Re: To Endless Mike (or is that Clueless Mike???)

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Tom Zuchowski (71214.1670@CompuServe.COM) wrote:
: Your comments about the solid reliability of Apple II's is of 
: course right on.  But in return I have to point out that the Apple 
: II was an expensive machine for what you got, and IMHO some of 
: that money went into building solid hardware.

Apple always had a reputation for building good solid stuff back in the
Apple ][ days...really, until the fiasco with the early "drop 'em on the
desk once a week" Apple ///'s.

: It doesn't hurt that the older Apple II is vastly simpler and more 
: tolerant than a modern computer motherboard, also.

Most definately.  Perfect example...the 6502 only has...what...40 pins?,
and runs cool to the touch...there is lots of real estate in the
case...and the only moving parts are in the keyboard and disk drive. 
Traces on the board are nice and broad, and spaced apart a little. 
Besides, back in salad days of hobbyist computing, all of the
manufacturers did extensive testing and QC on their machines.  Volumes
were small enough that defective machines would get fixed.  These days, I
think manufacturers basically throw out any of the DOA equipment and try
again.  Costs are *way* down from what they were in, say, 1980.

I think it is also worth noting that Apple uses good quality stuff to
begin with...or at least they did.  Every key on the ][e keyboard has a
mechanical switch under it.  The chassis of a Disk ][ is cast aluminum.  I
wish I could say as much for most of the new hardware out there...the PC
keyboard I was typing on this afternoon is flimsier than the keypad on my
pocket calculator underneath.

: On the other side, the razor-thin profit margins that PC vendors 
: run on can only lead to corner-cutting and lots of DOA hardware, 
: as you so correctly stated.

There is that.  But a lot of the trouble with the PC hardware is that
there are so many variations from one machine to another...not just
between manufacturers, but even between like models from a single
manufacturer...that oddball compatibility problems arise just because of
such esoteric things as BIOS differences.  One of the big advantages of
working in the Apple world is that if your program is running on a ][e,
for instance, you know *exactly* what to expect from that motherboard. 
That certainty does not exist in the PC world.  While Apple's failure to
license the Apple ][ and the Macintosh have hurt Apple's market share, it
has made it much more likely that a program that is supposed to work on
your Apple (whether it be ][, ///, Macintosh, or Newton) actually will.

--Dave Althoff, ][.
-- 
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