Re: Apple IIx

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Supertimer writes ...
> 
> Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
> 
> >Supertimer wrote:
> >>
> >> At the time, the IIGS design team had made a mess
> >> of his IIx project.  They wanted a "pure" GS side
> >> motherboard with a IIe emulation card in a special
> >> processor slot.  The slot could also be used to hold
> >> an MS-DOS processor card or even a Mac processor
> >> card.
> >>
> >> Wozniak would have none of this.
> >
> >     Too bad. The IIgs design team was right.
> 
> Maybe for you.  Maybe for even for me (I liked the Amiga).
> But it would have been unacceptable for the majority of
> Apple II users.  They had too much invested in cards.  It
> is important to remember that in 1984/85 when the IIGS
> was being designed, the Apple II line was still hot.  Apple
> still owned a sizable share of the market and could still
> claim the world's largest software library (a claim which
> the PC overtook about a year later).
>

     As you say, the Apple II and its user base was still in good shape in 1984.
Even so, the II series certainly was not "hot". Most II+ owners had passed on
getting a IIe (which put a big damper on //e double-hires software development)
and, really, we were entering a kind of 'hold' phase-- i.e. waiting for the Next
Apple II. I can recall going to users group meetings at HAAUG where talk about
"hot" systems centered around the new PC AT.

 
> You could build a super-new unit, a "clean" GS, but
> who would buy it?

     We wanted Speed and Power. Contrary to a popular myth, we were not
especially worried about being able to run our 8-bit wares on the next Apple II.
(Remember, we all owned 8-bit Apple II's!)



> The Amiga was going off to a slow
> start, remember?

     Yes. So was the Atari ST. These machines were less a direct threat to the
II user base than a blatant, in-your-face demonstration of what we lacked.

     Something which may be difficult for later II users to believe is that,
back then, we always saw PC as the real threat. Look at the issues of Byte from
those days and you will see why.



> And Apple was already split two ways.
> With a hot selling Apple II line chanting Apple II forever.
> And with the much smaller, but significant Macintosh
> crowd.  It would be a poor business decision to embark
> on yet a third incompatible platform,

     Apple had already committed its fatal bad business decision with release of
the first 68xxx-based Mac. Yes; it was a cute, clever machine which sold well.
But, it could just as well have been a cute, clever 65xxx-based machine.

     As for "a third incompatible platform", this is, supposedly, what Woz and
you thought would be a neat idea. Where we seem to disagree is timing and the
idea that II users needed to be 'bridged over' to the new platform.


> no matter how cool
> the graphics and sound.

     ??? Probably, you misspoke yourself here.

     The reason Amiga and ST did not sweep the home user market is that, for the
prices asked, they were really not especially good computers. This was true for
Mac, too. The moderately careful shopper could see "orphan" written all over
these machines.

     Meanwhile, Apple, Inc. could count on selling just about any reasonably
good looking Next Apple II to hundreds of thousands of current II users. Getting
bogged down in designing for old-II compatibility was an enormous mistake.

     We wanted Cool graphics and sound. We wanted there to be no question about
which was the best platform and we were ready and willing to pay. Apple could
have introduced an 80xxx-based "Apple II" with zero old-II compatibility in
1985. If it were The Best Computer with super graphics and sound and speed and a
hard disk, it would have been bitched about and, then, sold like hot cakes.



 
> If you think that super graphics and features alone can
> capture the market from the PC, look at what happened
> to Commodore.  You have this fantastic Amiga that
> started off as the Amiga 1000.  Still graphics similar
> to the IIGS, but with a blitter, motion graphics superior.
> Not as good sound as the IIGS' 32-channel Ensoniq
> wavetable synthesizer, but very respectable.  The Amiga
> was a "clean" design and Commodore moved forward.
> After a few years, the Amiga 2000 showed up.  Amazing
> unit with hard drive and super-new (AGA, I think they
> called it) graphics.  The Amiga 2000 was better than
> any of its PC competitors using the MPC standard.
> What happened to the Amiga and Commodore?  It failed
> to capture North America.

     Too easy. What happened was, mainly, the price. A new platform has to be
under-priced in order to convince potential buyers that there will be a
significant user base and software support.

     Commodore's C-64/128 user base was not used to paying premium prices. It is
why they were C-64/128 (and VIC-20) users instead of Apple II users.

     With the 68xxx-based Amiga, Commodore delivered a slap in the face to its
8-bit user base and, at the same time, priced its first machine as though it
were an Apple II.

     Amiga benefited from ample hype, even in Byte. But, it lacked
expandability, carried a high price tag, suffered from comparisons with the
cheaper ST, and did not have a user base of hungry buyers. From the start, it
looked like orphan bait.



> 
> The PC, with its emphasis on backward compatibility,
> simply had too firm a grip.  The user base was locked
> into the platform because of their data, hardware, and
> software.  New PCs always provided transitions.  THIS
> fact was what Woz knew.

     Maybe you were not a PC user in those days. Software (and hardware) was
constantly being scrapped. You did have some continuity for stuff like data
bases; but, this was because software makers (not PC clone designers) adjusted
to hardware changes.



> 
> >> He wanted the IIGS
> >> to be a real Apple II so that the II users would trust it.

     Regarding this observation, "trust" was not an issue. Users routinely
mistrusted Apple from the arrival of the IIe. Then, you had the Apple III, Mac,
Lisa, ... . We were pretty much out of "trust" by 1985.


> >> Thus, it was Woz who proposed the "slow" 128k RAM
> >> roped off for IIe compatibility controlled by a custom
> >> chip, the Fast Processor Interface (FPI) which sat
> >> between the 65C816 and the Mega II IC.  Basically, he
> >> had the 8-bit emulation stiched so tightly into the IIGS
> >> motherboard that it was invisible.
> >
> >     And, it is ... _unless_ you want to do a major hardware upgrade. The
> >FPI + Mega stuff wraps itself all over the system making major mods very
> >difficult and expensive.
> >
> >     Another bad decision was sticking with the old Slots. A pure GS could
> >have had Slots with complete addressing and some useful interface signals
> >which would have made graphics expansion via a Slot card  feasible.
> 
> The IIGS was a unit meant to last no more than a few years.
> Woz's goal was user migration.

     Probably, Woz's intentions were as you outline them; but, Woz does not =
Apple, Inc.. There is every reason to believe that IIgs was purely a device to
save Apple's tail from Chapter 11. The company had not the slightest interest in
continuing to develop the II series.



> Keep the Apple II user
> base.  They were firmly 8-bit users at the time.  The IIGS
> would have slowly made them 16-bit users.  After a few years,
> Woz planned to come out with the "pure" GS you want,
> faster and more powerful with 8-bit side relegated to software
> emulation.  It was a good plan and it would have worked had
> Apple not already been committed to the Mac.

     Well, yes. It's a workable strategy, _if_ it is implemented. Its big
weakness is that it relies upon Apple, Inc. II series commitment-- Bad Move! The
IIgs development team which wanted to go for the max GS from the start probably
knew that upper management was not reliable.



> 
> Another thing is that the IIGS should have been released
> two years sooner as the Mac.  THAT would have been great.
> You could then have the "pure" GS you want by 1987 since
> the user base would have migrated to the new platform on
> this "Mac IIGS" unit.

     Okay; but, now, you are getting into the difference between having Vision
and having a mindless itch for quickie profits.

     Apple demonstrated a lack of vision from its earliest beginnings. Look at
the pricing of the Disk ][ drive. Apple _could_ sell one (with controller card)
for nearly $600; so, it did. At half the price profits would still have been
handsome-- actually, possibly, higher-- and many more shoppers would have been
attracted to the Apple II.

     Incredibly, non of the major computer makers seems ever to have been aware
of the value attached to being the dominant platform. Microsoft seems to have
caught on; but, they made software. They saw what was happening with PC clone
development and attached their fate to PC-- a pretty good choice.


