Re: A Tale of Two Apples

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

Paul Pietromonaco wrote,
in response to my reply:
>> I have lost all faith in Apple Computers, Inc.
>>
><snip>
>
>        This ought to make your day, then.  (^_-)  Check out this
>article from Robert X. Cringely:
>http://www.pbs.org/cringely/text.html
>(It should be titled:  Warp 12 and accelerating: How Steve Jobs is
>determined to save Apple or kill it, whichever comes first)
>I think Robert has figured out the pattern behind Steve's weird
>manuovers
>as of late.
>        Virtually yours,
>        Paul

I never forgave Apple for axing the GS line.  I only tolerated Apple
when they allowed other, more enlightened companies to make
PowerPC based platforms more enlightened.  Umax, for example, had
a line that fixed all of Apple Computers' flaws.  Now the PowerPC
clone era is over, axed by Apple.  Whatever Jobs' reasons, Apple
killed good products twice: first the GS, now the PowerPC based
clones (which are clearly superior to Apple's own PowerMacs just as
the GS was clearly superior to the Mac Plus).

>What killed the Apple
>IIgs was the Mac SE, which was in the same price range (i.e.
>~$2500.00 equipped like a IIgs, but the Mac SE had a hard disc)

Funny that Apple could put a hard disk in a Mac but not in a GS.
This was obviously back stabbing, if I ever did see it.  I have
two hard disks and a Zip drive on my GS and I can't imagine living
without them.

>with Apple not even informing the dealers that hard disc solutions
>were available for the Apple IIgs, or that they could be expanded
>beyond 1.25 Meg with 3rd party boards, the Apple IIgs didn't stand
>a chance.

The hardware itself was superior to the Mac Plus and even the Mac
SE, but Apple deliberately kept people misinformed, kept the hard
disk from the GS, and axed advertisement so that people would not
know its power.  If the Mac were a boy and the GS a girl, I could
make the analogy that Apple was clearly sexist.  Keep that GS
barefoot and pregnant (memory poor and hard driveless)!  What
preposterous actions from a parent company!  I have 8MB on my GS
and couldn't live with anything less than 5MB!

>The dealers made the IIgs look like a toy - and that was because
>they didn't know any better because Apple wasn't telling them.

Clearly a pattern.  Even though the GS outsold the entire Mac line
in its first year, Apple axed advertisement to keep the public
ignorant that it was powerful and could use a hard drive and more
memory than a Mac.  Then they witheld knowledge from the dealers,
making GS potential buyers blind and deaf.  Finally, they kept
the poor GS barefoot and hard driveless.  The GS never had a chance
to show what it was really made of!  *sigh*

Even today, some Mac fans and GS haters still _deliberately_ keep
the GS equipped with only 1MB and a 3.5" and a 5.25" floppy drive.
They will never (or rather, they don't want to) see what the GS
could really do.  They prefer to think that their Mac Plus ancestor
was so great and powerful when the real GS was superior.

-Scott G.