Apple Mac (was: !Re: Nuke Redmond!)

From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke_at_mch20.sbs.de>
Date: Mon Apr 10 16:37:37 2000

> > "Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)" <transit_at_lerctr.org> wrote:
> > > Or, in the early days of the Macintosh, the
> > > difficulty in getting technical manuals for the machine (indeed, at first,
> > > to find *any* books much more technical than "How to hold the mouse")...

> > I strongly disagree. Apple did everything they could to court
> > developers for the Macintosh. If there wasn't a cheap book on
> > programming the Macintosh in the stores then, it was only because there
> > was such a large amount of technical information needed, and it wasn't
> > yet edited into a book suited for mass-market publication. It was *NOT*
> > because Apple was trying to restrict software development to an
> > annointed few; they'd tried that route on the Apple /// and failed
> > horribly.

(I'm answering to Tonys mail, since I never recived Charles')

I got a somewhat different momory on this topic. Back when
the Mac was new, it was like a 180 Degree shift in Apples
information policy. In my view Apple did anything to hinder
developers. And that'S not only my opinion - back then I was
part of a 'gang' of A][ freaks, and of course we where interested
in the Mac, but beside the deadly high price for the Mac,
the even higher costs of documentations and the lack of a
real choice in programming language was prohibitive. With
the Apple ][ you recived a full machine and OS description
free of additional charge - for the Mac with a price, at least
double to tripple the price of an A][ you go _nothing_, you
rather had to spend again almost again the money for an A][,
just for documentation and very minimalistic tools. And if
this isn't enough, you had to sign a contract with Apple to
get all the stuff - you know, they didn't want to sell just
to geeks anymore. Only two of us did jump onto the Mac - all
other stayed with the A][, and eventualy became IBM-PC guys.
IBM did exactly the same as Apple with the A][ - give information
to the people - yes, they charged, but way less than Apple,
and you don't need to sell your soul - if your able to tell
the Name of the document you got it. Well, yes, if we walked
into the IBM store (Aeh, not store... royal dependance:) at
this time, we didn't get the same 'audience' as 'real' customers,
but we told what we want (i.e. an order number) and we get
it fast and as we want it.

And don't tell me about the complex informations etc. At this
Time I was already doing some (truly small) jobs with Xerox
systems - IMHO a way better integrated system as the Mac ever
did become. It should have been the responsibility of Apple
to give the developers info out the easy way.

Gruss
H.

--
VCF Europa am 29./30. April 2000 in Muenchen
http://www.vintage.org/vcfe
http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe
Received on Mon Apr 10 2000 - 16:37:37 BST

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