ericmcg@pnet91.UUCP (Eric Mcgillicuddy) (10/06/90)
I think my main complaint about Apple's support is that there is so much untapped power in the GS. The Toolbox is much cleaner than the Mac's and there are a lot of hooks that could be activated to make it much better. GSOS is a 32- bit OS the likes of which Mac users will not see until Jan. '91. Unfortunately it sits on top of an 8-bit FST. The GS is about as closely related to an Apple II as the Mac IIfx is to the Lisa, except that very few Lisas were sold. A standard mouse, detachable keyboard, GUI and killer sound are all radical departures from the II line. In fact it is much newer than the compact Mac and pert near as new as the Mac II series. System7 will run on a compact Mac. Suppose it didn't. Suppose Apple said that it would continue to support the compact MAc, but that the system 6.0.5 was the last system software release for the series (minor bug fixes would likely be released from time to time). Would you immediately ditch your Plus and get a IIsi? Or would you bitch and complain about support? In the case of the GS, System software is the only support provided, whereas hardware is what is needed. I would bitch is an 8MHz B&W Mac were the end on the line for the Compact series. Mac users did get the SE/30 which is the logical equivalent of the ROM04 GS, is this too much to ask for? Claris has now been brought under Apple's direct control again. They have indicated that Applework GS will be ported to the Mac. Version 1.1 really lacks on the GS, why not fix the bugs before porting the bugs to a new platform? Why not port MacWrite to the GS? Filemaker Pro? A LaserWriter SC driver would be useful. Interoperability between platforms is a stated strategic direction for Apple, yet a GS has a hell of a time reading Mac disks. Can we trust a company to provide InterOp between other platforms when it can not even provide it between its own product lines? The GS is the finest personal computer on the market today. It makes me angry to see it ignored for no reason. UUCP: bkj386!pnet91!ericmcg INET: ericmcg@pnet91.cts.com
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (10/07/90)
In article <9010060500.aa13481@generic.UUCP> ericmcg@pnet91.UUCP (Eric Mcgillicuddy) writes: >GSOS is a 32- bit OS the likes of which Mac users will not see until >Jan. '91. Unfortunately it sits on top of an 8-bit FST. ?? Operating systems are not measured in such terms. (If you think they are, then tell me how many bits UNIX "is".) The main problem with the ProDOS FST, whish is the only one that GS/OS supports at present that is suitable for general disk file storage, is that it has a limit of 32MB per volume (logical filesystem). That is due to the data format used in representing the filesystem on disk, but has essentially nothing to do with "8 bits" or "32 bits". Early UNIX filesystems had similar limits that were raised substantially in later versions; in fact the size of a single file used to be limited in practice to 32MB, and the system calls for positioning an open file descriptor (file pointer) within a file required two separate invocations, one to position to a 512-byte block within +- 32KB and the second to fine-tune the offset to the desired byte within the selected block neighborhood. This was later replaced by a system call capable of directly positioning at any byte within a 4GB file. Even later, UNIX was generalized to simultaneously support multiple types of filesystems, much as GS/OS now does. This in theory permits addition of new filesystems with larger limits than the ProDOS filesystem has, without breaking existing applications. For some reason, Apple has not released an HFS or similar FST that would actually achieve this. (AppleShare does not count. Few individuals can afford to set up a second computer, in fact a Macintosh, to act as a "file server".) >The GS is the finest personal computer on the market today. It makes me >angry to see it ignored for no reason. The Apple IIGS was certainly the most capable personal computer that I could afford in 1986 (I think it was), and it had the tremendous advantage of being able to utilize the majority of the Apple II software that I had already accumulated by then. With addition of homebrew hard disks, accelerators, etc. it is still a very capable competitor to any other affordable home system. Its biggest lack has been in software development support. We're just now starting to see a usable C compilation system, for example, and it's still not up to par. Since any system that is REALLY going to "empower the individual" needs to support effective programming, this has been a serious problem. Apple's solution seems to be to assume that you have to be developing software for sale, so that you can afford to buy a separate Macintosh system to develop your IIGS applications on. That is really dumb..