Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

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

In article christw@lexis-nexis.com (Christopher C. Wood) writes...

>|> pubpc1@library.ucla.edu wrote:
>|> : When the GS came out, the Mac sucked.  It is better now, but what
>|> : Mac are we talking about in '86?  The Mac Plus?  The GS was and
>|> : is better than the Mac Plus.
> 
>Except in speed, 

    This is a common misconception - megahertz rating between different
processors. The Macintosh Plus had a 68000 rated at 7.8 MHz, while 
the Apple IIgs had a 65C816 rated at 2.8 MHz. Does this mean one machine
is 5x faster because there is a difference of 5 MHz? No, of course not.
Roughly speaking, from using the two, I'd say they ran about the same 
(both sluggish ;). So the Mac Plus didn't have any real speed advantages
over the stock Apple IIgs. By the same token, it bugs me when PC users
claim the 8088 PC running at 4.77 MHz, was 4 times faster than a 1.024 MHz
6502 Apple II+. :P (It's not!)

>vertical resolution, 

    True enough, this is probably the single biggest limitation of
the Apple IIgs. Although you should keep in mind, if you want to do
comparing, that the horzontial resolution was better on the GS. ;)
(640 pixels vs 512 pixels).

>and growth potential.

    That is false, if your talking about hardware growth. The Mac
Plus had no expansion slots and limited to a maximum of 4MB RAM.
You were stuck with that internal B&W screen and slow SCSI port.
The Apple IIgs had seven general purpose expansion slots, I've
added things to my IIgs system you couldn't even dream of adding
to a Mac Plus (or it's designers' dream of adding back in 1986).

>What were the RAM limit on the GS?

    8 megabytes, by plugging in a memory card into it's dedicated
memory expansion slot (you could use DRAMs or SIMMs, depending on
the card). Not bad for a 10 year old machine.

>The IIGS was introduced in October 1986; the Color Mac II was introduced 
>in April, 1987.  Six months later. 

    Actually that was September 1986 (IIgs) and March 1987 (SE/II)
if you want to get picky. :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca