Re: If the Apple II was continued...

["Don" <coach41@pacbell.net>]

On Jan 23, 10:34 pm, thingvol <thingvol at yahoo dot com> wrote:

>
> Ok, enough of my dreams. What ideas do you have?

I only had a IIe and wished I had been able to get a IIGS (I was 12
when the IIGS was introduced).  However, my parents never picked one up
so I used my IIe all the way through the mid 90's.

My main wish (less technical than some folks) was:

That the the souped up IIGS systems that exist today (higher speed
processor, more RAM) had been releaseed in 1986 or soon thereafter.
The IIGS temporarily appeased 8 bit owners who had been clamoring for a
more advanced system since the Amiga/Atari ST were out.  However, the
limitations of the system were pretty apparent.  The speed and RAM
limited what the developers could do.  It didn't stop some people from
putting out great software anyway.

Also, upgraded graphics capabilities and hardware would have been nice.
 The "Super Hi-Res" graphics of the IIGS were light years ahead of the
8-bit II's, but seriously lagging behind the Amiga/Atari systems.
Combined with the slow processor, games were higher quality graphics
and full screen animation were difficult to produce.  It's a shame
because programmers (just like with the 8 bit systems) did some good
games and pushed the IIGS to the max.  However, there didn't seem to be
that many of those games.

I also never understood why Apple never incorporated sprite hardware
into their graphics.  Perhaps they didn't want the apple II to be known
as a game system but better graphics hardware would have been a boon to
game players like me.  :)

However, the future of the Apple II would likely have been the future
of the Macintosh.  Realistically, if the IIGS had been suported and
continued on, it probably would have been today's Macintosh.  The
operating systems were getting closer and closer to being the same when
the IIGS was discontinued so it's not hard to imagine the II and Mac
co-existing.

Instead of the Mac Mini, IMAC, of the mac G4, it could have been the:

Apple II Mini
IMAC II
Apple II G4 

:)

Don