2 ms·

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