Re: RamDoubler on LC

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4p6jmg$9mn@news.ais.net>,
Chris Wicklein <chrisw@eagle.ais.net> wrote:
>: In article John_L._Graham@adbbs.antioch.edu writes...
>: or a cousin to the Amiga which Apple Computer designed. I'm certainly

>	Could you provide a note of explanation here?  I've only heard of 
>Apple to swipe system designs, not do them for others.

   I didn't write the above, but what I heard (by way of Todd
P. Whitesel) was that Apple felt burned with the technological
innovations that they threw into the Apple III, such as nice memory
remapping, better graphics, etc, but the machine was a flop. [Never
mind the fact that it was because of bad motherboard layout with too
much stuff socketed, especially the ram that did far more damage than
"new features."] Thus, they played it very conservative with the //e.

   While designing the //e, a European company came to Apple with a
fairly amazing graphics chip that really blew everything else out of
the water. Apple decided to give it the thumbs down and stick with
hardware that was not really different at all from the ][+. [Can you
imagine the //e with Amiga-like graphics? That would have guaranteed
the Apple IIs survival for a heck of a lot longer] That company then
turned around and licensed the design to Commodore, which produced the
Amiga.

   I've never verified this, but the graphics chip was designed to
interface with the 65xx series, not the 68K series used in the Amiga.
The byte orderings for 16 & 32 bit values are reversed between the two
(65xx stores $F00D as 0D 0F in memory, 68K as F0 0D), which has caused
Amigoids to go thru a lot of hoops to keep everything right.

Nathan "If you're gonna whine about Apple killing the Apple II, don't
think it started with the GS... it's been endemic to them from the
beginning" Mates
-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in 
# parables" Mark 4:11, NRSV