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Remembering the Apple I
harrymcc writes "This month marks the 35th anniversary of Apple--and the 35th anniversary of the Apple I, its first computer. It was a single-board computer that was unimaginably more rudimentary than any modern Mac — it didn't even come with a case and keyboard standard — but in its design, sales and marketing, we can see the beginnings of the Apple approach that continues to this day. I'm celebrating with a look at this significant machine."
When Apple hardware was open. Apple ][ computers had their wiring diagram on the inside of the lid (which required no screws to open!). 8 slots, baby, *eight*, to fill with whatever you wanted. No voiding the warranty by opening it up, etc. I later went Amiga and didn't look back until recently. I got a nice ROM 03 Apple //gs on eBay, and even got a nice TransWarp GS card for it. Hot stuff! :)
Never was a fan of Macs. *shrug*
The other computers that could be purchased at that time had rows of LEDs and switches on their front panels, and they needed them. The Apple was quite sophisticated for a single board computer - Altair and IMSAI used that many ICs just to make a CPU chip talk to a bus.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
I had schematics for the ][ and the entire annotated source code for that and Apple DOS 3.2/3.3. And these weren't pirate, Apple happily published them. Woz was a freaking genius with how much he did with so little hardware.
You wanted to add lower case? Just run this wire here. Optionally bypass the write protect for floppies? Just put a three pole switch here. You want to extend the BASIC? Sure, here's these hooks (and Beagle Brothers made insane use of that).
The Apple I was the prototype for that and I salute it. I never had one, though of course now I wish I did!
Also funny how it's utterly unlike the Apple of today. I remember when the first Mac came out, completely unexpandable, and The Steve declared that it would never have more than 128K of RAM because that was more than enough for anyone. Which was ridiculous, because my Apple ][ had 16x that much already.
Yes I'm old.
Steve is not really selling so much, he is only selling at most ten days of the year and not even full days, in fact he spends most of the days running a company where he oversees design and production of both software and hardware, that is not the job of a salesman.
I do not think Steve Jobs would be happy doing whatever makes him rich, remember what he said to John Sculley in 1985 "Do you want to sell sugarwater the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?" is a pretty strong indicator that Steve was not in it just to make money (but I wouldn't fault him if he saw money as something entirely positive). Jobs most likely sees himself as a visionary or an artist, perhaps even a philosopher, he probably is an "architect" archetype where he wants to leave a lasting legacy (see his Stanford Commencement speech where he hints at this).
I have an affinity for things I can tweak but I have to admit this represents a minority opinion and that sealed boxes make sense for typical users (cost reductions, simplified supply chain, etc).
Of course there are other good reasons for "closing the box"... The original Mac, the first iMac and several models in between had built-in CRTs and the associated high-voltage circuitry, so you really, really didn't want users poking their fingers inside.
Most subsequent consumer Macs have been "small form factor" (and usually much smaller form-factor than competing SFF computers). If you make something as tiny as the Mac Mini or a slim as a modern iMac, you're gonna end up with "no user servicable parts inside". The advantage for Apple is that ultra-slim systems can sell for a premium *useful if you're trying to develop your own platform), rather than trying to compete in the low-margin mini-tower and boxy laptop market.
As you point out, Apple tower systems are still clip-open (swapping drives or adding memory to a Mac Pro is a breeze).
The other thing is, the motive and opportunity for tinkering has reduced. In the 80s any self-respecting geek would have lost the lid of their computer and have all manner of internal expansion - even on systems that didn't support it there would be boards piggybacked on chips and flying wires soldered to pins on the motherboard. Not so easy on a modern multi-layer motherboard with surface-mount components. I haven't felt the need to go near a computer with a soldering iron in years... There's also less need - the main reason I ever went delving in a Mac (apart from memory and HD upgrades) was to fit ethernet cards - these days, you'll find at least one ethernet port (probably plus WiFi) built in to any half-decent board, and anything else can be fitted via USB. The only PC with an internal add-on card I have now is my MythTV box - and I'm planning to replace that with a smaller box + USB tuner (having found that there are few linux-supported PCIe tuners and that the most suitable dual tuner PCI card is actually a USB tuner stuck on a card with a PCI-USB bridge...)
Apple have also pushed external expansion - first SCSI, then Firewire, then the iMac pulled USB out of the doldrums, now they're pushing ThunderBolt...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
it may not have been completed.
http://www.commodore.ca/history/people/chuck_peddle/chuck_peddle.htm
Apparently when he turned up to help them out, he ended up doing a lot of analysing of what they were doing and helping them understand how the 6502 worked and what they were doing wrong.