rant whine 'splain espouse: Fascinating early Apple stories

Monday, February 21, 2005

Fascinating early Apple stories

I've never been that terribly interested in the many books that have come out over the years about Apple; I never bought a one.

But having grown up in the Silicon Valley, witnessing it all happening around me, and having been an early user of Apples and Macs when I was in grade school and high school, it's hard not to be somewhat interested. Of course, the Mac platform is an integral part of my life now, and has been for almost 20 years.

Today I use it for nearly every aspect of my life, from listening to music, managing my accounts, purchasing books and many other things, viewing and sorting and editing my photos, writing and editing, watching movies, listening to the radio, and communicating with my friends and family. Not to mention that my livelihood depends on Macs.

Considering the extent to which I use Macs in my life today, and for how long I've been using them (I remember using the little 128k with the 7-inch black and white monitor, and no internal hard drive, everything fitting on one tiny floppy), perhaps it's strange that I've never been that interested in the history that brought it all about.

This changed somewhat when I ran across folklore.org the other day and spent about two hours reading stories about the early days of the Mac, written by the guys who were there.

I was particularly interested to read about Steve Jobs' yelling at Bill Gates about stealing the Mac's mouse and interface ideas for Windows, about when Andy Hertzfeld learned who was responsible for a particularly embarassing game on the PC, and Jobs' (in)famous Reality Distortion Field.

Floklore.org lays it all bare. It's honest and forthright, at one moment showing an obvious pride in some of Apple's great accomplishments, at the next moment recalling the poorly-handled Stalin-esque mass firing of most of the Apple II team.