The flop that changed Apple forever [video]
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But, the video's preview image gives away the answer...
Atkinson and Herzfeld are not exactly hiding under a rock. I've personally emailed with Herzfeld, recently.
Nothing about the Star, which Jobs actually did come to Chicago and see at the intro, in May 1981.
I don't actually know how much influence the Xerox guys had over Lisa/Mac. Not much, I'd bet. They were certainly aware of what Star was trying to do, but they probably thought it was a lot of bad ideas :).
I guess you could consider that an influence /s
Did you correspond with him, or merely make it into his spam folder?
> Nothing about the Star, which Jobs actually did come to Chicago and see at the intro, in May 1981.
False. See time index 5:51. Mac development began in the late 1970's, and development was well under way by the time Jobs demoed Xerox Star. The vast majority of inspiration for Mac came from Xerox Alto, not Xerox Star. In fact, little if anything was borrowed from Star for Macintosh.
he answered.
> False. See time index 5:51.
what's "false" -- that he came? I have a witness for that. And I was there myself.
They gave a general history of the GUI, including IBM's room-sized attempt.
The Lisa is clearly derived from bits of the Alto, but it wound up being very similar in terms of capabilities and target market as the Star. The Mac happened after both the Star and Lisa.
The OP's assertion that Jobs saw the Star before the Mac was started in earnest is completely relevant. Though... most of the relevant features of the Star were present in the Lisa. Both the Lisa team at Apple and the Star team at Xerox were trying to make very similar machines (in no small part because Apple lured several PARC people away to work on the Lisa.)
But Jef Raskin's idea of an "information appliance" is definitely present in the Mac in a way that is not seen in the Lisa.
>>>> Nothing about the Star, which Jobs actually did come to Chicago and see at the intro, in May 1981.
Then I misinterpreted your statement as a misguided attempt to be relevant, or you are simply trying to cover up your mistake in insinuating Mac owes something to Star.
It reminds me of the Thomas Edison quote:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8287-i-have-not-failed-i-ve...
Please draw a line delineating Lisa development and Mac development. The origin of Mac development is in the development of Lisa which arguably began the day Apple visited Xerox Parc to demo Alto. There is a transitive action here, without Alto, there's no Lisa, and there's no Mac. Thus my statement that Mac development began in the late 70's is generally true even if the Mac team was not organized until 1981. While your arguing the differences between Lisa and Mac is a clear straw man, your, "Absolutely" is absolutely misplaced and strictly false.
"arguably" doing a lot of work here. Your argument is wrong. Lisa was already underway then.
His statements are well-grounded and correct, while you apparently just read a couple articles.
It really wasn't. While technically the project slightly predated Apple's visit to Xerox Parc, that demo drastically changed the the project's direction and goals to produce a product entirely unlike initially conceived, which was effectively an Apple ][ geared towards business, but to claim it was "underway" is false.
> while you apparently just read a couple articles.
This is an ad hominem argument. And his statements are false as I have proven with supported citation in another comment.
Just a friendly suggestion, but if you can not tolerate criticism in any form, and are sensitive about acknowledging mistakes, immediately going on the offensive compelled to make personal attacks out of a sensitivity to pride, which is no virtue, and I am saying IF (I don't know you), then this behavior is classifiable clinically and often solvable through therapy. These symptoms in and of themselves aren't really the problem, it's the other symptoms, that go along with them, which causes those you care about to suffer, that are.
1) first of all, you make this unwarranted dig: "Did you correspond with him, or merely make it into his spam folder?" No apology.
2) then you just say "false" and let someone explain what they think you meant. No apology.
3) then you say "a misguided attempt to be relevant, or you are simply trying to cover up your mistake in insinuating Mac owes something to Star." No apology for the projection about an "insinuation" which is entirely in your own mind. Or for the "attempt to be relevant" which is an insult.
4) and then this: "just a friendly suggestion, but if you can not tolerate criticism in any form, and are sensitive about acknowledging mistakes, immediately going on the offensive compelled to make personal attacks out of a sensitivity to pride, which is no virtue, and I am saying IF (I don't know you), then this behavior is classifiable clinically and often solvable through therapy"
You are nothing more than an Internet troll. We're done here.
If Mac development started with the Alto in the early 70s or the Lisa in the late 70s, then shouldn't we also say Mac development started with PDP development in the 60s that influenced the design of the 74181 chips used in the Alto?
No.
Because that's silly. A project starts when the project starts and the project starters elucidate an objective. When the Alto launched, no one said "hey, let's build this computer that will one day become a small desktop computer for another company." They build the Alto for their own reasons. When the Lisa project started, it's objective was to build a "modern" system at Apple. When the Macintosh project started in 1980, it was intended to build an inexpensive, keyboard-based, non-expandable 6809-based system as a follow-on to the Apple ][. In '81 when Jobs took over the Macintosh project he added features from the Lisa (mouse, bit-mapped display, proportional fonts, WIMP) but Apple didn't cancel the Lisa and say "The Lisa is now the Macintosh." They were considered separate products targeting different markets. Which is why in the original Macintosh business plan it says "The Lisa is a different product than the Macintosh and has a different target market."
FALSE.
"1979 March Jef Raskin proposes the original Macintosh project to Mike Markkula..... 1979 September Macintosh project formally begins, although some preliminary work was done as early as late 1978." [1]
"The early Mac team members in 1979 consisted of Jef Raskin, Brian Howard, Marc LeBrun, Burrell Smith, Joanna Hoffman, and Bud Tribble."[2]
"The former head of publications and quality assurance at Apple, Raskin had proposed the project to Mike Markkula in 1979."[3]
"The Macintosh project started in the late 1970s with Jef Raskin.... In September 1979, Raskin was authorized by the management to start hiring for the project, and he began to look for an engineer who could put together a prototype.[4]
"Parallel to the Lisa's development, a skunkworks team at Apple was working on another project. Conceived in 1979* by Jef Raskin, the Macintosh was envisioned as an affordable, easy-to-use computer for the masses, with the Lisa's graphical interface."[5]
Raskin started hiring for the Macintosh Project, and it began in earnest, in name, and in an official capacity at Apple nearly a full two years before Jobs took over the project and three months before Apple famously visited Xerox Parc. And Jef Raskin was far more contributive to the development of Macintosh than Steve Jobs, who took the project over in the late middle of its development with only a stark handful of changes, requirements and specifications. Nevertheless, development of Macintosh was intimately intertwined with that Xerox's demo of Alto and the co-development of Lisa at Apple. For example, all of the early Macintosh software was developed on Lisa, and they both shared the same product design language. The Lisa was ultimately rebranded as a Macintosh XL before it was cancelled. The development lines are clearly blurred and Macintosh development is far more complex than you have asserted.
Your facts are in error and your timeline is off by a couple years.
[1] https://www.apple2history.org/appendix/ahb/ahb2/
[2] https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-the-macintosh-4072884
[3] https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/earlymac.html
[4] https://history-computer.com/macintosh-by-apple-complete-his...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_(computer)#1979–1996:_%22M...
What were you doing then?
When I said the line between Raskin Mac and Jobs Mac was early '81, it's cause that's when Jobs took over the project and brought some of the ideas the Lisa team was working on with him.
The Verge and Folklore.Org recently published scans of Bill Atkisson's Polaroid photos of Lisa development. And while they don't all have dates, they show that even then there was a lot of experimentation going on, even after Jobs moved from Lisa to Macintosh. If you look at the two interfaces, the major features are quite similar (WIMP, Desktop Metaphor), but several details are different (scroll bar rendering, title bars, apps).
Before 1981, the Mac wasn't going to be a mouse driven, WIMP system. Heck, before 1979, when Jobs and Atkisson visited PARC, I'm not sure the Lisa was going to be a WIMP system.
Things only look linear when you look at them in reverse. What I remember from this time frame is everything was changing very fast. In 1979, CP/M was *THE* business operating system for microcomputers. In 1980, enough people had seen VisiCalc that the Apple II was becoming ascendant in business microcomputing circles. And just the rumor that IBM was working on a PC in late 1980 was enough for some people to delay buying anything that year.
