Re: [Q] Why Apple2 when we have PC?

[Ron Kneusel <rkneusel@post.its.mcw.edu>]

gtolar@blkbox.com (Glynne Tolar) wrote:
> Anyway, I'd like to get somethink else off my chest on this thread while 
> I'm at it.  In the line of "You're an idiot!" the somputer system.  What 
> has always got me is those who clame to support the Apple II the go out 
> an buy a Mac <spit>.  Heck, dispite what you may think or say, you casted 
> a vote with your wallet for what Apple did to the II.  Oh, I've heard all 
> the excuses.  "It was just a business decision", etc.  Frankly why didn't 
> Apple sell the rights to the II?  Perhaps they felt it was competition.  
> If so, then the Mac <spit> can't survive on its own merits.  Scarry, hu?
> After all this Mac <spit> was so great.  It had a 32 but processor, much 
> expandable RAM, it was in some people's view the best technology had to 
> offer.  All aginst the old slow dieing Apple II.  Hmmmm?  Another thought 
> might be, Apple would have no buyers.  They would have 6 years ago.  
> Indeed after killing it they killed its marketability to a potential buyer.
> Anyway, it was hardly a fair fight.  I think it was less of a business 
> decision at Apple and more of a was lost within Apple.

Hey, it's just a computer!  Get over it.

I grew up on Apple II+'s, and have several, as well as a IIe and
several more CP/M boxes (Kaypro, Heathkit).  I also have "extinct"
PC's (original and a _slow_ 286).  I like old machines, but I also
know that they represent _old_ technology.  I don't work myself into
a frenzy over questions like "Why use an Apple ][ when you could
use a PC or Mac?"  Use the machine that is right for the task.
Sometimes that is a 48k Apple ][+, sometimes it is a Pentium
or PowerPC, and sometimes it is a Cray.

Try doing sophisticated curve fitting on an Apple II.  You will see 
that it doesn't work, or if it does then it takes far too long.  
Now, try running statistical models involving 500+ Meg of data on 
a ][+.  New technology is necessary.  You wouldn't expect the data 
acquisition systems of the CDF detector at Fermilab (which recently 
found the long missing top quark) to collect millions of bits of data 
per second, and process it, with Apple II's.  The point is, use the 
machine that is right for the task.  On the other hand, who would use 
a $2000 Pentium system to collect temperature readings and similar 
information for their backyard weather station?  Or use that machine 
as a dedicated "chart recorder" of sorts with the simple addition of 
an A/D card?  The Apple II is an amazing little machine that is 
capable of far more than its designers believed, but in the end, it 
is 1970s technology and too wimpy for a great number of real world 
tasks.

Long live Apple II, but it's only a computer for crying out loud...

- Ron Kneusel