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Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS



In article <55app1$1n4o@uni.library.ucla.edu>, pubpc1@library.ucla.edu writes:
|> christw@lexis-nexis.com (Christopher C. Wood) wrote:
|> >In article <54u4c8$285u@uni.library.ucla.edu>, pubpc1@library.ucla.edu writes:
|> >|> Considering that the GS outsold the Mac in the first year, 

|> >Do you have a source for those figures?

|> Sure, it was from Compute.  They used to publish a list of the "Most
|> Popular Personal Computers."

Issue and page number would help; I'll check to see if the public
library has back issues from that long ago. 

|> >|> Apple should have made a new, more advance GS after two years.
|> >|> They could easily have built a GS that eclipsed the Mac II.

|> >But it wouldn't have come close to the Mac IIci that was on sale in
|> >1988.

|> It might have.  Basically, any improvement you can cite for the Mac
|> should have been possible on an extended II(GS).

"should have been possible" is not the same as "was a realistic
business option".  Motorola had a lot of customers besides Apple
buying 680x0 processors, and their money, together with Apple's,
funded the development of the full 32-bit 68020, 68030, and 68040
processors.  There is zero evidence that IIGS and Nintendo sales could
have generated enough revenue to fund the development of a 32-bit
version of the chip.  WDC tried and failed.  No 32-bit, 6502 and 65816
compatible chip, means no extended IIGS.

[ snip ]

|> >|> Well now, if Apple didn't cancel the GS and still supported it, more
|> >|> software would be around.

|> >Not with sales numbers in the hundreds of thousands per year...

|> In the //e days, when Apple provided some support, AppleWorks eclipsed
|> Lotus 1-2-3 sales.  1-2-3 was the best seller before AW.

A reference would help me accept these claims.  Appleworks was very,
very good.  I played with a pirated copy for about two months, and was
sufficiently impressed that I bought a copy.  This would have been in
1984 or 1985.  On the other hand, the software industry was in the
middle of a revolution by 1987.  1-2-3 was the fading old guard.
Lotus had all their eggs in the OS/2 basket.

Chris
-- 
Speaking only for myself, of course.
Chris Wood    christw@lexis-nexis.com   cats@CFAnet.com