Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!pyramid!voder!apple!phil
From: phil@apple.UUCP (Phil Ronzone)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Macs, IBMs, and compatibility.
Message-ID: <7119@apple.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jan 88 17:22:10 GMT
References: <37250@sun.uucp> <497@gethen.UUCP>
Reply-To: phil@apple.UUCP (Phil Ronzone)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA
Lines: 70

In article <497@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
>In article <37250@sun.uucp> chuq@plaid.UUCP writes:
>>For all those folks who complain about how Apple has left you in the lurch
...
>Chuq, Chuq, Chuq...  I expected better from you.  Relying on a rag like
>
>Well, compare OS/2 to A/UX - that's the reasonable comparison here.
>Nobody at IBM is requiring anyone to run OS/2, MS-DOS still works, and
>works just fine, thank you.  Let's look at Apple, shall we?  The last I
>heard, A/UX requires 2 megabytes of memory to get started.  The standard
>memory in a Mac II?  A megabyte.  
>
>... You can't
>compare multifinder to OS/2.  Again, the appropriate comparison is
>between OS/2 and A/UX.
>
>... OS/2 will run just fine on an AT.  It won't
>run on an ordinary PC, but then, neither will A/UX run on a 68000.  The
>other issues of compatibility are being addressed - you can, right now,
>get a card which will allow ANY PC to have the graphics capablility of
>the PS/2 line.  You can get equivalent hardware for almost every
>function that is supported on the PS/2 line for your ordinary PCs.
...
>Mindless bashing of either machine is dumb,
>dumb, dumb, and not at all what I would have expected from the man that
>wrote the primer on using Usenet intelligently.
>
>-- 
>Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 

Ahem - much throat clearing and all here. Obviously capable of being called
a biased party, nonetheless, I wish to speak up, indirectly perhaps, in
defense of Chuq.

First, A/UX does specify a minimum of 2 megabytes to get started. Even
worse, you might say, it really wants at least 4-5 megabytes if you have
configured in NFS or the Toolbox etc. But, if you really really really
wanted to, you could throw just about everything out that is autoconfigurable,
cut things like NBUFS down to 20 (:-) ?) etc., and ya can get it up in
a megabyte. HOWEVER, more to the point, A/UX is an ALTERNATIVE operating system
for the Mac II (our very own PR words) - it is not the definite, preferred
only-way-to-go-forward answer that OS/2 seems to be reported in the trade
press as. Correct me if I are wrong ...

A/UX runs on a 68000, the 68020 to be precise. I suppose you might call it
dependent, since 68000 and 68010 don't support exactly the PMMU the way we
use it. More to the point, 68000 UNIX programs RUN UNCHANGED under A/UX.
PERIOD. IST KLAR? JA! (Code execution unchanged - system call oddball
ordering etc. doesn't count).

But to really support what Chuq is saying (I think and thus presume), you
don't have to buy extra hardware to run Mac binaries on a Mac 128K, Mac 512,
Mac 512E, Mac+, or Mac II that ALSO RUN UNDER A/UX. Because we really sweated
to get the launch program under A/UX to be backwards compatible.

I do not know how IBM does their software (actually not true, but I will
throw no stones) -- but here at Apple, we spend a lot of time asking ourselves
things like "would we want this done to US??? Noooo, so let's not do it ..."
and "will this make more programs run under the new XYZ widget?".

Sometimes we find that we done "something less than optimal" that is so
painful that we got to change it. We always wince, because we know the
moans that arise when an application breaks. Believe me -- we care.

And as for not being able to upgrade a 128K Mac to a Mac II, well, if the
boards would have fit, we would 'uv done it. O.K.?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philip K. Ronzone, A/UX Technical Manager                   APPLELINK: RONZONE1
Apple Computer, Mail Stop 27AJ, 10500 N. DeAnza Blvd.  Cupertino, CA  95014
UUCP:  ...!{sun,voder,nsc,mtxinu,dual,unisoft}!apple!phil