Here's something to consider.

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Mon Sep 14 13:01:00 1998

< the Compucolor came with an "integrated display", and featured 160x192,
< 8-color (vector) graphics (the Apple was capable of 280x192 bit-mapped

The Compucolor had raster graphics. It did run it as raster too. The
software was written as vector to raster.

< Yet the Apple II is celebrated as having been the first home computer wi
< built-in color graphics, and almost no mention of the Compucolor is eve
< made in any general computer history texts. The obvious difference
< between the two is that the Apple II went on to enjoy tremendous succes
< for the next 15+ years while the Compucolor was relegated to an also-ran
< The victors do indeed write the history, or at least get the lion's shar
< of the mention.

Such are the vagarities of history.

< I think its odd that a system such as the Compucolor, extremely comparab
< to the capabilities of the Apple II (if not more so in some respects)
< hardly gets mentioned in the computer history books I read.

the difference is the apple could be had peicemeal for less and the
Compucolor was big and expensive. the CC was intimidating and aimed at
the highend, appleII was cuddly and inviting being aimed a bit lower.

Think of it this way it's wasnt' what the hardware could do it was waht
the user perceived (s)he could do with it.

< The lesson of this story is, you can have the best, most amazing produc
< in the world, but "build it and they will come" does not apply. You've
< got to advertise. Apple was obviously more masterful at this.

DEC did not learn that several times over starting with the PDP-11/150
(destop pdp-11 system), the VT180, Pro350 and Rainbow. Yet the DECMATE
series which were fairly capable but generally used for wordprocessing
are like flies!

Allison
Received on Mon Sep 14 1998 - 13:01:00 BST