Re: How do we get Mac vs Newton threads out of csa2?

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

shack@onyx.southwind.net (Randy Shackelford) wrote:

Supertimer wrote:

>: I can see why Newton owners are upset (Jobs killed the
>: Newton...see, his ego again...he had nothing to do with this
>: product, so he killed it)...but some of those who kowtow to
>: Jobs and believe the Mac is the end all and be all of computer
>: evolution have even uglier attitudes towards the A2 than the
>: Newton.
>
>FYI Apple is gonna have a Mac OS based replacement for the Newton, kinda
>like those gadgets that runs Windows CE. Newton was a dud. I think the
>majority of modern day Apple users see why Apple kills off unprofitable
>or technologically sub par stuff, e.g. Quickdraw GX, Powertalk, Newton,
>Copland, yada yada.

Now this is the crap that makes Apple II users mad.  They are doing it
again!  That MacOS replacement for Newton is not going to be able to
run Newton stuff, right?  See the problem?

I don't see Newton and Copland as subpar.  They were great products
and Apple has killed them off.  The Newton killing must be related to
Steve Jobs' return again...he didn't have anything to do with Newton,
you know.

Maybe he was mad because the Newton uses a StrongARM RISC
chip and is reminiscent of the Apple II to "Mac" GUI transition
computer THAT WOULD HAVE PROVIDED A BRIDGE BETWEEN
A2 AND "MAC" GUI...a bridge that was powered by an ARM cpu,
faster than Jobs' 68000 powered Mac, and one that Jobs considered
"polluted" because a bridge would have meant ties to Wozniak.

>: So...please leave csa2 off the list.  We (I) do disagree with
>: what they did to the Apple II series and the Newton as well,
>: but am getting very tired of arguing to the legion of brick
>: walls (SOME Mac users...I've been able to convince the
>: majority that there was NO SANE A2 to Mac transition as
>: there was between 68k Mac and PPC, but SOME stubbornly
>: refuse to admit that Macintosh Inc can do ANY wrong)...
>
>Lessee, I guess that there were ~two million Apple IIs made, in comparison
>to 30 million or so Macs. So if the Mac was an upgrade to the II, then every
>person who owned a II must have bought fifteen Macs in order for the numbers
>to come out. I don't know about that. Now maybe two million LC's with //e
>cards were sold. Lest you forget, that was intended to be the transition
>from Apple II to Mac. I'd consider it sane.

There were NOT 2 million Apple IIs made.  There were 1 to 1.5 million
Apple IIGS alone.  The IIe sold for more like 5 million.  Total estimates of
A2 sales over the lifetime of the line is more like 10 to 11 million.  Now
considering the time the Mac was introduced and the fact that most
Mac users have bought more than one computer since then...that's
a sizable customer base that they alienated.

On the other hand, Apple had already designed a transitional prototype
computer.  This was the 6Mhz ARM based A2 that could outpower
the original Macintosh (Charlie Springer who worked at Apple at the
time wrote about it...regnirps@aol.com).  Put the "Mac" GUI onto the
ARM A2, call it A2 ARM or "Mac" or whatever...whatever you call it,
it would have been a transition computer.  Just like the PPC running
68k software, it would have run the A2 as well as "Mac" GUI and
ARM native soft. The migration would have been smooth.  Eventually,
all software would have been ARM software, but the user base would
not have been alienated.

Jobs killed the project because he wanted the Mac and A2 very
separate even though a transition made perfect sense (thank God
he was not there during the first PowerMacs!)...according to the A2
magazines of the period, he felt equally upset when the IIGS used
a mouse and GUI!