History

Internet Archive brings back HyperCard for today’s 30th anniversary

Written by

The Internet Archive blog:

On August 11, 1987, Bill Atkinson announced a new product from Apple for the Macintosh; a multimedia, easily programmed system called HyperCard. HyperCard brought into one sharp package the ability for a Macintosh to do interactive documents with calculation, sound, music and graphics. It was a popular package, and thousands of HyperCard “stacks” were created using the software.

And:

Flourishing for the next roughly ten years, HyperCard slowly fell by the wayside to the growing World Wide Web, and was officially discontinued as a product by Apple in 2004. It left behind a massive but quickly disappearing legacy of creative works that became harder and harder to experience.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Hypercard, we’re bringing it back.

Interestingly, today is Woz’s birthday as well. Wonder if that’s a coincidence. Either way, go check it out.

The lost art of Apple code names

Written by

Linus Edwards:

Brooklyn, Aladdin, Colt 45, Cobra, Ray Ban, Stealth, Apollo, XO, Tempest, Brazil 32, Crusader, Instatower, Kanga, JeDI, Aruba, Love Shack, Mark Twain, Excalibur, Tsunami, Phoenix, Nitro, Gelato, Dante, Q, Mach 5, Spartacus, Zelda, Yoda, Green Jade, Spock, Milwaukee, Aurora, Peter Pan, Optimus.

This is just a sampling of the rich cornucopia of Apple code names over the past 40 years. The names run the gamut from pop culture references to inside jokes — from celebrity names to just cool sounding words.

Terrific read.

The backup speech, in case the moon landing went terribly wrong

Written by

Friday marked the 48th anniversary of humanity’s first step on the moon. Came across this article, where William Safire talks about the speech he was asked to write for then-President Richard Nixon to deliver if things went terribly wrong.

Shortly before the mission, Apollo 8 astronaut and White House liaison Frank Borman called President Nixon’s speechwriter, William Safire.

“You’ll want to consider an alternative posture for the President in the event of mishaps,” Borman told Safire, according to an NBC “Meet The Press” interview with Safire on July 18, 1999.

At first, Safire didn’t understand what Borman meant — he told NBC that it sounded like “gobbledygook” — but Borman quickly clarified.

“I can hear [Borman] now: ‘Like what to do for the widows,'” Safire said. In short, Borman wanted a backup speech ready in case the Apollo 11 crew died.

A morbid scenario, but a fascinating read.

What was it like to be at Xerox PARC when Steve Jobs visited?

Written by

Alan Kay, responding to this question on Quora:

A good enough answer would be longer than is reasonable for Quora, but I can supply a few comments to highlight just how little attention is paid in the media, histories, and by most people to find out what actually happened. For example, I was present at the visit and demo, and it was the work of my group and myself that Steve saw, yet the Quora question is the first time that anyone has asked me what happened. (Worth pondering that interesting fact!)

Steve Jobs’ famous visit to Xerox PARC to see the Alto system graphical user interface is the stuff of legend. The Mac owes its inspiration and existence to that visit. This is a great story.

Chris Espinosa, Steve Jobs, and the Gallup poll question

Written by

This is short but sweet. Chris Espinosa is a long time Apple employee. And “long time” is really an understatement. Chris is actually Apple employee #8. I’ve actually seen his #8 Apple badge. A cool piece of history.

Chris got a call from a Gallup pollster asking a pretty interesting question. Here’s Chris telling the story. I found it charming.

https://www.twitter.com/cdespinosa/status/886685676669771777

Tap on the tweet and read the thread. Be sure to read all the way to the bottom, as the actual pollster (or someone pretending to be him, but that’s not as good a story) weighs in.

Interview with Apple’s third co-founder, Ron Wayne

Written by

Motherboard:

Ronald Wayne lives in a little house in the town of Pahrump, Nevada. The 83-year-old designer and engineer was Apple’s original third co-founder, though nowadays he is perhaps best known as the unlucky guy who sold his 10 percent stake of the company for $800 just 12 days after it was incorporated in 1976. Today, it’s estimated that his shares would have been worth $67 billion.

