Re: 8-bit Apple II Finder?

[volkmar.friauf@koeln.netsurf.de (Volkmar Friauf)]

In article <5p9ddo$4nm$1@darla.visi.com>, nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates) wrote:

> In article <33b55b54.2065411@167.152.149.11>,
> Edhel Iaur, Esq. <LOSETHECAPITALWORDSedhel@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> >Of course, it would have RULED if GEOS programs were compatible with
> >GEOS on every platform..._kinda_ like p-code...
> 
>    Generic and platform independent code really tends to imply SLOW
> code. [Stuff in Apple (UCSD) Pascal was p-code, and that tended to be
> a bit glacial for my tastes] Interpreters need beefy processors to
> deal with things; only by recompiling (or "Just In Time" compiling)
> for the target speed will you ever get full performance out of that
> processor.

It's not only a problem of slow code, but also of available disk & RAM
space... if GEOS applications should have been platorm independent, then
the GEOS itself would have been responsible for any hardware related
routines, i.e.: disk access, graphics routines, input device access and so
on. So you would have required a kind of toolbox with those routines which
could be accessed by any GEOS application... and such a toolbox would have
been much too large to be stored on 5'25 disks. :-)

The real advantage of the GEOS concept was that the three main platforms
of the early 80's (Apple II, C64, IBM-PC) would have had an identical
interface, which means that users could have worked on any of those
platforms without knowledge about the individual operating systems.

But this should be discussed in soc.history.what-if... ;-)

Volkmar Friauf