Apple's First Flops

Sabah Arif writes "Apple began the eighties with two major flops under its belt: the Apple III and the LISA. Both machines were attempts at breaking into the business market. They were technologically advanced, but major flaws prevented their success."

Comments

want one ...

[siropel]

Where can i get one of those babes? I want to replace my 95 cause it's beginning to be insecure and unstable...
"The press declared the machine and its software revolutionary. In a matter of months, the Macintosh had revolutionized Apple and the computer business" - they revolutionized and other company rules the market ? ...deja vu ...

Re:want one ...

[William Robinson]

Where can i get one of those babes?

Here

Re:want one ...

[Queer Boy]

they revolutionized and other company rules the market ? ...deja vu ...

Yep, they have done it over and over again, and several times they ruled the market as well. Apple ][ for personal (and business) computers, Macintosh for graphics, PowerBook for portables, iPod for music.

No one looks at Gucci and says, "Yeah, the designs are great but I can get the same thing at Wal-Mart cheaper, therefore you're not as good."

Re:want one ...

[Fareq]

Actually some people do.

I count myself among them. (Except that I probably wouldn't pick Wal-Mart as my example -- because I generally don't buy clothing there either...)

Re:want one ...

[lgw]

Strangely enough, most geeks do in fact reject designs that cost more merely because they're fashionable. When building my computer, I hardly ever feel the need to be able to say "mine's cranberry". But I guess tastes vary.

Re:want one ...

[nelsonal]

I doubt most people buy Gucci for the designs (they may choose Gucci over Prada for the design). People are buying Gucci because it makes them feel good or appear successful (as a first impression). Since Apple's status symbol is only seen in the home (generally by people who have already formed a first impression) there isn't as much value accrued to status. Look at the success of the iPod or their laptop lines both frequently used outside the home.
I'd guess that BMW would make a sweet treadmill, but it would probably have crappy sales if it were priced at the same premium to the market as their cars.

Re:want one ...

[tgibbs]

they revolutionized and other company rules the market ?

Yep, because every computer today works basically the way the Macintosh worked, even though at the time many computer "experts" were highly critical of the GUI approach.

Sounds reasonable.

[Televisor]

I'd say two major flops are a pretty good hit/miss ratio compared to the number of products they've had out, 2:50 or so.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[MoonFog]

That may be true, but Apple never really got any sort of hold in the business market. If they had succeeded, things may have looked very different.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Televisor]

But then, is it possible to hold both the business and art/design/music/general creativity markets?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[MoonFog]

Certainly, many businesses make use of the design market. If Apple had succeeded ,they would most likely be a bigger company than they are right now, giving them more resources to focus on two areas. MS has done pretty well with both Office and Windows.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[el_womble]

Imagine everyday coding in Cocoa and XTools as standard in businesses... bliss. Core Data is probably enough to shift the TCO and ROI on Apple Hardware in Apple's favour, but then what CFO in his right mind would get locked into a single vendor for the OS and hardware, especially with the initial investment in x86 hardware? If I were Apple I'd think seriously about licencing the fabled x86 build of OS X for business use only. Not only would they get a boost from support contracts, but more people would be exposed to the software at work, and hopefully, start thinking seriously about buying the hardware for home. They might even start to shift a few more XServes! I guess the biggest problem they'd be facing then is piracy but that could be curbed by limiting the processor compatability to Xeons and Opterons, kind of the anti Windows XP Starter Edition.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[MoonFog]

I'd love to use OS X on x86 hardware, but aren't Apple's main source of revenue their hardware?
They would probably require assurance that OS X could actually be a real revenue source before they make the switch.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[grahamlee]

I agree with your sentiment; using the Apple developer tools and environment as standard would be sweet as. Even back in the mid 1990s the NeXT developer environment was absolute luxury. The problem is most heads of IT (and most IT support staff) depend on Windows for their livelihood so aren't about to endorse a switch to Mac, Linux, OpenVMS or anything else.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[ThePromenader]

I don't really see the point of this article - and it certainly doesn't cover many "flops". What about the Quadra? The early Performas?

Perhaps it's not a flop, but I have one of Apple's "non-Jobs" jobbies, the LC630 - as a hobby. Apple thought that model would fly because of its TV features, but this didn't turn out to be the main reason it sold.

BTW, today my LC has a "real" 68040 processor, an 8gb hd and a CD burner - and serves as my TV : )

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[epine]

Yes, but try try try to arrange your first two major flops for *after* you've released a system that fully supports both upper and lower case letters and 80 column text if you wish to hold any stake in the business market whatsoever. When Apple finally did make their first dent in the business market, it wasn't even driven by a computer, it was driven by a laser printer.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[lmsig]

Why would you love to use OS X on x86 hardware. Just to save a few bucks?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[MoonFog]

OS X > Win XP, and I have yet to see any evidence that Apple's hardware is actually worth the money. It's massively outperformed in most test I've seen where compared to similar x86 hardware.

I'm in no way a graphical artist, my field is programming, and the hardware just don't cut it yet.

That's why I'd love for it to be available on x86, good hardware combined with good software.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[sznupi]

Apple has in their offer precisely "good hardware combined with good software"

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

ha, troll. have you used a g5?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[R.D.Olivaw]

ummmm, I don't know what the grandparent's reasons are but what exactly is wrong with saving a few bucks? Not everybody has money to burn. On the other hand he might have already invested in x86 hardware and can't afford to switch.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[DenDave]

I think the biggest technical problem for x86 OSX is that they would have to suppprt a plethora of hardware options that really wouldn't earn them enough money in the end to pay it off. Tiger goes for around 130 retail so then what would they charge for x86 volume licenses? maybe 30 bucks? I doubt they could muster the current level of support and quality on 30 bucks a seat. Nope, better that users who really see the need dish out for the hardware as well, I mean think about it, you cannot turn a dodge into a mercedes just by changing the badge.

Growth is now the biggest threat to Apple because it is not so simple to scale your business to meet the demands of the market. Already Apple is feeling the strain, employees are being worked dang hard and the company is struggling to keep up supply. Success of Ipods, Ibooks and Mini's is so high that new OEM's are being used and all the long while, they still need to keep the quality and standards up to par with their reputation. If the mini's all started to exhibit failures and poor workmanship than that would harm the crossover (new mac users) market more than anything the competition could hope for.

The best situation for Apple now is to stabilize the growth and scale the infrastructure so it all runs smoothly. In EU there have been three month delays in some shops and that simply won't do.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[deaddrunk]

x86 isn't good hardware, it's cheap hardware available from a number of vendors or buildable yourself. That's a big reason for its success.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[xPhoenix]

I'm not sure that hardware profit margins are ever as large as software ones. It seems like it would be a smart move for Apple to license OS X to x86 OEM vendors like Dell, HP, etc. If not now, maybe in the near future when these guys begin to feel more and more betrayed by Microsoft (XBox 360). If Microsoft wants to bail out on their vendors, the vendors should preempt Microsoft and start licensing OS X, assuming Apple would allow it. Seems like it would be a good business more for them, but who knows.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[QMO]

"you cannot turn a dodge into a mercedes just by changing the badge"

It's been done over and over between VW, audi, and Porche; and between Ford and Mercury; and between Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Buick. I see no reason why the difference between a Dodge and a Mercedes can't be reduced to the badge. Brand names are only marketing labels, after all, and have no inherent meaning (at least not if owned by the same people).

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[DigitumDei]

You've got to admit, this: "After being used for a day or two, the mainboard would get so hot it would warp and unseat some of the chips. Apple refused to install a fan to fix the problem and instructed users to drop the machine on their desk to bang the chips back into place." is pretty damn impressive as far as flops go. :P

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[koekepeer]

Agreed :)

MicroSoft only had a few flops in their overall pretty successful range of products, but every now and then people start laughing about Bob again.

Flops are inherent to doing innovative business. What if we started looking at all the failed attempts at useful software on sourceforge? *grin*

(i know the last argument is flawed, it's a weak attempt at humour)

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[LocoMan]

The big question is wether OS X would work as well outside of such a controlled enviroment as it has now. With OS X limited to run on apple computers, they have a (relatively) very limited combinations of different hardware to test and optimize for, not the case with x86.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[TrueJim]

Apple's PCs never got a strong hold in the business market, but once upon it's most powerful machine did:

From Wikipedia: "The Apple LaserWriter was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. Combined with GUI-based programs like Adobe PageMaker on the Macintosh, it is generally considered to have sparked the Desktop publishing (DTP) revolution in the mid-1980s.

Unlike models from HP, which had been introduced a few months earlier and used their proprietary PCL printing language, the LaserWriter included the PostScript page description language which allowed for far more complex graphics, high-resolution bitmap graphics, outline fonts, and generally much better-looking output.

The use of PostScript comes at a cost. Unlike PCL and other early printer control languages, PostScript is a complete programming language and requires a complete computer to run it. In the case of the LaserWriter this was a Motorola 68000 CPU running at 12MHz, making it the fastest machine in Apple's lineup, and the most expensive at $6,995 when it was introduced in late 1985."

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[DenDave]

ROFL!
if you can't see the difference, I can't explain it to you! But thanks for the giggles!

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[QMO]

There really are cars from the manufacturers that I mentioned that are identical except for minor body styling and brand name (sometimes not even body styling differences).

Anyone that thinks that Daimler-Chrysler will be above that kind of marketing better not handle their own financial decisions.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[hey!]

Yes.

However, we are talking about a hypothetical situation where Apple is the desktop monopolist, not Microsoft. Naturally, they'd want you to buy everything from them, but very likely they would be forced to allow competitors to build competitive hardware, just like IBM was in the 70s.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[The Infamous Grimace]

If I were Apple I'd think seriously about licencing the fabled x86 build of OS X for business use only.

It would make far more sense for them to license the OS for clones. I personally expect to see G4 and maybe lower-clocked G5-based clones once Apple moves its entire line to the G5. This time around, they need to ensure that their machines are the fastest, unlike what happened in the '90s.

(tig)

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go ahead, mark it as flamebait, but I know you can't contest the facts.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301 528

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[bynary]

Who in their right mind would endorse a switch to OpenVMS? That would be like endorsing a switch from OS X to DOS. The last company I worked for that used OpenVMS was in the process of moving all their development over to Windows when I left; not the other way around.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid trolls.

Microsoft NEVER owned 25% of Apple. NEVER.

The $100million stock purchase was a TINY amount of Apple stock, and was part of a payoff for Microsoft getting caught copying Apple's QuickTime.

It was not a bailout.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[podperson]

I love the "single vendor" argument.

It's not like Microsoft is a single vendor now, is it?

And it's not like most large corporations don't voluntarily lock themselves into a single hardware vendor to avoid numerous compatibility issues (e.g. being able to hot-swap notebook hard disks etc.) and otherwise reduce support costs.

Ah yes, heaven forbid we lock ourselves into a single vendor. Now, make sure all the new desktops are Compaq 1245c's running Windows XP SP1 and Office 2003 RevA.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Spark00]

they did NOT buy "25%" of Apple. they invested $150 million. which is not anywhere CLOSE to a tenth of one per cent of the value of the company. And i doubt that anyone would sign an agreement to not compete with another company for such a paltry sum.(proof is the spat over IE & Safari - MS won't develop a new IE because they're snitty over Apple competing with them using safari.) The fact is probably as an earlier poster suggested, that Apple can control their environment with their own hardware & software together. while selling an OS and allowing any schmuck to build a system. I swear half the problems people have with PCs is that you have 89 different vendors's stuff inside and no one company will take responsibility for it. With a Mac, you may have a million vendors (my Sony HD died in my ibook) but Apple is on the hook for it. You'll never get the "it's not our equipment" excuse. It's my guess that that is the real reason Apple won't licence. because all of a sudden the vaunted "it just works, it's so elegant" feature of using the Mac OS is in danger of not being true.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking moron, ahem troll, no a gobshite of a programmer

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Casualposter]

I've owned a lot of systems over the years. The apples have always lasted longer and given me less trouble than the X86 hardware. I bought apple and it was painfully expensive, but some of it still works just fine twelve years later. I spend hundreds or even thousands less on X86 boxes to do basic computing and a year later (or less) and I'm replacing the mother board, the ram, the hard drive, or some other component. The X86 stuff is cheap and in many cases, cheap crap. For things that I don't want to fix, I spend extra money. You can do this with x86 hardware, but I've found that the good stuff is about the same price as apple. I recommend Apple, or higher end X86 for those people who don't want to tweek or fix, but just want the box to work for years.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[amanuensis]

During a conference when I was working at Apple a fellow intern asked why we didn't have a version of OS X for x86. The reason given is that we were primarily a hardware vendor and the OS and all associated programs were used to help promote the hardware.

Plus if you really wanted OS X on something else I'm pretty sure there's a couple places out there on the internet discussing Mac Clones.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[grahamlee]

Someone who likes measuring their uptimes in decades might consider OpenVMS.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Dolda2000]

especially with the initial investment in x86 hardware?

Then again -- companies seldomly buy $100 Walmart PCs. With Mac Minis and/or eMacs, wouldn't the price class be about the same per unit?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Porter Doran]

This is so true and can't be overestimated. The whole design and printing world rests on Mac nowadays, and there's very good reason. Apple, Laser Writer, and Aldus made it all possible.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[MightyMartian]

Well there's good x86 hardware and there's bad x86 hardware. The advantage of the PC/x86 platform has been choice. Apple may have gained stability by controlling hardware, but it made it a far less desirable platform as far as upgrade paths went. That's changed to some degree now, but it's way too late to make it more than a niche player.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[toddmori]

identical except for minor body styling and brand name

You mean like the Crossfire http://www.chrysler.com/crossfire/ and the SLK350 http://www.mbusa.com/brand/selector/innerframe.jsp ?model=SLK350&section=null#?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[steveshaw]

Don't forget the Newton. And the Cube.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's called "bisexuality".

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

You DO know that Apple is just a secret branch of Microsoft, maintained to keep MS out of anti-trust problems, right?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[lgw]

Unless they were interested in using any sort of commodity software, that is. OpenVMS does have some cool clustering capability, but without software to run on that cluster, what's the point?

Sadly, good clustering just doesn't seem to be something the market values. Those who *really* need uptime use mainframes. There doesn't seem to be a niche between that and today's common clustering solutions.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spark you are right. The one big part of the MS investment story is that they settled with Apple for an "undisclosed" amount of money for all the other outstanding lawsuits Apple had against M$. When a company makes a settlement and part of the settlement is that nobody outside the two parties involved is to know the details then you know thats a hell of a lot of money.
The $150 million was a publicity stunt to calm the shaky investors who were running around like Henny Penny because they thought that Apple would implode. These are the same idiots who thought that $100/share of linux companies were the wave of the future, hah!

As for the licensing for other hardware, why would Apple want to do that? They would end up being another M$ and have tons of driver issues and probably higher failure rates then they do now.
Right now they are on an upswing on QC comapred to Dell who usually blames their poor quality on shortage of personnel or a M$ patch. It must be nice to have a scapegoat whenever your caught selling cheap crap. In case you are thinking that I am a crazy Apple zealot, I own and work on both types of machines and have seen Dells come with drives not secured to the case and lying at the bottom of the machine, broken CD drives, damaged cases and motherboards screwed on with one screw.
The only Apple doa's were a bad power supply on an old powermac g4 and a bad trackpad on a powerbook 12".

You get what you pay for.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth about Apple hardware... once and for all...

The MHz myth is not true. There are many contributing factors to a processors performance (pipelines, architecture, et cetera).

Alright... let's not talk Apple vs. PC; let's talk IBM vs. PC...

Q: Why do the top-notch IBM workstations and servers use PowerPC processors?
A: 1st of all, IBM manufactures them; but couldn't they stop manufacturing PPC and switch to x86? Yes, but they don't.

Q: Why do companies buy IBM PowerPC-based systems?
A: Because some CTO in that company believes they're fast, and his advisers agree with him. I believe these people are qualified professionals.

Q: Why are many supercomputers powered by PowerPC processors?
A: Obviously the tech staff at universities and institutions believe PowerPC is superior to other architectures. I believe these people are qualified professionals.

Q: Why was the power.org community founded if PowerPCs were so behind?
A: Apparently multiple industry leaders believe that the PPC architecture is a profitable market, and that that will hold true for many years to come.

Q: Why do PowerPC processors at a much lower clock frequency whip the crap out of Intel's Itanium processor line?
A: I really don't know... probably a shorter pipeline in PPC procs...

Conclusion... well PPC seems a horrible architecture *sarcasm*, and Apple manufactures horrible hardware *sarcasm*... that's why there's so many zealots around... ever seen MS zealots? I sure haven't...

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[soft_guy]

My field is programming and I do almost all of my programming on a Macintosh.

I find that it is easy to write cross platform C++ on the Mac and then port it to Windows. I've done it the other way too, but I like XCode better than MS Visual Catastrophe. And for GUI, I like Qt or else I use Cocoa on Mac and Win32 on Windows. The nice thing about Cocoa is you don't accidentally put a Cocoa call into your cross platform C++ module, because Cocoa requires Objective-C or Objective-C++ which makes it easy to identify which files are portable.

The times I ask people to write portable code on Windows, I've been clusterfucked by people who will stick a Win32 call right in the middle of platform independent code, so I got Macs for my team.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[soft_guy]

A major part of the deal was to end Apple's lawsuit over the fact that Microsoft stole the source code for Quicktime for Windows and put it into Video for Windows without permission. Also, Microsoft was violating many of Apple's patents.

They threatened to cancel Office for Mac if Apple didn't take the deal and drop all the lawsuits.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[squeee]

People who want 5 9's uptime, scalability, clustering, ultimate disaster recovery, NO viruses, NO security worries from hackers (other than social engineering hackers that everyone has to worry about, OpenVMS was declared unhackable at Defcon). People who have to have their systems always available no matter what. Who in their right mind would keep mission critical data on a windows system? Who? Only a yoghurt.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[kesuki]

In the days of the G4 apple was being 'massively out performed' However, the G5 chips got the right to use a lot of technology in technology swaps with AMD .. So the G5 chips and the athlon 64s are both capable of out performing the intel chips*, because two 'underdog' rivals pooled the best of thier respective technologies to make two very fast systems.

There is however some truth that athlon based systems can be custom built to out perform apple systems, but it's nothing massive, and the price for out performing comes in massive $$'s for performance parts...

This being said, a high performance althon system can be custom built for a lot less than the same performance that apple charges for, but apple is a re-seller, buying that kind of performance from any OEM reseller is going to add signifigant cost (eg: alienware)

The difference is I can go to the alienware site, spec out a system, and then build a comperable system myself, for a lot less, with apple, I have to order the system from them..

If IBM fell asleep at the wheel it wouldn't take long for intel and AMD to outpace the G5's but As long as IBM keeps making newer faster processors for apple, they're good to stay competitive at least with other OEMs..

*= In certain operations... due to differences in the chips, Intel's chips may perform certain operations faster, overall though, the chips are all at the same general 'level' of performance.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[u38cg]

Funny. I had an Apple III for my first computer, and never had any overheating troubles. Deffy wasn't a III+. Fun computer, could do all sorts of strange things.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[QMO]

I'm not sure. I couldn't tell if they have the same engine or not.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[tgibbs]

If I were Apple I'd think seriously about licencing the fabled x86 build of OS X for business use only.

It doesn't really make sense. The only reason why anybody uses x86 these days is that they're locked into it by legacy software. Even Microsoft, for their XBox system, has abandoned x86 in favor of a PowerPC based system. Since an x86 build of OSX still wouldn't run legacy Windows applications, users would have the disadvantage of OSX (limited applications) combined with the disadvantage of Windows (x86 hardware).

On the other hand, it might make a lot of sense of Microsoft to come out with a PowerPC version of Windows, running Windows natively and running legacy applications in emulation, the way that Apple did when they switched from 68040 to PowerPC.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[tgibbs]

Of course, the problem of chips working loose was primarily a consequence of using socketed chips, which made it possible to repair the motherboards at home with cheap chips from the local electronics shop.

Even the Apple II's chips tended to work use after awhile. When I was using Apple IIs for scientific data processing, my routine maintenance was to reseat all of the chips once a year.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats not their only major flops tho.
-ahem- Newton

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[spyfrog]

I always find your type of argument even more amusing.

In your exemple, if Compaq suddently started to make totaly useless hardware, you could simply change to perhaps Dell. What hardware vendor do you switch to when you think Apple hardware sucks?
Apple means hardware and software lock in. This is one more lock in than you get with MS software on x86.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[calyphus]

Yes, those mfrs have built essentially identical models from common platforms. They were built for both end products from the start. It's not the same as taking a Neon and modifying it to be Phaeton. Your analogy does not apply.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[paulymer5]

ever seen MS zealots? I sure haven't...

Actually, I have, and they even hang out here. Oddly enough, you often have to browse at -1 to see them.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[toddestan]

The G5 was fast 2 years ago. Now, we have dual core x86 chips running faster than ever. Apple's one update to the G5 Powermac line in the meantime was so pathetic as to be hilarious.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[r_jensen11]

3.2L engine vs 3.5L engine? There's more to a car than just how it looks. The quality of the parts is often an indicator. A Town & Country is usually more comfortable vehicle than a Dodge Caravan.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Why was this modded down?

Slashdot groupies love to support Apple and flame/mod down detractors, even though Apple has SUED a lot of people (as has been mentioned in many stories here).

And the post made valid points about bugs and performance.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[scottv67]

True dat. VMS still rocks in healthcare, manufacturing, finance and a few other vertical markets.

All of those environments have strict requirements for availability. They can't tolerate the "Oh, the Windows server locked-up again. I'll reboot it in the middle of the day" mentality.

The only platform that I would put ahead of or above VMS is the NonStop stuff from Tandem (now also an HP product).

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[scottv67]

but without software to run on that cluster, what's the point?

Software companies that have customers who demand 24 x 365 availability write the software that runs on OpenVMS. A few examples are listed below:

http://www.cerner.com/public/
http://www.idx.com/
http://www.hosp.misyshealthcare.com/Products/
http://www.epicsys.com/

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[scottv67]

"you cannot turn a dodge into a mercedes just by changing the badge"
Actually, there is very little difference between the 2005 Toyota Solara V6 and one of the Lexus V6 beasties (I can't remember the exact model).

In this case, the badges are pretty much the only way to tell the cars apart.

It'd suck to be a Lexus owner and have someone ask you "How's that new Solara ride?" :^)

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Gleng]

If the mini's all started to exhibit failures and poor workmanship than that would harm the crossover (new mac users) market more than anything the competition could hope for.

Strangely enough, that seems to be happening.

I've been drooling over screenshots/reviews of OS X for ages now (Unix? Nice interface?), and I was pretty much ready to shell out for a Mini as my first Mac until I saw that report -- and many others like them.

It's a shame, but I don't really want to shell out £350+ with the risk that I won't be able to use it with my monitor. I guess I'll just keep looking for a cheap, second-hand G4 PowerMac on eBay.

Or I might just completely flip my lid and buy a new Amiga. :)

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[grahamlee]

What's the problem with commodity software? POSIX and X11 are both widely-adopted standards, yes?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[prockcore]

The nice thing about Cocoa is you don't accidentally put a Cocoa call into your cross platform C++ module, because Cocoa requires Objective-C or Objective-C++

Only a mac user can take a shortcoming like the lack of Cocoa C++ bindings and turn it into a feature.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 'cause that wouldn't result in an epidemic of piracy totally killing their Mac business. Not at all.

Do you guys think before click the post button?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are C++ bindings for Cocoa. They're just Objective C++.

If you're hoping Apple will, somehow, totally rewrite their entire operating system so you can continue to use an obsolete language that nobody gives a shit about anymore, you're gonna be disappointed.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[StormKrow]

it wouldn't have looked very different.

Those of us with half a mind would STILL install Linux on them. ;-). So regardless we'd still have the almighty penguin on the desktop, it doesn't matter what the CPU is. muhahaha.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only hilarious if you ignore the fact that Apple's chips have gotten faster as a percentage over the same period of time than Intel's or AMD's.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[mhbtr]

And you forgot:

Q. Why are 3 of the next 3 SuperCoolFast gaming machines (even the one built by Msft) based around PPC cores?
A. Apparently, everyone in the next generation gaming world believes that PPC technology is THE best bet for gaming performance.

I kept on reading posts and waiting for SOMEONE to bring up that the XBox 360 etc. are all based on PPC cores, and finally had to say something myself...

--
"To announce that there be no criticism of the President, or to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

--Theodore Roosevelt

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[bonbonne]

x86 doesn't mean "cheap DIY PC".

Apple would just use x86 as they are using PowerPC, and continue to sell their own machines.

And I can't find a reason why they should dump IBM for AMD or Intel.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Top of the line Powermac in 2003 was 2.0Ghz, top of the line now is 2.7Ghz. In the meantime, both Intel and especially AMD have pulled way ahead of Apple with their faster and cheaper 64bit chips.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[pknoll]

what CFO in his right mind would get locked into a single vendor for the OS and hardware

Any CFO who authorized purchases of Sun hardware running Solaris, IBM hardware running AIX, or HP hardware running HP/UX would fall under that category. Do you allege they were out of their minds?

Apple may not be positioned to make inroads in the server department, they are more apt to get traction first on the desktop and small-server market. I still don't see how ordering computers from them is in any way senseless, though, just as it isn't when you buy bigger iron.

One thing is for certain - when your hardware and OS come from the same people, there's no fingerpointing when something goes wrong they can't immediately solve. You can just lean on Sun/IBM/HP and say "it's all your stuff, fellas. FIX IT."

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[LWATCDR]

"It's massively outperformed in most test I've seen where compared to similar x86 hardware."

I just do not see it. To me it is looking like the X86 is finally dieing the death that it should have many yours ago. Frankly if it was not for AMD the x86 would not even be close to the PowerPC.
Think about this. The PS3, Nintendo Revolution, and the XBox360 all use the PowerPc for their CPUs. Why would Microsoft dump their beloved X86 unless they had a good reason? Look at the new Intel dual core. It belongs in an easy bake oven not a desktop. If all you are worried about is raw clock cycles per dollar then yes the x86 wins. When you look at getting actual work done the PPC line does seem very close to the X86.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[lgw]

Could you get SAP or PeopleSoft running on it though? I'd be amazed if Oracle with raw volumes could be shimmed into place. Exchange or Notes?

Anyway, it's hard to get that much payoff from great clustering without cluster-aware applications, for dynamic load balancing and the like. This idea of splitting an app across many machines really isn't that technically difficult, but it's had an incredibly hard time gaining mainstream acceptance, from the lukewarm reception of OpenVMS to the lukewarm reception of "utility computing".

Windows will run POSIX-compatible aps as well, but there hasn't been a big surge of people running Unix apps there either.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[grahamlee]

My experience would suggest that there are a lot of people using distributed RPC mechanisms to achieve utility computing and distributed work. However, my experience also encompasses Grid computing, and the sad fact is that cluster computing in the Grid seems to be limited to running 'nohup' on multiple machines.

Oh, and there so is Oracle on OpenVMS ;-)

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[DenDave]

Interesting, I just got my Mini and it works fine, there is a little dimmness but I could adjust it on the monitor. As for the reports you linked, some of them dealt with overclocking issues and well.. that may just be the problem. I have spoken to a buddy of mine who also complained of dimness and the only difference between his and mine are that his has all the airport/bluetooth/bigger drive options.. maybe there is a power consumption issue? His also complains when his wireless usb keyboard AND usb hard drive are hooked up... "too much power being drained"... so perhaps power consumption is the problem. Other than that I must say I am thoroughly impressed with the device.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[DenDave]

Yes, those mfrs have built essentially identical models from common platforms. They were built for both end products from the start. It's not the same as taking a Neon and modifying it to be Phaeton. Your analogy does not apply.

Please tell me which car shares a platform with the S class Mercedes?

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Gleng]

One of the reports I read stated that the Mini's VGA output is around 530 mV, therefore below VESA standards, and that seems to be what's causing the problems.

*sucking air through teeth* They're still tempting, but I don't want to end up with something that's just going to annoy me.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[DenDave]

*sucking air through teeth* They're still tempting, but I don't want to end up with something that's just going to annoy me.

ahh.. c'mon.. you know you want one... glistening brushed steel case... smooth silent running.... polite little 'boing' sound at boot....
seriously though, I have it hooked up to IIyama Vision Master pro 19 inch and it's fine, also on the Compaq 1720 tft it's good. I have seen them on Samsung and on apple's tft's.. believe me it's fine. I would advise you to go to the shop and see for yourself.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Gleng]

glistening brushed steel case... smooth silent running.... polite little 'boing' sound at boot

GAH! Must...resist...cool...computer...

Hmm, I suppose if it didn't work out, I could always unload it on eBay. :)

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM... was forced to allow competitors to build competitive hardware... in the 70s.

Did you piece that history lesson together yourself using quotes from sugar packets?

IBM built the first IBM PC in 1980.

IBM sued to prevent the first PC compatibles but lost their suit for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was their extensive use of off-the-shelf hardware.

If you're referring to the anti-trust suit, which actually began in 1969 (it reached court in 1975 but the suit was filed 69), it should be noted that the case was actually dropped - IBM did everything they did voluntarily, not by court order.

Competitors were allowed to build competitive hardware, but had about as much chance of major market penetration as an commercial x86 OS vendor today.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree with the assertion that using an Intel CPU dictates supporting every single PC-compatible on the market. Apple can easily create a list of supported machines (like NeXTSTEP did) and just not support anything else. In fact, using an x86 chip could easily be used in a completely proprietary and closed architecture.

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[DenDave]

GAH! Must...resist...cool...computer...

*Palpatine's voice*
It's the only way!
*Gleng Skywalker*
must.. resist.. it's wrong... it's not the Open Source Way!
*Palpatine's voice*
Ha! there is much the Open Source Masters won't tell you..

Re:Sounds reasonable.

[Anonymous Coward]

meta-modded unfair. I hate ppl who abuse negative mod points. Too bad they won't lose the moderate ability though and can continue to censor what we see through the filters to match their own viewpoints.

LISA

[smittyoneeach]

s/A/P/
It's those spelling errors that kill products.

Re:LISA

[anttik]

I wonder what Ppple III would've been like.

Re:LISA

[smittyoneeach]

Och, he was a splendid Pppe, despite vowel prrblems...

Apple Pippin

[thedogcow]

What about the Apple Pippin? Few people know about Apples ill-fated console release.

Re:Apple Pippin

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the Apple Pippin? Few people know about Apples ill-fated console release.

Was that ever released? What about Newton, not that it wasn't ahead of it's time and all, but in the end, it was can'ed.

Re:Apple Pippin

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pippin seemed kind doomed from the start.

1. high priced console promoted as a multimedia device as much as (if not more) than as a game player.
   
2. TV set top internet box.
   

Did anyone succeed creating either/combination of the two?

Nonetheless, I'm not selling mine. :)

Re:Apple Pippin

[FidelCatsro]

a few pippin links
http://www.businessweek.com/1996/14/b346998.htm
the business week artical from 96
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin
The wikipedia entry

http://www.macgeek.org/museum/pippin/
and the macgeek pippin / bandi museem

I belive it was released by bandi it just got drowned by the price and the fact it was a bit ahead of its time (look at consoles now , offering simmilar multi media features)

Re:Apple Pippin

[Anonymous Coward]

Because she missed out the second letter "N" in "Canned" and used an apostrophe, obviously.

Re:Apple Pippin

[Anonymous Coward]

The shape of the controller for the Playstation 3 looks very similar to the one used by the Pippin.

Hopefully they won't suffer the same fate.

Re:Apple Pippin

[FidelCatsro]

It shouldnt , the pipin failed for three main reasons

• Too exensive
• Not enough software/games
• It was ahead of its time and poorly marketed

The playstation 3 on the other hand is going to be about the same price as the other major consoles , will have a wide selections of games and is very much of its time

I do agree though the controler is rather simmilar , though the ps3 controler is just an eveloution from the frist playstation controlers

Re:Apple Pippin

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, the Pippin is more like Microsoft's current console attempt.

I would be more worried about the Xbox and Xbox360 then the PS3's controller if I was you.

Re:Apple Pippin

[way2trivial]

hmm.. then it wouldn't be MAJOR, would it?

[I]Apple began the eighties with two major flops under its belt[/I]

Re:Apple Pippin

[rho]

I disagree that it was too expensive. The Pippen would have made a bang-up school computer lab station. It was about $600, IIRC, which at the time was in competition with $1500 and up PCs that were harder to network and more prone to virus/corruption problems.

The Pippen booted from a CD! There was no failed hard-drive issue, you couldn't get a boot sector virus, and precocious teens couldn't meaningfully hack it.

That it was marketed as a "game platform" at all was foolish. Maybe some "edutainment" type programs, but otherwise it could (should?) have been the Apple II all over again. Now might even be a good time to re-introduce the idea again, now that jillions of teenagers are accustomed to that damned "Loading..." screen from their Playstations and XBoxes.

flops under the belt

[ziggamon2.0]

major flops under its belt

It's ok Steve... it happens to every guy! Maybe you were just nervous!

Look at you now - with your impressive... eh... Mac Mini...

Re:flops under the belt

[Anonymous Coward]

Cue female mac-apologists saying it's "cute".
-r

Re:flops under the belt

[Muhammar]

I think he's doing fine - he can say: "We started with just 2 major flops and we are in the teraflop range now"

Re:flops under the belt

[justforaday]

Well, don't forget that he managed to get a Lisa out of it. (note: he named the machine after his illegitimate daughter)

Re:flops under the belt

[Liquid Len]

No way, man ! No way in hell this is allowed when you happen to be married to such a sweet lady as this one.
If you don't have what it takes, sorry, but she just ain't for ya...

And the 3rd flop was ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if there are some Mac addicts here who can remember it, but the "AV" machines back then (660 AV and 840AV iirc) with their AT&T 3210 DSP, GeoPort, etc... were nicknamed Mac III

And of course were an horrible flop :)

It's funny because back then, the nickname "Mac III" made a lot of people associate it with Apple III, and there was, in the Mac hackers community, a bad feeling about it ...

Apple: Never again use "III" in a product name :)

Ben.

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had a Quadra 660 AV run fine for over a decade, and with a System 7.5 reinstall it'll be good for another decade.

The AV system was very advanced for its time, and to this day, its specialized capabilities aren't matched by most desktops.

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[CrazyTalk]

I had (well have, its still in a box in my basement) a Centris 660AV - at the time I thought it was a phenomenal macine, with a separate processor to handle things like speech recognition and a CD-ROM drive built in (you had to use a special caddy for each CD, never mind slot loading!) Like the Lisa, it was ahead of its time.

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[Bonzor]

I've got a bad feeling about this...

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[Trillan]

I used to use a 660AV on a regular basis. Beautiful system. It was thought that the PowerPC replaced the need for a DSP, but this wasn't really true until the G4.

The developers I talked to(and ultimately ended up working with) thought the same.

