Re: Apple's next move (was Apple II just won't die.)

[sheldon@netcom.com (Sheldon Simms)]

In article <4jb81n$6ja@newsbf02.news.aol.com> rubywand@aol.com (RUBYWAND) writes:
>>
>>You lost me here!! Give me scsi anyday over that ide crap! If you check 
>>out the PC world scsi is chatching on. Those new cdr drives are all scsi,
>
>    Granted, SCSI is still very popular on Venus. Earther PC users began
>scrapping their old SCSI and pseudo-SCSI CD-ROM drives some months ago.
>...
>   "Too much to buy for my GS ...."  Me, too. If the GS-X goes to the new
>IDE interface, we will be able to grom for-PC CD-ROM drives and Hard Disks
>at less than half of what we spend now.

When deciding on what kind of interface you want to include, obviously
you will want to examine not only what is populat now, but what looks
like it's coming down the pipe. Then, given the target cost of the
"GS-X", try to figure out what you can design in. It would be best to
include both, as the Be computer does, but it may not be possible to do
so and remain within the target cost. If not, IDE would probably be
better as a built in, and having SCSI available on a card as an option -
but I'm sure there are valid arguments for doing it the other way.

This is a pretty good example of a very important part of the "GS-X":
expandability. There are a zillion and one things we could think of
that would be great to put in as built-in standard features. But unless
we are willing to pay $10,000 for the basic system, we can't do that.
So what we want a lot of is "wire": connectors, busses, and so on that
give expandability. Standard equipment should be limited to things
that need to be just that: standard on every system (although I think
that a very good argument can be made that the current IIgs contains
much less that it should as standard equipment). Now you can have
a discussion about what things need to be standard.

-Sheldon