🚀 go-pugleaf

From previous discussions, it's clear that there are some owners of
stock Macintosh 512's on the net.  I would like to suggest that if
you plan to keep and continue to use your Macintosh 512, you
should now order a Level-1 upgrade to the 128K ROM.  Every indication
is that these are currently scarce and I expect that if any are
still available in the 2nd half of 1987, the waiting lines will be
even longer than today as everyone else rushes to upgrade.

Why upgrade?  Why will others upgrade?  Basically, because a Mac
512 will be obsolete by the end of the year:

   1.	Software developers will be shipping on 800K HFS disks.
   2.	Their programs will begin to use the 128K ROM; less than
	20% (my guess) of the machines today have old ROM's
	and the percentage will decline as new machines are sold.
   3.	Apple has told developers to target for 128K or later, because
	their market research says those who don't have money for
	a ROM upgrade (particularly one that doubles disk capacity)
	don't have much money for software.
   4.	The 256K Macintosh II ROM includes hierarchical menus, the 
	Script Manager and extended TextEdit, while the SE includes some 
	of these.  System 4.1 (summer) will reportedly include RAM-based 
	patches for other machines so that developers can use these 
	features immediately for their products.  Unfortunately, the 
	patches will not be available for the 64K ROM.

This last point may seem controversial.  "Why is Apple screwing its
early customers?" I hear the cry.  (I sold my Mac 512 at a loss to
buy a Plus, but I understand the complaint.)

Unfortunately, it is TECHNICALLY INFEASIBLE to provide the new features
for the Mac 512.  This hit me today as I was looking at the new traps.

The 64K ROM has an overloaded OS/Toolbox trap table.  This means
that the new TextEdit trap _TEGetOffset  ($A83C) is in the same slot as 
_CmpString (Pascal EqualString, $A03C) and on it goes.  To fix this
means RAM-based patches for the trap dispatcher (which are also needed
for many of the overlapping 128K ROM traps).  To include the 128K ROM 
and some of the 256K ROM features you'd need an 80K patch in the 
system heap or high memory, and this is getting a bit much.  If you
want the new features, Apple will be glad to sell them to you on a ROM...

So, as of January 1988, there will be two worlds in the Macintosh
universe: those with the 128K ROM features and some RAM-based traps 
(90-95%); those with 64K ROMs that can run old software only. (< 10%)
I applaud Apple for protecting the investment of the Macintosh Plus
owners and pushing the state of the art available to Mac developers.

So run, don't walk to buy that Level-1.  If your budget can afford it, 
you might try a third-party memory upgrade, such as Levco's Monster Mac 
and then, if you don't mind not having a SCSI port, I think you'll have
a machine that will be usable for a long time.

On the other hand, keep that old keyboard.  If you really don't want it,
I'd like to buy it off of you :-)  (for when I travel with my Mac.)
-- 
	Joel West
	{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww	(ihnp4!gould9!joel once I fix news)
	jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu	if you must