When the Mac came out my machine of choice was a Data General 16/32 bit minicomputer running the AOS operating system. It wouldn't fit on my desk. Nor would the DEC VAX11-780 that replaced it.
The lady friend got one of the first Mac 128's to be delivered. It was soon upgraded to a fat Mac and I found it interesting and played with its mouse a bit. But almost immediately I realized that I didn't really like it. There was no way to program it! The only thing one could do was to run software that someone else wrote and probably sold. That was worse than my Heathkit H89 running CP/M. At least there I could use an assembler that ran on the machine itself. I could even do that with older Apple's but I never personally owned one. Programming the Mac required a Lisa. Microsoft offered a BASIC programming tool that ran on the Mac Plus and MacAssembly was available about then but you had to swear on a stack of Bibles that you wouldn't release Apple's header files that came with it. Microsoft's Excel made the Macintosh useful to me about then and the Mac was finally available for things like check writing with the telnet-based CheckFree system. (I had been doing that on my H89 with a 300 baud accoustically coupled modem.) It wasn't until the Mac-IIX came out that ordinary folks could purchase a subscription to Essential Tools and Objects from Apple. That finally allowed use of popular compilers like C and Pascal without at least a Lisa. The ETO package was never cheaper than a Macintosh computer. >From my point of view it was Microsoft that made the Macintosh useful for more >than games and a bit of document preparation. They should get more credit for >that. Apple's MacDraw program was the beginning of computer aided design for me. Boeing was working hard using big machines but they were just too expensive for research. Quickdraw with objects like rectangles and ovals remains a whole lot better than the four separate lines required in AutoCAD. MacDraw was actually the text layout program of choice for a few years with its variable width fonts that could word-wrap inside a rectangle. Early Macs had a memory problem that was common to all desktop boxes. It was solved nicely with use of resources which were named blocks of code, text, or graphics that could remain on a disk as a program started up. They were loaded only when required and they could replace memory once occupied by another resource that hadn't been used in a while. The resources could also be edited by trained users who, for instance, could translate text into foreign languages and make an English program usable elsewhere. Resources went away with the introduction of OS X when Apple went backward into the older UNIX virtual memory systems which require hardware that was just too expensive when the Mac came of age. Back on topic, what might have happened to Apple, Inc. without the Mac was a period of nothingness until Intel and Motorola came up with chips that handle UNIX style memory management. If the company survived it would have introduced OS neXt without problems associated with compatibility of resource forks, file TYPE, and creator codes that are only now being killed in OS 10.6. Unfortunately the replacements are not yet up to the task but they are more compatible with Windows and Linux. I continue to wonder what would have happened if Apple had adopted the rules of the road that went with earlier computing. Control Data's 1604 and 3800 series computers were delivered with source code and compilers for the operating system. If you, as a user, wanted to change something that was OK and it was expected that you would share your work with other users. I believe Apple would have done a whole lot better in the early days by soliciting programming excellence from folks who were using those bigger machines by making it possible to program Macs without being a well-financed software developer intent on selling his wares. The Apple II series was a bit like that. The Mac was a complete change of paradigm. Today I think Linux will win the desktop. Apple talks of its cooperation with the open-source community but hasn't really got the idea yet and too much code is still proprietary. But then, it is possible to run a lot of open source code on a modern Mac running OS neXt. -- -> The US of A is getting pelloreid <- -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
