Re: //e, //c, //gs Questions

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>Operating systems:
>
>Apple II+ can run DOS 3.3 and up to ProDOS 1.0.1.

    Not exactly. Any 64K Apple II Plus (48K on mainboard with
a 16K Language Card) will run up to ProDOS-8 v1.9, and if you
change the 6502 for a 65C02/65C802 you can run ProDOS-8 v2.03.
This also assumes you have the autostart Applesoft BASIC ROMs
installed, but that is basically what separates the Apple II
and II Plus.

    Perhaps you thinking of a situation where only 48K RAM is 
present or an illegal (non-Apple ROM) clone is concerned?

>The Apple IIe could run all the operating systems of the II+,
>but with the 128k that it normally shipped with plus its
>improved capabilities,

    The only time the Apple IIe ever shipped with 128K was
in the case of the platinum/grey IIe model (January 1987+).
Otherwise, it always shipped from the factory with 64K and
it was up to you to purchase more RAM.

    Improved capabilities? :) For the most part, the IIe
*is* an Apple II Plus, only with the equivalent of a 16K
Language Card and lowercase support built-in. Plus a full
ASCII keyboard and a bank-switching auxiliary slot that
replaced Slot-0 (some tricks could be done with this,
such as generating 80 column text or a graphic mode with
double the resolution and colors).

>the IIe can run ProDOS up to ProDOS 8 version 2.0.4, the
>latest version.

    Correction: The latest version is ProDOS-8 v2.0.3.

>It could also run MS-DOS and an early version of Windows with
>a coprocessor card called the PC Transporter.

    Saying the PC-Transporter could run Windows (it could,
but only Windows 3.0 in CGA mode, and did not support any
programs that ran in protected mode; plus less than 640K)
is akin to saying the Apple IIgs can run a portable emulator
such MAME (in theory you could, but it'd be so limited in
speed and display capabilities it would not even be funny).

    The PC-Transporter has a NEC V30, 640K and CGA graphics.
That is best suited running up to MS-DOS 6.22.

>In addition, you can add cooperative multitasking (such as
>what you get with current MacOS) with an extension called
>The Manager.

    The Manager can support cooperative multitasking but
I believe *only* if a program is written to support it,
and essentially, Manager friendly/aware.  If I remember
correctly, Bright Software's GSymbolix was one of the few
(only?) programs that could support multitasking with The
Manager.

    The majority of the time The Manager acted as a fancy
program switcher. The concept was very neat, but I never
used it much because it was buggy, risked instability and
ate lots of memory (especially stack). Another thing was
if you wanted to switch between 320 and 640 applications,
it couldn't display suspended windows. For the record, I
don't use Switch-It or The Manager on my systems, even
though I own both.

>You can even add preemtive multitasking (like the Amiga's
>OS) with a FREE extension called GNO/ME.  As with other
>IIs in the II series, the IIGS can run all the less
>advanced OSs of its pedecessors.

    In a very limited sense however. You could do preemptive
multitasking with shell programs in a text enviroment; this
was a lot like Unix (^z to suspend, 'bg' and 'fg' commands,
'ps -eux' to list processes running or 'kill -9' to force
off/out). I think you could even run one GUI program in the
foreground. I have to admit though, even with my accelerated
system, it still slowed the GS down quite a bit with even 
two simple tasks running. Very neat and cool though.

    The IIgs still came no where close to the Amiga for its
built-in preemptive multitasking capabilities (and certainly
light years away from how Windows 95/98 does preemptive
multitasking in its GUI).

>ALL of these Apple IIs can use hard drives.  However,
>it would be quite hard to find one that works in the
>II+ these days.

    Why is that? You could plug an original (rev C) Apple
II SCSI or early CMS SCSI card (perhaps even a Cirtech or
Ohio Kache with SCSI option) into an Apple II Plus. Then
hook up an external SCSI hardrive. There are other options
too, such as SASI, RLL and MFM drives and controllers for
the Apple II Plus, though not very common these days.

    There would be little point in doing this though, most
of the programs written for the Apple II Plus are written
for DOS 3.3 on 5.25 disks. These days a hardrive on a II Plus
is a novelty, while a luxury on a IIe/IIc and almost a
necessity on the IIgs--IMO.

>The cards use a standard called "Apple Bus" which has

    Is that the official name Apple gave to the 50-pin
slots? The name is vagely familiar (unless the name is
invoking thoughts about "Apple NuBus" or "Apple DeskTop
Bus") but I guess rarely used since there was only one 
kind of slot on all Apple II's from 1977 until 1993
(excluding the auxiliary slot and GS memory slot).

>a transfer limit of 1MB per second.

    Are you sure about that? That sounds more like the
peak limit of a DMA SCSI controller when used in a IIgs
(a IIe only supports a transfer rate of about 500K+/sec,
and that too is peak. Generally both machines will be
transferring data through SCSI at a far lesser rate in
any routine task).

>For example, the Visionary GS 12-bit frame grabber or the
>Apple II Video Overlay (genlock) card can work in the IIGS,
>but cannot work in the II+.

    It's worth noting the Video Overlay Card will work in
an Enhanced IIe with revision 'B' board. Since it has a GS
VGC chip onboard, in theory it should be possible to write
programs that support Super-Hi-Res graphics on the IIe (it
would be little more than novelty value though, considering
how few VOC cards are out there, let alone inside IIe's).

>The IIGS can use the Mac monitor with an SVGA card
>called the Second Sight.  It supports 1024x768 pixels at
>24 bit color.

    It may support 1024x768, but certainly *not* at 24-bit
color depth. As an example, I have a 2 MB Matrox Mystique
card in my PC, and the highest color depth I can use at
1024x768 is 16-bit (unless I upgrade it to 4 MB; at the
moment it's passable since even on my 17" screen, it is
rare I use above 800x600). The Second Sight only has 1 MB.

    Another thing, while the Second Sight's RAMDAC (bt481)
does support 24-bit depth, I don't think the ROM firmware
on the card was ever completed to allow that. In reality
it has the potential to use 24-bit color, but doesn't at
the moment. In fact, most of the programs written for it
(excluding graphic viewers) have been using 8-bit depth.

    If all you want to do is get the GS to output to an
SVGA screen, there are products to do that for much less.
For example, I just saw an ad for a new product called
"JAM!!" which is a box that inputs NTSC and outputs it
to an SVGA screen (the cost is something around US$69).
The only problem is the GS outputs lousy composite, so
you might need a VOC card for that setup to be decent
and avoid messy colors.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca