Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pro-sol.cts.com!mdavis
From: mdavis@pro-sol.cts.com (Morgan Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: New IIgs PRESS RELEASE!!!
Message-ID: <8908221819.AA18294@trout.nosc.mil>
Date: 22 Aug 89 15:15:05 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 45

Network Comment: to #10165 by att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!dvac@ucbvax.berkeley.edu

Dan Vachon (att!drutx!dvac) wrote:
> where do the current //gs owners get left...in the cold.

While I'm not happy about Apple's decision to provide no motherboard update
for existing IIGS owners (short of having the customer scrap his old one and
buy a brand new one with no discount), I don't really believe that existing
IIGS owners are left in the cold.

We aren't.

The reason there was such a major climate difference between the II+ owner's
world and that of the new IIe owner's environment is simply due to the
significant differences in hardware between the two machines: a standardized,
built-in 80 column display with every machine, standardized method of
accessing an extra bank of RAM, a real keyboard with lowercase, and updated
ROMs, a 65C02 CPU, and new video ROM with mousetext.

The ROM 3 IIGS doesn't offer that kind of "lock out" because of hardware
enhancements.  I doubt if the majority of ROM 3 IIGS owners will ever use
"sticky keys", or require a CDA menu protection feature.  Everything else that
the ROM 3 machine can do, earlier machines will do just as well.  The
difference being that ROM 3 means faster booting time (since more toolsets are
in ROM), but that same new ROM code can be loaded in and patched into older
systems at boot time.  You get the same updated toolsets, only they come in
from disk.

The other ROM 3 features are just "niceties".  Being able to work with
AppleTalk in slot 1 or 2 without killing slot 7 is "nice", but that doesn't
mean you can't use AppleTalk on an older machine.  Being able to use slot 4
for your own peripheral card and still have mouse control is nice, but you can
still use the mouse on older machines.  (Actually, if this has been stated,
fine -- but wouldn't a patched Miscellaneous Toolset that reads the mouse
button and X/Y deltas directly from the $E0C0xx space offer the same features
as the ROM 3 machine?  Matt?  Richard?)

So we're not left in the cold, really.  We just don't live in as warm a
climate as ROM 3 owners.

--Morgan Davis

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