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[nothingtodo]

I've got a 660av along with the matching applevision monitor, and I like it. The caddy type CD drive is not a big deal to me since it uses the same caddy that others did. Nice and compact design.

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[Queer Boy]

The AV machines were awesome. You pointed out all of the amazing hardware they has and the phenomenal software that went along with it. The only problem was that developers were told that the DSP wouldn't be included in the PowerMacs. Why continue to code for it? Since Apple was going to PowerPC, they let it languish, too. Incidentally, the DSP was an order of magnitude faster than the 68040's in the machines.

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[shotfeel]

That's really true. The 840AV we had could do the AV stuff sooo much more reliabley than the PPC's could (at least the initial ones).

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[D4rkn1ght]

I still use the original (Fat Mac) Mac 512K with two 400k floppy drives! It talks with my other Macs through AppleTalk, and it is running System 3.3 for OS. :-)

I made a disk image with all the classic applications from that era, that it is mounted on another Mac for easy access through AppleTalk. So I don't really have to change/swap disks. Just one disk for booting!

I still use it to play classic games and read old text, MacWrite, MacPaint documents, etc. :-)

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[dkalley]

I don't know if there are some Mac addicts here who can remember it, but the "AV" machines back then (660 AV and 840AV iirc) with their AT&T 3210 DSP, GeoPort, etc... were nicknamed Mac III
And of course were an horrible flop :)

not with people doing graphics. the 840av was freakin awesome; fast, radius graphics options, video out options, a nice tower... i was blown away when i saw the graphics produced during this area. never heard of it as a mac iii either.

Re:And the 3rd flop was ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. Nobody ever called the Quadra AV series "Mac III."

This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

News for nerds, stuff that matters? Because it's not like we didn't learn of the failure of the Apple III and the Lisa a few years ago, no sire.

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

They tell me the Newton is dead to. Confirm/deny?

Landfilled LISAs

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA: "The Lisa was becoming more and more expensive and ambitious. Several team members believed that it would never see the light of day."

A long time ago my childhood was lost when my dad told me that a huge quantity of LISAs actually didn't ever see the light of day - they went straight from warehouse to landfill as a tax write off. He explained it to me that the "sum of the parts was worth less than the whole" This would have been close to twenty years ago - around the time he was buying WORM drives and wandering around the Pentagon.

If anyone has any confirmation at all re: the landfilling of LISAs, I'd be interested in hearing it.

Re:Landfilled LISAs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they are under 50 feet of E.T. Atari cartridges...

Re:Landfilled LISAs

[Thu25245]

I have likewise heard that a large number of Lisa/Macintosh XL machines were buried. I read somewhere that they were hauled out into the desert and encased together in concrete.

I wonder if any of them, if extracted and cleaned up, would be functional today. They built hardware to be pretty rugged back then, and a concrete mausoleum combined with dry desert conditions would delay deterioration.

old news

[__aahlyu4518]

"... Apple began the eighties with..."

If this isn't old news.. I don't know what IS.

Re:old news

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to those of us who were actually alive then.

Re:old news

[Coming soon!]

Well..., "It depends upon what the meaning of the word is means. If is means 'is, and never has been', that's one thing. If it means, 'there is none'...," Oh never mind....

Re:old news

[sharpestmarble]

If this isn't old news.. I don't know what IS.

Computers can be used to compute ballistic trajectories with amazing accuracy!

I call dupe.

[mooniejohnson]

I think this is a Slashdot record... a dupe of a story that developed over 20 years ago!

All sarcasm aside, how is this news? Yes, they were flops. Again, 20 years ago. Some site is just putting up a history now, but that still doesn't make it news. It's just blatant flamebait. Come on, editors, take "stuff that matters" to heart!

Re:I call dupe.

[Mother Sha Boo Boo]

If it was ME posting THAT, I'll would get more bad karma...

Re:I call dupe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, editors, take "stuff that matters" to heart!

Yes, because only things you think matter, and not what others find interesting, should EVER be posted.

Re:I call dupe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting and with me probably lots of other people. Does it matter it's not news in the strict sense of the word? BBC news also has "features" that are not directly news but just interesting to know about.

Re:I call dupe.

[Aldric]

Yes, but it makes the almighty Apple look less than perfect! Won't someone please think of the children??

Re:I call dupe.

[pdamoc]

It's even worst than you think.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10598
Maybe soo it will be "stuff that matters to Eugenia".

Re:I call dupe.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you mind if a /. story is a dupe, but don't mind posting an ultra-dupe, off topic, flamey comment yourself?

Re:I call dupe.

[d'oh89]

This is a dupe. I remember seeing an article very similar to this not more than a month ago. Don't get me wrong, I love apple stories, but this one is kind of a stretch.

Re:I call dupe.

[tbone1]

Won't someone please think of the children??

Okay, I will. .... Mm, delicious!

Hmmmm

[Bootle]

I think Apple's biggest 80s flop was letting Microsoft get away with Windows...

I think Apple's biggest flop since then has been to market themselves directly to NYU-attending latte-swilling upscale urbanites and metrosexuals. People out there avoid Apple due to snobbery, not lack of games or anything. Until recently, cost was also an issue

Re:Hmmmm

[FidelCatsro]

I wouldnt really see those as flops you know , apple may not be the number 1 but
they are highly profitable and have a very solid market.

People who avoid apple for silly reasons like that are missing out on a great set of hardware and software, I dont buy hardware because of marketing .

I buy my hardware based on quality and the software it runs.
I have an imac from 5 years ago that still runs soundly using ubuntu ppc (its actualy still ok for os x if i had wanted to run os x on it )
The main atractions for me are os x , the power consumption of apple hardware, The ability to run all the software i require and cost compared to quality/realiability and service.
Simple as that .

The people avoiding it because of snobbery are guilty of the same thing themselves really.

Re:Hmmmm

[deaddrunk]

That certainly describes the only Apple fan I've ever met. What a wanker he is. Hasn't put me off buying an Apple product though, the cost does that very nicely.

Re:Hmmmm

[JudgeFurious]

The unwashed Windows using masses are too stupid to recognize snobbery, much less understand the experience that makes up the Apple experience. Their simple little conformist minds cannot grasp the complexity that is the Macintosh. They can't see the quality, style, and substance in front of their faces. Fools! You're a fool if you think otherwise.

I have no more time to attempt to enlighten you. I'm going to Starbucks.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Hmmmm

[mah!]

I'm going to Starbucks.

To Starbucks? Following the uneducated masses?
Me, I'll stick to Illy.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have laughed but my XP box bluescreened in the middle of your pseudo-rant.

There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[Anonymous Coward]

But ol' Slashydot is afraid to do it.

Which is why we were discussing a Supreme Court decision about wine yesterday.

Re:There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[Anonymous Coward]

If Slashdot posters spent half of the energy they use to whine and complain on producing better stories, don't you think things would be better?

Re:There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[Aldric]

No.

Because fanboys would mod the submitters of stories critical of [insert company name here] down every time.

Re:There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[the_2nd_coming]

they need to move to the K5 Engine. there people vote for a story to make the front page.

Re:There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[ajs318]

Wow ..... such a shame my mod points wore off ..... That would have deserved "insightful" -- and maybe even a blue dot next to my name, if the poster had bothered to log in.

Re:There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[skiman1979]

Well if you are not interested in a story, why even bother to comment on it? Just move along and read a more interesting, relevant-to-you story.

Re:There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[wed128]

and zealots would mod the submitters of stories critical of [insert company name here] up every time. It all balances out, my friend.

Re:There should be a way to mod posters of stories

[snorklewacker]

> they need to move to the K5 Engine. there people vote for a story to make the front page.

This has of course resulted in a cultural renaissance for K5 ...

There are other "story rating" systems that are perfectly democratic, and could be better than a straight out single popularity contest. Stuff like "friend recommendations" rating higher than "general recommendations", for example. But this is slashdot we're talking about ... do you really think they're going to do a damn thing?

Percusive engineering

[overlife]

And I thought that you hit your computer to take out your frustrations, not to reseat the chips. Silly me.

Classic tech support advise!

[Timesprout]

On top of that, Jobs' insistence that the machine have no fan made for a very hot board. After being used for a day or two, the mainboard would get so hot it would warp and unseat some of the chips. Apple refused to install a fan to fix the problem and instructed users to drop the machine on their desk to bang the chips back into place.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[Anaphiel]

I had an Amiga 500 with the 500K RAM expansion, which used to short out against the RF shielding in the case on a daily basis. "Lift up the front right corner about and inch and drop it" was the official Commodore method for dealing with it.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[jellomizer]

You just cant beat 1980s technical support. A friend of mine use to work for Cray back in the 80s. When the systems timing wasn't just quite right a technician will go to the system and cut the wire a little shorter so the electrons will get there a little quicker. Technology back then if you ever compare the electronics were a lot bigger and more durable. large solder blobs to keep the chip in place with the board. An extra wire soldered on to fix a bug in the design. just filled with ICs. It is great stuff. With this type of stuff you can actually figure out how it works. Figuring that you has the specs of every IC.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[ajs318]

What was the point of the Amiga's RF shielding? I lived just up the road from a MW transmitter; and instead of ordinary 50 cycle power hum, unshielded audio cables -- even, sometimes, dry solder joints -- used to pick up its signal. Yet my A500 used to run just fine without that tin box inside.

I also ran it quite near to a multi-megawatt UHF/VHF transmitter complex {Sutton Coldfield, if you really must know} with neither RF shielding, nor ill effects.

Whatever RF band it was particularly sensitive to, I never found out.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[Ford Prefect]

What was the point of the Amiga's RF shielding?

Umm... To stop RF getting out?

Not everyone wants to pick up a computer's internal squawks and burps on their television or radio...

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine use to work for Cray back in the 80s. When the systems timing wasn't just quite right a technician will go to the system and cut the wire a little shorter so the electrons will get there a little quicker.

You know, this story keeps getting repeated. Does anyone have an actual credible citation for this? I'm an RF engineer and believe me, especially in the 80's "A little shorter wire" really wasn't going to do jack at the clock speeds of the Crays of the era.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[Detritus]

It wasn't there to keep RF out, it was there to keep RF in, so that the system would comply with FCC regulations on emissions.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[lachlan76]

Wasn't he saying that it wasn't keeping it out?

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[lachlan76]

Sorry..keeping it *IN*.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[deaddrunk]

My god someone from my home town :)

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[putaro]

Yah, it would. Cray's of the time were running a 10ns (100 Mhz) clock. We usually assumed speed-of-electricity in copper at about 1 ft/ns. Cray's are big machines and you can get pretty close to the edge of signal propogation so lopping off a few inches of wire here and there could and does tune things. Don't forget that you need to get everything done in 10 ft of wire (minus how ever many gates it went through on the way) or your signal shows up late.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[Rufus88]

so the electrons will get there a little quicker.

You mean the "changes in electric field strength" got there a little quicker. At typical electron drift speeds, and the clock frequencies in question, I doubt any electrons ever traversed a wire of appreciable length in the first place.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[jellomizer]

Not clock speed but the time the data is recieved. Cutting a wire wont make a 100 mhz system 150 mhz. but it will make sure that bit #3 gets there after bit #2 and before bit #4.

Re:Classic tech support advise!

[sjames]

which used to short out against the RF shielding in the case on a daily basis.

That's what packing tape is for!

Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

This post will be a great opportunity for Apple fans to rave about how fantastic Apple is and that they only produced two flops in their entire history. These posts will of course be modded up as this is macrumors here after all.

This post will also be a great opportunity for Apple hater to tell us how much Apple sucks and that everything they do is a failure. These posts will of course be modded down as this is macrumors here after all.

Additionally at least one major discussion about Apple pricing will break out, with one side claiming that Apple is simply to expensive and that you can get the same specs for a lot less money from $generic_computer_vendor_of_choice. This will of course prompt angry rebuttals from Apple fans claiming that nothing could be farther from the truth.
Of course comparing specs and prices is utterly pointless and will never lead to a result, but this won't stop anyone from happily participating in the flamefest.

Oh, and before I forget, at least 5 comments will mention that Macs are only used by gays.

Re:Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a card carrying member of the cult, but I offer this page on the LowEndMac website (where the TFA comes from.)

Road Apples: The Worst Macs

Re:Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

the Mac zealots will run off and spend hours searching the Dell on-line store

Probably because whenever the anti-Mac cult whines about the price they either:

1. talk about the wizbang box they can build for half the price (ignoring software and time costs,) or
   
2. point to Dell's website.
   

Re:Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuckin eh man.
Thanks for having balls.

Re:Some predictions

[utexaspunk]

this is macrumors here after all

uh, dude- this is slashdot. macrumors' site is a lot prettier. it really isn't that hard to distinguish them...

Re:Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

So why am I doing it?

Because you are a fucking, ignorant, lying asshole.

Re:Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

dont forget about the smug posts analyzing what will be posted as if they have god like intelligence.

Re:Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late... someone already has:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14975 0&cid=12553281

Re:Some predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac zealots: *fap* *fap* *fap* *fap* APPLE *fap* *fap* *fap* APPLE *fap* *fap* APPLE *fapple* *fapple* *fapple* *SPLOOGE*

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

...here's Nintendo's second flop.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind telling me what the first flop was, you Xbox fanboy, you...

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual Boy.

Hot Product

[ParadoxicalPostulate]

"On top of that, Jobs' insistence that the machine have no fan made for a very hot board."

Why on earth would he object to putting a fan in it? Did he think it'd make too much noise?

My favorite part of the article: "Apple refused to install a fan to fix the problem and instructed users to drop the machine on their desk to bang the chips back into place."

What a concept! Usually when you drop things, they break. But when you drop an Apple, well, it just works (TM).

Re:Hot Product

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would he object to putting a fan in it? Did he think it'd make too much noise?

Absolutely. In this day of multi-ghz processors and video cards requiring their own cooling, people forget what it's like to have a dead silent computer. Remember back then that many/most computers didn't even have hard disks, so unless you were accessing the floppy, there was no noise at all. Notice that he made the same edict when it came to the original Mac's.

What a concept! Usually when you drop things, they break. But when you drop an Apple, well, it just works (TM).

Actually this was a common problem with all computers of that era. Wasn't uncommon at all to have chips work their way loose, esp new computers. I'd get new units and the first thing I'd do is re-seat all the socketed chips, esp the memory dips as trouble shooting your computer locking up or randomly rebooting (ahhh, some things never change do they?) because one of your 36 64k dips was loose was not fun.

Re:Hot Product

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would he object to putting a fan in it? Did he think it'd make too much noise?

Bingo. That's why the original Mac also lacks a fan, and I'm guessing why the original DV iMacs did away with the fan.

Re:Hot Product

[87C751]

What a concept! Usually when you drop things, they break. But when you drop an Apple, well, it just works (TM).

Similar to what I used to call Apple Disease. The vibration from the Apple ][ power switch (the BRS) would eventually cause the socketed chips to walk out and gall the contact surfaces. The quick fix was to open the top and re-seat the chips with your thumb. I used to pull the chips, treat the pins with Tweek (now known as Stabilant), re-seat them and charge $25 for the job. Good spare change for 1985!

Re:Hot Product

[el_womble]

Why on earth would he object to putting a fan in it? Did he think it'd make too much noise?

I work with PCs during the day and Macs at night. The PC at work is a dual Xeon. With the heat and the noise its like sitting next to a hairdryer. If your used to it and you don't know any better then you won't realise how much its bothering you. My iMac G5 is a good balance. It is practically silent until you ask it to do something intensive, then two very low rev fans kick in. It really makes you appreciate how great it would be if it had no fan at all, and how awful modern PCs noise levels are.

Re:Hot Product

[jellomizer]

I remember my old Amstrad 8086 512k. When it wasn't accessing the drives The system was silant-minus a high pitch sound coming from the monitor, whenever it had to change what it was displaying). Modern computers with CRTs may do the same thing but with the fans I just cant tell. Even my laptop makes more noise then the Amstrad. About 5 years ago I powed back the amstrad and I was amazed how silent it was. I thought it wasn't going to boot because I wasn't hearing anything in the time it takes to power up the monitor and for it to display "Wait...."

Re:Hot Product

[Touisteur]

I may seem offtopic, but the psu was in the screen on the 8086 Amstrad PCs, and it was a cheap one (and low power) which made few noise... But man, I can't remember something more pleasant than cutting off this computer... Perhaps your Amstrad hadn't any HD, but when you weren't writing or reading, the disk was still rotating... and this noise is really unbearable if you don't live 10 hours a day near to your Amstrad... Switching the computer was such a torture !!!

Re:Hot Product

[LizardKing]

Jobs was also the guy who did his best to scupper NeXT, the outfit he created after his first tenure at Apple. When the NeXT cube was designed, he insisted that the magnesium case be a perfect cube. In manufacturing, you don't make perfect cubes, as they are nigh on impossible to remove from a single piece mould or punch. Job's insistence on a perfect cube meant that the NeXT factory was littered with ruined cases and the cost of the cube escalated. I guess that's why NeXT started making "slabs".

Re:Hot Product

[soft_guy]

Not just that it made noise, but also I think he thought (thinks?) fans are a kludge.

Re:Hot Product

[Omestes]

When I got my PowerBook the first thing I noticed is that is dead silent. A big change from my (now dead) tower, when I run it, it sounds like a 747 taking off. It's only slightly better than my PB too, but for some reason I need 4 fans to keep it from getting too hot. I've only managed to get my PB fan to kick in twice, and both of those time required work and effort (photoshop doing a batch job, running a game in the background, updating the system, AND listening to music).

I've decided that computers should be unobtrusive, meaning silent. When I get around to fixing my PC, I think I'm going to try to rig it to be fanless.

The guy who wrote this article is a looser

[Anonymous Coward]

By April 1984, Apple had managed to sell only 65,000 units, loosing money on the model.

Well at least they weren't losing money, oh wait, yes they were.

Quite The Contrary

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall, Apple was the first to integrate SMALL 3.5" flops (on the Macintosh)

Re:Quite The Contrary

[Anonymous Coward]

And almost didn't.

Re:Quite The Contrary

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall, Apple didn't even invented the GUI or even where the first to release a computer with WYSIWYG.

The 3.5" drive where developed by sony 1980.

Re:Quite The Contrary

[Secrity]

Apple first integrated SMALL 3.5" flops on the Lisa

Re:Quite The Contrary

[Anonymous Coward]

HP was doing this before the Lisa was out. In fact, HP only ever released 1.44 mb 3.5" floppies. I have a dual drive sitting out in our plant, still hooked up to its original master (an HP 85), connected via HP-IB.

Any info???

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey AC, do you have any info on yours? Does it actually power up and work? If so, please reply, I'd love to get mine going.

Re:Any info???

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine works fine. But I don't have any software other than the (rather useless) pack-ins, so it spends all its time in storage. I don't know much more spec-wise than what's out there on the web.

Don't call it a flop ...

[oboylet]

Bring back eWorld ! It was soooooo cute.

Sorry, I need a minute. Have to run to the bathroom...something in my eye. Just thinking about it gets me all bleary-eyed.

Re:Don't call it a flop ...

[Bigman]

Hmm... Do you think it's significant that the eWorld site you linked to has a menu at the top with links to 'Related sites' and .. 'Interesting sites' !

Just joshing!

I

Re:Don't call it a flop ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, agent smith said that the first few editions of the Matrix were too perfect, that the users wouldn't accept it. I think eWorld was one of them.

Re:Don't call it a flop ...

[Queer Boy]

Bring back eWorld ! It was soooooo cute.

They did. It's called .Mac

Poor, poor article

[mmaddox]

This article reads like a book report turned in by a not-so-bright eighth grader. Gad. Just because you can type doesn't mean you should write.

C'est crap.

Re:Poor, poor article

[Anonymous Coward]

and gave away machines to personalities including Andy Warhol, who later endorsed the Amiga, and Mick Jagger.

I had to read this sentence a few times to understand why Andy Warhol would endorse Mick Jagger.

Re:Poor, poor article

[michaeldot]

This article reads like a book report turned in by a not-so-bright eighth grader. Gad. Just because you can type doesn't mean you should write.

Welcome to the Blogosphere. Enjoy your stay!

(I kinda agree with you, but that doesn't stop me knowing you'll be modded Troll for speaking your mind, which is ironically what blogs do, but there you are.)

Re:Poor, poor article

[Alioth]

Urgh. Don't call it the "blogosphere". That's a *horrible* word.

Re:Poor, poor article

[Caiwyn]

I can't believe the parent post got modded as a Troll. The article is poor -- incredibly so -- not only grammatically, but factually as well. Anyone who is familiar with Macintosh history (and if you aren't, I suggest you check out folklore.org) knows that Jef Raskin's involvement in the project was quite limited, and that Burrell Smith was the man who designed the system, not Raskin.

While it's true that the Lisa and the Apple III were terrible failures, this article doesn't really do the story justice.

Larry Tesler was never CEO.

[allanc]

FTFA:
>where he led a dozen engineers (including future Apple CEO Larry Tesler)

Larry Tesler was never CEO of Apple. He was Chief Scientist and VP.

Kinda makes me wonder about the veracity of the rest of the piece...

Re:Larry Tesler was never CEO.

[three333]

It says future Apple CEO - there's still time!

Re:Larry Tesler was never CEO.

[booyaar]

TFA also states that Bill Atkinson did all the graphics for Lisa and the Macintosh - he did a lot of the graphics development (notably the UI and QuickDraw) and Susan Kare was responsible for the actual graphics.

Bill Atkinson, Susan Kare.

Re:Larry Tesler was never CEO.

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole "article" looks like a quick "off the top of my head, some things I heard about apple from back before I was born, isn't it cool??" blog post. There's no references for any of the supposed facts, no evidence of research, or anything.

I happen to own an apple /// and an apple ///+, and they're actually impressive machines in a number of regards. The article could have been very interesting.

In the end, I can't tell if /. got advertising-trolled again, or if someone just wants to feel important. But that's pretty much par for the course for /. I guess.

Re:Larry Tesler was never CEO.

[Drakonian]

You are calling the icons the graphics? The guy single-handedly wrote the first ever GUI routines for a consumer product from scratch in assembly, and you say Susan Care did the "graphics"? Wow.

Re:Larry Tesler was never CEO.

[allanc]

Yeah, but the article (originally--it's now been edited to better reflect what Atkinson did, as well as stating that Tesler was a 'future Vice President' instead of 'future CEO') made it sound more like he did all of the icons than that he wrote the graphics primitives.

DUPE

[Anonymous Coward]

Top 10 Apple Flops

That's nothing...

[KDR_11k]

Nowadays companies count in Teraflops.

Apple is a 2.0 or 3.0 company most of the time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I'm an Apple fan, owner, and former employee (certainly not a high-level one, though).

That said, Apple screws up a lot, particularly in first versions of a new product. As the article says, the Lisa was a flop, but it led to the original Mac, which led to the real hit, the Mac II.

The Mac Portable was a terrible product--but it led to the Powerbook, which defined the laptop computer. The Cube was overpriced and didn't have a market, but it led to the Mini, which is kicking ass.

The iPod was a hit from the jump, but the Newton was dead from its announcement date (we knew it was in trouble when they started handing them out as employee awards).

The original killer app.

[Anonymous Coward]

but Apple never really got any sort of hold in the business market
Visicalc nearly did that. But since IBM had yet to legitimize personal computers with their "entry level systems," PCs were still looked upon by the business community as hobbyist toys.

loooooooooose

[Zorilla]

From article:
By April 1984, Apple had managed to sell only 65,000 units, loosing money on the model.
Geez, Slashdot's power to make people misspell words is so powerful that it's leaking into linked articles!

Re:loooooooooose

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, "Money", was the name of the pittbull that they loosed on the model (I forget her name at the moment). Anyhow, I'll spare you the gory details.

Re:loooooooooose

[justforaday]

By April 1984, Apple had managed to sell only 65,000 units...

I told the sales team not to use Excel...

Re:loooooooooose

[Anonymous Coward]

I've grown accustomed to the use of "loosing money". It's as if you shake vigorously, the money will become loose, and drop on the ground for others to pick up.

Other news stories tonight

[BasilBrush]

Ronald Regan has been Elected President. The Berlin Wall has Fallen. Apartheid has been beaten in South Africa.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't call that a flop, I'd call it a microsoft-style piece of genius marketing. Even today there are still morons running companies who think that they need to replace all their PC's with macs if they want to run photoshop.

Here's a better list of flops...

[beetle496]

Here's a nice list of real (ongoing?) flops: LEM Road Apples They include the G4 Cube which, along with the Apple /// and Lisa, I would argue the only failure was the unrealisticly high MSRP.

Re:Here's a better list of flops...

[Queer Boy]

I would argue the only failure was the unrealisticly high MSRP.

Especially since the Cube is what led to the flat panel iMac and mini.

Re:Here's a better list of flops...

[Tenebrious1]

Yeah, how about them Performa 52xx and 62xx models, I say they were the biggest mistake ever. The relatively cheap prices and high availablilty got a lot of people to purchase them; then the crappy design, unreliability, and un-upgradability pushed them right back into the hands of Microsoft. I know more people who shunned Apple after buying a Performa than those who "switched" to the "i" products.

Apple Confidential

[Anonymous Coward]

I just finished reading Apple Confidential by Owen W. Linzmayer a couple of days ago and this article is practically a summary two or three chapters. Almost a copy&paste job. Shame on the author of the article, shame.

Anyway, go ahead and get the book. It's much more interesting and gives a better insight.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[gibbsjoh]

Heh, you could at least have the decency to post as non-AC. I'm not disagreeing about the mail issue (though it doesn't affect me), but the rest... nice troll, man. Almost got me to use my mod points.

More interesting question is - Why apple flopped .

[Gopal.V]

Apple had a sort of adolscent crisis when the compan y got to a stage when the hormones took over (this might look like a metaphor, but most companies have a childhood, youth and middle age like the people who run it). The business side started leaning on the creative side and sort of screwed each other. Apple had a bunch of cool people coding for them (I wish ... Amiga...). But the business was more concerned about sellability than the raw coolness of the app in mind (see Google right now, it's going through the same loss of innocence).

Here's my list of top apple flops :

• Apple Pippin (nice name !!)
• OpenDoc
• Lisa
• copland (no, not the movie)
• eWorld (what ?)
• Dalmatian Imacs
• Mac Portable

Btw, if it hadn't been for iMac and it appearing EVERY other commercial - apple might have just gone down silently. Now Ipod is bringing back the original proprietary wizards (Apple > Sun > Microsoft in this attitude ... they're no angels).

writer?

[_Shorty-dammit]

how do people get jobs writing anything when they don't even know the difference between 'loose' and 'lose' or 'to' and 'too' or that all sentences should end with some form of puncuation? Article's somewhat interesting as far as the information goes, but this guy can't write worth a damn.

Re:writer?

[nb caffeine]

I've always wondered this myself. Now, I have a degree in CS, but I'm still concerned about my writing. People judge you by the way you speak and write. It kind of sucks, but I like to at least pretend I learned something in college.

Re:writer?

[geoffspear]

I kind of doubt LowEndMac is paying writers a lot of money for that drivel.

They're certainly not spending any money on competent copyediting.

Re:writer?

[Stewbie]

Puncuation is indeed an integral part of the finalisation of an article, but then so is spolling! :)

The most important element is actually the factual base and the evidence to support it

I haven't read the article, but historically I have found that if all someone has to say about something is a critique of the final presentation, and not something about the bones and flesh of the article, they tend to be someone who either doesn't understand the subject / content, someone who does understand, but can't find anything that is actually wrong with it, or perhaps even just be someone with an agenda which they are trying to impose on anybody who might actually give a shit about what they say.

If my grammar, punctuation or spelling are not up to your standards, do please forgive the fact that I am actually a mere Scotsman from a country which truly shares the English language with England (though invariably in a brougue that the English fail to fully understand) :D

Re:writer?

[pev]

Would you rather listen to someone spouting cr^H^Hrubbish in perfectly correct [English/American *] grammar, or someone saying something worth listening to in stunted language?

I know what I choose.

~Pev

(* Delete as applicable)

Re:writer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously not this article :)

Re:writer?

[cprincipe]

This is indeed one of the most horribly written articles I've seen. The tense is all over the place, and at one point the writer says the Jobs left the Lisa project for the Mac project and then two paragraphs later says that Jobs was "ousted" from the Lisa project.

Re:writer?

[snorklewacker]

I believe this is what they call a "false dichotomy". Nowhere is one forced to choose between proper spelling and grammar and the content of the article. I prefer to buy a fridge that keeps my food cold AND doesn't have scratches and dents, thanks.

Ideas are not single-sourced: if you can't present an idea with any care toward communicating it effectively and correctly, I'll prefer to go somewhere else.

You'd think people who program for a living would know a thing or two about composition, considering that compilers are even less forgiving about spelling and their particular grammar.

Re:writer?

[guet]

No, I think he'd rather see people who write for public consumption in any language spend the time to check their spelling. If they're feeling particularly conscientious perhaps they could reread the piece to check the grammar.

Re:writer?

[tbone1]

how do people get jobs writing anything when they don't even know the difference between 'loose' and 'lose' or 'to' and 'too' or that all sentences should end with some form of puncuation? Article's somewhat interesting as far as the information goes, but this guy can't write worth a damn.

Are you kidding? Have you seen what passes for writing in newspapers? I can pick up the front page of the local Gannett rag and find five such mistakes any day of the week.

Re:writer?

[MasonMcD]

writer? (Score:3, Insightful)
by _Shorty-dammit (555739) on Tue May 17, 07:31 AM (#12553174)
how do people get jobs writing anything when they don't even know the difference between 'loose' and 'lose' or 'to' and 'too' or that all sentences should end with some form of puncuation? Article's somewhat interesting as far as the information goes, but this guy can't write worth a damn.

Hey, eecummings, you missed a letter.

I actually liked the LISA

[syntap]

When I was a kid my father's coworker loaned us a LISA for a couple of weeks. All I remember about it was a Death Star Trench game, but it and my dad's first amber-screened Compaq are what got me interested in computers and programming.

Re:I actually liked the LISA

[whitehatlurker]

The Lisa was a good machine, but too expensive.

Apple History

[hendridm]

I always found the history of Apple, Inc. and their technology fascinating. I'm 26, and the first computer I used at school was an Apple IIe. My first computer my parents bought me was a IIgs. That was a great machine in its day, if only it had a hard drive it would have essentially been a Mac since it had an early version of the Mac GUI. At that time, anyone who was anyone in BBS land wanted a PC though, so I switched and am still using x86 hardware today (I don't care to start an argument - terminal software and BBS software was far superior on the PC at the time). Nonetheless, I enjoy reading about Apple history.

Ok, I did have a point to this post. Another great site is:
www.apple-history.com
(Not hyperlinked on purpose - be gentle. And no, I'm not affiliated with this site.)

I can still find nostalgic messages we posted on Fidonet via USENET when I search once in awhile. That was before I discovered the USENET, which AFAIK was largely accessed with UNIX at the time. Oh, how naive I was, and probably still am.

Re:Apple History

[hardcode]

And http://www.folklore.org/ is very good too.

Apple IIGS?

[master_p]

Wasn't that a flop?

Re:Apple IIGS?

[MouseR]

Oh no that wasn't.

That machine was the last of the Apple //s and did very well. It introduced a number of additions that eventually made their way into the Mac world, such as ADB input bus. It had 16-bit graphics when Macs were still black and white, 16-chanel sound chip (the Mac had a 4-way back then I believe).

That machine would have made Apple big, had they had not spent all their marketing efforts onto the Mac (whose hardware was inferior in many areas to the GS, but whose OS was superior).

Re:Apple IIGS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could've been a great machine -- hell, it was a great machine -- but Apple was intent on axing the Apple// line in favor of promoting the Macintosh (even though the //e was pretty much keeping the company afloat in the Mac's early years.)

High resolution colour graphics, stereo sound, expansion slots, and backwards compatible with 95% of the existing software library. All in 1986. The first colour Macs (and with slots) were still a few years off.

Re:Apple IIGS?

[allanc]

It wasn't the last of the Apple II line. I know that the IIc+, at least, came later.

(The IIc+ was basically a IIc on steroids. Wicked fast processor, comparatively. And, in fact, it was faster than the IIgs, despite the fact that the IIgs was a 16 bit machine and the IIc+ was an 8 bit.)

Re:Apple IIGS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite an Amiga :) but it was most definitely an awesome machine at the time. Even into, say, 1995 I ran into an enthusiast of this platform. We compared notes: His GS versus my Amiga 2000. I was duly impressed with what I thought was a glorified IIC. Not much of a software base from what I could tell, but by then they both machines were off the radar with everyone going to Win95. I bought a Mac to replace the Amiga and never got rid of the Amiga. The Mac died, however and that Amiga is still going strong nearly 20 years after manufacture. The Mac died in three.

Re:Apple IIGS?

[doctorjay]

Are you kidding me? the apple IIGS was friggin awesome. So awesome that we still have ours. It was a execellent educational tool, and had tons of games for it. It was one of the first PC's that had integrated sound and a color monitor, and a color printer. It was useful for making small DB's, word processing and other office related work. It truly was a remarkable machine for its time. http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/

Ahem...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I know /. is reknowned for dupes, but, isn't this news like 20 years old? :P

Ironic

[springbox]

Apple refused to install a fan to fix the problem and instructed users to drop the machine on their desk to bang the chips back into place.

Um, wow. I think it's ironic that the acronym for the machine's operating system is SOS.

Lovverly Lisa

[Cally]

The Lisa wasn't a commercial success but it certainly was a technological success, paving the way for the Mac. (If you haven't seen a picture of one, google around... they looked a bit like an original Mac (aka 'Mac Classic') rotated through 90 degrees. It had a revolutionary WIMP interface. I remember as an awestruck almost-teenager reading a breathless review in the UK's then only PC mag, "Personal Computer World" which said "the only bad thing we could find to say about it is that some of the icons look a little whimsical. How long could you look at a whimsical icon before it becomes irritating?" It was also over eight grand sterling, four times the price of the ugly, clunky CGA IBM PCs that were the competition...

Re:Lovverly Lisa

[Superfluid Blob]

There's blood on the chips down at HP, DEC, and MIPS
But the Heart of the Apple Lisa never died.

Re:Lovverly Lisa

[poena.dare]

I was lucky enough to lay my hands on a Lisa because, interestingly enough, Federal Express' engineering department bought one the day they came out.

I'd come into work after hours just so I could push this huge bar-of-soap on a wire they called a mouse around the desk.

I had trouble with LisaDraw until I realized that the pixels were twice as wide as they were tall. Drove me nuts.

Re:Lovverly Lisa

[masonsas]

The Lisa was hugely influential. I was a major Apple-head back then, doing development on the Apple ][+, when the Lisa came out. It was responsible for my first real programming job (first paid one, anyway) by inspiring a couple of grad students to start a company. We were developing an integrated app suite like the Lisa's for the Apple ][, having to write a mouse driver, and a faster disk O/S to handle app swapping, and...all the stuff they'd done on the Lisa. I remember going on a company field trip to a nearby store to visit the Lisa and take notes!

