Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucla-cs!lange
From: lange@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Trent Lange)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Why is Apple pushing CD-ROMs? (was Re: A/UX V2.0 questions)
Message-ID: <33521@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 27 Mar 90 08:27:36 GMT
References: <22775@topo.UUCP> <-286499949@hpcupt1.HP.COM> <858@ashton.UUCP> <1134@vector.Dallas.TX.US> <7409@goofy.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: lange@lanai.UUCP (Trent Lange)
Organization: UCLA Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Lines: 38

In article <7409@goofy.Apple.COM> dwb@sticks.apple.com (David Berry) writes:
>
>	I'd still suggest a CD-Rom player...
>	David W. Berry			A/UX Toolbox Engineer
>	dwb@apple.com

This leads me to a question which has almost certainly been asked before:

Why is Apple pushing CD-Roms and not Erasable Optical drives?

If I were Apple, I'd be *embarrassed* trying to hawk this limited,
expensive, and dead technology when NeXT sells optical drives that
can do everything CD-Roms do and "a whole lot more."

Sure, after you've spent hundreds of dollars on a CD-Rom, you can have
access to SpInside Mac, AU/X, and maybe another CD with a dictionary and
thesaraus (both are nice).  But then what?  There is *no way* that I or
probably most other (non-developer) Mac users are going to spend the 
$600 dollars or whatever it is just to do that.

On the other hand, I definitely *would* consider spending the $2000
that NeXT charges for an erasable optical drive.  Now *there* is
something useful.  Who couldn't use a 300 Meg removable drive?
With that, the availability of software on CDs from Apple and elsewhere
would just be the icing on the cake.

Surely Apple could either contract with Canon or some other optical
manufacturer to sell their own optical drives, or at least bless
an optical standard for the Mac and distribute their CDs on it.

What's the story?

- Trent Lange

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