bskendig@dae.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) (03/19/91)
[Third in a series of articles in which I try to decide whether or not
to move up from a Mac SE.]
I've recently been pricing Mac to see how much a new machine will cost
me. I grabbed a copy of Apple's university prices from my campus
distribution center, and it gave me these rough prices (I'm recalling
these from memory, so don't quote me on these):
Mac LC, one floppy drive: $1100
Mac LC, two floppy drives: $1150
Mac LC, one floppy, one 40Mb HD: $1600
Monochrome 12" monitor: $260
The difference between the two-floppy machine and the HD setup is
about $450. Well, since I already have a 50Mb hard drive and I need
two floppies anyway, the two-floppy LC seems like the perfect choice
for me.
... until I found out that Apple won't let me have one.
The people at the campus computer center expressed their apologies,
but they informed methat the two-floppy LC was only for sale to
departments, and not to individuals or students. They suggested that
I sell the hard drive I have now and get the LC with the internal HD.
Well, let's see what this would mean. After soliciting estimates from
the net, I guess I could sell my 50Mb HD for about $200. Toss in
another $250 on top of that, and I get the 40Mb hard drive in the LC.
Something's wrong, here. (And besides, the LC won't let you add an
external floppy, unless you invest in a SCSI floppy drive which is,
under my budget, prohibitively expensive.)
It's obvious why they don't want to sell machines without hard drives:
because System 7.0 (supposedly) requires a hard drive to use, and if
you don't have a HD, you can't run it. But why then are they selling
HD-less machines to departments? And why are they selling Mac IIci
and IIfx configurations without hard drives?
And what about poor people like me who already have a hard drive, and
can't afford to sell it in order to buy something smaller and more
expensive?
Fortunately, I might be able to finnagle some sort of deal with my
Apple campus rep here, because I'm doing some Apple-related work with
him -- but, if that falls through and the choice is to either get an
LC with a hard drive or nothing at all, then the choice is simple. I
can't afford a machine over $1500; I'll end up waiting to see if the
Mac clones come out by the end of the year as MacWorld believes they
will, and if not that, then I'll save up for a NeXTstation.
Can anyone from Apple explain why this policy exists? It seems to me
this strategy might hurt Apple more than it helps.
<< Brian >>
| Brian S. Kendig \ Macintosh | Engineering, | bskendig |
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