Re: What do I do next?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Byron Desnoyers Winmill asked:

>David Empson (dempson@actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
>: The "standard" 80 column card has 1 KB of RAM, 
>: The "extended" 80 column card has 64 KB of RAM.
>
>So which was the most popular of the two, and by what margin?  I have used
>a number of Apple //e's but, AFAIK, every one had the 128 kB RAM (and
>certainly every box I popped open).

I don't know the production figures, but I see about 10-20 64KB 80-column
cards for every 1KB card.  Probably most of them were thrown out when
their owner obtained a 64KB card.

>Also, why wasn't 128kB standard by the time of the Platinum IIe?  Sure there
>were 128kB cards, but they didn't seem well supported.  There were also
>higher capacity cards which fit into regular slots and would seem (to me) to
>be more desirable.  (Sorry, but I was using the C=64 at the time.  ;-( )

First, the 128KB cards you refer to were never the way to go after the
][ and ][+.  They were bank-switched slot 0 "Language Cards" that
presented all their memory as multiple language cards in the upper
12KB of the Apple address space.  There were patches for Appleworks
to use them, and some disk copy programs used them, but other than
that, their biggest use was as RAM disks.  They were not relevant to
the later Apple II memory expansion trends.

After the //c, which had 128KB standard, more software began to be created
which needed 128KB.  The Platinum //e _was_ 128KB standard, achieved by
bundling a 64KB 80-column card.

Perhaps the major capability which 128KB conferred was Double Hi-Res
graphics, with 16 colors at a resolution of 140x192.  This was a major
advance for educational and graphics software, and added considerably
to the appeal of the machine.

As DRAM sizes rose and prices dropped, the cost increment for the
additional 64KB became small relative to the graphical improvement.

Of course, AppleWorks made full use of the additional memory, and
for the more business-oriented, that was a big plus.  Appleworks
continued to gain benefits from additional bank-switched memory,
and it motivated the boom in 1MB+ RAM cards.

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
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