This month's computer news.

Events in the general computer market are playing a growing role in die direction taken by publishing. We relate those that we feel are ' tant to the publishing market to you, our readers. Often, the stories are of such significance that they run as major news items.

This month, we introduce a new feature: a summary of the past month's computer news. We presume that readers who want to stay abreast of the computer market will subscribe to weekly papers such as PC Week, InfoWorld and MacWeek, as well as to monthly magazines and newsletters. But for those of you suffering from information overload, we will ferret out and summarize the events that we think were most newsworthy, as a kind of capsule review of the month. Of course, we will continue to cover in detail the events that strongly affect our industry.

Hardware news

Apple talks Token Ring. Apple announced its long- awaited Token Ring networking products on June 12. With die new Token Talk networking card and AppleTalk 2.0, users win be able to tie together MS-DOS computers and Macintoshes and to perform more sophisticated functions on all-Apple networks. Apple also introduced products that improve the Mac's ability to communicate with DEC minicomputers and IBM mainframes.

Fast '386 PCs available. Ultrafast 33-MHz 80386-based PCs are now available from many makers of IBM compatibles, including Compaq, which says its new machine has been shipped to dealers. Reportedly, the most popular use for the fast machines is as a …