Re: why did apple go mac?

["Tom Zuchowski" <tzuchow@attglobal.net>]

It wasn't just the Apple's expandability that raised Jobs' ire about the
Apple II. Jobs has a history of abandoning his current lines while chasing
after the next, newer, "better" and inevitably incompatible product line.
Don't forget that he abandoned Apple to form NeXT when he couldn't get Apple
to dump on the Mac the same way they did on the Apple II.

The Mac wasn't Jobs' first crack at the II, either. Jobs began planning
abandonment of the II back around 1979. The III was a partial attempt at
that. Apple people denied it, but the rumor has persisted that the original
versions of the Apple III were unable to handle II-type 40-column text.
Given the way that Apple people lied about various things over time, I tend
to credit the rumor.

Whatta guy.

Tom Zuchowski


"Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com> wrote in message
20001201022917.20558.00002346@ng-bj1.aol.com">news:20001201022917.20558.00002346@ng-bj1.aol.com...
> wbdesnoy@acs5.acs.ucalgary.ca (Byron Desnoyers Winmill) wrote:
>
> >Because Apple needed the next best thing, and they could not do that on
the
> >6502?  Because, at that time, very few people knew what GUIs were so a
radical
> >departure would not hurt their potential market?
> >
> >The 68000 based Macintosh served Apple very well, thank you.  The fact
that
> >the Apple IIgs could do it better, for a time, was only an afterthough.
>
> It is more than just a matter of hardware limitations.  So called hardware
> limitations can be overcome and in fact have been overcome in the PC
> world where they DIDN'T abandon their user base.  They have been
> overcome again and again.
>
> No, the real reason is the "vision" of Steve Jobs.  The closed system
> that the user didn't have to think about versus the open system full
> of slots for the USER to configure the way he or she saw fit.  When
> the IBM PC first came out, they copied the Apple II.  It is true.  From
> several books I've read, IBM employees were actually using Apple IIs
> while designing the computer that would outlive it.  The PC had slots
> because the Apple II made them popular and showed what an asset
> they could be.  Now before anyone says "Altair" let me point out that
> the Apple II was the first device that even resembled the personal
> computer of today.  Look at an Apple II, an Altair, and a PC and tell
> me with a straight face that the PC was modeled more after the
> Altair than the Apple II.  No, the IBM PC was built with a set of
> design requirements in mind and slots was one of them and they
> got that idea from the Apple II.
>
> Jobs has always felt that expandability and flexibility in a computer
> was "confusing."  Thus the Macintosh, originally conceived as a
> closed, self contained system with limited expandability.
>
> Now Jobs is back and there is an iMac and a G4 cube.
>
> Simply put, the main reason Apple dropped the II was because it
> was incompatible with Jobs' vision of what a computer should be.
> Computers like the Apple II and IBM PC were "confusing."  The
> user needed to be shielded from the inner workings of the machine.
>
> He has a point but to the majority of Apple II users, the Mac was
> never and will never be accepted because WE don't do things
> that way.  WE like to expand our systems and configure them
> the way WE like it.  Sadly, Jobs seems to have ingrained even
> in Apple II users the idea that the PC is bad.  Having made the
> jump to the PC, I can say that a modern PC is 1000 times more
> similar to the Apple II experience than any Mac can be.
>
> >In exchange, Apple did not have to carry the baggage of legacy
application
> >support.  They were, after all, out to capture the market.  Companies
such as
> >IBM are out to keep an existing client base.  As such, they give their
> >existing customers what they want.  Usually that something includes
support
> >for their existing software.  This is a habit which you see Apple
adopting
> >as time goes on: the switch from 680x0 to PowerPC did not break software
> >compatability (or even hardware compatability, in many cases); the transi
tion
> >from MacOS to MacOS X will be much the same (it is the transition from a
> >single user, co-operatively multitasking system to a full fledged Unix
> system).
>
> Now this is something that Jobs sorely miscalculated and I
> think his infatuation with the Mac/closed system concept
> combined with his desire to eclipse the brainchild of Woz
> made him blind to this.
>
> 680x0 to PowerPC transition was smooth because Jobs was
> not there.  But I think Jobs realizes now that he can get his
> closed system and still have his users.  At least he has
> figured out that the user is important.