Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Path: utzoo!utstat!philip
From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: The Late Great Apple //
Message-ID: <1990Sep26.060442.2277@utstat.uucp>
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 06:04:42 GMT
References: <waz4PZ600awLNAxqcV@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: Statistics, U. of Toronto

In article <waz4PZ600awLNAxqcV@andrew.cmu.edu> jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) writes:
>
>I will keep writing and pushing for my little Apple //gs (with a new
>power supply, BTW) until whenever. But John Sculley's letter in
>Incider has done it for me. From the horse's mouth, the MAN equated
>the future of Apple // hardware to Macintoshes with emulation cards.
>With 4 years of no significant hardware releases/speed increases to
>back this up, I have had it. No more rumors, no more stories of
>whiz-kids with 20 MHz 65816's signing contracts with AE, nope. 

I think you have misread that letter. The IIe emulation is a small
attempt to help fend off IBM/Tandy computers with IIe emulators
from gaining the upper hand in schools. Also, it is a step towards
making the GS and the Macs operate better together. As I see it, the
GS is quite a unique computer, and Apple knows it. The steps taken
so far with the GS make sense in the context of the target market. I
can only assume the DMA SCSI card was developed in order to make
life more pleasant for people not in that market. I do REALLY think
that Apple cares about its users and the GS users in particular. I
can forsee more sharing of peripherals between the Mac and the GS,
which is very good for all of us. In any case, I wouldn't be discouraged
by this letter. Don't forget that there is probably not a reliable
large volume supplier of fast 65816 cpu's yet. That does have some
impact on just how far Apple can take the GS for now. I can only assume
that were such a company to emerge, and it made economic sense( i.e.
there was a market), Apple would not hesitate in coming out with a
faster GS. I refuse to believe all the talk of conspiracies that one sees
on the net.

>You people wanna real machine? Look at NeXT. The first NeXT cube was
>like the //gs... lots of potential in the hardware with the graphics
>and sound, but too damned slow and not configured well enough. But
>where Apple neglected, NeXT pushed. Check out the new NeXTstations.
>Bundled software, ready to use from the box, complete with monitor and
>hard-drive storage, 8 megs, 25 MHz 68040, Ethernet, Mach-UNIX, price $3995 w/o
>edutcational discount. 

A Unix workstation( there is an unbelievable price war going on in that
market) is something quite different from a personal computer. The initial
cost may very well be appealing. I would suggest that you check out
Unix software prices, prices of service contracts, etc...It is one thing
to be on a network of Unix workstations and quite another to have a
personal computer that you configure to your liking with $40 software,
as opposed to $1000 software.

Many years ago, I purchased a wonderful transporatble Unix computer 
called the Integral, from HP. It had Unix in ROM( it was SVID), a printer,
3.5megs of RAM, an electrolumenescent screen,etc...It made Byte. It was
HOT...for 6 months. It never sold much. Why? Software. The cost of Unix
software was just too much. This was a very easy point/click Unix
workstation. It may have been ahead of its time, but it made me think
that Unix would never be the OS for the masses, micros,etc...I would
think carefully about your NeXT interest. A happy GS/Mac user is rarely
a happy UNIX user, although the reverse is certainly the case for me.

Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.toronto.edu
[my opinions]

