Re: Problems in "Modernizing" a //gs

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

Mitchell Spector wrote:
> In article bjblackbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major) writes...
> >Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:
> >
> >>     Well, almost 4 years have passed and the PowerMacintosh has had
> >> ample time to grow and start ending its infancy stage. I personally
> >> see it as a disappointment. What we got is the same old Macintosh
> >> but with more horsepower than the 68k original. The 68k emulation
> >> and the Macintosh design, toolbox and software drag the whole thing
> >> down to a crawl. As someone out there once said, the PowerMac has
> >> the PowerPC RISC processor acting as if it were hand-cuffed from
> >> behind the back. Yes, it is a very powerful processor, but it is
> >> going to waste emulating a Macintosh. All this power yet you can't
> >> even do true multitasking? The inferior "PC" does, so what is wrong
> >> with this picture?

Well, ok.  To be fair I have to defend the PowerPC machines.  They
are _much_ more powerful hardware wise.  Your criticism of the
current MacOS is justified and I agree, but think about it this way:
the PPC may be handcuffed by MacOS, but it still has enough power
to emulate the Pentium fast enough such that PPC machines run Win95
software as fast as the real thing.  With PPC native software like
the late Win NT PPC version, the machine runs rings around Intel
hardware.  When Rhapsody comes out (basically NeXT with the Apple
Interface and a Mach microkernal, the latter of which is a version
of UNIX), all the MacOS baggage dissappears.  The handcuffs could
come off the PPC, but you can't make an Intel go as fast as a PPC
with just some new software.

B.J. and the Mac users should admit the shortcomings of MacOS 8,
but we as PC users should see the shortcomings of the Intel chip.

That said, the price/performance _ratio_ is much better for a
typical PC than a typical PowerPC machine.  Sad, but true.  Even
Apple sees this and will soon make Intel machines.

When Rhapsody Intel comes out, we'll get the Apple Interface for
our Windows programs.  That should be neat (remember when Win 3.1
programs' menubars suddenly changed when Win95 came out, well with
Rhaspody Intel, it is said to change again: to the same Apple
Interface used in the GS and Mac!).  Now if Apple will only drop
the last bit of hardware protection and let Rhapsody Intel run
current Mac titles (doable with the release of Mac ROM code, as
the Executor authors will tell you), we'll have the best of both
worlds.

> >
> >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 3.1 and Windows 95 are two completely different things.
> The former is merely a graphical shell interface with MS-DOS running
> underneath (and quite an awful interface at that) and supports only
> cooperative multitasking, like the Macintosh does today. Windows 95
> is completely independent of MS-DOS (and other problems associated
> with it) and support preemptive multitasking.

Win 95 has DOS.  Nate informed me of this several months ago and
I checked that it was true.  It does lack most of the DOS _programs_
found in PC-DOS 7, though.

> 
>     Let me see if I understand you correctly, your claiming the Mac
> does multitasking _better_ than Windows 95? This is not an issue of
> opinion, it is a black and white technical issue as to which is the
> superior operating system when it comes to multitasking. If you
> wish to go ahead and argue this fantasy, feel free to do so...
> Though first I strongly suggest you read up on the difference
> between cooperative and preemptive multitasking.

The Mac toolbox fundamentally does not support pre-emtive
multitasking.  This is the same problem that prevents the GS
from running 2 desktop programs at once under GNO/ME, I hear,
even though GNO/ME itself can pre-emtively multitask several
non-desktop programs.  However, using a technique similar to
the way OS/2 runs multiple Win 3.1 sessions, Rhapsody will
be able to preemtively mutltitask Mac applications.  Native
Rhapsody applications will preemtively multitask with no
run arounds at all.

Rhapsody is based on NeXT, which from my use of it has been
the superior operating system for Intel style PCs.  The reason
few people have seen it is because Steve Jobs had the bad
marketing sense to sell it _only_ to higher education.  It
runs on top of the Mach microkernal, a UNIX core, and can handle
such mutltitasking very well.  This, coupled with the Apple
Interface it offers, makes Rhapsody Intel an attractive system
to me.

> 
> >>     Why do you have the notion the Apple IIgs design, as-is from 1986,
> >> is the most the machine could have ever been? Do you actually believe
> >> Apple pushed the envelope on the technology as much they could when it
> >> was originally released?
> >
> >I don't believe this, but as you can readily read from the "Modernizing
> >the IIgs" posts, the machine would need such a complete redoing in this
> >day and age, that much of the gs as you know it now would be replaced
> >(or redone).  Whoever has the funds for this project is certainly free
> >to pursue the project.
> 
>     I was discussing the posibility for upgrading the Apple IIgs hardware
> back in the late 80's. It was very feasible back then, probably right up
> until the early 90's as far as a marketable product that would have been
> useful and people would buy.

Yes.  B.J., Randy, and the others want to ignore this because if
Apple had continue developing the GS, by default it would have
not developed the Mac.  The GS of 1986 was fundamentally superior
to the Mac Plus of 1986.  Yes, the Mac has provided many innovations,
but if such an inferior computer could evolve so far, imagine what
the GS could have become.  Imagine the PowerGS.

> 
>     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.
> If Apple kept evolving the hardware, supported the machine and did
> strong advertising, I am fairly certain the Apple IIgs could have been
> mainstream and still popular today. Considering the machine has been
> relatively untouched for the past 11 years and dropped out of the
> mainstream commercial market about 7 years ago, it is probably too
> late to resurrect it or turn things around. I could see it being
> sold like the Tiger Learning Computer, or sold as a very low cost
> introductory computer system (with memory, graphics and CPU speed
> enhancements to existing hardware) for children, but not mainstream
> without several hundred thousands of dollars invested in reworking
> the design from the ground up. Pretty unlikely anyone is going to
> make an investment like that (and it would be possible to do once
> Apple Computer collapses, as it stands, they're still sitting on
> the rights to the machine).

Sad, but true.  B.J., Lewin, and the others keep on banging
this point over our heads, but keep avoiding the issue that
the modern Mac evolved from a machine, the Mac Plus and that
in the late '90s, the Mac Plus was clearly inferior to the
GS when the GS was properly equipped.  Apple had to cripple
the GS to keep it from competing against the Plus.  I'd say
a fully expanded GS has the capabilities of a Mac LC.  But
consider that Mac LC is 1990 Mac technology.  The GS was
introduced in 1986 and remained unchanged.  It was _4 years_
ahead of its time.  Apple would be 4 years ahead today
technologically had they developed the GS instead of the
Mac.

-Scott G.