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From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: An open letter to all Apple II lovers/Apple Bashers
Message-ID: <12768@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 2 May 90 14:27:56 GMT
References: <9005020758.AA27657@apple.com>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory
Lines: 55

In article <9005020758.AA27657@apple.com> VS83F8@UMKCVAX3.BITNET writes:
>        ...  Let us say apple could put the whole package
>        together in a IIc type box, and people could use their tvs for
>        monitors, and could sell them to compete with the nintendo market
>        at say $200.  A ten percent margin would be $20. You'd have to
>        sell about 250 of them for every mac II they sell now to make the
>        same kind of money.  Go jump off a ledge, people. That would be
>        stupid.

According to your logic, Nintendo should have sold Macs at 50% margins
instead of their game systems.

>                a) You ("generic internet users") consider the II a
>                   "hacker's machine," that is, one in which the
>                   average joe/joette can program.

Yes, the Apple II family comes standard with a built-in programming
language, and awful as you may think it is, this was an significant
enabling step toward making computing accessible to the public.

>        Guys (no gender reference): Catch a clue!  When my mac boots
>        about ten million inits boot; My control panel is full to scrolling
>        of the screen; my hard disk is crammed. Freeware, shareware all of
>        it.  This before you consider Desk accesories, and full length
>        applications, and most especially HyperCard.

Funny, sounds a lot like my IIGS.  So why should I get a Mac instead
and lose the use of my bookcase full of Apple II software?

>        ... I've seen grown men/women spend hours programming
>        supurb,complex applications in hypercard --> these are people
>        who would never ever touch a computer before. The mac is the
>        most extensible machine on the market.  Please read extensible
>        as flexible as hackable.

What?  Hypermedia systems don't require a Mac.  In fact we have HyperStudio
on the IIGS and if Apple decides to release it HyperCard itself for the IIGS.

>        ... you are being blind! I work on a mac Plus, 2.5 meg ram
>        and a sixty meg harddrive. $1800. Okay, I don't have color, but
>        but I *do* have the best graphics on the market.

Who's blind?  There are graphic systems far superior to the Mac+,
although (apart from color) the IIGS isn't one of them.

>        Hopefully Apple will ship a low end color mac by years end
>        and I'll upgrade

And hopefully they'll ship a high end Apple II and I'll upgrade.

What we (Apple II users) resent about the Macintosh is that Apple
drastically reduced support for the Apple II line AND USED FLIMSY
EXCUSES to justify ignoring the needs of this major segment of their
customer base for many years.  There was NO NEED for that, and they
have pissed us off.