Fascinating interview. My favorite response:

Q: What Apple products do you use now?

A: I have never owned an Apple product in my life, and I didn’t even have a computer until the mid 90s. What would I do with it? If you say “anything you want,” I’d come across the table at you. I had to have a reason. It popped up in the mid 90s when a friend asked to write him a short story and I delivered to him on a typewriter. So I had someone cobble a computer together for me and it just had basic internet and (Corel’s) WordPerfect on it. And over the years I have never had anything but the simplest computers.

Read the whole thing. Very interesting guy.

Steve Jobs and the missing “Intel Inside” sticker

Written by

Ken Segall:

I get that Intel Inside is one of the most successful marketing campaigns in business history. It’s just that after 36 years, that logo starts to feel more like a pollutant than an advertising device.

Thankfully, Macs have remained 100% free of Intel branding since Apple adopted its processors way back in 2006.

We have Steve Jobs’s sensibilities to thank for this. But how it all happened is a fun little story.

No spoilers, a fun read, another great little Steve Jobs anecdote.

UPDATE: Jump to the main Loop post to see video of the “Stickers” quote.

[H/T John Kordyback]

Austin Mann: 10 years of iPhone photography evolution

Written by

Austin Mann, photographer:

Earlier this month, I realized June 29 would mark the 10 year anniversary of the iPhone and began diving into the images I’ve shot with iPhone over the years. As I glanced through the archive, I realized what an amazing journey the last 10 years has been and thought I’d share some of the highlights with you.

Lots of history here. My favorite bit from this dive into the iPhone history rabbit-hole is Austin’s take on the original rollout:

I can still remember the morning of June 29, 2007. I was living in NYC, working at an ad agency, McCann-Erickson. Though I had been following the release of the iPhone and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one, I knew I couldn’t spend the day in line waiting as I had responsibilities at work.

I arrived at my office, however, and my very cool boss looked at me and said, “Austin, what are you doing here?” I was a little confused as it was a standard work day and I was on time. “What do you mean?” I said. She responded, “It’s iPhone day. You’ve been talking about this for months! Get outta here and go get in line!” I got a big smile on my face, said thanks, and bolted straight to the Fifth Avenue store at about 10AM.

I carried a Leica D-LUX 3 at the time (still love that thing) and shot a few very shaky clips throughout the day and cut them into this quick piece.

Follow the link, watch the video. If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, that’d be one place to visit (just after you placed your order to buy a ton of Apple stock).

Apple’s original iPhone, a fascinating speculative investment

Written by

The selling price of an original iPhone is rising. The hype around the 10th anniversary might mark a high water mark, but it might also be just a roadmark on the way to a much higher price. The original iPhone is ripe for speculation.

If it was me, I’d only invest in an unopened original iPhone with a box/shrinkwrap in perfect condition. And as you make your way through the linked article, keep two things in mind:

  • The quoted prices are what sellers are asking, not necessarily what someone has paid.
  • The price can just as easily go down as up. This sort of investment is speculative.

Wrongheaded quotes from the early days of the iPhone

Written by

MacDailyNews pulled together some misguided quotes from the early days of iPhone. A few of my favorites:

“We are not at all worried. We think we’ve got the one mobile platform you’ll use for the rest of your life. [Apple] are not going to catch up.” – Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft Mobile Communications Group Product Manager, April 01, 2008

And:

“Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.” – John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, March 28, 2007

And:

“[Apple’s iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine… So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.” – Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, January 17, 2007

Lots, lots more.

iPhone 10 years later: The phone that almost wasn’t

Written by

[VIDEO] In the video (embedded in the main Loop post), CNN Tech interviewed former iPhone engineer Andy Grignon and others about their experience both working on the first iPhone and in using the prototype as it evolved.

