Ken:

I lived through it. I first worked with EDPM in 1956, had my first "Home" computer in 1972, a Litton/ABS 1241 mini. That was three years before the Altair, and four years before the Apple II.

And the Mac line never outsold the Intel based machines, but the Apple II was, if not the top seller, was close to it in the late 70s and early 80s. Mainly because of VisiCalc and games.

Steve Wozniak did indeed design a really good machine, when Ken Williams (Sierra On-Line) developed GDL with its fast page flipping the games took off, the CP/M (Intel) machines couldn't match it. But it was still something to be kept at home. Business? Don't be silly.

Then came VisiCalc. A revolution that put the Apple II in the business of business. And it didn't run on anything but an Apple II. Apple sales skyrocketed.

Then came dBase II and WordStar for the Intel machines. Now the CP/M machines started eating into Apple's lead. dBase II and WordStar didn't run on Apple until Billy Gates and Paul Allen, wanting to sell to Apple II owners also, produced their only hardware product, the "Language Card," that plugged into the Apple II and ran CP/M, and software intended for CP/M machines.

Then IBM entered the market. CP/M disappeared as an operating system, and the Gates/Allen/Microsoft juggernaut became dominant. And Lotus 1-2-3 hammered the nails in the coffin. Apple was out of the business market, the IBM/Intel software was superior, by far.

Applde tried to retain their business market share with the Apple III, I shouldn't have to tell you about that fiasco. The Lisa? Overpriced and incapable.

Apple's error was keeping the operating system closed. The Apple II was a completely open system, and everybody in the world wrote software for it. PC/MSdos is also an open system, easy to program to, and the market made it a much more common system that Apple OS.

Look at Linux. Another open system, that is constantly growing in its market penetration.

It may be too late for Apple and the Macs, but I think they have a greater probability of survival if they open their system and aggressively attempt to license it. Otherwise they will most likely wither on the vine, as the diehards die out Apple also will die. Just like the Commodore Amiga, another excellent machine that didn't make it.

Bill.


PS: Somebody posted (you?) saying Apple was MickeySoft's R&D department - Not so. Apple's Mac systems and WinDoze are both rewrites/ports of software developed by Xerox. Even the Mouse was the invention of a fellow named Englebart, around 1961. I'll grant that Apple stole the ideas before Billy Gates did, though. wr.