Re: Problems in "Modernizing" a //gs

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

In article bjblackbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major) writes...

>Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:
>
>> In article bjblackbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major) writes...
>>
>> >The PCs running either Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, two systems that are
>> >sitting right here in the office I work in, next to my Mac, DO NOT do
>> >true multitasking as well.  You may *think* they do, but they don't.
>>
>>  Windows 95
>> is completely independent of MS-DOS (and other problems associated
>> with it) and support preemptive multitasking.
>
>Not that I've seen it hasn't.  And, Windows 95 also has DOS running
>underneath it as well.  Just because something has been made practically
>invisible does not mean it is not there.  Unless/until the architecture
>of the PC changes in the future, DOS will *always* be there, underneath
>everything.

    You are once again misinformed, DOS is not at the core of Windows 95
as it was in Windows 3.1. There is still DOS support, certainly, but the
OS is not running and operating with MS-DOS controlling it. There is no
640K barrier either anymore, which I'm sure your bound to start claiming
next. Your ideas about the PC seem to be based on facts from well over a
decade ago (e.g. Macintoshes having better sound than PCs).

>>     Let me see if I understand you correctly, your claiming the Mac
>> does multitasking _better_ than Windows 95?
>
>Where did I claim this, *exactly*????   This is a sentence you
>fabricated to draw me into yet another argument.

    Look above. Here, I'll quote it here for you right here:

---------begin---------
"The PCs running either Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, two systems that are
sitting right here in the office I work in, next to my Mac, DO NOT do
                                                            ^^^^^^^^^
true multitasking as well.  You may *think* they do, but they don't."
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
---------end-----------

    You said "Do not do true multitasking as well" (and you compare it
"next to my Mac" which apparently you believe does multitasking better).

>Neither PC or Mac (with the current Mac OS) does *true* multitasking.
>But the Mac *will* do this once Rhapsody is made available.  And the
>BeOS does it right now, and it offers protected memory as well.

    What is your definition of true multitasking? Windows 95 does
preemptive multitasking with 32-bit applications, the Macintosh
does cooperative multitasking on _all_ its applications. I wonder,
once again, do you know the difference between cooperative and
preemptive multitasking? It is not a subtle or trival thing that
sets the two apart. Let me give you a simplified explaination:
Cooperative basically has the other tasks in the background
frozen while the computer is busy (you holding down the mouse
button for example, or while a program is busy running). It will
switch to the other program during "free" periods of time, while
the main application is monentarily paused or your not providing
any input. Preemptive shares time equally between all programs, it
keeps switching back and forth no matter what is going on, all
programs get an equal amount of CPU time.

    In otherwords, most of the time your running more than one
program on your Macintosh, the others are usually just sitting
there doing nothing, waiting for oppertunities of free time to
open up. This can be several seconds or even up to a minute if
a program is really busy with something. I found most of the
time they end up crashing in the background when I would use
the PowerMac's on campus. :P

>>     Today is a very different story. In order for an Apple IIgs to be
>> sold, it would need to be more or less redesigned from the ground up.
>
>This was the very point of that "modernizing the IIgs" discussion to
>begin with.  Yes, it would have to be totally redesigned, and the
>discussion was saying how that could be done--from a monetary and
>practical viewpoints.

    I saw that discussion was dipping into the past, not just present.
In the past, right up until the early 90's it would have been very
simple to update the IIgs, and stating otherwise is speaking nonsense
(I admit the early 90's was just starting to get too late, but there
was still some time and hope left then). At least we can agree on one
thing, realistically it would be infeasible from a monetary standpoint
_today_ to do the upgrade. The Apple IIgs has not be touched for well
over a decade (minus in house projects that were never released like
the Mark Twain other other prototypes) and is painfully obsolite now.
Even if you had the money to fund such an undertaking, the market
that would have supported it is long gone. There are only a few hundred,
or at most a few thousand or so, really, really strong Apple IIgs owners
and users left out there today. Not enough to support a new machine.
Even the third party market is all but dead, except for a few diehards
like Seven Hills, Sequential Systems, Shareware Solutions, Alltech, etc.
You would pretty much need a miracle to restore the Apple IIgs (or even
Apple II) market back to what it was some 8-10 years ago.

    However, if you jump back a little less than a decade ago, it was
very plausible to have jump started the Apple IIgs. More than that, it
could have grown into something Apple Computer could have still sold
and evolved right up until today (remember the one step forward, one
step back formula). Apple caused the hole in the ship years ago and
thought nothing of the small leak it caused. All this time later
though, that leak has grown into a flood and now the bow of the
ship is under and it won't be much longer before the stern of the
ship sinks below the water too. Right now Apple has the playing
"Londonerry Air" to try and calm everyone make them think nothing
is wrong. I hope you don't mind treding the cold water, we Apple II
users have been doing it for a number of years... :-)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca