Re: Woz's comments on Apple's handling of the II line etc.

["Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

A little typo there....

> Everyone in the company had an Apple II <should be Apple III here>
> only on their desk. This is the computer with extra chips forced in by
> marketing so that the 80-column mode and extra memory would be
> DISABLED when you booted it as an Apple II.


"Charles" <spammeister12345@aol.com> wrote in message
MPG.1bbe459d78420d9e9896ce@news.verizon.net">news:MPG.1bbe459d78420d9e9896ce@news.verizon.net...
> From Woz's website http://www.woz.org/pages/wozscape/pgsinterview.html
>
> What became of Apple after the Mac was introduced? I know there was a
> lot of idea fights among employees, etc., was it forseeable? The Apple
> II's future, that is...
>
> The world has no way of knowing what was going on in the company between
> 1989 and 1992. For 3 years the Apple II was the largest selling computer
> in the world yet the company had virtually no support for it. Virtually
> no engineering or marketing. Just reprinting the price list. The Apple
> IIe was designed by an engineer who couldn't be stopped by management
> and who was going to do it on his own time anyway. Everyone in the
> company had an Apple II only on their desk. This is the computer with
> extra chips forced in by marketing so that the 80-column mode and extra
> memory would be DISABLED when you booted it as an Apple II. In other
> words, it was a HANDICAPPED Apple II compared to the IBM PC. This was to
> make sure that the Apple III was king with no competition from the Apple
> II. Every ad from Apple during a 3 year period showed an Apple III. The
> Apple II, the largest selling computer, never appeared. It just made a
> ton of money for the company. The outside world was full of Apple II
> interest but when I visited the company everyone spoke Apple III.
> Although Apple eventually called the Apple III a $60M loss I claim it
> was more like $300M because virtually every salary in Apple was trying
> to make that computer a winner, to prove the executives who shaped it
> right. This includes Mike Markkula.
>
> According to A+ the Apple IIGS was the computer that you always wanted
> to build. Is this true? What features were put into the GS that you
> wanted, which weren't?
>
> In the time frame of the Apple II being forgotten, John Sculley joined
> the company. Right away he pinpointed the Apple III as being financially
> a problem and he resized it in the company. I rejoined the company in
> the Apple II division in 1983 because I figured I could contribute the
> most there. A hot Apple II, without 3rd party add ons, appealed to me. A
> lot of engineers and managers who had been into one product only, the
> Apple III, looked to me for some direction. But the Apple IIx project
> which I was working for, was not good enough like the GS was a year
> later.
>
> How did the Amiga affect the GS?
>
> It is just my personal observation that the GS seemed to be Apple's
> answer to the Amiga. It had great graphics and great sound, and a lot of
> potential. But it didn't seem that the GS had the developer support the
> Amiga had.
>
> I don't know the Amiga well enough to comment much. I only hear, all the
> time, that the Amiga has a lot of custom hardware very advanced compared
> to the GS.
>
> Why and when did you leave Apple? What was the company's staff's feeling
> about
> your leaving?
>
> I have never left the company. I keep a tiny residual salary to this day
> because that's where my loyalty should be forever. I want to be an
> "employee" on the company data base. I won't engineer, I'd rather be
> basically retired, due to my family.
>