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Jobs was shown the door because the Mac flopped. It had nothing to do with the ][, which was keeping Apple afloat.... > That "cheap toy" delivered the ability

by scholia 11y ago

Jobs was shown the door because the Mac flopped. It had nothing to do with the ][, which was keeping Apple afloat.... > That "cheap toy" delivered the ability to learn to program to more kids than Apple's BMW priced computers did. Arguable since only a tiny percentage of Vic-20 owners ever wrote more than two lines of code, while vast numbers of kids use the Apple ][ in schools.... Incidentally, Sinclair Spectrum/Timex owners make the same claim as Vic-20 owners and it's just as specious ;-)

erickhill 11y ago
> Arguable since only a tiny percentage of Vic-20 owners ever wrote more than two lines of code, while vast numbers of kids use the Apple ][ in schools.. I don't know about your school, but at mine folks were playing Oregon Trail and simple math word problems on Apple ]['s and that was about it. "Coding" didn't happen until maybe 11th or 12th grade - as an elective choice. Prior to that time, on my C64 I was copying programs (painfully) out of the back of magazines in my free time after school. Point is, just because there were computers in schools did not somehow create a legion of CS majors. Heck, more than half the folks in the programming class I took (late 80s) all had 'cheap' computers at home. They only the class because they perceived it to be an easy A or B.
protomyth 11y ago
> Jobs was shown the door because the Mac flopped. It had nothing to do with the ][, which was keeping Apple afloat.... and the Apple II was losing market share to competitors including Commodore and the IBM PC. Thus the need for the Mac to be a runaway seller. Maybe Apple should of thought of this instead of selling an 8-bit computer less capable than the better selling Atari 800 for more money. > Arguable since only a tiny percentage of Vic-20 owners ever wrote more than two lines of code, while vast numbers of kids use the Apple ][ in schools.... I doubt this. Like erickhill when we finally got some Apple IIs they were used for Oregon Trail, math, and typing. Atari and Commodore had magazines (Antic for one) that contained about 40% of their content as code. I cannot imagine that those magazines lasted that long if people were not using that content. Your statement also assumes either the school or the individual could afford the Apple II. Even with the propaganda Apple put out about their deep educational discounts, it just wasn't so for a large number of schools. They didn't have the budget for Apple II's and could buy Radio Shack, TI, Atari, and, especially Commodore. Apple dealers were not evenly distributed and Commodore had better offers. Rural schools ended up with what we got. We didn't get Apple IIs (the IIe to be specific) until 1986 when the PC was already an educational seller and Apple was flushing the inventory. When we finally got them, they were too valuable to use for anything but educational software. Never mind our ability to buy any Macintoshes. Beyond that, the competitors had some better capabilities. Atari was much better at graphics and both the Atari and Commodore had joystick / paddle ports that could be used in sensor experiments (e.g. photocell connected to the paddle pins on the 9-pin port). TI had a nice speech synthesizer that was easy to program. Heck, the Atari Logo was the same as Apple's and came on a cartridge. Apple was for rich schools and students, Commodore was for the rest of us. > Incidentally, Sinclair Spectrum/Timex owners make the same claim as Vic-20 owners and it's just as specious ;-) You can put the smiley face on that but it is no less crass and just as untrue. They too had magazines that consisted mostly of programming.

by scholia 11y ago

erickhill 11y ago

> Arguable since only a tiny percentage of Vic-20 owners ever wrote more than two lines of code, while vast numbers of kids use the Apple ][ in schools.. I don't know about your school, but at mine folks were playing Oregon Trail and simple math word problems on Apple ]['s and that was about it. "Coding" didn't happen until maybe 11th or 12th grade - as an elective choice. Prior to that time, on my C64 I was copying programs (painfully) out of the back of magazines in my free time after school. Point is, just because there were computers in schools did not somehow create a legion of CS majors. Heck, more than half the folks in the programming class I took (late 80s) all had 'cheap' computers at home. They only the class because they perceived it to be an easy A or B.

protomyth 11y ago

> Jobs was shown the door because the Mac flopped. It had nothing to do with the ][, which was keeping Apple afloat.... and the Apple II was losing market share to competitors including Commodore and the IBM PC. Thus the need for the Mac to be a runaway seller. Maybe Apple should of thought of this instead of selling an 8-bit computer less capable than the better selling Atari 800 for more money. > Arguable since only a tiny percentage of Vic-20 owners ever wrote more than two lines of code, while vast numbers of kids use the Apple ][ in schools.... I doubt this. Like erickhill when we finally got some Apple IIs they were used for Oregon Trail, math, and typing. Atari and Commodore had magazines (Antic for one) that contained about 40% of their content as code. I cannot imagine that those magazines lasted that long if people were not using that content. Your statement also assumes either the school or the individual could afford the Apple II. Even with the propaganda Apple put out about their deep educational discounts, it just wasn't so for a large number of schools. They didn't have the budget for Apple II's and could buy Radio Shack, TI, Atari, and, especially Commodore. Apple dealers were not evenly distributed and Commodore had better offers. Rural schools ended up with what we got. We didn't get Apple IIs (the IIe to be specific) until 1986 when the PC was already an educational seller and Apple was flushing the inventory. When we finally got them, they were too valuable to use for anything but educational software. Never mind our ability to buy any Macintoshes. Beyond that, the competitors had some better capabilities. Atari was much better at graphics and both the Atari and Commodore had joystick / paddle ports that could be used in sensor experiments (e.g. photocell connected to the paddle pins on the 9-pin port). TI had a nice speech synthesizer that was easy to program. Heck, the Atari Logo was the same as Apple's and came on a cartridge. Apple was for rich schools and students, Commodore was for the rest of us. > Incidentally, Sinclair Spectrum/Timex owners make the same claim as Vic-20 owners and it's just as specious ;-) You can put the smiley face on that but it is no less crass and just as untrue. They too had magazines that consisted mostly of programming.