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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer or how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com, covering all things technology and how

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Speaker 1: they relate to us and how we relate to them, etcetera, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And I've covered a lot of kind of dark and

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Speaker 1: gloomy topics over the last couple of months. I've tried

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Speaker 1: to change them up with some more fun stuff here

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Speaker 1: and there. But I really wanted to look at a

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Speaker 1: piece of technology that had been around for a while

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Speaker 1: that we are familiar with, but maybe you don't all

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Speaker 1: know the backstory too. And this time I thought I'd

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Speaker 1: look at the Macintosh computer. The Macintosh came out in

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Speaker 1: and we'll talk about its debut towards the end of

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Speaker 1: this podcast, because we're really looking at the early stages,

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Speaker 1: what was happening back when they were first talking about

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Speaker 1: starting the Macintosh project over at Apple, and kind of

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Speaker 1: explaining the thought process that went into the formation of

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Speaker 1: that computer. Uh, maybe in later episodes I'll continue to

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Speaker 1: trace the evolution of the Macintosh, but it's a pretty

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Speaker 1: interesting story. Just the beginning alone is an interesting story,

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Speaker 1: and you have to put yourself in the mindset of

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Speaker 1: the early nineties, really the late seventies and early eighties,

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Speaker 1: and what was going on at that time, and the

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Speaker 1: really the birth of the personal computer industry as a whole,

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Speaker 1: because it was brand new back in the late seventies

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Speaker 1: early eighties. Now, I know a lot of my listeners

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Speaker 1: are younger than I am. That's awesome. I'm glad you

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Speaker 1: guys enjoy the show. I will be talking a lot

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Speaker 1: about the seventies and eighties. I know it sounds like

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Speaker 1: ancient history to some of you, but that's when I

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Speaker 1: grew up, So just be nice. I'm old and my

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Speaker 1: feelings are easily hurt. All right, All that's all the way.

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Speaker 1: Let us dive into the world old of the Macintosh.

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Speaker 1: You know what I do for a living? Or as

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Speaker 1: my favorite character from cinema, Quint from Jaws, would say,

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Speaker 1: you all know me, you know what I do for

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Speaker 1: a living. I don't just talk about technology. I have

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Speaker 1: to backtrack fifteen years before the thing began, just to

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Speaker 1: tell you all the stuff that happened before the beginning thing.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about some history of Apple first

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Speaker 1: leading up into the launch of the Macintosh project. So

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Speaker 1: let's begin with the date of April one, ninety six,

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Speaker 1: April Fools Day, nineteen seventy six. That was when to

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Speaker 1: Steve's one known as Steve Jobs and the other known

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Speaker 1: as Steve Wozniak, decided in a garage to form a

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Speaker 1: very special relationship with one another to become partners in

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Speaker 1: a brand new company that would be called Apple Computers.

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Speaker 1: That garage was in Coopertino, California, and that's where Apple

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Speaker 1: Computers was born on April first, nineteen seventy six. Now,

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Speaker 1: the actual story, of course, starts a little earlier than that.

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Speaker 1: Wozniak and Jobs originally met in nineteen seventy one through

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Speaker 1: a mutual friend named l Bill Fernandez, and the two

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Speaker 1: of them found that they shared a couple of really

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Speaker 1: big interests in common. They both loved technology, and they

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Speaker 1: both loved mischief. They really loved pulling pranks. Uh. Steve

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Speaker 1: Wozniak had come from a phone freaking background, and if

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Speaker 1: you want to know what phone freaking is, freaking is

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Speaker 1: spelled with a pH. I did a full episode about

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Speaker 1: phone freaking in the past, so you can search the

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Speaker 1: text off archives in short, it involves manipulating the phone system.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like hacking, but for telephones. And it

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Speaker 1: was all about being able to make long distance calls

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Speaker 1: for free by fooling the phone system that you were

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Speaker 1: some sort of administrative tone. You know, you could actually

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Speaker 1: produce a sound a tone using a device. One of

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Speaker 1: the early ones was a whistle from Captain Crunch Cereal

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Speaker 1: and make long distance calls for free. Well, Steve Wozniak

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Speaker 1: was a guy who was interested in this. He was

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Speaker 1: interested in the way that the phone system worked, and

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Speaker 1: he also kind of liked the idea of pulling a

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Speaker 1: fast one on people. Uh. In fact, there's a great

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Speaker 1: story about jobs in Wozniak making a call to the

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Speaker 1: Vatican this way and they at least reportedly nearly got

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Speaker 1: the Pope on the phone, but he didn't pick up

