[Coco] The COCO vs The Apple II

[Allen Huffman]

> On Jan 10, 2015, at 8:24 AM, Zippster <zippster278 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> An Apple //e with 2 floppy drives and a color monitor was around $2,000 in 1984 IIRC,
> while the “budget” machines were a few hundred.  They weren’t perceived as being in
> the same class at all.

This is a key thing ... I had NO friends with Apple's cause, I guess, I didn't have any rich friends. In my VIC-20 days, me and some friends were trying to do a software company (CPU Software, how original - Custom Programs Unlimited) and I had VIC-20, a friend had a Timex Sinclair, and another a TRS-80 Model III. I also had friends with Atari (400?), TI, and others, but not really any Apples in my low end world.

When I switched from VIC-20 to CoCo in 1983, I would run in to Commodore users in the following years always puzzled why I'd do that instead of a C64. I had to explain to them that the C64 was out, but it was like $600 or something right at first -- whatever the price, it was far more than I could afford. Later, it dropped in price and showed up in Toys-R-Us and stuff and everyone seemed to have them. Hard to compete with that!

But if the C64 had been $300, I would have gone that route I am sure, and missed out on the computer that led me to OS-9 and to Microware and my modern career. If I had a C64, I would have just played games.

		-- A