Re: Podcast on John Sculley's role in the death of the Apple II

["N.N. Thayer" <nnthayer@hotmail.com>]

On Jan 12, 4:55 pm, Moose <kinkapa...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> On Jan 12, 5:11 am, Ken Gagne <kga...@gamebits.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hey, all!
>
> > Retro Computing Roundtable podcast co-host David Greelish recently
> > interviewed John Sculley.  That recording is available in two parts:
>
> >http://web.me.com/dgreelish/Classic_Computing_Podcasts/CC_Show/Entrie...
>
> >http://web.me.com/dgreelish/Classic_Computing_Podcasts/CC_Show/Entrie...
>
> > The discussion wasn't specifically about the Apple II, so Mike
> > Maginnis and I brought David and noted Apple II historian Steve
> > Weyhrich onto the Open Apple podcast to discuss how facts revealed in
> > the above interview might inform our opinion of Sculley as it pertains
> > to the era of Apple Computer Inc. that saw the introduction of the Mac
> > and the death of the Apple II.
>
> > You can hear that discussion in the January 2012 episode of the Open
> > Apple podcast, now available here:
>
> >http://www.open-apple.net/2012/01/11/show-011-greelish-weyhrich-scull...
>
> > -Ken
>
> Thanks Ken, I'll download and listen to this asap.
>
> Regardless of how or why the Apple ][ was killed off though, the way
> that Apple did it was appallingly bad.  Giving Apple ][ users ZERO
> migration options to go forward to a supported machine, the Mac, until
> *many* years later, treating Apple ][ users like toxic waste and with
> a complete lack of care or respect, and so on.
>
> I went from the Apple ][ to the PC because of Apple's appalling
> attitude to ][ owners / users.  I was not going to let them treat me
> like that again.  In the 30 years since, I have never purchased any
> other Apple products (and probably never will).
>
> The Apple ][GS was a fine machine, that should have been supported and
> built on.
>
> Or, at the very least, Apple ][ emulator cards for the Mac should have
> been made sooner, rather than many years later - by then it was too
> late.
>
> All the best,
>
>  Moose OMalley
> ____________________________________________________
>  Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996.
>  WEB:http://move.to/moose
> ____________________________________________________

Originally, my problem with the way the Apple II was treated
throughout the '80s and '90s was that it was more or less
technologically stagnant.  The PC grew in leaps and bounds while the
Apple II saw only incremental improvements, until the IIGS which was,
ultimately, too little too late.  (The PC also demonstrated that
backward compatibility didn't have to be an albatross.)

There's undeniable truth to that, but it's also interesting to see the
Apple II as a member of a small category that could only ever exist
once: microcomputers that established userbases in specific areas, and
exploited that entrenchment to persist long after their actual
technology had been surpassed by the rest of the computing world.

The Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and Apple //e all followed the
same arcs, with similar start/stop production dates and rather
different userbases.