[Leica] Mac discounts

[r.s.taylor at comcast.net (Richard Taylor)]

This reminds me that when the Mac Plus first came out I bought either the 
first or second one into the Observatory.  It was a real curiosity.  At the 
time most of us were using VT100 terminals attached to DEC VAXes as our 
primary means of computing.  I was told absolutely that the Mac wasn't a 
real computer and I was wasting $2500.00 of company money.  I bought it 
anyway because I found it's graphical interface fun to use and I always 
liked new toys anyway.  As I recall, it had a gigantic 20MB external hard 
drive that sat under the computer.  

People would come by to check it out and chuckle at my insanity but after a 
while they discovered I could do things, particularly graphical things, 
easily that were difficult on the VAXes, so and they began running tests.  
They'd give me a data set to plot and I'd come back in an hour or so with a 
nicely formatted graph and then they'd wait for it to come back from the 
computer guys.  It would, nowhere nearly so nicely formatted, a couple of 
days later.  

I also had a thriving business going in making proposal covers.  Our covers 
all had (still have, in fact), a box around some text at the bottom of the 
page.  On the VAX, drawing that box required entering start and stop 
coordinates for each of the four lines into the code and was a trial and 
error business taking hours.  I'd type up a cover page and draw the box with 
a swish of the mouse. 

PCs with Windows arrived soon thereafter and they became the standard 
desktop computer at the Observatory, primarily for cost reasons, I believe, 
though I think the fact that they were running DOS played a part, too, since 
our IT guys already had some familiarity with it.  
  
Regards, 

Dick



On Dec 08, 2009, at 6:53 PM, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:

> Sonny wrote:
> 
> "Yeah it has something to do with Apple (and Dell) giving stuff to the
> 
> Universities.  The student package discounts are not all that great. You 
> can
> 
> often do just about as well at an Apple (or Dell) Store.
> 
> 
> The only advantage for us was that Eric's Mac was packaged with all the
> 
> software he was going to need as a music major at his University.
> 
> 
> Of couse, times change, and now, in the middle of his second year, all the
> 
> music Profs accept assignments on mp3. Go figure.
> 
> 
> I work at a University too, and sometimes I can do pretty good with the
> 
> discounts, sometimes not.  Dell sells other stuff, besides laptops and
> 
> computers, ya know.
> 
> 
> I also have a connection through IBM to Lenovo, and I was able to beat the
> 
> professional discount by seventy dollars using a coupon code from Fat
> 
> Wallet."
> 
> 
> - - - - -
> 
> 
> Some background information. After Apple's 1984 superbowl commercial. the
> company started the Apple University Consortium designed to get Mac
> computers into the hands of students. The catch is that the students and
> faculty had to pay the full price of a 128K Mac up front by certified 
> check,
> $2500 as I recall. With the money in hand, Apple started up the production
> line. The computers were delivered about three months later. Apple 
> obviously
> modeled its approach after Hitler's method of selling Volkswagens prior to
> WW2. Pay up front  and then wait.
> 
> 
> At the time I was chairman of the computer committee of our university. In
> order to convince me of the merits of the Mac, Apple lent me a Lisa 
> computer
> which ran the Mac's software. The Lisa sits on the desk behind me in this
> 1985 photo. No comments about the fact that I needed to lose weight.
> 
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Me+in+my+office+at+CUNY.jpg.html
> 
> The hanging on the wall is an imitation Jackson Pollack done by my wife. If
> I could have passed it off as a real one I could afford a dozen M9s, each
> with a Noctilux. Anyway I was convinced that Macs were a good idea. At the
> time Bill Gates was claiming that 640K memory was all one would ever need
> and IBM was touting its own brand of software. We joined the Consortium.
> Bribery works.
> 
> 
> To prevent a wholesale invasion by California based Apple, IBM, a local New
> York company, gave a grant to the university offering $500 to each grad
> student for a computer purchase. Naturally they expected the students to 
> buy
> real computers, i.e. IBM PCs. To the surprise of everyone, including me, 3
> out of 4 opted for Macs. MACS WERE COOL. IBMs were for accountants. But it
> could have been a software issue as well. Macs had a true graphical
> interface from day one while PCs were still burdened with a command line
> interface. Windows was a distant gleam in Microsoft's eye. Also remember
> that Word and Excel were originally crafted for Macs. Statview and Data
> Desk, two sophisticated but easy to use statistics programs were also
> created for the Mac. Finally, the NIH Image program, one of the first 
> really
> capable image manipulation programs was free for the downloading from the
> Nat. Institute of Health. The software that was available ideally suited 
> the
> needs of grad students.
> 
> 
> The $100 to $200 Mac discounts are trivial considering the price of the
> computer. But if you really want one they are easy to get if you are
> connected in any way with a school. Even a grandchild attending 
> kindergarten
> qualifies you.
> 
> 
> Larry Z
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information