At 03:07 PM 11/9/98 PST, you wrote:
>significance, I doubt it will be remembered any better than many other
>machines. It seems hard for me to imagine the iMac or any other
>technologically vanilla modern computer will ever end up in a museum.
So the IBM PC was hot stuff? I don't think so. It sold, and will be
remembered, because it was IBM's stamp of approval on the (then) latest
round of "Computers will change the way you do business." Back then, the
theory was "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" and so it was that even
though it was "technologically vanilla", the PC sold and made a serious
impact.
Likewise, many of the other very collectible or desireable computers are
much less technologically innovative than they are socially (computer-wise)
important.
[From another message]
>Even if we ignore that the plain G3 systems would likely have been
>enough? I heard that Apple sold out of their new G3s even before the
>iMac came out. All of the detail to which you refer will be forgotten
The iMac is cute. It is friendly, something Grandma's are more likely to
feel comfortable with than your standard PC. It is something that the
upscale will be happy to have in their home -- you know, those weird people
who have exactly three magazines (and nothing else) on their coffee table
and don't have dozens of cables running (visibly!) through their homes, the
way we do. Richard Fish (of Ally McBeal) had one in his apartment.
BMW's are not exceptional cars. They're fine, much like many others
available on the market. But all the yuppies want them, because they're
beemers. The iMac is the same.
And for that, it will be remembered and, eventually, collected.
>in 15 years. By historic, I mean of the magnitude of the original
>macintosh, or the PC XT, or Apple II, or Altair, or C64, and others.
>These truly changed the face of computing, unlike the iMac.
The iMac will change (or at least attempt to change) computing by bringing
in a whole new layer of users -- ones that even the cheapy clone PC's
couldn't attract. Similar to the ones that were attracted to the original
Mac, but less adventuresome.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
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Received on Tue Nov 10 1998 - 21:31:24 GMT