Re: Complete Basic?

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

Charlie wrote:
> "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.

Of course that's true, but to the average user, GSOS was just one big
ball of wax.  Either you booted ProDOS and had a faster //e or you
booted GSOS and had a GUI machine that you couldn't program.  Thye Chean
has been trying to address that very problem.

> > 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.

True, but only developers used text-based apps on the IIgs.

The original Apple II "idea" was that its considerable capabilities
were accessible out-of-the box to anyone who was patient and could
read--a true "bicycle for the mind."

By contrast, the Apple IIgs (like the III before it) had even greater
capabilities, but access to them was wrapped in prodigious complexity
and locked up by the absence of out of the box documentation and tools.

I still say that the IIgs, like the III, departed radically from the
original Apple II idea of *accessible computer power*, and having Woz's
signature on the case of the first 50,000 or so was irony.

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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