Re: The Apple IV

[jeffr@bnr.ca (Jeffrey Robertson)]

In article <33D101E4.6263@tenffub.ten>, Equinox  <Xoniuqe@tenffub.ten> wrote:
>Ok, lets pretend that way back when it was Steve Jobs who ended up in
>a coma instead of Wozniak. Thus the Mac project flounders as is the
>buggy Apple ///. Wozniak is put upon to come up with the next hardware
>innovation and starts work on the Apple IV. What would it have been?
>The GS? A revived Mac that was backward compatible with the II and ///?
>Or, (voice from Monty Python) Something Completely Different?

By calling this fictious machine the Apple IV, we're sort of confining
our speculation of a machine which could run Apple II software.  This
means that the closest parallel to it would be (a) the IIgs, (b) the
Mac II LC with Apple II board, or (c) a Power Mac running an Apple II
emulator.

Since items (b) and (c) are just emulation of one form or another of
"old tech", and the "new tech" component of each has nothing to do
with the old, they aren't really so interesting to speculate about.

Thus, the only interesting Apple IV to speculate about would look
remarkably similar to the IIgs.

Since we *have* the IIgs, the only interesting further speculation would
be "what would a IIgs+ be like?"

If I were an Apple engineer with a blank cheque to develop such a thing,
I'd probably go for a RISC platform of one sort or another.  This
device would run 8 and 16 bit Apple II applications in software emulation.
(Or maybe even go the "IIgs on a chip" route to hardware emulation!)
I'd port GS/OS and the Toolbox to the RISC platform (64 bits, as long as
I'm dreaming).

I'd expand GS/OS to support large disk drives.  I'd expand the toolbox
to support larger monitors (like the Mac can).  I'd expand the max RAM
to at least 32 MB.  I'd further modify the OS to support multitasking.
I'd sell it in a tower, to let people customize with built-in floppies
and hard drives.  A built-in GS/OS shell would be good, too.


How would this differ from a Mac?  Admittedly, not much.  I'd try to
retain some of the cool things that a ][ provided: a built-in text
mode (as opposed to using fonts for everything), a nice general I/O
port, lots of slots, and a built-in language.  (BASIC?  C?)

Would anyone want it?  Hard to say.  The native mode would be so much
more powerful than the backwards compatible modes, I'd expect most
people to simply translate their data files and run native applications,
using the emulation for games and other things that don't get native
version written.


Just my ideas.  Feel free to comment, criticize, or append.
-- 
-------------------------------------+-----------------+-------------------
Jeffrey Robertson                    | jeffr@nortel.ca |   N  O  R  T  E  L
Software Engineer                    +-----------------+   Northern Telecom
"I speak for myself, not Nortel" - Me                    Broadband Networks