Scripting News: What made the Mac different (Scripting News)
Rubin Sfadj
· 11 months ago
Design? (As defined by Steve Jobs.)
Alec
· 11 months ago
It's just a pity that the Mac was so expensive out of the gate. Lots of students (me being one of them) had to admire the Mac from a distance and buy into either Atari ST or Commodore Amigas.
Once the Macs got hard drives they were amazing. The floppy swapping was a little bit silly.
elranchero
· 11 months ago
the clipboard
dave
· 11 months ago
You're absolutely right about this. I added a #6 for the clipboard.
elranchero
· 11 months ago
today we take this for granted, but i can remember when dialog boxes started getting the ability to work with the clipboard. That was a huge timesaver.
ozzmosis
· 11 months ago
The first release of Windows (circa 1985) which predated OS/2 by several years also featured a clipboard. But relatively few people used Windows until at least 1990.
Another difference: Long filenames.
Marylene Delbourg-Delphis
· 11 months ago
Very nice post, Dave! Of course I agree with everything you say. Let me add something, though. What attracted me to the Mac (I was in France, a whole different world) was simply that it looked like an appliance made for normal people (for me it even had a kind of retro look of the 50's, which was quite trendy in the eighties in Europe). It was not a "computer." From there, my assumption was that people would not be afraid to use it – and eventually use it to manage their data in a graphical environment without really thinking that they were using a relational database. On top of that, the appliance was not speaking English only! So, basically I fell in love with a non-computer that could interact - "interface" - with its fans because it also spoke their native tongue.
dave
· 11 months ago
Thank you Marylene and very nice to hear from you after all these years! :-)
Gwyn
· 11 months ago
The toolbox? I don't know if this was in the first Macs or not.
Joel
· 11 months ago
I remember seeing ThinkTank in 1984 or 1985. It was a game-changer. I was at Oopsla in 1986. One of the guys in ATG who had written MacApp suggested to a colleague that they get 68020 accelerator cards for their Macs so they could run ThinkTank even faster. I vaguely remember that additional memory on the 020 card may have been part of his rationalization for the suggestion; I don't recall that ThinkTank had performance problems, although speed is addictive ;-)
David Luebbert
· 11 months ago
Pixel-by-pixel access to the graphic display made it possible Adobe to ship different font sets for PostScript. The first mass market PostScript printers, the Apple LaserWriters, came out shortly after the Mac shipped.
It was possible to coordinate the fonts shown onscreen provided by the Macintosh Font Manager with those that would be used for printing provided by PostScript, which made it possible to create a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get effect that gave the user the impression that they knew exactly what was going to appear on paper, printed in high quality, before a print job was started.
This made it possible for the MacWrite and Macintosh Word word-processors and the Adobe Pagemaker desktop publishing app to succeed against the inferior competitors available on MS-DOS machines, even when the price advantage for MS-DOS products was sometimes as much as 10 times.
The networking software that soon became ubiquitous on Macs was first developed to transmit the large datasets necessary to drive a LaserWriter when the user started a print job. As a side effect it was possible to network Macs by simply attaching an appropriate networking cable to its high-speed data port. Early Mac networking was marvelously easy and cheaper to setup compared to the hoop jumping and cost that was necessary to setup a MS-DOS networking system (Novell, Microsoft LAN Manager)
Ole Eichhorn
· 11 months ago
The mouse! In those days a few dedicated word processors had pointing devices, but no PCs did.
Another - built in sound. Most PCs could only beep unless you added extra hardware.
dave
· 11 months ago
I also forgot builtin networking.
David Luebbert
· 11 months ago
The Microsoft Mouse was available for sale and nearly mandatory to use with Microsoft Word for PC in 1983. That did make PC Word an extraordinarily hard sell compared to its MS-DOS competitors.
Macs were the first personal computers that shipped mice as an integrated part of the computer system. There was extensive software built into the Mac Toolbox to support mouse interactions and Apple's user-interface guidelines prescribed how that was supposed to work in all software applications.
A mouse was not considered to be an absolutely necessary accessory on MS-DOS machines until Windows started to take off 6 or 7 years after the first Macs shipped. Early Windows software was designed to ensure that users could operate the software without a mouse.
David Luebbert
· 11 months ago
Lotus, the biggest PC software company of the time, which produced the 1-2-3 spreadsheet, was the company early on that Apple hoped above all others would produce competitive Mac products. All they ever managed to ship before they gave up was the Jazz all-in-one integrated app, which was too large for the resources that were commonly available on the Macs of that time.
Rex Hammock
· 11 months ago
I thank you. And my kids thank you. ; )
raines
· 11 months ago
You could go into "hi-res" graphics modes on PC's and even the Apple II, but it was not part of the standard user interface experience... and with 1 MegaHertz 6502 processor, it never could be.
Let's not forget the 3.5" hard-cased floppy diskette, as compared to the 5.25" PC diskette. The construction of the disk (and the fact that it fit in your shirt pocket) made the Mac totally consumer friendly. My first Mac had both an internal drive and an external drive (for data) and I don't recall that many external disk drives on PC, which instead usually had two internal drives stacked one upon the other (A and B drive).
Mike Cane
· 11 months ago
I got to experience a LISA in a computer store before the Mac ever was in one.
1) It's hard to believe there was once a desktop computer for near $10,000!
2) The one mistake Apple made that undermined it for years was *not* pricing the Mac "for the rest of us." I think Jobs wanted it at $995, which really would have been revolutionary. Instead, it was the cost of a frikkin mink coat!
John Lazzaro
· 11 months ago
Point 5 should be amended with a caveat about the "32-bit clean" problem, so that future platform designers don't repeat that mistake. If the Mac hardware/software interface enforced the prohibition of coding information into the upper byte of addresses from day 1, much pain would have been avoided down the line.
dave
· 11 months ago
Wow I forgot the whole 32-bit clean push. That sure was a pain in the ass. For some people. I think the Living Videotext code was pretty clean from the beginning.
Shava Nerad
· 11 months ago
It was a computer created for visual/spatial thinkers, not math (and especially algebra) thinkers. This was HUGELY important in getting PCs out of the business/engineering/archgeek sphere, and making them really personal.
It was hard for me to explain this at the time to people who were personal computer geeks at the BCS, as to why I thought this computer was going to take off with a whole new audience. "Those people don't *like* computers, anyway. They won't use one."
Um. Yeah. QED. This is not a computer by your definition then?
monome
· 11 months ago
For me it was the visual experience that was a union of left brain and right brain. Sat at my desk back in 1987 when i got my first Mac, I suddenly knew what was meant by 'intuitive'. Of course the paradigm of documents and folders had been around for a long time but to actually see them and be able to arrange them and see them like you do in real life was a revelation I have happily never got over... there have been many Macs since that date. The emotional response was palpable and something that my kids have taken on board too, which pleases me no end.
liza
· 11 months ago
LOVE THIS POST!
How about extras like PAINT, the FONT manager and basic WYSIWYG in the pad? As far as I remember, I fell in love with MACs because DOS didn't have anything like that. Those extras really did it for me back in the day. I had access to DOS machines at NYU like many work-study students but only a handful of students had access to the MACs at the library. Fights would break out over the MACs constantly even though PCs were more readily available.
Also, one of the coolest aspect of the MACs were the "voice bots", the fact that you could (and still can) configure your machine to talk back to you. I've never been into that 2001 Space Oddysey effect but some of my friends (especially the artists ones) would put it to good use and hilarious effects.
Oh : Guy FTMFW indeed :)
Steve
· 11 months ago
great list! MacPaint was my favorite Mac app.
ps: it's Mac, not MAC... MACs something entirely different..
Brett
· 11 months ago
The good: Small footprint, integrated carrying handle. Mouse, copy and paste between applications, bitmapped graphics, black text on white background, variable font, size, and style, 3.5" diskettes, toolbox ROM, UI standards, built-in sound/ software synth, built-in clock (with external access to battery), Software Bundle: MacWrite, MacPaint, MacDraw. Only one forbidden file name character ":" Extensions not needed! Document metadata included type AND creator. Simple keyboard (no function keys). Undo!!!! No command line required! Macs could do things that PC users only dreamed of.
The bad: No option for a command line. Only one configuration. Tiny monochrome screen, zero backward compatibility with Apple II or PC. Very little third-party software at first, followed by plenty of shoddy "ported" software that violated Mac UI guidelines. limited RAM capacity with no (official) memory upgrade capability, expensive 2nd (external) drive required for practical use. No slots. Few compatible peripherals. Apple's ribbon-based Imagewriter printer couldn't produce crisp (daisywheel quality) text for business use-- although it was great for generating ransom notes using the San Francisco font. No support for alternative printers. The non-conforming Mac (and its owners) were mercilessly ridiculed for years.
In spite of the Mac's limitations, the good outweighed the bad for many of us. Over time, the Mac has evolved to overcome it's limitations without sacrificing too many of the good things that set it apart.
Guy Kawasaki
· 11 months ago
Dave,
Holy kaw! You're much too kind. I was just "doing my job"--finding great software to show why people should dump character-based interfaces.
Indeed, one could make that you, Peter, Alice, and the rest of the Living Videotext crew made me!
Guy
Carl
· 10 months ago
The Mac program structure was one large event loop. This was completely different form other programming computers, and standard programming methods. Instead of (start) (perform program) (end), the Mac used the paradigm of (Initialize) (wait for event, and process events forever) (end only when an exit event occurs).
From a programming perspective, the Mac ROM Toolbox, similar to system calls on other operating systems helped to make this possible, but programming for events was a paradigm shift in programming.
Mark Essel
· 5 months ago
Wonderful look back Dave. I was but a youngin' at that time (10) and only just getting used to my TI99. Ahh the horror of basic programming on that thing (using cassette tapes as storage).
All Comments
Once the Macs got hard drives they were amazing. The floppy swapping was a little bit silly.
Another difference: Long filenames.
What attracted me to the Mac (I was in France, a whole different world) was simply that it looked like an appliance made for normal people (for me it even had a kind of retro look of the 50's, which was quite trendy in the eighties in Europe). It was not a "computer." From there, my assumption was that people would not be afraid to use it – and eventually use it to manage their data in a graphical environment without really thinking that they were using a relational database. On top of that, the appliance was not speaking English only! So, basically I fell in love with a non-computer that could interact - "interface" - with its fans because it also spoke their native tongue.
It was possible to coordinate the fonts shown onscreen provided by the Macintosh Font Manager with those that would be used for printing provided by PostScript, which made it possible to create a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get effect that gave the user the impression that they knew exactly what was going to appear on paper, printed in high quality, before a print job was started.
This made it possible for the MacWrite and Macintosh Word word-processors and the Adobe Pagemaker desktop publishing app to succeed against the inferior competitors available on MS-DOS machines, even when the price advantage for MS-DOS products was sometimes as much as 10 times.
The networking software that soon became ubiquitous on Macs was first developed to transmit the large datasets necessary to drive a LaserWriter when the user started a print job. As a side effect it was possible to network Macs by simply attaching an appropriate networking cable to its high-speed data port. Early Mac networking was marvelously easy and cheaper to setup compared to the hoop jumping and cost that was necessary to setup a MS-DOS networking system (Novell, Microsoft LAN Manager)
Another - built in sound. Most PCs could only beep unless you added extra hardware.
Macs were the first personal computers that shipped mice as an integrated part of the computer system. There was extensive software built into the Mac Toolbox to support mouse interactions and Apple's user-interface guidelines prescribed how that was supposed to work in all software applications.
A mouse was not considered to be an absolutely necessary accessory on MS-DOS machines until Windows started to take off 6 or 7 years after the first Macs shipped. Early Windows software was designed to ensure that users could operate the software without a mouse.
We're having a little anniversary celebration BMUG meeting this Thurs. at the Hillside Club, join us:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?sid=b79eabd63...
1) It's hard to believe there was once a desktop computer for near $10,000!
2) The one mistake Apple made that undermined it for years was *not* pricing the Mac "for the rest of us." I think Jobs wanted it at $995, which really would have been revolutionary. Instead, it was the cost of a frikkin mink coat!
clean" problem, so that future platform designers don't repeat that
mistake. If the Mac hardware/software interface enforced the
prohibition of coding information into the upper byte of
addresses from day 1, much pain would have been avoided
down the line.
For some people. I think the Living Videotext code was pretty clean from the
beginning.
It was hard for me to explain this at the time to people who were personal computer geeks at the BCS, as to why I thought this computer was going to take off with a whole new audience. "Those people don't *like* computers, anyway. They won't use one."
Um. Yeah. QED. This is not a computer by your definition then?
How about extras like PAINT, the FONT manager and basic WYSIWYG in the pad? As far as I remember, I fell in love with MACs because DOS didn't have anything like that. Those extras really did it for me back in the day. I had access to DOS machines at NYU like many work-study students but only a handful of students had access to the MACs at the library. Fights would break out over the MACs constantly even though PCs were more readily available.
Also, one of the coolest aspect of the MACs were the "voice bots", the fact that you could (and still can) configure your machine to talk back to you. I've never been into that 2001 Space Oddysey effect but some of my friends (especially the artists ones) would put it to good use and hilarious effects.
Oh : Guy FTMFW indeed :)
ps: it's Mac, not MAC... MACs something entirely different..
The bad: No option for a command line. Only one configuration. Tiny monochrome screen, zero backward compatibility with Apple II or PC. Very little third-party software at first, followed by plenty of shoddy "ported" software that violated Mac UI guidelines. limited RAM capacity with no (official) memory upgrade capability, expensive 2nd (external) drive required for practical use. No slots. Few compatible peripherals. Apple's ribbon-based Imagewriter printer couldn't produce crisp (daisywheel quality) text for business use-- although it was great for generating ransom notes using the San Francisco font. No support for alternative printers. The non-conforming Mac (and its owners) were mercilessly ridiculed for years.
In spite of the Mac's limitations, the good outweighed the bad for many of us. Over time, the Mac has evolved to overcome it's limitations without sacrificing too many of the good things that set it apart.
Holy kaw! You're much too kind. I was just "doing my job"--finding great software to show why people should dump character-based interfaces.
Indeed, one could make that you, Peter, Alice, and the rest of the Living Videotext crew made me!
Guy
From a programming perspective, the Mac ROM Toolbox, similar to system calls on other operating systems helped to make this possible, but programming for events was a paradigm shift in programming.
I was but a youngin' at that time (10) and only just getting used to my TI99. Ahh the horror of basic programming on that thing (using cassette tapes as storage).