Re: 80 col card (was: Apple //c sound - 3 channels plus noise?!)

[Charles <spammeister12345@aol.com>]

In article <ce99et$i3r$1@ottoman.cs.fiu.edu>, yakko@zorin.org says...
> Martin Doherty wrote:
> 
> > Richard,
> > 
> > The circuitry to support 80 column display IS on the //e motherboard, 
> > but the extra video RAM is not.  Thus, the basic AUX slot 80-col card is 
> > nothing more than a 1K RAM card (possibly using memory chips from 
> > recycled Sinclair ZX80s).  Likewise, the Extended 80 col card is just a 
> > 64K RAM card.
> 
> I've always wondered about this.. To support 80 columns, you needed only 
> a small amount of memory (I think 2K?) -- so why did Apple make it an 
> option, instead of just including it with the IIe? By 1982, the price of 
> RAM had dropped sufficiently such that 2K of RAM would probably not have 
> added much to the final price.
> 
> They went as far to include the additional circuitry for 80 column, but 
> didn't make the IIe 80 column ready out of the box because of 2K of RAM? 
> It just seems silly!
> 
> -Z
> 

I believe that if you check the Apple 2 history ( 
http://apple2history.org/ ) you'll discover that Apple had been trying 
to keep the II bottled up in schools and homes since 1980 and developing 
other machines to break into the lucrative business market - after all, 
which computer had you ever heard of that would do world-class business 
computing as well as be used by 5 year olds at home to learn math?

With the introduction of the Apple ///, then the Lisa, and then the Mac, 
Apple ACTIVELY squashed the machine's specifications and performance 
trying to develop something Woz called product separation (a marketer's 
term).  While Apple was selling tens of thousands of Apple II's each 
month all through the 1980's, Apple systematically and anemically 
supported the II market, with less than stellar upgrades (btw, I LOVE my 
IIGS!, but it could have been faster and better if it had gotten more 
upper management support).  

While Apple as a company was being supported by us Apple II fanatics 
during the /// debacle, and the Lisa debacle, and the slow slow slow 
start of the Mac, they were developing and selling other hardware that 
isolated us from the future.  Indeed, the only upgrade path for Apple II 
users was to use the Apple IIe (!) card in one of the Mac LC type 
computers - not IIGS card, you see, IIe - the IIgs users became orphans.

Apple has a long history of eating its young to support the new stuff.  
It all started with the Apple II.  Gosh, what could have been!!

Anyways, it's an old, long dead story.  It's the reason I left the Apple 
fold 10-12 years ago.  But now, I'm back looking at what could have 
been. I've bought some Apple IIgs's, lots of drives a couple of 
monitors, just to remember what it felt like to REALLY BELIEVE - and 
BOY, was I a believer: Apple II FOREVER!

Ah, nostalgia.