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>The C64's superior graphics and sound ability hurt it in the minds of many consumers. It was cheaper than an Apple II, but as far as parents were concerned tha

>The C64's superior graphics and sound ability hurt it in the minds of many consumers. It was cheaper than an Apple II, but as far as parents were concerned that was still a lot of money to pay for a "game machine." Whereas the even more expensive Apple II, with a better selection of educational and "serious" software, was seen more as an investment in a child's future. Then why did the C64 sell 22 million units and the Apple 2 only sold 5-6 million if consumers had a bad impression of it. > Obviously a C128 or Amiga would have been better for gaming and writing fun stuff. And pretty much everything else. Seriously, in college, everyone in engineering used TeX. I used TeX on my Amiga. It produced superior output for math and engineering papers compared to the best you could achieve on a Mac with WYSIWYG.

JohnBooty 6y ago
Sorry, but best estimates of actual Commodore 64 sales are roughly 12.5 million, not 22 million. Still, there's no doubt that they handily outsold Apple II's. https://www.pagetable.com/?p=547 https://www.pagetable.com/?p=547 (includes some neat serial number analysis) Then why did the C64 sell 22 million units and the Apple 2 only sold 5-6 million if consumers had a bad impression of it. This is bad-faith arguing on your part; it's beneath HN. I clearly didn't say they had a "bad" impression of it. I typed something a lot more nuanced about the different impression folks had regarding the two machines. Feel free to agree or disagree with the points I actually made, but there's no need to make up words and put them into my mouth. I said it was viewed as a less serious computer; more of a games machine. I can think of a few reasons for this, in addition to the ones I've named, such as being sold in literal toy stores. Do you think perhaps that influenced peoples' perceptions? And pretty much everything else. Seriously, in college, everyone in engineering used TeX. I used TeX on my Amiga. It produced superior output for math and engineering papers compared to the best you could achieve on a Mac with WYSIWYG. Yeah, no doubt. Again, and I'm not sure I can state this explicitly enough given your posting spree here, but I'm not disputing that the C64/128 and particularly the Amiga were better at so many things. However, the initial simplistic assertion that "[Apple] made up for it only in superior marketing" (emphasis mine) ignores quite a few other factors.
- cromwellian 6y ago
  > Sorry, but best estimates of actual Commodore 64 sales are roughly 12.5 million, not 22 million. Still, there's no doubt that they handily outsold Apple II's. It leaves out the C128 sales, which is like leaving out the IIe/IIc. > "[Apple] made up for it only in superior marketing" (emphasis mine) ignores quite a few other factors. I wish I could agree, but from a HW perspective, Apple was doing a bad job. They had years and a ton of revenues from the Apple II, and failed to significantly innovate in HW. From a software perspective, they were much better than Commodore. Look, I had a Mac 128k in 1985 and an Amiga 1000, and although Mac OS and its DTP software was better in some respects than the Amiga, the HW was not, with the exception of LocalTalk/AppleTalk. I also think you are ignoring why parents often bought computers for their kids in the 1980s -- because the kids asked for them. Because they could play games. It just so happened they could also be used for education tasks, but huge numbers of people were inspired to go into STEM because of playing games on early 8-bit computers, and then asking "How did they make this?" For computers like the C64, lots of kids would type in game source code published in magazines like Compute! Gazette!, run the games, and when they got bored of them, they'd modify them. It was the early open-source model, learn by forking. Most of my friends asked their parents for computers because of the sexy graphics and sound. They then serendipitously learned from them. So whether the numbers are 12 million or 17 million or 22 million, I'm willing to bet there are far more engineers of my generation who cut their teeth on a C64, Atari, Spectrum ZX, or an Amstrad, because of the flashy graphics and games, then the children of parents who read splashy Apple full page ads talking about how 'educational' they were. What's my point of of these rants? It seems unlike criticism of Commodore, people can't deal with any criticism of Apple Hagiography, that after shipping the first Apple 2 in 1978, they stagnated, and were never good at HW innovation. The lionization of the Apple 2 ignores the reality of the world of millions of Europeans who never saw one, effectively cementing an American viewpoint of 8-bit computing.
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    It seems unlike criticism of Commodore, people can't deal with any criticism of Apple Hagiography, This is a misunderstanding of the folks interacting with you on this comment thread. Perhaps you grew up elsewhere and there is a language barrier. I'm not sure how else to explain it. This thread is filled with folks freely pointing out areas in which Commodore's offerings were superior, that the Apple II line clearly stagnated for a decade before culminating in the intentionally crippled IIgs. I don't see people even remotely promoting "hagiorgraphy", just folks (besides you) attempting to have a nuanced discussion. Not to mention my vested interest in Commodore/MOS since I grew up just a few miles from MOS' HQ and have even visited the building. So to suggest I am locked into a US/Apple-only view of personal computers in the 80s is absolutely absurd. Good day and good bye. I certainly hope the rest of your HN interactions are not like this.

