Re: why did apple go mac?

[frankc <frankc@NOSPAMsrv.net>]

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