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Re: Yay! Finally got myself a IIgs!
heuser.marcus@freenet.de wrote:
Michael J. Mahon wrote:
"Wierd" is perhaps the wrong word. It was the absence of good
documentation of the hardware and software systems that made it
"strange"--and you had to be an official developer to get that
info.
First off, I'm sorry for persistently misspelling "weird"--I have
now burned myself a new ROM and should do this less frequently in
the future. ;-) ("Wierd" was *definitely* the wrong word. ;-)
Ah, ok -- sounds uncomfortable.
More like impenetrable. ;-)
Compare this to the II, for which ROM listings and schematics
were standard equipment.
In my eyes the II was the exception from the rule, anyway.
The later models (e/c/gs) didn't have it as standard, or am I wrong?
(Not to speak about Ataris or most/all Commodores)
In the later machines, the info migrated to the Technical Reference
Manual, but it was still freely available to all. And, of course,
they built upon a solid layer of compatibility with the Apple II.
And the II had a programming language built in!
This didn't stop IBM or others (Amiga, ST, Mac) - and the age of the
consumer-user dawned...
This was inevitable, as the market expanded beyond enthusiasts, but
even the IBM--imitating the Apple II in this way, too--provided
Microsoft BASIC in ROM.
The early market for personal computers was almost entirely people
who were interested in them as programmable devices. Although this
market was much smaller than the eventual market, it was "presold"
on the benefits of a computer, and it seeded the later market as it
developed demonstrations, games, and applications that showed members
of the larger market that a computer might be fun and/or useful to have.
In some ways, the closed nature of the /// prefigured later machines
(especially the Mac) that were intended to be used, not programmed,
by their buyers. Such machines were completely dependent for their
success on a willing cadre of application providers who would address
the needs of the consumer market.
By breaking significantly with the programming model of the Apple II,
the Apple /// essentially reset its application provider base to zero,
which was a very poor decision for a "second product" dependent on
that provider base for value.
-michael
Parallel computing for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."