Re: Is there a version of Lynx for the Apple II/IIGS?

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Joe <joko@NoMoreSpam.net.invalid> wrote:

>Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
> >As I'm sure you can attest, nostalgia is not particularly loose
> >with the purse strings.  And in any event, the number of potential
> >buyers for even a _great_ product for the Apple II is closer to a
> >hundred than a thousand--and for a specialized or "OK" product,
> >closer to ten than a hundred.
> 
>As Jerry Brown said when he was Governor of California: "Lower your
>expectations." Those numbers are actually way too high.
> 
>The flip side to low sales is that programmer's don't really have any
>incentive to create new software. When I think back to the development
>of Spectrum Internet Suite or NiftySpell or Spectrum Automated Mailer,
>those was literally full-time jobs for everyone involved. But, these
>days, no one is going to spend six months on a project, only to generate
>zero interest. Look at Marinetti; if it'd been a commercial product
>where the programmer benefitted financially, the long-awaited update
>might have been released 2 or even 3 years ago. Yet, we're still
>waiting/hoping for it.
> 
>Then again, it's been an awful long time since even the Ground incoming
>directory saw any new software, so obviously, it's not just the money
>factor.

I think part of the problem is with the users not just programmers.
The truth of the matter is that the Apple IIGS users of today
are not the same as the Apple IIGS users of yesteryear.

The Apple IIGS users of yesteryear thought of their computers
as premium machines.  We were willing to spend money on
them or spend hours hunched over HyperCard or HyperStudio
to produce our own.  This is the way you and I think and all
those who actually BOUGHT their IIGS from Apple, not some
thrift shop.

I might anger some thrift shop IIGS user by saying this but
we ARE different.  There is obviously something different
about someone who spent $800 to buy a IIGS CPU unit
(and more for a hard drive, floppies, RAM, and monitor) than
someone who spends $10 at a thrift shop to buy the same.

For us, the IIGS was a real computer and more than that,
we IIGS users actually used our computers as our main
PCs for many years.  To do word processing, play games,
go online, do work, do school, everything.  I did ALL the
written work for my years in college on my IIGS.  And,
being "premium" computer users we were even more
responsible than many of the teenage geeks who use
today's PCs in that we actually BOUGHT our software
instead of seek out "warez" (I'm not talking about the
dying days of the IIGS and the old flame wars but back
in the golden days of the IIGS when AWGS was new
and InCider and A+ magazines were on the shelves).

But today, the Apple II and IIGS has a lower status than
the Amiga, the Atari ST, even the Commodore 64.  Even
the unpopular Commodore 128.

Why?

I think the answer is simply that we REAL IIGS users
have been overrun by the thrift shop Apple II users.  The
thrift shop folks are here because of the Apple II's past
success.  The schools flooded the thrift shops with their
Apple IIs.  Thus, what was once considered a premium
computer is now considered a cheap dirt computer.

There were far fewer Amigas and Atari STs than Apple II
so they have retained a sort of "premium" collector
status.  The C64 was so cheap in its day that many got
thrown away but now there are few enough left and a
strong enough following that its status is higher than
the Apple II.

So there you have it.  It is a THEM against US thing.
THEY have overrun us.  A couple of years back I had
tried hard to make new users think the C64 way.  To
see the fun in maximizing the hardware.  But inevitably
for every one of my posts there were 10 from the thrift
shop crowd and so the Apple II user base simply
shifted.

The way THEY use their computers makes them more
prefer emulators than the real thing.  That's why
emulators for the Apple II are far more popular than the
ones for C64, Amiga, or Atari ST.

I mean just look at the reaction to my "MP3 conversion
to the IIGS" article a while back.  We old timers
shared our tinkering knowledge and experiences and
had fun doing it.  Now doing so just attracts criticism
from the thrift shop crowd.

Talk nothing about monetary gain, even enthusiasm
gets shot down these days in the Apple II world.