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Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS
In article <24OCT199621281979@vax2.concordia.ca>, spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) writes:
|> Agreed! I'm rather tired of hearing that stereotypical response
|> spoken out so often, claiming the Apple II is "'70's technology";
It was.
|> and that Apple was right to end it.
They were.
|> The words "Apple II" seem to conjure up images of a 48Kb Apple II
|> Plus, with monochrome screen and 5.25 drive in people's mind. Why?
Because most people's experiences with Apple IIs were with that
caliber machine. I did an awful lot with a //e. Boy was I proud when
I counted up all the RAM chips, and realized that I nearly had half a
megabyte.
|> The Apple II line was more than that, but ever so much more so if
|> you consider the Apple IIgs.
But the IIGS was always underpowered compared to the competition.
|> >There was no reason why it could not have evolved into a 32-bit computer,
|> >like Pentiums have evolved from the PC/XT! The demand WAS there. Apple
|> >chose to ignore it.
|> I have little doubt that continuing the original 8-bit Apple II
|> design wouldn't have made sense in today's market, but not the GS.
|> I hate seeing it lumped in with the rest of the Apple II's as far
|> as any future feasibility would have been concerned!
Apple was the only customer for 65816s in any appreciable quantity.
By the time the IIGS came around, 286s at 12 to 16 MHz were popular.
The only places that were buying GSs were places that already had
Apple IIs. The II market wasn't growing at anywhere near the same
rate as PCs.
All of your engineering updates would have cost money, and Apple
couldn't project enough sales to generate a return on the investment.
My other comments on Alpha vs. PPC RISC processors applied to the
65c816 vs. 68000. By the time the IIGS came out, Macintosh had taken
flight.
Chris
--
Speaking only for myself, of course.
Chris Wood christw@lexis-nexis.com cats@CFAnet.com