From: "Eric L. Strobel" <fyzycyst_at_comcast.net>
>
> on 6/11/02 12:34 AM, Steven at Smuro_at_socal.rr.com wrote:
>
> >
> > What's it called when Apple charges TOP dollar for their products and
> > then drops them like hot potatoes?
>
> First off, the price difference between COMPARABLE machines (i.e., same
REAL
> speed [not same MHz], same quality and features) has never been as great
as
> has been played up in the ignorant press. And even when the hardware was
> relatively more expensive, that was back in the day when Windows software
> was far more expensive than Mac software, so this made up for much of the
> difference.
I remember going to an IBM shop around 1984 for my father. We wanted a AT
(286 8MHz) with 1MB RAM, I think 20MB harddisk. It had an EGA monitor and a
9-pin printer (one of these beasts, that probably programmed, could used as
telegraph, that loud it was). They wanted around 15.000 DM around then,
which would be today about 7,500-8,000$. It only ran DOS 3.3. AFAIK the Mac
at this time would cost half of this.
>
> Second, for years nobody seemed to complain that Compaq was charging far
> more for their PCs than others. There was a reason for it, and many folks
> recognized this and bought Compaqs in spite of the price premium.
That's it. Today it has to be cheap, nothing else.
.....
> Apple made a choice with OS X -- they could either putz around making the
OS
> compatible with ever older machines, or they could draw a line and then
> devote resources to making the OS better. Although I'll not be running it
> anytime soon, I think they made the right decision. It does NOT force you
> to immediately put all your machines in a closet, unless you fall victim
to
> the assumption that you must instantly and always upgrade to the very
> latest.
Backward compatibility at all cost is one really big problem of Windows.
Even XP has APIs of Windows 2.0. Do I have to say more?
> One of my two desktops at home is a clone and that's my primary machine.
> It's browsing the web (with the latest IE), running Office98, Mathematica
4,
> playing games, and many other things, and doing them really well. And, as
I
> said, once I go to MacOS 8.6+CarbonLib (or to OS 9), there's virtually
> nothing that I won't be able to run. If you've put four perfectly
> functional Macs in the closet, that's your *choice*, there's no compelling
> reason that says you MUST do that. As for me, in a year or two, when I
> replace one of my Macs, that will be plenty soon enough to switch to OS X.
Yes, and I recently bought a Quadra 650 just to be able to use the Newton
development tools to their full extent. It would run up to Mac OS 8.1 (which
I don't need, 7.5.3 is still good enough for what I need it).
Jochen
(Being "brought" up on an Atari 800XL).
-- Read the List FAQ/Etiquette: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Read the Newton FAQ: http://www.guns-media.com/mirrors/newton/faq/ This is the NewtonTalk mailing list - http://www.newtontalk.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Wed Jul 03 2002 - 14:02:06 EDT