Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!boris
From: boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: The New Macs: Greedy Compromises?
Message-ID: <1990Dec2.075229.24484@world.std.com>
Date: 2 Dec 90 07:52:29 GMT
References: <1990Nov29.203507.25984@grape.ecs.clarkson.edu>
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 49

anthonjw@clutx.clarkson.edu (Jason W. Anthony) writes:
>The IIsi comes with 2 meg and has color, but unlike
>the other machines, it uses main memory for video, so you loose up to
>320K for 256 colors.  So 2 meg on a IIsi isn't like 2 Meg on another machine.
>Will it have enough room for System 7.0?

First, it's the same arrangement as with the IIci.  Second, with RAM costing
US$39/MB from the cheapest mail-order places, who cares how much Apple put
in?  Third, the elimination of the need for a video card is an improvement
in simplicity, and one reason for the IIci's popularity.

>Then the IIsi is very fast and has color, but Mac II machines with seperate
>(sic) NuBus video cards do graphics faster because they have their own memory.

Benchmark tests in the major magazines showed no decrease in video performance
compared to old-style Mac II machines with 8-bit video cards.  The integrated
video on the IIci and IIsi is speeded up compared to NuBus video by the
elimination of the narrow NuBus lines and the bottleneck they create.
This effect, as I understand, is offset by arbitration between the CPU's and
the video circuitry's use of RAM, so there is no significant net change
either way.  Certainly, I'm not noticing any.

>As I've said before, I don't think Apple is the same company it used to be.
>They used to be very concerend with quailty and innovation.  You had to
>pay for it, but I thought it was worth it.  Now Apple is showing signs
>of making the Mac line look as clouded as the IBM clone market.  Money is
>more important to them than it used to be.  This I think is at our expense.
>And except for maybe the Classic, these machines still aren't as super-cheap.

The new machines are competitive with DOS boxes across the line.  Remember that
the IIsi beats the fastest 386 machines and has video that puts Super-VGA to 
shame.  Apart from that, the Mac is a vastly better platform than DOS, not
least because of its interface consistency and (relative to DOS) ease of use.

While I agree that Apple has made some decisions that make life unnecessarily
complex (such as the trivially-cheap extra amount of VRAM that they could
have just put into the LC to start with and be done with it, instead of having
to go through an upgrade), users without money to burn have always turned to
third-party products when shopping for RAM, storage, monitors, keyboards, mice.
You could buy a fully-configured, fully-Apple-labeled system, but it would
cost you much more.  The new models still give you this option.

The wealthy and computer-illiterate user would, as you suggest, be better
off buying the NeXT machine, where everything he'll ever need is bundled and
the machine itself is powerful enough to become an heirloom passed down to
his children.

Oh, and, incidentally, the IIsi does have 1MB RAM soldered to the motherboard.
With four slots, it is upgradeable to 5MB, 9MB or 17MB.