JURY OUT ON APPLE-BANDAI TECHNO TOY.

Byline: Andrew Pollack The New York Times

It seems a potent combination: Apple Computer Inc. and Bandai Co. Ltd., developing a simplified home computer to combine the American company's innovative Macintosh technology with the Japanese toy maker's knack for fun. The Power PC meets the Power Rangers.

But as the Pippin Atmark goes on sale this month in Japan, questions are being raised about whether the machine really combines the best of the computer and toy worlds or is merely an unacceptable compromise - underequipped as a computer but, at about $620, overpriced as a video-game machine.

The companies, of course, are eager to dispel the doubting attitude. In New York last week they held a recruiting meeting for software developers that Apple and Bandai hope will produce games and other programs for the Pippin, which will go on sale in the United States sometime in the fall for a price that has not yet been announced.

Bandai, which is making the machines under license from Apple, hopes to sell a combined 500,000 machines in the United States and Japan by the end of the year.

Apple and Bandai have even more riding on the success of Pippin than when they initiated their partnership two years ago. The Mighty Morphin Power Ranger boom, which made Bandai a household name in the United States, has faded. Bandai, Japan's largest toy company, sees its future growth in multimedia rather than plastic action figures.

Apple, meanwhile, is fighting for its very existence as its market share in computers declines and software companies abandon developing programs for the Macintosh in favor of Microsoft Corp.'s more popular Windows.

Apple hopes the low-priced Pippin, named after a type of apple, will spread Macintosh computer technology to a new consumer market, providing a broader audience to attract software developers.

Pippin is similar in many ways to video-game machines. It plays game and educational software stored on CD-ROMs, uses a television set as a display and is operated by a hand-held controller.

But its software operating system is a simplified variant of the one that controls the Macintosh, so Apple is positioning Pippin as being more sophisticated than a game machine. CD-ROMs developed for Pippin will, in most cases, run on the Macintosh, although those for the Macintosh will not run on Pippin.

Pippin can also provide access to the Internet and the World Wide Web, making it one of the first "network computers," a new breed of machines expected to sell for about $500.

"Pippin is the first low-cost, easy-to-use Web browser," said Satjiv Chahil, senior vice president of Apple. As such, Pippin could provide an early test of the hotly debated proposition that consumers do not need a $2,000 personal computer to enter cyberspace.

Pippin is also a test for Apple in doing business the way Microsoft does - by licensing its designs and software. Bandai is in charge of making and selling the machine and will pay Apple a royalty of somewhat less than $20 a machine. Software companies will also pay Apple a royalty of $2 or $3 for each disk sold.

To make Pippin truly successful, Apple is trying to license Pippin to other companies as well, particularly consumer-electronics companies that can embed Pippin technology into television sets. Apple is negotiating with Samsung Electronics of South Korea.

It also hopes Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Industrial Co., which is making the machine for Bandai, will sell Pippin models under its own name as well.

Bandai's Pippin Atmark - the second part of the name refers to the symbol used in electronic-mail addresses - contains a Power PC 603, the same microprocessor used in low-end Macintoshes, and six megabytes of memory.

It is equipped with a 14.4 kilobit-per-second modem and four CD-ROMs, including one containing Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator software for browsing the World Wide Web.