Re: WHO killed the Apple II???

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

David Phillips <David_Phillips@nexus.amaq.org.au> wrote:

>Recently a lady came to me for assistance. She wished to learn how to use the
>programs on her Mac Machine. She knew nothing about computers, so I started
>at the begining. When I started to show her the programs I asked for the
>manuals so that I could show her how to use the manuals.  No manuals.. She
>had brought the machine at a IBM dealer with the programs on the machine She
>paid a lot for the machine. About 80% of what the machine and the programs
>new would have cost. It was evident after I asked a few questions that they
>were all pirated (Quark/Photoshop/Illustrator and so on. She did not know and
>I did not have the heart to tell her that she had been conned by the IBM
>clone dealer, by paying for programs she was not licenced for. I was not 100%
>sure so I made like a clam. I showed her what I could and off she went.
>
>If a IBM clone dealers will blatently copy Mac software and selling it what
>are they doing with the IBM stuff. The unscrupulous dealers exist. It is a
>fact of life.

That is a very tall charge and I suspect not entirely true.  Most of the
preinstalled programs for PC computers (and perhaps now the practice
has spilled into the Mac world) do not come with manuals.  The
manuals are on CD-ROM.  Before concluding that the lady above had
a hard disk full of pirated wares, it might have been telling to ask her
if she had CD-ROM originals of the software.  You see, many of the
OEM programs on computers are special versions that required users
to look at PDF or text files of the manuals.  The manuals are the most
expensive part (manufacturing wise) of a software package, thus this
is how they keep costs down.