On 10/9/2011 4:35 PM, William Clark wrote:
In ,
Alan wrote:

In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC). Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.

Perhaps this genius can also explain why more and more college students
in science and engineering are switching to Macs? Of their own free
will, that is. And not to use Windoze on them, either.

What is Apple at now - 11%, third largest, up from less than 5% four
years ago?

Could have some relationship to the accelerated "dumbing down" of
schools and students which has been underway for decades ... no
motivation or interest in building their own computers or maintaining
up-to-date and state-of-the-art equip. for advanced use ... just want
canned hardware ... just sayin' ...

Regards,
JS

On 10/8/2011 11:19 PM, Rocky wrote:
"John wrote in message
...
On 10/5/2011 8:10 PM, J R wrote:
I just now heard on TV news he has died.
cuhulin


I guess you just can't keep charging people too much for hardware and OS
forever ... someone elses' turn now ...

Regards,
JS

FYI I owe my life to an old Apple ][+ because I learned machine language
programming on one of those and then through a series of events ended up
being a full time programmer for IBM personal computers that got to travel
all over the place like from Boston, MA to Orlando, FL via New York City
were I went to the top of the South Tower. And I went to places like San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Amarillo, TX even up to Vancouver
Canada and a lot of other places in the mid states.

Two of the things I did on the Apple ][e computers while I was still in
school were to rewrite the OS so it could load the first two programs on a
disk without loading the entire OS depending on what number I pressed while
booting and I changed my OS so I no longer had to spell out the entire word
CATALOG. All I had to do was spell cat or catwhatever (meaning as long at
the word "cat" was spelled in upper or lower case it didn't matter what
letters were behind it).

Yep, I owe my life to Steve Jobs even though I never bought an iPhone, iPad
or iPod but I might buy an iPhone if Sprint will let me keep my current plan
with unlimited phone as modem.

Rocky



Wow, learned motorola syntax to write in intel assembly syntax ... kinda
like exchanging the horses place with the cart ...

In the early days, getting documentation on the apple bios was so
difficult, it was probably the major reason most jumped to intel to
write OS, apps, etc.

And, so long ago I forget the specifics, but at least a lot of the apple
bios was boot blocks on a disk, as opposed to the firmware bios of the
PC ...

Regards,
JS

In article ,
John Smith wrote:

On 10/9/2011 11:49 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
--

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC). Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.


They virtually gave them the hardware,

"Giving" is "strongarming"?

then sold them the software for
exorbitant prices ... signed them into exploitative contracts, etc.

Really? And they signed these contracts with the children? Because I was
under the impression that schools had people who were qualified to agree
to such contracts...

Contracts which stipulated only apple people maintained the college
hardware ... etc., etc. Games within games, really.

Then they were free not to sign them, weren't they? Ergo: not
strongarmed at all.


Back in the late 80's and early 90's I taught at a jr. college, I seen
first hand how apples predatory sales techniques worked.

Clearly.


Finally, at the college, a few of us wrote letters of complaint to the
"higher ups" and rectified the problem ... there was also some business
of "incentives" being passed about about by apple to those who
controlled purchasing ... lunches, wining and dining, etc. However,
digital equipment corporation also participated in such practices ... (DEC)

However, one thing I did notice, the "apple room" was always full of
liberal arts students while the PC sections of the computer labs always
contained the math, physics, science, etc. students ... just as a casual
observation ...

Riiiiiiiight.


Regards,
JS

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg

In article ,
John Smith wrote:

On 10/9/2011 4:35 PM, William Clark wrote:
In ,
Alan wrote:

In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--
--

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC). Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.

Perhaps this genius can also explain why more and more college students
in science and engineering are switching to Macs? Of their own free
will, that is. And not to use Windoze on them, either.

What is Apple at now - 11%, third largest, up from less than 5% four
years ago?

Could have some relationship to the accelerated "dumbing down" of
schools and students which has been underway for decades ... no
motivation or interest in building their own computers or maintaining
up-to-date and state-of-the-art equip. for advanced use ... just want
canned hardware ... just sayin' ...

Regards,
JS

Or it could be what I've observed year after year: someone who switches
to the Mac almost never switches back to the PC.

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg

On 10/10/2011 12:13 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In ,
John wrote:

On 10/9/2011 4:35 PM, William Clark wrote:
In ,
Alan wrote:

In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--
--

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC). Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.

Perhaps this genius can also explain why more and more college students
in science and engineering are switching to Macs? Of their own free
will, that is. And not to use Windoze on them, either.

What is Apple at now - 11%, third largest, up from less than 5% four
years ago?

Could have some relationship to the accelerated "dumbing down" of
schools and students which has been underway for decades ... no
motivation or interest in building their own computers or maintaining
up-to-date and state-of-the-art equip. for advanced use ... just want
canned hardware ... just sayin' ...

Regards,
JS

Or it could be what I've observed year after year: someone who switches
to the Mac almost never switches back to the PC.


You should have seen my mother with a PC, virus after virus, email
sending spam to everyone in her address book, etc. Still, she would
never take a computer class, never would read a book, ...

The world breathed a sigh of relief when we insisted she have a MAC and
took away her PC ... it was then I realized PC's are like guns ... some
people just shouldn't be allowed to own one!

She now plays solitaire, emails and watches netflix without doing harm
to anyone else ...

Regards,
JS

On 10/10/2011 12:05 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In ,
John wrote:

On 10/9/2011 11:49 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
--

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC). Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.


They virtually gave them the hardware,

"Giving" is "strongarming"?

then sold them the software for
exorbitant prices ... signed them into exploitative contracts, etc.

Really? And they signed these contracts with the children? Because I was
under the impression that schools had people who were qualified to agree
to such contracts...

Contracts which stipulated only apple people maintained the college
hardware ... etc., etc. Games within games, really.

Then they were free not to sign them, weren't they? Ergo: not
strongarmed at all.


Back in the late 80's and early 90's I taught at a jr. college, I seen
first hand how apples predatory sales techniques worked.

Clearly.


Finally, at the college, a few of us wrote letters of complaint to the
"higher ups" and rectified the problem ... there was also some business
of "incentives" being passed about about by apple to those who
controlled purchasing ... lunches, wining and dining, etc. However,
digital equipment corporation also participated in such practices ... (DEC)

However, one thing I did notice, the "apple room" was always full of
liberal arts students while the PC sections of the computer labs always
contained the math, physics, science, etc. students ... just as a casual
observation ...

Riiiiiiiight.


Regards,
JS


Your post is an excellent example of what I have found about "Apple
People", they have a religious devotion to the platform ...

Personally, the only reason I use a PC, and refuse MAC's, is that I
write much of the software I use ... plus, I private contract to develop
software on multiple platforms (even though I am retired, for the most
part) ... while most of that could be done on a MAC, it simply would not
make economic sense, for me ... I mean, I am in the business to make
money -- NOT pay money to apple ... apple has worked hard in being one
of the most proprietary corps I have ever seen, I think they can do that
without me ...

Regards,
JS

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
On 10/8/2011 11:19 PM, Rocky wrote:
"John wrote in message
...
On 10/5/2011 8:10 PM, J R wrote:
I just now heard on TV news he has died.
cuhulin


I guess you just can't keep charging people too much for hardware and OS
forever ... someone elses' turn now ...

Regards,
JS

FYI I owe my life to an old Apple ][+ because I learned machine language
programming on one of those and then through a series of events ended up
being a full time programmer for IBM personal computers that got to
travel
all over the place like from Boston, MA to Orlando, FL via New York City
were I went to the top of the South Tower. And I went to places like San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Amarillo, TX even up to
Vancouver
Canada and a lot of other places in the mid states.

Two of the things I did on the Apple ][e computers while I was still in
school were to rewrite the OS so it could load the first two programs on
a
disk without loading the entire OS depending on what number I pressed
while
booting and I changed my OS so I no longer had to spell out the entire
word
CATALOG. All I had to do was spell cat or catwhatever (meaning as long
at
the word "cat" was spelled in upper or lower case it didn't matter what
letters were behind it).

Yep, I owe my life to Steve Jobs even though I never bought an iPhone,
iPad
or iPod but I might buy an iPhone if Sprint will let me keep my current
plan
with unlimited phone as modem.

Rocky

Wow, learned motorola syntax to write in intel assembly syntax ... kinda
like exchanging the horses place with the cart ...

Yes they were different but the closest thing to Intel machine language was
machine language. Besides the assembler I had at the time could be used for
multiple languages and we had to learn a few of them too.

