MacPaint Source Code Released to Museum

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MacPaint Source Code Released to Museum

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday July 20, 2010 @12:53AM from the keep-it-away-from-ben-stiller dept.

gbooch writes "The Computer History Museum, located in Mountain View, California, is not only a museum of hardware but also a museum of software. Today, with the permission of Apple, the Museum has made available the original source code of MacPaint. MacPaint was written by Bill Atkinson, a member of the original Macintosh development team. Originally called MacSketch, he based it on his earlier LisaSketch (also called SketchPad) for the Apple Lisa computer. Bill started work on the Macintosh version in early 1983. "

175 comments

So? by Corporate+Troll · 2010-07-20 00:55 · Score: 1

It's open source now? ;-)
As goes Apple... by Akido37 · 2010-07-20 00:56 · Score: 1

Hopefully this starts a trend where companies release their source to the world once they're done with it.
1. Re:As goes Apple... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:02 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, well, I'm not so sure I'll be interested in Office 2010 in 27 years. :D
2. Re:As goes Apple... by Codename+Dutchess · 2010-07-20 01:07 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Uh... id has been doing this for years. And id doesn't wait 27 years to do it, either.
  ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/
3. Re:As goes Apple... by DarkKnightRadick · 2010-07-20 01:07 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  What constitutes done with it? When was the last time any development or effort was put into any thing DukeNukem related? What about Windows 3.1 (oh sorry, that code is still in Windows, isn't it, heh)
  
  --
  "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
4. Re:As goes Apple... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:07 · Score: 0
  
  How long before microsoft releases the clippy source?
5. Re:As goes Apple... by Vnuce · 2010-07-20 01:13 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Heck, I'm not even interested in Office 2010 now :)
6. Re:As goes Apple... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:14 · Score: 0
  
  Never.
  Not out of commitment to closed source, but out of embarrassment.
7. Re:As goes Apple... by nicknamesarefunny · 2010-07-20 01:22 · Score: 0
  
  it was released long time back...atleast the pseudo code was. here it is for you:
  1. show up at most unwanted time
  2. freeze everything while you do the clippy animation
  3. offer a random text of advice
  4. ignore users attempt to make you go away
  5. goto 2 unless user really banging keyboard
  6. exit and take the entire office with you
8. Re:As goes Apple... by Digital+Vomit · 2010-07-20 01:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Hopefully this starts a trend where companies release their source to the world once they're done with it.
  That was kind of the point with the concept of "copyright": that the copyrighted work in question would enter the public domain after a short time in order to enrich society as a whole.
  What *should* be happening, at the very least, is that a full copy (including source and binaries, in the case of software) of any copyrighted work be placed in government escrow so that it can be released to the public after the copyright expires (which should be about five or ten years, in the case of software).
  How sad that copyright law has been twisted so terribly by the rich and powerful to the detriment of human civilization.
  
  --
  Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
9. Re:As goes Apple... by Richard_at_work · 2010-07-20 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with everything except the 'a full copy (including source and binaries, in the case of software) of any copyrighted work be placed in government escrow' - my personal opinion is that binaries and source code are two separate entities, and I see no reason why someone who has the public binary should get the private source when the copyright expires.
10. Re:As goes Apple... by localman57 · 2010-07-20 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting. You could draw a comparison to books. When the copyright expires on a book, is the author required to release the notes and research he did while writing it?
  
  Similarly, I don't have to release to the public letters written by my great-great-great-great grandmother, even though they'd be out of copyright now had I/she published them in the past.
11. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 01:55 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  More-over ID typically releases their source code under the GPL - so it's actually USEFUL.
  This is why there are still doom ports for every platform known to man, and quake ports and Q3A...
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
12. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 02:00 · Score: 1
  
  And I see absolutely no USE for a 10-year old binary without source code. With source code you can base new programs on it, port it to new platforms and be able to read your data files from 10 years ago...
  With source code you are actually enriching the public domain, without it - you're doing nothing of any value whatsoever. Whatever value binary-only software may have is definitely incredibly time-linked. Abandonware binaries have little or no use. The best you could hope for is to run them in an emulator - and that is hardly ideal in the best of cases. It's so much better to be able to take that code and port it to run natively on what you need now.
  Just consider that the vast majority of the software from the early 90's can now easily be run on smartphones that have more than enough screen estate and processing for them. Heck doom was ported to one of the early nokia smartphones years ago, and in it's day it was one of the most resource intensive games ever created.
  If anything this is MORE true of applications than of games.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
13. Re:As goes Apple... by FreonTrip · 2010-07-20 02:34 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  And if we're "lucky" Doom 3 will be the last one... One of the consequences of id's merger with Zenimax is that the latter have no interest in sharing their tech with the outside world. Word has it that Carmack will "petition" them to release the Doom 3 source. It feels like the end of an age.
14. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 02:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  How many great companies have been destroyed by bad mergers.
  The Activision/Blizzard merger has already caused one of the biggest PR disasters in the history of the gaming company we considered one of the best in the world before - not only to work at, but to deal with as a customer. The Zenimax/ID merger is rapidly destroying the soul of perhaps one of the most innovative companies in the history not only of gaming but of software as a whole. ID for their genre-redefining (and in at least one case CREATING) work ranks right up there with the original Sierra/Online as one of the companies that created the foundations on which the modern gaming industry was built.
  I remember when John Carmack said of the reason for the first doom1 source release that he did it "because Linux gives me a woody"...
  It's sad to see truly great companies get swallowed up into corporate hiveminds and lose the wonder that they once held for us.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
15. Re:As goes Apple... by Richard_at_work · 2010-07-20 02:50 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  No one is required to ensure that something is of any *use* when copyright expires on it, so your argument about binaries doesn't hold water.
16. Re:As goes Apple... by Richard_at_work · 2010-07-20 02:51 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The comparison I was thinking of personally was film making - lots of 'source' material involved in making a film that will never see the light of day when copyright expires on it, especially with more modern digital and animated films (the model and textures for Shrek for example).
17. Re:As goes Apple... by mdwh2 · 2010-07-20 02:54 · Score: 0
  
  I can hear it now - "It doesn't matter that companies like ID, as well as all the Linux and open source developers, released their source first. Apple were the ones who 'popularised' it! Hardly anyone used open source software before Apple did it, but now everyone will be running MacPaint!"
18. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  The purpose of copyright is to contribute value to the public domain. It makes sense not to put a definition of value on say, a book or a painting. Why does it make sense ? Because often the value of these works aren't even RECOGNIZED until well after the copyright is expired and the creator long dead. We all know the Vincent Van Gogh type histories.
  But when it comes to a functional work - it has a functional purpose, and since the REASON for copyright is to serve the public - it can be reasonably stated that you are NOT contributing to the public domain unless this functional purpose is MET by the software after the copyright expired.
  To this end, source code is essentially required in order to ensure that the functional value of the software IS in fact contributed to the public domain. Copyright does not exist to capitalize on works -it provides a MEANS of capitalization for the PURPOSE of providing the value of those works to the public at large (more specifically - to have more works' value available to the public). The value of software at copyright expiration is exclusively in the source code, not in the binary and contributing the binary would be no different from copyright never expiring.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
19. Re:As goes Apple... by profplump · 2010-07-20 03:32 · Score: 1
  
