Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!bridge2!jarthur!spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu!tybalt.caltech.edu!toddpw From: toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Reality vs. Apple Computer Message-ID: <1990Mar1.230215.24212@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> Date: 1 Mar 90 23:02:15 GMT References: <1990Mar1.104241.13134@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu>, Sender: news@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu Distribution: comp.sys.apple Organization: California Institute of Technology Lines: 84 jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) writes: >I would like to concur on what Mr. Whitesel posted. I would also like >to add that from a marketing point of view, Apple has nothing to lose >by producing such a machine, and is in fact damaging itself by not >producing the product! Keeping their designs in the lab and never >letting them surface is R&D wasted. And the Apple // caters to a >community that is attracted to the new, the clever, and the original. >We will find a use for and support anything that appears for the >Apple//, providing that it APPEARS! This is the reaction I hoped I'd get. Now if we can just convince Apple to do something about it. >However, I don't agree that a low end mac should be pushed, especially >one with color. The mac is a hard coded machine, and from working >closely with it in a university environment, I have found to be a >monotonous and unexciting machine unless it is equipped with a great >deal of extra memory, storage, and support software. I know that. But if they can come out with a reasonable one, then it will make lots of people happy. And the machine would be able to do some things that the IIGS and //f would not (but not much I have any say in it). >Besides, with Appleworks GS in front of me, I am convinced that there >is nothing that a low-end Mac would do that the GS can't do already. >An improved GS, like the hinted Rom-04, would cover all the ground the >Mac held while adding color and all the other things the // is known >for. And it would be more economical to boot. Also true. But I am not about to tell Apple to drop the research. If they can pull it off then I say five stars. I don't think it will compete with the IIGS half as much as everyone fears. The IIGS is a more more distributed machine, with lots of light-to-average weight processors in it, all working together to do what the machine does. A //f would exemplify this even more than the Amiga and I am convinced that this philosophy of many specialized CPUs can produce a much more versatile machine for less. The Mac by design is CPU oriented; this is fine for CPU intensive tasks but most // users only do number crunching occasionally (if ever) so let us pay for faster math if we need it. Speeding up the CPU and adding the blitter and DMA coprocessor will take most people's concerns and turn them inside out. >In my opinion, a low-end Mac is a contradiction in terms. Apple should >push the Mac as a high-end workstation, sold in configurations of 8 >megs standard and mega-pixel monitors. Marketing research shows that >the only computer arena still expanding is the workstation market, and >the Mac has a unique opportunity to go head-to-head with NeXT with a >familiar interface co-running with UNIX. Which UNIX??? Not A/UX... Aw, A/UX ain't that bad now that they've had a chance to work on it, sorta like GS/OS. (Stupid joke: the A/UX project Tshirt says "A/UX ... Apple's best kept secret" what if it also said "..and built to stay that way" ?) >In this scheme, low-end Macs are useful only as Appletalk clients. >They simply are too cumbersome with system software to act >stand-alone. What do you do? Run microstation or adobe illustrator all the time? I have a friend who gets more use out of his SE (he broke down and bought an 020 accelerator though) than most people get out of their Mac II's! >Departments here aren't interested in Mac SE's... they want nothing >less than //cx's. Mac-Pluses are going the way of the old PC's... >stacked in warehouse closets! Not really, here at Caltech both make great terminals. >And a //gs with a HFS FST and a library for applications to write and >read to and from popular mac applications would fill the gap >completely. The Mac is not a personal computer. It became a >workstation with the introduction of the Mac //. The //gs is a >personal computer. And the longer Apple takes to accept this, the more >money they will lose. I guess I have to admit this. I don't hate the Mac, I just want Apple to quit pushing it places it doesn't want to go, while the // has been ready and waiting for years. (Though it probably would have gotten off to a lame start until this year... Maybe we should be thankful, we have a chance to leap frog everyone if we do it right. Apple can't be stupid enough not to realize what kind of a market a carefully designed and executed //f would bring.) Todd Whitesel toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu