Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!plaid!chuq
From: chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Macs, IBMs, and compatibility.
Message-ID: <37250@sun.uucp>
Date: 23 Dec 87 05:50:22 GMT
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 49

For all those folks who complain about how Apple has left you in the lurch
over compatibility, I thought I'd toss in a few comments about how IBM has
been handling compatibility over in PCland. The details are from the 12/20
San Jose Mercury News, by the way.

Mac compatibility problems: you get to pay to upgrade from a 128K to a Mac
Plus (worst case). New machines: SE and Mac II, in which Apple went to
amazing lengths to make things work. With careful programming (and excluding
color quickdraw on the Mac II) anything can run across the line from the
512E to the Mac II. 

IBM compatibility: IBM came out with the new PS/2 line. You own an AT? or an
XT? or an old, moldy PC? You're out of luck. Obsolete. Burn it and buy a
new, neat, nifty IBM (remember, folks, the original IBM PC is about the same
age as a 128K machine. in the same frame that Apple put together an upgrade
path (to the plus) and a second architecture (the II -- the SE is basically
a funky Plus in my eyes) IBM obsoleted the PC, the XT and now the AT.
Upgrade paths? What upgrade paths?

It's even more fun on the software side. Remember MS-DOS? Toss it out.
There's this neat new toy called OS/2 that is going to replace everything
you ever new about operating systems. Or, at least, it will when they finish
it. Even more fun, the pre-releases of OS/2 need (get this) 1.5 megabytes of
memory to get started. The standard memory in a PS/2 computer? A megabyte.

Think about that for a second. IBM ships as the standard configuration a
system without enough memory to run its operating system. Holy bait and
switch, batman. And it's even MORE fun, since the version of OS/2 shipping
right now is missing the presentation manager (the OS/2 version of the
windowing system, which will, in theory, make an IBM machine look sort of
like a Mac, but different.). Wonder what that'll do to memory requirements.

Apple has never shipped a macintosh that required you to buy a memory
upgrade to boot the thing. Even teh 128K machine worked, and was perfectly
functional, if cramped. 

Say what you like about Apple. You won't get much sympathy from me. Apple
has gone to great lengths to maintain compatibility and minimize the impact
to its users. There are limits to what it can do, and there are limits to
how well developers listen. But when you compare that with what IBM is
doing in the same market -- actively tossing computers, operating systems,
and complete architectures out the window, setting configurations and prices
in ways that force users to buy expensive upgrades to get functional, and
trying to make old hardware not just slower, but unable to access the new
technology, I think you'll have to admit that Apple ain't all that bad.


---
Chuq "Fixed in 4.0" Von Rospach			chuq@sun.COM	Delphi: CHUQ