_Infinite Loop_ by Michael S. Malone

[ChemSleuth@earthlink.net (Dennis Doms)]

I thought some might like this quote from the book:

--- start quote
For them, the first generation of true Apple II loyalists, the Apple
II line was allowed a swan song. And it was a doozy: the 1986 Apple
IIGS (for "graphics and sound"), perhaps the high-water mark of the
computer maker's art and, in terms of quality, price, and performance,
the best computer Apple ever built. It featured an elegant box filled
with the simplest componentry imaginable -- all superfluity having
been winnowed out over the previous nine years -- a color display and
stereo sound. It was a computer designed from the start to the finish
to appeal to schools, which needed a reliable computer of considerable
power at a reasonable price... yet so inexensive to build that it was
like a license to print money. Plus the IIGS actually outperformed the
Macintosh on the Mac's own turf. It was the II group's last hurrah.
--- end quote

An interesting book. It makes some analyses that I'm not sure I agree
with in context (for example, asserting a lack of technical expertise
in Apple's highest level decision-making management as being a unique
situation for a technology company at the time, but I think I remember
Adam Osborne made the same complaint about Osborne Computer in
_Hypergrowth_) but there's some stories here that sound all too
familiar.