ericmcg@pnet91.cts.com (Eric Mcgillicuddy) (12/20/90)
>Apple is making the smart move, even though a lot of people may not agree >with it. The IIgs and IIs cannot compete in todays world, and Apple fears >that if they don't get some high-powered equipment into the schools now, >schools will start purchasing IBMs. (Ohhhhh nooooo!!!!) > > >BTW what are the current prices for IIgs's, anyway? > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ryan 'Gozar' Collins ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What would it take to make the GS competitive? Standard clone fare these days is 12-16MHz, 1-2Meg memory, 640x480 16 colour VGA (usually the 320x200 mode is used for games though), 40 Meg HD. Most CPUs are 16 or 32/16 bit processors. The GS ships with the memory and the HD is available. Raw clock speed does not ship, but 9.8MHz accelerators are available. Graphics are a sore spot as there is no standard way to get 640x400 and those methods available are expensive and largely unsupported by software. Now, what is the solution to the problem? Ditch you hardware and your software and go clone Mac? Hmm... seems like a brute force method to me. Perhaps a more elegant solution would be to improve the base hardware. Is this impossible? Hardly! Apple can easily improve motherboard speed to 8+ MHz, even with 1MHz I/O it is very close to 12MHz AT's. 640x400 has already been demonstrated, just provide Quickdraw II support for the mode. Breaking video out of Banke $E0 might be neccessary though because of fixed memory requirements. Including the DMA SCSI card gives HD perfornace better than or only slightly as responsive as DOS boxes, and with greater flexibility. ^^^less Who controls the enhancements? Apple. And Apple doesn't care about making the Apple II competitive. Only getting whatever profit it can from whoever is willing to spend the money for it. And this is becoming fewer and fewer as time goes by. The software support is fine, but a little hardware support would go a long way towards the future. Prices for a GS? $2100 without 640x400 graphics. Price for a 'name' DOS box, say PS/2 30/286, is about the same. Sans sound board but with mouse and VGA graphics. For an extra $300 you get an accelerator for the GS to bring it up to equivalent performance. I do not feel that I have to apologize for buying a GS, nor do I feel any pressing need to get a Mac. I can also reccommend that anyone looking for a home computer get a GS, unless they require DOS compatibility or are on a tight budget and are competent enough to get by with a cheap clone. For general purpose home/education The Apple II is a good choice and is definitely not a pox on computerdom as some would have us believe. UUCP: bkj386!pnet91!ericmcg INET: ericmcg@pnet91.cts.com
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) (01/08/91)
In article <304@generic.UUCP> ericmcg@pnet91.cts.com (Eric Mcgillicuddy) writes: >What would it take to make the GS competitive? Standard clone fare these days >is 12-16MHz, 1-2Meg memory, 640x480 16 colour VGA (usually the 320x200 mode is >used for games though), 40 Meg HD. Most CPUs are 16 or 32/16 bit processors. Having spent the last few weeks using an IBM PC clone, I'm now in a position to compare the IIGS with it: IBM PC clone specs: 33MHz, 80386, AST VGA Wonder with NEC 3D multisync color monitor, IDE hard disk as well as one each of the two sizes of high-density floppy drives, 8MB RAM, MS-DOS 3.3 plus Windows 3.0, Sound Blaster, 3-button serial mouse, HP LaserJest IIP laser printer on parallel port. My IIGS specs: 6.25MHz, 65816, RGB color monitor, SCSI hard disk as well as two each of the two sizes of low-density floppy drives, 8MB RAM, System Disk 5.0.3 plus ORCA, SuperSonic, one-button mouse, Imagewriter II. The IBM PC was more expensive than the IIGS, although peripherals for it are generally less expensive, so for a "fully equipped" home installation the overall prices are comparable. The PC was noticeably faster, no surprise there, and had significantly better screen resolution, but in almost every other way the two systems were comparable. The PC OSes were kludgier, although Windows was implemented rather well considering that it still had to support MS-DOS. The one dramatic difference between the systems was that I could find scarcely ANY IIGS software in Houston-area stores, while there was a surfeit of IBM PC software available. From this experience I would say that the main things the IIGS would need to be even semi-competitive in the HOME COMPUTING market are: 1. Vendor support, to the extent that the commercial software industry would eventually come on board. 2. At least 640x400 resolution, preferably with more bits per pixel. 3. Perhaps, somewhat more processor speed. (Certainly at least 6.25MHz.) I think Apple has utterly blown point #1 and probably can't recover.