That's true, actually. It was a real shock for people coming to the U.S. from
post-WW1 Europe to learn that social prejudices were so strong that people
perceived as "eaters of garlic" or, generally, consumers of multiple vegetables
in a single meal were looked down upon as somehow inferior. That shows how
insular the American attitude had become. Having sampled what was then, and by
some now, still is, considered basic "meat and potatoes" cuisine, (my first wife
was a midwestern preacher's daughter), I have to say this was quite silly.
Americans have always been somewhat "strange" about their diet, but that's just
human nature. My brother's wife and kids won't readily eat anything that's not
sold at the "Golden Arches" though it can come from Burger King. It's awful to
watch those now teenaged boys' (and their mother's) poking and prodding at the
fine meals my now 80+ year-old mother painstakingly prepares in an effort to
expose them to old-world cuisine.
However, there's an easily observable basis for the beliefs regarding the
Apple][ disk subsystem that I've put forth in this case, unlike the erroneous
conclusions that early 20th-century Americans had drawn about diet.
Clearly, there's no comparison between the CCS S-100 hardware + CP/M that I
bought in 1980, and the Apple][ of the same period. However, the real fact is
that there's similarly no comparison between the Apple][ of 1980 and the
Apple][ of 1980 equipped with an 8" disk drive controller and two 8" drives.
It's that disparity that I'm addressing, and not the Apple][ without its disk
drives.
The Apple][ disk subsystem was made in order to offer drives with a capacity
advantage over its competitor, the TRS-80 single-density 5-14" drives. I don't
remember the details of the cost difference, but the main advantage to Apple was
in that they built their own drive electronics and cound benefit at the system
level, cost-wise, from every little thing they left out. First of all, they
didn't have to buy them, and secondly, they didn't have to tolerate and
remediate their failures. They didn't have to buy the then quite costly FDC
chips that their competitors used, and they didn't have to package their drives
with coresident power supplies, since their packaging concept allowed them to
power their drives from the Apple's PSU. The fact that they were able to pocket
the cost savings, rather than passing them along to their customers, didn't find
disfavor among their investors, either. However, it's still a case of "you get
what they (Apple Computer Co) pay for" and they didn't pay for the same quality,
and the buyer didn't get the same quality.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo_at_siconic.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk
> On Sun, 4 Nov 2001, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
> > I'd say, from many years' experience, that it is probably, and at
> > best, as poor as it was straight out of the box. The consensus back
> > in '80 was that, equipped with an 8" drive pair, the Apple ][ was a
> > pretty good system, provided one bought the Videx 80x24 display card
> > for it.
>
> I hear people once thought tomatos were poisonous.
>
> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
>
>
Received on Mon Nov 05 2001 - 12:33:24 GMT