kscott@cca.ucsf.edu (Kevin Scott) (10/26/89)
In article <879@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael J Kobb) writes: >Okay, well I've just come from our friendly campus computer center. Anyone >want to comment as to why a replacement mouse for my Mac Plus, ... > ... costs $75 when it only contains: 4 pieces of custom plastic, In article <21104@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> pff@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes: >Don't forget the Apple logo. >IT IS MADE AND SOLD BY APPLE!!!!! That's why. >As someone posted earlier: "I will show Apple the same amount of consumer >loyalty as they have shown customer loyalty." Agreed. I have recently tried to fix a single key on my mac keyboard when the cap to the 'M' key broke off. $50!!! One might as well get a new keyboard rather than risk other keys being worn out as well. I have heard stories about replacement disk drives being ripoff also. As far as consumer loyalty goes, why isn't there a mac clone out yet? What does someone have to do, now that the look and feel suit is won, to make a mac compatible computer?
dawyd@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (David Walton) (10/26/89)
In article <2529@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> kscott@cca.ucsf.edu.UUCP (Kevin Scott) writes: > >As far as consumer loyalty goes, why isn't there a mac clone out yet? >What does someone have to do, now that the look and feel suit is won, >to make a mac compatible computer? I think it's because Apple has proprietary system software. Considering the number of system calls a Macintosh application makes, if the system software that emulates a Mac isn't REAL close (probably close enough to cause another look-n-feel suit), things may die a horrible death. And if folks were found disassembling Apple's system software on their own machines (or, as far as that goes, * running * Apple's system software on other machines, if I remember the license agreement correctly), Apple would soon make it rather uncomfortable for them to continue. This is all just speculation on my part (since I'm away from any sort of thing that could confirm any of it), but I believe these may be at least part of the reason nobody has tried to build a MacClone. -Dawyd -- David Walton Internet: dwal@tank.UChicago.EDU University of Chicago { Any opinions herein are my own, not } Computing Organizations { those of my employers (or anybody else). }
steveg@tove.umd.edu (Steve Green) (10/26/89)
In article <2529@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> kscott@cca.ucsf.edu.UUCP (Kevin Scott) writes: ]In article <879@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael J Kobb) writes: ]>Okay, well I've just come from our friendly campus computer center. Anyone ]>want to comment as to why a replacement mouse for my Mac Plus, ... ]> ... costs $75 when it only contains: 4 pieces of custom plastic, ] ]In article <21104@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> pff@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes: ]>Don't forget the Apple logo. ]>IT IS MADE AND SOLD BY APPLE!!!!! That's why. ]>As someone posted earlier: "I will show Apple the same amount of consumer ]>loyalty as they have shown customer loyalty." ] ]Agreed. I have recently tried to fix a single key on my mac keyboard when the ]cap to the 'M' key broke off. $50!!! One might as well get a new keyboard ]rather than risk other keys being worn out as well. I have heard stories about ]replacement disk drives being ripoff also. ] ]As far as consumer loyalty goes, why isn't there a mac clone out yet? What does ]someone have to do, now that the look and feel suit is won, to make a mac ]compatible computer? Sorry, but this is not the doing of Apple. Its your firendly Apple dealer that should be jailed for robing you. I know of some dealers around here that would only charge you $15.00 for the 5 minute repair. Do you take your car to the dealer to get a fan belt replaced??? Probably not because the local gas station will do it for half the price. When are those Pontiac clones coming out anyway?? :-) -- -steveg@tove.umd.edu ..uunet!tove.umd.edu!steveg "Ignore the message: 'ld warning: file /tmp/kernAAAa06386 has no relocation information' if it appears."
