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More 30 like years of personal computing...just dub "Mac" for "PC" and it's wouldn't be inaccurate except for the smiley faces. Just because these artists and

More 30 like years of personal computing...just dub "Mac" for "PC" and it's wouldn't be inaccurate except for the smiley faces. Just because these artists and engineers are talking about a Mac does not make their functions exclusive to the platform. Also, going back 30 years you have to endure some turd-Macs along the way (some brilliant ones too). Many jokes were had at the expense of our Mac brothers in the late mid to late 90's (even early 00's) about their platform of choice as we ran circles around them in gaming, graphics and pretty much any other benchmark besides money spent. It's not the case now (switch to Intel changed that) but I would love to see a similar piece in praise of the PC. And no I don't mean just Windows, I'm talking about the generic term. Computers are awesome, let's not fall in love with a corporate brand and think it's fundamentally something different when it's not.

aroman 13y ago
I think you missed the point. 30 years from today (January 24th, 1984) is celebrating the release of the original Macintosh, which was the first modern personal computer. Of course there have been "bad Apples" along the way — the Apple computer line sucked during much of the 90's, as you pointed out. But the simple fact is that Apple's original Macintosh was the definitive introduction of modern personal computing to the general public. It's not an arbitrary "30 years of personal computing"... it's commemorating a watershed moment.
- josefresco 13y ago
  It certainly comes off better if you frame it in that way. It's probably my bias which lead me to read too far into some of the quotes used about the Mac bringing new capabilities that didn't exist for the consumer previously. The 1984 machine is/was an amazing thing, but the 90's and even the early 00's Macs were anything but.
  - usingpond 13y ago
    You really don't think that the iMac was a crazy influential product? Even by computer nerd standards that we have, a 1024x768 display and USB-only ports were a very bold move that changed a lot. Not to mention the design of the damned thing and it's focus as a PC dedicated to the Internet in terms of a consumer product.
    - sbuk 13y ago
      Let's not forget the moral outrage at the perceived omission of a floppy drive.
- rapind 13y ago
  It is most certainly not a fact that the "Macintosh was the definitive introduction of modern personal computing to the general public." The Apple ][ was more popular by far than the original Mac, and even so it wasn't the first definitive PC. I remember seeing a lot of Commodore PETs around when I was young... way more than Macintosh.
  - aroman 13y ago
    I was using the term "modern personal computing" to refer to a computer using what would become the standard cross-platform interface for computers: the desktop metaphor[1]. While the Apple II and the Commodore PET were undoubtedly very popular and did put computers into the hands of home users, they really were not "modern" computers. To quote the Wikipedia article I referenced above: "The first computer to popularise the desktop metaphor, using it as a standard feature over the earlier command line interface was the Apple Macintosh in 1984. The desktop metaphor is ubiquitous in modern-day personal computing; it is found in most desktop environments of modern operating systems: Windows as well as Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unix-like systems." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor
- FireBeyond 13y ago
  The Amiga might have something to say to you about modern personal computing. Well, I should clarify. The Amiga was -demo'ed- in 1983 but not released until 1985.
  - sbuk 13y ago
    And that was after the Apple Lisa, which was released in early January of 1983.
jryle80 13y ago
Why do you need to be an ass? We celebrate computers every single day. Is it unreasonable to acknowledge a brand that many many professionals feel emotionally attached? Did you complain when we were celebrating VAX, Atari, Commodore, Walkman, PlayStation 2? Mac brought to the mass many things we take for granted today -- graphical interface, mouse, all-in-one form factor, SSD, etc. Once popular brands -- IBM, Compag, Gateway, DEC, Sun -- are gone. Mac is still here and going strong. Not remarkable at all?
gaius 13y ago
It is certainly interesting to compare the full colour, hardware accelerated graphic, multitasking, large memory Amigas of the mid 80s with contemporary Macs... The future could have been very, very different (and arguably computing would be 5-10 years ahead of where it is now, as that was the lead Commodore had back then). Or the Acorn Archimedes of the time, which was turning in floating point benchmarks 10x faster.
- taliesinb 13y ago
  What was responsible for the Amiga ultimately failing, if it was superior in all those ways?
  - gaius 13y ago
    A series of business blunders by Commodore. Apple made similar blunders a decade later and barely survived them.
  - jacobwcarlson 13y ago
    It's complicated: http://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/ http://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/
  - simonh 13y ago
    The Amiga OS was very advanced in some ways, but extremely primitive in others. It was basically a hyper-advanced games console with a keyboard. The UI was minimally functional, limited to non-existent support for printers or peripherals, etc. It just wasn't intended to be used as anything other than a games machine and provided none of the features a business machine would need. I speak as a very proud owner of an Amiga 500 since 1989.
    - gaius 13y ago
      The A1000, the 1985 original was a conventional 3-box design aimed at businesses who wanted to get into this new "multimedia" thing.
    - 13y ago
scelerat 13y ago
> switch to Intel changed that The turnaround started with Mac OS X, in 2001. That's what really started turning heads. The intel macs five years later helped, but it really was the wow factor of having a great Mac- or Mac-like (considering Aqua was the most radical departure Apple had made from the System 6/7/8/9 UI lineage up until that point) interface on top of real Unix, with all of its tools. It put to bed all sorts of concerns with architecture, open source/free software, macho "real programmers" insecurities, etc.
- 72deluxe 13y ago
  Early releases of Mac OSX were pretty bad. Pretty, but pretty bad too. (Too many uses of the word "pretty"?)
  - scelerat 13y ago
    Yah I recall that 10.2 seemed like first version of Mac OS X that had a lot of kinks worked out. Each release thereafter got better and faster. Apple had one solid release after another throughout the aughts.
  - Moto7451 13y ago
    Yup, but it was worth it to escape the various errors that could take down the OS at a moments notice depending on the software you were running. Not loosing my unsaved/unauto-saved Word documents because of an iTunes or IE crash was huge.
- josefresco 13y ago
  I'm referring hardware/performance parity among the platforms. I sat through too many Apple events where they marched out some obscure crazy benchmark proving their (IBM) crappy CPUs were 1 million times more powerful than Intel's. Fast forward a few years and surprise! Apple moved to Intel because of their "superior roadmap" Notice how that implies that moving forward Intel is the performance winner but historically was not. For fun read this, 2 yeas before the switch to Intel: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/06/23Apple-and-IBM-Introduce-the-PowerPC-G5-Processor.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/06/23Apple-and-IBM-Intr...
hardtke 13y ago
I was 10 at the time and my father was a typewriter repairman. He purchased a Mac the first day it came out. To that point, the IBM PC had not affected the typewriter repair business because of the archaic document preparation programs then in use (similar to latex). When I hooked up the Mac and started typing a document, my father said "oh shit" and knew that his business was done. I then went to print the document, and the printer didn't work because the first batch of printer cables were defective. Nonetheless, 30 years ago today the office was transformed -- dedicated typists were no longer needed because people could prepare final copies of their own documents.

aroman 13y ago

I think you missed the point. 30 years from today (January 24th, 1984) is celebrating the release of the original Macintosh, which was the first modern personal computer. Of course there have been "bad Apples" along the way — the Apple computer line sucked during much of the 90's, as you pointed out. But the simple fact is that Apple's original Macintosh was the definitive introduction of modern personal computing to the general public. It's not an arbitrary "30 years of personal computing"... it's commemorating a watershed moment.

josefresco 13y ago
It certainly comes off better if you frame it in that way. It's probably my bias which lead me to read too far into some of the quotes used about the Mac bringing new capabilities that didn't exist for the consumer previously. The 1984 machine is/was an amazing thing, but the 90's and even the early 00's Macs were anything but.
- usingpond 13y ago
  You really don't think that the iMac was a crazy influential product? Even by computer nerd standards that we have, a 1024x768 display and USB-only ports were a very bold move that changed a lot. Not to mention the design of the damned thing and it's focus as a PC dedicated to the Internet in terms of a consumer product.
  - sbuk 13y ago
    Let's not forget the moral outrage at the perceived omission of a floppy drive.
rapind 13y ago
It is most certainly not a fact that the "Macintosh was the definitive introduction of modern personal computing to the general public." The Apple ][ was more popular by far than the original Mac, and even so it wasn't the first definitive PC. I remember seeing a lot of Commodore PETs around when I was young... way more than Macintosh.
- aroman 13y ago
  I was using the term "modern personal computing" to refer to a computer using what would become the standard cross-platform interface for computers: the desktop metaphor[1]. While the Apple II and the Commodore PET were undoubtedly very popular and did put computers into the hands of home users, they really were not "modern" computers. To quote the Wikipedia article I referenced above: "The first computer to popularise the desktop metaphor, using it as a standard feature over the earlier command line interface was the Apple Macintosh in 1984. The desktop metaphor is ubiquitous in modern-day personal computing; it is found in most desktop environments of modern operating systems: Windows as well as Mac OS X, Linux, and other Unix-like systems." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor
FireBeyond 13y ago
The Amiga might have something to say to you about modern personal computing. Well, I should clarify. The Amiga was -demo'ed- in 1983 but not released until 1985.
- sbuk 13y ago
  And that was after the Apple Lisa, which was released in early January of 1983.

jryle80 13y ago

Why do you need to be an ass? We celebrate computers every single day. Is it unreasonable to acknowledge a brand that many many professionals feel emotionally attached? Did you complain when we were celebrating VAX, Atari, Commodore, Walkman, PlayStation 2? Mac brought to the mass many things we take for granted today -- graphical interface, mouse, all-in-one form factor, SSD, etc. Once popular brands -- IBM, Compag, Gateway, DEC, Sun -- are gone. Mac is still here and going strong. Not remarkable at all?

gaius 13y ago

It is certainly interesting to compare the full colour, hardware accelerated graphic, multitasking, large memory Amigas of the mid 80s with contemporary Macs... The future could have been very, very different (and arguably computing would be 5-10 years ahead of where it is now, as that was the lead Commodore had back then). Or the Acorn Archimedes of the time, which was turning in floating point benchmarks 10x faster.

taliesinb 13y ago
What was responsible for the Amiga ultimately failing, if it was superior in all those ways?
- gaius 13y ago
  A series of business blunders by Commodore. Apple made similar blunders a decade later and barely survived them.
- jacobwcarlson 13y ago
  It's complicated: http://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/ http://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/
- simonh 13y ago
  The Amiga OS was very advanced in some ways, but extremely primitive in others. It was basically a hyper-advanced games console with a keyboard. The UI was minimally functional, limited to non-existent support for printers or peripherals, etc. It just wasn't intended to be used as anything other than a games machine and provided none of the features a business machine would need. I speak as a very proud owner of an Amiga 500 since 1989.
  - gaius 13y ago
    The A1000, the 1985 original was a conventional 3-box design aimed at businesses who wanted to get into this new "multimedia" thing.
  - 13y ago

scelerat 13y ago

> switch to Intel changed that The turnaround started with Mac OS X, in 2001. That's what really started turning heads. The intel macs five years later helped, but it really was the wow factor of having a great Mac- or Mac-like (considering Aqua was the most radical departure Apple had made from the System 6/7/8/9 UI lineage up until that point) interface on top of real Unix, with all of its tools. It put to bed all sorts of concerns with architecture, open source/free software, macho "real programmers" insecurities, etc.

72deluxe 13y ago
Early releases of Mac OSX were pretty bad. Pretty, but pretty bad too. (Too many uses of the word "pretty"?)
- scelerat 13y ago
  Yah I recall that 10.2 seemed like first version of Mac OS X that had a lot of kinks worked out. Each release thereafter got better and faster. Apple had one solid release after another throughout the aughts.
- Moto7451 13y ago
  Yup, but it was worth it to escape the various errors that could take down the OS at a moments notice depending on the software you were running. Not loosing my unsaved/unauto-saved Word documents because of an iTunes or IE crash was huge.
josefresco 13y ago
I'm referring hardware/performance parity among the platforms. I sat through too many Apple events where they marched out some obscure crazy benchmark proving their (IBM) crappy CPUs were 1 million times more powerful than Intel's. Fast forward a few years and surprise! Apple moved to Intel because of their "superior roadmap" Notice how that implies that moving forward Intel is the performance winner but historically was not. For fun read this, 2 yeas before the switch to Intel: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/06/23Apple-and-IBM-Introduce-the-PowerPC-G5-Processor.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/06/23Apple-and-IBM-Intr...

hardtke 13y ago

I was 10 at the time and my father was a typewriter repairman. He purchased a Mac the first day it came out. To that point, the IBM PC had not affected the typewriter repair business because of the archaic document preparation programs then in use (similar to latex). When I hooked up the Mac and started typing a document, my father said "oh shit" and knew that his business was done. I then went to print the document, and the printer didn't work because the first batch of printer cables were defective. Nonetheless, 30 years ago today the office was transformed -- dedicated typists were no longer needed because people could prepare final copies of their own documents.