Mac Nostalgia On Two Fronts 156
mbishop writes: "There's an article over at MacCentral about this years MacHack keynote where all the original creators of the Macintosh got together to talk about OS X and what they think about Steve Jobs." And if the early days of the Mac are too recent for you, Tom Owad writes to say that "the Apple I Owners Club, founded in 1977 by Joe Torzewski, is back, along with the most extensive reference to the Apple I in existence. The site contains over 120 pages detailing the Apple I computer."
Re:Ahh, the Mac... (Score:1)
Re:Simple question... (Score:1)
It is possible! (Score:1)
MacOS Webservers FAR more secure than Linux ,*BSD (Score:1)
The US Army switched to MacOS servers from WinNT after being hacked so many times.
http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Sep1999/a1999
(There are quarterly discovered expolits in MS Win NT web servers (IIS) and as we all know Linux and even Apache on BSD have had many blatant hacks and exploits regularly.
Why is the mac the most secure? And why are Macs never broken into? Runing MacOS 9.1 and earlier OS's it has no published vulnerabilities ever running WebStar (the most popular of the mac webservers). None.
Webstar is not magical, its just that that MacOS (not counting Mac OS X) is more secure than unix for many reasons.
1> There is no command line shell to allow redirection. No shell, no shell exploits or redirection of scripting.
2> Everyhing is 'root' at all times so programmers do not get lazy and fantacize about the existance of a more secure root to help protect them. The Webstar server, as most mac programs, is written knowing that security is is important and that the code is running at root. Truthfully, PowerPC apps run at user-level, and Gary Davidian's birthdate needs to be passed in a register to gain true supervisor level, but no normal benefit is gained on a mac from running in the microkernel space or debugger-nub space.
3> Macintoshes do not suffer from stack exploits based on buffer overruns of C style strings. The mac uses Pascal style strings, instead of slow null-terminated strings in most all aspects of the entire operating system and in most users code. ANSI-C libraries are traditionally shunned. Pascal style strings are not only faster, they prevent the vast majority of buffer overrun problems.
4> Macintoshes do not EVER exucute code from file that are simple data files, no matter how the file is named or no matter how the file suffix is generated or set. Macintoshes use dual fork files, and text files and data files traditionally cannot easily become executables, and firthemore would typically need to have their 4-byte FILE-TYPE set to a value to even begin to allow a hackers file to be blessed for execution. Webstar and other tools do not typically allow any hacker or rougue tool to set file types by accident or on purpose. On a wintel system a text file saved with a
5> Source to mac os (pre os X) is not typically available outside apple corp. This is not a valid argument for security, (obscurity) but the appologists for the copious amount of linux redhat exploits use this as one reason for the many bugtraq exploits coverred.
6> The Mac OS weservers running Webstar do not automatically allow errantly saved files from executing out of the CGI bin merely because they are stored there.
7> The Mac OS has other good multi-homing multi-domain tools that run on it for robust free email (SIMS), DNS (QuickDNS Pro), FTP (Rumpus) and all have nice user interfaces to configure them and though these commercial tools may not be technically as secure as Webstar itself is, or the MacOS, I prefer them over running any open source tools on FreeBSD,NetBSD,OpenBSD,Linux, etc. Free is only free if you value your tech support at 0 dollars an hour sometimes. Plus, these other non Webstar related tools seem to have mostlty unblemished histories, unlike BIND.
8> People on the mac tend to use scripting languages based on Applescript rather than perl for os level dynamic work and protecting against some minor perl problems, or unix scripting (no command line on a mac, thankfully). I cannot attest to java as being swell, but the fact is many mac people tend to do dynamic content in straight C. Happlily Webstar includes a rich variety of trusted dynamic content assist tools.
There are many reasons that the WWW consortium members published that MacOS webservers are the most secure web servers.
Some huge traffic webservers are also known to run Webstar (Macintouch.com), and Macs are far more stable than NT as servers that keep running forever if on a battery. (Admittedly its not as stable as a highly-stripped down BSD box, but the MacOS security is worth it, and some heavy use macs have uptimes of 3 years instead of 6 months).
Even source forge was hacked into last month, where apache source is held?
So all this laughable talk about shoving crap into kernel space is amusing to me (Tux).
The Mac OS running Open Transport, based on open protocols, and bilevel protocol stack declaration order is amazing. It avoids lots of famous TCPIP hacks and it also allows end-to-end file transfer from ram to ram without copying a single data byte! (only pointers to buffers are passed end-to-end in the most ideal situations) There are also papers that discuss proper tuning of open-transactions vs queued transactions and how to get the most astounding hits per second from dynamic webstar content. But if you want
Re:It's not all memories (Score:1)
That'd be a good move, IMO, especially if it runs OSX, as it would expand the hacker/youth numbers who would start getting some familiarity with Apple, OS X and Darwin.
Re:Racist moderation. (Score:2)
<sarcasm>
I guess you've never heard of X Windows, huh? I'll bet you cringe whenever the Super Bowl comes on television. What is it this year... Super Bowl XXXXI? Man! Four Xs! They must REALLY be racist.
Oh and what about software like Applix? Obviously there is a racial undertone there because of the x in it's name.
Has the thought never occurred to you that Apple just figured it would be somewhat fashionable and "different" (hence their whole grammatically incorrect advertising jingle of "Think Different") to use the roman numeral X instead of the Arabic form we are all used to, 10?
Oh, but of course not. It just HAS to be racially motivated.
But wait! They're obviously religiously prejudiced too! They must hate Christians! After all, X is commonly used as a replacement for the word "Christ". Xianity, Xmas, Xian. These are all common terms too.
Oh, the racist, intolerant bastards! We should string them up like the pig fuckers they are.
</sarcasm>
And now, if you don't get the point of my little diatribe, you really do need to get a life. Yes, racism exists. It always will. Humans are a prejudiced people. Hell, you're likely prejudiced yourself. (Yes, sir, even black people can be prejudiced. It's not something that only The Man is guilty of. Sorry, you're human too. Play again next time.) You need to realize that you're being silly here.
This is computer software for crying in the dark! Hell, Apple even uses many asian, black, and other non-white models in their website and in their literature. Where the hell are you getting all of this racial prejudice malarky from?
I think you need to go and make a trip to Northern Ireland or the Balkans and see what REAL prejudice is all about. They've been at it in Europe for a lot longer than 300 years.
Funny that you're 300 years old, by the way. I thought most human males in America only lived to an average age of 60 or 70-some years. If you've had to put up with humans for 300 years, I can see why you'd be cranky. I probably would be too.
Re: the hardware is too damned expensive (Score:2)
The more recent Apple CRTs (the Blue and White and Graphite) used regular VGA.
RE: the hardware is too damned expensive (Score:3)
This was true in older Macs - anything before spring of '97, and to a lesser extent 'till Jan of '98.
The old old Macs used special video and network cards and modems. And were all SCSI and ADB or Serial. (Note ADB is the same as S-Video).
Then Apple went to IDE and PCI. But with ADB and Serial, then in '98 they went all USB and tossed in Firewire.
Now your Mac has an IDE CD, Hard Drive, two USB ports, one or two Firewire ports and in the case of the towers, AGP and PCI slots.
The hardware isn't that damned expensive, it's a really good deal and it tends to last longer than your normal name brand or home built PC. At least that was my experiance when I was lead support tech for 1600 PCs and Macs, and it's my experiance now as lead support tech for 500 PCs and Macs.
Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? (Score:3)
And now it looks like Geos is being used in embedded solutions like the Nokia 9xxx phone.
http://www.breadbox.com/normal.html
Re:Just plain old funny. (Score:1)
Re: Old BOLO game!!!!!!! (Score:1)
anyway, a dsk-format disk image of Bolo can be found here: http://ftp.mayn.de/pub/mirrors/apple.asimov.net/g
As for an emulator that can run it... I can't help you out too much. I use Bernie 2 the Rescue, which is probably the world's best IIgs emulator, but it's Mac only. i do know that there are emulators for windows as well, but i really wouldn't know where to find them. (and i hope you haven't forgotten how to load the game
me, i ought to put in some time on roadwar 2000 for the iigs. i frickin loved that when i was younger.
Re:Apple are so racist - boycott them (Score:2)
I sympathize with African-Americans, since I've faced racism myself and because the Jewish race itself has roots in slavehood. We remember our roots in slavehood and celebrate our own emancipation every year in the holiday of Passover.
However, my family was still being persecuted in Russia long after the African-American community was emancipated in the US. My family had nothing to do with slavehood and I resent being blamed for it.
Propagating racism is no way to fight racism.
Re:The low end (Score:2)
Auckland Library (NZ) has recently "upgraded". They bought new monitor/kb combos (mighta been a PC under there too) to replace the old VT systems. The new ones ran an xterm under twm with fuck all else, and it was fine - same UI, keyboard driven, slightly smaller and harder to read (black on white with the xterm).
Then some fool paid for a new system, using an web back end (haven't seen the specifics) and Explorer. Now the library has the same search functionality, with a flashy confusing new design. The legibility dropped thru the floor with 10pt/8pt text on a 15" at 1024x768 I think.
Worse yet, when I asked about this retrograde step to a librarian pal, she told me they had filed a complaint with the designer
Uhuh. Maybe they needed 360 pixels wide to fit in their nice focus-blurred logotyping, and there was no more space for the actual content. Maybe the designer was so impressed with his new 19" monitor he didn't bother looking at it on a 15". Maybe whatever
This is in a place with probably the highest ratio of elderly and corrective-lens wearing computer users short of the local blind institute. How smart is that?
Hey, you, webmaster reading SlashDot! When you go back to work (if you get any more work done this week at all), remember why the user is looking at that page in the first place.
Re:Now hold on a minute... (Score:1)
(This was not an anti-Mac flame. I'm totally okay with the fact that just under 5% of computer owners buy the wrong kind of machine. More power to their silly, misguided souls.) ;-)
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Is Apple, and OS X, on track? (Score:2)
Re:It's not all memories (Score:3)
Re:OS-X's troubles (Score:1)
I don't so running it gives me a message "There is no Windows 2000 compatible DVD decoder installed on this system.
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Has any PC user ever paid for CDRW software? (Score:1)
The last drive I bought was a Phillips 8x4x32 @ Best Buy for ~$75. Can you buy them cheaper without software?
Is lack of Mac software an issue? Did they often sell you the drive and then expect you to go out and fetch the S/W yourself prior to its inclusion in OS9?
Re:Earliest Apple (Score:1)
Damnit (Score:2)
I regret not picking it up and bringing it home, but I think the last thing I need in my place is more crap lying around. Ah well.
Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? (Score:1)
Re:Mmmmm... that floppy sound (Score:2)
Well, if you're going to go that far (synthesizing Old Tyme floppy drive sounds for computers that now no longer have floppy drives), then why don't we simulate the use of video RAM for copying disks like DiskCopy used to, and write random garbage to the top of the screen during, say, CD-ROM burning? :-)
Explanation for the Perplexed
When the Mac was first released, it had only 128KB of RAM and one 400 KB floppy drive. To copy a floppy, which you frequently had to do since there was no hard drive to boot from much less hold files, you used a utility called DiskCopy, which would prompt you to swap floppy disks back and forth until your disk had been copied. This could take...forever. So an important optimization of the procedure was adopted by DiskCopy: the utility would use dedicated video memory to hold another ~20K or so of content during the copy operation. Doing this meant that you would have binary trash written to part of your monitor.
Life was grand. :-) Maybe next time, I'll tell
you how Lode Runner addiction nearly kept me out of grad school...
Re:Ahh, the Mac... (Score:2)
Man, I never thought I'd get old enough to get a lump in my throat over this stuff. The very first time I saw a demo of the Lisa was when they were auctioning one off (as a special item) at the Channel 2 Auction (WGBH) in Boston. I and I'll bet half the geek youth of the city desperately wanted the thing at almost any price. The early warning sign that the Lisa itself wasn't going to be box that changed computing was when the final auction price for the Lisa didn't quite come up to retail, as I recall. The only three Lisas I ever saw "working" were all, oddly enough, given over to secretaries doing word processing.
In as similar vein, the only Xerox Stars I ever saw "in the wild" belonged to the typing pool at the West Haven (CT) VA hospital. Neither I nor anybody who thought they were special had any access to them, and I think the typing staff actually preferred Wang dedicated word processors to these, so they weren't often used...
Nobody knew what to do with this stuff in the early 80s, and I'm convinced that not much progress would have been made if Jobs hadn't been the slave driver he was to get the original Mac done.
Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? (Score:2)
RH cost me about $1.99 at CheapBytes.
Second, the hardware is too damned expensive. And not just to buy, but to upgrade, replace, repair, etc. The greatest news I had ever heard was when Apple was talking about the CHRP. That would have been brilliant. Why they backed out, I'm not sure (probably a wise business move at the time). But being able to run the MacOS on x86 hardware would definately rock.
Oh well:(
Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? (Score:2)
Now while it is true that today many of the items are off the shelf PC parts, the same could not be said as little as... four years ago (right around the time I gave up on the Mac as a platform).
There are still two very important devices that you haven't mentioned (and as I'm a bit out of touch regarding the current state of the Macintosh art, forgive any mistakes) but that is sound and, more importantly, motherboard/cpu combos. It is impossible to custom-build a Mac for anything remotely approaching the cost of a comparable PC. Perhaps if Apple would let me purchase a mobo/cpu combo, I could make things work. But they don't. So I don't buy from them.
Big whoop. Apple obviously doesn't want my sale, so I obviously won't buy from them. What's so hard to understand?
