Apple sucks
JP1
jo...@crl10.crl.com (Joe Kohn) writes:
>>"It's been almost 11 years; the Apple IIGS was introduced on September
15, 1986."<<
Good shot, Joe. #;^)
I elected to go the PC route when I needed a very high-resolution system
capability, after having been burned badly as both a developer and as a
user by ACI's "war" against their own Apple II line (aided and abetted by
Dan Muse and Paul Statt at inCider), and I've never regretted it. The
competition of the (PC) marketplace fosters much more _affordable_
innovation than does the typical ACI "We make all the decisions."
approach, over the long haul. (Won't argue on a product-by-product
basis--there's no point..)
I recall reading the text of an interview of w/ Jobs many years ago, in
which he bragged about his concept of the "closed" computer system (a la
the IIc, the first Macs, and to a degree, the Next). It struck me then
that Jobs had such a swollen ego that he believed himself best-suited to
decide what a "proper" computer should be, and that as long as he was
calling the shots, his company would be hobbled in competition with the
wide-open PC market.
So, under his leadership(?) ACI killed the II line (yes, I know that
Sculley and Spindler were execs in that era), Macs didn't dominate the
educational and business markets, and the Next just sort of faded away.
When I saw that Jobs was again being given a role in ACI's leadership, I
had a strong feeling that the old "No one knows as much about computers as
I do" attitude would resurface. Apparently, it has.
John P.
SSeago9073
>I can't believe this decision by Apple to single handedly wipe out the
>clone business. Just what the hell was Jobs thinking off. Probably his own
>stinking arse, that's what. What about the thousands of poor innocent Mac
>users getting stuck with an obsolete machine. Once again Apple has decided
>to reward its faithful users by giving it the shaft.
>For years, we've seen Apple come out with one bone headed decision after
>another, so why should we be surprised since this is just one of the latest
>in a long line of idiotic decision made by Apple. Apple don't deserve the
>millions of loyal faithful users out there.
>Apple has always been quick to portray Microsoft as one big bully
>dominating the market, well just look at what Apple is doing now. Maybe
>Apple should change its name to Microsoft Lite, but that would be a
>compliment. Maybe it should be more along the lines of Idiots Incorporated
>or Asshole Computer Company.
>When is Apple going to learn, its the software that sells hardware. For
>years, we've seen Apple stagnating in its own putrid pool of complacency.
>When was the last time Apple came out with a insanely great product.
>Instead all we've seen since the appearance of the first Mac is a long line
>of mistakes- one dumber then the other. While Microsoft has been making
>leaps and bounds in improving its operating system, we are still stuck with
>an operating system the can't do a single damn think while you're trashing
>or copying files. This may come as a surprise to you guys at Apple, but
>have you heard of a concept called multitasking. Sort of reflects the
>narrow minded thinking that is so prevalent in Apple. Even though you guys
>have the PowerPC, you've yet to realise even one iota of the chips'
>potential. Instead we're still saddled with an operating system that even
>Moses would fine obsolete.
>Exploding laptop batteries, stillborn OS(Copland), pushing the clone
>companies around, I think Apple should burn in hell for this. Just look at
>MIcrosoft, since the porting of Softimage over to Windows NT, there's been
>nothing but excitement in the Windows world. Where once upon a time, most
>people wouldn't even give the time of the day to NT, nowadays all you've
>ever seen is companies coming out with their own version of a NT
>workstation quick to capitalise on the emerging 3D market.
>Why don't Apple do something like this instead of buying a lame company
>like NeXT. So what does this do for the Mac faithful- not a single damn
>thing. From the looks of it, Rhapsody would probably be another stinker.
>Apple should change the name to Crapsody and just crawl under a rock and
>die and end the whole fiasco.
I think you are looking for the Apple Website!
Steve Mentzer
Try deperately, but ultimately failing to sound intelligent, Joe Kohn said...
>
>
>>> When was the last time Apple came out with a insanely great product.
>
>It's been almost 11 years; the Apple IIGS was introduced on September 15,
>1986.
>
>Joe
>
As nice as the Apple IIgs was (and still is), it still suffered the same
nearsightedness that has plagued ACI from the inception of the Mac II.
The IIgs experiences a cool feature that also acts as a huge achilles heel.
This feature is backwards compatibility. The IIgs bus speed runs at ~1Mhz and
unfortunately, this is totally inadequate considering that video memory and the
like run at that speed, regardless of how fast your accelerator card is.
The ability for the IIgs to use existing apple II peripherals and software was
a boon, but had it's price. This limited the expandability of the IIgs, and
severely degraded it's performance potential.
The IIgs was a classic example of a great idea and superb technology stuck on a
foundation made of slush. And for this reason, the apple IIgs will remain as a
"could have been" in computer history, just like the amiga.
Brian Hammack
"Marc" directed this at the Apple // group instead of the Macs:
"<C| I can't believe this decision by Apple to single handedly wipe out
| the clone business. Just what the hell was Jobs thinking off.
His own stinking arse, maybe? Or maybe the company's arse?
| thousands of poor innocent Mac users getting stuck with an
| obsolete machine. Once again Apple has decided to reward its
Get used to it. We in the Apple ][ camp did ten years ago.
And it should be no surprise, Marc. Circa-1985 machines do not run any
SW written after 1990, machines made in 1990 don't run anything written
after 1995, see the trend? And yet all of these are called Macs.
| faithful users by giving it the shaft. For years, we've seen Apple
| come out with one bone headed decision after another, so why
| should we be surprised since this is just one of the latest in a
| long line of idiotic decision made by Apple. Apple don't deserve
| the millions of loyal faithful users out there.
Here, we often say we support the platform, not its parent company.
| Apple has always been quick to portray Microsoft as one big bully
| dominating the market, well just look at what Apple is doing now.
Securing its own survival, and the continuing existance of Microsoft.
| When is Apple going to learn, its the software that sells HW
Never. No software when the Mac rolled out 12 yrs ago...
| When was the last time Apple came out with a insanely great
| product. Instead all we've seen since the
I'm not going to try to answer that question because I don't know. Some
would consider the 300+MHz PowerPC and Mac OS 8 to be wunderkinds...
| then the other. While Microsoft has been making leaps and bounds
| in improving its operating system, we are still stuck with an
| operating system the can't do a single damn think while you're
You're giving too much credit to Windoze. It sucks rocks.
| I think Apple should burn in hell for this. Just look at
They've come mighty close. Which is part of why Jobs hopped in bed with
Gates (eewww, what an image), to save Apple's bacon from the fires.
| quick to capitalise on the emerging 3D market. Why don't Apple do
| something like this instead of buying a lame company like NeXT. So
NeXT is a pretty decent company. The NeXT computer was 10 years ahead
of its time, unfortunately the company couldn't keep it up. Have any
comments about Be OS, while you're on the rampage?
| Apple should change the name to Crapsody and just crawl under a
| rock and die and end the whole fiasco.
Thanks for your opinion...
* 2qwk! 2.04 * Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet. -J.Handey
-- --
yet another annoying post by brian....@rook.wa.com -- deal with it.
Nathan Mates
In article <5upqgv$ltr$1...@client3.news.psi.net>,
Steve Mentzer <!smen...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>The IIgs experiences a cool feature that also acts as a huge
>achilles heel. This feature is backwards compatibility. The IIgs
>bus speed runs at ~1Mhz and unfortunately, this is totally
>inadequate considering that video memory and the like run at that
>speed, regardless of how fast your accelerator card is.
Bzzzzt! Thank you for playing, but you lost. The GS's super hires
screen is writable only at 1Mhz, true, but most of the rest of ram
(non-I/O space, also all of banks E0/E1) is accessible at the system
speed (1Mhz or 2.5Mhz depending on what it's set to). Since the SHR
screen is in bank E1, it's accessible at the slow speed. Blame Apple
for cheapskating on the RAM and using part of slow ram for that screen
rather than doing it properly and used fast ram or a dedicated bank of
ram.
The SHR 'shadow' screen in bank 01 can be read at the full 2.5Mhz,
but writes to it drop the system speed to 1Mhz while it updates the
memory location in both banks. Even so, there is still some serious
hardware voodoo going on-- PEI slamthrus of the screen from 01 to E1
work better with a NOP every 13 PEIs simply to get the dualspeed bus
time to recover better.
Had Apple's engineers had the time (and Management backing, which
was the most lacking and therefore most at fault), they could have
isolated the 1Mhz parts of the bus (i.e. mostly the slots) behind an
interface unit, and ran the GS-specific features properly at 2.5Mhz.
And actually, for another management-killed feature of the GS, the
engineers originally wanted 10Mhz 65816s under the hood. Making that
the default with a 10Mhz bus to video would have made the original GS
actually useful. However, those who'd rather whitewash and suck up to
Macintosh, Inc would rather just deny that and all other backstabbings
of the Apple II line.
The annoyances of this design took Apple's engineers several years
to figure out how to get some decent performance out of the hardware
they designed; GS/OS 5.x and up finally managed to use the shadow SHR
screen effectively and speed up Quickdraw drawing in general.
Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/ <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? -R.A. Heinlein
Brian Ballweber
Marc (ha...@cyberway.com.sg) wrote:
: I can't believe this decision by Apple to single handedly wipe out the
: clone business. Just what the hell was Jobs thinking off.
He is just doing what he's always done in the past. It goes like
this: spend a fortune on R&D to develop superior hardware and software,
then monopolize it and jack up the price to something ridiculously high,
expecting everyone to pay whatever it takes to get a premium product.
Dosen't quite work though, if it did everyone would have a NeXT box on
their desk running NeXTSTEP instead of Intel boxes running W95/NT.
I just hope his clone hardware blunder dosen't annihilate Rhapsody
(since it isnt supposed to require Apple specific hardware anyway)...
- Brian
Greg Buchner
>And actually, for another management-killed feature of the GS, the
>engineers originally wanted 10Mhz 65816s under the hood. Making that
>the default with a 10Mhz bus to video would have made the original GS
>actually useful. However, those who'd rather whitewash and suck up to
>Macintosh, Inc would rather just deny that and all other backstabbings
>of the Apple II line.
And just were would they have gotten 10MHz 65c816's? It seems to me
that Applied Engineering had problems getting 7MHz versions when they
were first coming out with the TransWarp GS.
Apple Computer never would have designed a GS using parts that were
not readily available in stock...this was not just an Apple thing,
it was standard business practice. Until Western Design Center
could produce the 10MHz versions and have mass quantities in
stock, Apple wouldn't design a system using those chips. And,
Western Design Center probably wasn't going to put too much work
into making a faster version unless Apple was going to be using
them.
We were sort of stuck in a Catch-22.
Greg B.
--
+--------------------------------------------+
| g...@wavetech.net -or- g.buc...@genie.com |
| (Be sure to check address before replying) |
+--------------------------------------------+
MATHIEU CHENARD
>> When was the last time Apple came out with a insanely great product.
>> [...]
>>
> It's been almost 11 years; the Apple IIGS was introduced on September 15,
> 1986.
> [...]
>
The Newton MessagePad 2000 is the last Apple's attempt to design a
device as great as the Apple IIgs. But it's now a Newton Inc. product
and it will probably lost his 6-colors-apple soon!!!
kway,
/V|athieu
__
___sch...@car.qc.ca
_____aac...@agora.ulaval.ca
_______olalema! Apple II infinewton!!!
_________réalisé avec un fidèle Apple IIgs de 10 ans
Brian Hammack
Joe outgassed these fumes:
>> When was the last time Apple came out with a insanely great product.
