--- Sellam Ismail <foo_at_siconic.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2001, Ethan Dicks wrote:
>
> > --- Sellam Ismail <foo_at_siconic.com> wrote:
> > > Yeah, I can't imagine any organization in 1984 would be so serious about
> > > the Apple ][ that they'd be spending $1,250 for an ethernet card for each
> > > Apple ][ to build a network of them.
>
> No sarcasm at all. I just can't imagine a business in 1984, a time at
> which the PC was becoming entrenched in the business environment, trying
> to create a network of Apple ][s by purchasing a card that, as someone
> else has pointed out, cost as much as the computer itself.
I was writing software for the Apple ][ in 1984. We did not support the
PC until very late in the company's life because there weren't enough of them
in homes to make a difference (and before someone mentions it, that is _not_
why the company isn't around today - it was because Reader's Digest shut down
their software division when the last founder died and returned our licenses
to us and we weren't large enough to self-publish).
In the workplace, the PC was three years old and was beginning to make inroads
at large companies, but small companies still had Apple ]['s and CP/M cards
(that's how our own boss did his books, for example). Besides, in 1984,
most companies didn't have networks at all, let alone ethernet. It was too
new and expensive. I worked at places after that with DEC minicomputers
(VAXen and PDP-11s)... they used serial connections, with either DDCMP
or perhaps Kermit! The first place I saw an ethernet was at Ohio State
University. It was on some flavor of UNIX box, either a Sun or a Pyramid.
As has also been mentioned here, Corvus was a significant player in the
networking biz prior to 1984. In the Apple world, Localtalk dominated
because so many of the later machines came with it. For the Apple ][,
it was all about sneakernet.
So I am actually surprised that anyone even made an Apple ][ ethernet card
at all. The >$1,000 pricetag isn't surprising, given how much ethernet
stuff cost in the old days. I also can't imagine there was much of a market.
-ethan
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Received on Tue Jun 26 2001 - 14:28:33 BST