rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt) (02/02/89)
Seems to me that there is a lot of things that Apple could have
done to make the IIGS more powerful to start with. Like:
- faster speed (10Mhz or more)
- coprocessors (graphics, sound, io)
- more standard memory
- lower price (with more features, price is higher, obviously)
And Prodos could stand some improvement:
- ability to pull commands off disk (CMD files?)
- name for "parent" directory (no matter what the current directory)
- method to add drivers to Prodos itself, drivers that ARENT in IO ROM!
For the future? How about:
- a Prodos16 which will run on an Apple II (any variety) with the 65802?
- a IIGS running 10MHz+ with a 65832 and floating point coprocessor?
- an *AFFORDABLE* unix or unix clone for the Apple II?
..note: if the II is *powerful* enough, unix WILL work!
I'm also disappointed with the state of Apple peripherals today.
- Zip Chip: any such product not using the 65802 chip is shortchanging
the user
- The AE CP/M Card: my obsolete and 2-3 yr old PCPI Applicard runs 3x
faster... and I've heard rumors of a 10Mhz CP/M card for the II
(a homebrew project)
- My modem, the Novation AppleCat (again, very obsolete) has not been
matched since it came out 5 or more years ago.
Well, that's enough of my soapbox. Any other ideas/comments?
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[david]
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======== David Douthitt :::: Madison, WI :::: The Stainless Steel Rat ========
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ArpaNet: madnix!rat@cs.wisc.edu {uunet|ncoast}!marque!dseah@wpi.wpi.EDU (David I Seah) (02/03/89)
>Seems to me that there is a lot of things that Apple could have >done to make the IIGS more powerful to start with. Like: > > - faster speed (10Mhz or more) > - coprocessors (graphics, sound, io) > - more standard memory > - lower price (with more features, price is higher, obviously) About coprocessors: Has Apple ever ever put a coprocessor as a standard feature in ANY of their machines? I believe the Mac II supports them, but the devices themselves (68881, MMU) come from reaching deeper into your pockets. I suppose one could count the Ensoniq DOC as a coprocessor. I'd like to see a copy memory-to-memory device supported for blisteringly fast data transfers with no speed limits to maintain "video compatibility". (Can someone explain to me just WHY the clock must be 1Mhz to maintain compatibility? Is it the same Woz-designed hardware in a new package? Is the Mega II in its current form just too slow to handle a fast system clock?) Another feature I would like to see is a QuickDraw accelerator or custom chipset that you could plug in any Apple IIGS or Mac motherboard for speedy hardware enhanced graphics. If QuickDraw is taken out of software and instead controlled through well-documented & defined I/O ports (essentially a smart device), then perhaps some real speed could be pulled out of it. Better yet, some third party vender may design an even faster one! While we are still daydreaming, how about making all the storage devices use some kind of DMA to plop data right where you want it? As for memory, will a 8 or 10MHz 65816 require me to dump all that 150ns RAM I picked up last year? Shucks...Put cacheing on board! Build some stuff around existing 65816s to fetch and enqueu data! Easier said...eh? Three guesses, everyone. Will Apple drop the price on the Apple IIGS to match that of the Apple //e when the fabled GS PLUS steps out? +-------------------------------------------------+ | Dave Seah --- Worcester Polytechnic Institute | +-------------------------------------------------+ | BITNET: dseah@wpi.bitnet | | INTERNET: dseah@wpi.wpi.edu | | AppleLink PE: Omnitreant | +-------------------------------------------------+
andyn@pro-sol.cts.com (Andy Nicholas) (02/05/89)
While everyone was harping on this subject, I thought I'd get my 2 cents in: Assuming Apple makes a faster IIgs, just assuming that they do this, right after they do this, the machine will be in a very good position as far as software goes. Why? Many (alright, almost all) IIgs programmers have to *REALLY* work at their code to optimize it *ALOT* to get commercial quality speed out of it. A faster IIgs would not only take advantage of those existing programs, but apple will have inadvertently have trained an enormous amount of people to program fairly tight, fast code, yielding faster, hopefully better programs. If you know anyone who works at a publishing house that works on IIgs code, and if that person and/or company has any kind of pride in their work, you already know that people work on squeezing every ounce of speed out of the machine that they can... aside from user-friendlyness, once a faster IIgs is out, the II community will have some of the the fastest development systems for lower-priced machines. Granted Orca and APW are slow... but look at the latest copies of Merlin 816 and the Lisa development systems. Lisa flies now.. how fast you think it'll go when the speed is tripled? just a few random thoughts, ------- SHRINKIT Notes: Now a few words about ShrinkIt. -- ShrinkIt 0.95 currently doesn't do very effective error recovery from almost any outside disturbance while packing/unpacking files and disks. The most notable of these is when you are packing files to a device which gets filled up. The file OUGHT to be truncated and the master header of the archive fixed to reflect the change so that the archive would still be usable, but it is not. Try listing an archive after that happens and hang on... These problems will be fixed in V1.0 A number of people have complained that ShrinkIt 0.95 disconnects their extended ramdisks, even if they aren't using bank 0 of aux memory. ShrinkIt 1.0 respects any thrid-party ramdisk drivers and doesn't disconnect a /ram disk if it doesn't have to. A few people have also complained about the speed at which ShrinkIt packs/unpacks stuff. I am optimizing the algorithms I use to pack/unpack things, so there will be about a 10-20% speed improvement over previous versions. More speed than that will require the use of more memory or a more advanced processor than the 65c02 (can you say, shrinkit/gs?). Version 1.0 corrects most of the known problems with previous versions and should be released 2-3 weeks from this weekend. I'm very busy at college right now and am having a hard time working on ShrinkIt as much as I would like. c'este la vie. andy