Re: _Infinite Loop_ by Michael S. Malone

[Mike <moose@rocknet.net.au>]

Jeff Blakeney wrote:

> >     Agreed, coming up with a hardware design which can also run most old-II
> >software was quite an achievement. Even so, it was a bad idea. As TrackStar
> >demonstrates, old-II capabilities would have been available within a couple
> >years as a plug-in option.
>
> Umm, Apple came out with the Mac which couldn't run Apple II 8 bit
> software and how many of us II users jumped onto it hoping that there
> would be some way to run our old software in a year or two?

Yes, but how many more of us jumped ship over to the PC because we were so pissed at
Apple's cruel and spiteful abandonment of the Apple ][ ?  All of my Apple ][ friends
and I went straight over to the PC in ~1984-85 and we have been with the PC ever
since.

I didn't go for the MAC, because a) it was so expensive compared to PC clones - but
the main reason was - b) I didn't want to get screwed by Apple Inc again.

Apple is where it is today because it abandons its customers.  But Apple are not
alone in doing this.  IBM tried to abandon its customers with the introduction of
the PS/2 / MCA / OS/2 in the late 80's, but it failed - luckily - because of the
massive clone market.  Otherwise, I may have jumped ship onto another machine at
this time as well.

Backwards compatibility is a hard thing to achieve.  But, if the MAC could have been
backwards compatible with the Apple ][ from day 1, then there might be no IBM PC
today.  The MAC might have killed the PC, as the floods of Apple ][ users (around
40% ? of the world home computer market in the early 80's) would have gone for the
Mac, as they would not have been abandonded.  At the time, with Apple Inc's heinous
statements about the Apple ][, there was every indication that the MAC would never
ever be able to - would never be *allowed* to - run Apple ][ software.

Just my 2 cents ....

Mike "Moose" O'Malley
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 Email     : Moose@Rocknet.net.au    _or_     Moose@Apple2.com
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