  Given that reasoning, are you suggesting that the code isn't protected by copyright since it wasn't published? Because traditionally copyright protections have applied to both published and unpublished works.
  I'd also argue that the source code is a fundamental component of the information needed to reproduce the work, which is the basis of copyright protections. Using the book analogy, it's not only possible to photograph and re-print a book on new paper, but also to typeset the underlying text and reproduce the story in another form. Isolating the source code from the binary is like limiting reproductions of books to photographs only, and making it illegal to re-typeset the text because the original TXT files were never made public.
20. Re:As goes Apple... by profplump · 2010-07-20 03:35 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  You don't have to release it, but you never asserted copyright protections on it either. It doesn't seem unreasonable to tie the two together -- you can keep something secret OR assert copyright protections, but not both.
  We do exactly the same thing with patents. You can have trade secrets and even take legal action to protect them and prevent them from being improperly shared. OR you can have patent, which makes the design public, but allows you to prohibit use of the design even in independent implementations. But you can't patent something and keep it a secret.
21. Re:As goes Apple... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 03:59 · Score: 0
  
  Zenimax isnt evil the'yve made Oblivion and Fallout 3!! The greatest games ever!
  Who cares about your insignificant 'quake' and 'doom' games. Everyone knows in 1994 the hottest game out there was Terminator Rampage and Arena, you are wrong.
22. Re:As goes Apple... by Richard_at_work · 2010-07-20 04:21 · Score: 1
  
  The purpose of copyright is to contribute value to the public domain.
  But there is no guarantee of value, ever.
23. Re:As goes Apple... by Richard_at_work · 2010-07-20 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  Given that reasoning, are you suggesting that the code isn't protected by copyright since it wasn't published? Because traditionally copyright protections have applied to both published and unpublished works.
  I'd say that that is a good point and also the point I am trying to make - on expiration of copyright, you are entitled to whatever was distributed and nothing else (IE what you can get hold of), regardless of whether that makes the distributed portion pointless or not.
  
  I'd also argue that the source code is a fundamental component of the information needed to reproduce the work, which is the basis of copyright protections. Using the book analogy, it's not only possible to photograph and re-print a book on new paper, but also to typeset the underlying text and reproduce the story in another form. Isolating the source code from the binary is like limiting reproductions of books to photographs only, and making it illegal to re-typeset the text because the original TXT files were never made public.
  See my other comment about movies being a better example - there are lots of resources produced during the making of a movie that would be beneficial to the public domain, but you are never going to get. Should Hollywood be required to archive every shot, every stage design, every script notation, every special effect application shot, every lighting shot etc etc?
24. Re:As goes Apple... by s73v3r · 2010-07-20 04:31 · Score: 0
  
  But usually what's under copyright is the source itself, not the binaries.
25. Re:As goes Apple... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 04:37 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  You know what's more annoying than fanbois? Hatebois. Get a fucking life, moron.
26. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 05:09 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  And ? your point is ?
  Does that mean we should allow people to guarantee the ABSENSE of value instead ?
  Falacy: does not follow.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
27. Re:As goes Apple... by Cormacus · 2010-07-20 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  I'd like to point out that if you were to accuse someone of violating your copyright on your "public binary" you would use your "private source" to prove your accusations. In fact you would compare your "private source" against their "private source." The source code and the binary are inexorably linked both in terms of development/implementation and (in my opinion) copyright.
  
  --
  Mon chien, il n'a pas du nez. Comment scent-il? TrÃs mauvais!
28. Re:As goes Apple... by Richard_at_work · 2010-07-20 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  No, the binaries are certainly under copyright as well.
29. Re:As goes Apple... by Richard_at_work · 2010-07-20 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  You seem to be deliberately missing my point - no one is guaranteeing anything, value or absence of value. There is no requirement that something has value once it passes into the public domain, it's a crap shoot that society take part in with regard to the granting of copyright. Just because a binary would be useless to you doesn't mean that you should have an entitlement to anything other than what was distributed.
30. Re:As goes Apple... by Thinboy00 · 2010-07-20 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  Why is anyone interested in Office 2010 when OOo doesn't have a ribbon?
  
  --
  $ make available
31. Re:As goes Apple... by Thinboy00 · 2010-07-20 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  Didn't Activision also merge with Infocom a long time ago and destroy the Zork series? What is with those guys?
  
  --
  $ make available
32. Re:As goes Apple... by ArsonSmith · 2010-07-20 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  But that is exactly what Copyright is meant to do "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
  
  --
  Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
33. Re:As goes Apple... by qubezz · 2010-07-20 09:00 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  This is perhaps the most ill-constructed wealth of ignorance posted on Slashdot for a while, at least without original intent to be tardy.
  Copyright protects creative works. Whereas published works may have required copyright notice on the work (before 1989), or deposit with the Library of Congress, unpublished works have never required a copyright notice for protection. If you created it, you have the copyright on it, and can take protective action against others distributing copies of your work.
  Patents protect exclusive distribution of inventions. We do not do the exact same thing with patents. Patents allow you to take legal action and prohibit competitors from making infringing products.
  Trade secrets are secrets as long as they are kept secret, but 'infringing' products are not actionable. You have not publicly declared that you invented something, so if someone else invents it they can use it too (and might even be able to patent it if you haven't created prior art implementing your invention). There are only legal covenants (and criminal liability in some states) to prevent employee disclosure, theft, or espionage. Trade secrets can include non-copyrightable or non-patentable things such as the formula for Red Bull.
  Software, which is currently under discussion, can have all: patentable (think Amazon one-click checkout patent), under copyright (as the Amazon web server software is, even if undisclosed), and contain trade secrets (such as server cloud optimization routines to speed processing).
  If you work for Apple and released the source code to 1984's Macintosh File System you would be breaching your non-disclosure trade secret agreement with Apple. The disclosed software would still be covered by copyright, and features or inventions implemented in the software may be covered by patents too. Many software patents are so vague in their description (merely describing the end result or user interface) that the actual implementation in code may indeed be a trade secret too.
34. Re:As goes Apple... by jmorris42 · 2010-07-20 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  > What *should* be happening...
  Nah, that doesn't get to the root of the problem.
  No, copyright should only be available for source. Binaries should only be copyrighted as a derived work of the source. Remember the purpose of copyright is NOT to make the author wealthy, it is to "promote progress in the useful arts and sciences" and so source should eb required to be disclosed as part of the exchange for the copyright.
  This would allow others to study the work, patch the program and adapt it as time went by and the original author lost interest in maintaining it. Note that redistribution of the source would be just as much a copyright violation as leeching the binaries from Pirate Bay is now.
  And yes, extending a perpetual copyright[1] to software is daft, as fast as this industry is moving a decade would be more than enough.
  [1] Every time Steamboat Willie nears the public domain the House of Mouse is going to buy another copyright extension bill from Congress, thus all copyrights post Steamboat Willie that are still currently in effect will remain in effect for the duration of our current form of government.
  
  --
  Democrat delenda est
35. Re:As goes Apple... by dangitman · 2010-07-20 09:55 · Score: 1
  
  And I see absolutely no USE for a 10-year old binary without source code.
  10-year-old versions of Photoshop are still quite useful today. That particular software hasn't progressed that much in that time, and supports data formats that are still commonly used.
  
  --
  ... and then they built the supercollider.
36. Re:As goes Apple... by tyrione · 2010-07-20 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  Why is anyone interested in Office 2010 when OOo doesn't have a ribbon?
  I was glad to read in the OOo 3.3 Dev branch that Calc just bumped it's Spreadsheet Matrix to a 1M rows, up from the 2^16 number currently.
37. Re:As goes Apple... by slashqwerty · 2010-07-20 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  What *should* be happening, at the very least, is that a full copy (including source and binaries, in the case of software) of any copyrighted work be placed in government escrow so that it can be released to the public after the copyright expires
  
  It is worth noting copyright does make a feeble attempt at this. In order to sue for copyright infringement the work must be registered. In order to seek statutory damages the work must be registered before the infringement. One of the requirements of registration is disclosure of the source code.
  
  Unfortunately, the law is really weak in this area. The copyright holder only has to turn over the first 25 and last 25 pages of source. If the source is submitted electronically, the copyright office actually prefers that it be in PDF format. Also, if there are trade secrets in the source the copyright holder can block out the trade secrets.
38. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 19:25 · Score: 1
  
  Aaah yes and that is the general norm right ?
  How long until there isn't a computer left in the world that can run it ? 20 years ? 40 years ?
  Public domain is supposed to be there for ever.
  Only source code is forever.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
39. Re:As goes Apple... by dangitman · 2010-07-20 21:47 · Score: 1
  
  Public domain is supposed to be there for ever.
  Only source code is forever.
  Forever is a mighty long time. It doesn't take long for APIs and programming languages to become obsolete. So even source code becomes useless over time.
  
  --
  ... and then they built the supercollider.
40. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 22:00 · Score: 1
  
  Linguistic dialects also become obsolete - but the writings in them do not. Even if purely for historic "this is how it used to be done" interest, source code (potentially at least) has intrinsic value far beyond it's practical re-usability, particularly in the academic sphere.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
41. Re:As goes Apple... by dangitman · 2010-07-21 00:29 · Score: 1
  
  source code (potentially at least) has intrinsic value far beyond it's practical re-usability, particularly in the academic sphere.
  Only if you value history and academic questions above practical use.
  
  --
  ... and then they built the supercollider.
42. Re:As goes Apple... by silentcoder · 2010-07-21 00:48 · Score: 1
  
  >>source code (potentially at least) has intrinsic value far beyond it's practical re-usability, particularly in the academic sphere.
  >Only if you value history and academic questions above practical use.
  Firstly knowledge for the sake of knowledge IS more valuable than practical use - that's why science is more valuable to the human race than engineering, but the ideal is a world that has BOTH.
  Having clarified that belief though, how the hell did you get to that conclusion from what I said ? I didn't COMPARE the two at all. I merely said that the academic value will OUTLAST the practical value. There is a definite time-limit on how long you can practically use a software program before it's just frankly not up to par with your requirements anymore, but at least some of the things you can use the source code for (including but not limited to academic interest) have no such limitations.
  Furthermore, it's a fact that the one thing copyright has NEVER been about is practical use. That's not it's purpose. It's purpose is EXACTLY for academic purposes, studying purposes, learning purposes. We need a public domain so we can study the works of the masters to prepare the next generation of masters. Some will write derivative works, some will not but nobody should be writing any fiction at all in English who hasn't READ at least one of Shakespeare's plays.
  The public domain provides inspiration, sources for studying and dissemination. In the vast majority of cases it does NOT provide practical use. There is no practical use for most works of art, their use is purely aesthetic - but that does not make them without value, and that is why we want them to enter the public domain - so they can inspire and be used as source material for NEW aesthetic works with no practical use. So scholars and students can use them to learn about the culture that produced them.
  With software, the binary provides ONLY practical use (and in the case of the most artistic software - which are games, even that practical use is purely to create an aesthetic experience) - which has limited valuable duration, but all the esoteric uses remain of value for far longer while some of them never lose value.
  Kurt Vonnegut writes in Cat's Cradle that the biggest flaw in the American version of capitalism is that it does not promote in any way the creation of pure knowledge, unless that knowledge can somehow be turned into monetary profit. The reality is that a discovery made today could save a billion lives in 50 years time, and have NO value until then- and we NEED to maintain the institutions to ensure that such discoveries CAN be made and will not be left unexplored because researchers have bills to pay.
  One of those institutions by which we do this is called the public domain, and the ONLY purpose copyright has is to ensure that this resource is as large as possible.
  Interestingly Cat's Cradle is in many ways an anti-science book. Even a book that comes to the conclusion that human science will doom us all, proclaims and decries the need for research without profit motive to be supported.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
43. Re:As goes Apple... by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-21 00:58 · Score: 1
  
  Why is this a troll? The code Id releases is a generation or two old, but still pretty relevant. They released Doom when Quake was still current and I was still playing Quake when they released the source code for it. They release it under the GPL which, while not my favourite license, does permit people to modify it and create derived works for commercial or non-commercial purposes and to use it for any purpose.
  In contrast, this release is only for non-commercial use and is code that is so old that there is no practical use for it. Slapping a non-commercial license on it is just funny - what commercial uses does Apple think there are for 27-year-old code that is designed for a dead platform? It's not like someone is going to take a couple of thousand lines of m68k assembly and produce something that will compete with the iPhone from it. Maybe you could bundle it with Basilisk II and produce a commercial version of MacPaint, but aside from the nostalgia value there would be little use for it. Another poster suggested porting it to TI calculators, but porting it to a different OS would likely be as difficult as rewriting it from scratch.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
44. Re:As goes Apple... by s73v3r · 2010-07-21 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  So if they're both under copyright, they should both be required to be made public after the copyright expires.
Hypercard? by thittesd0375 · 2010-07-20 01:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

Once Hypercard is open source then the world will be complete.
1. Re:Hypercard? by KlaymenDK · 2010-07-20 01:52 · Score: 0, Offtopic
  
  You are, I hope, aware of the many Hypercard derivatives and recreations...?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard#See_also
  
  --
  "Good news, everyone!"
Oh wow by Ancient_Hacker · 2010-07-20 01:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oh wow, I still remember the first time I saw MacPaint-- there was nothing like it. Bill Atkinson did a superb job, shoehorning all those features so they could run in 128K of RAM.
He just barely made it-- I remember trying to find how much memory my desk accessory could use while MacPaint was running, and when you did a "print preview", the available RAM went down to like 1800 bytes! Yikes!
1. Re:Oh wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:31 · Score: 0
  
  I remember thinking how expensive and lacking in features 'MacPaint' was. In 1985 I had a program called 'Art Studio' on my ZX-Spectrum that had mouse support, colour graphics, was far more powerful than Macpaint, and ran in 48K of memory.
2. Re:Oh wow by gad_zuki! · 2010-07-20 01:53 · Score: 1
  
  The eight-year old me thought it was incredible. I remember spending a lot of hours just drawing on my parent's 512k mac. All those lost masterpieces!
3. Re:Oh wow by Ancient_Hacker · 2010-07-20 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  >I remember thinking how expensive and lacking in features 'MacPaint' was.
  Er, um, MacPaint was "free". It was bundled with every Mac, for at least three years.
  And wasn't the color on the ZX limited to like seven colors, in 24x80 character-sized blocks?
4. Re:Oh wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 02:59 · Score: 0
  
  Well, my spectrum also came bundled with 3D CAD software called 'Vu-3D', released two years before the Mac came out. 3D Solid modelling software was something we just took for granted.
  Art Studio was professional software, rather than just a sketchpad like 'MacPaint', and so didn't come for free with the computer.
  Anyway, you probably could have bought a Spectrum, Mouse and Art Studio for less than the tax on a Mac at the time. You still ended up paying for MacPaint as the cost of developing the software added to the retail price. It seemed an enormous cost to use a limited paint programme on a tiny black and white screen.
  The colour resolution on the ZX was two colours from a selection of 8 for each 8x8 pixel square, plus flash and 'bright'. With a little discipline you could get quite nice looking results.
5. Re:Oh wow by mdwh2 · 2010-07-20 02:59 · Score: 1
  
  And wasn't the color on the ZX limited to like seven colors, in 24x80 character-sized blocks?
  15 colours.
  Which is 13 more than the Mac had.
  (Personally I preferred painting with 4096 colours...)
6. Re:Oh wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 03:00 · Score: 0
  
  Macs had "like" 2 colors. Apple fanboys, however, were able to see the full infinite resolution/infinite colors mode.
7. Re:Oh wow by safetyinnumbers · 2010-07-20 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  Nearly 30 years on, I'm reading a "ZX Spectrum/Mac is better" argument. It brings a tear to my eye!
  I even had a lightpen for my Spectrum.
8. Re:Oh wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 04:09 · Score: 0
  
  Hah! When I wrote my first scornful reply, about doing the same on the Spectrum in 48K, I felt a little frisson of righteous anger. It took me right back to my 11 year old self. :D
  I built my own light pen for my ZX81, and fitted all the electronics (about 6 transistors and a sprinkling of passive components) into the body of a felt tip pen (about 1cm diameter, 12cm long). I have never been so proud of anything since.
9. Re:Oh wow by stewbacca · 2010-07-20 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  Just looking at the interface--its amazing how many of the UI elements are STILL the industry standard.
10. Re:Oh wow by stewbacca · 2010-07-20 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, that expensively free MacPaint (queue the "MacOS tax" comments in 3...2...1...). Lacking in features? That usually happens with "free". It wasn't for another couple of years until Aldus Freehand and Adobe Photoshop 1.0 came out that MacPaint became suddenly "lacking in features".
  I have no idea what a ZX-Spectrum is, but when I was in college and studying print design in 1988, everything was Mac based because it could do 32-bit color and dual monitor layout, while the IBM clones gave you the choice of mono-chromatic, or if you were lucky/rich, 8...not 8-bit...8.
11. Re:Oh wow by stewbacca · 2010-07-20 08:32 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  15 colours.
  Which is 13 more than the Mac had.
  (Personally I preferred painting with 4096 colours...)
  No, the Apple II (not the Macintosh) was limited to 15 colors in low-res and 8 in hi-res. The Macintosh II, released in 1987, was capable of 24-bit color, which is something like millions of colors more than 15.
12. Re:Oh wow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 08:42 · Score: 0
  
  Are you sure? I didn't think there were any colour Macs in 1988, let alone 32bit colour on dual monitors.
13. Re:Oh wow by stewbacca · 2010-07-20 09:00 · Score: 1
  
  Positive. MacIIs could do 24-bit color (sorry about the 32-bit, got a bit overzealous) in 1987. We didn't go dual monitor until our IIfx in 1989, but that's close enough for my 40 year old memory.
  I designed the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign logo using that computer!
14. Re:Oh wow by mdwh2 · 2010-07-20 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  No, the Apple II (not the Macintosh) was limited to 15 colors in low-res and 8 in hi-res
  We were talking about the Spectrum though...
  The Macintosh II, released in 1987, was capable of 24-bit color, which is something like millions of colors more than 15.
  Indeed, and the original Macintosh, which we were talking about, IIRC only had 1 bit colour? Yes, it's true that the Mac eventually surpassed the ZX Spectrum a few years later.
15. Re:Oh wow by mdwh2 · 2010-07-20 10:20 · Score: 1
  
  I didn't start the argument!
16. Re:Oh wow by stewbacca · 2010-07-20 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  Oops, sorry..another conversation in this thread had me thinking 1987 Macs, not the 1984 versions.
17. Re:Oh wow by NMEismyNME · 2010-07-20 10:56 · Score: 1
  
  It was always burning, since the world's been turning
18. Re:Oh wow by GrahamCox · 2010-07-20 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  The Macintosh II, released in 1987, was capable of 24-bit color, which is something like millions of colors more than 15.
  
  Strictly speaking the Mac II only had 8-bit (256 from a palette of 24bits) colours because a) graphics cards capable of higher were not readily available and b) Quickdraw had not yet been updated to draw in 24-bits colour. The Mac II added new data structures that could support 24-bit colour, but the routines to operate on those data structures were not there. The QuickDraw 32 extension that shipped a while later added those routines as new cards that could display the colours trickled onto the market. Eventually QD32 got rolled into the system software - I think that was in the System 6.0.x era.
19. Re:Oh wow by vrai · 2010-07-20 21:25 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry - I had (and indeed still have) a Spectrum 48K+ and while it was a great games machine (as well as a classic starting point for the would-be programmer) it was pretty terrible as a productivity machine.
  The keyboard was useless for typing; the printer connectivity was via a towering expansion module that was positioned an inch away from the top-row of the keyboard and would crash the machine if it got knocked; there was no decent floppy drive available in the early years and the Microdrives combined tiny capacity (85K) with comical levels of reliability; the screen was very low resolution 256x192 (better than a C64 mind you) and had the attribute overlay issue; the nail in the coffin was a CPU that made Vu-3D unbelievably slow, even when rendering the most simplistic of scenes. At least a year of my childhood was wasted waiting for the Speccy to wheeze its way through simple, monochrome, images that contained fewer pixels than modern application icons.
  The big thing about MacPaint was that it integrated with the other applications on the machine. You could draw something in paint and use it in MacWrite. There was no such facility on the Spectrum; you could not draw an image in Art Studio and paste it in to Tasword. The Speccy was the best home computer of the early eighties, but a player in the home office market it was not.
Whaaaa? by Sponge+Bath · 2010-07-20 01:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

; ; FUNCTION Monkey: BOOLEAN; ; TST MonkeyLives ;IS THE MONKEY ACTIVE ?
Funcy monkey.
1. Re:Whaaaa? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:16 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  If that's in the source, I think at one time Apple had some testing harness that sent random click events to programs to see if it would crash. That might be what is meant by the monkey.
2. Re:Whaaaa? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:19 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Explanation: it was a reference to Apple's automated testing framework, as per the zero-score reply you can't see:
  http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Monkey_Lives.txt
3. Re:Whaaaa? by ral · 2010-07-20 01:36 · Score: 1
  
  As someone else pointed out, the monkey sent random mouse events to the program to make sure nothing could crash it. When the monkey was alive, the code would keep the monkey from quitting the program or doing anything else that would stop it. The monkey made MacPaint a virtually crash proof program.
4. Re:Whaaaa? by localman57 · 2010-07-20 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting. Palm OS had the same thing, but they called it 'Gremlins'.
5. Re:Whaaaa? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 19:45 · Score: 0
  
  Android developers use a monkey for the very same reason:
  adb shell monkey -p com.android.calculator2
  The monkey lives!
6. Re:Whaaaa? by tehcyder · 2010-07-23 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  I think at one time Apple had some testing harness that sent random click events to programs to see if it would crash.
  
  Yes, I believe it was known as the "operating system".
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Abandonware by jabberw0k · 2010-07-20 01:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

Assuming the source code is still kept in useful form by a company that is not ashamed of it, there is little to lose and much goodwill to be gained by releasing "abandonware" -- but those are two large assumptions, aren't they?
I have released my HDOS, CP/M, and MS-DOS product source code from the 1980s; there were a few other software packages I sold back then, but I no longer have readable floppies with enough bits of source to release them.
1. Re:Abandonware by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 07:22 · Score: 0
  
  That's educational. That ASM code looks absolutely terrifying to me. I'm such a wimp.
  I probably used your CP/M printer driver as a 7-year old. I made a BASIC program (10 Print "OX "; 20 Goto 10) and had my dad capture it to a file so I could print it out and look at my handiwork.
Nothing on Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

Funny how Macs now lack the equivalent of MacPaint.
1. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:14 · Score: 0
  
  Acorn is free and does pretty much the same.
2. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Morth · 2010-07-20 01:15 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  If you install Xcode, you will get a sample app called Sketch. It's pretty much a light version of MacPaint.
3. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by R.Mo_Robert · 2010-07-20 01:30 · Score: 1
  
  If you install Xcode, you will get a sample app called Sketch. It's pretty much a light version of MacPaint.
  I have Xcode installed, and Sketch is nowhere to be found. I suspect it comes with only older versions of Xcode, unless someone can prove this guess wrong.
  
  --
  R.Mo
4. Re: Nothing on Mac OS X by kanweg · 2010-07-20 01:30 · Score: 1
  
  Light version? You mean they even stripped black and white?
  Bert
  (Mac aficionado)
5. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by 0100010001010011 · 2010-07-20 01:36 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  /Developer/Examples/Sketch/Sketch.xcodeproj
  Apple-B. /Developer/Examples/Sketch/build/Debug/Sketch.app
  You don't think something that came with Developer Tools came as just an app did you?
  Also means you have to have installed the examples. This is from the latest version of XCode on Snow Leopard.
6. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Morth · 2010-07-20 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  Possible. It lives at /Developer/Examples/Sketch on my computer. Of course, you have to build it first.
  I think there's also a few other versions available hidden in the SDK documentation. Try
  open /Developer/Documentation/DocSets/com.apple.adc.documentation.AppleSnowLeopard.CoreReference.docset/Contents/Resources/Documents/samplecode/Sketch-112
7. Re: Nothing on Mac OS X by Morth · 2010-07-20 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  Out of coffee typo. :p
8. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by themacks · 2010-07-20 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  /Developer/Examples/Sketch/
  
  All of the files should be in there for you to build it.
  
  --
  i read about it in a blog once
9. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by domatic · 2010-07-20 02:39 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I rather like this for quick and simple things:
  http://seashore.sourceforge.net/
  It's under active development again. The "preview snapshot" is quite nice.
10. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-20 02:39 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect it came from an old version. The latest versions of the developer tools no longer install the examples. They are still available as a separate download, however.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
11. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by RazorSharp · 2010-07-20 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/
  Costs $50. Did you mean Gimp?
  
  --
  "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
12. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 02:58 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  If you install Xcode, you will get a sample app called Sketch. It's pretty much a light version of MacPaint.
  I just built and ran Sketch, and it's a basic object-oriented drawing program (eg. a baby Illustrator or Visio) not a bitmapped painting program like MacPaint or MS Paint (a baby Photoshop.)
13. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 03:11 · Score: 0
  
  After 14 days you can use it for free with all the usability MAcPaint had plus more. :)
14. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by narratorDan · 2010-07-20 03:40 · Score: 1
  
  I would check your sources if they did not contain the examples. Most likely you chose not to install the examples.
  
  --
  "If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
15. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Morth · 2010-07-20 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  You're right. I was thinking about MacDraw, sorry.
16. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 04:43 · Score: 0
  
  Jobs and Warnock were jerking each other off. Besides, graphic manipulation is hacking according to Steve Jobs and that makes it even worse than pornography.
17. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by gyrogeerloose · 2010-07-20 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  Funny how Macs now lack the equivalent of MacPaint.
  Perhaps that's because no one would want it?
  Besides, if Apple did include a MacPaint equivalent, people like you would complain that they were taking opportunities away from independent developers.
  
  --
  This ain't rocket surgery.
18. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  Sketch source code is probably 20 times bigger than MacPaint's one.
19. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by stewbacca · 2010-07-20 08:34 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, they don't have the Internets or anything like that.
20. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 08:38 · Score: 0
  
  Asshole -- how do you know anything about "people like him". Now, however, we do know a fair bit about "people like you"...
21. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by gyrogeerloose · 2010-07-20 08:41 · Score: 1
  
  Fuck you. You don't even have the guts to call me an asshole without hiding behind anonymity.
  
  --
  This ain't rocket surgery.
22. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by konohitowa · 2010-07-20 13:16 · Score: 1
  
  Sketch source code is probably 20 times bigger than MacPaint's one.
  MacPaint's SLOC is just under 6,000. Sketch is just over 2,000. So, umm... you're probably right.
23. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by SteeldrivingJon · 2010-07-20 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  modok-2:MacPaint 1.3 Source jon$ wc -l *.[pa] 5804 MacPaint.p 159 MyHeapAsm.a 631 MyTools.a 2738 PaintAsm.a 9332 total modok-2:Sketch jon$ wc -l *.[hm] 81 NSColor_SKTScripting.m 62 SKTAppDelegate.h 232 SKTAppDelegate.m 42 SKTCircle.h 65 SKTCircle.m 74 SKTDocument.h 1044 SKTDocument.m 50 SKTError.h 59 SKTError.m 246 SKTGraphic.h 994 SKTGraphic.m 111 SKTGraphicView.h 1672 SKTGraphicView.m 99 SKTGrid.h 267 SKTGrid.m 71 SKTImage.h 315 SKTImage.m 64 SKTLine.h 352 SKTLine.m 46 SKTMain.m 41 SKTPrefix.h 42 SKTRectangle.h 57 SKTRectangle.m 59 SKTRenderingView.h 182 SKTRenderingView.m 71 SKTText.h 461 SKTText.m 53 SKTToolPaletteController.h 113 SKTToolPaletteController.m 88 SKTWindowController.h 250 SKTWindowController.m 54 SKTZoomingScrollView.h 169 SKTZoomingScrollView.m 7586 total
  
  --
  September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
24. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by magnamous · 2010-07-20 16:24 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm...just tried this and it failed to build. 3046 errors, 1897 warnings. Wish it worked; I'd like to play with it.
25. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by 0100010001010011 · 2010-07-20 16:59 · Score: 1
  
  http://dugzphoto.info/Sketch.app.zip
26. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-21 01:12 · Score: 1
  
  Unlike MacPaint, however, it's portable. The Sketch code (at least, from a couple of revisions ago - I've not tried the latest), compiles and works nicely on *NIX / Windows using GNUstep. MacPaint is tied to a single platform and a single CPU architecture.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
27. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by tehcyder · 2010-07-23 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  MS Paint (a baby Photoshop.)
  
  In the same way that a Robin Reliant with a seized engine and no tyres is a baby Range Rover.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
28. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by magnamous · 2010-07-30 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  Poo. I got to it too late. Thanks for the effort, though.
29. Re:Nothing on Mac OS X by 0100010001010011 · 2010-07-30 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Rehosted. http://exstatic.org/Sketch.app.zip
Open, but not Free by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:13 · Score: 1, Informative

The copyright notice included says, "This Material is Copyright © 1984 Apple Inc. and is made available only for non-commercial use."
Pretty sure that would preclude it from being used for anything except academic study. Certainly it would not be allowed to be contributed to any GPL projects.
1. Re:Open, but not Free by sosume · 2010-07-20 01:45 · Score: 1
  
  So how long until that copyright will expire?
2. Re:Open, but not Free by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:51 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  74 years after Atkinson dies. Err, wait, I mean, whatever Disney says.
3. Re:Open, but not Free by CasperIV · 2010-07-20 02:06 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  So how long until that copyright will expire?
  A lot longer than the code will be relevant.
4. Re:Open, but not Free by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-20 02:35 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Will be? It isn't relevant now, in terms of actual utility. It was written against a toolkit that no longer ships for a machine which had 128KB of RAM and a monochrome screen.
  The only relevance that it has at all is historical. It was one of the showcase applications at the launch of the original Mac and so it's interesting to see how people worked on such resource-constrained systems. You wouldn't do things the same way now - even a cheap mobile phone is a few orders of magnitude more powerful than the original Mac and so the original constraints do not apply.
  Even if they did, I doubt many people starting today would want a load of m68k assembly and Pascal. You could maybe rewrite the assembly functions in terms of a modern toolkit and recompile the Pascal to run on a new system, but there are much better drawing programs available for free - including some in Apple's developer examples (under a permissive license).
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
5. Re:Open, but not Free by fast+turtle · 2010-07-20 03:20 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Hey Stupid: I've got a Ti-89a which uses the original Mac CPU. It also includes a bit more memory (not much more) then the original Mac did so something like this would be useful today to many folks using such a Calculator. That's right, there's a current real world use for such an app and I wonder how long before one of the Ti Hackers gets around to rewriting it to run on a Ti Calculator.
  
  --
  Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
6. Re:Open, but not Free by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-20 03:30 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  The TI-89a has a much smaller screen than MacPaint had, and it likely interfaces to it in a different way. None of the Mac toolbox APIs are available and, most importantly, the TI-89a has no mouse and so controlling an app designed exclusively for a mouse would be painful.
  Writing a drawing program from scratch for the calculator would be simpler than porting MacPaint - indeed, a port would likely become a complete rewrite by the time it was finished.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
7. Re:Open, but not Free by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 04:18 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  Perhaps you should learn the difference between "then" and "than" before you call others stupid.
8. Re:Open, but not Free by emt377 · 2010-07-20 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  None of the Mac toolbox APIs are available
  QuickDraw is available from the same download page. It's also a lot more interesting than MacPaint. But at 17k lines of 68k assembly it has no real practical value; it's probably easier to reimplement it in C with an abstract hardware layer than try to port the original code to a different graphics system.
Probably infringes some 1987 mspaint patent by originalhack · 2010-07-20 01:14 · Score: 4, Funny

The problem with this is that Apple was so innovative that they can infringe patents for ideas that other large companies came up with years later.
1. Re:Probably infringes some 1987 mspaint patent by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 05:57 · Score: 0
  
  The problem with this is that Apple was so innovative that they can infringe patents for ideas that other large companies came up with years later.
  http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/01-back-from-the-future/article_print
  Diabolical...
Folklore.org by suntory · 2010-07-20 01:16 · Score: 5, Informative

It has been mentioned a few times here in /., but http://folklore.org/ has a great collection of short stories about MacPaint. Worth the reading for every geek out there
1. Re:Folklore.org by Codename+Dutchess · 2010-07-20 01:25 · Score: 0
  
  Good job killing folklore.org.
This is beyond Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:17 · Score: 1, Interesting

Truly. That program was a major milestone for computers. With QuickDraw, no less.
Last missing point is the whole Mac OS rom, the early System and including the Finder. That would be amazing...
--fred
1. Re:This is beyond Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:53 · Score: 0
  
  Keep dreaming, buddy!
2. Re:This is beyond Awesome by PhireN · 2010-07-21 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  QuickDraw makes up a large chunk of the rom, I wonder how much is left.
and Quickdraw by Teese · 2010-07-20 01:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

or some early parts of it (download on the same page). That seems even more interesting to me.

--
"I'm a Genius!"*

*Not an actual Genius
MacPaint is an example of good code by master_p · 2010-07-20 01:34 · Score: 4, Informative

I've looked at the source and it shows many good programming traits, like variable and procedure naming that makes sense, separation of concerns (each procedure is short and does only one or two things; and it's procedural), etc. The code is very easy to follow. It shows that good programming is more about the programmer than the programming language.
1. Re:MacPaint is an example of good code by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 10:53 · Score: 0
  
  You're surprised that we had good programming back in the early 1980's...? How old are you? We did great programming back then. We had to. We didn't have unlimited computing resources so we couldn't be lazy and sloppy like modern programming. Most modern programmers get lost in their little wet paper bags.
2. Re:MacPaint is an example of good code by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-21 01:25 · Score: 1
  
  We did great programming back then. We had to. We didn't have unlimited computing resources so we couldn't be lazy and sloppy like modern programming
  You didn't have to write good code back then, you had to write efficient code. Good code is easy to read, easy to maintain, and easy to extend. MacPaint is a good example of a program that didn't require good code. It was small enough that a single person could write it and simple enough that someone else could rewrite it completely if required for a new version. Having it work on a painfully limited machine was a lot more important than anyone being able to understand the code after it had shipped. MacPaint II required a machine with four times as much RAM as the original and could have been a complete rewrite without costing Apple very much.
  The fact that MacPaint is good code in spite of all of this is, indeed, surprising. The fact that it is good code as well as being efficient code is impressive. Very often, these two are not compatible goals.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Pascal language by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 01:35 · Score: 0

What I find interesting about these old Mac programs is how many of them were written in Pascal - a much more sane and friendlier language for the day. I think it enabled programmers to be more creative and focus more on solving the problem at hand. It seems back then there were two main schools of thought on how to write general application software back then, Pascal on machines like the Perq, Lisa, and Mac, and C from the Unix world. (Of course plenty of other domain specific languages too) In a way it is too bad that the C style languages have taken over these days (C++, Java, c#, etc)
1. Re:Pascal language by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-20 03:02 · Score: 1
  
  Pascal and C are both members of the Algol family, and both provide a fairly primitive model of the computer to the programmer (flat address space, basic structure, but no higher-order functions, and so on). You can automatically translate between the two. The Pascal compiler does some extra type checking, but there's very little semantic difference between the two languages. The biggest difference is an implementation issue (not specified by either language): their early implementations passed parameters in opposite orders. Pascal pushes them onto the stack left to right, C does right to left. The Pascal approach is easier to generate code for - run the code to generate the argument, push the result, repeat - but has the disadvantage that it makes variadic functions impossible.
  In comparison to things like Smalltalk on the Alto, or Lisp on various Lisp machines, they are almost the same language. Java has more in common with Smalltalk than C - the only thing it gets from C is a subset of its syntax.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
2. Re:Pascal language by Megane · 2010-07-20 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  It helped that Apple used a UCSD variant of the language, which was a lot more practical to use than "standard" Pascal. The most important thing was "units", which let you break up programs into modules with separate header files. They later implemented Object Pascal, which made use of the Macintosh Memory Manager's ability for relocatable memory objects (handles).
  Then Borland goes and (IMHO with two college students over a summer break) re-implements it in a C++ sort of way for TP6 because their memory allocator was crap, due in large part to the 8088's segmented memory model and the infamous 640k limit. After having used proper Object Pascal (TML's version, as MPW was too expensive for me at the time), I was shocked that they would make such a poor imitation. It is no surprise that Next and then 90's Apple went with the Smalltalk-inspired Objective C over C++.
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
What no comment like RIP JSB? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2010-07-20 01:40 · Score: 3, Funny

Without cryptic comments like 1750 ; RIP JSB the source code is not very entertaining.

--
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"Best program ever written" by Sits · 2010-07-20 01:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

I remember watching a NerdTV interview with Andy Hertzfeld which made mention of MacPaint. Now I've done a search, I've found the transcript of Andy's interview on the web. I'll quote the section I was thinking of:

[...] an older guy got up and said he thought MacPaint was probably the best program ever written. Was it possible for him to see the source code? It turns out the person asking the question was Don Knuth [...]
Sounds like Bill Atkinson can cite you and Knuth as fans :)
1. Re:"Best program ever written" by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 02:46 · Score: 0
  
  master_p, this is probably the only time you're ever going to be considered more informative than Don Knuth. Savor it.
Did anyone spot this one... by Linker3000 · 2010-07-20 01:52 · Score: 4, Funny

;
; Wrist Test - see if user is gripping left front
; edge of mouse as this will cause drawing
; performance to drop-off
;
FUNCTION WristTest : Boolean;

Uncanny eh!?

--
AT&ROFLMAO
Direct links by fredrickleo · 2010-07-20 01:56 · Score: 1

Here are direct links to downloads (not slashdotted at time of posting):
MacPaint http://s3data.computerhistory.org/102658076_macpaint_acc.zip
QuickDraw http://s3data.computerhistory.org/102658076_quickdraw_acc.zip

--
Yay me! ^^
Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 02:00 · Score: 0

Linux users can now port MacPaint to their favourite OS and get rid of this Gimp crap.
1. Re:Awesome! by Herve5 · 2010-07-20 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  :-D
  I remember, while MacPaint was black & white, there already were alternative print kits with colors (for the Apple ImageWriter printer, yes I'm 50 years old), and you could install a separate printer pilot that would translate fill-in patterns into colors on the printer.
  hum. It may well have been MacDraw patterns in fact :=/
  
  --
  Herve S.
2. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 03:12 · Score: 0
  
  I assure you that gimp is much more powerful then a 20 year old mac program. Is it badly named.. yes.. but thats irrelevant to this convo.
3. Re:Awesome! by Megane · 2010-07-20 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  Although the initial version of Quickdraw had color support, it was really primitive and (IIRC) only supported a total of 8 colors. However, due to the way that a printer worked by intercepting Quickdraw callbacks, it's no surprise that a printer driver could identify Mac Draw fill patterns and translate those to colors.
  It wouldn't have been possible in Mac Paint, though, because everything was flattened to a plain bitmap.
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
4. Re:Awesome! by mattack2 · 2010-07-20 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  ..and "computer chronicles" had a segment about some add-on (graphics adapter + monitor?) so you could see the color graphics. That is, on the orig b&w Macs.
Monkey test by Herve5 · 2010-07-20 02:12 · Score: 1

Yes, a bit later I even saw a separate release of this monkey thing: you would launch your app, then launch the monkey, and thousands of clicks were hitting the screen. (seeing this the first time was atrocious ;-)
When the worst that happened was that sooner or later a given serie of click would trigger a quit command, you were safe :-)
(and indeed, at that time, the UI was so simple, with ALL command accessible via single one-step menus, that from a quality insurance point of view, I think it did look a reasonable test...)

--
Herve S.
1. Re:Monkey test by Herve5 · 2010-07-20 02:15 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  P. S. of course, you would never silently launch this on your office neighbor's mac. Never.
  
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  Herve S.
2. Re:Monkey test by ejasons · 2010-07-20 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, a bit later I even saw a separate release of this monkey thing: you would launch your app, then launch the monkey, and thousands of clicks were hitting the screen. (seeing this the first time was atrocious ;-)
  When the worst that happened was that sooner or later a given serie of click would trigger a quit command, you were safe :-)
  
  And to elaborate, the reason that programs such as MacPaint would test the "MonkeyLives" location, would be to disable commands, such as "Quit" and "Save" that would be better off not triggered by the monkey...
What license, asshole? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 02:56 · Score: 0

If you are going to talk about software, you should fucking mention the license. Otherwise it's just noise.
Should I ever meet somebody IRL who tells me (s)he is a /. editor, I will fucking pluck their eyes out. Promise.
Don't limit others to your imagination by dazedNconfuzed · 2010-07-20 03:24 · Score: 1

Just because YOU can't conceive of a use for 10-year-old binary without source code doesn't mean others can't.
With an old binary we can at least run the program enough to create requirements suitable for reconstructing and improving the program. I've heard much of "MULE" and other great programs past, and my reflex is a desire to run them to grok their behavior and subsequently write a new take thereon. Having the source is valuable, but lacks decades of development in the art. I could write a clone of MacPaint or VisiCalc or other classics easy enough, and do so better using modern coding techniques, if only I can run the program enough.
Likewise, while source is valuable for parsing old data files, given enough data in that format I can deduce the content and write a parser from scratch.
Oh sure having the source helps, but lack thereof does not render the binary useless.

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Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
1. Re:Don't limit others to your imagination by silentcoder · 2010-07-20 03:33 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Yeah sure, because reinventing the wheel is comparable to reusing it.
  
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  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Too sad. by drolli · 2010-07-20 03:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

It wont run on an iphone - its in pascal. Emulation or non-native/transpiled programs are forbidden, i heard.
1. Re:Too sad. by pauljlucas · 2010-07-20 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  Apple's TOS for the iPhone don't care what language you write your app in just so long as it compiles to native machine code for the A4 processor. If you could manage to find (or write your own) Pascal-to-A4-machine-code compiler, you could write an iPhone app in Pascal if you really wanted to.
  
