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The thing is, you didn't need to learn anything "computery" to operate the Mac. No special languages or commands, nothing. You could literally walk into a compu
by jsrcout 5y ago
The thing is, you didn't need to learn anything "computery" to operate the Mac. No special languages or commands, nothing. You could literally walk into a computer store, sit down at the demo machine and use the thing. And it was pervasively graphical - that was completely new. Sure, that was old hat to the folks at Xerox PARC, but for the average person it was like going from a bicycle to an X-wing fighter. Nothing else was even remotely comparable.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoAt the same time I remember being struck by, "Where's the BASIC prompt? How do I program it?"
- GeekyBear 5y agoApple created a Macintosh Basic, but Microsoft threatened not to renew Apple's license for the basic included with the Apple II computers that were the companies bread and butter at that time unless they killed it. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacBasic.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... The software did leak out and was widely spread by user groups. A couple of publishers had already printed books on it when Microsoft had the software killed, so you could even find manuals for it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- KineticLensman 5y agoI remember using a Macintosh (a Plus?) for the first time in approx 1988 and being confused about you created a file. Being a serious command-line user, it took me several minutes to a realise that you had to launch an app first.