Steve Jobs unveils the first Apple Mac

[booday]

http://www.ryoni.com/news/124/...E/1186/2005-01-28.html

 

[halfadder]

You can read more about the original Mac introduction (and the creation of the mac itself) at http://www.folklore.org

You might also be interested in this:
http://homepage.mac.com/jrc/.P...bs_NS30_demo_large.mov
It's Steve Jobs demoing NeXTSTEP 3.0 back in 1992, in the days when Windows 3.1 was state of the art. NeXT was way ahead of its time in those days.

Both of those videos are very impressive to me, at least in a technical sense. The original Mac in the demo was actually rigged with 512 KB of RAM to generate the MacInTalk voice and to run the slideshow/animation. But it was the same 8 MHz 68000 CPU that was in the 128 KB version. (A lot of people had their 128K Macs hacked to 512K) The double buffered graphics of the Mac used up 48 KB leaving only 80 KB for the OS, main application, and any desk accessories. MacPaint and MacWrite were very impressive considering those constraints because they worked fine with 128K. You could boot off a 3.5" floppy into Mac OS in about 6 seconds and you could launch into MacPaint in about 3 seconds.
http://www.paolorossini.it/mac/apple_big/macPaint.gif
http://toastdesign.com/apple19...fullsize/d10apps2.jpeg
http://www.mac512.com/Mw2.gif
http://boozle.de/diplomarbeit/..._20_images/system1.gif
http://www.operating-system.or...stem-1desktop-scr-.gif

The NeXT systems back in 1998 - 1992 used 25 and 33 MHz 68040 processors (on par with a 486 of the same clockspeed) as well as an AT&T DSP. The architecture of the system and the operating system are what allowed the NeXT to do such impressive work with such limited hardware. NeXTSTEP / OPENSTEP was eventually ported to Sun SPARC, HP PA-RISC, and PC x86 hardware. It later became the basis of Mac OS X when Apple bought NeXT in 1998.
http://www.futuretg.com/FTOSX/...Why_FTOSX/NeXTSTEP.jpg
http://graduate.gradsch.uga.edu/archive/Next.html

 

[SunSamurai]

OS X is ahead of its time now. But again, people are too deluded with windows this and that to even realize the depth of X. So consumed by windows, that they cannot fathom something more. Longhorn < OS X 10 DP2

 

[wakawaka]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
OS X is ahead of its time now. But again, people are too deluded with windows this and that to even realize the depth of X. So consumed by windows, that they cannot fathom something more. Longhorn < OS X 10 DP2

What the heck does your rambling have to do with the original post?

 

[SunSamurai]

haha holy sh!t i remember Mac OS 6 off a floppy. Those were the days. I forget what was on the old old Mac Classics in my high school graphics class. I think it may have been OS 4 something. I remember the control panel looking just like the one in those images.

Originally posted by: wakawaka

Originally posted by: aeternitas
OS X is ahead of its time now. But again, people are too deluded with windows this and that to even realize the depth of X. So consumed by windows, that they cannot fathom something more. Longhorn < OS X 10 DP2

What the heck does your rambling have to do with the original post?

It had to do with the second post, jackass. I bet you don't even see your hypocrisy do you genius.

 

[halfadder]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
haha holy sh!t i remember Mac OS 6 of a floppy. Those were the days. I forget what was on the old old Mac Classics in my high school graphics class. I think it may have been OS 4 something.

My highschool had ancient prehistoric Macintosh IIcx (color, external monitor) and Macintosh SE (black and white all in one) systems. Those were whopping 16 MHz 68030 based. For 3 years, no machine in the entire school had more than 4 MB of RAM, and no machine in the entire school was less than 7 years old. It was horrible, especially since the computer staff insisted on using newer software, which meant slooooow performance on those old, slow, ram-starved computers.

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: halfadder

Originally posted by: aeternitas
haha holy sh!t i remember Mac OS 6 of a floppy. Those were the days. I forget what was on the old old Mac Classics in my high school graphics class. I think it may have been OS 4 something.