Just something I heard? Buddy, I wept when the 1984 commercial came out (heck, I remember when it referred to IBM) I remember when my blood ran in seven colors. I remember when Bill Gates and Micro-Soft were the best things for the Mac, and Pink was really going to change things. A parrot I am not.
Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? (Score:2)
your welcome. ass
Re: the hardware is too damned expensive (Score:2)
I'm also not sure that I buy into the longevity argument. My current PC was purchased in 1997. Of course, every major part has since been replaced. Not knowing what was 'average' for a Mac in 1997 puts me at a disadvantage, but for playing games (a moderate part of my computing experience) a ca. 1997 machine doesn't cut it in 2001.
Now, on my PC, like on the Apple, I could, and have, easily replaced: drives, mice (although I must admit to having used a first year Apple ADB mouse for about ten years. Wonderful bit of kit), memory, and video.
But, unlike the Mac, I was cheaply able to replace my motherboard and CPU. My total outlay in all of these upgrades has been less than $1000 over four years. I haven't checked, but I think that $1000 barely got you a stripped iMac during that time. (BTW, mobo/cpu combo was around $200. I don't think you can get an accelerator card that cheap. And you can't accelerate every model.)
But to bring it back to something resembling the point:
I agree that it's easier (or at least it was when I was familiar with both Windows and Mac OSes) to maintain Apple machines, and the Apple machine has a longer usable life than the Windows machine. But I also think the x86 is sticking closer to Moore's law than the PPC platform, and will continue for the near future.
Compared to computer prices of... ten years ago, Mac stuff is downright cheap. Cray power for an Apple
If OS-X were sold as x86 compatible (and let's face it, it can't be much of a stretch these days) then Apple would go out of business in a hurry. Not a super hurry, but a hurry, nonetheless. Because they can't charge enough for the OS as a standalone product. In fact, it seems like the exact opposite situation that Sony has with the PS2: Apple loses money with the software, but hopes you buy a box or two to make up for it:)
It's also ironic that you point to late '97-'98 when Apple was switching off of ADB, SCSI, etc. That was another factor in switching to the x86 platform: all my Mac peripherals were now obsolete, and I would have to start over. Why not start over completely, and not be at the whim of King Steve?
Anyway, some people have missed my point entirely: I'm not faulting Apple's logic from a business perspective. I'm not saying anything WRT the technical merits of the platform. I am merely saying that when a computer is a marginal purchase, Apple's products far exceed that margin, while returning only the ability to run MacOS. For some (5%, I believe IDC said) the MacOS is good enough to warrant the extra hardware expense.
For me it isn't. I don't begrudge anybody their choice of platforms. I'm just saying that x86 with 75% Linux/25% Windows made more sense for me. Had Apple gone ahead with the CHRP, it's quite likely that my computing choice (especially in light of OS X) would be 100% Apple. Albeit probably not on their branded hardware.
Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure I can remember the sounds that the old 5 1/4" drive made for each game as it loaded up... Some of the adventure games you could even tell you were about to meet a big monster by the extra disk activity before the next room loaded up.
"Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done".
Re:superbowl ad (Score:2)
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Apple history... (Score:1)
above has this wonderful quote from the IIc release to the effect that the original Apple ][ sold 50k units in 2.5 years, the PC sold 50k units in 8 months, the mac did the same in 74 days and the IIc took orders for 50k in the first 7 hours. The margins were way higher than the Mac and well into the 1980's the II kept Apple alive from quarter to quarter so they could pour craps loads of R&N into new mac's that would have lukewarm sales.. What was so frustrating for Apple fans is that Apple (unlike every other company, Intel continues to make x86's even though they want to make IA64's(or i860's in the past), MS continues to make windows 9x's even though they want to sell NT, etc) refused to hedge their bets and make decent Apple ][ systems to at least maintain their outrageous market share. Instead they only resurrected new II's when the company needed more money. There was a saying to this effect in the 80's. Something along the lines that when the mac R&D was broke and apple didn't have any money they released a new II to stay alive for a couple more years. Meanwhile PC's ate into the market share one huge bite at a time until apple was left where they are today. A minority player with a single digit market share.
Re:Mmmmm... that floppy sound (Score:2)
My Apple //gs 3.5" drive made tha same sound. Ah, the memory of that sound makes my tummy feel warm...
< tofuhead >
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Re:The low end (Score:3)
I used to post to /. from those very vt420s about two or three years ago, while my machines were pending repair work I never got around to doing. :) For people who are comfortable with Lynx (like all the little Pokemon-playing kids that could never wait for the unstable NT PCs to come back online -- zero in-house NT admins at the branches), those vt420s are great.
The sfpl admins wouldn't recompile Lynx for their VMS box with SSL and cookie support, though, so that's when I all but stopped using my Hotmail account.
(Posted from work with Lynx for Win32. :)
< tofuhead >
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Re:Tell us what you really think... (Score:2)
Eh, nevermind, just continue to guess what the articles are about.
Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? (Score:1)
Geos. It still exists, though it changed hands and is now known as NewDeal [newdealinc.com].
Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia (Score:1)
Once upon a time, those would've been fightin' words.
They still are.
Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia (Score:1)
Once upon a time, those would've been fightin' words. There are a few Apple II users who would disagree with your assessment. (Then again, you're probably just a kiddie who's never even seen a II. (Damn...I'm only 29, and already I'm talking like an Olde Pfarte. :-| ))
_/_
/v\
(IIGS(Apple II Forever!
\_^_/
Re: (Score:2)
Gotta Love Satan's Response to Apple: (Score:1)
Xerox didn't "give" anything. (Score:1)
If you're looking for cheap old Macs. (Score:1)
Re:OS-X's troubles (Score:2)
Uhhh...
C:\WINNT\system32\dvdplay.exe
works for me at work. YMMV.
Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? (Score:1)
It sure was neat looking for easter eggs in games.
Man, if there was any justice in this world... (Score:4)
I'm sure Jobs has by this point convinced himself that Macintosh was ultimately his baby, conveniently forgetting that his REAL baby (figuratively, and I guess literally) was LISA- the $10,000, 50lb. landfill-fodder version of Raskin's stripped down, lighter-weight and affordable Macintosh.
Forgetting that Raskin was the one who convinced him, post PARC visit, that the Graphical User Interface was the key to making computers easy for the layperson to use [maccpu.com].
Of all the faces deserving to be celebrated in Apple's "Think Different" campaign of a couple years back, Raskin should've been tops. (Jobs' idea of thinking different is paying himself $1 in annual salary while taking hundreds of millions in stock options and a $90M GulfStream Jet as compensation... Trés different!) If Raskin hadn't convinced Jobs to "Think Different" about Apple's computers, Bill Gates' would have ended up dictating the future of computing, interfaces, and standards...
(wait a minute...)
Screw that. While it would be tempting to end this post with a sardonic quip, I just can't let myself.
It kills me every bloody time I have to see Steve Jobs in the lotus position, levitating across the covers of Fortune or Forbes, letting reporters and historians heap-big-praise on his vain, lucky ass as they mismember history and misinform the population at large about the history of computing. Surely when Jobs dies, those in charge of his estate will have hundreds of millions of dollars they can appropriate to the ongoing perpetuation of false history- while Raskin will end up downgraded, trivialized and ultimately consigned to Tesla's fate of historical irrelevance.
It has to be this way of course, because that is the way that things work- history is written by the winners...
But The Truth Is Out There [slashdot.org]. Read it.
Re:8K was enough back then! (Score:2)
California power bill, two IPX up 24/7:
$328
California power bill w/o IPX:
$90
Re:*sigh* (Score:1)
Remember the cow command? It was some obscure Poke command which would make an Apple ][ moo like a cow.
Re:*sigh* (Score:1)
I remember one of their newsletters, and there was a "letter to the editor" joke in the back. They described an Apple ][ with 256K of RAM, color display, and it fits in a lunchbox. I distinctly remember thinking to myself "That'll NEVER happen! 256K! HAHAHAHAHAHA".
Apple I specifications? (Score:4)
Jef on Jobs (Score:3)
Re:Apple I specifications? (Score:2)
gonna party like it's 1988? (Score:1)
I had a IIGS, which as far as I know will outlast the life of the battery used to keep the time (and probably outlast various components... adb was a great idea, except that with the GS at least (and probably the early macs), continually replugging in the cables going in from the keyboard to the mouse and cpu (my left-handed brother liked to make a big deal out of being able to use the mouse with his left hand, which annoyed this piss out of everyone else in the family) caused the gold connections to wear out, causing sporadic faulty connections, causing occasional slow downs from the blazing 2.7 (or whatever... I thought it was 2.1, but someone else claimed it was 2.7...) MHz to about zero... an experience I relived many times when I "upgraded" to a windows 3.11 machine on a 486 dx2.)
2) According to my recollection on battery specs, the apple IIe battery's were only supposed to be good for 5 years. I know if you leave them on, it doesn't drain that battery, so in theory, one could get a few more years out of them. Are you still on the og battery, and if so, have you been running the Apple II's 24/7 for this long? [Calculating PI perhaps?... upstairs in my parents room next to the GS is a fun happy book on things to do with your Apple... that was one of them... too bad it uses one of the slower converging algorithms, but I guess since it's using native math (instead of a big number library), that's probably irrelevant since you'd never be able to get more than a few decimal places of accuracy anyways.)]
