Re: Apple IIx

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Forrest <bctimes@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Supertimer wrote:
>
>> As for the Amiga 1000, I liked it, but looking at its
>> GUI made me reconsider.  The IIGS had a better GUI and
>> also better sound.
>
>Sound, yes, but the IIgs GUI was pretty darn awful in
>1986.  It didn't get good until 5.0, and that was
>1988 or 1989 and too late to be a selling point -- not

I'm not talking about the OS, but rather the GUI itself.
For example, WordPerfect GS or AppleWorks GS had
the same GUI that the Mac and IIGS shared.  This GUI
was much more usable than the one on the Amiga.  The
Amiga's GUI was butt-ugly.  Some years later, a newer
version of Workbench came out which had a much more
appealing GUI, but by that time, the IIGS got System 5.0
already.  I knew a fanatical Amiga 500 user some years
ago and even he admitted that the early Amiga GUI was
ugly.

>that Apple was interested in selling them anyway.

All roads that killed the IIGS point back to Apple.

>It was also much slower than the Amiga, thus the
>departure of many people who wanted something new and
>snazzy to play with.  I think the Amiga was cheaper
>besides.

Not the Amiga 1000.  Seeing it run applications such as
word processors is enlightening since the 7Mhz Amiga
1000 really runs applications at about the speed of a
stock IIGS.  Put WordPerfect GS and WordPerfect for
the Amiga, both semi-GUIs on a 640x200 graphics screen
side by side and you'll find no difference in speed.

The Amiga 1000 plays action games faster, though,
thanks to a blitter chip.

It is important to remember that a complete, usable
Amiga system was actually priced almost exactly the
same as a complete IIGS system.  Most Amiga 1000
folks found the 256k of RAM limiting and bumped it up,
raising the price.

All in all, I chose the IIGS.  I've never regretted it.

Now if the first Amiga were an Amiga 2000 equipped
with a video toaster and later model graphics and
GUI, things might have been different...