🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1989Sep16.030547.10105@NCoast.ORG> allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
>Sigh.  The Macintosh mentality seems to be that everyone is rich enough to buy
>everything needed (68030, 4MB+ RAM, 32-bit color display, ...) to run the
>Latest and Greatest, and "the rest of us" are pretty well screwed.  That isn't
>what the Mac mentality is *supposed* to be, if Apple's ads are to be believed;
>it's what it *is*, though.

Are Apple's prices too high?  Yes.  Are they higher than IBM branded
equipment?  I have heard arguments which say no.  Are "`the rest of us'
... pretty well screwed"?  No!

I am typing this on what, until today, was the top of the line
Macintosh--a IIx.  At home I have the bottom of the line--a Plus
(though I just got more memory).

Do I scream in agony when I try to use the Plus?  No.  My Plus is
still a wonderful machine.  Sure, I have a little screen, but then so
does the SEx (aka SE/30).  Sure my Plus is not is speed demon, and it
won't run color.  But then it never did.  Apple hasn't broken anything
yet.

Will my Plus break when 7.0 comes out?  No.  Will it get every new
feature?  Almost: as of this last May the word was that my Plus will
do everything new in 7.0 except 32-bit addressing and virtual memory.
The reason it won't do those is that I am missing the needed hardware.

Ever since the II came out the Plus has wished it had Color QuickDraw,
and it will still wish for it.  Apple hasn't changed that.

What has changed is that if you want to buy and run the latest and
greatest new software, you will want to move to 7.0 at some point, and
to do that you will need to buy some RAM.  Will everybody be able to
afford more RAM?  No, but those people also can't afford to buy the
latest and greatest software.  

Will those in between people (like me) who can't personally afford the
top-of-the-line machines, but can afford some RAM, get screwed?  No.
I will be able to run anything which doesn't need Color QuickDraw or
multi-gobs of memory--in other words I can't run image processing
software.  But I never could!  

Yes, Apple is making a nice profit, but no, they are not suddenly
screwing you any worse than when you bought your first Macintosh, and
it must have seemed a good enough deal to you then.

-- 
Kent Borg				"You know me, bright ideas 
kent@lloyd.uucp				 just pop into my head!"
or							-Mrs Lovett
...!husc6!lloyd!kent		        (from Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeny Todd")