Apple II in low-end Market?

[kool kitty89]

Would Apple have been successful (or more successful) if they'd pushed the Apple II into the low-end market in the early 80s?

 

It really seems like an ideal platform to push as such given the extreme simplicity, but also the general support it got in the late 70s. They could have kept the mid-range market (maybe even extended into higher-end models in a more IBM-like form factor), but also pushed heavily for a consolidated and more minimalistic design closer in overall configuration to the CoCo (and even cheaper). Something with full compatibility with the standard apple II line, but cut down to a much smaller motehrboard with only 1 (external) expansion port that can be used to add a proper expansion box for multiple cards (like the CoCo had or Atari was supposed to with the 1090XL).

 

By about 1980, relatively low-cost ULAs should have allowed for considerable consolidation of the Apple II's discrete logic chipset without even having to invest in full custom chips (which would only become economically viable at high volumes -but a good option to move on from commodity ULAs). In addition to that, you had the FCC Class B making TV compatible machines with onboard RF adapters without excessive shielding realistic.

 

The Apple II hardware should have been fundamentally cheap enough to actually match (or undercut) the offerings of the vertically integrated CBM for machines in similar configurations (like a bottom end Apple II with 4k DRAM vs the VIC-20 or a 48k/68k model against the C64), and higher volumes and further integration would have further advantages.

 

Then there's the European market. Apple did relatively poorly in Europe as it was, but a low-cost strategy could have totally changed that. Technically speaking, the Apple II probably could have been made to be cheaper than (or close to as cheap as) the ZX Spectrum, and that would have been very significant. The Apple II also had a decently fast tape loading speed (about 1200 baud iirc, double Atari's and quadruple CBM's -aside from custom loaders- though somewhat slower than the Spectrum -less than 1/2 the speed of double speed loaders for the speccy or CoCo)

 

 

 

Would it have been wise for Apple to expand their market as such, would they have been more successful or even the dominant platform of today? (the latter would be dependent on the clone market which obviously have expanded much faster with a more popular Apple II)

And if they were successful as such, would it have been wise to continue with upgrades and backwards compatible successors to the Apple II line and avoid the Mac altogether. (or possibly merge the Mac and Apple II in as efficient a manner as possible)

[Ransom]

Since I'm just now re-familiarizing myself with the Apple II after many years, I've been wondering what Apple could have done better with the II. Here I'll focus only on the marketing aspect, since that's in keeping with the thread topic.

 

We know that since the II+ came out Apple had been focused on finding another product to sell. Management thought that the II would be dead and buried within a short time. So they tried the Apple III, the Lisa, and finally the Macintosh. But even for the first several years after the introduction of the Mac, Apple II sales are what kept the company going.

 

That, despite the fact that Apple didn't devote much attention to it. Sure, they made some cost-cutting moves and introduced a few new things with the original ][e, then the Enhanced //e, and finally the Extended Keyboard IIe. But they hardly marketed the thing. Even when Appleworks came out and they had a huge hit on their hands, they hardly mentioned it. They wanted everyone to buy the Mac, but the II's were flying off the shelves.

 

That was around the time I bought my first Apple II. I went to the store, looked at the Mac, looked at the //c. Then I looked at the Mac's tiny, built-in monochrome monitor and its price tag, followed by the //c's color output and its price tag. Guess what I bought? Millions of others did the same.

 

I wonder if instead of pouring money into developing an alternative to the II, if they'd instead poured all that money into developing the II. What could have been achieved?

 

What if they'd evolved the platform, as the IBM/Intel/Microsoft platform was evolving past the original IBM PC? Sure, they came out with the IIgs, but by then it was much too late.

 

As for going the other route, and putting the Apple II into the low-end market, I think that would have worked with their corporate philosophy at the time. They could have cast the II as a toy or a child's computer, while portraying the Mac as a computer for serious people or somesuch. But as I mentioned, they badly needed the profits coming from the Apple II. If they'd cut the margins to razor-thin like at other companies at the time, they'd likely never have survived to the 90s, let alone until the return of Steve Jobs.

[carmel_andrews]

Not really KK, the likes of commodore and atari would have slaughtered them with lower cost products (more commodore then atari ofcourse)

 

Apple got rich by selling lower volume but higher cost value product

 

What might have worked is something likened to an apple 2 jnr (made like an atari 400 alike scenario)...just to get consumers thinking seriously about apple as a big player in the home computer biz

[+save2600]

It's amazing when you think about how Apple really never had an interest in supporting a lower end market. It's like they just let Atari and Commodore have at it. What a corporate bubble they are indeed, ignoring entire markets and creating their own trends. Perhaps they knew or suspected all along what IBM didn't and the PCjr totally illustrated that for them.

[potatohead]

I have wondered that too. It was a very simple machine that could have seen a seriously low cost package, but a big part of the value was the expansion slots, and what people put in them.

 

The other thing about Apple, which remains true today, is they just don't sell low margin items, and where they do, they do it strictly to add value to the higher margin ones.

 

Not sure, even if they tried, that it would have worked for them on the lower end of things. The Apple ][ was not a low end computer. In terms of it's "in the box" graphics and sound capabilities, it was not the best machine, but those could be rather significantly expanded. Most other machines sold, did not have that option.

 

That really helped the Apple ][, because it could be used for some serious computing and productivity. Appleworks was insanely good, and I produced a lot on it at that time. Great package! That alone, differentiated the Apple from most other 8 bit computers. One could get 80 column display, color graphics, nice disk storage, printer, etc... and have it all nicely integrated with Apple works, for a great look at what the PC was to become.

 

Because of those things, I've often thought Apple should have done one more ][ style computer, but with a CPU that had more speed and address space. Heh... A 6809 Apple would have ruled, for example. Still 8 bit, but capable of a whole lot more, but realistically, a 16 bit CPU would have been the right move. Since they were already working with Moto, a 16 bit Apple, with a compatability mode, would have sold past the 90's where the 6502 ][ ended, IMHO.

 

That move would have changed 16 bit computing some, and Apple would have had a share of it, both with the Mac, and with the ][, and who knows? All the PC cards being developed might have trickled down to the ][, carrying it forward for quite some time.

[Ransom]

Because of those things, I've often thought Apple should have done one more ][ style computer, but with a CPU that had more speed and address space. Heh... A 6809 Apple would have ruled, for example. Still 8 bit, but capable of a whole lot more, but realistically, a 16 bit CPU would have been the right move. Since they were already working with Moto, a 16 bit Apple, with a compatability mode, would have sold past the 90's where the 6502 ][ ended, IMHO.

 

That move would have changed 16 bit computing some, and Apple would have had a share of it, both with the Mac, and with the ][, and who knows? All the PC cards being developed might have trickled down to the ][, carrying it forward for quite some time.

 

Isn't the IIgs pretty much as you describe (but with 65816)?

 

It would have been interesting if they'd continued in that direction even further.

[JamesD]

There were some clones and parts that came into the country for a while. You could build an Apple clone for under $500 years before the C64 entered the market. But Apple got them shut down because they didn't have their own ROMs.

[potatohead]

I think the GS was sort of like that. Good call. At the time the GS came out, it seemed to not even be near the value needed to warrant the cost. Not sure the 65816 made enough sense, though it did help with 6502 emulation.

 

Maybe it really wasn't possible to do anything else.

[BydoEmpire]

The Laser 128 2c clone wasn't that expensive, I think around $599 with 128k and a built-in 5 1/4" drive? While I wouldn't say it or the 2c competed in the low-end market like the Vic, C64 or XL/XE series, they were significantly cheaper than the 2e (and certainly 2gs) and within striking distance.

[madmax2069]

I think they could have sold it at a lower price. It was not as popular as it could have been if it did not cost as much as it did. i bet they could have sold a heck of a lot more and became a lot more popular if the price was comparable to another same spec computers (look at the IIe at $1395 in 1983 and C64 at $595 in 1982 and the C64 is a more capable machine).

[kool kitty89]

We know that since the II+ came out Apple had been focused on finding another product to sell. Management thought that the II would be dead and buried within a short time. So they tried the Apple III, the Lisa, and finally the Macintosh. But even for the first several years after the introduction of the Mac, Apple II sales are what kept the company going.

