Interesting thing happened to me today
cable4096
Dec 14 1998
8:16PM EST
I went to a 3:30pm Doctor's Appointment and a man was in the waiting room with me talking about how companies screw you over without you thinking about it. He was talking about Airlines and how when a plane crashes due to equipment malfunction, they never tell you that the plane was 30+ years old. I commented that they must have plains as old as I am and most likely they found it was cheaper to maintain them over the years than buy new ones.
He laughed and said that was about right. He also said that passingers have a right to know how old a plane is before they bord it and should have the right to switch to another flight with a newer airplane.
I said, it is sort of like computers, after so many years you got to upgrade or else the thing isn't as good as it could be.
He told me that was true, and that he used to be into computers.
I told him I was into computers too, and was running my own company. That some day perhaps I can make a million dollars or so selling software to a niche market.
He told me he used to write software for Apple // computers. That he wrote a killer of a DTP program for the //gs and Apple had promised him that they would support the Apple // series forever. Even had some "Apple // Forever" banners that Apple used to hang at Apple // conventions. Well he said he invented his own GUI because Apple didn't have a decent one for the //gs yet. He also put some tools in there that Adobe and Quark still don't have in their products. He said that Apple made him pay a fee for every software title he created. That he had spent $20,000 which he had to borrow to get this program on the market and be ok with Apple. He said he was talking with Saint Louis University and the St. Louis Public Schools and other educators for a multi-million dollar contract to supply the software and 5 year support for his products. Then the bomb dropped on him, Apple canceled the //gs line and announced it would move support to the Macintosh. His program was not portable as it was all in assembly language and used //gs tricks to get better performance. The educators dropped the contracts with him and canceled payment on checks.
I gave him my business card, hoping I could talk to him later and he can give me more details on how Apple screwed him over. But I can tell you that it appeared to be true to me, as I have heard stories like that, and the look in the man's eyes. The fustration, the anger, and the bitterness, was just something that could not be faked. I'd imagine it was like MojoNexus felt when Apple screwed his company out of a dealership. If I can get in contact with this guy, maybe he still has the source code to the DTP software and would be willing to port it to Linux or Windows? There is no fee to be paid to develop Linux softare, and the GIMP software isn't all that great on Linux but it is about the best graphics program I have seen yet.
I heard a rumor about BeOS, Be went to Apple to try and license Quicktime and get the specs on the Macintosh ROMS and Hardware layouts. Apple wanted millions of dollars per year for payment, and then Be said, well we think we'd rather look at WINTEL systems then. Again, I cannot verify this to be true, just something I heard.
BTW Microsoft gave out NT source code to Digital/Compaq, AT&T, IBM, and a few others. True AT&T and IBM had to threaten to sue, but still Microsoft shared the info with them in the end.
Further proof that if you're looking for reasons why publishers are avoiding Apple like the plague - you don't have to do a fucking fake spreadsheet like Mackido.com. The BeOS nugget is true as well - but the meat is in the developer carcases lining the Apple highway like roadkill.
-mgabrys
