mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald) (03/22/89)
There is a current wave of Apple price/upgrade bashing going on the net, started by a posting put out by me complaining about the hight upgrade cost of II->IIx. I still stand by this complaint, but would like to make one further note, and ask another question. One of the biggest disappointments to me in terms of Apple's upgrade behaviour concerning the Mac II was the implicit soft shoe routine they pulled by putting a PMMU socket on the Mac II board, and then never releasing a Mac II with a PMMU, but instead going to the '030 WITHOUT PROVIDING A SIMPLE DAUGHTERBOARD EXPANSION to retrofit an '030 to the Mac II. I can't see any technical reason it can't be done, it would give you essentially a IIx (call it a IIx/2?) at a far lower price than a motherboard swap, and it wouldn't cost anymore than buying a PMMU for the II. The advantages are that you sidestep any weird campatability problems arising from the differences in the PMMU's, and you don't have the penalty of an extra wait state. Of course, if there are technical reasons why a daughterboard like this can't be produced (which is my question, natch--is this feasible), then flame on. Otherwise, flame Apple. As usual, please disregard the typos--I'm just too lazy to fix them. Ken McDonald
tecot@Apple.COM (Ed Tecot) (03/30/89)
In article <933@fornax.UUCP> mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald) writes: >One of the biggest disappointments to me in terms of Apple's upgrade >behaviour concerning the Mac II was the implicit soft shoe routine they >pulled by putting a PMMU socket on the Mac II board, and then never releasing >a Mac II with a PMMU, but instead going to the '030 WITHOUT PROVIDING A SIMPLE >DAUGHTERBOARD EXPANSION to retrofit an '030 to the Mac II. I can't see any >technical reason it can't be done, it would give you essentially a IIx (call >it a IIx/2?) at a far lower price than a motherboard swap, and it wouldn't cost >anymore than buying a PMMU for the II. The advantages are that you sidestep any >weird campatability problems arising from the differences in the PMMU's, and >you don't have the penalty of an extra wait state. Of course, if there are >technical reasons why a daughterboard like this can't be produced (which is my >question, natch--is this feasible), then flame on. Otherwise, flame Apple. Actually the early IIx prototypes were daughterboards. They proved to be unreliable and could not be FCC or (the european equivalent) approved, making them difficult to impossible to sell. Instead, the hardware design team chose to recommend 68851s to current Mac II owners, for greater reliability at a lower price. _emt
ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (03/30/89)
In article <28063@apple.Apple.COM>, tecot@Apple.COM (Ed Tecot) writes... > >Actually the early IIx prototypes were daughterboards. They proved to be >unreliable and could not be FCC or (the european equivalent) approved, making >them difficult to impossible to sell. Instead, the hardware design team >chose to recommend 68851s to current Mac II owners, for greater reliability >at a lower price. OK, I know this is entering iffy territory, as far as disclosure, so feel free NOT to reply if you can't, but will features available in system releases in the near future (next 18 months) be equally accesible to II/PMMU owners as they are to '030 owners (just from a chip point of view, leaving out any new hardware coming out soon/in the future). Robert ------ ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu ------ generic disclaimer: all my opinions are mine
tecot@Apple.COM (Ed Tecot) (03/30/89)
In article <2530@tank.uchicago.edu> ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >OK, I know this is entering iffy territory, as far as disclosure, so feel free >NOT to reply if you can't, but will features available in system releases in >the near future (next 18 months) be equally accesible to II/PMMU owners as they >are to '030 owners (just from a chip point of view, leaving out any new >hardware coming out soon/in the future). It's my understanding that the 020/851 pair's instruction set is a superset of the 030. If this is in fact true, it's probably impossible that any system release could possibly do anything but provide the same features. As a matter of fact, some software had the opposite problem (A/UX 1.0 and Connectix' Virtual 1.0); they worked only on 020/851 machines, not 030s. _emt