Re: why did apple go mac?

[Roy and/or Janet Miller <millers@inetnebr.com>]

frankc wrote:

> My opinion is that Apple had a limited vision of the big picture.
> Basically they pulled an IBM with the Mac line.

One problem. The Mac was 1984. The PS/2 was 1987. It would be better to say
that IBM pulled an Apple. The result for both was (at least in the short term)
major losses, in money, and in influence on the whole field.

> IBM was ticked that
> everybody was cloning the XT and came out with the PS/2.  The PS/2 had a
> proprietary bus that nobody could clone without permission from IBM.  The
> ISA bus was and is open so anybody can make cards for it.  In much the
> same way the Apple II bus was and is open so again anybody can make cards
> for it.  I think it was speculated by Apple that if you make a proprietary
> bus and make everybody pay you to make cards for it then you will be able
> to control the market.  Wrong, if the Apple II line had continued new
> chips would be made that would still run the original Apple II software.
> Today we would probably have a 651000 Pro with a 1GHz clock rate running,

At one point in the mid 1980s WDC thought they would have a 65832 running at
c. 100 mhz. It shouldn't have been too difficult to have made the 65016 (16
bit bus) and a 65032 (32 bit bus) If a certain project that a member of
AppleLinc is working on comes to fruition, we could have a PowerPC chip
emulating a 65816, a mythical 65832, and/or running in native mode, all in a
IIGS case. That would be cool.

>
> God forbid, Windows.  Apple has started to see the problem with
> proprietarizing everything.  For one thing it costs more to manufacture
> your own graphics, sound, glue, etc when the competition is producing
> millions of "standard" chips for IBM style machines.  That is why newer
> Apples are using PCI bus, USB bus, DIMMs, IDE, etc...  Imagine the price
> increase to a user if they were designing thier own.  They have had to
> standardize to survive.   The Apple II had the potential to be as
> successful as the PC.  They have been used everywhere.  One use that I
> know where one was used was in process control.  I talked to some
> engineers that said they wanted a graphics screen so they bought an Apple
> and programmed a custom ROM.  This was back before PLCs had any real HMI
> style stuff.
>
> So to summarize: They screwed up.
> Reality check on summary: Hind sight is 20/20.
>
> Frank