[scottrogers86]

Quotes in here are gold:

“When the Mac came out, I was the only developer who said it was a piece of shit.”

—Philippe Kahn, President, Borland International

[tpmx]

It kind of was a piece of shit with that little RAM (128k). That was rectified with the Fat Mac (512k) 8 months later in september of 1984. It was still quite expensive compared to the PC clones that were common by late 1984 though.

There was an interesting dynamic for a while in the 80s between text mode and bitmapped personal computers. Bitmapped computers were generally for companies in design etc, well-todo individuals and academics. To the rest they seemed very nice but frivolous due to the very high cost. That 512k Mac in Sep 1984: US$2,795 (equivalent to $7,870 in 2022).

At the time of the introduction of that first feasible mac you could get a PC 5150 clone with the same amount of RAM and much crappier CGA graphics for half of the price. And then the gap just started getting wider over the next few years.

[boffinAudio]

Its so sweet to see JLG with hair (page 7). :)

Seriously though, those quotes are hilarious .. especially Kahns' - this would be seem to have been quite a determined position for him to take, given Borlands' subsequent near-complete disinterest in the platform in the following years.

I wonder what Borland would be today if they hadn't ignored the Mac? Delphi for MacOS? Wow, what that would have done for us all ..

Or, better yet, Delphi for BeOS. Just another case of "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!" coming to the wrong minds at the wrong time ..

[tpmx]

Borland did not die because they ignored the Mac, they died because they tried to transform from being a sub $100 consumer/mass-market product company to an enterprise offering and failed at doing so. The Mac wasn't a factor.

They still would have died when Linux/open source took off though. They didn't own a platform.