December 18, 1989

Apple Computer Press Information

Dear Editor,

Last May at the Worldwide Developer's Conference we disclosed to our developers the core technologies under development for future versions of Macintosh System Software. At that time we told our developers that we would provide an update on our development progress by the end of the year. The following update provides a summary of the information given to developers on System 7.0's shipping schedule, feature set, and hardware requirements.

Excellent progress has been made on all of the core technologies discussed at the Worldwide Developers Conference. We anticipate releasing System 7.0 in the summer 1990 timeframe. We are well into development of System 7.0 and are preparing to initiate and then gradually expand our developer seeding program over the next several months.

System 7.0 will include Finder 7.0, Outline Fonts, Interapplication Communications Architecture, Database Access Manager, Virtual Memory, and 32-bit addressing.

A new core technology, called Macintosh FileShare, will also be delivered in System 7.0 as an integral extension to the Finder. This new technology is another step in Apple's integration of networking with the Macintosh Operating System. It will allow users to share their local files, without a file server, with any other computer running AppleShare client software.

The Communications Toolbox and 32-bit QuickDraw (available today for 6.0) will be incorporated into System 7.0. System 7.0 will also include several other new features that were discussed last spring, including the Help Manager, and enhancements to the Sound Manager, file system, TextEdit, Script Manager, and Time Manager system software. We will include new print drivers for printing Apple Outline Fonts to all printers, including PostScript devices.

Progress on other core technologies, the Layout Manager, and the new print architecture, is also proceeding well. These core technologies will be incorporated into a future system software release. We will provide additional information about these technologies and other new software technologies at the Worldwide Developer Conference in May.

- end of press release

-- Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California