Re: HOW THE APPLE II COULD RETURN...

[toddpw@whip.ugcs.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)]

fl332@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (John L. Graham) writes:

>I've always wondered what could be done in the way of an Apple IIe
>based on Mega II would be like. Jeesh, you'd think you could really
>get the cost down on a IIe/c type machine where most (all?) the
>development and tooling costs were paid for long ago. Fun to think
>about.

Believe it or not, Apple investigated this idea up to the prototype
stage (I saw one). It had an IWM and a Slotmaker, basically the 1 mhz
side of the IIgs.

The problem was that the original //e design used chips that were by
then DIRT CHEAP, and the extra integration didn't save enough board
space to cut the production cost down enough to justify retooling the
production lines to make the new machine -- unless the //e was going
to survive for a pretty long time, which Apple wasn't willing to bet
on at that point.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ ugcs.caltech.edu