Remembering the Apple I 153
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."
Most Hackable Computer (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Other good reasons for closing the box... (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
You have 650 Advanced Orders for Apple II? Right. (Score:2, Interesting)
My earliest memory of meeting Steve Jobs was, IIRC, at the Atlantic City Microcomputer Festival in August 1977. He gave me a pitch about the Apple 1 and explained why people wanted color computers, even low resolution, instead of the state of the art monochrome displays. He told me, confidentially, that Apple already had 650 orders for the unannounced Apple II computer. I walked away thinking he was a misguided huckster. 650 advanced orders? Yeah, right, will never happen. I finally decided to buy an Alpha Micro, a 16 bit PDP-11 clone and use it to develop and market software. Now that was a useful computer. It was a true multiuser computer capable of support a whopping 5 users. Alpha Micro Basic language was much more advanced than Apple's. The main regret I have is in not taking more photos of those early days. The majority of the vendors exhibiting at the show were are now long gone, with the notable exception of Apple.
Re:ahh, the good ole days (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
Funny? I'm have trouble finding citation but, as I recall, one of the points of friction between Jobs and Scully at the time of Job's departure was over whether to open up the Macintosh. Jobs was against it. Despite putting slots in the NeXT cubes, I think he still prefers Macs be closed. The first Macs to show the Jobs influence after his return to Apple were the iMacs. Closed again.
Here is a nice story told by Andy Hertzfeld (The main software developer for the macintosh's os) which clearly states that jobs did not want to have any expansion slots in the macintosh (funny read):
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Diagnostic_Port.txt [folklore.org]