Re: A Tale of Two Apples

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article bjblackbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major) writes...
>> In article <17OCT199723141927@vax2.concordia.ca>,
>> Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >    What killed the Apple IIgs was _Apple Computer_. Other than the fact
>> >that the Macintosh SE had a higher vertical screen resolution and more
>> >powerful 68000 processor (although not necessarily much faster in terms
>> >of noticable speed) the SE was inferior to the Apple IIgs. As for the
>> >Macintosh II, with a price tag near $10k, it was well out of any average
>> >person's price range (making the IIgs a slow, poor-man's Macintosh II).
>
>For some reason, I never got this original message on my server, but I'm
>replying from cut and paste of Randy's reply....is there a point to
>going over this stuff over and over again?  I mean, I just don't see
>what the point is.  Everyone knows what happened back then and everyone
>has their own opinions on it or who was at fault, etc. etc.  This is
>like constantly dredging up the past--it doesn't help things NOW.

    Well, there are people out there that have a distorted or biased
view on just what did happen, and if I see that, I will correct that
or state my opinions. That just happened in this thread and so I did
follow up with a reply. This is an Apple II discussion group, is it
not? If we do not discuss the past, then just what would you propose
we talk about? I'm not saying it is productive to dredge up stories
about "evil Apple Computer" and such, but when someone misinterprets
what happened, are you saying I should just turn a blind eye?

    The fact of the matter is that things are very much stagnant in
the Apple II world today. There have been no major hardware projects
developed in at least 3 years now (or even minor ones to speak of,
except perhaps a memory card and revision to an existing IDE card).
There has been relatively no new software development for almost as
long, with a few exceptions here and there (e.g. LemminGS, Spectrum
Internet Suite, Marinetti). Even the source of interesting talk and
discussion, printed and electronic publications, have been falling
one by one. We lost SoftDisk G-S, II-Alive, GS+ and recently GenieLamp
A2, all within the past couple of months. With nothing NEW here now
or on the horizon, what else is there to discuss? Nostalgic talk
about the past and how we use our II's today is fine, but when Apple
Computer comes up, it is would be just plain ignorance to pretend what
happened did not. The topic of this group, the Apple II, is no longer
mainstream and mostly forgotten today because of that company. Trying
to forget (or pretend) Apple Computer had no part in the "death" of
the Apple II is like trying to forget Steve Wozinak was the one
who gave it "birth". No one should forget where and why its origins
began and where they ended. Both are an ingrained part of its history.
I for one don't like seeing history rewritten or changed.

    Back on the issue of there being nothing new to discuss, I fear
that may be one of the reasons people on this group fight and argue
so often. Could it be out of sheer boredom and inactivity in the II
world, people are just so frustrated, that they've turned on each other
out of lack of anything else to do? (kind of like people trapped in a
small room for years with no new stimuli, and eventually being driven
mad by it. Is comp.sys.apple2 experiencing cabin fever? ;-)

>> >    It was absolutely disgusting that Apple was shipping the GS with just
>> >256K of memory for the first 2 years the machine was out! Out of the box
>> >the computer could not run any of the GS-specific software titles out
>> >there, this was plain stupidity (it would be like selling a car without
>> >a gas-tank and engine, later informing the customer they'd have to buy
>> >that as an extra option when they discovered the car won't run!). It was
>> >not until late 1989 that the GS shipped with a full 1 MB of memory out
>> >of the box, pretty much towards the end of its life span (and by that
>> >time most applications were demanding 2 MB or more).
>
>You indeed are comparing yesteryear's memory requirements with memory
>requirements of present day.  Back then when the GS debuted, 256 was
>ample for running games that were available; I have games on floppy disk
>for the gs that only require 256K.

    Whoah, back up there! That is a hugely false statement. 256K in
an Apple IIgs was anything but ample, it was sorely less than the GS
required to run _any_ native software. There is the key here, native
software as opposed to running 8-bit software in emulation mode. In
the latter case, 256K was more than ample, but the Apple IIgs was a
lot more than just a simple "Apple IIe compatible".

