That Time Apple Told Apple III Customers to Drop Their Computers | Hacker News Reader

That Time Apple Told Apple III Customers to Drop Their Computers

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33 pointsthunderbong35 comments

The various Apple IIs were roughly $1300 machines but then Apple didn't really put out a sequel at that price for a decade with the Mac Classic. Instead releasing hugely expensive and incompatible machines like the III, Lisa and the Mac lineup.

Amazing that Apple survived, at all. Equally weird that, despite inflation, Apple's cheapest ever computer is the current $599 Mac mini.

There is a lot to be said for luck.

Bill Gate said it himself, there where other folks that had much better technology but the luck just worked in Microsoft's favor. That and a lot of anti-competitive behavior.

A bit the same with Apple, there were many others that had the opportunity but it just never worked out due to the flows of the market.

Well-connected parents can help as well.

> Amazing that Apple survived, at all.

They coasted on the success of the Apple II for a long time. It's difficult to overstate how popular they were in American schools. For over a decade, "a computer" was an Apple II.

They didn't stop making the IIe until November 1993.

It was the BBC Micro of the USA.

> They coasted on the success of the Apple II for a long time. It's difficult to overstate how popular they were in American schools. For over a decade, "a computer" was an Apple II.

The hype! I can feel it now, despite not ever having lived during that time. Damn, that gives a good tangible vibe of how strong that success was. Haha, thanks for the comment!

the hypercard!

I vaguely remember using Apple IIs in elementary school in 1997-ish

Eh, computers have always been getting cheaper due to technology advances. The Mini is a rare for Apple low end computer without a monitor, which goes against Apple’s traditional core business proposition: simplicity in product experience.

I'm glad they kept the Mini around. I don't have a current one but I won't buy another iMac. My current is getting to end of life (from 2015). Nothing wrong with it but it will stop getting security updates at some point and I hate junking the monitor.

> Apple's cheapest ever computer is the current $599 Mac mini

I'd argue it's the $429 iPhone SE [1].

[1] https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/

Out of all possible smartphones, iPhones are the LEAST "general purpose computer"

> iPhones are the LEAST "general purpose computer"

Who are you quoting?

It's different category of computer, designed as an appliance, like my car stereo, which is also a computer. The value of Apple computers is that they're more general-purpose than a gated cell phone.

If you insist on including the iPhone, you might as well include the $39 Airpods case, or the $9 lightning to headphone jack dongle.

> value of Apple computers is that they're more general-purpose than a gated cell phone

Philosophically, yes. Practically, even a locked-down iPhone can do vastly more than a general-purpose computer could in the 1980s. (Particularly when you consider it has access to VMs on the web and now emulators.)

At that time compatibility was not an important aspect. For example only almost 2 years passed between the release of C64 and the Plus/4, yet the machines represent different worlds without any compatibility, and we are not even talking about the VIC-20 and the C16. The C128 had a 99% compatible C64 mode but in turn had a more limited number of SW available (that's the other side of the story - if you provide compatibility, old software will be used and maintained instead of starting new developments, and if no new software is developed for a platform it's dead). These systems were anything but cheap, and once you have bought a computer, you'd locked yourself to the platform.

The first 4 generations (the 4th seemed the worst affected) or so of Apple iPod seemed to have an issue where the 1.8" ATA connector coming out of the HDD would sit too loosely. A firm smack on the palm of the hand (while it was off with heads parked) seemed to be able to reliably reseat the connector and get the connection working again when they started having reading errors. Obviously opening it up and taping the connector down firmly with some kapton is a more reliable solution, but for someone wanting their music to work immediately this was an easy reliable workaround.

There was a story about this happening with some Amiga 500 computers, allegedly due to a too-high speed bump in a Commodore parking lot.

https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/a-history-of-the-amiga...

There was similar scheme of percussive maintenance with ČSD Class M 152.0 [0] railcar. It suffered from engine stall problems until some train driver kicked into certain spot of train undercarriage out of frustration and found by accident it fixes the problem.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8CSD_Class_M_152.0

In the late 90s, Borland's installation support phone line would tell people to turn their computer on its side 90 degrees so that the CD-ROM would read the installation media.

It usually worked.

At least by the time it came to the G4 Cube, they had at least adjusted the clock speeds to stop a repeat of this.

I used to have a Dual G5 PowerMac and when you have that thing going at full speed, it was LOUD! I suspect that absolutely bugged Jobs to no end could have been a big point that lead to the Intel transition.

I get the desire to have fanless computers, they are neat but you have to aware of the limits. Look at the M series Apple chips and it makes so much sense to be fanless.

> I suspect that absolutely bugged Jobs to no end could have been a big point that lead to the Intel transition.

I'm sure it was that, but also they were never able to stuff a G5 into a laptop due to thermals. They simply had to switch if they wanted to have portables.

https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/PowerBook_G5

The G5 macs were terribly engineered machines - the fan blade profile made them terribly noisy, the water cooling system corroded due to mismatched metals and coolant, and the leaking was conveniently above the power supply which then shorted out. For some reason the one I got had a 1 kilowatt power supply, but the machine only had two HD bays.

Their only saving grace was they are probably the most beautiful case ever made, and they are easy to convert to an ATX format to put a modern PC inside.

There was a generation of iPads that would have their displays black out. People would come to me at the fruit stand, I would take their iPad into the back room, and drop it from about a foot off a table, screen facing up. 9/10 it would fix itself.

Honestly one of the funniest repairs. (If they had warranty I would swap em out, it was an era of “everyone gets a free swap”).

But there’s no DIP chips in an iPad?

at middlesex polytechnic (north london) back in the mid-80s, we had several PDP11 desktops that were very unreliable. the first fix was to drive them round the north circular in the back of a van, but we worked out that dropping them from an inch or so was easier. they were pretty crappy.

I used to work in a place right next to some railroad tracks, and every few weeks you’d see a tech open up one of the pizza box SparcStations and reseat the CPU daughterboards, muttering something about “train effect”

This was common-ish with home computers, back when they were still called "home computers". It was a recognized fix for the BBC Micro, as well as some early Amiga models.

Apple: Bringing you form over function for almost 50 years

I don't think that's quite fair: the Apple ][ computers were highly functional machines.

That's not what he's saying. He means if there is a conflict between the two most people chose function - that's what matters, that the thing actually work. Not Apple. They pick form, even if the function is harmed. (They will of course try to make it work anyway, but that's not the point being made here.)

Because silver shit will sell more units than shit spoon. Imo Apple is roght to go form first, function second. The fact they invest so mich to put actual good function in while keeping the form is testament to their understanding of normal humans

>They pick form, even if the function is harmed.

I understood perfectly well what he's saying. My point is: the Apple ][ is not like this. And it was less than 50 years ago.

Apple is a company which understands how important form is to function and has a deep appreciation of user experience. Which is why you often get people on the internet saying ‘but you could cobble something similar together yourself, just using x,y,z’ who are then seemingly baffled that customers choose a simple, pleasant to-use alternative

> if there is a conflict between the two most people chose function - that's what matters

More often, if there is a conflict between the two it's because a paradigm is wrong. Form and function go together. Apple's philosophy embraces this; its praxis is variable.

You have a point here. It’s also the device where Woz probably had as much influence as Jobs had or more, and it showed.

My 50 years just referred to the birth year of Apple itself.

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