[pjmlp]

No they weren't, Archimedes, Amiga and Ataris did survive in Europe until late 1990's, as any Computer Shopper magazine issue will prove.

The demoscene and retrogaming scene in Europe proves how relevant those systems keep being even in 2024.

[olliej]

"Existing" doesn't mean surviving in any meaningful sense, and if that is the argument you are taking, then the existence of apple in the EU definitionally did not impact that world either.

That's the later point I made: Apple existing does not, and did not, stop any of what you're saying you want from existing, and it didn't make it any less relevant either.

You're either talking about existence in the hobbyist/enthusiast sense, in which case apple's existence or not changes nothing, or you're talking about existence in the practical real world use sense in which basically no one other than MS was relevant for more than 50% of your stated time period, and even today apple's existence or not doesn't really change anything (if anything the existence of a large enough non-MS platform is what drove the cross platform frameworks like electron - for better or worse - that mean that a bunch of apps that would historically have been windows only are now also available on linux).

[bzzzt]

Survival as a niche toy is completely irrelevant for the business and productivity market.

[pjmlp]

In 2024, 1980 - 2000 was another matter.