3 ms·

The way I remember it was that people often did use other platforms but Microsoft won largely because IBM lost control of the PC market allowing for hundreds of

The way I remember it was that people often did use other platforms but Microsoft won largely because IBM lost control of the PC market allowing for hundreds of cheap clones. It wasn’t until the mid 90s when PCs started to feel like the more capable platform. It’s also worth noting that there is a reason Microsoft offers heavy subsidies for education: it’s because if you indoctrinate people into your platform early on then they’re likely to keep buying your platform for years to come because change is scary. Edit: just to add some context, this is the point of view from England. Sounds like Apple had (and possibly still has?) a bigger presence in schools in the US. Whereas over here Apple machines were relatively uncommon compared to many of their counterparts.

bombcar 4y ago
Which was funny to me because it wasn't until well past 2000 that any of my educational systems were Windows; grade school was Apple IIs and early Macs (one was color!) and high school had higher end Macs. Cheap clones able to run 1-2-3 was a big part of it, but the real lightning bolt for everyone I knew was Windows 95 and the Internet. And most of the kids I knew would push their parents towards the Windows for the games.
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  In U.K. it was really common for people to have 8-bit micros even into the late 80s. Typically Amstrad and Commodores (with machines from Sinclair before that) while schools had BBC Micros (from Acorn). Though there was a plethora of machines around at that time that most people have since forgotten about, like the Dragon 32 / 64. Europe, and the U.K. particularly, had a really strong computer hardware industry in those days. In fact France has the Minitel which is itself a really fascinating technology and shaped early French computing trends in a differ way to England and USA too. Going back to the U.K., you’d see a few people, usually people with a little more money, but Atari or Amiga machines but more often people jumped from C64 or Amstrad CPC micro computers to IBM-compatible PCs. There definitely were people who had an Apple Mac, but it wasn’t the norm where I lived. Showing my age a little here, but my high school still ran Windows 3.x (I don’t think it was even 3.1. Pretty sure it was 3.0 on 286s). It was all Microsoft Office too. I ran Lotus at home but Microsoft Word and Excel had already conquered the schools, at least from what I saw. But we had Corel Draw instead of PowerPoint. Not sure why. Maybe PowerPoint hadn’t been released yet?
  - jeffhwang 4y ago
    I wasn’t around for the earliest iterations of PowerPoint but according to Wikipedia [0] for its first several years, PP was Mac-only (mid-1987 to mid-1990)…even though MS had acquired the PP developer as it’s first big Silicon Valley acquisition. PowerPoint for Windows was first released in 1990 and was bundled into “Office” but didn’t have the deep interoperability with other Office apps until about 1993. Do you remember what year your school only had CorelDraw? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PowerPoint https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PowerPoint
    - hnlmorg 4y ago
      It would have been around ‘93.
cronix 4y ago
> It’s also worth noting that there is a reason Microsoft offers heavy subsidies for education: it’s because if you indoctrinate people into your platform early on then they’re likely to keep buying your platform for years to come because change is scary. That was Apple in the tail end of the 70's and 80's. Just about all grade schools where I am had Apple ]['s and few to no PC's. Apple heavily discounted the hardware and software for education. It was the same through Jr. High and High school (graduated in '90), except by then we had Mac's in the school "labs." As a kid and teenager, I didn't even know there was an IBM or Microsoft until the 90's. Everything was Apple in education. I was heartbroken to receive a 386sx/16 for my graduation present as I was heading off to software engineering in college. Until I got to college and hardly anyone had Apple's and the whole college was IBM clones.
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  Are you American? Macs were much less common in Europe and particularly in England. In fact England had its own educational computer in the 80s as a venture between then BBC and Acorn, the company that invented the original ARM CPUs.
  - cronix 4y ago
    Yes, this was in Portland, Oregon (and Beaverton)
    - hnlmorg 4y ago
      Interesting. Just goes to show how regional differences vary so much back then. I had no idea schools were running Macs before today :)
  - chasil 4y ago
    Macs were all over the University of Iowa in the early 90's, even in the college of engineering (the other half of the lab eventually was HP-UX).
  - lproven 4y ago
    They must be. Giveaways are things like "grade school" and "junior high" which do not exist anywhere else. Here on the Isle of Man, some schools did use 68K Macs at the end of the 1980s. Acorn and Apple even had a joint venture to sell into education together, called Xemplar: http://www.poppyfields.net/acorn/news/acopress/apple.shtml http://www.poppyfields.net/acorn/news/acopress/apple.shtml

