Re: OS For IIGS

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

In article shack@onyx.southwind.net (Randy Shackelford) writes...

>: >I have no reason under the sun to learn that crap. There are people whose
>: >job it is to maintain the only non Apple box I ever touch.
>
>:     Maybe once Apple collapses (which is guaranteed to happen soon,
>: there is no doubt now) you may eventually be forced to, unless the
>: Macintosh is resurrected like Gateway is attempting to do with the
>: Amiga. Or another alternative surfaces, and that is something which
>: I would look forward to.
>
>I have enough spare parts stockpiled to keep my Apple boxes running til
>doomsday, which is the day before the day I'll replace the Apples on my desk
>with Wintel.

    The situtation will be not unlike that of the Apple II, you'll have
to dig through thrift shops, *.marketplace groups on the net and vendors
that deal in remarketing. Since the early 90's, that's been pretty much
the way I've acquired parts for my Apple IIgs (or any of my other Apple
II's).

>Even in the unlikely event that Apple folds, there's enough of a user
>base to sustain the platform.

    I wouldn't call it an unlikely event, more like a highly probable
event. It is no longer a matter of "if", just "when"; and with the
way things are going with Steve Jobs back in control, I figure they
won't even make it through to the end of next year.

    The user base will also be like the Apple II situtation. Things
will keep going for several years, but as hardware development will
cease and software development soon after, people will start to lose
interest and move to side platforms (much like many of us II users
have done). The situtation is like deja-vu, walking into a software
store, looking at the remaining newsstand Mac publications or hearing
about companies leaving the scene. It's the Apple II all over again.
Here's an interesting posting I accidentally stumbled across on
Dejanews, I could _swear_ it is history repeating itself:

----begin----
Subject:      Re: Mac Support Loss: Opinions?
From:         Dan Brown <dbrown@bruxton.com>
Date:         1997/11/04
Message-ID:   <345F6CC1.7E63@bruxton.com>
Newsgroups:   comp.soft-sys.matlab
[More Headers]


Sam Shearman wrote:
>
> I am interested in finding out
> what people think about The Math Works' recent announcement that
> Matlab 5.2 will be the last release for Mac users.

As a provider of software to the research market, we face the same
decision as The Math Works. The fraction of sales to the Macintosh
market is declining fast. Soon, it will no longer make business sense
for us to continue developing for the Macintosh.