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  If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
2. Re:Too sad. by psydeshow · 2010-07-20 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  It wont run on an iphone - its in pascal.
  Whoa. I guess that puts the "Nobody ever wrote anything useful in Pascal" meme to rest.
3. Re:Too sad. by Jonathan · 2010-07-20 08:47 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Pretty much *all* of the classic Mac software was written in Pascal -- it was Apple's premier development system. C didn't really catch on outside the UNIX world until the mid to late 1980s.
4. Re:Too sad. by drolli · 2010-07-20 12:49 · Score: 1
  
  I thought this meme would have been put to rest by all the nice DOS-Application which overall ran better the Ajax/Flash/heads in the clouds programs advertised now.
5. Re:Too sad. by slart42 · 2010-07-20 22:47 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Apple's TOS for the iPhone don't care what language you write your app in just so long as it compiles to native machine code for the A4 processor.
  From the TOS:
  3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
Re:Really? by Ancient_Hacker · 2010-07-20 03:39 · Score: 1

> The Lisa was never sold!
Ah, I think what the writer was trying to say was that the disks were the old Apple ][ / Lisa dual-sided 5 1/4 inch drives, which were the original drives intended for the Mac.
They actually did a small production run of those, for internal use, so there were Lisas and Macs with 5 1/4 inch drives, and a lot of development software was on those style of floppies.
What I'd really like.. by jcr · 2010-07-20 03:57 · Score: 1

...is for Apple to revive the venerable MacPaint brand and release an image editing program based on CoreImage. Could be part of iLife, could be a developer sample code project, but either way, the Mac really should ship with a way for any user to take full advantage of all the investment Apple put into that framework.
-jcr

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The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
At this rate... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-20 03:58 · Score: 0

we'll be getting the source for the first version of iOS around 2035!
Or we could just look at the latest Android source around now.
Re:Really? by dawich · 2010-07-20 04:09 · Score: 1

If you diagrammed the sentence, you would find out that the "that had never been released to the world" refers back to "a flavor of the old Lisa" which many would take to mean a variant. It's easy to believe that not all Lisa variants were released to the world.
QuickDraw by OrangeTide · 2010-07-20 04:30 · Score: 1

He just needs to implement QuickDraw for the TI-89. (yikes!)

--
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
1. Re:QuickDraw by EkriirkE · 2010-07-20 04:41 · Score: 1
  
  QuickDraw is an add-on/extension in OS 6, and macpaint works just fine without it on my SE
  
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2. Re:QuickDraw by outZider · 2010-07-20 05:14 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  QuickDraw's addons and new APIs were an extension, but core QuickDraw is required for the entire Mac UI. That was a system level API.
  
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  - oZ
  // i am here.
3. Re:QuickDraw by SteeldrivingJon · 2010-07-20 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  That's QuickDraw 32, the 32-bit extension to the original QuickDraw.
  
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  September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Not private once it expires by snowwrestler · 2010-07-20 07:51 · Score: 1

If the copyright has expired, the source code is not private any more, it's public domain.

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Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Re:MacPaint, HyperCard, HyperTalk -- Atkinson by walter_f · 2010-07-20 08:29 · Score: 1

As far as I know, all versions of Mac System (i.e. the operating system, not yet called "Mac OS" in these days) before v7 have been written almost completely in Pascal. Of course, there may have been contained many portions of Assembler (a.k.a. "assembly") code as well.
Starting with System 7, the Mac operating system had been re-coded in C with most applications were following soon.
Walter.
P.S. Bill Atkinson, author of MacPaint, later created the HyperCard environment, which included a subset of MacPaint as a graphics module. As to graphics, HyperCard contained a fully scriptable MacPaint, with HyperTalk (written by Dan Winkler) as script language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTalk
Come on, Microsoft... Gollow suit... by tonywestonuk · 2010-07-20 08:36 · Score: 1

... When are you going to release the source for that Gorillas game??.... ... ...oh, wait....
Knuth wanted the source! by Jonathan · 2010-07-20 08:40 · Score: 1

For "The Art of Computer Programming", according to the article. What was he planning on doing? Converting it to his pseudo-assembly language MIX? As far as I know, Knuth has never used a high level language in his AoCP, although obviously he knows how to program in them (early versions of TeX were in Pascal, and now they are in C)
Not just a Converter: GraphicConverter by walter_f · 2010-07-20 08:57 · Score: 2, Informative

... by Thorsten Lemke (Lemkesoft):
http://www.lemkesoft.com/content/188/graphicconverter.html
What's especially great with this software:
Thorsten is still supporting Mac OS Classic (i.e. Mac OS 9 running natively) users by providing specific versions of GraphicConverter for their OS.
Mac OS X being supported too, of course.
Walter.
1. Re:Not just a Converter: GraphicConverter by TheRaven64 · 2010-07-21 01:14 · Score: 1
  
  Apple used to include GraphicConverter with new Macs. My PowerBook came with a copy, but it was locked to the machine and so it won't run on my MacBook Pro, which didn't come with a copy.
  
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  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Tosser by mdwh2 · 2010-07-20 10:14 · Score: 0, Flamebait

You know what's more annoying than fanbois?
So what does that make you? So sad that you hate people who talk about something you allegedly have no interest in? And come off it - you're not a fence sitter. You're foaming at the mouth with insults, because someone dared to make fun of your platform. Get a life.
Get a fucking life, moron.
Says the hateboy (it's spelled "boy" - look it up) who spends his life trolling anonymously on Slashdot.
Just because we criticise a company, doesn't mean we "hate". The person who's sad is the one who's foaming at the mouth to post insults - and doesn't even have the decency to post with his login. And the anonymous cowards who mod me down and mod you up.
Since the Apple fanaticism is so bad round here now that valid criticisms, even posted humorously, are modded down, whilst insults are modded up: Get a fucking life yourself, tosser.
1. Re:Tosser by jkoke · 2010-07-20 14:27 · Score: 1
  
  How in the world does "I can hear it now..." followed by your fantasy imaginings of things that no one actually posted constitute "valid criticism" of Apple, who in this case did nothing other than release the source code of 27 year old software for the general public to play with?
  I wouldn't go so far as to call it hate, but there's something going on behind your post beyond criticism. It comes across as a bit pathological.
6 colors in Hi-Res by drerwk · 2010-07-20 12:27 · Score: 1

In high res - 6 colors - black, white, blue, orange, green, purple. But two adjacent bytes were either blue/orange or green/purple depending on the high bit for the first byte, as I recall.....
I still pronounce the root beer as Hi-Res.
Simply Paintbrush by andersh · 2010-07-21 08:13 · Score: 1

You mean besides Paintbrush?
Paintbrush is a simple [and free] paint program for Mac OS X, reminiscent of Microsoft Paint and Apple’s own now-defunct MacPaint. It provides users with a means to make simple images quickly, something which has been noticeably absent from the Mac for years.
http://paintbrush.sourceforge.net/
And there are other equally FREE alternatives Seashore (GIMP-based) or Pixen 3.