Re: Complete Basic?

["Charlie" <charlieDOTd@verEYEzon.net>]

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message 
5PqdnVXUWsYfRnvbnZ2dnUVZ_rDinZ2d@comcast.com">news:5PqdnVXUWsYfRnvbnZ2dnUVZ_rDinZ2d@comcast.com...
> sfahey wrote:
>>   To: limtc
>>   Re: Re: Complete Basic?
>>   By: limtc to comp.sys.apple2 on Mon Sep 10 2007 08:52 pm
>>
>>  > I think Apple cancels many Apple II related projects sometimes not
>>  > related to the product itself, but more of other reasons (like it is
>>  > too powerful for a non-Mac computer).
>>
>> I think it was more likely due to their alternating warm and cold 
>> relationships
>> with various developers, and the realization that their product wouldn't 
>> sell
>> in an already crowded market. That and declining sales and de-emphasis of 
>> the
>> Apple II platform - it was bound to get scrapped.
>
> That sounds right.
>
> I also suspect that someone noticed that writing desktop programs in
> any language was not going to be a beginner's exercise.

I agree.

> As GSOS became
> the IIgs OS, any hope of simple programs became a pipedream.

I have to disagree with you here.  GSOS has little if anything to do with 
the GUI that you are associating with the Apple IIgs.  GSOS is an operating 
system mostly for input/output for block and character devices.  Calls are 
made to its function in a similar way to those in ProDOS machine language 
interface.  Aside from the fact that it can handle much larger volumes and 
files, the major differences are that GSOS has no file system of its own (it 
translates its functions to handle ProDOS, DOS 3.3, MS-DOS, etc.) and it 
(with help from the Memory Manager) allows files/programs to reside almost 
anywhere in memory.

> As I've observed before, a GUI means that almost any program you want
> to write will be 10% your functionality and 90% GUI wrangling.  That's
> a heck of a tax!

Certainly true (and I'm someone who likes GUI programming).  There are 
non-GUI tools in the IIgs toolbox but text based programs were pretty rare 
on the IIgs.  Merlin 16+ is one I used (and liked) a lot and it is 
GSOS/text.  The Orca text shell is another.

Charlie