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From: winch@hpihoah.HP.COM (Bill Winchester)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Applefest SF '89
Message-ID: <4640010@hpihoah.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Sep 89 22:19:15 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 50

I got up Saturday morning (9/23), grabbed two teachers (one of them was my
wife ;-) ) and drove to Applefest in San Francisco.  The first thing I noticed
was that computer hacks like me got clear plastic badge holders and educators
got yellow tinted badge holders.  Is this new?  Anyway, in we went to the
exhibits accompanied by a sea of yellow badged educators.
Lets see, Apple, Applied Engineering, Incider, Wordperfect, Applied Ingenuity,
Macintosh.......MACINTOSH!!  What the...  Hey!  Wait a just a darn minute.
Now Mac's might be good computers, might even be better computers, but I'm
prejudiced.  That right I'm prejudiced against Mac's.  I've been using
an Apple II since 1980 so I'm partial to my GS, ESPECIALLY AT THE COMPUTER
SHOW THATS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR APPLE II'S.

This is not a logical issue, its an emotional one.  APPLE TAKE YOUR MACS AND
SHOVE THEM UP....  Wait, calm down...  There I feel better.

No.. Mayhaps I don't.  Claris isn't here and APDA isn't selling stuff!

I bet I'm not the only Apple II user that feels betrayed by apple.  I also
bet that the marketing types at apple don't understand that this is an
emotional issue to us, not a technical or logical one.  That's probably a
mistake on their part.  A mistake that could cost Apple a whole bunch of
current users if this trend continues.  I'm not a marketing type, so I
don't know if this is true.

The company (HP) I work for is even in on this.  They had a booth.  They were
hawking our neat laser and color ink jet printers.  When I asked them about
an interface for the GS (I kinda new the answer), they said that our stuff
would only interface to the (you guessed it) MACS. :-(

I bought an Applied Engineering Transwarp_GS.  What a great product!!
Relatively easy to install and it DOES make a difference.  When I bought
my 1st Apple (Apple II+) back in 1980, I sat right down and wrote an 
Applesoft Basic program to rotate a truncated cube ( with : deltas for rotation
coming from the joystick, page flipping, hidden line ).  I worked for 
Adage, Inc. from 1965-1968 and learned the algorithms there..., but I digress.
Anyway, I tried this old program ( written on a 1 mhz machine ) on my IIgs
with the transwarp card set at transwarp speed.  I couldn't believe my eyes,
this thing really screams.

Well, by the time we left I began to feel better about the future of
Apple II's.  Not because of Apple or Claris, but in spite of them.  Companys
like Applied Engineering, Applied Ingenuity, Zip Technologies, Roger Wagner
Publishing, and the educational software companies were even enthusiastic.
My wife even felt good about Applefest.  She talked to some educators who
were promoting their software for teaching English.  She expected to see
more hackers like me than educators.  She won. I won.

Well, better times next year!

Bill Winchester