JCC(| It's been almost 11 years; the Apple IIGS was introduced on
| September 15, 1986.
Good answer, Joe! <bg>
* 2qwk! 2.04 * "My favorite weapon is the look in your eyes." -- Ministry
Rubywand
Greg Buchner writes ...
>
> In article <5uqs4n$qq2$1...@darla.visi.com>, nat...@visi.com (Nathan
> Mates) wrote:
>
> >And actually, for another management-killed feature of the GS, the
> >engineers originally wanted 10Mhz 65816s under the hood. ....
>
> And just were would they have gotten 10MHz 65c816's? It seems to me
> that Applied Engineering had problems getting 7MHz versions when they
> were first coming out with the TransWarp GS.
>
> Apple Computer never would have designed a GS using parts that were
> not readily available ....
> And, Western Design Center probably wasn't going to put too much work
> into making a faster version unless Apple was going to be using
> them.
>
> We were sort of stuck in a Catch-22.
Maybe not. After all, WDC was a small IC maker. When it came to
pushing for a fast 16-bit version of the 6502, the ball was squarely in
Apple, Inc's court.
By the late 1970's, National's PACE, TI's 9900, and Intel's 8086
made it amply clear that 16-bit uP's would drive the next generation of
small computers. Apple merely needed to recognize the ending of the II+
model cycle, commit to a 16-bit "IIx" in 1982, and back development of
the new uP. Had they done so, there is good reason to expect that an 8MHz
or better 65C816 would have been ready to produce in quantity by late
1984.
Meanwhile, development of IIx System software could have begun in
1982 and accelerated when early, slow versions of the 65C816 became
available. Early models of an advanced, super-res Apple IIGS might have
hit the market in time for the 1984 Christmas season.
Of course, we are talking about the strategy of a computer maker
which understands that, to control The small-computing OS and dictate
other standards and rake-in Microsoft-class profits, it is first
necessary to dominate the home market. We are, alas, not talking about
the real Apple, Inc. of the early 1980's.
Rubywand
Eric Jacobs
Nathan Mates wrote:
>
> Bzzzzt! Thank you for playing, but you lost. The GS's super hires
> screen is writable only at 1Mhz, true, but most of the rest of ram
> (non-I/O space, also all of banks E0/E1) is accessible at the system
> speed (1Mhz or 2.5Mhz depending on what it's set to). Since the SHR
> screen is in bank E1, it's accessible at the slow speed. Blame Apple
> for cheapskating on the RAM and using part of slow ram for that screen
> rather than doing it properly and used fast ram or a dedicated bank of
> ram.
>
> The SHR 'shadow' screen in bank 01 can be read at the full 2.5Mhz,
> but writes to it drop the system speed to 1Mhz while it updates the
> memory location in both banks. Even so, there is still some serious
> hardware voodoo going on-- PEI slamthrus of the screen from 01 to E1
> work better with a NOP every 13 PEIs simply to get the dualspeed bus
> time to recover better.
No voodoo here. The reason slow RAM banks $E0-$E1 are "slow" is because
of the video refresh. The GS timing for video is actually precisely the
same as the timing in all other Apple II's. The original Apple II
generated RAM timing signals for -all- memory at twice the processor
speed. Thus the address bus alternated 6502, video, 6502, video, etc.
This was an easy and economical solution to avoid dual-ported video RAM.
In the original Apple II, this made sense, because the 6502 was only
available at 1 MHz anyway, so they might as well.
In the GS the story didn't change much. Banks $E0 and $E1 acted just
like main and auxillary memory in the IIe (cpu, video, cpu, ...),
and were dubbed "slow" ram. All other banks were "fast" ram and were
allowed processor access on every cycle however. So when if the GS
accesses slow ram on a designated "cpu" cycle, nothing's wrong. But
when the GS accesses slow ram on a "video" cycle, the 65816 gets
wait-stated.
