Re: C64/128 Wolf and GS upgrade support

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Marc Walters writes ...
> ....
> 
> I guess the old saying "the grass is greener on the other side of
> the fence" applies here as well. Us Commies may have 2 new 20Mhz
> accelerators to drool over (and even use sometimes :) but we're
> still bitching about the lack of a "Wolf 3D" game - witness a recent
> thread in c.s.cbm, the general concensus was that a W3D was
> certainly possible utilising the accelerator, but tying some poor
> programmer to an assembler for a year or more would be difficult.
> Plus that sales would certainly not cover the development budget.
>

     Most likely; but, that's if someone starts from scratch. The guy to
talk to is Sheppy. Maybe he would decide that the GS-specific I/O
references could be modified to fit the new CBM boards and the
ToolBox/Monitor code used could be modified and tacked on. New C64/128
users could have their own Wolf3D and Sheppy could make some money from
the project.  

 

> .... It wasn't till the early '90s that accelerators
> and reliable mass storage devices became available for our machine,
> yet the GS and A2 were receiving some pretty cool products like
> the Transwarp GS, and some of the Applied Technology devices prior
> to those.
> 
> Sorry, but I find it hard to believe that the GS and even A2 have
> less commercial support (both hardware development and software)
> than the C64 and C128.
> 

     One consideration is that, by the early '90's, the C64/128 had
clearly reached 'doorstop' status. This plus the existence of an
expansion port made it relatively easy to promote major modifications.
C64/128 users had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

     A relatively simple major Speed/Memory upgrade to the GS, would not
be satisfactory. Too many users already have decent accelerators; and, a
bunch of extra RAM is not all that valuable if the base of big RAM
owners is too small to be a good market for wares using the extra RAM.

     As operating systems go, the IIgs OS is not at all bad; and, its
bugs are constantly in the process of being patched out by knowledgeable
users. Once the 32MB limitation on ProDOS volume size is moved to 4GB,
the OS will look even better. Any hardware add-on which shuts-off access
to the OS or ignores it would not be supported by most users.

     A significant GS upgrade is a tougher challenge than a significant
C64/128 upgrade. One thing seems fairly certain, the only way to sell GS
users on the idea of a major Speed/Memory upgrade (e.g. 20MHz/32MB) is
to include an SVGA Video upgrade on the same board. Do this plus permit
access to the OS and CBM or whoever makes the plug-in will have a
winner.



Rubywand