 

That, despite the fact that Apple didn't devote much attention to it. Sure, they made some cost-cutting moves and introduced a few new things with the original ][e, then the Enhanced //e, and finally the Extended Keyboard IIe. But they hardly marketed the thing. Even when Appleworks came out and they had a huge hit on their hands, they hardly mentioned it. They wanted everyone to buy the Mac, but the II's were flying off the shelves.

 

That was around the time I bought my first Apple II. I went to the store, looked at the Mac, looked at the //c. Then I looked at the Mac's tiny, built-in monochrome monitor and its price tag, followed by the //c's color output and its price tag. Guess what I bought? Millions of others did the same.

 

I wonder if instead of pouring money into developing an alternative to the II, if they'd instead poured all that money into developing the II. What could have been achieved?

 

What if they'd evolved the platform, as the IBM/Intel/Microsoft platform was evolving past the original IBM PC? Sure, they came out with the IIgs, but by then it was much too late.

Yes, a lot of potential there too, and multiple routes to go for evolving the platform. It took until the IIc Plus to get a faster CPU, but they at least could have bumped it to 2 MHz with interleaving in faster RAM (like the BBC Micro) or 3 or 4 MHz even (but then it would make more sense to switch to a wait state mechanism more like the A8's DMA rather than plain interleaving in fast RAM -or going to a dual bus design, but that's more costly).

 

There's a lot of middle ground for the IIe to the IIGS in feature set. Maybe just a true 16 color bitmap mode (even if only 140x192), boosted CPU speed, and a basic sound chip or a simple DMA sound circuit more like the Mac. (hardware V/H scroll registers would have been rather significant) Then the rest is just software, you could have a GUI running in monochrome 560x192 and probably decently fast at apple IIc plus speeds, that on top of all the software the Apple II was getting in general. Maybe an upgrade more like the CoCo I/II to CoCo III jump (double speed CPU, added interval timer functionality, added color and resolution capabilities, hardware scrolling -maybe DMA sound or at least a DAC or bank of DACs to work with), but earlier. (like in '83 or '84) Hmm, maybe an AY-3-891x instead of the simple DACs, especially if they used the parallel port(s) provided by that chip. (more so if the memory map for the chip was consistent with the Mockingboard -volume modulation on the AY also allows some fairly decent sampling, even on single channels -POKEY's 4-bit linear volume is a bit better, SN76489 is significantly coarser, but approximating 8-bit PCM is also possible with multi-channel hacks)

 

Then they could bump to something closer to the IIGS, but maybe add a blitter of some sort and cut back sound a little (simple DMA sound probably would have been more economical than the ensoniq chip, something like the Archimedes perhaps, or an 8 channel Amiga). Using a faster CPU from day 1 would have been critical though and a fast 65C02 (especially an R65C02 with all the added instructions) would have been better than the slow '816, plus they could have used a custom bankswitching scheme that was more desirable than the '816's segmentation. (might have ended up with something more like Hudson's 6280, at least after further consolidation -probably initially just a plain 65C02 with external logic for banking and to allow single cycle memory access timing rather than 1/2 cycles and 2x the RAM speed -hence why the 6280 at 7.16 MHz only needed 140 ns ROM/RAM to run at full speed in, granted you'd need FPM support to reach those speeds in DRAM and you wouldn't get much more than 4 MHz with plain random accesses to DRAM) Then there's also options for boosting a 650x externally with various coprocessors for fixed point math (like the multiply/divide/ALU hardware added to the SNES or Lynx -the Flare 1 did that too, but for Z80/808x).

