gregr@tekig1.UUCP (09/04/83)
Someone recently asked in a fairly sarcastic manner why anyone would own
a lowly Apple computer. I thought someone should take a few moments to
defend the old horse so I wrote the following reply. I've posted it here
because most REAL micro owner's probably don't know it still has a few
breath's left before Big Blue runs it over. Others may at least be curious.
Why does anyone own an Apple you ask?
Well my Apple
1. Has a keyboard with its own uP which produces all possible ASCII
characters, allows each key to be redefined to produce any of 8
different macros per key (redefinition via keyboard or disk file),
has both slow and fast auto-repeat capability, and includes 16
macro-redefinable function keys to name only a few of its keyboard
features. (Videx) Does your PC?
2. Has an excellent 80 column display (I believe it to be far better
than my IBM monochrome display at work. An optional 128, 132, or even
160 columns by up to 48 row display is very inexpensively available.
(Also Videx) Does your PC?
3. Currently has 144K of RAM and can be expanded practically indefinitely. I am about to add a 294K disk emulator board. Does your PC have this
capability?
4. Has both a 6502 uP which runs the largest selection of software
for any PC known, and a 6Mhz Z80B which is running CPM PLUS (3.0) which
provides such useful features as I/O redirection, path searches, banked
memory management, and much, much more. In addition a super fast
3.6 MHZ 6502 uP is available if desired, several 8088 boards, and
several 68000 boards. In short it provides all the expandibility
of an S100 system, with the advantage of OEM focus on a specific
machine. Of course a huge selection of other options boards are
available including memory boards, solid state disks, RGB boards, I/O
boards, speech processors (input and output), and on and on and on.
Does your PC have all this?
5. Disk drives and controller boards are readily available with software
support for single density (143K), double density, and double sided
double density 5 1/4 floppies, as well as 8 inch floppies, and hard
disks. Other storage systems are also available including 9 track
tape drives! By virtue of both Apple Dos and CP/M no other PC even
comes in a close second in terms of Software available for all these
disks. How about your PC?
I could continue to go on but what's the point? Oh yes, do Apples really run
games? I didn't know that!! abc@brl-bmd@sri-unix.UUCP (09/07/83)
From: Brint Cooper (CTAB) <abc@brl-bmd> Another reason: If you teach in an elementary school where Apple computers are being used in the classroom, and if you wish to write and evaluate instructional software at home, and if you do not wish (or are not allowed) to carry the school's microcomputer back and forth, then you own an Apple! Why, you may ask, did the school obtain an Apple? The answer's as old as computing: other schools in the District already owned Apples, and they wanted software compatibility, common expertise, and a single maintenance contract. Brint
NBarbieri.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP (09/07/83)
How many times have I heard the reason someone indunlged himself in an Apple was for the software support? It seems to me that you would buy the software for the computer, not the computer for the software.... Nick NBarbieri.es@parc-maxc
abc@brl-bmd@sri-unix.UUCP (09/07/83)
From: Brint Cooper (CTAB) <abc@brl-bmd>
How many times have I heard the reason someone indunlged himself in an
Apple was for the software support? It seems to me that you would buy
the software for the computer, not the computer for the software....
Nick
In principle, this is true. Like all platitudes ("motherhood is good,
etc.) it confronts cases where it fails. It would do my wife no good
to buy the IBM PC, no matter how superior it is to the Apple IIe, when
her purpose in having a computer at home is to work with the software
which she uses during the day on the Apple IIe owned by her employer.
Brintsteve@brl-bmd@sri-unix.UUCP (09/07/83)
From: Stephen Wolff <steve@brl-bmd> If your view is very widely held, it may explain my impression that there are LOTS more computers around running brain-damaged software than there are nifty software hacks languishing for hardware to run on. -steve
Seiler@mit-xx@sri-unix.UUCP (09/07/83)
From: Larry Seiler <Seiler@mit-xx> Correction: people USED TO buy the software for the computer. Most non-computer people who want a computer want it for an application, so deciding what software you want and then buying a computer that provides it is a reasonable thing to do. And if you are not a programmer, the fanciest hardware in the world is worthless without software support. Larry Seiler -------
grunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP (09/08/83)
#R:tekig1:-130300:uiuccsb:4400011:000:876 uiuccsb!grunwald Sep 7 12:58:00 1983 All of these advantages of the Apple that you mention are not so much advantages of the Apple per se, they are add-ons that other people have come up with. The 8080 boards, the extended displays, the different keysets, etc etc..Those don't come with a "stock" apple. A "stock" off-the-shelf apple is nearly useless for any serious work. In time, all the perpherials available for the apple will be available for other machines. The apples main advantage in this area is that it has been around for a while, and thus lots of people have designed add-ons. I would venture to say that if you tried to make an apple be equivilent to another more recent PC as far as memory, disk drives, speed, etc go, then you'd wind up having a very hacked-up system and lots of bills. dirk "put it to pasture" grunwald grunwald.uiuc@Rand-Relay ihnp4 ! uiucdcs ! grunwald
romkey@mit-borax@sri-unix.UUCP (09/08/83)
From: John L. Romkey <romkey@mit-borax>
Ok, in my opinion, decvax!tektronix!tekid!tekig1!gregr@ucb-vax asked for it
with the flame about why apple's are better than ibm PCs.
******** FLAME ON ********
1) keyboard uP and flexibility. Apple's can produce all possible ASCII
characters, allowing each key to be redefined. That's great; it's too bad
that the normal keyboard doesn't have all the ascii characters on it. My
PC's keyboard is soft; I can do anything I want with it, including making it
Dvorak (which isn't really something I want to do). It's easy to write and
install a new keyboard driver which cooperates with the operating system on
my PC. And my PC's keyboard comes with the PC.
