Re: Can't say I'm happy about -this-...

[mford@socal.rr.com (Mike Ford)]

In article <19990829070558.13742.00001132@ng-fj1.aol.com>,
supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:

> But the Mac transitions have always been different because
> they have been transitions taking place over many years.
> Same thing the the PC world where migration from ISA to
> PCI slots take place with a transition of a couple of years
> where motherboards have both types of slots.

A key point of difference here is that Jobs/Apple has dropped OS support
for the older hardware, INTENTIONALLY. Dropping support for the 68000,
020, and 030 had some technical reasons, but Jobs ironically gave the 040
its best OS release in 8.1 (with all the Next internal goodies), then shut
it off with 8.5 (and people who have done some peeking inside 8.5 report
it still has a LOT of 040 content, support was turned off). Add to that
Apple shutting down all the 3rd party support areas on the web, then
pulling all there own support docs off (until they were sued via the FTC).

> In contrast, there was never a bridge platform from the II
> to the Mac from day one.  A Mac LC with IIe card SIX

I kept my II, and bought a Plus. Most of my work I did on the plus,
editing asm programs, calling BBSs. I even played most of my games on the
plus. I used the A2 to perform the actual assembly and test for another 5
years or so, but the screen and peripherals of the plus lured me away. I
didn't go to color on the Mac until about 1992, 3 years after getting a
IIx.

> Remember, the with the first PowerMac, Apple took
> great pains to ensure that the old 68k stuff worked,
> even though they knew that eventually they'd support
> only the PPC side.  But the users were important
> enough for a compromise initial model and a few
> years before 68k support was dropped.  This allowed
> the users a graceful migration/transition.  Not so with
> the Apple II to Mac transition (or should I say non-
> transition).  We were left hanging.  Steve Jobs did not
> think us worthy enough the effort.

Jobs was still consolidating power during the 68k/PPC transition, AND
nominally what he sold to Apple from Next was a ton of 68k kernal code.

I have a house (and garage) full of old macs, and it is a bit amazing to
see what the old iron will still run just fine. Especially machines like
the SE/30, IIfx, and AV 68k macs. An Apple IIc makes a fine CHEAP first
computer still, plenty to use for simple word processing etc.