As someone who started off using a DOS machine, and then dabbled in early versions of Windows, it baffles me to see people dissing the Mac OS. I can certainly understand the Unix users' complaints, since I wholeheartedly admit that Unix and Unix variants offer more flexible file management as well as better system stability. But seeing Windows users putting down the Mac OS is ludicrous, since it's no secret that Microsoft based Windows on the Mac OS!

Granted that Apple and it's idiotic management decisions hurt the Mac OS in the recent past, and that the Mac OS has not significantly improved since version 8. However, with the advent of Mac OS X, this is all poised to change. Based on a FreeBSD foundation, it promises to be a true contender to Windows as well as more powerful systems such as Unix and its variants, as long as the management at Apple keeps up their recent improvements in key decisions on the direction of the company.

You may hate Steve Jobs, but he has generally done a good job in bringing the Macintosh back from the downward spiral of the late nineties. When the modern Mac OS, with its power of FreeBSD, the features you would expect from a high-end operating system (such as true multitasking and protected memory), and its eye-catching and graphically rich GUI are coupled with the award-winning hardware design of the recent iMac and G4 models, you are confronted with a computer that is a truly beautiful and powerful tool that empowers ANY user, whether geek or newbie, to manifest their creative energy with ease.

January 24, 1984
Moscone Convention Center
Steve Jobs, Presenter

It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for it's money. Dealers initially welcoming IBM with open arms now fear an IBM dominated and conrolled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. Many of us have been working on Macintosh for over two years now, and it has turned out "insanely great".

And Macintosh to accomplish uses the 68000 microprocessor, the same 32-bit microprocessor used in LISA. It's necessary for LISA technology and it eats 8088s for breakfast. Macintosh comes 192 k-bytes of memory. 64 k-bytes of ROM contains the entire operating system, the whole graphics foundation and the entire user interface, all contained in ROM. There's 128 k-bytes of RAM.

Just as the 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive was in innovation in the seventies, the 3 1/2 inch disk drive will be the disk of the eighties. It is far safer, and we're storing over 400 k-bytes of information on one side of a disk that can be put in your pocket.

Macintosh has four-voice sound and speech built in. And it communicates with you on a high-definition super-crisp bit-mapped 9-inch black and white screen which has the twice the number of dots on it's screen as any current generation personal computer. You have to see this display to believe it, it's incredible.

And all of this power fits in a box that is one-third the size and weight of an IBM PC.

Now we've a lot of talking about Macintosh recently, but today for the first time ever, I'd like to let Macintosh speak for itself.

Hello, I am Macintosh.
It sure is great to get out of that bag.
As unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I'd like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an IBM mainframe:
Never trust a computer you can't lift.
Obviously I can talk, but right now I'd like sit back and listen.
so it is with considerable pride that I introduce a man who's been like a father to me, Steve Jobs.


He's quite the showman, eh kids? Listening to this presentation, even now, you can't help be feel optimistic. But that was almost 20 years ago -- how does this stand up to the state of things today?


..now fear an IBM dominated and conrolled future.
IBM still has a mark in the PC world, but it's nowhere what it was in the early 1980's. It's desktop PC business has tanked and its PC server market isn't what it once was -- the only PC segment that is is a leader is in the portable area and, surprise, Apple is a leader there too.


They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom.
Following the Macintosh's major success in the graphics an desktop publishing world, they became more Draconian on their practices. No tech specs released, no co-operation with 3rd parties and generally anti-social attitude for the next 10 years, until about 1996.


"insanely great"
Steve no longer says "insanely great". He punches people who say it.


..and it eats 8088s for breakfast.
If you remember, we heard almost the exact same line when the iMac came out, except the "8088" was replaced with "Pentium II".


..all contained in ROM.
Whaddya know -- even 18 years later, they still have a proprietary ROM. Sure, it's emulated now, but the OS still uses it which means that, like always, you can run the OS only on Apple-Blessed platforms.


..the 3 1/2 inch disk drive will be the disk of the eighties.
Just 2 years later, Steve would officially prohibit the 3 1/2 inch floppy from making an appearance in his other baby, NeXT. He decided that the new disk of the 80's would be optical. And he stuck to his guns -- with the exception of adding a 2.88mb floppy as an "option" to the NeXT Station, he's never gone back on his decisions to ditch the floppy.


..over 400k-bytes of information on one side of a disk that can be put in your pocket.
This time it's sounding a lot like the iPod announcement. Steve loves things that can be put in your pocket.


And it communicates with you on a high-definition super-crisp bit-mapped 9-inch black and white screen which has the twice the number of dots on it's screen as any current generation personal computer.
This seems funny now, right? "9 inches" I hear you cry! Well, the funny thing is that the screen used in the original Mac on through the SE still remains one of the highest Native Resolution vs. Physical Size displays Apple has ever shipped, only surpassed in the late 1990's. This is because Apple has historically been more of a fan of the "Senior Citizen Quality" resolution scales which usually means putting 640x480 on a 17 inch tube -- though they finally realized that not all of us use bifocals, thankfully.


Never trust a computer you can't lift.
The irony here is that, to design some of the more complex parts of the Mac, the Macintosh team used a Cray Supercomputer -- and I doubt they could even get one corner of it off of the raised flooring. And in yet another twist, the next generation Cray design team used Macintoshes to design later Crays; the Cray maxim is, it seems, "Never trust a computer that could beat you in a fight."

DIsclaimer: I am a Mac fan. This was written on a Macintosh. Quit whining.

MACINTOSH

An acronym, used humorously, most relevant when Apple Computer's flagship personal computer of the same name ran any OS version below OSX. It stands for:

Machine
Always
Crashes
If
Not
The
Operating
System
Hangs

Mac"in*tosh (?), n.

Same as Mackintosh.

 

© Webster 1913.

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