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Speaker 1: because it turned out his fridge was running, so he

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Speaker 1: went out to catch it. Anyway, the two joined the

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Speaker 1: Homebrew Computer Club in the mid seventies. This was a

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Speaker 1: big club in California, primarily where people who were enthusiasts

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Speaker 1: of computers would get together start building kits from scratch,

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Speaker 1: trying to make their own computers. Wozniak took inspiration from

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Speaker 1: an early it called the Altear. So, yeah, this was

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Speaker 1: a computer that you would get all the parts for,

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Speaker 1: but you would have to put it together yourself. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't something you bought straight on the box, although there

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Speaker 1: were companies that would do that for you, where they

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Speaker 1: put it together and you would just buy the completed

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Speaker 1: all tear. That's not what Wozniak was interested in. Wassniac

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Speaker 1: decided he wanted to make his own computer. So he thought, well,

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Speaker 1: what if I made a typewriter interface, which was innovative,

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Speaker 1: no one had done that with a personal computer yet.

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Speaker 1: And what if instead of just a bunch of lights

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Speaker 1: that would indicate the results, I created a display, or

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Speaker 1: I allowed this computer to connect to a display and

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Speaker 1: show things on a monitor. And so he used a

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Speaker 1: television set, just an old TV set that he could

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Speaker 1: wire to his computer, and thus the Apple one was born.

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Speaker 1: It was a brand new idea. The Apple one computer

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Speaker 1: was a far cry from the personal computers that would follow.

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Speaker 1: It was really a hobbyist computer. Uh. Steve Jobs was

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Speaker 1: able to go to a retailer and convince the retailer,

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Speaker 1: why don't you put in an order for these Apple

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Speaker 1: one computers because they're gonna be a hot ticket item.

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Speaker 1: People are really interested in computers, and now they can

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Speaker 1: finally get their hands on one. Steve Jobs is a

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Speaker 1: great salesman, or was a great salesman, and he was

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Speaker 1: able to convince the retailer to put in an order,

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Speaker 1: which was the only way they could actually afford to

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Speaker 1: build the Apple computer. So they couldn't they couldn't deliver

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Speaker 1: upon the order until they had managed to secure the order,

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Speaker 1: and then once they did, they started building these things.

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Speaker 1: But even then they had to cut some corners, so

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Speaker 1: the original Apple one didn't have a case. It was

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Speaker 1: all just naked hardware and you had to build your

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Speaker 1: own case for it, or just have all these different

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Speaker 1: pieces wired together, but without any sort of protective covering

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Speaker 1: around it. Still, it was enough to get people's interests

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Speaker 1: and it was enough to finance Apple computers in those

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Speaker 1: early days. They decided, immediately after they made about two

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Speaker 1: hundred of these, they were only two of the Apple

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Speaker 1: one computers ever in existence, that they were gonna go

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Speaker 1: onto the next step, which was to build a more

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Speaker 1: fully functional, self contained personal computer, and they decided to

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Speaker 1: incorporate the company on in January and nineteen seventy seven.

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Speaker 1: Now in April n seven, they were able to debut

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Speaker 1: the Apple two computer. This one had originally tape based storage.

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Speaker 1: So you know cassette tapes. Maybe some of you know

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Speaker 1: what cassette tapes are. Well, we also use those to

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Speaker 1: store computer data back in the day. But that's what

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Speaker 1: the original Apple two computer used as its storage system

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Speaker 1: was cassette tapes. Those are not ideal because obviously the

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Speaker 1: tape is stored on reels, so if you're trying to

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Speaker 1: find a specific piece of information, you have to scan

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Speaker 1: through the reel till you get to it. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: this just takes up time. Eventually they would switch over

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Speaker 1: to five and a quarter inch disk drives, and if

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Speaker 1: you don't know what a five and a quarter inch

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Speaker 1: disc is, you really miss doubt the big black, flimsy disks.

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Speaker 1: And if you told people they were floppy disks and

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Speaker 1: they weren't familiar with the concept, there was a good

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Speaker 1: chance they would fold it in half and put it

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Speaker 1: in their pocket and thus ruin the disc For all time.

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Speaker 1: It was still a form of magnetic storage. It was

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Speaker 1: just in a disc form rather than a tape form.

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Speaker 1: Once they were able to do that, they were able

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Speaker 1: to speed things up considerably. The most advanced version of

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Speaker 1: the Apple two when it was first coming out, had

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Speaker 1: a stunning amount of memory, sixty four whole kilobytes of memory.

