Re: Apple II Commercials

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

Volkmar Friauf wrote,
in response to my reply:
> > That may have been it.  It's been so long ago.  Anyone remember
> > other commercials?
> 
> I still remember the "Remarkable Apple IIgs" commercial - I've shown it
> to Mac users which didn't even know about Apple's history and the Apple
> II line, and they agreed that this was one of the best Apple commercials
> they had ever seen... and they even got curious about my IIgs :)
> 
> This spot showed, on the other hand, where Apple wanted the IIgs to
> become stunted... in classrooms... :-/

Talk about shooting onself in the foot.  Deliberately killing
a computer.  I also remember a IIc commercial in which a
hand drops two Apple IIe's in a brief case and takes out an
Apple IIc.  128K was lots of memory back then.

> 
> > The IIc was a best seller back then and it
> > was clearly superior to that stupid PC/jr., which had toy-like
> > "chicklet" keyboards.  Even Consumer Reports gave the nod to
> > the IIc over the PC/jr.  Remember when John Sculley lifted a new
> > Apple IIc over his head and proclaimed "Apple II Forever"?
> 
> Hey, Sculley proclaimed a lot... ;-)

At least he allowed the GS a few good years, merged the II
and Mac divisions, and so on.  Steve Jobs got upset just
because some of his Mac engineers were helping put a mouse,
GUI, and Toolbox on the GS.

> 
> > In fact, the GS was so
> > ahead of its time that even when the Mac LC was released four
> > years later, a properly equipped GS could actually outperform
> > the Mac LC.  But Apple would not give us a new, modern GS.
> 
> I don't really believe into the "outperform" comparisons. Remember, the
> IIgs was a "tuned" Apple II - the first Apple II for 9 years to run
> faster than 1 Mhz. Apple enhanced nearly everything - speed, sound,
> graphics, memory capabilities, slots (more slots available thanks to the
> Smartport) and so on.
> The Mac, on the other hand, was a completely new machine - Jeff Raskin
> (and later Steve Jobs) drew some specifications and then built a machine
> that met these specifications. The first Macs were planned to be a
> one-in-all-machine for the average home user, not for computer
> enthusiasts or for game players. And when Apple started to enhance the
> Macintosh line, they had the problem of being compatible with earlier
> Macs _and_ to stay in a reasonable price range. This is why it took
> years until Macs with similar performance and similar features than a
> well-equipped GS came around.

This was also why Apple could have gotten further faster it
started upgrading the GS rather than the Mac Plus.  The GS
was already more refined and it had a large installed user
base.  In an interview with Wozniak (InCider, '88), he
agreed that the GS had as much potential to be the future of
Apple as the Mac, _if_ the right people were in management.
Unfortunately, they were not.  :(

> 
> Apple tried to force users to switch from Apple II to Macs, as was
> discussed earlier: "Overpricing" the GS, dropping support, offering an
> (8-bit!!) Apple II-compatibility card and, finally, the GUS project,
> were certain steps to get Apple II users over to the Mac. This didn't
> really work, because Apple users in general have memories like elephants
> and can't forgive Apple what they've done to the Apple II line - an
> Apple II fellow does not inevitably became an Apple-in-general fellow...
> ;-)

Yes.  If a company burns its customers, the customers defect.
No wonder Apple is in bad shape.  I think users of MacOS clones
are probably upset also at the recent turn of events.  Apple
keeps hurting its users and thus itself.

> 
> > Imagine had Apple continued to develop the GS.
> (lots of imaginations snipped)
> 
> Well, there are lots of possibilities... What about a newsgroup
> "comp.what-if"? :--)

That would be great.  On the other hand, what's there left
to talk about here.  :)

> 
> They main problem around 88 was that "being IBM compatible" was a _must_
> for computers. Apple had two computer lines to market which were not IBM
> compatible, so they either had to increase marketing a lot or to allow
> clones (which was a no-no at the time Sculley was on the run - he even
> cancelled the "System 7 for Intel" project, fearing that this could
> damage Apple's own CPU sales).

Utter stupidity.  Look at Microsoft, they are fine and they
don't sell hardware.  In the late 80's and early 90's, Win 3.1
sucked.  The PC OS market was still splintered.  Even as late
as 1993, there was still hope for someone else to compete in
the 80x86 OS market with Microsoft.  Remember OS/2 Warp?  It
sold like crazy for a while, before Win 95 came out.  MacOS
had more clout and more acceptance.  Had System 7 Intel came
out, today's 80x86 may not be synonomous with Win95 and there
may be many more users of MacOS.

Apple has seen the error of its ways and will make Rhapsody
Intel, but it may be too late now that Win95 is firmly
entrenched.  The Win3.1 era was Microsoft's weak point and
Apple missed the boat.


> And i doubt that "cleanroom" clones of
> the IIgs or the Mac were possible because of the System Software
> (Toolbox!) which was included in the ROMs. The only Mac clones around
> that time were machines sold without ROM, so you had to get a ROM from a
> used Mac, which made the whole thingy quite expensive - so the Mac
> clones were not sold to be cheaper than Macs, but to add features Apple
> didn't offer, hence the DynaMac laptop of around 1987.

Well, Laser did clone the IIGS Toolbox, as did Bill Heinman.
The IIGS Toolbox is much cleaner and easier to clone.  The
Mac Toolbox, being patched up so many times, is harder.  The
Executor folks followed Apple's published docs to the letter
to clone the Mac Toolbox, but Executor is only 60% compatible.
Various Amiga hardware and software emulators do a better
job of Mac emulation, but they use Mac ROMs (either the chip
or an image in a file).

> 
> We got a sneak preview of what would happened _if_ Apple had continued
> to develop the IIgs. The next relase would habe been the "Mark Twain"
> ROM 04 IIgs - no performance gains, just new features added. To
> "upgrade" the IIgs, Apple had to have the 65832 built. To upgrade a Mac,
> they just had to wait until Motorola presented a new 68K- or PPC chip,
> but there was no such thing available for the IIgs except on blueprints.

First, Apple could have upgraded using faster (10-20MHz)
65C816 chips first.  This would have broken "chicken and
egg" and convinced WDC to develop the 65C832 and its 32-bit
bus cousin.  Second, the PPC could easily have become the
next-gen IIGS chip when that point arrived.  PowerMacs
run 68k software through emulation and do it fast through
a native mode Toolbox.  A similar porting of the GS Toolbox
combined with an efficient 65k emulator could have made
the PowerGS equally successful.  The difference would be
that Apple would have never alienated its II user base
and left Apple a viable alternative to PC (viability measured
in number installed base).

Second, I don't believe the Mark Twain represented the
ROM 4 GS.  It just lacks too many things that GS owners
added at that point.  The Mark Twain does not run at
>10MHz, for example (and my 13.75MHz GS outperforms my
25MHz '486 SLC laptop, 1994ish technology, which is about
the speed the Mark Twain, as an early '90's GS, should
have run).  The Mark Twain was probably an alternative
ROM 3 prototype.  It had ROM 3's after all.  Apple
probably then dumped it in favor of what later became
the real ROM 3 (1MB rather than 2MB, no SuperDrive,
and no hard disk rather than 40MB hard disk) so as not
to compete with Macintosh sales.  Who'd want a Mac had
a 2MB GS with 40MB HD been released in 1989?  :)

> 
> I think the only chance for the IIgs line would have been if Apple
> completely sold it to a small company with enthusiastic ideas (maybe an
> Apple spin-off like Claris or the passed-by Newton divison). Then the
> Apple IIgs could have evolved in a similar way like the Commodore Amiga
> did - a machine for freaks and enthusiasts, tuned to get everything out
> of the box, lots of hardware additions available, tons of new software
> coded...

And that's the reason they never did sell it.  :)  They
feared it would compete against the Mac had someone
properly upgraded it.

> 
> But with Apple completely ignoring software and hardware developers and
> "freezing" the IIgs at 2.6 Mhz, there is not much room for such
> speculations. The IIgs is a technology from the end of the Eighties, and
> this will never change, except Apple gave away the rights to another
> company. But thinking of the way Apple was non-interested in Apple II
> users at the beginning of the Nineties, i doubt they are compassioned
> enough to do this step now... :-(

Apple sucks.  They ignored their customers, despite several
letter-writing campaigns.

Laser could have better realized the potential of the GS.

> 
> Nowadays, owing and using a IIgs is just like owning and using a
> Volkswagen Beetle. Well, on the ever hand, even Volkswagen thinks about
> a new Beetle model... so there are always possibilities. But if you
> compare the new Beetle with the old one, you can hardly see any
> similarity. I think a PowerGS would have nearly nothing in common with a
> original IIgs, except that you probably could run 65816 software on it.
> So, why not constructing a completely new machine in which the original
> IIgs ROM can be plugged in? Or a IIgs compatibility card for the Mac/PC
> or even the Amiga?

Well, first of all, the PowerGS would definitely be somewhat
similar to the PowerMac, except for graphics and sound and
65816 capatibility.  The important point is that since compat.
was never broken (at least in a single step), the user base
would have never shattered. Apple would be in better shape
today.

Hey, did you hear that there was an attempt to make a GS
module for the Emplant hardware emulator for the Amiga?
They tried, but got stumped trying to emulate the Ensoniq.

> 
> We IIgs users are a bit schizophrenic (me included ;-) ). On one hand,
> we're stuck to our "original" IIgs and dislike any software-based
> alternatives such as emulators (because they are not the "real thing").
> But noone comes up with an idea for a _hardware_ alternative... (me
> included, again :-/ ).
> 
> How about a IIgs compatability card in a completely new, PowerPC based
> machine?
> 
> Regards,
> Volkmar

Good point.  How about a PCI card for PowerPC that has a cable
you plug into the GS CPU socket.  Have the PowerPC emulate the
65C816 _fast_ and the GS logic board take care of capatibility
and slots.  Then have the emulation software patch the GS
Quickdraw for millions of colors and greater resolution.  Plug
the GS ADB into the PowerPC ADB chain for input control and
you'd have a GS compatible "PowerGS" solution!

(use the PowerPC as the ultimate GS accelerator and video card)

:)

-Scott G.