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Comment by maxbaines | Hacker News Reader

Only now did I realise QuickTime was made by Apple.

Apple was on the forefront of computer Video. They founded ATG (advanced technology group) in late eighties and as a result came out with Road Apple Video codec (Road Pizza) in 1991.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Advanced_Technology_Grou... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Video

https://computerhistory.org/blog/quicktime-and-the-rise-of-m...

Fun facts:

1 Look up S3TC/DXTC texture compression, S3 copied Apple video codec verbatim and patented it for 3D graphics use. Somehow Apple missed that and didnt fight initial patent, resulting in losing couple iphone court cases 10 years later and purging S3TC from mobile.

2 Microsoft fucked up getting caught conspiring with Intel, paying third party contractor to steal QuickTime code https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_... Thats the origin of the infamous "Microsoft saved Apple in the nineties" myth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TdqfNE1QU

That 1998 article is the first I'd seen claiming that the 1997 deal was a repayment, versus a purchase of non-voting shares as described at the time and announced by Jobs and Gates at Macworld. https://www.wired.com/1997/08/apple-takes-150-million-from-m... The register article quotes a note saying there was a significant MS payment for QT specifically, but doesn't actually claim that the 1997 investment wasn't an investment, as far as I can tell.

Saving, of course, was always an exaggeration, as reported in that Wired article from the time too: "For Apple, the cash is symbolic. While the company has been bleeding money, it has about $1.2 billion in cash, according to its last quarterly earnings report, and doesn't need Microsoft's money to fend off immediate starvation." Recommitting to Office was a much bigger thing than the cash, probably,

Exactly. A commitment by Microsoft to support the Macintosh was more valuable than 150 million dollars.

Such is the power of a good word.

Really? I remember their logo all over the software... And the mac-gray default look with big round buttons.

Also, if you had the misfortune of running the software on Windows, it insisted on trying to look like a mac. In it's meager defense, almost all media players tried to look non-native at the time.

Skinning media players was one of the ways I got into graphic design (and became a software developer as a result). It was a ton of fun as a kid! I wonder if kids these days have anything like it. You sure can’t skin Spotify or Apple Music.

You can actually skin Spotify! I used to run a different spotify theme through Spicetify. I think its CSS based.

Infamously QuickTime player didn't even look like the Mac on the Mac itself. http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.html

Yes really.

I'm proud to say that Quicktime remains the only Apple product or service I have ever purchased, and I've been using time-sharing computing since before Apple existed, and desktop computers since the TRS-80. Ironically, the original reason I bought it was due to needing, on very short notice, software to play a short video of that old "Get A Mac" ad on TV[1] with actors playing a young Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

[1]https://www.cultofmac.com/548865/apple-get-a-mac-ad-campaign...

> I'm proud to say that Quicktime remains the only Apple product or service I have ever purchased, and I've been using time-sharing computing since before Apple existed, and desktop computers since the TRS-80.

You might consider getting an Apple II. It has color graphics and a lot of good games. You can even add a Z-80 card to it to run CP/M software.

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