dudek@utai.UUCP (11/27/87)
There's been a lot of talk lately about whether Apple is
making it's older machines obsolete too quickly.
I would certainly agree that Apple has to move forward &
hence will unavoidably come out with products that are not
back compatible. In fact, it's been the desire to remain backwards
compatible that has motivated many of the architectural features
that cause the IBM PC to be so DISLIKED among the technical
community.
On the other hand, much of IBMs success is due to it's continuing
support for customers who depend on "obsolete technology". My
impression is that by *discontinuing support* for older
Macs, Apple is making a potentially serious mistake. Despite the
elitism prevalent in this group, there are many people who LIKED
the 128K Mac. Some people I consult with use the Mac ONLY for
small-time word processing and were quite happy with MacWrite 2.2!.
One is doing serious accountancy with a 512K Mac and ancient
software . Many "real people" just want to get their job done on a
reasonably stable system irrespective of the latest technology.
It would imaging that many of the oh-so-desirable business users are
of this mentality.
I would have though Apple could keep supporting older configurations
like the 64K ROMs for a few more years without that much trouble.
That doesn't mean drastically new software, just hardware support
and maybe a few minor software fixes to existing packages. NOT because
it's going to earn a tons of money or even great goodwill, but
because by cutting these people off it earns a lot if ILL will.
If I have to go telling people that they have to shell out $1.3K
for an upgrade (that's what it costs here, before tax) just to get
continuing support, I can guarantee some will be quite displeased.
Their only alternative may be to lose the option of support -- an
unpleasant prospect.
Perhaps Apple wants to encourage people to upgrade by explicitly
not coming out with upgrades to 64K ROM software. That's the
kind of blackmail that I don't think will pay off.
Greg Dudek
--
Dept. of Computer Science (vision group) University of Toronto
Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsri!dudek
CSNET: dudek@ai.toronto.edu DELPHI: GDUDEKgillies@uiucdcsp.UUCP (11/30/87)
From a technical standpoint, I cannot see how Apple could AVOID
withdrawing support for some of the older machines. It is nearly
impossible to support so many machines in so many configurations.
Assumine you plan ahead, I would estimate that if a new release takes
N units of work, then a new release for two versions of the underlying
O/S + Hardware probably takes N^2 work. If there are three versions
of the O/S, it's N^3 work. If Apple were to support all previous
versions, you would never see anything new from Apple.
One of the problems is testing. If you support 10 major pieces of
application software (and Apple maintains more), then you must test 10
packages when you release a new system/finder. If you support 2
system/finders, you must test 20 times. 3 system/finders, 30
tests. And bug track very extremely complex.
Another problem is version control and forked development. If each
piece of software must be slightly different for each system/finder,
then you have programmers knifing themselves because they cannot keep
track of what goes with what and which bug was in which release of
system x.y.z. Not to mention the hassles in trying to write
conversion code (say, from MacWrite 9.8 to MacWrite 10.0 files).
Don Gillies {ihnp4!uiucdcs!gillies} U of Illinois
{gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu}crimmins@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (12/04/87)
/* Written 12:15 pm Dec 1, 1987 by dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM in uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.sys.mac */ > Well Hp, Dec and IBM all have many more models of Machines [...] And they > actually have support organizations and hotlines you can call to get answers > and problems solved. They don't just refer you to some uninformed technically > incompetent retail dealer! umm...actually, I have an IBM AT myself, and have tried 3-4 times to talk to a tech support person at IBM. The consistent reply I get is "Where did you buy it? Go back to the dealer (univ. in my case) and talk with them." The identical tact that Apple has taken. Now, IBM has a marvelous reputation for supporting large corporate customers, but they also feel they can walk all over the little guy. With the cost of today's systems, I'd like to think I was getting a little more after-the-sale support from the manufacturer in the form of telephone support and minimum 1 yr. warranties. Well, I can dream, can't I? -- Dan Crimmins crimmins@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu