Re: Woz's comments on Apple's handling of the II line etc.

["Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

"Charles" <spammeister12345@aol.com> wrote in message
MPG.1bc2726747dffeba9896d0@news.verizon.net">news:MPG.1bc2726747dffeba9896d0@news.verizon.net...

> > >>Everyone in the company had an Apple II <should be Apple III here>
> > >>only on their desk. This is the computer with extra chips forced in by
> > >>marketing so that the 80-column mode and extra memory would be
> > >>DISABLED when you booted it as an Apple II.
> > >
>
> Guys, it's not a typo. He was referring to the period after the Mac and
> after he left active participation in Apple in 1988.  Go read the
> original website.  He is talking about 1989 thru 1992.
>
> The extra chips were forced into an Apple II to cripple it.  You're not
> seeing this?  What am I missing?
>
> That part was the interesting part.  The Apple II was intentionally
> crippled by Apple to keep it from competing with either the Apple III
> (intro 1980) or the Mac (intro 1984).  It didn't get any better until it
> was too late.  That's his point.

I'm confident you (and part of the article) are in error - there are at
least two places where "II" and should be replaced with "III" in the
article. If you'd read the paragraph closer, and I quote:

"This is the computer with extra chips forced in by marketing so that the
80-column mode and extra memory would be DISABLED when you booted it as an
Apple II."

Note: "booted it as an Apple II."

So obviously he's talking about the Apple III, and it's clumsy II emulation
mode. Anyone with familiar with Apple's early history and the technical
internals of the Apple III would pick up on this. And no, he's not talking
specifically about the period between '89 - '92 when dicussing this, because
you may recall the Apple III was to compete with the IBM PC (as the article
states), but that battle was lost before 1983. The article the continues to
go on and on about the miscues, missed opportunities and bad management
surrounding the Apple III project and negligence of the Apple II.

I also think the article was meant to say 79-82, because, again obviously,
during 1989-1992 the Apple II was NOT Apple's best selling machine, but
between 1979 and 1982 it definately was.

Plenty of historical data to back all this up...