That's because the Apple II+ was produced in an age where the inventors of computers envisioned everyone learning to program computers...as opposed to using them as really expensive fancy typewriters, which is essentially what most people use computers for today.
The only person who has ever had that vision, consistently, is Alan Kay.
The Apple was programmable because it was made by hackers for hackers. There were a few firms that would do software consulting for corporations and institutions, but the notion of consumer software barely existed.
Apple didn't mind it if a few people wrote third-party software and sold it. But I think in the beginning they expected to provide all the important software themselves, just like every computer manufacturer of the era.
And, I speak as somebody who used to hand-compile SHAPE files on the Apple II. These were a sort of vector graphics which you had to first painstakingly draw on graph paper, unspool as a series of draw/turn commands, and then translate into bitmasks according to a lookup table, and then cut those up at seven-bit intervals, and convert those into decimal numbers. This is not something that anyone ever conceived of as a children's toy. Even though some kids (like myself) persevered.
Hm, I wonder if pg's concept of Languages For Smart People applies. Is it possible that kids just don't like kids' languages, like Logo and so on? I have to say that I certainly didn't, although I was exposed to it much later than Alan Kay would have preferred.
>The only person who has ever had that vision, consistently, is Alan Kay.
Don't forget Ted Nelson, whose book (which I bought YAY :D) Computer Lib/Dream Machines features the slogan, "You can and must understand computers now!"
