sk2f+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Seth D. Kadesh") (12/07/88)
It took some time to get myself organized - I wanted to post this earlier,
when the subject was fresh. Oh well.
This post is a reply to my original post about the future of the Apple II,
and a reply to those who replied to that post. :)
First off, I found it extremely annoying (politely) that people read my
original post, and chose not to comment on it, but to nitpick over some facts
which I am quite aware of. The subject of my post was not whether Commodore
sells some I.B.M. clones in addition to the Amiga! I know that! I know that
Commodore still sells C-64's and C-128's!! Atari still sells the 2600!!! I'm
surprised no one mentioned that!!! (Sigh) Maybe I didn't make the point clear
enough - maybe that's what happens when you mix comp. sci. and English. :)
However, I was talking about the future. I didn't feel it was necessary to
say in my first post; however, I'll do it here:
This is about the FUTURE! I'm talking about the fact that
Apple is the only company that is investing its FUTURE in two
different micropressors. Tandy makes I.B.M. clones; I have
seen nothing being done with the Color Computer for a long
time. Commodore and Atari make 32 bit computers; neither is
investing anything in their I.B.M. clones, or 8 bit machines.
Commodore is riding the I.B.M. clone market - they're not
DOING anything with it. And I don't know of anyone that is
buying the 8 bit Ataris now.
I never made the claim that all of the I.B.M processors
were the SAME!! All I said was that they were in the same
family (I'm surprised no one corrected me on that - I said
that the I.B.M.'s were in the 8080 family. Technically, I
suppose that they are in the 8088 family :)
The point to all of that? I.B.M. can concentrate on one processor family.
Everything is upwardly compatible (not 100%, but close). Everything has its
place. Same goes for Commodore and Atari. But how many times have we seen the
Apple II almost get buried by various people and projects at Apple Computer?
Even now, the Apple II line is moving towards the Macintosh (the GS, and the
Golden Gate rumor). I'm not complaining about the technology move per se; I
like the GS finder.
Anyway, on to the heart of the matter. PlEASE read with caution: you
might miss some of the IDEAS. :-)
This excerpt is used without permission, but I'll pay the photocopy charge! :)
Excerpt from Open-Apple, June 1988 Vol 4, No 5
Like the 65816, the 65832 will be able to emulate the 6502. It
will also be able to do everything the 65816 can do. In addition,
the two unused operation codes on the 65816, WDM and COP, will be
used as "prebytes" for new 32-bit instructions and for internal math
coprocessor instructions.
Mensch [Bill Mensch, the chip's main designer] expects the
chip to compare favorably with the 32-bit 68030 microprocessor
and the 68881 math coprocessor. Prototypes of the 65832 are
expected in about [12] months; production is expected to start in
1990 [!] with 8Mhz chips (the 816 in the GS is rated at 4Mhz - a
chip's Mhz rating is how fast it can run; the speed at which it
actually does run depends on the design of the computer.) Mensch
says he eventually will produce chips capable of running at 20Mhz.
The price of the 8Mhz chip, in large quantities, is expected to be
about $25.
(Incidentally, Mensch said he thinks Apple could increase the
speed of the IIGS to 8 to 10Mhz with minor design changes,
including static RAMs instead of dynamic RAMs and faster custom
chips, in line with industry performance improvements since the
IIGS was introduced.)
A second chip under development at Western Design [where
Mensch works] is the W65C256. This chip, which Mensch calls the
"265", is a static, one chip microcomputer (yes microcomputer,
not microprocessor) designed to be used for parallel processing.
[definition of parallel processing not typed in 'cause I'm tired :]
Western Design's 265 microcomputer will be based on the 65816
used in the Apple IIGS. In addition to its 816 heart, Mensch
expects to be able to squeeze the equivalent of two serial chips,
eight timers, a real-time clock, a token-passing local area
network chip, and a high performance interface for parallel
processing into the 265. It will even have 256 bytes of internal
RAM, 4K bytes of ROM, and commands for multiplying and dividing
16-bit integers.
Whew! This is one long post. I most definitely did NOT type in the entire
article. It's a recommended read, though. In general, Open Apple (now called
A2-Central) is a highly informative, well written piece of journalism. And the
monthly cartoon is great :-)
So what happens now? Will Apple use any of these chips? Will the Apple
let the Apple II series fall by the wayside in their quest for glory in the
Macintosh world? Stay tuned...
Some quick thoughts: (I know - enough already :)
- since production of the 65832 is still off by about a year,
I think its highly feasible that if the GS is not abandoned,
we can only expect a faster GS (already feasible, according
to Mensch). kinda like the IIC+
- 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.
- speaking of the LISA, there's an interesting editorial in BYTE
comparing the NeXT cube to the LISA. Will Jobs do it again?
O.K.: direct meaningful (I don't ask for too much :) comments to me, but I
won't be here from the 17 of December to the 15 of January. Happy Holidays!
For those who are taking finals (I am) good luck; for those who are grading
them, think kindly of us (please!!!! :)
- seth kadesh
sk2f+@andrew.cmu.edu
the Mad scientist