Re: Apple II: Second Best Tech Product of All Time!

["Payton Byrd" <plbyrd@bellsouth.no.spam.net>]

"N.N. Thayer" <nnthayer@hotmail.com> wrote in message 1175696164.820577.272180@e65g2000hsc.googlegroups.com">news:1175696164.820577.272180@e65g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 4, 9:03 am, "Payton Byrd" <plb...@bellsouth.no.spam.net> wrote:
> 
>> Either way, it's consistent with Apple's behavior since 1981 when Jobs declared the Apple II as the best selling
>> computer ever when the VIC-20 was outselling it 10 to 1.
> 
> What?  This is news to me...
>

I was wrong on the year and the man, but the result is the same.  In 1983, the VIC-20 reached 1 million units sold in less than 1 year on the market, and that was in comparison to 700,000 units sold of Apple II at the same point in time.  Of course, the Apple II had been on the market for nearly six years at that point, so the sales rate was about 10:1 taking time into consideration.  Woz proclaimed "Sales shot sky high.  Apple was the first company to sell a hundred thousand computers; a million computers."  That was in an interview with the BBC that aired in December 2003.  (1)

I believe Woz was wrong about the 100,000 number as well as I believe that both the PET and the TRS-80 were there before Apple.  Tandy had a HUGE advantage with the Radio Shack stores and Commodore was selling so many PETs in Europe that they diverted nearly their entire US inventory to Britain and Germany to try to meet demand.

I have seen quotes from Jobs from the 80's where he basically dismisses Commodore completely at a point in time when both the VIC-20 and 64 were each outselling all of Apple's products combined.  I can't lay my finger on the quote at the moment so I'll leave that one to anecdotal evidence.

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(1) Bagnall: 2005.  "On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore". P 221.