 

They could also have opted for relegating the 6502 as a coprocessor on a separate bus with all the audio, video, and I/O and add a 68k as the new CPU (sort of an Apple II/Mac hybrid that uses the old hardware relatively efficiently). But, in hindsight, given what happened to the 68k architecture by the early 90s (Motorola limiting licensing of anything beyond the 68000, limiting competitive pricing, falling behind x86 and newer RISC designs), they may have been better off sticking with 650x alone and making the jump to RISC sooner. (ARM would have been the lowest cost option and I believe they entered the open market around 1989 or 1990 -prior to that Acorn had limited it to in-house designs iirc- so they could have jumped in with the ARM2/ARM2as and ARM3 for the high-end stuff -somewhat fitting to make the jump from 650x to ARM given that Acorn supposedly had the 650x as part of their inspiration for the design, and their previous computers had all been 6502 based)

 

 

 

As for going the other route, and putting the Apple II into the low-end market, I think that would have worked with their corporate philosophy at the time. They could have cast the II as a toy or a child's computer, while portraying the Mac as a computer for serious people or somesuch. But as I mentioned, they badly needed the profits coming from the Apple II. If they'd cut the margins to razor-thin like at other companies at the time, they'd likely never have survived to the 90s, let alone until the return of Steve Jobs.

Well, that depends on some things. Lower margins don't mean lower profits unless you don't sell proportionally more in total. You'd want high enough volumes to make those low margins MORE profitable than the high margin low-volume production example. As volumes go up, economies of scale go up (even if they totally outsourced production, the savings would be very substantial, plus such volumes make heavy integration of components more economically attractive), so the margins would again go up as production got cheaper. (they wouldn't have to keep cutting the margins, just managing the prices on the low-end models to remain competitive in value -they lacked the hardware capabilities of much of the competition, but made up for it with software and expandability: again I'm thinking on a simple expansion port for the low-end models that could be extended to a full peripheral module, of course with that module set at a price that would make it more expensive to buy with the low-end machine than a standalone full Apple II)

 

The other thing is that they wouldn't just be pushing for the low-end. They'd have the cut-down low-end models and the full-fledged apple II machines for the mid-range market (probable still at somewhat lower prices, but in part facilitated by the same cost savings of integration on the low-end machines), but then also pushing for even more advanced higher-end models in addition to that.

There's all the hardware possibilities above for evolution of the line, and as it evolved, the older models could fall into the low-end and the previous bottom-end models could be discontinued (and so on).

But beyond true architectural upgrades, there's form factor, and it may have been significant to offer the Apple II in an IBM-like desktop box+separate keyboard form factor with bays for internal disk drives, etc, and a keyboard more competitive with IBM's. (at least a keypad added)

 

And then there's the potential for expansion into the much more price-sensitive European market. (again, the pretty decent tape loading speeds of the Apple II would have been an asset there) They could have had bottom-end machines competitive with the ZX Spectrum's pricing (more than the ZX80/81 though), but getting started earlier and with US software support to boost it early on.

 

 

I agree that going all low-end could have been a bad move for apple, and that's also why it probably wouldn't have been practical to push such a move until the early 80s after they'd built up a fair bit with their initial success of the Apple II in the late 70s. (especially since initial sales for computers in the late 70s was going to be limited in general, and there were the FCC issues for any TV compatible machine that forced Atari's more costly configuration of the 400 and 800 with Class B not arriving until about 1980 -the CoCo and VIC-20 seem to have arrived at just the time to cater to that -Atari lagged with cost reduced redesigns catering to that standard, let alone European models that never had such restrictions)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not really KK, the likes of commodore and atari would have slaughtered them with lower cost products (more commodore then atari ofcourse)

Not Sinclair though, like Apple they had very simple hardware to offer, cheap enough to compete without any vertical integration.

 

Apple got rich by selling lower volume but higher cost value product

Yes, but high volume low-margins could be just as profitable, if not more. (plus I was suggesting higher end/mid-range machines to remain while specific low-end models were introduced -and replace those low-end models with upgraded ones as the higher-end machines evolved)

 

What might have worked is something likened to an apple 2 jnr (made like an atari 400 alike scenario)...just to get consumers thinking seriously about apple as a big player in the home computer biz

That's basically what I'm suggesting, except introduced around 1980/81 in a form factor more like the CoCo (and no FCC class C stuff to deal with), and an even more cost-cut Euro specific model with no shielding at all. (probably bottom end models with hard capped chicklet keyboards -like the CoCo- but then low-end models with proper keyboards at a moderately higher price -something Atari should have done for the 400)

 

