Leon wrote:


"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
Leon wrote:


Everybody lost share to IBM. But Apple did not lose as much as their
competitors. What other computer hardware company that was in business
the
day the IBM PC shipped is still in business? The only ones that come to
mind are Rat Shack and Cray.

We were only talking about Apple.

And your point is? My point, since you clearly weren't able to grasp it, is
that very few computer companies survived the PC onslaught. Apple was one
of the very few.


There was always hardware and software available for an Apple not
produced
by Apple. Remember Visicalc? Remember the coprocessor boards that let
Apples run CP/M? I can't remember now what all was available, but
accessorizing the Apple was an industry in itself.

I don't think so. At least it was not authorized by Apple.

You don't think what?

If you will study the early history of Apple a bit, you will find that
Visicalc was the "killer App" that made Apple as a company. As for it
being "authorized", this business of being "authorized" is relatively new.
When the Apples first came out Jobs was just happy that somebody was
writing software for it--he didn't have the resources to roll his own--he
and Woz had all they could handle getting production up and orders coming
in.

I'm getting the impression that you are not aware that there was Apple
before there was Macintosh. Apple's first billion dollar year occurred
when they were selling 8-bit 6502 machines that didn't even have a video
board unless you bought one.

Jobs wanted everything under Apples control and there was basically no
choice.

In some other universe perhaps. In this one he kept control of the OS and
the hardware and provided some application software but most of the Mac
software base was _not_ provided by Apple. Ever hear of something called
"Pagemaker"? How about "Microsoft Excel"? "Quark Express"? "Photoshop"?
Those were Mac apps long before they were ported to the PC. Further, for a
while Apple was licensing the OS to third parties--that proved to be a
compatibility disaster though. As for controlling the hardware, you might
ask yourself why the high end contemporary Macs have expansion slots.

Really, your view of the history of Apple is horribly distorted.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)