Re: Apple II just won't die.

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Toby Reiter (treiter@comet.net) wrote:

: This brings up another point.  What would be your recommendations on a
: REALISTIC (sorry, boys) Apple II notebook computer with internal scsi,
: ram, power supply/battery, and b/w or grayscale LCD display.  This would
: probably have to use a Mega II chip, and Apple's new interfacing hardware
: for i/o.  Does this sound possible to anyone?  It seems that if an entire
: Mac could fit in one of those things, a IIe, and probably GS, surely 
: could do it.  Imagine playing Tinies, or working in GNO/ME on an
: airplane!  (Of course, that would also be possible in a PC notebook with
: GS emulators (do they have one yet?), but it wouldn't be as fun!)

First of all, the motherboard of the IIgs is fairly small.  If one could
figure out a way to get a couple of expansion cards...specifically a
memory card and a hard-drive controller...connected to the board without a
lot of space, add a teeny-tiny hard drive and a color LCD display, you'd
have it...the whole thing about the size of the earlier cast-metal 80386
laptops.

Second, several times now I've been in a position of wanting a portable
][, for running a word processor and for 'net connectivity.  Just as a
supplement to my IIgs at home.

Why not a Mega-II based portable //e, with an internal hard drive
(preferrably a fairly small one...say, <128Mb since ProDOS can't handle
partitions larger than 32Mb), 128k memory standard with two expansion
slots...one to match the ][e Auxiliary Slot, and one to match the standard
bus slots.  Internal 3.5" drive would be nice, as would a rear-panel
connector for a 5.25" drive.  Two built-in high-speed serial ports, plus
an AppleTalk driver would be nice; if the internal HD is SCSI, then also
put a SCSI port on the back panel for connecting other devices (CD-ROM,
LaCie drives, etc).

Okay, so this isn't a fancy, high-power machine.  But look at the
advantages:  Starting with the fact that a 65C02 sells for about $6 these
days, this is a machine that would be adequately powerful for most ][
users on the road...capable of running AppleWorks easily, along with
anything else ever produced for the ][e; on a ][e, 32Mb of hard drive is
more than anyone should ever need, given the limited graphics resolution;
and the thing can easily be connected to any Apple printer, and any
external modem.  An internal modem at the fastest current
standard...preferrably an upgradeable internal modem...would be a
definate plus.

Power supply ought to be an internal battery, external power-brick, or
external battery connected to the unit by means of a latching power
connector (not these $@# coax plugs used on most laptops).  Ideally, the
power brick should be able to charge a battery if it is not being used to
power the machine.

My thought is that such a machine could be fairly cheap, depending on the
cost of case, keyboard, and hard drive.  The IIc+ comes close, except that
it is too large (doesn't use the Mega-II and thus needs more components),
is not battery operated, and most important lacks both a hard drive and a
monitor.  There is no reason that a portable ][e (an "Apple ][n"?)
couldn't be about the size of a Macintosh Powerbook, or even smaller since
no space needs to be given for a pointing device.  And it might even be
able to turn a profit selling at or under $500 complete...possibly even
with AppleWorks pre-loaded (though folks like me would prefer to use
AppleWriter...).

Then package the thing with a serial-file-transfer program, with a
matching program available for Macintosh and MS-DOS, and you could sell
them as workhorse portables to anyone who wants portable computing and
doesn't want to pay for it...in my opinion, a potentially huge market.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
-- 
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