Re: Apple II benchmarks

[Phoenyx <quazar@dcnet2000.com>]

For many years in the PC world, software was designed to force
the hardware to develop. Case in point, Windows 3.x. This 'shell'
would run on a simple 386 VGA 4mb system but worked best with
better hardware which wasn't common. Many of the Windows apps,
forced the user to upgrade or buy a better computer. When the
hardware started advancing past the software, Windows 95 came out
and started the loop all over again. Now once again we are at
that point. While MS hasn't released the 'home office' version of
Windows, it is coming soon. The Windows 2000 release does require
better hardware or at least the most recent hardware and it's
applications will force this issue.

In the Apple II world, the programmers tried to make the best of
the hardware available. Programming on the II really requires
tight code and memory use. Appleworks is a good example of a well
designed application. Upgrades for the II were always pretty
limited. Memory and accelerators being the more common of them.
Any other upgrades were usually at the mercy of Apple Inc. I.E.
II+ to IIe or IIe to GS. The IIe was a decent upgrade although,
it could have still been better. The GS upgrade though, was
simply, too little, too late. The basic GS release was such a
weak system that it was often overlooked for an enhanced IIe
with a memory card and accelerator. Later versions addressed
some of the issues people had with the GS, but never really gave
it the power it needed. If it weren't for Applied Engineering
and a few other companies, the GS would not be the favorite
Apple II it is now.


As for comparisons, it really isn't fair to judge the two at the
hardware level as the Apple II needed extra hardware to compare
with the average business level system. IMHO, the design of the
Apple made the user response much faster and thus it was
perceived as faster than the early PC versions. It's largest
flaw, Apple Inc. locked it into a no growth, limited use level
and waited for it too die. I for one am glad it never did.

-- 

Thank you for your time and interest. I hope it was helpful
or at least interesting.

Phoenyx,

Apple2 user since March 1984

Links to Phoenyx's pages:
preferred..... http://zip.to/Phoenyx_A2
alternate..... http://www.tinyangeldesigns.com/Apple2