🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <822@ihlpf.UUCP>, lyourk@ihlpf.UUCP (Loran N. Yourk) writes:
> > Dan Vachon  writes:
> >production when it got tabled. I'm glad Apple finally came out with a computer
> > that looks to be promising....Sure they have had some great computers...
> > (Apple II/II+/IIe, The Mac, now the IIgs), but they have had a couple of flops
> > at crucial times in the computer industry (i.e. IIc / Lisa / IIx <never made
> > it>)...
> 
> You forgot the the all powerful forgotten Apple III as one of the flops.
> 
> > Later Days -=> Dan Vachon <=-     
> 
> Loran Yourk

  I can't agree with your listing the //c and Lisa as 'flops'.  The //c was
the backbone of the // line for the last year or so.  A lot of home shoppers
bought a complete //c system (//c,monitor,stand) for under $850.  A comprable
//e was over $1000.  There is nothing wrong with the //c so long as you know
what you are buying.  A //c owner shouldn't worry about slots, hard disks,
or those things that a //e is suited for.  A //c is ideal for someone who
only needs floppy storage (you still can add unidisks & a hard disk), power of
the Apple // line, and portability.  The bombs on the //c were that it came out
during a depression in the industry, right after the Mac, and finally that
some of it's companion products (LCD monitor and scribe printer) were the
REAL FLOPS.  I don't think the //c was or is a flop.
  The Apple /// was a flop because of bad quality in the early units that
blacklisted it for life.  It did flop.
  How could the '//x' flop if it never made it out.  But if you look at the
videocassette that goes with the GS promotion, the engineers talk about the
GS as 'cortland', 'rambo', 'vegas', and '//x'.  The original //x dies out,
but the GS rose from //x ashes and is in part //x because of that.
  The Lisa I would not call a flop.  I would call it unfortunate.  It was
and still is, Apple's most powerful micro.  It has slots that Mac people have
been yelling about.  It also has true multi-tasking.  It was UNFORTUNATE
that is was originally proced at $10,000.  When it was renamed the XL and 
put as the psuedo-head of the 32-bit line, everyone bought one up.  During
Apple's Lisa trade-in program, only a small percentage of Lisa's were sold.
As a sales item, the lisa might have flopped, but wouldn't any micro with
a $10,000 price-tag?  On the Lisa/XL I will say I am biased, I am using one
right now.  I run mine in full Mac mode and use it exclusively for 
communications, word processing, and other 'business-like' things.  I use
my MacPlus for development.  As surprising as it may seem, the Lisa is having
a revival with 800K floppies now available, SCSI ports, 4 megs of RAM,
new/modified MacWorks to allow HFS, and 68020 cards.  Some of these products
are available now, and the rest are due by the end of this year/first
quarter '87.
  In summation, the only real flop was the Apple ///, it was doomed by 
initially bad hardware and other failures.  The Lisa sold well (not great), 
but was plagued by a high price-tag.  The //c's only flop was in it's
peripherals (LCD flat-panel display and scribe printer).  The computer has and
is selling well.



-- 
Brian Bezanson {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,topaz,harvard}!uwvax!gumby!bezanson
Manta Software Corp.				  bezanson@gumby.wisc.edu