Sawstop - probably a stupid question

[J. Clarke]

At the time of the "giant bail out" Microsoft purchased 150 million dollars worth of Apple preferred stock. "Preferred" stock is non-voting. At the time Apple has 1.5 billion dollars in "cash and cash equivalents" on hand. Yeah, they were _really_ in trouble. I should be so poor.

Everybody lost share to IBM. But Apple did not lose as much as their competitors. What other computer hardware company that was in business the day the IBM PC shipped is still in business? The only ones that come to mind are Rat Shack and Cray.

There was always hardware and software available for an Apple not produced by Apple. Remember Visicalc? Remember the coprocessor boards that let Apples run CP/M? I can't remember now what all was available, but accessorizing the Apple was an industry in itself.

[Leon]

We were only talking about Apple.

I don't think so. At least it was not authorized by Apple.

Jobs wanted everything under Apples control and there was basically no choice.

[Tim Douglass]

A cigarette sucked into you dust collector can cause an explosion, can't it?

;)

Tim Douglass

[Tim Douglass]

Actually I don't think that philosophy started until the Macintosh. During the Apple II days *everybody* made stuff for the Apple.

Tim Douglass

[Leon]

The may be true. All I recall is that this was the situation at one time.

[J. Clarke]

And your point is? My point, since you clearly weren't able to grasp it, is that very few computer companies survived the PC onslaught. Apple was one of the very few.

You don't think what?

If you will study the early history of Apple a bit, you will find that Visicalc was the "killer App" that made Apple as a company. As for it being "authorized", this business of being "authorized" is relatively new. When the Apples first came out Jobs was just happy that somebody was writing software for it--he didn't have the resources to roll his own--he and Woz had all they could handle getting production up and orders coming in.

I'm getting the impression that you are not aware that there was Apple before there was Macintosh. Apple's first billion dollar year occurred when they were selling 8-bit 6502 machines that didn't even have a video board unless you bought one.

In some other universe perhaps. In this one he kept control of the OS and the hardware and provided some application software but most of the Mac software base was _not_ provided by Apple. Ever hear of something called "Pagemaker"? How about "Microsoft Excel"? "Quark Express"? "Photoshop"? Those were Mac apps long before they were ported to the PC. Further, for a while Apple was licensing the OS to third parties--that proved to be a compatibility disaster though. As for controlling the hardware, you might ask yourself why the high end contemporary Macs have expansion slots.

Really, your view of the history of Apple is horribly distorted.

[J. Clarke]

To some extent when the Mac was introduced, but not to the extent that you claim. There was always third-party software. Further, given the popularity of the Mac when it first came out, Apple clearly was doing _something_ right.

[Leon]

SNIP

Perhaps. But I am not going to loose any sleep over it...

[ted harris]

No. Never been a documented case of an explosion in a dust collector system. It will however cause a fire.

[Duane Bozarth]

...

Are you of that? (I don't have one, but "never" is a long, long time...)

I'll have to look up the article in Fine Woodworking a year or two ago and refresh my recollections...an Oneida air systems guy wrote in after the published article w/ some additional info/insight as well. I don't recall the exact data/facts, however, I do remember that it does take duct systems (relative to home shops) for there to be an explosion hazard, however. I don't recall whether there were documented cases listed there other than lab data, however. (Of course grain dust explosions are well known).

[Dave Hinz]

OK Ted, your turn. If Sawstop +works+, why aren't you shipping them?

Not the point. In the part you snipped the context was about quality. I'm making a counterpoint.

Right, because their whine letter about, what, rust, wiring problems, and schedule slips must strike terror into the competition. yawn.

[Dave Hinz]

Holy shit, Ted said something logical.

[J]

Apple even created the position of "Evangelist" and sent their evangelist out to recruit 3rd party software people. If not for Adobe the mac would have died. You may be right about HW and OS, but this is definitely not true about SW.

-j

[Tim Douglass]

You are correct as far as application software is concerned. The reason there wasn't a lot of Mac software out for a long time was that it was beastly hard to program for. It used the first object-oriented OS, but there weren't any OO tools for development. The SDK for the Mac cost thousands ($5K-10K) and was incredibly poorly written. One of my co-workers was in charge of creating a Mac version of our product when it first came out. The cost and effort almost sunk the company. It was easily 10 times the work to write Mac software as DOS stuff - even if you were doing Window 3.1 (the competition in the early Mac days). Apple was very bad at helping developers and I think it really hurt them. Add to that the fact that they didn't support color until long after everyone else on earth was into hi-res and you pretty much have their recipe for failure.

Tim Douglass

[Duane Bozarth]

...

(regarding wood dust explosions/article in FW...)

I've not had time to look for the article yet but my recollection was that the literature cited therein supported no explosive mixture was likely in small duct systems such as are prevelant in the average shop or mill but that it is of some potential concern in very large systems. I'll try to find it, if I can...

[Mike Marlow]

Hey Ted:

I ended up hitting your web site while watching some of the discourse here and seeing your sig. Looks like you're going to be in my neck of the woods this spring at the Turning Stone. Drop and email and let's chat about your schedule and maybe we'll be able to hook up while you're in Vernon.

[ted harris]

Yes...fires have occured, but not explosions. However, I would agree that nothing is "impossible."

Please let me know of your findings.

[Dave Hinz]

Apparently it isn't. I'm not sure that that speaks well for Sawstop, either the technology or the manufacturability.

We'll have to define a number of things, such as what "available", "shipping", and "works" mean first, I suppose. how about a nice TS blade?

[ted harris]

Oops! Guess we are too late! LOLOLOL... Too bad, cause I coulda' used a nice new saw blade.

[David H. Wilhite]

My contractor saw has been on order for a year now. The latest extimate is March 2005.

David Wilhite