Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!pacbell.com!ames!sgi!silvlis.com!jimb
From: jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: New Macintosh LC & Classic keyboards...
Message-ID: <1990Dec20.074947.16489@silvlis.com>
Date: 20 Dec 90 07:49:47 GMT
References: <246@alchemy.UUCP> <4706@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
Sender: usenet@silvlis.com (USENET news maint)
Organization: Silvar-Lisco, Inc.
Lines: 76

In article <4706@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> ehanson@umbc2.umbc.edu writes:
>hzink@alchemy.UUCP (Harry K. Zink) writes...
>Probably the same people responsible for the LC and Classic. I have never
>seen a more useless and in my opinion utterly stupid pair of computers.

Amazingly stupid comments abound, don't they? How can a computer that is
functionally the same as the computer used effectively in thousands
of business offices be "useless".

The Classic is a useful computer. Maybe it isn't gee-whiz enough
for you, but it's extremely useful.

>I _do_ mean, however, to put down the people who push the profit margin
>up so high that to make a $1200 machine, the designers are forced to use
>six bucks in parts. Haven't they been using the same CPU for 7 years?

So? I haven't heard of a single definition of useful which has a time
span it. 

>(Okay, I realize the LC has an '020. Welcome to the 80's, guys.) For 
>_only_ ;-) four times the price of a classic, you can have the best damn
>computer ever built! (Yes, I'm talking about a NeXT. And no, I can't afford
>one. So why do I bring it up? I don't know. Wasn't this post about keyboards?)

Your math must be a lot different from mine. 4 x $1200 street price for
a Mac Classic with hard disk doesn't come near the street price of
a NeXT. Oh yeah, I forgot, *Educational Discount Price*.

>
>Why would Apple have a hundred (or four or five) different "standard" 
>expansion slot types? Somebody at Apple is a few cans short of a six-pack, 
>if you ask me.

Apple has one slot type, the NuBus. Even though the marketing and sales
droids call the rest "slots" anyone that examines them should realize
they are just connectors attached directly to the pins of the CPU chip.
Thus when the CPU chip changes pinouts, the Processor Direct Slot must
change. Logical, isn't it, Spock?

All they really are is a more reliable replacement for the Killy clip
used by many 3rd party suppliers to attach daughter boards to the
CPU chip.

>
>>Of course, the sensible thing is to just get a standard keyboard and toss the 
>>new one out - even though it has a nicer feeling and look to it in my opinion.

Well, he likes something about it. 8^) Personnally, I use five different
keyboard layouts every single day. I don't know what the fuss is about
position of the keys is. I'm just happy to finally get a keyboard from
Apple that *has* all the keys!

>
>I may be a bit naive, but I think that Apple started out with the goal
>of "making money by building the best damn personal computers around". And
>now their goal has changed to "making money (and lots of it)".

Sigh. Yes, I think you are a bit naive. Apple started with more than one
goal. Woz had one, Jobs had another. Later on Jobs had one, and Woz was
gone. Jobs was the person who told the "independent" design company
that if they wanted to keep Apple's business, they couldn't design the
packaging for Wozniak's new company. Nice Guy?

Do you think there was something better about Apple in the old days?

Now they've just cut their margins. Honest. They expect to make it up in
quantity, true. But they did cut their margins. 

Oh well, why am I replying to you? You think NeXT is the next level
of computer life. I think it's the next example of a failed idea.
We'll see who's right, won't we?
--
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