Apple‘s Struggle to Survive the IBM PC

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[thecorruptedbit]

I love this era of computing. Everything was happening so fast and the market was expanding so quickly, that you had to keep innovating just to survive the cutthroat competition.

[Alanpie]

Both the Alto computer and Aldus Pagemaker are shoutouts to Aldus Manutius, a Rennaissance printer who designed "small" books that could fit into saddlebags and worked with the legendary Humanist Erasmas (who is the guy on the Pagemaker logo). Among other things, Aldus developed the first fonts used to print copies of classic Greek literature, as well as the original texts of the New Testament.

[alainpannetier]

Trivia: IBM only ditched Lotus as their corporate email platform... last year in 2022.

[brandenhall]

Slight correction - only around 200 Apple Is were made - I believe the 300, 000 number you mentioned are Apple IIs.

[Bakensobek]

May I submit a correction? The original disk drive controller for the Apple II was called the "Disk II controller". The "Integrated Woz Machine" was the single-chip version used in later models like the IIGS and IIc.

[AdamJRichardson]

There was a single networked 1st gen LaserWriter in the Mac lab in my art/design college around 1990. It was named "Godot"...as you were constantly waiting for it.

[NozomuYume]

The education market was basically what kept Apple alive during those early years after the IBM PC came out. IBM took away the high-margin business market (because IBM) and Commodore was eating their lunch on the high-volume home market (because Apple stuff was stupidly expensive and C64s were cheap). Apple really had few customers other than schools.

[jrherita]

IBM went to Atari HQ in 1980-1981 and briefly considered licensing or using the Atari 800 as the basis for the original PC.

[coraltown]

One of the things that made the IBM PC really take off was the 'clones'. The BIOS was reverse engineered along with the entire open architecture, prices quickly dropped, new generations of Intel CPUs supplied more and more compute power (286/386/486/Pentium), and in a relative few years PC clones were EVERYWHERE. I loved that era, got to work on a lot of cool projects. :)

[Kevin_Kennelly]

I worked for a publishing company in the 80s;
We published a group of magazines targeted at computer manufacturers (DEC, IBM, HP).
We had an 'art department', as you describe it. People cutting and pasting strips of text into the shape of a printed page.

And then along came Adobe with Aldus Page Maker.
We bought a Mac and an IBM PC-AT. Installed Pagemaker on both. And sat them down side by side in the Art Department.

It took a day to decide.

I ended up buying every new Mac that came out.

And the SAVINGS were insane.
Before you print 250000 copies of the magazine, you have to print ONE copy and have the advertisers approve it.
That costs about $6000 per page.
Until you can do it yourself.
And the big machine that spewed out columns of printed text to be cut/pasted....gets unplugged.

And I got to avoid having to support the IBM PC and Windows.
Thank you Adobe.
I named my son Aldus.

[fredericomba]

Your video is the first place where I heard a mention of an "Apple III".

[makerspace]

S-100 computers were the king when the Apple II was brought to the market. At first it appeared that the Apple II would be an open design so small companies started making various add-on boards for various tasks. It was when Franklin and a couple other firms decided to start making Apple II clones. Apple went after them with a vengeance and soon the clones were history. When IBM came out with the PC, immediately clones started appearing. The only thing holding them back was the firmware BIOS that was owned by IBM. Companies like Compaq developed clean versions of the BIOS using software engineers who wrote the bios from scratch using only the specifications of the BIOS, never looking at any of the source. So before long there were 10's of companies building PC compatibles at low price. I don't think affected IBM very much because most of the IBM customers were not going to take their chances on a clone. Apple locked down their design thus limiting the installation base of the Apple II and Mac architectures.

[ScrapKing]

Not going to lie, I want to live in the alternate universe where Commodore came out on top. The Amiga was so far ahead of the Mac and PC in the mid-to-late 80s...

[stachowi]

This channel is constantly blowing me away with the topics and depth.... i always learn new things about topics i think i already know about!

Kudos, glad to see this channel is growing!

[ardeneberly]

Great video. One quibble. Atari did not "collapse." It contracted but immediately began development on the Atari ST computer which was released in 1985.

[bjarkih]

I bought my first computer in 1991. The choice was between a used 286 with a 14" VGA monitor and MS-DOS 5 (maybe 4.x) and Win 3 or a Apple Machintosh with a 10" BW display. The price difference was that enormous. What made me choose the 286 was the fact that unlike the mac there was almost an unlimited number of games/software to choose from while the mac only had stuff from Apple. Also the UI on the Apple was only available in Icelandic and even though that's the country I live in I hate using electronic products that are not running on english.

[uzetaab]

Maybe I misunderstood something, but it sounded like Steve Jobs almost killed the company in the 80s.

[bobfk]

This review of the early history of the PC is extremely interesting to me.
I was watching this field intently during the mid-70's to mid-80's.
In the late '70's the Z80 was the best 8 bit micro but the 8080 had a head start and good marketing.
The Motorola 6800 was very good too but it didn't have the marketing clout behind it.
The Texas Instruments TI-994A was more of a toy computer, ok for games but not for serious work applications.
When the IBM PC came out, its hardware wasn't very good but the IBM name was magical and everyone wanted something that was "IBM Compatible".
The Texas Instruments PC ("Professional Computer") in the early '80's had much better hardware but without the feature of IBM compatibility, it wasn't a marketing success.

[coolworx]

Who here remembers buying the doorstop posing as a monthly magazine called Computer Shopper?

[chyldstudios]

This video illustrates to me why this is one of the best channels on YouTube.