My highschool had ancient prehistoric Macintosh IIcx (color, external monitor) and Macintosh SE (black and white all in one) systems. Those were whopping 16 MHz 68030 based. For 3 years, no machine in the entire school had more than 4 MB of RAM, and no machine in the entire school was less than 7 years old. It was horrible, especially since the computer staff insisted on using newer software, which meant slooooow performance on those old, slow, ram-starved computers.

I had all but forgotten about the IIcx untill you mentioned it. That was my first ever computer. I bught it myself working summer jobs. $700. 120MB hard drive 8 MB of ram with RAM DOUBLER installed giveing me 16. I also had to have some extention to enable something to allow the computer to see more ram. I <3 my 68030 CPU. I even had an graphics application that used the 256 color palet and changed it to best fit the color infoprmation in the image. almost like I had 16bit color instead of 8.

I could also play Marathon on it. One of the grandaddys of FPS. Though I had to turn everything to the lowest settings and my play area on screen was a tad bigger than a stamp.

 

[halfadder]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
I had all but forgotten about the IIcx untill you mentioned it. That was my first ever computer. I bught it myself working summer jobs. $700. 120MB hard drive 8 MB of ram with RAM DOUBLER installed giveing me 16. I also had to have some extention to enable something to allow the computer to see more ram. I <3 my 68030 CPU. I even had an graphics application that used the 256 color palet and changed it to best fit the color infoprmation in the image. almost like I had 16bit color instead of 8.

I could also play Marathon on it. One of the grandaddys of FPS. Though I had to turn everything to the lowest settings and my play area on screen was a tad bigger than a stamp.

If you could find a IIcx that was running System 6 and some older software, it was a pleasure to use. We had some running HyperStudio (an advanced full color replacement to HyperCard) as well as ClarisWorks and PhotoMac.Those machines could boot off their hard drives in 10 seconds and they ran nice and fast, even with 4 MB ram.

But man oh man, the Macs we had that ran System 7.0 and newer software were slow buggies. We really needed 8 MB or older software. Rather than upgrade the ram, the computer techs just told us to "enjoy the new features".

Their eventual solution was to buy some new Macs. The first new computers in our school in something like 6 or 7 years. Did they buy Macs that used the PowerPC processor that had already been out for almost 2 years? Oh no, my friend, they bought Macs that still used the 68040 and came with a "Ready For PowerPC Upgrade" sticker. HA! Those machines were obsolete the day they were bought. And how much RAM was installed? Just 8 MB, only double what our ancient machines ran. Couple that with System 7.5 and some brand new 1995 software and it's slow city all over again. ARGH!!! Google for "Mac Office 4.2" or "Mac Word 6" to read some of the horror stories of the software we put up with.

Thinking about how just one additional 72 pin SIMM (or a pair of 30 pin SIMMs in the older machines) would have improved performance by leaps and bounds still makes me mad. Those machines were old but still very capable. It was like trying to run Windows XP on a Pentium 3 with 32 MB of ram. There's more than enough horsepower, but just not enough ram.

 

[SunSamurai]

That sucks. The p[eople overseeing our computer upgrades were not as bad, but still pretty ignorant. They had 'foolproof' on all the Macs. I think the were PPC 601. A few of them (which everyone raced to get on first) were 5200 and 5300 all in ones. Back then I was still pretty new to computer in general, but within just a few weeks I realize that foolproof was made by fools for fooling admins. It was an extention, and everyone whos used Macs for a while knows you press shift at startup and it turns off all extentions. Some security! I was then able to change the background and whatever else I wanted.

Luckly we didnt suffer too bad from lack of ram. Typically we had 32MB on all machines. When they upgraded from 7.5 to 8.0 it was dog slow though.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
OS X is ahead of its time now. But again, people are too deluded with windows this and that to even realize the depth of X. So consumed by windows, that they cannot fathom something more. Longhorn < OS X 10 DP2

Spare us, Apple designs their products to be appealing to a niche market. When they want their product to be widely accepted they target it towards the masses, of which the product then is presented in the most dumbed down it can be - simple enough not to scare away new and unconfident users, yet still provide the niche features their diehard niche fan base wants.

OSX has the same age old Apple weakness. It may be "ahead of its time" for you because you're a niche user, obviously pleased with what Apple is supplying to you for your particular needs.

