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

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <U5PQh.19886$ER1.8111@bignews5.bellsouth.net>,
Payton Byrd <plbyrd@bellsouth.no.spam.net> wrote:

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


That's what happens when you confuse a computer with your religion.... :-)

OTOH both Jobs and Woz did have business interests in promoting Apple.
And they weren't the only company leaders who exaggreated the importance
of their own company.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Grev Turegatan 40,  SE-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW:     http://stjarnhimlen.se/