Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jm7e+ From: jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: New (Still Unofficial but Everyone Knows They Exist) Macs Message-ID: <4b30SfK00VQl44KApS@andrew.cmu.edu> Date: 5 Oct 90 04:10:19 GMT References: <9009290715.aa09290@generic.UUCP> <1990Oct1.195457.24180@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <24720@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>, <1990Oct4.173154.26579@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Organization: Computing Systems, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 94 In-Reply-To: <1990Oct4.173154.26579@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> dcw@lcs.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) writes: > Why do you think you won't be able to run your DOS 3.3 stuff? > Presuming you can attach a 5.25 drive to the machine, I can't imagine > what the problem would be. A //e emulation can't be partial...either > the card does or does not emulate a //e. Hmmmm. I understand what you believe of Apple's product reliability (although dealers are less-then-friendly when you tell them your serial port was faulty out of the box) but I get nervous about emulation cards. Heh, Heh, I don't know if you boys up at MIT ever heard of a little beast by IBM called the RT-6152? a PS/2 model 60 with an RT card built in it to run as a workstation? Yeccchhh! The trouble is, some folks (like me) still wanna hack. We wanna have graphics screens right at our fingertips to do insane things like the FTA folks do (read, sans tools!) These folks like animation, which just don't seem to figure on the Mac. I think MacFish is real neat, and Crystal Quest was impressive, but the GS did it faster, and I have yet to see a full-color Joust or StarGate or Robotron or anything else insane and super like that for the Mac. I concluded that since the Mac uses tools as a means of making the screen hardware independent, animation just couldn't be a reality without a processor of 100MHz to eat the overhead.... sort of like X-Windows ;-) I don't think the //e emulation card will let people really hack. I also have a personal grudge with the Mac's terminal screens; either too slow or just plain ugly, and they make my eyes hurt. Every time this feed goes through this phase, I ask myself why I stick with this little //gs. Well, I like Prosel, I reeeeeely like CDA's, I like that lightning fast text screen (my biggest beef with Amigas is they ain't got one!), the Mac-style GUI under 5.02 is about as fast as an SE but in color and better with more capabilities, more keymappings, better icons, and I don't have to use it! I can fire up the Orca shell (which I have actin' like Unix) and applications will return there! I like the keyboard better, too. Nyah. Have you ever noticed that the GS finder lets you draw boxes over multiple selections when View is selected on Name or Date? Try THAT on a Mac!! Or even more fun.... take out the System Disk and try to DO something! Anything!!!! And the more I look, the more it seems that the GS can do all those stupid things that a Mac can do, like finder backgrounds, stupid digitized beep and startup noises, toilets for trashcans, dirty GIF pics... that's what really sells the Mac on campus!!! It's really true!! I sit hackers in front of my little machine and within 15 minutes they are seriously impressed. You say this thing is 2.5MHz?? Naaahhhh... Macs are 8 and this is faster!! The //gs is full of goodies, from graphics to sound (ohhh that sound) there's lots to play with... all around a great platform to build on, but it needed a few things. Some more speed, some more standard memory, and a VGA-style graphics mode wouldn't hurt. Well, after a shaky start, the Mac grew from its little 128k past to built in SCSI, slots, memory, CoLoR, speeeed, co-processors, and it has starting to reach its potential (initially funded by the apple ][). The GS, or for that matter ANY computer today, needs these things. Its kind of an industry standard. But it ain't gonna get it. And that depresses me, and makes a lot of netters turn up their flame guns. The Mac was allowed to go through its growing pangs, but the //gs is gettin' nipped in the bud! And all this executive, marketing rhetoric from Apple about future support, non-disclosure agreements, Mr. Pepsi Two-Face, c'mon! They've shoveled lots of it at us! And now they want to migrate people to Mac. Going Mac doesn't do it for me. I miss my shell (I'm a Unix hacker... I do SICK things with C-shell scripts), the text is the wrong color, and the bigger these monitors get, I gotta break my arm moving the mouse around!! Really, I use the things alot! They are all over this campus, along with workstations, PS/2's; Macs really aren't God's Gift to users, and they ain't worth ditching the potential of the GS, which to me is the Micro that they finally got right!! Well, that's how I feel anyway. I kinda like NeXT 'cause they're cheap, can run Gnu stuff, Pretty good GUI, can run clunky ol' X if I need it, has a great foundation to build on, incredible sound, and unlike the mac, I can pull up a terminal and work in a shell. Heck... take away the Unix and the workstation stuff, keep the sound, add a smaller screen, add color; is there a resemblance beginning to form here? But enough of this. I'm sick of this trail. I'm developing for the GS whether Apple likes it or not. It's just that the way Apple is going, I'm not going to have as many other friends doing it with me. In the end, I think that's the real beef here, isn't it? > dcw@goldilocks.lcs.mit.edu | My opinions, you hear? MINE! > dcw@athena.mit.edu | "Isn't this where..."