Re: The Apple ][ was cool!

[Roy Miller <millers@iliveinnebraska.com>]

william strutts wrote:

> "Roy Miller" <millers@inebraska.com> wrote in message
> 3B5522F2.662F33B1@inebraska.com">news:3B5522F2.662F33B1@inebraska.com...
> >
> > Yes, a three year old standard, that was *finally* being surpassed. Except
> > that, 1) you forgot the PGA that IBM also created, a very expensive, very
> high
> > quality color graphic display that was about as good as VGA that also came
> out
> > in 198; nly high end CADD work was done on it however; 2) April 1987, one
> month
>
> Cool.  I'm sure they just sold TONS of those monitors. In other words,
> I have never heard of them.  I am sure it sold real well with those
> IBM RT machines.

I never said they sold alot. You were talking about technology being available,
not affordable. Apple's stuff certainly wasn't affordable. Atari's ST or the
Amiga cleaned Apple's clock on that one. See what good it did them?

> It seems to me that Sun and Silicon Graphics
> were beating IBM back then too in the workstation market.
>
> > after the Mac II, came the release of the PS/2 line (with IBM's second 32
> bit
> > machine, the first being the 32 bit PC RT, VGA and the announcment of OS/2
> > (which never became useful until AFTER M$ gave it to IBM.)
>
> Oh yeah. Microchannel machines.  Another real chartbuster there.

One word: Nubus.

>
>
> >
> > I'm not denying that. But Desktop publishing started much earlier than the
> Mac
> > II. It really started on the Fat Mac (512K) and took off with the Plus.
> > Besides, it wasn't the computer so much as the Printer and the software.
>
> Well, in order to run Pagemaker, you had to run a GUI which wasn't
> quite ready on the PC until 1991.

GEM. So good that Apple sued them  And Ventura Publisher first appeared on GEM.
Long before 1991.

> The Mac came with a GUI which
> helped usher in the development with software that desktop
> publishers used.  I would say that they went hand in hand.  Of course
> with the release of Postscript printers in 1995, it helped usher in
> getting the "killer app" on the Mac first.
>
> > Well, IBM still didn't have Postscript with True Type. The two are two
> very
> > different technologies.
>
> True. But how many people still use Postscript today?

LOL - but you were crowing about Postscript!! How Apple had it, and IBM didn't.
Come on now. Do you have a point or do you just like to argue?

<snip>

> > That was the limit of the 80286. Availible in 1984. With Macs you had to
> wait
> > until 1986 to break 512K. Your upper limit was 4 megs until March of 1987.
> In
> > April 1987, one month later, IBM released the PS/2 Model 80 with the full
> 32
> > bit 80386, a 4 gig address space, plus, of couse, it's virtual memory
> built
> > into the CPU.
>
> I believe Compaq was the first to market with the 386 processor.

You are correct.

> IBM
> was late to the market on that one.

That's not the point. You were contending that only the Mac II could do what it
did in 1987. Your point above shows that the PC market beat Apple to the punch!

> They  miscalculated the markets
> desire for faster processors than the 286 so their line was laden with
> 286 machines. (later corrected but not before the crown fell to
> Compaq)
>
> > The point is that Apple while a leader, wasn't always that far ahead. And
> in
> > some areas, it lagged.
>
> Nor was IBM.

LOL - IBM has a rep! They are rarely first to market with a new technology. But
their machines have a reputation for reliability, and IBM stands behind their
machines with service second to none. Why do you think so many major
corporations still use IBM stuff?

>
>
> > Just as Apple did with the upper 12 meg of the Mac Plus' memory.
>
> Actually, I believe the Mac Plus could have used up to 8 meg but
> they crippled the machine but not supporting higher than 1 meg
> density simms.

Strange, the SE which replaced the Plus had the same limitation....

>
>
> > No. EMM only works with the 80206 or higher CPUs.
>
> It seems to me I heard of large RAM cards for 8088 machines
> but I could be mistaken.

But they weren't EMM. They were EMS.
Two very different memory management systems.

>
>

>
>
> > You seem to be babbling here. Of course the 286 (release in 1982) wasn't
> the
> > target of DOS. And EMS wasn't created until people were creating
> worksheets in
> > Lotus that were crowding the PCs 640K limit. EMS allowed for (depending on
> the
> > version) up to 32 megs of memory, and supported multitasking with the
> right
>
> DOS didn't multitask.

Not MS-DOS. But DR had Concurrent DOS, and DOS 386. And Novel DOS 7 could
multitask. Besides, there were programs that rode on top of DOS that
multitasked. Ever hear of Windows? or QuarterDeck?

> Xenix and Unix wasn't exactly a popular OS
> option in most users minds. The difficulty of setting up and running
> such an OS was not in most small/mid size business users minds.
> I suppose if you were a large IT department that it might have been
> an option but most PC owners didn't run Unix variants.  Look at
> the sales figures.

But neither of us were talking about sales we were discussing capabilities. You
said the Mac II could do things that the PC couldn't until many years later.
You were wrong. I will concede this: the Mac was much more elegant, and the Mac
shielded the user from the computer. On the other hand, I like getting into the
OS and hardware of my machine and seeing if I can tweak it for just a little
more speed, just a little more memory. An Apple II or a PC are much better for
that than any Mac.

