bh1e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Brendan Gallagher Hoar) (08/16/89)
All my servers went down, so this is an attempt to resend this... And, of course, now for the noisy, bothersome questions! (sorry) '...1 megabyte (technically 1.125 megabytes)...' Huh? Are you saying that it is 1024K plus 128k? Now, how does the sound RAM come into this? 1.125 x 1024K = (1024+128)K. The PR says that there are 'minor improvements to the computer's sound.'. That DOESN'T sound like they added another 64k to sound RAM, but DOES sound like they shielded the sound section better. Whats the unknown 64k doing? ( a side question: Is 1MB=1024K or is 1MB=1000K? I always thought of it as the former.) OK, when somebody finds out specifically is new in the ROM, I WANNA KNOW! (Thanks) Now I know what the T3 file in system.setup was for... " Specific slots must no longer be dedicated to specific uses, so there are effectively more slots available for custom configurations. " Important Question: Is that only under GS/OS 3.0, or is that implemented at power on, and therefore in ProDOS 8? What, specifically, is the 10% functionality that we miss out on? Sticky keys, special mouse, control panel that prevents us from munging our ram disk (is that the only CP difference?)...and? $1149...I remember when I bought my GS for $700 new. But, of course, thats irrelevant. Why did Apple release this version of the GS, may I ask? What is marketing saying? ----------------
dlyons@Apple.COM (David Lyons) (08/16/89)
In article <QYu9rRy00WB50Go5Uy@andrew.cmu.edu> bh1e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Brendan Gallagher Hoar) writes: >Huh? Are you saying that it is 1024K plus 128k? Now, how does the sound >RAM come into this? Yup, 1024K of fast RAM, and 128K of slow RAM (banks $E0 and $E1). This does not include the 64K sound RAM, which is still there. >( a side question: Is 1MB=1024K or is 1MB=1000K? I always thought of it as >the former.) A Meg is 1024K, if you ask me or any other reasonable person. :-) >OK, when somebody finds out specifically is new in the ROM, I WANNA KNOW! >(Thanks) There will be a fairly detailed Technical Note on this in September. Additional toolsets now in ROM: Window Mgr, Menu Mgr, Control Mgr, Line Edit, Dialog Mgr, Scrap Mgr, Font Mgr, List Mgr. There are various changes/improvements to the Control Panel CDA and Monitor. (That's not nearly everything--just the highlights.) >Specific slots must no longer be dedicated to specific uses, >so there are effectively more slots available for custom >configurations. >" >Important Question: Is that only under GS/OS 3.0, or is that implemented >at power on, and therefore in ProDOS 8? You can now set slot 1 or 2 to AppleTalk and have slot 7 free for your own card. (Previously AppleTalk was limited to slot 7, but it still messed up screen holes for slot 1 or slot 2, effectively taking 2 slots.) Slot 4 no longer needs to be switched in for the Event Manager or the Miscellaneous Tools to use the mouse. For P8 applications that make slot-based mouse calls, you still need slot 4 set to Mouse. (Not all P8 applications necessarily do that, but most probably do.) >What, specifically, is the 10% functionality that we miss out on? [...] I'm not sure what the press release was referring to there, but it sounds like the advantage you get by running tools (especially QuickDraw II) from ROM rather than RAM. (Running from ROM, the system doesn't have to pause for 10% of the time to let the hardware refresh some RAM.) --Dave Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems AppleLink--Apple Edition: DAVE.LYONS | P.O. Box 875 AppleLink--Personal Edition: Dave Lyons | Cupertino, CA 95015-0875 GEnie: D.LYONS2 or DAVE.LYONS CompuServe: 72177,3233 Internet/BITNET: dlyons@apple.com UUCP: ...!ames!apple!dlyons My opinions are my own, not Apple's.
bh1e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Brendan Gallagher Hoar) (08/16/89)
Another question... Is the newly designed motherboard more easily upgraded to a higher clock speed than the older one? Like having the ability to have just a few chips and the clock replaced with faster ones? Just wondering if it too will need the magic of TWGS and/or ZIP Chip GS when more fast 65816s are available... BTW, why is it so hard for WDC to get a lot of good fast 65816s out, when there are plants that produce 25MHz processors regularly?
mcgurrin@MITRE.MITRE.ORG (08/18/89)
To further address the question of why an upgrade path would be nice, back around '80 I bought a plain ][, even though the ][+ had just come out. At the time, it seemed like the absence of Applesoft ROMS wasn't a big deal, nor was autostart. Why? Because to get autostart you gave up the nifty machine language tools in the ROM that the autostart replaced, and I was buying a "language card" that gave me another 16K of RAM to hold Applesoft, and the "language card" memory wasn't used for anything except languages, so I wasn't giving up anything. At the time this seemed like a good decision. Over the years, it became clear that the additional 16K was useful for other things, and that the ROM and RAM versions of Applesoft weren't *EXACTLY* alike. Therefore many programs which ran on a ][+ wouldn't run on a ][, and in many cases you couldn't tell without trying it! I can easilly forsee a similar occurrence with the newer GS "not quite +". Sooner or later, and the problem is it will probably be sooner, the feature not available on the older GS will start to really matter, and the new hardware board will require the new slot handling, or the really nice piece of software will use features that don't exist on the GS. For this reason, I'd like a convenient upgrade path (and no, I don't "deserve" a free upgrade, nor am I entitle to one. Bug fixes should be free. New and improved items can be priced at a reasonable level. It's a matter of debate, but I would claim that the slow speed of the Finder and Appleworks GS were sufficiently crippling before System 5.0 to classify as deficiencies in the original product). Now, given Apple's position of not announcing future products, it may be that a new, true GS+ will come out, with enough changes to make an upgrade worth the expense, and Apple might offer such an upgrade. The problem is, this involves trusting Apple to take care of those of us who purchased the original GS, and I'm afraid that with the on-again off-again contradictory statements about the Apple II line, Apple has about exhausted our trust in them.
dale@pro-colony.cts.com (System Operator) (08/21/89)
Network Comment: to #9037 by mcgurrin@mwunix.mitre.org
I believe that if you have the new GS roms, they can be installed onto an
Applied Engineering GS-Ram Ultra card. My understanding is that is what those
rom sockects are for on the card.
Dale
Preferred Computing
uucp : crash!pnet01!pro-colony!dale pro-colony
arpa : crash!pnet01!pro-colony!dale@nosc.mil (214) 370-7056
proline: dale@pro-colony 3/12/2400 baud - 24 hrs orcus@pro-lep.cts.com (Brian Greenstone) (08/22/89)
Of course we call all still think about that "Golden Gate Bridge" rumor - the one about the pseudo-mac/gs.