Charlie wrote:
"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message P9qdnfb7u9UHjD7YnZ2dnUVZ_revnZ2d@comcast.com">news:P9qdnfb7u9UHjD7YnZ2dnUVZ_revnZ2d@comcast.com...Tempest wrote:Personally I think it's the Enhanced IIe. Not only is it capable of running all the software out there (including the IIe only games), but it looks great with a DuoDisk and AppleColor Composite Monitor on top of it. Of course I'm a little biased since the IIe was my first Apple II (I still run my original system to this day).Using compatibility as a criterion is dangerous, since emulators can do that too. ;-) And, of course, the IIgs, whose only connection with Woz is that "signature" edition, also mostly meets the "compatibility" requirement, even though its native software is the opposite of the Woz esthetic ("running light without overbyte").With great fear and trepidation I must note that it seems your belief that using compatibility as a criterion is dangerous is because the IIgs wins. Emulators don't because they are not very hardware compatible.Compatibility is the only criterion (mentioned so far) that can be tested objectively. Others like color, feeling, closeness to Woz, etc. are very subjective.
I see your point. But compatibility, or rather incompatibility, gets pretty subjective when it becomes someone's "relevant" incompatibility.
For my purposes, the only //e incompatibility is that it doesn't have an upper-case-only mode like the ][ and ][+. (Only very seldom do I wish that it had a slot 0.) But then, it's been a long time since I used a real ][+...and I'd modified mine to auto-repeat, have lower-case, 80-columns, 128K card, etc., etc. A couple of months ago, I used the cassette port on my //e, which would be a problem with a IIgs. I have wires going into and out of my //e, so I really appreciate that many (but not all) of the probeable points of the ][ are still there. Speed is nice, so I have an 8MHz Zip Chip for that, and disable it when "being standard is better than being better". And my problem with compatibility as the primary criterion is that even if "perfect" compatibility is preserved, as the implementation gets further and further away from the original implementation that justified the design, more and more resource and logical complexity is being (un-)used to do what used to be done with a cup and a half of off-the- shelf TTL. Woz found even the mildest "overkill" repulsive--which is why he did compulsive re-layouts of the Disk ][ Controller to eliminate avoidable vias! Of course, my opinion should be considered in light of my own (mild?) obsession with resource-constrained problem solving. ;-) This is what leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I think about adding an interface to the Apple II by attaching 10x the number of transistors as there are in the *whole* Apple II! The fact that they're all packed into a modern chip or two doesn't make the sense of disproportion go away... -michael NadaNet networking for Apple II computers! Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/ "The wastebasket is our most important design tool--and it's seriously underused."