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"In other words, the first thing that Apple's hackers had done when they'd got the MacOS up and running--probably even before they'd gotten it up and running--w

"In other words, the first thing that Apple's hackers had done when they'd got the MacOS up and running--probably even before they'd gotten it up and running--was to re-create the Unix interface, so that they would be able to get some useful work done. At the time, I simply couldn't get my mind around this, but: as far as Apple's hackers were concerned, the Mac's vaunted Graphical User Interface was an impediment, something to be circumvented before the little toaster even came out onto the market. " This is Unix revisionism. Most of the early development of the Macintosh is documented on folklore.org and they certainly didn't rebuild Unix to fit on a Mac. They bootstrapped the Macintosh using the Lisa development environment, which itself was bootstrapped with Apple ][s. Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time, and Apple didn't have a license for it anyway. There's plenty of stories of early/hobbyist Mac buyers realizing their $2k computer had no development tools, calling up Apple, and being told that they'd need to buy $10k Lisa machines if they wanted to do real app development. MPW didn't come out until 2 years later. (If you just wanted an easy-to-use development environment, Apple HAD worked on a GUI-capable BASIC for the Macintosh. But Bill Gates got wind of this and refused to renew their Apple ][ BASIC license unless they canned the project. Since no BASIC license meant no more Apple ][s, Apple caved, and the version of BASIC that Microsoft did ship on the Mac had no GUI support whatsoever. They would eventually ship Hypercard three years later, of course.)

isx726552 6y ago
The story of Mac Basic getting canceled is indeed a terribly sad moment in Mac history, documented here: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=MacBasic.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=MacBasic.txt
arexxbifs 6y ago
> This is Unix revisionism (...) they certainly didn't rebuild Unix to fit on a Mac I think you're reading too much into this. MPW, which was made and used by Apple developers and sold by Apple, featured a command line interface, which the Mac otherwise didn't have. They implemented this because a command line interface is a powerful tool when working with software development and most developers know this and will eventually want one. That's what Stephenson is saying here. The Lisa Workshop, which was used for software development on the Lisa, was also a text-based interface. > Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time No it wasn't. Xenix was released for the Lisa in 1984.
- okareaman 6y ago
  I loved MPW back in the day but I was an outlier compared to my other Mac developer friends
  - mistrial9 6y ago
    I wrote the CodeWarrior tooling integration for MPW and presented the finished work to the CEO of MetroWerks :-) Given the engineering quality on both sides of that wide divide, I felt some honor at the time -- I was paid but not that much.
- homarp 6y ago
  https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macintosh-programmers-workshop https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macintosh-programmers-works... describes Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (MPW) as "a Unix-like integrated development environment for the Mac OS." http://www.math.columbia.edu/~om/mpw-88.pdf http://www.math.columbia.edu/~om/mpw-88.pdf is a presentation by 2 of the authors of MPW. (Richard Meyers, Jeff Parrish)
- jhbadger 6y ago
  And Cromemco had CROMIX (a UNIX-Clone) for their 8-bit Z80 machines in 1979. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco
WalterBright 6y ago
I'm a bit surprised. BASIC is not that hard to implement. Apple could make their own.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  The folklore article in a sibling comment to yours clarifies it a bit. Apple did make their own, but it wasn't running on the Apple ][ or compatible with what was running on it. That was still their biggest revenue stream, and they couldn't afford MS withholding a license for BASIC on it or fragmenting the community (two versions of BASIC on the same platform depending on date of purchase). So they made a pragmatic choice to avoid getting screwed by MS, who went and did what they always did (especially back then): screwed them anyways.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Simply starting a credible project to do their own could have cause Microsoft to soften its terms. As for a different version of BASIC, nothing stopped Apple from making a work-a-like BASIC. After all, that's how the Compaq was made, and plenty of other work-a-likes. From a modern point of view, the software in those days looks pretty simple. I'm surprised there weren't a lot more clones.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      I can only take the folklore article as accurate here, but it seems that it boiled down to timing and cost. They probably could've done it, but their existing BASIC project had already taken a couple years. If they'd elected to replace MS's BASIC implementation with their own, they'd have had a year or so to get it done. And failure would've been very costly. Corporate risk tolerance comes into play at that point.
jonsen 6y ago
> Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time “UniFLEX was very similar to Unix Version 7”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniFLEX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniFLEX
- kjs3 6y ago
  There was also Coherent which ran on very modest hardware: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_(operating_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_(operating_system)
enriquto 6y ago
> Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time, I think that the article means that they implemented a unix-like command line, but not a full, posixly-compliant unix. Justh a mock sh and a handful of text-based utilities to be able to work in. At least this is how I read this paragraph.
pinewurst 6y ago
There was a native FORTH environment that came out fairly soon after the 1984 Mac announcement.
- RodgerTheGreat 6y ago
  As fungi terraformed land on early Earth, blazing a trail for plant life to follow, Forth is often the first colonizer of new computing platforms.
dkarl 6y ago
I think Neal Stephenson was overly optimistic about the audience for this book, and I think he would regard it as a failure of the book that the only people reading it are people like us who can make the distinction you just made. He seemed to be writing for people who knew nothing that he hadn't already told them, and identifying CLIs with Unix was a simplification that I think was supposed to make it easier for his target audience to follow. I did give the book to my computer-phobic father to read, because he was a historian who was interested in social and cultural changes and also kind of curious about what I did for a living, and he said it was interesting, but he also said he didn't really understand it at a concrete level and was relying on the vivid metaphors to get any meaning out of it. I don't think he really considered it worthwhile for someone like him to read, which I think meant it was a fundamentally ill-conceived book. Still a fun read, though.
- bawolff 6y ago
  I don't know, to me this short story practically screams preaching to the choir. Its almost like a patriotic rant to operating system fanboys. I don't think the audience was ever going to be non-computer nerds.
kjs3 6y ago
Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time No. Xenix ran on an 8086. Unisoft built a whole business around porting Unix to 68000s (not 68020s in the beginning, not even always 68010s...68000s). There were many others.

