cs472226@umbc5.umbc.edu (David Wood (CS472226)) (05/19/89)
Hang on, I'm reading the package...
"To prepare flame, put in VT/100 set at 4800 baud for 7 seconds or
until done. Be careful not to overcook, as overflaming makes a message
bitter and tough to read. Season to taste with dry witticisms (wet
witticisms will put flame out)."
Okay, I think I'm ready.
Just yesterday in the mail, I received a fairly long, thin, stiff
envelope from APDA (Too thin to be a new APDAlog, too stiff to be a mere
letter).
I opened it up, and there was a cardstock-type letter (with suspiciously
card-shaped perforations in it) welcoming me to APDA (I've been a member
for two or so years already) and giving me a new membership card (the
card-shaped perforations, remember?).
But why was it so stiff? I moved the letter, and underneath, there
was a memo board (!) and wet-erase pen with APDA's number on it at the
bottom. At the top, there was a Gary-Larson-ripoff style cartoon
featuring one caveman in the foreground looking at a square wheel while
two more cavemen in the background say (paraphrasing caption) "Maybe
someone should tell Travis about the APDA Technical Hotline."
Of course, I've seen the APDALog for a while now, and can say the
cartoon should have had more panels:
PANEL2: A caveman looking surprisedly to the right (off-panel) while
sitting on top of a fairly large wooden ox-drawn wagon while a voiceover
(paraphrasing caption) says "Bill got help from them for his Apple
II..."
PANEL3: A caveman standing behind a Lamborgh- a Lambergh- a Lamberge-
a Corvette, wearing sunglasses, a leather jacket, and a cat-that-ate-
the-canary smile, while voiceover narration says "and Mike got help from
them for his Mac."
Does this imply a bias? Do you feel there is something wrong?
Good.
Case in point:
I pick up the current APDALog (Apple, Spring '89) and open it to
the catalog's table of contents (page C-1, after page 46 of articles)
and look down the listing. It's open in front of me now, so these
figures are correct.
Apple II ...................pp C-2 -- C-7 (6 pages)
Apple IIGS .................pp C-8 -- C-17 (10 pages)
Macintosh ..................pp C-18 -- C-61 (44 pages)
On the facing page (p46), they list all the products that are new to
this catalog.
Apple II ...................0. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Apple IIGS .................2
Macintosh ..................Hang on while I count...
Lessee now... Under "Macintosh," they have 32, 2 for "A/UX", 2 for
"Hypercard", and 4 for "MacWorkStation." I should probably also count 4
under "Networking & Communications".
Let's try this again:
Macintosh ..................44
APDA is supposed to support all Apples, II, GS OR MAC. At the moment,
it looks a bit ...skewed.
Can you say "lip service?"
I knew you could.
Let's try this again with languages. Some-Many of these are third
party and not listed in the APDALog.
For the Apple II, there's Applesoft (gah), Assembly, Pascal, C, and
Forth (that I know of).
For the IIGS, there's different versions of the same languages and
Fortan.
For the Macintosh, I see Lisp, Smalltalk, Assembly, Basic, C, Forth,
Fortran, Modula-2, Pascal, and I've heard of Prolog too.
This race is much closer, but Mac pulls through again.
If you didn't have that feeling of dread after the attempted cartoon
description, you should have it now.
The point is, the rumors of the II's demise had to start somewhere,
and this is a possible source. With the Mac receiving what looks like
about 80% of Apple's Technical Design Knowhow on new products, the II
and GS are being left in the dust with regards to development support.
With this sort of (lack of) development support, developers who want
to design something will tend to stay away from the II and GS and work
on the Mac.
With all the developer support going to the Mac, the only real
products coming out will be Mac products.
With only Mac products coming out, nobody wants the II or GS.
With prople only buying the Mac, Apple Computer won't need to support
the II or GS.
Now if we could only convince Upper Management. Of course, they got
into Upper Management originally so they wouldn't have to put up with
this sort of whining, so we all know the chance of THAT.
Someone else mentioned that it looks as if Apple Computer is
sacrificing all IIs in an effort to defeat the PS/2, a system many
people already don't trust because OS/2 hadn't been officially released
and already they're dumping it in favor of an OS/3.
What people want in a computer company is inexpensive computing power
and regular support. That's why so many people originally bought the II
and GS.
And why not? Being orphaned by a corporate war is only slightly
better than being orphaned because of a minor detail someone forgot on
a design meeting (the lack of shielding on the Radio Shack Model 1's CPU
forced the FCC to make them recall and put shielding in the units that
they currently supported. Radio Shack turned to its users and said
"Sayonara, suckas!").
There is only ONE case that I know of where a computer was dropped
completely, out-of-hand, permanently, and without any support
whatsoever, but IBM doesn't like people mentioning the PC/jr in that
context, so I wont. :)
Still, from the buyer's point of view, being orphaned is being
orphaned is being orphaned no matter what, and when it happens, nobody
is going to trust the disowning parent company ever again.
-David Wood
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