Re: Apple II info please...

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:

>It was also unique in that they shrunk most of the Apple IIe 
>computer down to a single chip (the Mega II) to give make the IIGS 
>fully backward compatible with previous Apple II machines (the Atari 
>ST and Amiga were not compatible with the last generation of machines).

Because the Amiga's sound and graphics hardware was better than
that of the Commodore 64/128, there soon after the intro of the A1000,
there were C64 "software engines" (emulators).  Unlike a simple
emulator, because the Amiga was Commodore hardware, these ran
almost as transparently as 68k Mac software on a PowerMac...see,
you could connect your C64 1541, 1571, or 1581 disk drive to the
Amiga...ran both 3.5" and 5.25" disks.

So you had all the elements of a transition...the monitor could be
transferred (same monitor worked on C128 and Amiga...push the
digital/analog switch), old disk drives could be used to run old
disks, Commodore 64 "software engine" emulation was available...

In contrast, early Macs could not run GS software at all...the
sound chips and microprocessors were not powerful enough
and Apple did not bother to put a real Ensoniq and 65C816 on
the Mac II motherboard (doing so would have meant easy
compatibility and a smooth transition)...or they could have just
used that cancelled ARM based computer that could pull
Mac and GS at the same time...those ARM processors were
powerful enough to blow away even Amiga...