On Tue, 26 Jun 2001, Jim Strickland wrote:
Do remember that at the time PC ethernet cards were
gruesomely
expensive too. Even in 1990, when I went to grad school, the fact that
I got a NIC through the housing department for *only* $129 was a real
bargain. And the housing department was buying them in bulk and
splitting up the packages and selling at cost, retail was still much
more expensive.
Also remember that in 1984, PCs were struggling to catch up to the A2
in terms of capability and were perhaps twice the price, and that
1984 was the year the Macintosh was *born*. It was a different era,
and if you needed ethernet, it probably made sense.
I hear your arguments but I still point to the fact that this is the only
card of this manfuacturer to ever surface (as far as we know) leading me
to speculate not many were sold, and most likely because of the cost.
I don't recall many people clamoring to build Apple ][ ethernet networks
back in the 80s. Maybe Corvus networks, but networks of Apple ][s in
general just weren't the norm (I never saw any).
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org