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by musicale
51 days ago
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By 1986 the Mac Plus had 1MB of RAM (and the Mac had a faster CPU than the original Lisa), though with inferior multitasking and no MMU. And high-end Macs really weren't (and aren't) cheap, though they could have provided good value over their lifetime. Mac II with a 40MB hard drive was $5369 in 1987, not including a keyboard ($229 for a 105 key model), video card ($499), or monitor ($1500+ for a nice Trinitron-based 13" AppleColor display.) Add more memory and an 80GB hard drive and you are back up in the $10000 range. And that's not including Apple's best-selling LaserWriter printer (1988), priced at $6995. But Apple does seem to have learned their lesson somewhat, introducing features on high-end "pro" systems and eventually migrating them downward, rather than splitting the product line into incompatible high-end (Apple III, Lisa) and low-end (Apple II, Mac) systems. |
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The LaserWriter (1985) was $6995 or $20940 in 2025 US dollars. However, with Aldus it allowed true desktop publishing, and for a high-volume press-operator with plate-exposure machines it made a great deal of economic sense with transparency film. Not really meant for home offices for a few years yet, but offered something competitive with Ventura Publisher (PC version) and xerox laser printers.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak initially set out on a journey to make computers accessible to anyone. Yet Apple was a business like any other, and prone to the same political problems. There is a subtle relationship between price and value often lost in boardrooms. =3