>
>
> > software. But that was only because people were trying to do on PCs what
> > couldn't be done on any other micro at the time.
>
> I beg your pardon.  The 6809 machines could multitask using
> OS-9.  The TRS-80 Model 16 could multitask using Xenix.
> It had a dual processor if I recall:  a Z80 for I/O and a 68000.
> The DEC Professional was a PDP-11 based computer
> and could run various OS's designed for that machine.  Then
> of course you have the Sun's and other workstation manufacturers
> that build Unix boxes.  The Amiga released in 1985 could
> multitask.

On one was building spreadsheets that were 512K or bigger in 1984 on those
machines. You don't seem to read very carefully, do you?

And if you wish to talk about sales, just compare the TRS-80 Model 16 to the
IBM AT.

>
>
> > And in 1985 the limit was 512K.
> > And in 1986 the limit was 4 megs.
> > Accountants in 1986 on PC-ATs were often using up to 8 megs of EMS.
> > Hey, it worked. It did what was needed. It also did what the Mac couldn't
> do at
> > that time.
>
> Well, a lot of accountants that I knew also swore by their Apple II's
> and Visicalc too.

Not in 1986!!!!

Not even in 1984!!

There is no comparison between Visicalc on a 64K II and Lotus 1-2-3 on a 256K
PC!

Sheeesh!

Get a calendar will you?

> If you recall, Excel was developed for the Mac first
> before the PC version came out.  The Mac had several other spreadsheets
> back then too. However, it was always the complaint that the Mac
> was too slow for true spreadsheet usage until the Mac II's came out.

That's because the Mac was under powered, and had too little RAM. The GUI was a
terrible overhead to carry.


>
>
> > Please note that when the IIgs came out the most that a Mac could have was
> 4
> > megs of RAM (top end was the SE at that time) while the IIgs could have 8
> megs.
> > It wasn't until the Mac II came out, 6 months later that Mac surpassed the
> IIgs
> > in memory and color graphics.
>
> True but not too many business apps were ever written to take full
> advantage of the Apple IIgs.  Most Apple II users could be content
> with the 1-2 megs that Apple supplied with the system via the
> Apple memory card which only came in a 1 meg version. (depending
> of course on the ROM version you owned but in 1986 it would
> have been 256K plus whatever else was on the memory card)

But now you are sitting in my seat. For business apps, the PC was king because
there wasn't any machine in price that had the power and the room and the
applications.
If you could get over the steep learning curve, you could do your work much
faster on a PC of that day, than on a Mac of that day. Today is a totally
different story. Today, if you can get over the steep learning curve, Linux is
faster/cheaper.

>
>
> <snip>
> > You are still comparing computers from different eras. A month after the
> Mac II
> > IBM had released the Model 80 with a 20 mhz 386.
>
> Well it is rather difficult to compare a computer invented in 1981 to
> one invented in 1984.  They both have different development timelines.

It's simple. Compare the models being sold at the same time, to the same or
similar markets.
Compare the AT to the Mac, or 8 mhz AT to the Mac Plus, or the PS/1 to the Mac
II.
Compare the /// to the PC!

>
>
> <snip>
> > > and the Mac Plus was what
> > > 8mhz?
> >
> > 1986.
>
> The original Mac was 8 mhz in 1984.

And the Plus was also 8 mhz in 1986. Keep your comparison to models sold in the
same year.

> The majority of DOS machine
> at that point in time only had 128k - 256k standard.

256k was standard in 1984, but the Mac, the //c, and the Junior came with 128
(yes, there was a model of the Junior that had only 64K - not many of those
sold, care to guess why??

> Extra memory
> was put on memory cards.  That probablly changed with the AT that
> came out that year but I never used one so I am not sure.

The first ATs had a horrible kludge - memory banks filled with 64K chips, with
64K sitting on top and soldered together, giving you 128K in each bank.
My 1984 6mhz AT is running at 8 mhz (all you had to do was change the crystal)
with 512K on the mother board, and with another 8 megs on two cards. One card
is setup as EMS memory, the other as Extended.

>
>
> > And for word processing, or for spreadsheet work, the PC was faster. Why?
> > It didn't have to spend so many clock cycles supporting a graphical
> display. It
> > spent it's time doing work
>
> True but the Mac and the PC were not going after the same customers.

THANK YOU! That's been my point all along! Different tools for different jobs.

>
> The Mac was going after people who were afraid of computers
> and hence it had the GUI interface

But that isn't the market it reached. The Mac reached people who buy the latest
gismo. Then new markets were created, by companies like Adobe, using the Mac as
their tool. Apple (read Jobs) failed badly in their marketing. It was the third
party people who saved the company - them and the II!

> and the PC was going after the
> hardcore command line users who were normally more computer
> literate.

That isn't accurate either. The PC was aimed at businesses who had a use for a
small computer.

