Why didn’t Apple make the Mac Apple // compatible?
Comment from E-mail
Hi Woz! My first experience with computers was in 1982 when I was 12 years old. Shortly after that my Dad bought me an Apple // clone (sorry 🙂 … The Franklin Ace 1000. I kept that until the ][GS came out and drewled over it (and bought one). I still have it (Woz limited edition). Between 1983 and 1991, my life revolved around the Apple // (I’ve grown up now and have more important goals in life, such as my wife and children), but at the time, every waking moment was spent hacking my clone or my GS… discovering different softswitches, entry points into ROM, etc… When Apple started wayning in its support the the Apple //, it was extremely discouraging to me and my fellow Apple // “buddies”. It seemed that they couldn’t actively kill the // line for fear of loss of loyalty, but that they made every effort to let it die a slow death and that it continued to out-sell the Mac for years with absolutely no marketing for the // line. I’ve always wondered since then what was the reasoning for letting the Apple // die instead of continuiing that line with upgrades so that today, the current Mac would actually be the latest version of the Apple //? I had been hearing rumors at the time that Steve Jobs didn’t like the “game” reputation the Apple // had and wanted a “business” competitor and that you were actually more of a // fan and you were the only reason the // line lasted as long as it did. What’s the real story behind that? Why didn’t Apple make the Mac Apple // compatible? Thanks,Michael Q. (previous graphics editor for GS+ magazine… If you remember that mag?)
Woz
The Apple ][ certainly was an excellent machine to get into the hardware and software and the basic levels of the computer. It made a lot of what a computer is understand to very many like yourself. But Apple’s leadership had a very strong direction toward making the geeky parts as hidden as possible. That has it’s benefits but it also takes away a very fun part of our lives, figuring out how to do our OWN things.
Apple never was very good at carrying on two lines at one time. Apple actually totally ditched the Apple ][ from 1980 to 1983. Every ad was for the Apple ///. But the Apple ][ was the best selling PC in the world in those years. It was also ignored when the Macintosh arrived because it was not the future and we can’t have two high priorities at once. It’s just too bad. Even though the Macintosh platform has a low market share, we keep supporting it enough to keep it working. But we didn’t do the same for the Apple ][.
I don’t have a strong personal ‘side’ on this issue. But I do receive continual email talking about how much the Apple ][ meant to people that could play with software and entry points and the like.