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Re: Apple II Celebration (was: Re: FS: APPLE IIGS)
On 18 Apr 1997 handel@NOSPAMstolaf.edu wrote:
> Joseph, I'd like to also welcome you to the Apple II Community.
Thank you! The response I have received from my post has been
wonderful. The Apple II community is amazing.
> which are "industry standard." You don't know how often I've heard
> "What?! You're serving web pages from your Apple IIGS!?"...and it was
> kinda cool writing in "Apple IIGS" on the network application form for
> our net connections here at St. Olaf :)
:) Just from reading the software manuals I've received (alas, my
monitor and keyboard have not yet arrived. I'm reduced to salavating over
the manuals for Spectrum (I have the Internet Suite on order, BTW, - they
say it will be shipping to everyone late next week; they're waiting for
the manuals to come back from the printer), Graphic Writer III, The
Manager, Express, DreamWorks, Pointless, TypeWest, and all the others
I've received so far (yup, I'm doing my part to support the apple
commercial software community[Grin])), I'm getting one heck of a positive
impression. Gadzooks, I'll soon be able to do some amazing stuff!
Even so, I didn't know GS's could run web-pages. But, when I think about
it, why not? They're probably better at it than the 286's a lot of
people seem to be using. [grin]
> The GS is an awesome machine, but don't expect too much from it. I'm
> going to take some heat for this, but remember, if you need to do
> serious tasks (graphics manipulation, etc.) don't look to the GS.
Ah, a heretic. [grin] What are you trying to do, bring free thought to
this discussion? How DARE you?!? [G]
But seriously, have no concern about me significantly over-rating the GS.
Remember, my main computer at home is an Atari 1200XL (with 256K RAM, a
video circuit cleanup/upgrade, and some other stuff - all hand-soldered
by me. You don't understand the luxury of Apple's card slots until
you've spent a weekend desoldering and soldering your motherboard[G]).
It runs at 1.57 MHz, has no hard drive, and maxes out its serial port at
9600 baud. Doing 80-column text requires some fancy programming tricks to
get readable text (Atari, paraphrasing Bill Gates: "No one will ever need
more than 40 columns of text"[G]).
But I love the Atari, and have used it as my computer of choice for the
last four years. Prior to that, I had an IBM 486DX2-50 (which is now
solely my wife's machine). But the Atari is better, because I know that
machine inside and out, from the hardware to the software. The only spot
on it is the hoops I have to jump through to exchange text with my
collaborators and my editor (translating from ATASCII (ATari ASCII - one
of the fine, memorable jokes Atari, Inc. played on its customers) to
ASCII is only one of those hoops; exiting my term program to load a
separate Xmodem program to transfer the files is another), from my
perspective.
But with the GS, I will have a great way to swap pieces of manuscripts -
GWIII and the RTF Translater. Halelujah! :) All the rest - all those
wonderful, wonderful things you can do with the GS are just icing on the
cake (my latest revelation: one can read Mac disks with the GS! Meaning
I can use Pointless to import Mac True Type fonts! Woo hoo! Yeah, old
news to you, but a very cool thing to me :). ['Course, if this was a TV
Movie of the Week, now would be when someone would reply to say, "Uh,
hate to tell you this, but you can't use GWIII and the RTF Translater to
exchange text with non-Apple computers." [grin]]
> I
> work with very high-end Mac's, IBM's, and Sparc Ultras, and while
> often their feel might not compare to the GS's (like the often
> boneheaded Mac Finder - I wonder who wrote that copy routine!), the
> raw processing power is unbelievable compared to the GS.
Yup. At work, I have a Pentium-200 with a 2.1 Gig HD, a 12X CD-ROM, and
all the other goodies. But, that's my work machine. It is NOT a fun
machine. Apple II's and Atari 8-bit's are fun machines. That is the
most important thing in a home computer, in my humble opinion. :) If it
not only lets you do the work, but lets you have fun doing it, then it's
a good computer. If not, it's not worth my time.
> Most people who are avid II fans do have a second computer, but the II
> is still the machine of choice for doing papers and light
> business-related work.
Hmm. Well, I guess in bumper-sticker parlance, I'll have to put a
sticker on my GS saying, "My other computer is an Atari 8-bit." [G]
Durned if I'm going to fire up the Windoze box at home. :)
-Joe
______________________________________________________________________________
Joseph E. Walsh | Atari 8-Bit User and Programmer Since 1982
ransom@iconnect.net | Classic Traveller Referee Since 1983
Stuck in the '80s | Microsoft-Free and Loving It! :)
.....Official Reporter of Imperium Games Product Info.....