Saying the Macintosh was a continuation of the Lisa Project is ridiculous. The Lisa guys were focused on the Lisa and the Macintosh guys were focused on the Mac. It's sort of like what Bill Gates is supposed to have quipped: "It's like we both lived next to this rich guy named Xerox. I broke into his house to steal his TV only to discover you had already stolen it."
Both teams were drawing from a rich collection of ideas that were swirling around.
The Mac guys benefited greatly from the Lisa team, but mostly in what not to try: the larger Lisa team was sufficiently staffed to try out a bunch of ideas, many of which didn't make the cut. And the QuickDraw that made its way into the Mac started on the Lisa. But to say this means the Lisa team was working to create the Macintosh after releasing the Lisa is ridiculous. They were two different teams with two different design objectives.
For what it's worth, this is a transparent attempt at an informal fallacy called argument from authority. Unfortunately, unless you were an Apple employee at the time and a member of the Macintosh Project team, and no offense intended, but you have no idea what you saw. At the very best it was a prototype, and not the prototype. Again, no offense intended, but YOU don't matter, only what you say matters in so far as you can prove the veracity of the content of your assertions. "I saw it with my own eyes," or "I know what I'm talking about, I am an expert," simply doesn't carry the same weight as, "here is a dated document proving this, and here is another."
> Before 1981, the Mac wasn't going to be a mouse driven, WIMP system. Heck, before 1979, when Jobs and Atkisson visited PARC, I'm not sure the Lisa was going to be a WIMP system.
The mouse was invented in 1968 by Douglas Engelbart. The Xerox Alto demoed to Apple with Steve Jobs used a mouse. In a later interview about the Xerox Alto demo, of which a clip is in the OP, Steve Jobs states that he knew it was going be the future of computing. There are documents dating from at least as early as Spring of 1980 that concern the development of the Apple Mouse[1] proving that you are mistaken. By December 1979 at the very latest, the Lisa and the Macintosh were always going to be mouse driven.
> Saying the Macintosh was a continuation of the Lisa Project is ridiculous.
Who said that? Oh, I see, you're now advancing a straw man. Consider that the origin of Macintosh could arguably be the Lisa. Consider that the origin of Macintosh could be the Xerox Alto. Consider that the origin of Macintosh could be the Mother of All Demos. Consider that it could also be Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Consider that it could also be the Jacquard Loom, and for that matter it could be the abacus. "Origin" does not mean "when Steve Jobs joined the team." It means "source."
Argument from authority.
> are you asserting that the 2 and a half people on the Mac team in 1980 are the only ones who could identify a prototype?
No, my assertion is Apple kept a tight lid and had a culture of secrecy even dating back to the development of Macintosh, and if anyone in management caught a sniff that Raskin was showing you his prototype, he would have been summarily fired, and the Mac would never have been. So while it is possible, and I do actually believe you, it also seems unlikely and specious that Raskin, a serious and intelligent man, would risk his livelihood and his brainchild to show off for a developer of modem software. You two must have been pretty tight.
I don't think that's the case.
Also, if you talked to Jef, like I did when he was showing off the SwyftCard, he was not ashamed to tell you that the Mac was originally going to be a keyboard based system (like the SwyftCard or the Canon Cat.)
Steve Levy recorded these comments in "Insanely Great", the Wikipedia paraphrase is: "Secretly bypassing Job's ego and authority by continually securing permission and funding directly at the executive level, Raskin created and solely supervised the Macintosh project for approximately it's first year... it was Raskin who provided the powerful vision of a computer whose legacy would be low cost, high utility and a groundbreaking friendliness... it was text only, as Raskin disliked the computer mouse or anything that else that could take his hands from the keyboard."
While it's tempting to believe the Mac sprung forth from Jobs forehead fully formed in 1984, it's just simply not true. Many people were involved in it's development and it's ultimate form changed radically between '79 and '84, depending on who was leading the project.
That is not my reasoning, and no one has claimed this, so your argument is a straw man fallacy.
> Also, if you talked to Jef, like I did when he was showing off the SwyftCard, he was not ashamed to tell you that the Mac was originally going to be a keyboard based system (like the SwyftCard or the Canon Cat.)
