color e-readers are coming.

**Soquili** · 29 January 2010, 04:37 PM

Sorry Denis.

**ankhor** · 29 January 2010, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by Soquili

Sorry Denis.

No I don`t mind, I know how these things go, and it is apple
it always does that

**covoxer** · 29 January 2010, 05:30 PM

So was it the chicken or the egg?

But tell me, why did you buy Apple and not the native CP/M machine? The answer will be the actual reason of the Apple success.

SoftCard was a Microsoft product. Rumors are that it was released to expand the market for the Microsoft Basic. I doubt it was conceived by Apple to improve sales. Though I may be wrong here.

There was a lot of software for the CP/M of course, and not much commercial software for the Apple at that time except maybe for the VisiCalc. But there were no graphic or color games in CP/M, and this was important for home users. Though maybe not for you.

Neither Sierra On-Line nor Electronic Arts started in CP/M.

I think you are slightly overrating the availability of the high level programming languages. Back than, if you were not writing your program in Assembly, you could as well write it in integer basic. And use SWEET to save some memory. Well, almost.

Anyway, all the demanding software was written in asm and most of the rest was in BASIC. This stands true for the CP/M too. And having the same Microsoft roots, AppleSoft was not worse than MBASIC. If I recall correctly, it ran faster on 6502 than MBASIC on Z-80. And it had graphics?

And then you somehow upgraded to //c with no CM/P. Why? In 1984 there was a wide choice of declining CM/P machines.

Finally, Apple II lived well into 90s, with //e discontinued in 93, and was profitable through the entire production life.
CP/M had died quickly after MS-DOS offensive in the business PC market. Apple II survived much longer finally ending up with a wider choice of the native software than CP/M ever had.

No CP/M machine, nor even the CP/M system as a whole, was successful for such a long period of time as Apple II was. So it can't be the reason.

**covoxer** · 29 January 2010, 05:32 PM

Arghhhh... Oh well, I'm guilty of hijacking the thread.

**Soquili** · 29 January 2010, 05:41 PM

I did have a CP/M machine in addition to the Apple. As you mentioned there was little commercial software for the Apple // computers. Back then I had visions of making a lot of money as a software engineer in a fresh market...until the Air Force pointed out a clause in my contract about them owning rights to any code I produced.

**RTK** · 29 January 2010, 06:55 PM

Originally Posted by ankhor

No message about hijacking a thread ?

Back on-topic... From my first post: "Well, the soon to be available iPad will be doing those things too, and more. What am I missing?"

I don't understand what Liquavista Color does... or does better, or differently than for instance iPad or Kindle?

Cheers.

Risto

**ankhor** · 31 January 2010, 10:02 AM

Originally Posted by Risto

Back on-topic... From my first post: "Well, the soon to be available iPad will be doing those things too, and more. What am I missing?"

I don't understand what Liquavista Color does... or does better, or differently than for instance iPad or Kindle?

Cheers.

Risto

The screentechnologie is like electronic ink?
Only in color? Will probably also be used in monitors
and TV screens later? It is not the pad, it is the screen technology.