Re:Not really *Mac* nostalgia (Score:2)
Bill Atkinson, NatureImages.com (Score:2)
He uses medium-format film to shoot mostly-still nature, then develops, drum-scans, and touches up on a Photoshop box. Then a "LightJet" print - one of the coolest technologies I've seen. HP does not make the LightJet, BTW. Very cool stuff.
Floppy Drive Music (Score:1)
Mmmmm... that floppy sound (Score:3)
Re:Apple I specifications? (Score:2)
For example, algorithmic complexity is easily explored on paper, and pen & paper is all a CS student needs (if you really wanted to strip them down to the basics). The founders of Computer Science, Alonzo Church and his student Alan Turing, did not use computers... they used pen and paper.
It took decades to rid "common knowledge" of the confusion between EE (electrical engineering) and CS, and I guess it will take a few more decades to rid it of the confusion between CS and SE (software engineering).
Re:Apple I specifications? (Score:2)
Not really *Mac* nostalgia (Score:5)
Apple ][ ad infinitum!
No GNO (Score:2)
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Possibilities! (Score:2)
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The low end (Score:3)
A couple years ago, I was strolling through the new central branch of the San Francisco public library [lib.ca.us]. It was famous being heavily wired (too wired according to some [salon.com]), so I was curious about the gadgetry. I saw the usual array of web workstations -- and the usual long line of people waiting to use them. But I also saw a huge mass of ancient vt-compatible text terminals, mainly used to access the card catalog, but also configured to access the web, using Lynx. No line here, or time limit, and a fair number of people were leisurely cruising the non-graphic web.
If you're involved with upgrading the technology in your public library, think twice before you toss those old terminals.
__
Re:Isn't that like.... (Score:2)
The TNT movie about Jobs and Gates dramatized the whole deal, but I'm sure some of that internal Apple conflict was very real.
Re:Ahh, the Mac... (Score:1)
Just my two cents.
Ahh, the Mac... (Score:2)
Everyone says now, "Oh the Lisa was a piece of crap, it was slow, sometimes buggy. Overpriced." You must understand though, nobody had really ever SEEN anything like that before.
People didn't follow computers back then. People couldn't say, "Oh there's a new computer coming out." At least not most people. So when you saw the Lisa, you barely knew what to say. Icons? Graphics? A.. mouse.. and you can click.. and type? Speechless. 100%.
Later on, it became a novelty and was given to me. Last year I was strapped for cash, and it was sold on eBay and picked up by a person I trusted very much to take care of it. I miss it.
There's my two cents on nostalgia. I love the Mac. I'm running OS X v10.0.4 on my iBook right now. It's incredible.
Re:Apple IS relevant (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with loving Unix and loving the Mac. Marrying them together is a great idea.
Microsoft hired some PARCheads too. (Score:1)
Then there's that pic from 1983 of Gates and Allen standing in front of a whiteboard with the words Windows behind them.
Apple got there PARC spawned products out of the door first, but Microsoft probably got most of the ideas from PARC directly. Also Microsoft programmers worked with the Mac team from the stat
See this page [coppersoftware.com]
Re:Tell us what you really think... (Score:2)
Yes Lord Jobs, we will infiltrate the Great Satan and destroy his evil spawn that has infected everyone's PC! *bow in worship*
-antipop
Re:Man, if there was any justice in this world... (Score:4)
Tesla has an SI measurment named after him (magnetic density, if I recall). Maybe we could name some measurement, like GUI usability, after Raskin.
"Yeah, that system looks pretty, but it has a real low Raskin Rating, you know."
Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? (Score:1)
NewDeal is awesome. We were trying it at work on a bunch of 386's. Its got the Windows 95 sort of look and a great suite of apps including an lightweight www browser. It also requires less than 1MB of RAM! Perfect for old machine you want to be quick internet terminals.
Dammit! (Score:5)
Apple IS relevant (Score:1)
So I ask you, if you think Apple is irrelevant, why are you reading and posting in this thread?
Re:Apple are so racist - boycott them (Score:1)
Re:The thing I most hate about OS X... (Score:1)
In other areas, they set the mark others aspire to.
Re:Bill Atkinson, NatureImages.com (Score:2)
Re:The thing I most hate about OS X... (Score:2)
OSX is NOT based on a Linux kernel.
The interface is not the same since 1984. It has undergone substantial change and growth and is an excellent GUI. How old is xwindows?
You state "Apple doesn't know the first thing about designing a UI", but even the most anti-Apple slashdotter will readily admit they DO know what they are doing in UI design. Their products win awards.