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Speaker 1: That seems like nothing now, and I guess you could

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Speaker 1: argue it is nothing now, but at the time it was,

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Speaker 1: it was really innovative. The monitor resolution was also kind

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Speaker 1: of funny. When you look at today's monitors, you know,

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Speaker 1: you look at the ultra high definition displays that we

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Speaker 1: have today, four K displays, you look at the retina displays,

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Speaker 1: They're amazing. That's not how things started. The original Apple

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Speaker 1: To monitor had a resolution of two picks sles by pixels. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the original monitor had so few pixels you could, if

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Speaker 1: you were determined, count them all. That's pretty amazing now.

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Speaker 1: If it weren't for the fact that someone actually made

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Speaker 1: some useful productivity software, the Apple Too probably never would

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Speaker 1: have gone anywhere. It was a good idea, but you

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Speaker 1: had to have a killer app to convince people, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is something worth buying. And the first real killer

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Speaker 1: app for the Apple Too was one called VisiCalc VISCUC

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Speaker 1: was essentially a spreadsheet program It was an application that

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Speaker 1: was like something you would see an Excel or Lotus

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Speaker 1: one to three. Uh. It was new. It was a

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Speaker 1: brand new idea. I mean, people just didn't have access

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Speaker 1: to that. They had to do all their factoring on

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Speaker 1: paper and then they would transfer that over into whatever

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Speaker 1: format they needed. This would allow them to do that virtually.

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Speaker 1: You could create your cells, you could create your formula is,

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Speaker 1: and so this was a huge demonstration of how powerful

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Speaker 1: and useful personal computers could be. It seems pretty silly

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Speaker 1: now to think about it, but at the time this

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Speaker 1: was truly new. So it was the thing that helped

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Speaker 1: really convince people that the Apple two computer was the

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Speaker 1: way to go. It was an advantage over some of

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Speaker 1: the other personal computers that were starting to debut around

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Speaker 1: that time, things like the Commodore sixty four, the Texas

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Speaker 1: Instruments computers. Now I can talk a lot about the

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Speaker 1: Apple Too a lot. My dad owned an Apple Too. Technically,

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Speaker 1: it was an Apple to E. He purchased it. He

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Speaker 1: wrote a book on typewriters, sold the book, use the

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Speaker 1: money from that book to buy the Apple to E,

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Speaker 1: and then use that to write other books. So my

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Speaker 1: dad's an author. If you did not know. He writes

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Speaker 1: all sorts of books, science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, children's literature.

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Speaker 1: If you want to check out his stuff, his name

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Speaker 1: is Brad Strickland. But yeah, those early books he wrote

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Speaker 1: he wrote on an Apple to e, which meant he

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Speaker 1: stored them all on floppy disks. He could store about

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Speaker 1: a chapter per floppy discs, so each book would be fifteen, sixteen,

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Speaker 1: maybe even twenty floppy disks in size. We had entire

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Speaker 1: sleeves of these floppy discs that represented the books that

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Speaker 1: my dad had written. In fact, I had dinner with

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Speaker 1: him very recently and he tells me he still has

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Speaker 1: all of those. We don't have a computer that can

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Speaker 1: read them because we don't have an Apple to e

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Speaker 1: disc drive and emulator to read off of these things.

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Speaker 1: But he still has the discs now. I use the

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Speaker 1: Apple to E mostly to play games because I have

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Speaker 1: my priority straight. I played a lot of Ultima on

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Speaker 1: the Apple to E. Love my Ultimate series. I thought

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Speaker 1: it was awesome. Now. While the Apple Too and its

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Speaker 1: variants began to earn some serious cash for Apple, they

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Speaker 1: were very successful comparatively speaking, the founders were already looking

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Speaker 1: at what comes next. It wasn't just about let rest

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Speaker 1: on our laurels. Now that we've made a personal computer,

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Speaker 1: we've made it a success. We've managed to make a

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Speaker 1: mark on this brand new, fledgling industry. So the logical

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Speaker 1: successor for the Apple Too would be the Apple three,

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Speaker 1: And in fact, that's what the company began to develop.

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Speaker 1: People began to work on the successor, and they began

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Speaker 1: to work on the Apple three computer. Uh it would

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Speaker 1: eventually debut. It was faster, more capable than the Apple Too,

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Speaker 1: and it was meant to be primarily a business machine,

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Speaker 1: not a personal computer. And it had built in five

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Speaker 1: and a quarter inch disk drives as opposed to the

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Speaker 1: external disk drives that you would have to connect to

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Speaker 1: your Apple to computer back in those days. And it

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Speaker 1: had an integrated high resolution graphics chip. But it didn't

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Speaker 1: sell very well. If you are thinking I've never really

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Speaker 1: heard of the Apple three, I've heard of the Apple Too.