Lots of interesting anecdotes sprinkled throughout. I do love Andy’s description of Steve Jobs and Tim Cook sitting in a meeting, thinking, when they started to rock back and forth, in sync.

Andy Grignon’s official Apple business card lists his title as F**kchop. You can see a copy of it here. He talks about that name, given to him by Steve Jobs, on the video, too.

It had us at “Hello”: The iPhone turns 10

Written by

Yesterday, we embedded a video pulled together by David Pogue on the 4 people Steve Jobs handpicked to review the original iPhone.

David Pogue also wrote a cover story for CBS News with a broader embedded video, which includes bits of the “4 original iPhone reviewers” piece, but goes further, including an interview with Bas Ording, an iPhone engineer who helped pull together the original touch screen mechanics.

Watch the interview with Scott Forstall and original iPhone engineering team members

Written by

[VIDEO] Last night, the Computer History Museum hosted Pulitzer Prize journalist John Markoff as he interviewed forrmer iPhone engineering team members Hugo Fiennes, Nitin Ganatra and Scott Herz, followed by a second interview with Scott Forstall.

This is a historic interview. This team worked on technology that changed the world. They made the decisions that informed the design you know and love. And they worked with Steve Jobs.

The interview is full of wonderful anecdotes, well worth your time. I’ve embedded a YouTube video in the main Loop post. But if it gets yanked, give this link a try.

Enjoy.

Scott Forstall, original iPhone engineers, at the Computer History Museum tonight to talk iPhone origins

Written by

From the Computer History Museum schedule of events:

How did iPhone come to be? On June 20, four members of the original development team will discuss the secret Apple project, which in the past decade has remade the computer industry, changed the business landscape, and become a tool in the hands of more than a billion people around the world.

Scott Forstall, the leader of the original iPhone software team will take part in a fireside chat with Computer History Museum historian John Markoff. A panel with three of the engineers who worked on the original iPhone, Nitin Ganatra, Scott Herz, and Hugo Fiennes, will describe how the iPhone came to be.

That’s tonight at 6p PT. If anyone goes, please do take some video, share online. Wish I could be there.

What Apple thought the iPhone might look like in 1995

Written by

The Atlantic:

Apple has always been fond of dreaming up hardware and software from a not-too-distant future, and there are glimmers of the iPhone in Apple’s history since long before the rumors about the device were taken seriously in the early 2000s. More than a decade before the smartphone was unveiled, Apple shared with the computing magazine Macworld a semi-outlandish design for a videophone-PDA that could exchange data. (Smartphones eventually made the PDA, or personal digital assistant, obsolete.)

The prototype for the device, published in the May 1995 issue of the magazine, is something of a missing link between the Newton and the iPhone—though still more parts the former than the latter.

Interesting look back. Be sure to take a look at the pictures.

How the world’s most beautiful typeface was almost lost forever

Written by

Hayley Campbell, Buzzfeed:

The history of London can be found in pieces on its riverbed. The old pipes and fossilised horse bones wash up on the shore, and with them come the lead letters that printed that history in the newspapers.

The letters ended up there mostly out of laziness, building up piece by piece over the years that Fleet Street served as the epicentre of British journalism. A typesetter’s job was time-consuming: A page of newspaper was laid out one character at a time, the pieces were put back in their boxes the same way. When the typesetters crossed Blackfriars Bridge on their way home from work they’d toss a pocketful of type over the side rather than bother.

They’re still there. There are thousands of letters slowly rearranging themselves over the years and moods of the mud, like alphabet soup.

This is the story of one of those sunken typefaces and a feud between two longtime friends. Beautifully written and a fascinating bit of design history.

Check the main Loop post for a related BBC video.

