Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!glacier!Shasta!gus From: gus@Shasta.ARPA (Gus Fernandez) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac Subject: Re: Why not just the ROMs? (Re: Mac+ Upgrade query) Message-ID: <109@Shasta.ARPA> Date: Sat, 22-Feb-86 16:10:55 EST Article-I.D.: Shasta.109 Posted: Sat Feb 22 16:10:55 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Feb-86 03:46:24 EST References: <1178@ecsvax.UUCP> <695@ihwpt.UUCP> <305@rosevax.UUCP> <2536@reed.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: Stanford University Lines: 66 > > Why did Apple choose not to exchange the old keyboards, when they agreed > to change the logic boards? Surely one is as useful as the other to them... > Some people like the old keyboards better. For one, the new ones don't fit in a standard mac sack! Thus you can have the best of both worlds. The logic board is strictly an exchange because Apple wants to keep controll of the ROM's. Since this is the only real part that sets the Mac appart from the competition, they do not want to create a 'grey' market of pseudo macs built around 'llose' ROMs. These are the reasons given by the Apple evangelists at a resent Stanford Mac Users Group general meeting. > Why did Apple quit bundling MacWrite and MacPaint with Macs? If it's > considered worthless software by them, they should be able to afford to > bundle it. If it isn't, I guess they just decided they couldn't afford > to do us any more favors... Apple still doesn't believe that they are in the software business. They feel that MW and MP were apps necessary to "kick off" the Mac. Now it is time to provide a window of opportunity for outside software developers to create better alternatives to these two programs without being hampered by the fact the Apple is giving away prograsms that do the same thing (but perhaps not as well) for free. > Why has Apple still not come out with the C and Pascal development systems > running on the Mac which it promised when the Mac FIRST CAME OUT, n years > ago? Apple never promised a C compiler from the start. They promised an assembler (MDS) and a Pascal (Mac Pascal) and they made good on these. Apple never thought that a majority of Mac programmers would be using anything but the Lisa development system for production work. As this became clearly false, work switched over from the Workshop to MPW. All of the Apple people who speak at my Stanford Mac Users Group Developers Subgroup say to look for alpha releases in a couple of months. > Why in #$%^ would engineers screw up so bad as to make the write-protect > tab overrideable in software?? It isn't! The wreite protedct tab is impossible to defeat in software. I finally got this absolutely straight from apple. > Now don't get the idea that I dislike the Mac. I'm an almost religious > macfanatic. I just thought maybe you'd get the picture. Apple fairly > regularly acts like it's being driven by drunken madmen. One must simply > learn to like it or lump it. Indeed, Apple has been criticized for changeing their minds too often. > BTW, about the ROM upgrade, I'm told that the AUC schools *begged* en > masse to have it unbundled for their *thousands* of macs that they > couldn't afford to upgrade at all otherwise. Apple said no way. Just > a rumor... > This, again, might be due to the "loose ROM" problem. I agree that I fail to see the logic completely but I can definitely see where this might be a sensitive legal issue for Apple and I don't exactly blame them for being a bit paranoid. After all, we have seen practically every part of the Mac being replaced by third parties EXCEPT the ROM. (Those who tried got sued!) > Bart Massey > ..tektronix!reed!bart Gus Fernandez Gus@shasta.