Re: �ber IIgs

["**** ****" <***@***.com>]

You asked the right questions, and came "oh so close" to getting the right
answers. It pains me to see that you got it wrong too. But nothing horrifies
me more than the suggestion of GS/OS x86. <someone walked over my grave
shiver>.

No single component makes the Apple2 what it is. Just as no single chemical
element makes you the person you are. I don't walk around saying "gee you
are composed of 40% carbon, just like everyone else, you're all the same".
Your personality, all the way from the purely physical on up to your entire
spiritual soul, comes from the "pattern" of all those little pieces.
Literally and figuratively.

At the risk of starting another "definition of computer platform" holy war,
I dare say that the platform is kind of an open ended group of similar
computers. Clones count too, when you are talking about the apple2 platform,
or with any. Of all the computers built since the mid 70's, they all fall
into such a small number of "groups", and of those, the IBM compatible is
overwhelming. And it's so boring. Paradoxically, even though I just got my
first 3d card for my main box for Christmas, a Voodoo4, I find the older
stuff far more interesting. I like the variety. Seeing all the different
ways that were developed to solve the same old problems. Hell, a sub-hobby
of mine, is cataloging all the different plug/port/jack types used for
computers. For instance, would you know what a db23 style plug usually means
when it comes to computers, without looking it up?

What I don't need, nor anyone else, is Just Another x86 OS. JAXOS for short.
Especially one that intends to imitate a venerable but DEAD system. The
fools in atari.st talk about that from time to time, even in the amiga
newsgroups. Hell, the trademark whores who bought the amiga name intend to
actually do just that, which pisses me off to no end. If they cared to
ressurect the amiga, sure, sign me up, but not that. Please don't be giving
idiots like Bill McEwen bad ideas like this. They come up with way too many
by themselves.

What do we need then? Not sure. I've been toying with some hardware ideas...
but I'm not sure what's next after this project matures to fruition. Maybe
we need an Apple 2 SVGA card, that does everything in hardware. The problem
isn't that there aren't things still to be done, but rather too many.

Oh, and one other thing. Someone tell me if I'm wrong in how I categorize
the platforms primarily intended for consumers. I'd like some of you to
understand what it was I was talking about before, but I can't think of any
easier way to describe this.

Tandy (later sold out, started making IBM compatibles)
Early CBM (Pet through c128)
Apple 2 (apple 1 on up through GS, plus clones, plus "maybe" a3?)
Atari consoles

IBM Compatible (an entire platform of clones, but no clonee!)
Apple Macintosh (yes, I still group the 68k and the ppc together)
Amiga (dead)
Atari 68k (dead)
Bebox (stillborn?)
Acorn (still quasi-alive in europe).

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but its should give you an idea how
I tend to think of these things. I like the AppleII because these computers
fall into the third category from the top, and if you write some lame OS for
#5, it won't have any connection to #3 for me. None. How am I supposed to
think of this? The appleII-inspired x86 OS? I want some of these to still be
alive, futile at that is. But I tend to think poorly of those who create
ill-concieved mockeries of them.

I better end it here, lack of sleep is definitely destroying whatever
coherence I had left.

Thanks,
John Oyler
http://aIIethernet.tripod.com/
jojo4@va.mediaone.net