Let's face It: Apple invented personal computers, mp3 players and smart phones

[Jamin2112]

Computers were lame until Apple made them. Funny how Bill Gates says "[Microsoft and Apple] were the 2 companies that really got the graphics interface." yet he believes the future of a tablet computer will be "one where I can use the pen" ... That's what he said in 2010, 3 years after Apple introduced the iPhone, which truly revolutionized the phone industry, like Jobs predicted. We'd still be using MS Dos if it weren't for Jobs. Is it unfair to say that Apple's engineers are 5 years ahead of everyone else's?

I laughed when the first iPod came out. "An mp3 player where you scroll through the music by moving your thumb in a circle? What a joke!" Then "mp3 player" became synonymous with "iPod". Microsoft Zune? Didn't that have a bug in it's daylight savings time clock? I only know that because my Computer Science professor at the University of Washington made fun of it.

I shouldn't joke. I worked as a contract at Microsoft for about 7 months. All I did was work on their HTML Help files for Windows 9, which has, apparently, been renamed to Windows 10. Perhaps I'm jaded? I find this video to be epic: .

 

[SteamKing]

Computers were lame even after Apple started making them, especially Apples. There were more than a few dead ended Apple models made after the Apple II became obsolete. Neither Apple nor Microsoft first developed the GUI which is ubiquitous nowadays. That distinction goes to the Xerox Corp., which developed the Xerox Alto at their PARC facility even before Apple Corp. was founded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto

The Alto never made much headway in the computer market because it was developed by a copier company. Its design did lead not only to the development of PCs as we know them today, but also high-end workstations, like those produced by Sun Microsystems and others.

 

[chiro]

In addition to SteamKing's comments on The Xerox Research Facility you should know that the MP3 player was introduced way before the iPod but it didn not really arrive at the correct time to take advantage of familiarity and popularity.

What Apple did (and many other companies do), is release something at the right time when people are comfortable with it and ready to purchase and use it. When you bring something in too early and people are not ready for it then it can backfire for the company, and then others who are looking at this can decide whether the time is right or not for a release.

This kind of thing was quite common in the 20th century because change was a lot slower back then: however nowadays it is a lot quicker because technology changes so fast in addition to the expectation of people keeping up with it who are born into computers, smart phones, and all kinds of technology. Before the internet though, change was slow and people resisted it a lot more than they do now when it comes to technology.

In business schools they use a term called "crossing the chasm" that describes the point where familiarity and trust is developed for the masses to purchase and use a specific product and depending on the industry, product, and its uses it can take a long time or a short time to get past this chasm not only for a company, but for a specific product line as well regardless of who made it.

There are all sorts of reasons why otherwise good products don't make it as well. Zune did have some good features but it just faded away: just like the Beta-max tape did when VHS came out. There are all kinds of reasons why things become standard or popular and being the best product technically or functionally is not a pre-requisite for it to be the better accepted product for those who use it.

Just to help you understand why Microsoft was successful for software developers: they have done a lot of work on API's and technologies for their developers and this support is what tempts developers to write their programs on Windows as opposed to Mac or Linux (even though nowadays multi-platform development is standard within the bigger and more professional repositories that gain from these sales).

When Windows 95 came along with API's for windows, graphics (Direct X and OpenGL), network protocols and others, this was a huge thing for developers because in the DOS days, you would write your own device drivers and your code would interact with hardware directly unless you used some libraries that did this for you.

If you add on OLE, COM, COM+, .NET, and all these technologies in combination with a massive API and more importantly the support to developers like MSDN and other resources, you will find that the support developers got from Microsoft was quite vast in comparison to others at the time and this attracts developers to write code on the Windows Platform. It may be a lot different now with things like Java, CORBA, and other cross-platform technologies but understand that at the time it was a lot different.

I'm not saying that functionally or technically MS is better or worse than Apple, Linux, or anything else - but what I am saying is that you really have to consider the whole spectrum of activities before you make a judgement as generic as you have made.

 

[russ_watters]

In addition to SteamKing's comments on The Xerox Research Facility you should know that the MP3 player was introduced way before the iPod but it didn not really arrive at the correct time to take advantage of familiarity and popularity.

What Apple did (and many other companies do), is release something at the right time when people are comfortable with it and ready to purchase and use it.

I'll go a step further and say that in its rebirth as a consumer electronics company, Apple has had the branding and design "cool factor" that basically meant that you needed to buy an mp3 player when Steve Jobs said you needed one. But they don't have a technological edge and I'm not sure they ever have.

 

[rcgldr]

The functionality of the early home computers was limited. These include the Apple 2, Atari 400/800/65XE/130XE series, Commodore PET / Vic-20 64 series, with the Commodore 64 being the highest selling "home computer" (somewhere between 10 to 17 million units).

The next big thing were CP/M systems for both the office and for home. Wordstar was a popular text / document editor, and there were a few spreadsheet programs.

The next big thing was the IBM PC. In the meantime, the Apple III was considered a failure, but 3 years later the first Macintosh was released. The Mac was lacking in some features, such as DMA (instead it had a hardware assisted polling handshake for scsi devices like hard drives), and the Macintosh developer tools fell way behind what Microsoft was producing for the PC and windows.

The first popular MP3 player was the RIO PMP300. RIO won a lawsuit versus the recording industry which allowed MP3 players to be sold. I still have one, upgraded from 32 MB to 64 MB (which was a lot in those days).

 

[robphy]

Hey... don't forget the the TRS-80 I/II/III .

 

[rcgldr]

The next big thing were CP/M systems for both the office and for home.

Hey... don't forget the the TRS-80 I/II/III .

The TRS-80 (sometimes called trash 80) series were relatively popular CP/M systems. There were also CP/M systems based on the S-100 bus, the first one being the Altair 8800, and some later CP/M systems that used custom bus setups, released in 1981 like the Osborne 1, Kaypro II, but IBM released the first PC in the same year (1981).

 

[wukunlin]

The only great thing about apple is that they managed to get their customers to have these elitist attitudes. They made people think more of themselves when owning an apple product. I mean this marketing strategy isn't even new but few have been as successful as apple.

The actual products themselves, while useful in some situations (iMac's are good for audio/video editing I'll give them that), are laughable.

 

[enorbet]

In addition to SteamKing's comments on The Xerox Research Facility...

I'm glad you brought up Xerox. If readers watch the full video below you will plainly see that some advances have not been improved upon and even lost due to the vagaries of timing in the market place, and some companies have never received their proper recognition since they were eclipsed in that market place.

What Apple did (and many other companies do), is release something at the right time when people are comfortable with it and ready to purchase and use it. When you bring something in too early and people are not ready for it then it can backfire for the company, and then others who are looking at this can decide whether the time is right or not for a release.

There are a few more variables than just that which affect when "people are comfortable with it". An example is that Apple Lisa is widely considered an abject failure when most of it was a true quantum leap in computing power. In it's final version it could directly address 16MB or RAM, had a highly advanced RISC cpu (at that time orders of magnitude more powerful than Intel x86) and the operating system was unconstrained in numerous areas (such as segmentation barriers) that made DOS stone age by comparison.

Jobs was an enthusiast and visionary. Gates was and is a poker player businessman with keen insight in what people will respond to in a favorable way. Gates and his buddies were also self-confessed paranoids who sought to crush any competition by any means "necessary". Jobs assumed people understood like he did that Home/SOHO Computers had a very bright future. The boys at Microsoft correctly deduced that the rest of the world needed many years of convincing. Even up into the late 1980's the average consumer saw home computers as way too expensive devices (thousands of dollars) that "could balance your checkbook" when a pencil and paper could do that for a single dollar.

Apple, Microsoft, IBM, all of them, made system design and especially marketing mistakes on certain products. Some companies folded from such mistakes even if they had created a major breakthrough in a specific technological area. Much, but by no means all, of such breakthroughs were then "picked up" by the survivors.

This kind of thing was quite common in the 20th century because change was a lot slower back then: however nowadays it is a lot quicker because technology changes so fast in addition to the expectation of people keeping up with it who are born into computers, smart phones, and all kinds of technology. Before the internet though, change was slow and people resisted it a lot more than they do now when it comes to technology.

