IBM Corp has been holding a series of briefings for users on its PowerPC chip and all its works, majoring on the forthcoming machines from the Power Personal Systems division, giving the impression that launch of these is only weeks off. The company remains studiously vague on what will be standard and what will be optional, and just how much of what is in the plan will appear in the first iterations. The line-up appears to be a Professional Desktop using the 601 chip, and an Executive Desktop and a notebook using the 603. They will include both Peripheral Component Interconnect and AT buses, and all will include PCMCIA plug-in card slots. The planned CD-ROM drive does appear to be standard. Among the novelties in the plan for next year are a pen-enabled touch screen for at least one of the desktops that will use a radio link to the computer rather than a cable, so that users can take their screens into meetings while remaining in touch with the computer back on their desks no word on the range. The intelligent agent concept will initially be fronted by a character called Charlie, a white, middle class male face that will appear on the screen and issue reminders and respond to commands to fetch things – but in a later version, users will be able to scan in the face of their choice, so that you can have your mother remind you to back up before you shut down. Discrete word, and, later, continuous speech dictation will be built in – the IBM Personal Typing System. And for the laptop, there will be a version with Canon Inc’s bubblejet printer built in – already available in some Thinkpads. On the PowerPC RISC, IBM says the wafer fabrication facility in Burlington, Vermont to make it cost $100m to equip, and the development budget on the RISC is $500m a year.
