[dcornutt]

If I remember the 1/4 report..it didn't say there "would" be 6 slots in the new macs. I beleive it alluded to the new macs (whenever they come out...supposedly..macworld) with the UMA2 motherboard. The reference was..it will have 4x AGP, DDR ram and a bigger PCI bus bandwidth "pipe". Meaning..there is enough bandwidth there to run 6 slots..but no mention was given on whether or not there "would" be.

This was speculated on several rumor sites.
Whether or not the new UMA2 has 6 slots or not..the very fact that it has enough bandwidth for it means...less PCI bus too busy errors. And...it also means..a little more head room for your expansion chassis..etc.

Steve was quoted as saying he "missed the boat" on the whole CDrw thing..so..you can expect some sort of CDrw in the new macs.

But, don't get your hopes up for much faster cpu speed. I hear Moto is having trouble even getting 533's out in quantity. They are shooting for 600's but..my guess is..they won't make it...and..if they announce it..youll be waiting for it for months.

If I could think of an analogy for this new version of G4 cpu chip thats coming out ..I think..the best way to describe it would be the "yikes" model. It's meant as a stop gap until the "real" next gen G4's are slated..which is sometime in April..probably (July).

These are the chips with 2 altivec units on them..and the "e" designation. These will be significantly faster than the current ones..or..the "yikes" model.

In a very strange turn of events..you can expect some G3's in new imacs..etc..to be running at FASTER clock speeds than the top of the line G4..and a deluge of ad's explaining how mhz just doesn't really matter.

Go figure.

Anyway..I would expect it will take Digi a couple of months to "qualify" the new machines..and I would also expect there to be some bugs in this first run..meaning youll be running a few "rom" updates now and again.

QT 5 is scheduled for Macworld..and..still no word about this "wunder midi" that Apple has been working on since the demise of OMS.

I haven't seen ANYTHING or heard anything about updated audio/midi for macs since..well..I don't know when...mabey sometime around when the "stereo mini plug" was big news.

So, I guess that got left in the dust somewhere. Mabey well get a "new" sound control panel with Aqua themes.

Expect announcements from Nvidia at Macworld..also expect the first "soundblaster" for mac card released as well.

9.1 will be "announced"...and OS X will be demoed..again...\Slated release for OS X is Macworld Tokyo in late Feb.

OS 9.1 is not compatible with OS X beta..but..it will be the "final" version included with OS X release. Go figure. If your using OS X beta..best stick with OS 9.04 until OS X release comes out.

Thats the news from the front.

dcornutt