User`s guide

Change-over
Last fall the lone remaining advertiser-supported Apple II-only monthly
announced the intention to "include Mac coverage". At the time, there seemed
little reason for comment. Unlike, say, a TI-99 bulletin board I've called, a
computer magazine can not be content with discussions of summer vacations and
fishing trips. If a publication can't find enough II products 'action' to pay
the bills, it has to find something else to talk about.
Re-discovery
My reason for mentioning the II-to-Mac shift now is that inCider's move is
symptomatic of maneuvering we must expect and be wary of in the post-Computer
Wars I world. Regular viewers of the weekly PBS computer-stuff show "Computer
Chronicles" have already heard the new 'party line'. Basically, it goes like
this: "For years the home computing market has been in the doldrums. Recently,
however, Apple and IBM have re-discovered the individual user! They are coming
to the rescue with powerful, low-priced
products like the Mac LC and PS/1."
Okay, so what is the pay-off in being "re-discovered"? First, the PS/1: It
is a compact, attractive, AT-compatible '286 machine which requires an optional
box to accommodate standard PC/AT peripheral cards. At $2000 for the basic color
version, PS/1 is priced near the limit of what most home buyers seem to be
willing to 'go for' in an initial purchase. It is also priced above faster '386
no-name (a.k.a. "grud") AT's with more RAM and larger hard disks and far above
equivalent grud '286 systems.
Mac LC is an attractive, compact, Mac-compatible 68020 machine which, with
the addition of a low-cost IIe card, can run IIe software. At, roughly, $3000
for the basic color version it is priced far beyond the typical home buyer's
initial investment limit. However, as inCider noted in it's "Meet the Mac LC"
face-off with an equivalent hard disk II system, the IIgs can end up costing as
much as the base 'LC plus IIe card (assuming the IIgs purchaser makes a series
of remarkably poor buying decisions).
Same-price grud competition includes a new crop of much faster '486 AT's with
more RAM and much larger hard disks.
It was, I believe, Abraham Lincoln who once observed: "You can re-discover
some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time... "
At least "'Chronicles" avoided references to the "little people" and "unwashed
masses"; but the meaning is clear enough. Technological trickle-down has proved
out, we have been noticed by the big name manufacturers! The "doldrums", of
course, refers to THEIR home markets-- understandable, when you consider that no
major manufacturer has paid any real
attention to home users for the last five years. THE home market has been
flourishing since 1989, when home buyers began to snap up no-name VGA+AdLib
PC/AT's like they were going out of style.
They were (going out of style). First came the '286 wave; and now, as of
spring '91, higher speed '386 systems are selling for well below $2000. A good
barometer of what's hot (and what's not) is the computer advertising in your
newspaper's Sunday "Business" section. This, typically, is where all computer
stuff advertisements (with prices!) appear. I checked ours; and, believe it or