I have a lot more respect for the ST now...

[opcode]

I was just checking some stuff on wikipedia and after reading about the original Mac hardware I was really chocked/disappointed. What a piece of junk! Now I see the ST was superior in almost every aspect, except perhaps for the base software (OS). Just goes to show that Apple really knows how to put a nice face on mundane hardware and sell the hell of it...

[+wood_jl]

....and Apple charges handsomely for that hardware.

 

The ST was a "Color Mac for 1/3 the price." That's the bottom line.

[desiv]

Is this the point where a Mac fanboi points out that the bottom line is that Apple won?

 

Seriously, I always wondered if the real problem (well, it sold well, so maybe it wasn't a problem) was the idea of trying to CRAM all that new technology inside that tiny case WITH a monitor? That must have made hardware design a nightmare.

 

Personally, I would have preferred to see what Woz and the Apple II team might have been able to do if Apple didn't decide to go Mac, but oh well...

 

desiv

Edited May 16, 2010 by desiv

[dark willow]

Just goes to show that Apple really knows how to put a nice face on mundane hardware and sell the hell of it...

 

They call it the "iPad"

[Fletch]

To be fair to Apple, the Mac was out over a full year before the ST. I bought an ST in '85 because it was in color and I could afford it. However, I had many friends with the original Mac and I always found it a very nice machine. The sound was certainly better than the ST's crappy Yamaha sound chip.

 

These discussions are always bizarre.

[crash]

I don't know - my girlfriend had a vintage Mac back in the day that I had a 1040ST. That single drive Mac was hellish to use, as it didn't have the OS in Rom or something, so it required constant disk swaps with the program and OS disks. It is fair to say that I was unimpressed by the Mac in that configuration, and I definitely gloated

[+wood_jl]

I don't know - my girlfriend had a vintage Mac back in the day that I had a 1040ST. That single drive Mac was hellish to use, as it didn't have the OS in Rom or something, so it required constant disk swaps with the program and OS disks. It is fair to say that I was unimpressed by the Mac in that configuration, and I definitely gloated

 

 

Indeed. And who liked that floppy eject where you had to ask it to spit out the disk, when YOU wanted to change it? No numeric keypad, tiny screen, low-res monochrome, high price..... Maybe Stevie Wonder could appreciate it more, with all of that, and the better sound! By the time the "Macintosh II" came out, things were starting to look pretty nice, and I sure like the modern ones; damn they're nice.

Edited June 10, 2010 by wood_jl

[opcode]

You know, it is a ST forum, but I think all important US computer companies from the 80s would have had more success had they stayed with their original 8-bit platforms (Apple II, Atari 800, C64). I mean, not stayed in the 8-bit realm but expanded from there (Apple actually did that, but the IIGS was clearly never a priority). I think a reason for the PC taking over was because during most of the 80s those companies were forcing their users to exchange platforms (AppleII to Mac, Atari 800 to ST, C64 to Amiga) and because they were wasting resources on different 8-bit and 16-bit lines. That gave IBM and the PC clones enough time to control the market. By the time Amiga and ST got enough software to justify their purchases, it was already too late.

So I believe Apple would have done better releasing the IIGS earlier and going with it, Atari would have expanded the 800 to something close to the Amiga in terms of architecture but using a 65816 instead and Commodore would have expanded the C64 to something else (close to the ST maybe), but again using the 65816.

[monzamess]

IMHO the draw of the PC world was having a standard (however loose and crappy) and multiple players competing to provide products that met that standard--along the way lowering prices, increasing availability, and (eventually) overtaking competitors in bang-for-the-buck.

 

Enhanced or upgraded 8-bit-16-bit-hybrid systems wouldn't really have changed anything compared to the way history played out, since those hypothetical machines, as well as the actual 16-bit machines that were produced, needed new software written to take advantage of their new capabilities anyway. To someone needing a business machine, a Commodore 65 or Apple IIgs or Atari 1600XLOMGWTFBBQ with no new software written to take advantage of the upgrades was just as useless as a new 16-bit machine with no new software.

[desiv]

That single drive Mac was hellish to use, as it didn't have the OS in Rom or something, so it required constant disk swaps with the program and OS disks.

 

I'll totally agree there. My room mate had one, and it as PAINFUL, at least until he got a second floppy drive.

That made it acceptable..

 

The ST had the edge there, definitely!

 

The Amiga, with one floppy was much more usable than the Mac. You could load some commands into memory and it came with the RAM disk. It wasn't too difficult to get by with one floppy. And it was heaven compared to the Mac!

 

+1 for the ST in that area tho....

 

desiv

[frogstar_robot]

You know, it is a ST forum, but I think all important US computer companies from the 80s would have had more success had they stayed with their original 8-bit platforms (Apple II, Atari 800, C64). I mean, not stayed in the 8-bit realm but expanded from there (Apple actually did that, but the IIGS was clearly never a priority). I think a reason for the PC taking over was because during most of the 80s those companies were forcing their users to exchange platforms (AppleII to Mac, Atari 800 to ST, C64 to Amiga) and because they were wasting resources on different 8-bit and 16-bit lines. That gave IBM and the PC clones enough time to control the market. By the time Amiga and ST got enough software to justify their purchases, it was already too late.

 

I think all we would have gotten out of that is an interesting alternative history. Those three little letters I-B-M carried incredible cachet is business; the slogan back then was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". To the extent business was computerizing, IBM had that market solidly by 1982 and the clones had no trouble piggybacking on it. It didn't matter that the IBM was inferior in graphics and sound or even for all practical purposes didn't have graphics. Business apps tended to be menu-driven 80-column text apps. I even remember ads touting colored text for business apps like it was the Second Coming.

 

As graphics gained greater importance then perhaps you got Macs and Quark Express for the Advertising and Arts department. The only thing that could have changed that history would have been radically different marketing and promotion on the part of either Atari or Commodore; the hardware of either was already ridiculously cheaper and clearly superior.

 

Of course, once the clones were solidly established in business people wanted to Work At Home. The only thing remaining was to get the PCs parity in graphics and sound. Which happened, in the most tacked on kludgey ways possible, but it happened.

 

[opcode]

I think all we would have gotten out of that is an interesting alternative history. Those three little letters I-B-M carried incredible cachet is business; the slogan back then was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". To the extent business was computerizing, IBM had that market solidly by 1982 and the clones had no trouble piggybacking on it. It didn't matter that the IBM was inferior in graphics and sound or even for all practical purposes didn't have graphics. Business apps tended to be menu-driven 80-column text apps. I even remember ads touting colored text for business apps like it was the Second Coming.

 

As graphics gained greater importance then perhaps you got Macs and Quark Express for the Advertising and Arts department. The only thing that could have changed that history would have been radically different marketing and promotion on the part of either Atari or Commodore; the hardware of either was already ridiculously cheaper and clearly superior.

 

Of course, once the clones were solidly established in business people wanted to Work At Home. The only thing remaining was to get the PCs parity in graphics and sound. Which happened, in the most tacked on kludgey ways possible, but it happened.

 

 

I agree with most if that, but not matter what Atari/Commodore (and to some extent Apple) missed some opportunities there. What happened to the 30 million C64 users? Why didn't Commodore offer a path to upgrade for all those users? And what happened to the 3/4+ million Atari 8-bit users?

I just find it weird that a business computer dominated the whole industry, while all the home computers died. MS Windows was key for that, no doubt.

And Apple did something right, what was it? Aggressive improvements of the Mac line perhaps (new models every year), but coming out earlier helped a lot too. ST and Amiga were late in the game. That is why I think the A8 and C64 had a better chance. Besides, usually software houses were committed to specific computer lines (successful ones), so creating new lines didn't help because those soft houses would adopt a wait-and-see attitude with the new hardware and that created a chicken-egg situation. Expanding existing lines on the other hand was easier, things like extra memory and faster CPU can be used by any new software while keeping compatibility with older hardware. It isn't like starting from scratch.

The other thing was price. In order for a platform to be success it needs software. For that it needs support from software houses. Why did soft houses prefer the Mac over the ST (and that is the reason Tramiel's strategy was very flawed IMHO)? Because the Mac was more expensive. Hardware costing $2K+ means you can charge more for software (and of course invest more too), up to $500 would be ok. You cannot charge that much on a platform that costs $500. So probably staying in the $1K+ price range was important.

[+wood_jl]

And Apple did something right, what was it? Aggressive improvements of the Mac line perhaps (new models every year), but coming out earlier helped a lot too.

 

Giving Apple IIs away to schools years prior was a really wise move for Apple; it established their dominance as an "education" computer, familiarized the brand name with school administrators across America, etc. That, and the aggressive improvements! When the Mac II came out, I remember it was kind of eye-opening. Atari was considered a game machine brand, even if they'd have put a Cray in a little box. As for Commodore, I don't know.....Some schools used them (when they couldn't afford Apples) but not many.

[Ze_ro]

You know, it is a ST forum, but I think all important US computer companies from the 80s would have had more success had they stayed with their original 8-bit platforms (Apple II, Atari 800, C64). I mean, not stayed in the 8-bit realm but expanded from there (Apple actually did that, but the IIGS was clearly never a priority).

Well, even if they had all gone over to the 65816, where do you go from there? There was never a successor to the 65816, so it would have just been another dead end. I think maybe a better option would have been for each company to include a "halfway" computer, that used a 68000, but also had a 6502 for compatibility with the previous generation. Apple actually did this via an add-on card. (Also, you might want to check out the C-65... it was never released, but there are some protos out there, and MESS can emulate it. It's a very advanced C-64 with some features that bring it awfully close to the Amiga line!)

 

I think the bigger problem for all three companies was trying to advance their 16-bit machines. Apple was the only one with a clear upgrade path. The Amiga kept throwing up roadblocks with incompatible expansion ports, and different graphics architectures that forced you to buy a whole new machine. The Atari ST seemed to hit a wall trying to grow beyond the 68000, and even when it did, the TT and Falcon seemed to only attract the hardcore fans of the platform. The fact that so much software was written directly for aging hardware made it much harder for the platforms to grow, while PC stuff was standardized enough that you could often just swap out a single part without affecting your older software, and without having to junk the whole machine and start over.

 

--Zero

[opcode]

Well, even if they had all gone over to the 65816, where do you go from there? There was never a successor to the 65816, so it would have just been another dead end.

Considering there never was much of a demand for the 65816, it isn't surprising they never developed a successor. But had Apple/Commodore/Atari adopted the 65816 and with sales of a few million machines a year, WD would have had a big incentive.

 

(Also, you might want to check out the C-65... it was never released, but there are some protos out there, and MESS can emulate it. It's a very advanced C-64 with some features that bring it awfully close to the Amiga line!)

That is what I am talking about, something like the C65 was the way to go, though of course Commodore should have considered that mid 80s, not early 90s.

 

I think the bigger problem for all three companies was trying to advance their 16-bit machines. Apple was the only one with a clear upgrade path. The Amiga kept throwing up roadblocks with incompatible expansion ports, and different graphics architectures that forced you to buy a whole new machine. The Atari ST seemed to hit a wall trying to grow beyond the 68000, and even when it did, the TT and Falcon seemed to only attract the hardcore fans of the platform. The fact that so much software was written directly for aging hardware made it much harder for the platforms to grow, while PC stuff was standardized enough that you could often just swap out a single part without affecting your older software, and without having to junk the whole machine and start over.

 

An advantage of video and audio devices with separated buses/memories. They are usually more expensive (you need extra RAM) and slower (access is usually thru I/O ports), but at least you are free to go wherever you want with your CPU and audio/video systems. Companies should have realized that earlier and isolated buses when they could. But probably most of those computer companies were too "appliance minded" to think about that.

And it is funny, because as a video game company Atari should have realized the importance of killer apps. Considering how much money they (Atari Warner) had they could have produced some incredible software stuff (and by that I mean serious applications), or at least paid some competent company to do so. Instead they kept hiring teenagers with no formal computer science education to do the job…

 

At least the C64 users got the C128. We got the 130XE instead with its poor memory upgrade fix. Atari didn’t even care to create a descent memory mapper scheme that would be further expanded. Using two bits from PORTB was just a dirt cheap fix.

And I find it frustrating that we no longer have platform options when we go shop for a new computer. The only thing we can buy today are PCs, even a Mac is a PC now, just with a different OS. It would be nice to have options like we have with video games (different hardwares, different games, different philosophies and control schemes).

Anyway, enough whining. From the three 68K platforms from the 80s I still think the ST was the best one, surely an improvement over the Mac, and seemed a bit more general purpose than the Amiga. It is too bad TOS/GEM wasn’t a better OS, Atari should have spent some more money and time improving that.

[+wood_jl]

At least the C64 users got the C128. We got the 130XE instead with its poor memory upgrade fix. Atari didn’t even care to create a descent memory mapper scheme that would be further expanded. Using two bits from PORTB was just a dirt cheap fix.

 

Yeah, I was jealous of the C128. In hindsight, there was so little software you may as well have stuck to the C64. So it wasn't really any better off, practically, although it was a technical advancement and *could* have been cool. 520ST cost about the same as a C128 full system though.

[Cliff Friedel]

Is this the point where a Mac fanboi points out that the bottom line is that Apple won?

 

Seriously, I always wondered if the real problem (well, it sold well, so maybe it wasn't a problem) was the idea of trying to CRAM all that new technology inside that tiny case WITH a monitor? That must have made hardware design a nightmare.

 

Personally, I would have preferred to see what Woz and the Apple II team might have been able to do if Apple didn't decide to go Mac, but oh well...

 

desiv

 

There were a lot of problems with the original black and white Mac that did result from the design. The thing got nuclear hot and stuff broke in them quite often as a result. I think Apple resorted to extra venting in the Mac II, but I think the problems continued until they went to the wedge type Macs and the desktop/tower models. It's funny though, they ended up going back to the all-in-one setup for the iMac and eMac and started having the same issues again. You think they would have learned. With that said, even with the problems, people still buy them. Form over function I guess.

[Cliff Friedel]

And Apple did something right, what was it? Aggressive improvements of the Mac line perhaps (new models every year), but coming out earlier helped a lot too.

 

Giving Apple IIs away to schools years prior was a really wise move for Apple; it established their dominance as an "education" computer, familiarized the brand name with school administrators across America, etc. That, and the aggressive improvements! When the Mac II came out, I remember it was kind of eye-opening. Atari was considered a game machine brand, even if they'd have put a Cray in a little box. As for Commodore, I don't know.....Some schools used them (when they couldn't afford Apples) but not many.

 

This is definitely true. Even today there are Apple schools near my house that won't give those things up to save their lives. Their main reason: They are "educationally minded". That and they give some crazy discounts.

 

As for C64s, we had a lab of them at the middle school I went to. Even had a star serial network that let us save stuff to a 10MB hard drive! It actually was a pretty robust setup and held up to a lot of kid abuse. With that said, it was the only setup like that I ever saw.

[Cliff Friedel]

You know, it is a ST forum, but I think all important US computer companies from the 80s would have had more success had they stayed with their original 8-bit platforms (Apple II, Atari 800, C64). I mean, not stayed in the 8-bit realm but expanded from there (Apple actually did that, but the IIGS was clearly never a priority).

Well, even if they had all gone over to the 65816, where do you go from there? There was never a successor to the 65816, so it would have just been another dead end. I think maybe a better option would have been for each company to include a "halfway" computer, that used a 68000, but also had a 6502 for compatibility with the previous generation. Apple actually did this via an add-on card. (Also, you might want to check out the C-65... it was never released, but there are some protos out there, and MESS can emulate it. It's a very advanced C-64 with some features that bring it awfully close to the Amiga line!)

 

I think the bigger problem for all three companies was trying to advance their 16-bit machines. Apple was the only one with a clear upgrade path. The Amiga kept throwing up roadblocks with incompatible expansion ports, and different graphics architectures that forced you to buy a whole new machine. The Atari ST seemed to hit a wall trying to grow beyond the 68000, and even when it did, the TT and Falcon seemed to only attract the hardcore fans of the platform. The fact that so much software was written directly for aging hardware made it much harder for the platforms to grow, while PC stuff was standardized enough that you could often just swap out a single part without affecting your older software, and without having to junk the whole machine and start over.

 

--Zero

 

I am not sure Commodore would have gone that route. You have to remember that they bought the company that made the Amiga and largely released it as-is as the Amiga 1000. Really, it was a great enough machine to get people to switch from 8 bit machines. The problem though was that it was poorly marketed. Nobody knew about Amigas unless they had one or knew someone that did. You never saw ads on TV and you never heard about them. Had they marketed them the way Apple did the Macintosh and there is a good chance we would be talking about the new aPad or the aPhone instead of the iPad and iPhone. Hell, knowing the technical minds they had at commodore at the time, we could have had those things 10 years before. Jay Miner and his crew were really that good IMHO.

 

As for the incompatibilities, the Mac went through those too, especially on the OS front. Seemed like every 6 months to a year there was a new machine, with a new OS, with a new goofy connection for a printer, etc. Even now you see that if you look at MacOSX 10.2 - 10.6. Literally machines that could accept an OS in one minor version weren't supported in the next one, especially when they went to intel processors. I'm not saying Commodore wouldn't have done this as well, I just think they weren't the only ones.

[oky2000]

To be fair to Apple, the Mac was out over a full year before the ST. I bought an ST in '85 because it was in color and I could afford it. However, I had many friends with the original Mac and I always found it a very nice machine. The sound was certainly better than the ST's crappy Yamaha sound chip.

 

These discussions are always bizarre.

 

And to be fair if Hi-Toro had money to burn in 1980s like Steve Jobs then Amiga would have been finished in 1984 same as the Mac. Apple had unlimited resources AND was given the GUI OS from Xerox for free. The mess of circuits on the desk = Amiga OCS chipset was finished enough in Dec 1983 to write the bouncing ball demo v0.9 on.

 

Finally some people are getting it! The ST with or without exotic custom graphics/sound chips was superior in every way technically to the pathetic Mac. GEM in High Res is no worse than Mac OS, the only thing I wanted in GEM that it didn't have was multi-tasking. So apart from much better keyboard to type on and a nicer mouse you got pretty screwed for your extra $2000 above the price of an ST/STM+Mono LOL

 

And as for a $3000 286 PC with EGA running DOS.....

[oky2000]

You know, it is a ST forum, but I think all important US computer companies from the 80s would have had more success had they stayed with their original 8-bit platforms (Apple II, Atari 800, C64). I mean, not stayed in the 8-bit realm but expanded from there (Apple actually did that, but the IIGS was clearly never a priority).

Well, even if they had all gone over to the 65816, where do you go from there? There was never a successor to the 65816, so it would have just been another dead end. I think maybe a better option would have been for each company to include a "halfway" computer, that used a 68000, but also had a 6502 for compatibility with the previous generation. Apple actually did this via an add-on card. (Also, you might want to check out the C-65... it was never released, but there are some protos out there, and MESS can emulate it. It's a very advanced C-64 with some features that bring it awfully close to the Amiga line!)

