Re: IIe GUI

[nathan@parka.winternet.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <31E5443F.397C@aol.com>, Tom Owad  <TOwad@aol.com> wrote:
>I got a lot of replies to my last post "IIe accessories"  where I 
>asked about, among other things, whether or not there was a GUI for 
>the IIe, IIGS OS in particular.  I was surprised to be told that no 
>versions of the IIGS OS run on the IIe.  In a previous thread Jonathan 
>Isom wrote:

   This is essentially a big misunderstanding over terminology,
which I'm going to attempt to straighten out...

   What you're doing is mistaking the OS (Operating System, that which
controls disk i/.o, devices, etc) with the GUI (Graphical User
Interface, that which the user plays around with), and System Software
(distributon of some OS, GUI, and anything else they want). The OS and
GUI do _not_ need to be integrated-- you can have multiple GUIs
running on top of one OS, or (rarer) a GUI that runs under multiple
OSs.

   An example of this is MS Windoze- MS-DOS is the OS, and can have
either the command shell of COMMAND.COM or Windoze 3.x as the
GUI. Same OS, different GUIs.

>> Apple wrote an 8-bit finder which came with the very earlest 
>> IIGS system  disks that would also run on an enhanced(?) IIe. 
>> uses dhr screen.

   That would be an 8-bit GUI, not an OS. Further, the earliest GS
"system software" was nothing more than hacked up versions of the
ProDOS 8 that ran on //es. But, it was not called GS/OS at the
time. GS/OS was the name given to the OS written specifically for the
GS, and didn't come out for a few years after the GS came out. GS/OS
requires a GS to run.

   ProDOS also comes in several variants. ProDOS 8 runs on any Apple
][+ or later with 64K. ProDOS 8 2.0 and up require an enhanced //e,
//c, //c+, or GS. ProDOS 16 is the hacked up version that runs on
GSs, but was replaced by GS/OS, which is now at version 4.x in system
Software 6.x. No version of ProDOS 16 or GS/OS will really run on
non-GS Apple IIs. [With processor swaps, you might be able to get
them to start loading, but forget it for a real boot]

   It's a bit confusing, but if you deblur the lines of terminology
that Apple and Microsloth have been doing their best to smudge,
things make more sense.

>Many other people also mentioned a version of the IIGS OS running on 
>the IIe.  Is this information accurate?

   Finder has nothing to do with GS/OS. It refers to a program with
some GUI that happens to resemble a Macintosh program of that
name. What OS it runs on depends on the particular implementation.
There are a few finder-like programs that happen to run under the
ProDOS 8 (for //es and the like), but those are not

   When the GS was first released, neither ProDOS 16 nor GS/OS was
ready yet, so the "System Software" (which is not necessarily the same
as an OS) was essentially //e software. That is why GS System Software
1.0 apparently runs on //es, but no GS Operating System does. 

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in
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