I had an Apple ][ and was disappointed when the Mac came out and left hobbyists stranded. Even though the Intel CPU in the IBM PC was horrible I much preferred

I had an Apple ][ and was disappointed when the Mac came out and left hobbyists stranded. Even though the Intel CPU in the IBM PC was horrible I much preferred IBM clones to Macs, which seemed expensive, closed and goofy. If there had been a 68K based continuation of the Apple ][, with a well documented and accessible design things might have turned out different for 68K. Once the 386 came out things started looking up but the 8086 and 80286 years were painful. Of course the 68K is still super popular in its Coldfire incarnation.