norman@sdics.ucsd.EDU (Donald A. Norman) (06/09/87)
References:
Tnanks to those who sent advice and handholding for setting up a GS.
Everything works fine now. My problems had to do with a complete
lack of understanding of the slots and ports overlap, plus not
realizing the need to tell the control panel what is connected (and
that if the control panel says "disk" that doesn't mean hard disk).
If the panel said: disk port, that would help a bit.
comments. 1. The GS really is a kludge. Maybe Apple couldn't help
it, given that they had to make it downward compatible with the II+
(now there is a super-kludge), the IIe and the II c, and a whole bunch
of operating systems. But still.
2. To get II+ programs running on the GS requires fiddling
multiple times with all the archaic settings, such as 40/80 character
width, fast/slow speed and alternative display mapping on/off. That
is 8 combinations! Really bad design, although this problem of
downward compatibility is hard to deal with. I would have prefered a
switch on the front panel that said: Apple II+, IIc, IIe mode.
3. There must be a better way. Even a little switch on the
front panel that you could press to toggle through the settings: keep
tryinguntil one works. GOing into soft panels (control panels and the
like) is a real pain, especially since some programs seem to clobber
access to the control panel.
4. Apple's manuals are pathetic. They smile and have pretty
pictures, but they fail to give examples (one example is worth a
thousand smiles) and they fail to give essential techical information.
(I am going to try to work with Apple on their manuals. If I
can only find the right people. (They are giving me research funds --
will they listen to me on manuals? Probably not: Differnt group at
Apple. APPLE are youlistening? (Apple
people read the comp.sys.mac netnews -- do they read apple? I have
some positive suggestions)
Don Norman
Donald A. Norman
Institute for Cognitive Science C-015
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093
norman@nprdc.arpa {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!ics!norman
norman@sdics.ucsd.edu norman%sdics.ucsd.edu@RELAY.CS.NETgwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP (06/14/87)
In article <376@sdics.ucsd.EDU> norman@sdics.UUCP (Donald A. Norman) writes: >The GS really is a kludge. Maybe Apple couldn't help >it, given that they had to make it downward compatible with the II+ ... The IIGS is actually fairly nice in the strictly 16-bit domain. It is indeed the need to operate compatibly in the 8-bit domain that is responsible for virtually all the kludgery. However, until there is a lot of IIGS-specific software available the 8-bit compatibility is a very important and useful feature. >GOing into soft panels (control panels and the >like) is a real pain, especially since some programs seem to clobber >access to the control panel. Yes, the control panel mechanism requires interrupts and some 8-bit software disables them. In such a case, one has to invoke RESET to be able to reach the control panel, and that normally screws up the software so you have to reboot afterwards. I've found that (80-column mode, slow speed, alternate display mapping enabled) is a combination that works with MOST (not all) old software. >Apple's manuals are pathetic. They smile and have pretty >pictures, but they fail to give examples (one example is worth a >thousand smiles) and they fail to give essential techical information. The Apple IIGS technical documentation will be available (published by Addison-Wesley), starting in July. It's fairly complete (and massive!) but is not the sort of thing that needs to be shipped with every system. Hang in there; the IIGS has quite a bit of potential well beyond anything the older Apple IIs could support. I've already found many more uses for mine than I ever had for the //e (e.g. it's an integral part of my stereo system).