"II Alive" video is here

[grover@emunix.emich.edu (Grover Thomas)]

     I haven't seen anything about this yet, so I thought I would share
some thought on the new "Apple II Review" video from II Alive magazine.
Yes, that's right, it's out now (finally).

     Overall, I'd have to say this is more of a IIGS oriented video than
anything else.  They do cover a few IIe things breifly, but the over-
whelming majority is IIGS.  They seem to have done a pretty impressive
editing job, especially for a collection of homebrew clips and interviews
with a standard videocam.

     The beginning is marked by a rather long intro by editor Jerry Kindall
who pointedly remarks two schools of thought: between keeping and upgrading
your existing equipment, or buying all new computers every couple years.
After saying his piece, they launch right into clips from Apple Expo West
1993, in San Fransico, CA.   USA.

     The first half of the video is devoted to short interviews of a few
(too few, IMHO) key players in the Apple II world, as well as some of the
new products by vendors including Simplexity Software, Lunar Productions,
ECON Technologies, Parson's Engineering, Softdisk G-S, etc.    A special
treat for homebodies like me is seeing faces attached to the Apple II
names we all see and/or hear about.  I particularly got a charge out of
Matt Deatherage and Bruce E'ssex <sp?> (Lunatic)  who looked nothing like
I would have ever imagined.  :-)

     The second part of the video can best be described as a commercial
endorsement for Quality Computers and Seven Hills' products.  The ten
minute feature "Enhancing Your IIGS" focuses mainly on a few products:
The Q-RAM memory card, "TransProg III", "Kangaroo", "The Manager",
"Express", and Bill Tudor's "Six Pack" set of CDev/Finder Extras.
While seeing these programs in action is
neat, it seems a rather specific, limited set of programs given all the
great enhancements available for the IIGS.  They barely even mention
"an accelerator card", and only in passing, which I would think would
be a major point of focus.  It made me think "Did Seven Hills pay them
off or something?"
     The next segment "Enhancing Your IIe" was comparitively short.  And
instead of software packages, they focused in on hardware mods such as a
clock card, and an 80-column/64k card.  The most interesting was the
Imagewriter II memory buffer card. Very short segment, and I'd assume
fairly disappointing to the average IIe user.
     The final 'info' segment was a quick rundown on features to be included
in Quality Computer's upcoming Appleworks enhancer "Quadriga" which is
apparently being done by Appleworks expert Randy Brandt.  I'll leave all
that info for a whole other message, if anybody is interested.

     Last is a cute little bit by Roger Wagner about the beginnings of
his collection of colorfully loud ties, which he wears to each event,
followed by some cute bloopers during the end credits.

     So, what to make of all this?  For the amount of time II Alive users
have waited for this video, I was a bit disappointed.  Although the Expo
information was great, and the software demos were slightly useful, the
end impression (IMHO) is a long commercial for Quality Computers and their
Seven Hills software selections.
     Although I was originally impressed with the "II Alive" magazine, I
am becoming increasingly wary of their advertising practices and biased
product coverage.

-- 
Grover Thomas       grover@emunix.emich.edu   (Nifty quotes currently down)