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Both Jef Raskin and Steve Jobs always intended the Mac to be unexpandable (except via serial and parallel ports). Jobs had long wanted devices that the end-user
by LocalH 3y ago
Both Jef Raskin and Steve Jobs always intended the Mac to be unexpandable (except via serial and parallel ports). Jobs had long wanted devices that the end-user could not upgrade. Well, he got them with the iPhone and iPad.
Jobs never really wanted "general purpose computing". He wanted computing that he controlled from the top down.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoIt's funny though that the Apple Lisa -- the amazing computer that Jobs worked his ass off to copy parts of and then get killed (after they kicked him off the project) -- was actually far more locked down than the Mac, which Jobs was more involved in. The Mac was more of a general purpose computer, though obviously more locked down than the DOS & CP/M type & home computer type machines it was contemporary with. And the NeXT, Jobs' next project, was actually quite open. For the time, anyways. I think he was fairly schizo on this topic. Or just deferred to his engineers where it mattered on certain things.
- BirAdam 3y agoI don’t think it factored in much to his thinking beyond market acceptance. The mass market mostly didn’t seem to care much about accessibility. Special purpose users do, but that’s a smaller market. I think for Steve Jobs the point was beauty, simplicity, and anti-fragility. A machine with tons of ports, openings, mechanical parts, and janky software is one that breaks easily. Jobs hated things that were janky and that’s consistent throughout his career. In the earlier days, making things work required expansion slots and mechanical parts. When those things ceased to be required, Apple did away with them.
- abecedarius 3y agoIronic that the Apple /// was so janky due to hardware design choices insisted on by Jobs (on power and cooling).