Again, I'm not saying it would have been smart for Apple to go full-in low-end, but diversify their market once they got established enough to do so. And, critically, do so with a compatible range of machines rather than totally new/incompatible machines. (Commodore had that problem for sure, Tandy did too for that matter)

Diversity is something Atari would have greatly benefited from as well, like if the 800 had been closer to the Apple II (comprehensive expansion support and monitor only design spec to meet FCC Class A, then have the 400 -preferably with full keyboard models available- for the TV compatible lower-end and go on from there -better if the 400 had a PBI like port for an external expansion box compatible with said internal slots on the 800). Atari engineers initially wanted to push the 800 more into the Apple II design region, but Warner's emphasis on entertainment (and apparently Kassar's insistence on the "appliance computer" concept prevented that).

 

Actually, diversity in the market is something that most major computer manufacturers of the time, even IBM. (they tried with the PCJr, but screwed up pretty badly -Tandy showed how it should have been done, except they limited it to Radio Shack distribution as with their other machines -something that probably helped the TRS-80 early on but ended up limiting Tandy's computers later on when they didn't expand to other outlets and dealers)

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's amazing when you think about how Apple really never had an interest in supporting a lower end market. It's like they just let Atari and Commodore have at it. What a corporate bubble they are indeed, ignoring entire markets and creating their own trends. Perhaps they knew or suspected all along what IBM didn't and the PCjr totally illustrated that for them.

Conversely, Commodore and Atari both could/should have been aiming at diverse markets as well, catering to the low-end, mid-range, and high end with compatible machines. (Atari sort of did that, but marketing was limited, they didn't push the 800 into a "full" computer like the Apple II -internal expansion and FCC Class A design- and CBM kept pushing incompatible machines from the 40 column PET to the 80 column to Super PET to the VIC to B128 to C64 to Plus/4 to Amiga -you did have the C128, but that was rather an inefficient way of allowing compatibility and it clashed more with the Amiga line in the end; if they'd diversified the C64 line directly -let alone if it had been directly VIC compatible- they could have totally cut out the Plus/4 and phased out the VIC in favor of just C64 compatible machines and then the Amiga as the next leap -they could have grafted C64 compatibility onto that too, but that would add other trade-offs especially if done without even making decent use of the C64 chipset)

 

There was Tandy in the lower end market too (though also in the higher end and mid-range), but the CoCo didn't ever manage the market share of the C64 or A8 AFIK. (a lot like the Apple II tech wise, better in some respects even, but it obviously didn't get the same kind of software support as Apple did)

 

 

 

 

I have wondered that too. It was a very simple machine that could have seen a seriously low cost package, but a big part of the value was the expansion slots, and what people put in them.

Yes, but I'm talking about keeping those full models and offering a cut-down package that retained expansion, but limited it to a single slot more like the Laser 128 or some other 8-bits. (same flexible expansion, but only 1 expansion board without adding a separate expansion module chassis -and to make the full Apple II models more attractive, the cost of that chassis plus a low-end model would need to remain higher than models with internal expansion slots)

 

Plus, there's what I addressed above with actual expansion into even higher-end models (and progressive evolution) including a PC-like form factor in addition to the lower-end range.

 

The other thing about Apple, which remains true today, is they just don't sell low margin items, and where they do, they do it strictly to add value to the higher margin ones.

That's what limited (or limits) them to more niche markets whey they had the potential to become a real market leader. A wide range of compatible machines complementing each other could have done wonders for Apple. (and is something that pretty much all the 8-bit computer makers lacked -some had a wide range, but not compatibility -and the value of compatibility and evolutionary design, at least for computers, can often outweigh other cost advantages of a fully incompatible design, especially for architectures fundamentally oriented around flexibility and expandability -something that Atari, Tandy, CBM, and Apple were all limited by, and something IBM was also limited by with their later attempts to regain control of the PC market rather than going with the flow of established market standards of the growing PC clone market -where IBM still would have had an advantage with high volume vertically integrated production and for setting new standards -as long as they didn't conflict with the mass market like MCA did)

 

Not sure, even if they tried, that it would have worked for them on the lower end of things. The Apple ][ was not a low end computer. In terms of it's "in the box" graphics and sound capabilities, it was not the best machine, but those could be rather significantly expanded. Most other machines sold, did not have that option.

