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> The line is sometime after early 1981 FALSE. "1979 March Jef Raskin proposes the original Macintosh project to Mike Markkula..... 1979 September Macintosh p

> The line is sometime after early 1981 FALSE. "1979 March Jef Raskin proposes the original Macintosh project to Mike Markkula..... 1979 September Macintosh project formally begins, although some preliminary work was done as early as late 1978." [1] "The early Mac team members in 1979 consisted of Jef Raskin, Brian Howard, Marc LeBrun, Burrell Smith, Joanna Hoffman, and Bud Tribble."[2] "The former head of publications and quality assurance at Apple, Raskin had proposed the project to Mike Markkula in 1979."[3] "The Macintosh project started in the late 1970s with Jef Raskin.... In September 1979, Raskin was authorized by the management to start hiring for the project, and he began to look for an engineer who could put together a prototype.[4] "Parallel to the Lisa's development, a skunkworks team at Apple was working on another project. Conceived in 1979* by Jef Raskin, the Macintosh was envisioned as an affordable, easy-to-use computer for the masses, with the Lisa's graphical interface."[5] Raskin started hiring for the Macintosh Project, and it began in earnest, in name, and in an official capacity at Apple nearly a full two years before Jobs took over the project and three months before Apple famously visited Xerox Parc. And Jef Raskin was far more contributive to the development of Macintosh than Steve Jobs, who took the project over in the late middle of its development with only a stark handful of changes, requirements and specifications. Nevertheless, development of Macintosh was intimately intertwined with that Xerox's demo of Alto and the co-development of Lisa at Apple. For example, all of the early Macintosh software was developed on Lisa, and they both shared the same product design language. The Lisa was ultimately rebranded as a Macintosh XL before it was cancelled. The development lines are clearly blurred and Macintosh development is far more complex than you have asserted. Your facts are in error and your timeline is off by a couple years. [1] https://www.apple2history.org/appendix/ahb/ahb2/ https://www.apple2history.org/appendix/ahb/ahb2/ [2] https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-the-macintosh-4072884 https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-the-macintosh-4072884 [3] https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/earlymac.html https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/earlymac.html [4] https://history-computer.com/macintosh-by-apple-complete-history-of-mac-computers/ https://history-computer.com/macintosh-by-apple-complete-his... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_(computer)#1979–1996:_%22Macintosh%22_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_(computer)#1979–1996:_%22M...

AlbertCory 3y ago
I don't know why you keep arguing here. You clearly know nothing directly and you've just read some stuff. Maybe in 100 years someone with your level of studiousness will have some credibility, since all the participants will be dead. What were you doing then?
- retrocryptid 3y ago
  I don't know what Marsault was doing in 1980, but one of the things I was working on was serial drivers for the 6809 board (i think) Burrell Smith had hacked together for Jef Raskin (he also designed the later 68000 board, though I know Dan Kottke had something to do with it.) I had previously written modem drivers for the Apple II and Jef helped me get the required technical docs from Apple and Hayes. What I saw of the Mac prototype in 1980 was MUCH more like what became the SwyftCard for the Apple II or the Canon Cat. It didn't have a Mouse. It had a menu based interface, not WIMP. It reminded me much more of the Apple II Pascal system (that I think Jef might have had something to do with.) But... it was absolutely a prototype, complete with wire-wrap wires going everywhere and an apple II power supply attached to the board with what looked like dangerously spliced wires. When I said the line between Raskin Mac and Jobs Mac was early '81, it's cause that's when Jobs took over the project and brought some of the ideas the Lisa team was working on with him. The Verge and Folklore.Org recently published scans of Bill Atkisson's Polaroid photos of Lisa development. And while they don't all have dates, they show that even then there was a lot of experimentation going on, even after Jobs moved from Lisa to Macintosh. If you look at the two interfaces, the major features are quite similar (WIMP, Desktop Metaphor), but several details are different (scroll bar rendering, title bars, apps). Before 1981, the Mac wasn't going to be a mouse driven, WIMP system. Heck, before 1979, when Jobs and Atkisson visited PARC, I'm not sure the Lisa was going to be a WIMP system. Things only look linear when you look at them in reverse. What I remember from this time frame is everything was changing very fast. In 1979, CP/M was *THE* business operating system for microcomputers. In 1980, enough people had seen VisiCalc that the Apple II was becoming ascendant in business microcomputing circles. And just the rumor that IBM was working on a PC in late 1980 was enough for some people to delay buying anything that year. Saying the Macintosh was a continuation of the Lisa Project is ridiculous. The Lisa guys were focused on the Lisa and the Macintosh guys were focused on the Mac. It's sort of like what Bill Gates is supposed to have quipped: "It's like we both lived next to this rich guy named Xerox. I broke into his house to steal his TV only to discover you had already stolen it." Both teams were drawing from a rich collection of ideas that were swirling around. The Mac guys benefited greatly from the Lisa team, but mostly in what not to try: the larger Lisa team was sufficiently staffed to try out a bunch of ideas, many of which didn't make the cut. And the QuickDraw that made its way into the Mac started on the Lisa. But to say this means the Lisa team was working to create the Macintosh after releasing the Lisa is ridiculous. They were two different teams with two different design objectives.

AlbertCory 3y ago

I don't know why you keep arguing here. You clearly know nothing directly and you've just read some stuff. Maybe in 100 years someone with your level of studiousness will have some credibility, since all the participants will be dead. What were you doing then?

retrocryptid 3y ago
I don't know what Marsault was doing in 1980, but one of the things I was working on was serial drivers for the 6809 board (i think) Burrell Smith had hacked together for Jef Raskin (he also designed the later 68000 board, though I know Dan Kottke had something to do with it.) I had previously written modem drivers for the Apple II and Jef helped me get the required technical docs from Apple and Hayes. What I saw of the Mac prototype in 1980 was MUCH more like what became the SwyftCard for the Apple II or the Canon Cat. It didn't have a Mouse. It had a menu based interface, not WIMP. It reminded me much more of the Apple II Pascal system (that I think Jef might have had something to do with.) But... it was absolutely a prototype, complete with wire-wrap wires going everywhere and an apple II power supply attached to the board with what looked like dangerously spliced wires. When I said the line between Raskin Mac and Jobs Mac was early '81, it's cause that's when Jobs took over the project and brought some of the ideas the Lisa team was working on with him. The Verge and Folklore.Org recently published scans of Bill Atkisson's Polaroid photos of Lisa development. And while they don't all have dates, they show that even then there was a lot of experimentation going on, even after Jobs moved from Lisa to Macintosh. If you look at the two interfaces, the major features are quite similar (WIMP, Desktop Metaphor), but several details are different (scroll bar rendering, title bars, apps). Before 1981, the Mac wasn't going to be a mouse driven, WIMP system. Heck, before 1979, when Jobs and Atkisson visited PARC, I'm not sure the Lisa was going to be a WIMP system. Things only look linear when you look at them in reverse. What I remember from this time frame is everything was changing very fast. In 1979, CP/M was *THE* business operating system for microcomputers. In 1980, enough people had seen VisiCalc that the Apple II was becoming ascendant in business microcomputing circles. And just the rumor that IBM was working on a PC in late 1980 was enough for some people to delay buying anything that year. Saying the Macintosh was a continuation of the Lisa Project is ridiculous. The Lisa guys were focused on the Lisa and the Macintosh guys were focused on the Mac. It's sort of like what Bill Gates is supposed to have quipped: "It's like we both lived next to this rich guy named Xerox. I broke into his house to steal his TV only to discover you had already stolen it." Both teams were drawing from a rich collection of ideas that were swirling around. The Mac guys benefited greatly from the Lisa team, but mostly in what not to try: the larger Lisa team was sufficiently staffed to try out a bunch of ideas, many of which didn't make the cut. And the QuickDraw that made its way into the Mac started on the Lisa. But to say this means the Lisa team was working to create the Macintosh after releasing the Lisa is ridiculous. They were two different teams with two different design objectives.