Re: A Tale of Two Apples

[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...
>> >> In article <17OCT199723141927@vax2.concordia.ca>,
>> >> Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Nostalgic talk
>> about the past and how we use our II's today is fine, but when Apple
>> Computer comes up, it is would be just plain ignorance to pretend what
>> happened did not. The topic of this group, the Apple II, is no longer
>> mainstream and mostly forgotten today because of that company. Trying
>> to forget (or pretend) Apple Computer had no part in the "death" of
>> the Apple II is like trying to forget Steve Wozinak was the one
>> who gave it "birth". No one should forget where and why its origins
>> began and where they ended. Both are an ingrained part of its history.
>> I for one don't like seeing history rewritten or changed.
>
>No one is trying to rewrite or change history.  But, like the
>Mates/Turley flame war, it gets real old after a while, with everyone
>venting their gripes and anger.  Pretty soon, that's all that's being
>talked about in all the posts.

    I agree, and you'll find I am not the type to post a new message
thread, out of the blue, stating how I dislike Apple Computer, how
what they did in the past is eating away at me, pointing fingers at
them for the death of the Apple II, etc. However, if someone else
brings it up and states inaccuracies and clear bias remarks about
the past, I'll be one of the first to jump in and correct them (or
at least state my view on what did occurr). I did not create the
thread "A Tale of Two Apples".

    When this thread dies, so will my comments and personal opinions
about the past. I generally prefer to use this group for discussing
the Apple II and answering people's questions when I can.

>There are very few people here (if any) that can talk about this
>decision that was made in a *truly* objective way, without adding
>their personal slant or bias to it.  That's all I'm saying.

    Well one thing few can dispute is the fact that Apple negelected
to support the Apple II adequately and killed it off prematurely. Do
you disagree with that? I think that is more a fact than any personal
view or opinion. Yes, it is done and over with and something that can
not be changed, but we should at least be able to acknowledge that
fact before moving on.

>>     Whoah, back up there! That is a hugely false statement. 256K in
>> an Apple IIgs was anything but ample, it was sorely less than the GS
>> required to run _any_ native software. There is the key here, native
>> software as opposed to running 8-bit software in emulation mode. In
>> the latter case, 256K was more than ample, but the Apple IIgs was a
>> lot more than just a simple "Apple IIe compatible".
>
>This doesn't dispute or change the fact that this is what the machine
>shipped with at first.  And there *is* native (not 8 bit) software for
>the gs that will run in 256K--software that will not run on any other
>Apple II.  I know, I own some of it.  I *wasn't* trying to say that this
>was enough memory for every person in the world or for every application
>invented *after* the gs came out--only what it initially shipped with.

    No one was saying the Apple IIgs did not ship with 256K. That is
what is soldered to all ROM 00/01 motherboards out there (minus the
64K of Ensoniq RAM) no one can dispute that. I also acknowledge there
were a few rare exception of Apple IIgs-specific software titles that
ran in 256K, but keep this in mind: Those programs probably make up no
more than maybe DOZEN titles in total (figure what precentage of all
GS software this makes up) and anything that managed to work in that
space was _very_ basic and quite often mediocre and of limited use.

    Print Shop GS, incidentally, requires 512K to run. I know since
it was one of several GS software titles I purchased in advance and
tried the very day I brought home my Apple IIgs and set it up (as I
mentioned, the dealer did not include a memory card so all I had was
256K. I had to go out the _very_ next day and purchase an Apple IIgs
Memory Expansion Card. Before that week ended, I went to the Apple
dealer again and purchased a set of eight 256Kx1 chips since I was
having trouble getting some things to run in even 512K of space).

>the system speed back and forth, and besides, all the old 8 bit stuff is
>not compatible anyways, with the screenfull of "2"'s appearing and
>such....

    The screenful of "2"'s is a problem with the original Apple IIgs,
it did not support hardware shadowing of page 2. To fix this problem,
enter the Classic Desk Accessory menu when it happens (Apple-Control-
Esc) and select 'Alternative Dislay Mode'. The only catch is the GS
has to keep transfering data from bank $00 to $E0 in memory and this
slows things down quite noticably, but the "2"'s will disappear.

    The ROM 3 motherboard does this through hardware shadowing, so
there is no slow-down (I don't believe you even need to invoke the
CDA to do the shadowing, it is done automatically on the ROM 3).

