Processor balance (was Re: Welcome and VME)

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Thu Nov 16 13:33:08 2000

> It was rather difficult to buy an Apple II as well. After all, it was an
> Apple machine and had as a matter of consequence an Apple price tag.

When I was in junior high school, a close friend and classmate managed
to buy one on his earnings from a part-time fast food job. Maybe they
weren't dirt cheap, but they were affordable.

It's easy for other companies to enter the market with cheaper products
*after* someone has already established a market for (relatively)
inexpensive compact ready-to-use microcomputers (vs. S100 boxes and the
like).

If Apple was able to maintain their prices after competitors like Atari
and Commodore introduced cheaper machines with whizzier graphics, that
demonstrates that consumers valued expandability and a broad software
base more than whizzy graphics.
Received on Thu Nov 16 2000 - 13:33:08 GMT