Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made by Andy Hertzfeld Page B
Authors: Andy Hertzfeld
Tags: General, Computers, Business & Economics, Operating Systems, Hardware, Industries, Computers & Information Technology, Workplace Culture, Research & Development, Macintosh
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the Quickdraw graphics package, Chris decided to start with documenting Quickdraw.
Chris wanted to write a demo program using Quickdraw, in order to better understand it. He got excited about the idea of what we called "desk ornaments", which at that point were not implemented yet. He decided to work on a Quickdraw program to draw the calculator.
After playing around for a while, he came up with a calculator that he thought looked pretty good. But the acid test was showing it to Steve Jobs, in his role as our esthetic compass, to see what he thought.
We all gathered around as Chris showed the calculator to Steve and then held his breath, waiting for Steve's reaction. "Well, it's a start", Steve said, "but basically, it stinks. The background color is too dark, some lines are the wrong thickness, and the buttons are too big." Chris told Steve he'll keep changing it, until Steve thought he got it right.
So, for a couple of days, Chris would incorporate Steve's suggestions from the previous day, but Steve would continue to find new faults each time he was shown it. Finally, Chris got a flash of inspiration.
The next afternoon, instead of a new iteration of the calculator, Chris unveiled his new approach, which he called "the Steve Jobs Roll Your Own Calculator Construction Set". Every decision regarding graphical attributes of the calculator were parameterized by pull-down menus. You could select line thicknesses, button sizes, background patterns, etc.
Steve took a look at the new program, and immediately started fiddling with the parameters. After trying out alternatives for ten minutes or so, he settled on something that he liked. When I implemented the calculator UI (Donn Denman did the math semantics) for real a few months later, I used Steve's design, and it remained the standard calculator on the Macintosh for many years, all the way up through OS 9.
And Another Thing...
by Andy Hertzfeld in March 1982
By early 1982, the Macintosh was beginning to be acknowledged as a significant project within Apple, instead of a quirky research effort, but it still remained somewhat controversial. Since the Mac was sort of like a Lisa that was priced like an Apple II, it was seen as potential competition from both groups. Also, our leader Steve Jobs had a habit of constantly boasting about the superiority of the Mac team, which tended to alienate everybody else.
Larry Tesler, who came to Apple from Xerox PARC in the summer of 1980, was the manager of the Lisa Application Software team. He understood and appreciated the potential of the Macintosh and was very supportive of the project. He was concerned that some of the Lisa team didn't share his enthusiasm, and thought that it would be helpful for us to demonstrate the Mac to his team and talk about our plans with them. He arranged for Burrell Smith and me to give a demo during a lunch-time meeting.
By this point, we had stand-alone Macintosh prototypes that no longer depended on an umbilical cord to a hosting Lisa. We didn't have the real plastic cases yet, but we were able to house the prototypes in plastic boxes of around the same size that were a passable imitation. The demo software environment was based on the "Lisa Monitor", a simple operating system cooked up by one of the main Lisa architects, Rich Page, that I got running on the Macintosh. The monitor was based on the UCSD Pascal system Filer and offered a simple, menu-based UI. We were able to boot the Mac into the monitor from an Apple II floppy, and then use it to launch various demo programs.
Burrell and I set up the prototype in a large conference room in the Lisa building. The Lisa applications team was seated around the table, but quite a few other Lisa team members had also gathered around, standing room only, perhaps twenty-five people in all. Larry Tesler gave us a nice introduction, and then we booted up the prototype and started to run through various demos while explaining the capabilities of the machine.
Chris wanted to write a demo program using Quickdraw, in order to better understand it. He got excited about the idea of what we called "desk ornaments", which at that point were not implemented yet. He decided to work on a Quickdraw program to draw the calculator.
After playing around for a while, he came up with a calculator that he thought looked pretty good. But the acid test was showing it to Steve Jobs, in his role as our esthetic compass, to see what he thought.
We all gathered around as Chris showed the calculator to Steve and then held his breath, waiting for Steve's reaction. "Well, it's a start", Steve said, "but basically, it stinks. The background color is too dark, some lines are the wrong thickness, and the buttons are too big." Chris told Steve he'll keep changing it, until Steve thought he got it right.
So, for a couple of days, Chris would incorporate Steve's suggestions from the previous day, but Steve would continue to find new faults each time he was shown it. Finally, Chris got a flash of inspiration.
The next afternoon, instead of a new iteration of the calculator, Chris unveiled his new approach, which he called "the Steve Jobs Roll Your Own Calculator Construction Set". Every decision regarding graphical attributes of the calculator were parameterized by pull-down menus. You could select line thicknesses, button sizes, background patterns, etc.
Steve took a look at the new program, and immediately started fiddling with the parameters. After trying out alternatives for ten minutes or so, he settled on something that he liked. When I implemented the calculator UI (Donn Denman did the math semantics) for real a few months later, I used Steve's design, and it remained the standard calculator on the Macintosh for many years, all the way up through OS 9.
And Another Thing...
by Andy Hertzfeld in March 1982
By early 1982, the Macintosh was beginning to be acknowledged as a significant project within Apple, instead of a quirky research effort, but it still remained somewhat controversial. Since the Mac was sort of like a Lisa that was priced like an Apple II, it was seen as potential competition from both groups. Also, our leader Steve Jobs had a habit of constantly boasting about the superiority of the Mac team, which tended to alienate everybody else.
Larry Tesler, who came to Apple from Xerox PARC in the summer of 1980, was the manager of the Lisa Application Software team. He understood and appreciated the potential of the Macintosh and was very supportive of the project. He was concerned that some of the Lisa team didn't share his enthusiasm, and thought that it would be helpful for us to demonstrate the Mac to his team and talk about our plans with them. He arranged for Burrell Smith and me to give a demo during a lunch-time meeting.
By this point, we had stand-alone Macintosh prototypes that no longer depended on an umbilical cord to a hosting Lisa. We didn't have the real plastic cases yet, but we were able to house the prototypes in plastic boxes of around the same size that were a passable imitation. The demo software environment was based on the "Lisa Monitor", a simple operating system cooked up by one of the main Lisa architects, Rich Page, that I got running on the Macintosh. The monitor was based on the UCSD Pascal system Filer and offered a simple, menu-based UI. We were able to boot the Mac into the monitor from an Apple II floppy, and then use it to launch various demo programs.
Burrell and I set up the prototype in a large conference room in the Lisa building. The Lisa applications team was seated around the table, but quite a few other Lisa team members had also gathered around, standing room only, perhaps twenty-five people in all. Larry Tesler gave us a nice introduction, and then we booted up the prototype and started to run through various demos while explaining the capabilities of the machine.
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