Apple ][ design (was: Bad feelings)

Some of the Apple ][ design is ingenious - I'll agree to that. But, IMHO, there are plenty of other 'ingenious' machines where the aim was not to save a 10 cent chip, and thus the resulting hardware is a lot more stable. I'll admit now to having come to the Apple after a number of other micros. My Apple ]['s have _always_ been a lot less 'stable' than my much-hacked TRS-80 model 1, my Pets, my S100 systems, etc. It may be that I didn't spend enough time learning about the Apple so I didn't work out 'fixes' (as I said, my model 1 was modified...). The Apple ][ TechRef (and many other Apple ][ manuals of that time) are _excellent_, BTW. I learnt a lot from reading them. But I'd never use some of the tricks that were pulled there in my own designs. I find it a kludge. We're both entitled to our views, and I have no desire to start a flame war over it. Please note that I can find kludges in just about any machine you care to name. Well, I doubt that my 1972 PDP11/45 was designed to use SCSI disks, but it does now. I doubt my PERQ was designed to use 9-track magtape, but thanks to a Dylon tape interface it does now. And I certainly doubt that my Tandy CoCo was designed to have 3 extra serial ports and an _Apple_ digitising tablet, but a couple of homebrew boards have allowed it to. Just about _any_ 2 computer devices can be linked given enough time. It's not always worth the effort, but it's often fun... -- -tony ard12(a)eng.cam.ac.uk The gates in my computer are AND,OR and NOT, not Bill