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From: toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: F U T U R E   O F   A P P L E   I I
Message-ID: <1990Mar13.232406.25848@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu>
Date: 13 Mar 90 23:24:06 GMT
References: <10789.infoapple.net@pro-generic> <1990Mar12.004717.3848@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> <1990Mar12.224350.8896@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
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Organization: California Institute of Technology
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dcw@lcs.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) writes:

>>[ What I wrote ]
>>If it stays a rumor than it is proof that Apple doesn't give a shit about its
>>own product. I can't wait to see what happens when they think of something
>>that will replace the Macintosh.

>You're forgetting something: The mac was designed from day one to be
>easily updated. You'll notice that software just ain't supposed to
>talk to the hardware. It's been shown time and again that any program
>that deos doesn't survive the next update.

Guess what? All the GS-specific hardware and the tools have the same design
and the same problem!

>This gives Apple incredible freedom for future hardware. You may have
>heard that they're buying a whole lot of 88000s these days. How hard
>do you think it is to write a 68030 emulator on the 88000? Not hard,
>I'd guess. Old software will still work, and new software will chug
>that much faster. Nobody will have anything to complain about.

Except the price.

>The original // was a hack. It lived this long because so many people
>could put it to use.

It lived this long because it was simple, cheap, and easy to program. I didn't
say 'use', I said 'program'. BASIC, for all its faults, was vital to the
success of the II. I want to see a toolbox aware BASIC because it might make
desktop programming reasonable for casual programmers. Lots of 'normal' people
programmed in BASIC on the Apple and they can't do that on the Mac... they have
to buy expensive software packages which may or may not suit their needs half
as well as a cheap BASIC hack that they work up to do their checkbook or
whatever. My father is a living example of this. He wouldn't give up his ][+
for anything because it suits his needs and hasn't cost him any more money yet.
When it breaks, he'll probably buy a used //e or something because it's the
cheapest thing that does what he wants it to do.

>Updating the hardware and software was no easy
>trick, and it just may be getting too hard for Apple to insure that
>every nook and cranny remains supported.

That ain't as hard as it looks. The //e features are still damned simple to
implement, you just have to make sure that they work as advertised and that
the O/S doesn't break if someone messes with them. The GS does an admirable
job of handling this.

>Look at the //c and up. They
>don't do cassette interface anymore. The registers are still there,
>but the hardware is gone. That was a cheap A/D D/A converter that
>people used to use for simple sound recording (low quality). It's use
>was NOT restricted to saving programs to tape - but it's gone now
>because dealing with it was a pain.

WRONG. It's gone because NOBODY USED IT after the Disk ][ came out. Same goes
for the Game I/O Strobe ($C040)... not enough people used it and on the GS they
needed more locations to put the mouse registers in, so they used 5 or so $C04x
locations and pulled the strobe output high so that the Game port would think
it was inactive all the time.

>Apple's ability to update the Mac is not nearly as constrained. They
>can come out with totally new hardware that will still run the
>original Mac stuff as long as that stuff complied to Apple's interface
>spec. It's far easier for Apple to pursue the Mac. Cheap too.

Maybe, maybe not. The // hardware is still damn cheap because it is 8 bit based
and there is an inherent cost differential between the two. Board wiring, chip
count, chip sizes, all contribute to the cost. Besides, you can re-implent the
//c or whatever using state-of-the-art technology -- you'd get a machine so
cheap that it would sell to people who want to buy a computer without investing
in one.

>Don't get me wrong - I'm an avid //gs user. I program it whenever I
>can. I'm just not succumbing to the desire that this machine lives
>FOREVER. Nothing does.

Computers are somewhat different... the hardware can take infinitely many forms
regardless of whether the memory addresses are hardwired. What the software
sees is what really matters, and you could re-implement the hardware to save
money and add features and all you care about is if STA $C029 does the same
things it used to. //'s are still too expensive because they haven't had any
real cost-of-manufacturing technology applied to them, which the Mac II's need
or they'd be even more prohibitively expensive. Add to that Apple's sacred cow
of a profit margin...

>Also, everyone, please remember that if Apple
>says "So long!" that doesn't mean that your machine suddenly stops
>working. It's really time to get upset when your Apple repair man
>says, "Apple //? What's that?"

Agreed. But I still see potential for improving the GS, especially with the
technology Apple has access to. After investigating 'trouble spots' in the GS
hardware I am convinced that they could have done a much better job in 1985,
but that was then and this is 1990; Apple has the technology now to make a
new GS which could take on the Amiga and blow it away. It would require some
extra features, but the hardware has festered for so long we haven't had a
chance to quirk up the system half as badly as they have on the Mac.

The Mac may look nice, but they have had to do some totally abominable things
to get the software compatibility to work, especially multifinder. So far
they've been able to hide it with bigger ROMs and a lot more memory, but the
problem is there and the bomb box is the symptom. I use enough different macs
here on campus (pluses, SE's, II's, IIci's) to find out about it (not to
mention a friend or two who do deep Mac programming) so I just use the stuff I
have and if it crashes I reboot. Rebooting is a fact of life on any machine
that doesn't have full hardware memory protection because it is darn hard to
prove an entire application so you won't have to worry about it.

Dave, the realities of system software evolution are a lot worse than those of
us who just do applications realize. Nobody has had an easy time of it -- Macs,
PCs, nobody. If anything the Amiga and the GS have the best chances because
both had decent system software fairly late in coming, and have had the benefit
of learning from others' mistakes.

What I'm saying is, don't give up yet. When our best programmers get sick of
the realities of programming any machine, we are really in trouble.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu