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Why is Apple+IBM such a new thing?

How about October, 1991?

More info about the PowerPC alliance.

Apple never said that IBMs *technology* was no good. They said that IBM made boring corporate Personal Computers that didn't foster individuality and creativity amongst it's users. I would say that is still correct.

but there are 5 areas of the screen which are "infintely large". Th
Except on WIndows where there are a 1-2 pixel border between the screen edge and the start button, hence destroying the whole 'infinite large' paradigm. on macs the menus at the top are infinite large, they work all the way out to the last pixel, check this piece (go to section Target Size) They discuss menues on apps but it is valid for the start menu on WIndows as well

PDF rendering engine is nice. Though I don't know why they didn't just stick with the original NeXT PostScript engine.

Reportedly because doing so would have required them to pay per-copy licensing fees to Adobe, while writing DisplayPDF using their own implementation of the PDF standards didn't.

Some (old) speculation from MacKido

MacKido Apple Innovation Page

MacKido Apple Timeline

-Tom

MacKido Apple Innovation Page

MacKido Apple Timeline

-Tom

I don't agree with this link 100%, but I like to play devil's advocate. It's not totally accurate to call the Mac a ripoff of Xerox, just as it's not totally accurate to call Windows a ripoff of the Mac.

1. Apple was already working on some GUI elements before Steve Jobs visit to Xerox PARC in 1979.
   
   
2. Many Apple and Xerox GUI elements were developed in parallel.
   
   
3. Most importantly, Apple paid Xerox millions in stock to incorporate the GUI elements it did borrow for the Lisa/Macintosh projects.

try here.

Andy Hertzfeld used to describe it as the Macintosh hit by the bizarro ray.
(although I thought he made that quote about the Atari ST, not Windows. Its a good enough analogy, that maybe he re-used it.)

Hey lets get rid of the PC's we bought for 500 bucks 2 years ago and replace them with $2000 Macs! We'll save a ton of money on... umm.. Yay they match the decor in the computer room!

You'll save money on support (Macs cost less to support), and on eventual replacement costs (Macs have historically had a longer usefull life), amoung others.

Still, I agree with your point. Replacing all their computers right now just to get this grant probably isn't worth it. They might want to replace a few, and maybe start transtioning other computers to linux/unix. Hopefully they wounldn't have to give up MS overnight. Like any addiction, going cold turkey brings withdrawall pains.

This article sums up what happened nicely. Stacker was always so much better than Double/Drivespace was... I was able to fit DOS 6 boot files, Windows 3.1, a tiny DOS terminal program and a DOS text editor on a 1.44MB bootable floppy using Stacker! Fitting Windows on it took many hours of randomly removing DLL files from the SYSTEM directory, but in the end it actually fit and would load up Program Manager! Not surprisingly, there wasn't room for any other Windows programs when I was done though.

See The angry Bill Gates is the real Bill Gates.

See also Has Gates' combativeness hurt Microsoft in court case?

See Is Bill Gates a Genius?

This reminds me of one of my favorite compiler error messages:

• "Too many errors on one line (make fewer)"

Some other good ones:

• "You can't modify a constant, float upstream, win an argument with the IRS, or satisfy this compiler"
• "This struct already has a perfectly good definition"
• "This onion already has a perfectly good definition"
• "...And the lord said, `lo, there shall only be case or default labels inside a switch statement'"
• "a typedef name was a complete surprise to me at this point in your program"
• "This array has no size, and that's bad"
• "we already did this function"
• "Call me paranoid but finding `/*' inside this comment makes me suspicious"
• "Symbol table full - fatal heap error; please go buy a RAM upgrade from your local Apple dealer"

Source: MacKido

Not this again. Once again, Apple paid for the privilege of accessing PARC research. *sigh*

You won't see a firewire mouse...

Apple has it right. Use USB for low-power low-bandwidth serial devices like mice, most printers and scanners, and heck even Zip drives, and use FireWire for the high-bandwidth peripherals. The connectors are small enough that our laptops can handle multiples of each. So bring 'em all!

FYI, an old but still accurate response to the announcement of USB 2.0 from David Every.

If i've spent £1000+ on a uberPC with everything, I dont want to have to switch hardware to run MacOS. Apple will never seduce Windows users while their investment in hardware cannot be transported over.

Aside from your motherboard, ram, and CPU all of your PC parts can be transported to a Mac. IDE hard drives, SCSI hard drives, CD-ROM drives, DVD drives, USB mice, USB keyboards, USB cameras, USB scanners, Firewire hard drives, etc. all can work. Also, quite a few PCI/AGP cards will work with ROM flashing and/or Mac drivers. Did you want to be able to use your PC case or something?


We all know that M$ is an evil monopoly but I think the reason why they're a monopoly is because Apple refused to compete with microsoft on the commodity PC platform. For years microsoft had no decent rival on platform that brought computing to the masses. OS2? I was a joke at best. Apple had (and has) decent software, but until they grow some balls and decide to play with the big boys.

Read some history.

We see the effect and penetration that Linux is developing on the desktop in the Red Hat and SuSe form, and that is fighting against the established monopoly. This proves that there is, and probably always has been, a market for a real alternative to Windows for existing windows users, but which has been left sadly vacant for years.

Linux has made penetration in the server market. Penetration in the desktop market is marginal. If you find a large number casual computer users worldwide that switched from Windows to Linux for general office/personal work, I'll be amazed. This isn't to say that Linux isn't up to the task, but it isn't AverageJoe's desktop OS.

Had Apple decided to stop making hardware and just sold software, perhaps we would not be in the trouble we are now in regarding MS vs DOJ etc.

Apple is and always has been a hardware company. I don't see how having a hardware company switch to just making their one major software product would do them any benefit. Also, how can you blame MS' illegal activities on Apple? MS bullies people out of markets and tries to control them. Remember Netscape? Microsoft realized the missed the boat on an Internet browser so they gave IE away free and strong-armed manufacturers into not being able to ship their computers with NS installed. The fault lies in MS, not Apple.

Microsoft may be evil, but Apple could be accused of having done nothing to stop it, when perhaps they were the only ones who could have.

Apple makes a good OS and doesn't force it on anyone. MS makes a crappy OS and crams it down everyone's throats. Again, you can't blame Apple for MS' actions.

Apple stole the GUI from Xerox

• http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0004/26.usb.sh tml April 26, 2000 - "FireWire already operates at 400 Mbps and is expected to reach 800 Mbps and 1600 Mbps later this year."
• http://www.macworld.com/2000/08/news/usb_vs_firewi re.html August 2000
• http://www.mackido.com/Hardware/USB2.html Undated, but apparently soon after USB 2.0 was announced:"FireWire will go to 800 Mbps this year or next, and 1.6 Gbps probably in another year or so after that. USB 2.0 is not born yet... in fact, it isn't even yet fully conceived -- it is more a dirty thought in someone's mind. "

OpenDoc was the first thing that came to my mind, too, when I saw the headline. However, I don't think we can only blame Apple/NeXT for killing OpenDoc. I was under the impression that MS did their usual embrace and extend to the concept. I remember a BYTE magazine article about the pros and cons of OpenDoc and OLE.

Perhaps this article by David K. Every himself may shed some light on the issue.

Microsoft users don't seem to understand that most basic concept; that the computer should adapt to THEM, and not make them adapt to it.

the writer was complaining about the many ways to close a window in windows. don't they realise that by providing a variety of way to acomplish a task, the user can choose the way they like best? i.e. the user is not constrained by the computer?

mac-philes are fucked up. sorry, but when it gets like this, it can be true.

In addition to this being common knowledge among Apple developers well before now, everything said here was said better by MacKiDo. Take a read here. It describes very well how the Mac interface is better than just about any other.

Of course, if you go to MacKiDo's main page, you'll also notice an introduction note; in summary, it says that OS X was a mistake, as Apple's primary focus is no longer on the UI. And you know what? I couldn't agree more. Say all you want about OS X bringing Unix to the masses, but the fact is, the masses would have been better off without Unix. OS 9, despite having less eye candy than OS X, was architecturally better for the home user in just about every way than OS X - the only significant development X had was Cocoa, and that could easily have been ported into an OS 9 upgrade instead.

By switching to OS X, Apple threw out 15 years of hard work, just to release an OS with an inferior UI on an inferior kernel. And their interface in many ways no longer follows the principles that Apple themselves set out so brilliantly back in 1984, and others tried to emulate with varying degrees of success (don't even get me started on the Dock).

I still love the PPC platform; it's no Alpha, but it is the most popular RISC platform for the desktop. IBM, at one time, had the CHRP platform; it was the PPC answer to x86's open hardware, and it would have allowed a PC user to upgrade to PPC by simply throwing a new motherboard and processor into their existing case using their existing components and peripherals. If IBM releases their new Power4 processor for CHRP, I'll be the first to buy it, and install PPC Linux. And if the planets are all in alignment, and Apple decides to design OS XX based on a completely new design, scrapping all development environments but Cocoa and going back to the old OS9-style user interface, then I'll buy a Mac.

But there's absolutely no point in buying a closed platform when the software, specially designed for that platform, sucks. At least with PCs, I can run BeOS on a laptop; with Macs, such is no longer an option.

One of the (many) cool things that differentiate Macs from PC's is the way the report POST failures.

Depending on if the video driver was sane or not yet, you'd get an infamous "San Mac" display, followed by a few codes in hex describing what was wrong. If not, you'd get POST-coded beeps.

What was really cool were the "chimes of death". Each Mac model family had a specific sound that played when the POST test failed. These ranged from the opening to the Twilight Zone theme, to a drum crash, to the sound of glass breaking, to a full-on car crash. (You get get some of them here, but I KNOW there's a more comprehensive list with samples out there somewhere.) :/

Ahh, memories...

One of the (many) cool things that differentiate Macs from PC's is the way the report POST failures.

Depending on if the video driver was sane or not yet, you'd get an infamous "San Mac" display, followed by a few codes in hex describing what was wrong. If not, you'd get POST-coded beeps.

What was really cool were the "chimes of death". Each Mac model family had a specific sound that played when the POST test failed. These ranged from the opening to the Twilight Zone theme, to a drum crash, to the sound of glass breaking, to a full-on car crash. (You get get some of them here, but I KNOW there's a more comprehensive list with samples out there somewhere.) :/

Ahh, memories...

That reminds me of some funny error messages from an old Apple compiler.

A link.

Some examples:
"You can't modify a constant, float upstream, win an argument with the IRS, or satisfy this compiler"
"type in (cast) must be scalar; ANSI 3.3.4; page 39, lines 10-11 (I know you don't care, I'm just trying to annoy you)"
"Too many errors on one line (make fewer)"

From /etc/rc on Mac OS X:

##
# Set shell to ignore Control-C, etc.
# Prevent lusers from shooting themselves in the foot.
##

The Apple Pro Mouse Whitepaper, a PDF available from here, includes in the fine print at the bottom of the last page:

Apple does not recommend allowing an elephant to operate a Mac in any environment.

This is in reference to a statement made earlier in the document about what would happen if an elephant stepped on this mouse.

The data fork of the System file in System 7.01 (and probably other versions) contained this text:

Help! Help! We're being held prisoner in a system software factory!

Subsequent versions, according to here:

Help! Help! We're still being held prisoner in a system software factory!

Help! Help! He's STILL being held prisoner in a system software factory!

Mercenaries hit the factory and freed the prisoners.

Just found a good link with some of this stuff... see this.

The real worth here lies in the fact that MacOS X is, let's not forget, essentially a UN*X platform.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. We're talking about porting the toolchain to the hardware. This has nothing to do with MacOs 10 at all. It's about Linux/PPC.

Linux/PPC has been hampered for quite awhile by the lack of good GCC support for things like AltiVec. Performance suffers from lack of optimisation. It sounds like RH is undertaking to fix that. This could be very cool - if they succeed then Linux/PPC programs will be able to take advantage of the full power of the PPC chips. AltiVec doesn't help with everything, far from it, but code which it does help will see truly impressive performance gains.

