Re: 65020 CPU? Look this...

["Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
EcSdneQFtKEK57rfRVn-tg@comcast.com">news:EcSdneQFtKEK57rfRVn-tg@comcast.com...

> Yes, but with very small discontinuities until the IIgs, which was
> a _major_ addition to the original Apple II design.

I don't see how that couldn't have happened any other way, considering the
competition at the time. The next generation Apple II that became the Apple
IIGS was going up against the Amiga, which wasn't backwards compatible with
the 64/128, and the Atari ST, not compatible with the 400/800... and Tandy
was jumping to the PC architecture. That Apple went to such pains to make
the GS so backwards compatible was it's greatest asset, and probably it's
achillies heal. So many people and school districts especially, just kept
using their GS's as if it was a fast //e.

> Woz's participation in the IIgs was, I think, more symbolic than
> substantial, given when it was done and what he was doing.

Not according to Woz. I'm at work, so I can't pull quotes from various
articles I've read but he claims he himself pushed for the backwards
compatibility. Just because he lobbied, gave input doesn't marginalize his
role as merely symbolic. He laid the foundation on which the GS was
realized.

> And the "hacker spirit" I think of in the context of the IIgs
> is the FTA...not exactly what Apple had in mind.  ;-)

You can't say that the GS is any less open, documented and by extension
"hackable" than any other Apple II.

> Again, by the time he said this, he was using the //c rather than
> extending or creating with it.  He liked it for the convenience of
> its physical package, and the fact that he could still run Apple II
> programs on it.

He said it at KFest 2003, on the patio outside the Avila cafeteria. I was
there. (Got the autographed Red Book and T-Shirt to prove it)

> On a broader scale, it is sad that what passes for noteworthy
> innovation in the computer business today is coming up with a
> stylish new case design, rather than anything substantial.

Eh, I don't see how that applies to the GS.