Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

[christw@lexis-nexis.com (Christopher C. Wood)]

In article <5534t9$8ur@darla.visi.com>, nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates) writes:
|> In article <nevin-ya023180002810961239520001@192.12.69.9>,
|> Nevin ":-]" Liber <nevin@CS.Arizona.EDU> wrote:

|> >There were three possibilities (well, actually more at the time, since
|> >there were more platforms like the Apple III and the Lisa):

|>    A3 was _dead_ and gone by mid-1981. The Apple III+ had all of the
|> features (and more) of the Apple III, but none of the flakiness, but
|> the public's perception of Apple III machines was that they stank, and
|> it didn't sell well at all.

|>    Funny you should mention the Lisa. Better than the original Mac,
|> but killed off to support the Mac. [Hmmmm. Where the heck have we
|> heard this before? The killing of the Apple II was not the only
|> misguided business decision to come out of Apple by a long shot.] When
|> the Mac took off, the Lisa (renamed as the Mac XL) became real
|> popular.  Why? Expandable, more powerful, etc. However, Apple had
|> closed down the Lisa manufacturing lines, and they didn't reopen them
|> in spite of *obvious* demand for Macs better than the original 128K
|> box.

Not quite.  Apple ended up with a whole bunch of unsold LISAs that
ended up in a landfill.  LISA sold few copies, mostly because of the
$10,000 price tag.  And Apple couldn't have cut the price too much,
and still made a profit on them.  Initially, they were the only
supported development environment for the Mac.  It couldn't even
support its own development tools.

The "Fat Mac" was released in late 1984.  Mac Plus in early 1986.  By
1986, Apple was essentially releasing a LISA, with a smaller screen,
faster clock, and one fewer floppy drive, for half the price.  HDs
were still expensive.

|>    It took them until the Mac II a few years later before Apple
|> regained sanity from the Steve Jobs design of "Closed box; 128K
|> should be enough for EVERYBODY." (Bill Gates ain't gont nothing on
|> Jobs-- it was only by the designers sneaking in the ability to go
|> to 512K of RAM that the Mac could be a halfway useful machine, not
|> a cute toy). Similarly, in the design of the Apple II, Jobs was
|> pushing for only 1-2 slots; Woz had the foresight to figure out
|> that users will find uses for them. An unexpandable box is fine for
|> a game console you plug into your TV or certain palmtops. However,
|> anyone looking at the tremendous progress in the computer industry
|> would have to be blind to try and deny users the ability to upgrade
|> their boxes.

You're forgetting that cards made configuring software to run on the
hardware difficult.  Macintosh demonstrated that ease of use is
important.  The idea of including all the necessary ports on the
motherboard, a la Apple IIc and IIGS, is a good one.  Cuts down on the
configuration needed to get things working.

|> >1.  Support Macintosh only.
|> >2.  Support IIgs only.
|> >3.  Support Macintosh and IIgs.

|> 4. Provide a bridge between the A2 and Macs. Make a 'Apple //e on a
|> card' in 1985, not 1991, and sell it as a nice migration path.

A card that plugs into what, exactly?

|>    Apple took the worst route, supporting Macs and then throwing
|> tidbits to A2 users that were too little, too late. The hardware for a
|> //e on a card was designed with the GS-- the 'Mega II' chip with a 6502
|> and some ram _is_ a //e. So, why'd they take 6+ years to get around to
|> doing such a thing?

I don't know.  Up until '87, there wasn't a machine to plug a card
into, and making the two radically different display circuits drive a
single monitor would have been a serious challenge.  They did go part
of the way, with an AppleTalk card for the Apple IIs -- then you can
network everything together.

|> 5. Split the company and/or otherwise license off the A2 line. Once
|> again with Macs, Apple's proved that they'd rather have high profits
|> and little market share than some form of market domination. Spinning
|> off a division for the A2 with its own budget for advertising, etc
|> would have made Apple a lot more money. As a separate division of
|> Macintosh, Inc., the A2 division could share technological inovations
|> in software and hardware; a little internal friendly competition to
|> develop better things can be healthy.

Apple tried that '83 through '85 or so.  Four separate divisions.
Didn't work so well.  The history of the company basically has three
phases: Apple II, the search for the successor to the Apple II, and
Macintosh -- and the last phase didn't really start until late 1985 -
early 1986, because it took that long to discover that the Macintosh
would be the successor to the AII.

|>    In the early to mid 80s, there were tons of platforms (A2, IBM,
|> Commie 64, Amig, Atari, TI*, etc) out that have fallen extinct; there
|> were companies that stayed exclusively for one or two platforms, and
|> plenty (Broderbund, EA, lots of others) that developed for many platforms.
|> At the time, developers routinely developed for multiple platforms, so
|> A2 _and_ Mac was not a problem for them.

Except the Apple II had the least-capable hardware out there.  Even
after the IIGS was introduced, the competing platforms had a lot more
horsepower, and better graphics.  By then, the world had gone PC, C64
was gone, Amiga and Atari were struggling, and TI was gone.  Apple was
fighting for business penetration with the Macintosh.

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