Apple didn't bring programming to the masses - for the following reason:
- Just to expensive. The Apple Macintosh in January 1984 cost $2500 - thats $7000 dollars in todays money!
- Too complex to get started. The amount of knowledge to successfully write anything really useful in 1984 on that make was a huge barrier to entry - you had to learn ObjectPascal, the then new GUI concepts, somehow get your hands on CodeWarrior (another expensive software package) and learn the UI of CodeWarrior.
- Documentation was poor. The system shipped with nothing mentioning any of this or the hardware underpinnings.
The Mac was designed as an end user 'consumption' machine, not a development machine. Nothing wrong with that - as the market had shown it was highly proficient and successful in its intended role.
The company (in the US at least) that brought programming to the masses was Commodore.
- IT WAS CHEAP! With the release of the Commodore 64 it brought the a super sophisticated system at bargain basement prices. By early 1985 the C64's price was $149 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64) - thats $420 in todays money. A complete system with a 1541 disk drive & monitor cost a total $549 (https://www.mclib.info/Research/Local-History-Genealogy/Hist...) or $1,547 in todays money. A computer with 64K, 16 color graphics, a revolutionary 3 voice synthesizer capable of speech, and a massive software library and peripherals.
- It came with everything you need to to write code. The system booted into a BASIC interpreter REPL which served as its command line also. No additional software needed.
- The info that it shipped with was phenomenal. The manual shipped with the computer actually give you a nice tutorial on the basics of writing code, with examples of color graphics, sound generation, sprites and accessing peripherals (https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_users_guide/c64-users_g...) You could write to Commodore and they would actually send you a schematic of the main board and expansion ports as well as a dump of the ROM so you could look at the actual code that the system used to do what it did.
It was an amazing time to be a young Commodore 64 programmer back then. Heck even the company's slogan was "Computing for the masses, not the classes". And with the Commodore 64 they lived that slogan.
The interesting thing is that todays Apple is even more friendly than Commodore was to the budding developer - with the MacMini line and the Unix underpinnings of the MacOS X, there isn't a better beginner developer system than Apple today.
Apple in many ways, learned its lessons and adapted. Commodore unfortunately - so Apple Mac of today is bringing programming to the masses.
All of my nieces and nephews - I bought them an iMac mini for last Christmas and showed them how to use the terminal and python - and they are on their way.
- Just to expensive. The Apple Macintosh in January 1984 cost $2500 - thats $7000 dollars in todays money!
- Too complex to get started. The amount of knowledge to successfully write anything really useful in 1984 on that make was a huge barrier to entry - you had to learn ObjectPascal, the then new GUI concepts, somehow get your hands on CodeWarrior (another expensive software package) and learn the UI of CodeWarrior.
- Documentation was poor. The system shipped with nothing mentioning any of this or the hardware underpinnings.
The Mac was designed as an end user 'consumption' machine, not a development machine. Nothing wrong with that - as the market had shown it was highly proficient and successful in its intended role.
The company (in the US at least) that brought programming to the masses was Commodore.
- IT WAS CHEAP! With the release of the Commodore 64 it brought the a super sophisticated system at bargain basement prices. By early 1985 the C64's price was $149 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64) - thats $420 in todays money. A complete system with a 1541 disk drive & monitor cost a total $549 (https://www.mclib.info/Research/Local-History-Genealogy/Hist...) or $1,547 in todays money. A computer with 64K, 16 color graphics, a revolutionary 3 voice synthesizer capable of speech, and a massive software library and peripherals.
- It came with everything you need to to write code. The system booted into a BASIC interpreter REPL which served as its command line also. No additional software needed.
- The info that it shipped with was phenomenal. The manual shipped with the computer actually give you a nice tutorial on the basics of writing code, with examples of color graphics, sound generation, sprites and accessing peripherals (https://www.commodore.ca/manuals/c64_users_guide/c64-users_g...) You could write to Commodore and they would actually send you a schematic of the main board and expansion ports as well as a dump of the ROM so you could look at the actual code that the system used to do what it did.
It was an amazing time to be a young Commodore 64 programmer back then. Heck even the company's slogan was "Computing for the masses, not the classes". And with the Commodore 64 they lived that slogan.
The interesting thing is that todays Apple is even more friendly than Commodore was to the budding developer - with the MacMini line and the Unix underpinnings of the MacOS X, there isn't a better beginner developer system than Apple today.
Apple in many ways, learned its lessons and adapted. Commodore unfortunately - so Apple Mac of today is bringing programming to the masses.
All of my nieces and nephews - I bought them an iMac mini for last Christmas and showed them how to use the terminal and python - and they are on their way.