isx726552 6y ago

The story of Mac Basic getting canceled is indeed a terribly sad moment in Mac history, documented here: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=MacBasic.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=MacBasic.txt

arexxbifs 6y ago

> This is Unix revisionism (...) they certainly didn't rebuild Unix to fit on a Mac I think you're reading too much into this. MPW, which was made and used by Apple developers and sold by Apple, featured a command line interface, which the Mac otherwise didn't have. They implemented this because a command line interface is a powerful tool when working with software development and most developers know this and will eventually want one. That's what Stephenson is saying here. The Lisa Workshop, which was used for software development on the Lisa, was also a text-based interface. > Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time No it wasn't. Xenix was released for the Lisa in 1984.

okareaman 6y ago
I loved MPW back in the day but I was an outlier compared to my other Mac developer friends
- mistrial9 6y ago
  I wrote the CodeWarrior tooling integration for MPW and presented the finished work to the CEO of MetroWerks :-) Given the engineering quality on both sides of that wide divide, I felt some honor at the time -- I was paid but not that much.
homarp 6y ago
https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macintosh-programmers-workshop https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macintosh-programmers-works... describes Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (MPW) as "a Unix-like integrated development environment for the Mac OS." http://www.math.columbia.edu/~om/mpw-88.pdf http://www.math.columbia.edu/~om/mpw-88.pdf is a presentation by 2 of the authors of MPW. (Richard Meyers, Jeff Parrish)
jhbadger 6y ago
And Cromemco had CROMIX (a UNIX-Clone) for their 8-bit Z80 machines in 1979. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco

WalterBright 6y ago

I'm a bit surprised. BASIC is not that hard to implement. Apple could make their own.

Jtsummers 6y ago
The folklore article in a sibling comment to yours clarifies it a bit. Apple did make their own, but it wasn't running on the Apple ][ or compatible with what was running on it. That was still their biggest revenue stream, and they couldn't afford MS withholding a license for BASIC on it or fragmenting the community (two versions of BASIC on the same platform depending on date of purchase). So they made a pragmatic choice to avoid getting screwed by MS, who went and did what they always did (especially back then): screwed them anyways.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Simply starting a credible project to do their own could have cause Microsoft to soften its terms. As for a different version of BASIC, nothing stopped Apple from making a work-a-like BASIC. After all, that's how the Compaq was made, and plenty of other work-a-likes. From a modern point of view, the software in those days looks pretty simple. I'm surprised there weren't a lot more clones.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    I can only take the folklore article as accurate here, but it seems that it boiled down to timing and cost. They probably could've done it, but their existing BASIC project had already taken a couple years. If they'd elected to replace MS's BASIC implementation with their own, they'd have had a year or so to get it done. And failure would've been very costly. Corporate risk tolerance comes into play at that point.

jonsen 6y ago

> Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time “UniFLEX was very similar to Unix Version 7”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniFLEX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniFLEX

kjs3 6y ago
There was also Coherent which ran on very modest hardware: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_(operating_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_(operating_system)

enriquto 6y ago

> Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time, I think that the article means that they implemented a unix-like command line, but not a full, posixly-compliant unix. Justh a mock sh and a handful of text-based utilities to be able to work in. At least this is how I read this paragraph.

pinewurst 6y ago

There was a native FORTH environment that came out fairly soon after the 1984 Mac announcement.

RodgerTheGreat 6y ago
As fungi terraformed land on early Earth, blazing a trail for plant life to follow, Forth is often the first colonizer of new computing platforms.

dkarl 6y ago

I think Neal Stephenson was overly optimistic about the audience for this book, and I think he would regard it as a failure of the book that the only people reading it are people like us who can make the distinction you just made. He seemed to be writing for people who knew nothing that he hadn't already told them, and identifying CLIs with Unix was a simplification that I think was supposed to make it easier for his target audience to follow. I did give the book to my computer-phobic father to read, because he was a historian who was interested in social and cultural changes and also kind of curious about what I did for a living, and he said it was interesting, but he also said he didn't really understand it at a concrete level and was relying on the vivid metaphors to get any meaning out of it. I don't think he really considered it worthwhile for someone like him to read, which I think meant it was a fundamentally ill-conceived book. Still a fun read, though.

bawolff 6y ago
I don't know, to me this short story practically screams preaching to the choir. Its almost like a patriotic rant to operating system fanboys. I don't think the audience was ever going to be non-computer nerds.

kjs3 6y ago

Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time No. Xenix ran on an 8086. Unisoft built a whole business around porting Unix to 68000s (not 68020s in the beginning, not even always 68010s...68000s). There were many others.