Re: monitor on IIgs

["Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net>]

Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
20030308025540.00831.00001686@mb-fh.aol.com">news:20030308025540.00831.00001686@mb-fh.aol.com...
> In article <YMydnabDyIvw7_SjXTWcoQ@comcast.com>, "Bill Garber"
> <willy46pa@comcast.net> writes:

Thank you Michael. All points well taken and accepted.

Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprises
http://garberstreet.netfirms.com

> >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.
>
> From some experience in this and other Usenet communities, I've
> noticed that few "collaborative" efforts go very far.  I think that there
> are several reasons for this.  First, building a small, energetic team
> to "push limits" is an exacting task, done best in person.  The "limit-
> pushers" tend to be lone-wolf types, in general, and marshalling them
> to accomplish something bigger than one person can do is not easy.
> Second, a multi-person team suffers from the "N-engine airplane
> problem"--it has N times as many ways to fail.  If three people agree
> to collaborate, then if any one of them loses a job, or moves, or gets
> a divorce, it is likely that the plan is derailed.
>
> So, most newsgroup-engendered "collaborations" soon wither on
> the vine.  Too bad, but true.  Many like to point to the "open source"
> movement as a contradiction of this dynamic, and to some degree
> it is applicable.  But vital open source projects are in areas where
> there is active competition to improve the product, and a pool of
> many possible contributors who would like to "get a medal" for
> advancing the cause.  Hobbyist enterprises like the Apple II
> cmmunity today are not such "hot" environments--one can put
> a project on the back burner for a year or two without any fear
> that they will be "scooped", so the urgency in collaborating is
> absent.  You, yourself, have noted that the natural state of things
> is that nothing much is developed.
>
> New people do enter the community all the time, and find help
> and comfort in it, which is some compensation for the experience
> that leaves each year.  But on balance, I think it is clear that the
> Apple II is not poised on the brink of major breakthroughs in
> capablilty and relevance.  It is loved for what it is, a wonderful
> reminder of a day gone by, when one could change the world
> with a handful of LSTTL parts and/or a coding pad--when all
> the documentation needed to completly understand a machine
> weighed less than the machine itself.
>
> >> There are many voices in this community--some dormant for random
> >> periods of time--who speak with some understanding and authority.
> >> When they say that a thing cannot be done or need not be done, there
> >> is a fair chance that they are describing reality. This is not
nay-saying,
> >> this is "just the facts".
> >
> >But if the problem is a lack of hardware, let's duplicate some of the
good
> >out of stock and out of date versions and improve them not only in size
> >and cost, but in performance if possible.
>
> Careful--"improving" them reminds me of the suggestion to put a 2.8GHz
> PIII into a IIgs case!  ;-)  WTF?
>
> Duplicating (copyright be damned!  ;-) useful boards could be interesting
> for some few boards--but the most interesting ones have proprietary gate
> arrays on them--not your average Radio Shack parts!
>
> The reason that most "new" boards cost around $100 is that the
> maker loses money with each one sold if they are not priced in
> that vicinity--remember, we are talking a few a month, at most.
> And the investment to build them is all up front.
>
> If you have the tools and ability, it is not difficult to
reverse-engineer,
> or design from scratch, interfaces that you find useful.  But to do
> this you will have to value your time at zero--that is, do it for love.
>
> But to then manufacture them requires a very different kind of
> investment--mindless board stuffing and soldering, best done at
> least a dozen at a time so that it becomes sufficiently mechanical
> that you hardly know what you are doing.  This is harder to justify
> as a labor of love!  Most people want to be paid for doing something
> so mind-numbing (unless it's watching "reality TV"  ;-).
>
> <snip>
>
> >> WRT your observation that there are inexpensive microcontrollers now
> >
> >WRT?
>
> With Respect To--which has been around for a lot longer than the
> Internet.  ;-)
>
> >> that could enable, for example, connecting a Disk ][ to a PC parallel
> >> port, you are absolutely correct.  This is, in fact, an example of the
kind
> >> of external hardware that can make such a connection possible.  I would
> >> be delighted if someone wrote a PIC program that would graft these
> >> "genetically incompatible" organisms together.  ;-)  It should be
possible
> >> to make something less expensive and less general than a Catweasel
> >> board to connect Apple II disk drives to a PC.
> >
> >I'm trying, but all I have so far is generic assembly code for 6502+.
> >I need more closely knit Apple II info. It's there, just all over God's
> >internet. Would be nice to have that Opus II package. Just can't
> >swing it right now.
>
> Actually, the big problem in connecting a Disk ][ to a PC is the
> PC software.  And the most useful PC platform (meaning of the
> most use to the most people) is Win32, despite the shouting
> of some to the contrary.  Of course, if its a labor of love, who
> cares how many others can use it.  ;-)
>
> <snip>
>
> > ...for example, I placed a superdrive controller in slot 5 of my IIe,
> >then attached the 800k drive. Leaving the 5.25 empty of disk, it sat
> >there waiting for one, never scanning down to slot 5 for the 800k.
> >Why? Whine to me please. ;-)
>
> Recall that the Disk ][ controller was the first bootable peripheral for
> the Apple II, so when the Autostart ROM finds it in a higher-numbered
> slot than your Superdrive Controller, and gives it control to boot a 5.25"
> disk, it keeps on trying and trying and trying, since it "knows" that
> there's nothing else to boot from!  By the time that the 3.5" Controller
> was made, "everyone knew" that it was only one of many potential
> bootable devices, and so it should time out after a while to give
> another one a chance.  Since history loves Disk ][ Controllers to
> be in slot 6, move your preferred boot device up to slot 7.
>
> >> >Let's get together and make the Apple II like Woz did, with
> >> >persistance and insistance. Am I getting my point across or
> >> >am I talking to a wall? Maybe, but I want my Apple IIs to
> >> >sing and dance as much as they can, don't you?
> >>
> >> I sure do!  My past efforts have been directed toward making
> >> Apple II's "sing" (see .sig), but lately I've been using them to do
> >> things that depend on specialized peripherals, so my efforts are
> >> not of general interest. ;-)
> >
> >Many have ideas that are being performed inside the machine.
> >This is all well and good for their machine, but what about others,
> >they would need to perform all the same hacks and what if they
> >have no knowledge of the inner workings? I believe that the Apple
> >II should remain intact whenever possible. Thusly requiring cards
> >cables and the like which can be connected by even the least
> >knowledgeable. Agreed?
>
> I always felt that a software hack should run unmodified, widely
> available hardware.  That's why my sound editor and sampled
> sound player runs on unaccelerated, unexpanded, unenhanced
> Apple II's.  The only concession I made to modernity was using
> lower case, and even that is trivially fixed.  Of course, it does use
> ProDOS, so that requires a 64K machine, but most Apple II's have
> been at least 64K since 1987!
>
> The reason for my preference is simply that the hack should be
> usable by almost everyone "out of the box".  I also most appreciate
> hacks that are exercises in "resource constrained" programming--
> "Look how much can be done with so little."
>
> Cheers!
>
>
> -michael
>
> Check out amazing quality 8-bit Apple sound on my
> Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/


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