Argument from authority.[1]
> Steve Levy recorded these comments in "Insanely Great", the Wikipedia paraphrase is: "Secretly bypassing Job's ego and authority by continually securing permission and funding directly at the executive level, Raskin created and solely supervised the Macintosh project for approximately it's first year... it was Raskin who provided the powerful vision of a computer whose legacy would be low cost, high utility and a groundbreaking friendliness... it was text only, as Raskin disliked the computer mouse or anything that else that could take his hands from the keyboard."
While that is fascinating, Wikipedia doesn't have a dedicated article for Insanely Great.
> While it's tempting to believe the Mac sprung forth from Jobs forehead fully formed in 1984, it's just simply not true.
No one has claimed this but you in your above comments:
>>>>>> The line is sometime after early 1981, when Jobs took over the Macintosh project from Jef Raskin.
> Many people were involved in it's development and it's ultimate form changed radically between '79 and '84, depending on who was leading the project.
Finally, you have acknowledged the accuracy of my initial assertion that Mac development began in the late 1970's, unless 1979 is unexpectedly in some other decade.
It is a despicable and fallacious method of discourse that once you have figured out that an argument is bulletproof, you then entirely ignore it and its supporting evidence and instead make personal attacks. I am a unmoved by your attempts at bullying because it means you are a coward and riddled with anxiety. If you can't speak to the argument, then you're not contributing anything of value. As Wittgenstein famously wrote, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Wittgenstein was referring to clarity, that anything that can be said can be stated clearly, and short of that, one can not speak. Boethius was saying something different, apparently revealing his loss of respect for someone by what they had said. Boethius was engaging in ad hominem, Wittgenstein in logic. Hope you see the difference.
Joanna Hoffman mentions Jef Raskin briefly in her CHM oral history [ See https://youtu.be/GfS44H4cO10 ], it would also be very cool to hear more about Jef, Trip, etc. as the Mac project is kicking off.
I think what I'm saying is Jobs is such a popular figure we tend to forget there were other people involved. And they (especially Tesler) probably did more to shape either the Lisa or the Mac.
The Mac project started in '80 when Jef Raskin had the idea to build a more "appliance like" and keyboard focused machine based on the 6809. Jobs horned in on the Mac project in early '81 and turned it into a much more expensive device that used features demonstrated by the Star.
The two teams were definitely separate and had little day to day communication with each other.
If the Mac was a "cost reduced Lisa" there would have been significantly more communication between the teams. And they probably would have said something like "The Mac is a Cost Reduced Lisa" in the Mac Business Plan from '81. Instead the business plan says they're distinct machines with distinct teams, objectives and target markets. [ See https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/2009/1027... ]
While not tightly intertwined, they studied each others' work, sometimes stealthily.
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa#Hardware:
"The real-time clock uses a 4-bit integer and the base year is defined as 1980; the software won't accept any value below 1981, so the only valid range is 1981–1995.[18] The real-time clock depends on a 4 x AA-cell NiCd pack of batteries that only lasts for a few hours when main power is not present. Prone to failure over time, the battery packs could leak corrosive alkaline electrolyte and ruin the circuit boards"
It's apparently popular to disrespect BASIC now that we have gigahertz 64-bit machines with gigabytes of RAM and terabyte solid state drives on our desktops. But when you think about what you could do on a 6502 machine with a frigging 256 byte stack... hella props for the folk that made that work.
But yeah... I think by the mid 80s, most people really just wanted to run a few games, a word processor and maybe a spreadsheet. The idea computer buyers may want to write their own code was fading fast.
HyperCard had one or two warts, but it was definitely functional and you could do a lot with a small amount of effort. Also... the way you learned it seemed very exploratory. You had to learn a few basics, but after that it was hard-core experimentation and remixing. I bought an old PowerBook 160 recently explicitly to run MPW and HyperCard. Mostly to remember what the old world was like.
Imagine an alternate world where people tinkered in HyperCard and eventually the code evolved to be network-aware, and we all wrote in HyperTalk and not HTML. And then that became the web. I think Atkinson even acknowledges that this was a huge missed opportunity.
The Mac was intended to be a machine that people could write apps for, or at least that's what people said after they started distributing dev kits for it. But the way it evolved is definitely more authoritarian than anything in the Apple ][ world.