bombcar 4y ago

Which was funny to me because it wasn't until well past 2000 that any of my educational systems were Windows; grade school was Apple IIs and early Macs (one was color!) and high school had higher end Macs. Cheap clones able to run 1-2-3 was a big part of it, but the real lightning bolt for everyone I knew was Windows 95 and the Internet. And most of the kids I knew would push their parents towards the Windows for the games.

hnlmorg 4y ago
In U.K. it was really common for people to have 8-bit micros even into the late 80s. Typically Amstrad and Commodores (with machines from Sinclair before that) while schools had BBC Micros (from Acorn). Though there was a plethora of machines around at that time that most people have since forgotten about, like the Dragon 32 / 64. Europe, and the U.K. particularly, had a really strong computer hardware industry in those days. In fact France has the Minitel which is itself a really fascinating technology and shaped early French computing trends in a differ way to England and USA too. Going back to the U.K., you’d see a few people, usually people with a little more money, but Atari or Amiga machines but more often people jumped from C64 or Amstrad CPC micro computers to IBM-compatible PCs. There definitely were people who had an Apple Mac, but it wasn’t the norm where I lived. Showing my age a little here, but my high school still ran Windows 3.x (I don’t think it was even 3.1. Pretty sure it was 3.0 on 286s). It was all Microsoft Office too. I ran Lotus at home but Microsoft Word and Excel had already conquered the schools, at least from what I saw. But we had Corel Draw instead of PowerPoint. Not sure why. Maybe PowerPoint hadn’t been released yet?
- jeffhwang 4y ago
  I wasn’t around for the earliest iterations of PowerPoint but according to Wikipedia [0] for its first several years, PP was Mac-only (mid-1987 to mid-1990)…even though MS had acquired the PP developer as it’s first big Silicon Valley acquisition. PowerPoint for Windows was first released in 1990 and was bundled into “Office” but didn’t have the deep interoperability with other Office apps until about 1993. Do you remember what year your school only had CorelDraw? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PowerPoint https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PowerPoint
  - hnlmorg 4y ago
    It would have been around ‘93.

cronix 4y ago

> It’s also worth noting that there is a reason Microsoft offers heavy subsidies for education: it’s because if you indoctrinate people into your platform early on then they’re likely to keep buying your platform for years to come because change is scary. That was Apple in the tail end of the 70's and 80's. Just about all grade schools where I am had Apple ]['s and few to no PC's. Apple heavily discounted the hardware and software for education. It was the same through Jr. High and High school (graduated in '90), except by then we had Mac's in the school "labs." As a kid and teenager, I didn't even know there was an IBM or Microsoft until the 90's. Everything was Apple in education. I was heartbroken to receive a 386sx/16 for my graduation present as I was heading off to software engineering in college. Until I got to college and hardly anyone had Apple's and the whole college was IBM clones.

hnlmorg 4y ago
Are you American? Macs were much less common in Europe and particularly in England. In fact England had its own educational computer in the 80s as a venture between then BBC and Acorn, the company that invented the original ARM CPUs.
- cronix 4y ago
  Yes, this was in Portland, Oregon (and Beaverton)
  - hnlmorg 4y ago
    Interesting. Just goes to show how regional differences vary so much back then. I had no idea schools were running Macs before today :)
- chasil 4y ago
  Macs were all over the University of Iowa in the early 90's, even in the college of engineering (the other half of the lab eventually was HP-UX).
- lproven 4y ago
  They must be. Giveaways are things like "grade school" and "junior high" which do not exist anywhere else. Here on the Isle of Man, some schools did use 68K Macs at the end of the 1980s. Acorn and Apple even had a joint venture to sell into education together, called Xemplar: http://www.poppyfields.net/acorn/news/acopress/apple.shtml http://www.poppyfields.net/acorn/news/acopress/apple.shtml