Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jm7e+ From: jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Making Apple ][ Future Message-ID: Date: 12 Feb 89 18:17:48 GMT Organization: Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 52 There has been a lot of discussion about the //'s future and the lack of obvious support for the machine. I think one of the biggest reasons for this is not so much the machine's speed but people's faith and software support. I waited a long time to move from a //c to the gs, and I must admit that in the store running idiotic demos in booths next to Macs, the GS looked pretty pathetic. Now that I have one to play with, the truth comes out that it is much more capable than people will give it. The gs is more unexploited than anything else. The reasons for this are a) Apple does not support the //gs in universities, a regular hotbed for computer creativity and shareware; b) pressure to use the Mac interface as is instead of using the text screen, mouse text, or a scaled down version of the window manager, all of which would move faster; c) an incomplete OS, I am not impressed with GS/OS because it does not recognize 5.25's, repeatedly crashes, and does not support Appletalk (I believe I need System3.2 to get the Appletalk routines) i.e. GS/OS, and no Prodos16 yet, properly addresses the dual nature of the gs, 8-bit and 16-bit. To elaborate on the last point, GS/OS has great problems with my use of a RamDisk, its Finder will not boot or recognize much of my software, it is missing support for Appleshare and Appletalk (I need 3.2 for that), and seems very combersome and restrictive. This makes programming for the GS difficult and risky. The old idea of hacking something out under the relatively relaxed guidelines of Prodos8 becomes impossible, while there are too many restrictions to do anything interesting; such as toying w/ a multitasking hack. The Macintosh allows a great amount of freedom within the borders of its window manager for hacks like MacFish, Alternate Beeps, background rasters, menu clocks, etc. However, there is still MANY things the gs can do, and many areas to explore. The GS must prove that it is capable and useful, and this can be achieved in a large part be AppleTalk. The gs should be able to be plugged into Phone Net and immediately be able to access Printers and Servers like the Mac can. A project I am working on is a GS version of Stanford's Mac/IP which allows Telnetting and FTP'ing to remote sites over Appletalk networks equipped with Kinetics Ethernet converters. The gist of this is the original Apple made good because hackers/programmers wrote good software for it and raised the performance standards. This must be repeated for the GS. It will help when ORCA/C comes out; lower APDA prices would help too. Apple's // developers should set their sights much higher than they are. But if they don't (Apple traditionally does not write the best software for its machines) than interested hobbiests should fill the gap. Capt. Albatross jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu disclaimer: the product contained within this package may now necessarily resemble the pictured serving suggestion