 

I think the bigger problem for all three companies was trying to advance their 16-bit machines. Apple was the only one with a clear upgrade path. The Amiga kept throwing up roadblocks with incompatible expansion ports, and different graphics architectures that forced you to buy a whole new machine. The Atari ST seemed to hit a wall trying to grow beyond the 68000, and even when it did, the TT and Falcon seemed to only attract the hardcore fans of the platform. The fact that so much software was written directly for aging hardware made it much harder for the platforms to grow, while PC stuff was standardized enough that you could often just swap out a single part without affecting your older software, and without having to junk the whole machine and start over.

 

--Zero

 

I am not sure Commodore would have gone that route. You have to remember that they bought the company that made the Amiga and largely released it as-is as the Amiga 1000. Really, it was a great enough machine to get people to switch from 8 bit machines. The problem though was that it was poorly marketed. Nobody knew about Amigas unless they had one or knew someone that did. You never saw ads on TV and you never heard about them. Had they marketed them the way Apple did the Macintosh and there is a good chance we would be talking about the new aPad or the aPhone instead of the iPad and iPhone. Hell, knowing the technical minds they had at commodore at the time, we could have had those things 10 years before. Jay Miner and his crew were really that good IMHO.

 

As for the incompatibilities, the Mac went through those too, especially on the OS front. Seemed like every 6 months to a year there was a new machine, with a new OS, with a new goofy connection for a printer, etc. Even now you see that if you look at MacOSX 10.2 - 10.6. Literally machines that could accept an OS in one minor version weren't supported in the next one, especially when they went to intel processors. I'm not saying Commodore wouldn't have done this as well, I just think they weren't the only ones.

 

1 C65 has 6 sound channels (OK ADSR analogue synth style oscillators not sampler based 8bit DACS) and could match 640x512x16 colours from 4096 and EXCEED AMIGA via 320x200x256 colours from 4096. It also had an identical blitter to the Amiga. This was working in 1990, prototype was scrapped to save engineering/manufacturing resource by concentrating on Amiga production NOT because the final prototypes had a fault.

 

2 I don't know what you mean by incompatible expansion ports, serious users who bought expandable Amigas could still use them on ALL big box Amigas between 1987 via A2000/1500 and then A3000 and A4000 in 1993. Zorro II cards work in Zorro III slots so there is no issue. If you mean A500 and A1200 trapdoor expansions....well they aren't expansion slots they're literally holes in the motherboard interfacing daughter board directly to the CPU/Chipset bus.

 

3 Jay Miner DID produce an extension to the Amiga chipset for a new computer, it was finished in 1987 and was called the Ranger Chipset. It was 128 colours, 1024x1024 and had 2mb VRAM which all the custom chips would access directly at 20x the speed of the A1000 chipset. Commodore never used it ever, and Jay officially left C= in 1987 anyway.

 

4. Arguably the more enlightened of the three was R J Mical and Dave Needle, both of whom designed the Lynx chipset and finished it in 1987 with hardware scaling/rotation of 1024 sprites AND still 4 channel 8bit sound identical to Amiga and a blitter and copper type setup. The also designed the 3DO chipset. However as Mical got fed up with Commodore and left and took Dave with him that's that. Commodore also sacked half of the Los Gatos team (Hi Toro) and screwed themselves.

 

5. Linking nicely to 4. above, because Commodore engineers had no idea how to update/improve the A1000 chipset the Commodore engineers assigned separately to designing the A500(USA Westchester branch) and A2000 (Commodore GMBH) had the same rubbish specs with zero improvements to Amiga. 32 colours was not enough in late 87, 64 colour mode impossibly slow for arcade games, and 4 channels was too little for sound AND music to play in games. In December 1984 these things were OK...in 1987 3 years later they were not.

 

6. Because the A500 and A2000 Amigas were supposed to be finished in 1986, but projects on both sides of the world were late by 12 months, they didn't even do any marketing of the A1000 in 1986. Between 1985 and 1987 Commodore only did 6 months of rubbish promotion. Idiots!

 

7. In 1994 we were all surfing the internet on PCs (and Sun Workstations!) using Netscape....Atari and Commodore didn't even have a TCP/IP stack properly sorted to even run a Web browser in the A1200/4000 Workbench 3 or Falcon TOS! How can you be so clueless not to grab the internet with both hands, after using it for just 1 hour in late 93 I knew the internet was the next big thing and any machine that didn't have it 100% supported in the OS was screwed within 12 months...oh look 12 months later Atari and Commodore gave up on home computers. Atari struggled on with Jaguar for 12 months more but still they killed the Falcon same time you could no longer buy an overpriced A4000 Amiga.

 

And there you have it, a potted history of why it took Commodore half a decade to sell 1 million Amigas, and never sold more than 5 million Amiga computers in 10 years. The talent was there, it was always there.

 

Same is true of Jack, he sacked too many of the Atari engineers not associated with what became the ST, this meant there was no way to upgrade the 8 bit Atari. Lynx was designed and finished by Epyx alone, and Jaguar was designed by another separate company again called Flare (who made the amazing Konix console that was never released. The 7800 was not designed by Atari at all. So Atari were pretty screwed, they had all this technology but most if it was inherited off the shelf/designed by third parties except the ST. This is why the Falcon is not a home computer version of Jaguar which is just crazy, waste of money designing two completely different sets of custom chips. IF Atari engineers had built Tom and Jerry then they would have stuck them in Jaguar AND Falcon type home computer. And this would have saved them millions in manufacturing AND software development. And more games would have been made for both *sigh*

 

Apple laid low, sold a handful of machines a year in the 90s for a massive 500% profit, and found themselves still alive in 1996 after Atari and Commodore incompetence caused them to end trading. Apple didn't do anything right at all, they didn't do anything....and if you play it safe you can stay alive long enough to outlive your competitors even if you make crap. It's all style over function. The Apple desktop keyboard for iMac etc is WORSE than my laptop keyboard from 2006! But Apple fanboys think they look nice so they must be great.

 

And one mouse button still in 2010? Are you having a laugh!?!?!? Even with 2 buttons and a mouse wheel it's just about enough to control my custom AV machine feeding my 1080p projector via Zplayer for my home theatre setup haha

 

At least Intel Apple hardware is quite sophisticated compared to PCs, I remember when I was looking to buy my Dell XPS1720 in 2006ish that I couldn't even make up the same specification as the 17" Powerbook, which had a next generation Nvidia graphics chip, so in a strange way I started looking for ways to natively run XP on the Intel Powerbook 17" Mac because no laptop had those high-end specification for GPU!

Edited June 14, 2010 by oky2000

[desiv]

7. In 1994 we were all surfing the internet on PCs (and Sun Workstations!) using Netscape....Atari and Commodore didn't even have a TCP/IP stack properly sorted to even run a Web browser in the A1200/4000 Workbench 3 or Falcon TOS!

To be fair, neither did MS really. In Windows 3.x we needed 3rd party sockets (Trumpet Winsock comes to mind) until late in 1994.

 

A Winsock package was required to support TCP/IP networking in Windows 3.x. Usually third-party packages were used, but in August 1994 Microsoft released an add-on package (codenamed Wolverine) that provided limited TCP/IP support in Windows for Workgroups 3.11

 

In fact, even Netscape itself wasn't available as Netscape until late in 1994 (October I think).

(The Netscape Navigator wikipedia article appears to have a typo there. It mentions the October 0.9x release, and then it says the 1.x was released in Dec 1994. I think they meant Dec 1995..)

 

Some of use used NCSA's Mocaic before that happened...

(I even have a few NCSA floppies around somewhere.. :-)

 

Not sure when Apple added TCPIP support to it's OS..

 

desiv

[mellis]

As for the incompatibilities, the Mac went through those too, especially on the OS front. Seemed like every 6 months to a year there was a new machine, with a new OS, with a new goofy connection for a printer, etc. Even now you see that if you look at MacOSX 10.2 - 10.6. Literally machines that could accept an OS in one minor version weren't supported in the next one, especially when they went to intel processors. I'm not saying Commodore wouldn't have done this as well, I just think they weren't the only ones.

