Re: Apple Discontinued Products as of 6/13/94

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

In article niteeyes@mary.iia.org (Neal Pitts) writes...
> 
>Everything I've heard says that the only thing that IS still sold anymore 
>out of that list is the SCSI card. :(  The Video Overlay card went out 
>sometime ago, and is now a highly prized item in used Apple II equipment 
>sales.  People were scrambling to get these during Apple's auctions.  The 

        I'm sure we'll see the Apple HS SCSI card axed from upcoming
price lists soon, although luckly the RamFast SCSI will still always
be available as a great alternative. 

>5.25" drive also went out around the same time.  This must of happened 
>maybe 7 months ago or more. :(

	Really? That surprises me. What are owner's of the Mac LC //e-card
supposed to hook up to the card? Granted there's quite a bit of 8-bit sofware
available on ProDOS 3.5 disks (or transferable to one) but the vast majority 
of software still resides on 143k 5.25 floppies. Furthermore, Mac owners
cannot salavage old Disk ][, Apple UniDisk or Apple DuoDisk 5.25 drives to
connect to the card -- just the platinum Apple 5.25 drive (commonly found
on IIGSes or platinum IIe's). I wonder if the Apple //e emulator card will
remain on prices list much longer considering this fact...

>The official word is supposed to be that the Apple II engineering group
>is gone, but I've never seen an official announcment, unless it was just
>put up on the online services.  Concerning system software, it seemed

	All original group memebers are currently working within the
Mac/PowerMac software division, but I'd like to know for sure if the
Apple II Continuing Engineering Group was *offically* disbanded.

>quite probable, and also seemed strongly hinted at, that even if the
>Apple II division were to stay alive, they were not going to do much for
>8-bit system software, unless there were bugs to fix.  The feeling seemed
>to be (that I got from various postings from the Apple programmers and
>others I've talked to) that GS development was much more worth the time.

	I'd agree with that. If we only have a very limited time and
resources going to be poured into Apple II System Software, it's better
all that time and energy be spent on the 16-bit IIGS side.

>As for GS system software, I've heard and put together several rumors;
>that System 6.1 or some other version was done, or partly done, but not
>released because the division closed down; that 6.1 is still coming out;
>and that small updates would be done by the Apple programmers on their
>own time.  The only features I remember rumored, were bug fixes, and a
>write version of the MS-DOS FST.  Maybe even support for the Ethernet
>card would have been included - there are still some developers and lucky
>people that have Apple II Ethernet cards and don't have System 6 support
>to use them with.

	A two-way MS-DOS FST would be a nice bonus (even though few people
can actually make use of it, due to hardware required), though support for
a networking card that was never released and only a dozen or so people
own seems rather pointless. Unless of course that support could be somehow
tied in to upcoming Ethernet projects planned. All in all, it's rather 
disappointing to think GS System 6 won't continue to grow, but I guess we
should be happy with _anything_ we can get now. I think it's especially
important to address all the bugs that need fixing in System 6.0.1,
either with a 6.0.2 or 6.1 release! 

>niteeyes@iia.org
>cpitts@cldc.howard.edu
>ncp@gnh-starport.clark.net

Mitchell Spector
sb_spec@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca