Re: Problems in "Modernizing" a //gs

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

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

>This is the only personal comment I'm going to make on this point
>myself; sooner or later, the "backwards compatibility" of ANY computer
>system needs to be cut off and severed *for good*.  Or it inhibits and
>prevents future expansion and future reprogramming.  Just as the Mac OS
>is finally letting go of its 68K emulation mode to run older software as
>the newer System software is getting more and more items rewritten in
>"PPC native" format.  If this is not done, it will never truly be
>operating as a full PowerPC machine, it will always be running in 68K
>emulation for a lot of its needs and therefore, not harnessing all the
>power of the machine.

    My personal opinion is they should have just let the Macintosh
concept go completely. There was so much hype when Apple announced
it would be introducing PowerPC based machines, I really felt that
RISC technology was going to make everything else plain obsolite.
Everyone was convinced this was the wave of the future and would
mark the end of the Intel PC.

    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?

>This very speculative question of whether or not a modern Apple IIgs
>could exist while running all the demand's of today's software, and
>STILL run all the games and apps from the early 1980s onward is very
>questionable to say the least.  *This is NOT a put-down of the idea to
>have a modern IIgs; it's reality*.

    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? Is this the reason why the most Apple did to
the IIgs in its 6 year run was to fatten its memory, add more ROM space
and add a removable clock-battery?

    Please, I think a 5th grade student could come up with better ideas
for improving the Apple IIgs than the engineering department at Apple
Computer (mind you, I'm sure they had lots of ideas, just the heads at
Apple would not allow them to act on them). It is completely ludicrous
and short sighted to believe that the ROM 3 represented the _most_ the
Apple IIgs could evolve!

There simply hasn't been a modern day machine out there that can run things
>from that far back (emulators not included in this).

    Really? My brother's Pentium 166/83 (as well as his friend's state of
the art MMX system) is able to run most of the original software written
for the first 8088 IBM PC's out there, while still running state of the
art/modern games and productivity applications.

    I find it rather tiresome hearing that the GS's design was set in
stone and could not be changed, or the "fact" that it couldn't have
evolved beyond from what Apple initially released. Do you actually
believe that Apple did not evolve the GS because it was _not_ possible??
If you do, then having this conversation is not pointless afterall. :)
Sure Apple will tell you a different story, but Apple is as slimey
and good at making up excuses as most politicians. ;) Remember the
open letter from John Sculley in inCider/A+ back in 1991? 

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca