Re: ANN: Retiring from A2 world - Good Bye All!

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <3d0b2a2b_1@news3.prserv.net>,
Tom Zuchowski <tzuchow@attglobal.net> wrote:
 
> Uh, you seem to be disregarding the fact that the Apple II+ was the
> original "business machine"
 
Not quite .... as a matter of fact, the most common macnines used in
businesses around 1980 were CP/M-80 machies.
 
> and was very, very successful in that role. Apple created the Apple
> /// as their successor business machine, and it failed because of
> some VERY stupid cost-cutting decisions made in its manufacture
> that poisoned pubic opinion.
>
> Meanwhile, the Mac was largely a toy for years until the SE30 finally
> hit the streets. Even then, it was a poor excuse for a "business
> machine" and no competition for the PC. And let's not forget that IBM
> was well on its way to market dominance by the time the first pitiful
> Mac128 hit the street.
 
Ironcally, IBM lost this market dominance by committing somewhat of
the same mistake Apple did: IBM released the PS/2 series of
computers, which were considerably more closed than the PC/XT/AT
computers.  And the clones took over the PC market and took its own
directions.  Nowadays IBM clones the clones and is a minor player in
the PC market.  But IBM are present on many other markets as well,
for instance tey manufacture harddisks.  So your Mac could very well
have a harddisk made by IBM inside.....
 
> It wasn't that Apple was unable to penetrate the business market.
> Rather, it was Apple's breathtaking arrogance (and yes, the Mac
> figures prominently in that equation) that let the business market
> get away from them after they had once pretty much owned it. The
> Apple /// was a vastly superior machine in every way to the early PC.
 
Your claim "The Apple /// was a vastly superior machine in every way
to the early PC" is utter nonsense.  The PC could quite early be
equipped with 640K RAM for instance without having to resort to bank
switching; the Apple /// had only 128K and even then had to use bank
switching.  The PC could also, from the very beginning, be equipped
wuth a numerical coprocessor (the 8087): the socket was there right
on the motherboard -- you only had to plug in the chip and switch a
DIP switch on the motherboard (for me, that was one major reason for
going the PC way).  The only way to get a similarly powerful numeric
coprocessor on the Apple /// was to buy a third-party 8088 add-on
board with an 8087 socket.... (yes, for some time I did consider
doing that to my Apple II+....).  Now you may argue "But I'm not
into number crunching..." -- if so, fine, but some others are, and
the Apple /// is definitely NOT "vastly superior" to the early PC
when it comes to number crunching....  therefore the Apple /// is
NOT "vastly superior in every way" to the early PC....
 
It's stupid to claim that machine A is a "vastly superior machine in
every way" to machine B because it's so easy to shoot down such an
argument: just find one single property where A isn't "vastly
superior" to B !!!!  And even if machine A is an immensely powerful
supercomputer with every nice gadget (hardware and sofware wise) you
can imagine, while machine B is a simple Sinclair ZX80, B still has a
few advantages over A: portability, and low cost....
 
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se
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