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thePurpleGiant · Oct 3, 2002, 09:25 PM

I was just thinking to myself, how I remember a friend in 1997 insisting that Apple was about to die. I refused to believe him, and i was right. but let's say Apple did die...my how things would be different.

What OS would you be using now? Do you think perhaps Be and Next would still be around as Mac users jumped to them as an alternative to Windows? how about Linux?

Would Mac users go turn into the Newton users of today, refusing to buy another computer as their Mac is 'better than any new product today'?

Where would we hang out today instead of MacNN? Would your life have changed dramatically?

G4ME · Oct 3, 2002, 10:02 PM

you are thinking way too much you need some of this to clear your head

juanvaldes · Oct 3, 2002, 10:04 PM

Originally posted by G4ME:
you are thinking way too much you need some of this to clear your head

yummy!

as for apple, we would have slugged along for a while until life forced us to get a windows box. I would probably be using linux though...

Justin W. Williams · Oct 3, 2002, 10:10 PM

I would definitely be using a NeXT box

juanvaldes · Oct 3, 2002, 10:12 PM

Originally posted by Justin W. Williams:
I would definitely be using a NeXT box

but could you afford one?

G4ME · Oct 3, 2002, 10:32 PM

near the end of NeXt the had cheaper boxes other then the cube, more reasonably priced, BTW Next was in very bad shape, worse then apple in the early 90's so they wouldn't have been around in 1997 for us to stick with.

Mr. Blur · Oct 3, 2002, 10:39 PM

i probably would have continued to use beos (still have a copy loaded at work on the peecee) until its eventual death and then gone to linux.

IUJHJSDHE · Oct 3, 2002, 10:48 PM

I think macnn would stay up for a while, the forum would still have use for trouble shooting and as a good place to hang out.

(Good place to hang out? god I need a life!)

I would not change to any other computer for a long time.

But I might change to linux if I had too.

arrested502 · Oct 3, 2002, 11:25 PM

I don't think MacNN even existed in 1997, correct me if I'm wrong though.

Anyway, if Apple died in 1997, I'd not have gotten my first Mac in 1998. I'd probably be using some sort of PC with Windows.

macvillage.net · Oct 3, 2002, 11:26 PM

I think most of us would have went Linux earlier, and the linux movement would have absorbed the Mac community. Rather than OS X bring UNIX to us.

KaptainKaya · Oct 3, 2002, 11:36 PM

If Apple died, I'd not be using a computer for work and design.

Cipher13 · Oct 4, 2002, 12:14 AM

I'd be on a Be box, considering getting a new Amiga.

Steve · 03:23 PM

Originally posted by arrested502:
I don't think MacNN even existed in 1997, correct me if I'm wrong though.

Actually, it started in 1996

. From the news page...

"Copyright �1996-2002 the Macintosh News Network. All rights reserved."

And if Apple died back in 1997, I'm sure I would be using a badass Linux gaming box, which is fine with me.

[edit] Check out the news archives from 1996. It's a lot different than it is now

.

http://www.macnn.com/archives/1296.shtml

[/edit]

olePigeon · Oct 4, 2002, 01:22 AM

I think PowerComputing or Motorola would have bought Apple's assets, then continue to develop and market Macintoshes and Macintosh clones.

RGB · Oct 4, 2002, 01:51 AM

And how many of Apple's innovations or at least good ideas would never have been copied by the Wintel crowd, and where would that leave the Wintel world?

juanvaldes · Oct 4, 2002, 02:35 AM

Originally posted by RGB:
And how many of Apple's innovations or at least good ideas would never have been copied by the Wintel crowd, and where would that leave the Wintel world?

was the firewire spec done by this time?

tooki · Oct 4, 2002, 02:50 AM

Yeah, FireWire was designed (by Apple) back in like 1992 or something! (It didn't become a published standard till 1995.)

tooki

CRASH HARDDRIVE · Oct 4, 2002, 03:26 AM

Originally posted by thePurpleGiant:
I was just thinking to myself, how I remember a friend in 1997 insisting that Apple was about to die. I refused to believe him, and i was right. but let's say Apple did die...my how things would be different.

What OS would you be using now?

Not sure what OS version, but I'd be using my UMAX s9900 with the dual 2.5GHZ G6's to run it on.

tpitts1 · Oct 4, 2002, 12:52 PM

I would still be using my Apple PowerPC 6100

Justin W. Williams · Oct 4, 2002, 01:41 PM

Originally posted by juanvaldes:

but could you afford one?

I'd start a paper route

cpt kangarooski · Oct 4, 2002, 01:46 PM

Do you want one now? I can't get rid of mine and I appear to have a much lower opinion of NeXT than you do.

euphras · Oct 4, 2002, 02:16 PM

Quote:
"I would still be using my Apple PowerPC 6100"

When it comes to up-to-date graphics you wouldn`t be able to use it (even if you could get a monster graphics card for the NUBUS slot).

Hack3006 · Oct 4, 2002, 03:12 PM

i would revert back to a typewriter and a calculator. prehaps a pencil and paper if i had to.

long live technology.

Fallout · Oct 4, 2002, 08:31 PM

I'd be using Windows.

SupahCoolX · Oct 4, 2002, 08:38 PM

Even if Apple died, I think the MacOS would have continued in some form somewhere. It was too good an OS with (at the time) 13 years of maturation behind it. Someone would have bought it and continued it.
Either that, or I'd still be using my Performa 6400 with System 7.5.3!

Mac Zealot · Oct 4, 2002, 11:56 PM

USB would never have become popular, all computers would still have PS/2 keyboards, windows XP would have never been candy-ish, we would still have all beige computers, there would never have been the translucency boom, and a user friendly unix would never have existed.

KaptainKaya · Oct 5, 2002, 12:27 AM

Originally posted by cpt kangarooski:
Do you want one now? I can't get rid of mine and I appear to have a much lower opinion of NeXT than you do.

How much?

l008com · Oct 5, 2002, 12:33 AM

I would probably not be into computers at all. I'd be your average joe casual user. Internet Email a game or two when windows wasn't pissing me off. I would never be the computer NUT I am today. PowerComputing buy apple's assets? PowerComputing was a spec, even compared to Apple. Hence Apple actually bought PowerComputing's assets in 1998. And remember in 97 there was no Jobs around and no real drive to make really great things, only a drive to sell. If they had called it quits, I don't think my OS 8.1 running on an old 9500 tower would be enough to keep up these days. Though on second though, I'd take that over windows any day. For everyone that said Linux, you do all realize that using linux is NOTHING like using OS X? (after my own OS X UNIX craze, I tried loading BSD on a 68K I had lying around.... HA)

Detrius · Oct 5, 2002, 01:19 AM

Originally posted by l008com:
I would probably not be into computers at all. I'd be your average joe casual user. Internet Email a game or two when windows wasn't pissing me off. I would never be the computer NUT I am today. PowerComputing buy apple's assets? PowerComputing was a spec, even compared to Apple. Hence Apple actually bought PowerComputing's assets in 1998. And remember in 97 there was no Jobs around and no real drive to make really great things, only a drive to sell. If they had called it quits, I don't think my OS 8.1 running on an old 9500 tower would be enough to keep up these days. Though on second though, I'd take that over windows any day. For everyone that said Linux, you do all realize that using linux is NOTHING like using OS X? (after my own OS X UNIX craze, I tried loading BSD on a 68K I had lying around.... HA)

Just my 2 cents on Linux... I was GLAD to ditch it when OS X public beta came out. That was SOOOO far ahead of Linux it didn't even require a second thought to jump ship. Linux is cool and all, but when you have to download the kernel daily using rsync, and recompile until it boots the machine, just hoping that your hardware will work slightly better... well, getting the OS to run properly is the trick. I got tired of the addictive Linux game. You feel like you are in super control... that you are an uber-geek... but you are just in the addiction cycle.

At this point, I'd use windows over Linux... but I'd have to have given up on every other UNIX available.

cpt kangarooski · Oct 5, 2002, 02:50 AM

Kaya--
Send me a mail and we'll talk it over. I'm at net.auspice.gryphon@cpt (the address is in reverse order as a lame spam avoidance thing)

CRASH HARDDRIVE · Oct 5, 2002, 04:51 AM

Originally posted by SupahCoolX:
Even if Apple died, I think the MacOS would have continued in some form somewhere. It was too good an OS with (at the time) 13 years of maturation behind it. Someone would have bought it and continued it.

Yeah, that someone would most likely have been Motorola.

It's funny, I was just looking back through some MacUser mags from 1997 up through the pre-Jobs era. I noticed a clear trend through all of them- the hottest machines, the ones screaming through all the benchmarks, making reviewers go ga-ga, the systems pushing the envelope the farthest and introducing all the latest developments were the new CHRP designed Macs from Motorola and PowerComputing.

Check this MacWorld article on CHRP! Just the first line is so telling of the difference in where things were in history at that time, and the re-write that's been done since.

For the most part, users don't care about motherboard designs. And that's as it should be. You care about performance, reliability, and cost.

Performance? Cost?! What about case-design and transparent plastics?!

When Apple was touting the G3 as if they were the ones to actually introduce it in a production machine, a few on the ball reviewers outside of the reality distortion field remembered that, oh yeah, some other guys had actually been shipping G3 systems FIRST, and that they had smoked Apple's ass- before the rug got pulled out from under them that is.

November 10 {1997)is being hailed by many as the day Apple begins its return to prominence in the computer industry. Apple will update the aging Power Mac 7300/200, which wasn't even state-of-the-art when it was introduced. Finally, Apple will bring about computers based on the G3 "Arthur" chip. Finally, Apple will raise system bus speeds to above the 60 MHz limit achieved only by Power Computing. Ignoring the fact that similar computers could have already been shipping if Motorola and Power Computing still made Macs, it seems like November 10 will be a good day for Apple.

The CHRP standard also fully accounted for the expected rise of USB. But it also had a lot of legacy crap tacked onto it to accommodate the x86world; both a good and bad thing. We probably would have seen full hardware parity with the PC in a very short time, but legacy hardware probably wouldn't have dropped out as quickly.

UMAX had plans drawn up for a Mac laptop that (like their desktops) would have been cheaper than Apple Powerbooks by a wide margin, and at the same time delivered an asswhooping to Apple's meager specs.(Of course Apple would have never allowed anyone else to make a Mac laptop).

Lets not forget DayStar Genesis. They were pushing all kinds of envelopes with the Mac platform. Their designs were so good that I know of a few of those boxes dating from 1996-97 that are still in producion use. I see no reason that DayStar would have suffered unrecoverable defeat from the demise of Apple- certainly not in the realm of hardware.

It's a shame really, when Apple pulled the plug on cloning, they quashed the pinnacle of Motorolla's CHRP G3 designs that were at the time leaving Apple way behind in the dust. Motorolla had an 83Mhz system bus mobo spec on the drawing boards at a time when Apple couldn't even get it to 60.

So I don't buy that had Apple somehow gone under, that the Mac would have just died. Motorolla had a lot at stake, making the processors and wanting to sell them. They had money. Their designs were blowing Apple out of the water. What would have kept Apple's top engineers from just jumping a sinking ship and joining in development for the 'cloners'?

Keeping the OS current would have been just as big a priority.. maybe Moto would have taken over that too, I dunno. In fact, given the much faster pace of hardware development, I'd wager they may have put out a modern MacOS a lot sooner than we all waited for OSX.

We wouldn't have the same Macs as today for certain, but who knows... we might have far better and faster ones. Or, it might all have gone down the crapper in some other way. Who knows? But I certainly don't believe it's cut and dry that the Mac would have faded out right away. It's a fact that some sweet production CHRP models would have come out.

OreoCookie · Oct 5, 2002, 09:02 AM

Originally posted by thePurpleGiant:
I was just thinking to myself, how I remember a friend in 1997 insisting that Apple was about to die. I refused to believe him, and i was right. but let's say Apple did die...my how things would be different.

What OS would you be using now? Do you think perhaps Be and Next would still be around as Mac users jumped to them as an alternative to Windows? how about Linux?

Would Mac users go turn into the Newton users of today, refusing to buy another computer as their Mac is 'better than any new product today'?

Where would we hang out today instead of MacNN? Would your life have changed dramatically?

I thought choosing NeXT over Be was a mistake for a long time. Till I got addicted to the power of Unix.

Apple was about to choose between two ways and two people that share a lot of similarities. I am glad Jobs made it though.

Apple is actively working on the problems they have; the good thing is that Jobs doesn't think in years, but in longer terms.

MacGorilla · Oct 5, 2002, 09:33 AM

Originally posted by OreoCookie:

I thought choosing NeXT over Be was a mistake for a long time. Till I got addicted to the power of Unix.

Apple was about to choose between two ways and two people that share a lot of similarities. I am glad Jobs made it though.

Apple is actively working on the problems they have; the good thing is that Jobs doesn't think in years, but in longer terms.

