Re: The Apple ][ was crap

[Lord of the Flies <python@ux1.cyberenet.net>]

(Quoted material at foot.)


     Well, Steve Jobs _was_ a maniac, and a thief!  On the other hand I
hear he's a great hula-hooper.  He whined and cried about how Bill "I'm-a-
computer-genius-but-yet-I'm-not-smart-enough-to-buy-contacts-though-I-have-a-
trillion-dollar-a-day-salary" Gates stole his GUI operating system (which
he did, but that's beside the point).  However, both he AND Gates knew
that it really wasn't Jobs' OS at all: Ya see, Jobs had already stolen it
from Xerox in the first place.  What a funny story!  Well, at least that's
the way that that _Revenge of the Nerds_ documentary told that story
anyway.

     I never knew the Apple ][ very much "personally," but what I did know
sucked.  Besides the afore mentioned nasty color scheme, --at least the
setup I used--it just had a mechanical, buzzy "beep" as a pitiful excuse
for sound.  It was most certainly NOT on the cutting-edge of technology of
the day (not like my Commie64) yet was priced as such.  I wouldn't have
payed all that dough for crappy, inferior technology!  What in the hell
made them think that they could charge that much for such as that?  
Rather than the asking (approx.) $799, I payed $195 (+/- $5) for the
brand-new C=64, the best on the Home-Computer Market.  It wasn't a very
hard decision to make.

     And yes!  _EVERYTHING_ was better than the Tandy 'puters ('cept maybe
the Timex/Sinclair,...and the Mattel Aquarius,...not to mention the Coleco
ADAM [the joke computers]).  I grew up and went to school in Jerkwater,
USA--that means Jacksonville, FL--and for some unknown but obviously
strange and twisted-backwards reason, the School Board just loved to fill
all the schools with the TRS-80--TRaSh-80, ya know--original (I think) It
was the one that was a big, physically-single-unit with keyboard, CPU
"guts," monitor (B&W and _no_ sound), and two floppy-drives all cased
together and probably weighed a ton.
     It was the most primitive yet most expensive system on the market.  
Boy!  That was a great investment of the School Board funds!  And how
could one learn anything?!  They didn't do anything _to_ learn!  Not that
the teaching was very good: about 90% of the knowledge was totally useless
in the "real world" _while it was being taught,_ muchless 15 years in the
future here and now.

     The later Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer was different than that
one. If it were to be said that it had a place in Computer History, that
would have to be: "Cheesy-est Computer Ever".  With its big, blocky
graphics, and would usually be accompanied by a silly beepy-tune when
demoing the store. The keyboard was non-typewriter-like, which is almost an
_absolute_ sign of a bad 'puter, and baaahhhh--da hell with it!


				---The Lord of the Flies
				   (AKA, Python)
				   python@eticomm.net


(Ellipsises and bracketed words are added)

In comp.sys.cbm RaYzor <slorta@gern.org.net.com> wrote: 
> The Apple ][ series was a travesty to home and educational computing....
> [With] Steve "I'm a Damn Psychotic Assclown" Jobs at the head of the 
> company, the Apple ][ failed to sell as many units as the Commodore 
> 64,...  But it WAS better than anything Radio Shack sold in the 80's 
> (then again what wasn't?) 
> [snip] 
> 
> Discuss, citing examples as to why Commodore _OWNED_ Apple in sales and 
> user base... why Steve Jobs was a nut case ... and why TRS-80 sucks even
> worse than Apple ][. 
> 
> RaYzor 
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