Re: What's Next for the Apple II?

["Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill" <byron@desnoyers.org>]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Dan wrote:
> Frankly, I would rather have a large businesses controlling things.
> That means the platform *has* a future.

We clearly have differing opinions here: within the past few years
Apple has driven me from Mac OS 9, to Mac OS X 10.1, to Mac OS X
10.3.  I didn't have much choice in the matter, otherwise the machine
would have been as obsolete as an Apple II.  By that I mean, I would
have great difficulty obtaining the latest software without upgrading
the OS or machine.  I've done both.  In my mind, this means that
Apple is in control.  So yeah, the platform has a future (ie.  I
get the latest toys), but you pay through the nose for it.

> Even if there *is* new software/hardware, I'm not interested in it.

I'll agree for you, but for a different reason: there is much
interest in getting the Apple II to do modern stuff, such as adding
a TCP/IP stack and getting it online, but the machine simply wasn't
meant for it.  Even if you only want a text mode browser, you are
better off with a modern machine.  Even a high end 486 is slow at
rendering pages with links or lynx, simply because parsing the
gibberish which passes as HTML these days is too CPU intensive.

> When you put modern stuff in it, it's no longer vintage!

True, but I think some of the hardware introduced of late is to
deal with a shortage of vintage parts.  SCSI cards are scarce and
expensive, so you may as well use CF as a replacement.  If you are
interested in connectivity, serial ports are becoming rather rare
(on Macs and now on PCs) -- so maybe an ethernet adapter makes
sense.

Byron.