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Speaker 1: The reason for that is it just was a failure

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Speaker 1: at the market. It wasn't a total flop, but they

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Speaker 1: didn't sell nearly as well as Apple was hoping. The

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Speaker 1: reasons for that, well, there are quite a few. Bye

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Speaker 1: IBM had entered the personal computer picture. So you had

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Speaker 1: a saturated market. Not only did you have the Apple machines, Commodore,

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Speaker 1: you had Texas instrument, you had other devices that were

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Speaker 1: and IBM had a huge name in business technology, so

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Speaker 1: IBM was able to leverage that and move forward creating

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Speaker 1: these business machines and dominating that market. This was the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the IBM and IBM compatible era of personal computing.

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Speaker 1: So Apple three just couldn't really keep up. It was

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Speaker 1: a more expensive machine and it was not as well

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Speaker 1: supported as the Apple two was. In other words, there

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Speaker 1: weren't as many people developing software for the Apple three

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Speaker 1: as they had been for the Apple too. And meanwhile

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Speaker 1: IBM was catching up a lot of ground. So even

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Speaker 1: though you had the Apple three team and Apple, some

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Speaker 1: of the other folks there were already thinking about the

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Speaker 1: step beyond, where do we go beyond just creating the

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Speaker 1: next version of this particular personal computer. What can we

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Speaker 1: do to really innovate and push what personal computing is

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Speaker 1: all about. So one of those people who was really

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Speaker 1: concerned with this was Steve Jobs. He really wanted to

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Speaker 1: look at a way of branching out from this traditional approach.

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Speaker 1: So while there was a team working on the Apple three,

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Speaker 1: Steve Jobs began to look at another project that got

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Speaker 1: started around nine. Now this was not the Macintosh. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it was called Lisa. Lisa was a different project that

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Speaker 1: was taking form at the same time as the Macintosh

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Speaker 1: project within Apple. Lisa was a different a different kind

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Speaker 1: of computer mob All Jobs really wanted to take a direct,

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Speaker 1: dramatic step away from the early PC. Those early PCs

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Speaker 1: were all text based. That meant that you would get

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Speaker 1: a command prompt and you would have to type in

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Speaker 1: a command and a file extension or a file and

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Speaker 1: its extension in order to have something happen. You had

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Speaker 1: to navigate directories through actual text commands and you would

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Speaker 1: get a text result, So you have to read through

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Speaker 1: everything there. There was no graphic representation of what you

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Speaker 1: were working on. It was all text based and it

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Speaker 1: was such a wonderful time, my friends. I loved this

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Speaker 1: time because I actually learned all the different commands and

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Speaker 1: I can very speedily get through any system because I

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Speaker 1: understood how they worked, and uh, it didn't require any

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Speaker 1: overlay on top of the basic system which would slow

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Speaker 1: things down. But then I'm a computer geek. Even though

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Speaker 1: I'm an English literature geek, I'm also a computer geek.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of people are not computer geeks. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, there were a lot of technology enthusiasts who

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Speaker 1: were worried that if we stayed in that realm of

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Speaker 1: text based architecture, it would keep people from adopting computers.

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Speaker 1: The mainstream would never latch onto it because it was

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Speaker 1: too hard to use. So Jobs thought perhaps they could

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Speaker 1: create a better system for consumers, and he wanted to

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Speaker 1: move towards a graphic user interface or a gooey. Now,

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Speaker 1: he was not the first person to think about the

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Speaker 1: gooey that. Really one of the earliest would be Douglas Inglebart.

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Speaker 1: Douglas Inglebart had been working on early versions of a

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Speaker 1: graphic user interface since the nineteen sixties, and we're almost

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Speaker 1: at nineteen eighty at this point of the story. We're

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Speaker 1: beyond night as of right now. Just in case I

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Speaker 1: confused you at that moment, Inglebart also designed a mouse

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Speaker 1: as a navigational tool to help with graphic user interfaces.

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Speaker 1: So before that you would just use a keyboard or

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Speaker 1: a data pad, something along those lines. Angle Bart said, well,

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Speaker 1: if we can represent information as graphics and we can

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Speaker 1: create an interface that allows you to drag and click

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Speaker 1: and point and select things, that would make it a

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Speaker 1: much more intuitive interface and allow people to understand more

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Speaker 1: easily how to navigate through the computer angle. Bart would

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Speaker 1: then take on this information and bring it forward. He

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Speaker 1: had started his work at s r I International, but

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Speaker 1: then continued his work at a research and development place

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Speaker 1: called Xerox Park Park as p A r C. So

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Speaker 1: there's a research and development brand of of Zerox. There's

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Speaker 1: branch of Xerox, I should say, and Xerox Park. A

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Speaker 1: lot of very innovative stuff came out of there, and

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Speaker 1: I think I've done a couple of episodes that at

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Speaker 1: least relate to Xerox Park, but maybe I need to

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Speaker 1: do a full one about what the organization was and

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Speaker 1: the things that came out of Xerox Park because it's

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Speaker 1: pretty fascinating. Well, Steve Jobs said he knew about Xerox

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Speaker 1: Park and he wanted to learn more about the stuff

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Speaker 1: that they were developing, so he asked Xerox, hey can

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Speaker 1: we come and take a look, and some folks from

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Speaker 1: Apple come over and check out what's happening. At Xerox Park.

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Speaker 1: I realized that this is all mostly proprietary, hush hush

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Speaker 1: stuff that you don't want to get out there. But

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Speaker 1: come on, we're buddies, right, And Xerox said, essentially, show

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Speaker 1: me the money. So here's what happened. They struck a deal.

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Speaker 1: Apple said, tell you what we'll do. We will sell

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Speaker 1: you up to one thousand shares of Apple stock at

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Speaker 1: ten dollars a share, which was a huge discount at

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Speaker 1: what Apple stock was trading for at the time. So

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Speaker 1: I said, if you, if you want, you can buy

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Speaker 1: up to a hundred thousand dollars at ten bucks to share.

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Speaker 1: In return, all we want is three days time at

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Speaker 1: Xerox park. And zero said, you're on MR and this

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Speaker 1: was the deal of the century, and let me explain

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Speaker 1: to you why. So let's make a couple of assumptions here.

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Speaker 1: Let's assume that Xerox opted to buy all one hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars one hundred thousand rather of those shares at

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Speaker 1: ten bucks to share. And let's also assume that Xerox

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Speaker 1: has held onto all one hundred thousand of those shares

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Speaker 1: since then. Since nine Uh, that's impressive. First of all,

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand shares at ten bucks a share, that's

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Speaker 1: a million bucks. That's not a small amount of money.

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Speaker 1: That's a good chunk of change, but it's peanuts compared

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Speaker 1: to what it's worth now. So you might have heard.

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Speaker 1: Apple's done pretty well for itself over the years, so

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Speaker 1: well that the company has split its stock four times

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Speaker 1: since it's first started becoming a publicly traded company. Now,

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Speaker 1: that means that they would uh ex span the number

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Speaker 1: of shares that they had out in the market, and

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Speaker 1: that increases the value of the company as a result,

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Speaker 1: And it means that if you own shares after the split,

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Speaker 1: you own more shares. How much more depends upon the

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Speaker 1: nature of the split. So in in two thousand and

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Speaker 1: in two thousand five, Apple split with a two for

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Speaker 1: one share split stock split, which meant that you would

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Speaker 1: get two shares for every instead of just one share.

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Speaker 1: So if you owned one share of Apple stock after

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Speaker 1: one of those splits, you would own two shares, and

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Speaker 1: then after the next split you own four, and after

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Speaker 1: the next split you own eight. It's a great way

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Speaker 1: to keep seeing value from your shares. Well. The fourth

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Speaker 1: time that they split was in two thousand fourteen and

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Speaker 1: that was a real doozy. That was a seven till

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Speaker 1: one split, so for every share you owned, you would

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Speaker 1: get seven shares, an enormous return. So one thousand, let's

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Speaker 1: go back to zeros here one d thou and that

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Speaker 1: they get nineteen nine at doubles to two hundred thousand,

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Speaker 1: Then it doubles to four hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand.

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Speaker 1: Then you get the seven to one split, which means

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Speaker 1: that you get up to five million, six hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: shares of Apple's stock. So for one hundred thousand, they

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Speaker 1: now have five million, six hundred thousand, assuming that they

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Speaker 1: bought all one hundred thousand and that they held onto

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Speaker 1: it for that long. If in fact Xerox still has

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Speaker 1: those one hundred thousand shares that they bought for ten

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Speaker 1: bucks a share back in the day, they are sitting

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Speaker 1: pretty because today, assuming that the price hasn't changed dramatically,

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Speaker 1: I checked it before, why did anything else? This morning?

