Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucrmath!alchemy!bbs
From: bbs@alchemy.UUCP (BBS Administration)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Woz giveth, Scully taketh away
Message-ID: <184@alchemy.UUCP>
Date: 4 Oct 90 06:19:46 GMT
Reply-To: bbs@alchemy.UUCP (BBS Administration)
Organization: Alchemy Software Designs
Lines: 187

First off, let me state that I really enjoyed reading the various replies
to my article. Rather than receiving flames, I've learned a great deal and
am pleased with the overall outcome. Now, off to quoting things and replying
to these comments...

In article <9010040151.AA28593@apple.com> MQUINN@UTCVM.BITNET writes:
>On Mon, 1 Oct 90 07:38:03 GMT BBS Administration said:
>>"the enemy." These comments about how "if my next computer isn't an Apple
>>II, it won't be an Apple" really impressed me. Maybe "impressed" isn't
>>the right word, however.

>Well, I think -part- of the reason people say that is because, if Apple drops
>the //, then how can we be sure they won't drop the Mac in the Future?  Another
>reason people say that is because, if Apple isn't going to support them, they
>aren't going to support Apple.

Well, here's the deal, as far as I'm concerned: I truly hope that "in the
future" (whenever that might be, hopefully not for a year or two or three)
that Apple *does* stop supporting the Mac and moves on to something even
better. They can keep coming out with new Macs and that will be great,
someday I might even upgrade before the "great departure from the Mac"
comes to be, but somewhere along the line, I think it will happen. It's
inevitable. Technology advances at an incredible rate as we all know,
and someday something will be invented that will make the "Mac technology"
obsolete. This is not to say that the Apple II technology is "obsolete"
since people are still quite productive with them, but that as time moves
on, so does the person purchasing a computer. They will look at the II,
and they will look at the Mac and the Amiga and everything else and over
time, people will gradually adopt newer technology. Everything has a life
cycle I believe, and it would appear that the II is coming to it's end --
regardless of whether it is still a very useful machine.

Some might blame Apple, others might blame software developers who want to
write software for a more lucrative market like the PC or the Mac (who
can blame them?) the result is the same. The Apple II has "been done"
and people want to move on to machines that offer new challenges, and
new abilities, and new adventures. When the II came out, I bought it
because it offered all these exciting things, but eventually I grew
tired of the II and looked elsewhere. I think it might have something
to do with human nature really.

>>me well and I use it every day. For people to say that because Apple is
>>not going to support their machine any longer and that buying a machine from
>>that same company is not a possibility is, to me, both shortsighted and
>>ignorant.

>I don't think it's ignorant to abandon a company that no longer supports the
>product you spent so much money on.

Do you see Atari supporting the Atari 800? How about some other computers
that have died? Does that mean that people who bought the Atari ST are
taking an unnecessary risk with that company because they might someday
stop supporting the ST? I think you could say the same thing about a lot
of companies (big ones too) that have done the same thing. And if you
feel this is justification for abandoning a company, then I wish you good
luck in finding a company that has never done something similar.

>How do you know they won't do the same
>for the next product you buy from them?

You don't. It's a risk you take. Right now, I'd say the machine with the
largest "risk factor" would be the NeXT. They are new, they haven't sold
that many machines, there is not TONS of software out for it, and it
hasn't caught on like most people thought it would. Perhaps that is
precisely why they are offering an absolutely incredible machine for
such a small price (last ditch effort?). Right now, I'd say the Mac is
a pretty safe bet for the next 5 years or so, possibly more. To be
honest, I'd *love* to see them create a machine based on the Motorola
88000, and then have a kick-ass version of A/UX for it, *and* maybe a
really nice GUI (not just X) and maybe even "Mac emulation" so I
could still play with all my current software. That would make me
really happy. This is being offered to you now -- buy a neato Mac
and still use all your Apple II (not GS, I guess since the GS sound is
so awesome, it would be a pain to emulate that [or impossible]) software 
via this emulation card. Am I just weird in my views? Could be!

>Why should someone support a company
>that keeps promising and promising support and never delivers it?

If a company makes explicit promises and never comes through with them,
that is a "bad thing." Being worried about a company that does this *is*
something to think about, but in all honesty, it happens all the time
and many, many companies fall victim to it (System 7.0 for the Mac was
originally mentioned in like August of '89 I think and now it's not
going to be available until "first quarter" of '91). Though this is not
an excuse, I understand what you're going through and it does suck. The
thing is, Apple is not alone when it comes to lying to their users. And
Apple *II* users are not alone, the Mac suffers too (though I'm sure to
a much lesser extent).

