----- Original Message ---- > From: James Fraser <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 10:02:56 PM > Subject: Re: Re: > > > > Hello, > > --- On Tue, 5/19/09, glen wrote: > > > Fast forward about 15 years and I bought my first personal > > computer, an Apple III in the early 80's. Kind of a dog > > but I ended up with three of them for my business before > > buying my first Mac's in 1989. > > When you say the Apple III was "kind of a dog," is this based on your own > experience with them? Or is this based on their infamous reputation (i.e. > your > own experience with them was a fairly positive one)? > > Did you employ the Apple III's all the way up until 1989? If so, that's a > pretty impressive amount of life you wrung out of those machines. Of course, > with their rather hefty price tag, it's only fair to admit that the incentive > for a buyer to wring all they could out of them was a pretty strong one. :) > > If the numbers I read are correct, Apple sold even fewer Apple IIIs than they > did Lisas (65,000 vs. 80,000) if such a thing can be believed. I find myself > wondering if there's a landfill somewhere with a metric diaperload of Apple > IIIs > in it à la the Lisa as the number of Apple IIIs produced was allegedly > ~120,000. > "Kind of a dog" is a relative statement. It is relative to the OS and software I was using on the Apple /// as compared to the MacOS 6 and the software I used on the Mac II and SE. When the first Apple /// was put into use it did wonders. I could keep tract of customer accounts, their jobs and charges, print invoices and do the necessary word processing. For a growing small business it really helped. And it gave bragging rights or should I say a "marketing" ploy by saying the business is "computerized". That was an important statement not all businesses could make to prospective clients in 1983. The first Apple /// I purchased had no hard drive. So it was a hassle booting from a 5 1/4" floppy and loading programs on a second external floppy drive. Then removing the program floppy and replacing it with another "data" flopping were all the data was stored. Those floppies did not hold much data so you could only print out a limited amount of data which means sales totals had to be printed out month by month and not by sales quarter or yearly. The GUI if you can call it that was not intuitive and most employees I had would shy away from the Apple /// and leave the computer work to me. I use the Apple /// until 1989, --sort of a "lowend Apple" type of guy. I was also ticked off that after spending around $3000 for the first Apple /// and promised by the Apple dealer any upgrades would be compatible the the ///. In 1984 the Mac was introduced with a different OS and no easy upgrade from the ///. So I held on the the /// and when the value of the ///'s dropped I purchased two more and a hard drive for a faction of the original cost from Sun Remarketing. This took care of the needs of the business until 1989. The used Mac ll and SE purchased in 1989 was revolutionary. Now in addition to record keeping and balance sheets I could do graphics and print them out on a laser printer. This was extremely important to my graphic design and commercial printing business. Within five years Mac's replaced two 900 pound photo typesetting machines (I still have them in storage if anyone wants them they are free for local pickup) and three light tables and also reduced the Art Department from 4 1/2 employees to two. Of course the "desktop" revolution also destroyed my Art Dept. From the 1990's and beyond anyone with graphics skills could do it themselves thus eliminating most of the work we did prior to the introduction of the Mac. I now have only one part timer and myself in what we now call prepress. --glen --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
