Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!info-mac From: info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) Newsgroups: ont.micro.mac Subject: Toolbox equates for peons Message-ID: <4227@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Thu, 10-May-84 11:54:57 EDT Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.4227 Posted: Thu May 10 11:54:57 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 10-May-84 12:21:48 EDT Sender: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto Lines: 68 Date: 9 May 1984 04:27-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Toolbox equates for peons To: STERNLIGHT@USC-ECL Cc: INFO-MAC@SUMEX-AIM, REICH@NYU-ACF1 In-Reply-To: Msg of Tue 8 May 84 10:59:52-PDT from STERNLIGHT virulent cow pucky. I don't care a tinkers' damn for or against Apple or any other company. I do care that claims have some basis in reality; that claims to reverence by the hobbyist commuknity be based on something substantial; that claims to some special status have some basis. If IBM had brought out a limited memory, small screen, single drive system with proprietary operating system, charged $150 for the system documents needed to do anything particularly useful with it, helped people put out a bunch of $14.95 to $19.95 books that contain almost no real information (but were almost certainly supported by early copies of and access to the machines prior to the rest of the world getting them): whould IBM have been proclaimed Good Guys? I completely agree: the Mac is fun. For a student with $1000 it's probably a darned good buy for playing about with doing homework, writing letters, etc. You will still need a real calculator for your desk since the Mac one doesn't even have elementary functions; you'll have to wait if you want to load up basic and use that; you will have to find a printer if you want to turn in the homework; but it's a nice buy. For "the rest of us" who don't know much about cmputers and have been waiting to get one until something very useful and easy to use came out, I might have a different recommendation at $3500 (by the time you get a useful configuration). It was not me who put forth the Macintosh as the solution to all the world's computer problems. On the other hand, i have a strong interest in seeing people happy with their machines; and while I have heard a great deal of praise from computer scientists who see the potential and like the DIRECTION the machine seems to point to, and a lesser amount from new users who are very pleased to poke around and find the fish and the frog and other pictures and play with fonts, I do not hear such hjappy noises from "the rest of us." It was not me who claimed there would be enormous piles of software by April. As to the "Developer" status, I hardly care; but again there were these exhortations given at shows and prior to the release of the machine, and lots of talk about it. People were encouraged to apply; later, they find, they should not have been. Okay by me. I would myself thnk that if Apple sold Macintoshes to every random Ph.D. who wanted to get one as a developer (and who had already persuaded the company he consults for to buy a Lisa for his project) then, given that they do not lose money on the discounted price anyway, they probably wouldn't go broke; and they might get themselves a few people out there who can deliver some software. Availability of applications software is going to make or break the machine; I cannot thnk that long delays in processing "developer applications" followed by turndowns is going to get the hobbyists and hackers writing up a storm. Sure: Apple will lose a little money to people just trying to get machines cheap; but it only takes one VisiCalc to make a product successful. At the moment that applications program has yet to be written. Maybe, just maybe, something else will catch up faster than Apple suspects.