    256K is not even enough to load the Apple IIgs Finder into memory,
or the complete operating system. What will run in that small amount
of memory? Let's see, MouseDesk (an 8-bit leftover from the IIe/IIc),
the original "Apple IIgs Tour" disk (which could be run on a standard
IIe system, if you removed the digitized sound effects). Also IIgs
versions of Music Construction Set, Silent Service, Pirates!, Tass
Times in Tone Town, Paperboy and Gauntlet. Those were all fairly
basic and mediocre programs, and just about the ONLY things I can
name that run with 256K of memory. Oh, there was also Reader Rabbit
that used Double-Hi-Res graphics yet dubbed "GS-specific" (the same
was true of those Mindscape games in that list, which actually
contained some single Hi-Res screens within the game). Does that
give you an idea what types of programs could run with 256K?

>And, it was more than ample for running productivity programs such as
>Quicken and Appleworks.

    Your talking about using the Apple IIgs for running old 8-bit
software. Is this all you think of the machine, as a glorified IIe
compatible? That is only one side, and leaves the "GS" part totally
masked out.

    You know, I could state the same. That the original Macintosh
with its 128K of memory was ample, since you could run the version
of MacPaint and MacWrite that came in the box. Would you agree that
that was ample memory?

>Huge megabytes of memory were not needed for MOST things back then.

    Agreed. I can think of no software early in the IIgs's life that
required 4 megabytes of RAM. However, I do know almost all titles
required at least 768K of memory and some 1 full megabyte. Look at
DeluxePaint II, that required 768K. Programs like PaintWorks Plus
and MultiScribe GS required 512K just to launch, and more memory
if you wanted to do anything useful with them. PaintWorks Gold and
AppleWorks GS in 1988 needed 1.25 MB of memory to run. I bought my
Apple IIgs (in late 1987) with 768K and within a year, upgraded to
a full 1.25 MB as I found that amount too small to run software.

>And like Randy stated, memory was VERY expensive back then--many,
>many times more than what it is now.

    That's correct, and I know from experience since I had to purchase
memory during that worldwide memory shortage supply. This however is
a flawed argument when the Macintosh Plus had been shipping with a
full 1 MB of memory, and continued to do so after memory prices had
sky rocketed. The same is true of the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II.
Why did the Macintosh ship with 1 MB but not the IIgs?

    I understand that the Macintosh required that memory to be usable,
but the _same is true_ of the Apple IIgs back then. If you purchased
an Apple IIgs, one of the first things you had to rush out and buy was
a memory expansion card and the chips to populate it. That is, unless
you planned to use the machine exclusively as a IIe compatible. There
was no excuse for this lack of memory. Your trying to rationalize
Apple's motives is purely based on the fact your faith and loyalty to
the company is very strong (this isn't an insult, and please don't take
it as one. Quite often we can have such devotion in something that we
can unconsciously be blind to its flaws and overlook them. I was like
that about the IIgs for quite a number of years, maybe I still am a
bit to this day :).

>You either had to be a well-off (money wise) person back then to afford
>megabytes of memory, or save up a long time to get it.

    Or purchase a Macintosh (for the same price as a IIgs) with that
memory already installed?

>As I remember it, most software manufacturers back then took
>into account the amount of memory a computer shipped with (NOT what was
>added on later); so everything that was "store bought" like Epyx games,
>Broderbund software, etc. always managed to run within the limits of
>what the computer shipped with.

    This is usually the case, but in order to write software that took
advantage of the GS's features required more memory than Apple supplied
out of the box. This is why 99% of the IIgs software titles out there
required 512K to 1 MB in order to run, with most leaning towards the
latter requirement. Furthermore, most people were buying memory cards
with the machine, as again, it was a necessary requirement; companies
were expecting you would have 512K or more (anyone with less had *zero*
interest in running IIgs software).

>> >    Another annoyance was the lack of a built-in SCSI port. The Macintosh
>> >Plus had one from the beginning, the Macintosh SE even allowed you to add
>> >a hardrive internally. In order to make a IIgs usable, as most here know,
>> >that has always required a hardrive. Why did Apple not ever add that?
>
>The Mac Plus was the first Mac to have built-in SCSI "from the
>beginning".  The 128K Mac and the 512K Mac did not have built-in SCSI.

    I did not say the Macintosh 128, 512 or 512e had SCSI built-in,
reread the above paragraph, I said: The _Macintosh Plus_ had one
from the beginning. That "beginning" being January 1986, which was
the introduction date of the Macintosh Plus.

>And a IIgs is VERY usable without a hard drive, especially if you are
>Appletalked to a hard drive connected to a Mac, as my setup is.

