Re: Randy, wake up!

[toddpw@ugcs.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)]

[ this was meant for Randy, but I felt it appropriate to chime in here. ]

pubpc1@library.ucla.edu writes:

>According to them, the Motorolla and PowerComputing units that
>were on the roll were faster than Apple's G3.  In fact, MW/MU
>claims that Apple pulled the plug because these hardware were
>_too good_.

Yes and yes. But the health of the Mac market is not the health of Apple
Computer Inc.!! Apple is public and BIG and has had many disappointing
quarters. The stockholders were screaming for blood; now most of them are
feeling like they're watching a huge train wreck in slow motion. Apple is
scared for its life and has reverted to totally selfish panic mode like a
hunted creature in the wild.

I don't like what's happened either, but I have to agree that Apple needs
that revenue a hell of a lot more than Motorola or even Power Computing.
Assuming Apple pulls through, I expect them to be real nice to everyone
they have snubbed during these dark hours.

>Same stupidity that led them to killed the superior IIGS!
>(the GS of 1986 was superior in every way to the Mac Plus
>and 6MHz IBM PC/AT of 1986)

Except for one thing: WDC couldn't make a fast 65816 in decent quantities,
and ultimately they didn't need to. They are still around today, selling to
the 8-bit and 16-bit microcontroller markets. They were not responsive to
Apple when the IIgs/Mac decision was being considered. At least one
interview of old Apple employees uncovered the nugget "if the 68K had been
a year later or the 65816 had been a year earlier, then there quite possibly
would never have been a Mac". Sorry, but I don't remember the source. Argh.

On the other hand, Motorola kept cranking out faster 68K's every year for
its war with Intel;  Moto was responsive to the requests of developers who
wanted to use the 68K in unix boxes; and Moto used the 68K internally for
all kinds of stuff, so there was a customer base with lots of clout pushing
the architecture forward.

Add to that stupid legal bogosity, like Apple Records giving the DOC chip
on the IIgs motherboard the hairy eyeball because Apple had agreed to never
enter the music business. (The first internal beta Apple Developer CD's had
music tracks on them; the officially released ones didn't.) Things like that.

The point I'm getting at here is, had Apple gone with the "IIx" instead of
the Mac, they almost definitely would have been creamed by the rise of
Wintel. (I say almost because they could have bought WDC, licensed the 65816,
or bought CPU design expertise to make the 65032 real. Who knows?)

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ ugcs.caltech.edu