Mac Folklore Radio

Original text by Jim Black [https://mjtsai.com/blog/2018/05/14/john-carmacks-steve-jobs-stories/]. Previous John Carmack episode: The Steve Jobs Rollercoaster [https://macfolkloreradio.com/2019/11/02/carmack-steve-jobs-rollercoaster.html]. Peter Graffagnino’s appearance at NeXTEVNT 2015 [https://youtu.be/1ze6rI453YY?t=1226]. Peter is interviewed by fellow Pixar veteran Michael Johnson. Some of the original Mac team demonstrating Steve Jobs’ favourite hand gesture [https://folklore.org/gallery/2-gallery.html] (scroll down). John Carmack’s appearance at Macworld San Francisco 1999 [https://youtu.be/XzbFgzgy1mc?t=4793]. “The only thing you want to do with the Mac as a serious gamer is you wanna pull out the silly one button mouse and plug in a three button mouse pretty quick.” Steve Jobs Deer Hunter quote from Macworld New York 1998 [https://youtu.be/gdYiqVzPjAc?t=3941].

Apple’s licensing approach (ca. 1994-1997) is a bad idea. Original text by Steven Levy, Macworld January 1995 [https://archive.org/details/MacWorld_9501_January_1995/page/n164/mode/1up]. Andy Bechtolscheim quote about SPARC licensing and Macintosh clones [https://youtu.be/GjR7sRASjdo?t=3892]: “Sun had a unified business… it wasn’t really selling separate software. … that whole notion of defining success [as] ‘other people adopt your thing’… Apple was criticized for being a closed system, then they licensed SuperMac … to build clones …. and the first thing Steve Jobs did when he came back to Apple was he killed all the clones, right? ‘cause if you cannot build a better system yourself, you don’t need the clones for sure, right?” Transcript [https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2016/06/102737929-05-01-acc.pdf#page=17]. Guerrino de Luca’s time with Apple goes back to at least 1992 [https://archive.org/details/The-Apple-Picture-Show] (appearance at 1m52s), included a stint at Claris, and ended shortly after Steve Jobs returned in 1997. Guerrino’s last appearance with Apple [https://archive.org/details/wwdc-1997-40-50-closing-keynote]. Don’t worry; he did fine for himself–he went to Logitech and was its president and CEO until 2008 [https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/A-E/de-Luca-Guerrino-1952.html]. Guerrino bookending Apple’s System 7.5 promo video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl2Ioaw0_5k]. Given Apple’s tendency to undergo frequent reorgs throughout the ’90s, Don Strickland did not last as head of licensing operations. Unfortunately Don passed away in 2022 [https://littlebigvoices.com/donstrickland/] though his website is still up [https://www.don-strickland.com/about-don]. Compaq was a much more creative and technically significant company in its early days before it was forced to produce bargain basement PCs. Rod Canion’s excellent and highly entertaining (for nerds) book “Open” [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Open/Rod-Canion/9781937856991] recounts the story. Power Computing only made it halfway [https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/1998/09/21/story2.html] to its goal of selling 100,000 Macs in its first year.

How Macintosh could have taken over the world. Original text by Guy Kawasaki, Macworld February 1994 [https://archive.org/details/MacWorld_9402_February_1994/page/n266/mode/1up]. Various 1993ish Apple commercials courtesy of RetroByte [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8zZdFxx1SSMEJhTXSgvrR6iDW_buUB1W].

Why does System 7.5 take so long to start up? Original text by Steven Levy, Macworld April 1996 [https://archive.org/details/MacWorld9604April1996/page/n255/mode/1up]. Avoid conflating Moore’s Law with Dennard scaling [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling#Breakdown_of_Dennard_scaling_around_2006]. 65scribe has an easily-digested summary of Dennard scaling [https://youtu.be/czZpD8Frlg8?t=1810] in his extensive Power Mac G5 coverage [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czZpD8Frlg8].

Eight best-selling Mac products that don’t exist–yet. Original text by David Pogue, Macworld April 1996 [https://archive.org/details/MacWorld9604April1996/page/n34/mode/1up]. More on the history of DiskDoubler [https://macfolkloreradio.com/2018/10/25/mfr005-defying-gravity.html]. John V. Holder’s TakeABreak [https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/tools-john-v-holder] has recently been uncovered from the depths of archive.org. A hybrid of the imaginary Concatenator Pro and PocketBoot might be Startup Doubler [https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/startup-doubler], which gloms together all your extensions (internally, not on the filesystem) to accelerate startup. Apple sort of tried to make extensions management easier by including Ricardo Batista’s Extensions Manager [https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/extensions-manager] with System 7.5 and later. I’ve lost track of the number of Uninstaller-type software that’s been produced for the Mac since this article was written, not that I would ever touch any of them. MacBreakZ [https://www.publicspace.net/MacBreakZ/] is an awful lot like the imaginary Carpal Diem. From ~2010-2014, I always thought of NexTag as a real-world PriceDex. It’s a shame it disappeared. CamelCamelCamel [https://camelcamelcamel.com/] fills the void for those who haven’t yet separated themselves from Amazon. Nobody ever went so far as to produce an INIT magazine but Symbionts [https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/symbionts-286] will give you more technical insight into your System Folder. My all-time favourite feature: a file-by-file breakdown of how much memory is allocated by each INIT and cdev. Things I don’t miss about the old days: holding my breath while capturing analog video, and waiting for machines with mechanical HDDs to boot. The PocketBoot would nearly useless today anyhow–not because of SSDs, but because Apple is actively striving to make it impossible to boot from external media. Thanks, Tim Cook! Super useful, good job. All because SECURITY. …except in the UK and everywhere else, shortly. Mmmkay, how about you let us boot from external devices again while you’re at it? Better yet, throw out the current version of Mac OS, fork Snow Leopard, and start things over from there, kthxbai Scott Joplin “Maple Leaf Rag” clip courtesy of ConcertWare [https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/concertware]. PPG Wave 2.3 demo courtesy of RetroSound [https://youtu.be/jkc9eLSv6W4?t=137]. More about CANYON.MID [https://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/Trip_Through_the_Grand_Canyon], composer George Stone [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stone_(composer)], and how his work ended up shipping with most copies of Windows from 1991-1996. Composed on a Mac [https://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/Trip_Through_the_Grand_Canyon] running Passport Designs’ Master Tracks Pro [https://archive.org/details/dotto-on-data-1994/Dotto+on+Data+(1994).S01.E06.mp4]. Live performance of CANYON.MID [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTNbrER384]…? The canyon.mid Simulator [https://canyonmid.com/] and hard rock cover [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_XYWwCu8vM] (pun not intended).