Its onboard feature set was even less than the CoCo and more like the ZX Spectrum (actually more limited in some areas), and like the CoCo and Spectrum, it had flexible expandability, but got more support for such expandability for the most part. (part of that was in offering the higher-end models, something they definitely should not have stopped doing if they went for the low-end -the whole idea is to expand their range of the market rather than catering to a small niche; imagine if the Atari 800 had featured the apple-II like expansion slots engineers had wanted, or at least if PBI had been there from day 1 on the 400 and 800 and a 1090XL-like chassis was available as well at a moderate cost -if they had models with that expansion built-in, the pricing should have been managed to make the low-end models plus chassis more expensive than the high-end models, but otherwise there's no limit on the pricing)

 

Because of those things, I've often thought Apple should have done one more ][ style computer, but with a CPU that had more speed and address space. Heh... A 6809 Apple would have ruled, for example. Still 8 bit, but capable of a whole lot more, but realistically, a 16 bit CPU would have been the right move. Since they were already working with Moto, a 16 bit Apple, with a compatability mode, would have sold past the 90's where the 6502 ][ ended, IMHO.

6809 has the same address limitations as the 6502, though better features and clock per clock performance; no compatibility though. (the 65C02, especially with the added Rockwell ISA added many more 6809 competitive features and all the instructions that the 65816 had, but with clock per clock performance disadvantages with the 6809 or '816 -also lower cost than any of those though)

There's no reason not to just push for faster 6502s and later 65C02s and even advantages over doing that rather than jumping to a 65816. (if volumes got high enough, they could even license the 65C02 core for a custom version with such bank-switching/MMU logic integtated into a single package -again, like Hudson's 6280)

 

That move would have changed 16 bit computing some, and Apple would have had a share of it, both with the Mac, and with the ][, and who knows? All the PC cards being developed might have trickled down to the ][, carrying it forward for quite some time.

Why even bother with the Mac as such, why not focus on evolving the Apple II hardware (and software) to the level of the Mac? (from the programming PoV, a 650x -even with with extended ISA and good MMU/banking scheme- wouldn't have been as programmer friendly as the 68k and would have had performance trade-offs -some things the fast/simple instructions of the 650x are better at, other situations where the 68k ISA is better suited- but from the user PoV, as long as the applications run well and the OS was comparable, it shouldn't have mattered -the IIGS's OS was actually better than the Mac's at one point, though with a stock 2.8 MHz CPU, things ran pretty slowly -a blitter would have greatly helped that too)

 

 

I think the GS was sort of like that. Good call. At the time the GS came out, it seemed to not even be near the value needed to warrant the cost. Not sure the 65816 made enough sense, though it did help with 6502 emulation.

 

Maybe it really wasn't possible to do anything else.

There's tons of middle ground from the older Apple II models to the GS, things they could have been pushing even before the IIe, let alone between the IIe and gs, but they didn't.

When the GS came out, it still had an arguable value advantage over the Mac (much better features at lower cost), but the slow CPU and lack of blitter hindered it. (plus Apple's preoccupation with the Mac and generally divided support for the II that was addressed by Ransom)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were some clones and parts that came into the country for a while. You could build an Apple clone for under $500 years before the C64 entered the market. But Apple got them shut down because they didn't have their own ROMs.

Until the Laser 128 with the legally reverse engineered ROMs. (a stronger Apple II market could have meant more clones like that emerging as happened with PCs)

 

 

The Laser 128 2c clone wasn't that expensive, I think around $599 with 128k and a built-in 5 1/4" drive? While I wouldn't say it or the 2c competed in the low-end market like the Vic, C64 or XL/XE series, they were significantly cheaper than the 2e (and certainly 2gs) and within striking distance.

It also offered expansion support and a numeric keypad that the IIC/C+ lacked.

Edited March 23, 2011 by kool kitty89

[jd_1138]

It could be that Apple didn't want to lose sales on the more pricey II series by offering a cheaper version. If they had had a cheaper computer, a lot of people may have bought it instead.

 

Or it could be that they would have increased sa;es by having a cheaper version, because people who wouldn't/couldn't buy a II or a Mac could then buy the cheaper computer.

