Apple II fans mad!
jonny
II world unit sales were a paltry 6 million, yet the Commodore 64 sold
an amazing 30 million unit worldwide.
They can't handle the fact the C64 was the best selling 8-bit computer
of all time!
6 Million, hell the C64 must have sold 6-7 Million units in the UK alone!
Namachari
Yeah, maybe Apple didn't sell as many II's, but they did much more
with the profits.
Clocky
"Namachari" <forum...@mac.com> wrote in message
news:84487f58-e228-4f59...@a6g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
They poured it into marketing obviously because the Mac wasn't even in the
same league as the Amiga or even the ST.
Apple learnt quickly that bullshit, artificial hype and pro-Apple
revisionism did wonders to create a market for their hohum products...
Amigoat
> Everyone at comp.sys.apple2 is getting a bit shirty, because the Apple
> II world unit sales were a paltry 6 million, yet the Commodore 64 sold
> an amazing 30 million unit worldwide.
>
Who squealed?
Ernie
Namachari
> "Namachari" <forums6...@mac.com> wrote in message
I think you are doing Commodore a disservice with your comment. Their
advertising wasn't that bad, and I certainly remember seeing a lot of
it back in the day...Or maybe you are right, they probably just sucked
at marketing, and therefore don't deserve to be in business. It's
bankruptcy was therefore inevitable.
According to Wikipedia the Mac 128k arriving a year before the A1000
(Commodores first GUI system) and the Apple Lisa was a year before
that. As they were the first company to bring a graphical user OS to
the masses, then I'm guessing that a lot of that money also went into
GUI R&D.
Wether it was inferior or superior to what came later is irrelevant
(just look at the crap Microsoft produced around the same time), and
therefore my original comment still stands...Even though Commodore
sold many more units, Apple was smarter (with their money) than
Commodore and now thrive because of it.
So don't be bitter, be happy with the memories, and the knowledge that
a great, large and active community still exists.
Namachari
P.S. and everyone knows the Sinclair ZX81 was the best 80's machine by
far ;-)
AdeV
>
> According to Wikipedia the Mac 128k arriving a year before the A1000
> (Commodores first GUI system)
...and nearly 3 years before the first "affordable" (read: popular)
Amiga, the A500.
Both machines have an important place in history... but I couldn't say
which was "best" - because I ended up following the Sinclair QL path...
--
Cheers!
Ade.
Clocky
"AdeV" <sp...@solutionengineers.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.25a76d0ea...@news.enta.net...
> Namachari may or may not have intoned:
>>
>> According to Wikipedia the Mac 128k arriving a year before the A1000
>> (Commodores first GUI system)
>
> ...and nearly 3 years before the first "affordable" (read: popular)
> Amiga, the A500.
Maybe in the UK where people thought the ZX Spectrum was a computer :-) It's
not like Macs were any more affordable.
> Both machines have an important place in history... but I couldn't say
> which was "best" - because I ended up following the Sinclair QL path...
>
Amiga was at least a generation ahead of everything else on the home front.
Sean Huxter
"Clocky" <not...@happen.com> wrote in message
news:034d75f3$0$1304$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
Yeah, the Amiga was almost a decade ahead of its time. It scared a lot of
people away from it, which is sad. Its colour and sound capabilities alone
blew anything else out of the market, and it failed the same way Beta failed
against VHS. The superior product lost out due to a lack of comfort level
with the public. Superior advertising, as well as Sony's short-sighted
proprietary attitude towards its own format, allowed an inferior product to
push to the forefront, pushing the better product away until it became
history.
A similar thing happened to the Amiga. While Apple kept their own
proprietary attitude towards its Mac products, PCs came along and allowed
anyone to create new machines, making them cheaper and more available than
the Mac or the Amiga. This gave way to the PC taking and holding the lead in
home and business computing.
Commodore couldn't keep going, but Apple did. That's the only reason we now
have Mac ads touting their questionably "superior" product, but we don't
hear anything about Amigas, which, if allowed to develop over the past
decade like it did its first, might be right here outshining both formats
now.
But you can't change history.
