Re: Boston Globe/Adrian Vance

[swjackso@sprynet.com (Steve W. Jackson)]

In article <4sbq1o$5hb@lal.interserv.net>, <avance@sprynet.com> wrote:

> Steve:
> 
> Thank you for that.  My original post on this was put up to append to the
> original message and for some reason it came out naked and without any
> hint it related to the request that group users stuff the Apple II ballot box
> in the Boston Globe survey.  Reading it that way could be confusing and
> I see how you may have misinterpreted my intention.
> 
> My problems with Apple relate to the fact that I spent 15 years building a
> software library for the school market only to have Apple make it worthless
> by killing the II in so graceless a way.  They had invented the perfect 
> educational computer in the GS and it would have been a natural transition
> to the Mac when the color machines finally arrived.  And, it would have 
> saved the schools a lot of money spent in disks they can no longer run.
> The Apple II story is management disaster.
> 
> Sincerely, Adrian

Adrian, I couldn't agree with you more.  Back in 1989 I had a chance
encounter with several high schoolers here who were part of a special
program for gifted students.  They all had access to IIGS machines at
school and at home.  Being the owner of a GS and a big fan, I was
interested in helping these guys with programming tasks, and we decided to
look into setting up a GS user group in our area.  Knowing that Apple
tends to offer great support for user groups, one of them called for
advice on starting up.  He was asked, "Wouldn't you rather get a Mac?" 
This was SO cliche I couldn't believe it!  We had a machine which would've
offered great leaps to schools using the Apple IIe line, and would've been
an excellent bridge toward phasing out Apple IIs in favor of new Macs as
they came out!  Instead, the Mac LC was introduced with an Apple IIe
emulator built in, and the IIGS was left out in the cold!  It was so much
like the Mac in its OS design as to provide a completely natural
transition (as you point out), and Apple just ignored that fact!

Obviously (as indicated by my signature) I'm a big supporter of the Mac
platform, but I definitely feel that much of the bashing going on between
Windows and Mac users could've been prevented had Apple followed the same
marketing tactics as IBM and allowed cloning of its systems much earlier. 
They had such a large presence in the education market that clone
technology could have pushed them into the rest of the marketplace with
ease, given the ease-of-use accomplishments of even the earliest Mac
systems.  But, alas, this was not to be.  So now I hang my hopes on the
new PPCP standard.  In the near future, with the advent of Windows NT 4.0,
and the growing number of Unix variants supporting it, PowerPC technology
and a change of direction at Apple Computer, we will finally be able to go
into a neighborhood computer store and pick the computer and OS of our
choice without being forced into taking whichever combination of CPU/OS is
hoisted on us by a salesperson.

Isn't technology wonderful?

= Steve =
-- 
Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, AL
swjackso@sprynet.com

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