Very true. Even businesses whose job it is (or part of it) is to project and predict trends failed to see how important, even essential, PCs would become, failed to see like Jobs did that it would be worth it to invest in more power. Gates capitalized on this shortsightedness by advertising DOS as not requiring you buy any new software and is commonly quoted from this time as saying "Nobody is ever going to need more than 1MB or RAM".

It could be argued that games, Quicken (and Quickbooks) and Tax programs did more to change public perception, including small businesses, that translates into sales and especially for Microsoft than any other single area of development.

There are all sorts of reasons why otherwise good products don't make it as well. Zune did have some good features but it just faded away: just like the Beta-max tape did when VHS came out. There are all kinds of reasons why things become standard or popular and being the best product technically or functionally is not a pre-requisite for it to be the better accepted product for those who use it.

The above emboldened text is hugely important. A common analogy is as follows - Who makes the best hamburgers? Who sells the most hamburgers? Are they the same? - There is always a market for cheap.

When Windows 95 came along with API's for windows, graphics (Direct X and OpenGL), network protocols and others, this was a huge thing for developers because in the DOS days, you would write your own device drivers and your code would interact with hardware directly unless you used some libraries that did this for you.

This is a highly controversial area and another example of "best doesn't always win" especially when crap has momentum. Direct access to hardware is rarely an issue in a single user, single task environment like DOS. It really wasn't until Win2K (largely thanks to working with IBM on a truly serious OpSys) that Microsoft finally outgrew the legacy mindset from DOS that made General Protection Fault and BSOD household (and hated) words.

It is so far back in the seminal period that it is impossible to really credit Steve Jobs with how much he has changed the world, let alone tried to and failed, but there can be little doubt that he saved Apple from collapse many times and will go down in history as one of the most influential men of the 20th, and early 21st, centuries. Unfortunately, since Wintel is the clear winner (so far), it is likely that Bell Laboratories, TI, Motorola, IBM, Digital, and Xerox will be mere footnotes within the realm of "personal computing" , and they deserve so much more.

 

[256bits]

I am not seeing any direct comparison between Bill gates and Steve Jobs as being all that relevant.
IBM produced the first PC, and subcontracted the operating software to a relatively new company called Microsoft.
Microsoft produces mainly software, which other companies will use in its personal computers or imbed into a controller system.
Apple is a hardware company, and uses its own internal software to run the system.

The IBM PC and the Apple both started out with consumers receiving circuit diagrams and listings of the software with their purchase, which was ideal for tinkerers and developers, both hardware and software. The PC grabbed the business community as being the system of choice, simply most probably because the IBM name was known and respected. Home users were still attracted to the less expensive Atari's, Commodores, and all the others that had color, graphics, gaming, and a hookup to a television set if one withheld purchasing a monitor. Apple and some others such as Amiga computers eventually evolved to display "high end" graphics for use as raytracing and similar uses for the artistic and like minded. The break was really text versus graphics at the time, with the PC chesen by business who saw no need for fancy graphics when calculating numbers and typing in letters in a word processor, gaming computers for the home, and others some where in the middle between the two.

Jobs is just a guy like any other.

 

[D H]

No one has mentioned the "Mother of all demos" yet by Douglas Engelbart and Bill English in 1968.



Mice, multiple display windows, hypertext, graphics, office productivity tools, video conferencing, the list goes on and on of what was demoed during that presentation. Xerox PARC took a lot of their ideas from SRI (and some people as well; Bill English moved from SRI to Xerox PARC). Engelbart in turn was highly influenced by a 1945 article by Vannevar Bush, As We May Think.

 

[SteamKing]

The IBM PC and the Apple both started out with consumers receiving circuit diagrams and listings of the software with their purchase, which was ideal for tinkerers and developers, both hardware and software.

This is not correct. While the Apple I was sold as just a main board, to which consumers had to hook up things like a keyboard or a monitor and storage, the Apple II was marketed with its own enclosure containing a power supply and keyboard. The owner had his choice of monitor or floppy disk drive (or even cassette tape storage!). The PC was never sold in hobbyist form: it always came in the PC enclosure with room for twin floppies and detached keyboard (albeit on a cord). This is not to say that others didn't make PC compatible main boards for hobbyists, which was still a thriving segment of micro users at the time.

