Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

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

In article pubpc1@library.ucla.edu writes...

>shack@deimos.frii.com (Randy Shackelford) wrote:
>>Yeah, Apple incurred the wrath of a couple dozen piss-and-moaners who hang
>>out there and bitch about it, while other people understand that a machine
>>based on an 8 bit processor dating from the '70s has little viability in
>>the '90s. Apple came out with other products to remain competitive.
> 
>My God, man, the Apple II of the late 80's did NOT have an 8-bit processor.
>The Apple IIGS has a 16-bit processor.

    Agreed! I'm rather tired of hearing that stereotypical response
spoken out so often, claiming the Apple II is "'70's technology"; and
that Apple was right to end it. The words "Apple II" seem to conjure 
up images of a 48Kb Apple II Plus, with monochrome screen and 5.25 
drive in people's mind. Why? The Apple II line was more than that, 
but ever so much more so if you consider the Apple IIgs.

>There was no reason why it could not have evolved into a 32-bit computer, 
>like Pentiums have evolved from the PC/XT!  The demand WAS there.  Apple 
>chose to ignore it.

    I have little doubt that continuing the original 8-bit Apple II 
design wouldn't have made sense in today's market, but not the GS. 
I hate seeing it lumped in with the rest of the Apple II's as far 
as any future feasibility would have been concerned! 

    It would have been such a _simple_ matter to enhance it's design,
it was so blatantly obviously that Apple left it in a crippled state
on purpose. The VGC could have easily been updated to support at least
a 640x400 mode, and 256 colors per scanline. The Ensoniq chip could have
been given a full 128Kb of DOC-RAM, with stereo sound-out and sound-in
connectors built-in (being forced to buy a "stereo card" was as silly 
as selling a car without a steering wheel!). Better yet, they could 
have dropped in newer Ensoniq chips with more DOC-RAM, as they became
available. A reasonable amount of memory could have shipped out of the
box (why did they wait until 1989, and then only supply 1MB?) as could
a faster 65C816 have been incorporated. A hardrive and 3.5 floppy drive
built-in would have been possible (as seen in the Mark Twain prototype)
and as well numerious other bits. As time went on, the design could
have grown and evolved. At some point the backwards compatibility with
older II's could have been placed on a separate card, allowing Apple
to have overcome the limited bus speed. The IIgs was two machines in
one box don't forget.

>When the GS came out, the Mac sucked.  It is better now, but what Mac are
>we talking about in '86?  The Mac Plus?  The GS was and is better than
>the Mac Plus.

    The fact of the matter is Apple purposely negelected the IIGS.
As was stated previously in this thread, they failed to advertise
it or reduce it's price over the years. Is there a reason the price
remained virtually unchanged from 1986 until 1992 - when it was dropped?
Or was there a reason why, during the 6 years Apple sold it, the only
major update was the 'ROM 3' motherboard? The only significant advantage,
from non-Apple users looking in from the outside: it shipped with
a full megabyte of memory. If this was the *only* meaningful enhancement 
Apple could come up with in 6 years, perhaps they're not as good a
bunch of engineers as some may have thought. The Mac 128 started off
as a very limited machine, though they somehow got it where it is 
today. If the GS were a flop, it would have been discontinued fairly
early in the game, but it made Apple large profits (I recall it even
outselling the Mac one year!). Apple didn't want to kill it right away 
because it made them profit, so they instead choose to milk it while 
at the same time smother it (no enhancements, no ads, no cost cuts).
There were people in the company who shared Steve Jobs' ideals, that
there should only be the Macintosh. So despite all logic, they let
a potentially killer product slip through their hands. 

>Apple could have kept compatibility and gone up to date.
> 
>The GS was a great example.  Compatible with the II but better than the
>Mac of its day.

    The Macintosh has come a long way since the first all-in-one 
box unit with tiny little B&W screen. Though, from my own personal 
experience with them (and I stress that this is an opinion ;) I find
them rather dull and limited. Although I highly dislike the PC's
design, I find them more attractive now since they have that opened
design similar to the Apple II. There are all sort of cards you
can drop in and choose different kinds of music synthesis for
example. Yet on the Mac...? Same with operating systems too.

    I feel it's rather too late to change things, though I think
Apple made some very poor decisions and let the PC clone "steal"
the market that could have been theirs.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca