gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu (02/12/90)
> It was my understanding that the SE is already *incredibly* cheap to > make: $150-200, even cheaper than the ^^^^^^^^ I think this is wrong. When the SE first came out, the manufacturing cost was estimated at $400+ [MacUser, 1987]. Since its introduction, they've added a more expensive floppy disk, so it may be $500+ to manufacture the SE. And you have to add a keyboard, perhaps $50 to manufacture. Retail prices are necessarily twice manufacturing costs, to pay for storefronts, advertising, new development, stock dividends, etc. So unless the price has dropped drammatically, the cheapest the 2-floppy Mac SE could sell for is $1100+. Apple needs a machine that is about $1000 with a hard disk.
dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) (02/13/90)
Remember, Apple deliberately made the stock Apple III slightly
incompatible with the Apple II, to avoid infringing on the II's market.
And they avoided improving the II for a long time, to avoid competing
with the III.
This makes me really curious to see what the new machine will be. If
Apple follows its usual policy, the machine will be crippled, so that
it won't compete with the SE. How can they cripple it?
1. Slower processor (THAT would be funny)
2. 800K drive (probably; surely they won't return to 400K)
3. No expansion slot (could be)
4. No SCSI (talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face)
5. Limited memory (2M soldered on, as someone else suggested)
6. Smaller screen (speaking of jokes)
What you WON'T see is:
1. Color
2. anything better than a 68000 at <8MHz
because that would give the new machine capabilities beyond the SE (I assume
the Plus is headed for its grave as soon as MacCheap is announced.)
Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
--
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner