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Articles: 'A' Is For...Apple
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'A' Is For...Apple
Strange one this as today's rant isn't so much a rant as a labour of love. Today I'll be writing straight from the heart and discussing A is for Apple...My Apple. Now we're not talking about the small worm infested fruit (although I've had the 'pleasure' of biting into one and actually seeing something move in there) (closely followed by aforementioned fruit being resolutely stamped on repeatedly in a two footed cartoon style frenzy) but instead that most techie of subjects, computers. Me, an Apple fan? Oh yes but none of your G3 or G4 cube cobblers. Forget your iMacs and your PowerMacs, what I'm a fan of is the good old Macintosh. Apologies in advance but this is going to be a mixture of slush and circuit diagrams (yawn).
Once Upon a Time...
Like so many people in the PC world I spent pretty much all of my life firmly on the PC side of the PC vs. Mac war. Macs were dirty, scummy, slow, and nasty, and like so many other people, I'd never actually used one. But being a total idiot with more money than sense (currently running at £8.38) the fabulous eBay managed to persuade me to part with a whopping £50 of it in exchange for one of the strange little beasts with the multi-coloured Apple logo on the side. Now bear in mind that I'd rubbished these poor little machines for years, what the hell made me part with my hard earned pennies? Well, ask many programmers (for that is how I am cursed) and you'll find that most of them will get a faraway look in their eyes when they start to wax lyrical about the past. There'll always be a machine that is the defining moment in their lives. Maybe it was hammering the tiny rubber keys on a Speccie, perhaps hacking together a cable for an Oric Atmos (ehh - just how far back are you going?), or even just swearing (repeatedly) at a BBC because the sodding disc drive didn't work (ever get the impression that the last example was a little close to home?). Programmers are a strange species in that we attach ourselves to little beige boxes, but we do and that helps to make the world go round.
Now with the advent of 'tinternet' (and especially online auctions) there's cash to be made out of the box gathering dust in the corner and you can guarantee that someone out there will be able to reminisce about that TR-80 that you're using as a doorstop and want to buy a bit of their past. Now my first machine was a BBC-B (I know, flash) but sod that, I wanted the real deal - I wanted an SGI box. I'm talking gibberish now for the majority but in the late 80's/early 90's Silicon Graphics made the most jaw-dropping machines in the world. All those jazzy effects for films like Terminator 2? All that morphing business? All done on SGI's. And they weren't even beige but rather bright purple, scarlet red, and shocking teal (and others to boot but you get the idea). Oh drool, drool, drool and faint when you see the price tag of $50,000 a pop. But it's a decade later and the supercomputers of then are now the junk of today. To cut a long story short, got one, played with it, loved it, bored. So what next? The BBC never really did it for me so I still had no desire for one of those, but what's this? One of the early Macs? Well, it might be worth a look.
Now when I say 'Mac', I mean MAC. We're not talking about the accepted image of a computer (keybaord, base unit, monitor) but rather that funky little machine that had the built in 9 inch screen. The computer about the size of a wastepaper basket that had a keyboard and a funny little box with a wire coming out of it. Is it time for a history lesson? But that means I'll have to start checking dates and things. Oh well, alright then.
History In The Making
In the ever-emerging computer industry of the late 70’s, every man and his dog seemed to offer an 'affordable' product that could get you up and running. One such company was the hugely successful Apple, created by the Steves Jobs and Wozniak (try spelling that after 5 pints). Yes there was a third guy in there at the very start but I can't remember his name and you probably don't care anyway. With the Lisa setting the world on fire with it's graphical interface (half inched from the nice people at Xerox's Palo Alto research institute) Apple needed to come up with a replacement. Enter stage right the Macintosh.
Introduced onto an unsuspecting world in January 1984, the Mac boasted (then) stupid specifications. A whole 128K of RAM (compared to most systems these days which ship with 256Mb - an increase of a mere 2048 times), an 8Mhz 68000 processor, a 400Kb 3.5 inch drive (CD-ROM? Never heard of that mate), and a 9 inch B&W screen built in. It was streets ahead of its rivals but was blessed with the most amazing interface the world had ever seen: System 1.0 - windows and pointers? Truly the stuff of science fiction. While it may not have been the norm and wasn't even compatible with its predecessors (what a stupid idea that would be), the Mac sold well but it wasn't until it's third incarnation as the Mac Plus that it really took off.
Unlike the Mac 128 (which the original Mac was later rebranded as) and the Mac 512 (its replacement which boasted 512K of memory rather than 128K - imaginatively titled ehh?) the Mac Plus was designed with expansion in mind. The memory could be upgraded (from the standard 1MB to a whopping 4Mb), a SCSI port was included on the back (allowing external devices to be attached and allowing them to run at a decent speed, unlike the 128 and 512's dog slow serial port), and the disk drive was upgraded to 800K.
But what to do next? Surely with a machine boasting 1Mb of RAM and an 800K drive, surely the world would not need anything else. Well you'd think so wouldn't you. The fact is, people liked the Mac. Actually that's an understatement as people LOVED the Mac. Its interface was streets ahead of the clunky MS-DOS command line and although it was that little bit more in terms of pounds, it was fun to use. I'll come back to that though as there was more to come from the history of the little beige box.
