Cupertino, in nearby Santa Clara County, is abuzz with new-fangled products coming out of its most prominent resident, Apple Computer.
Yes, Apple then was the flavor of the day for an entire valley that was going ape on technology. The entire Silicon Valley was in frenetic state singularly focused on emerging technologies related to the new product called personal computers.
And San Francisco, the populous and wealthiest core of all this, becomes the made-to-order market for these new-fangled tools. While consumer interests ran high for these never-before seen and experienced tools, retail sales were not really that impressive. Primarily because retail prices were not that great.
At that time, an IBM PCjr and Compaq Plus were selling at price ranges of US$4 to 5K. Now, add a couple of thousand dollars to those prices and one could own a brand-new compact car, comparatively speaking.
Under that rather forgettable market, retail stores selling computers were not going gangbusters and their numbers could be counted in one hand. As a matter of fact there were only about 3 big retailers in the San Francisco area, all aggressively engaging in enticing price reduction offers to prod anemic sales.
Anyway, on that same year, the family bought its first computer, an Apple IIc, which including necessary peripherals, software, and warranties divested the family coffers of over US2, 000. It was not top of the line, because that would have been the Apple Macintosh which carried a total price tag of almost US4, 000.
Now, what tremendous stuff did this new invention have or could do to justify carrying a price tag of about a third of a new car?
The Apple IIc was cryptically described thus, “includes 128K, one internal disk drive, printer/modem adapter, monitor IIc”.
To a typical computer user in the 21st century that meant, that it did not have a hard disk so one had to boot the operating system (DOS) from a disk, the internal disk drive was for a floppy disk, and the 128K signified that it could only hold and process that much at any given time, the rest will have to come from other disks.
But that was computing heaven then. Imagine being able to do Basic programming on it. And play those unbelievable games, shooting down spaceships and keeping scores. And create those intricate graphics? No doubt, countless hours were logged to learn about and enjoy the immense capabilities of that little box. Countless floppies were accumulated, some for saving files and others, mostly for applications that could be used for the computer.
Unfortunately, its effective life span was very limited. By the 90s, the powerful PCs had taken over and blazed a trail that left many of their precursors lying supine, obsolete, and inutile by the wayside.
Now, the entire bundle sits idly displayed inside an empty guest room, mute testimony to a forgotten past which goes back about 20 years. And for IT technology, much too long, much like dating back to the age of the Cro-Magnons.But Apple’s progeny is doing a lot better. Its newest versions (like the MacBook) are even selling at prices way above those of its rivals, the IBM-compatibles, err, the PCs.
4 comments:
You STILL have it? You must be a pack rat. By now, you must have had at least 4 new computers since then, probably more. Its amazing that its still in your possession.
This could be the reason why.
Growing up we never had stuff that we could say we had enough. If anything, it was always that we had stuff that was less than enough. Thus, the tendency to use and keep things for as long as humanly feasible.
This attitude may have carried over to adulthood.
And this Apple bundle still works as good as the day it was bought.
And let me tell you about a classy sweater I have which dates back to college. Now re-packaged for posterity. HeHeHe.
My very first personal computer was an Atari ST, which was based on the Motorola 68000 processor. It offered medium resolution color graphics and high quality stereo sound, and its GEM operating system featured a graphical user interface.
With an 8 MHz CPU, one MB RAM and no hard drive, its suggested retail price was about $1,000.00 back in those days. I got mine for $800.00 at J&R Electronics in downtown Manhattan.
Unfortunately, Atari ST was unable to compete with the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh for mainstream business purposes. As for graphics and games, the Amiga pretty much had that market covered. As a result, the ST struggled to find its place, but it managed to carve out a niche in the music and audio editing market, where many music professionals used it as an advanced sound mixing and sound effects machine.
I mainly used my Atari with my keyboard and drum machine, and had lots of fun with it :)
Eric:
Our ownership of an Atari predates the purchase of the Apple IIc. But it was just the Commodore and as I recall the kids got tired of it in no time. As a matter of act, we still had the original box and I simply put the bundle back on it, and shunted it to a dark corner of an under the stairs storage area.
When we sold the house, I had forgotten about it and it may simply have been thrown into the dumpster.
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