Re: despite Apple nearly going bankrupt in the intervening period.
Indeed. Apple got lucky 3 times: the first was that the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was written for Apple II first, out of sheer happenstance. It was a blockbuster that propelled hardware sales. Apple II's were otherwise considered too expensive.
Second was a boom in "desktop publishing" which saved the Mac. Macs were far more expensive than CPM & PC's per processing power, and the nice GUI alone wasn't enough to justify the price for most consumers in the early years. However, desktop publishing, a field that didn't really exist when the Mac was built, took advantage of the graphical nature of the Mac and jolted its sales. (If Amiga had better coddled desktop publishing software co's, Commodore may have also survived.)
The 3rd was the return of Steve Jobs. Apple would probably have sank without him.
Indeed. Apple got lucky 3 times: the first was that the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was written for Apple II first, out of sheer happenstance. It was a blockbuster that propelled hardware sales. Apple II's were otherwise considered too expensive.
Second was a boom in "desktop publishing" which saved the Mac. Macs were far more expensive than CPM & PC's per processing power, and the nice GUI alone wasn't enough to justify the price for most consumers in the early years. However, desktop publishing, a field that didn't really exist when the Mac was built, took advantage of the graphical nature of the Mac and jolted its sales. (If Amiga had better coddled desktop publishing software co's, Commodore may have also survived.)
The 3rd was the return of Steve Jobs. Apple would probably have sank without him.