Episode 124: Worldwide Newton Conference 2009

[James]

James and John talk with Ryan Vetter of the Worldwide Newton Conference 2009. eBay Finds are an Apple 4th of July Poster and an Apple ][ Mini Manual. News includes a IIGS-3GS comparison, retro thumb drive, a IIci finally dies, and Mactracker for iPhone.

Apple ][ Mini Manual (pdf)

[fury]

Hi guys. There is a slight error in the Apple IIgs/iPhone 3GS comparison for this episode. Nothing too serious, as it's not like anybody is hinging their decision of buying a 3GS on how much better it is than the Apple IIgs. But probably a notable difference if one is comparing specs on paper with, say, a palm pre.

The screen on the 3GS is not a "millions of colors" display. It is in fact a 6-bit-per-color TN LCD screen, similar to the low-end 20 inch aluminum iMac and now the new low-end 13 inch MacBook Pro, so the screen actually only can display 262,144 colors. To hide the appearance of the color banding that is usually present in lower color configurations, they use clever dithering and/or frame rate control (alternating flickering brighter/dimmer colors on either side of the one it's being asked to display, causing the human eye to almost perceive the original color).