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Apple IIgs

rww@demon.siemens.com (Richard W West)
Crazy Productions
(computer, original, chuckle)

[Ed: Well, what can I say. This piece is long and rather nasty to Apple, but it has its good moments. If you're from Apple, don't read it.]

Ever watch a TV show and someone'll say:

"Take this, you son-of-a-[BEEP]!!"?

And you, of course, fill in the missing word.

"Son-of-a-Bitch," you say in your mind.

And so does every human being who hears the beep, because the mind naturally completes recognized patterns, no matter how fragmented they are. We know that "bitch" follows "son of a" just like night follows day or Pete Rose follows bookies. Unless of course you're Russian. Then, "son of" is usually followed by "Ivan" or "Mikhail" or somesuch male Russian name that reminds you of various blackspots on the otherwise clean and white tapestry of Russian history.

But anyways, I was talking about how censors cover-up swear words with bleeps and stupid sound effects. The whole reason they go through all this bullshit and cut up decent movies into nonsequential nonsense is so our children won't hear words usually only associated with the description of Apple products.

Now, I don't wanna get on anyone's case about this, but I am wholly amazed by Apple's IIGS system. This is the most mazing case of reverse technology in computer history! In the age of the 386/33 and the 486/25, Apple Computer comes out with a machine that runs at an astounding 2 mHz! AND, you can speed it up to a blinding 2.5 mHz. HOLY SHIT! Two point five? You know how they play THAT one off? The salespeople tell ya "Yeah, and the high-speed mode speeds up the CPU 25 PERCENT!" What the HELL is this?! Did some dude at Apple get Woz really plastered and then say:

"Hey Steve! I'll tell ya what--if we can't beat 'em at making the fastest machine, by God--we'll beat 'em at making the SLOWEST!"?

Because they DID!

This thing's like a slug in winter! And as if this Yugo CPU wasn't bad enough, they get a disk drive straight out of computer Hell! You ever load a program on a Commodore 64? I mean waiting 20 minutes for Zork to load might have seemed like a long time then, but you load Zork on a IIGS, and boy, you are in for a WAIT! Your grandkids'll be sittin' there waitin' for that fucker to load. I'm not joking! If you have a monitoring program, you can see the drive plinking off bits in a completely leisurely manner. Plodding doesn't even BEGIN to describe it! Plodding suggests MOVEMENT, and if you can master the almost Zen Buddhist-like art of sitting still in front of a II GS drive long enough to detect the motion of the disk, then you've got a pretty good idea of what taking THORAZINE is like! If you can sit still that long, you're qualified to be a National Monument!

And when you pay for it, it's like you bought a C-64, BUT AT AN IBM PRICE! A good (and that's a word not commonly used in conjuncture with "GS") system will put you back close to $3,000! You can get a decent (there's another one of those aforementioned words) 286 system for that! And a 286/12 kicks this thing's ass so many ways you can't count 'em! (at least not on a GS).

They call it "GS," but they don't tell you it stands for "Goddamn SLOW"!

Oh, it's got great graphics. Serious, this thing's got the graphics. But it's like having unlimited credit at a Goodwill shop! You'll also wait MONTHS before their demo picture of the golden King Tut finally gets to the screen. The whole time, at wholly random intervals, you'll get messages like:

"Now computing byte 53, bit 6, of 648,457 bytes. Next report in 20 mins."

And just about the time you've gotten the .12 gauge outta the closet with the computracide on your mind, the little fucker'll pop up some Fable ROM program imbedded in its enfeebled memory and tell you a little a story like:

"Once upon a time, there was a sloth and a cheetah. The cheetah was a very fast cat and the sloth a plodding oaf. Too many times was the cheetah caught speeding by the CHP (oh hey, for those of you who have the unfortunate fate of living outside California, CHP means California Highway Patrol) and the CHP sawed the poor cheetah's legs off.

"Moral: People who buy fast machines often get their legs sawn off."

You stand there, looking dumbfounded.

"What?" you ask yourself.

And the GS answers:

"Now computing byte 53, bit 7, of 648,457 bytes. Next report in 20mins."

You'll blast that son of a (y'all said 'bitch', dinja? See?...) straight to computer Hell where some poor bastard'll hafta wait for it to compute PI to 20 billion digits (NOW you know why you need PI calculated 20 billion digits!) before he can go to Heaven!

THIS THING IS A TURD! It's a cattle-dropping of a computer! The day Apple introduced this li'l gem was forever to be known as "The Day Silicon Valley Smelled like BULLSHIT" because if you call a turd "a rose," IT'S STILL A TURD! I don't care what PR says! If it's brown and smells like shit, IT'S PROBABLY A TURD!

You want to have some fun with an Apple Dealer? Get dressed in your best business suit and walk into AppleLand or any store that only sells Apple and go up to a dealer. Look for the slimiest one. Tell him you've been thinking about getting a II GS for your family for months and have finally decided to buy the best II GS system available. Now if you could only see a demo, you would be convinced that you were spending your money wisely. They'll put on the dog and pony show for ya and show you some cute program.

Then tell the dealer you use "Harvard Graphics" a lot at work (or any other HUGE program they have II GS versions of) and seeing how it looks on the II GS would close the deal. And the whole time, talk about hard drives, expensive monitors, and lots of software. But don't over-do it or they'll figure you out.

But anyway, when he plops in the full 1.8 meg floppy to be read at 300 baud by the disk drive, you start a conversation, and casually introduce how speed in a computer is important to you. Mention the fact that you work with a 386/33 at your office and tell him that the baby really flies! Keep talking about how impressed you are with the 22 millisecond access time on a Compaq 110 megabyte hard drive. Tell 'em how you load MS Windows in 3 seconds. 2 seconds for Harvard Graphics. Then, VERY casually look at the II GS drive, then look at your watch. Frown. Do it again with a very slight look of disbelief. Ask, "Is it done yet?" quizzically . . .

Watch the little weasel SWEAT!

Oh, it will do you a WORLD of good!

Caution! If you start busting up now, it's OVER! You won't EVEN stop! But if he recovers and gets the conversation going again, just look over towards the drive every so often and sound slightly more irritated each time you reply to the dealer. THEN: Look at the drive and then at your watch again. Look the dealer right in the eye and ask, "Is it done loading yet?" with a little more irritation.

Just see how many times you can repeat the cycle. When the Dealer starts getting really pissed about being asked "Is it done loading yet?" a million times and gets rude, or the program actually loads, you close the deal. But then look at the computer, then at your watch and tell him "I need to reconsider this. I'll come by again if I decide to stay with this machine." Look at the machine and shake your head while saying "But it's doubtful," and walk out.

You will have fucked that guy's day!

If you wanna really dangle the dude on the hook, get him to admit Compaq is superior to Apple. Just mention the 386/33 in your "office" again and then ask:

"What does this machine run at? 10 megahertz? 8?"

"2" the Dealer will admit.

Look him right in the eye and ask in the your most astounded voice:

"2?"

The dealer will shrivel up like a snail with salt poured on it!

If you have enough Apple-only dealers in your town, you and a friend can make an afternoon of it! And every time you walk out of one of those places, after rightfully humbling those toadies, you feel at one with nature, and animals will cross the street to be near you.

Heh heh heh.

I'm sorry, before I got off on all the Apple stuff, (by the way, I don't want everyone thinking I hate Apple computers. That was just a little good-natured prod to remind the folks at Apple which half of the 80's we are in.) I wuz talkin' about censoring TV programs for the sake of our childrens' language. Okay, do this:

Tonight when you go home, walk up to your kid and ask him/her to complete this sentence:

"Mike Tyson is one bad mother ."

Your kid'll look you straight in the eye and say:

"Fuhka."

This is the exact and true nature of what censoring TV movies accomplishes.


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