In the early days, getting documentation on the apple bios was so
difficult, it was probably the major reason most jumped to intel to write
OS, apps, etc.

I had just the opposite problem. I found it was easier to get documentation
the Apple Dos and Apple BIOS than it was for me to get it for the IBM AT.
And when I finally found and bought my IBM AT Technical Reference Manual I
ended up with a used copy instead of a brand new one.

And, so long ago I forget the specifics, but at least a lot of the apple
bios was boot blocks on a disk, as opposed to the firmware bios of the PC
...

Yep, I remember the way Apple booted very well and I never figured out how
to boot trace on an IBM the way I could with the Apple.

As a matter of fact that fast loader I wrote for the Apple DOS that could
run programs without loading the entire OS was placed into the sector that
was used to assemble the data read from the disk.

That reminds me. I also sped up how quick I could read from text files from
a disk because on a read I removed the built in time-out and just read from
the disk until I didn't get an error.

I even wrote a special OS just to handle Rayna drives that supported 80
tracks and then used that on my BBS. Oh boy, talking about my Apple BBS
now. I even rewrote the machine language part of the modem interface to be
interrupt driven and after I did that the user could no longer tell when it
was changing modules because it would change modules while it was still
sending characters out of a buffer via interrupts.

Regards,
JS

Rocky

In article ,
John Smith wrote:

On 10/10/2011 12:05 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In ,
John wrote:

On 10/9/2011 11:49 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
---
--

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
---
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC).
Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an
exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion
thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.


They virtually gave them the hardware,

"Giving" is "strongarming"?

then sold them the software for
exorbitant prices ... signed them into exploitative contracts, etc.

Really? And they signed these contracts with the children? Because I was
under the impression that schools had people who were qualified to agree
to such contracts...

Contracts which stipulated only apple people maintained the college
hardware ... etc., etc. Games within games, really.

Then they were free not to sign them, weren't they? Ergo: not
strongarmed at all.


Back in the late 80's and early 90's I taught at a jr. college, I seen
first hand how apples predatory sales techniques worked.

Clearly.


Finally, at the college, a few of us wrote letters of complaint to the
"higher ups" and rectified the problem ... there was also some business
of "incentives" being passed about about by apple to those who
controlled purchasing ... lunches, wining and dining, etc. However,
digital equipment corporation also participated in such practices ...
(DEC)

However, one thing I did notice, the "apple room" was always full of
liberal arts students while the PC sections of the computer labs always
contained the math, physics, science, etc. students ... just as a casual
observation ...

Riiiiiiiight.


Regards,
JS


Your post is an excellent example of what I have found about "Apple
People", they have a religious devotion to the platform ...

Your post is an excellent example of someone who believes that anyone
who sees value where you do not must do it out of religious devotion...


Personally, the only reason I use a PC, and refuse MAC's, is that I
write much of the software I use ... plus, I private contract to develop
software on multiple platforms (even though I am retired, for the most
part) ... while most of that could be done on a MAC, it simply would not
make economic sense, for me ... I mean, I am in the business to make
money -- NOT pay money to apple ... apple has worked hard in being one
of the most proprietary corps I have ever seen, I think they can do that
without me ...

In what way is the Mac more "proprietary" than Windows from your
perspective? The fact that they've always sold computers with their own
OS? You can write software for that platform just as you can for Windows
or for Linux.

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg

On 10/10/2011 3:13 AM, Alan Baker wrote:

Or it could be what I've observed year after year: someone who switches
to the Mac almost never switches back to the PC.

Have you also considered economics? Macs ain't cheap...and once people
have all that Mac money invested, they might be reluctant to change.

I had my first Apple II back in 1981. Loved it! Then along came the Mac
-- closed architecture, NO expansion slots.

IBM PCs then came on the scene with -- whadda ya know -- open
architecture and expansion slots, an idea that Apple abandoned and IBM
adopted.

To this very day, IBM has TONS more ham radio, astronomy and science
software, expansion cards and applications than the Mac.

If you like a toaster/appliance, the Mac is just fine.

In article ,
says...

In article ,
Alan Baker wrote:

In article ,
dave wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC). Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.

Perhaps this genius can also explain why more and more college students
in science and engineering are switching to Macs? Of their own free
will, that is. And not to use Windoze on them, either.

What is Apple at now - 11%, third largest, up from less than 5% four
years ago?

Intel won.