Re: Apple ///?

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

pdueck@pli.mb.ca (Perry Dueck) wrote,
in response to my reply:
>> Well, most Vic-20 programs were BASIC.  Commodore BASIC between
>> computers were very similar.  Also, the hardware was compatible.
>> The 1541 disk drive worked with many Commodore computers, for
>> example, as did the datasette.
>
>Oh really? I owned a VIC-20 and all the commercial software that I owned
>for it was written in machine language. Half of the software I owned was
>on VIC-20 cartridges, the other half on cassette tape (and I had a whole
>bunch of software). In one of your previous posts in this thread, you
>claimed that one could simply load up VIC-20 software into a Commodore 64,
>no problem.....which is false...I have yet to see a VIC-20 cartridge or
>software cassette which one could load into a C64.  Now you are claiming
>that most VIC-20 software was in BASIC....also false (at least in terms of
>the commercial software that was available for it).

It is true that I never used a VIC-20, but I was just extrapolating
based on what I knew about every other Commodore computer I used.
When I learned BASIC on CBM and PET computers, someone brought in
their C64 disk with a BASIC poker card game.  It loaded right up
into the CBM machines and ran.  Much later, I snapped a 1541 drive
into a Commodore Plus 4 and used my old BASIC programs just fine.

Now if I underestimated the amount of commercial machine language
programs for the VIC-20, then I'm sorry.

>
>What other history are you going to attempt to re-write in this newsgroup?

None.  I'm only human and my experience with the (non-Amiga) C=
computers were mostly with BASIC.

I don't blame you for getting mad though.  If someone came into
csa2 and said "the Apple ][ was only a 16K machine and all programs
were in BASIC," I'd want to correct them too.  :)

>
>And what does any of this have to do with the Apple /// (see the subject
>line above)?

You have to ask the people who brought Mac and PC into the thread.
Personally, if we must discuss other computers, I'd rather they be
Commodores, which have a close history with Apple II computers.


"Pete" <petedu@microsoft.com> wrote,
in response to my reply:
>No binary file (Any disk game you bought) would transfer, and none of the
>cartridges were compatible.  So your rant about how only Apple left their
>legacy systems in a lurch is flat-out not true.

I don't consider the VIC-20 as Commodore's legacy system.  I do
consider the C64 as one, though.  When VIC-20 sales, despite
Commodore's best advertising, fell below profitability, Commodore
dropped the computer.

Apple deliberately STOPPED advertising the Apple II, and later the
GS, when they were still VERY profitable and insanely popular.
Would anyone else except Apple do such a thing?

Commodore pushed the C64 MUCH more logically.  When they tried to
retire the line, popular demand made Commodore reconsider and they
released the C64C.  Shortly after the Amiga came out, there were
emulators for the C64 and the C64C itself continued to be produced.
In fact, the C64C and C128 continued to be sold in some parts of
the world close to the time when Commodore went under, at which
time more refined C64 emulators for the Amiga became available.

Now when Apple began to neglect the II line, Apple II fans begged,
wrote letters, screamed, shouted, and agitated, but to no avail.
Why do you think so many II users went PC instead?  Why do you
think we're mad at Apple?  When a company ignores popular demand
for one of its product lines, something is wrong.

-Scott G.