Am 20.07.2005 um 21:31 Uhr schrieb PowerBooks:
I have a few Outbounds. They came out before the Portable. They were advanced with detachable Keyboards and the Isobar mouse and you can even use VHS camcorder batteries in them.
Heard about these before, but never actually saw one in my life. They are virtually non-existant in Europe (ever seen a kangaroo outside a zoo over here? ;-) I never said Apple was the only company with clever ideas way back then. And using widely available camcorder batts (if you have the space) seems a very clever idea. Don't know about the Isobar Mouse, but a detachable keyboard doesn't sound so bad either. I still think the PB 100's set-back keyboard was a good alternative to this and one of the most ingenious realisations in industrial design of the last decades, readily imitated by its competitors and more or less a standard now. ISTR Outbound was always on the ledge of being sued by Apple for copyright infringement or even actually was, but my memory isn't very precise on this subject.
Half the size and weight with real hard drives. Never figured out how Apple could release the portable as an answer to it. I have an Apple ][c+ with an Apple flat panel that was lighter and smaller than the portable too.
I understand your point better now. (Feeling a little itch to look after these machines, but some voice in my head says "no, there's got to be a limit somewhere".) Seems like the old rule applies that it's not always the best solution that gets the most market share or survives at all; where's Outbound now? There's the neverending story of Windows and Mac OS. Grundig's Video 2000 > Sony's Betamax > VHS is the most striking case as the worst solution turned out as the winner, commercially.
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