SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (05/23/87)
Really folks, from everything I've heard and read, the rational thing to do is buy a IIgs right out of the box (new) and either sell the //e or keep it as a back-up, data entry box, or bbs rather than upgrade it. By the time you buy the upgrade kit, 3.5 inch disk, memory expansion, monitor, etc. you'll have spent nearly as much as for a new IIgs system AND you'll have sacrificed a perfectly good //e. Since you already know Apple // pretty well, why pay list? What's an Apple dealer going to do for you (what does an Apple dealer REALLY do for anybody? -- but that's another matter). Look around; surely you can find a dealer that'll sell to you on a "here's your IIgs; see it works; now go away and don't bother me again" basis at a discount (around here that's 20% off list, at least). If you buy a IIgs at 80% of list and sell the //e, you should be better off than the price of a //e upgrade (and have a completely new computer in the bargain). As for me -- I haven't seen any IIgs only software I just HAVE to have, so I'll stay with the //e for awhile (Apple's history is that the price will decline as soon as all you impatient buyers have opened your checkbooks). Honest and truly, my next computer is more likely to be a Mac II (if Apple manages to avoid messing up the truly golden marketing opportunity IBM has handed them) or an IBM PS/2 model 80 (or a functionally equivalent clone for half the price). Between an Apple //e and a mainframe I have all the computer power I can use. The only reason for trading up is someone else owns the mainframe. A Mac II (especially with an 68030 instead of just a 20) can, potentially, replace the mainframe; the IIgs can't.