>Also, I
>think a big part of the reason Apple II people don't want a Mac is because
>the Mac and the Apple II are to RADICALLY different computers.

I think it's more like *any computer* and a Macintosh are radically
different computers. The Mac was one of, if not the, first computer to
have ONLY a graphical interface. Now this is becoming commonplace, even
the GS and IBM PCs are adapting. I think it's for the better since it
takes less time to teach people how to be productive with a computer
(training can be very expensive, especially when trying to teach people
how to use brain-dead MS-DOS).

>Apple II people
>generally, don't like to have their hand held when working with an application.
>They like to be able to get 'inside' the computer (the monitor, AppleSoft) and
>have absolute control over it.

Are you aware that you're speaking for several million people when you
say that? Just checking. I'm not so sure I agree. I like the Mac better.
One of my best friends (who, like me is still an Apple enthusiast and
still thinks the Apple II is a cool machine) sold his Apple II, and his
Apple IIGS and now has a Mac (he's a Mac consultant even). The list goes
on and on actually. Let's just suffice it to say that the Mac interface
isn't so bad, and not being able to "peek & poke" values via BASIC is not
something I really miss all that much and finally, most people who use
Apples merely *use* them. They probably want something that is easy to
use so that you don't have to reference an AppleSoft manual to find out
what value to poke into a memory location to do something nifty.

>This is close to impossible to do on a Mac,
>even with that 'debug' init.  The Mac has no built-in ROM character set, so
>everything HAS to be done with graphics, even if you're emulating characters,
>which, drastically, slows down response time.

Two things here. One, if I want to play around with the internals, I use
THINK C and hack away. There is a difference, and it *is* neato to really
get dirty with the II, but for myself, I've got better things to do than
find out how to make the speaker click. Two, I agree with you about the
slowness of the Mac being a drawback. That's why I bought a IIci, and I'm
still not happy with its performance. When I had a RocketChip in my //e
I *loved* it. Ran my BBS on it and it screamed. Still, the Mac has much
to offer, and the slowness of QuickDraw is something you learn to live
with.

>An the Apple II's, if you want
>to quit a program, you hit a key, and, with most programs, you are immediately
>at the Applesoft prompt, even before you have a chance to lift your finger off
>the key.  With the mac, you have to select Quit from the file menu, wait for
>that application to shut down, wait for the finder to load, wait for the icons
>to be drawn on the screen and wait for any windows left open to be drawn.

Ever use AppleWorks? Didn't think so. :) As I recall, if you have multiple
documents that have had changes made to them while using AppleWorks, it
too will prompt you, one document at a time whether you want to save the
changes, throw them away or whatever. Sounds awfully similar to the
Mac to me. And another thing, most Mac programs allow you to enter
Command-Q so you don't have to fiddle with the mouse, and since the
default is to "save changes" I save my changes by QUITTING and just
hitting <Return> several times rather than saving, then quitting. Oh,
and one more thing, if you use MultiFinder (which will no longer be an
option with the advent of System 7) quitting an app takes about a second
or so since the desktop is already "known and present" on screen.

>>When I saw the number of software and hardware solutions
>>available for the Mac, and how long it has been around, I thought it would
>>be a good choice. I think that still holds true today (though the new
>>NeXT does offer some serious competition) and thus find it difficult to
>>understand why people have this attitude towards the Mac.

>I thought the same thing of my GS back in '87 when I got it, and it doesn't
>look like it's going to be around much longer (I'm still hoping they're
>going to miraculously start supporting it).

I felt the same way you did, and really wanted to buy a GS, but I was
attending college at the time and had the "struggling student" blues 
and thus couldn't afford one. In retrospect, I'm glad my parents didn't
loan me the money for it like I had hoped they would. To be honest, I
still think the GS is a pretty hot machine, and feel really bad that
Apple can't be a "two horse" company and support them both EQUALLY.
I'd much rather have my children learning on a GS with all kinds of
neat sounds and graphics and a good user interface then learning how
to use MS-DOS on some CGA machine in monochrome. Then again, I wish the
whole world would switch to Unix/Mach and NeXT Step! :) :) :)

[Stuff deleted -- aren't you glad, otherwise this could be sold as a book]

>>Hoping to be enlightened,

I was! :) Anybody else want to take a stab at my further enlightenment?

-- John

John Donahue, Senior Partner | UUCP: ucrmath!alchemy!{bbs, gumby}  | The Future
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