Re: Wolf. 3D IIGS - NEWS Update!

[markem@starbase.neosoft.com (Mark Manning)]

Shhhhh! DialTone95 (dialtone95@aol.com)'s speaking:
: All Apple // users complain about PC systems being obsolete in 6 months
<snip>

Well, I've kept out of this discussion thus far, but decided
I had to respond to this post.  Mainly because the post is
full of falicies.

: All Apple // users complain about PC systems being obsolete in 6 months

Well actually we don't.  I've got a 386 system at home as well
as a Powerbook 165c and my //gs.  Just recently sold my Lisa
Mac, //e, and //c.  I sold the stuff because I decided I wanted
to use the //gs more than anything else.  Even though I'd
found and bought an LCD screen for the //c and was quite happy
with it.  :-)  But anyway, all of my stuff is old.

: then you have to upgrade.. but lets think about this for a moment.. at
: least they ARE upgradeable... can you change the video on a //gs? Yeah,

Both the PC and the Apple computer (Macs and GS) are upgradable.
All of these computer are upgradables in various ways.  The PC
and Macs either change the clock speed or replace entire
components (cpu, clock, type of ram, etc...).  The same holds
true with the //gs.  Now, while there are a large number of
companies which deal with these upgrades on the PC and Mac,
it is true there are not a lot of them for the //gs.  But the
NUMBER of companies which offer upgrades wasn't being disputed.
Only that the PCs were and the Apples were not.

: least they ARE upgradeable... can you change the video on a //gs? Yeah,

Yes, true.  There are (again) not a lot of options for changing
the video on the //gs.  However, the problem does not occur
with the //gs as much as you might think.  There are several
cards out on the market for both the PC and the Macs which
contain, on the card, the entire set of commands used to do
all of the drawing to the video.  These cards "catch" the
video commands by patching in their own sets of commands into
video memory on the larger systems, translate the requests,
and display the results on the monitor's screens.  One such
card that I know of is the SGI card.  Now, there isn't any
reason (other than there isn't as large of a market out there
for //gs cards which work in this same manner) why these
companies can't make the same types of cards for the //gs.
They just don't.  So (again) it is not a problem with the //gs
- but a problem with the number of sales the video card
manufacturers think they can make.  Obviously, the larger the
market, the more a manufacturer will be inclined to produce
for that market.  The PC market is quite huge, the //gs market
quite small.  Which do you think they will go for?

: with 1 card out on the market doesn't work well.. can you add more than 8
: megs on a GS? No.. can you add better sound than whats included? You can

Actually, the //gs will go up to 16mb of memory.  Applied
Engineering had such a card and actually, if you put nothing
but AE memory cards into the //gs you could have gone to 64mb
- but you would not have been able to read anything from disk.
Because all of the slots were filled.  Again though, this is
a limitation placed upon the //gs by a company who didn't ever
think anyone would really want more than X amount of memory
and not a problem with the //gs.

: megs on a GS? No.. can you add better sound than whats included? You can
: add stereo and recording but you surely can't add another sound chip.. Can

Well, actually, your statement disputes itself.  You asked if
we could add better sound than what is included and then blow
off adding a stereo sound card which (I might add) has another
sound chip on it.  However, you also overlook the fact that
_all_ of the IBM sound improvements are from such plug in
cards (Don't tell me you honestly thought the SoundBlaster
which came in your system was actually a part of the system?
;-) ).  So on the one hand you slap down the //gs (or Apples
in general) for using a sound card but praise the IBMs and
Macs for doing this?  It makes no sense.

: you add pipeline cache (Or ANY hardware cache for that matter) to the //gs

Actually no.  You are correct here.  However, the //gs (as
well as the entire family of any computer system you wish to
name) actually have a built in cache.  The difference here
being that earlier computers did not have a cache outside of
the cpu itself _and_ the caches were quite small (usually
holding no more than one or two additional instructions.  It
wasn't until the 386's and Mac IIfx (if I remember correctly
- probably not) came out that external caches became the
fashion due to the speed improvement they rendered.  As a side
note, in one of my older Nibble magazines there is an add for
an M68000 (or was it MC68000?) cpu with its own memory and (I
do not remember the add completely - maybe someone else?)
possibly an external cache.  But I do not remember the ad well
as it was an enormous amount of money for the card.  Still,
you are right about no external cache.  However, the //gs was
never intended to use an external cache, just the small (about
0.5k I believe) amount of memory reserved as a buffer for the
cpu to perform its reads and writes with.

: motherboard? Nope.. Is a 1.2 gig hard drive practical for a //gs? Nope..

Actually, here you err again.  The //gs does have and use the
HFS filing system.  It just can not boot from the HFS partition.
This means that you have to have two disk drives.  One small
(say 20megs) and the other a 1gig drive.  The 1gig drive is
set up to be where everything is stored, and the 20meg is
where you boot from.  I've worked with this kind of a set-up
before (using a 120meg and a 340meg hard drive). with the
smaller drive chopped up into several partitions so I could
put the GSOS, ProDOS, DOS 3.3, CP/M, and Apple Pascal utilities
and games I have on the small disk and then all of my work on
the other.  It worked out pretty well.  Then the hard drive
crashed on the Mac and I had to archive everything so I could
use the disk drives on the Mac.  But I've finally saved up
enough to buy a new disk drive and I am awaiting it's arrival
so I can get my //gs back up and running.

: SOFTWARE to update the BIOS to support it.. tell me all GS users out there
: wouldn't KILL for that..  If a GS could be upgraded to anything decent

Actually - I wouldn't.  And as for the 1280x1024 screen - I
use them at work.  Many students use them at school.  They
are nice, but they can actually have more problems than a
smaller screen.  Still, the two page display is _very_ nice.
:-)  So - yes!  I'd love to have one, but I make do with what
I have.  And I'm happy with it.  :-)

Also, updating the BIOS (which is simply the Basic Input/Output
System - and not meaning "Basic" as in the language BASIC but
rather as in "The basis from which we start") is nothing more
to us than downloading the newest release of the GSOS.  Which,
granted there hasn't been one for a while, is really no
different than your downloading a new BIOS.  Or maybe it would
be more equivalent to downloading a new FST?

In any event, just my $0.02 worth.  The newest systems may
have more whiz-bang things they can do but a lot of the current
software out there is just regurgitated previous releases with
a few new things added to them and (usually) a large price
increase.  I, for one, really _DO_ wish everyone would settle
on one OS (like Unix) and quit bogging down these wonderful
new systems with all of the overhead they keep putting into
the new OS's.  It seems to me to be a race between the hardware
people and the software people on who can affect the other
the most.  As fast as the hardware people increase the speed
of the computer, the software people do their damned-est to
slow it back down.  Anyway, just my pet peevee.

-------------------------------------------------------------
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