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Shame that Bill Gates was able to force Apple to kill MacBasic. I wonder if Apple would have included it in the box, or if it would have been popular, and if t

Shame that Bill Gates was able to force Apple to kill MacBasic. I wonder if Apple would have included it in the box, or if it would have been popular, and if the Mac would have attracted more hobbyist programmers like the Apple II did? On the other hand, a couple of years later Apple introduced HyperCard, which really was a kind of end-user programming revolution, even if it largely became an evolutionary dead end (though HyperTalk influenced AppleScript and probably other languages as well.) Perhaps if HyperCard had been networked then it might have survived longer into the web/JavaScript era.

WillAdams 3y ago
HyperCard was late to the show, and confused by not being released as a programming/development tool (usually you had to make a special change to enable that), and it was weird, and it made "Stacks", not programs/applications.
- lostemptations5 3y ago
  [dead]
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  Originally, there was no separate "player" version of Hypercard, so the stack editing/development tools were universally available. The Hypercard player appeared as a separate thing after Clarus took over as Apple's software distribution arm. Typing "magic" in the message box of the Hypercard player converted it into a full version of Hypercard.
- geerlingguy 3y ago
  Myst was created in HyperCard (I think?), one of the most popular computer games of all time (and recreated like 5 times now!).
  - WillAdams 3y ago
    Yes, and before that there was _The Manhole_ which was described as "Where Alice would have gone if Alice had had Hypercard".
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
The Mac was priced too far out of the hobbyist snack bracket. And Steve Jobs deliberately sealed it off to be un-expandable and mostly unfriendly to tinkerers.
- lproven 3y ago
  And yet... It got there in the end. But in the early days, that opened up the niche for the Atari ST, the "Jackintosh", sold with the tagline "the power without the price". Dismissed these days but hugely important and influential in its time. And that also paved the way for the Amiga. But in the end, they tied their systems too closely to the low-end entry-level spec, which Apple did not do with the "sealed off" Mac. Which led to the Mac Plus, and the Mac II, and hundreds of models, still on sale today. While the ST and Amiga struggled into the 68030 era then mostly died out. So in fact, it's not really true, is it? It's not about the price, because... ... in the end, they got reasonably priced... ... and still sell today, 40 years later... ... there's always the 2nd hand market... ... they had cheaper rivals but those companies died, showing that keeping your prices high enough for healthy profits is in fact the long-term winning strategy. So: no. The MacBook Air is even more "sealed down." It has been on sale, that locked down, for 16 years, and yet it still sells ten million a year. https://gitnux.org/macbook-air-statistics/ https://gitnux.org/macbook-air-statistics/ So... no. Argument rejected on all counts.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    So, well, I was an Atari ST user back in the day. So. And yes the Mac dropped in price for a period in the late 80s, 90s, in the 030 era as you say. But this had a lot to do with dropping component prices and Apple's mass market strategy at that point. At that point in time my mother got a IIlc on educational discount and it was a far better deal than a PC of the same era, at least for what she was doing. And in that era they made it a relatively open platform at that point, too, with an expansion bus, and ADB and all that. But that was well beyond when Jobs was there. His original vision was a locked down appliance box. Though he changed his tune when he went over to NeXT. The original Mac was too expensive for regular middle class people, and it had no expansion ports. I don't think you can deny those two facts.
EricE 3y ago
If they had built networking into Hypercard I doubt the web would have come to being - there would have been no need. I remember seeing somewhere Bill Atkinson talking about what a miss it was. Especially since AppleTalk was built into the Mac from day one :/

WillAdams 3y ago

HyperCard was late to the show, and confused by not being released as a programming/development tool (usually you had to make a special change to enable that), and it was weird, and it made "Stacks", not programs/applications.

lostemptations5 3y ago
[dead]
GeekyBear 3y ago
Originally, there was no separate "player" version of Hypercard, so the stack editing/development tools were universally available. The Hypercard player appeared as a separate thing after Clarus took over as Apple's software distribution arm. Typing "magic" in the message box of the Hypercard player converted it into a full version of Hypercard.
geerlingguy 3y ago
Myst was created in HyperCard (I think?), one of the most popular computer games of all time (and recreated like 5 times now!).
- WillAdams 3y ago
  Yes, and before that there was _The Manhole_ which was described as "Where Alice would have gone if Alice had had Hypercard".

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

The Mac was priced too far out of the hobbyist snack bracket. And Steve Jobs deliberately sealed it off to be un-expandable and mostly unfriendly to tinkerers.

lproven 3y ago
And yet... It got there in the end. But in the early days, that opened up the niche for the Atari ST, the "Jackintosh", sold with the tagline "the power without the price". Dismissed these days but hugely important and influential in its time. And that also paved the way for the Amiga. But in the end, they tied their systems too closely to the low-end entry-level spec, which Apple did not do with the "sealed off" Mac. Which led to the Mac Plus, and the Mac II, and hundreds of models, still on sale today. While the ST and Amiga struggled into the 68030 era then mostly died out. So in fact, it's not really true, is it? It's not about the price, because... ... in the end, they got reasonably priced... ... and still sell today, 40 years later... ... there's always the 2nd hand market... ... they had cheaper rivals but those companies died, showing that keeping your prices high enough for healthy profits is in fact the long-term winning strategy. So: no. The MacBook Air is even more "sealed down." It has been on sale, that locked down, for 16 years, and yet it still sells ten million a year. https://gitnux.org/macbook-air-statistics/ https://gitnux.org/macbook-air-statistics/ So... no. Argument rejected on all counts.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  So, well, I was an Atari ST user back in the day. So. And yes the Mac dropped in price for a period in the late 80s, 90s, in the 030 era as you say. But this had a lot to do with dropping component prices and Apple's mass market strategy at that point. At that point in time my mother got a IIlc on educational discount and it was a far better deal than a PC of the same era, at least for what she was doing. And in that era they made it a relatively open platform at that point, too, with an expansion bus, and ADB and all that. But that was well beyond when Jobs was there. His original vision was a locked down appliance box. Though he changed his tune when he went over to NeXT. The original Mac was too expensive for regular middle class people, and it had no expansion ports. I don't think you can deny those two facts.

EricE 3y ago

If they had built networking into Hypercard I doubt the web would have come to being - there would have been no need. I remember seeing somewhere Bill Atkinson talking about what a miss it was. Especially since AppleTalk was built into the Mac from day one :/