[LINK] Interesting quote from Steve Jobs...

[Craig Sanders]

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 12:44:49PM +1100, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> I probably should know but don't - what was revolutionary about the
> Apple II?

the Apple II[1] was one of the first mass-market personal computers,
along with the TRS-80[2], and the Commodore PET[3] (all three released
in 1977).  They had keyboards and had either a built-in TV-quality
screen (the PET) or could be plugged into a TV set or monitor (which
really weren't much better than a TV set anyway).

The Apple II had good graphics (for the time) and colour.  That's
what really made it popular. while TRS-80 users like myself had only
low-resolution black-and-white graphics, Apple II users could play a
Space Invaders clone in colour.  OTOH, the TRS-80 had significantly
better quality text (although without lowercase characters - Tandy saved
a few cents off the production cost by not installing one of the video
memory chips), 16 lines of 64 chars IIRC.

anyway, before them, home computers were homebrew hobbyist things like
the Altair 8800[4] (1975) and the IMSAI 8080[5] (1976).  I don't think
either of these was ever marketed in Australia, but I remember reading
ads for them in American computer magazines of the era. some Australian
hobbyists imported them directly, I remember seeing them (and similar
machines) at MICOM[6] meetings.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSAI_8080

[6] http://micom.asn.au/

(I didn't realise MICOM still existed until i googled them just now.
The club is 33 years old on Feb 20)


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>