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From: jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Desdinova)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Stellar 7 re-release
Message-ID: <1990Dec11.012151.22823@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 90 01:21:51 GMT
References: <6203@crash.cts.com> <14702@smoke.brl.mil>
Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 51

In article <14702@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>Briefly, Sierra's SCI implementation for the IIGS was not fast enough.
>Sierra studied the issue of offering discounts on TWGS to purchasers
>of SCI-based IIGS games, also simply warning "TWGS recommended" on the
>box.  They determined that neither approach would be economically viable,
>thus no SCI products are being released for the IIGS.  (This includes
>all their recent animated adventure games, such as King's Quest V.)
>If a fast-enough implementation of IIGS SCI were available, several
>Sierra animated adventure games would probably be ported to the IIGS.

  There is an obvious opportunity for an assembly whiz here- convert the
C based implementation of SCI to 65816 assembly. Hand optimized, of
course.  It would rock over the C based SCI for the 'x86 series, to
be sure. And Sierra would be happy. 
  On a side note, the incredible slowness of "Mystery House" didn't stop
them from producing it...

>This has nothing to do with games like Stellar 7 that are not based on
>SCI, however.  The only consideration there is whether enough GS games
>would be sold to justify the development expense.  Since it is much more
>expensive to port non-SCI/AGI games, it is unlikely that Sierra would
>determine that that is economically viable either.  If they happened to
>acquire a IIGS implementation of something like Thexder, I imagine they
>would market it, but if resources had to be committed to producing a
>IIGS port of such a game, odds are against it happening.

   The situation seems to revolve around the '816s lack of speed for
such things as high level languages.  This is indeed a problem, although
one that could be solved by a 8MHz Apple-produced IIgs (as is possible
according to Tony Fadell's conversations with Apple engineers).

>Given Apple's perceived lack of support for the IIGS, made if anything
>worse by the recent announcement of an Apple //e emulator for the Mac,
>and the software industry perception of low expected sales for Apple II
>and IIGS software (other than in the educational market), it would be
>pretty stupid of Sierra to put much additional effort into IIGS
>development.

   I agree, but I don't have to like it.  Basically what is needed is
an Apple-endorsed accelerator, maybe even for Apple to produce one.
Given Apple's resources, they could do it, and if they could sell it
as cheaply as they do the DMA SCSI (there's not too much involved in
an accelerator, esp. with Apple's gate-array ability) I could imagine
a heck of a boost in support from third-parties.
   This problem, as do many others, revolves around Apple.

--
Jawaid Bazyar               | Being is Mathematics 
Senior/Computer Engineering | Love is Chemistry
jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu    | Sex is Physics
   Apple II Forever!        | Babies are engineering