16-bit memory writes get the most penalty because one of the two 8-bit
writes are bound to be on a "video" cycle. This is true even for
shadow memory in bank $01. (Shadowing only increases performance when
video memory is read by the processor.)
An adequate solution that would have easy to implement without much
timing pattern changing would be to make the slow RAM "fast" during
vertical retrace. Since most CPU video access occurs during vertical
blanking for games and animation programs, this might have provided
a small gain.
Obviously, the best solution would have been to redo the system bus
architecture entirely, and I don't think this would have hurt the GS
at all. Compared to other NTSC-output video chips of the time,
(such as the Nintendo), the GS really looked bad. The RGB output was
acceptable, but a 400-line screen would have really been nice. Make it
switchable interlaced/noninterlaced so that we can upgrade to VGA
monitors as they became more available.
The GS's architecture preserves 'scope-level characteristics of the
Apple II family, and that really wasn't neccessary or beneficial to
the GS at all.
-ej
David Empson
Eric Jacobs <ja...@geocities.com> wrote:
> No voodoo here. The reason slow RAM banks $E0-$E1 are "slow" is because
> of the video refresh. The GS timing for video is actually precisely the
> same as the timing in all other Apple II's. The original Apple II
> generated RAM timing signals for -all- memory at twice the processor
> speed. Thus the address bus alternated 6502, video, 6502, video, etc.
> This was an easy and economical solution to avoid dual-ported video RAM.
More importantly, it resulted in a major simplification of the memory
circuitry - there are no refresh cycles needed, because the video
accesses have the side effect of refreshing all the RAM!
> In the GS the story didn't change much. Banks $E0 and $E1 acted just
> like main and auxillary memory in the IIe (cpu, video, cpu, ...),
> and were dubbed "slow" ram. All other banks were "fast" ram and were
> allowed processor access on every cycle however. So when if the GS
> accesses slow ram on a designated "cpu" cycle, nothing's wrong. But
> when the GS accesses slow ram on a "video" cycle, the 65816 gets
> wait-stated.
Well, it isn't quite as simple as that - if the IIgs access banks $E0 or
$E1 (or a slow I/O location via bank $00 or $01) then the FPI chip
forces the processor to wait until it is synchronized with the next 1
MHz cycle. There is no decision about whether there is a conflict with
video accesses - it always happens.
> 16-bit memory writes get the most penalty because one of the two 8-bit
> writes are bound to be on a "video" cycle. This is true even for
> shadow memory in bank $01. (Shadowing only increases performance when
> video memory is read by the processor.)
A 16-bit access to bank $E0 or $E1 will always result in two consecutive
1 MHz cycles, with a delay before the first cycle which depends on the
relative timing of the CPU clock (normally 2.8 MHz) and the 1 MHz clock.
> An adequate solution that would have easy to implement without much
> timing pattern changing would be to make the slow RAM "fast" during
> vertical retrace. Since most CPU video access occurs during vertical
> blanking for games and animation programs, this might have provided
> a small gain.
It would have broken the refresh mechanism, and the precise timing
emulation.
--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand
Paul Henry Wehr
On 5 Sep 1997, Steve Mentzer wrote:
>
> The IIgs was a classic example of a great idea and superb technology stuck on a
> foundation made of slush. And for this reason, the apple IIgs will remain as a
> "could have been" in computer history, just like the amiga.
>
> smen...@pacbell.net
>
I don't know where you have been putting your fingers, but my Apple IIgs
*still* works fine -- I am only able to crash it, say, once every two
months or so. On the other hand, _every_ day I worry about the 166MHz 32MB
1.2GB networked Pentium on my desk at work going down. Not just worry ...
it does go down.
___
|__) Of all the places to be,
| aul Wehr pw...@gol.com You are where you are.