Neither Apple nor IBM ever included listings for Apple DOS or PC-DOS to their consumers, although some unofficial listings may have circulated which were created by folks with disassemblers.

The PC grabbed the business community as being the system of choice, simply most probably because the IBM name was known and respected. Home users were still attracted to the less expensive Atari's, Commodores, and all the others that had color, graphics, gaming, and a hookup to a television set if one withheld purchasing a monitor. Apple and some others such as Amiga computers eventually evolved to display "high end" graphics for use as raytracing and similar uses for the artistic and like minded. The break was really text versus graphics at the time, with the PC chesen by business who saw no need for fancy graphics when calculating numbers and typing in letters in a word processor, gaming computers for the home, and others some where in the middle between the two.

The period from 1975 to 1990 was a time of rapid change in the micro industry. One company might be on the top one day, only to be toppled and replaced by another company the next. Even after it was introduced, the future of the IBM PC was not a sure thing, since the suits at Armonk were still locked into a mainframe outlook, while the PC Division in Boca Raton was operating relatively freely. After the PC was introduced, several other companies introduced models which catered to the business traveler (Osborne and Compaq), which neither Apple nor IBM thought were important enough to bother with. The Osborne was based on CP/M, while the Compaq shrewdly went IBM PC compatible from day one.

 

[f95toli]

Apple is a hardware company, and uses its own internal software to run the system.

I am not sure I agree with that. It used to be true, but nowadays I'd say they are (mostly) a company focused on design. Yes, they do some hardware engineering but most of the components are actually designed by other companies; and this is certainly true for all the core components such as the processors etc. Hence,. they are not that different from e.g. Dell.
Remember that modern Apple computers are nothing more than well designed PCs, and there is no technical reason why you can't run their OS on a normal (much cheaper) PC (of course they have made sure it is difficult to do so, but those barriers have nothing to do with the actual hardware).

 

[enorbet]

The only great thing about apple is that they managed to get their customers to have these elitist attitudes. They made people think more of themselves when owning an apple product. I mean this marketing strategy isn't even new but few have been as successful as apple.

The actual products themselves, while useful in some situations (iMac's are good for audio/video editing I'll give them that), are laughable.

To be clear I don't presently own any Apple products but I have logged in possibly 100 hours on a few. I prefer to build my own PCs, don't need nor want a smartphone, but I was one that bought a Creative mp3 player, thinking it would be almost as good as an iPod but discovered it wasn't even close. Although for practical reasons I tend to prefer devices with exposed nuts and bolts I did marvel at how small and monolithic it was for how powerful it was but that was just a footnote after I discovered how easily and quickly I could find one single song out of 1000+. That was simply elegant.

I see Mac hatred in many forms all over the internet and it is almost always that whole adolescent Ford vs/ Chevy mess, unworthy of any comment. However this being a Science forum where experience and especially citations are valued I have to ask you upon what basis can you broad brush Apple products as laughable?

Note: I am very specifically not desiring to even hint at some kind of immature flame bait, but rather wish to know if you have any basis whatsoever for voicing what seems to me to be mere anecdotal opinion lacking in any authority or experience. Could you please clear this up if possible?

 

[enorbet]

Jobs is just a guy like any other.

Yes much like a Saturn V is just like July 4th fireworks.

 

[wukunlin]

I have to ask you upon what basis can you broad brush Apple products as laughable?

Perhaps my brush may have been too broad and there will always be counter examples to generalizations. However, considering we both like to see the nuts and bolts of our devices, if you crack open an apple computer, you will see that the components are nothing special and definitely underwhelming for the prices they charge. There are (or were, I haven't looked at apple stuff in like past year to be quite honest) those components like RAM and harddrives which are the exact same as what you can buy from other computer stores with a fraction of the pricetag in a typical computer store. Except when your apple computer need a component sway you have to buy the replacements from apple because they have modified the connectors. Although what tends to happen is the loyal apple customer would have bought a newer computer before the warranty of the older one expires.

There are other things about apple products that amuses me. At least during the early years of my undergrad studies (4-5 years ago), those sleek looking apple laptops had very inefficient cooling system that overheating was common because apparently it was more important to hide the ugly vents that would keep the computer cool. It is okay though, because OMGITSAMAC. Remember the first time they put a sheet of glass on the iphone and claiming its strength is suitable? I lost count of how many spiderwebs I've seen on iphones since then. There are lots of others, antennae being blocked if you use your phone left-handed, updates that make your phone unable to make phone calls etc. Even some of the most loyal apple customers complain about the horribly frequent, resource hogging, and unavoidable updates they had to deal with when they connect an apple product to their computers.

So, I laugh when I see these silliness on all those hyped up apple products, but do I recommend people to stay away from them? No, I ask people to compare and draw their own conclusions. If the brand has so much value to some people, that is their opinion. Apple does have upsides, a comprehensive audio and video editing software compatibility and support community, and I heard warranty claims are super easy and efficient (especially in New Zealand you could directly do that with apple instead of dealing with clueless retailers for other brands). I just find it disturbing (and admirable in a way) that apple has made so many people that will buy anything from them.

 

[rcgldr]

audio and video editting

For mid range video editting, Adobe's Windows products are nice. As for audio editting, what I see in music stores is mostly PC stuff. In the few recording studios I've seen, the software was running on Windows computers. Commercial video editting is normally done on workstations or main frame / super computer setups, some running Windows, some running some version of Unix with a windowing interface, or main frame type operating systems (for example IBM Z/OS supports Unix, in adition to support of legacy applications similar to a high end virtual machine (24 bit, 31 bit, or 64 bit addressing modes)).

An old video about using Mac in the the pre OS-X days:

 

[Jamin2112]

Any chance I could delete this thread? I made it when I was drunk a few nights ago.

 

[rcgldr]

Any chance I could delete this thread? I made it when I was drunk a few nights ago.

but it now has so much nostalgia, that it should be kept for historical reasons.

 

[Mark44]

but it now has so much nostalgia, that it should be kept for historical reasons.

Agreed

 

[rcgldr]

I missed this before:

Neither Apple nor IBM ever included listings for Apple DOS or PC-DOS to their consumers, although some unofficial listings may have circulated which were created by folks with disassemblers.

Not for DOS, but for the BIOS. One of the technical documents for the PC (these were released in 2 ring binders), included a complete assembly listing of the BIOS. I think the name of the one with a BIOS listing was a technical document, which also included information about the hardware. There was also a 2 ring binder programmers reference (or similar name) that documented all the BIOS and DOS int xx calls.

 

[SteamKing]

I missed this before:

Not for DOS, but for the BIOS. One of the technical documents for the PC (these were released in 2 ring binders), included a complete assembly listing of the BIOS.

BIOS listings were necessary so that those wishing to develop new hardware peripherals for the Apple or IBM PC could provide proper integration of their devices to the respective systems. IIRC, IBM sold a separate Technical Reference Manual for the PC which included a lot of system details not available with the standard documentation. I'm not sure how Apple distributed their BIOS, but there were a lot of Apple clubs operating then which attracted people looking to write software or develop hardware for the Apple II.

 

[OmCheeto]

but it now has so much nostalgia, that it should be kept for historical reasons.

Sifting through my nostalgia at PF, I find I've been surrounded by fellow old people...

The internet, Physics Forums, and Dr. Neutrino

1993 wow has it been that long? I have also had the same e-mail account since the beginning.​

I remember running a BBS on a “Tandy COCO 80” and a 300 baud modem in Madison Wisconsin and often getting help from Bob Mahoney (sic) from EXECPC BBS.
I and a friend would transmit data over the CB radio. That was probably one of the first wireless PC’s. Dam, I should have patented the idea.

Computers before operating systems

​

Computers were lame? Ever? I once read that "computers" were once humans. I think it was some "Manhattan Project" thread, where I read that.

 

[SteamKing]

Sifting through my nostalgia at PF, I find I've been surrounded by fellow old people...

