Re: Apple ///?

[NOleshSPAMerjtHERE@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Tilghman Lesher)]

In article <bjbear-ya023680000104971052130001@news-s01.ca.us.ibm.net>, 
B.J. Major & Dennis J. Gorin (bjbear@ibm.net) wrote:
: No, I never said that.  But there is a *complete* set of  System 6.0.1
: software there on Apple's FTP sites (formerly for which you had to pay),
: Appleshare set up for //gs & Mac, SCSI utilities, CD ROM utilities, Copy
: utilities, etc.  As a -new-to-gs-but-not-new-to-Apple //-user, I've taken
: advantage of almost everything they have there.

Heh.  I've got the complete set of the first OS for the Apple I on my
ftp site.  Considering there wasn't any, that's not much to say.

: I guess you would rather they offer *nothing* for Apple // at their FTP
: sites at this point.  I disagree.  And if they offered nothing at this
: point, you'd have THAT to bitch & complain about.  No matter what they did
: now, they couldn't please people like yourself.

No, because, you see, it's not what they're trying to do now which upsets
me.  Primarily, it's the rotten decisions they've made in the PAST which
gets the people on this newsgroup upset.

Apple may be perfectly wonderful now (it's not, but that's another
argument), but that STILL does not excuse the really stupid decisions
they've made in the past.

: > And I suppose if they stuck with the Apple II and supported it actively,
: > they would still have this problem?  During the 80s, most schools were
: > Apple II-based, at least in the classrooms with the kids.  When the Apple
: > II was axed, a lot of schools switched over to PC clones.

: Regardless of whatever Apple decided to do with the // line, I can assure
: you that Apple // would no longer be the standard in schools now.  Not with
: 32 and 64 bit machines reigning as king.  It's the *90s*, not the 80's
: anymore!  Schools would have had to switch to something else eventually
: when the 8/16 bit computer revolution was over.  Most of them I'm aware of
: switched to Macintosh and are only now buying PC clones to supplement their
: computer labs.

The x86 is still the x86, which was around in the 70s.  The 65xxx is no
longer a supported machine.

Hmmm, a 64 bit Apple II which still runs Applesoft BASIC.  It could've
been a reality.

: > IBM clones were in direct competition with the Apple II.

: My point, exactly.  Clones were made almost immediately for IBM computers,
: while Apple continued to hold the reins so tightly that no one could
: legally MAKE either an Apple // or Mac clone.  So by doing this, Apple
: priced themselves right out of the market entirely.

But people could trust the Apple II, which is why it retained market
share.  The Mac was a completely new machine, which had no public record.
Let's face it, when you're a school administrator, and the current
computers are no longer supported, and you've got a choice whether to
go to something completely new or something which has a reputation, which
would you choose?  Obviously, the old standard IBM.

: > Hmmmm.  I believe "Lemonade Stand", as well as all those other educational
: > programs would still run native, and the schools would still be using them.

: I like all the old Apple // educational software, but let's face it--that
: looks pretty dated now that we have CD ROM multimedia and the
: like....something like that (lemonade stand) would not be sophisticated
: enough for today's students.

A software replica of "Pong", written in 1980, on the x86, will still
run on the Pentium.  The identical program, written on the Apple II, will
no longer run native on Apple's newest machines.

Whether the software looks "cool" or not is of little relevance to most
educators, most of whom just want the program to work.
   
: > 
: > The hardware may change, but the software lives on.

: The software and hardware is only living on for us hobbiests who want to
: support it.  It is no longer a viable tool for the general public to go out
: and buy.

The software which runs on the 8086 will still run on the 80686.  Why not
Apple?

And you may no longer want to BUY it, but you may want to USE what you've
already got. 

: New Microsoft sofware (Win '95 and others) will not run on older PCs.  At
: least with Apple, older Apple // stuff runs on the "newest" Apple // and
: 90% of old Mac hardware can run System 7.5.5.  I say that's pretty darn
: good.

We're not talking NEW software running on OLD machines.  We're talking
OLD software running on NEW machines.  We're talking backward-compatibility.

It's when Apple decided to completely end its backward-compatibility by
going with an entirely new chipset that it started to lose its market
share, and hence, started to go down the corporate drain.

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