[SIGCIS-Members] Counterfactual history: Did the Mac cost Apple a shot at market leadership?

[Brian Berg]

As IEEE Milestone Coordinator for IEEE Region 6 (the 10 western United
States, roughly), I worked on the submissions for Milestones for the Apple I
<http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestone-Proposal:Introduction_of_the_Apple_I_Computer:_1976>,
Apple ][
<http://ethw.org/Milestones:Introduction_of_the_Apple_II_Computer:_1977-1978>
and Macintosh
<http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestone-Proposal:Introduction_of_the_Apple_Macintosh_Computer,_1984>.
These have not yet been dedicated, but they have been approved by the IEEE
History Committee and the IEEE Board of Directors.  The Macintosh site is
the only location anywhere that describes the 7 patents that are exercised
by the Mac.  It took a lot of work to track down that info, and I was
working with over 20 members of the Mac design team.

Steve Wozniak was (not surprisingly) a key source of info for the Apple I
and ][.  He provided some very interesting perspective re: the floppy
controller as used with the Apple ][.  This controller was implemented as a
single IC in the Macintosh and therein called the "Integrated Woz Machine
(IWM)" - this is also described in US Patent No. 4,742,448
<http://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/images/6/65/Ref4-US4742448.pdf>.

I am not sure how much this adds to the discussion, but I thought that this
info would be of interest.
_________________________
Brian A. Berg / bberg at StanfordAlumni.org
Berg Software Design
14500 Big Basin Way, Suite F, Saratoga, CA 95070 USA
Voice: 408.741.5010 / Cell: 408.568.2505
Consulting: Flash Memory/USB/Storage/Patents
visit the Storage Cornucopia: www.bswd.com
FMS Technical Chair: www.FlashMemorySummit.com
IEEE Milestone
<http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones>
Coordinator for Region 6 <http://www.ieee-region6.org/>
IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/> Chair (2012) / IEEE-CNSV
<http://www.CaliforniaConsultants.org> Board Director
IEEE SCV History Committee <http://www.SiliconValleyHistory.com/> Chair


On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 3:39 PM, Paul McJones <paul at mcjones.org> wrote:

> Tom,
>
> I believe you meant “Macintosh II” each time you said “Apple II” (three
> occurrences). (The Apple II, sometimes referred to as the Apple ][, was of
> course the original late 70s Apple product.)
>
> My view is that while Apple as a company almost failed, the Macintosh was
> an early critical success, helped companies like Adobe create a large
> market for computer graphics, was widely used in education, and, after the
> return of Jobs, has become the most profitable personal computer brand
> ever, to say nothing of providing the technological base for the iPhone.
> Horace Dediu, the analyst who runs http://www.asymco.com, has plenty of
> financial information backing this.
>
>
> Paul McJones
>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 4:17 PM
>
>> To: members at sigcis.org
>
>> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Counterfactual history: Did the Mac cost Apple
> a shot at market leadership?
>
> Hello SIGCIS,
>
> I’m looking for your opinions. I’m currently working on a project that
> involves coming up with a coherent overall narrative of the development of
> the modern PC. One question I’m facing is how to treat the Mac, in
> particular whether its development was a huge blunder by Apple. This gets
> into some classic questions about the role of the individual in driving
> history.
>
> …
>
> Thoughts? Pointers to sources?
>
>
>
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