No they didn't, at least not outside the US. I believe we got a 10% to 15% discount, but not much more. I started Mac development in 1984, when they first came out. We had to buy a Lisa and the Pascal development environment, pretty much at list price in order to do any programming on the Mac. Within a year we were cross developing on Unix, Apple's support for their own development environment was so poor it wasn't worth using. -- Dr. Mark Green mark(a)cs.ualberta.ca Professor (780) 492-4584 Director, Research Institute for Multimedia Systems (RIMS) Department of Computing Science (780) 492-1071 (FAX) University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada

They didn't give away Inside Macintosh either, we had to buy it at the local bookstore. I think a large part of the problem was the attitiude. We paid close to list price, and in return we didn't get any support. If there was a sizable discount, say 30%, then this would be acceptable. But, whenever we called with problems we were told we were a University Site and weren't entitled to support (I suspect we would have got the same answer if we had paid full price). -- Dr. Mark Green mark(a)cs.ualberta.ca Professor (780) 492-4584 Director, Research Institute for Multimedia Systems (RIMS) Department of Computing Science (780) 492-1071 (FAX) University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada

On 10 Apr 2000, Eric Smith wrote: Oh, I'm sure the university I was going to (UC Santa Barbara) had multiple copies--locked away in some consultant's office where we mere peons...er...students couldn't get to it. Yeah, but DEC's were hardly "personal" computers at the time. In that arena, one expected to pay substantially more than a PC owner for software and docs...and DEC's customers (large organizations of one type or another) could afford it and gladly(?) coughed it up... At the time, I was more interested in writing simple programs and such for the Mac, rather than tearing apart the machine and having every signal on every pin documented. But the tools just weren't there (I didn't see, for example, Microsoft BASIC for the MAC until mid-to-late 1985...) >

Jerome Fine replies: I find it interesting that long before the stranglehold by M$ was in place, other companies were also employing tactics that we all grew to find so distasteful. Of course, since Apple never achieved the clout of M$, no one complained as hard since the practices eventually led to their downfall. Even DEC never learned that an open architecture was far more beneficial in the long run. I seem to remember that S&H charged about $ US 100 for their documentation of TSX-PLUS which was about 700 pages all together. Reasonable compared to the cost of making a copy, so probably fewer copies were made. Since prior to about 1985, the PC was still so slow and limited, the price charged was more a reflection of how much the system was worth rather that how much it cost to produce. As a result, profit margins at the unit level were able to reflect the VERY inefficient marketing and support groups in any given company that was selling computer hardware and/or software. When the PC became a viable alternative with the introduction of the 386 and many companies began to realize that Intel would soon be bringing a 486 to market, the sales model began to shift from "low volume/high mark-up" to "high volume/low mark-up", at least on a comparative basis. So the IBM model first used (probably by IBM) to great effect started to break down at just the wrong time for DEC although Ken Olsen was obviously oblivious. It is my understanding that around 1985, the decisions that led to DEC's downfall were taken. A rather small OEM which was supplying industrial type systems using PDP-11 hardware shifted from almost all DEC in 1985 for almost all non-DEC by 1988. The primary reason was the heavy surcharges that DEC began to enforce on small OEM companies around that time. As a direct result, the "free" sales force that these companies represented for DEC was lost to DEC along with the hardware and especially software sales. While the initial result was a higher profit, total DEC sales figures seemed to stagnate shortly thereafter. I never took much interest in VMS, so I never found out just how much a DEC Orange Wall cost for VMS. Can anyone provide an answer? And just for the record, any estimate of how many single-sided pages? I do seem to remember that the last price DEC set for the DOCs for RT-11 was about $ US 1300 if purchased by themselves. That is about 9 or 10 inches of just double sided paper if all the cardboard is removed or about 3 feet if put into binders. Probably the equivalent of about 5000 single-sided pages, but I could easy be low or high by 50%. Does anyone else have an estimate? Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

One word, GREED. The list of companies that have shot themselves in the foot over trying to squeeze more money out of a product is a LOT longer.

I have a number of early Macs (128K and 512K) here that I need startup disks for. Does anyone know where I can get a copy on the Internet? If that can be done, how do I convert it from my PC that is connected to the web to Apple format? If it helps in the conversion, I also have the LC, VX, and SE/30 among other "later" models. Ideally, I would like to get the original disks for the collection, but my main concern right now are working copies. Thanks.

There are disk images for all of the original Mac disks available on the web. You have several options on making the disks. Go here: http://www.mac512.com/ssdl.htm First of all, the 128K and 512K Macs were single-sided, double-density (SSDD) ,400K, 3.5" disks. You can use Double-Sided, Double-density disks (DSDD). You cannot reliably use the common Double Sided, High Density (DSHD) disks that are used on modern (?) PC and modern Macs. At first I tried and they fail miserably. The DSDD disks can be found on the web if you search for them (I got some at http://www.provantage.com 10-pack for $3.96) Once you have the proper disks, you need to have a disk drive capable of formatting and writing to them. The 400K drives were replaced with 800K drives in later 512K models and their successors, the Mac Plus and SE. Later on, "Superdrives", capable of handling both the 800K and 1.4 MB "PC" format were put into Macs. You have to place a [blank] DSDD disk into one of your Macs and "erase" [initialize / format] it for 400K (a.k.a single sided). If you are able to format it for 400K, you are in business! I know that support for 400K/800K disks is included in System 7 and earlier. Here are the steps: Download the files off the web to you PC. Make DSHD floppy with the files on them on your PC, and transfer them with a "superdrive" to your Mac's Hard drive. Format a 400K DSDD disk and copy the files to the 400K disk. You can then boot your 128K/512K Mac from that disk. ---------- An alternative is to get a startup disk for the Mac with a terminal emulator program that you can use to download files to via a serial connection between the PC and the Mac. MacTerminal 1.1 or later and Zterm are two programs that work. They can accept .bin and .hqx format files and build clickable applications on you floppy disk. Using your SE/30 or LC to make the bootable disk is a lot easier. disks be disks

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May I ask you to read my postings again ? Over here it was more like 1000 USD read: ONE THOUSAND to get the mentioned stuff! IBM Manuals where a bargain compared to Apple MAc documentation. Which was, by the way, only available in English, while IBM even offered German Manuals at the same price. It may have been an acceptable situation over in California, but for shure not in other places of this world. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa am 29./30. April 2000 in Muenchen http://www.vintage.org/vcfe http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe