Re: What's to become of the Apple II?

[ballwebr@holmes.ece.orst.edu (Brian Ballweber)]

pubpc17@library.ucla.edu wrote:
: It is easy to trash a processor by comparing it to ones that exist
: 10 years after its design.  Still, it is not the processor that was
: at fault.  When it was first released, the '816 could hold its own
: against that day's 80286 and 68000.  Because Apple did not support
: the IIGS, development of the '816 slowed while that of the x86 and
: 680x0 accelerated.  The '816 is actually a better base design than
: the x86, but because IBM and the clone markets supported it, Intel
: MADE it into the Pentium it is today.  There was no reason, if Apple
: had given support, that we would not have a Pentium SCALE '816
: extended chip today.

I find it confusing that you would connect the success of the '816
directly to the success of the IIgs.  The facts are that the IIgs
was only one of the end products that the '816 was used in.  It has
found its way into microcontroller applications as well as the
very popular Super Nintendo.  The 80286, despite its rather crappy
architecture, and for certain the 68000 are superior to the 65816.
And in all likelyhood it -was- the processor that was at fault.  If
the 65816 had been more powerful and faster to begin with then the
odds are that more people would have been attracted to it and it would
have grown in popularity.  While it is true that the 65816 could have 
been expanded into a future generation processor, it would have been 
no better than what the Pentium is today, and in fact it probably 
would have been an even worse incarnation.

These are all moot points however, because the facts are that today
right now the '816 is a low powered 16-bit processor.  Anyone who
pursued a 32-bit backward compatible version of it, with the idea of
competing against the PPC or PPro, might as well start shoveling their
money into the trash can right now.

: Now you could argue that the Pentium is inferior to the PPC.  You
: could argue that the 68040 is inferior to the PPC.  You would probably
: be right.  But if Apple had supported the IIGS, subsequent improved
: '816 based chips would have enabled the IIGS to survive until a PPC
: based IIGS could be built and then the user base migrated.  There is
: no reason why we could not have had a PPC based PowerIIGS eventually.

And what exactly would differentiate this PowerIIgs from a PowerMac?
Most of the hardware would likely be the same, with the difference being
in software and backwards comaptibility.  And given that currently around
3 or so GS emulators are being written that probably wont last much
longer.  If you feel that this end result is "just not the same", then
I suggest you do what I did and keep your GS hardware.

- Brian / DE