>>     That's correct, and I know from experience since I had to purchase
>> memory during that worldwide memory shortage supply. This however is
>> a flawed argument when the Macintosh Plus had been shipping with a
>> full 1 MB of memory, and continued to do so after memory prices had
>> sky rocketed. The same is true of the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II.
>> Why did the Macintosh ship with 1 MB but not the IIgs?
>
>I would guess it was because the System requirements for the Plus used
>much more memory and applications were getting larger for the Mac by
>that point in time.  The IIgs appeared at least six months or more later
>than the Mac Plus, and the setup was totally different besides.  You did
>not *have* to run System software and a Finder on the IIgs to use it.
>Bootable floppies for the IIgs were still very popular then--many games,
>etc.

    Your quite right, you did not have to run System Software, the
Finder application or load any programs from a hardrive, instead
using just what memory was built-in and floppy disks. In fact this
is what many schools did, and why the Apple IIgs ended up being used
as a fast, color version of the Apple IIe. See my point?

    Think now, what would have happened if Apple shipped the machine
with 1 MB of out the box and a built-in hardrive? Do you still think
schools would have used them as fast Apple IIe compatibles?

>>     I understand that the Macintosh required that memory to be usable,
>> but the _same is true_ of the Apple IIgs back then. If you purchased
>> an Apple IIgs, one of the first things you had to rush out and buy was
>> a memory expansion card and the chips to populate it. That is, unless
>> you planned to use the machine exclusively as a IIe compatible.
>
>No, this is a wrong statement.  As I mentioned above, there was plenty
>of software to run on the IIgs on bootable floppy disks--material that
>would not run on a IIc or IIe.  If you wanted to rush right out and buy
>a memory expansion card right away, that's fine--but that was not
>required immediately for the "average" user, only the power users.

    Excuse me? I did not want to have to spend money on a memory card,
but I *had* to when 99% of the software I purchased for my Apple IIgs
just simply would NOT run with the built-in 256K. Almost all these
titles were released in 1986 and 1987 too I might add.

    It was indeed required immediately by the average user. Unless
you consider a "power user" as someone wanting to run software that
was specifically written for the Apple IIgs (as opposed to old 8-bit
Apple II titles). I will repeat it again, you absolutely HAD to have
at least 512K in your system from the very start to run the software
being released, and in many cases even 768K or more.

    There were some title that ran in 256K, but from 1986 right up
until today in 1997, I honestly cannot think of more than a dozen
titles that qualified (and many of them were not truely GS-specific,
having used HR/DHR graphics or toggling the internal speaker for
sound. I am serious, there were actually GS programs and games that
would click the internal speaker or use Double-Hi-Res).

>> >And a IIgs is VERY usable without a hard drive, especially if you are
>> >Appletalked to a hard drive connected to a Mac, as my setup is.
>>
>>     Have you tried operating an Apple IIgs off floppy drives?
>
>Yes, I do it all the time when I don't use the Appletalk setup.

    Well alright then. Now, let's pretend the Apple IIgs was your only
computer, would you want to use it daily for tasks like word processing
with TrueType fonts, telecommunications, graphic design and other tasks
running with just floppy disks? I myself did for several years, and it
was not very productive and wasted lots of time having to figure out
how to squeeze things onto 800K disks and deal with constant disk swaps.
My second Apple IIgs has no hardrive. Do you know what it is primarily
used for today? A glorified Apple IIe running as a dumb terminal...

>> I strongly suspect you haven't done much more than tinker
>> with the Apple IIgs and so your talking with inexperience here. I
>> have been an Apple IIgs user/owner for 10 years, and have worked very
>> heavily with the machine equipped with and without a hardrive. Believe
>> me, I know what I'm saying when I say an Apple IIgs is not very usable
>> without a hardrive (unless, once again, your are using it as an Apple
>> IIe compatible or to just play a few basic video games). 800K disks
>> also become very cramped in a hurry once you start using productivity
>> software to _create_ data files.
>
>I really resent you and Scott G. referring to myself as a "non-user" of
>gs and gs native software.  I'm NOT using it as an Apple IIe compatible.
>And I don't just play games on it.  And no, I definitely have not just
>"tinkered" with the gs.  I've spent a bunch of money on extra memory,
>software, extra disk drives, an RGB monitor, etc. etc.  I don't spend
>money and time like this on a system that will get only occasional use.

