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Apple Businesses

Making The Macintosh 1.0 37

Posted by Hemos from the blast-from-the-past dept.
beekman1 writes: "Stanford has up their first edition of Making the Macintosh. Where many articles deal with the political aspects of this period (Steve Jobs taking over, etc.) this one has the technical details like the evolution of the mouse from lab testing to production device. Link aquired from ArsTechnica"
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Making the Macintosh 1.0 More

Making the Macintosh 1.0

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  • I agree the drop down menu move the mouse around kinda sucks, but the mouse has its place. Thinking about using photoshop without a mouse makes me think it wasn't such a bad idea (mouse for some tasks very good), just one gone too far. Although application designers on the mac through the use of "Shortcut keys" eliminate trips to menus and toolbars and make me happy

  • IBM makes one; you can also buy one from http://www.pckeyboard.com/onthestk.htm [pckeyboard.com]

  • Re:This isn't news :-) (Score:4)

    by UncleRoger ( 9456 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @08:00AM (#809384) Homepage
    Slashdot, history for nerds. Things that used to matter.

    Cute. Actually, very funny. But seriously, let me tell you a little story. Back about 6 or 7 years ago, I had a client that sold a minicomputer-based software package, and was developing a microcomputer- based package to complement it. I was working on the larger system at the time. One day, I was working away, when I happened to notice a conversation going on over on the microweenie side of the office. The programmers were talking about a problem they had encountered in testing wherein if one person read a record, then another person read the same record, changed it and wrote it back to the database, and then the first person made their changes and wrote their version of the record out, the second person's changes would be lost. They seemed to think that this was something new and unusual, and needed some kind of new solution to overcome it. I called it record locking, and took it for granted.

    Here's a quote I was going to use in submitting a story about the Vintage Computer Festival [vintage.org] (until someone beat me to it):

    "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana (born 1863; died 1952)

    The point is, you need to know your past, or you will needlessly make the same mistakes your predecessors made.

  • Um, dude, that's a 5 pack, or about 55$ per. Quite reasonable.

    -----------------------

  • Great! Here is a glimpse into the future

    Slashdot.org [slashdot.org]
    This Link[1] has been provided by Hueristics Inc.&copy under the express written intent to convey accurate transport. Said link, hereafter referred to as Link, has been approved by claimant company Hueristics Inc.&copy and ratified as valid by source page, Slashdot Sub-Exclusive Comment, node 23,512.

    BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK YOU HEREBY WAIVE ALL RIGHTS TO CLAIMING PUNITIVE DAMAGES, WHETHER BY UNINTENDED LINKAGE OR MALPURPOSED USER ACTION[2]. SAID INTERNET USER DISMISSES ABILITY TO COUNTER SUIT IN THE EVENT OF LAWSUIT LAID OUT BY CLAIMANT COMPANY ON CHARGES OF ILLEGAL ACCESS.

    [1] Link is the supported legal term for any transport method whereby the said user is demonstratably moved from one page to another.
    [2]Such as errant, or absent minded clicking, use of various body appendages to click, or falling sleep while reading this disclaimer.
  • Communications Network Impact ...
    back 20 years ago the impact on the phone companys equipment
    would have been a major concern they didn't have the infrastructure
    to handle millions of computers tieing up the phone circuits
  • The parent post if full of half truths, I can't imagine a more incorrect description of the early days at Apple.

    Jobs was the one who wanted to set the price of the machines in the stratosphere. Scully may have supported him because he was the head honcho but Jean Louis Gasse was definitely against it. Gasse didn't like Be too much though, you are right on that count at least.

  • That is a hedge against legal retribution from the MPAA. The recent decision by Judge Kaplan has a large part of the web content providers in a quandry. Most of their lawyers have been advising them to maintain, not necessarily publicize, the source of their links. The thining is that in the event of a lawsuit the defendant could make the claim that the link was acquired via a third party.
  • ...So raise your fist and march around...
  • AppleTalk was pretty cool for its time. I saw people networking Macs and laser printers with AppleTalk long before Ethernet became common on PCs. Even with Ethernet, the PCs are still using proprietary protocols for printing and file sharing.

  • Kinda neat to see the term information Appliance being used back then:

    What is desired is for the computer to become an appliance, but not a mere appliance. Its presence must be taken for granted by its user, but in the long run, the act of programming itself must be taken for granted as well. In the short run it will be, if successful, an information appliance.

    (from computers by the millions [stanford.edu])

    Isn't that what all these companies are trying to do today?/p?

  • From shop.micros~1.com [microsoft.com] we find this little tidbit.

    Microsoft® Intellimouse® Explorer Win9x
    English,Brazilian,FR/DE/IT/PT/ES 5 Pack CD
    CD-ROM $289.00

    "Wait a second Bill, aren't you going to do the courtesy of a reach around before you do that to me?"

  • I agree that mouse can be very distracting. I never use it to access menu items, window menus, changing between windows and the like, and rarely to cut and paste text I am editing (using vi instead). But even cursor keys can be distractive -- that is one of the reasons I am using vi: using hjkl is very convenient. But a pointer device is still sometimes necessary -- and Idon't mean gamers and graphic designers here. Recently I have boutht my first notebook, a very old Toshiba, with a, erm, how one could call this pointer device, I don't know. I call it a clitoris. Sorry. It is this little thing between the keys b,h and g, and it is really, really comfortable to use. Better then touchpad/ ball / anything else I have used over the years. You dont have to move your hands at all away from the keyboard. And I would like to have a keyboard for the workstation with a device like that.

    Best regards,

    January

  • Localtalk wasn't bad for its time, although it would have been better if they had bundled the little Farallon Phonenet adapters with the systems instead of requiring you to boost them from someplace that had them.

    In many respects one of the more common proprietary protocols for the PC, IPX, isn't all that different from Appletalk. IPX in some ways is smarter than IP -- using the ethernet address for the node address guarantees uniqueness and eliminates host configuration hassles, and it has a nice fat 80 bit address space when you combine the node space (48-bit ethernet) with the 32 bit network address space.

    There are parts of it that are stupid, like mindless bandwidth stealing SAP/RIP updates, but these are certainly no worse than Appletalk chatter.

  • Re:the imac in 1981? (Score:3)

    by MrBogus ( 173033 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @09:55AM (#809396)
    The early Apple designers were aware [stanford.edu] of the wide area systems that were in place, such as the ARPANet, the question was how to develop applications on top of it. They even had the concept of POPs and ISPs down (calling them "A Nodes").

    Where the disconnect happened was later on, when Apple's managers chose to build a proprietary network system and actively discourage connections to other systems. Wired 5.11 [wired.com] had a big expose of how Apple basically told corporate MIS to go to hell when people were requesting hetrogenius networking for the Mac:

    Just as he had dismissed the importance of licensing, Gassée never saw the need for Apple's computers to communicate with anything except other Apple computers. ... This was a terrible strategy, of course, because it did not seamlessly link Macintoshes with IBM-compatibles. "We looked at Gassée and said, 'Who is this guy?'"
    ...
    Jean-Louis Gassée had won nearly every fight. He was the undisputed master of engineering, the person who had almost always gotten his way. Now he would put another indelible stamp on Apple, one that would have repercussions as grave as the decision not to license.
  • The father of the mouse, Douglas Engelbart, had a slightly different idea of how the mouse would be used. The mouse was developed in conjunction with the chord keyboard. If you've never encountered the idea before, a chord keyboard is a minimalist one handed keyboard with just a few keys. Letters are typed with a chord keyboard through key combinations or "chords". The idea was that you would use the mouse with one hand and type with the other.

    Of course, considering that the Qwerty keyboard is still in wide use and there are many computer users who wouldn't even comprehend the concept of a different keyboard layout let alone a different type of keyboard entirely, it's not surprising that the chord keyboard hasn't caught on. It's kind of sad really, it might be a much better system. Of course, it has a learning curve, but so does a regular keyboard.

    I think that the mouse was a good idea. It's not being used entirely as it was intended, however.
  • It also doesn't help that ArsTechnica is the most pretentious name on the net. Its just weblog-type name dropping, instead of giving credit to the authors (heaven forbid we list their names in the main page) who created these articles its a lot easier to thank some loser at Ars who can copy and paste links.