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Speaker 1: I looked at Apple's trading price. Stocks were trading at

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Speaker 1: one hundred forty six dollars fifty three cents per share,

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Speaker 1: So the share price is more than ten times what

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Speaker 1: it was when Xerox bought it. And because of the splits,

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Speaker 1: they now own five point six million stocks, not a

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand stocks. So you multiply those two numbers together,

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Speaker 1: the five point six million and a hundred forty six

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Speaker 1: point fifty three dollars, and you factor in how much

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Speaker 1: it's actually worth today. That one million dollar investment would

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Speaker 1: now be worth eight hundred twenty million, five hundred sixty

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Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars. So a million dollar investment returns almost

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Speaker 1: a billion dollars today. Again, that's assuming all of those

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Speaker 1: other factors fall into place for a three day tour.

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Speaker 1: A three day tour, we'll find out if Dylan keeps

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Speaker 1: that or cuts it, but the life people understand anyway.

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Speaker 1: You could argue also that without this visit to Xerox,

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Speaker 1: jobs and Apple would have been way behind on innovation.

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Speaker 1: They would not have allowed Apple to transform into a

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Speaker 1: company that would eventually grow to be worth as much

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Speaker 1: as it was as it is today. So you could say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Xerox made a huge return on its investment, assuming all

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Speaker 1: those other factors are true. But Apple really benefited from

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Speaker 1: this too. It wasn't like it's a one sided thing.

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Speaker 1: So Apple was able to redefine again what a personal

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Speaker 1: computer is all about because of the stuff they learned

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Speaker 1: from this visit. This was a machine that they saw.

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Speaker 1: The Xerox Alto was a machine they saw on this visit.

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Speaker 1: This was a machine that incorporated Inglebart's ideas about the graphics,

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Speaker 1: user interface, and the computer mouse. It was a system

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Speaker 1: that wasn't available for purchase. You could not buy one

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Speaker 1: of these as just a member of the general public.

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Speaker 1: They had made a couple of thousand of them, but

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Speaker 1: they were all pretty much internal machines. Very few people

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Speaker 1: had had a chance to actually see them outside of Xerox.

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Speaker 1: Jobs was beyond impressed, and he decided that Apple Compute

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Speaker 1: from that point forward should have a gooey and a

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Speaker 1: mouse system, and he felt very strongly that it would

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Speaker 1: open up the computer industry to a wider audience. The

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Speaker 1: text based approach just had too steep a learning curve.

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Speaker 1: It was discouraging people from getting into computers because only

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Speaker 1: computer geeks understood it. And this is really the era

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Speaker 1: where we began to define what a computer geek was.

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Speaker 1: It was that these people who acted like the machines

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Speaker 1: they were really obsessed with, They spoken jargon, they were unrelatable.

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Speaker 1: The reason we have that image of the computer nerd

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Speaker 1: is because of the text based approaches we had to

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Speaker 1: computing early in the days of personal computers. It required

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Speaker 1: this dedication and learning curve that not a lot of

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Speaker 1: people possessed. Necessarily. Going the graphics user interface removed a

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Speaker 1: lot of those barriers and opened it up to the mainstream.

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Speaker 1: Although the image of the nerdy computer geek would stick

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Speaker 1: with us for many years and still to this day

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Speaker 1: is there as evidence by shows like The I T.

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Speaker 1: Crowd and The Big Bang Theory. Anyway, this was sort

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Speaker 1: of the beginning of momentum toward developing both the Macintosh

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Speaker 1: project and the Lisa project within Apple, and Jobs new

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Speaker 1: that he could really break free of that narrow stereotype

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Speaker 1: if they went this route. Now I have a lot

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Speaker 1: more to talk about as far as the development that

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Speaker 1: went into the Macintosh, but before I get into that,

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright, So,

431
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: an Apple, you've got two teams forming to work on

432
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,719
Speaker 1: the next big thing within the company, and they're independent

433
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: of one another. They are not working with each other,

434
00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: so it's two self contained groups within Apple. One of

435
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: those groups was led by Jobs and this was the

436
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:07,719
Speaker 1: LISA team. Now LISA, which was the name that Jobs

437
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: had given to his own daughter, ostensibly stood for Local

438
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: Integrated System Architecture. The LISA machine was meant to be

439
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: a business device, not a personal computer. So this was

440
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: going to be something that Apple would end up marketing

441
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: to big businesses to use for their their you know,

442
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: operational use and you know, maybe employees would have these

443
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 1: machines on their on their desks, that sort of thing.

444
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 1: It was gonna be a high end machine, complete with

445
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: a high end price tag. We're talking to price tag

446
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: of ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars in the early

447
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:45,479
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, so you're talking more like twenty grand today.

