Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

[tarkus@teleport.com (Scott Lindsey)]

In article <55d2vb$hb1@mailgate.lexis-nexis.com>, christw@lexis-nexis.com
(Christopher C. Wood) wrote:

> |> Speed for one thing.  AppleWorks GS will run rings around "fat" Mac
> |> software when on the same PPC platform.
> 
> You haven't seen ClarisWorks running PowerMac native, have you?
> 
> |> >That's the very reason why I can see why Apple only provided
> |> >support for running 8 bit software on Macs and can't figure out
> |> >why people bitch about not supporting IIgs software.
> 
> |> What if I owned AppleWorks GS and I can't afford to dunk $200 for a
> |> copy of WordPerfect for the Mac?  If I am going to upgrade the
> |> hardware, I want to preserve my investment in current software.

I have to wonder if WordPerfect for the Mac can read WordPerfect GS files :-)

> You would upgrade to ClarisWorks for $69.  AppleWorks was in the
> competitive upgrade list.  ClarisWorks could import all AppleWorks
> file formats (I'm presuming AppleWorks GS here, but have no direct
> experience with such data files)
> 
> |> What about my 100+ AWGS page layout files?
> 
> I don't know.  Call Claris.

To the best of my recollection, there's translators for AWKS WP/SS/DB, but
only for AWGS WP.  There might be some third party solutions, but I don't
recall how much of the file formats were documented.  What was, as I
recall, was published as part of Apple's file type tech notes.


> |> The latest Mac software may have a few more features, but they cost
> |> money.  IIGS software is leaner and more efficiently programmed.
> 
> Than ClarisWorks?  I'd be surpirsed.
> 

As would be the developers of both :-)  The only real advantage here is
that AWGS was written in assembly, and CWKS in C, so theoretically, AWGS
could be tighter coded.  However, AWGS was written in heavily macro-ized
assembly, was written by less experienced team, and coded under much more
tighter deadlines than ClarisWorks.  So I'd have to give the nod to
ClarisWorks in both stability and performance, everything else being held
equal.

I have to admit that Gus is a lot of fun, but it brings back reminders of
just how clunky the IIgs was.  Still, it was fun seeing the 1988 version
of drag & drop, a.k.a "Hot Copy" in AWGS.

Having missed the start of it, I'm still trying to figure out how this
thread ended up being crossposted to comp.sys.be!

-- 
Scott Lindsey <tarkus@teleport.com>