Christies to auction off working Apple I

Written by

Christies auction page:

An Apple-1 motherboard: labelled Apple Computer 1 Palo Alto Ca. Copyright 1976 on obverse with four rows A-D, and columns 1-18, white ceramic MOS Technologies 6502 microprocessor, 8K bytes RAM in 16-pin 4K memory chips with an additional 4k piggy-packed onto on RAM bank to create 12K of RAM the heat sink removed along with voltage regulators which have been placed onto the metal casing enclosure (which acts as a heat sink), original 3 “Big-Blue” power supply capacitors, firmware in PROMS (A1, A2), low-profile sockets on all integrated circuits, fitted with original Apple cassette interface card lettered with “G” within triangle, above D9 is an added 1702 EPROM ; the metal casing painted green with Datanetics keyboard to front (20 ¼ x 17 x 6in.) ; vintage Viatron monitor model no. 3001-301 (20 x 11 x 9in.) ; in working condition. Provenance: The EPROM and extra RAM added by the first owner; acquired by Frank VanGilluwe III; sold to Andrew “Zack” Zacharias for $300 May 1978.

The auction is scheduled for next Thursday, June 15th.

Some personal photos of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, many others

Written by

Esther Dyson pulled together this lovely collection of snapshots of people in the PC industry. This is real “back in the day” stuff. Lots of people I didn’t recognize, sprinkled with many I did. I love the young faces of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And don’t miss Steve Ballmer playing charades.

[Via Dave Winer]

10 Years of iPhone — A Developer’s Perspective

Written by

Long time iOS developer Adrian Kosmaczewski lays out the evolution of the iPhone and the App Store from the wild west earliest days through the ten years since.

This is a fantastic read, full of interesting details. No development background required. And smack dab in the middle of it is a book I wrote with Jeff LaMarche, complete with the very first of many fruit cross-sections to adorn Apress’ line of iOS/Mac development books.

I still remember reacting to the first cover shot they sent our way:

“Wait, you want to put a piece of fruit on the cover? Why?”

“It’s Apple related. So fruit. Get it?”

Many, many arguments later, that fruit cover stuck and turned out to be iconic in its own small way. The book sold, helped a lot of people get started, so ultimately it did its job. And Jeff and I had a helluva ride.

“Like using a lunchbox to make lunch”

Written by

Ars Technica story about Masahiro Sakurai the creator of 1992’s Kirby’s Dream Land:

Sakurai recalled how HAL Laboratory was using a Twin Famicom as a development kit at the time. Trying to program on the hardware, which combined a cartridge-based Famicom and the disk-based Famicom Disk System, was “like using a lunchbox to make lunch,” Sakurai said.

As if the limited power wasn’t bad enough, Sakurai revealed that the Twin Famicom testbed they were using “didn’t even have keyboard support, meaning values had to be input using a trackball and an on-screen keyboard.”

Amazing story. Be sure to follow the link to the full story, complete with pictures.

Video of Steve Jobs’ 2006 visit to the Cupertino City Council

Written by

[VIDEO] This is amazing to watch. My imagination, or do they keep calling him “Mr. Job”? Watch the video in the main Loop post, and watch another video, linked in the post, to a return visit 5 years later. Big change in Steve. Sad to see.

1981 Nightline interview with Steve Jobs

Written by

The whole thing is fascinating, but the Apple/Steve part kicks in around 4:20. Love how they refer to him as Steven Jobs. It was before he was Steve to all of us.

Note: Someone sent this to me, but can’t for the life of me remember who. Was doing some heavy traveling when it came in. Apologies for the lack of a hat tip.

iPhone: New iBook is an excellent, detailed exploration of the original iPhone

Written by

I dug into Christoph Kabisch’s new iBook with zero expectations. A look back at the original iPhone? How good could this be?

As it turns out, the book was a fascinating read with lots of detail, both in word and images. I owned the original iPhone, was there when it was announced and rolled out. I thought I remembered the details, but this book made it clear how much slipped out of my memory.

When you read it, be sure to tap on each image. Some move to a larger frame, others are 3D models that rotate.

The book is only 99 cents. Here’s a link. Worth it for the pictures alone. A terrific journey back in time.

UPDATE: Don’t miss the iPhone OS simulator on page 40. Incredible.