Re: The Apple II Now and Forever

[hal@budapest.math.macalstr.edu (Harold Byron Bouma)]

Matt Deatherage writes

[Quote moved up for convience]

> I don't recall that you've ever worked at Apple, Hal, so it's amazing how
> you can know so much about what "Apple" was thinking when you weren't
> even there.
> 
> Speculation is fine, and I like reading everyone's opinions as much as
> the next guy, but what you say here is speculation, not fact.  Please
> identify it as such.  Personally, I don't believe any of the items
> quoted here.

	Ok, lets talk about facts and opinions.

>>	First of all, it was Apple's decision to make the GS more like a Mac.  
>> Why? Because not only is it a useful GUI that they had already spent lots of   
>>R&d into, but they thought it would make getting us to buy Macs in the future  
>>easier.

	Yes, that was Apple's decision to make. not mine. This is a fact that  
they made that decision. Now why they did it? I do not know. It is also known  
that when the GS was being created that the Mac team came in to help in the  
design of the GS's toolbox. Now I do not know if the toolbox of the Mac was  
simply "ported" to the GS, but we got the same thing. It is cheaper to simply  
port a well respected GUI to another system then to spend money reinventing the  
wheel.

	Recently, whenever a System upgrade has occured, Apple says the GS is  
more Mac like, meaning that they want the GS to look and feel like a Mac. Since  
Apple has announced the decision to stop developing new Apple II's, it would  
seem that any "upgrades" Apple wants GS users to make will be to Macs. Making  
the GS's GUI more and more like a Mac would "ease" this transition between the  
two systems. 

	Apple has spent a lot of time talking about this "bridge" between the  
two machines. Even in the open letter to Apple II users by John Scully in  
Incider, he talked about this bridge. So this idea of transision between the  
new machines has been published. While this plan may not have been around when  
the GS first appeared, it seems to have become now a big part of Apple's  
strategy. (that is an opinion drawn from what is mentioned above)

> > 	While one of Apple's goals with the Mac was to remove this freedom to  
> > the hardware (also made protecting their OS easier)

	Ok, the word OS was a bad word. It should have been hardware.

	I seem to recall a bit of material running around that Jobs didn't like  
stuff like slots because it allowed people to know about the hardware running  
the machine. This in turns allows people to "clone" it easier. And over the  
years, Apple has been very proective of its right to manufacture II's or  
Macintoshes. While the original concept may have changed due to the course of  
time to more protecting the MacOS and the toolbox, Apple does not encourage  
much access to the Mac's hardware.

> > 	The reason why the GS does not have features like a multifinder is  
> > because Apple did not let the GS have them. A Multifinder for the GS would  
> > be expensive for Apple to make right now because back when the GS was being  
> > created, many corners were cut in the design of the toolbox for time/budget  
> > reasons (also created by Apple).

	I'm not going to go much into this here, but I will discuss it more in  
a later article that Matt D. wrote in reponse to Todd W.'s repsone to this  
article.

	However, it is known that there were some decisions that were made  
while the toolbox was being written that has created some problems. Some of the  
long term effects of certain decisions were not know about, such as not making  
the toolbox calls re-enterant. If they were re-enterant, this would have made  
making a Multifinder much easier. But these concepts were not well known at the  
time, so I can understand that.

	Other limitations however, such as the hard-coded QuickDraw II is a  
better example. Last year, there was quite a bit of discussion about having  
better resolution supported by QuickDraw II. One article that Dave Lyons wrote  
was that there were some constraints that had to be done for time/space/budget  
reasons. And some assumptions about the hardware were made to meet these  
requirements. And as Dave said, to fix these would make a lot of current  
software not able to run anymore. I could probably dig up those articles, but  
why bother?


> > 	Well, all I can remember is that when Scully came into power, he  
> > discontinued a few macs saying that it was in Apple's better interests to  
> > maintain a small product line.

	I read that somewhere in a major weekly news magazine, but that was a  
long time ago.(nearly 7 years now!) But at one time early on in his stay at  
Apple, I recall him saying that in response to discontining a few computers.  
But I don't recall a) when or b) which macs he discontinued.


	Overall, Matt, you seem to think that since I don't work at Apple, that  
I have no idea about why Apple made their decisions. Thats a very poor argument  
there. You're claiming to know everything that I know, and therefore, because  
of that, my points are invalid. You don't have to work at Apple to know what  
they are doing. You watch and observe what they do over the long term. My  
responses are thought out answers to the facts that I have aquired over the  
years. And from the facts that I see, I view them to be correct. Now whether  
they are or not, thats for others to decide, but I try to add some of the facts  
that I base my opionion on when making a point. Perhaps it is unfortunate that  
I don't have more precise refrences, but spending 1/2 my day filing material  
about what Apple is doing isn't my idea of fun. I have more productive things  
to do like write Apple II software. :)

| Hal Bouma                            | Send mail to: HBouma@Macalstr.edu    |
| Macalester College, St. Paul, MN.    | and           HBouma@Macalstr.Bitnet |
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