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From: UMFORTH@WEIZMANN.BITNET (Tamir Weiner)
Newsgroups: net.micro.apple
Subject: to Upgrade, or not to Upgrade, that is the question!
Message-ID: <8610101927.AA05994@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 10-Oct-86 15:30:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8610101927.AA05994
Posted: Fri Oct 10 15:30:14 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 20:26:22 EDT
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After the flurry of //gs reviews and info, the occassional comparison
to the Mac and/or the Amiga, I wish to put this question out there on
the net for anyone who thinks they have a constructive, or merely
creative answer.

I have an Apple II+ with extra memory, modified keyboard, two standard
floppies, and a plain vanilla color monitor (w/o an 80 column card).

I used to use the thing heavily for programming, correspondence (word
processing), reports when I was still a student, relaxation (i.e. games)
I learned a lot from the old clunker, and got introduced to the world of
computers courtesy of the Apple's oldest creation and certainly the best
micro of its day.  I laid out tons of money to get in on the game in the
late 70's but haven't regretted the decision for a second.  But now...

These days I work professionally in a computer related profession.  I write
documentation and do some layout design for technical publication for a
living.  For this my company supplies a MacIntosh.

For work and a bit of fun, I also dabble using a variety of VAXen, and an
IBM mainframe as well.  Much of the fun is realted to telecommunications.

These days, my II+ helps me telecommute from home a bit, and is used for
some personal correspondence, and personal finance stuff, but not much
more than that....

So what does one do with a personal micro that is fairly dated, but still
useful.  Do I buy various cards (80 column card, co-processor cards, etc.)
to keep my machine somewhat up to date?
or do I sell/give away the old faithful and get up the cash to go the //gs
route, or an Amiga, or even a Mac if I feel rich.

The guys at work spend nearly every coffee break/lunch hour debating what
micro to buy and it's always a toss up between an Amiga and an Atari 1040st.
(very few non-business users here in Israel can afford the Mac
with its high oveseas markups).
The //gs hasen't hit the market yet, we'll see if she enters the running.

I'm really up in the air about starting an affair with
a fancy multi-tasking, speed demon game machine, or just curling up with
my II+ and enjoying playing old games, using it as a connection to the
mainframe, and living blissfully in 1979.  What does one do?.....

If I wait for a few more years, I can donate my II+ to the local
science museum and go out and buy a $700.00 special micro-micro
with a minimum configuration of
16 Megs of RAM, 100 Megs of optical read/write storage,
virtual memory as well as multi-tasking, full standard multiple windowing
built into the operating system, basic 2000 X 2000 pixels bit mapped color
graphics on a 1 inch flat color screen display -- which all of course will
fit into my briefcase, and run forever on solar cells.

Or I can take the plunge today, put up with buggy operating systems,
constant new releases, multi-tasking, 600 X 400 bit mapped color graphics
and have fun today rather than wait for another N+1 number of years for
that super dream system.

Who votes to buy today, and the hell with virtual memory and read/write
optical disks that fit in your pocket!??