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

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net> wrote:

>> 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.
>
>I agree that it's true, we are not the same as those of yesteryear, but
>coming from Atari 8 to PC, back to Apple IIgs and Mac SE, I have to
>also add this. I am totally devoted to Apple II and what it was and is.
>I am working diligently to improve not only the IIgs but the IIc and
>//e and II+. I have 4 projects going at once, 2 of which I work on for
>hours out of each day. I, too, run into the proverbial brick wall when
>I post and ask for advice from the alleged "older, bought mine for
>$1000's group". Yes, I dug mine out of a dumpster because I saw
>some value in it. I didn't even hear of Apple II until a few years ago.
>The first Apple I ever saw was a Mac classic. I had no idea what
>the Apple II's were.

Uh-oh, Bill I think you have read my post the wrong way.  In no
way was I referring to you.  I guess I should have qualified:
"many" people who bought their IIGS recently at a thrift shop.

There is nothing wrong with finding a rare item at such outlets.
I myself got my AMD K6-III+ chips at a surplus outlet because
I recognized their potential.  A K6 chip with 256k on-die full
speed cache that clocks to 616Mhz is something special and
something that some users discovered when AMD got rid of
these.

Back to topic, please read on to see what I meant.

>> 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.
>
>I'm not angered, not even perturbed. I consider myself lucky to
>even be able to find an Apple II, surprised even. Thank God the
>thrift shops saw them as something worth keeping long enough
>for someone to find them. They could have well thought of them
>as junk, but they didn't. More people have them than I even dreamed
>would at this point.

It is not users like you I am referring to.  You have obviously
took the time to learn all about the IIGS and are using it
to the full potential of the machine.  I would do the same
if I found an Amiga or Atari ST at a thrift shop or surplus
store.

You do so because of your own experience as an Atari
user.  I would do so with an Atari because of my Apple II
and IIGS experience.

We are the same.

I want to clarify the type of user I am talking about and
those users are not like us.  Look up my old csa2 posts
a few years back.  You will see that there is one big
post that is loaded with info for the newbie user that I
would post every time I found one.  Like your efforts to
develop a scan-doubler for the IIGS, I was trying to give
new users a resource with which to explore the IIGS
with.

However, I was attacked more than a few times by users.
Some were Mac users who just collected the IIGS who
actively tried to derail my efforts by telling the new users
NOT to buy products from IIGS innovators at the links
I had listed.

That's the same as if you were to develop the scan-
doubler and I were to refer someone to you when they
ask the ever-present "VGA to IIGS" question and then
some Mac user who sunk $2000 into his Mac but who
bought his IIGS from a thrift shop as a fixture reply to
my post by saying "$25 for a scan-doubler for a dead
computer, that's stupid."

I have encountered this type of mentality from those
latter Apple II users one too many times so I got tired
of it and left the csa2 completely.

>> 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).
>
>I must say that had I discovered Apple II earlier, I too may
>have used mine for everything as well. I went thru every Atari
>there was trying to find a machine that COULD do it all. I
>ended up going to PC and still couldn't do it all. I only wish I
>could go back and discover the IIe, IIc and IIgs.

Same here.  I would like to collect an Amiga, an Atari ST,
and a C128 and expand each of them to the limits.  Of
course the first place I would look for the three would be
at the thrift shop.

I shouldn't have grouped all thrift shop (latter day) IIGS
users together.  What I should have called the group is
the "collector, IIGS naysayer" type.  Please forgive the
confusion.

>> 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.
>
>I must disagree, the biggest downfall of the Apple II is
>incompatibility. All those other machines could use each
>others hardware and software to a certain degree much
>easier than the Apple II. Even today there is no way to
>access an Apple II disk on a PC. Most others can be.
>Even the hardware that made that possible is gone.

Well, the Commodore 64's 1541 drives also used the
GCR encoding of the Apple II so they would also be
disc-incompatible with the PC.  The C128's 1571 drive
could read both MFM and GCR so that could be a
bridge to the PC but the C128 was nowhere near as
popular as the C64.  The Apple II also has the Apple
II Disk Controller (ie. SuperDrive card) which could be
connected to the SuperDrive to allow it to read
MS-DOS disks.

The Apple II wasn't very PC hardware compatible but
neither was the C64.  The Amiga and Atari ST I know
were more PC compatible because they used MFM
floppy drives.

I suppose the reason for this was that the Apple II was
an Apple.  The Apple IIGS, to Apple's credit, was
somewhat compatible with MACINTOSH hardware.
You could use Mac MIDI boxes, Mac serial cables,
Mac ADB keyboard and mice, even Mac DeskWriter
printers through a Mac serial cable.  And standard
external serial modems with a Mac serial cable.  And
Mac external floppy drives.

>> 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.
>
>It may sound a bit rude, but most of the shooting down
>I receive is from the very enthusiasts of which YOU speak.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprises
>http://garberstreet.netfirms.com

Unfortunately, this stems from a schism in the Apple II
world some time ago.  First of all, let me reiterate that
I was not grouping you into the "thrift shop/naysayer"
category.  You are trying to actively develop a IIGS
product out of enthusiasm for the machine and you
try to help IIGS users.

Here's the story from one who watched a time several
years back when there were huge flame wars raging
on csa2.  It must have been around 1997 if I recall
correctly.  The IIGS market was shrinking.  Emulators
started poping up.  There were very vocal Mac and PC
users who collected the Apple II and IIGS but had no
real interest in using the hardware.  They collected
the real machine then played with the emulators and
the disk images they swapped online.  While there
was nothing wrong with that, they started to troll us
IIGS users.  We were basically called idiots for trying
to extend the life of a platform we liked to use.  That
was the first indication of a schism.

Part II in the schism: IIGS emulators started appearing.
The thrift shop/naysayer group started to swap IIGS
software that programmers of the old-timer group
were still actively supporting.  Bang!  A flame war
lasting years was ignited.  At the end the result was
the death of the IIGS market.

A lot of the old-timer group are bitter but I absolutely
do not agree with them when they start attacking
new users who are enthusiastic.  I do not agree
when they try to squelch such enthusiam from their
own bitterness.

So you see how this place died.  Bitterness from the
old-timers.  Attacks from the thift shop/naysayer
group.  I couldn't take it any more so I left.

Believe me, people like me were squeezed from both
sides.  The bitter old-timers had a sort of Bush-style
"with us or against us" attitude and if you were not
with either side they still grouped you as part of the
problem.  But the naysayer group were not all that
helpful either because they actively discourage the
support of new products or enthusiasm.  It was like
10% of csa2 on both extremes were taking the rest
of us hostage.