[JamesD]

I wouldn't cry too hard for Apple over II series sales.

They sold over 6 million of them if I remember right and they had the highest profit margin in the industry.

I believe they outsold Atari... just not Commodore.

 

A 2MHz Apple II would have made a lot of sense instead of the III. The problem with the III is it was too different than the II.

Perhaps integrate an 80 column card, a DAC or AY chip for sound, and remove the weird video memory map but keep the same resolution and color artifacting. It would have been very easy to port software to, and developers would probably write versions for it before a standard II/II+ due to the ease of programming.

 

 

*IF* they had done that then the IIe could have been a highly integrated version of that machine with added higher res graphics.

 

At any point in time, Apple could have dropped prices or created a low cost machine. But why bother when you have one of the top selling machines with a much higher markup?

[jd_1138]

The problem with the III is it was too different than the II.

 

Woz disliked the III. And he didn't even like the Macintosh. He said "let's develop a GUI for the II" but was shot down. The IIc had color but the original Macs were black and white. And the IIc was a good looking machine. I can see why Woz wanted to develop a GUI for it instead of going with the Mac line. Development of the Mac was started in about '82 when the II was still a huge seller.

[The Usotsuki]

Yes, a lot of potential there too, and multiple routes to go for evolving the platform. It took until the IIc Plus to get a faster CPU, but they at least could have bumped it to 2 MHz with interleaving in faster RAM (like the BBC Micro) or 3 or 4 MHz even (but then it would make more sense to switch to a wait state mechanism more like the A8's DMA rather than plain interleaving in fast RAM -or going to a dual bus design, but that's more costly).

The Zip Chip. Which is the exact route they took for the IIc+.

 

There's a lot of middle ground for the IIe to the IIGS in feature set. Maybe just a true 16 color bitmap mode (even if only 140x192),

The DHGR mode could be treated as 140x192x16 (using the same 16 colors as the 40x48 mode); I think at least one video card also did so.

 

you could have a GUI running in monochrome 560x192 and probably decently fast at apple IIc plus speeds

 

They could also have opted for relegating the 6502 as a coprocessor on a separate bus with all the audio, video, and I/O and add a 68k as the new CPU (sort of an Apple II/Mac hybrid that uses the old hardware relatively efficiently).

Something like the //e card for the Mac LC line?

 

But beyond true architectural upgrades, there's form factor, and it may have been significant to offer the Apple II in an IBM-like desktop box+separate keyboard form factor with bays for internal disk drives, etc, and a keyboard more competitive with IBM's. (at least a keypad added)

Well, the //e Platinum (which I own) had a keypad, and there was a prototype IIgs with internal drives.

[Keatah]

The key thing with the Apple // series was the set of expansion slots. They were at the right place at the right time. Eventually the //c came around and effectively replaced the slots with easy-to-use grandma-style connectors.

 

With hardware technicalities now out of the way, the questions turned to what can I do with this computer. And that is where the // series fell short.

 

And another thing having a 6502 and 68000 in the same machine rarely made sense. If it did, we'd still see it today. Dual processors was little more than a hack job back then.

[potatohead]

"Yes, but high volume low-margins could be just as profitable, if not more."

 

Well, I've not seen that. I've seen lots of money made that way, but I've also seen a lot of costs and few real opportunities to add value.

 

That's one thing about the Apple ][ that a lot of people don't get. It was expensive because it had a lot of value added. Great documentation, ROM, case, slots, device cards, etc... It was serious, and expandable, and that made it very capable. Games were weak, but on business / productivity / academic, Apples were very good. The other 8 bitters really didn't compare.

 

Those things don't happen with a lower end machine.

 

Apple would have only lost with a lower price offering.

