Re: The apple 2, the PC, and the clones

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Exegete <millers@noneofyourbusiness.com> wrote:

>Supertimer opined:
> 
>> What has really driven
>> innovation and an explosion in the PC market that has driven
>> Apple down below 10% market share in recent years has
>> absolutely nothing to do with business.  It is the home market.
>> Yup, the market that Apple had, could have kept, but ignored.
>
>I agree with your first sentance, but your second is nonsense. While 
>Apple had a presence in the home, don't forget that the home is where 
>the cheap computers ruled: Commodore, Atari, and where TI, Coleco, and 
>Radio Shack sought to rule.

What I am saying is that those other cheap computers sucked.
Of all the non-PC computers, only Apple could deliver productivity
software like AppleWorks, WordPerfect, SuperCalc 3a, and VIP
Professional.  While the other computers were doing 32 and 40
columns and using TVs as monitors, the Apple II had 80 columns
and software that actually made use of 1MB expansion (like
AppleWorks).  Apple could have captured the home market at
this time by dropping the price of the Apple II below $1000 but
it didn't.

The next opportunity came with the Macintosh.  Ok, so Apple
deep sixed the Apple II and users like myself were abandoned
and we went PC.  But at least provide a cheap Macintosh IF
you wanted it to capture a market not held by the PC, right?
No, but Apple had to keep the Mac expensive and so it was
eventually the IBM compatibles that captured the home market.

Apple II or Mac it does not matter.  Apple missed the boat.

>Commodore and Atari lost the home market, but not to Apple. The home 
>market was lost to the PC, and it was in the days of the 386 that it was 
>lost.

Absolutely not.  Sure, some 386's ended up in the home.  In
college, one of my roomates had a PC compatible and the
other a Commodore 128.  I had a Apple II.  That was the
situation in the home market.  The market was split.

The home market did not get truly inundated with PCs until
the K6-2 was released by AMD.  Even Maximum PC
magazine noted this.  The K6-2 made sub-$1000 PCs not
only possible but expected and nothing has been the same
since.

Let's not forget that even up to the mid-90's the Apple IIGS
had superior sound to any PC sound card...the standard
PC card was the 4-voice SoundBlaster with FM synthesis.
When I bought a PC in 1997 it had a crappy Yamaha card
that was similar.  And even Commodore computers like the
Amiga had superior graphics to the PC.  In 1995, those
VGA screens looked pretty but try to move anything across
them and they were terrible.

No.  Price was one factor.  Manufacturers like AMD and
3dfx targetting the home was another.

>The PC captured the home market when the "clones" did what IBM tried to 
>do with the Junior. A machine that allowed you to bring home your work 
>and finish it off in the surroundings of your family, and also offered 
>great color and sound for games. Once the VGA and SoundBlaster was 
>there, the PC was a game machine as well as a productivity box. And ID 
>is the company that saw that and took off on it.

This is what IBM wanted to do with the Jr. granted.  But is
this really the case with the PC?  Think about it, you can
run Microsoft Office in a Mac today and share files but does
that make the Mac as popular in the home as the PC?  Of
course not.  Not when it is expensive and offers less power
than the PC.

Yes, power.  CPU and GPU power are not really very
imporant in the office but it IS important in the home setting
where games and multimedia rule.

>The strange thing is, that the Tandys, Compaqs and Dells of the day took 
>exta hardware to be the great game machine that the IIgs could have 
>been, if it only had two things: software, and more speed.

I agree.  I could never understand why Apple could not take
the concept of the IIGS and merge it with what they felt
about the Mac.  Either continue with the IIGS and make
it faster and throw your support behind it OR take the Mac
and make it into a machine with the IIGS' knack for sound
and the Amiga's knack for video.  And of course, lower the
price.

Another option would have been to build a faster IIGS and
actively support it and support the Mac at the same time.
One for the home, one for business.

What Apple did was ignore the home market.  Remember,
the IIGS was left to sell itself.  You can count the number of
IIGS commercials and advertisements throughout its 6 year
life span on one hand.

>> It started several years ago when AMD became a player in the
>> PC market.  Lesser CPU manufacturers like Cyrix and IDT and
>> Rise had come and gone but when AMD introduced the K6-2,
>> decent sub-$1000 PCs with good gaming capabilities became
>> available and the home market exploded.  
>
>You're off by about 10 years here.

No I am not.  The K6-2 dropped the price of the PC and the
PC market DID show an explosion of PC sales in the late
1990s.

>> Once this happened,
>> Intel had to re-evaluate its strategy and competitive pricing
>> between the two has kept PC prices low.  But the K6-2 was
>> only the beginning. When the Athlon was released and climbed
>> to 1Ghz and the Pentium III could not match it, AMD and Intel
>> started to battle it out for the speed crown and the home user
>> benefitted.  Powerful computers sparked advanced gaming
>> which fueled development of powerful graphics cards.
>> 
>> The PC is where it is today because of the HOME users NOT
>> corporate America.  
>
>Exactly. But it took IBM creating a great corporate machine (386 PC plus 
>VGA) to give a base to create a great home machine.

Actually, Compaq created the first 386 PC and released it
months before IBM.  ;-)

When the Mac clones did the same thing a decade later
and embarassed Apple, Apple killed them by pulling the
licenses.

>> After all, why do you need an Athlon
>> XP 2200+ or a Pentium IV 2.5Ghz to access Outlook, Excel,
>> Word, and Powerpoint when really a 200Mhz Pentium could
>> do (and slower in some companies).
>> 
>> The home market is the driving force of PC technological
>> innovation and Apple really missed the boat when it failed to
>> deliver an affordable yet powerful home computer.
>
>The IIgs was that machine, but it didn't have the needed productivity 
>and game software to make it.

The IIGS had tremendous potential to be this machine but
it was Apple that prevented it from being so.  They kept
prices high, dropped advertisement, witheld support to third
parties who made software and hardware for it and directed
all their energies to the Mac.

If they had taken the Mac of the day and merged it with
the IIGS then lowered the price, they would have had a
winner.  Or keep them separate but devote more effort to
supporting the IIGS so you could have two markets.  The
truth is, Apple never saw the promise of the home market.