bousozoku said:
They came at a time when Apple was using NuBus and Processor Direct Slots, their own video connections, and a proprietary operating system that wasn't compliant with any outside technologies. What's your point? 😛
Just a few misconceptions to be cleared up here...
On NuBus:
32bit NuBus was developed by MIT and standardized by Texas Instruments years before Apple ever selected it, and it was far more advanced than the 8bit or 16bit PC ISA alternative available at the time. Apple probably assumed that this would become the standard in the future. NuBus did not last long after PCI appeared on the scene, and Apple barely made any attempt to keep it alive. It's Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) number is 1196. So yes, it was an industry standard.
On PDS:
Computers with PDS slots were not considered aftermarket "expandable" as most PDS slots were filled with Apple coprocessors, Apple networking cards, Apple video cards, or Apple modems. Third party developers only created upgrades for the PDS slots of various machines at their whim and were not really inclined to do so since the only machines that had PDS solely and no NuBus slots were "consumer" and "educational" machines - systems not meant to be taken apart by the user. All professional machines had NuBus slots.
You'll find that all the PDS-only systems, such as the IIsi or LC III were also extremely small compared to the average PC at the time - this was also a selling point to many consumers who wanted computing power in a small space. And unlike the average PC, they still included sound, color, and built in networking! When the Mac microphones were introduced in the late 80s, how many PCs had a microphone port? How many PCs even had sound?
On DB15 ("Macintosh Video"):
The DB15 connector was just Apple's video signaling choice, but wasn't really "different" from the PC method, other than physical adapter - it could be converted for use by PC displays (or visa-versa) with simple and relatively inexpensive adapters that switched signal locations and modified frequencies, and were about the size of a matchbook.
On the Macintosh System as a Whole:
For other hardware, for example SCSI, RJ-45 ethernet (via AAUI), modem technologies, display resolutions, floppy disks, CD-ROM drives and their speeds, Apple pretty much followed along with the PC industry and varied very little from "standards."
The question is, what exactly
is "proprietary" and how do you define it? Is it simply by installed user base? In those earlier days, PCs running DOS and Windows were equally proprietary as Mac OS, and the Mac OS actually had more users than Windows itself. Remember there were lots of other OSes too at that time. It was up to developers to decide which OS to make compatible hardware and software for, based on what technologies were available to each OS (generally, for example, ISA, IDE, and Parallel for PC as opposed to NuBus, SCSI, and, well, SCSI for Macintosh). Since obviously there were way more PCs, and would be for the foreseeable future, it was more financially sound to develop for the PC architectures.
So it's not fair (in my opinion anyway) to just pass Apple off as being "so proprietary" because it wasn't a PC, that was the whole point of it! I mean, wouldn't
you much rather have NuBus slots and and external SCSI drives over what the
alternative was at the time?
Conclusions:
Most everything any company has ever created could have been considered proprietary at some point. Only some have caught on (FireWire) while others didn't (AAUI). That's how innovation occurs - when new superior technologies are introduced with the intention of replacing older ones. But if you pass off every new invention or application as being "proprietary" then what enticement does anybody have to push technology further?
