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The Apple Mac Turns 35 Years Old (theregister.co.uk)
On Thursday, Tim Cook took to Twitter to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Macintosh, recalling how it changed the world. "35 years ago, Macintosh said hello. It changed the way we think about computers and went on to change the world. We love the Mac, and today weâ(TM)re proud that more people than ever are using it to follow their passions and create the future," Cook tweeted. The Register provides a brief history lesson on how the Mac changed how users interact with computers. Here is an excerpt from the report: After the disastrous debut of the Lisa, and the abject failure of the Apple III, it was down to the Steve Jobs-led Macintosh project to save the day for the troubled computer manufacturer. Rival IBM had launched the Personal Computer XT just under a year earlier, in March 1983, with up to 640KB of RAM and a mighty Intel 8088 CPU. It also included PC-DOS 2, which would go on to underpin Microsoft's operating system efforts in subsequent decades. IBM had started to rule the PC industry, but what the IBM PC XT did not have was a graphical user interface, sticking instead with the sober command line of DOS. The Macintosh, on the other hand, had a GUI lifted from Apple's ill-fated Lisa project, except (and unusually, as things would turn out) retailed at a lower price of $2,495 (just over $6,000 in today's money). It ran faster than the Lisa too, with its Motorola 68000 CPU clocked at 7.8MHz.
The good news ended there. The machine shipped with a woeful 128KB of RAM, which was shared with the black and white 512 x 342 pixel display built into the box. That 128KB was resolutely not upgradable, and fans would have to wait until September for Apple to unleash a 512KB version for another $300. The only storage provided was a single 400KB 3 1/2;-inch disk, an improvement over the 360KB 5¼-inch floppies of IBM's PC XT and the nature of the box meant that any extra storage would have to be external. Users became quickly accustomed to swapping floppies in order to do what little useful work the pitiful 128K would afford. Third parties eventually launched hard drives for the machines, which had to be attached via the serial port. Apple would make a 20MB drive in the form of the Hard Disk 20 available in September 1985 for the 512KB Mac at a cost of $1,495. Owners of the original 128K Mac, however, needed not apply. The limited RAM made the new Hierarchical File System a non-starter.
The good news ended there. The machine shipped with a woeful 128KB of RAM, which was shared with the black and white 512 x 342 pixel display built into the box. That 128KB was resolutely not upgradable, and fans would have to wait until September for Apple to unleash a 512KB version for another $300. The only storage provided was a single 400KB 3 1/2;-inch disk, an improvement over the 360KB 5¼-inch floppies of IBM's PC XT and the nature of the box meant that any extra storage would have to be external. Users became quickly accustomed to swapping floppies in order to do what little useful work the pitiful 128K would afford. Third parties eventually launched hard drives for the machines, which had to be attached via the serial port. Apple would make a 20MB drive in the form of the Hard Disk 20 available in September 1985 for the 512KB Mac at a cost of $1,495. Owners of the original 128K Mac, however, needed not apply. The limited RAM made the new Hierarchical File System a non-starter.
Still beats Windows ME.
That blurb reminded me how much things used to suck.
and it didn't change the world, no matter how many times you invoke that pompous TV advert to pretend it did.
While there may have been one or two machines (the Mac wasn't one of them) that were absolutely groundbreaking and unrivaled in the 80's and early 90's, the only thing to actually have come close to "change the world" would've been the IBM PC together with the release of Windows 95.
for a computer that revolutionised the very concept of a computer. The Macintosh was not about RAM, or CPU, or colour. The key part was the mouse, and GUI that could make use of it. That alone made it the most suitable device for a wide range of activities.
Apple had a "special" disk copy software program that could copy a floppy
in the minimum number of swaps (I forget the #) - it basically "took over"
the CPU (remember, there was no kernel in those days, the OS loaded
from floppy each time) and was a dedicated OS just to copy a floppy.
I think you could do the same thing in the Finder, but it was a long process.
I don't think I'll ever completely forget the sound of the multi-speed floppy
as it booted the OS. It always sounded the same - you could tell if something
was "off" if it didn't play its tune properly! Those were simpler times and days...
Also, pretty sure Cook is wrong about the 35 years, no way could that much ...
time have passed. I think he means 10 years. Yeah, that's it, it was only 10
years ago. I feel better now
And BTW, they were programs back then - not apps! Apps were for sissies!
CAP === 'copying' <== I swear, this was the captcha!!!
Can't believe I was 15 and had already developed a disdain for Apple and preference for the "open" IBM PC.
When people of modest means could start a successful software company with a great idea. All you needed to get version 1.0 out was something that kind of worked better than everything else. You could get enough revenues to support the development of improved versions and grow into a booming company. Today, you need massive amounts of cash to develop because every customer demands features A to Z, enterprise scalability, and rock solid testing before they will even look at it. It has turned into a game that only the big boys can play.
And theyâ(TM)ve made it a pleasant experience for people who refuse to geek.
I think the commerical announcing the Mac was one the best commericals ever, if not the best. I remembered it well even though it would be many many years later before I saw the commercial again.
Macs are still overpriced and underpowered, and now you get the added bonus of never being able to upgrade a single component. In three years you throw the whole thing out and start over.
However, one thing hasn't changed. You still need to buy accessories to get them to work since Apple doesn't believe in multiple USB ports or anything similar.
Article is incorrect about "That 128KB was resolutely not upgradable". I personally upgraded my own.
Just another day in Paradise
I want a box I can put multiple video cards, half a dozen hard drives and several PCI cards in.
It will have a very busy, high heat duty cycle so nothing with laptop parts, please. It's going to be using all of the electricity that comes out of the wall so give me a box that can move a lot of air through it.
My Mac Pro 5,1s are hanging on but I can use a refresh. Currently nothing, nothing in the Mac line up is anything close to a replacement and please don't suggest that using EGPUs makes sense on a desktop machine.
I want a new full sized tower for heavy lifting.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
was buying a Mac
in '85 I bought a 'Fat Mac''
I spent about NZ$10,000
(a rich uncle had left me some money)
in '88 I sold it to pay for a down payment on a laser printer
What was wrong with the Mac?
Not enough buttons on the mouse
Not enough keys on the keyboard
Not enough colors on the screen
(screen too small)
zero expandablity
and the local apple dealer wouldn't sell games
From '86 until I left NZ in 2002 I owned Amiga computer(s)
Good to see M$ is still at astroturfing. Winblows has always been irrelevant and bad, yet most use it as they think they have no choice due to brainwashing by M$. M$ has never changed as free software is being embraced by M$ only to extend and extinguish it to replace it with non-free software.
--
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Friends do assist M$ addicted friends in committing suicide.
... put them out of reach for many people. We got one in our university engineering research group--probably through a grant. The only people using it were students that wanted to play around with the graphics capability in order to gen up a fancier version of a paper. We had a later Mac version (one of the big desktop systems---not the Banana Junior 6000 types) that our draftperson used to create drawings, graphs, plots, etc. for papers we put out. Same deal---likely bought as part of a grant or departmental hardware budget.
The other affect on prices was what happened to peripherals that were used mainly by Macophiles. I needed a SCSI disk drive in those days to hang off a SBC we were going to use for data collection. Because Macs users seemed to have money to burn, I wound up eating upwards of $600 for a 20MB hard drive (that, IIRC, cost more than what we had paid for the 200MB discs we put in Microvaxes)---and I had to look high and low to even get pricing that low. Most mail order outfits suppliers were charging well above that.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Only the creative types convinced anyone they needed them because they are special, too. Liberals always loved them and made sure you knew how much smarter they were than you for doing so. I about died from laughter when they switched to Intel. Fuck Apple and their komrades.
I remember seeing the first wave of ads in magazines for the Mac in 1984, with the tagline "The computer for the rest of us." Being the snarky C64 user at the time, I liked to append "Who can afford it." to that tagline in my mind. With a decent Mac setup costing around $2,000 (in 1984 dollars!), it was insanely expensive and nobody in high school had one. It was certainly not aimed at lower middle class teen peons like me who could only afford a Commodore, Atari, Tandy, or TI home computer (hell, even CrApple 8-bit computers were crazy expensive compared to competing 8-bit machines at the time).
It wasn't until my first year of college in 1985-86 that I first encountered somebody with a Mac. Of course that somebody was a dorm roommate who proved to be a dick, and I was glad to part ways with him by the end of the school year.
It wasn't until 1994 that I bought a Mac, which was a refurbed Mac Color Classic. I only got it to learn how to use a Mac, as I was gunning for a job working in pre-press at a print shop. I found a different job (web development work) and then sold the Mac a couple years later. That was the only Mac I ever owned.
There are few times in one's life when one can take just one look at a new technology and immediately know that this it's a game changer and is the future. The debut of the Mac was one of those moments, as was the Web, and iPhone.
A lot of people failed to understand the Mac at the beginning but the friendly and attractive and intuitive interface really caught on.
Yes and no. There was quite a bit of Apple evangelism going on. GUI did not necessarily just catch on in 1984, Apple worked hard to see that it did. Surely GUI would eventually catch on but with 1984 tech maybe a push was necessary.
:-) It was an incredibly wise move by Apple IMHO.
Keep in mind that the embrace of the GUI had to occur both with the consumer and the developer. Apple was very smart in this regard. As a published Apple ][ developer we were automatically accepted into the Mac developer program. This gave us early access to the Mac at a reduced cost.
Several months before Apple sent us our Mac we were sent the documentation. A big part of that first delivery of the documentation was basically the evangelism convincing us to go GUI, to *not* just emulate a 40x25 or 80x25 text display and port our software directly. Being deprived of hardware and incredibly excited and curious we read everything Apple sent us. For all I know this may be the only time in history where indie developers sat down and thoroughly read the documentation before writing any code.
No. Windows 3.1 changed the PC world, that is where the PC world decided to go GUI. Windows 95 is merely where people said this is almost as good as a Mac. Mac OS was quite a bit crufty by the Win95 era. MS had WinNT which was far ahead of Mac OS. Apple did not get good again until Mac OS X.
Gone full Apple computer.
With a faster CPU. Color. GPU. Ethernet. Much better sound.
Games and networked business software.
The set Macintosh cost and sound, graphics, speed, lack of networking held computing design back for years.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
6.5" was not a problem, you just put a 1" margin on both the left and right.
:-)
For something as formal as a thesis where the right probably needs to be 1/2" one would do the writing and digital proofreading with a 1" margin then when happy change the margin to 1/2" print and do the hard copy proofreading.
I know this sounds awkward but the alternative was a text based editor, or gasp a typewriter. The margin kludge was the least painful of the options.
Back in the 80s I worked for a small company doing upgrades to the original Mac. It was a glorious hack, add an extra board and a hard drive.
I always felt Jobs missed an obvious opportunity by not incorporating Hypercard into MacOS ala smallTalk with the Xerox Alto. There was discussion of doing this, but Jobs made a poor decision and eventually canned the whole program. Not everything he did was "visionary".
My first Mac program was developed on the MacXL, I think it was a repurposed Lisa. The program was used at CSUN for some psychology experiments.,
But "popularized"? The Mac is at its most popular today, and it's still a small niche.
Even if you believe the fantasy that the Mac is a "Small Niche" (with north of a hundred million of desktop Mac units sold over the years), just the fact that Windows has borrowed a lot from the Mac over the years means that yes, in fact, the Mac was responsible for many GUI ideas being popularized... look at the Windows GUI pre and post Mac.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I received a 128K MAC in 1984 while a student at Drexel (we were part of the Consortsium and paid $2k for out Macs). We had to buy one and, having just purchased an IBM PC in 1982, I was not pleased at first. Yes, 128K was dismal. But, we successfully used it for word processing, graphics, lab work, and games. Initially, we had to develop using a Lisa because the Mac did not have a native development suite. That changed soon enough with Aztec, Lightspeed, and even Borland Turbo Pascal and Turbo Basic. Microsoft released Basic for the Mac as well.
I upgraded my Mac to 512, 512KE, and to MacPlus with a whopping 2MB. It travelled around the world in my Navy stateroom after I graduated where I continued to develop crypto software.
