Re: monitor on IIgs

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

In article <YMydnabDyIvw7_SjXTWcoQ@comcast.com>, "Bill Garber"
<willy46pa@comcast.net> writes:

>Michael Mahon wrote:
>
>> Most members of the Apple II community are interested in new
>> possibilities for the Apple II.  (Fewer are willing to spend any serious
>> money for them, but that's another issue.  ;-)
>
>Exactly, that is the reason I want to create peripherals rather than hacks.

It is important to distinguish at least two classes of prices paid in
auctions:  hobbyist prices and collector prices.  Some items draw
high bids from hobbyists because they are somewhat rare and
very useful items that a hobbyist wants to upgrade a working system.
Other items draw high bids from collectors, not because they are
useful, but because they are "collectible".

For example, a SCSI card is useful, and draws high bids from
hobbyists, while an Apple II (not +) is collectible, and draws high
bids from collectors.  (Of course, some hobbyists are also
collectors...  ;-)

It only takes two interested parties to run up a bid amount, but it
takes a lot more than two to make even a "prototype market" in
which someone could hope to break even for the time and effort
that they invest in making something.

Since the Apple II "market" is no longer large enough to permit
spreading development costs very far for very many products (the
CFFA being one recent, rare exception), the number of new products
being developed to make money is quite small.  The result is that
most Apple II "product" developments are now labors of love, with
the developer not expecting to recoup reasonable value for his/her
time, but wishing instead to contribute something to the community
and gain much deserved "bragging rights".  (In fact, I think that Rich's
CFFA is probably in the same category, even though he is making a
second PC board run. ;-)

More power to these folks, whose unrestrained creative energy
adds spice and value to the Apple II world.

But it would be a mistake to think that that world is rife with
opportunity to create new profit-making (or even break-even)
products.  (Interestingly, a high-quality RGB scan-doubler for
the IIgs may be just such an opportunity, since it would permit
IIgs users to replace aging AppleColor RGB monitors with the
cheap and ubiquitous VGA monitors.)

I do not think that there are many such opportunities, but I
would be delighted to be proven wrong.  ;-)

A $20 box to adapt a PC parallel port to a Disk ][ may be another
opportunity.  There are many ways "around" the problem of 5.25"
disk incompatibility, but, for $20 or thereabout, many might just
opt for the direct approach.  (Of course, it's not "direct" unless
someone does the hard work of writing a Win32 driver for it that
assigns the Disk ][ a drive letter.  ;-)  And there's still the issue
of how an emulator gains "direct" control over the Disk ][ when it
is attached in a non-standard way.  (Think about running a copy-
protected game...)

<snip>

>Precisely. And this is the reason I would like a good programmer
>and a few electronic whizzes to collaborate with.