Slashdot stays ahead of the game...

[khakipuce]

...by reporting a 20 year old story.

Slashdot, news for historians, stuff that doen't matter anymore

Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[Ancient_Hacker]

Some errors in the article:

• It was the "Sophisticated" Operating System".
• The clock chip in the Apple III was unreliable, but that wasnt Apple's fault, it was an intrinsic problem with the IC.
• It's doubtful that the Apple III got hot enough to unseat the chips.
• It would be nearly impossible to add a fan to the Apple III without a major hack job on the case, power supply, and the large rear heatsink. It's not something that could be just tacked on.
• Jobs did insist the Mac would have no fan.
• Bill Atkinson did not work at PARC.

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[lseltzer]

It's not Apple's fault that they used an unreliable IC? Strange logic here.

My company (DeskTop Softare Corp, out of business now) wrote software for the III and it failed because there were a large number of 100% out of the box failures. The hardware stunk. Who can we possibly blame other than Apple?

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, by extension you can blame your company's failure on yourself for choosing to code for a platform which chose to go with an unreliable timer circuit.

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's doubtful that the Apple III got hot enough to unseat the chips."

And yet, it did.

"It would be nearly impossible to add a fan to the Apple III without a major hack job on the case, power supply, and the large rear heatsink. It's not something that could be just tacked on."

Which doesn't absolve Jobs in any way; the case design was mostly his to begin with. Saying a fan couldn't fit in there, so it isn't his fault is patently false.

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[Ancient_Hacker]

> It's not Apple's fault that they used an unreliable IC? Prolly not. This was a NEW IC design, using very low power CMOS. Apple wanted a real-time clock and was willing to take the slight extra risk of using a new IC to do so. They also may have used some low-profile sockets for the RAM chips, which WAS their fault, they should have vibration and thermal shock tested the whole computer, which they apparently didnt.

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[hawk]

>It's doubtful that the Apple III got hot enough to unseat the chips.

That would make it difficult to explain why Apple recommended lifting the machine two inches and dropping it to reseat them . . . you can argue for a different cuase, but that was Apple's explanation back then . . .

hawk

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[Bassman59]

re: socket issues. There's a reason you don't see hardware that includes IC sockets any more.

It's because DIP sockets SUCK.

You can fix those machines by removing the sockets and soldering your memory directly to the PCB, like G-d intended.

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame Microsoft. Isn't that we do here on Slashdot?

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[ohasten]

Hey Hawk

They came out of the box with the problem. Not related to a heat problem at all.

The day we got our first one, another salesman showed me what he had to do (lift and drop) to get it to work.

I actually sold one the first day, word processing machine. Never a complaint from the buyer.

Re:Not too well researched, like full of errors:

[hawk]

But didn't it need to be redone periodically? admittedly, my memory on the dtails is a bit hazy after all this time.

hawk

Apple IIGS- First and Last Apple

[gadlaw]

Ah yes. Another reason why I'll never have another Appple computer product again. No support, no games, no harddrive, no future. I don't even look at Apple Computer after that one. I hold a grudge forever. The only good thing I remember is playing Bard's Tale on that that old thing way back in the day and that for writing school papers it beat the hell out of a typewriter.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[jav1231]

Like it or not, OSX is the best user GUI. Windows looks like KDE 2 compared to OSX. As for graphics? Hands down. You can dot your verbal canvas with "rubbish" and "bullshit" but me thinks thou doest harbor a deeper issue.

2 flops...

[ath0mic]

That's nothing. They're up to about 10 teraflops now.... mmm BigMac :)

Why this is news?!?!!?!

[Eminence]

I don't get it, it was more than 15 years ago, who cares about their flops then???

Wrong 'graphics'

[jasonhamilton]

He was talking about for development/design, not UI.

Re:Wrong 'graphics'

[jav1231]

I realize that. But for 20 years the Lion's share of graphic design has been done on the Mac. There's a reason for this.

And in other stuff that matters...

[skingers6894]

The Tandy TRS-80 model II never really took off either.

Check this link for a nostalgic look at what might have been news at the time on slashBBS:

http://home.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/modelii.html

Boycott Bad Stories!

[JawzX]

Maybe this should be linked SOMEWHERE on slashdot, but it sure as hell isn't front page news. I'm suggesting that rather than post flames about things like this we IGNORE them in the future. If we stop clicking through and viewing adds on crap like this, maybe the loss of revenue will convince someone to start actually publishing CONTENT again.

Re:Boycott Bad Stories!

[jwind]

I agree, I thought this was "news for nerds"... Anyone who wasn't aware of the of the III "flop" can hardly claim themselves to be a nerd. How is this news?

Apple Giotto -- prototype tablet PC

[Hunter.Peck]

Only one picture was ever officially published of the Giotto stylus/tablet as I remember, and I'm not sure if it was a Newton on steroids or fully functional PC, but as an artist, writer, and MAC enthusiast, I knew I wanted one. I could find no surviving references during a quick search. It is sad and wonderful seeing great ideas appear before their time even when they then die; the creative spirit is indomitable!

Lots of CFOs..

[xtal]

but then what CFO in his right mind would get locked into a single vendor for the OS and hardware

IBM and Sun don't seem to have a horrible time of it. If the benefits outweigh any (percieved) risks, then it'll take care of itself. That's what's happening now. You think having a whole company 0wn3d by spyware is cheap?

Re:Lots of CFOs..

[shotfeel]

And shows that, despite the rhetoric, they really are stuck with a single source -Microsoft.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the Mac isn't the best graphics platform and I've used Photoshop CS for RAW image manipulation and digital workflow on both Macs and PCs.

However, I love the OS - finally, a UNIX system that's mainstream accessible, nice to use and isn't written by a bunch of open source "oh no your license isn't free" hippies who can't write a fucking gui (let alone software that works) to save themselves.

Macs are nice machines to use. I feel like I am using a finished product, not an 0.1 release.

Yup.

[gandell]

I'd have to agree with this...pc hardware is much cheaper, and does have a bit more horsepower for your buck than Apple's offerings.

I love OSX, but I use WinXP. I would love to be able to pick up a copy of OSX for x86. I'd most certainly embrace it, even if the OS was priced higher than XP.

Cool Lisa

[kbw]

The article doesn't attempt to mention how cool the Lisa actually was. For a start, it was a preemptive multitasking machine, something the Mac didn't achieve until the release of OS X. I wonder if the CUNY lab in Manhattan still have theirs? It's also interesting that Jobs reportedly served to stifle the Mac project rather than inspire it. It seems Apple put out the Mac despite Jobs.

Re:Cool Lisa

[adzoox]

This is an often overlooked tidbit, and it's a reason Jobs was in some ways happy to leave Apple (after being ganged up on by execs)

He formed Next where he was essentially able to create the LISA on the super powerful 68030 and 68040 processors.

The video that circulated the internet a few months back with Next's capabilities were mind blowing.

Only now is Jobs true insight being seen with the release of Tiger - analysts point that this is the "thing beyond that iPod" that will grow marketshare for Apple - amazing - it was most like the LISA project....

What? No rebuttal from As Seen On TV?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's /. coming to???

Rip off

[jelevy01]

Nice rip off from OS News

News?

[c0ldfusi0n]

Slashdot: Where failures from the '80s still make news.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing to me how so many people dismiss the idea of religion generally, and God specifically, using the excuse that they won't be fooled, when most of these people have never actually made a serious effort to find out (for themselves) if there really is a God.

It's also amazing to me how many people have religious beliefs that govern their lives, but which they've never really examined, and often don't even know what they are claiming to believe.

So much for independent, free, open minds.

Apples First Flops were...

[omegacentrix]

MUL and DIV operations - it's true! You read it here first!

Stupid is as stupid does

[Anonymous Coward]

"The people avoiding it because of snobbery are guilty of the same thing themselves really."

Perhaps not.
If people make a lot of stupid decisions in their lives (eg. NYU-attending latte-swilling upscale urbanites and metrosexuals) the automatic reaction SHOULD be to assume that their computer buying decisions aremade more to impress people than to actually compute. This isn't automatically true, of course, but it is foolish to ignore an obvious pattern out of hand.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[Anonymous Coward]

"NYU-attending latte-swilling upscale urbanites and metrosexuals" make about the same number of stupid decisions as any other group of people. 90% of anything is crap.

The difference between them and normal americans is they smell better and they aren't afraid to pay someone else to take care of maintenance on their cars/computers/houses/nails.

The Newton, anyone?

[NineNine]

I'm not commenting on the article (I stopped at the first few grammatical errors), but nobody seems to mention a more recent Apple flop... The Newton! That's all I had to say. Have a nice day. I'm going to go roll in the hay. I just may.

A couple of comments....

[MtViewGuy]

The Cube was overpriced and didn't have a market, but it led to the Mini, which is kicking ass.

If Apple had just priced the G4 Cube correctly it would have been a hit, because its desktop footprint is really not much bigger than the currently fashionable Mac Mini. And it would have allowed people to buy less-expensive monitors, keyboards and mouse pointers, too.

The iPod was a hit from the jump....

I have to disagree with that. It was only when the version for Windows that included USB 2.0 support came out and the unveiling of the iTunes Music Store that the iPod really took off in popularity.

Re:A couple of comments....

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple had just priced the G4 Cube correctly it would have been a hit, because its desktop footprint is really not much bigger than the currently fashionable Mac Mini. And it would have allowed people to buy less-expensive monitors, keyboards and mouse pointers, too.

I agree completely. The Cube didn't have a market because it was overpriced.

I have to disagree with that. It was only when the version for Windows that included USB 2.0 support came out and the unveiling of the iTunes Music Store that the iPod really took off in popularity.

I don't agree 100%; the iPod was a clear success from its first launch, but you do have a good point about the overall market exploding with the PC version--and again, that goes to show that Apple tends to do much better with the second and third iterations of a product than with the first.

Re:A couple of comments....

[MtViewGuy]

I don't agree 100%; the iPod was a clear success from its first launch, but you do have a good point about the overall market exploding with the PC version--and again, that goes to show that Apple tends to do much better with the second and third iterations of a product than with the first.

I think the iPod would have stayed a relatively niche device had Apple stayed with its original design (e.g., no USB 2.0 ports) and not started up the iTunes Music Store. Most PC-based computers lack the IEEE-1394 port, and that would have limited the success of the iPod on the PC side for a long time; it was when the iPod got the USB 2.0 port that the potential market for the iPod rose up dramatically, and that really drove iPod sales.

The list of PC/x86 Flops would fill pages

[postbigbang]

Jobs, if anything, was focused and visionary. A few screwups are nothing compared to the IBM PC Jr, and assorted junk that arrived from loads of other vendors. If nothing, he's consistent and found religion when he jumped to NeXt. The Darwin kernel and other human-factor profiles, along with sheer beauty make Job's stuff like Sony's product lines used to be.

The list of other flops is miles long. Flops are good: they test engineers and the market place. Some items are ahead of their time, others behind, and still others are just really bad ideas.

There is no shame in failing.

[acomj]

Your not trying hard enough/ taking enough risks. Noone/ company is perfect. Of course something were bound to fail (New Coke), but everything is clearer when looking back at it.

Learning from mistakes and not repeating them is the hard part.

Re:There is no shame in failing.

[Anonymous Coward]

OT New Coke wasn't a failure to Coka-Cola in general, it was a planned failure to make people appreciate when the old one came back. /tinfoil hat off

Re:More interesting question is - Why apple floppe

[the_2nd_coming]

because we can have an open DAP platform.... NOT

SOS?

[slntnsnty]

Might not have been my first choice in acronyms for the OS...

On the other hand, it was almost prophetic.

What Novel?

[JLavezzo]

The launch of the Macintosh was accompanied by the 1984 advertisement, based on the novel of the same name.

Huh? Could you be more specific? I don't know of any novel named Macintosh. And I sure can't find it on Amazon. If it's there, it's lost in a sea of books about the Apple product.

Re:What Novel?

[zoomba]

Sometimes it's hard to tell if people are trying to be funny, or are just dense :)

1984 is the book.

Re:What Novel?

[Thumper_SVX]

Uhm, maybe 1984?

Perhaps some quotation marks in the original quote would clarify things;

The launch of the Macintosh was accompanied by the "1984" advertisement, based on the novel of the same name.

Visicalc?

[BreadMan]

Dan Bricklin's spreadsheet ran on the Apple first and was the sole reason folks went out and bought an Apple. For a period (think early 80's), Apple owned the desktop computer market, with many more business-oriented applications than creative/educational titles.

Only after they got crushed by IBM machines did they focus on thier current market. I don't think IBM did them in as much as the IBM clone market, which reduced the cost of the hardware to far below Apple's. With a lower price, more people purchased IBM-compatible machines and the demand for software followed.

Re:Visicalc?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is pretty much it. Apple designed the Apple ///, Lisa, and Macintosh to compete against the IBM PC, a monopoly. When Compaq reversed engineered the PC, and won the court case, the monopoly was no more. The market now had PC Compatibles. And when the junk dealers and MS started flooding the market with rock bottom PC compatibles, there was no way to make a good profit at all.

So, even though bussinesse did buy Macs in the mid 80's, they very rightly moved to the PC clones as soon as the software was available. This was especially true as PC software could be easily copied for free, whereas Mac software never was never as freely traded.

Don't forget the IIC+

[drew23]

Don't forget the IIC+, the poorly conceived last member of the Apple II line. In hindsight, I think that Apple should have given up on the Apple II line before the IIGS and focused on producing a low cost Mac.

There were a lot of great things about the IIGS, but it always seemed to lack the support that the early macs had.

Re:Don't forget the IIC+

[nothingtodo]

I don't think the //c+ was a bad idea at all. The power supply was built in, it used the 3.5 drive and could run at a speed faster than the //GS. It took me quite a while to locate a //c+ for my collection and are probably one of the more difficult apple // models to find.

Re:Don't forget the IIC+

[Anonymous Coward]

The IIc+ can't properly be called a flop, for two reasons:

1) Apple actually underestimated demand on it. It was heavily backordered.
2) No advertising.

My Lisa cost $135US

[ParVox]

In the early 90's I was a terror of bargain shop computer stores and watching the paper looking for the part or system that I could "steal" for peanuts to continue my hardware addiction. I found a Lisa with software and printer in the local paper. Visiting the guy's house just for the joy of actually seeing a Lisa I found out that he had won it in a lottery at the store fixtures factory where he worked. I was told that the graphics and design dept had purchased the Lisa for $15000 with 1MB of RAM, an external 10MB hard drive, the Lisa software and Office suite (can't remember the name of that), an Apple I dot matrix printer and Macintosh software that would work on it. The seller was willing to let it go for $135. I bought. This was my first introduction into a unified GUI apposed to the mish mash of DOS, Win3.0, etc. It was a mind opening experience to reinstall and test and play around in something that worked without understanding it or seeing the dark underbelly of the internal command structure. My kids loved it. The kids would play with paint (or whatever it was called) mastering the interface and logic at 3 five years old. After a couple of years and a 486 running Win3.1 the kids stopped using it cause of two issues. Speed and color they just couldn't wait for the refresh or loading and they liked pretty pictures over WYSIWUG. I sold it for $135. The batteries were corroding and booting was failing once in a while. My son is now CCNA at 19 and my addiction to hardware has never stopped. I understand that these puppies are selling at up to $15000 again.

The PC, iTunes and repeating history

[btarval]

"I think Apple's biggest 80s flop was letting Microsoft get away with Windows... "

Perhaps. But let's not forget that letting IBM get away with the IBM PC stealing the market is just as big a mistake; one which almost resulted in Apple going bankrupt during the 90's (or whenever it was that Gates had to pump in money to keep Apple afloat).

And, to all the people asking "Is this news?", yes it is. Apple may well be on the way to repeating these mistakes with their latest technology. I swear, their moves with the iPod and iTunes (and the resulting moves by their competitors) really remind me of Apples' previous mistakes back in the 80's. The real question is whether Apple has learned from the past, or whether they are going to repeat history and let their competitors take the market away from them.

I'd like to see Apple succeed. But I suspect that what's happening now may result in the market that Apple invented being taken away from them. Again.

Re:The PC, iTunes and repeating history

[The Infamous Grimace]

one which almost resulted in Apple going bankrupt during the 90's (or whenever it was that Gates had to pump in money to keep Apple afloat).

Nice troll.

Notice the $1.2 billion in cash Apple had at the time. The $150 million MS 'invested' was part of a legal settlement and licensing agreement, and a drop in the bucket.

(tig)

Re:The PC, iTunes and repeating history

[btarval]

Nice troll yourself. You make it seem as if all was well and good at Apple at the time, and they had money to spare. And to downplay the importance of the Microsoft's investment.

Here's a more thorough article about what Jobs did "to save Apple" referencing a PBS article. http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/july97/0632.html

And here's another one, with some quotes:

"For right now, though, a $150 million investment really does keep Apple going"

"Well, the $150 million gets Apple a little new lease on life."

See: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec 97/apple_8-6.html

So, far from everything being rosy, and this just being another deal, it was viewed at the time (and still is) as being a deal which kept Apple going. If you'll recall, Jobs and Gates were far from the best of chums before this.

Re:Yeah

[grub]

when most of these people have never actually made a serious effort to find out (for themselves) if there really is a God.

Are you serious? Billions of people over the millenia have tried pondered the existence of gods. Not a single one has presented a shred of verifiable evidence.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[10Ghz]

Like it or not, OSX is the best user GUI.

For you, perhaps. But that doesn't mean it's best for everyone. Different people have different tastes and needs.

4 years ago,

[Beefslaya]

I wouldn't have even considered a Mac or Apple computer for my business...

I am looking at 4 dual G5 Xserves for my mail infrastructure. So evidently they have made HUGE progress.

Perhaps they are starting to realize that "looks" aren't everything, and sticking to industry standards is vital to getting into the business market (Unlike Microsoft).

It's interesting to see where Apple has been, and where they are going. Maybe the chip on Stevie's shoulder is wearing off?

Apple IIgs was a success

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple sold only 150,000 Apple ///'s, but sold
over 1 million IIgs'es. They took hold especially
well in the education market - and were used in
schools in large numbers until the late 1990s.

Heck, i wouldnt be suprised if some schools still used them today - the Apple II had mountains of
educational software.

Also, the above poster is correct - Guy Kawasaki admits, in his book "The Macintosh Way" - that the
Mac didn't turn a profit for the company for about the first 5 years of its existence - not until 1989 or so. As Kawasaki put it "the Apple II was paying our way."

Apple Newton

[Per Abrahamsen]

would probably count on the flop side as well.

Re:Apple Newton

[soft_guy]

They sold more Newtons the first year it was out than they sold Macs in the first year the Mac was out.

They sold more Newtons the first year it was out than they sold Apple IIs the first year the Apple II was out.

The Newton engineers didn't flop it - Apple's senior management, specifically their CEO, was a bunch of fucking idiots.

Re:Apple is a 2.0 or 3.0 company most of the time.

[jht]

Just a comment on one of those comparisons in particular - the Portable didn't really directly "lead to" the PowerBooks for the most part. The Portable was, for its time, an effort to build a no-compromises Mac you could take on the road. They used the best available everything, regardless of size or weight constraints. The processor was a 16 MHz 68000, which was double the speed of the mainstream desktop Macs at the time, and equivalent to the clock speed on the Mac II. The battery was lead-acid because that gave the best run time, and I believe the Portable was the first commercially available portable computer to use an active matrix LCD.

Unfortunately, Apple thought people wanted a full-fledged "Macintosh experience" (after all, the previous luggable computers from PC vendors had sold well, and the IBM PC Convertible, blivet that it was, was selling great), so size/weight wouldn't be as important as replicating the desktop. But while Apple was working on the details, the first wave of light, cheap, "good enough" laptops were starting to arrive - so the Portable was already dated when it finally shipped.

One thing about it, though - even from their first attempt, run time was a key Apple focus. Even the first PowerBooks had far better than typical battery life, and they still usually run longer than a comparable x86 laptop. And active matrix quickly became the dominant screen type as well. It wasn't so much that the Portable led directly to the PowerBook, it was more that the Portable was intended to be state-of-the-art, and went through a long development cycle, while the PowerBooks were built with the benefit of a couple of years' progress in technology and better market research.

The PowerBook was also one of Apple's first outsourcing experiences - IIRC, Sony manufactured the PowerBook 100 models for them.

The Biggest Flop

[Bullfish]

Apple's biggest flop has less to do with these products and more to do with their lack of service and support of those products. This is probably the biggest reason Apple flopped on the business machine end of things. They orphaned, most especially, the Apple Lisa. While the Mac that replaced it may have been a superior product, the bad taste left in the mouths of executives who bought into the Lisa program was too much. Business people like reliability and continuity, which is why Gates and MS made hay back in the day. MS may be a bloated tanker now, but in the early 80's it was a nimble group of techies fighting the good fight against IBM. And they gave excellent service, even to Apple users for whom they made lots of software.

Apple didn't provide that service. That was the biggest difference. The cost difference between early PC's and Macs wasn't that big. When the diverse configurabilty of the PC came into play in the late 80's, that was the death knell in terms of the greater business market.

Had Apple hand-held business in the early days, the computing world really might have been different indeed.

Very interesting article

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame the wide public does not read about these things, and commonly believe Microsoft is the innovator and responsible for cheap computing.

Microsoft's success was that of dirty business tactics and marketting - not innovation.

Microsoft - the "Missionaries" never really cared about the (world) population at large.
When will people "get the true facts"?

Also for years I've been saying Bill Gates never donated a dime to the poor, somehow the Microsoft P.R Engine picked on that and told him - "Hey go philantropic it is a good investment".

So the new propaganda is working well to buy more sympathy from the ignorant public.

What about people that have no money but still devote their time to charitable causes - that impresses me, that is true sacrifice.

Otherwise, if you are a billionary it is your f***ing duty !! For him it is hardly a dent into his luxury lifestyle. He is the world's richest man - he can donate just as much with the FUD campaign, and sick ploys against Linux and FOSS.

But then again I wonder if Apple won the monopoly if they would be just as nasty, after all Steve Jobs does possess nasty tyranical streaks.

Alan Kay - now that was someone that truly cared about people.

Re:Very interesting article

[BraceletWinner]

if you are a billionary it is your f***ing duty !!

Why is it his duty to give up any of the money he earned? And at what point does it become someone's duty to give away money to people who haven't earned it? $1,000,000 net worth? $1,000,000,000? $4,829,641? Who gets to decide that?

Re:Very interesting article

[Anonymous Coward]

consciousness, Mr.Entrepeneur.
but then again I don't expect you to have that.

"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught: Only then will they realize that you cannot eat money."

Actual Sales Figures

[regen]

By April 1984, Apple had managed to sell only 65,000 units, loosing money on the model.

It turns out according to the Apple sales database they sold exactly 65,535. :)

LISA was...

[KingBahamut]

Certainly the most Attractive of the two. Nice rack in an attractive looking case, at least for the time.

Except that you are wrong

[jscotta44]

If the X86 hardware is faster, then why doesn't it outperform the Xserve clusters using Mac OS X and standard Apple hardware? Don't mistake bad benchmarking for good data. Don't believe me, go to the Super Computer web site (http://www.top500.org/lists/plists.php?Y=2004&M=1 1) where 5 of the top nine are PowerPC hardware. Number 7 on the list is built by using stock Xserves ordered directly from the on-line Apple Store and running Macintosh OS X. And, there are even faster Apple clusters in the wild that didn't even bother to try to compete for a ranking. These are not marketing ploys. These are very expensive machines that are optimized to go as fast as they can to get the job done. No political bias...just go fast. The only X86 cluster in the list above a ranking of 9 has nearly twice the number of processors as the Virginia Tech cluster. Maybe you should spend a little less time pounding out Visual Basic programs and do some actual research before making statements like that.

Re:Except that you are wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe...pretty agnostic about the whole thing....but that was damn funny! :-)

As for the parent: My field is programming indeed....So, then you wouldn't care if you are programming on any platform that is around 1Ghz, because your cursor can only move so fast while scrolling through your source code, right?

I used to believe the "x86 outperforms mac" dittoheads, until I started looking into it...now, since I use Linux all day, and don't care about Windows compatibility, buying at least 1 Mac is looking like a matter of "when", as opposed to a matter of "if"...

My field actually is programming
Canonical Anonymous Coward

Re:Except that you are wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you list the top 9? Is that because the 10th is an Intel platform? Who lists the top 9 of anything?

Also, I only see four PowerPC systems in the top 10...the fifth is Power-based.

And you claim you're not biased. *grin*

Re:Except that you are wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that Power and PowerPC are the same thing now, right? The PowerPC 970 is a Power4 chip.

I wish my flops were that good

[Anonymous Coward]

If memory serves, if Apple had spun out the Apple /// instead of killing it, it would have been the third-largest computer company in the world at that time (ahead of Kaypro, Cromemco, Vector Graphic, Northstar, and a whole slew of others which were then-profitable).

Also, when the IBM PC came out, it was _slower_ (on real-world customer programming) than the Apple ///, and couldn't easily address as much memory, despite the fact that the Apple /// only had an 8 bit processor.

Apple's had plenty of flops, but the Apple /// is not a particularly good example of them.

What about Atari?

[WickedClean]

You want to talk about flops. Man, Atari screwed the pooch plenty of times. I actually owned a Jaguar that I bought used off Ebay for about 30 bucks. I did hit paydirt when I found a bunch of games for sale at a local game traders store. I bought them there for next to nothing and resold them on Ebay for major profit.

The Atari 7800 had potential, but the controllers were impossible. Atari actually had a chance to use gamepads and thought they were stupid, so Nintendo grabbed them and the rest is history.

Re:Apple is a 2.0 or 3.0 company most of the time.

[hawk]

The processor was a 16 MHz 68000, which was double the speed of the mainstream desktop Macs at the time, and equivalent to the clock speed on the Mac II.

But it *was* a concession--it took a lot less power than the 68030 that they would have preferred to use.

IIRC, Sony manufactured the PowerBook 100 models for them.

Sony took the MacPortable design, shrunk it, and produced it. The 100 wasn't part of the 1xx series . . .

hawk, who still has his backlit macportable, and once injured his shoulder carrying it through an airport (and had to explain to security that no, it couldn't produce a c: prompt . . . !)

For most consumers, hardware is less of a factor

[DoctoRoR]

Although PCs have the edge for power/price, hardware bang for buck is becoming less of a factor except for gamers. Chip speeds and memory sizes are starting to go past consumer requirements, even if you throw in HD video, so design and software are the key factors. This may be why we see Apple recapturing some market share.

There's enough of a market within homes, particularly digital homes, to drive Apple growth without business penetration. Apple is trying to be the new Sony and the hardware is a commodity; it's the software and design that are the real added values.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[pigscanfly.ca]

Personally, I like CDE.

Apple /// not a flop

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a systems software engineer on the Apple ///. The Apple /// was not a flop because it was introduced just as the "pink sheet" of disclosure was issued before the stock went successfully public.

By releasing the product early we could prove that we were not a "one product company" and thus likely raised hundreds of millions of dollars in an optimistic market.

The Apple /// was a resounding success despite the "daughter board" with the oxidizing molex pins and the National Semi clock chip which failed from moisture incursion. The "customer" fr the Apple /// however was the IPO stock purchaser.

Jobs, Wozniak and dozens of others newly made millions at the turn of 1980 laughed all the way to the bank. Wendell Sanders, the lead designer, took the heat, but he made some money as well.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[hawk]

Yeah, but by *that* logic, even disco isn't wrong . . .

hawk, shuddering

Bad Idea

[LWATCDR]

The problem is that there is currently NO software for x86 OSX. I also doubt that Microsoft would port Office to OSX. Then you have the compatibility issues. How many OSX x86 drivers have you seen?
Apple is right on this count. x86 OSX would be a HUGE money pit that would sour a lot of people.
It would no longer "Just Work"

Re:Bad Idea

[soft_guy]

You are correct that they would (could) not port Office to MacOS X on x86. OSX for x86 would require Apple to give up Carbon - at least everything I've read has said they would require you to use the Cocoa APIs for everything on x86. Office for Mac is Carbon based and is a very difficult codebase to maintain.

Re:Bad Idea

[squeee]

I also doubt that Microsoft would port Office to OSX
umm...need I say more?

Apple really doesn't have flops

[Anita Coney]

Microsoft had flops. Think Bob. That was an utter failure and NO one uses it.

But Apple is different. Even when Apple does release a product that doesn't sell well, the product still succeeds on other levels.

The best example is Apple's Cube. It was considered a flop, but if you're lucky enough to own one you could easily turn around and sell it for more than you paid for on ebay. It's hard to consider a solid investment a flop.

I think the difference is mentality. Gates admits that Microsoft merely "throws products onto the market" in hopes that something sticks.

Apple, on the other hand, will only release products to fill a specific need, and most importantly, when the product is done.

Re:Apple really doesn't have flops

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod +1e6: Clueless Fanboy

Re:Apple really doesn't have flops

[Anita Coney]

I'm not an Apple fanboy. In fact this will be my first Apple related post where I won't be modded troll or flamebait by Apple-heads.

My post was just something I was mulling over in my head so I decided to post it and see what others thought about it.

Sometimes the market just isn't there yet

[ianscot]

All of which amounts to saying that Apple tries to get ahead of the market sometimes -- and takes some bruises doing it. As someone who bought their very first digital camera -- $700, grainy black and white images worthy of their original B&W monitors -- I can attest to that.

The Newton actually kicked butt next to competition from years later -- but when it came out, people weren't ready for "learn how to write every letter in the alphabet differently" so we whinged about the handwriting recognition. (Okay, maybe I'm just sympathetic because I can't read my own handwriting; why expect the Newton to do it?) It was also priced higher than it would have been a couple of years later. As a design they were pretty cool, way cool for the time.

With the Lisa, the shortcomings were partly there because the market for systems like that just wasn't clear. It's hard to even remember how early that all was. Even the first Macs didn't come with hard drives, for years.

Looking at the history, they do much better when they identify a big gap in an existing market, rather than trying to get out ahead of things too much. "Digital Hub" and so on. Jobs has a pretty good eye for those niches to fill. iPod is a step away from what the competition had, but you at least understood what the product did.

Apple IIGS Deliberately Crippled

[Daniel Jansen]

The Apple IIGS was deliberately crippled. It should have run at 8 MHz, but Apple chose 2.8 MHz to make it (1) faster than other Apple II models and (2) slower than the 8 MHz Macintosh.

The IIGS had great color support but absolutely lousy resolution. If it had supported 640 x 480 instead of CGA-esque 320 x 200, that would have helped a lot.

The Ensoniq sound chip was remarkable.

But in addition to making the IIGS underpowered and giving it low-res graphics, Apple had several ROM revisions that (1) required taking the computer back to your Apple dealer and (2) broke a lot of the software you already owned.

It coulda been a contender, but Apple's decisions kept that from happening.

Re:Apple IIGS Deliberately Crippled

[MouseR]

The Mac 128 was 4mghz!

Re:Apple IIGS Deliberately Crippled

[Anonymous Coward]

There were three versions of the ROM:

Initial release: broken, required replacement
version "01": the replacement version, available as upgrade and on new machines
version "03": new machines only, not available as an upgrade. Broke some software that didn't use the toolbox properly. Same code available as system software for "01".

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Fanboys of XYZ will not accept any stories that they feel are negative about them(i.e. some big security exploit in XYZ, low sales of XYZ, etc), and fanboys of XYZ will dominate the news stories posted.

Plus the fanboys of XYZ would probably put out stuff that is just as biased/flawed.

Ah slashdot, where the truth = flamebate/troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

eom

Re:Boycott Bad Stories!!!!!!11111

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, screw stories that criticize Apple or point out their flaws!

Now, when will we get back to bashing Micro$oft Winblowz and PeeCee Luzors(LOLOLOLOL!11onetwofifty111!!!)?

Re:Apple's recent flops

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us what other GUI is better then :) Seriously I've been a linux zealot for a while and decided to get a powerbook to install Ubuntu on it (and I wanted to have the option of OSX to play world of warcraft instead of some Windows machine after being infected with some virii from someone on the network). I tried OSX for the first time with PB, a month passed by and Ubuntu is still not installed on here. I work faster, I do things more seamlessly and everything seems to "flow" in the way that I want it to.

Buried treasure

[CODiNE]

Weren't the LISA's the ones that wouldn't sell so they actually buried their whole stock of them in some unknown place in the desert? It's been a long time, wonder who knows the location.

Why it failed...

[artemis67]

I tend to think that the Pippin was an enormous failure, not because it was ahead of its time, but because of a lack of compelling content. Apple just kind of threw the hardware out there on the market, "Ok, folks, there it is, and it's Apple... buy it!"

If you look at how game consoles are marketed nowadays, console specs mean nothing. "It has (x) more polygons than the competition, and (y) MB's of RAM, and (z) ghz processor speed!" Whatever. Actually, the gaming press always looks at what the first hot title is going to be to drive sales of the console. The XBox may have been superior to the PS2, spec-wise, but if there hadn't been a Halo, I don't think there would be talk of an XBox 360 right now.

The problem with the Pippin is that Apple tried to market it as if it was another computer... if you build it, the software developers will come. They made a huge mistake by not courting the developers while the system was in development so some hot Pippin games would be available from day one.

Has anyone EVER bought a game console that had NO games available for it, in hopes that one day, SOMEBODY might develop something for it? Well, I think a handful of "Apple faithful" bought the Pippin, but that's about it.

Re:Why it failed...

[shotfeel]

Just read a little blurb about the Nintendo Revolution.

Sounds like they may be shy in the "tech" department. However the rep interviewed mentioned that on the other platforms development costs are soaring into the 8 figure range, and Nintendo may make game development a lot cheaper and easier.

If that's the case, instead of the Nth sequal of the "popular" games that will be on the new consoles from Sony and MS, Nintendo may be able to entice the smaller developers, the ones who may have the fresh ideas, to develop for the Revolution.

Of course then they go onto the lineup of new games to be available when released -a half dozen with the word "Mario" somewhere in the title.

Go figure.

Re:Why it failed...

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

So your suggesting if Apple waited a couple of years, brought out Bungi then co-launched the Pippin with an earlier first person shooter we would now be refering to...

The Marathon effect.

Ha, ha!

[Gilmoure]

They designed a computer with 64k RAM. Didn't they know that 640k would be enough for anybody?

Bad Apple History

[Anonymous Coward]

1. IIgs was introduced over three years after the Mac.

2. Adding a hard drive to a IIgs would not have made it more like a Mac, since Macs didn't come with hard drives.

George Carlin is coming to get you

[(H)olyGeekboy]

Apple began the eighties with two major flops under its belt: the Apple III and the LISA.

You used the idiom "under its belt" incorrectly here. The way it is written, the sentence states that at the start of the 1980s, the Lisa and Apple III had already flopped.

You could say "Apple began the nineties with two major flops under its belt," or "Apple had two major flops during the early 1980s."

(I've been reading George Carlin lately... and I used to think I got worked up over some minor misuse of language! :)

Yes, the world could be Apple II based, not PC-XT.

[wernst]

Take it from someone in the industry back then:

Apple did all it could to DISCOURAGE people from buying the most popular computer sold at the time, the Apple II, so that they would buy Apple ///'s first, then Macintoshes later. Meanwhile, the Apple II kept selling in SPITE of Apple's (Jobs')efforts, and kept the company afloat.

We're talking about ZERO dollars advertising. Practically ZERO dollars developing. Practically ZERO support help for developers (who fortunately could work without it.) We're talking about crippling later Apple II's (such as the IIgs) so that they wouldn't "compete" against more "advanced" Macintoshes. The IIgs had super-high-res color and true 32-channel Esoniq music synthesis while the Mac had Black and White and 4-channel beeps and squawks.

I sometimes think about what could have been. The moden PC is a decendant of the original IBM-XT and then AT, which are more or less equivalent (though we can argue this point) the Apple IIe and Apple IIGS. Imagine if Apple had actually applied the weight of its marketing and development to the Apple II market and focussed IT on business customers: the entire PC industry might be based on the original 6502 instead of the 8088. We might have operating systems evolved from ProDOS instead of MS-DOS. Imagine a PCI/AGP-like set of slots running in machines with 64-bit wide paths with USB and wireless that could have its lineages traced back directly to the Apple I and Apple II.

Sure, this seems crazy on the surface, but if you ever worked with an IBM-PC or -XT and thought about how it has evolved into what we use today, you'd see that it isn't.

Yes, I spend way too much time dwelling on this stuff...

(Former Beagle Bros tech support)

Memories...

[Darksun]

My dad worked at an Apple shop in the early 80's and snagged himself an Apple /// with Apple //+ emulation...it was my first computer, had a 5 mb profile drive dual 5.25's...sadly the // emulation was only 48k ][+ and not ][e I sure miss games like Montezuma's Revenge and such....I wrote my first program in AppleSoft BASIC...ahh the good old days

Summary text, to counter woeful article

[Anonymous Coward]

Sabah Arif writes "Apple began the eighties with two major flops under its belt: the Apple III and the LISA. Both machines were attempts at breaking into the business market. They were technologically advanced, but major flaws prevented their success."

What garbage...

[sillivalley]

I was working for another micro company when the Apple /// was first shown. When I saw it, and the double-shot-molded keys with word processor commands on them, I thought, "We're screwed!"

4 months later, I was working at Apple -- before the company went public. Oh, everyone already had badges. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the Apple ///, good, bad, ugly. The clock problem was caused by National Semiconductor. The clock battery problem was Apple's, and was fixed in the reintroduced /// by replacing the watch batteries (mounted to the logic board, requiring disassembly to replace) with 3 AA cells under the lid. The infamous memory problem was caused by cheapskates in purchasing buying cheap connectors -- tin on tin, and tin oxide is a tenacious insulator!

Was the /// a failure? If you measured it in terms of Apple ][ sales, yes. If you measure it in terms of what it did to other companies/competitors, it was a success. And as others have mentioned, senior management felt it necessary to have the /// on the market prior to going public to show people that Apple was more than a one-trick pony.

The Apple /// also marked the first system that was actually engineered, as opposed to one that just happened. Hardware engineers, Software engineers, development plans, test plans -- a great leap forward.

And Lisa? May not have sold a lot of machines, but it was a technological milestone, introducing new ideas to the computing public. It was a stepping stone for the Macintosh -- that's where the Mac project got Bill Atkinson and the Quickdraw core.

Apple flops? They're there, but many stem from over-reaching technically -- the Twiggy disk drive for example. Many didn't have enough backing, or enough spine -- eWorld? Open Doc?

How about pushing products out the door before they're ready? Apple /// rings the bell. I also remember the morning we found out that our sugar-water selling chairman had just decided to keynote a presentation in about 6 weeks by showing the Newton -- about 6 months too early!

Many failures at Apple were products or ideas which were ahead of their time -- part of Lisa's problem. Newton fits into that category, ahead of its time and born prematurely. So does Web TV -- it didn't "fit" with the then Apple model, so Steve P and others took it outside, made it fly, eventually selling it to Gates.

Another example of Apple's "mistakes" and "failures" -- businesses other companies find very attractive.

Breaking news from the 80's

[Anonymous Coward]

Now there's stuff that matters

x86 itself doesn't imply loss of control

[balamw]

IMHO running OSX on "x86" doesn't necessarily imply generic beige boxes. For example, Apple could easily build its own x86 boxes and still maintain hardware control, or they could have someone else build boxes to a particular spec that would be OSX-x86 compatible. The Xbox and Xbox 360 are good examples of controlled x86 and PPC hardware from the "other guys".

What I think would be really cool would be a box that is designed specifically to run OSX-x86, but can also run XP and/or XP apps natively without emulation (dual boot, vmware, wine, ...).

B

Re:x86 itself doesn't imply loss of control

[Anonymous Coward]

SGI tried it back in the 90s. HUGE failure. Nearly killed the company.

Re:x86 itself doesn't imply loss of control

[tooth]

Running OSX on apple made/blessed x-86 boxes doesn't really make sense from a consumer point of view. They would use a lot more power and create more heat though they'd still cost just as much to buy for simillar spec'd machines (You don't think apple would insist on the best hardware?). They wouldn't make extra money and I don't think the "native" running of XP apps would be that much of a selling point. Yes, OSX is a really nice OS, but the hardware is damn nice too.

Why is this here

[bwhalen]

There's nothing new here, just some questionable history. Are we attempting to get Apple more pub?

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing to me how many people dismiss the idea of Florida swamp land generally and the land I'm selling specifically, using the excuse that they won't be fooled, when many of these people never actually made a serious effort for find out (for themselves) how much the value of that land will appreciate once the swamp is drained and the condos are built.

It's all right here in my four-color glossies. So much for free, independent minds. If you were really an intelligent person, you'd send me a check right away!

lisa a flop?

[psaltes]

Reading sites like this one, it seems pretty clear that while LISA was a flop in and of itself, the original mac would never have been a success without it. This is both in terms of personnel (several key people were involved with both) and ideas - there was a lot of cross-pollination (though it doesn't sound like the LISA people were happy about that). So as a product, LISA was a flop, but as an investment by Apple, I'd think it should be considered wildly successful.

Re:lisa a flop?

[Meowing]

Yep, and the same could be said of the Apple III. As design studies or prototypes, both these machines turned out to have some value. They're only flops in the sense that the company released them to the public.

In other breaking news...

[Control-Z]

IBM's PCJr is a sales disappointment and Atari's Jaguar isn't exactly flying off the shelves.

The NES is selling well though.

One Word: TI-99/4A

[spinpapi]

At least TI's first flop was a sweet little machine for its day. *sigh*

Re:Yes, the world could be Apple II based, not PC-

[soft_guy]

You are absolutely right... and I've very impressed with your having worked at Beagle Bros. You guys were awesome!

The main thing going against the Apple II was that the processor was owned by MOS and then later by Commodore.

What Apple *should* have done is either work with another chip company to clone and improve the 6502, or else figure a way to migrate the Apple II platform onto another chip. The Mac OS could have been implemented on top of Apple II instead of as a separate computer.

eBay Success Stories

[Anonymous Coward]

I was redirected here from eBay Success Stories for some ebay success stories but I havent read one yet. hmmmm

Two more points

[shotfeel]

It was non-voting stock,

and MS made a pretty tidy profit on their investment.

Re:Apple is a 2.0 or 3.0 company most of the time.

[Logic Bomb]

I've now seen several comments that the Lisa led to the Macintosh. That is a mischaracterization. The two machines were being developed at the same time! Check out Revolution In The Valley by Andy Hertzfeld, one of the members of the original Mac development team. It's a fun book, but it also will show you that the Lisa and Mac teams were in fact competing with each other and hardly communicated. Steve Jobs had a great deal to do with this. It's certain that some of the same basic ideas were inspiration for both groups, but it's not like the Lisa was developed, then Apple decided to develop the Mac based on it.

The real problem with the Lisa...

[argent]

The real problem with the Lisa was they didn't really have any apps other than the "Lisa Office System", and that was more like a single integrated office suite than separate applications, because the user interface libraries were developed as part of and in support of this package. The user interface toolkits started out far more primitive than the Mac's: they didn't really have much of a framework outside the Office System itself other than basic drawing primitives and support for overlapping clipping regions (windows).

They ended up developing a lot of important libraries like QuickDraw on the Lisa, but they never really brought them all together into anything like a graphical operating system. That's why the Mac, even though all it HAD was the GUI toolkit with barely enough "OS" under the covers to start the GUI up, quickly supplanted the Lisa. Not only was the Mac cheaper, but you didn't need to be a software god to program it.

Now, programming the original Mac OS was kind of like UNIX kernel programming with its relentless need to get back to GetNextEvent (the Mac's equivalent of kernel sleep()) lest the GUI freeze up. So I hate to think what Lisa programming must have been like if that was an improvement.

The Lisa's most important role was as the first development platform for the Mac, culminating in its short-lived reincarnation as the Mac XL.

Geeks *are* superficial

[Dogtanian]

Strangely enough, most geeks do in fact reject designs that cost more merely because they're fashionable. When building my computer, I hardly ever feel the need to be able to say "mine's cranberry". But I guess tastes vary.

Most geeks? Most geeks want to have their cake and eat it; they want to look down their noses at the superficial Mac-buying aesthetes and think that they're above that.

Yet, I can't think of *anything* more geeky AND superficial than those stupid sticks of RAM with the scrolling LEDs along the top; oh, yeah... I bet they bought them for functional reasons (*snicker*) And that requires the modded case with transparent sides so that you can read what they say, right?

And I'm sure there's a good reason for all the pretty lights inside too...

Look, I'm not having a go at you personally; I believe what you said about *your* computer is true. But in general, geeks can be *just* as superficial as your average Mac fiend; they just happen to like a different flavour of superficiality (Star Wars modded case, anyone?)

Personally, I consider myself a geek (not particularly hardcore, but still a geek), and I'd have no qualms about paying more for a case I thought looked nice- up to a point.

I even remember thinking my beige-box PC looked much nicer with the side panel off, and wanting to leave it like that; but in my defence, this was before the 'rice-boy' case-modding craze had hit, and I've thoroughly gone off the idea now :)

Re:Geeks *are* superficial

[lgw]

You know, I hadn't considered the riced-up case mods. You may be on to somehting about the different flavor of superficiality here. But there is certainly a clear dividing line, just as there is between ricer cars and and the "make mine cranberry" VW Beetles and the likely demographic for either. I would only apply "fashionable" to one crowd, though both are showing off.

It's funny, now that you mention it, while I didn't put any neon lights on my case, I did put both "Opteron" stickers on the front panel to show off its mojo.

Re:Geeks *are* superficial

[garote]

I've still got half a dozen "intel inside" stickers plastered on the case for my Palm Vx. Darn thing doesn't seem to go any faster. Heh heh heh.

Re:For most consumers, hardware is less of a facto

[shmlco]

Chip speeds and memory sizes are starting to go past consumer requirements...

I remember when the same statement was made back when chipsets went from 1MHz to 2MHz. Funny how we always manage to use the extra cycles somewhere...

Re:Yes, the world could be Apple II based, not PC-

[techfury90]

WDC65816 or whatever it was was the IIgs processor, which was a 16 bit/extended 6502 made by WD (yes the hard drive maker).

You ain't kidding

[beetle496]

My first PowerPC based model was a Performa 6214CD. I was mostly perfectly happy with it until I found it on that Road Apple list! Actually, that was the only computer that ever earned me money $ outside of work. My first kid used that machine with an ADB touch screen, very rewarding. The second toddler got upgraded to Performa 6400/180 as his older sister moved on to a G3 iMac.

At Apple, quality is job 1.1.1

[Anonymous Coward]

when I was at apple we had a saying:

At Apple, quality is job 1.1.1

The flaw - Steve Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

They were technologically advanced, but major flaws prevented their success.

Both were Steve Jobs efforts.

Just say'n.

Re:Apple is a 2.0 or 3.0 company most of the time.

[zakezuke]

As the article says, the Lisa was a flop, but it led to the original Mac, which led to the real hit, the Mac II

Was the Mac II a real hit? IIRC that's the one that had something close to a full sized case and 6 or so nubus slots and 68020.

Don't get me wrong I bought one for my sister at some point on the used market. I thought it was a nice idea buying a mac that had so many nubus slots, but for the most part they were none too useful. The Macs of that generation always had SCSI on board which was useful for expantion. Mac has it's own networking standard... and even if you had to go ethernet there were scsi ethernet adapters for it. The onboard sound was acceptable so no real need to get a 3rd party sound card. In fact the only nubus upgrade I can think was common at all for the MAC was a graphics board. The only reason I can think of actually buying a Mac II was if you needed to have 4 monitors, but it was very rare a person would need more than two monitors let alone 4.

In short... why would anyone spend extra on a crap load of nubus slots they won't use?

Most Spectacular Crashes

[SuperBanana]

I don't know if there are some Mac addicts here who can remember it, but the "AV" machines back then (660 AV and 840AV iirc) with their AT&T 3210 DSP, GeoPort, etc... were nicknamed Mac III [...]And of course were an horrible flop :)

I had a 660AV, and it was a nice machine- I liked it; it was an affordable 68040, and that's why I bought it (I believe- this was almost 10 years ago). Speech recognition was kind of cool, but didn't work all that well. The software modem stuff was crap, the DSP-powered fractals only exciting for about 5 minutes. It was one of the newer machines capable of loading its ROM into RAM for a very noticeable speedup, at the penalty of a couple MB of lost memory, and memory was megabucks at the time. Basically, Apple oversold the DSP capabilities, because virtually NOTHING came out that actually used the DSP, even though it was very quick. PowerPC came along, and everyone promptly forgot about the DSPs.

...but MAN oh MAN could that thing crash in spectacular ways. Why? Well, the main OS would crash, but the DSP would keep chugging along, but would get garbage from the main system...and you'd get an incredible video acid trip, along with all sorts of squeals, static, etc from the audio. One time, my soft-modem went completely bonkers, going on+off hook like crazy until I pulled the plug.

So is every other company.

[Thu25245]

Very few companies have a hit product right out of the box.

Windows 1.0? 2.0? 3.0?

When Disneyland opened, half the equipment didn't work. Nor did any of the park drinking fountains.

And you don't buy a new model of car until it has been in production for at least a year.

Apple often gets burned because it revs up the marketing machine at launch time. Result: production backlogs, long delivery times, expensive FedEx shipping to meet delivery targets (Listen to the coference calls, you're a shareholder) heaps of bad press whenever teething problems come up, and expensive warranty repairs to fix the problems for each of the thousands of excited buyers who clamored for one the day it was released. Whereas Dell gets plenty of time to quietly fix any problems, and fewer early-production units in customer hands requiring returns.

The Reason Macs are used in Design

[Anonymous Coward]

This is worth repeating in any discussion about Apple, as soon as the issue of Design on Macs comes up.

Yes, you can get photoshop on the PC. Yes, it will have the same functions. Yes, many of the other design applications are on the PC too, and some run faster on it.

However, the PC's handling of colour managed workflows is awful. Simply bad. You can adjust the color profile, but many apps will ignore it, or double correct, or whatever.

On the Mac you set your colorsync, then you hook everything in to that. An image displayed from a webpage in Safari matches the colour managed images in your Photoshop.

If you're doing prepress, you care about this. If you're doing any other kind of graphics work, it occasionally means your results are off, but nobody's going to call you on it and so maybe you don't care.

This is _The Answer._ When Windows has colour correction all through the graphics subsystem, the platforms will be equal. Not until.

Re:Yes, the world could be Apple II based, not PC-

[soft_guy]

Yeah, but it was several years too late for the kind of world dominance I'm talking about. They would have needed to start looking for and/or developing such a chip prior to 1979. And its not like Apple's management didn't realize the Apple II needed replacing by then. They had the Lisa and Mac and Apple III projects running full tilt. Instead they should have been working on improving the Apple II by running a 6502 replacement project (which is the thesis of this thread) and developing the GUI for Apple II instead of Mac.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[Trillan]

Actually, Mail 2.0.1 belatedly incremented the protocol version. It should have been done in Mail 2.0. Anyway, it is up to the author to update his bundle, and the workaround that is being passed around -- forcing Mail to think it is compatible with older plugins -- is all but criminal in stupidity.

It's part of a cycle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every ten years or so, Apple comes out with one or two memorable flops, then it develops a product that sells really well and saves the company from bankruptcy. I guess that's just the way of things.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[aristotle-dude]

Are you trying to tell us that you find MDI useful? I would go crazy having to use MDI on two monitors in Photoshop.

I find the Window GUI to be extremely frustrating for the following reasons:
- GDI+ blows chunks. Windows stop updating when a program is busy and you end up with window blow through.
- Task switching becomes extremely slow under a heavy load. With a long delay for feedback.
- No Spring loaded folders.
- Taskbar is useless and too cluttered.
- Quick launch is too small.
- Start menu is too big in XP
- Have to use Start menu to shutdown
- Each window has a menu causing a huge waste in space and breaks Fitts law.
- Close button too close to other buttons.
- FUS does not work in a domain.
- MS Office apps do not use standard widgets.
- The built in search in XP is broken.
- Programs have different keystrokes for common tasks.

I could go on. I find programs like MS VSS extremely frustrating to use because it uses a 3.1 style file dialog.

