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From: nabi@vax135.UUCP (Nabi Rafie)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Mac: The Past, The Present, and the Future
Message-ID: <1291@vax135.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Feb-86 21:21:27 EST
Article-I.D.: vax135.1291
Posted: Thu Feb  6 21:21:27 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Feb-86 04:46:59 EST
References: <1282@vax135.UUCP> <11450@watnot.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 36


	The Apple that is swinging back into shape now, is doing so because
of the Mac and its creators, not beaue of any vision of their own. 
	Also, I didn't put down the LISA dream, I did say (more than once
I think) that the LISA is many years ahead of its time. What I probably 
should have said is that the LISA was aimed at the wrong market perhaps. If
the LISA were successful, the Mac might not have ever been born ! The need
for an affordable version of the LISA gave rise to the Mac. Now that
everybody has a Mac, Apple is slowly increasing Mac's power, and it seems 
like they are going back towards full LISA technology. Perhaps they should
have done that in the first place. Maybe now we wouldn't have all this 
headaches associated with the new Mac+ and upgrading the Macs and LISAs.  
	The LISA was Apple's big shot at the business end of the market. If
it had been successful, they wouldn't have withdrawn the LISAs. It is obvious
that people are looking for bold imagination, new ideas and exciting products
from Apple, not the same old archaic MS-DOS garbage that IBM promotes. I think
Apple's products are (light) years ahead of its competitors (i.e. IBM) but
the business people still buy the IBM stuff because of the name, NOT the 
product. If Apple were consistent and held their place in the market as the
creators of visionary ideas, and kept providing good service and reliability,
they would eventually enter other markets, not by force, but by the market's
needs.
	I'm an electronics engineer and I need to interface to computers
in order to accomplish certain tasks. Would I be able to easily interface
other electronic equipment to my Mac as easily as I could to an IBM
or a clone ? The LISA does have 3 slots in the back which one could use, but
Apple has dropped the LISA line. The Mac wasn't designed for lab work I guess.
You are then more or less stuck with an IBM PC and the pain of MS-DOS.  For 
those who don't care about ports and what not, the Mac is perfect.
	Hopefully next year Apple will introduce their more serious micro
with a 68020, FP coprocessor, color, etc etc. But then that can be considered
the next generation LISA technology !
	Happy mousing !	
				nabi