>>>no one can make any peripheral or add on
>
>Actually, that's not exactly historically correct.
>
>I never bought one, but I fell in love with the Apple II before the IBM PC came along and stole my heart.
>Part of its appeal was its use of the centronics (now the parallel) interface which allowed someone to plug in any printer using that interface.
>We take the open interface for granted now, but it was a big deal then and the IBM PC emulated it.
But I think that was because the ApplePrinter had that port ( and that was Apple II ) by the time Mac rolled around I think they had pretty much nailed down everything that could be attached to a mac - while every garage in Taiwan was cranking out PC clones, video cards, memory chips, whatever. By the time IBM decided they were going to go with "microchannel architecture" all they accomplished was to be the only PC that wasn't PC compatible <bg>
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
