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Re: How Apple beat IBM in Steve Jobs' first retail war (Apple //c vs IBM PCjr)



On Sun, 27 Nov 2011, Kevin Dady wrote:

On Nov 27, 7:48 pm, Michael J. Mahon <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
Kevin Dady <ke...@hackaday.com> wrote:
On Nov 27, 2:21 pm, Greg Buchner <n...@none.invalid> wrote:
This was a good read about Christmas 1984 sales:

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/25/charles_eicher_christmas_1984/>

Greg B.

--
Actual e-mail address is gregbuchner and I'm located at gmail.com

yea I read that as apple defeated a computer that was already a total
stinker and had nothing but bad press at the time while trying to come
back for a second round, its not quite as glorious when said that way
=)

But one should recall that most of the purchasers were not into computers
or the trade press, so they saw the two machines as toe-to-toe competitors
for their gift-giving dollars.

I think the story makes a valid point quite dramatically.

-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II:http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon

apples / oranges, these uninformed consumers were not the mindless
sheep that it seems they were, that is how we were an apple family,
about this time is when my dad wanted a computer for his business and
wanted something for me to do educational type stuff on, he must have
spent months reading crap before even setting foot in the stores. Due
to how much praise he had read in the local ham community a TRS was in
the future, an IBM PC for the serious biz applications but at the end
of the day it was an Apple IIe due to its mix of serious apps, and
educational titles from years of software and decent support ...+ a
little talking up from a buddy or two.

But even before looking he was scoffing the PC Jr. as it "did not run
PC software" (semi half truth but mostly correct), he was not "in to
computers" nor reading trade press, just a guy making a shopping
decision, and never saw the PC Jr. as something toe-to-toe to really
anything.

2 cents, take it for what its worth

That assessment probably applies to more than your father.

Something like the VIC-20 or the Sinclair ZX-81, those were cheap and likely were bought without a lot of thought. I have no idea what the IIC was going for back then, or the PC Jr, but it was a bigger chunk of money, you had to justify it (ie have some useful reason for buying it) and it wasn't just throwaway money. 1984 is still a different time, still a lot less electronic stuff in the home, computers still not that common, and it did seem pretty common for people to pay attention when making major purchases and I think a computer still ranked as a major purchase in 1984, if for no other reason than that it was new terrain for many people.

   Michael