LionelHutz
01-27-2004, 09:30 PM
Macintosh @ 20 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4052227/)
Feb. 2 issue - Twenty years ago there was panic in Cupertino, Calif. Only a week remained before the team of whiz kids designing Apple's radical new computer had to turn in the final code. The giant factory was ready. The soon-to-be-famous Super Bowl commercial was ready. But the computer wasn't.
As recounted by software wizard Andy Hertzfeld on a new cyber-oral history site (folklore.org), the already overworked Mac team trudged back to the cubicles for seven days of debugging hell, fueled by espresso chocolate beans and a dream. And on Jan. 24, 1984, their leader, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, recited a verse from "The Times They Are A-Changin'," then formally unveiled the Macintosh, a boxy little guy with a winning smile icon on its nine-inch monochrome screen. The Mac-oids fully expected to make computer history, and they did. What surprises them now is that their creation is still around two decades later.
Only nine years after the first personal computer (a build-it-yourself box whose only input was a set of switches), Apple's team had delivered an experience that would persist into the next century. This was the graphical user interface (GUI), a mind-blowing contrast to the pre-1984 standard of glowing green characters and arcane commands. Though Apple didn't come up with the idea of windows on a screen and a mouse to let people naturally manipulate information, the Macintosh refined and popularized those concepts. Lots of people criticized—and some made fun of—those advances at the time. But even Apple's rivals became convinced that the GUI was groovy. Now, no matter what computer you use, you're using, essentially, a Mac.
The original Mac was costly, underpowered and had no cursor keys. Early sales disappointed Apple, and the then CEO John Sculley fired Jobs in 1985. Eventually, Mac became equipped with more memory and storage, and people began to discover the machine's ability to become a tool for the new pursuit of desktop publishing. The machine began to take off. But the business world never warmed to Macintosh, and by the mid-'90s tech pundits were crafting Apple obituaries. In 1997 prodigal cofounder Jobs returned and restored Apple's luster with innovations like the eye-popping iMac.
"I think Apple's now doing the best work it's ever done," says Jobs. "But all of us on the Mac team consider it the high point of our professional careers. I only wish we knew a fraction of what we know now."
Feb. 2 issue - Twenty years ago there was panic in Cupertino, Calif. Only a week remained before the team of whiz kids designing Apple's radical new computer had to turn in the final code. The giant factory was ready. The soon-to-be-famous Super Bowl commercial was ready. But the computer wasn't.
As recounted by software wizard Andy Hertzfeld on a new cyber-oral history site (folklore.org), the already overworked Mac team trudged back to the cubicles for seven days of debugging hell, fueled by espresso chocolate beans and a dream. And on Jan. 24, 1984, their leader, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, recited a verse from "The Times They Are A-Changin'," then formally unveiled the Macintosh, a boxy little guy with a winning smile icon on its nine-inch monochrome screen. The Mac-oids fully expected to make computer history, and they did. What surprises them now is that their creation is still around two decades later.
Only nine years after the first personal computer (a build-it-yourself box whose only input was a set of switches), Apple's team had delivered an experience that would persist into the next century. This was the graphical user interface (GUI), a mind-blowing contrast to the pre-1984 standard of glowing green characters and arcane commands. Though Apple didn't come up with the idea of windows on a screen and a mouse to let people naturally manipulate information, the Macintosh refined and popularized those concepts. Lots of people criticized—and some made fun of—those advances at the time. But even Apple's rivals became convinced that the GUI was groovy. Now, no matter what computer you use, you're using, essentially, a Mac.
The original Mac was costly, underpowered and had no cursor keys. Early sales disappointed Apple, and the then CEO John Sculley fired Jobs in 1985. Eventually, Mac became equipped with more memory and storage, and people began to discover the machine's ability to become a tool for the new pursuit of desktop publishing. The machine began to take off. But the business world never warmed to Macintosh, and by the mid-'90s tech pundits were crafting Apple obituaries. In 1997 prodigal cofounder Jobs returned and restored Apple's luster with innovations like the eye-popping iMac.
"I think Apple's now doing the best work it's ever done," says Jobs. "But all of us on the Mac team consider it the high point of our professional careers. I only wish we knew a fraction of what we know now."