30 Jan
2010
30 Jan
'10
3:21 p.m.
I remember I was working for Entre Computer Centers as an on-site full
time computer support engineer at Colgate Palmolive on Park Ave, across
from the Waldof Astoria hotel.... we got in I think 3
of the first Mac
II's in New York.... there was only 1 huge problem with them,
the only
monitors that could be used on them were these new versions of Sony
monitors, and they weren't fully available yet and it took like 7-10
days before they arrived. The 3 exec's that were getting the Mac
II's... it was hilarious, they wanted the computer sooooooooooooooo bad,
that even without monitors, they wanted them installed in their offices
and those machines sat there for like over a week - monitorless until
the Sony displays arrived... I remember powering up the first Mac II
and to see the Mac OS running in full GORGEOUS color was really
breath-taking, ah the good old days when I used to actually get excited
over technology...
Curt
Teo Zenios wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Curt @ Atari Museum"
<curt at atarimuseum.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: Atari/Commodore hybrid, was Re: General religious wars
(was Re:Editor religious wars)
What was truly the ST's major flaw was its
display, while obviously a
huge improvement for its time of 85', once the Amiga and Apple Mac II
computers hit the scene with far higher resolutions and deeper
on-screen at the same time color palletes, the ST's really began to
lag. This was further compounded by the very slow introduction of
upgrades to the Atari TOS, small incremental changes were made, while
the Amiga OS and especially the Mac OS made large, noticable jumps in
their features... this further hindered the ST's which quickly lost
their polish and shine in the competing marketplace.
Curt
The ST had that monochrome (cheap too at the time I think) 640x400
flicker free display perfect for doing work on. Mac II computers that
could do VGA resolutions were many times the price of an ST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II
"The Macintosh II was designed by hardware engineers Michael Dhuey
(computer) and Brian Berkeley (monitor). A basic system with 20 Mb
drive and monitor cost about $5200, A complete color-capable system
could cost as much as $10,000 once the cost of the color monitor,
video card, hard disk, keyboard and RAM were added.."
The ST was always priced for entry level users to compete against the
Mac line plus you could play games on it. They also had one of the
cheapest laser printers at the time (granted used the ST CPU to do the
real work).