448
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: You're talking about the price of a car. Essentially, is

449
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: what we get down to. But the other team was

450
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: led by a guy named Jeff Raskin. Jeff is spelled

451
00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: j E F only one F. Raskin earned the EASE

452
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,880
Speaker 1: in physics and mathematics at State University at New York

453
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: at Stony Brook, and he later earned a master's degree

454
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: in computer science at Pennsylvania State University. He actually first

455
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 1: started with mathematical logic but ended up having a disagreement

456
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:19,680
Speaker 1: with one of his professors and switched his focus to

457
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: computer science UH and got a master's and technically, according

458
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 1: to reports, he was actually qualified for a PhD, but

459
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,719
Speaker 1: there was one problem. The Pennsylvania State University wasn't accredited

460
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: to award PhDs and computer science at that time, so

461
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 1: while he may have had the academic standing for a PhD,

462
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: there was no authorized UH unit to to designate him

463
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: as such. He then studied a lot of art as well.

464
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: He was really interested in not just technology but art

465
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: and UH. He was a really smart guy and a

466
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: little older than the two Steves which Obbs and Bosniac.

467
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 1: Raskin would go on to teach several subjects at the

468
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: University of California, San Diego, including computer science, art and photography,

469
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: and it was really interested in that intersection between art

470
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:16,360
Speaker 1: and tech, which I think is fascinating, and people who

471
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: have that sort of obsession, the people who really focus

472
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: on that intersection between art and computers, I think makes

473
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 1: some of the best and most innovative designers in the world.

474
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: So when you see a product out there that just

475
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,959
Speaker 1: as gorgeous and elegant in its design and it works

476
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,959
Speaker 1: well with whatever it's intended purposes. I think that ultimately

477
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: you have to look for the person who has that

478
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: vision of where art and technology cross in order to

479
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: understand what were the decisions that led to that. This

480
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: guy was one of those people. So it sounds like

481
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: he was a really groovy guy, someone that I probably

482
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: would have enjoyed chatting with. H He has passed away sadly,

483
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: so I am not able to do that, but I'll

484
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about his life. He joined

485
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:13,719
Speaker 1: Apple as the thirty first employee after the company launched

486
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: the Apple Too, so he came on board after Apple

487
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: two had become a thing. He had already worked a

488
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: bit with Apple, uh the Apple had hired his company

489
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: to write the programming manual for the Apple Basic programming language,

490
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: so he had already worked with Apple in that respect,

491
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: but now was coming to work full time for the company,

492
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: and his original role was manager of Publications and new

493
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: product review. But he had this passion project he really

494
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: wanted to do. He wanted to develop a personal computer

495
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: that was more accessible to a wider audience. That was

496
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: his real desire. He wanted to push personal computers beyond

497
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: the hobbyist and the early adopter phases. So he was

498
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: the one who started the Macintosh project back in nine

499
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: seventy nine, and he named it after his favorite type

500
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 1: of apple, the Macintosh, although it's spelled a different way

501
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: than the apple the actual apple is. Now you could

502
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: argue and probably convincingly, that Raskin was somewhat responsible for

503
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: pushing jobs as shift toward designing a computer for the

504
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: general public, because Raskin was writing memos to the rest

505
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: of the company really to direct it to Steve Jobs, saying,

506
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: I really think we are missing an opportunity here. If

507
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: we're able to tap into that market, it's so much

508
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: larger than just the hobbyist market. It's a huge beneficial

509
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: business decision, and it will really push the development of

510
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: personal computers. Uh, And he was one of the people

511
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: who really championed that idea. Now, one thing he didn't

512
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: do was talking about graphic user interfaces and computer mice

513
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: or a computer else's nieces whatever. He was looking at

514
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: keeping costs down. So his original plan was to make

515
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: a personal computer that was still text based but more

516
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: accessible than previous machines were. So it was a little

517
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:18,239
Speaker 1: different than the Lisa development, which was really looking at

518
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: using the graphics, user interface, and the computer mouse, but

519
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: a slightly different version. The mouse they saw at Xerox

520
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: Park was a three button mouse, and the mouse that

521
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: they talked about for the Macintosh was a single button mouse.