JohnBooty 6y ago

Sorry, but best estimates of actual Commodore 64 sales are roughly 12.5 million, not 22 million. Still, there's no doubt that they handily outsold Apple II's. https://www.pagetable.com/?p=547 https://www.pagetable.com/?p=547 (includes some neat serial number analysis) Then why did the C64 sell 22 million units and the Apple 2 only sold 5-6 million if consumers had a bad impression of it. This is bad-faith arguing on your part; it's beneath HN. I clearly didn't say they had a "bad" impression of it. I typed something a lot more nuanced about the different impression folks had regarding the two machines. Feel free to agree or disagree with the points I actually made, but there's no need to make up words and put them into my mouth. I said it was viewed as a less serious computer; more of a games machine. I can think of a few reasons for this, in addition to the ones I've named, such as being sold in literal toy stores. Do you think perhaps that influenced peoples' perceptions? And pretty much everything else. Seriously, in college, everyone in engineering used TeX. I used TeX on my Amiga. It produced superior output for math and engineering papers compared to the best you could achieve on a Mac with WYSIWYG. Yeah, no doubt. Again, and I'm not sure I can state this explicitly enough given your posting spree here, but I'm not disputing that the C64/128 and particularly the Amiga were better at so many things. However, the initial simplistic assertion that "[Apple] made up for it only in superior marketing" (emphasis mine) ignores quite a few other factors.

cromwellian 6y ago
> Sorry, but best estimates of actual Commodore 64 sales are roughly 12.5 million, not 22 million. Still, there's no doubt that they handily outsold Apple II's. It leaves out the C128 sales, which is like leaving out the IIe/IIc. > "[Apple] made up for it only in superior marketing" (emphasis mine) ignores quite a few other factors. I wish I could agree, but from a HW perspective, Apple was doing a bad job. They had years and a ton of revenues from the Apple II, and failed to significantly innovate in HW. From a software perspective, they were much better than Commodore. Look, I had a Mac 128k in 1985 and an Amiga 1000, and although Mac OS and its DTP software was better in some respects than the Amiga, the HW was not, with the exception of LocalTalk/AppleTalk. I also think you are ignoring why parents often bought computers for their kids in the 1980s -- because the kids asked for them. Because they could play games. It just so happened they could also be used for education tasks, but huge numbers of people were inspired to go into STEM because of playing games on early 8-bit computers, and then asking "How did they make this?" For computers like the C64, lots of kids would type in game source code published in magazines like Compute! Gazette!, run the games, and when they got bored of them, they'd modify them. It was the early open-source model, learn by forking. Most of my friends asked their parents for computers because of the sexy graphics and sound. They then serendipitously learned from them. So whether the numbers are 12 million or 17 million or 22 million, I'm willing to bet there are far more engineers of my generation who cut their teeth on a C64, Atari, Spectrum ZX, or an Amstrad, because of the flashy graphics and games, then the children of parents who read splashy Apple full page ads talking about how 'educational' they were. What's my point of of these rants? It seems unlike criticism of Commodore, people can't deal with any criticism of Apple Hagiography, that after shipping the first Apple 2 in 1978, they stagnated, and were never good at HW innovation. The lionization of the Apple 2 ignores the reality of the world of millions of Europeans who never saw one, effectively cementing an American viewpoint of 8-bit computing.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  It seems unlike criticism of Commodore, people can't deal with any criticism of Apple Hagiography, This is a misunderstanding of the folks interacting with you on this comment thread. Perhaps you grew up elsewhere and there is a language barrier. I'm not sure how else to explain it. This thread is filled with folks freely pointing out areas in which Commodore's offerings were superior, that the Apple II line clearly stagnated for a decade before culminating in the intentionally crippled IIgs. I don't see people even remotely promoting "hagiorgraphy", just folks (besides you) attempting to have a nuanced discussion. Not to mention my vested interest in Commodore/MOS since I grew up just a few miles from MOS' HQ and have even visited the building. So to suggest I am locked into a US/Apple-only view of personal computers in the 80s is absolutely absurd. Good day and good bye. I certainly hope the rest of your HN interactions are not like this.