5 ms·

>a lot more than just a clock, it's a cheap way of doing a lot of expensive things, right in line with Apple tradition. Ah, for the Apple of 1981.

• scarface74 7y ago
  Was the Apple really cheap in 1981 compared to its contemporaries? By 1985 it was the most expensive 8 bit computer being sold if I remember correctly. I had a //e.
  • yourapostasy 7y ago
    Like many (but not all) of Apple's premier offerings since then and today, it was cheap taking into consideration all the factors, and they sometimes capitalized this in their marketing. For all it offered out of the box, with the market penetration it had, the number of users/popularity it enjoyed, the ease-of-use in its class, and level of support delivered...it was "cheap" for certain values of that term that all placed a premium upon getting that entire combination of factors. There is no doubt it is expensive, but if you fit their target market, there was a fair probability you would get pretty enamored with the fit and find the budget. There are tradeoffs (some significant) to that approach, and Apple had and continues to possess a cultural tendency to be pretty purist about it for some products some of the time, but it has served them well so far (though I see eerily uncomfortable parallels of the ][ era to today's iPhone era).
  • NikkiA 7y ago
    In europe the //e was considered one of the most expensive 'home' computers, to the point that it was only really colleges that had any.
    • mmjaa 7y ago
      My first (and best) 8-bit machine cost me $400, but I had to literally drive across the nullabor to get it (Perth->Melbourne). I suppose the fuel costs could have been put into a full-blown Apple system, but then I wouldn't have driven across the nullabor with my first computer (Oric-1), plugging into every TV I can find along the way ..
  • mmjaa 7y ago
    No, the Apple was expensive, and you still had to wire up this cheap junk to get a working clock. He's literally taking the piss out of Apple, because it was expensive even then.