On Mon, 11 Aug 1997, Roger Ivie wrote:
> One curious bit. The statement that Apple had 50% of the PC market share
> when IBM came out with its PC stuck in my mind. Going through my pile of
> old BYTE magazines, I found a BYTE from that era (well, 1984 actually; which
> is actually a match for era because they were building up the Macintosh
> story) which gives 50% of the market share to Tandy...
>
> Roger "cut my teeth on a TRS-80 Model I" Ivie
> ivie_at_cc.usu.edu
Tandy rarely released hard numbers of units sold, and since they were
vertically integrated (manufacture, distribution _and_ retail), any counts
of sales were those in the hands of end users. Apple, IBM, etc.
considered a system sold if it was at a Computerland or other retailer,
whether or not it actually reached a home or office. This skews the
figures a lot when Tandy _did_ release them. Of course, they also had
multiple product lines between the strictly home units (Color Computer),
home/light office (Model 1/3/4) and serious office (Model 2/12/16/6000).
And the Model 100 was a special case: my RSCC delivered at least 500 of
those at $1,000 a pop to the Los Angeles Times alone, since _every_
reporter wanted one and the NEC 8201 didn't have the built-in modem.
There were a lot of single sales of those as well. Then of course when
the Tandy 2000 came out followed by the PC compatibles things started to
get confusing. Oh yeah, I forgot the pocket computers.
--
Ward Griffiths
"the timid die just like the daring; and if you don't take the plunge then
you'll just take the fall" Michael Longcor
Received on Mon Aug 11 1997 - 17:08:21 BST