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Mac Nostalgia On Two Fronts

mbishop writes: "There's an article over at MacCentral about this years MacHack keynote where all the original creators of the Macintosh got together to talk about OS X and what they think about Steve Jobs." And if the early days of the Mac are too recent for you, Tom Owad writes to say that "the Apple I Owners Club, founded in 1977 by Joe Torzewski, is back, along with the most extensive reference to the Apple I in existence. The site contains over 120 pages detailing the Apple I computer."

156 comments

  1. Re:Ahh, the Mac... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Icons? Graphics? Mouse (ball)? Sounds an awful lot like missile command, which came out years before the Mac. And I'll bet the true GUI developers at PARC weren't speechless. The only difference between Apple's "innovations" and Microsoft's is that people actually believe Apple.

  2. Re:Simple question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Thanks Mr. Jobs- your opinion has been noted!

  3. It is possible! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Well with an Apple IIgs anyway. There is a TCP/IP stack for its OS. Somebody even developed an ethernet card for the machine! Expensive but pretty cool. Just imagine chatting to people via AIM from your 15 year old Apple II hooked up to your broadband internet connection.

  4. MacOS Webservers FAR more secure than Linux ,*BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1


    The US Army switched to MacOS servers from WinNT after being hacked so many times.
    http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Sep1999/a19990 90 1hacker.html

    (There are quarterly discovered expolits in MS Win NT web servers (IIS) and as we all know Linux and even Apache on BSD have had many blatant hacks and exploits regularly.
    Why is the mac the most secure? And why are Macs never broken into? Runing MacOS 9.1 and earlier OS's it has no published vulnerabilities ever running WebStar (the most popular of the mac webservers). None.

    Webstar is not magical, its just that that MacOS (not counting Mac OS X) is more secure than unix for many reasons.

    1> There is no command line shell to allow redirection. No shell, no shell exploits or redirection of scripting.

    2> Everyhing is 'root' at all times so programmers do not get lazy and fantacize about the existance of a more secure root to help protect them. The Webstar server, as most mac programs, is written knowing that security is is important and that the code is running at root. Truthfully, PowerPC apps run at user-level, and Gary Davidian's birthdate needs to be passed in a register to gain true supervisor level, but no normal benefit is gained on a mac from running in the microkernel space or debugger-nub space.

    3> Macintoshes do not suffer from stack exploits based on buffer overruns of C style strings. The mac uses Pascal style strings, instead of slow null-terminated strings in most all aspects of the entire operating system and in most users code. ANSI-C libraries are traditionally shunned. Pascal style strings are not only faster, they prevent the vast majority of buffer overrun problems.

    4> Macintoshes do not EVER exucute code from file that are simple data files, no matter how the file is named or no matter how the file suffix is generated or set. Macintoshes use dual fork files, and text files and data files traditionally cannot easily become executables, and firthemore would typically need to have their 4-byte FILE-TYPE set to a value to even begin to allow a hackers file to be blessed for execution. Webstar and other tools do not typically allow any hacker or rougue tool to set file types by accident or on purpose. On a wintel system a text file saved with a .exe extension can be executed!

    5> Source to mac os (pre os X) is not typically available outside apple corp. This is not a valid argument for security, (obscurity) but the appologists for the copious amount of linux redhat exploits use this as one reason for the many bugtraq exploits coverred.

    6> The Mac OS weservers running Webstar do not automatically allow errantly saved files from executing out of the CGI bin merely because they are stored there.

    7> The Mac OS has other good multi-homing multi-domain tools that run on it for robust free email (SIMS), DNS (QuickDNS Pro), FTP (Rumpus) and all have nice user interfaces to configure them and though these commercial tools may not be technically as secure as Webstar itself is, or the MacOS, I prefer them over running any open source tools on FreeBSD,NetBSD,OpenBSD,Linux, etc. Free is only free if you value your tech support at 0 dollars an hour sometimes. Plus, these other non Webstar related tools seem to have mostlty unblemished histories, unlike BIND.

    8> People on the mac tend to use scripting languages based on Applescript rather than perl for os level dynamic work and protecting against some minor perl problems, or unix scripting (no command line on a mac, thankfully). I cannot attest to java as being swell, but the fact is many mac people tend to do dynamic content in straight C. Happlily Webstar includes a rich variety of trusted dynamic content assist tools.

    There are many reasons that the WWW consortium members published that MacOS webservers are the most secure web servers.
    Some huge traffic webservers are also known to run Webstar (Macintouch.com), and Macs are far more stable than NT as servers that keep running forever if on a battery. (Admittedly its not as stable as a highly-stripped down BSD box, but the MacOS security is worth it, and some heavy use macs have uptimes of 3 years instead of 6 months).
    Even source forge was hacked into last month, where apache source is held?
    So all this laughable talk about shoving crap into kernel space is amusing to me (Tux).

    The Mac OS running Open Transport, based on open protocols, and bilevel protocol stack declaration order is amazing. It avoids lots of famous TCPIP hacks and it also allows end-to-end file transfer from ram to ram without copying a single data byte! (only pointers to buffers are passed end-to-end in the most ideal situations) There are also papers that discuss proper tuning of open-transactions vs queued transactions and how to get the most astounding hits per second from dynamic webstar content. But if you want ,speed,and do not care about security run Apache on a mac, because Apple demonstrated 18 months ago that the mac ran apache in a benchmark far faster than any other computer similar in cost.

  5. Re:It's not all memories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    I have it from a good source (I can't say more or he'll get fired) that Apple is kicking around some ideas on how to produce an entry-level box (=cheap) that will appeal to kids looking to play around with the nuts and bolts.

    That'd be a good move, IMO, especially if it runs OSX, as it would expand the hacker/youth numbers who would start getting some familiarity with Apple, OS X and Darwin.

  6. Re:Racist moderation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2
    *snigger* I love people like you. You're so full of yourself and so blinded by your malice and hatred that you put a negative spin on everything you see. Racial prejudice is as good a thing as any to accuse people of I suppose.

    <sarcasm>

    I guess you've never heard of X Windows, huh? I'll bet you cringe whenever the Super Bowl comes on television. What is it this year... Super Bowl XXXXI? Man! Four Xs! They must REALLY be racist.

    Oh and what about software like Applix? Obviously there is a racial undertone there because of the x in it's name.

    Has the thought never occurred to you that Apple just figured it would be somewhat fashionable and "different" (hence their whole grammatically incorrect advertising jingle of "Think Different") to use the roman numeral X instead of the Arabic form we are all used to, 10?

    Oh, but of course not. It just HAS to be racially motivated.

    But wait! They're obviously religiously prejudiced too! They must hate Christians! After all, X is commonly used as a replacement for the word "Christ". Xianity, Xmas, Xian. These are all common terms too.

    Oh, the racist, intolerant bastards! We should string them up like the pig fuckers they are.

    </sarcasm>

    And now, if you don't get the point of my little diatribe, you really do need to get a life. Yes, racism exists. It always will. Humans are a prejudiced people. Hell, you're likely prejudiced yourself. (Yes, sir, even black people can be prejudiced. It's not something that only The Man is guilty of. Sorry, you're human too. Play again next time.) You need to realize that you're being silly here.

    This is computer software for crying in the dark! Hell, Apple even uses many asian, black, and other non-white models in their website and in their literature. Where the hell are you getting all of this racial prejudice malarky from?

    I think you need to go and make a trip to Northern Ireland or the Balkans and see what REAL prejudice is all about. They've been at it in Europe for a lot longer than 300 years.

    Funny that you're 300 years old, by the way. I thought most human males in America only lived to an average age of 60 or 70-some years. If you've had to put up with humans for 300 years, I can see why you'd be cranky. I probably would be too.

  7. Re: the hardware is too damned expensive by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 2

    It's the older Apple LCD displays that use the DVI.

    The more recent Apple CRTs (the Blue and White and Graphite) used regular VGA.

  8. RE: the hardware is too damned expensive by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 3

    I'm gonna be mod'ed down as redudant, however...

    This was true in older Macs - anything before spring of '97, and to a lesser extent 'till Jan of '98.

    The old old Macs used special video and network cards and modems. And were all SCSI and ADB or Serial. (Note ADB is the same as S-Video).

    Then Apple went to IDE and PCI. But with ADB and Serial, then in '98 they went all USB and tossed in Firewire.

    Now your Mac has an IDE CD, Hard Drive, two USB ports, one or two Firewire ports and in the case of the towers, AGP and PCI slots.

    The hardware isn't that damned expensive, it's a really good deal and it tends to last longer than your normal name brand or home built PC. At least that was my experiance when I was lead support tech for 1600 PCs and Macs, and it's my experiance now as lead support tech for 500 PCs and Macs.

  9. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 3

    Geos - It was a GUI OS for the Commodore. I think there was even a browser for it.

    And now it looks like Geos is being used in embedded solutions like the Nokia 9xxx phone.

    http://www.breadbox.com/normal.html

  10. Re:Just plain old funny. by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 1

    And of course IIII is used as the Roman numeral for 'four' on clocks. (though VIIII is _not_ used for 'nine') The story goes that some king, while touring a clockmaker's, claimed that IV was incorrect, and well, who argues with the king?

    --
    -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
  11. Re: Old BOLO game!!!!!!! by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 1

    wow - i haven't mentioned Bolo for ages. i'm a little surprised you dug up that comment.

    anyway, a dsk-format disk image of Bolo can be found here: http://ftp.mayn.de/pub/mirrors/apple.asimov.net/ga mes/action/bolo_dsk.gz

    As for an emulator that can run it... I can't help you out too much. I use Bernie 2 the Rescue, which is probably the world's best IIgs emulator, but it's Mac only. i do know that there are emulators for windows as well, but i really wouldn't know where to find them. (and i hope you haven't forgotten how to load the game :)

    me, i ought to put in some time on roadwar 2000 for the iigs. i frickin loved that when i was younger.

    --
    -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
  12. Re:Apple are so racist - boycott them by DrScott · · Score: 2

    Isn't this post itself a bit racist? Blaming all white people for the wrongful enslavement of Africans? Blaming all Arabs and Jews?

    I sympathize with African-Americans, since I've faced racism myself and because the Jewish race itself has roots in slavehood. We remember our roots in slavehood and celebrate our own emancipation every year in the holiday of Passover.

    However, my family was still being persecuted in Russia long after the African-American community was emancipated in the US. My family had nothing to do with slavehood and I resent being blamed for it.

    Propagating racism is no way to fight racism.

  13. Re:The low end by burgess · · Score: 2

    uhuh.

    Auckland Library (NZ) has recently "upgraded". They bought new monitor/kb combos (mighta been a PC under there too) to replace the old VT systems. The new ones ran an xterm under twm with fuck all else, and it was fine - same UI, keyboard driven, slightly smaller and harder to read (black on white with the xterm).

    Then some fool paid for a new system, using an web back end (haven't seen the specifics) and Explorer. Now the library has the same search functionality, with a flashy confusing new design. The legibility dropped thru the floor with 10pt/8pt text on a 15" at 1024x768 I think.

    Worse yet, when I asked about this retrograde step to a librarian pal, she told me they had filed a complaint with the designer ... but had been told "it wasn't *possible* to make the fonts larger".

    Uhuh. Maybe they needed 360 pixels wide to fit in their nice focus-blurred logotyping, and there was no more space for the actual content. Maybe the designer was so impressed with his new 19" monitor he didn't bother looking at it on a 15". Maybe whatever ...

    This is in a place with probably the highest ratio of elderly and corrective-lens wearing computer users short of the local blind institute. How smart is that?

    Hey, you, webmaster reading SlashDot! When you go back to work (if you get any more work done this week at all), remember why the user is looking at that page in the first place.

  14. Re:Now hold on a minute... by Angst+Badger · · Score: 1
    Clever puns aside, I thought it was kind of jarring, too. A lot of us got into PCs precisely because Apple dumped the Apple II series in favor of the Mac. In any event, the Mac doesn't represent a continuation of the Apple I/II tradition; it is a departure into totally different territory.

    (This was not an anti-Mac flame. I'm totally okay with the fact that just under 5% of computer owners buy the wrong kind of machine. More power to their silly, misguided souls.) ;-)

    --

    --
    Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
  15. Is Apple, and OS X, on track? by batobin · · Score: 2

    Lately there's been some question as to whether Steve Jobs has steered Apple on track, especially regarding OS X. Artificial Cheese has an article about it. Is Steve really that great?

  16. Re:It's not all memories by Ex+Machina · · Score: 3

    want to get on the internet with an apple ][? GNO! Its a semimodern *NIX for the Apple][ platform. Free as beer.

  17. Re:OS-X's troubles by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1

    That only works if you have 3rd party vendor libraries installed.

    I don't so running it gives me a message "There is no Windows 2000 compatible DVD decoder installed on this system. ... A DVD drive alone is not sufficient." Looks like MMV.
    --

    --
    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  18. Has any PC user ever paid for CDRW software? by swb · · Score: 1

    I'm now up at least two copies of CDRW software. Not because I bought it, but because its come bundled with every CDRW drive I've ever bought. I actually use EZCD 4.x from drive #2, but there are two other OEMish packages capable of burning CDs sitting on my shelf unopened.

    The last drive I bought was a Phillips 8x4x32 @ Best Buy for ~$75. Can you buy them cheaper without software?

    Is lack of Mac software an issue? Did they often sell you the drive and then expect you to go out and fetch the S/W yourself prior to its inclusion in OS9?

    1. Re:Has any PC user ever paid for CDRW software? by Auckerman · · Score: 1
      "Has any PC user ever paid for CDRW software?"

      I have a USB CD-RW at home. Works fine under OS 9 (using its built in burning software) and also works fine the the version of Toast it shipped with. That same exact burner only works under Win98, and its software is NOT supported under WinME...I didn't buy burning software, since it works on my mac, but i assume others have from the amount of burning software for sale in computer stores. "Is lack of Mac software an issue? Did they often sell you the drive and then expect you to go out and fetch the S/W yourself prior to its inclusion in OS9?"

      What are you talking about? Toast (for Mac) is included on so many commody burners that I would be hard pressed to find a good burner without it. If you have ever seen the burning software in OS 9, you would understand why its a big deal, it's nice software...

      --

      Burn Hollywood Burn
  19. Re:Earliest Apple by aschlemm · · Score: 1

    My first machine was a Franklin Ace 1000 Apple ][ clone. It has a full 64K on the motherboard and the power supply even had a fan in it. The keyboard also included a numberic keyboard something the Apple ][ didn't have.

  20. Damnit by Pope · · Score: 2
    2 months ago I saw an Apple //e, with 1 floppy drive and the Apple monochrome monitor with tilty screen just sitting in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. It looked in pretty OK condition, and everything was still connected together!

    I regret not picking it up and bringing it home, but I think the last thing I need in my place is more crap lying around. Ah well.

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    1. Re:Damnit by gagganator · · Score: 1

      i know! i picked up an se from a garbage can outside a bio profs office (had been replaced by a g4)

      plugged it in and viola! it had exams and student grades on it, and a couple of nih grant applications on it (which i assume paid for the g4)

      im leaving it just the way it is. can spaceward ho run on system 6? :)

      --
      the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
  21. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by mlosh · · Score: 1

    This is at New Deal, Inc. -- Mike Losh

  22. Re:Mmmmm... that floppy sound by King+Babar · · Score: 2
    Anybody else remember that distinctive chunk-chunk-chunk sound the old mac floppy drives made? Maybe they'll include it as a system sound in OSX for the "nostalgia" theme. ;)

    Well, if you're going to go that far (synthesizing Old Tyme floppy drive sounds for computers that now no longer have floppy drives), then why don't we simulate the use of video RAM for copying disks like DiskCopy used to, and write random garbage to the top of the screen during, say, CD-ROM burning? :-)

    Explanation for the Perplexed

    When the Mac was first released, it had only 128KB of RAM and one 400 KB floppy drive. To copy a floppy, which you frequently had to do since there was no hard drive to boot from much less hold files, you used a utility called DiskCopy, which would prompt you to swap floppy disks back and forth until your disk had been copied. This could take...forever. So an important optimization of the procedure was adopted by DiskCopy: the utility would use dedicated video memory to hold another ~20K or so of content during the copy operation. Doing this meant that you would have binary trash written to part of your monitor.

    Life was grand. :-) Maybe next time, I'll tell you how Lode Runner addiction nearly kept me out of grad school...

    --

    Babar

  23. Re:Ahh, the Mac... by King+Babar · · Score: 2
    Anbody who questions the role of the Lisa in advancing the GUI can find more than ample evidence in the 5000 pages of texts linked to from the above page.

    The differences between the Lisa and Xerox Alto and Star are very significant.

    Man, I never thought I'd get old enough to get a lump in my throat over this stuff. The very first time I saw a demo of the Lisa was when they were auctioning one off (as a special item) at the Channel 2 Auction (WGBH) in Boston. I and I'll bet half the geek youth of the city desperately wanted the thing at almost any price. The early warning sign that the Lisa itself wasn't going to be box that changed computing was when the final auction price for the Lisa didn't quite come up to retail, as I recall. The only three Lisas I ever saw "working" were all, oddly enough, given over to secretaries doing word processing.

    In as similar vein, the only Xerox Stars I ever saw "in the wild" belonged to the typing pool at the West Haven (CT) VA hospital. Neither I nor anybody who thought they were special had any access to them, and I think the typing staff actually preferred Wang dedicated word processors to these, so they weren't often used...

    Nobody knew what to do with this stuff in the early 80s, and I'm convinced that not much progress would have been made if Jobs hadn't been the slave driver he was to get the original Mac done.

    --

    Babar

  24. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    I agree with you, BUT... :)

    RH cost me about $1.99 at CheapBytes.

    Second, the hardware is too damned expensive. And not just to buy, but to upgrade, replace, repair, etc. The greatest news I had ever heard was when Apple was talking about the CHRP. That would have been brilliant. Why they backed out, I'm not sure (probably a wise business move at the time). But being able to run the MacOS on x86 hardware would definately rock.

    Oh well:(

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  25. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    Hmm... Repeating what I heard from someone else? Don't think so. The first Mac I had access to was a 128 (the owner was trying to figure out how to score the cash to get a Fat Mac upgrade). First one that I had unlimited access to was a Mac II (pre MMU model). So I've been around and in the Mac community, have made my own decisions, and my own observations.

    Now while it is true that today many of the items are off the shelf PC parts, the same could not be said as little as... four years ago (right around the time I gave up on the Mac as a platform).

    There are still two very important devices that you haven't mentioned (and as I'm a bit out of touch regarding the current state of the Macintosh art, forgive any mistakes) but that is sound and, more importantly, motherboard/cpu combos. It is impossible to custom-build a Mac for anything remotely approaching the cost of a comparable PC. Perhaps if Apple would let me purchase a mobo/cpu combo, I could make things work. But they don't. So I don't buy from them.

    Big whoop. Apple obviously doesn't want my sale, so I obviously won't buy from them. What's so hard to understand?

    Just something I heard? Buddy, I wept when the 1984 commercial came out (heck, I remember when it referred to IBM) I remember when my blood ran in seven colors. I remember when Bill Gates and Micro-Soft were the best things for the Mac, and Pink was really going to change things. A parrot I am not.

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  26. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    He (I) said build, buy, or upgrade (with an 'etc.' thrown in for good measure).

    your welcome. ass

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  27. Re: the hardware is too damned expensive by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    But, as I mentioned in another post, it is basically impossible to get a machine equivalent to a $1000 PC for less than $1800 for the Mac. CHRP would have solved this. Of course, then Apple couldn't rake in the cash on the hardware.

    I'm also not sure that I buy into the longevity argument. My current PC was purchased in 1997. Of course, every major part has since been replaced. Not knowing what was 'average' for a Mac in 1997 puts me at a disadvantage, but for playing games (a moderate part of my computing experience) a ca. 1997 machine doesn't cut it in 2001.

    Now, on my PC, like on the Apple, I could, and have, easily replaced: drives, mice (although I must admit to having used a first year Apple ADB mouse for about ten years. Wonderful bit of kit), memory, and video.

    But, unlike the Mac, I was cheaply able to replace my motherboard and CPU. My total outlay in all of these upgrades has been less than $1000 over four years. I haven't checked, but I think that $1000 barely got you a stripped iMac during that time. (BTW, mobo/cpu combo was around $200. I don't think you can get an accelerator card that cheap. And you can't accelerate every model.)

    But to bring it back to something resembling the point:

    I agree that it's easier (or at least it was when I was familiar with both Windows and Mac OSes) to maintain Apple machines, and the Apple machine has a longer usable life than the Windows machine. But I also think the x86 is sticking closer to Moore's law than the PPC platform, and will continue for the near future.

    Compared to computer prices of... ten years ago, Mac stuff is downright cheap. Cray power for an Apple //e price. But it's not as cheap as x86 power. CHRP could have been a factor here (which was my original comment. It seems to have been missed. Or perhaps some people (and I'm not picking on anyone in particular) never heard of it.) But obviously, Steve wanted to keep charging monopoly rents on hardware (and that is obviously what is going on. $100 for OSX is a pittance, and a damned good value. It's obvious that the development for it is being paid for with $1200 iMac's. It's also evident by his possibly illegal maneuvers with the clone manufacturers)

    If OS-X were sold as x86 compatible (and let's face it, it can't be much of a stretch these days) then Apple would go out of business in a hurry. Not a super hurry, but a hurry, nonetheless. Because they can't charge enough for the OS as a standalone product. In fact, it seems like the exact opposite situation that Sony has with the PS2: Apple loses money with the software, but hopes you buy a box or two to make up for it:)

    It's also ironic that you point to late '97-'98 when Apple was switching off of ADB, SCSI, etc. That was another factor in switching to the x86 platform: all my Mac peripherals were now obsolete, and I would have to start over. Why not start over completely, and not be at the whim of King Steve?

    Anyway, some people have missed my point entirely: I'm not faulting Apple's logic from a business perspective. I'm not saying anything WRT the technical merits of the platform. I am merely saying that when a computer is a marginal purchase, Apple's products far exceed that margin, while returning only the ability to run MacOS. For some (5%, I believe IDC said) the MacOS is good enough to warrant the extra hardware expense.

    For me it isn't. I don't begrudge anybody their choice of platforms. I'm just saying that x86 with 75% Linux/25% Windows made more sense for me. Had Apple gone ahead with the CHRP, it's quite likely that my computing choice (especially in light of OS X) would be 100% Apple. Albeit probably not on their branded hardware.

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  28. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by dead_penguin · · Score: 2

    Now *that* just brought back a stream of old memories. I used to spend hours and hours playing games on our old Apple //e (a clone, actually). Some of my favourites were Rescue Raiders and Black Magic. Anyone remember those?

    I'm pretty sure I can remember the sounds that the old 5 1/4" drive made for each game as it loaded up... Some of the adventure games you could even tell you were about to meet a big monster by the extra disk activity before the next room loaded up.

    "Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done".

    --

    It's only software!
  29. Re:superbowl ad by HerrNewton · · Score: 2

    If you want it, email me---I've got it on a CD (from Apple itself) somewhere. More than happy to dump it to an MPEG (or MOV) and put it somewhere you can nab it.

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    Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
  30. Apple history... by bored · · Score: 1

    This history site is pretty good. I too dumped apple for a PC in the early 90's because frankly the PC was closer to the ideals of the Apple I/][ than the mac was. It sill pains me to think that if the PHB's at Apple had recognized the market force that was the Apple ][ and focused on it rather than constantly trying to 1 up it then we would all probably be using Apple ][ derivatives rather than PC clones. Again and again apple tried to change the focus of the company from a hobbyist / home (with a business following) to a business computer. First there was the Apple /// then there was the Lisa then there was the Mac. For 4+ years apple spun its wheels trying to sell everyone new technology while crippling the Apple ][. Apple basically stopped marketing the Apple ][ by 1980 yet it still continued to sell like mad well into the '80s. In fact the site
    above has this wonderful quote from the IIc release to the effect that the original Apple ][ sold 50k units in 2.5 years, the PC sold 50k units in 8 months, the mac did the same in 74 days and the IIc took orders for 50k in the first 7 hours. The margins were way higher than the Mac and well into the 1980's the II kept Apple alive from quarter to quarter so they could pour craps loads of R&N into new mac's that would have lukewarm sales.. What was so frustrating for Apple fans is that Apple (unlike every other company, Intel continues to make x86's even though they want to make IA64's(or i860's in the past), MS continues to make windows 9x's even though they want to sell NT, etc) refused to hedge their bets and make decent Apple ][ systems to at least maintain their outrageous market share. Instead they only resurrected new II's when the company needed more money. There was a saying to this effect in the 80's. Something along the lines that when the mac R&D was broke and apple didn't have any money they released a new II to stay alive for a couple more years. Meanwhile PC's ate into the market share one huge bite at a time until apple was left where they are today. A minority player with a single digit market share.

  31. Re:Mmmmm... that floppy sound by Tofuhead · · Score: 2

    My Apple //gs 3.5" drive made tha same sound. Ah, the memory of that sound makes my tummy feel warm...

    < tofuhead >
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    It is still the dark of night.
  32. Re:The low end by Tofuhead · · Score: 3

    I used to post to /. from those very vt420s about two or three years ago, while my machines were pending repair work I never got around to doing. :) For people who are comfortable with Lynx (like all the little Pokemon-playing kids that could never wait for the unstable NT PCs to come back online -- zero in-house NT admins at the branches), those vt420s are great.

    The sfpl admins wouldn't recompile Lynx for their VMS box with SSL and cookie support, though, so that's when I all but stopped using my Hotmail account.

    (Posted from work with Lynx for Win32. :)

    < tofuhead >
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    It is still the dark of night.
  33. Re:Tell us what you really think... by greenfly · · Score: 2

    Hmm did you actually *read* the article? These guys were fairly critical of Jobs. The article points out both positive and negative opinions they had of Jobs...

    Eh, nevermind, just continue to guess what the articles are about.

  34. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by Lifewolf · · Score: 1
    I seem to recall a gui called Geos, or Geospace or works or something along those lines, early to mid 80's.

    Geos. It still exists, though it changed hands and is now known as NewDeal.

    --
    "Be Happy or Die." -- AoN
  35. Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia by Alanzilla · · Score: 1

    Apple, Macintosh, same difference.

    Once upon a time, those would've been fightin' words.

    They still are.

  36. Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia by ncc74656 · · Score: 1
    Apple, Macintosh, same difference.

    Once upon a time, those would've been fightin' words. There are a few Apple II users who would disagree with your assessment. (Then again, you're probably just a kiddie who's never even seen a II. (Damn...I'm only 29, and already I'm talking like an Olde Pfarte. :-| ))

    _/_
    /v\
    (IIGS(Apple II Forever!
    \_^_/

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  37. Nemesis isn't the right word. by jcr · · Score: 2

    What OS X does is set a new standard for the UNIX mainstream. Consider for a moment that Apple ships more machines every month than Sun ships in a year. By the end of *this* year, the majority of UNIX desktops in the world will be Mac OS X.

    This has a couple of implications:

    1) Quartz will outnumber X windows. Finally, graphics on UNIX doesn't have to be that MIT abortion that DEC somehow managed to con everyone into using because they were afraid of Sun getting the drop on them with NeWS.

    2) NetInfo will outnumber NIS. I have seen *four* full-time sysadmins keep 4 *thousand* hosts going using NetInfo. You simply can't do that with LDAP or NIS. NetInfo is part of the Darwin release, and I believe it's already been ported to Linux (which is a very Good Thing.)

    3) BSD outnumbers SysV. Mac OS X is a BSD 4.4 lite UNIX.

    The upshot of all of this, is that the bar is raised, and all UNIXen from now on will be compared to Macintosh. Up until this point, Linux only had to stack up against windoze and solaris, and frankly it wasn't very hard to top either of those.

    What I'm expecting to happen to Linux, is that the GNUSTEP project will get finished due to the increased interest resulting from OS X, and that it will soon be quite feasible to compile an app for OS X or Linux with NO code changes. Result: many more apps with very high-quality UI become available on Linux.

    OS X by itself isn't going to topple windoze, because it doesn't run on the commodity hardware. OS X, coupled with x86-based UNIXen that substatially emulate the OS X user environment though, are a completely different story, and one that could end the MicroSquish Dark Ages.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  38. Gotta Love Satan's Response to Apple: by SirWinston · · Score: 1

    http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/Apple.html

    --
    "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
  39. Xerox didn't "give" anything. by Shadowmist · · Score: 1

    While Jef Raskins got a free look by hiimself, when it cane for Steve and company to find what his favorite irritation was talking about, (Originally Jobs refused to go to Parc because Raskin had suggested it.) Xerox charged them through the nose for stock options. And what did they get? Not a single line of code, not one piece of hardware. They got an extended chance to look, poke, and ask questions, and they made the most of it. It wasn't long before they were tackling problems that had stumped the Parc Staff. And to this day, Apple (and Microsoft and anyone else who markets a commercial OS) still pays Xerox a license fee for use of a GUI.

  40. If you're looking for cheap old Macs. by Shadowmist · · Score: 1

    When I passed there 2 days ago, they had about a half dozen SE class baby Macs there which would probably go for the price of fleas. It's on Kennedy Blvd. just immediately north of the intersection of Paterson Plank road by the border of Jersey City and Union City.

  41. Re:OS-X's troubles by nitehorse · · Score: 2

    Windows has API support but no actual player.

    Uhhh...

    C:\WINNT\system32\dvdplay.exe

    works for me at work. YMMV.

  42. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    My copy of Hard Hat Mack had a secret message from "The Fly"

    It sure was neat looking for easter eggs in games.

  43. Man, if there was any justice in this world... by smirkleton · · Score: 4

    ...Steve Jobs would have to be forced to kiss a bronzed casting of Jef Raskin's arse every morning before he sat down to work at Apple.

    I'm sure Jobs has by this point convinced himself that Macintosh was ultimately his baby, conveniently forgetting that his REAL baby (figuratively, and I guess literally) was LISA- the $10,000, 50lb. landfill-fodder version of Raskin's stripped down, lighter-weight and affordable Macintosh.

    Forgetting that Raskin was the one who convinced him, post PARC visit, that the Graphical User Interface was the key to making computers easy for the layperson to use.

    Of all the faces deserving to be celebrated in Apple's "Think Different" campaign of a couple years back, Raskin should've been tops. (Jobs' idea of thinking different is paying himself $1 in annual salary while taking hundreds of millions in stock options and a $90M GulfStream Jet as compensation... Trés different!) If Raskin hadn't convinced Jobs to "Think Different" about Apple's computers, Bill Gates' would have ended up dictating the future of computing, interfaces, and standards...

    (wait a minute...)



    Screw that. While it would be tempting to end this post with a sardonic quip, I just can't let myself.

    It kills me every bloody time I have to see Steve Jobs in the lotus position, levitating across the covers of Fortune or Forbes, letting reporters and historians heap-big-praise on his vain, lucky ass as they mismember history and misinform the population at large about the history of computing. Surely when Jobs dies, those in charge of his estate will have hundreds of millions of dollars they can appropriate to the ongoing perpetuation of false history- while Raskin will end up downgraded, trivialized and ultimately consigned to Tesla's fate of historical irrelevance.

    It has to be this way of course, because that is the way that things work- history is written by the winners...

    But The Truth Is Out There. Read it.

    1. Re:Man, if there was any justice in this world... by cvd6262 · · Score: 4
      Raskin will end up downgraded, trivialized and ultimately consigned to Tesla's fate of historical irrelevance.

      Tesla has an SI measurment named after him (magnetic density, if I recall). Maybe we could name some measurement, like GUI usability, after Raskin.

      "Yeah, that system looks pretty, but it has a real low Raskin Rating, you know."

      --

      I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.

  44. Re:8K was enough back then! by technos · · Score: 2

    I hope you don't live in CA..

    California power bill, two IPX up 24/7:
    $328

    California power bill w/o IPX:
    $90

    --
    .sig: Now legally binding!
  45. Re:*sigh* by Jailbrekr · · Score: 1

    ROFL

    Remember the cow command? It was some obscure Poke command which would make an Apple ][ moo like a cow. :)

    --
    Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
  46. Re:*sigh* by Jailbrekr · · Score: 1

    How could anyone forget?

    I remember one of their newsletters, and there was a "letter to the editor" joke in the back. They described an Apple ][ with 256K of RAM, color display, and it fits in a lunchbox. I distinctly remember thinking to myself "That'll NEVER happen! 256K! HAHAHAHAHAHA".

    --
    Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
  47. Apple I specifications? by Jailbrekr · · Score: 4

    You know, they should have Apple I kits commercially available, and actually have the students in 1st term CompSci USE these little beasts. It will give them a good appreciation for what the computer industry evolved from, and will be less likely to take what they have now for granted.....

    --
    Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
    1. Re:Apple I specifications? by El · · Score: 2

      The heck with that, make 'em program a KIM 1 (like I had to) instead! The KIM was was basically a 6502, hex keypad, and LCD. That's it. Smarter students used the Apple ][ assembler to translate assembly into hex, then punched the hex into memory via the keypad...

      --

      "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    2. Re:Apple I specifications? by Jagasian · · Score: 2

      You are confusing Computer Science and Software Engineering. They are two separate fields. Computer Science is concerned with the mathematical aspects of computation, while Software Engineering is considered with developing, testing, and supporting actual software. Your recommendation is good for Software Engineering students, but horrible for Computer Science students.

      For example, algorithmic complexity is easily explored on paper, and pen & paper is all a CS student needs (if you really wanted to strip them down to the basics). The founders of Computer Science, Alonzo Church and his student Alan Turing, did not use computers... they used pen and paper.

      It took decades to rid "common knowledge" of the confusion between EE (electrical engineering) and CS, and I guess it will take a few more decades to rid it of the confusion between CS and SE (software engineering).

    3. Re:Apple I specifications? by Jagasian · · Score: 2

      You are right. 30 years ago, CS courses included courses in wiring up transistors and electronic and magnetism courses... those things don't have anything to do with Computer Science.

    4. Re:Apple I specifications? by The+Troll+Catcher · · Score: 1

      I think you hit the nail on the head. How come there's a CS course at my school (Kent State, no, we don't shoot students here any more :) called 'Software Engineering'? I guess the guys in the dept. don't know what they're talking about.

    5. Re:Apple I specifications? by simpl3x · · Score: 1

      mmm, fortran on punchcards. those college kids hated the little high school punk at the back of the class. at least i wasn't stoned, too. basic made me sick to my stomach! how about text editing on a line printer... yum!

    6. Re:Apple I specifications? by jakuaii · · Score: 2

      Hmmmm... I wonder what I've been studying all those years - It was broadly called Computer Science, but I also learned a lot about Software Engineering... Must be one of those formal-definition-by-morons vs. daily-use cases...

    7. Re:Apple I specifications? by towad · · Score: 1

      Maybe not commercially, but there is some hobbyist interest in building new Apple I's. I don't suppose anybody knows where one could find some MOS shift registers for the video display?

  48. Jef on Jobs by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 3

    "He would make an excellent king of France"--Jef Raskin, talking on the subject of Steve Jobs

  49. gonna party like it's 1988? by carleton · · Score: 1

    1) I thought Apple released a patch to fix IIe's? [Or was the bug that it rolled over on 87 to 84, and now rolls over to 87 in 90,93,96,99,and 02 or something like that?]

    I had a IIGS, which as far as I know will outlast the life of the battery used to keep the time (and probably outlast various components... adb was a great idea, except that with the GS at least (and probably the early macs), continually replugging in the cables going in from the keyboard to the mouse and cpu (my left-handed brother liked to make a big deal out of being able to use the mouse with his left hand, which annoyed this piss out of everyone else in the family) caused the gold connections to wear out, causing sporadic faulty connections, causing occasional slow downs from the blazing 2.7 (or whatever... I thought it was 2.1, but someone else claimed it was 2.7...) MHz to about zero... an experience I relived many times when I "upgraded" to a windows 3.11 machine on a 486 dx2.)

    2) According to my recollection on battery specs, the apple IIe battery's were only supposed to be good for 5 years. I know if you leave them on, it doesn't drain that battery, so in theory, one could get a few more years out of them. Are you still on the og battery, and if so, have you been running the Apple II's 24/7 for this long? [Calculating PI perhaps?... upstairs in my parents room next to the GS is a fun happy book on things to do with your Apple... that was one of them... too bad it uses one of the slower converging algorithms, but I guess since it's using native math (instead of a big number library), that's probably irrelevant since you'd never be able to get more than a few decimal places of accuracy anyways.)]

  50. Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia by cybercuzco · · Score: 2
    "But didnt Mac make the Apple I and ][?" Youd be surprised how many times i hear that.

    --

  51. Bill Atkinson, NatureImages.com by chancycat · · Score: 2
    IF any of you are interested in _high_end digital photography, see Bill Atkinson's www.natureimages.com.

    He uses medium-format film to shoot mostly-still nature, then develops, drum-scans, and touches up on a Photoshop box. Then a "LightJet" print - one of the coolest technologies I've seen. HP does not make the LightJet, BTW. Very cool stuff.

    --
    Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
    1. Re:Bill Atkinson, NatureImages.com by jchristopher · · Score: 2

      Bill Atkinson is one of the original Apple programmers. He worked on Hypercard, if I recall correctly. I assume parent is modded down as "offtopic" because people have no idea who Bill Atkinson is...

  52. Floppy Drive Music by intmainvoid · · Score: 1

    I've heard music made by reading and writing to a drive - using the right sequence of reads and writes to get the desired rhythm.

  53. Mmmmm... that floppy sound by vex24 · · Score: 3

    Anybody else remember that distinctive chunk-chunk-chunk sound the old mac floppy drives made? Maybe they'll include it as a system sound in OSX for the "nostalgia" theme. ;)

    --

    People shape laws. Not the other way around.

  54. Not really *Mac* nostalgia by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 5

    Since the Apple I was not a Mac, Apple I owners don't necessarily have Mac nostalgia.

    Apple ][ ad infinitum!

    1. Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia by jchristopher · · Score: 1

      If Apple is so irellevant, why did you bother to read and reply to this thread? Oops.

    2. Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia by trash+eighty · · Score: 1
      so lets talk IBM

      PC, mainframe same difference. sheesh

  55. No GNO by fm6 · · Score: 2
    Take a closer look. GNO doesn't run on a ][. It needs a ][GS. Old ][s are everywhere (I still own one) but I can't even remember what a ][GS looks like.

    __

  56. Possibilities! by fm6 · · Score: 2
    Worse yet, when I asked about this retrograde step to a librarian pal, she told me they had filed a complaint with the designer ... but had been told "it wasn't *possible* to make the fonts larger".
    Obviously he hasn't gotten to that part of "Front Page for Dummies" yet!

    __

  57. The low end by fm6 · · Score: 3
    Good point. Another related anecdote (apologies for the topic drift):

    A couple years ago, I was strolling through the new central branch of the San Francisco public library. It was famous being heavily wired (too wired according to some), so I was curious about the gadgetry. I saw the usual array of web workstations -- and the usual long line of people waiting to use them. But I also saw a huge mass of ancient vt-compatible text terminals, mainly used to access the card catalog, but also configured to access the web, using Lynx. No line here, or time limit, and a fair number of people were leisurely cruising the non-graphic web.

    If you're involved with upgrading the technology in your public library, think twice before you toss those old terminals.

    __

    1. Re:The low end by jsse · · Score: 2

      Warning! Threshold=2! Say something interesting or you will be totally ignored!

      I set to 3, and I got smarter everyday.
      &nbsp_
      /. / &nbsp&nbsp |\/| |\/| |\/| / Run, Bill!

  58. Re:Isn't that like.... by proxima · · Score: 2

    Not quite. The problem is that Steve Jobs is passionate but combative. He's good at what he does (though I'm not a personal Mac fan), but he tends to make a lot of enemies. He had power struggles with the company before he left (he was forced out, depending on who you ask), and now he has almost complete control of the company's direction. No, I imagine some Mac developers are a bit bitter over something or other - there is a reason some/all aren't still working for Apple, and perhaps it's because of some bitterness.

    The TNT movie about Jobs and Gates dramatized the whole deal, but I'm sure some of that internal Apple conflict was very real.

    --
    "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
  59. Re:Ahh, the Mac... by piecewise · · Score: 1

    First of all, PARC gave Apple the rights to everything they had. Why? Because Xerox was NOT going to pick it up. What could they have done? Simply let their ideas burn out, most of which was under control of Xerox? Or do they give it to a VERY successful company and let them fly with it? Xerox missed the boat. Apple became successful. Only years later did Microsoft begin, quite publicly, taking the ideas of Apple. And also, the PARC designs were quite unfinished. There is a LOT of Apple innovation in the end product. I'm using OS X and Aqua right now. It's so far beyond PARC it's not even funny (which makes sense after 15 odd years).

    Just my two cents.

    --
    The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
  60. Ahh, the Mac... by piecewise · · Score: 2

    I've worked with the Mac since the Apple Lisa. Back in the 80's, my uncle purchased an Apple Lisa, and an Apple rep. actually delivered it to your place of business, set it up, and showed you how to use it. People were absolutely speechless.

    Everyone says now, "Oh the Lisa was a piece of crap, it was slow, sometimes buggy. Overpriced." You must understand though, nobody had really ever SEEN anything like that before.

    People didn't follow computers back then. People couldn't say, "Oh there's a new computer coming out." At least not most people. So when you saw the Lisa, you barely knew what to say. Icons? Graphics? A.. mouse.. and you can click.. and type? Speechless. 100%.

    Later on, it became a novelty and was given to me. Last year I was strapped for cash, and it was sold on eBay and picked up by a person I trusted very much to take care of it. I miss it. :-\ It was really neat (and still working).

    There's my two cents on nostalgia. I love the Mac. I'm running OS X v10.0.4 on my iBook right now. It's incredible.

    --
    The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
    1. Re:Ahh, the Mac... by jchristopher · · Score: 2
      If you're going to continue spreading the myth that "Apple stole the GUI from Xerox PARC" you need to do your reading and find out the truth.

      But since you're AC, I figure you know your bullshit is not true.

    2. Re:Ahh, the Mac... by towad · · Score: 2
      The very Lisa being referred to here can be seen here.

      Anbody who questions the role of the Lisa in advancing the GUI can find more than ample evidence in the 5000 pages of texts linked to from the above page.

      The differences between the Lisa and Xerox Alto and Star are very significant.

  61. Re:Apple IS relevant by piecewise · · Score: 2

    I'm a Slashdotter, and I think Apple is *very* relevant and an incredible company that makes incredible computers.

    There's nothing wrong with loving Unix and loving the Mac. Marrying them together is a great idea.

    --
    The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
  62. Microsoft hired some PARCheads too. by PyRoNeRd · · Score: 1
    Like Charles Simonyi, who joined Microsoft in 1981 after having designed the Bravo WYSIWYG editor at Parc and who was influential in the move to a GUI at Microsoft.

    Then there's that pic from 1983 of Gates and Allen standing in front of a whiteboard with the words Windows behind them.

    Apple got there PARC spawned products out of the door first, but Microsoft probably got most of the ideas from PARC directly. Also Microsoft programmers worked with the Mac team from the stat

    See this page

    Steve Jobs spearheaded the GUI trend at Apple, first in the Lisa, then in his own project - the Macintosh. Microsoft was developing languages for Macintosh at the time and was involved in some early design work. The Macintosh incorporates some DOS features such as the FAT storage system. Some Microsoft developers claim to have co-developed some basic UI features as a radio button, but the Macintosh developers play it down.

    At the same time Charles Simonyi, a PARC veteran at Microsoft was pushing a GUI evolution for MS-DOS. In early 1982 Gates and Simonyi were planning on a windowing version of DOS - which eventually became Windows.

    This isn't to say that what Apple did wasn't revolutionary, it was. Even though Windows didn't commercially appear until after the Macintosh debuted in 1984, Microsoft was working on it.

    To say that Microsoft stole Apple's designs is similar to saying that the Airbus side-stick is stolen from the fly-by-wire fighter aircraft. Sure Microsoft incorporated many user interface features that the Macintosh introduced. Tandy and Aldus also incorporated similar features into their GUI products - DeskMate and GEM respectively

  63. Re:Tell us what you really think... by Antipop · · Score: 2

    I was thinking more along the lines of:

    Yes Lord Jobs, we will infiltrate the Great Satan and destroy his evil spawn that has infected everyone's PC! *bow in worship*

    -antipop

  64. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by Bungie · · Score: 1

    NewDeal is awesome. We were trying it at work on a bunch of 386's. Its got the Windows 95 sort of look and a great suite of apps including an lightweight www browser. It also requires less than 1MB of RAM! Perfect for old machine you want to be quick internet terminals.

    --
    The clash of honour calls, to stand when others fall.
  65. Dammit! by sulli · · Score: 5

    I was trying to get some work done, and then you sent me to that Apple I page ...

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  66. Apple IS relevant by jchristopher · · Score: 1
    It always cracks me up... Apple is apparently hated by so many Slashdotters - yet I would bet there are more articles about Apple than any other computer manufacturer, and those articles consistently have a high number of posts attached to them.

    So I ask you, if you think Apple is irrelevant, why are you reading and posting in this thread?

    1. Re:Apple IS relevant by Skyleth · · Score: 1

      Apple has more articles posted than any other computer manufacturer because it is the ONLY current maufacturer of Apple Macintosh systems and the operating system, if Dell were the ONLY PC Manufacturer, i'm sure we'd see just as many posts about Dell. But since there are so many different PC Manufacturers, it's impossible to have that many posts on every single PC manufacturer. If you want to get into it, i'm sure that all the *nix/BSD/MicrosoftWindows/Blah posts plus the different Hardware posts on nVidia and Intel and AMD and what not could count as PCs as a whole, and will amount to more than Apple.

      No one said Apple was irrelevant, you came to that conclusion yourself (insecure?). I myself just like to see how steve jobs makes all of his customers buy all new hardware and software each time they come out with a major upgrade (classicMac -> iMac - all new HW is needed or expensive adapters. MacOS9 -> MacOSX - you have to slowly boot OS9 in the background to run any classic apps)

  67. Re:Apple are so racist - boycott them by jchristopher · · Score: 1

    The "X" means 10, genius. Get a life.

  68. Re:The thing I most hate about OS X... by jchristopher · · Score: 1
    No, they are not perfect. Quicktime 4 is a mistake.

    In other areas, they set the mark others aspire to.

  69. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by jchristopher · · Score: 1

    Uh... Macs use "PC Standard" memory, mice, hard drives, USB devices, monitors, CD and DVD ROM drives, burners, FireWire devices... so how do you figure they are more expensive to upgrade? Oh that's right, you were just repeating something you heard before.

  70. Re:The thing I most hate about OS X... by jchristopher · · Score: 2
    Your entire post is wrong.

    OSX is NOT based on a Linux kernel.

    The interface is not the same since 1984. It has undergone substantial change and growth and is an excellent GUI. How old is xwindows?

    You state "Apple doesn't know the first thing about designing a UI", but even the most anti-Apple slashdotter will readily admit they DO know what they are doing in UI design. Their products win awards.

    Apple computers do not cost "several thousand dollars" unless you really feel the need to spend that much. The iMac is $799, if that's not enough oomph for you, the new iBook is an outstanding LAPTOP for the money, and even it is not "several thousand dollars".

  71. Simple question... by Maveryk · · Score: 2

    Ok, so I think the question posed here might just be "where would Steve Jobs be if not for Jef Raskin," correct?

    How about this though: Where would Raskin be without Jobs? The Woz? The REST of the garage-junkies that actually got Apple off the ground in the first place?

    Sure, Raskin did amazing things for Apple, I won't deny that, but just as it's wrong to claim that Jobs alone is the key to Apple's success, so is it wrong to deify Raskin in the same light.

    As for PARC, I'm pretty sure the issue decided itself: Xerox already had commercials lined up praising their GUI project as the greatest innovation since the keyboard (contrary to their handling fo the actual PARC project that allowed Apple's "initiative" with the project). Claiming that Raskin is the sole reason that GUI met Mac is simple hyperbole. GUI = obviously good thing, and there was more communication within Apple than within Xerox over such cutting-edge technology.... Jobs wasn't about to make the same mistake as that which allowed him to "steal" the research in the first place.

    Anyway, the point: It's hypocritical to put down jobs by putting Raskin on a pedestal. Personally I've always believed that the team is far more important than the individual.... well, the team, and the Woz, heh.... it's just that the team as a whole isn't as marketable. The difference between Raskin and Jobs is that Jobs too initiative to make himself a public icon from the very beginning, and no matter who's working behind the scenes, it's the figurehead that gets the attention (just as Gates gets all the blame for the numerous "sins" of Microsoft.... most of which I'm willing to bet are the contrivances of marketting groups and high-power executive lackeys rather than any lone perpetrator).

    1. Re:Simple question... by glenmark · · Score: 2

      You're not giving Raskin his due. He essentially invented the GUI in 1969. Here is a brief history of the GUI as pieced together from multiple sources, including first-hand accounts by Raskin and Bruce Horn themselves:

      The origins of the GUI can be traced to 1968, when MIT researcher Dr. Douglas Englebart demonstrated his newest invention, the mouse, by cutting, copying and pasting strings of text. There were no windows in this primitive system, but the characters were bitmapped rather than being produced by a character generator.

      A year later, Jef Raskin finished his Masters' thesis, a complete description of the internal implementation details of a GUI. Part of the title of the thesis would later become the name of the MacOS graphics toolbox, QuickDraw, of which Raskin would lead the development.

      After college, Raskin went on to work at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on an object oriented GUI environment, programming language, and application framework known as SmallTalk. This formed the foundation of Xerox's later Star and Alto systems, which Xerox never could really figure out how to market. These early GUIs were rather primitive, with icons representing actions rather than objects, no pull-down menus, no desktop metaphor, and windows could only be resized or repositioned by typing in screen coordinates.

      Raskin then went to work at Apple. Initially, only the Lisa (high-end business cousin of the Macintosh) was to have a GUI. Jobs wanted the Mac to be more like the old Apple II system, but Raskin had secretly started working on a Mac GUI anyway. Raskin arranged for Jobs and other Apple execs and engineers to go on their two famous visits to PARC, which sold Jobs on the idea of giving the Mac a GUI. By the way, Apple compensated Xerox handsomely for these visits with large chunks of Apple stock.

      At Apple, the Macintosh and Lisa teams invented many of the features associated with the modern GUI: draggable windows, pull-down menus, icons representing objects (either physical or abstract), and the desktop metaphor.

      As soon as Gates saw an early prototype of the Lisa, his set his programmers to work copying the interface as a graphical shell which would run atop DOS, but not so closely as to make it a blatant rip-off. Much to Jobs' chagrin, Windows v1.0 was shipping (at least in Asian markets) by the time the Mac was unveiled in 1984. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Apple had entered into a contractual agreement for Microsoft to develop applications for the MacOS and Lisa. To accommodate this, Apple loaned MS some prototypes and gave them access to portions of the OS source code.

      Apple did later sue Microsoft over stealing the "look and feel" of the interface. The case was eventually dismissed due to a loophole in the aforementioned contract which essentially gave Microsoft the right to use any of the info they were given, including code, for their own products (looks like Apple had inept contract attorneys). This left MS free to produce an even more direct copy of the Mac interface, Windows 95.

      --
      *** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
  72. Re:OS-X's troubles by Nidak · · Score: 1

    OS X's GUI is still fucking slow though, even after 10.0.4 updates, sigh.

  73. Re:Typical Mac by spikeovsky · · Score: 1

    More likely, they're just auto-reloading to try to increase their hit counts so they can charge more for advertising. I visit the site almost daily, and I understand your frustration, but it's probably a "business decision" more than a Mac-y control freak thing.

  74. It's not all memories by ageitgey · · Score: 5
    I was watching a show on TechTV last week (bleh) and a little kid called in and asked how he could get on the internet with his Apple II. They were nice enough to explain to him how to use a shell account with his modem, but you couldn't help from noticing a sense of shock in their voices. Remember that not everyone can afford the latest equiptment and some people are stuck with ancient computers, especially kids. One man's nostalgia resource is another man's download.com.

    --
    Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
    1. Re:It's not all memories by xhypertensionx · · Score: 1

      So you're going to buy a new G4 with OS X, right??

      --

    2. Re:It's not all memories by oconnorcjo · · Score: 1

      I actually miss the apple][ sometimes... All the games I loved as a kid were on that machine and I never went seriously back to gaming after I moved to the x86 arch. When apple decided that the mac was the future- I just forgot about apple as a company. No more command line interface? Forget about it!

      --
      I miss the Karma Whores.
    3. Re:It's not all memories by regexp · · Score: 2

      I find it hard to believe this kid is using an Apple II because it's the only computer he can afford. Think about how many working Pentium 100s or Mac LC IIs there must be out there and how many of their owners are waiting to give them away or even pay people to take them away. Could be that the kid just doesn't have any way of connecting with the people who are trying to get rid of their old computers, but then how is it that he has a modem and ISP service? And cable TV, for that matter.

    4. Re:It's not all memories by trash+eighty · · Score: 1

      some people use old computers because they like 'em!

  75. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by hearingaid · · Score: 1
    Specifically, GEOS was a GUI for the Commodore 64. It was marketed in the dying days of the 64, in an attempt to keep the 64 relevant. Far as I know, it's the only 8-bit GUI in existence.

    It sucks. As one might expect. 64 types did not turn out in droves for it. However, everyone who bought a 64C got it bundled (it was actually made by another company, not CBM), and so it was occasionally used. But really, a 1MZ 6510 and 64K of RAM? And then there's the no true bitmap display... well, you can go from there. ;)

    --

    my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore

  76. Re:MacOS Webservers FAR more secure than Linux ,*B by hearingaid · · Score: 1
    The mac uses Pascal style strings, instead of slow null-terminated strings in most all aspects of the entire operating system and in most users code.

    That's Forth-style strings to you :P

    --

    my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore

  77. Re:Any device that needs a "club" is already doome by hearingaid · · Score: 1

    Apparently, then, all devices are doomed. There are Linux and Win32 user groups, too, you know. ;)

    --

    my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore

  78. On thinking different... by ackthpt · · Score: 1
    Yahoo news: Apple tells Satanist Church to 'Think Diffrerent', differently!

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  79. Re:8K was enough back then! by ackthpt · · Score: 3
    16 chips! Geez, those were dense! We started on OSI (Ohio Scientific, Inc.) with 2114 SRAM (1kx4 =256bits). I used to marvel at Apple ][ computers, with their 16K and 48K of DRAM. At one point I had a C64, Apple ][e and an Amiga 1000. Now I've moved up to the modern age with couple SparcIPX and an Amiga 2000, woo hoo!

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  80. Re:OS-X's troubles by Auckerman · · Score: 1
    "Even though the OS-X itself is not well documented"

    Here is a link to Apples documention of OS X. You should also try reading the man pages in OS X too, you would be amazed at the large amount of documenation there. People who complain about "lack of documentation" are either game developers who don't want to actually carbonize their code are are too lazy to look it up, or people who repeat their compaints. Quite frankly OS X is significantly more well documented publicly that Windows could ever hope to be.

    --

    Burn Hollywood Burn
  81. Re:OS-X's troubles by Auckerman · · Score: 2
    Maybe you should try using the latest version of Windows Media Player, which does do all of the above, and is shipped (for better or worse) with Windows."

    Quite frankly this is just false. I have WinME at home (among other OS's) on my home PC. WMP does not play DVD's on any known drive. WMP does not burn CDs (data CD's or Audio CD's from mp3).

    --

    Burn Hollywood Burn
  82. Re:OS-X's troubles by Auckerman · · Score: 5
    "OS-X's biggest problems are in multimedia support. One person on the panel indicated a lack of support for color syncronization. OS-X didnt come with DVD support. Doesnt matter to me that I dont get DVD support, I just boot into OS-9 instead"

    When I hear this shit, it nearly makes me sick. With all due respect, I can name no single OS on the market other than OS 9 that has has support for DVD players. Windows has API support but no actual player. Windows doesn't ship with CDR support. WIndows doesn't ship with a intergrated mp3 player that can burn CD's. Windows and Linux don't ship with advanced gaphics layers that each individually have more buzzwords in them than I could ever hope to understand (Colorsync and Quartz come to mind). The shit people complain about can't be found in the upgrades that Microsoft offers, which btw is Apples ONLY competitor. If you are gonna complain, get real. How about finishing up Classic's printing support, or the speed of Quicktime and OpenGL on non-G4's, or maybe the lack of showing inititive and actually shipping nice GUI support for NATD, NFS, et al, or maybe the fact that I have to go to a damn menu to mount an OS 9 HD, that doesn't even mention the fact that OS X ONLY supports AppleTalk over TCP/IP, which although is off by default is a fucking MAJOR secuirty risk in the hands of newbies (will your Mom use hard to guess passwords?). Get real people. If you bought OS X and then bitch about no DVD or CD-RW support, you are an idiot. It never claimed to have it on the box, you were told in advance it would not ship in the initial final release, and Windows users pay money to upgrade thier CD-RW and DVD software after they upgrade...

    --

    Burn Hollywood Burn
  83. newdeal. by saintlupus · · Score: 1

    NewDeal has minimal system requirements to operate. Those requirements are:

    * 286 CPU or faster (386 recommended)

    and it supports cga too. wow. good to see someone out there selling commercial software that'll still run on something as old as my server.

    --saint
    ----
  84. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by GMontag451 · · Score: 1

    Triple the speed? Assuming you mean pure MHz, that would be 2200MHz, and I'm pretty sure that no P4 or Athlon clocks at that speed. Besides, they need double the memory bandwidth because the instructions take twice as many cycles to execute! And now that the 7450 G4s are out with 4 Altivec units and on chip L2 cache, no i386 chip even comes close.

  85. Re:Tell us what you really think... by FrostedChaos · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.

    --
    "Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
  86. Re:MacOS Webservers FAR more secure than Linux ,*B by FrostedChaos · · Score: 1
    Ok, this may be a troll, but I'll bite.

    The US Army switched to MacOS servers from WinNT after being hacked so many times.
    The U.S. Army switched to $500 toilet seats too. No surprise they'd ignore the existence of FreeBSD. Don't get me wrong, macs are great, but not a replacement for unix.

    There is no command line shell to allow redirection
    Probably many script kiddie target weak linux (cough: red hat) systems because they're more familiar with the command line. But if macs became more common as webservers, we'd see a larger focus on remote GUI tools, some of which already exist. Anyway, you can still use buffer overflows to run malicious code, etc.

    Everyhing is 'root' at all times so programmers do not get lazy and fantacize about the existance of a more secure root to help protect them
    This comment makes no sense. If everyone is root, then anyone who gets any control of the system- at all- can do anything. It's not hard to write a mac program that erases the entire hard drive, and since everyone is root, not hard to run it!

    Macintoshes do not suffer from stack exploits based on buffer overruns of C style strings. The mac uses Pascal style strings, instead of slow null-terminated strings in most all aspects of the entire operating system and in most users code. ANSI-C libraries are traditionally shunned.
    It's true that standard C strings have caused many bugs and are probably overdue for retooling. But I've programmed on the mac using both C-style and Pascal-style, and I know it's a matter of the programmer. Pascal strings are not the answer: they are horribly inefficient (think: a large array with lots of empty space) and will be phased out anyway in os X.

    Source to mac os (pre os X) is not typically available outside apple corp
    Neither is the source for NT, genius.

    Free is only free if you value your tech support at 0 dollars an hour sometimes
    Most large servers hire their own people to do this kind of work. For everyone else, there's IIS.

    The bottom line is, using something obscure can sometimes be better security, but only against casual attackers. People who don't care enough to learn about your fossilized stuff may not bother you. But if any of this ever became popular, forget about obscurity and we will see the OS in its full non-multiuser glory. In any case, all this will soon be moot anyway, since OS X is based on *BSD.

    --
    "Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
  87. One of my old friends worked on them by WillSeattle · · Score: 3

    He was part of the original garage crew, and did some Lisa work and other hybrids. Not bad for a Dead Head ...

    I've still got an Apple II+ with dual floppies and a 172K RAM card (so you can do a RAM disk and speed up your programs to about 1000 times faster than floppy R/W will allow) in my garage, as well as an old Mac SE (with dual floppies and one of the first external 20MB hard drives), which I took to Burning Man last year. One of these days I'll gut them and use them for some art project, but haven't got around to it yet.

    And somewhere I've got my old floppies with AppleWriter II and French and English version of Microsoft Word for the Mac.

    --
    --- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
  88. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by Fortyseven · · Score: 1
    From the GEOS FAQ:

    Geos is a 16-bit, graphical operating system from Geoworks that is generally platform independent. The most common version runs on top of MS-DOS or compatible operating system such as PC DOS, DR-DOS, ROM-DOS, OS/2, or Win95/98, and provides a preemptive multitasking, multithreaded, object-oriented environment for almost any DOS-based computer. (Note though, that other versions of DOS such as FreeDOS, and Multiuser DOS or Concurrent DOS do not support Geos, though PTS-DOS apparently supports it.) For more modern versions of Geos, an 80286 based computer with at least 2 Megabytes of memory is strongly recommended. All versions provide built-in memory management, virtual (disk) memory, a single imaging model, outline font technology, automatic scrolling and scaling, complex graphics rendering, and a flexible, scaleable GUI. Version 3.x is the current version of Geos, with 3.0 currently found on the Nokia 9000/9000i/9110 Communicator, Brother GeoBook, NewDeal Office/SchoolSuite/WebSuite Release 3, and 3.1 for the GlobalPC from MyTurn.com (a company that manufactures inexpensive PC's), and the GreenPC from NewDeal. (For the rest of this document, I shall use "NewDeal" to refer to Office, SchoolSuite, and WebSuite.)

    Geos is also defined by the platform that it is running on. Currently it runs on the Apple II, Commodore 64/128, IBM PC compatible, Hewlett Packard OmniGo 100 and 120, several Brother products, Canon StarWriter Pro 5000, Nokia 9000, 9000i, and 9110 Communicator, MyTurn.com's GlobalPC and three other DOS-based PDA's collectively referred to as the Zoomer. The OmniGo 700LX is not a native Geos platform, and for the rest of the FAQ all references to just "OmniGo" refer to the OmniGo 100 or 120. The operating system that runs on the Toshiba Genio and Dialo, Seiko-Epson Locatio, and Mitsubishi Moem-D, is a Japanese version of Geos-SC and not a RISC-based version of Geos as earlier reported. The IBM PC version, also referred to as the desktop version, started as GeoWorks Ensemble 1.0 in November 1990. A copy of of Geos 1.2 was also bundled with CD-ROM drives from NEC and Sony as part of a package that included a Geos-based CD player and several DOS-based programs. The current version is now NewDeal Office Release 3.2A. A detailed account of the evolution of desktop Geos is available in my History page. The desktop version contains more software than any other Geos package out of the box. All other versions are still called Geos.

  89. I got it !! by rixster · · Score: 1

    I understood what you were saying.....

    --
    Two wrongs may not make a right, but three ....
  90. superbowl ad by pamri · · Score: 1

    Is the Apple's superbowl ad available(screenshots or film) on the net anywhere, atleast for historical reasons.

  91. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by jsse · · Score: 2

    And now it looks like Geos is being used in embedded solutions like the Nokia 9xxx phone.

    Nokia 9110 is using GEOS, but the latest 9210 is using Symbian.

    Just FYI.
    &nbsp_
    /. / &nbsp&nbsp |\/| |\/| |\/| / Run, Bill!

  92. Ah the memories by baptiste · · Score: 2

    Man does that bring them back - what an excellent site and its not even /.ed yet! Lots of cool pictures of what REAL computers used to look like :) Don't get me wrong I love tinkering with my 1GHz Athlon server - but there is tinkering (kernel settings) and then there is the smell of rosin core solder!

  93. Re:8K was enough back then! by hyrdra · · Score: 2

    Well, I'm not that old but I imagine you had some fun times!

    --


    "I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
  94. 8K was enough back then! by hyrdra · · Score: 3

    God I love those days :

    "8K Bytes RAM in 16 Chips!"

    --


    "I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
  95. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 1

    Sneakers was a great game. So was Sabotage and Hard Hat Mack.

    Does anyone use still use paddles?

    Dancin Santa

  96. Storage wasn't cheap back then... by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 1

    But you could always double your storage space with a hole puncher.

    Dancin Santa

  97. Re:Tell us what you really think... by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 2

    We can discuss Jobs' neuroses and personal failings until the cows come home. But that's really not that interesting. So he's eccentric and suffers from NIH syndrome. So he's risking alienation of subordinates because of his semi-religious fervor. Well, that religious fervor also gains him respect among others. So he doesn't understand every technical aspect of everything.

    So what?

    Do you think these things are important? I don't, that's why I made the joke.

    Dancin Santa

  98. Tell us what you really think... by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 4

    all the original creators of the Macintosh got together to talk about OS X and what they think about Steve Jobs

    OS X is the greatest OS we've ever seen. Steve Jobs is wonderful. We're going to buy it again and again.

    Damn Jobs Reality Distortion Field...

    Dancin Santa

  99. Re:apple //e by cipater · · Score: 1

    The //e didn't have a built-in clock: you needed to buy a third-party expansion card in order to give it the ability to tell time. So perhaps that clock card vendor has an EPROM update or something. Hah.

    --
    Guns don't kill people - bullets do!
  100. Re:*sigh* by cipater · · Score: 2

    Man, back when I was cobbling together BBSs and all manners of fun Apple ][ projects, I couldn't live without GPLE and Double-Take. Beagle Bros made the dope tools! Their print ads were very funny too, with all the small-point minutae like they were from some 1900's broadsheet. Whenever I see Tux, I think of Penguin Software - another old Apple ][ software developer.

    --
    Guns don't kill people - bullets do!
  101. Re:OS-X's troubles by MasterVidBoi · · Score: 1

    One person on the panel indicated a lack of support for color syncronization.

    I think this post on the OmniGroup MacOS X Dev mailing list (a great source for Cocoa application development) sums it up.

  102. Re:Typical Mac by blair1q · · Score: 1

    Modded -1 Troll and -1 Offtopic.

    Now, I can understand the Troll rating, even though the last thing I wanted was to start a flamewar, I just wanted to let people know how I felt. So it's wrong, but I understand how someone could think it's right. Meanwhile, the only two responses it got were in general agreement with me. No flames at all. So it's way wrong. But I still understand it. Like I understand property crimes committed by hungry people.

    But offtopic? An evaluation in capsule of the history and effect of the Mac and Mac culture? No. Clearly some metamod is needed for whoever decided my post was offtopic.

    --Blair

  103. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by blair1q · · Score: 5

    I was almost sucked in by this subtle troll until this point:

    while drinking a bottle of chilled Dom Perignon 73.

    Aha! If you really were a Mac user, you would know that the '88 was better.

    --Blair
    "Can't fool me, boy."

  104. Yes, and then there's the iBrator... by Artifice_Eternity · · Score: 1
  105. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by nick-less · · Score: 1

    As long as you need to buy a decent Mac run OSX, there's no need to worry about BSD and Linux.

  106. Apple I by rlanctot · · Score: 2

    Mmmm, Beowulf Apple I cluster. =D 'Hey, what happened to Frank?' 'He got in the way of the stream when we were booting the cluster from paper tape...'

  107. Re:Earliest Apple by tb3 · · Score: 1
    Okay, I'll chime in. My first computer was an Apple ][+ clone I built myself. Ordered the parts and soldered some of it together.

    My latest computer is an i(ce)Book. Very sweet little machine.

    "What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"

    --

    www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance

  108. Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by windowsLuser · · Score: 2

    I seem to recall a gui called Geos, or Geospace or works or something along those lines, early to mid 80's. Was that on the apple or am I thinking of a Commodore thing. Damn Walking down memory lane gets longer and longer all the time.

    --
    This is a Sig, there are many like it but this one is mine! I wish I had more than 120 chars... whats a char?
    1. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by damien+champagne · · Score: 1

      Damn, Geos was cool. I remember getting a 3 button mouse for my Commodore and felt like a real high roller. Then I used my Atari trackball (same port) and that was really cool. The only downside was that I only had one 1541 so there was a lot of disk swapping (much like my Mac Plus to follow soon after).

    2. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by TomHenderson · · Score: 1

      There was also a version for the PC, back in the early 90s. The last time I read anything about it, it was being sold in a bundle with a few productivity apps, and you could even download a free version. I might have to look for that, now that I have a couple of older PCs to play with...

    3. Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? by towad · · Score: 1

      GEOS was written for both the Commodore 64 and Apple II. It was more popular on the Commodore.

  109. BEST QUOTE by thopo · · Score: 1

    of the whole site:

    After the A-1 and it's 8k, I still feel like rattling around in all that memory---though I've already found situations where 24K is not really enough.

    those were the days ...

    --
    keep it simple.
  110. Racist moderation. by Lord+Hugh+Toppingham · · Score: 2
    Exactly how is pointing out endemic racism flamebait ?

