Re: The Apple ][ was cool!

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Andy Cadley writes ...
> 
> On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Rubywand wrote:
> 
> >      Commodore and Atari "lost the plot" in 1985
> > when they abandoned their 65xx machine user bases.
> > Neither the ST nor the Amiga was ever serious
> > competition for PC.
> 
> That's a pretty bizarre claim if ever I head one. In the mid 80's you'd
> have been hard pressed to find anyone who honestly believed the PC would
> be the all-conquering platform of choice that it is today.

     Did not claim that ST and Amiga could not have been serious competition.
Saying that they were not is just an observation of fact.



> And had Commodore had the faintest idea of how to market and develop the
> Amiga properly it probably never would have been...
 ....

     It seems likely that Amiga was never intended to be more than a quick,
relatively easy score-- i.e. a niche product, like Apple's Mac. Had Commodore
been aiming to battle PC and Apple for dominance of the home market, Amiga
would have been designed as a backward-compatible super upgrade of the C64 and
priced for high volume sales.

     Once Commodore picked a design and released the Amiga, a lot more than
clever marketing was required to make it a high-volume seller which could stand
toe to toe with PC over the long haul. Just for starters, Amiga needed to
acquire (fairly quickly)  7 or 8 PC-style slots while reducing price. Mainly,
though, Commodore had to be willing to forego quickie profits in return for
success in the longer term.



Rubywand