Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!umn-d-ub!cs.umn.edu!sialis!gorf!rms
From: rms@gorf.UUCP (Roger M. Shimada)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Hardware idea (was: Proposed Amiga killer)
Keywords: Education, Apple //, Apple II
Message-ID: <113@gorf.UUCP>
Date: 27 Mar 90 03:29:31 GMT
References: <35090@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <112@gorf.UUCP> <1974@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil>
Reply-To: rms@gorf.UUCP (Roger M. Shimada)
Organization: Programmers Against Bureaucratic Incompetence
Lines: 53

In article <1974@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil> nfs1675@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil ( Michael S Figg) writes:
>In article <112@gorf.UUCP>, rms@gorf.UUCP (Roger M. Shimada) writes:
>> If anyone wants to break into the educational computing K-12 market,
>> their machine has to have Apple //e compatibility.  That's it.  No
>> excuses.  (I would give a dissertation on why, but let it rest at
>> that the Apple // dominates that market.)
>
>This definitly does NOT seem to be the case! Here in Columbus, somebody gave
>away two A500's to schools. I don't know if it was CBM or a local dealer. A 
>teacher from one of the two schools, who was responsible for his schools' 
>Amiga, talked briefly to our users group. He stated that although the school 
>has only the one Amiga and at least 12 Apples, the students and teachers are
>both going crazy over the Amiga. This is a grade school and even at the young
>age of the students, they are discovering the power and potential of the Amiga.
>I also talked to a couple of friends who are teachers in Washington State and
>they confirmed what has been said here and many other places repeatedly - that
>schools aren't picky, they take what they can get. And the reason they have so
>many Apples in the schools isn't because they are Apples, but because they are
>available!  

It is nice to see Amis creeping in here and there.  But how about the
long term?  It's nice to see people initially going gaa-gaa over a
really great machine, but the old Apple // probably has hundreds
educational software packages for it.  I feel this is important
because I think most of the educators currently using computers (and
thus the type of people who would recommend them) would have a really
hard time giving up their favorite software packages.  (Even if they
could play Shadow of the Beast on a new a machine :-)

The Apple // pretty much has K-12 locked up.  It has for the better
part of ten years now.  That's fine, except the Apple // family has
had minimal growth.  What I didn't mention in my previous posting is
that I believe that the Amiga is currently the ideal machine for
K-12.  Unfortunately, the only way I can see an Amiga replacing a
Apple // and all its software is with Apple // software compatibility.

(After all, IBM has even given up on K-12.  (And they've even wised
up; they're going for the more lucrative workstation market now.)
One of the reasons for them giving up was the company that I had
previously worked for.  It alone produces over a ten educational
software packages a year for the Apple //.)

I'd like to see C-A push into a market that I think the would have a
REAL chance in.  And it would not be cheap, nor quick.  And as much as
I would like to see an Amiga 3000, I know that the new 486 boxes will
ablow it out of the water in sales - if nothing else, just because of
its software base.

P.S.	I hate being cynical, but check on the single Amiga in the
	school in one year.  See what people are doing with it then.

--
Roger M. Shimada	{amdahl|hpda}!bungia!gorf!rms		rms@gorf.mn.org