    Have you tried operating an Apple IIgs off floppy drives? Even
for launching a game it will often take several minutes to load. If
you attempt to seriously use the Finder (or any other productivity
applications, like AppleWorks GS, HyperCard IIGS, synthLAB, Platinum
Plantium Paint, etc.) you will be slowed even more by CONSTANT disk
swapping. I strongly suspect you haven't done much more than tinker
with the Apple IIgs and so your talking with inexperience here. I
have been an Apple IIgs user/owner for 10 years, and have worked very
heavily with the machine equipped with and without a hardrive. Believe
me, I know what I'm saying when I say an Apple IIgs is not very usable
without a hardrive (unless, once again, your are using it as an Apple
IIe compatible or to just play a few basic video games). 800K disks
also become very cramped in a hurry once you start using productivity
software to _create_ data files.

    I can run a Macintosh off floppy disks. I've done it before, I
used to do the page-layout for my high school's newspaper using a
Macintosh Plus with PageMaker and nothing more than two 800K drives.
Sure, it worked, but it was a _very_ unpleasant experience and had
me almost dizzy with disk swapping. I could run some IBM programs
from floppy disk too, but in all cases (GS, Mac and IBM) it is like
shoveling snow with a tablespoon. Sure, it is doable, but not very
practical. Whether I'm using an Amiga 2000, Apple IIgs, IBM 386+ or
Macintosh Plus or higher, a hardrive is essential (I've used all
those and know from experience).

    Incidentally, running your Apple IIgs through AppleTalk does
eliminate the disk swapping problem, but the speed problem will
still exist as AppleTalk only operates about as fast as a 3.5
drive (at least this is what I have heard).

>> >    Leaving these things purposely out made it clear Apple was not serious
>> >about the Apple IIgs, and if you wanted a "serious" product you had to buy
>> >their Macintosh. The Apple IIgs was just there if you wanted an Apple made
>> >product (as opposed to Commodore/Atari solutions) for school, home or
>> >hobby.
>
>You are totally forgetting what markets each computer was aimed at that
>Apple produced.  The II line was ALWAYS the home and school computer--no
>businesses/corporations I know were using them (except small family
>businesses which were using them).  The II line was never marketed to
>the business community at large, because the business community chose
>IBM from the start only because of the association with IBM's mainframes
>and other business machines such as typewriters, etc.  The Mac was
>designed to compete with the IBM pc from the very beginning--the Apple
>II was not.

    Regardless of what market a computer is aimed at, is that any reason
to cripple and neglect supporting it? Is that to say at home or at use
in school, a person will never need hardrives, memory or speed?

    The Macintosh was very poorly designed to compete against the IBM as
a business machine. The IBM was expandable, modular and focused for the
task of crunching numbers and moving words and editing them on screen.
In comparison, the Macintosh was a closed, non-expandable all-in-one
box with "cute" features and fluff someone in a business setting would
find unnecessary. It was also very proprietary. Did businesses want to
have to fuss with a mouse and little icons to get at the numbers, words
and data? Did they want or need things like digitized sound forced upon
them? I think the Apple II was better competition head-to-head than the
Macintosh if you want my opinion (the Apple III was an Apple II that had
been equipped for business after all, and probably would have succeeded if
not for the hardware problems in manufacturing them).

    The funny thing is Apple has come to terms they have lost the war
against Intel PC's and are now struggling to keep its remaining strong
hold: the K-12 education market, not business. I wonder how well it
will do since that stronghold basically exists because Apple got its
foot in there with the Apple II.

    I hope what I wrote above isn't inflammatory (I just want to share
my view of things) but I kind of find an irony about you telling me
there is no point or value in dredging up the past. It seems that from
what you've stated above you have a misunderstanding of that past and
a blurred sense about the Apple IIgs. Bringing it up may clear some
misconceptions. Besides which, I strongly believe what Apple did to
the Apple II is one of the main reasons the company is now balancing
on the edge of collapse. They killed a strong and profitable product,
caused millions of loyal customers to switch sides and made them look
like they forgot the meaning of the word support (that is still a
problem today). What Apple did in the past ties into the present.
Well, with Steve Jobs at the helm again and his wonderful business
sense (killing the Mac clone market) it'll all be over soon anyway.
Then we won't have to talk about it anymore as it'll be the past. :-)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca