As I've observed before, a GUI means that almost any program you want
to write will be 10% your functionality and 90% GUI wrangling. That's
a heck of a tax!
Certainly true (and I'm someone who likes GUI programming). There are
non-GUI tools in the IIgs toolbox but text based programs were pretty
rare on the IIgs. Merlin 16+ is one I used (and liked) a lot and it
is GSOS/text. The Orca text shell is another.
True, but only developers used text-based apps on the IIgs.
The original Apple II "idea" was that its considerable capabilities
were accessible out-of-the box to anyone who was patient and could
read--a true "bicycle for the mind."
By contrast, the Apple IIgs (like the III before it) had even greater
capabilities, but access to them was wrapped in prodigious complexity
and locked up by the absence of out of the box documentation and tools.
I still say that the IIgs, like the III, departed radically from the
original Apple II idea of *accessible computer power*, and having Woz's
signature on the case of the first 50,000 or so was irony.
-michael
NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."