Re:More interesting question is - Why apple floppe

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple had a sort of adolscent crisis when the compan y got to a stage when the hormones took over

A dumb analogy that attempts to describe something very simple: They fired Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs made the Mac happen. He didn't design it, he didn't built it, but it never would have happened if not for him. Then they fired him, and Apple went into a death spiral. They bought NeXT and brought him back, and it's been smooth sailing ever since.

Never, ever fire Steve Jobs. The man is the 21st century King Midas.

Apple's status symbol is only seen in the home

[falconwolf]

At the college I attend while the web programming department uses PCs with MS Windoze the web design department uses Macs. Another thing, programming requires a class for Frontpage whereas design has one for Dreamweaver. Me, I have one Mac and two PCs, all old. The next one I get I plan on getting a 17" Powerbook.

Falcon

Macs or PCs

[falconwolf]

Apple never really got any sort of hold in the business market.

That depends on what business market or segment you're talking about. A major defense contractor I worked for had and used many Macs. I've seen other businesses use Macs as well. My first Mac I bought used from the accounting company my sister worked for. Heck at one tyme I even knew a company that used Amigas.

Falcon

Re:Macs or PCs

[beyobe]

Actually while using a PCs you can only write software for a PC (assuming it's Windoze)

Java, anyone?

Re:Macs or PCs

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to explain that moronic comment? You don't even mention a language. I can program TCL on my windows box, and run it on a Mac. This doesn't even make sense. What do you mean you can "run Windoze and its apps on a mac". How without VirtualPC can I run windows and its apps on a mac?

Macs or PCs

[falconwolf]

I'm in no way a graphical artist, my field is programming, and the hardware just don't cut it yet.

Actually while using a PCs you can only write software for a PC (assuming it's Windoze), however with a Mac you can program for Macs and PCs. Fact is is you can run Windoze and it's apps on a Mac but can't run the Mac OS on Windoze.

Falcon

Re:Yes, the world could be Apple II based, not PC-

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

So, what you're suggesting is that the Apple IV should have had a 68008? With a software emulator for the 6502?

Or that Apple should have sold a Model of Macintosh with one of the numerous AppleII/6502 emulators bundled?

That might have worked.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[10Ghz]

No, I'm not talking about Windows. What makes you think that I did? I don't care much for Windows either. I do have Mac Mini with OS X on it. And while it's clearly superior to Windows, I don't find it all that compelling. Sure, it has eye-candy, but I don't care that much for it. I prefer KDE. Of course, I don't claim that KDE is the best UI for everyone, but it is the best UI for me. And for me, that's all that matters. Saying "OS X is the best UI there is!", is wrong thing to do, because that kind of things are subjective. What's "best" for someone, might not be "best" for someone else.

After using OS X for few months, I can see several bad things in it:

- Finder is rather primitive filemanager when compared to Konqueror
- The Dock is horrible. It doesn't even use screen-corners properly (thus violating Fitt's law). And it tries to act as a tool to launch apps, and manage running apps in the same time. It ends up being confusing.
- Buttons to minimize/maximise/close windows are terrible. They have no symbols in them (unless you hover over them with a mouse) and they are too small.
- And when I click "maximise", I want the windows to REALLY maximise, not to adjust it's size to some arbitary size.
- I find it rather confusing that closing the window does not close the app. I fail to see the added benefit of having Safari-window close (for example), but the app keeps on running in the background. When I re-launch the Safari-window, it starts from the beginning, so what's the point of keeping the app running?
- Why do I have to double-click the icons in order to open them?
- Where are virtual desktops?
- No window-specific-settings?
- I don't like how Safari handles tabs. Each tab has a close-button of it's own. That means if I want to close bunch of tabs, I have to move the mouse around, instead of keeping the mouse still and just clicking the mouse-button.

And no, don't bother listing reasons why OS X is superior. Like I said: it might be the best GUI there is FOR YOU. That does not mean it's the best GUI FOR ME. Your reasons for preferring OS X are not my reasons. And while I say that KDE is the best GUI for me, I don't try to claim that it would be best GUI for you. We each have different tastes and needs. Your are different from mine.

"it's not our equipment" excuse

[falconwolf]

It's my guess that that is the real reason Apple won't licence. because all of a sudden the vaunted "it just works, it's so elegant" feature of using the Mac OS is in danger of not being true.

For a short tyme, while Steve Jobs was gone, Apple did license Mac clones but they found that it was cutting into their bottom line, what with the clones being cheaper. So when Jobs was brought back him cancelled the clones. Another factor someone previously mentioned is that because there's only one manufacturer, Apple, Apple doesn't need to test the OS on different clones, that "It just works" factor.

Falcon

Amiga

[falconwolf]

Years ago I had, and loved, an Amiga. At first when Gateway bought the Amiga I was estatic and thought they would revive it so I bought a laptop from them specifically telling the store the reason I did. At the same tyme I ordered a desktop as a gift for one of my sister's, then about a month later a second desktop for my other sister. But now I never plan on buying from them again. First they screwed up the Amiga then the laptop I got kept having problems.

Falcon

disadvantage of OSX (limited applications)

[falconwolf]

There isn't a shortage of applications for Macs, for almost if not every application to be found for Windows, a similar application can be found for the Mac. A second problem saying there aren't as many apps for Macs is that not only will Macs run Mac apps, but they can also run Windows and some *nix apps. Mac OSX on G4/5 Macs can run more apps than any other OS except maybe Amiga. With Amigas I don't know how they are now but I've seen Amigas running not just Amiga OS but also Mac OS and MS Windoze.

Falcon

Beware Of Apple Flops

[MacDaffy]

Apple's flops are usually indications of groundbreaking products to come. The company seems to get slapped into sobriety by a stinko product. The Lisa-to-Macintosh transition need not be belabored here. Personally, I think the Apple /// and LC II-III form-factors were combined with the Apple Portable to come up with the original PowerBook--which is still reflected in just about every notebook made now.

The effort that went into Copland and the floundering in the immediate aftermath of its demise are part of what made the company receptive to NeXt and the return of Steve Jobs.

eWorld was introduced when very few knew what the Internet was or how to use it. It now seems ahead of its time given what we have. AOL is a direct outgrowth of the late, lamented AppleLink (yeah, they managed to screw it up even worse, but at the time, AppleLink was the best email client going).

The G4 Cube was too pricey, even though it's a pretty sweet machine. The Mac Mini is now what the Cube should have been.

There used to be Macs you couldn't open without drawing blood. They followed that generation up with the G3 Blue & White--a dream to open and work on. It's been that way ever since, for the most part.

Now that the Newton is free of its Sculley-Stench, rumors seem to indicate that a tablet Mac running OS X/Inkwell is in the offing. It should be a big seller if it's priced correctly.

The lesson? Apple almost always learns from its mistakes.

Not exactly true

[fakespheare]

Apple has a quite big marketsheare in business market ... that is in graphics, design, audio and video business.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[jav1231]

I will anyway. I understand that for technical reasons you find KDE better for your use. I understand that for similar reasons some will argue for Windows. The bottom line is, for all around ease and style OSX's GUI is superior. Things work well in OSX GUI wise. KDE is very nice and I prefer it to Gnome. But KDE is fraut with glitches. It's menu editting tool, the last time I used is which was very recent, often didn't work. Default menus are often poorly arranged and not arranged as they appeared on the surface. I look forward to the day when KDE is as robust as OSX or even Windows. It's not there yet. But that is a technical discussion. As for sitting down and using it out of the box, OSX is just more stylish than Windows and more robust than KDE. I sincerely hope Linux can enjoy the same level of usability one day.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[10Ghz]

The bottom line is, for all around ease and style OSX's GUI is superior.

I'm sorry, but that is an subjective opinion. I do not care that much for OS X's style (Aqua?). And I find KDE easier to use. I prefer the way KDE looks like.

But KDE is fraut with glitches

Perhaps, but so is OS X. Sometimes Safari simply stops opening links in new tabs. Sometimes Dock stops displaying the "swoosh"-animation, sometimes Expose doesn't work anymore (I have mapped them to extra-buttons on my mouse). Mail on Tiger violates Apple's own HIG-guidelines etc. etc.

As for sitting down and using it out of the box, OSX is just more stylish than Windows and more robust than KDE. I sincerely hope Linux can enjoy the same level of usability one day.

I enjoy that usability right now in KDE. Note: I'm not claiming that just because I find KDE superior, means that it will be superior for everyone else as well. But lots and lots of Mac-users make the claim that OS X is "superior" all the time! And the fact is that such preferences are a matter of personal taste! I do not care that much for OS X. I find KDE to be better. So what does that prove? That KDE is better? That I'm an idiot since I can't see the inherint superiority of OS X? No. It simply means that we all have different needs and tastes.

I can see why many think OS X is the best thing since sliced bread. But I'm not that enthusiastic about it.

Re:Apple's recent flops

[aristotle-dude]

- Finder is rather primitive filemanager when compared to Konqueror

That is highly subjective. What are you looking out of a filemanager? Does Konqueror support spring loaded folders? Have you tried the the column view?

- The Dock is horrible. It doesn't even use screen-corners properly (thus violating Fitt's law). And it tries to act as a tool to launch apps, and manage running apps in the same time. It ends up being confusing.

There are preference settings you can set for the dock to have it against a screen corner. Unfortunately, Apple did not provide an interface for them but you can use Tinkertool or Cocktail to change those settings.

Running Apps are denoted by a black triangle below the icon.

- Buttons to minimize/maximise/close windows are terrible. They have no symbols in them (unless you hover over them with a mouse) and they are too small.

They are colour coded. Red means stop/close yellow means minimize and green mean maximize/go.

- And when I click "maximise", I want the windows to REALLY maximise, not to adjust it's size to some arbitary size.

Aren't you asking it to resize to an arbitrary size regardess of content? The maximize button is used for resizing the window to show all of the contents. That size is determined by the contents. Maybe you are used to MDI style interfaces where you cannot see the desktop and other windows. I'm used to a multi-window interface and I like to be able to switch windows by clicking on them. It also give the impression that you are cooperatively multitasking or task switching rather than having them visibly updating in the background.

- I find it rather confusing that closing the window does not close the app. I fail to see the added benefit of having Safari-window close (for example), but the app keeps on running in the background. When I re-launch the Safari-window, it starts from the beginning, so what's the point of keeping the app running?

Launch time for one. If an application supports multiple documents, it will use behave that way. Applications with a single window will close when you close it.

- Why do I have to double-click the icons in order to open them?

If they worked on a single click, you could end up accidentally launching applications/documents. Even an experienced users could end up wasting time opening things accidentally let alone new users. How would you click select files to move or delete? How do you select a file to view it's metadata in say column mode? How do you select it to rename it?

- Where are virtual desktops?

There are several in at sourceforge including Virtue and Desktop Manager. Unfortunately, neither work in Tiger at the moment. However, I don't see a lot of people clamoring for them.

- No window-specific-settings?

Sorry? Are you talking about finder windows? Show View options (CMD-J) has a "this window only/all windows" option group.

- I don't like how Safari handles tabs. Each tab has a close-button of it's own. That means if I want to close bunch of tabs, I have to move the mouse around, instead of keeping the mouse still and just clicking the mouse-button.

How is that intuitive to anyone other than a Firefox user? Think about it for a moment. How does the uninitiated user know which tab they are closing? What if I only want to close every other tab?

Re:For most consumers, hardware is less of a facto

[Lorkki]

Chip speeds and memory sizes are starting to go past consumer requirements,

What, again?

Re:For most consumers, hardware is less of a facto

[Anonymous Coward]

You think you are the only one older than 20 that's used the argument? So tell me how easy it was to exceed your CPU and memory requirements back in the 80s, even with tricked out mainstream computers, versus how easy it would be now?

How many consumers are going to need anything beyond a dual AMD-64 with 4 GB and a RAID-5 array of SATA drives? The answer: a hell of alot fewer than those needing something beyond top machines in the 80s. Does this mean that we won't need powerful machines in the future? No. Does it mean that the hardware is less of a factor than the software? Yes.

Re:For most consumers, hardware is less of a facto

[Lorkki]

You think you are the only one older than 20 that's used the argument?

Just barely older than 20, actually - not that it's of any real significance.

The last time it was toted that "the consumer definitely doesn't need any more power than this" was somewhere around when x86's first passed 1 GHz in clock speed. Before that it was the 300-500 MHz boxes that should be quite damn enough already. And so on. It has been a somewhat regular occurrence throughout the entire history of computing. Software developers "innovate" and hardware has to keep up, and vice versa.

You can still do a lot of your mundane computing tasks with an 80's box, using 80's software. It's also relatively easy to surpass the hardware limitations of a 200MHz Pentium box running Windows 98. Requirements will rise steeply again next year when Longhorn arrives with all of its GUI and API layer hoodoo, likely courted closely by popularised XComposite support in Linux. It's not going to stop here at all.

Add to this that home users are starting to catch on to things like video editing (with HDTV looming in the horizon) and it's pretty obvious that growing storage has a future as well.

How many consumers are going to need anything beyond a dual AMD-64 with 4 GB and a RAID-5 array of SATA drives?

Sigh. How many consumers honestly need anything beyond a 200 MHz Pentium? Yet, look at the equipment within a typical new x86 box - you'll be hard-pressed to find anything below the 2 GHz mark (about 1.5 GHz for laptops).

Re:Apple's recent flops

[10Ghz]

That is highly subjective. What are you looking out of a filemanager?

Ability to work on remote files for example. With Konqueror, I can work on files on some remote computer over SSH for example. Not only that, I can seamlessly surf the web, encode mp3's/ogg's/etc., view files etc. etc. all with one app.

Does Konqueror support spring loaded folders?

Yes it does.

Have you tried the the column view?

Yes. Didn't care that much for it.

They are colour coded. Red means stop/close yellow means minimize and green mean maximize/go.

Let's hear it for the color-blind! Having clear symbols on them would be alot better. In KDE the buttons have clear symbols on them, and they buttons are highlighted as you hover over them. "close" is highlighted in red. Couldn't be clearer.

The maximize button is used for resizing the window to show all of the contents.

If I want the window to be some arbitary size, I can do it myself just fine. If I want to maximise (in my book: maximise = make the window as large as possible) the window, I want it to be maximised.

How would you click select files to move or delete?

Ctrl-Click for example.

There are several in at sourceforge including Virtue and Desktop Manager.

So in other words, OS X does not have that feature, some third-party app provides it? So how exactly does that show the superiority of OS X? If you need third-party apps to cover for the shortcomings in OS X, I fail to see how that show the "superiority" of OS X. If anything, it highlights the shortcomings of OS X.

Sorry? Are you talking about finder windows? Show View options (CMD-J) has a "this window only/all windows" option group.

I'm talking about the feature in KDE, where I can tell each and every window to open in certain way. I can instruct windows belonging to some specific app to open in some specific location (including different desktops), in specific size, minimized/maximized/shaded etc. etc.

How is that intuitive to anyone other than a Firefox user?

How is Safari's way of working intuitive to anyone other than Safari-users?

Think about it for a moment. How does the uninitiated user know which tab they are closing?

They are closing the selected tab. It's not really rocket-science.

What if I only want to close every other tab?

Select those tabs and close them as you go.

Your whole post misses the point entirely. People tried to make the claim that OS X is the superior UI. I disagreed. And now you waste your time telling me how my problems with OS X aren't really problems at all. Well, they are for me. OS X does not work like I want my UI to work. So I fail to see how OS X is "superior". It might be the best choice for many users, but that doesn't mean that it's "superior". We all have different tastes and styles of working, and OS X does not fit mine.

OS X is a fine OS, no question about it. But it's not the be-all-end-all OS. Claiming that it's UI is best for everyone is downright ignorant. And the fact that OS X-users really try to make that claim really shows that the RDF is working. It might be the best for them. It might be the best for some Linux/Windows-users. But that does not mean that it's universally best for everyone. Such preferences are a subjective matter, and they differ from person to person.

What about Apple's Video Game System..

[ksaville00]

I don't really have much info on it, but I remember rumors and a picture of an Apple Video Game System awhile back. This turned into nothing but vaporware..but it was a pretty big flop, didnt even see the light of day!

Re:What about Apple's Video Game System..

[SPF22]

The system was called the Apple Pippin. It was released in '95 and released approximately 40,000 units world wide (don't know how many actually made it to homes). A lot of this system appears to have been the inspiration for much of the Dreamcast. This is just speculation on my part, but considering that both companies had a strong association with Bandai at the time, it just makes sense. And hey, they also look very similar.

One of my friends bought a complete system, still in the box a few months ago on eBay. It was the Japanese version, but still really neat to see.

This system was marketed as a cheap computer, however, it was only cheap compared to other Apple computers. The graphics were sub-par compared to other consoles at the time, such as Nintendo, and Apple really didn't have any support for this system. Here is the technical breakdown:

Hardware

• 66MHz PowerPC 603 RISC Microprocessor
• Superscaler, 3 instructions per clock cycle
• 8 kByte data and 8 kByte instruction caches
• IEEE standard Single & Double Precision Floating Point Unit
• 6 MB combined System & Video Memory, advanced architecture
• 4X CDROM drive
• 64 kbyte SRAM Store/Restore Backup
• Aftermarket easy memory expansion cards 2, 4 and 8 MB increments

Video

• 8 bit and 16 bit video support
• Dual Frame Buffers for superior frame to frame animation
• Support for NTSC & PAL composite, S-Video and VGA (640x480) monitors
• Up to 16.7M colors

Audio

• Stereo 16 bit 44 kHz sampled output
• Stereo 16 bit 44 kHz sampled input

I just found this interesting and wanted to share.

Re:Yes, the world could be Apple II based, not PC-

[Anonymous Coward]

The 65816 came from Western Design Center (not the hard drive maker).