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It's excruciatingly unpleasant to work with Jobs; that's widely known.

One of endless examples:

By Andy Hertzfeld, on how he was inducted into the original Macintosh team:

... [Jobs] walked over to my desk, found the power cord to my Apple II, and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it out of the socket, causing my machine to lose power and the code I was working on to vanish. He unplugged my monitor and put it on top of the computer, and then picked both of them up and started walking away. "Come with me. I'm going to take you to your new desk."

I'd like to know much more about the iPod story.

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh &story=Tell_Adam_Hes_An_Asshole.txt
http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html

For a bit more on "Osborne"

The GUI was, I believe, developed at PARC, under Xerox, along with the mouse, etc. Apple basically stole the whole idea from them.

The mouse was developed by Doug Englebart at Stanford Research Institute more than a decade before PARC came into existence.

Apple paid a lot of money to license PARC's technologies. Apple also hired several ex-PARC employees. Apple also heavily improved on PARC's ideas; it certainly wasn't the case that Apple simply "stole" the Star. And it certainly was NOT the case that the Star was the first GUI or even mouse-driven GUI. Apple added a hell of a lot of innovations to the technologies they licensed from Xerox. It was Microsoft who shamefully stole the MacOS interface without paying fees. Read folklore.org to hear the story straight from the horse's mouth.

As the saying goes: Microsoft has a brilliant Research and Development team, and they're called Apple. It's disgusting how little Microsoft adds to the industry, given their size and wealth.

If you want to learn more, read _Insanely Great_ by Steven Levy. It's an excellent book (I just finished reading it today), and very educational.

You might want to read it again. From memory, Levy didn't do such a hatchet job on the history.

So did the Apple, if you remember. In fact, it could be said that Apple's devotion to Microsoft BASIC is the reason we have Windows today.

The basic premise is this: in exchange for the rights to license AppleBASIC from Microsoft, some pinhead (who had been tasked with the deal because Jobs didn't think the Apple II had a future) gave the software company full rights to the Macintosh look and feel. Viola! Windows, all nice and legal -- and basically for free.

Umm... Desk Accessories have been around forever. Here's some history from the guy who DID invent them. The term 'widget' has been around for a very long time as well as is the function of scripting. Konfabulator put some of these things together well, but they were building on old ideas they didn't develop. Methinks the Konfabulator dude thinks a little more highly of himself than he should...

Still, it might have been nice for Apple to approach the Konfabulator dude about it so as to not get folks riled up about it.

;)

BTW, a neat history of the development of the Mac including stuff about about the development of desk accessories can be found here

Have we come so far as to forget Desk Accessories?

visicalc ~ dan bricklin (danbrickin.com)

apple 2 ~ steve wozniak (woz.org) , others (folklore.org)...

Yeah, that's the same game although the original was a little more, well, crap. :-)

I assume you're referencing to This Story.

Apple certianly is a company that can claim many innovations but the MOTHERBOARD isn't one of them. They don't even build them (Foxconn does) and have very little to say in their design. Most of it is simply dictated by what they want on it. You want 8 memory slots and 64-bit PCI slots? Ok, that is going to take a certian amount of traces and a certian amount of space to do.

... of course you did, Jef

Well, you can read here on how MS got their ideas from Apple. They later bought a right to their usage when that pathetic loser John Sculley was head of Apple.

Apple on the other hand, paid for legitimate access to Xerox, and it was cleared all the way to the top of the company. The techs at Xerox PARC did not like that Apple was allowed to take their ideas, because they knew that it was something unique while the suits believed the same as the suits at IBM, that it was childs play.

2. Copy playlists: Another major issue with the above is that if I have 2 playlists that are 90% the same, I'd like to set the first one up, then just copy the list logic into a new one and only edit the 1 or 2 differences.

Today is your lucky day. Thanks to the folks at Xerox PARC, you can accomplish your goal very easily.
1. create a new play list
2. select the items in the original play list (select all I presume)
3. drag and drop them into the new playlist

Now you may edit them as you wish.

I'm sure that this guy is somehow responsible. If you've ever had to read Hungarian notation, I'm sure you'll agree.

:-)

More info here

-ch

I'm sure that this guy is somehow responsible. If you've ever had to read Hungarian notation, I'm sure you'll agree.

:-)

More info here

-ch

Bruce Horn disagrees.

However, the Lisa and Macintosh keyboards both had closed apple symbols.

The Macintosh keyboard had NO Apple symbol at all.

Susan Kare was asked to pick an abstract symbol. She found a sweedish campground map symbol that's been in use ever since.

I'm actually puzzled why Apple put the "Apple" on the later command keys, since the symbol is not used in any of their software to denote keyboard shortcuts. The purists among us bristle at references to "apple-q to quit". Bah! It's "command-q". :)

(The IIgs keyboard was never actually sold with Macs, was it? I remember it having a fairly unique design that matched the styling of the GS)

- Peter

I don't think Steve Jobs hated HyperCard at all. In fact, HC was originally created by Bill Atkinson, who was a good friend of Steve. I think the reason Apple dumped HyperCard was the same as with the Newton. They simply had to prioritize more important things, such as the iMac.

Uh... sure. Here you go.

The license with Microsoft specifically covered non-Macintosh applications, because Microsoft said that they didn't want wildly differing interfaces for their applications for different operating systems. The license also gave a time limit between when the signing of the license and when Microsoft could release mouse and windows based products. Unfortunately, since the time period was given relative to the signing of the license, and not the release of the Macintosh, and the Macintosh's launch date slipped. Apple didn't get the large time period of exclusivity that they wanted.

Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org has some interesting stories on the subject like A Rich Neighbor Named Xerox (I just love Gate's line: "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it." I love it even if Andy isn't sure that he has the episode in which it was uttered correct.) Andy also implies in MacBasicthat Microsoft had them over a barrel in renewing the Applesoft BASIC contract and wouldn't renew unless signed both the look-and-feel contract and insisted on dropped the MacBasic product. The Applesoft Basic contract was set to expire in September 1985, and Apple couldn't afford to remove that feature from the Apple II and let it's sales drop at that point in time.

The license with Microsoft specifically covered non-Macintosh applications, because Microsoft said that they didn't want wildly differing interfaces for their applications for different operating systems. The license also gave a time limit between when the signing of the license and when Microsoft could release mouse and windows based products. Unfortunately, since the time period was given relative to the signing of the license, and not the release of the Macintosh, and the Macintosh's launch date slipped. Apple didn't get the large time period of exclusivity that they wanted.

Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org has some interesting stories on the subject like A Rich Neighbor Named Xerox (I just love Gate's line: "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it." I love it even if Andy isn't sure that he has the episode in which it was uttered correct.) Andy also implies in MacBasicthat Microsoft had them over a barrel in renewing the Applesoft BASIC contract and wouldn't renew unless signed both the look-and-feel contract and insisted on dropped the MacBasic product. The Applesoft Basic contract was set to expire in September 1985, and Apple couldn't afford to remove that feature from the Apple II and let it's sales drop at that point in time.

The license with Microsoft specifically covered non-Macintosh applications, because Microsoft said that they didn't want wildly differing interfaces for their applications for different operating systems. The license also gave a time limit between when the signing of the license and when Microsoft could release mouse and windows based products. Unfortunately, since the time period was given relative to the signing of the license, and not the release of the Macintosh, and the Macintosh's launch date slipped. Apple didn't get the large time period of exclusivity that they wanted.

Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org has some interesting stories on the subject like A Rich Neighbor Named Xerox (I just love Gate's line: "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it." I love it even if Andy isn't sure that he has the episode in which it was uttered correct.) Andy also implies in MacBasicthat Microsoft had them over a barrel in renewing the Applesoft BASIC contract and wouldn't renew unless signed both the look-and-feel contract and insisted on dropped the MacBasic product. The Applesoft Basic contract was set to expire in September 1985, and Apple couldn't afford to remove that feature from the Apple II and let it's sales drop at that point in time.

More such information at Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org

More such information at Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org

More such information at Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org

"Hungarian"

Reviewing the list of contributors, it's interesting to note that some of them had already stopped programming back when they were interviewed. So why should we listen to them opine about software development techniques today?

My pet peeve on the list would have to be Jef Raskin, who's far better at self-promotion than actually coding. Had people actually listened to his ideas in the early days of the Macintosh project, they would have delivered a machine without a mouse or other features most people associate with the Mac. (As Andy Hertzfeld puts it, he's not the father of the Macintosh so much as the eccentric uncle.)

However, if you want to hear him repeat the same things he's been saying for the last 20 years, he'll be keynoting the Desktop Linux Summit. No doubt he'll be beating the horse's skeleton that mice, icons, and the windowing interface are what's holding Linux back on the desktop. (MacOS X be damned!) Using those special "leap" keys that made the Canon Cat so successful, now that's the future!

Tyler

Everything you wanted to know about Mac development by the guys who did.

cheers- raga

Here is the story as recounted by Andy Hertzfeld (one of the original "software wizards" to work on the Mac OS).

This story by Bruce Horn (who worked at Xerox, and later was hired by Apple to join the Mac team) is a good recount of how the Mac interface came about.

cheers- raga

Here is the story as recounted by Andy Hertzfeld (one of the original "software wizards" to work on the Mac OS).

This story by Bruce Horn (who worked at Xerox, and later was hired by Apple to join the Mac team) is a good recount of how the Mac interface came about.

cheers- raga

Microsoft _announced_ an operating system in 1983, Windows 1.0 didn't ship until 1985.

There's lot's of early Mac history at the Folklore site. Lots of pictures that show what passed for fashion among geeks in the 1980s.

My favorite, our man Steve Jobs in his bowtie period, best left for your own searching so I don't get modded-down for posting a link akin to Mr. Goatse.

Brilliant! As any Mac user will tell you, Round Rects are everywhere!

The relation of Lisa and Mac development to Xerox boils down to two (count them 2) trips that Apple engineers made to Xerox PARC in 1979 for Smalltalk technology demonstration (a common practice) by Xerox after Apple signed an agreement with them that allowed Xerox to buy $1 million worth of Apple stock at throw-away pre-IPO price (their investment was up almost 1800% just a year later on IPO). The two visits by Apple including nothing more than a technology demonstration. There was no code provided or stolen. Yes Apple was inspired by Xerox's Alto, you will never find any Apple employee who does not give Xerox due credit for their technology and vision. However having said that both Lisa and the Mac were far cry the technology demo that Smalltalk was. Xerox's Smalltalk did not have a file finder, drag and drop file manipulation, file types, imaging and windowing model, clipboard, pull-down menus, self redrawing windows, control panels, and a zillion other things that made the commerically viable operating System that embodied the Lisa and the Mac.

The Xerox PARC director at the time had this to say, "Just like the Russians and the A-bomb, they developed it very quickly once they knew it was doable." Apple independently developed the first GUI operating system and also invented most (some by Xerox) of the underlying concept and technologies. Yes they were inspired by the Xerox's Smalltalk but an inspiration does take away from all the hard-work and brilliance of the Apple Engineers who poured their hearts and souls into Lisa and the Mac. If you have doubts about that just ask the father of modern physics.

Now in contrast Microsoft being a future developer for the Lisa/Mac had the actual source code from Apple which they blatantly STOLE. You should read up on a subject before posting sweet nothings. These might help:

Apple and Xerox

Apple history Books

Microsoft's founding principle, "Steal first, ask questions later". There are probably thousands of examples of this principle at work, but here is a sampler or two:

The real origins of ClearType

Virtual Desktop manager "invented" at Microsoft

Apple is like a guy who, saw someone else who built a wooden raft for the first time but never actually tried it on water, and said, hey this is a good idea let me build my own version. Only they built a proper boat with a sail that could and for the first time did carry many people on water. Microsoft is like another guy who saw Apple's Sail boat and said hey this is a good idea, let me steal one. They stole it repainted it and sold it as their own.

BIG DIFFERENCE!

Apple doesn't *have* a monopoly.

As far as I can tell, you have Sculley to thank for that. According to this anecdote from a key Mac developer, Jobs wanted to sell the original Mac for about $1500 (up from his original target of $500, incidentally). It was Sculley who decided to charge the outrageous price of $2500, thus establishing the Mac tradition of paying WAY too much for relatively run-of-the-mill hardware.

And if they're willing to price-rape you while they're still just a single-digit market-share player, I imagine they wouldn't hesitate to stick it to you if they actually had influence to bring to bear.

Another Hungarian experience at Apple in 1982.

The quote can be found here, right at the bottom of the page.

Yes, thanks to Sculley.The Mac team (and Jobs) wanted it priced at least $500 cheaper . It's important to remember that Jobs didn't have dictatorial control over Apple before he was ousted. He was not what you would call a seasoned manager, so the board didn't want him to have control. That's the reason Sculley was hired in the first place.

Now, as for what I like about Jobs? He's a really charismatic person who is willing to tell people to go fly a kite.

I just spent all day reading the Mac Folklore site, and these 2 anecdotes show what an insane bastard Jobs is. Check it out:

A Message for Adam

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Now, as for what I like about Jobs? He's a really charismatic person who is willing to tell people to go fly a kite.

I just spent all day reading the Mac Folklore site, and these 2 anecdotes show what an insane bastard Jobs is. Check it out:

A Message for Adam

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

The mac was invented by a team of people. Steve Jobs was very active in the Mac project. While it appears he claimed a lot of other people's ideas as his own, he had the knack to always figure out which idea of all the ones out there was the one that should be used. So Jobs is an innovator. Read Andy Hertzfeld's siteFolklore for more information.