The SE marked the first major change in the specs of the Mac as this baby boasted not one floppy drive but two. Actually it boasted two floppy drive which was even better as the Mac was now able to take advantage of the most outrageous upgrade of all time: a hard disk. Yes users could now have a floppy drive and a hard disk...AT ONCE...in the same machine. The CPU still ran at a stupidly slow 8Mhz and aside from the introduction of ADB ports (for plugging keyboards and mice into), the Mac stayed pretty much the same: 1Mb RAM (upgradeable to 4Mb), 9 inch screen etc. From 1989 Apple started shipping the 'brand new' 1.4Mb FDHD floppy drive (allowing users to save up to 1.4Mb of data and be able to read IBM PC disks) but the best was yet to come in the shape of the SE/30.
The SE/30 is the machine that introduced me to Macs and she's a joy to behold. Running at a stupid 16Mhz (twice as fast as the previous Macs) and with a lightning fast 68030 processor, the SE/30 was THE machine. Forget your 1Mb RAM upgradeable to 4Mb, the SE/30 was 1Mb upgradeable to 128Mb RAM (yes, I said 128). The screen was the same, there was a SCSI port on the back, and the SE/30 had the same dual floppy drive bay (fitted with a floppy and a hard disk) as before but the floppy drive was of the 1.4Mb FDHD variety.
Date Line: Now
But enough of this history talk, what of using the damn thing? As I said, my first Mac (oh God, that sounds like something Fisher Price would make) was a beautiful little SE/30 and I'd picked it up for the best part of £50 (including the delivery) - not bad for a machine that weighed in at over $4000 when launched. Now why would a PC head love this little machine so much? Could it be the faded yellow colour? Err unlikely. The small chip off the top left hand corner(thank you Royal Mail)? Maybe. Or could it be that the Mac is just great fun to use?
Firing that little machine up for the first time this was all totally new to me and when you need help in doing simple things like closing a window, you know you've got a lot to learn. But then it was disaster with my little Mac (which I dubbed Tiny Mac because it's tiny) as the HD crashed. Now this didn't bode well and with a machine of it's age there was no chance of finding any accompanying disks or manuals. Come to the rescue the internet...and Apple themselves.
Now bear in mind that I had no idea about Macs, I had no other Mac machines, no access to any Mac hardware, and no Mac mates, and what have you got? No chance...but you'd be wrong, and it all comes down to how well made that little machine is and how much thought Apple put into it. In less than 6 hours, and with no help from anyone, I managed to download the whole operating system onto my PC, create a Mac format disk, and get that little box of tricks up and running again. Not bad going for someone who didn't know what he was doing (actually I never know what I'm doing, I just wing it all the time). But this is the power of the 'Compact' Macs (that's what they're known as). Using Apple's System software the Mac is mind-achingly easy to setup. The whole OS fits on a floppy disk (or rather, did - it's bloated a bit since System 6) and as long as you have a boot disk (which you can actually create on a PC with a bit of swearing) that little machine will run quite sweetly - they have to as the early models didn't have a hard disk.
And when I say boot disk I don't mean a crappy Windows boot disk which takes you into DOS and leaves you pretty much high and dry (unless you're old enough to remember what the command line actually is) but with Apple's System software you get the OS on a floppy. The complete desktop, all the tools you need to get started, and enough software to get your network up and running. Now networking is de rigeur these days but in a machine pre-1990 it's something pretty special but Macs have networking built in. Ok so it's Apple's own proprietary AppleTalk networking (as opposed to a more common TCP/IP system) and while it may be dog slow, it does work. This is the great thing about Apple's System software as once you've booted from your floppy boot disk and formatted your hard drive (ever tried formatting your Windows primary hard drive? No, thought not), there's enough smart thinking there to allow you to install your system over a network. No extra bits, no CDs, not even any floppies - just a cable in the back and two little Macs will talk to each other.
Well Thanks For...Err...Well Everything
I know this now (and can do this now that I have several Macs) but back in the days of Tiny Mac being alone in the land of the scary PCs (sob, sob, sob) this wasn't an option and floppy disks had to suffice. "So you downloaded an illegal copy of the software and everything was tickety boo. Great story Neil [yawn]". Well no actually as Apple (unlike Microsoft) care about their users. Now I'd bought Tiny Mac from an online auction and had nothing in the way of proof or purchase or warranty but did Apple care? Hell I didn't even need to ask. A visit to the Apple website shows the different approach to customer relations between Microsoft and Apple. While Microsoft closely guard everything and view their victims (sorry, customers) with complete disdain, Apple are far more welcoming. Where do you think I got my System software from? Apple just made the whole thing a free download and that was the end of that. Ok so we're not talking the latest versions of OS X but it's enough to get you going (System 7.5 isn't bad at all and it certainly flies) (besides which, Tiny Mac can’t handle System 8). Now compare that with the devil that is Bill Gates - I don't think Win 3.1 is available yet for free download is it? Bet they'd try to sell you a copy though.
