Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!reed!kamath
From: kamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Future of Apple II (sort of long, but it's been a while)
Summary: ragging on the corporate world.
Keywords: complaining
Message-ID: <11372@reed.UUCP>
Date: 11 Dec 88 08:08:06 GMT
Expires: 31 Dec 69 23:59:59 GMT
References: <8812081209.aa21799@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: kamath@reed.UUCP (Sean Kamath)
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR
Lines: 76

In an article PECHEN@PISCES.RUTGERS.EDU (Peter Chen) writes:
>From Seth Kadesh's recent article:
>
>       >- remember how Apple helped people jump from the LISA boat to	 <
>       >  the Macintosh boat?  if the Golden Gate rumor is true (a Mac/II<
>       >  hybrid), this could be Apple's way of dumping the II series.   <
>     
>[...], dreadfully sounds like the shaping and gradual desensitization
>method used to treat mental patients.
>
>[introduction of mouse and 3.5 inch drive]
>[intro of mac-like HI, and] why does
>it have to imitate Macs?  Why can't Apple II's have a path of its own?
>Because Apple II and Mac both belongs to the same company?  Now we are
>getting to the heart of the matter.
>	
>[...]
>Apparently, Apple is attempting to amend the situation by gradually changing
>the identity of Apple II's.  Many people now regard IIgs as a low-power 
>color Mac and that's exactly what Apple wants us to do.  [more on merge]
>
>	It is ironic that all these are happening while Apple is shouting
>the slogan of "Apple II forever!"

I don't find it ironic at all.  Think how things would have gone if the
coca-cola company had just changed the formula and not told anyone?  In a
sense, I feel Apple is in the same position as the CC company.  They tried a
bold new move, and wanted to dump the old.  When that didn't work, well. . .

BTW, the cola companies are going to stop manufacturing bottles. Rather, the
bottlers are going to become canners.  Within the new year.

My objections to prodos, now mostly gone, were it's absolutely brain-dead
HI.  Now that somewhat real shells (snideness aside, they are not the Korne
Shell) are around, it get's better.  I plan to make the main part of my
homebrew harddrive prodos, with a little (maybe 2-400K) dos 3.3 partition.
After using the Mac ][ a great deal of late, I've found that the Mac IF is
not *so* bad.  Still slow, and a real *B*TCH* to program for.  So a mouse is
handy, I admit it.  But not for everything.  I know folks (hi dave) who
rather look forward to getting resource forks for the GS operating system.
Such is life.  And the world is moving farther away from monolithic systems,
into integration, away from command line stuff. . .  So why don't they do it
right?  Why not look (just *LOOK*, fer crying out load) at things like X
windows, or Sun's SunView, and see some potential for windowed operating
systems.  Device drivers are a great idea.  Toolbox calls are wonderful.When
the system is large enough to handle things right.  I don't recall how wide
and deep the GS SHR screen is.  say it's 400x200 (sound about right), with
8? bits 'o colour (maybe extravagant!).  That's 80K for a screen. Let's say
you have a window half as big (not unusual for a folder, eh?)  Move it.  How
long does it take to move 40K, at 2 MHz? Maybe 10 cycles a pop? So, say 10
ms per byte, times 40K = .4 seconds.  OK, I done something really wrong! :-)
But the point being, how long does it take to move 80x24 = 1.9k ~ 2K, or .02
seconds.  It's trivial. If you want maciness, use the mousetext.  It's
faster.

Now for the bad news, GS/OS. . . OK, so I have the death knell ringing. . .
I guess it's not that bad, but we're headed that way, folks.  Resource
forks, non-portability, etc.  I mean, have you ever tried to transfer a Mac
file quick & dirty like? Can't use FTP.  Doesn't support forks.  can't
really use straight xmodem. . .

OK, so I should stop complaining.  No, I wouldn't have us move back to dos
3.3.  Yes, It's too much to ask for NFS or anything non-trivial.  Ok, So
AppleShare is there. . . not a lot of good for peopel without a Mac.  The
original point for responding is that Apple is going to make changes, and
they are doing it the best way they know how, with smiles and assurence that
they won't change.  They need to change.  But they can't take my //e away
from me, so I will always use it.  Now I have to go get some chips for my
homebrew memory card. . .

Sorry this is so long.
-- 
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