Dr. Bott is proud to announce the shipping of its new T3Hub, ultra-portable, semi-self powered, 3 port USB hub that weighs less than an ounce and requires no external power supply.
T3hub is available in three colors; Titanium for PowerBook G4, Ice for iBook 2001 and Translucent Graphite that fits great with any computer.
No longer do users have to choose between portability and functionality. T3Hub supports USB devices that normally require a powered hub such as keyboards, floppy drives, Zip drives, and scanners through intelligently allocating power where it is needed. Best of all T3Hub will fill all your needs without lugging along an external power brick.
T3Hub is shipping immediately for a retail price of $33.95 or in a three pack including each color for $99.95.
Bundling a three-pack of the little critters seems a strange marketing angle (for all the family, perhaps?) but they certainly look the part.
And the winner is...
As mentioned in an earlier ProNews segment, iDevGames recently launched uDevGame 2001, a Mac game programming contest. The contest has now closed and the winners have been announced. Congratulations go to the producers of Turtle Turmoil, Silly Balls, Evolution and GL Fighters – winners of first to fourth place, respectively.
Our congratulations also go to all the developers who took part. Check out uDevGame 2001’s site for more info or to give the games a test run.
And the loser is...
... Apple, apparently. It seems like there may be some big trouble in little Tokyo. (Good God, who coins these corny lines?) This has already been noted on some news sites but we thought it was worth a brief mention, particularly for those loyal readers who only read MacEdition (lament corny lines – lather, rinse, repeat ... )
Lynn Fredericks, aka “Henna Gaijin,” President of Proactive International, LLC, has circulated a missive to the Mac community noting concern with the planned change of date for Macworld Tokyo, from February to March 21-23. Below is an abridged version of the message:
Dear friends in the Macintosh Press Community,
Some of you know me from Proactive International’s press releases or the “Notes from a Henna Gaijin” series of articles we ran last year for Macworld Tokyo, which were also mirrored on many news sites. I thought you’d be interested in hearing about some radical changes coming along which I find completely unbelieveable!
Macworld Tokyo’s schedule is being changed from February to March 21-23 and the location changed to the Tokyo Big Site convention center. Yes, slightly warmer in Tokyo. So what does this mean for your attendance for Macworld Tokyo?
- Costs are much higher. Hotels and air transportation rates are the highest for the season because it is spring break. Hotels around Makuhari Messe in February are inexpensive as compared to “spring break rates”.
- Transportation and housing reservations are more problematic. Japanese get few vacations, so spring break means hotels are full and the transportation system stressed. Your hotel could fairly well be full of families with children.
[...]
Proactive International is a business strategy company that specializes both in Japan and the Macintosh platform, and we are very, very concerned with this change. The economic downturn in high tech means we all (press, distribution, vendors, the community) need to maximize the dollar value of our opportunites. It makes the show far less attractive for foreign press, and visitations by US executives of Mac vendors. It discourages local partners. And it certainly degrades the image of the show. Unless this changes, we are advising the CEOs of our clients to not bother to attend and not to bother to align product releases with MacWorld Japan.
If you don’t like the sound of this, you should let IDG Japan know by emailing press@idg.co.jp. And of course, any friends you might have at Apple.
Strong words indeed. At time of publishing, Apple had not replied to our queries on this matter.
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.