WEBVTT - The Macintosh Story Part 3 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:13.600 Technology with tech Stuff from dot com. Hey thereon Welcome 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.800 to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.920 for how Stuff Works dot com. And today we're gonna 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.919 try and wrap up the grand saga that is the 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:28.440 history of the Macintosh computer. This is part three of 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:30.760 that series, and it's going to be a little shorter 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.240 than parts one and two, because, honestly, once we get 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:38.600 toward the end of this saga, really all that I 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.360 would be saying is how the next generation of the 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.440 Macintosh is x amount more powerful than the last generation, 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:52.200 and just kind of being a specs podcast, and that's 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.080 not really interesting to me. I really want to talk 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.360 about the big innovations, the big changes, the big design 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.480 implementations that have happened throughout the course of Apple's line 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.880 of Macintosh computers, rather than just be a laundry list 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.080 of all the specifications of every mac that has ever 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.720 ever come out. That would just be boring and I 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.920 don't want to do that. So if you don't remember, 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.200 Part one of this series covered the people responsible for 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.880 launching the first Macintosh, which came out in nineteen eighty four. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.839 The second part largely focused on the mac from about 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.560 nineteen eighty five up through the point where Steve Jobs 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:37.119 returned to Apple. So between five and nine seven Steve 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.800 Jobs was effectively forced out of the company he had 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:45.200 co founded, and then in nineteen seven he returned to Apple. 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:47.800 So this third part we're going to pick back up 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.400 right around that time, which requires me to do a 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.000 little backtracking just so that we're all on this on 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:58.040 the same page. So it's nineteen seven. Uh. The Apple 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:02.080 CEO at the time, at the big getting of was 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.800 Gil Emilio, and he was in charge during the time 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.240 where Apple started looking at developing the next generation of 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:14.200 operating systems. It had been developing operating systems in house, 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.520 trying to develop a brand new operating system for the 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:24.119 power PC microchip as a a partnership with Motorola and IBM. 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.720 It became known as the AIM project because it was Apple, UH, 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.800 IBM and Motorola, and it was meant to be a 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.519 competitor to Intel and the Windows operating system. And how 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.440 well that partnership was working, UH, they were looking at 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.440 acquiring a company in order to get a new operating 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.360 system on board, and they were looking at two different 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.480 companies that were each founded by a different former member 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.040 of the Apple team. One of those two companies was 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.280 called Next. Next was a company that Steve Jobs founded 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.960 after he had left Apple. Uh. He was trying to 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:06.000 create a new computer standard, a new type of computer 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.919 for the educational industry, and Next was the computer system 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.959 he developed. It was not really a super success. It 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:19.639 was modest in its successes. It was a very expensive machine. Again, 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.639 like many of the stories I've told about the Macintosh, 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.120 not only was it expensive, but it was hard to 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.360 get developers to make software for it. So it was 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.040 not a bad idea. It just didn't have a lot 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.080 of support and it was really expensive, so it didn't 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:40.680 get a huge number of of of purchases out there. Well. 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.920 Apple acquired Next, and as a result, they also kind 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.200 of acquired Steve Jobs. He came along with the the company. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.560 Jobs would then convince the board of directors that Amelio 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.200 needed to go. I mean, he had led the charge 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.640 about acquiring Next, but he had also of made some 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:05.840 decisions that Steve Jobs viewed as being incredibly negative for 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.560 the health of Apple as a company. Apple stocks were 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:13.320 at a twelve year low when Gil Emilio was CEO. 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:18.000 The board agreed with Steve Jobs and removed Gil Emilio 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.799 from the position of CEO, and then Steve Jobs essentially 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.480 became the CEO of Apple, although originally he was just 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.000 called the interim CEO. He would later become the permanent CEO, 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.400 but in the meantime he was the interim CEO, which 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.000 would mean that he was just keeping the seat warm 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.920 for somebody else. It just turned out he was keeping 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.799 the seat warm for himself. He didn't turn the company 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.680 around instantly, but he did get to work right away. 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.360 The day after he was named interim CEO of Apple, 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.720 he launched a new project that would really pay off 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.960 at and that was the iMac uh. He started that 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:04.680 the day at September seven. He started that iMac project, 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.719 so he didn't waste any time once he stepped into 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:12.000 that role. Now was also the year that Apple decided 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.719 to rename the operating system for the Macintosh. If you 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.839 remember in our last episode, they had started calling the 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.280 operating system a pretty simple name. The name was System, 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.320 So the first mac operating system was just System one 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.880 point oh. The last version of System using this naming 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:35.119 style was System seven point five point five or seven 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:38.520 dot five dot five. Of you prefer starting with version 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.920 seven dot six, they decided to rename it and they 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:46.159 went with Mac OS eight. Now, what's more, this version 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.880 of the operating system wasn't compatible with the Mac Plus. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.480 It was the first of the operating systems that Apple 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.159 had designed that would not work on the old Mac 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.680 Plus computer. If you remember, Mac Plus was the longest 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.560 lived Macintosh on the market. It had been developed by 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.839 Apple and manufactured for four years. That's a long time 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.239 in the computer business to keep making the same model 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.680 of computer. But the they had stopped making Mac Plus 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.920 is for a long time. They just continued to support 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.039 it by developing operating systems that could still run on 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.760 a Mac Plus. You just would update your Mac Plus 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.120 to the latest operating system and you're good to go. Well, 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.080 Mac OS eight was the first operating system that would 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.120 not run on a Mac Plus. So this was sort 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.520 of the mark of Mac Plus marching into the sunset. 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:40.120 It was over. It was an obsolete form at that point. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:42.679 You could run old stuff on it, but you couldn't 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.640 run anything new on it. Now you might wonder why 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.520 they changed the name of the operating system from system 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.640 to mac OS And I'll explain that in just a minute. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.400 But another thing that Apple discontinued continued at this point 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.359 was it's licensing program, or at least it really change 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.880 that licensing program that had been rather disastrous for Apple 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.080 over the last couple of years. So what had happened 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.680 was Apple had, before Steve Jobs came back on board, 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.640 Apple had started to license out its technology to other 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.000 computer manufacturers, which meant that other companies could make computers 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.400 that were Mac compatible. Essentially, they were called Mac clones, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.160 and there were several companies that were doing this, and 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:30.280 they were making cheaper versions of Macintosh hardware. It was 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.000 in a totally different form factor. It didn't look the 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.000 way a Macintosh looked, but it ran Macintosh operating systems 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.640 and programs. So you could go out and buy a 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.480 clone from one of these companies that was fully licensed. 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.680 They were they were not breaking the law or anything, 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.560 and you could run that Mac operating system and software 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.920 on your Mac clone for much less money than it 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.200 would cost for you to buy an official Macintosh, which 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:59.960 meant that ultimately Apple was undercutting its own sales. Why 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.080 why would you go out and buy an official Apple 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.280 Mac if you could get a comparable system for much 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:10.040 less money somewhere else. Steve Jobs didn't really care for this. 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.480 He thought it was a terrible idea, and so he 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.960 wanted to renegotiate all those licensing agreements. So once the 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:18.920 term was coming up, you wanted to renegotiate where the 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.880 royalty fees would be much higher, so that every sale 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:27.640 of a macclone would guarantee Apple a certain percentage of 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.880 the revenue. Now, of course, that doesn't make the manufacturing 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.800 companies all that eager to sign a new agreement. It 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.560 means cutting into their profit margin, and it would mean 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:39.680 that they would have to start raising the prices of 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.400 their computers to regain that lost profit margin. But that 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.160 would mean that the higher price computers would be in 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.600 direct competition with the Apple computers. It would just mean 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.959 a lot of tough decisions on the part of these 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:57.160 licensed companies. So there was a lot of resistance on that, 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.920 and that's when Steve Jobs decided to really make a move. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.040 You see, the agreement that they Apple had with these 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.800 clone companies was that they could continue to make clones 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.520 of Mac computers as long as they were in the 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:16.840 system seven range. If they were in that system seven range, 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:22.320 then you could continue to make mac clones. But once 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:26.319 they renamed the operating system from system to mac os 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.400 that probably the agreement no longer was valid because it 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.320 was a different operating system at least in name. And 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.280 that's what the agreement had said that as long as 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.400 it was system, they could continue to make them. It 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.480 meant that all the macclone companies could not make the 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:46.640 most up to date version of the Macintosh. They couldn't 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.840 include the most the latest version of the operating system 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.360 without paying another hefty license fee, and as a result, 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.160 one by one these licensed companies began to get out 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.000 of the macclone business, until by the middle of nineteen 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.960 none of them were doing it anymore. So within about 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:10.800 a year Steve Jobs stopped this cloning program that was 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:15.720 going on from his predecessor. Now that, in in full 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.120 was a pretty good decision, at least from a sales 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.160 perspective for Apple. Back in Apple had sold four and 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:26.040 a half million MAX. So at four and a half 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.800 million MAX, but then it started this clone program where 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:34.560 it began to license the technology to competitors, and in 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:39.000 nine sales of MAX dropped to four million units, so 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.880 five units fewer than a year before. Now, you never 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.839 want to see the number go down. When you are 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.800 in a company, you always want that that graph to 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.839 go up into the right, not down into the right. 