Re: A Tale of Two Apples

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

In article ljsilicon@aol.com (LJSILICON) writes...

>Thank you GOD! I assume this is a new user and doesn't know all of the ins &
> outs of the Apple IIGS. First of all, NATHAN, OH GOD OF GODS, the Apple GS did
> ship with enough memory to boot its original operating system. Since you would
> have been 12 years old at the time, you probably didn't even know where the
> power switch was on an Apple IIGS. Second, it was not designed to compete with
> color Macs because there were none. Sorry GOD. Go back to Delphi!

    I do not wish to get in between any fights here, but Nathan is correct
about the Apple IIgs not being shipped with enough memory to run native GS
software titles, including its operating system. 

    You are correct that you could run System 1.0 and all revisions between
up until System 2.0, however there was no Apple IIgs Finder then. What they
used was an 8-bit program selector that ran on the 128K Apple IIe and IIc,
what you know as MouseDesk (it even used Double-Hi-Res graphics). The only
thing that was semi-native in that OS was an early version of ProDOS 16
and the ancient toolsets it came with. I say semi-native since the core of
ProDOS 16 is 8-bit with a shell around it to communicate with GS hardware.
I don't believe you could even load all ProDOS 16 and its toolsets into
memory with just 256K. Even if you could, there was absolute nothing you
could launch with this setup, except old 8-bit programs like AppleWorks.

    To tell you the truth, System 1 and 2 disks (especially with just 256K)
were probably more worthless than even those AOL disks that get sent in the
mail today. ;-) The same week I rushed out to buy a memory card for my IIgs
after it was bought, I also rushed out and bought a copy of System 3.1 from
the local usergroup. :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca