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Why so much Apple? Need a Commodore Fan's PoV

This kind of reminds me of my rant: Why do we always think of Silicon Valley when we think of computers? I mean, just a quick list of influential early machines:

Altair - Albuquerque, NM
IMSAI - San Leandro, CA
Compaq - TX
IBM PC - Boca Raton, FL
Microsoft - Bellingham, WA
Commodore - West Chester, PA
Dell - Austin, TX
Coleco - Connecticut
Atari - Sunnyvale, CA
Apple - Cupertino, CA
Sun Microsystems - Stanford University, CA
DEC - Maynard, MA
Tandy - Ft. Worth, TX
Texas Instruments - TX
Osborne - CA
Kaypro - San Diego, CA
Wang - Cambridge, MA
Univac - CT/NY
Intergraph - Huntsville, AL (had to put that one on there. ;))


Granted, there's quite a few California based outfits there, but the crucible of many early computing systems was outside of The Valley as well.

Anyways, back to Commodore. Certainly the Commodore 64 was an influential machine, and I believe still holds record of being the single highest volume seller of any one model computer, and I think even accounting for that sold more units than the entire Apple II line (someone would have to check me on that though). Unlike Jobs, I think Tramiel and others in charge of Commodore really didn't understand that you needed a cohesive platform to build upon. This is evidenced by their almost complete lack of focus and software interoperability between any of the machines in the 8-bit line (64 and 128 notwithstanding). They tried to build a different machine for every potential market it seemed, instead of building on the successes that they had.

I don't think a lot of people really appreciate the contributions to computing technology that many of the engineers that started at Commodore have given to the industry, particularly in the area of sound and graphics capabilities.
 
Deathshadow,

I assume you did not live as either an adult or teenage though the time period when Apple got their start, so you really don't understand what computers were like before they started marketing towards the small business and home user, not the hobbyist. That is what they did that changed everything. It took years to catch on....

Also Apple always targeted the upper middle class for their systems. Think of it as the low end of prosumer market. To take it out of computers and into something else, you could say they targeted the Bang and Olufsen crowd, not the bose or sony crowd. They did not target, no pun intended, the McIntosh crowd which is the high end prosumer either.

The funny part of your entire set of arguments reminds me of the Porsche vs Corvette arguments of the day. Each product has it's target audience and just because target wise you are not a companies focus customer does not make them wrong or revisionist. In the end, of all the old home/small computer companies, only Apple remains viable, independent and dare I say inovating. IBM is no longer in the market, Commodore is no longer in existence, Radio Shack has less that 45 days of cash left and Atari is also gone in all but name only.

So really who was right or wrong on how to deal with their defective products, who their targeted audience was/is and how to price their products.

Cheers,
Corey
 
This kind of reminds me of my rant: Why do we always think of Silicon Valley when we think of computers?I don't think a lot of people really appreciate the contributions to computing technology that many of the engineers that started at Commodore have given to the industry, particularly in the area of sound and graphics capabilities.

CA is the last man standing for computers. I think it had something to do with the volume of parts coming from Asia directly to California and not needing shipping across the country, and work place laws where non compete agreements do not exist allowing for people to leave their company and compete with them down the street.
 
I assume you did not live as either an adult or teenage though the time period when Apple got their start, so you really don't understand what computers were like before they started marketing towards the small business and home user, not the hobbyist.
Considering my first was an Elf, I had access to an AM-100, and got some time on a PDP-8, I think I have a pretty good grasp of things at the time.

... and since I had a Model 1 in '78, and a Coco and a VIC-20 in '80... and built a H-100... I'm sorry, Apple's "contributions" didn't blow my skirt up or seem in any way, shape or form "innovative" much less:

That is what they did that changed everything.
I just didn't see that at the time, nor do I see it in hindsight... and that's why it feels like revisionist history to me. If anything they were an "also ran" that somehow continued to lumber on; most likely due to a lack of the mismanagement that doomed so many other companies.

Saying that what they did "changed everything" or was "influential" or even "an important part of computer history"?!? Having pretty much lived and breathed 8 bit computing as a teen it truly seems a tissue of lies... though again I wonder if that's just a regional thing; East coast vs. West coast.

you could say they targeted the Bang and Olufsen crowd, not the bose or sony crowd.
Being a Klipsch kind of guy I actually understood that reference.

Though Apple has always excelled at MARKETING themselves to seem innovative -- even when they're basically just ripping everybody else off. Just like how they do a great job of marketing proprietary design and vendor lock-in using lowest contractor parts as "quality" and duping effete upper-middle class elitists that everything is worth 50% more than competitors just because it has their logo on it.

Really in terms of computer history that's Apple's biggest claim to fame -- MARKETING. In terms of hardware innovations? A joke. In terms of convincing people of just about anything they claim regardless of if it's based in fact? Gives organized religion a run for it's money.

But again, much of that opinion could be that I never saw one in a brick and mortar until the '90's, never saw one in anyone's home, and where I did see them and by the time I actually to to try out using one it was six years past it's freshness date and a joke compared to the 12mhz EGA equipped AT clone I had at home.

Until the mid to late 80's -- by which time the Apple II was ridiculously outdated and still overpriced -- the only place I thought the Apple II existed was in magazines.
 
Well I was in Europe back in the seventies when it all started, and one thing I'm sure of is that my memory is correct about one thing: The Apple II was very desirable. But out of reach price-wise for me. I never connected with the Commodores when they came, they didn't match what I felt that I wanted. I didn't want a gaming console. From 1982 I finally had access to Apple II computers at work, and soon after a range of clones as well, and I did a lot of Apple II programming. It did live up to the expectations. Yes not cheap, but cheaper doesn't help if cheaper doesn't provide the same stuff. And it didn't. In short, I see no issues with history's view on where Apple fit in. It matches quite exactly with how I experienced it. Even from north Europe.
 
Well I was in Europe back in the seventies when it all started, and one thing I'm sure of is that my memory is correct about one thing: The Apple II was very desirable. But out of reach price-wise for me. I never connected with the Commodores when they came, they didn't match what I felt that I wanted. I didn't want a gaming console.

This is what hurt Commodore, and especially the Amiga, the most. By 2000, this popular sentiment had turned around completely, and everyone wanted PC clones because they were the best at games.

Yes not cheap, but cheaper doesn't help if cheaper doesn't provide the same stuff.
But it did. There was a big perception that it didn't, but it sure did. The C64 did everything the Apple //e did, and much, much more, including excelling at games.
 
This is what hurt Commodore, and especially the Amiga, the most. By 2000, this popular sentiment had turned around completely, and everyone wanted PC clones because they were the best at games.

But it did. There was a big perception that it didn't, but it sure did. The C64 did everything the Apple //e did, and much, much more, including excelling at games.

Well, with the exception of expansion ports, and 80 column video, yes.
 
Well, with the exception of expansion ports, and 80 column video, yes.

There are several expansion ports, just not all the same. The peripherals you can connect is the same for the //e or the C64.

There were plenty of aftermarket 80 column boards for the C64, just like the Apple ][. No one bought them though, so they didn't survive long. The '128 has built in 80 column video, and I don't know who actually used that.
 
You are essentially comparing a 1977 (Apple II) release with a 1982 (C-64) release. Through the IIe came out in 1983, it is essentially a fully compatible, cost reduced, 1977 Apple II with some features integrated that would have been plug in cards on the original 1977 Apple II. The main enhancement that the 1977 Apple II didn't have, was the double hi-res graphics and 80 column text support.

The reason the Apple II line was successful for so long is that after the Apple III failure, Apple kept new Apple IIs backward compatible in hardware and software for as long as they maintained the product line. This made software vendors and existing customers coming back, despite the extra cost of hardware.

regards,
Mike Willegal

This is what hurt Commodore, and especially the Amiga, the most. By 2000, this popular sentiment had turned around completely, and everyone wanted PC clones because they were the best at games.

But it did. There was a big perception that it didn't, but it sure did. The C64 did everything the Apple //e did, and much, much more, including excelling at games.
 
You are essentially comparing a 1977 (Apple II) release with a 1982 (C-64) release. Through the IIe came out in 1983, it is essentially a fully compatible, cost reduced, 1977 Apple II with some features integrated that would have been plug in cards on the original 1977 Apple II. The main enhancement that the 1977 Apple II didn't have, was the double hi-res graphics and 80 column text support.

Actually I'm comparing the //e and C64, because that seems to me to be the ones that were on the market when the average person was looking to purchase a computer. Of course, my view of that is very biased. The only thing the newer 1983 //e had over the 1982 C64 was built-in 80-column text. And, that's not even totally true, because you had to pay extra to get the "80 Column Card" which we all know was really a RAM expansion. So, the C64 required an 80 column expansion, and so did the //e. By the time the 80 Column Card was standard, the vastly superiour C128 was out. The older C64 could natively do everything it's Apple contemporary could do, and more, just like the C128. Now, the ||GS clearly had a leg up on the Commodore 8-bit stuff, but, it didn't even come close to the Amiga.

What year did the 80 column pets come out? I assume they predated the //e, but I'm not sure. In any case, a PET would do everything a ][ or ][+ would do, except hi-res and colour graphics. So, why didn't the anti-game-machine people prefer the PET? I sure know that by the time the VIC-20 came out, machines with colour graphics were all regarded as toys. Most people bought monochrome monitors for their Apples, solely for this reason. Anyone who ran a colour TV with their Apple was laughed at for not being "businessy" enough.
 
Anyone who ran a colour TV with their Apple was laughed at for not being "businessy" enough.