Apple computers do not cost "several thousand dollars" unless you really feel the need to spend that much. The iMac is $799, if that's not enough oomph for you, the new iBook is an outstanding LAPTOP for the money, and even it is not "several thousand dollars".
Re:Ahh, the Mac... (Score:2)
But since you're AC, I figure you know your bullshit is not true.
Simple question... (Score:2)
Ok, so I think the question posed here might just be "where would Steve Jobs be if not for Jef Raskin," correct?
How about this though: Where would Raskin be without Jobs? The Woz? The REST of the garage-junkies that actually got Apple off the ground in the first place?
Sure, Raskin did amazing things for Apple, I won't deny that, but just as it's wrong to claim that Jobs alone is the key to Apple's success, so is it wrong to deify Raskin in the same light.
As for PARC, I'm pretty sure the issue decided itself: Xerox already had commercials lined up praising their GUI project as the greatest innovation since the keyboard (contrary to their handling fo the actual PARC project that allowed Apple's "initiative" with the project). Claiming that Raskin is the sole reason that GUI met Mac is simple hyperbole. GUI = obviously good thing, and there was more communication within Apple than within Xerox over such cutting-edge technology.... Jobs wasn't about to make the same mistake as that which allowed him to "steal" the research in the first place.
Anyway, the point: It's hypocritical to put down jobs by putting Raskin on a pedestal. Personally I've always believed that the team is far more important than the individual.... well, the team, and the Woz, heh.... it's just that the team as a whole isn't as marketable. The difference between Raskin and Jobs is that Jobs too initiative to make himself a public icon from the very beginning, and no matter who's working behind the scenes, it's the figurehead that gets the attention (just as Gates gets all the blame for the numerous "sins" of Microsoft.... most of which I'm willing to bet are the contrivances of marketting groups and high-power executive lackeys rather than any lone perpetrator).
It's not all memories (Score:5)
Re:8K was enough back then! (Score:3)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
Re:OS-X's troubles (Score:2)
Quite frankly this is just false. I have WinME at home (among other OS's) on my home PC. WMP does not play DVD's on any known drive. WMP does not burn CDs (data CD's or Audio CD's from mp3).
Re:OS-X's troubles (Score:5)
When I hear this shit, it nearly makes me sick. With all due respect, I can name no single OS on the market other than OS 9 that has has support for DVD players. Windows has API support but no actual player. Windows doesn't ship with CDR support. WIndows doesn't ship with a intergrated mp3 player that can burn CD's. Windows and Linux don't ship with advanced gaphics layers that each individually have more buzzwords in them than I could ever hope to understand (Colorsync and Quartz come to mind). The shit people complain about can't be found in the upgrades that Microsoft offers, which btw is Apples ONLY competitor. If you are gonna complain, get real. How about finishing up Classic's printing support, or the speed of Quicktime and OpenGL on non-G4's, or maybe the lack of showing inititive and actually shipping nice GUI support for NATD, NFS, et al, or maybe the fact that I have to go to a damn menu to mount an OS 9 HD, that doesn't even mention the fact that OS X ONLY supports AppleTalk over TCP/IP, which although is off by default is a fucking MAJOR secuirty risk in the hands of newbies (will your Mom use hard to guess passwords?). Get real people. If you bought OS X and then bitch about no DVD or CD-RW support, you are an idiot. It never claimed to have it on the box, you were told in advance it would not ship in the initial final release, and Windows users pay money to upgrade thier CD-RW and DVD software after they upgrade...
One of my old friends worked on them (Score:3)
I've still got an Apple II+ with dual floppies and a 172K RAM card (so you can do a RAM disk and speed up your programs to about 1000 times faster than floppy R/W will allow) in my garage, as well as an old Mac SE (with dual floppies and one of the first external 20MB hard drives), which I took to Burning Man last year. One of these days I'll gut them and use them for some art project, but haven't got around to it yet.
And somewhere I've got my old floppies with AppleWriter II and French and English version of Microsoft Word for the Mac.
Re:The low end (Score:2)
I set to 3, and I got smarter everyday.
 _
Re:Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? (Score:2)
Nokia 9110 [nokia.com] is using GEOS, but the latest 9210 [nokia.com] is using Symbian [symbian.com].
Just FYI.
 _
Ah the memories (Score:2)
Re:8K was enough back then! (Score:2)
8K was enough back then! (Score:3)
"8K Bytes RAM in 16 Chips!"
Re:Tell us what you really think... (Score:2)
So what?
Do you think these things are important? I don't, that's why I made the joke.
Dancin Santa
Tell us what you really think... (Score:4)
OS X is the greatest OS we've ever seen. Steve Jobs is wonderful. We're going to buy it again and again.
