
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 20, 1995                   TAG: 9506210053
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                 LENGTH: Short

IBM INTRODUCES POWERPC CHIP

IBM showed off its first personal computers based on the PowerPC chip Monday and said the next versions, due next year, will be capable of running the operating software of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh.

The announcement marks another step along a path toward common systems that the two companies have been traveling since they joined to develop the PowerPC microprocessor and some software in 1991.

However, IBM has not decided whether to actually install Macintosh software in its products. If it does, IBM, whose 1980 PC design became an industry standard because others cloned it, would become a cloner of Apple.

International Business Machines Corp. and Apple reached agreement last fall on a common design for computers that use the PowerPC chip, a decision that was widely viewed as meaning both IBM and Apple software would run on future machines.

But the computers that IBM rolled out Monday do not use that common design and cannot support Apple software.

by CNB