The galling thing is that the Mac was the precursor for Windows and despite what many people may argue, the Mac did get there first and continues to get their first even today (even if they did 'borrow' the initial idea from Xerox). The windowing idea was brought to the masses by the Mac and was years ahead of Windows. The interface is neater, cleaner, and while the Mac can be a swine at times, it's a damn sight more stable than Windows, it makes life easier than Windows, it's a lot more fun to use, and far more intuitive (look at me (no, don't throw up), from total novice to installing system software in less than a day). It's feature packed and comes with all manner of gadgets built in.
Survival of The Un-Fittest
So why aren't I typing this on a Mac? Why has my laptop got a Windows 2000 interface on it if the Mac is so great? Well although the Mac is great, economics have consigned it to second place behind the PC. While IBM were forced into opening up it's designs allowing competition to flourish and prices to fall, Apple stuck by their guns and retained control of their technology, and the price of a Mac stayed high. Now faced with paying $1000 for a machine or $4000 for a machine most users in the mid-80's went for the cheap option and the Mac got ignored (by comparison). So the number of PC users went up, which meant that the software manufacturers wrote software for the mass market (rather than the more niche-y Mac market), and the masses saw that there wasn't any software for the Mac and stuck with their PCs. A vicious circle of the most vicious kind sadly.
Despite their innovative designs and ease of use, the Mac still misses out on the Lion's share of the market. But this is all the future and well beyond the scope of this little article - back to the wonderful world of Tiny Mac.
Once up and running that little machine has been as solid as rock. In 18 months I've only had to re-install the OS once and that was following a replacement hard drive being fitted. Why a replacement? Well the original 40Mb (stupidly huge in it's time but now just stupid) made way for a 2Gb model. But that little machine astounded me once again as when built there was no way that Apple could have conceived such vast hugenesses of space but Tiny Mac just went "Ok" and carried on. A RAM upgrade upped the memory to 20Mb and again, that little machine just went "Ok" and continued on it's merry way. Even adding a 'proper' network card (with proper RJ-45 connectors) was a breeze - just plug in and off you go (not even a software update). Plugging in an external CD-ROM drive caused a little more hassle (needed some drivers) but Tiny Mac will now quite happily play audio CDs and access CD-ROMs (oh and it'll also 'rip' CDs that are supposedly unreadable in a 'normal' Mac or PC) (not that I'd do such a thing of course).
Upgrading a compact Mac is a dangerous business though and although the innards of a PC may be an off limits place for most users, the inside of a compact Mac is off limits to even experienced hardware buffs. That built in screen is the cause of most of the worries inside a compact Mac as, take off the cover and there lies a grade A cathode ray tube - complete with several thousand volts. Now you might expect that simply pulling the plug eliminates the problem but these little beasts retain a charge for a good while afterwards and there's plenty that can go wrong if you slip with the screwdriver. And it's small in there. Cables get wrapped around unfeasibly small corners, circuit boards battle for space and bash up against the case, and it's a good day if you can get everything back inside and the case to fit back together afterwards.
So great, you have this archaic machine that sits on the desk and rips CDs - what good is that? Well actually as a CD ripper it's pretty useless as the CPU just isn't up to the job (something like 8 hours for a 5 minute track) but the little machine doesn't give up that easily. As a word-processor Tiny Mac is great and it'll happily run Microsoft Word (for Macs), Netscape Navigator (at a push), and even early versions of Clarisworks. You can FTP files back and forth to the PC and SGI machines and quite happily 'talk' to my other Macs either via the 'proper' network or through the AppleTalk network.
Compact Macs make great mail servers (provided the volume isn’t too high), they can be persuaded to become ‘net browsers, and with a liberal use of the hacksaw, larger screens (sometimes colour), CD-ROM drives, and even DVD drives can be shoehorned into that tiny case. And if your little Macintosh has beeped it’s last ‘eep’ and displayed it’s last smiley face, you can always turn it into a dandy little Macquarium.
...And being 'old and outdated' there's a wealth of software out there just waiting to be downloaded (usually for free).
But It's Outdated?!?!
"But it's nothing that the PC can't do!". Yes that's true but for some inextricable reason that little beige box is jammed packed with personality. From the moment you switch it on and see the smiley Mac and hear the 'ding' (indicating that everything is fine hardware wise) she's a little joy to work with. The slightly chunky buttons, the restrictive but oh so cute tiny desktop, and the little 'eep' noises she makes when a message dialog pops up. It might not be colour but the sound is great (mic in, and line out) and as a CD player it does everything you could ask for. It might be slow and it might have to use every ounce of it's CPU to get the job done, but it's great fun to use and that's something that seems to be lacking everywhere else. You actually want to explore, you want to learn things, and the machine somehow gives the impression that it’s proud of what it can do. There’s pride in every aspect of that machine and the very fact that it’s still booting up and chugging along after 15 years shows just how well that little machine was put together.
If I could get away from the PC then I would but being a Windows developer there's not much chance of that. The PC is a kludge by comparison and there's practically zero in the way of personality there when you compare it to something like a Tiny Mac. So next time you go down to PC World (eurgh) skip around the sales git and go play with the snow white G4 iMac - you'll have the time of your life.
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