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Re: Apple II Clones. How many sold?

On Sun, 27 Dec 2009, winston19842005 wrote:


On 12/27/09 6:33 PM, in article 4B37EEBB.14687.usenet_csa2@a2central.com,
"sfahey" <sfahey@a2central.com.remove-erw-this> wrote:


  To: Jeff Blakeney
  Re: Re: Apple II Clones.  How many sold?
  By: Jeff Blakeney to datajerk on Sun Dec 27 2009 02:46 pm


datajerk wrote:

So, was the C64 the best-selling computer "model" of all time?  Can
the ~200 different Apple II clones significantly increase the the
overall volume of the A2 family.  I speculate no.  Simply because my
clone was still 3x the cost of the C64.  But I'd still like to know.


Keep in mind that the 5 million number I've heard for Apple II sales is
the total of Apple II, II+, IIe, and IIc computers.  The IIc+ may even
be included in that number.  That is 4 or 5 different "models".  You
would have to classify a clone as one of those models and come up with
totals for each of them separately.  I don't think the total for any
other these models will come close to the Commodore 64's numbers.

The Commodore 64 is said to have sold 17 million but that is only one
model.  It may include the 64C but that wasn't a different model, it was
just manufactured differently if I remember correctly.  They aren't
including the Vic 20, 16, Plus 4 or any other model in that total.


There seems to be more working Apple II gear on eBay than Commodore gear.

Anecdotal evidence may indicate that Commodore's race to undercut their
competitors may have resulted in a machine that doesn't hold up as well. Or
maybe because it was cheaper, it was more expendable to some -- and more
likely to go in the dumpster.

<shrug>


Commodore power supplies are good at taking out the C64. Your power brick
suddenly takes out your C64, then you plug it into a good C64, power it up,
and now you have 2 dead C64s.
The same thing happened with the Atari ST I bought at a clearance in early 1989. I paid about $300 for it, then had it sit around until I felt like spending money on a floppy drive to use the thing. I used it a bit, it went bad. The power supply had applied too much voltage, and damaged 
the ST.  I was really lucky, it turned out to have only damaged one RAM,
and that RAM was easy to find because it was hot.
But that was the worst computer I ever bought. There was flakiness somewhere, and every time I thought I'd found the problem, I'd mangle a floppy drive when disk operation went bad. 

   Michael


Bad quality control, and I can see no evidence that Commodore did anything
to fix it.