Apple Computer Inc used November’s Comdex to show off a ‘technology demonstrator’ of its PowerBook laptops running with a PowerPC upgrade. The PowerBook 500 on show had a plain old 603 processor inside, but Apple said that the production models will be based upon the 603+ variant of the processor – the first time that Apple has officially acknowledged the 603+’s existence. As previously reported, the 603+ doubles the existing chip’s cache size to 16Kb – big enough for Apple’s 68000 emulator to run efficiently. The spokesman said that the chip is likely to run at 80MHz in its first incarnation, though this may be increased later. Even with it running at 80MHz, Apple says that expects performance similar to that of today’s Power Mac 6100/60, which uses 60MHz PowerPC 601s. The big disappointment for existing PowerBook users is that availability of upgrades and new PowerBooks has been pushed back by Apple from ‘first half 1995’ to ‘summer’, – and everyone knows how long Californian summers can be. Apple says that the delay is so that it can ship a product that will meet our customer’s performance requirements and go to market with ample supply. The question of performance raises the issue of whether the Powerbooks will use Apple’s current emulator technology or the new emulator it is currently testing in the labs. The spokesman’s answer to that question was I do not know.
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