Re: Apple - The people who invented Quicktime

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

bmeyer@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au wrote:
>arami@ix.netcom.com (ARAMI) writes:
>> "Karl Thomas" <kathomas@nox.nyx.net> wrote:
>>>ARAMI <arami@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
>
>>>> Applied engineering and Apple and?
>>>> What wide support?
>>>> Just curious.
>>>
>>>I don't remember the name of every single vendor who sold accelerators,
>>>network cards, SCSI interfaces, speech synthesizers (the echo series).
>
>>Well when you do let us know.
>
>For those of you in the know --- there is a little boy here in csaa called
>Aram who likes to think he is a big computer expert. But it seems he isn't,
>as he steadfastedly insists that there were practically no third party
>expansion cards for the Apple II series (or ][, or //, or whatever).
>
>Could someone still in the thick of things please enlighten him?
>
>Thanks,
>
>    Bernie

Sure.  Let's see, from memory:

AST: The VisionPlus/Visionary 12-bit frame grabber card for grabbing
     frames from moving NTSC composite video (30fps possible)
   : A 4MB RAM card for the Apple IIGS
   : A 1MB RAM card for the Apple IIe

Alltech Electronics: Sirius RAM card, an 8MB SIMM card for the IIGS
                     SoundMeister, a stereo amplifier for the IIGS'
                        built in Ensoniq wavetable chip (32 possible
                        voices, usually paired for 16).
                     Focus, an internal IDE hard disk that can drive
                        GB+ drives.

Applied Engineering: Various, including the RamKeeper, which allowed
                        16MB of memory on the IIGS and a PC emulator.
                   : Transwarp GS accelerator
                   : Sonic Blaster, a stereo amp.
                   : Audio Animator, a MIDI system
                   : Phaser, a sound card for the IIe.
                   : RamFactor, a RAM card for the Apple.
                   : A/D and D/A cards for experimental data

Cirtech: Statdisk, a solid state ROM disk
         Insyder, an internal SCSI controller plus hard disk
         Duet, a hardware Macintosh emulator.  Twelve prototypes were
                built and floating around somewhere.  Run Mac software
                in a GS.

CMS: An SCSI controller for the Apple.

Digital Visions: ComputerEyes GS, a 6-bit slow scan video digitizer
                 ComputerEyes IIe, a b&w slow scan video digitizer

Innovative Systems: A Motorolla 68881/68882 math co-processor card
                    for the GS (just patch the SANE math toolset and
                    _all_ GS/OS based software using SANE will use
                    the math chip, just like Amiga software is modular)

Laser/Video Technologies: UDC (a universal disk controller)
                          Laser 128 (apple clone) memory card

Memory Plus: A 4MB RAM card for the Apple IIGS
           : A 1MB RAM card for the IIe
           : A 1MB RAM card for the IIc/IIc Plus
           : Roadrunner, an internal SCSI hard disk drive

Modems: Any generic Hayes compatible.  Just plug in your favorite.
        I have a 33.6 modem that works great on the GS (serial ports
        can go up to 230kbps for AppleTalk networking).  Yes, you can
        FAX from a GS.

Sequential Systems: An SVGA card for the IIGS
                  : A 1MB caching SCSI controller for the IIGS
                        (Zip drives, hard drives, flopticals, Jazz,
etc.)
                  : Parallel cards, with buffering
                  : An 8MB RAM card for the IIGS

SHH Systeme: IDE cards, PC floppy drive controllers, etc.  IDE cards
                can drive up to GB+ drives and the new 120MB floppy
                disks.

Zip Technologies: Zip GS accelerator
                  Zip Chip IIe/IIc accelerator.

These are just a few from memory.  There a literally hundreds more and
many of these cards are still being made.  There is even a Motorolla
based math co-processor card for the GS.  All cards are plug and play:
just plug them in and go.  This is true for modems and drives and video
cards.  Some devices require installation of a driver in the system
folder, but that's it.  The GS can use many ADB devices since it had
ADB before the Mac.

I've used Amigas before.  I am an Amiga advocate.  The truth is that
the Amiga has a generally similar feel to the GS, but the fact of the
matter is that the Apple II came first.  The GS compares favorably to
the Amiga 1000 and 500.  The Amiga had the edge in graphics, but the
GS had a huge edge in sound (we're talking about wavetable synthesis
32 channel Ensoniq synthesizer built in - basically an Ensoniq ESQ1
and Mirage, built in in _1986_ here!).  And Amiga fans, the GS could
and can pre-emtively multitask under GNO/ME.  :)  The GS and Amiga are
kindred spirits.  You know how you can drop a font engine into the
Amiga and it can use a new type of font?  This is kind of like GS users
dropping in Pointless and all programs instantly recognizing TrueType
fonts.  There are other examples, such as dropping in new filesystems
(HFS, MS-DOS, ProDOS, UCSD Pascal, High Sierra/ISO-9660, and others),
etc.  In fact, I would not be surprised if someone wrote an FFS FST
some day and the GS being able to mount Amiga floppies.  :)  By the
way, Applied Engineering also made Amiga power supplies.

Mitchell Spector has also used both and is a regular here on CSA2.
What would you say to this Arami here, Mitch?

-Scott G.