If you're not clear on what AltiVec is, try the link out. Basically it's MMX on steroids. It does everything MMX does, better, and some other things besides. It's really very cool tech, and it will be very nice to see Linux/PPC software finally taking advantage of it.

Actually, there were a lot of stories like this one at mackido.com during the early development of OS X (when it was code-named Rhapsody) that Apple would provide 'Red Box' as a compatibility layer for Windows applications when running on Intel hardware in much the same way as 'Blue Box' provided Classic Mac OS services on PowerPC.

'Yellow Box' was the 'OS X native' environment, essentially NeXT OpenStep.

If there were any truth to the rumors of ongoing development of Mac OS X on Intel, then I'm sure Apple would be considering something like this.

I hope they never remove tabbed browsing. I think it is one of the best features in Mozilla.

• http://www.computerhope.com/help/cpu.htm#05
• http://www.tridwr.demon.co.uk/acorn/processors.htm l
• http://www.mackido.com/History/brief_history.html

Wasn't the first usage of "windows" applying to computers the xerox alto and xerox star. For more info on the various gui "windows" enviroments and their history check here.

gates came from a wealthy family and his mother had personal connections within ibm. for the secret to success go here

The answer is that Word had no serious competition, so Microsoft was content to sell it separately and to offer a stripped-down word processor ("WordPad") bundled with Windows.

An excellent point. Of course, Word was already involved in a scam, so maybe Microsoft didn't want mix them up.

MS Word is part of Microsoft's scam of predatory pricing. I wrote an article for MacKiDo a few years ago that is still relevant today. In it, I discussed how Microsoft was pricing the components in Office to bury the competition.

For example, if you buy Word, Excel, or PowerPoint individually, you pay $379 each. So if you want Word and Excel, shell out $758. But, for $459, you get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Entourage, and a helluva lot of clipart. So no one in their right mind would buy an office product by itself, and no one can release a product that competes with any product in the Office suite.

I feel sorry for PowerOn Software. They worked pretty hard making improvements to Now up to date (their contact manager suite), but they'll have very little luck getting anyone to buy it for two reasons: (1) Entourage is bundled with Office and (2) Microsoft Exchange Server requires Entourage for an email client (or the older Outlook for Mac). So Power On is in the same situation as Netscape; they have to charge for something (to stay in business) that MS has decided to give away for free.

He said don't add things just because they are in windows. Add things that make sense, regardless of if they're in Windows.

MacKiDo has a good series on U.I., with comparisons between Mac and Windows. It's kind of old, but most of it's still relevant.

The theoretical transfer rate of USB is misleading. Overall, USB remains an inferior technology to USB for applications requiring high bandwidth with deterministic, isochronous transmission. This article provides a good explanation of some of the issues involved. In one of the projects I have been leading, we have been involved in developing the Linux IP over 1394 drivers, and have obtained over 150 Mb/s point-to-point bandwidth using IEEE 1394 asynchronous mode, with room for left for further optimization . The increased function call overhead of USB makes even this modest performance level unlikely.

We are saddled with this inferior technological solution due to the recalcitrance and greed of Intel, who, as usual, are elevating their hidden agenda borne of backroom deals and "strategic partnerships" above the interests of their customers.

In other words, M$ users will have a GUI almost as good as the original one.

unfortunately, most people on /. have no clue about how to use Mac OS machines.

Most of them still think that Windows and X11 are decent examples of user interfaces.

I guess they also think that White Castle burgers are gourmet food.

Windows XP user interface is to GUI as the Yugo is to a car.

• Xerox Alto
• Apple Lisa
• Apple Macintosh

Go ahead, use your ugly clones.

Once more time proving that Microsoft can not innovate, just copy.

• Xerox Alto
• Apple Lisa
• Apple Macintosh

Go ahead, use your ugly clones.

Once more time proving that Microsoft can not innovate, just copy.

• Xerox Alto
• Apple Lisa
• Apple Macintosh

Go ahead, use your ugly clones.

Once more time proving that Microsoft can not innovate, just copy.

• Xerox Alto
• Apple Lisa
• Apple Macintosh

Go ahead, use your ugly clones.

Once more time proving that Microsoft can not innovate, just copy.

Apple /// developers and customers were told the platform had a 5 year future. Killed in 2.5 years.

The Apple /// was killed because the product launch sucked. I don't think the 3 users and 2 developers were crying about it much.

Apple ][ Forever (yea, right)

Yeah, right! That thing had an insanely great lifespan; and I can still play Super Puckman on my //e emulator on my G4 :)

OpenDOC

OpenDoc. I loved OpenDoc.

OpenDoc got killed for a variety of reasons.

• Novell, the company with the septic touch(TM), promised to port it to Windows. The windows port went to crap.
• Apple's stock sucked and John C. Dvorak probably said something about Apple's death being nigh.
• If any idiot with a clue had to choose between shoving two object technologies down developers' throats, or just shoving OpenStep down developers' throats, the idiot would choose OpenStep. They paid $450 million for it.

Newton

I loved those things. Never bought one though; too damn expensive. My Palm is pretty cool though. I don't like knocking the Newton, because it was awesome, but I don't need a full-fledged computer in my pocket. I can code lisp on my Palm, what more do I need :)

You didn't mention QuickDraw GX. I still miss GX. But it died for valid reasons too...

Apple is a company that creates and promises everything. But you can make money doing that, unless if you're Sony (unfulfillment of promises is made up for by Sony's marketing budget).

Games aren't dead on OS X or for Apple. It's just not their time to shine yet. It's not the OS's time to shine yet.

So if Apple slaps the developers about, they can bail to a larger market of Unix running GNUStep.

I'm a fan of GNUstep, but going that route isn't an out for developers. They'd still make more cash on the Mac platform. Additionally, I think if you write GNUstep code you have to GPL your code.

"... they showed me really three things. But I was so blinded by the first one I didn't even really see the other two. One of the things they showed me was object orienting programming they showed me that but I didn't even see that. The other one they showed me was a networked computer system...they had over a hundred Alto computers all networked using email etc., etc., I didn't even see that. I was so blinded by the first thing they showed me which was the graphical user interface. I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life. Now remember it was very flawed, what we saw was incomplete, they'd done a bunch of things wrong. But we didn't know that at the time but still thought they had the germ of the idea was there and they'd done it very well and within, you know, ten minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this some day."

Great article by David K. Every on his site http://www.mackido.com/Hardware/USB2.html. He also has another one reprinted from MWJ http://www.mackido.com/Hardware/USB20.html

Great article by David K. Every on his site http://www.mackido.com/Hardware/USB2.html. He also has another one reprinted from MWJ http://www.mackido.com/Hardware/USB20.html

BTW, I know that Copland != Rhapsody/OS X

This article at MacKiDo covers the differences (and a lot more info) between DPS and display PDF. Basically, it comes down to licensing -- Next had to pay boatloads to Adobe to license display postscript and Jobs, back at Apple, didn't want to repeat the mistake while still shoving the rest of NextStep into Mac OS.

This article at MacKiDo covers the differences (and a lot more info) between DPS and display PDF. Basically, it comes down to licensing -- Next had to pay boatloads to Adobe to license display postscript and Jobs, back at Apple, didn't want to repeat the mistake while still shoving the rest of NextStep into Mac OS.

Hate to break it to you, but most of Raskin's work on the Mac was a direct response to the work already completed at Xerox PARC, including but not limited to bitmapped displays, icon based program launching, wysiwig programs, etc.

Not trying to say that the Mac was totally unoriginal, but the Mac didn't spring forth fully formed as a creation of Apple alone.

My thesis in Computer Science, published in 1967, argued that computers should be all-graphic, that we should eliminate character generators and create characters graphically and in various fonts, that what you see on the screen should be what you get, and that the human interface was more important than mere considerations of algorithmic efficiency and compactness. This was heretical in 1967, half a decade before PARC started.

Many of the basic principles of the Mac were firmly entrenched in my psyche. By the way, the name of my thesis was the "Quick-Draw Graphics System", which became the name of (and part of the inspiration for) Atkinson's graphics package for the Mac.