From: J Corbally (icorb@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Jan 26 2001 - 15:08:51 MST
>Think of all of the ideas that Jobs helped to drive forward, like
>desktop publishing, affordable laser printing, and GUIs. USB was a
>technology that Intel had been pitching for *years* to PC
>manufacturers, but that had never caught on. In one sweep, Jobs put
>USB as the main interface on all new Macs, and the entire computer
>industry quickly followed. USB is a good thing.
USB had a quiet start, but it was beginning to take off. Intel were
building boards with it on-board for several years. The port was there,
peripheral manufacturers were just dragging their heels.
USB is good. It's good because you don't have to pay Intel squat to build
it into your PC. If Apple had invented USB, they'd be charging 50cents or
more per port like they do with IEEE1394, and it would be about as popular
as that standard is now on PCs ie. it's not. So much for driving innovation...
Anyone I've ever met was introduced to GUIs through a much underpraised
machine called the Amiga or it's rival, the Atari ST(E). Mac-style GUI for
the home at a non-insane price (Macs retailed here for 4-5K, PCs for 2-3,
and the Amiga and Atari ST for around 600 quid). The only people who owned
Macs here were Apple employees, who got them for free or businessmen who
probably couldn't use them but thought they looked "stylish". Schools
bought a couple and used them for all of 5 minutes before jamming open
doors with them and buying loads of cheap BBC micros or Amstrad 1512/1640s.
>An alternative world that had never had Steve Jobs would have
>contained a PC industry 10 or 20 years behind the one that we live in
>now. No thanks.
Perhaps in the U.S. it was different, but over here, Apple could have never
existed and I doubt we'd have noticed.
While Apple was in limbo with the Power PC, The IBM PC was busy working
through various generations of processor and bus I/O architecture, as well
as cheaper and cheaper high resolution, high colour video systems.
Microsoft bloatware has done more to push hardware design in the PC world
than any influence by Apple. The encroachment of the 16 bit machines of
the mid to late 80's in terms of power and capabilities had it's effect also.
Slan,
James...
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and
crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures
to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
-Q, Star Trek:TNG episode 'Q Who'
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