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Re: Vernier Universal Interface
Byron Winmill wrote:
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
You should really check out that page! I would guess the owner of this
company is very VERY fond if his Apple IIs. He's practically begging
scientists and professors to dig up old Apple IIs and put them to use
with their new line of sensors.
<snip>
It's good to see that his fervor for the platform is undimmed!
(I wonder if it's good business or just good feelings...)
Probably good feelings or maybe a desire to reuse old equipment rather
than making it landfill. After all, companies usually drop support of old
models because of support costs. (Conformity is cheaper than diversity.)
And the cost of adding every success you've ever had to an ever-growing
bag of stuff tied around your neck is another issue to consider. Most
products have a defined support lifetime, after which it's limited to
keeping some information on a web page (please).
If companies were mandated to support every shipped product for, say,
25 years, we'd have lots of successful companies going out of business
(and starting up as new companies) just to shed their product albatross
(particularly in the computer business ;-).
As for the "scientists" and "professors" bit, I very much doubt that
Vernier targets the higher education market. They do seem to be popular
in secondary schools though.
Though it's certainly not a mass market, there were a lot of Apple II's
used in college labs (and some industrial labs, too) to control complex
experiments. Vernier made a good market in that area.
Apple II's were used to control chromatographs, distillation columns,
and much more. They were seen as an inexpensive substitute, with easier
interfacing, for HP BASIC workstations. In fact, their quick and easy
hardware interfacing, Applesoft programmability, and graphical output
made them a natural choice for many control and data acquisition
applications. (In fact, some on this list are still using them for
fermentation control. ;-)
-michael
Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."