The internet, Physics Forums, and Dr. Neutrino

1993 wow has it been that long? I have also had the same e-mail account since the beginning.​

I remember running a BBS on a “Tandy COCO 80” and a 300 baud modem in Madison Wisconsin and often getting help from Bob Mahoney (sic) from EXECPC BBS.
I and a friend would transmit data over the CB radio. That was probably one of the first wireless PC’s. Dam, I should have patented the idea.

Computers before operating systems

​

Computers were lame? Ever? I once read that "computers" were once humans. I think it was some "Manhattan Project" thread, where I read that.

Yes, before general purpose computers were developed, and complex scientific calculations had to be made, usually by astronomers, specially trained human 'calculators' were employed to do the number crunching. Of course, the only tools they had available were mechanical devices like adding machines and some slide rules, but that was then. Incidentally, more than a few of these 'calculators' were women.

* * * * * * * *​

Even in the early days, when there weren't that many micros around, there were some stinkers. Over time, we tend to forget some of the things these systems made us do to get software to run or some hardware to interface properly. The early Macs were limited to 128K RAM, big for the moment, but soon outclassed, and the Mac had a screen which displayed vibrant black-and-white. You could expand the memory to 512K, but you needed a soldering iron to do it. Compared to the Mac, its predecessor, the Apple II, was a wildly open system, which could be upgraded with expansion cards to do all sorts of things. There even was a card which converted the Apple II into a Z80-running CP/M machine.

And don't forget the prices of equipment. When introduced, the Mac was $2495 in 1984, equivalent to more than $5500 now.

 

[wukunlin]

For mid range video editting, Adobe's Windows products are nice. As for audio editting, what I see in music stores is mostly PC stuff. In the few recording studios I've seen, the software was running on Windows computers. Commercial video editting is normally done on workstations or main frame / super computer setups, some running Windows, some running some version of Unix with a windowing interface, or main frame type operating systems (for example IBM Z/OS supports Unix, in adition to support of legacy applications similar to a high end virtual machine (24 bit, 31 bit, or 64 bit addressing modes)).

That makes sense. I read that a lot of indie filmmakers find it easier to work on a Mac and I assumed they know what they are doing. On a lot of forums when I looked for help as I have started to learn about video editing, I feel like most people assume I am using Premiere Elements on an apple computer unless I explicitly say otherwise.

And that video is pretty amusing :w

Any chance I could delete this thread? I made it when I was drunk a few nights ago.

The funny thing is a large chunk of apple product users would say the same thing you wrote in the OP when they are sober

 

[rcgldr]

IBM sold a separate Technical Reference Manual for the PC which included a lot of system details not available with the standard documentation.

I don't know what came with a PC, but anyone could buy both the Technical Reference Manual and the Programmers Reference Manual (they weren't cheap though). Although called a manual, they were 2 ring binders with a blue cloth like material on the covers. IBM made these for the PC and for the AT. From the wiki article: the IBM PC Technical Reference Manual included complete circuit schematics, commented ROM BIOS source code, and other engineering and programming information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer#Debut

I think IBM underestimated how popular clones would get. First was Compaq, then companies like PC Limited which later became Dell, ... . There was a time in the late 1980's that the top 20 PC makes accounted for less than 50% of the total market with all the "mom and pop" shop like clones where local stores would just assemble no-name components like motherboards, video cards, ... and sell them. Microsoft was apparently aware of the potential since they sold PC-DOS to IBM for a flat fee, but reserved the right to sell MS-DOS for PC clones.

 

[Mark44]

One of the members of another forum I belong to posted this image. I believe the ad appeared in the early 80's, back when hard drives for PCs just began to be available. I remember prices of around $2000 for 10MB drives.

My first actual computer was an Apple //e (yes, they used slashes for the model name). It came with a whopping 64KB of RAM which I later upgraded with another 128KB (if memory serves, no pun intended). I think that the extra RAM cost me around $100 or so. I recently bought a thumb drive with 32GB of RAM for about $30.
The differences in price per KB are staggering, with about $800/KB for the RAM I bought back in the early 80s versus, (1/1,000,000) dollar/KB more recently.

The Apple computer came with a 5 -1/2" floppy drive, but I bought another one so I could copy files from one disk to another. I think each floppy could hold something like 147KB of data.

Relative to the ad below, could that 28Amp figure for the power supply be a typo? It couldn't possibly be 120V since it takes 10 gauge wires to carry that much current at 120V. It could be reasonable for 5V, which would work out to 130W.

 

[SteamKing]

One of the members of another forum I belong to posted this image. I believe the ad appeared in the early 80's, back when hard drives for PCs just began to be available. I remember prices of around $2000 for 10MB drives.

My first actual computer was an Apple //e (yes, they used slashes for the model name). It came with a whopping 64KB of RAM which I later upgraded with another 128KB (if memory serves, no pun intended). I think that the extra RAM cost me around $100 or so. I recently bought a thumb drive with 32GB of RAM for about $30.
The differences in price per KB are staggering, with about $800/KB for the RAM I bought back in the early 80s versus, (1/1,000,000) dollar/KB more recently.

The Apple computer came with a 5 -1/2" floppy drive, but I bought another one so I could copy files from one disk to another. I think each floppy could hold something like 147KB of data.

Relative to the ad below, could that 28Amp figure for the power supply be a typo? It couldn't possibly be 120V since it takes 10 gauge wires to carry that much current at 120V. It could be reasonable for 5V, which would work out to 130W.
View attachment 75684

The 28 Amp is probably what DC current the PS output to the computer. Most standard wall sockets are good for about 20A of 120 V AC without blowing a fuse or requiring a special circuit.

We're used to laptops and tablets and phones which we can pick up and walk around with now. This early hardware was built to more rugged construction, which ensured it could last many times longer than the operating life of the device before it became obsolete technologically.

My office bought a custom configured Apple II w/64 Kbyte RAM (the Apple II came w/48 K on the main board; the extra 16K was provided by an Applesoft expansion card required to run the UCSD Pascal Operating System). This was in the days just before HDD became available, so to provide extra storage, the office got a special expansion controller to interface 2 DS/DD 8" floppy drives to the Apple. Each side of the 8" floppy held a whopping 256 K of storage, and access times could be gauged using a clock. The whole system cost about $10 K delivered, and when we did some particularly complex calculations on it (which required intermediate results to be written to the 8" drives), often the machine would run overnight, patiently calculating and writing away.

About 1987, the office finally bit the bullet and bought a custom built 386 PC clone, which had a 130 Mbyte HDD installed. This HDD was about the same size and weight as a brick, even though it was an internal unit.

 

[OmCheeto]

One of the members of another forum I belong to posted this image. I believe the ad appeared in the early 80's...

It had to have been way earlier than that. I bought my first pc in about 1980. (My brother and I pitched in together to buy one a few years earlier, but it was "his")
That ad must have been published around 1976.

Relative to the ad below, could that 28Amp figure for the power supply be a typo? It couldn't possibly be 120V since it takes 10 gauge wires to carry that much current at 120V. It could be reasonable for 5V, which would work out to 130W.
View attachment 75684

From the January 1975 Popular Electronics article on the Altair 8800:

Power Supply. Four power
sources are required to operate the
computer: +5 volts at 2 amperes, -5
volts at 500 mA, -12 volts at 500 mA,
and +8 volts at 6 amperes.

ref = page 38

4 x 2+1/2+1/2+6 = 28! (maybe!)

I'm not saying it was me that added up those amps, as a 15 year old, I'm just implying: Aliens!

 

[Mark44]

It had to have been way earlier than that. I bought my first pc in about 1980. (My brother and I pitched in together to buy one a few years earlier, but it was "his")
That ad must have been published around 1976.

I don't believe so. I bought my Apple in '81 I think, and I remember reading ads in '82 in programmer magazines for hard drives - 10 MB for $2000. I don't believe hard drives were available on the consumer market until well after 1980.

From the January 1975 Popular Electronics article on the Altair 8800:

ref = page 38

4 x 2+1/2+1/2+6 = 28! (maybe!)

I'm not saying it was me that added up those amps, as a 15 year old, I'm just implying: Aliens!

