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Apple Mac turns 30

cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
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in PC & Mac Hardware and Software #1
Mac geeks out there will be happy: http://macdailynews.com/2014/01/20/30-years-ago-apples-macintosh-changed-the-world-forever/

I for one will be wearing my black turtleneck to celebrate :D Hard to believe it's been 30 years! The original Mac was way ahead of its time. It brought GUI interfaces to the mass market and changed computing forever.

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    chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
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    #2
    Will you be eating a McIntosh apple in celebration?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-25826316
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    cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
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    #3
    Maybe, if my local supermarkets have any :p If the original Mac hadn't been released, would we all still be using text-based OSes or would we eventually have had some sort of GUI?
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    chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
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    #4
    cnbcwatcher wrote: »
    Maybe, if my local supermarkets have any :p If the original Mac hadn't been released, would we all still be using text-based OSes or would we eventually have had some sort of GUI?
    Very probably considering Microsoft were working on Windows in the early 1980s about the same time as Apple.
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    cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
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    #5
    chrisjr wrote: »
    Very probably considering Microsoft were working on Windows in the early 1980s about the same time as Apple.

    Yeah but Windows wasn't really usable until the 3.1 era. From what I've seen of early Windows versions they looked awful. It was basically a glorified DOS shell. I wonder what the computing scene would look like now without Macs?
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    chenkschenks Posts: 13,231
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    #6
    chrisjr wrote: »
    Very probably considering Microsoft were working on Windows in the early 1980s about the same time as Apple.

    they both visited Xerox didn't they, who had been working on GUI long before either.
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    chenkschenks Posts: 13,231
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    #7
    cnbcwatcher wrote: »
    Yeah but Windows wasn't really usable until the 3.1 era. From what I've seen of early Windows versions they looked awful. It was basically a glorified DOS shell. I wonder what the computing scene would look like now without Macs?

    the early versions of Mac OS weren't all that great either.
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    chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
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    #8
    chenks wrote: »
    they both visited Xerox didn't they, who had been working on GUI long before either.
    Quite likely. Xerox had a basic GUI going in the 70s.
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    MaxatoriaMaxatoria Posts: 17,980
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    #9
    Generally i'd say that at the time most companies were looking at what each other was doing and trying to work out what worked and what didn't and not just windows/mac there was also GEM for PC, the *nix X windows variants as well on SGI/Sun etc and i can even remember some CPM based UI's very distantly
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    chenkschenks Posts: 13,231
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    #10
    Maxatoria wrote: »
    Generally i'd say that at the time most companies were looking at what each other was doing and trying to work out what worked and what didn't and not just windows/mac there was also GEM for PC, the *nix X windows variants as well on SGI/Sun etc and i can even remember some CPM based UI's very distantly

    and let's not forget the ghastly OS/2 Warp!
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    MaxatoriaMaxatoria Posts: 17,980
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    #11
    chenks wrote: »
    and let's not forget the ghastly OS/2 Warp!

    Warp was a lot later and wasn't bad just it never had the support as only IBM wrote the drivers generally and they were generally for IBM kit which wasn't too bad if you were an IBM site already but the cost of IBM stuff was pretty high unless you had a good accounts manager
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    chenkschenks Posts: 13,231
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    #12
    Maxatoria wrote: »
    Warp was a lot later and wasn't bad just it never had the support as only IBM wrote the drivers generally and they were generally for IBM kit which wasn't too bad if you were an IBM site already but the cost of IBM stuff was pretty high unless you had a good accounts manager

    i had it on a PC (1994-ish), came pre-installed, it was awful.
    same time as windows 3.11 was around.
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    chenkschenks Posts: 13,231
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    #13
    there was also the Amiga and Atari ST OS's.
    all GUI's and worked reasonable well for the hardware at the time.
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    TiexenTiexen Posts: 602
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    #14
    chenks wrote: »
    there was also the Amiga and Atari ST OS's.
    all GUI's and worked reasonable well for the hardware at the time.

    The Atari was Gem as well:

    The GEM Desktop was an application program that used AES to provide a file manager and launcher, the traditional "desktop" environment that users had come to expect from the Macintosh.

    Unlike the Macintosh, the GEM Desktop was based on top of DOS (MS-DOS, DOS Plus or DR DOS on the PC, GEMDOS on the Atari), and as a result the actual display was cluttered with computer-like items including path names and wildcards.

    In general GEM was much more "geeky" than the Mac, but simply running a usable shell on DOS was a huge achievement on its own. Otherwise, GEM has its own advantages over Mac OS such as proportional sliders
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    cnbcwatchercnbcwatcher Posts: 56,681
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    #15
    chenks wrote: »
    the early versions of Mac OS weren't all that great either.

    I had an old Mac Performa once running Mac OS 7.5 (or was it called System back then?) and the OS was awful. It crashed a lot and was really slow. It was revolutionary and ahead of its time in the 80s but Windows 3.1/95/98 were probably better than Mac OS 7 or 8. I think the launch of OSX changed the Mac forever.
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    neo_walesneo_wales Posts: 13,625
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    #16
    Maxatoria wrote: »
    Generally i'd say that at the time most companies were looking at what each other was doing and trying to work out what worked and what didn't and not just windows/mac there was also GEM for PC, the *nix X windows variants as well on SGI/Sun etc and i can even remember some CPM based UI's very distantly

    GEM was not half bad, I had in on an Amstrad 1640 :)
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    Rick_DavisRick_Davis Posts: 1,104
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    #17
    GEM was nice, I really liked it. The only application I had that ran on it was a DTP called Ventura.
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    Rick_DavisRick_Davis Posts: 1,104
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    #18
    chenks wrote: »
    they both visited Xerox didn't they, who had been working on GUI long before either.

    Contrary to popular belief Apple did not steal the concept of the GUI from Xerox.

    Both Apple and Microsoft were shown the concept in the same year.

    Apple bought a development license in s share swap deal. Microsoft declined.
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