Apple IIGS still rules!

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

The Apple IIGS is the best computer I've ever owned.  I
have now basically moved over to the PC fully.  The
years since Apple abandoned the IIGS has grown too
long for the machine to accomplish all the computing
tasks I need.  But having used the IIGS for many years,
I will NEVER think that it is the useless trash that
some folks who switched to Macs and PCs earlier
seem to think.  I will NEVER think that it was only a
toy computer that yet others think.

Yet as many of us diehard IIGS users leave the Apple
II world, the old misconceptions have returned.  The
memory of what the IIGS was and is has dimmed.
Like the forests that reclaimed ancient cities that had
been abandoned, so too does the memory of the IIGS
fade.

Remember.  The Apple IIGS is not merely an 8-bit
Apple II.  Remember.  The Apple IIGS had 32-channel
wavetable sound at a time when the best PCs could
do was the first 4-channel FM soundblasters and
Macs couldn't do much better.  Remember.  The IIGS
GUI ran much better than the first Windows up to
Windows 3.1.  Remember.  The IIGS could run
HyperCard, send and receive faxes, do page layout,
turn out documents printed on ink-jet and laser
printers whether Postscript or PCL (HP) that could
not be distinguished from PC output.  All the work
I did in college was done on an Apple IIGS and an
ink-jet printer and the output of my system was
good enough to use for resumes.

Well, now I return some years later and it is much
different in the newsgroup.  Instead of synthLAB
and HyperCard IIGS, we talk about DOS 3.3 and
emulation.  The IIGS side of the Apple II world is
being forgotten.  Has any new user even seen what
3200 color graphics are?  Or does everyone think
16 colors per screen is all the IIGS can do?

How sad.  Time marches on.