Re: A Tale of Two Apples

[Randy Shackelford <shack@io.frii.com>]

pubpc1@library.ucla.edu wrote:

: >Is there a point to going over this stuff over and over again?
: >I mean, I just don't see what the point is.  Everyone knows what
: >happened back then and everyone has their own opinions on it or
: >who was at fault, etc. etc.  This is like constantly dredging up
: >the past--it doesn't help things NOW.

: B.J., I respect your opinion, but I am just about fed up with your
: constant goading us, the GS supporters, for discussing the past of
: _our_ computer.  If this, _our_ newsgroup, is not the place to
: discuss it, what is?  What you are doing, trying to prevent this
: discussion because it is unfavorable to Apple Computers, is like
: if an Mac or PC user went into comp.sys.amiga.* and trolled about
: how it was justified that the Amiga died because the Mac or PC
: was better and so on.

I would say alt.folklore.computers is the proper place for this. Keep this
group in the here and now.

: Amiga users have a right to talk about their computer on their
: group and GS users _have the right_ to discuss what unjust actions
: happened in the past on _our_ group.

And what do you hope to accomplish?

: Funny, they could equip a Mac SE with 1MB and SCSI for the same
: price they were selling a stock GS.  No, B.J., if memory was not
: too expensive for the SE, it was not for the GS.  Apple simply
: wanted to cripple the GS.

Uh, someone told me he bought an SE new when they came out and it cost him 
$3000+. A bit more than the price of a IIgs box. And the retail on a Mac
Plus in '86 was in the $2600 range as well. I also recall reading where
someone said it cost $1400 to upgrade his Plus from 1 mb to 4 mb back then.
Memory was expensive then.

: As for AppleTalking to a Mac: how many people in 1989 would want
: to buy a Mac just to use its hard drive?  This is absurd.  It
: would be like if Apple said: "well, we know you Mac users need
: a hard disk.  Just go buy an IBM PC and network to it to smuck
: off its hard drive."  Wouldn't you be upset?

Moot, since system 7 wasn't out until '90 and system 6 had no file sharing.
And regardless of what you think, it's an effective solution today. I use
my ROM 01 //e upgrade box, which has my VOC and sound digitizer in it, as a
diskless workstation running from my SE/30 with Appleshare 3.0. I could 
connect a spare hard disk or floppy, but I choose not to.

: I agree with Mitchell: the only other personal computer that even
: comes close to being as neglected as the GS is the Amiga.  In the
: Amiga's case, however, Commodore tried all it knew how to in
: order to promote it.  They just bungled it.  Apple, on the other
: hand, had the resources to make the GS a winner but, even though
: it outsold the Mac in its first year, deliberately destroyed it.

So go piss and moan in alt.folklore.computers with the Amiga crowd.

: (which were definitely available by the time of the ROM 3; Bill
: Mensh, the chip's designer, argued in the open with Apple's CEO
: in the 1989 AppleFest about Apple's deliberate neglect of the
: GS while he had _much_ faster chips available).

You need to get your facts straight. Jean-Louis Gassee wasn't CEO, and
he's the one who said WDC wasn't supplying faster 65816s.
-- 
Randy Shackelford                                 
shack@frii.com