Version 1.0 of the PowerPC Reference Platform – PReP to its friends – is set for release any day now according to a spokesman for IBM Corp. There are few details at present, but the finished specification differs only in small ways from the beta document that was released for consultation in March. In general, the wording of the document has been tightened up, to distinguish more accurately between ‘guidance’ and ‘requirements’. The multiprocessing section has been expanded and there are now extra design examples. Similarly, the power management section has been made more specific. The specification is also expected to contain few, if any, contributions from Apple Computer Inc, so there is still no immediate prospect of a PReP-compliant Macintosh. Although the new release will be technically unexciting, its symbolic importance should not be under-estimated because it opens the way for IBM to launch its Power Personal machines – if it can overcome the terminal cold feet that seem to grip the company whenever a major new product line is ready for launch. It is generally thought that IBM has completed the hardware development of its Power Personals. However, it would have been impolitic for the company to have produced ‘PReP-compliant’ machines before there was a finished PReP for them to comply with. With that hurdle out of the way, system software and manufacturing the boxes present the biggest obstacles to the release of the things. The Windows NT implementation is well in hand, with final development waiting for NT 3.5. OS/2 is more problematical, but it is possible that IBM could get Power Personals out of the door in August or September with a finished version of NT and a beta of OS/2. One of the more mysterious objects to emerge from the Taiwanese Computex show was a Chinese-language question and answer sheet, bearing the IBM logo. The A4 sheet was handed out to a large number of visitors to the show and covered the usual questions about what PowerPC is. However, the last question on the sheet asked delegates when commercial PowerPC desktop machines will be available – a popular question, let’s face it.
August
And the answer? IBM plans to have its own PowerPC personal computer commercially available in August this year. IBM in the US was puzzled by the document, which it did not recognise. A usually reliable IBM spokesman discounted the August date totally, pointing out that IBM virtually never announces anything during August because its executives and customers are sunning themselves on beaches around the world. Traditionally IBM begins wheeling out the dry-ice and launch presentations around the middle of September, but the same spokesman was dubious about this date too. The smart money is now on Comdex Fall in November as the most likely venue for IBM to launch the boxes.
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