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.560 That's a bad graph if you're in a sales department. 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.480 It was worse the following year in nine, and the 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.440 writing was on the wall because sales had dropped to 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:07.200 two point eight million units. So two point eight million 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.280 from four point five is awful now. To be fair, 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.280 there were other mitigating factors that were also affecting this. 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:20.520 For example, Microsoft launched Windows five and that really affected 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.000 sales at the end of ninety five and throughout ninety 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.679 six and ninety seven. It was a very powerful operating system. 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:31.000 It was much friendlier than previous versions of Windows. People said, oh, 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.440 this is more like what I expect from Apple, and 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:42.240 so people began to become more uh happy with Microsoft's 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:47.240 approach to a graphic user interface or gooey operating system. 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.960 So there were other factors besides the fact that there 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.960 were cheaper clones on the market than Apple computers. But 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.640 all of this together meant that UH getting rid of 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.080 that clone program made sense, and that's exactly what Steve 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.760 Jobs was able to do through this renegotiation process. And 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:10.600 then by changing the operating system name. Now I'm gonna 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.440 keep talking about Steve Jobs because his history and mac 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:19.120 history are so closely tied together. Remember, the Macintosh started 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.560 not as one of Steve jobs as projects. It was 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.600 an Apple project, but it wasn't headed by Steve Jobs. 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.400 It wasn't until Steve Jobs was removed from a Lisa project, 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.360 and then he decided to get involved with the Macintosh project. 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.560 But from that point forward, the Macintosh was really affected 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.120 by Steve Jobs. Even when he was away from the company, 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.880 a lot of his decisions would end up finding their 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:48.280 way into the Macintosh generation after generation. He made some 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.920 more big changes to Apple. In n For one thing, 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:56.040 Steve Jobs shut down the Newton project. The Newton was 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.320 a personal digital assistant that had become the butt of 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.600 a lot of jokes thanks to uh inconsistent, let's say, 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:06.840 imperfect design and implementation. It had a handwriting recognition feature 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.600 that frequently did not work very well and was made 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.360 fun of on The Simpsons. Among other things, Steve Jobs 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.440 also decided to streamline the product lines in the computer 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.400 and printer divisions. He started to eliminate some of the 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.880 types of computers they were selling. He thought that they 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.880 needed to refocus and start selling a more narrow band 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.160 of computers and make sure that they got that right 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.000 as opposed to selling a wide variety of computers that 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.280 are of varying degrees of quality. UH Now, one of 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:41.840 the lines of computers that survived this process was the Mac. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.160 He decided that the Mac had some value to it. 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.559 It did not need to be completely done away with 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.520 or replaced with some other name. He wanted to reinvigorate it, 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.280 but not to UH to completely scrap it and start over. 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.760 So the biggest jump for Apple was the introduction of 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.000 the iMac. This was a new attempt for Apple to 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.520 push into the consumer market in a really big way, 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:09.080 and the basic iMac was a pretty decent machine for 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.440 its era. It had a two hundred thirty three Mega 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.320 Hurts G three CPU, had thirty two megabytes of RAM, 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.960 a four gigabyte hard drive, a CD ROM drive, and 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.400 an a t I rage to see graphics card with 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:28.960 two hold megabytes of video memory. Now, Apple originally stated 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.160 that the iMac could support up to a hundred twenty 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.400 megabytes of RAM, which users could upgrade. So this was 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.360 one of the times where you could actually boost the 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.200 performance of your machine by adding in extra memory to 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.840 the device yourself, something that Apple would eventually get away 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.560 from to the point where if you wanted anything upgraded, 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.160 you're really stuck. Often you don't have an option at 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.280 all unless you just go out and buy a new computer. 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.040 Which I mean, if you're selling computers, if that's the 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.960 business you're in, if you could convince your users to 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.200 just buy a new computer every time they needed something 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.360 a little more powerful, that's lucrative. If there's enough people 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:13.360 who will actually do it. Well, the iMac you could upgrade, 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.040 and again, Apple originally said that you could upgrade up 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.080 to a hundred megabytes RAM, but people found out that 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.080 you could actually upgrade it beyond that, depending upon the 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.200 RAM you bought, because not all RAM chips were compatible, 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.520 but some were, And in fact, some users found out 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.880 that depending upon the chip they bought, they could get 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.320 up to five hundred and twelve megabyte modules working on 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.360 an iMac, which meant that you could get a maximum 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.960 amount of RAM of around a gigabyte. Now that was 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:46.280 pretty impressive by standards. The computer and display of the 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.440 iMac were paired together, so the computer and display were 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.280 one big unit that you would plug a keyboard and 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.720 mouse into, and it looked a lot like a television set. 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.760 The display was a fifteen inch display. Uh, it did 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.760 not have the basic one anyway, did not have a 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.560 floppy disk drive. In fact, this marked a trend for 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.440 Apple where it began to get away from including floppy 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:14.440 drives in their computers, and eventually other computer manufacturers began 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.760 to follow suit and stopped including floppy drives in their machines. 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:19.920 So this was the beginning of the end for the 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.960 floppy disk drive as a storage medium. It began to 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.680 go into obsolescence. But the display on the iMac was 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:32.400 a cathode ray tube display, a CRT UM. I talked 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.640 a lot about c r t s in the History 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.000 of TV podcasts, So if you want to know how 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.440 a cathode ray tube works, listen to my History of 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.560 Television podcasts because I talked about in detail there. But 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.800 the thing to remember is that these machines are take 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:49.560 up a lot of space. So these are those big, 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.200 clunky TVs from yesterday that you might have seen, not 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.560 like flat screens. Those are you know, either l c 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.760 D or l E ED or plasma displays. But the 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.320 original IMAX for CRT s, so they were a little 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.240 hefty as a result. Uh they could support a resolution 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:12.960 originally anyway of one thousand four by seven or seven 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:18.480 sixty eight if you prefer now. Later in Apple introduced 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.840 an updated version of the iMac that had better graphics 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.040 card with more video memory, and the most recent version 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.399 of the Mac operating system, which was at that point 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:31.119 Mac version Mac OS version eight point five. And on 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.679 top of the iMac, Apple also introduced new power books 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:39.199 in their laptop lineup, which included a curvy laptop that 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:45.119 was called the Wall Street power Book. And I this 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:47.240 every now and then Apple would come out with a 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.840 product that I just don't get the aesthetics. If you 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.640 don't know what a Wall Street power Book looks like, 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:59.160 do an image search on Apple Wall Street power Book. 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.320 Because this thing just does not appeal to me. It 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.040 was kind of funky and also suffered from a design 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.240 flaw in The early models of the Hinges were a 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.480 little weak, which meant that once they wore out, the 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.439 laptop screen wouldn't stay in place anymore would start to 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.840 fall over, which is pretty inconvenient for a laptop. So 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.440 it wasn't the best product to ever come out of Apple. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.320 The Wall Street line also had a few other issues. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.400 For one thing, it was it was noticeably slower than 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.160 the desktop Power Max that were coming out at the time. 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.640 And you'd expect that to a point. But when you're 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.240 selling these laptops at a premium price and you're saying 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.240 this is the field version of the desktops that you 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.040 can get for your for your your basic home set up, 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:52.119 it's not great when it works significantly slower than the 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:57.120 desktop version. Alright, So we've come up to our first 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.040 little break here. Now after the break, we're going to 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:05.440 talk more about some interesting developments from Apple, including some 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:10.520 changes in ports systems, as well as some interesting aesthetic 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.560 choices to really set Apple apart from the herd. But 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.520 before we get into that, let's take a quick break 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:27.240 to thank our sponsor. All Right. So around this time, 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:33.679 Apple introduced a new protocol that really took a large 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.399 part in the Macintosh from that point forward, and that 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:42.240 was FireWire. Uh Now, originally you had to get FireWire 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:44.840 expansion cards so that you could get a FireWire port 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.639 in your mac but but over time, FireWire would become 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:55.160 a standard port in the Macintosh. Lines for several years. Uh. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.760 Now if you don't know what FireWire is, because it's 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:02.320 it's largely been replaced at this stage. Uh. It is 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.440 a protocol, a technology for moving data from one device 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.399 to another, and it's meant to move a large amount 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.040 of data in a small amount of time. So it's 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:16.240 really essentially similar to other types of ports that you 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.320 would find on computers, like Scuzzy ports back in the day, 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:24.240 or USB ports or USBC today USB three point oh 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:29.480 style ports. Now, at the time, FireWire was a big 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.359 advance from Scuzzy, at least your basic Guzzy. Unless you 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:37.440 were using top of the line Scuzzy ports with the 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:42.480 best cables that money could buy, you weren't maxing out 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:48.240 your speeds that high. In fact, Scuzzy Ultra had about 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:53.240 ten megabytes per second top speed for data transfers, which 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.560 is not bad except if you're trying to transfer very 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.960 large files. Let's let's say video files are very high 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.680 quality audio files. That was a little slow. And remember 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.919 that the Mac line of computers was frequently being used 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:14.360 by video producers audio producers for a lot of creative 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.920 applications like that as opposed to your productivity software which 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:23.400 was typically viewed as a Windows machine. Duty Max. We're 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.920 taking on all these really high end and very demanding 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.760 applications when it comes to audio and video production, so 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.639 they needed something that would allow you to transfer data 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:39.280 at faster speeds. Now, FireWire's initial capabilities stretched up to 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:44.040 the four megabits per second range. Now, megabits versus megabytes 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:48.800 very different. Right, A bit is one single unit of information. 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.080 It's either a zero or a one. A byte is 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:55.040 eight of those collectively, So foreigner megabits is equivalent to 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.639 around fifty megabytes per second, but that's like five times 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:03.400 faster than Scuzzy trub was. So Apple was looking at 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:09.679 re inventing data transfers from device to device using the 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:15.120 FireWire as their primary protocol. And also over time they 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:18.480 had the plan and they implemented this to increase the 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.080 capability of FireWire to move at greater and greater speeds. 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.080 So over the generations of the technology, it can move 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.920 more information in a shorter amount of time. So it 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.800 would become a standard port on max from about two 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.560 thousand one to two thousand eight, and God's development in 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.680 the late nineties, but really got wide rollout by about 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.280 two thousand one, and over the next seven years, it 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:45.479 was standard on almost every map that came out from Apple. 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:51.719 Also in Apple discontinued quite a few machines from their lineup. 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:55.600 They officially stopped supporting all of the motor Rola processor 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.440 MAX that preceded the switch to the power PC microchip. Now, 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:04.480 remember to Rolla still had UH involvement in developing the 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.560 power PC chips, but the chips that were in Macintosh 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.840 computers prior to power pc chips were all Motorola chips. 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:15.280 So at that point Apple said, well, we're not going 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:19.639 to support those anymore. Uh, everything is gonna now depend 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:22.320 upon this power PC microchip because that's what we're putting 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.800 in our MAX from this point forward. They also discontinued 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:29.840 support for the Apple two line, which is pretty incredible 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:32.720 that they had supported Apple two all the way up 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:37.399 to nine. Now, they had discontinued manufacturing the Apple two 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:41.040 long before that, but they continued to support it all 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.199 the way until when they officially ended support. Uh that 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.359 really tells you how long that Apple two's life was, 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:51.479 because remember that was introduced. Apple two came out like 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.480 in the late seventies early eighties, So the fact that 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:57.120 it lasted all the way to and at least some 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:02.119 capacity in Apple support was amazing, So it's really the 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:05.240 last hurrah for the Apple too. I still love the 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:08.159 Apple too, and I wouldn't mind finding one just to 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:11.480 mess around with one, but uh that I doubt that 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:15.160 I could easily find one in good working order at 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:17.840 this stage. I wish I could, because I loved the 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:24.520 Apple too. Now, the following year, Apple released some new Imax. Uh. 0:24:24.720 --> 0:24:27.480 Like the previous episodes, I'm not going to cover every 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:30.480 single model Apple released, which would just make this episode 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:33.639 incredibly dull. But one thing I want to mention is 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:40.280 because the Imax came out in a selection of new colors. 0:24:40.400 --> 0:24:43.679 It wasn't just this beige computer that had been kind 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:47.480 of Apple's trademark ever since the old Apple two days. 0:24:49.040 --> 0:24:54.399 You could get a selection of different colors which included blue, purple, orange, green, 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:58.080 or red, but Apple called them different names. You could 0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:04.360 get an iMac and blueberry, grape, tangerine, lime, and strawberry. 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:07.040 And I gotta be honest with you guys, even though 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:10.120 I'm the dude from tech stuff who from the beginning 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:14.439 has been accused of having an anti Mac bias and 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:18.639 even though these machines are woefully outdated by today's standards, 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:22.920 I really still dig the designs of these early Imax, 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:26.560