    I am getting sick and tired of racist moderation. I guess after 300 years of oppression I should be used to it, but I had thought that slashdot was free of the kind of racists I encounter in the non-geek world. Oh well another illusion shattered.

    Perhaps the moderation system could be altered to take account of the racism of the average slashdotter, so that african americans can only be down-modded by other african-american slashdotters. This would seem the fairest way to make reparation for the years of racism my people have suffered from. What do other african-american slashdotters think about this idea ?

  111. Re:Earliest Apple by guuyuk · · Score: 1
    I think that was the TRS-80 Model 100... used one of those for several years as the controller for an autocross timer.

    There were a few others that looked like glorified calculators/organizers, which may be the one you're talking about....Those were kind of cool (when the first came out).

    My (as in I actually owned it) first machine was a TRS-80 Color Computer, one of the first 100 made. I had been using the various TRS-80 (Model I with the expansion box, II, and III) off and on at the stores where I hung out after school. I had also used various old PC compatibles (Kaypro, Leading Edge) as well as older Apple systems (II, II+, IIc), and later on, a Mac SE30 which I used to publish car club newsletters for a number of years. Today, I have 3 PowerMacs (8600 running LinuxPPC, RevA iMac with OS 9.1, and a Slot-load CDRW iMac running OSX), a Sun Ultra 60 running Solaris 8, and an Athlon 1Ghz box running SuSE Linux.

    Damn, that takes me back...

    --
    We're sorry, the phone number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try your call again
  112. Now hold on a minute... by srvivn21 · · Score: 3
    Lumping Macs and Apple computers in the same article is like comparing apples and...

    Oh, never mind.

  113. Re:Any device that needs a "club" is already doome by gamgee5273 · · Score: 1

    Yep...I'm sure that all those Apple I boxes are on their way to the dump right now...

  114. Re:The thing I most hate about OS X... by gamgee5273 · · Score: 1

    What are you smoking and will you share?

  115. Re:Typical Mac by gamgee5273 · · Score: 1

    Well, considering you were on a ZD webserver, I ain't surprised it crashed. Now, considering that my Mac has hummed beautifully since December of 1998 - no re-installing of system software, no initializing hard rives, no blinking floppy disks, Mac OS updates and hardware upgrades have gone fantastically,Yellow Dog Linux runs masterfully, rolled right through Y2K (while my friend's Wintel, bought at the same time, didn't) - I think I've got a damn fine machine on my hands. When I go to a person's house to consult or work on a machine, I don't work on Macs - I work on Wintels. It's not that the people I know only have Wintels - it's that the Macs work. The only time I had to work on a Mac was to retrofit a 6200 for a cable modem. Took no time at all. So, the answer to all your bluster is, simply: Make sure you check the fluid levels and be observant while driving.

  116. Re:Mac sux -- Amiga rox by gamgee5273 · · Score: 1

    Freak.

  117. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by Professor+J+Frink · · Score: 1
    Darwin, iirc, is not Mac OS X.

    Darwin is to OS X as the Linux kernel is to a distribution. Sure it runs but it's sod all use without the rest of it.

    --
    "Don't get mad, get a monkey!"
  118. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by Professor+J+Frink · · Score: 1
    And how many people will buy OS X to run it purely on a commandline? We already have BSD and Linux to do that, at least as well, for nowt, on all architectures, so Darwin seems pretty much a dead end.

    Darwin at present is little more than a token gesture and I doubt it will ever match the commercial OS X as a desktop OS or the current Freenix's for server/workstations.

    --
    "Don't get mad, get a monkey!"
  119. Re:Earliest Apple by KilljoyAZ · · Score: 1

    I had an Apple ][ clone too. Was it the Boston IV? The neat thing about it was a special function key that automatically typed BASIC commands for you.

    --
    This .sig is currently on hiatus for retooling.
  120. Re: the hardware is too damned expensive by nougatmachine · · Score: 1
    Oops, I did mess that up, sorry about that. Actually, the very last CRT monitor Apple sold before it ditched them from it's line-up was, IIRC, a 17-inch flatscreen CRT. It debuted alongside the PowerMac G4 Cube, used ADC and replaced the older VGA CRT. And here are the ADC pin-outs in detail, for those who don't want to sort through the other stuff. And yes, I am ashamed that I know all this.

    Anyway, if you look at the pin-out diagram, you will see that the cluster of pins on the right is for analog video. Which means that on current Apple monitors, there are some pins not being used...future projects for an adventurous hacker?

  121. Re: the hardware is too damned expensive by nougatmachine · · Score: 2
    The one thing you have to be careful with in recent Apple machines is the monitors. Apple has a new proprietary format called "Apple Display Connector" for their new LCDs that basically combines the power, usb, and video signals into one cable instead of splitting them up like a cat-o-nine tails on the older models. Problem is, this means you can't use new Apple monitors on older Macs, PCs, or even Powerbooks or iBooks without a (surprisingly expensive) adapter. But even worse is the fact that older Apple displays used DVI, and the newer Macs have only ADC and VGA ports, so you need a different kind of adapter for that situation. Fun, huh?

    Truth be told, I think ADC is a cool technology, so I think they should get it standardized like they did with Firewire. It would be cool if all monitors could have power, usb, and video signals through one cable.

  122. Re:Apple are so racist - boycott them by SuperGrut · · Score: 1

    The term "African-American" is a bad term for a race. Since there are people of the same race that live in Africa or Europe or Asia and it would be stupid to say Nelson Mandela is African American.

    --
    The city is being overrun by a herd of Lucy Liu's.
  123. OS-X's troubles by jeffy124 · · Score: 5
    Another issue that needs to be addressed is Mac OS X's lack of support for some basic services that are supported in Mac OS 9

    OS-X's biggest problems are in multimedia support. One person on the panel indicated a lack of support for color syncronization. OS-X didnt come with DVD support. Doesnt matter to me that I dont get DVD support, I just boot into OS-9 instead.

    However, I use OS-X at work and it is absolutely brilliant for my work as a researcher and Java prorgammer. I love how Apple has fully implemented Java and the Darwin kernel so I can get down to my UNIX roots. Even though the OS-X itself is not well documented, the presense of Java and UNIX makes up for it. I have yet to run into OS-specific issues with the OS-X platform.

    --
    The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
  124. Re:*sigh* by ladadadada · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't it be nice if there was an equivelant now ?

    My whole interest in programming came from reading source listings like in the Beagle Bros. ads and from looking at others programs.
    BASIC was open-source because it was compiled at run-time.

    Bring on open source ! (how else are we going to learn ?)

    You're not alone either... http://panic.com/goodies/

    --
    Sig matters not. Judge me by my sig, do you?
  125. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by ladadadada · · Score: 1

    I agree with most of what you said, but :

    Linux is free and Free. OS X is neither, and you will pay for that.

    Darwin is open-source. They're quite proud of that.

    --
    Sig matters not. Judge me by my sig, do you?
  126. Re:Apple are so racist - boycott them by ubugly2 · · Score: 1

    since i'm pretty much colorblind i'll ask anyway,does the "african-american" race{i hate that term as well} now own 1/26'th of the alphabet?

  127. one size fits all by m08593 · · Score: 1
    Raskin feels a "strong moral imperative" to provide the best UI possible. A poorly designed UI can sap productivity and physically hurt users from repetitive stress injuries. Raskin is the author of "The Humane Interface," and is a leader in the field. His UI design philosophy is one of the tenets at the foundation of the early Macintosh's design.

    Apple and Raskin are just catering to the old myth that there is one optimal interface for everybody. That's clearly not true. People have different styles for learning, interacting, and conceptualizing. People have different physical and perceptual abilities. People live and work in different locations and need to interact with their computers in numerous different ways (MacOS isn't even usable over a 2400 baud connection).

    This kind of marketing humbug sells well, just like the successful marketing campaings getting people to feel that smoking is sexy or soft drinks make them young and beautiful. Apple and its style of UI design are a creation of marketing, not of scientific facts.

    Computers are no different from other complex devices. You can make simple, mass market products that do simple things reasonably simply and appeal to lots of people. And you can make a variety of specialized, complex devices that do complex tasks really well but take a while to master. Continued attempts by Apple and Microsoft to create a "one size fits all" solution only condemns millions of users to using inadeqate tools.

  128. Isn't that like.... by Gazelem · · Score: 1
    all the original creators of the Macintosh got together to talk about OS X and what they think about Steve Jobs

    Isn't that like getting the Apostles together and asking them what they think of Jesus?

  129. Re:MacOS Webservers FAR more secure than Linux ,*B by Skyleth · · Score: 1

    Main reason you never hear of MACs getting hacked. Not because they're secure, becuase those script kiddie basement h4x0rs don't care enough to, plus there aren't enough sites running on Mac Servers to care either. Notice carefully at netcraft, Apple runs Apache on a Mac OSX Server... that's not a mac server, that's apache which can be run on a PC. Apple also uses Solaris and Netscape Enterprise Server, not Apple at all. Atleast Microsoft believes in their own product enough to use mostly IIS (minus Hotmail). i've drifted. But essentially 99% of the world is running on Unix/BSD/NT(2k) servers 1% may be using Mac (there might just be a reason for that), there for, people who are doing the hacking won't bother with the 1%. It's like if you are gonna set out to learn your first programming language, do you learn the most common one? or one that is nearly unheard of?

  130. Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    The Mouse has replaced the Paddle as a source of sliding analog-type input.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  131. Re: Old BOLO game!!!!!!! by stevew123 · · Score: 1

    Cpt, You wrote: Mac Bolo was okay, but I really miss the old (and totally different, aside from being a tank game) Bolo for the Apple II. IIRC it was by Elvyn Software and Synergistic Software. Totally kicked ass, and is worth the hassle of setting up an emulator just to play it. I, too, LOVED that game! In fact, of all the games I have ever played I think it is my all time favorite! Can you tell me where and how I can get that game to run on my computer which is a Pentium III, running Windows 98se. Please help me! I have been looking for this game for years! email me at stevewhitacre@hotmail.com Thanks!