It's a lesson, though, one we see every now and then. Sometimes a product
comes along that's just too far ahead of its time, and while it should
flourish, it fails due mainly to the fears of the people who don't quite
know what to make of the new idea.
Progress happens in a continual, gradual way because vast sudden leaps are
uncomfortable, and often fail to take.
Sean.
Clocky
"Sean Huxter" <sean....@SPAMverizon.net> wrote in message
news:v5GdnU2UPf7QgaPW...@giganews.com...
Is seems we agree on something Sean ;-)
Yes, people are fearful of change so revolutionary leaps are not tolerated
nearly as well as evolutionary ones.
Hence the Amiga was the platform of choice to those creative and adventurous
types who thought outside the square.
Joe Cassara
> A similar thing happened to the Amiga. While Apple kept their own
> proprietary attitude towards its Mac products, PCs came along and allowed
> anyone to create new machines, making them cheaper and more available than
> the Mac or the Amiga.
Sean,
While your point is taken, and clones were eventually what came to be,
do keep in mind this was never IBM's intended trajectory. The PC's
architecture was open to third-party hardware expansion, and just
about every component of the machine was non-proprietary, but IBM
intended to be the one and only manufacturer of the PC by keeping
tight control over the BIOS. It wasn't until 1984 that an official
licensing scheme was set in place by Phoenix. Before then, there were
a handful of lawsuits against unauthorized IBM Compatible
manufacturers.
Joe C.
Linards Ticmanis
Apples and Oranges, as they say. An early-1977 machine and a late-1982
machine. That's more than five years later, in a market that was growing
quickly.
--
Linards
cronicbadger
> Everyone at comp.sys.apple2 is getting a bit shirty, because the Apple
> II world unit sales were a paltry 6 million, yet the Commodore 64 sold
> an amazing 30 million unit worldwide.
30 million units is almost certainly a myth started and perpetuated by
the Guinness Book Of Records.
About 8 years ago I delved through reports, press releases and CBM
documents that both supported and stated that worldwide sales of the
C64 were about 17.5m. Worldwide sales of C128 and C128D were about 4m.
I'd be interested (and surprised) to see any reliable references that
support the 30m claim.
Aside from that, the C64 could have, and SHOULD have, taken over the
Apple2's role as an educational computer in North America, Australasia
and Western Europe. The things that could have helped it happen, were,
possibly:
1) Commodore investing and committing to getting the machines into
schools and commissioning quality educational software. (Yes, it WAS
done on a regional basis, piecemeal, and small successes were had --
but not on the scale of Apple.)
2) 80-column display
3) Small, cheap floppy disk drive
4) Local Area Network
5) Rebadged "Educational Edition", similar to the Educator 64.
Marc
Dombo
> On Dec 31 2009, 11:12 pm, jonny <jo...@no-email.org> wrote:
>> Everyone at comp.sys.apple2 is getting a bit shirty, because the Apple
>> II world unit sales were a paltry 6 million, yet the Commodore 64 sold
>> an amazing 30 million unit worldwide.
>
> 30 million units is almost certainly a myth started and perpetuated by
> the Guinness Book Of Records.
>
> About 8 years ago I delved through reports, press releases and CBM
> documents that both supported and stated that worldwide sales of the
> C64 were about 17.5m. Worldwide sales of C128 and C128D were about 4m.
>
> I'd be interested (and surprised) to see any reliable references that
> support the 30m claim.
Considering that Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 it is unlikely that you
will find any reliable figures.
> Aside from that, the C64 could have, and SHOULD have, taken over the
> Apple2's role as an educational computer in North America, Australasia
> and Western Europe. The things that could have helped it happen, were,
> possibly:
> 1) Commodore investing and committing to getting the machines into
> schools and commissioning quality educational software. (Yes, it WAS
> done on a regional basis, piecemeal, and small successes were had --
> but not on the scale of Apple.)
> 2) 80-column display
PET series starting with the 8032 and the C128 all supported 80 columns.
> 3) Small, cheap floppy disk drive
If you have a network (see below) the size or price of the drive doesn't
matter that much.
> 4) Local Area Network
Our school did have a network between the PET computers we had at the
time (IIRC it was called HYDRA).
> 5) Rebadged "Educational Edition", similar to the Educator 64.
I think one of the reasons the C64 was so successful is that it didn't
try to be everything to every man. For home users it was a machine with
very good specifications (a very good gaming machine), with a relatively
low price. If it would have all the bells and whistles needed for the
educational market it probably wouldn't be as successful in the home
parked due to a higher price due to features that wouldn't be valued in
the home computing marketplace.
Clocky
"Dombo" <do...@disposable.invalid> wrote in message
news:4b425395$0$28136$5fc...@news.tiscali.nl...
We had neither Apple II's or C64's but something called a Microbee produced
by an Australian company. We would have loved a C64 at school because nobody
had a Microbee at home and they where technically less advanced than a C64.
To me it makes little sense to be educated on a system that nobody used at
home where C64's where everywhere and readily accessible. If not your own,
you would certainly have a friend that had a C64.
Dombo
In our school we had about 15 PET 4032 and a few years later a single
C128. When the teachers weren't watching C128 was used either to play or
copy C64 games. The PET where mostly used for their intended educational
purpose as the weren't very good game machines (Galaga was the only
really good game we had for those machines).
The all-in-one package made the PET much more robust against us than the
C128 which regularly broke down. Surprisingly I don't remember any PET
broke down (and those PETs had to take plenty of abuse).
Andreas Kohlbach
>
> cronicbadger schreef:
>> On Dec 31 2009, 11:12 pm, jonny <jo...@no-email.org> wrote:
>>
>> About 8 years ago I delved through reports, press releases and CBM
>> documents that both supported and stated that worldwide sales of the
>> C64 were about 17.5m. Worldwide sales of C128 and C128D were about 4m.
>>
>> I'd be interested (and surprised) to see any reliable references that
>> support the 30m claim.
>
> Considering that Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 it is unlikely that
> you will find any reliable figures.
Were they really bankrupt? I bought a cheap phone (made in China, nothing
more to find out) in 1999 which has a big Commodore logo close to the
dial pad. I did not check what year it was manufactured but would not
assume it was 5 years old or older.
--
Andreas
My Commodore 64 classic game music page at
http://freenet-homepage.de/ankman/sid.html
Clocky
"Andreas Kohlbach" <a...@spamfence.net> wrote in message
news:87hbr1j...@usenet.ankman.de...
> Dombo wrote on 04. January 2010:
>>
>> cronicbadger schreef:
>>> On Dec 31 2009, 11:12 pm, jonny <jo...@no-email.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> About 8 years ago I delved through reports, press releases and CBM
>>> documents that both supported and stated that worldwide sales of the
>>> C64 were about 17.5m. Worldwide sales of C128 and C128D were about 4m.
>>>
>>> I'd be interested (and surprised) to see any reliable references that
>>> support the 30m claim.
>>
>> Considering that Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 it is unlikely that
>> you will find any reliable figures.
>
> Were they really bankrupt? I bought a cheap phone (made in China, nothing
> more to find out) in 1999 which has a big Commodore logo close to the
> dial pad. I did not check what year it was manufactured but would not
> assume it was 5 years old or older.
Commodore went bankrupt, but the remnants were sold off including the name
and logo. Commodore branded products were sold with the old logo as recent
as a year or two ago, generally on cheap generic Chinese electronics but
they have nothing to do with the original company that went belly-up in
1994.
Groepaz
> Aside from that, the C64 could have, and SHOULD have, taken over the
> Apple2's role as an educational computer in North America, Australasia
> and Western Europe.
isn't it pretty much like that apples were *only* present in (north)american
schools ? here in germany atleast, apple2 was pretty much non existant.
schools were heavily sponsored by commodore infact, and most schools had
their set of c64 setups by the mid 80s (and many schools even started with
PETs long before that)
--
http://www.hitmen-console.org http://magicdisk.untergrund.net
http://www.pokefinder.org http://ftp.pokefinder.org
...the harm was done: the topic became known as "computer science"---which,
actually, is like referring to surgery as "knife science"---and it was
firmly implanted in people's minds that computing science is about machines
and their peripheral equipment.
<Edsgar Dijkstra>