Assuming you could even find anyone who had one in the first place... ESPECIALLY for business. I saw TRS-80 Model 1, 2, 3 and 4's, PC's, plenty of Big Iron (even in small businesses which was a bit of a head scratcher), All sorts of CP/M machines... But Apple? FOR BUSINESS? You're joking right?

I hear tales every now and then of one or two used in environments that leave me wondering "Good god why?" (motor control comes to mind) but apart from that, Apple as a business machine?!? In what universe?

Again, is there THAT big a regional difference or something 'cause... wow. To even have someone say that blows my noggin. At BEST it was a toy for schools that didn't have the staff to actually understand them or teach anything with them. BUSINESS?!? REALLY?!?!?

Error, error... fails to understand...
 
I am bit puzzled as to what constituted a "business" class machine in these early days of the personal computer, because as near as I can tell, all the 8-bit micros had about the same set of constraints on them, and they all had business oriented software of one type or another. Sure the IBM PC (could) have more memory, but it was equally possible to add similar amounts of memory to the 8-bit Apple and Commodore machines too, and the 8088 is rivaled by the 6502 in terms of practical computing power.
 
I have no idea if they were actually used in the magical business environment everyone thought they were supposed to be for. I did use Apple ][s in an industrial environment, feeding data from a minicomputer to CNC machines. But, I don't know what the reason was that they had to be Apples.

I'm not saying it was businesses that wanted to use Apples. It was sure the mentality for home computer users though, for a long time, that you didn't buy one unless it had "business" capability, which meant 80 columns, word processors, spreadsheets and bar graphs. And, if it was good for games, it obviously wasn't good for those things. This was what made people want Apples instead of Commodores.
 
I was under the impression Apple II's were sold to accountants because nothing else ran VisiCalc at the time.
 
I was under the impression Apple II's were sold to accountants because nothing else ran VisiCalc at the time.

I was too, but, I wonder how many accountants actually rushed out to buy an Apple ][ during the short period between realising VisiCalc's usefulness, and, VisiCalc being ported to other systems.
 
I was under the impression Apple II's were sold to accountants because nothing else ran VisiCalc at the time.
Which was true for all of about three months.

Though I continued to hear that LIE for about five years ('79 to '84). I guess it's kind of like how "the Opera browser is only free with Adverts" which hasn't been true for over a decade, but you STILL hear people say it.
 
Visicalc was sold in 1979. Lotus 1-2-3 didn't come out until 1983. So I'm not sure what "LIE" you're referring to. Visicalc sold generations of Apple systems to accountants; this is not in dispute.
 
Visicalc was sold in 1979. Lotus 1-2-3 didn't come out until 1983. So I'm not sure what "LIE" you're referring to. Visicalc sold generations of Apple systems to accountants; this is not in dispute.

VisiCalc was available for the PET at least as early as 1981. I don't know how much earlier though. There were other VisiCalc clones available prior to Lotus 1-2-3. Practicalc for the C64, which works like VisiCalc with improvements, is copyrighted 1982, at least the version I have is, and that's not the first version.
 
VisiCalc for the PET had tiny sheets and required the installation of a ROM chip making it less than ideal. In many respects, the Apple II wound up being the best small computer for a number years to run VisiCalc, cheaper than an IBM PC but easier to increase RAM, 80 columns, and disk drives than some of the other 8-bit systems.
 
Visicalc for the TRS-80 Model 1 (then III) came out pretty soon after the Apple release I think. I know I had a copy for my System 80 in 1982 and I'm pretty sure I saw ads for it in 80 Micro around 1980-1981. For businesses purposes it was usable with 64 columns. Certainly a TRS-80 model III with it's all-in-one form factor would have made quite a respectable small business machine in 1981-82. Even more so the Model 4 slightly later.

In New Zealand in the early 1980s, Apple computers were around but I didn't know any one who owned one. They were horrendously expensive which also added to their snob-value. Some farmers had them. I knew of one being used for controlling a commercial glasshouse. In the mid 80s Apple seemed to do a push into schools here where Apple IIes sold at a hugely discounted price.

My feeling is that Apple II/IIe line with it's slots was a very versatile machine. This enabled it to straddle both the emerging home and business markets from that period from 1979 to say 1985. To me, it seems the closest template for the IBM-PC than other machines of the time. However, it was overpriced for what it was. This had a dual benefit (for Apple) in that it made it a coveted item (if it's expensive it had to be good, right?) and very profitable for Apple. There is a method in aiming for the high end of the market using a machine that didn't cost much to make. Much of this profit was spent on marketing (including good quality manuals, events etc.) which reinforced the "special" nature of Apple products in the minds of many.

I do agree that today, the perception of Apple's role in early microcomputing is inflated amongst the masses, assisted for sure by Apple itself. They were innovative (Lisa, Mac) in the early-mid 1980s though. Innovation costs money and the reason they could spend money is largely due to the huge profit made on every Apple IIe made!

Tez
 
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