    I understand his reasons for saying that. You only entered the
Apple IIgs scene in the last 3 years, after you picked one up at
a thrift shop. Also at that time, you already had a computer system
and had _no intension_ of replacing it, the Apple IIgs was mainly
picked up as something to add to your collection and tinker around
with. That does not make you any less welcomed as an Apple IIgs user,
but it makes Scott a little uneasy when you start making obversations
about the Apple IIgs's history and treatment as if you had been
using and experiencing one since the time it was released.

    For example, your claims that 256K of memory was sufficent for
running programs when the machine was introduced, or that a hardrive
is unnecessary. You yourself admitted you do not use your Apple IIgs
for any specific tasks, your PowerMacintosh does everything you need
it to do. Let me ask you, have you ever composed 15-30 pages documents,
using different TrueType font styles and sizes in AppleWorks GS? Have
you ever done a page layout project in GraphicWriter III? Have you
ever composed a multi-track music sequence using a MIDI keyboard with
synthLAB or created your own instrument bank? What about sat for hours
drawing detailed graphics in Platinum Paint, DreamGrafix or DeluxePaint?
I've done all these things, and many more, and I can tell you they
require memory and preferably a hardrive (if you want to keep your
sanity ;). I picked up an Apple III computer roughly the same time
you picked up your Apple IIgs. I have upgraded it and found software
to run on it, but I am really too much of a late-comer to comment
on working experiences with it (and like you with your Macintosh,
I never had a need to use the Apple III for much since my Apple IIgs
did everything I wanted or needed from a computer).

>>     I can run a Macintosh off floppy disks. I've done it before, I
>> used to do the page-layout for my high school's newspaper using a
>> Macintosh Plus with PageMaker and nothing more than two 800K drives.
>> Sure, it worked, but it was a _very_ unpleasant experience and had
>> me almost dizzy with disk swapping.
>
>If you had two 800k disk drives, you should have had to do no disk
>swapping.

    Well there was plently of disk swapping, between the program disks,
System Disks and data disks. A few years later I found it much easier
when I did the layout for a college newspaper on a Macintosh II with
a hardrive (the 20" monitor was also quite nice after the 9" Mac Plus
screen ;).

>> I could run some IBM programs
>> from floppy disk too, but in all cases (GS, Mac and IBM) it is like
>> shoveling snow with a tablespoon. Sure, it is doable, but not very
>> practical. Whether I'm using an Amiga 2000, Apple IIgs, IBM 386+ or
>> Macintosh Plus or higher, a hardrive is essential (I've used all
>> those and know from experience).
>
>I've got a few Mac Pluses myself (all different memory configs), and my
>1 megabyte one runs just fine from a floppy and an extra floppy drive
>for when I care to use it that way.

    Your Macintosh Plus is in the same postition as your Apple IIgs.
It is not your main system, you do not do daily or intensive work on
that machine, do you? As I said, I have had work experience doing
page-layout on a Macintosh Plus with 1 MB and an external floppy
drive and it was very difficult to say the least.

>>     Incidentally, running your Apple IIgs through AppleTalk does
>> eliminate the disk swapping problem, but the speed problem will
>> still exist as AppleTalk only operates about as fast as a 3.5
>> drive (at least this is what I have heard).
>
>I have no problems with the speed of Appletalk, and until I get a hard
>drive in the future, this setup will continue to do me just fine.

    If you were using the Apple IIgs as your main system, I think the
speed might be more of an issue. Incidentally, with my DMA SCSI card,
semi-modern hardrive and accelerator,I can shift-boot into the System
6.0.1 Finder in roughly 4 seconds. :) 

    I'm not trying to be insulting when I call you an inexperienced
Apple IIgs user, my point is (and most anyone out there will back 
me on this) that an Apple IIgs without extra memory and a hardrive 
is really nothing more than a glorified Apple IIe compatible. And
even that is cutting to the edge, an accelerator card makes it that
much more usable when using native 16-bit software. I also say you
should have a stereo card and set of amplified speakers to really
complete it, although it is not nearly as important as the rest.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca