VS83F8@UMKCVAX3.BITNET (05/05/90)
From: info-apple@apple.com To: CC: Subj: Re: CLUE: IT'S A HOME MACHINE! >At the risk of being blunt, you're missing the point. Totally. If >you need or want a IIfx, get one. But I ask you, what are you going to >do with it? What will the IIfx do for you that your current computer >won't? *SIGH* AU/X and X-Windows. Big, beautiful, *FAST* x-windows. or how about nice color Mathmatica. Or realistic speeds in 2-d cad programs. And some damn fine spreadsheets in wingz. But point taken. Most people *DO* just do word processing, or maybe a flatfile db, or simple spreadsheet and they really don't need that kind of power. >>Mac is because that is exactly what the Mac does for me. I can use >>the >Mac without a problem. I can customize my Mac without waiting >>eons for it >to boot the finder. However, I can also program the Mac. >I'm sorry, but I find this difficult to believe. You >have a problem using the GS? and the GS does not take "EONS" to boot >the finder - have you used GS/OS 5.0? compare it to a Mac, which >doesn't even touch the drives for the first few minutes after you turn >it on! (kinda reminds me of an old tv that we had, which needed time >for the picture tube to warm up). And that's just official system >software. Actually, that delay when you first turn the machine on is the mac performing its diagnostics, including a write/bit modify/verify on every memory location. If you've got 8megs this *can* take a bit. But the actual boot time is small, like he said. To see this, do a shut down/restart on the mac. the mac will pause for a few seconds in order to the give the hard disks time to spin up and then will boot almost instantly. ->difficult as some people might believe. Yes it does more, but it ->has managers and other routines which do the dirty work for you. Maybe ->it's more restrained as far as having ultimate control over the whole ->machine, but it is much more refined. >How much do you actually know about the GS? The GS has a complex set >of toolbox routines and other managers that compare (design-wise) very >favorably to the GS. As someone else mentioned elsewhere, there is a >event manager (I've probably got it wrong, but my recall isn't very >good today) that simplifies desktop programming and communication >tremendously! Doesn't exist for the cumbersome Mac world. And GS/OS >beats HFS hands down, in terms of expandibility and user support for >outside functions. Actually the postings have referred more to the fact the gs built upon the macs experience. and if you look at the specs for mac os 7.0 you'll see some of the gs. Goes to show you that the mac can benifit from the II and the II can benifit from the mac! (=} As for the mac being cumbersome? Not likely. However, in response to the gentle person above: the mac does "the dirty work for you?" have we been programming the same machine? *I* have to do all the dirty work. all the os/toolbox calls do is ensure that the method I follow roughly conforms to the method everyone *else* follows. it's a *toolbox* not a code generator. _>I hate word processing on my GS. Have you ever word processed on a Mac? _>The only word processor I'll use on my GS is Appleworks Classic. Why? _>I don't have to wait for it. > OK. A tarnish on the GS image - it's speed. I would say it's >currently inadequate for anything involving intensive graphics. Yes, >I've used Macs to do word processing. But the word processing only >seems to get reasonable on the IIci's, and such forth. I had the >opportunity to use a Mac+ last night, and it was awful. Hmm, you should probably switch software. There are several dogs out there (wordPerfect comes to mind, shudder), but there are also several wonderful products that perform well on my lowly plus (word 4.0, my favorite [-) The slow programs are just poorly written software; wordperfect for example: I'm willing to bet that they use TE to do all the processing/storage, *against strict guidelines!* (don't believe me? watch the line by line updating!). There were slow word processors on the II as well (I know, every use superText?) This is a question of good technique, not good hardware. >I really really really REALLY REALLY wish people would realize that >there is a LOT more to the GS than just a 12 year old relative! The >GS is not 12 years old, no matter how you count! parts of it *are* that old. but as numerous people have pointed out the OS is actually *newer* than the mac. for ancient look at the pc world, with screeming i486's running **DOS** Ha! ->I may have to disagree with you there. Apple has not made two machines ->and called one the GS and one the Mac. They ARE very different machines. ->One is more current than the other, and comes with SCSI built in. >and built in scsi? is that how you distinguish between the computers? :< yeah, really. especially if you consider that the first macs (first 3 models? 128, 512, 512ke, yup three.) didn't have scsi drives either (as opposed to PCs which *all* have scuzzi drives! HA! [course I have to choke on that when I compare mail order prices...]). Considering that scsi is a simple chipset, the biggest obstical to a built in scsi on the II line is addressing the scsi space. and with a 16bit machine that *should* not be a problem. Question: I've seen several people here comment that they run 3rd party stuff to emulate pcs. Taken with the vaporWare column that announced a $80, 3 chip set for a pc/xt with vga: do you think the gs would benifit from a built in compatibility with pcs? I know apple would never go for it, but would that help sell anyone on the gs?? Jonathan.
jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) (05/06/90)
VS83F8@UMKCVAX3.BITNET writes: > *SIGH* AU/X and X-Windows. Big, beautiful, *FAST* x-windows. > or how about nice color Mathmatica. Or realistic speeds in > 2-d cad programs. And some damn fine spreadsheets in wingz. > But point taken. Most people *DO* just do word processing, > or maybe a flatfile db, or simple spreadsheet and they really > don't need that kind of power. 'sides, the Mac //fx costs nearly 9 grand for a machine without a screen or a keyboard. 4 megs of memory, too, where Unix needs atleast eight. Anyone who wants the kind of power you speak of should consider Sun or DEC or even the next generation of NeXT machines, which comes with Mathematica and WriteNow bundled! The //fx is the right direction for the Mac, leaving a nice gap for the //gs to fill, but Apple needs to push the // in that area and dump its ludiscrous plans for a cheap color mac. It also must drop its profit-margin strategy, because the //fx is not priced competitively at all. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |Jeremy Mereness | Support | Ye Olde Disclaimer: | |jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (internet) | Free | The above represent my| |a700jm7e@cmccvb (Vax... bitnet) | Software | opinions, alone. | |staff/student@Carnegie Mellon U. | | Ya Gotta Love It. | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (05/08/90)
In article <9005050727.AA21521@apple.com> VS83F8@UMKCVAX3.BITNET writes: >*SIGH* AU/X and X-Windows. Big, beautiful, *FAST* x-windows. >or how about nice color Mathmatica. Or realistic speeds in >2-d cad programs. And some damn fine spreadsheets in wingz. >But point taken. Most people *DO* just do word processing, >or maybe a flatfile db, or simple spreadsheet and they really >don't need that kind of power. Mathematica COULD run just fine on the IIGS, it simply hasn't been ported there, probably because Wolfram doesn't see a sufficient market to justify the investment. The same is true of most decent Mac applications. It isn't a matter of "power" but of marketing. >parts of it *are* that old. but as numerous people have pointed >out the OS is actually *newer* than the mac. for ancient look at >the pc world, with screeming i486's running **DOS** Ha! Reasonable 486s run UNIX, which is older still, if you want to be pedantic. However, age has nothing necessarily to do with utility. >Considering that scsi is a simple chipset, the biggest obstical to >a built in scsi on the II line is addressing the scsi space. and >with a 16bit machine that *should* not be a problem. What in the world do you mean, "scsi space"? Even 8-bit Apples can access SCSI devices just fine, thank you. It's the operating system's interpretation of the filesystem format that limits some Apples, not the SCSI system as such. >do you think the gs would benifit from a built in compatibility with pcs? Only to the extent that it would remove one incentive to buy a PC clone. (The incentive being that there is a lot of software for the IBM PC family that is not available for the Apple II family.) However, by the time you added the extra disk drives, monitors, etc. you might as well have simply bought a PC clone and left the Apple IIGS alone.