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Apple's plight has proved how difficult it can be to recover once you're behind the power curve. I worked for Computerland in the early 80’s. I was there when IBM released its original PC. Before that we sold lots of Apples and an occasional Osborne. Apple made it difficult, and expensive in 1982 terms, to develop software for their systems. You had to buy the information needed to write any sort of software. As I recall it cost about $1,500 or so. When IBM burst onto the scene they were just the opposite. Their original systems came with all sorts of documentation, all packed in neat IBM labeled notebooks in the box with the computer. They wanted people to develop programs for the PC. They were even willing to put their brand on something a freelance developer had written and sell it along with their own offerings. It wasn't long before all sorts of things started being available for the PC. Apple meanwhile released the Mac and made it even more difficult to get information on the OS and ability to program at a compiler level, or heaven forbid, at the assembler level. The rest is history.

It was obvious from the git-go that the Mac had a lot of advantages because of its Motorola 64000 processor compared to the Intel series. The biggest advantage was the 64000’s ability to address lots of and lots of memory while the Intel had to depend on 64k and a very confusing paging system to trick the OS into using any more memory.

Just a recollection or two from “the good ol’ days”!

Apple made it very difficult to be a developer, IBM practically begged you to develop and share.

And now IBM is a dominant force in the PC software market.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but MS in it's own way is just as closed of a system as Apple. IBM's big screwup was in thinking that the profit was in the hardware and not worrying about the software which let MS capture and hold a virtual monopoly.

Oh, wow. There is so much wrong with this, I don’t know where to start - and I’ll only be able to touch on this.

For starters - Apple used the 68000 and then later the rest of the 68K (short for 68000) family.

Second, the Intel limitation was *640*K, not 64K.

In 1982 terms, the Apple II had and STILL has the largest library of software titles ever written. Getting information on it was stupidly easy, it came with the machine, and the machine itself booted into BASIC from ROM.

IBM’s documentation on the original PC was questionable at best, you had to pay extra for documentation that meant anything and the

IBM PC development did not really take off until Windows arrived. Until then, the Apple II was still selling better AND was a better platform to write for.

IBM’s PC was well behind the curve until ~1985-1986. It didn’t actually pass the Apple II until about 1987. Apple’s missteps with the original Mac (which, to be honest, was mostly Steve Jobs’ fault but was later extended and compounded by some real stupidity on the part of Apple’s board) allowed IBM and compatibles in and take over.

Hm... stupidity on the part of the market leader creating openings for other companies... Where have we heard that recently?

What we’re seeing now is turnabout. IBM managed to catch up, pass Apple with the help of Microsoft, and then fell off the curve. Microsoft has continued, but it looks like they’re now about to fall off the curve and get passed by Apple.

I am recalling all of this from memories that are over 25 years old now, so I could be off in some respects, but the overall idea is valid. Apple made it very difficult to be a developer, IBM practically begged you to develop and share.

You're half right. It wasn't the developer aspect that gave Microsoft OS machines the edge because most consumers aren't developers. It was simply that the price was hundreds of dollars less. Most first time computer consumers then thought "A computer is a computer is a computer" and thought that with the hundreds of dollars in savings they could buy all sorts of software, too. They entered upon the wide path and never knew anything different until relatively recently.

That’s odd — I was a kid in the early 80s. I was in a computer club at school. We always had information on programming the Apple II series. In fact, I believe the ‘OS’ was Apple BASIC.

And similarly, I remember using Object Pascal on the Macintosh. I was a PC/Commodore programmer in that era primarily however as a kid. By God, I loved the 80s. Ronaldus Magnus, and the birthing era of the PCs!

But anyway, I did note some irony in your post. Because today every Mac you buy comes with XCode and a full suite of developer tools on the OS X DVD. :)

"Apple made it difficult, and expensive in 1982 terms, to develop software for their systems... When IBM burst onto the scene they were just the opposite."

Yes. For a while. Until the PS|2 came out and IBM attempted to rein in the runaway clone market by making its systems closed and proprietary, with the MicroChannel bus and undocumented changes to the BIOS that broke developers' code. I remember that all too well, having been a developer at the time and suddenly fielding phone calls from customers where our product suddenly wouldn't work due to BIOS changes in the PS|2.

IBM wouldn't answer our questions, even when we called using one Fortune-25 customer's double-secret support code, for which the customer had paid many hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions. It was that important to our mutual customer that my code worked... and IBM still would not answer our questions, because to them it was more important that the genie of independent development be jammed back into the bottle than it was to make their customer happy.

Didn't work, and IBM lost its market share in a hurry. A more deserved collapse of market share has never been witnessed, IMHO.