6 ms·

Same in Eastern Europe. You'd only see Macs in professional sound, video, graphic design and publishing houses, which was only a drop in the ocean compared to W

Same in Eastern Europe. You'd only see Macs in professional sound, video, graphic design and publishing houses, which was only a drop in the ocean compared to Windows PC market share. Their super high cost and inability to run most popular SW like games made it a no-go for consumer and businesses, especially in a low wage market given that Macs here were more expensive than in the US due to VAT and import duties but wages were 20x lower.

chx 2y ago
From what I remember in Hungary thirty-ish years ago: Professional AV was Commodore Amiga. DTP used Mac because of QuarkXPress. Professional design used SGI Indigo. IBM PC was office and in this period it became the gaming machine. Even before Commodore went bankrupt, the Gravis Ultrasound and Wolfenstein 3D dethroned the Amiga. https://youtu.be/wsADJa-23Sg https://youtu.be/wsADJa-23Sg has an excellent explanation why Wolfenstein 3D couldn't be done on the Amiga. The GUS was key in moving the demoscene to the PC and while obviously that's extremely niche it literally demonstrated what the PC is capable of and had a huge effect on the game creators. The first Assembly was organized in 1992 by two Amiga groups and Future Crew but just one year the latter released Second Reality and the Amiga was no more.
- chx 2y ago
  Sorry for misremembering: it was SGI Indy not the Indigo.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    And also important to note that the SGI machines were a factor more expensive again than the macs. If the macs were already nearly unfeasible in Eastern Europe the SGIs certainly would be.
    - chx 2y ago
      And yet I saw more than a few in the early 3D / rendering business. Maybe they worked for Western VFX houses? I can't recall. Price wise, I am not sure. There were cheaper Macs yes but looking at workstations https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/specs/mac_quadra_800.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/specs/mac_quad... https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?attachments/sgi-indy-introductory-pricing-jpg.552/ https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?attachments/sgi-indy-introdu... pricing is comparable?
      - wkat4242 2y ago
        Oh yeah I'm sure because they were pretty much the only game in town for that. But what I mean is: they were purely professional workstations. A Mac was something that a wealthy private person could have, easily. You wouldn't buy an Indy, they were over 20k$ or something. I was really referring to private use. We had some at university but even those were donated. Though we were mainly a HP-UX shop.
- homarp 2y ago
  GUS was also the start of Alsa https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound-3.html https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound-3.html
sybercecurity 2y ago
It was that way in the US too until the iPod and then iPhone took off and MacOS X became viable. If it wasn't for Apple's legacy hold in education (a lot universities in the 90's sold Macs in their bookstores) Apple may have gone the way of Amiga before that happened. They were seen as the expensive, pretty computer used by creative types or by students.
- inanutshellus 2y ago
  Famously, Apple was the stock everyone expected to fail, for over a decade. You couldn't short them because they kept not dying. You couldn't buy'm because they kept not making money. IMO, Apple was only able to stay alive because Microsoft invested so heavily in them. Microsoft was worried about being seen as a monopoly, so investing in Apple ensured that Microsoft could both /not/ be a monopoly but also benefit no matter how well Apple did. IIRC they sold their stake after the iPod was released and Apple was back on its feet.
  - eej71 2y ago
    Entire books were written about the disaster that was Apple in the mid-late 90s. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581496.Apple https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581496.Apple They weren't wrong. Just an amazing turn around.
- xattt 2y ago
  Widespread adoption of Macs by students really went hand-in-hand with the transition to Intel, likely because of a boost to battery life that allowed students to take notes for at least two lectures before needing to plug in.
- tivert 2y ago
  >> You'd only see Macs in professional sound, video, graphic design and publishing houses... > It was that way in the US too until the iPod and then iPhone took off and MacOS X became viable. No. As someone who had experience with existing in the 90s, I can say you're dead wrong. Like I don't even know where to start. Macs weren't as popular as PCs, but you'd see them all over in the consumer space: You'd see Macs in department store computer displays (Best Buy, Sam's Club, Officemax, etc.). The iMac was released in 1998 (and was so influential you had PC makers copying its style). That was the real beginning of Apple's turnaround. The iPod wasn't released in 2001, and was pretty niche for a long time. Several families I know had Macs as their family computer during the 90s (including my own).
mepian 2y ago
In the early 2010s I stumbled upon a defunct Macintosh LC II or III in some office at my Russian technical university and was very surprised by that. I guess it was being used for CAD in the 90s, since the office belonged to someone from the mechanical engineering department.
dwaite 2y ago
Same in the United States. Outside of schools who got the machines for a substantial discount, they were bought for specific professional use cases like electronic publishing. Steve Jobs saw that it wasn't just the Mac but the entire PC industry that ignored the consumer market - Windows and the vast majority of software (excluding games) were built for the professional market, and the same beige boxes and components were rehashed for the consumer market with the idea that people would "want what they use at work". That was what restarted legitimate consumer market sales, and gave them a ton of ways to meaningfully differentiate their products (Microsoft didn't really start noticeably responding until the Zune and Vista)

chx 2y ago

From what I remember in Hungary thirty-ish years ago: Professional AV was Commodore Amiga. DTP used Mac because of QuarkXPress. Professional design used SGI Indigo. IBM PC was office and in this period it became the gaming machine. Even before Commodore went bankrupt, the Gravis Ultrasound and Wolfenstein 3D dethroned the Amiga. https://youtu.be/wsADJa-23Sg https://youtu.be/wsADJa-23Sg has an excellent explanation why Wolfenstein 3D couldn't be done on the Amiga. The GUS was key in moving the demoscene to the PC and while obviously that's extremely niche it literally demonstrated what the PC is capable of and had a huge effect on the game creators. The first Assembly was organized in 1992 by two Amiga groups and Future Crew but just one year the latter released Second Reality and the Amiga was no more.

chx 2y ago
Sorry for misremembering: it was SGI Indy not the Indigo.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  And also important to note that the SGI machines were a factor more expensive again than the macs. If the macs were already nearly unfeasible in Eastern Europe the SGIs certainly would be.
  - chx 2y ago
    And yet I saw more than a few in the early 3D / rendering business. Maybe they worked for Western VFX houses? I can't recall. Price wise, I am not sure. There were cheaper Macs yes but looking at workstations https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/specs/mac_quadra_800.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/specs/mac_quad... https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?attachments/sgi-indy-introductory-pricing-jpg.552/ https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?attachments/sgi-indy-introdu... pricing is comparable?
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Oh yeah I'm sure because they were pretty much the only game in town for that. But what I mean is: they were purely professional workstations. A Mac was something that a wealthy private person could have, easily. You wouldn't buy an Indy, they were over 20k$ or something. I was really referring to private use. We had some at university but even those were donated. Though we were mainly a HP-UX shop.
homarp 2y ago
GUS was also the start of Alsa https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound-3.html https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound-3.html

sybercecurity 2y ago

It was that way in the US too until the iPod and then iPhone took off and MacOS X became viable. If it wasn't for Apple's legacy hold in education (a lot universities in the 90's sold Macs in their bookstores) Apple may have gone the way of Amiga before that happened. They were seen as the expensive, pretty computer used by creative types or by students.

inanutshellus 2y ago
Famously, Apple was the stock everyone expected to fail, for over a decade. You couldn't short them because they kept not dying. You couldn't buy'm because they kept not making money. IMO, Apple was only able to stay alive because Microsoft invested so heavily in them. Microsoft was worried about being seen as a monopoly, so investing in Apple ensured that Microsoft could both /not/ be a monopoly but also benefit no matter how well Apple did. IIRC they sold their stake after the iPod was released and Apple was back on its feet.
- eej71 2y ago
  Entire books were written about the disaster that was Apple in the mid-late 90s. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581496.Apple https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581496.Apple They weren't wrong. Just an amazing turn around.
xattt 2y ago
Widespread adoption of Macs by students really went hand-in-hand with the transition to Intel, likely because of a boost to battery life that allowed students to take notes for at least two lectures before needing to plug in.
tivert 2y ago
>> You'd only see Macs in professional sound, video, graphic design and publishing houses... > It was that way in the US too until the iPod and then iPhone took off and MacOS X became viable. No. As someone who had experience with existing in the 90s, I can say you're dead wrong. Like I don't even know where to start. Macs weren't as popular as PCs, but you'd see them all over in the consumer space: You'd see Macs in department store computer displays (Best Buy, Sam's Club, Officemax, etc.). The iMac was released in 1998 (and was so influential you had PC makers copying its style). That was the real beginning of Apple's turnaround. The iPod wasn't released in 2001, and was pretty niche for a long time. Several families I know had Macs as their family computer during the 90s (including my own).

mepian 2y ago

In the early 2010s I stumbled upon a defunct Macintosh LC II or III in some office at my Russian technical university and was very surprised by that. I guess it was being used for CAD in the 90s, since the office belonged to someone from the mechanical engineering department.

dwaite 2y ago

Same in the United States. Outside of schools who got the machines for a substantial discount, they were bought for specific professional use cases like electronic publishing. Steve Jobs saw that it wasn't just the Mac but the entire PC industry that ignored the consumer market - Windows and the vast majority of software (excluding games) were built for the professional market, and the same beige boxes and components were rehashed for the consumer market with the idea that people would "want what they use at work". That was what restarted legitimate consumer market sales, and gave them a ton of ways to meaningfully differentiate their products (Microsoft didn't really start noticeably responding until the Zune and Vista)