In another post you wondered "It was always amazing to me that IBM went
with the more crippled processor to save a few bucks in circuit
board design by using 8-bit components." The reason is that IBM didn't expect
to sell more than a few hundred thousand of the machines. Why develop in house
custom chips and a 16 bit bus, when it wouldn't pay?

Obviously, the PC was much more successful than IBM ever dreamed it would be.

> These tend to be the guys who have been involved in computer
> usage since the beginning...your accounts, bankers and number
> crunchers.  The Mac was making inroads into getting first time users
> into computers.  The creative types liked the Mac because they
> didn't have to understand the computer and its jargon to get their
> work done.  That is why Desktop publishing was so big in that
> arena.  I know of many of these types that you would have to
> pry their Mac from their dead cold hands before they would give
> up their Mac.  When I was at GM, the business communications
> department was still using Macs but they were being forced
> kicking and screaming into the Windows world.
>
> <snip>
>
> > But IBM had it for those who needed it. CADD work, and heavy duty
> accounting,
> > or engineering work. After all, IBM creates "business machines", their
> home
> > computer was the deformed Junior. That was a real success wasn't it?
>
> Exactly.  IBM/PC was a business number cruncher machine in the line
> with the old "big iron" machines of the 60's and 70's but the real creative
> forces were working on the GUI's of the day.

Whoa! Again, you are mashing together different computer generations. The PC
was basically a rip off of the II. Are you going to tell us that the II had no
creative forces? And the Lisa wasn't out for a couple of years yet. The big
competition for the PC was the Apple /// (in Apple's eyes; at first the real
competition was CP/M machines, and at first, programs for the PC were ports of
CP/M applications) how graphical was the ///? Or the ][+? Or the Pet machines?
The PC was "me too only more." And that's why it sold so well.

> Different markets.  Different
> users.  Their ground breaking work would bring us the X-Windows,
> Windows and Mac OS that we all have seen today.  What I have refuted
> is your likening the Mac and such machines to the *toy* category.

I never likened the Mac to the *toy* category. You have ass-u-me d that. I've
simply dealt with the fact that you can't seem to help comparing a machine of
one era unfavorable to one of another.  I don't think that is fair.

>
> The Mac did not have too many games developed for it.  All the
> good games came out for the PC.

Actually, the II had more games. And while the Mac had some really innovative
games, Apple tried to keep people from making games for the Mac because they
were afraid it would get a name as a game computer.

> Does that make the PC a toy
> computer?

No, but then you are still ass-u-me ing....

>
>
> The Mac could have been and should have been a driving force
> in the market with their advancements.  However, due to Steve Jobs
> insitence on making a commodity computer that was like a toaster,
> it had severe limitiations in the beginning which gave the Mac a
> slow start.

The machine that Jobs had created was created to sell for half what it
eventually sold for. If Apple let the Mac out for $1200, perhaps it would have
done better. Or, sell it for $2400 but have two drives and 512K of RAM. Either
would have worked. Sculley won. Apple did neither. The Mac ran up the red ink.

> The IIgs was a better platform to develop the GUI
> but again, Apple blew that one too by hatching the machine and
> then expecting it to raise itself.

Almost 3 years later. And that isn't what Apple did with the IIgs. They did
almost the same thing as they did with the Mac.
At the same time as they were releasing the IIgs with Apple support for two
floppy drives and 1.2 megs of RAM, they were selling the Mac Plus with SCSI
built in, and the ability to take the machine to 4 megs by only adding simms.
If the IIgs had SCSI built in, and four simm sockets, it would have really
taken off IMHO.

> If the IIgs platform were developed
> properly, you would have seen faster processors and SCSI
> included out of the box like the Mac.  However, the IIgs was only
> seen as a temporary solution to help Apple keep the Education users
> until they could develop the Mac into that market.
>
> <snip>
> > Some Wintels still have an ISA or two - usually for modems. But I agree,
> the
> > ISA 8 and 16 bit is about as dead as EISA. Though not as dead as
> Micro-channel!
>
> Go to a computer store and examine the motherboards and you
> will be  hardpressed to find a board with a legacy slot on it.

Hard pressed, but not impossible.

> Microchannel
> was dead out the box.

Really? Hmmm, then how did IBM sell millions of MC boxes for years?

> The IBM licensing scheme was not favorable
> to PC manufacturers

That's for sure.

> and the only licensee of it was Tandy with
> the 5000 series.

There were other machines with MC.

> It didn't sell well.  It was eventually dropped leaving
> IBM as the sole vendor of microchannel machines in the market.
> EISA was a bit more supported since it had a consortium of major
> hardware vendors backing it.

But EISA was more of the same. A kludge of a kludge of a kludge. Not real
creative the cloners, were they? At least Microchannel was creative.

> However, PCI and other local
> bus schemes supplanted the EISA architecture too.

Took them long enough!

> Fortunately,
> the PCI bus is now standard across a variety of platforms including
> the Mac, PC and some other legacy machines like the Amiga.

Some have claimed that PCI has it's roots in MC. I don't know one way or
another on that one.

Roy

>
> --
> --
> William R. Strutts - wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com - Whatever!
>
> C'est moi!  http://www.facelink.com/wrstrutts
>
> Just hacking away...
>
> Remove nospam to reply.