Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!uwm.edu!uwvax!titanic.cs.wisc.edu!tonyrich
From: tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu (Anthony Rich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Time for Apple to move on from Mac (I agree)
Message-ID: <1991Feb5.200308.28886@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 5 Feb 91 20:03:08 GMT
References: <143454.27AE5944@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG> <1991Feb05.173025.29934@convex.com>
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu (The News)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 33

>Mike Gleason writes:
>
> Perhaps [Apple] should put out a new machine, maybe an 88000-based
> machine with new ROM built from scratch [...]

History has been repeating itself.  Apple's recent marketing and technical
problems have duplicated a lot of angst that Cromemco went through in the
1980's.  (Cromemco was a maker of high-quality but pricey S-100 micros;
Dynatech bought Cromemco in late 1986).

When it became obvious to Cromemco that they needed to move from the Z80
CPU to the 68000, they did a very nice thing to keep from obsoleting
their existing user base; they just included a Z80 CPU on all their new
68000-based CPU boards.  Users could then upgrade to use the new 68000 CPU
and its new software and still run their old Z80 software, too.  Z80 programs
had a ".com" filename suffix which told the OS to run them on the Z80,
while 68000 programs were given a ".bin" suffix to direct them to the 68000.

I'm sure Apple could do something similar when it decides to move on to a
new but incompatible processor like the 88000's.  Of course, it was easier
to upgrade CPU's on a Cromemco, since the CPU was on a board that plugged
into the S-100 bus.  With a Mac, one upgrades CPU's by swapping the whole
darn motherboard.  But there's already some precedent for that in the
Mac II-to-IIfx upgrade path.

  -- Tony


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