 

[SteamKing]

I don't believe so. I bought my Apple in '81 I think, and I remember reading ads in '82 in programmer magazines for hard drives - 10 MB for $2000. I don't believe hard drives were available on the consumer market until well after 1980.

Here is a copy of the press release from IMSAI announcing the introduction of the HDD on their systems:

http://classictech.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/1978-imsai-announces-hard-disk-cdc-hawk-9427h.pdf

Deliveries were announced to start in Q1 1979.

There were two versions of mass storage offered: a 10 Mbyte HDD or a unit with 5 Mbyte fixed and a removable 5Mbyte cartridge.

IIRC, there were a few HDD systems offered as add ons to the popular systems of the times in the early 80s. The name Corvus seems to stand out in my recollection.

The really big news was when IBM announced the PC-XT in the spring of 1983. The PC-XT was essentially a PC with a 10Mbyte Seagate HDD integrated with the system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT

Once the XT hit the streets, floppy-only systems were outdated and a lot of makers, especially Apple, had to scramble to catch up. When the Mac was introduced a few months after the XT in Jan. '84, people were distinctly underwhelmed because there was no HDD included.

 

[OmCheeto]

I don't believe so. I bought my Apple in '81 I think, and I remember reading ads in '82 in programmer magazines for hard drives - 10 MB for $2000. I don't believe hard drives were available on the consumer market until well after 1980.

Ouch!

I'll hopefully verify this after my nap. There is an 86.7% probability that I still have my Nov 1982 issue of Byte on my shelf.

And yes, the hard-drive was probably accounting for a third of this list price. And, OMG, I seem to recall paying $800 for a DMP around 1981.

Ha! Probably one of the few times we'll be able to use an acronym that the kids don't know...

"What the heck is a "DMP""? :D

 

[SteamKing]

Ouch!

I'll hopefully verify this after my nap. There is an 86.7% probability that I still have my Nov 1982 issue of Byte on my shelf.

And yes, the hard-drive was probably accounting for a third of this list price. And, OMG, I seem to recall paying $800 for a DMP around 1981.

Ha! Probably one of the few times we'll be able to use an acronym that the kids don't know...

"What the heck is a "DMP""? :D

There's a scanned collection of Byte Magazines available on the Internet Archive:

http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection:byte-magazine&sort=-publicdate&page=1

The Oct. 82 issue is there, but I didn't scan all five pages to see if Nov. 82 is in this collection.

 

[OmCheeto]

There's a scanned collection of Byte Magazines available on the Internet Archive:

http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection:byte-magazine&sort=-publicdate&page=1

The Oct. 82 issue is there, but I didn't scan all five pages to see if Nov. 82 is in this collection.

Sweet! It would have taken me hours. Yup. Page 266 in the Oct. 82 issue. (Volume 7 No. 10)
Good grief! 528 pages? In a monthly magazine?

Anyways, on page 518, they list a 16 VAC 24 amp power supply. $29.95
Transformers not included?

This is kind of fun, thumbing through this old stuff.
NEC 7730 Parallel Printer: $2395
Intel just announced the 80186! (page 482)

 

[SteamKing]

Sweet! It would have taken me hours. Yup. Page 266 in the Oct. 82 issue. (Volume 7 No. 10)
Good grief! 528 pages? In a monthly magazine?

Yep, issues of Byte could be pretty hefty. Even heftier were issues of PC Magazine when that publication got going. It was like picking up a new Sears catalog just for PCs and PC clones every month. I'm sure more than a few postal carriers got hernias delivering issues to subscribers. Eventually, the costs must have got too much, and there was much more competition in the computer magazine market. Byte slimmed down to a rather skinny shadow of itself before it ceased printing altogether in the late 90s, although it tried to maintain a web presence for a while. The same thing happened a little later to PC Magazine once the net exploded.

One gargantuan publication was a full tabloid size (Computer Shopper), and it featured a few review-type articles but was otherwise crammed with ads for everything from complete systems to discrete components. Each issue seemed to be at least an inch thick, with hardly any of the pages inside which were not covered in ads of some sort. Eventually, CS too ceased print publication, but I believe it lives on on the web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Shopper_(US_magazine)