  • Re:Useful (and funny) error messages! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here are a few more entertaining error/warning messages from the old 68K MPW C compiler (snagged from a 6/99 post by Greg Branche to the MPW-Dev Mailing list):

    "String literal too long (I let you have 512 characters, that's 3 more than
    ANSI said I should)"

    "...And the lord said, 'lo, there shall only be case or default labels
    inside a switch statement'"

    "a typedef name was a complete surprise to me at this point in your program"

    "'Volatile' and 'Register' are not miscible"

    "You can't modify a constant"

    "This struct already has a perfectly good definition"

    "This union already has a perfectly good definition"

    "This enum already has a perfectly good definition"

    "Only one parameter per register please "

    "type in (cast) must be scalar; ANSI 3.3.4; page 39, lines 10-11 (I know
    you don't care, I'm just trying to annoy you)"

    "This array has no size, and that's bad"

    "Huh ?"

    "can't go mucking with a 'void *'"

    "we already did this function"

    "This label is the target of a goto from outside of the block containing
    this label AND this block has an automatic variable with an initializer AND
    your window wasn't wide enough to read this whole error message"
    (Remember, this one would have been displayed as a single line in the MPW
    worksheet...)

    "Call me paranoid but finding '/*' inside this comment makes me suspicious"

    "Too many errors on one line (make fewer)"

    "Symbol table full - fatal heap error; please go buy a RAM upgrade from
    your local Apple dealer"

    "Trailing comma not permitted in enum definition. "
    "(This time I'm letting you off with a warning)"
  • Yeah- they are funny :)

    Here [google.com] are lots of links to the error messages.

  • Re:Mouse Balls (Score:3)

    by tooth ( 111958 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @05:22AM (#809401)
    Check out the pics of these advertisments for meeces [stanford.edu]

    ...the mouse's name (the scientific-sounding X063X), and a $400 price tag

    Wow, $400 for a clunky looking box-mouse thing! How far we've come in 25 years! I mean now I've got a sexy looking curvy-with-scroll-wheel-and-red-light-mouse thing. It enhances my computer experience so much.

    Oh, and the of course the marketing [microsoft.com] has improved.

  • Link aquired from ArsTechnica"

    That's a little overkill, isn't it ?

  • What The Site Fails To Mention.... (Score:5)

    by Bill Daras ( 102772 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @05:30AM (#809403) Homepage
    (Normally I am quite critical of Apple, the Mac and Steve Jobs himself. This is one situation where I feel I need to make an exception....)

    Steve Jobs may have a reputation as a control freak, but even he didn't always get his way , especially when it came to the Mac.

    Many of us know about his demand for 3 mouse buttons, but few know about his instistance that the first Mac be priced at $1,299. For what they were selling at the time, it would have truly been a computer for the rest of us, and would have lived up to all the hype.

    However Scully decided he wanted to make a lot of money. His idea was "forget about things like userbase, and pay attention to stock prices!"

    The introductory price of $2,499 was an insult to everything the Mac was supposed to be about.

    Jobs complained to Scully, who along with Jean Louis Gasse (yep, THAT one) raved about how wonderful it would be when Apple was charging $10,000 for Macs . Which they did.

    It only went downhill from there.....

    The marketshare rose slowly, then fell dramatically. Gasse fought licensing of the Mac for years, then bitched endlessly when Apple refused to give Be their specs.

    Then, 2 years ago, Jobs finally got his chance to ship a $1,299 All-In-One Mac. Finally laying to rest the demons from when he first started to lose control.....
  • IT Sseems from this paper
    http://library.stanford.edu/mac/primary/docs/cbm .html
    by Jef Raskin had a major influence on Steve Jobs. It seems
    to describe the iMac and abvioulsy the early macs. Or maybe
    he was influinced my Steve?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Slashdot, history for nerds. Things that used to matter.

    :-)

    Vanguard

  • Re:Useful error messages! (Score:3)

    by StorminNorman ( 83059 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @05:40AM (#809407)
    actually, if you ever use the mac, you'll know that it has heaps of useful error messages.

    "Sorry, A system error occured." is the one that appears in a modal dialog with a bomb. No other Macintosh error messages do this. (IIRC, the bomb is actually in ROM on older systems).

    The sad mac is useful: it tells of a ROM failure, and there is a technote (don't know the number) that explains exactly what all the sad mac error messages mean. Most of them are to do with hardware faliures, and are usually accompanied by the 'chimes of doom' (basically a short sample played instead of the chord, older Macs had a slice of Beethoven, my Centris plays a drum solo and G1 and G2 powermacs have the sound of a car crashing!).

    The best error messages come from an old version of MPW, and includes this classic: 'call me paranoid, but seeing /* inside a comment makes me nervous.'


  • Re:the imac in 1981? (Score:3)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @05:46AM (#809408)
    I read the same thing [stanford.edu], and I have to agree that apple saw the value and scalability of simplicity early in the development cycle. What amazes me is how clueless they were on Wide Area Networking at the time.

    Consider this:
    Communications Network Impact ...
    " A real-time conversation involves two (or more) people with terminals carrying on an exchange. Such a conversation could easily last for hours. Or two computers could be co-operating on a problem, with the same duration of contact. Such usage could, in the face of a million users, tie up large portions of phone company equipment all out of proportion to the numbers using the system. "

    Wouldn't it have been amazing if apple was at the leading edge of networking in the 1980s [isoc.org] and included BITNET with their little mac instead of pouring all those resources into their own networking thing? Imagine where we'de be today with the world "discovering" the net 15 years earlier?

  • I've used Macs extensively (especially older ones) and I've seen the bomb accompany all kinds of crazy stuff, from the "Cannot open '' because ." to the bomb just sitting in a box with no message. Granted, documented/helpful error messages weren't exactly in vogue at the time, but geez!

  • Re:the imac in 1981? (Score:3)

    by tooth ( 111958 ) on Saturday September 02, 2000 @05:49AM (#809410)
    I love the last line of this document:

    The main question is this: what will millions of people do with them?

    What a silly question... look at pr0n, steal songs from the RIAA, and download code to rip DVD's of course! Oh, and read /. too :)

  • The history of computers is an interesting topic isn't there a project cataloging all the different parts of computer history going on?

    There most certainly is! Perhaps you missed the story on the Vintage Computer Festival [vintage.org] the other day? There are a lot of people involved in preserving the quickly disappearing history of the computer industry, including myself [sinasohn.com]. Check out some of the others, such as:

    or, for a more international view, try:

    For tons more, check out the links page at the Vintage Computer Festival [vintage.org], or better yet, come to the VCF at the end of September and experience history in person!

  • I really don't see why you like those damn things (personally, I can't stand them) but they do make normal keyboards with those built in. I saw one at Best Buy last week.
    --
  • On the contrary, I'd say it's good manners to credit the source that pointed you to the link. Just like Slashdot credits the submitter of their stories.

    ---------

  • yes my first thought on the last line was
    download porn of course!
  • Finally, a fairly unbiased historical piece, that actually helps undo some of the damage "Pirates of Silicon Valley" did to the story.

    Anyone who knows anything about Apple culture, knows Steve Jobs is a chameleon. He takes the best of whats around him, and blends. Unfortunately, at times, he is insane, but, you cant have everything. And, its especially nice to see Raskin get his long overdue props.

    Woz was brilliant, Jobs had his place too, but, the Raskin was right, Jobs would have you believe that it was him who brainstormed up Macintosh after the Xerox visit. When, in actuality Macintosh was a project started YEARS before Xerox ever appeared on the Apple map.

    Its also good to see the actual Lisa story set straight once and for all, as Lisa was really just a bloated and ill concieved mac model. Thats right folks, The Mac was *not* a stripped down Lisa. The Lisa was an overpriced and overblown Mac. In fact, the Mac development group was raided to build the Lisa in the first place.

    In any event, it just goes to show, you cant believe everything you see on TV. And, when you actually use your head and read, alot more truth can be had, as opposed to waiting for the next soundbyte.

    Hopefully, they will get more interviews up soon, im very interested in seeing some more of the mindsets in relation to the Mac development.

  • Gasse didn't like Be too much though, you are right on that count at least.

    Oh dear god. I hope you're trolling with this post (I don't know if the rest of what you said is true.) But what the hell do you mean by "Gasse didn't like Be too much"? He was the founder and the current CEO of Be!
    --
  • The history of computers is an interesting topic isn't there a project cataloging all the different parts of computer history going on?
  • Actually, having attended a lecture he gave where he answered this very question, let me make a correction:

    What he _really_ intended was that users would have a chording keyboard, a regular keyboard and a mouse, in roughly that order. So when you need to type a lot, your hands are in front of you, and you're typing on the regular board. Should you need to mouse, you move one hand onto the mouse, and the OTHER hand onto the chording keyboard. after all, you might need to do a little typing (which is impractical on a regular keyboard with one hand) or hold down meta keys or something.

    I suspect that he probably likes keyboards with pointing devices built into them (like erasers) or with convenient trackballs/trackpads just beneath the space key.

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