Re: Have we forgotten this newsgroup is about the _Apple2_ ????

[irsman@iastate.edu (Ian Schmidt)]

In article <CoG2u7.FDG@utstat.toronto.edu> phillip@utstat.toronto.edu (Rob Tibshirani) writes:

>Well, if you could try rising above 2 year old language it may be worthwhile
>explaining some things to you. I do not view my statement as nonsense, and
>just a few years ago when the GS was posed to become a real multimedia
>force, people insisted on using it as a IIe. What can I say? I don't accept
>your anology, and frankly I'd rather not discuss issues with people who
>have a hard time using reasonable lnguage on an international public forum.

I'll agree that hardwarewise, the worst parts of the GS are those concessions
to backwards compatibility (kinda like the Intel machines).  The GS Done Right
would look like this:

- No Mega II, no 1 mhz side, everything runs @ 2.8 Mhz
- The I/O chips (SCC, Ensoniq, ADB) would all map directly into the fast 2.8
  Mhz 65816 address space.  This includes the (128k, dammit!) of DOCRAM.
  No GLUs!
- Video in a slot, designed to be expandable and extensible.
- An optional expansion board containing a 65c02 / Mega II / ROMs for IIe
  compatibility.
- An optional motherboard swap later to turn it into some kinda Macintosh.

Things which would be nice in such a machine but probably impractical:

- On-board SCSI
- A math chip of some sort
- Faster (8 mhz) clock speed

Things which would be totally pipe-dream:

- A DSP
- An 80x86 or 680x0 coprocessor right in the machine for PC/Mac compatibility

Okay, now go ahead and tear this apart, since it's just what I'd like :)

-- 
Ian Schmidt / irsman@iastate.edu / irsman@cs.iastate.edu
"Though we know that time has wings, we're the ones that have to fly" -Peart