ernie@nmtvax.UUCP (09/23/84)
It was interesting to see the comments posted by Mike Conley and Mike Ward re: the 512 Mac upgrade. Herein I'd like to exaplain a few things they missed, and so here I go: >> = Mike Conley (...unm-cvax!cs4911ay) || = Mike Ward (...hao!ward) >> ... When the Mac was fiist announced, the >> price was $1995... I never saw $1995 as an "announced" price. I did see it as a "predicted" price, but that wasn't Apple talking. >> ... Then, when it >> finally saw the light of day, filtered through display windows, the price >> had somehow escalated to $2495 -- for the bare-bones system, of course. Bare bones? I don't know what most people consider "bare bones", but I doubt that a computer equipped with the equivalent of a monitor, a disk drive, serial ports, extra disk port, a mouse and $200 worth of software fits that description. >> ... We all sprung our $2995 for the Mac and the printer, and >> shortly afterwards realized that the thing was absolutely useless without >> the second disk drive. I realized that after playing with one in the store for about fifteen minutes. That's one of the reasons that I didn't buy one when it first came out. I guess what happened to you is what happens when someone doesn't play around extensively with something before he buys it. >> ...a workable system sells for $4485. Huh? $4485? Where did THAT figure come from? Right now a 128K Mac with a printer can be had for $2395, plus the $995 upgrade, that's about $3400. What's the extra $1100 for? >> ... They should properly be giving the damn thing [512K upgrade] away >> for the price of labor, since the price hike in the beginning covers >> what the upgrade should be costing now. Hah! There never was a "price hike", just a lot of surprised people when the figure the computer magazines gave turned out to be $500 low. As for giving it away for labor cost, why should Apple give away two 256K chips and all the hardware changes that come with the higher port speeds? Apple has a responsiblity to its stockholders as well as its customers. || ... Apple has dropped the price (effective someday) by $300. "Someday" is now. List on a 128K mac is now $2195. || ...before the Mac, the only decent thing they [Apple] || produced was little more than a toy, and that they have || produced failure after failure - if the Mac had not sold well || that company would now be worth zip! HUH? Accepting for the moment (even though I don't) that the //e is "little more than a toy", Apple's only really significant failure was the Apple ///. The Lisa actually sold as many as Apple predicted, just not as many as they had hoped. Had Mac not taken off, the increased popularity of the //e after the PCjr came out would assuredly kept the company's head above water, assuming it was in any real danger in the first place. || ...Is anybody going to be stupid enough to buy a Fat Mac at $3100? Probably a lot more people than those who were stupid enough to buy a computer for $2500 on the basis of a neat commercial and lots of promises :-). Lessons Learned: Don't buy a computer just because it is "cute" or even "insanely great". Buy it because you know it can do everything (or at least most everything) you want it to do for the forseeable future. Don't buy a computer without the software you need. If the salesman says "someday", wait for "someday", or if you can't, get another machine. And last but never least, don't buy a computer you want to do serious work on until it has been on the market for at least nine months. If you buy before that, be prepared for broken promises and some surprises. Just think, if the two Mikes had waited until now to get their Macs, they could have had a much better system for only $700 more. I doubt that they would have been any worse off for the time without the Macs. Come on guys, if you don't want to get shafted, don't bend over. .rne. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...{convex,ucbvax,gatech,csu-cs,anl-mcs}!unmvax!nmtvax!ernie | Box 3101 C/S ...{purdue,cmc12}!lanl-a!nmtvax!ernie | Socorro NM 87801
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (09/27/84)
[chew on this gibberish for awhile]
Has anyone noticed that the size of programs always expand to fill the
available memory? Does anyone out there really think that a 128k MAC
will be useful 6 months from now?
What else will we get with a 512k MAC except bigger programs that take
longer to load? Is there any truth to rumors of MULTI-TASKING MAC software?
And what about batch processing of command lists? What new USEFUL features
have we really gotten? What USEFUL features have we lost in exchange for
screen sex?
This memory problem really irks me. The IBM has this problem too, and in
spades. Remember the good old days when Wordstar was considered a BIG
program in 24k? Now programmers can afford to use terribly inefficient
compilers and write code in the quick-and-dirty. Is this good? Next
we all get multi-tasking systems that put a premium on tight and
re-entrant code so it dosen't hog the whole machine. Either that, or
move to virtual memory type operating systems and just swap the hell
out of everything.
And while I'm at it, does anyone out there really thing that the wave
of 16 bit processors really gave us higher performance? I think all
it gave us was more addressing space. It STILL takes 2 bus transfers
to load an address into the processor. And SURE we went to higher
clock rates on processors, but with the new EXPANDED instruction sets
instructions take 4 times (or more) as many clock cycles to execute!
Instruction sets are larger, so instruction codes are bigger, and so
are instructions. OBOY now we have more instruction fetch cycles per
instruction and the code is larger. What used to run in 64k now runs
in 256k JUST SO WE COULD HAVE MORE ADDRESSING RANGE! Is this progress?
Disk space just got smaller. That's ok, you have a winchester?
I think the only computer 'for the rest of us' is still an
ATARI or COMMODORE.
Don't get me wrong, I like screen sex, but there's more to life than
just sex.
but sex SELLS!
Keith Doyle
{ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithdhlb@loral.UUCP () (09/28/84)
I think that the long dissertation regarding the MAC is
getting a little ridiculous.
I think people are exhibiting just a bit much animosity because
the upgrade is not as inexpensive as one would like. I think
people in manufacturing will have a better appreciation of the
cost.
What I cannot understand is if those who bought early never liked
the machine or felt it didn't fit their needs----why buy it?
Why not wait 6 mos.? I never buy the first anything.
Perhaps, the childish desire to be 'the first on the block with
a Macintosh' prevailed over the common or consumer sense of those
early buyers.
{ that should certainly generte some fire }rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) (09/29/84)
+--------------- | ...Remember the good old days when Wordstar was considered a BIG | program in 24k? ... | | Keith Doyle | {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd +--------------- No, I skipped that generation. But in MY "good ol' days" an 8K-word PDP-8 (12K byte-equivalent) comfortably ran TECO (an editor), TED (a screen editor written in TECO), and even *gasp* FORTRAN (both the compiler and user programs). Of course, with 12K (18 Kbyte-equiv) you could run the batch system, or even foreground/background multi-tasking real-time (keep editing and compiling while you control and collect data from those experiments [plural] in your lab). Oh yeah, and about a half-million instructions per second. And cheaper than a Mac. (So, there!) Rob Warnock UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd}!fortune!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)369-7437 Envoy: rob.warnock/kingfisher USPS: Suite 203, 4012 Farm Hill Blvd, Redwood City, CA 94061
glen@intelca.UUCP (Glen Shires) (10/01/84)
+--------------- | ...Remember the good old days when Wordstar was considered a BIG | program in 24k? ... | | Keith Doyle | {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd +--------------- > No, I skipped that generation. But in MY "good ol' days" an 8K-word PDP-8 > (12K byte-equivalent) comfortably ran TECO (an editor), TED (a screen editor > written in TECO), and even *gasp* FORTRAN (both the compiler and user programs). > Of course, with 12K (18 Kbyte-equiv) you could run the batch system, or even > foreground/background multi-tasking real-time (keep editing and compiling while > you control and collect data from those experiments [plural] in your lab). > Oh yeah, and about a half-million instructions per second. And cheaper than > a Mac. > > (So, there!) > > Rob Warnock The PDP-8 we used in high school had 16K twelve-bit words (24Kbytes) and ran time-sharing TSS-8 with up to 8 users [8Kwords for the operating system and 4Kwords for each user (swapped in&out from disk)]. We had a very good chess program that ran in 4Kwords (6Kbytes). Theorem: if you have a lot of memory, you use it. Corrolary: if you don't have it, you make do. -- ^ ^ Glen Shires, Intel, Santa Clara, Ca. O O Usenet: {ucbvax!amd,pur-ee,hplabs}!intelca!glen > ARPA: "amd!intelca!glen"@BERKELEY \-/ --- stay mellow