Damn Jobs Reality Distortion Field...
Dancin Santa
Re:*sigh* (Score:2)
Re:It's not all memories (Score:2)
Re:OS X - Could it be Linux and BSD's nemesis ? (Score:5)
while drinking a bottle of chilled Dom Perignon 73.
Aha! If you really were a Mac user, you would know that the '88 was better.
--Blair
"Can't fool me, boy."
Apple I (Score:2)
Speaking of apple's anybody remember Geos? (Score:2)
Racist moderation. (Score:2)
I am getting sick and tired of racist moderation. I guess after 300 years of oppression I should be used to it, but I had thought that slashdot was free of the kind of racists I encounter in the non-geek world. Oh well another illusion shattered.
Perhaps the moderation system could be altered to take account of the racism of the average slashdotter, so that african americans can only be down-modded by other african-american slashdotters. This would seem the fairest way to make reparation for the years of racism my people have suffered from. What do other african-american slashdotters think about this idea ?
Re:Apple I specifications? (Score:2)
Now hold on a minute... (Score:3)
Oh, never mind.
Re: the hardware is too damned expensive (Score:2)
Truth be told, I think ADC is a cool technology, so I think they should get it standardized like they did with Firewire. It would be cool if all monitors could have power, usb, and video signals through one cable.
Re:Simple question... (Score:2)
You're not giving Raskin his due. He essentially invented the GUI in 1969. Here is a brief history of the GUI as pieced together from multiple sources, including first-hand accounts by Raskin and Bruce Horn themselves:
The origins of the GUI can be traced to 1968, when MIT researcher Dr. Douglas Englebart demonstrated his newest invention, the mouse, by cutting, copying and pasting strings of text. There were no windows in this primitive system, but the characters were bitmapped rather than being produced by a character generator.
A year later, Jef Raskin finished his Masters' thesis, a complete description of the internal implementation details of a GUI. Part of the title of the thesis would later become the name of the MacOS graphics toolbox, QuickDraw, of which Raskin would lead the development.
After college, Raskin went on to work at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on an object oriented GUI environment, programming language, and application framework known as SmallTalk. This formed the foundation of Xerox's later Star and Alto systems, which Xerox never could really figure out how to market. These early GUIs were rather primitive, with icons representing actions rather than objects, no pull-down menus, no desktop metaphor, and windows could only be resized or repositioned by typing in screen coordinates.
Raskin then went to work at Apple. Initially, only the Lisa (high-end business cousin of the Macintosh) was to have a GUI. Jobs wanted the Mac to be more like the old Apple II system, but Raskin had secretly started working on a Mac GUI anyway. Raskin arranged for Jobs and other Apple execs and engineers to go on their two famous visits to PARC, which sold Jobs on the idea of giving the Mac a GUI. By the way, Apple compensated Xerox handsomely for these visits with large chunks of Apple stock.
At Apple, the Macintosh and Lisa teams invented many of the features associated with the modern GUI: draggable windows, pull-down menus, icons representing objects (either physical or abstract), and the desktop metaphor.
As soon as Gates saw an early prototype of the Lisa, his set his programmers to work copying the interface as a graphical shell which would run atop DOS, but not so closely as to make it a blatant rip-off. Much to Jobs' chagrin, Windows v1.0 was shipping (at least in Asian markets) by the time the Mac was unveiled in 1984. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Apple had entered into a contractual agreement for Microsoft to develop applications for the MacOS and Lisa. To accommodate this, Apple loaned MS some prototypes and gave them access to portions of the OS source code.
Apple did later sue Microsoft over stealing the "look and feel" of the interface. The case was eventually dismissed due to a loophole in the aforementioned contract which essentially gave Microsoft the right to use any of the info they were given, including code, for their own products (looks like Apple had inept contract attorneys). This left MS free to produce an even more direct copy of the Mac interface, Windows 95.
OS-X's troubles (Score:5)
OS-X's biggest problems are in multimedia support. One person on the panel indicated a lack of support for color syncronization. OS-X didnt come with DVD support. Doesnt matter to me that I dont get DVD support, I just boot into OS-9 instead.
However, I use OS-X at work and it is absolutely brilliant for my work as a researcher and Java prorgammer. I love how Apple has fully implemented Java and the Darwin kernel so I can get down to my UNIX roots. Even though the OS-X itself is not well documented, the presense of Java and UNIX makes up for it. I have yet to run into OS-specific issues with the OS-X platform.
Re:Ahh, the Mac... (Score:2)
Anbody who questions the role of the Lisa in advancing the GUI can find more than ample evidence in the 5000 pages of texts linked to from the above page.
The differences between the Lisa and Xerox Alto and Star are very significant.