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Out of curiosity, what made them different from e.g. a PC with 386 CPU? I guess price may be one thing, but other than that?
by cpach 11y ago
Out of curiosity, what made them different from e.g. a PC with 386 CPU? I guess price may be one thing, but other than that?
- escap 11y agoMostly it is an "end-volution" of the Apple II. The CPU was the 16 bits version of the 6502 In addition, it has a really nice sound chip and nice graphics. It could play all the Apple // softwares. And the OS is "mac-ish"
- RRWagner 11y agoMy understanding is that the Apple IIG was designed by members of the Mac team. It's also worth noting that the IIGS had resolution, speed, memory and color that would not be matched on the Mac or PC for years more to come. It was an extraordinary machine. (disclosure: I created HyperStudio for the Apple IIGS in 1988, and the rest, as they say, is history).
- pgib 11y agoWow! I _loved_ HyperStudio. We learned so much using it in my school, and I still actually have a floppy disc in my collection with my HyperStudio stack. It's an honour to be able to tip my hat and raise a glass for your contribution. :) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31250/gifs/kudos.gif https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31250/gifs/kudos.gif
- declan 11y agoThe Apple IIgs was the last and the best of the Apple II line, which had a cherished place at the heart of what we might now call hacker culture. Remember the first Apple II predated the first IBM PC by four years! Each platform had a different set of enthusiasts, and at least early x86 PCs were more business-centric. I wouldn't compare the Apple IIgs to an 386 PC. It's not really a fair comparison; the poor IIgs would be outclassed. It's 2.8 MHz 65C816 processor was 16 bits and introduced in 1983. The 386 benefited from two years of technological advances when it was introduced in 1985, and had 32-bit registers and a 32-bit data bus (2^32 bits==4GB of physical RAM). It shipped at 16 MHz. (A better comparison would probably be the contemporaneous 68000 family vs. the x86 line.) More broadly, Apple didn't have a lot of great options circa 1984-1985. The original Mac was slow, black and white only, didn't support hard drives, etc., but at least enjoyed a modern architecture. The Apple II was still selling well, and bankrolling Mac development, but was falling behind its x86-based rivals (yay 64KB bank switching!). So you keep the cash cow alive for a while longer with the IIgs until the Mac reaches critical mass. Apple II enthusiasts still resent John Sculley & co (though Steve Jobs would probably have been more ruthless) for this betrayal. :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Eric_WVGG 11y agoIt might help to think of the computers of the early 80's as extensions of particular personalities. It's no secret that the Macintosh was the computer of Steve Jobs. The x86 PCs were the computer of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The Apple // was the computer of scruffy Steve Wozniak. The original computer built in a garage, the local Apple user groups, etc. The anti-IBM back when that meant a soldering iron and a trip to radio shack, not a mouse.
- fit2rule 11y agoI would argue that those machines belonged to their users. I didn't know Wozniak for a fig, but I could CATALOG like a badass.