Jobs and the Reality Distortion Field

Jobs is basically a promoter. Nothing less, nothing more. A charismatic evangelist.

For my money the Woz is the man, but Apple is past the age of technology and into the age of promotion. Such is life I guess.

KFG

Actually, it was a system flag.

You can read all the details on Monkey Lives here.

Monkey Lives

Huh? GEOS came out in 1986... the Apple Lisa shipped with a trash can icon in 1983, the Mac did the same in 1984. I belive it was first mocked up in 1982, check folklore.org for the specifics straight from the engineers themselves.
folklore.org

To be able to work semi-full time on an open source system and not worry about how I'm going to buy the groceries this week. To have a bunch of people (also paid) to help.. and incredibly generous clients who often need to fly me out to their Bermudan data center for a couple of weeks to do a bit of on-site work.

Jeez, almost sounds like a job at MySQL AB.

Actually, working at almost any technology company in the early 80's would also be up there. Tight deadlines, pushing the boundaries of technology, community atmosphere, modest salaries, and lots of pizza fuelled coding binges. Perhaps the early days of Apple.

Yes, I'm a geek.

I am indeed, since your post appeared after I updated the killfile with new assholes. I do apologize.

May I suggest there are other people you have added to your killfiles who don't belong there, because of similar identity mistakes you've made.

The dangers of killfiles, neatly illustrated. You're banning the person, rather than listening to their point of view. It's rather silly. You'll notice I don't have any friends/foes because I'm opposed to such indiscriminant censorship.

See, when the actual engineers tell me that they've reviewed a certain feature, measured it, analyzed it, and decided that they don't want it, I'm pretty certain they know what they're doing. Frankly, I don't need to worry about some random slashdotter's opposing opinions, because, well, they're clearly wrong in this situation. I mean, I just got off the phone with one of the engineers, and they're quite pleased that "unneeded and unused features are no longer present, or can be disabled".

My opinion of engineers is that they're like any other field: 90% of them are effing useless. You say they "measure it" and "analyze it"? In my experience, this is rarer than you might hope. These self-proclaimed "engineers" can say things like "oh, you don't need memory protection" but that doesn't mean they're right. I've worked with embedded "engineers" who held open disdain for C. They wrote everything in assembly, claiming that this was "how things were done!". Their code was always late, buggy, and rewritten for the next revision because it was entirely unmaintainable.

I have an example. I didn't work on it, but an embedded engineer friend did. It was an embedded photo scanner. The C prototype had been completed. It worked. It met all requirements. It was neat and maintainable. It ran on the spec'd hardware. It was ready to ship. The senior "engineer" in charge (he didn't have an engineering degree) decided it must be rewritten in assembly. Months later the company folded. The incomplete assembly version was larger and slower than the C prototype.

I have another example, from folklore.org. The Apple II mouse card was prototyped by Burrell and Hertzfeld. They managed to get it working with a single chip and some clever software. Despite a working prototype, the Apple "engineers" decided it could not be implemented in any less than a dozen chips. They believed in hardware, rather than the clever combination of hardware and software.

As a final note, I have an engineering degree (a real one, from a real university) and I don't think you can call yourself an engineer merely because you obtained that piece of paper. Some of my fellow graduands went on to become accountants and computer programmers. What a waste! I'm not saying they're stupid - I consider every single one of my fellow graduands to have been extremely intelligent - but they didn't care about the nuts and bolts. They weren't engineers. Wozniak and Burrell were engineers. They didn't even have the pieces of paper!

So my opinion of "engineers" is not very high. I have more respect for the enthusiasts who actually do stuff - whether they be professional or amateur - as opposed to the wankers who say "I work at NASA" and "I have a PhD in astrophysics" as if that justifies every wrong decision they've ever made. I've worked on enough projects to make my own judgement, so when someone says "you don't need memory protection" I know that 9 times out of 10 they're wrong. When they counter "I'm a rocket scientist, I don't need to justify my conclusions" it merely confirms my opinion that they don't know what they're doing. Real Engineers love to justify their reasoning to everybody.

Hostile /. posts from a collection

Dead dead dead, of course.

It's interesting to note that the Mac almost did come with BASIC, and the author of that implementation went on to develop AppleScript.

HyperCard was interesting and useful, but always a bit slow for my tastes. And as for including BASIC with computers, it took me a long time to unlearn all the evil that AppleSoft had done to my brain. I'm rather glad I have Python to point people at nowadays. ;)

Note that Sculley was at Apple's helm for both disasters.

Jobs wasn't kidding when he said Sculley would "change the world."