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by protomyth 5697 days ago
Cost isn't everything, even in 1984. The PC wasn't the price leader of the era, check the market share and price of a C64.
2 comments

No, but it was arguably price-performance leader, which the Mac, in raw terms, decidedly was not. I guess the other piece at the beginning was the IBM brand, but that wasn't enough to make it take off like a rocket.
IBM salesmen were pretty effective (it was the second run after the IBM 5100), but I get the feeling Compaq isn't quite given the credit they deserve. The Compaq Portable was a pretty compelling machine for business.

I would argue that the C64 was still a price / performance leader given its low price.

edit: /BM/IBM/

Well, you know. The C64 had a bigger problem: Commodore.
Indeed. I confess I remain baffled how the Mac managed to beat the Amiga to the not-PC slot in the market. More expensive, slower, less capable hardware, vastly more primitive operating system and not an enormous delay between the two.

If Commodore had done their job properly we'd be saying Steve Who?

The worst part was when Tramiel bought Atari and we got Commodore II. Although, by the time the Amiga 1000 was launched, Jobs was already on his way out. It might have helped NeXT if the Amiga would have taken some of the PC market share.
In 1984, my buddy received a $2500 Mac 128K for his birthday. I got a $800 Apple //c.

To this day, I believe I recieved the better gift, at the time. The original Mac, while "groundbreaking", was not only overpriced, but pretty useless.

It really should have shipped with 512K (Forth was fun then). I wrote all my college papers on an Mac printing to a LaserWriter. For the time, that combo was incredible.