Re: Hahaha.. Response on Localtalk cards.

[!smentzer@ecom.net (Steve Mentzer)]

>"Triumph of the Nerds" also had a whole section dedicated to the
>Apple II.  The commentators kept saying of the IIe "this is a really
>well designed system."  ;-)  They didn't say the same of the IBM PC.
>Message?  If Apple had stuck with the II as IBM stuck with the PC,
>today Apple would be ahead.  You can still run IBM PC software
>on a Pentium II...but you can't run A2 software (and I AM NOT
>TALKING ABOUT EMULATION...JUST REAL *RUNNING* OF
>THE SOFTWARE) on a PowerMac.


This is also the achilles heel of the PC world. The fact that we had to 
maintain a compatible instruction set for the last 15 years has actually 
hindered PC performance in many ways. Now that we are all "32 bit" the impact 
is lessened, but it is still an issue today.

We sacrifice performance for compatibility. Mac's made architectural changes 
when warrented (and sometimes not). It is a judgement call.

smentzer@ecom.net