Re: Apple IIx

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Forrest <bctimes@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Rubywand wrote:
>
>>>Established II users at the end of 1984 would be...people with IIs
>>>and II Pluses, who were by then a minority of the Apple II
>>>population.
>>
>>Hard to say. A lot of those IIe's were going into schools all over
>>the world.
>
>Even if half of the 1.5 million sold went into schools the II and II+
>people would have been in the minority; just a larger minority.

I'll have to dig out my old issues of Compute! again, but there were
a total of over 11 million combined Apple II units (spanning all the
models sold), possibly 12 million.  Of those, 1.5 million were IIGS
units and some 5 million alone were Apple IIes.  The IIc made up
another large chunk.  This was followed by the II+.  There really
were not that many Apple IIs.  Between the Apple II and the IIc+,
it is hard to say which one sold more and we know the IIc+ was
not a popular model (although it WAS the best 8-bit Apple II).  Then
again, the definition of successful in 1988 was different from that
in 1977.  Even if the IIc+ outsold the II during its lifetime, the II
would still be considered more successful because not that many
personal computers were sold in 1977.

The Apple IIe was an amazingly successful unit with large sales
volume and a very long life span.  It was legendary and no
computer model has ever lasted as long.

However, today IIes are being abandoned in droves, but, although
IIGS units are also being traded in less than flattering ways, those
II users who are still seriously using the Apple II (like myself) are
mainly IIGS users.

The IIGS had a lot of potential that Apple never tapped.  My IIGS
has a 1024x768 SVGA card capable of 24-bit color, a 1GB hard
drive, a Zip drive, a CD-ROM, a high speed modem, a high res
ink-jet printer, 200+ TrueType fonts, and 8MB of RAM, and
accelerated five times over.  Had Apple released the IIGS with a
hard drive after the initial model, improved its video every few
models, increased the standard RAM every few models, it would
quite possibly had kept its large and formidable user base.

Apple should never have dived into schizophrenia by splitting
into Mac and II divisions and then killing itself and abandoning
its users.  The IIGS and the Mac should have been one unit
released in 1984.  That it was not was the fault of Steve Jobs,
who's philosphy was conflict.  "IBM is the evil empire" helped
galvanize Apple to innovation.  BUT when Jobs added "Apple
II" to the list of enemies (like seen in Pirates of Silicon Valley
"Macintosh division is family, everyone else [gesturing to the
entire Apple Computers, Inc. building filled with Apple II
employees] is an outsider.") he really stepped over the line
and led his company off the cliff.

I just took a look at the book "100 Best Commercials" and
it had the 1984 "Big Brother" commercial.  Well, it also said
that the year after, Apple tried an encore with the Lemmings
commerical, where "suits" were marched off the cliff.  In 1986,
Apple sales plummeted.  That was when Jobs was fired, the
IIGS released, and the Mac and II divisions reintegrated.
Apple needed the Apple II line to stay alive.  It is just pure
evil and chance that we Apple II users got screwed.  Chance
because by the time the Mac and II divisions were reintegrated,
Steve Jobs had already positioned Mac folks closer to the
top.  Evil because they proceeded to use the Apple II line
as a cash cow, channeling profits away from II R&D and
advertising and to Mac R&D and advertising.

What kind of company competes against itself?  A company
that does not care about its users!  (Or rather, Jobs did not
care about the users.)