The Apple III: The End of Forever

[shack@onyx.southwind.net (Randy Shackelford)]

This is an article reproduced without permission from the July 1984 Softalk:


Obits
The Apple III: The End of Forever
It was probably the best personal computer ever made, but it could never
overcome its disastrous beginning. In the end, it succumbed to poor
marketing and neglect in the face of those big blue letters.

Apple computer has announced that it's stopped development efforts on the
Apple III. That's one step short of announcing that it will stop manufacturing
the machine, but that announcement is almost a foregone conclusion, with 
timing being the only remaining question.
If you're a stockholder in Apple, or a hater of Apple computers, you'll
probably think that it's about time. The Apple III has never been much more
than a cash and psychological drain.
But if you're a dedicated user of an Apple III, the announcement couldn't
help but tug a little at your heartstrings.
Seldom has a company so misconceived a product, or struggled so hard to
undo its mistakes. What makes the recent announcement so sadly ironic is
that the Apple III Plus upgrade had finally remedied the last remaining
deficiencies in the machine. It's now a solid, reliable performer.
Unfortunately, the marketplace has made its judgment. The Apple III is the
unwanted stepchild. Apple's decision reflects what has been conventional
wisdom outside Cupertino for years.
It's fruitless now to harp on all of Apple's mistakes with the III. One image
that will always remain is the sight of a large gentleman walking on his
Apple III motherboard in order to reseat chips that had popped out of their
sockets. Approximately the first fourteen thousand IIIs suffered from the
malady of chips coming unseated during use. The aforementioned cure, like a
bottle of Dr. Whiffenproof's Snake Oil and Toothache Remedy, was effective
for about an hour.
Perhaps the largest single drawback of the III is its operating system.
Pronounced like sauce, it should really be pronounced like the distress
signal. SOS is about as user-friendly as a hungry wolverine. It has all the
charm of a corporate president making an unfriendly tender offer for a rival
company. It's about as intuitive as the operation of a nuclear power plant.
But SOS was a breakthrough, inasmuch as it does several things for the user
that no previous operating system had ever done. Those hidden
accomplishments went unappreciated by the unwashed, who were having
trouble coping with its human interface.
The Apple III is not a great computer. Like the IBM PC, it's an okay
computer. That means that it'll do most of what you want it to do, reliably
and reasonably efficiently. But it doesn't qualify as great.
Maybe there are no great microcomputers being sold in quantity today. Or
maybe Mac is the only one. If you're trying to imply cutting edge of the state
of the art in all areas of manufacture and use, no microcomptuer qualifies
and only Mac comes close. The Apple II was a great computer when it was
introduced; now it's only an ordinary one. If all you mean by great is that
the computer makes easy what was once difficult, then many micros qualify.
Microsoft is the hub around which great computers come and go. Because
they supply the Basic language for almost everything in chips, they get to
see prototypes long before anyone else. They've seen great computers. Most
never saw the light of day. If you know any Microsoft employees, ask them.
They're pretty constrained not to talk about manufacturere, machines, or
performance details, but most Microsoft personnel can confirm that they've
seen some great computers.
Perhaps great and commercial are mutually exclusive. Perhaps commercial
implies enough manufacturing and performance compromises to preclude great.
Even if the Apple III is not a great computer, Apple's decision is to be
mourned. The Apple III is kind of like that easy chair in the front room at
home. It clashes with the rest of the furniture and it needs reupholstering,
but it's so doggone comfortable you can't bear to part with it.
What made the Apple III so comfortable was not Apple Computer but the
few software geniuses who adopted the III and worked around its barriers
to developing good software.
It may come as a surprise to many to find out that there is good software
available for the III. Such folks will be doubly surprised to find out that
some of it is great software.
Visicalc: Advanced Version, as implemented on the III, is awesome. Bill
Gates and Mitch Kapor can legitimately disagree with the opinion that the
Apple III version is the best spreadsheet implementation extant, but that's
how we see it.
Tim Gill's Word Juggler III is great software. Haba Systems won't agree with
the opinion that III E-Z Pieces isn't up to the standard of 1-2-3 on the IBM
PC, but that isn't the point. Whether it's as good as, or better than, or 
slightly behind 1-2-3, Pieces is a sound integrated program that provides 
Apple III users with excellent functionality.
Oddly enough, the very best piece of software on the III isn't even an
applications program. As voted by Softalk readers last year, the best
program is Catalyst, another of Tim Gill's brainstorms. Catalyst allows III
users to put all their copy-protected applications software on a Profile hard
disk. Because most III applications require swapping program segments in
memory, having the applications on a hard disk significantly improves
performance.
All the III lacks is a superb database. Keystroke is a good start in that
direction, but it's too little, too late.
It may seem surprising to many that some damned fool would cite software
as a reason to regret Apple's announcement. After all, Apple crows about the
sixteen thousand programs that run on the Apple II. IBM is claiming an
estimated eleven thousand on the PC. The III has only a comparative
handful, excluding those that run - and run is definitely a euphemism in this
context - in the Apple II emulation mode.
Most serious computer users use only five or six programs on a regular basis.
When was the last time you saw an Apple II owner with sixteen thousand
programs at his beck and call, asserting that he was expert in every one of
them and using them on a regular basis? Ridiculous? Of course!
What the Apple III lacks in quantity of programs, it makes up for in quality 
of the few programs that exist.
The Apple III has an unexpected versatility about it that Softalk had
occasion to test in various ways.