2) My PC has an excellent 80 column display. The monochrome display doesn't
bother my eyes, and I prefer it over other displays that I've used around
the lab. I haven't used an 80 column display on an apple, so I can't compare
them, but I don't see anything wrong with the PC's display. Does the apple
80 column display do inverse video, highlighting, blinking and underlining?
And how much do you have to pay for a monitor to use the inexpensive
48x128 or 132 or 160 character display?
3) Memory arguments seem pretty silly. My PC used to have 192K of RAM in it.
Lots of people by disk emulators for their PC's. I know one person whose PC
has at least 2M of RAM in it. Can your processor directly address 1M of RAM?
The 8088 can. And speaking of processors,
4) Oh, so the apple has the wonderful, famous, powerful 6502. Blah. I don't
think that people should boast about those kinds of things. I would find it
mildly embarassing. There are places for 6502s and 6800s and 8080s (and yes,
sadly, even the Z80 now), and running as the main processor in my PC is not
one of them. I would dispute the claim that the 6502 has the largest
selection of software available for it. Does all of it run on the apple? How
much runs on Commodore machines?
Seriously, you can build an 8088 based machine pretty cheaply now and
comparing the 8088 to any 8 bit processor, I think the winner is the 8088.
That doesn't mean I like the 8088; I don't. I think it's a tremendous crock
(but I don't want to start up THAT argument again) and that the 68000 and
especially the 16032 are far superior. But the memory arguments about the
apple vs. the PC are bogus: first, the PC can have as much or more memory
than the apple, and second, the PC can access the memory in a more natural
way. I would almost always opt for a large, directly accessed address space
over bank switching.
Was there a hint that the apple is as good or better than an S100 system?
All the expandability? Maybe some S100 user would like to take offense; I
certainly would if I had an S100 system. And new hardware for the PC? Take a
look at Byte or PC magazine. Yes, I believe that any board you can buy for
your apple, I can find for my PC. Lots of disk drives and hard disks, too.
And even an ethernet interface.
I also believe (but cannot substantiate this belief, perhaps someone who's
used CP/M 3.0 and MSDOS 2.0 can help me) that anything CP/M 3.0 can do,
MSDOS 2.0 can do (better?). MSDOS 2.0 has i/o redirection and path searches
and installable device drivers and lots of stuff (no, I really like Unix
better and think that MSDOS 2.0 is broken in a variety of uninteresting
ways, but that's a different flame).
It bothers me when people, faced with new hardware (new ideas?), clutch at
their old machines and shout that they're better, when even a superficial
analysis shows the newer machine to be better. I understand that they might
not want to throw out their old machine and go buy a new one; few people can
really afford that. And I understand why people won't want to say "well,
your machine is better then mine but I can't afford one like yours...". But
getting up on a soapbox and shouting out that something that seems ill
researched and largely prejudiced (though I've done it before, and might be
doing it now) seems silly and leads to long flaming sessions. Especially
when taunts are thrown in for extra heat.
So, I'll leave with a taunt of my own. I typed this message on an IBM PC. I
was telnetting to a vax, Mit-Borax, when I typed it. I netted into the vax
over a 10Mb ethernet, and my PC was running TCP/IP and was connected to the
ethernet by a 3COM ethernet interface. Can your apple do that?
John Romkey
romkey@mit-boraxjed@mb2c.UUCP (09/09/83)
It is interesting to read an article discounting the capability of the Apple to be expanded. I have had mine for more than five years, and every time I want to do something new, I have always been able to expand the system to handle it. The new //e removes many of the faults of the original system and with the additional signals available on the new memory/video slot has increased the ability of the machine to be expanded. I remember when the Atari 400/800 came out there were foresighted who predicted the demise of the Apple within months. The Exidy Sorceror was also going to drive Apple to the grave. The Apple-II system bought today will still be doing useful work for many years due to the openness of the architecture and the size of the market. John Duncan (mb2c!jed) Michigan Bell (313) 424-0178
eric@aplvax.UUCP (09/09/83)
It is true that much of the favorable things about the Apple are produced other firms. But assuming this will happen on other machines is incorrect. How many other firms produce 68000 boards for the Osbourne? Or the DEC Rainbow? Most micro manufacturers do not publish the necessary information, or design their machines so that such addition can not be done. Of the machines out today, only the Apple, IBM PC, and the S-100 systems have this kind of flexibility. Of these, the Apple is still the cheapest. Maybe not the most powerful, but still a good buy for the hobbiest. eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric
eric@aplvax.UUCP (09/09/83)
Ooops, I accidently forgot about the Atari. Certainly there are outside vendors for the Atari, although not to the extent of the others. eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric
eric%ucb-vax@aplvax.UUCP (09/09/83)
Article-I.D.: aplvax.316 In-Reply-To: Article <2736@uiucdcs.UUCP> <315@aplvax.UUCP> Ooops, I accidently forgot about the Atari. Certainly there are outside vendors for the Atari, although not to the extent of the others. eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric
rconn@brl@sri-unix.UUCP (09/11/83)
From: Rick Conn <rconn@brl> Notice in the latest Byte a one-liner: "Apple Computer Inc. ammounced that the one millionth Apple computer was produced in June"? See Sep 83 Byte, Page 8 (a few lines from the bottom). Rick
kline@uiucuxc.UUCP (09/22/83)
#R:tekig1:-130300:uiucuxc:3700065:000:111 uiucuxc!kline Sep 12 08:50:00 1983 So the Apple II will be to microcomputer hardware what FORTRAN is to the scientific computing world, right?