Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jm7e+ From: jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Reality vs. Apple Computer Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 90 18:11:26 GMT References: <1990Mar1.104241.13134@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu>, <1990Mar1.104440.13191@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> Distribution: comp.sys.apple Organization: Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 58 In-Reply-To: <1990Mar1.104440.13191@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> I would like to concur on what Mr. Whitesel posted. I would also like to add that from a marketing point of view, Apple has nothing to lose by producing such a machine, and is in fact damaging itself by not producing the product! Keeping their designs in the lab and never letting them surface is R&D wasted. And the Apple // caters to a community that is attracted to the new, the clever, and the original. We will find a use for and support anything that appears for the Apple//, providing that it APPEARS! If Apple has a good thing going, then it will get sold and make money. Remember that the 16K Apple ][ sold like hot cakes and cost $2000!!! However, I don't agree that a low end mac should be pushed, especially one with color. The mac is a hard coded machine, and from working closely with it in a university environment, I have found to be a monotonous and unexciting machine unless it is equipped with a great deal of extra memory, storage, and support software. Besides, with Appleworks GS in front of me, I am convinced that there is nothing that a low-end Mac would do that the GS can't do already. An improved GS, like the hinted Rom-04, would cover all the ground the Mac held while adding color and all the other things the // is known for. And it would be more economical to boot. In my opinion, a low-end Mac is a contradiction in terms. Apple should push the Mac as a high-end workstation, sold in configurations of 8 megs standard and mega-pixel monitors. Marketing research shows that the only computer arena still expanding is the workstation market, and the Mac has a unique opportunity to go head-to-head with NeXT with a familiar interface co-running with UNIX. Which UNIX??? Not A/UX... Mach, the OSF standard. I have two of them as AFS Workstations 5 feet behind me, and configured correctly, Mach would run in a window upon the Mac desktop. In this scheme, low-end Macs are useful only as Appletalk clients. They simply are too cumbersome with system software to act stand-alone. Departments here aren't interested in Mac SE's... they want nothing less than //cx's. Mac-Pluses are going the way of the old PC's... stacked in warehouse closets! And a //gs with a HFS FST and a library for applications to write and read to and from popular mac applications would fill the gap completely. The Mac is not a personal computer. It became a workstation with the introduction of the Mac //. The //gs is a personal computer. And the longer Apple takes to accept this, the more money they will lose. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |Jeremy Mereness | Support | Ye Olde Disclaimer: | |jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (internet) | Free | The above represent my| |a700jm7e@cmccvb (Vax... bitnet) | Software | opinions, alone. | |staff/student@Carnegie Mellon U. | | Ya Gotta Love It. | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------