Re: It's the usual story.
"Apple did not invent networking by far; but with the simple plug-and-play operation of LocalTalk, you suddenly didn't need an engineer any more to set up a home network."
These things are always easier when you design everything to work only with your own proprietary systems. With emerging markets it's always way faster to come up with your own solution (LocalTalk) than wait for a standard organization to finalize a standard (Ethernet).
Apple is the B&O of computers. Products that are pleased to look at, they work with all their own peripherals with ease, the output is at least sufficiently high quality, and price double that of their mainstream rivals. And both have traditionally been the antitheses of interoperability.
On topic: Localtalk was easy since the Apple computers had the tech built-in. The much faster 10Base2 from around the same time was also as easy to lay on the office floor and connect to computers but required more work on the OS level (drivers, protocol settings) as well as requiring the physical NIC installation.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
