March 6, 1988

STAR WARS ON A DESK: Graphics zealots with relatively shallow pockets may be happy to know that Pixar is movin’ on down. The graphics hardware company in San Rafael, formerly part of Lucasfilm and now owned by Steve Jobs and Next, is working on interfaces to what’s low-end for them: personal computers.

The Pixar II interface will be designed to work with Apple Computer’s Macintosh II running A/UX, high-end IBM PCs and low-end Sun work stations, according to Barbara Koalkin, director of marketing for Pixar. Jobs’ own Next machine is also an obvious candidate, though company reps were mum about this.

Pixars are used in medical technology, defense, scientific visualization, graphic arts and — no surprise — animation.

“We’re bringing down the overall cost,” Koalkin says. She says VLSI technology has helped Pixar fit its “image computer” onto two circuit boards instead of the six it used to need. So if you’ve got the dough, you can have an awesome system for less than $50,000 — that’s $30K for the Pixar II peripheral and another $20K for a tricked-out color high-end PC or Mac II or whatever. That’s compared with the $122,000 (not counting host computer) that the original Pixar cost when it was introduced in May 1986.

Koalkin wouldn’t commit to when the new, low-end software interfaces would ship. “They are under development.”

IT’S NOT TOO LATE: Speaking of graphics, during Ardent Computer’s coming-out party at Stars last week, I asked Ardent exec Steve Blank why the company wasn’t displaying Titan, its new graphics supercomputer, at the National Computer Graphics Association conference to be held in Anaheim later this month.

The standard rumor is always that a company’s having trouble with its system if it doesn’t go to such a major show.

Blank says the machine’s in great shape — benchmarked at twice as fast as Ardent predicted two years ago, in fact — but it’s still no-go for the show. “NCGA is a dilettante’s show for someone like Ardent with an $80,000 system. It’s clearly great for people who are selling graphics terminals, Macintoshes and the rest.”

Ardent likely will be missed at NCGA, especially because Stellar Computer will be showing its new “East Coast version” of Titan, according to Mike Tyler, director of the graphics and imaging service for market researcher Dataquest. Ardent’s attitude surprises Tyler. “Even if Ardent showed a demo that wasn’t completely real, it sure wouldn’t be the first time a company did that at a trade show,” Tyler says. “If they want to put the point across that they’ve got something other companies don’t, they need to be there.”

TRIVIA-O-RAMA: I know people who actually get upset debating which personal computer was first, so the coming Great Computer Currents Computer Quizathon ought to bring lively repartee.

Sponsored by Computer Currents, the local computer newsmag, and ComputerLand of Almaden/Campbell, it’s part of a two-day Power User Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center starting Friday, March 25. The quiz show starts at noon Saturday, March 26. Twelve contestants will be chosen according to whether they can answer a few questions on the entry blank, such as, “How much did the first Apple computer cost, and why did the Catholic Church object?”

Editor David Needle says the questions aren’t all that hard, but beg all you want, I’m still not telling. Entry forms are inside Computer Currents. If you can’t find a magazine and you want to be one of the chosen, call the Emeryville office at (415) 547-8600 and they’ll tell you where to go. First prize is a wirehead’s dream: round-trip airfare for two and “luxury accommodations” at a Hawaiian resort for a week. They all wear Hawaiian shirts anyhow, so they won’t have to pack anything but the Jolt Cola.

CLOSE, NO CIGAR: After last week’s item about Apple printing sensitive documents on brown paper, I got a phone call from the San Mateo firm that supplies such supplies, No Copi International. Oops! The paper is actually burgundy, not brown. A phone call disclosed that my source is color blind. Hope you all didn’t start feeding grocery bags through your photocopiers.