🚀 go-pugleaf

Mark A. McLaughlin writes:
> The question I have is: Is the Mac II really that incompatible with other Macs?
> And is there any hope for my running these programs?

No, the Mac II is not really that incompatible with other Macs; however, there
is little chance of running the programs mentioned.  Among the reasons for
failure are:
	1)  Programmers who broke the rules, ie did things that Apple warned
	  them would break on future hardware and System software.
	2)  Programmers who used a development system whose libraries broke
	  the above-mentioned rules.
	3)  Incompatibilities in the Mac II as related to other Macs.

In my opinion, these are listed in decreasing order of incidence.  The only
one for which Apple can fairly be chastised is the last one, by far the least
common cause.  The authors of the programs that fail can always be blamed in
the first case.  You can be the judge allotting the blame in the second case.
I've been programming for the Mac for over five years now and every program
I've written has run under new Systems and on new Macs (except for a few
that failed for reason 2, above, and those were fixed by recompiling and/or
relinking).  If you play by the rules your probability of staying compatible
is very high, if you don't then your customers suffer and eventually they
will find out that it is your fault and you will feel their wrath.  Apple
sends System releases to their developers before release so that the develop-
ment community can test for compatibility and they send out TechNotes as
to which practices will cause harm "on future architectures".  There is really
no good excuse for not being compatible, at least on software for sale.

Dennis Cohen
Claris Corp.
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Disclaimer:  Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!