Re: What GSE-Reactive Really Needs to Make

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

Henry wrote:
> I think everyone is hitting it on the head.  The Second Site was probably 
> the best option at the time.  Many factors were playing in at the time don't 
> forget.  The Apple II market was dieing and quickly.  They probably wanted 
> to recoup some of their investment.  Let's not forget how much more 
> expensive IC's and production costs were back then too.  There also weren't 
> any scandoublers back then either - at least none that I remember.  To just 
> say the product was crap and dismiss it I think takes some of the credit 
> away of how ground breaking their product really was and some 15 years later 
> still is.  I think the real blame lies with Apple as it always has.  Had 
> Steve Jobs not made it his goal to kill the Apple II and just let nature 
> take it's course then all of us would be much happier today, but let's not 
> open that old wound again.  Just imagine how much better the Second Site II 
> would have been.  Probably the same difference between the Apple's Rev. C 
> and HS SCSI.

I think the Second Sight design is a good prototype, exposing all the
problems that would need to be solved in this approach.

> Can a VGA scandoubler be incorporated in to an Apple II?  Sure.  Ed has a 
> design that might just work for the IIgs, but not for the IIe.  I would 
> assume for the IIe one would use the Aux. Mem. slot where as the IIgs one 
> might use an Expansion slot.  When the time comes Bill and I will spend time 
> researching what would be the best was to incorporate VGA in to an Apple II.
>
> For starters I would assume we would first tackle the RAM Works III.  Once 
> we have a working clone doing 3 Megs and RGB, then adding 16 Megs and VGA 
> shouldn't be that much harder of a task.  What we learn there will go right 
> in to the IIgs.  Of course things will be slightly different on the IIgs. 
> We might not have a slot card at all.  It might be an external box with the 
> scandoubler in it.  Who knows at this point?

The key to a stable display is locking the video sampling to the Apple
II dot clock.  That's pretty inexpensive within the case, and somewhat
more expensive outside the case.

The product's value remains linked to the cost and scarcity of NTSC-
standards monitors, which are still both inexpensive and available in
most parts of the world.

> It's all speculation right now.  The only one who has even done any research 
> so far is Ed.  VGA will come to the Apple II one day.  Same with USB.  Right 
> now we will all have to wait until one of us does something about it. 
> Hopefully not too much longer though. ;-)

Actually, I would say that Ed is the only one we know has taken some
*development* steps.  Quite a few people have researched scan doublers
and the chips used to make them.

Ironically, display technology has moved far beyond the original VGA
spec, and an unmagnified Apple II display would now occupy less than
a quarter of the screen, even with lines doubled.  So any screen-filling
approach will mean 2x2 "pixels", and will look pretty "blocky" compared
to the crisp computer displays we are accustomed to.  A clever upscaling
(much trickier than that done by the scan doubler chips) could mitigate
this blockiness, but the resulting picture will still look like SD TV
shown full-screen on a hi-res monitor, which most people find pretty
disappointing.

Your choices are crisp and blocky or smooth and blurry.  There just
isn't screen-filling information in an Apple II display.

As for USB, someone needs to create a case for a new and very desirable
*function* which 1) is not already available without USB, and 2) has
performance requirements which can be satisfied by an Apple II.

In my book, just "having a USB connector" is not enough.

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

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