 

[0roo0roo]

and then came the wild sex parties

 

[MrAustin]

I'm pretty sure my mom still *has* a Mac SE. I'll have to check.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

thats insanely great

 

[otispunkmeyer]

thats insanely great

 

[kamaboko]

Originally posted by: aeternitas
haha holy sh!t i remember Mac OS 6 off a floppy. Those were the days. I forget what was on the old old Mac Classics in my high school graphics class. I think it may have been OS 4 something. I remember the control panel looking just like the one in those images.

Originally posted by: wakawaka

Originally posted by: aeternitas
OS X is ahead of its time now. But again, people are too deluded with windows this and that to even realize the depth of X. So consumed by windows, that they cannot fathom something more. Longhorn < OS X 10 DP2

What the heck does your rambling have to do with the original post?

It had to do with the second post, jackass. I bet you don't even see your hypocrisy do you genius.

you are precisely the kind of consumer computer manufactures love. you treat it as a religion. dude, you've been sucked in. it's just a box. mac/pc...all the same. just a box.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

 

[ZimZum]

Any video of Jobs stealing all of those ideas from Xerox Parc ?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Any video of Jobs stealing all of those ideas from Xerox Parc ?

he got them fair and square by simply hiring the engineers Xerox tossed away.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Any video of Jobs stealing all of those ideas from Xerox Parc ?

I thought Pirates of Silicon Valley covered it pretty well.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Any video of Jobs stealing all of those ideas from Xerox Parc ?

he got them fair and square by simply hiring the engineers Xerox tossed away.

Not exactly.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

i wouldn't let hollywood be your shining beacon of historical accuracy

 

[hopejr]

Thanks for putting that link to the NeXT Demo halfadder. Now I can appreciate where stuff on OS X comes from (such as the sidebar from the shelf, the dock, the services menu, the drap-and-drop features that I've never seen in another OS, the simplicity of app building using Interface Builder which is still called that, snap to on the scroll bar which I find very handy, column view, and heaps of others. I just wish that there was that browsing history thing in finder, well there is sorta, but it's a stupid drop down menu that's off my default). I've noticed that with each major version of OS X, more and more stuff from NeXT are appearing. It's kinda sad that such a superior OS didn't do as well as it should've, again because of the cost of the hardware.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

i don't understand why you guys keep refering to it as a "superior OS", its just unix with a dolled up GUI...

unix was made in 1969...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
i wouldn't let hollywood be your shining beacon of historical accuracy

Who do you believe? Jobs the P.T. Barnum of the computer industry?

 

[halfadder]

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Any video of Jobs stealing all of those ideas from Xerox Parc ?

Or a video of Xerox stealing the ideas from Stanford/SRI and MIT?

There are plenty of other websites that debunk the Xerox -> Apple -> Microsoft myths so I won't rant on too much about this.

Do you realize that the Xerox Alto, the first commercial GUI system, was a big metal cabinet the size of a dorm fridge and cost $40,000 (later discounted to $32,000). The second Xerox GUI system was the Star, which was *only* the size of two full tower PC cases sitting side-by-side, and was a *steal* at just $16,000. Those prices were the base models, more RAM cost dearly. The Xerox GUI OS was true multitasking and had a higher resolution screen than the Mac (606 x 808 pixels vs just 512 x 384 on the Mac). But it did not support overlapping windows, nor was there a menu bar or anything even similar to the Apple menu (where you could always access your desk accessories like the calculator). The file system was a huge mess of files and directories, the Mac only required two files to boot and run. The Xerox systems required hard drives or tapes for the storage, the Mac was able to boot into the finder, run a few applications, and save some files all on just one 3.5" floppy.

The Macintosh had fewer chips on its tiny unifed motherboard board than were on the IBM Personal Computer's video card alone! The price was $2499 retail and $1999 educational.

Some people complain that Apple kept its hardware and OS closed source, but did you know that the Xerox Alto and Xerox Star had a fully close development environment? You were free to make your own simple applications with Smalltalk, but it was impossible for anyone outside of Xerox to make full fledged applications for the system. Apple, on the other hand, had a full suite of developer tools and the big set of Inside Macintosh hardware and software documentation manuals.

http://www.idearium.it/images/...001/8010star_xerox.jpg

http://www.mujmac.cz/images/macintosh.jpg