Re: IIGS 6.0.1 Source Code

[mdj <mdj.mdj@gmail.com>]

On Wednesday, 16 January 2013 18:45:31 UTC+10, Michael J. Mahon  wrote:

> We are now so far past the point of market critical mass for the Apple II
> 
> that any "evolution" of the system is destined to remain imaginary. 

Definitely. The third party hardware manufacturers at the time already picked all the low hanging fruit and did it well. Genuine 'evolution' at this point as then, requires an architecture change.

> Even the IIgs failed to achieve the market momentum of its predecessors,
> 
> not because it wasn't a useful evolution, but because it was introduced on
> 
> the backend of the Apple II sales curve. 

It always was, despite what Apple said at the time, a bridging machine, and it did that job quite nicely. With a few go faster parts, it provided a 'new world' UX comparable to the Macintosh combined with 'close enough' compatibility with the 'old world'.

I understand how people feel about it, and I too have a few dreams of faster/bigger 65xx systems. The fact is though, many of the just-over-horizon enhancements really do require different and more complex architectures. A 640x480 8-bit color frame buffer requires 300k of video ram. Putting that on an Apple II bus, it's best-case 1/3 of a second to frame fill it, and whilst yes, you can certainly move most of the UI magic onto the card, one still wonders about the practicality of it.

Once you start doing things graphically, memory requirements jump orders of magnitude, not just in size but it required bandwidth, and to me the 'souped up' IIgs is about as good as a machine of its class can get. If you leave out the GUI stuff, it's so much better than an 8-bit Apple II to be almost *boring* :-)

The Acorn Archimedes was pretty much what a 32-bit Apple II might've looked like, and whilst it didn't become the success it may have had Apple been the manufacturer, it's processor lives on to be the most shipped CPU in history by volume, giving those who think abandoning the Apple II ethos was a mistake some pretty reasonable ammunition :-)