In a few months, the dining halls will not be the only places on campuses serving cheap apples.

At about $1000 apiece. Apple's new Macintosh personal computers "will be an absolute steal," says John Dvorak, a columnist for Info World, a weekly magazine for computer users.

Harvard students can take delivery of the units at reduced prices as a result of a deal with Apple Computer Company completed last month. The agreement will provide Harvard and 23 other universities with large quantities of the Macintosh, which they will resell to students at approximately half the retail price of $2500.

In return, Apple hopes that students and professors at the universities will develop software and hardware gadgets for the Macintosh system, which currently comes with little more than text editing software and very sophisticated graphics.

Most experts call the model extremely easy to operate ("user friendly"), very well-priced, and highly powerful.

"It's a great buy--for $1000 you can't even get an IBM Selectric typewriter," says John Markoff, West Coast editor of Byte magazine, another weekly journal for computer users. He adds that "it's not a mainframe computer on a desktop, but the Macintosh people did the most they possibly could within the price restrictions."

Graphics

"It's strong points are its graphics capabilities, and its power, but it is questionable whether people will need that much power," says Dvorak, noting that the computer could benefit from better software and another floppy disk drive.

Aside from the lack of software, experts overwhelmingly agree that the main drawbacks include a small screen size and lack of memory.

"It's got a great word processor, but it can only work on 20 pages at a time," Markoff says.

But, according to Daniel Lewin. Apple's college marketing manager. "You make intelligent tradeoffs. You just couldn't have the advantages without the disadvantages."

Revolution

The Macintosh may presage a revolution in personal computing. But like all major innovations, it also entails a high risk for failure. Apple suffered big losses from its first revolutionary model, the $10,000 Lisa. In this, the second round, it has bounced back with a machine only a fourth the cost of Lisa and with almost as much versatility.

The computer is designed to occupy minimal desk space. Noticeably square, with a high profile and an off-center screen, the machine definitely has a personality.

Most obvious, the Macintosh has a unusually small screen size. A nine-inch diagonal, it presents a five-by-seven viewing image.