Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!texbell!texsun!newstop!sun!concertina!fiddler From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Apple's committment to the // line Message-ID: <126418@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 16 Oct 89 23:53:26 GMT References: <8910120739.AA17465@trout.nosc.mil> <21038@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Lines: 53 In article , rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang) writes: > In article <21038@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> jma@beach.cis.ufl.edu (John 'Vlad' Adams) writes: > >Is Apple truly going to support the // series still? > > I think they are. The Mac is rapidly becoming a very high-end > computer ($5,000-7,500 range for the newer models). The //gs is still > a money-maker for Apple, too (somewhere around $1,000,000,000 last > year is the figure which sticks in my head from somewhere). This might not be such a strong argument (for Apple's bean counters, if nobody else) if and when the promised low-cost Mac comes out. Expected cost around $1000, or less. How much is a //c+? Can Apple abandon solid money makers, and their customers? There is precedent. The //gs isn't going to sell for anywhere near that price, given slots and Apple's pricing policies. > The Mac is not really much of a home computer--it takes *work* to > program it, and the available software, while powerful, can take more > time to learn than that on the ][ line. Things must have changed...the Mac has had from the beginning a most consistent approach to presenting programs to the user. The // had as many different ways as there were people to program on it. As for programming, lots of what people want to do can easitly be done in HyperCard. And it's easier to hack on that Applesoft ever was. The point being that there are ways around the vaunted high learning threshold required of Mac systems and application programmers. > I know several people who use > AppleWorks in preference to any Mac word processors; it does what they > need.... Too bad so many people think they have to have the latest whizbang thingy, when their old thingy will do the job. Sometimes faster and easier. > It seems to me that the Apple ][ series is rapidly becoming (again) > one of the few computers which is both affordable for families, has a > lot of fairly inexpensive software, and is easy to "hack" on. I don't > think Apple is going to give it up for a long time yet.... I don't think the //gs is really what you'd call "affordable". It's certainly no bargain, considering performance and capabilities. At around $950 or so for a 1Meg, single drive box with a color monitor, it should be a killer. ------------ "...I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization." - Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.