5 ms·

Wow I was curious and it looks like there were only ever about 5-6 million Apple II computers produced (according to Wikipedia). That's pretty darn amazing tha

by tdicola 12y ago

Wow I was curious and it looks like there were only ever about 5-6 million Apple II computers produced (according to Wikipedia). That's pretty darn amazing that the Pi is already on track to surpass the Apple II--what I remember as the most ubiquitous and well loved computer for learning when I grew up in the 80's. I think it's officially time for anyone who doubted the Pi to eat crow. I know I jumped on the bandwagon and never thought it would be worthwhile. Now I own a couple of them and love them!

joezydeco 12y ago
I remain skeptical that all 5 million units are in daily use. A healthy fraction are probably in serious use by skilled embedded developers and a certain range of users like XBMC fans. Another serious fraction are probably using them for the actual educational purposes of the system. But I fear that the majority are sitting in desk drawers, booted once and tried and then left to gather dust. I compare them to treadmills. Some buy them and use them religiously but most buy them with great intentions and leave it at that.
- tdicola 12y ago
  Does it really matter? I'm sure countless Apple II's, etc. were bought and barely used too.
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    Kind of does matter when we're comparing the relative success of the two devices. We know about the ecosystem that sprung up from the Apple ][ because we have history to look back upon. All the firms that sold software (I still miss Beagle Bros). All the magazines. All the books. All the accessories. I just don't see that same ecosystem surrounding the RPi, especially if 5 million users are involved. A couple of heavily trafficked forums don't really seem like the same thing. And given the Apple ]['s price ($1,200 in 1978 dollars or $4,700 in today's money), they were probably not as quickly tossed aside once interest waned. This was a serious a purchase as a used car.
    - bduerst 12y ago
      Different eras, different mediums. I think the success is correlated in the markets that they are driving though. RPi wasn't the first microcomputing board (Arduino was introduced 2005) but it definitely popularized them. Now you have intel Edison and a bazillion other tiny computers springing up. It's easy to be skeptical now but I think 10 years from now it will be easier to compare Apple IIe to RPi (good or bad).
      - joezydeco 12y ago
        If the RPi creates a wave of kids enthralled with embedded systems and Linux system development, I'm certainly for it. But, from my viewpoint as an embedded systems developer, I fear that those are greatly steeper learning curves than how the Apple generation (myself included) got started: ]10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD "; ]20 GOTO 10 ]RUN
- wyager 12y ago
  You've been downvoted pretty heavily, but I think you're right. Both of mine are sitting in a drawer. The fanless server I have under my desk has the equivalent storage, processing power, and bandwidth of dozens of Raspberry Pis. Any software I can put on my Pi, I can even more easily put on my server (which is also more reliable than a Pi, in my experience). Pis running Linux also aren't nearly realtime enough to use for a lot of low-level embedded tasks, so I still use bare-metal AVR or ARM hardware for most hardware projects. Mostly due to the lack of SATA and gigabit ethernet, the Pi is just really not that useful for me.
Digit-Al 12y ago
> Now I own a couple of them and love them! And there's your answer as to how the Pi can surpass the Apple II. The Pi is so cheap that people can easily own two or three. Do you think many people owned more than one Apple II? :-)
- 1348791hef 12y ago
  My dad (an experimental physicist) still has ~10 of them in his lab. (They run the code that directly controls his apparatus -- it was written in the 80s, and with them being so plentiful in university surplus there was never a reason to change platforms. Plus, the code itself is some combination of assembly and BASIC, which would probably be kind of a pain to port!)
  - jgrahamc 12y ago
    Please post photos and a write up of this.
  - zem 12y ago
    there's clearly a market for a raspberry pi running an apple ii emulator, then!
thornygreb 12y ago
At least 12 million Commodore 64s were sold, some sources say higher.

by tdicola 12y ago

joezydeco 12y ago

I remain skeptical that all 5 million units are in daily use. A healthy fraction are probably in serious use by skilled embedded developers and a certain range of users like XBMC fans. Another serious fraction are probably using them for the actual educational purposes of the system. But I fear that the majority are sitting in desk drawers, booted once and tried and then left to gather dust. I compare them to treadmills. Some buy them and use them religiously but most buy them with great intentions and leave it at that.

tdicola 12y ago
Does it really matter? I'm sure countless Apple II's, etc. were bought and barely used too.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  Kind of does matter when we're comparing the relative success of the two devices. We know about the ecosystem that sprung up from the Apple ][ because we have history to look back upon. All the firms that sold software (I still miss Beagle Bros). All the magazines. All the books. All the accessories. I just don't see that same ecosystem surrounding the RPi, especially if 5 million users are involved. A couple of heavily trafficked forums don't really seem like the same thing. And given the Apple ]['s price ($1,200 in 1978 dollars or $4,700 in today's money), they were probably not as quickly tossed aside once interest waned. This was a serious a purchase as a used car.
  - bduerst 12y ago
    Different eras, different mediums. I think the success is correlated in the markets that they are driving though. RPi wasn't the first microcomputing board (Arduino was introduced 2005) but it definitely popularized them. Now you have intel Edison and a bazillion other tiny computers springing up. It's easy to be skeptical now but I think 10 years from now it will be easier to compare Apple IIe to RPi (good or bad).
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      If the RPi creates a wave of kids enthralled with embedded systems and Linux system development, I'm certainly for it. But, from my viewpoint as an embedded systems developer, I fear that those are greatly steeper learning curves than how the Apple generation (myself included) got started: ]10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD "; ]20 GOTO 10 ]RUN
wyager 12y ago
You've been downvoted pretty heavily, but I think you're right. Both of mine are sitting in a drawer. The fanless server I have under my desk has the equivalent storage, processing power, and bandwidth of dozens of Raspberry Pis. Any software I can put on my Pi, I can even more easily put on my server (which is also more reliable than a Pi, in my experience). Pis running Linux also aren't nearly realtime enough to use for a lot of low-level embedded tasks, so I still use bare-metal AVR or ARM hardware for most hardware projects. Mostly due to the lack of SATA and gigabit ethernet, the Pi is just really not that useful for me.

Digit-Al 12y ago

> Now I own a couple of them and love them! And there's your answer as to how the Pi can surpass the Apple II. The Pi is so cheap that people can easily own two or three. Do you think many people owned more than one Apple II? :-)

1348791hef 12y ago
My dad (an experimental physicist) still has ~10 of them in his lab. (They run the code that directly controls his apparatus -- it was written in the 80s, and with them being so plentiful in university surplus there was never a reason to change platforms. Plus, the code itself is some combination of assembly and BASIC, which would probably be kind of a pain to port!)
- jgrahamc 12y ago
  Please post photos and a write up of this.
- zem 12y ago
  there's clearly a market for a raspberry pi running an apple ii emulator, then!

thornygreb 12y ago

At least 12 million Commodore 64s were sold, some sources say higher.