I sold the Mac at a flea market for $50 some 10 years later. I regret having sold it. Our Macs were signed by the entire team. Collector editions???? Others turned their macs into fish tanks.
The ROM in the original Mac (and upgrades) were truly amazing pieces of code. QuickDraw enabled the lowly 128K machine to do some amazing things. Say what you want, but the Mac was revolutionary.
I used Windows and Linux machines in my work. Didn’t buy another Mac until 2011. I now have a MacBook Pro as well as that 2011 iMac (despite being unable to upgrade the OS now). I love my Mac. Is it a gaming computer? Fuck no. But, I don’t play games. I use it for work where I am a solutions architect. It gets the job done. But, I want a iMac Pro. Lol.
Mac OS 8 and 9 sucked, but this is what the iMac launched with and I believe that was successful still. e.g. people bought it to get a computer that goes on the Internet.
The real success did not occur until Intel CPUs and Mac OS X. That is where their marketshare doubled, that is where people no longer had to choose PC or Mac software, they could have both thanks the Boot Camp. Yes there were emulators but dual boot solves a lot of compatibility and performance problems. Although moving to Intel helped greatly here to, only the API had to be emulated not the instruction set as on PowerPC based system.
actually Jobs was the reason why the Apple III failed in the first place. The design was ok, but jobs insisted on a fanless design and the cooling fans were pulled, the rest is history.
First off you couldn't mix driver models, which at that time was hard unless you had a legacy free system like a late pentium 3 or pentium 4 system. Doing so caused all sorts of instability and eventual crashes.
Second you couldn't reliably have more than about 512 megs of RAM. I managed to run 1 gig in a box for a relative, and it works pretty well when shut down daily. However certain sequences of activities, like loading certain programs in a row, would cause various forms of instability or corruption, particularly to the desktop, and eventually crash or freeze the machine. I got the config.sys and autoexec.bat settings fixed up to allow it, but it required reducing the file cache size and some other changes to work, which had their own issues depending on the applications you wanted open.
The final downside was the lack of a full featured dos implementation and the ability to return to dos, like earlier Win9x versions had. If you were still using both windows and dos native applications Win98 was still a much better platform.
If you worked around all of these, it was still quite a good OS. I had a relative continue using it until 2006 or 2008 when they replaced it with a MacBook, before eventually defecting back to a Windows 7 notebook before splitting their time between Windows and Linux. If you wanted to play videogames on a single core processor and wanted the lowest overhead possible, it was a fast and capable operating system. Really the largest flaw with it was FAT32 and the 4 gig file size limit. That is what forced people to migrate to windows 2000/xp even before Direct X support was dropped and api changes resulted in updated applications breaking.
That said, by todays standards it is fundamentally insecure, although not really any less stable or bloated than modern versions of windows.
Not sure if you'd say that was "on the market" though.
Not sure what the status of the stuff from Xerox PARC was.
And Tim Cook fucked it up.
I still remember the first time I saw a MacIntosh. I burst into uncontrollable laughter. And I still giggle when I think of the MacIntosh.
I did lots of document and spreadsheet work with those cute little guys. Let us not forget the Apple Laser 300. Overpriced ... maybe ... $5000, but it was Laser and Poscript. There was also the great Imagewriter dot matrix fonts, and not to mention their cute and easy server software. I absolutely loved pounding out papers on their long-stroked keyboards. I did miss not having a 10-key at first, but that was quickly rectified.
* They are still at least 2x the price of non-macintosh computers with similar hardware
* They still come with under-powered CPU's compared to their competition
* They still come with a minimal amount of RAM
* They are still not designed to be "up-gradable" (often RAM and CPUs are soldered in place, etc.)
The Mac Plus (1986) could be outfitted with 4096K RAM, and that's the upgrade I pursued with my 128k Mac. I think this was in 1989 when I was a junior in college. By the time I was a senior, I purchased a 100mb SCSI hard drive, and it rocked.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Cant innovate my ass
When they made the freshman buy macs. the one thing that isn't mentioned her is that there was NO software for it in the beginning.