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Re: Apple II-Or Come on people, It's a 20 year old computer
In article <8F5A737FBsebsauvagebigfootcom@212.27.32.77>,
S�bastien SAUVAGE <sebsauvage@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter) wrote in
> <8ippuu$de6$1@merope.saaf.se>:
>
>>In article <395042D8.F250D99A@wanadoo.nl>,
>>ruud.dingemans <ruud.dingemans@wanadoo.nl> wrote:
>>
>>>> I've never seen a more impotent computer than the Apple Lisa....
>>>
>>> Hey, a bit more respect for the grandmother of all modern personal
>>> computers, ok.
>>
>>FYI: the majority of today's modern computers did NOT evolve from the
>>Lisa. Many people frown on this, but "the grandmother of most modern
>>computers" happens to be the IBM PC. Reality isn't always as
>>exciting as some would like it to be.
>
> mmm... so you're saying that modern computer do not have a mouse,
> overlaping windows, menus, icons, toolboxes...
I said none of that, and you know it! Do you really think that a
computer consists of nothing but a mouse, overlapping windows, menus,
icons and toolboxes? Well, without a CPU, a bus, mass storage, etc
you can do absolutely nothing with that stuff. And in THAT respect,
most of today's computers are descendants of the IBM PC. If you
don't believe me, pick any modern PC, then try to run an old PC
program on it, and an old Mac program.....
> At the time I first used Lisa, a PC Mouse was a rare item, and PCs
> were hardly evolving from text mode.
We are in full agreement about this. The major (and only?) point of
Lisa was the user interface. However, a computer isn't just a user
interface, it's also about performance and affordability, and here
Lisa failed badly. I think we can agree on that too, can't we?
However, products which failed in the market can still serve as an
inspiration for later products. So when Apple released the Mac,
it was still pricey, but much cheaper than the Lisa. In time the
Mac did get more and more nice properties -- such as an expansion
bus, and a switch to a diskette format which was, on the lowest level
at least, compatible with the diskette format of other manufacturers.
> [History]
> Witnessing the success of the Apple II, IBM decided to quickly
> create and sell a Personal Computer, because IBM sensed that the
> time of huge computers was over.
This is wrong. IBM is still doing fine in mainframe computers (ther
are still many AS/400 systems running out there!). However I
wouldn't want to call these "huge computers", because IBM's presence
in the supercomputer market is quite small.
> Now, who started the personal computer industry ?
Intel did, back in 1972 when creating the 4004 instead of the special
TTL logic requested by that big japanese calculator manufacturer.
Without microprocessors, there would be no personal computer industry.
And the very first personal computer - the Mits Altair - used the
Intel 8080 as a CPU.
> [History]
> At the time the Macintosh came out, IBM and Microsoft said that
> the Macintosh was a "toy" and the mouse a "gadget".
>
> How fun... |-D
It was mostly a gadget, at the time. And so was the PC, which
originally was aimed at the home computer market, mostly intended to
play games. That's why IBM first released the CGA (Color Graphics
Adapter) card, which had (low-res, by toray's standards) graphics,
but which displayed text with not so good resolution.
>>> It may have been a flop at the time because of cost, but it started a
>>> revolution nonetheless.
>>
>> No it didn't. The original idea was stolen by Apple from Xerox, so
>> Lisa wasn't the original computer with a GUI. And the Lisa was
>> simply too expensive to start a "revolution" on the market -- the
>> Macintosh did that.
>
> The idea was not that 'stolen'. Apple bought Xerox's Lab at PaloAlto.
>
> But this is true that the first GUI computer were Xerox's.
OK, the idea was perhaps bought. Fact is though that Apple didn't invent
the GUI, as many people seem to believe.
>>That won't leave much of a revolution to the Lisa, right?
>
> Wrong.
>> And, yes, I'll give the Lisa and Mac another credit: they spawned a
>> religious war which was to last for over a decade, about which was
>> the "best" computer.
>
> The same kind of wars originated from Amiga, AtariST and PC users.
Apple pursued this war more actively though than most other
participants. I'm not aware of any other company where this war was
brought into the company itself.
>> This war even raged on within Apple, and in the end it killed the
>> Apple II line of computers some years earlier than it otherwise
>> probably would have died. It became particularly pathetic when
>> people advicating the Mac, Atari and Amiga got together
>> to hotly debate *which* GUI was the "best"....
>
> True.
> No computer is the *best*.
> This kind of debate is dead end.
Here we are again in full agreement.
--
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Paul Schlyter, Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
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