You've got two tracks mixed up, I think. True, the Apple II was quite
plentiful in 80, but not in businesses the way it was in 82-83. I even had
several of them with people to man them as well. I hated the Apple but
loved the 6502. In the meantime, I noted that the RS Model 1 was a piece of
junk, and, in fact, so much of one that I never bought one, even for
experimentation, and I had nearly every other sort of box around the shop.
The Model 3 design my employer had contracted to him was paid for in late
'81. I saw several of them in friends' houses, none of whom had bought them
new, by the way, so they'd been on the market for a time in '82-83. We had
a really terrible blizzard on Christmas of '82 here, and I saw one in a
neighbor's house then. It was an early version but it was a model 3.
I'm aware there were plenty of Apples around since the one which was wheeled
in to the weekly 6502 Users' Group meeting by the chief guru was not even
attracting a second glance. A lot happened in the early part of '81, i.e.
Apple prices dropped for the first time, in an effort to retain market share
from the now increasingly available though not yet particularly attractive,
either as a computer or as a budget item.
There's some more imbedded commentary below, if you're interested.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, April 10, 1999 5:59 PM
Subject: Re: What if,... early PCs (was: stepping machanism
><The IBM entry into the PC market was in mid-1981, I think, and the Model-3
><was rushed to get out ahead of it. The Apple-II exlposion wasn't quite
><underway yet, but the handwriting was on the wall.
>
>No. By then the apple and trs80 were common as house flies. In fact in
>1980 we used Apples and TRS80s running a similar program for forcasting
>as they were in wide use around the shop. They were both in the market
>in terms of volumes nearing a 500k system each if not more by 1980.
The model 1 was quite common, but the model 1 was in too many pieces to be
of much interest to most folks. What's more, it was pretty weak-kneed. The
model 3 held out hope, though that was later dashed when the model 3 turned
out to be not much better.
>the PC wasn't an impact until 82 maybe 83. Memories and events seem to
>get compressed or expanded. I's even say the PC was not a serious
>contender till mid 83.
The initial impact of the PC was to get people to stop buying non-PC's for
their businesses. They were extremely costly at first, and didn't have a
few serious problems worked out. People had to mortgage their houses to buy
one (a basic PC on the gray-market cost nearly $2k).
>Allison
>
Received on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 23:52:47 BST