 
> >>
> >> Woz figured that the IIGS would provide a bridge out
> >> of the 8-bit world by straddling the 8-bit and 16-bit
> >> worlds.  After several years, he figured, new IIGS models
> >> could then be purely 16-bit clean and eventually 32-bit
> >> with the 8-bit side relegated purely to software based
> >> emulation.  This would give the user base a five year
> >> transition window to move out of the past and into the
> >> future.
> >
> >     All of which would be easier to swallow _if_ the GS had been the best
> >computer. Lacking a hard disk pretty well killed any chances for making
> >such a claim. Failing to offer 256-colors in 320 mode and 16 in 640 mode
> >was another screw-up.
> 
> The Amiga 1000 and Atari 520ST, which were the ones the
> IIGS was being built to compete against (the "behind the
> scenes at the IIGS design team" article in the IIGS intro
> issue of A+ repeatedly quotes IIGS design team members
> comparing Amiga 1000 and Atari 520ST features), did not
> offer 256 colors in 320, etc., either without tricks (like
> HAM, which, like 3200 color mode, is incapable of being
> animated).  Both Amiga 1000 and Atari 520ST lacked hard
> drives.  The IIGS had better sound than either (although the
> others had advantages of their own).

     Except, by the end of 1985, the IIgs design team had to know that Amiga and
ST were not 'the competition'. Yes; their graphics and sound capabilities were a
benchmark, something to shoot at.

     However, the benchmark was moving. PC was a bare-bones machine being
produced in escalating numbers at low prices by clone makers. New graphics cards
were needed and they were delivered. And, PC was a platform which, by then,
routinely included an ever larger, faster hard disk as part of the package.


 
> >     What Apple needed to do in 1986 was murder the competition. Instead,
> >they offered a product with an appeal limited chiefly to II users.
> >Basically, Apple 'never showed up' when it came to taking on the PC with
> >an Apple II.
> 
> Well of course.  Apple, under Steve Jobs, was positioning the
> Macintosh against the PC.

     Not quite. Apple was positioning the Mac against the _IBM_ PC and in the
_business_ market. Business buyers were well known to be just about the least
knowledgeable one could hope to find (well, next to government buyers maybe).
Basically, you have a large group of 'live ones' waiting to be plucked.

     So, Apple ignored PC clones in the business market and altogether forgot
about the home market. It is not the stupidest possible strategy; it does,
however, come close.



> They never intended to position
> the IIGS against the PC.

     Naturally. We've already pegged the brightness of their approach in the
sub-100 range. Now we're just checking the sign.



> It was meant to keep Apple II users
> from going to Commodore or Atari and that it did.

     Doubtful. Apple lacked the insight to promise a New Apple II. The Amiga and
ST were released and made their biggest impact in 1985-1986-- i.e. before
release of the IIgs.

     The sole purpose of releasing the IIgs was survival. Apple needed capital
and it needed to convince industry analysts that it could still sell computers.
The IIgs accomplished this mission.



> 
> Woz had a different idea.  He wanted the IIGS to help keep
> the II users in the Apple family and move them forward with
> future, more powerful and "pure" IIGSes.  I think he would
> have welcomed the addition of a hard drive to this end, but
> alas, it was Jobs and his people who were nearer the top
> of Apple than Woz.

     So, why didn't Woz go to magazines and users group meetings and stir things
up? Really, you've got to admit, this sounds like one of those British movies
where the bad guy is going around lopping off heads and the good guys are
standing around with concerned looks discussing what to do about it.



> 
> In the end, I think Apple would have been best to use both
> what you are proposing and what Woz is proposing.

     Thanks. Only thing is ... we are in direct disagreement.


> I would
> have kept the IIGS as Wozniak intended, with emulation
> stiched to the motherboard. This would have kept the highest
> Apple II compatibility.  To that, I would have added a hard
> drive and more video memory.  Position this IIGS against
> the PC and you would have the ability to 1) hold the large
> Apple II user base (something that a totally clean initial
> IIGS design would not have been able to do) and 2) win the
> feature competition against the PC, Amiga 1000, and Atari
> 520ST hands down.

     Too late. Aside from increasing development and production costs, Old-II
compatibility via Mega + FPI had to be the primary factor in delaying the
completion of IIgs. By late 1986, most of the damage from Amiga and St was done.

     Anyone could have done a pure IIgs design in a few months. Plus, even with
more RAM, more speed, extended Slots, and hard disk, costs would have allowed
selling the machine at about the same price as the complex design Apple came up
with.



> 
> Now you have your stable and growing IIGS user base, who
> would slowly be moving away from 8-bit stuff to 16-bit stuff.
> When the "pure" 16-bit or 32-bit IIGS units that Woz
> envisioned the first IIGS model to be a bridge to arrived, the
> user base would be ready.

     The hard disk would have been a big help when it came to battling PC.
Unfortunately, you ...  ah! just noticed your continuation below.


> 
> The only problem was the hard drive option.  Hard drives
> were very expensive in 1986.  Adding one to the IIGS would
> have meant increasing its price by $1000.  Sure, that would
> have made it more competitve with the PC (and priced the
> same), but then the Amiga 1000 system would have cost
> $1000 LESS than a similarly equipped IIGS system.  It is
> important to remember that even the Macs of the IIGS day
> didn't have standard hard drives (when the Mac II came out,
> it was THOUSANDS of dollars more expensive).

     Won't fly. The price of a color IIgs system with one 3.5" drive and 1MB RAM
board was already about the same as a comparable PC clone with color and hard
disk. Apple needed to sell the IIgs _with_ hard disk for about the same price--
another reason to 'keep it simple' and cut development costs.



> 
> >     Had the cost of implementing the MEGA2 and Fast Processor Interface
> >been invested in new Slots, better graphics, more RAM, and a reasonably
> >priced hard disk, II users would still have snapped up the GS. What
> >matters more, everyone else would have, too.
> 
> That wouldn't have happened.  Again, it was the Macintosh
> factor.
> 
> It was not only cost that prevented those other features from
> being implemented, but the "do not compete against Mac"
> mentality.
 ....

     Fine. So, we get back to Apple's real reason for releasing the IIgs-- i.e.
to live another day to find more live ones to pay outrageous prices for Macs.

     Result: loss of the Apple II user base--> loss of the home market, PC
established as the standard home/business platform, rise of Microsoft OS and Net
software domination, loss of markets for Macs and Mac OS, ...

     Once you know a move doesn't work, you're supposed to stop playing it.


> 
> >> Similar to how in the past five years, the PC
> >> world has used motherboards with both ISA and PCI
> >> slots.  ISA is the old standard and PCI was the goal,
> >> but by giving users a 5 year window to move to the
> >> new standard, everyone is happy.  When PCI pure
> >> motherboards come, few users would mind.
> >>
> >
> >     This sort of thing works fine when you are the standard platform and
> >everything is cheap. Had the original GS been designed as a pure, hot
> >machine, it could have become the standard platform by 1988.
> 
> In the time frame the IIGS came out, there was not yet a
> standard platform.

     True enough.


> There were several standard platforms.
 ....

     The makers may have thought they were "standard platforms". In 1991 they
found out what the Real Thing looks like.




> Basically, super new features are great.  Moving to a new
> mindset (like the Macintosh) was also great.  The GUI
> was great.  New graphics and sound were great.  But Apple's
> most precious commodity was the user base.  A huge
> group of Apple II owners that still provided a sizable
> challenge to IBM and clones in the 1984-1986 time frame.
> That user base was not yet lost.  You HAD to provide a
> transition platform like the IIGS or a Mac like it with
> integrated emulation.  Doing it in 1984 in place of the Mac
> we got would have been even better.
> 
> THEN, after a few years, you can come out with your
> "pure" new architecture unit.  Keep your user base and
> move forward.  That's good business.

     Too bad you weren't running Apple in 1982!

     Most IIgs design scenarios begin around mid-1984 because, having been
bashed over the head with reality, Vision and Wisdom were not required of Apple
leadership.


 
> >> Woz's stategy was in stark contrast to the Macintosh,
> >> which cut off compatibility from day one.  That was
> >> Steve Jobs' idea.  He favored innovation, true, but at the
> >> expense of the users.  Woz wanted innovation but the
> >> preservation of the user base too.
> >
> >     Which just means neither one of Apple's leaders knew what was going
> >on. You can win quickie profits by targeting small markets. You can win
> >pats on the shoulder for sticking up for compatibility no matter what.
> >
> >     Or, you can build the best computer for the money and win the whole
> >ball of wax.
> 
> Ok, Rubywand, aside from the fact that (as I said earlier) the
> hard drive equipped IBM XT was $1000 more than a IIGS
> or Amiga 1000 system, neither of which had hard drives, let's
> say I buy your argument.

     A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step!


> 
> What you seemed to be saying is that giving a bridge to
> your existing user base was not important.  If that is the
> case, I do not understand why you just don't buy a Mac.

     I guess you mean back in 1985?

     Everyone knew Mac was a high priced business machine with zilch game
software and a small user base.



> 
> That was Jobs' argument all along.  Build a kick butt unit,
> the existing user base be damned.  Build it and they will
> drop all their existing investment and come.  That was the
> Macintosh.
 ....

     In Jobs's dreams, maybe. As you may recall, both the first Mac and the NEXT
arrived without color. Whose butt was supposed to be kicked?

     Then there is the matter of price. Everyone will agree that you can build a
kick-butt machine for $1,000,000. The 'trick' is build a Really Good machine for
about $2500-- i.e. a machine good enough to sell well even though Pretty Good
machines are available for around $1500.

     Apple has never offered a $2500 Mac capable of matching the performance of 
a same-priced ($2500) PC. The closest Apple has ever come to actually competing
with PC at the Really Good level was the IIgs and they managed to screw that up
by leaving out the hard drive.

     Today, Apple is managing to compete at the Pretty Good machine level with
iMac. Not exactly kick-butt stuff; but, better than delivering pizzas.



 
> Why didn't you get a Mac II when it came out.  The Mac II had
> hot graphics and a hard drive?  Too expensive?
 ....

     Nope. Mac II was pure orphan bait.



> What about sound, you say?  Why didn't you get a Mac
> when the AV Macs came out, then?  It had sound that
> rivaled the PC sound cards of its day.

     One trusts that you are aware that you are listing one gone and forgotten
Mac model after another. Like I said: Orphan Bait.



> 
> And above all, why do you not get a PowerMac G3 today?
> Mhz per Mhz, the PowerMac G3 outpeforms the Intel
> competition.  If compatibility does not matter, why not get
> the G3?
 ....

     In 1985-1986 Apple had the opportunity to set just about any standard it
wished for hundreds of thousands of Apple II users.

     Once you have a standard platform, it's a different ball game.
Compatibility matters a lot. Why would anyone shopping for a computer today buy
anything except a PC? (Well, okay, the iMacs are sort of cute.)




> Like I said before, Jobs and Woz both knew the future
> would be powerful.  Either of their plans would have led
> us to a PowerMac/PowerIIGS type computer with
> similar features.  It is just that Woz saw the importance
> of taking the Apple II users with the company as it moved
> forward.
> 
> Jobs: Apple II -> Apple IIGS -> kill user base
>       (no bridge) Macintosh ->....->Perfroma...->Quadra...->
>       PowerMac

        ...-> iMac...-> BarbieMac...-> KenMac...-> Chapter 11


 
> Wozniak: Apple II -> Apple IIGS (has 8-bit compatibility)->
>          "Pure" 16-bit unit (relegates 8-bit stuff to emulation)

....-> oops! Non-real Result Continuity Error (Press Reset to restart)




Rubywand