seymour@milton.acs.washington.edu (Richard Seymour) (10/27/89)
there is a MAc Clone: the Amiga (no, i don't have one) They do it by using old Mac 128kROMs to provide the system calls. The three parts: Mac-compatible floppy drive, external circuit card and the ROM set total about $500 in the magazines. how they get the ROMs in commercial quantities, i do not know... -dick seymour@uwaphast
meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen) (10/27/89)
In article _ seymour@milton.acs.washington.edu (Richard Seymour) writes: >there is a MAc Clone: the Amiga (no, i don't have one) >They do it by using old Mac 128kROMs to provide the system calls. >The three parts: Mac-compatible floppy drive, external circuit card >and the ROM set total about $500 in the magazines. > >how they get the ROMs in commercial quantities, i do not know... > If you don't have an Amiga, how do you know it's a Mac clone? If you did have one, you would know it isn't. I've used one program that was ported from an Amiga. Let me say that a same or similiar processor does not a clone make. I had to type in file names by full path name. No windows, nothing, period. /-------------- / /| /| Paul Eric Menchen /------ / | / | meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu / / |/ | meuchen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu /__________________
johnf@stew.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Flanagan) (10/28/89)
In article <16002@netnews.upenn.edu> meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen) writes: >In article _ seymour@milton.acs.washington.edu (Richard Seymour) writes: >>there is a MAc Clone: the Amiga (no, i don't have one) >>They do it by using old Mac 128kROMs to provide the system calls. ... >If you don't have an Amiga, how do you know it's a Mac clone? >If you did have one, you would know it isn't. ... Just a note to clarify things. The Mac emulator on the Amiga is just a little board which holds the Mac ROMs, and a program which loads the Mac ROMs into memory and installs some fixes to work around some of the hardware incompatibilities between the Mac and the Amiga. It turns the Amiga into a Mac Plus, more or less. You have to buy the ROMs and Mac System disks yourself (I bought the roms for $175 and the System disks for about $24, I think). Surprisingly, there does not seem to be much of a shortage of 128k ROMs yet. The emulator board and software together cost about $125, so it costs ~$324 to add Mac Plus compatibility to an Amiga. You can optionally add a Mac-compatible external drive, so that you can read and write Mac-format disks. This adds about $150-$200 to the cost of the system. The Amiga's native disk drives look to the emulator like Mac 800k disks, but the disk format is different from the Mac format. I have one of these emulators, and it is pretty nice. There are some ways in which it is better than the Mac Plus (faster, bigger standard screen [640x400]), and some ways in which it is inferior. The most notable missing feature is sound. The emulator does not try to emulate the Mac's sound chips with Amiga's sound chips, and hence can only do the system beep. Another problem is that there is no provision yet for upgrading to the 256k ROMs, so you are emulating an obsolete machine. This emulator is only of interest to people who already own Amigas -- it is a cheap way to get leverage out of pre-existing hardware. For example, I can use the investment I've already made in 20 MHz 68020 and 32-bit-wide memory boards for my Amiga to also get a Mac with decent performance. I quite like it, and plan to use it for developing some code which I wish to run on both the Amiga and the Mac. I also use it for word processing. However, a buying the cheapest Amiga with the emulator would cost about as much as, or even more than, buying a Mac Plus. So, if one were only interested in Macintosh functionality, it would make more sense just to get a Mac Plus. John Flanagan Space Sciences Laboratory johnf@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu University of California (...!ucbvax!sag4.ssl!johnf) Berkeley, CA 94720 Manners Maketh Man. (415) 642-7635
allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) (10/29/89)
As quoted from <20404@mimsy.umd.edu> by steveg@tove.umd.edu (Steve Green): +--------------- | In article <2529@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> kscott@cca.ucsf.edu.UUCP (Kevin Scott) writes: | ]In article <879@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> mjkobb@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Michael J Kobb) writes: | ]>Okay, well I've just come from our friendly campus computer center. Anyone | ]>want to comment as to why a replacement mouse for my Mac Plus, ... | ]> ... costs $75 when it only contains: 4 pieces of custom plastic, | ] | ]In article <21104@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> pff@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes: | ]>Don't forget the Apple logo. | ]>IT IS MADE AND SOLD BY APPLE!!!!! That's why. | ] | ]Agreed. | | Sorry, but this is not the doing of Apple. Its your firendly Apple dealer +--------------- I should point out that Microsoft and Logitech mice go for $99 mail-order... and the only difference is an extra button or two and that they are for MiStake-DOS. Why target just Apple? ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery: allbery@NCoast.ORG, BALLBERY (MCI Mail), ALLBERY (Delphi) uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu bsa@telotech.uucp *(comp.sources.misc mail to comp-sources-misc[-request]@backbone.site, please)* *Third party vote-collection service: send mail to allbery@uunet.uu.net (ONLY)* >>> Shall we try for comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac next, Richard? <<<
peterd@well.UUCP (Peter Joseph Desnoyers) (10/30/89)
In article <16002@netnews.upenn.edu> meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen) writes: >In article _ seymour@milton.acs.washington.edu (Richard Seymour) writes: >>there is a MAc Clone: the Amiga (no, i don't have one) >>They do it by using old Mac 128kROMs to provide the system calls. >>The three parts: Mac-compatible floppy drive, external circuit card >>and the ROM set total about $500 in the magazines. >> >>how they get the ROMs in commercial quantities, i do not know... >> > >If you don't have an Amiga, how do you know it's a Mac clone? No, the Amiga is not a Mac clone. (nor does it cost $500) There is, however, a product called something like MacSack or KnapSack (I think) that can mimic a Mac on an Amiga. It runs the actual Mac ROMs and Mac Finder, so it IS a Mac clone. (I could have my facts mixed up a bit here, but I believe this to be true.) By not providing either ROMs or system software the manufacturer gets around any copyright problems. Instead, the problems get transfered to the user, who has to find a legal way to get both ROMs (not hard) and Macintosh system software (perhaps impossible) to run on the machine. (kind of like those radar jammer kits you used to see in the backs of electronics magazines...:-)