 

You might not like their numbering convention, but Mac OS X 10.2 (circa 2002) is a VERY different beast than Mac OS X 10.6 (current). You will find that there are roughly 18 months or so between 0.1 increments of Mac OS X, and all them are significant. The "minor versions" are the 0.0.x versions (e.g. 10.6.3), and those minor versions are supported for the hardware on which they originally delivered the major version (10.6, in this example).

 

I'm not asking you to like Mac OS X, but I think it is worthwhile to keep the facts straight.

[Cliff Friedel]

As for the incompatibilities, the Mac went through those too, especially on the OS front. Seemed like every 6 months to a year there was a new machine, with a new OS, with a new goofy connection for a printer, etc. Even now you see that if you look at MacOSX 10.2 - 10.6. Literally machines that could accept an OS in one minor version weren't supported in the next one, especially when they went to intel processors. I'm not saying Commodore wouldn't have done this as well, I just think they weren't the only ones.

 

You might not like their numbering convention, but Mac OS X 10.2 (circa 2002) is a VERY different beast than Mac OS X 10.6 (current). You will find that there are roughly 18 months or so between 0.1 increments of Mac OS X, and all them are significant. The "minor versions" are the 0.0.x versions (e.g. 10.6.3), and those minor versions are supported for the hardware on which they originally delivered the major version (10.6, in this example).

 

I'm not asking you to like Mac OS X, but I think it is worthwhile to keep the facts straight.

Ok, even with what you said, you are saying that every 18 months the hardware is essentially being bricked, maybe 3 years at most. That is a serious problem considering how much you paying as a premium to have Mac products. Also, there are the constant hardware changes that literally send your investment to zero (or very close) as the coolness factor wears off. I am not saying PCs aren't like this either, but the rate is much slower and the replacement costs are far less, even for higher end machines.

[mellis]

As for the incompatibilities, the Mac went through those too, especially on the OS front. Seemed like every 6 months to a year there was a new machine, with a new OS, with a new goofy connection for a printer, etc. Even now you see that if you look at MacOSX 10.2 - 10.6. Literally machines that could accept an OS in one minor version weren't supported in the next one, especially when they went to intel processors. I'm not saying Commodore wouldn't have done this as well, I just think they weren't the only ones.

 

You might not like their numbering convention, but Mac OS X 10.2 (circa 2002) is a VERY different beast than Mac OS X 10.6 (current). You will find that there are roughly 18 months or so between 0.1 increments of Mac OS X, and all them are significant. The "minor versions" are the 0.0.x versions (e.g. 10.6.3), and those minor versions are supported for the hardware on which they originally delivered the major version (10.6, in this example).

 

I'm not asking you to like Mac OS X, but I think it is worthwhile to keep the facts straight.

Ok, even with what you said, you are saying that every 18 months the hardware is essentially being bricked, maybe 3 years at most. That is a serious problem considering how much you paying as a premium to have Mac products. Also, there are the constant hardware changes that literally send your investment to zero (or very close) as the coolness factor wears off. I am not saying PCs aren't like this either, but the rate is much slower and the replacement costs are far less, even for higher end machines.

 

Sigh.

 

So if I understand this, I should be concerned that 10.6 no longer supports the Dual 1GHz G4 that I bought in 2002 (and which is currently running Mac OS X 10.5.8 ). Over the years I've put 1.75GB of RAM in it, and it runs the apps that I need it to. Call me crazy, but I think I've realized a pretty good return on that investment. It is hardly "bricked" just because it does not run 10.6, although in the next couple of years, it will likely not run the software I need. Still, 10 years is a pretty good run for a computer, and you would be hard pressed to show me a PC that did better (especially one that has run FOUR consecutive versions of Windows, as I have run Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 on that PowerMac).