Edited March 24, 2011 by potatohead

[carmel_andrews]

Apple in low end market....not really....they weren't 'cheap and cheerfull' like commodore/sinclair etc

 

Commodore/sinclair weren't interested in innovation (or quality components etc) much, just getting current tech out of the door at an RBP

 

 

Apple were more the quality manufacturer, apple from what i heard had very little problems with 'returns', unlike commodore and the like (that's why apples tended to stick around for years)

[Keatah]

Apple in low end market....not really....they weren't 'cheap and cheerfull' like commodore/sinclair etc

 

Commodore/sinclair weren't interested in innovation (or quality components etc) much, just getting current tech out of the door at an RBP

 

 

Apple were more the quality manufacturer, apple from what i heard had very little problems with 'returns', unlike commodore and the like (that's why apples tended to stick around for years)

 

I found my Apple ][ systems to be very reliable, except for when I plugged in cards with the power on or when we'd stick pins into the ic-sockets to "Tap" into the signals and feed it to an amplifier for extra sounds.

[high voltage]

 

Read the book on the left, by early 80s, Apple wanted to kill off the Apple ][, as LISA and a bit later, MAC were the focus of the company.

Steve Jobs hated the Apple ][ going strong by then, he sure wanted the Apple ][ come to an end....maybe that's why they didn't bother with a price reduction (Hey, we keep the price high, nobody will buy it anymore).

Of course, Apple ][ in all US schools didn't help much, as it stayed popular there for a long time.

Edited March 30, 2011 by high voltage

[JamesD]

I've often wondered if Steve Jobs wanted the Lisa/Mac to take off and the II to die as a visionary thing (it's the future), or was it because those were his baby and Steve had to share the limelight with Woz on the II?

[Mirage]

I've often wondered if Steve Jobs wanted the Lisa/Mac to take off and the II to die as a visionary thing (it's the future), or was it because those were his baby and Steve had to share the limelight with Woz on the II?

 

I'm about halfway through the book "The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation" by Jay Elliot, and without going into the details (that's what the book is for, after all), it sounds like a bit of both, probably leaning toward the former. The book is excellent, by the way. The best I've yet read on Apple/Jobs.

[JamesD]

BTW, the GUI on the IIgs allowed source code to be shared between it and the Mac (for the most part) so that was a pretty logical step for the II series.

 

One thing I hated about the II line was the memory banking introduced for 128K. The memory wasn't in one location like the language card, it also switched other areas of memory which makes memory management more difficult.

[JamesD]

There were some clones and parts that came into the country for a while. You could build an Apple clone for under $500 years before the C64 entered the market. But Apple got them shut down because they didn't have their own ROMs.

Until the Laser 128 with the legally reverse engineered ROMs. (a stronger Apple II market could have meant more clones like that emerging as happened with PCs)

Food for thought...

At one time there was a web site dedicated to Apple II clones. There were over 100 the site knew of and in some countries they were sold legally (places like Brazil).

If you count all the clones sold, the II series might just have outsold the C64... but we'll never really know.

 

The same could be said for the Speccy but it was designed as a low cost machine up until later Russian machines. Even the Apple II clones weren't small minimalist machines and were priced higher than Speccy clones where the two were in competition.

FWIW, even the CoCo had clones in Brazil.

[Streck]

I've often wondered if Steve Jobs wanted the Lisa/Mac to take off and the II to die as a visionary thing (it's the future), or was it because those were his baby and Steve had to share the limelight with Woz on the II?

Honestly, I think that once the Apple II had served its purpose (in Jobs' mind), he couldn't have cared less about it. What's fascinating about him is that he doesn't have a shred of nostalgia for past achievements. He'll be thrilled to have his company popularize the next big paradigm shift in popular electronics, and will then gleefully bury it as soon as he can for the next big shift.

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QgPhaEoL_jAJ:www.netherworld.com/~mgabrys/clock/weak5.html&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

 

This paints a pretty clear picture of what Apple management's mindset was regarding the Apple II, and it actually didn't depend on Jobs' presence.

 

It still boggles my mind that a company would devote as little attention as possible to the product that was generating most of its revenue. That's just lunacy. But if you look at other microcomputer companies from back then, they always assumed that there was no way a single product would last more than a few years. They didn't seem to understand the concept or implications of a persistent legacy architecture - one could forgive them for this, since the microcomputer industry was still extremely young, but there was a ton of precedent for it from the mainframe and minicomputer industries. Making that assumption would have been the riskier bet, though.

Edited March 31, 2011 by Streck