Love him or hate him, by buying NeXT, Apple got Steve Jobs back. You can't put a price on the skills he brings to the table. Plus the PR "Apple co-founder returns to save his company from doom..."

invisibleX · Oct 5, 2002, 10:19 AM

Originally posted by thePurpleGiant:
I was just thinking to myself, how I remember a friend in 1997 insisting that Apple was about to die. I refused to believe him, and i was right. but let's say Apple did die...my how things would be different.

What OS would you be using now? Do you think perhaps Be and Next would still be around as Mac users jumped to them as an alternative to Windows? how about Linux?

Would Mac users go turn into the Newton users of today, refusing to buy another computer as their Mac is 'better than any new product today'?

Where would we hang out today instead of MacNN? Would your life have changed dramatically?

Apple did die in 1997 (or rather 1998). Atleast Apple as we knew it died. Now its as cold and hard as that yummy 17" iMac

malvolio · Oct 5, 2002, 10:23 AM

I'd either still be running the Mac OS (loyal like all those Amiga users), or have switched to Linux.

OreoCookie · Oct 5, 2002, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by Cipher13:
I'd be on a Be box, considering getting a new Amiga.

Me too. I seriously considered buying a BeBox, but it was too expensive in the end.

OreoCookie · Oct 5, 2002, 10:54 AM

Originally posted by MacGorilla:

Love him or hate him, by buying NeXT, Apple got Steve Jobs back. You can't put a price on the skills he brings to the table. Plus the PR "Apple co-founder returns to save his company from doom..."

He doesn't do it for the money, he wants his company to go his way. And he does his Job very well, IMHO.

Subzero Diesel949 · Oct 5, 2002, 04:00 PM

I probably would have been using Windows 95. I got my first Mac in late 1997 anyway (PowerBook 1400).

daimoni · 02:15 AM

.

l008com · Oct 5, 2002, 05:44 PM

Originally posted by daimoni:

Pardon me, but it was a PDS (Processor Direct Slot) slot.

But with an adapter, it could be made into a NuBus slot :-p

jarends · Oct 6, 2002, 02:03 AM

Linux is still a questionable desktop solution today, but it certainly wasn't up to par in 97 or 98 when most of you guys claim you would have switched.

how many of you looked at linux in 97?

People just throw around linux like its a buzzword and I'm not sure if they've even used it.

I hate linux. It's a pain in the ass. I don't care if its "free" or whatever.

When I'm at home I enjoy my mac because its easy. I admin win2k/linux/freebsd servers at work, so I konw what I'm doing and still hate it/don't want to use it at home.

You guy's wouldn't have switched to linux in 1997.

thePurpleGiant · Oct 6, 2002, 03:17 AM

Originally posted by jarends:
Linux is still a questionable desktop solution today, but it certainly wasn't up to par in 97 or 98 when most of you guys claim you would have switched.

how many of you looked at linux in 97?

People just throw around linux like its a buzzword and I'm not sure if they've even used it.

I hate linux. It's a pain in the ass. I don't care if its "free" or whatever.

When I'm at home I enjoy my mac because its easy. I admin win2k/linux/freebsd servers at work, so I konw what I'm doing and still hate it/don't want to use it at home.

You guy's wouldn't have switched to linux in 1997.

Yeah, I'd have to agree jarends. If Apple died _today_ i wouldn't use Linux, although perhaps more effort and polish would be put into it if that were the case.

One of my jobs involves testing hardware and software solutions for a high school. Each 6 months I try installing and running Linux to see if there is any posibilty of using it instead of Windows (to save on costs). Not a chance! if Apple died in 1997, I would be using Windows, not enjoying it, but tolerating it. If Apple died today, I would also run Windows. I mean c'mon, it isn't _that_ bad!

Jeremy

Miniryu · Oct 10, 2002, 08:29 PM

wrong: we wouldn't be hanging out at MacNN because there were no forums yet. I figured this out when i started the "who is the earliest registered poster" thread, which in the proccess of getting no where, revealed that these boards started in early 1998.

And if Apple died, I would stil be on my Compaq. I was raised on Macs, but I came back when the DV iMacs were released.

Mac Zealot · Oct 11, 2002, 05:43 AM

Apple didn't die in 1998, the macintosh did.

It was replaced with a wild and newly creative thing called the imac, then the powermac g3 (blue and white), and then the G4.

The iMac was a breath of air to hold apple up for a short amount of time while OS X was being completed.. and that is what kept apple from the deep dirty crapper.