johnt@seila.UUCP (john grant) (05/25/90)
Most advertisers of Mac CPU upgrades now tout "makes your system ready for system 7" as one of the main reasons for upgrading your cpu. Given that system 7 is still a long way from public release, how can you tell which. ones will & will not be supported. Given that Connectix has had some difficulty catering to all the different boards out there, how is Apple going to fare ? I am still using my Prodigy accelerated SE, but as this is now dis- continued (pity, it still looks to be one of the better accelerators) I fear that I might lose all VM support when System 7 finally arrives; I have been looking at the Dove 030 board as a replacement, it claims the Sys 7 compat- ibility, but already has far more hardware incompatibilities than the Levco. Has anybody any information to help me keep the dreaded obsolescence at bay - having owned a Lisa, then an XL, I don't want to get caught again ! John Ps if you feel like using e-mail, please prepend mahendo to the address, i.e. mahendo!seila.uucp!johnt as we have just moved mailfeeds.
jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jeff White) (05/28/90)
In article <628@seila.UUCP> johnt@seila.UUCP (john grant) writes: > > Most advertisers of Mac CPU upgrades now tout "makes your system >ready for system 7" as one of the main reasons for upgrading your cpu. Given >that system 7 is still a long way from public release, how can you tell which. >ones will & will not be supported. Given that Connectix has had some >difficulty catering to all the different boards out there, how is Apple going >to fare ? > > I am still using my Prodigy accelerated SE, but as this is now dis- >continued (pity, it still looks to be one of the better accelerators) I fear >that I might lose all VM support when System 7 finally arrives; I have been >looking at the Dove 030 board as a replacement, it claims the Sys 7 compat- >ibility, but already has far more hardware incompatibilities than the Levco. Unfortunately, as my summary line says, I doubt there's any sure way to know what will and will not work. System still seems to be in early alpha releases (from what I read) that there may be time to incorporate support for them before the official release, while there's also enough time for them to decide to pull it out because it is causing more problems for them. The Connectix issue is a different one because that's a 3rd party company modifying their product for other 3rd party companies. I can't see Apple having different versions of the System and Finder (or even drivers) for hardware that isn't their own. At best, they should include enough hooks so that a 3rd party accelerator, with maybe the need of it's own init driver (like the current accelerators use) would make it work properly. I'm not even sure whether Apple would want to make 3rd party support of acc. cards available. On the one hand, they would certainly anger a lot of people who want to migrate to System 7.0 and not make a huge investment for it. On the other hand, Apple is in the business of selling hardware, and all those (angry) people who own Pluses and SE'will be forced into buying new 030/7.0 capable machines. Jeff White jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
cy@dbase.A-T.COM (Cy Shuster) (05/29/90)
In article <628@seila.UUCP> johnt@seila.UUCP (john grant) writes: > I am still using my Prodigy accelerated SE, but as this is now dis- >continued (pity, it still looks to be one of the better accelerators) I fear >that I might lose all VM support when System 7 finally arrives; I have been >looking at the Dove 030 board as a replacement, it claims the Sys 7 compat- >ibility, but already has far more hardware incompatibilities than the Levco. Doesn't run on our venerable 68020 Prodigy-cum-512Ks, either. We've had a hard time getting support for those old boards, too, what with all the changeovers with Levco/Prodigy/Everex (don't know about current products). If anyone has any info on where to get 'em repaired, please email me. --Cy-- cy@dbase.a-t.com AppleLink: D0189
ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) (05/30/90)
In article <25303@netnews.upenn.edu> jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Jeff White) writes: >cards available. On the one hand, they would certainly anger a lot of people >who want to migrate to System 7.0 and not make a huge investment for it. On the >other hand, Apple is in the business of selling hardware, and all those (angry) >people who own Pluses and SE'will be forced into buying new 030/7.0 capable >machines. > Every Mac Plus, Every Mac SE with adequate RAM installed is "already" System 7 capable..the "only" feature of System 7 that I am aware of that Mac Plus and Mac SE owners will not be able to take advantage of is Virtual Memory. Apple is not trying to isolate people or force them into buying new hardware to be System 7 compatable, they already are if they take the time to add sufficient ram to run it. -- Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862 3Com Corp. Co-SysOp FreeSoft RT - GEnie. Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything) UUCP: {3comvax,auspex,sun}!bridge2!ngg Internet: ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM
jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jeff White) (05/30/90)
In article <2574@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) writes: >In article <25303@netnews.upenn.edu> jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Jeff White) writes: >>cards available. On the one hand, they would certainly anger a lot of people >>who want to migrate to System 7.0 and not make a huge investment for it. On the >>other hand, Apple is in the business of selling hardware, and all those (angry) >>people who own Pluses and SE'will be forced into buying new 030/7.0 capable >>machines. >> > Every Mac Plus, Every Mac SE with adequate RAM installed is > "already" System 7 capable..the "only" feature of System 7 > that I am aware of that Mac Plus and Mac SE owners will not > be able to take advantage of is Virtual Memory. Apple is not > trying to isolate people or force them into buying new hardware > to be System 7 compatable, they already are if they take the > time to add sufficient ram to run it. > Sorry about that, it looks like I may have deleted too much of the original article. What I was referring to was the use of 030 accelerator cards on Pluses and SE's to give them the virtual memory capability that true Apple 030 computers will have. Jeff