25 Apr
2008
25 Apr
'08
9:12 a.m.
Jules wrote:
(I'm not sure that CPU cost came into it - was a
68k really so much more
than an 8088 that it would have mattered on a machine costing close on
$2k?)
Yes. My estimate is that cost of goods would have been higher by about
$75, which would have translated to a $300-400 increase at retail. When
you combine that with having nowhere near as much software available at
or shortly after launch, it would have been a disaster.
Remember that they weren't trying to design a system architecture to last
five years, let alone 27 and counting. They were trying to ship a "me
too" product with incremental improvements over the Apple II.
Which is odd - other machines of the time had better
expansion options and
better features out of the box. All the PC really brought was 16-bit
They weren't going after the S-100 market. In the "small microcomputer"
market, the Apple II was the only one that had a reasonable number of
(nearly) identical expansion slots.
Eric