Re: Apple III question (couldn't find a 3 group to ask)

[dgk@my.domain (Dowe G. Keller)]

mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) writes:

> bathswife wrote:
> 
> <insightful comments snipped>
> 
> >Is there still a market for computers that can be 'talked to'?  Those
> >of us still using Apple II's that pine away for the 'good old days'
> >are probably using some form of Linux or something comparable but  are
> >limited by what can be done with the hardware aren't they? I don't
> >know...I'm actually new to the Apple II having just bought one used
> >but prefer using it to write on for some inexplicable reason.
> >  Why can't there be a personal computer using faster processors and
> >newer technology that can be 'talked to'....modified and with the
> >options that 'simplification' for the masses took away?  Is that
> >impossible?  I don't know.  How many people would be interested in a
> >machine like that and willing to pay for it (I 'm sure it would cost
> >more than the average pc made today)?
> 
> I was just talking with a friend this evening about the Apple II, and
> found that it was his first exposure to computing years ago.
> 
> We reminisced about the joy of working with a computer that,
> as soon as you turned it on, responded with a BASIC prompt
> beckoning to be programmed.  What a far cry this is from the
> computers of today!

I was reading this and realized that that is exactly what my computer does.  The UNIX shell isn't much (if any) less powerful as a programming language than integer basic.  When my machine boots up, The prompt is waiting there for me just like in my IIe.  I can even set the prompt to a ">" :-).

> To program one of today's machines (as they are intended to
> be programmed) requires a couple of bookshelves worth of
> documentation, several hundred dollars worth of Integrated
> Development Environment, and more trouble than 99.999%
> of users are willing to take.

IDE's are overblown and encourage large cumbersome programs.  There
are lots of people programming in perl, java, python etc. from a
simple text editor.

> The fact is that the "barrier to entry" for programming today's
> machines is so high that few venture more than a scripting
> or macro language, if that.

If by scripting language you mean an interactive interpreter, thats
been beeing done since Dartmouth introduced BASIC in 195?.  And as for
high "barriers to entry" you mean price, then all I have to say is
gcc, there's a version for (as far as I can tell) all the UNIX clones,
and 95% of the other OSes out there on nearly every machine built.

> "Getting to the bottom" of a modern machine and its detailed
> behavior is extremely difficult--modern processors alone are
> so complex in their behavior that even their designers are at
> a loss to work out the detailed execution of, say, a half-dozen
> instructions, without the use of a timing simulator!

Here you have a valid point, one of the things that I really like
about the Apple II is its simplicity, modern processors have complex
timing issues, and 80*86 machines are just plain grungy.

> With the 6502, timing was as simple as addition.  And the
> Apple II, as I'm fond of saying, was the last computer for
> which all the information necessary to completely understand
> it weighed less than the computer itself.  ;-)
> 
> So...to address your original question:  "Is there still a market
> for computers that can be 'talked to'?"  I don't know.  I'd like to
> think so, but I think the jury's out.

The question is if the size of that market is large enough. IMHO,
There are just as many computer hobyists today as there were in the
early eighties when I got my first micro.  Its just that the hoards of
users make us seem miniscule.

> Of course, one can easily run an emulator or other synthetic
> environment on a modern computer which will present a simple,
> easy-to-program, understandable interface--but 1) that isn't really
> quite the same as seeing all the chips and wires without any
> "magic", and 2) such environments already exist and are not the
> basis of any "mass movement" as far as I can tell--mostly just
> some enthusiasts reliving the joys of their youth.

I think one of the problems is that the systems most users are exposed
to don't make hacking easy.  But this is mostly the fault of OSes that
obscure the interesting stuff from the user.

> Perhaps the real issue is that computers have become passe.
> 
> Everyone has a couple, they are necessary to life and business,
> like shoes, and are about as intrinsically interesting as shoes.
> Young people aren't excited by the prospect of being a cog in
> the giant software machine of a "major label", and regard a
> "major software innovation" as a tempest in a teapot.
> 
> True to the dreams of the inventors of the personal computer,
> it has become ubiquitous--more conspicuous by its absence
> from a room than by its presence.  It is now a commodity.
> It is boring, humdrum--taken for granted.
> 
> Q:  "How would you like to learn to _program_ a computer!"
> A:  "Whatever..."

You can't lead kids to computing, they have to catch it.  You
mentioned macros, and this may be a good trend (except for in mail
reading software), to get people interested.

I try to introduce young people to programming when I can, the trick
is to put them in an enviroment where they can explore.  I'll never
forget that moment, on a Timex Sinclair 2000 (not a thousanth of an
Apple ][), that I realized that That little machine would do anything
I wanted (Later I learned about memory and how 2K wasn't enough).  You
get a kid hooked on that high and he/she'll never give it up.

> Certainly a far cry from that age when the world was permeated
> with infinite possibilities:  "Whatever you can imagine, you can
> program!"  "Look at this!  You can actually program it to do
> whatever you want!"  "I have to get my hands on one of these!"
> 
> Ironically, those heady sentiments, which fueled the personal
> computer takeover of the world, were engendered by machines
> with less than one thousandth of the computational speed of
> today's machines, with less than one ten-thousandth of the RAM,
> and less than a millionth of the disk storage capacity.
> 
> Yet, we saw infinite possibilities!  And we built the software
> "air castles" that have made today's world possible.
> 
> Perhaps it is only because our appetites had been whetted
> by the almost unapproachable computers which preceded
> the personal computing age.  We saw computers as signs
> of great power and capability, and whoever could approach
> them personally was one of the chosen few.
> 
> As you can see, virtually every aspect of our perception of
> computers has changed in the last 30 years.  Even as the
> machines themselves have become incredibly powerful and
> available to anyone who wants one, our imaginations and
> aspirations about their possibilities have faded into the
> commonplace and pedestrian.

-- 
Dowe Keller				dgk@igalaxy.net

	  Please disregard the following crud.


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