522
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: This was in part to simplify things that also to

523
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: bring down costs. They didn't want the components to be

524
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: more and more expensive because the price tag for the

525
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: Lisa was already pretty astronomical as it is. So Jobs

526
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: was more or less on the Lisa team. He was

527
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: kind of supposed to be adjacent to the Lisa team,

528
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: but he kept involving himself more and more in their activities,

529
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: and Raskin was leading the Macintosh team. And they weren't

530
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: necessarily competing because they were looking at developing computers for

531
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 1: two different consumer groups. Right Jobs wanted to build computers

532
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: for businesses and Raskin wanted to build computers for personal users,

533
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: so they weren't directly competing with one another, but there

534
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: was some professional competition going on between the two and

535
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: kind of a race to see who could develop their

536
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: machine first and who was going to make the next

537
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: iteration of the personal computer. They were both relying on

538
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: similar philosophies to make computing more intuitive to the average person,

539
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: although again Jobs was looking at the gooey route, whereas

540
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: Raskin was saying, how can I make the text route

541
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: more accessible and keep those costs down. Meanwhile, over on

542
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: the corporate side of Apple, the company began to bring

543
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: on more experienced folks from the business world to help

544
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: make sure Apple became a quote unquote real company. These

545
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 1: were the people who formed the policies and practices of Apple,

546
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: the ones who kind of codified what the rules were

547
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: and determined how business would be done, uh, making sure

548
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: it would maintain a position of dominance in the computer marketplace.

549
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 1: But they also began to change the culture of Apple,

550
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: and some of Apple's employees were a little chafed by this.

551
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: They didn't really want to see things change that much,

552
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: and it caused some growing pains as a result. One

553
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: person who caused some serious growing pains was Apple's first

554
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: president and CEO, whose name is and I'm not making

555
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: this up, Michael Scott. This is not the Michael Scott

556
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:35,320
Speaker 1: from dunder Mifflin. It's not Michael Scott from the office,

557
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: but it is a guy named Michael Scott, sometimes called Scottie. Now,

558
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: some people would go on to say that Michael Scott

559
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: would end up wreaking havoc through Apple. Uh. He had

560
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 1: been brought on by one of Apple's early investors, Michael Marcula.

561
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: Marcula was technically the third employee of Apple after Wozniak

562
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: and Jobs. Markula spent much of his own money as

563
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: an investment in the company and then some more money

564
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: as a loan to the company. So not only did

565
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: he invest, he also loaned an extra amount of money

566
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 1: to Apple in its early days, and he was the

567
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: one who kind of brought Michael Scott on board to

568
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: become a leader for the company. Now the leaders had

569
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: almost canceled the Macintosh project a few times. It was

570
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: a very small project, very humble beginnings. Jeff Raskins had

571
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 1: a group of like three people working with him to

572
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 1: develop this idea and design the Macintosh computer. And it

573
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 1: was always on the verge of the chopping block because

574
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,839
Speaker 1: the management was saying, well, could we not dedicate your

575
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: attention somewhere else, someplace that we're definitively going to make money,

576
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,760
Speaker 1: And each time Jeff Raskin would argue to allow the

577
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:53,760
Speaker 1: project to continue, and it would kind of be allowed

578
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: to continue for a little bit longer until the next

579
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: time this would happen, and then you'd rense and repeat.

580
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: The project was almost canceled in nineteen seventy nine and

581
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen eight despite the fact that again it was

582
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: very modest, it wasn't taking a huge amount of Apple's

583
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: resources away. Then in nineteen eight one, we had a

584
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,240
Speaker 1: really rough year for Apple, very rough year. In nineteen

585
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 1: eighty one, a lot of bad things happened. For one thing,

586
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,760
Speaker 1: Steve Wozniak was in a plane crash and was severely injured.

587
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 1: His recovery would take a huge amount of time, and

588
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: he stepped away from Apple because he had to concentrate

589
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: on his health. That same year, Michael Scott in February one,

590
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 1: fired more than forty Apple employees, which was a significant

591
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 1: number considering this was a very small company at the time.

592
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: It was on a day that was called Black Wednesday

593
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: within the company. That was the day Michael Scott came in,

594
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: fired a bunch of people, rolled a keg of beer

595
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 1: into the office, and then proclaimed himself Lord and master

596
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,239
Speaker 1: of all. He surveyed, that's probably going a bit far,

597
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: but apparently the keg of beer thing is true, which

598
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna leave that. It's a little too soon

599
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 1: for me to talk about kegs of beer and and

600
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: triumphing over other people's misfortune. Enough commentary. At any rate,

601
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: the move did not go over very well with a

602
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: lot of Apple employees, and in fact, Mark Coula himself

603
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 1: said that's a bit much and decided, you know what,

604
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to pull some rank here. I am

605
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: the big investor, I'm a majority owner of Apple. You

606
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: are out, And he pulled Michael Scott from position of

607
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 1: president and CEO and made a vice chairman. Steve Jobs

608
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: had become the chairman of the company, so he was

609
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: in charge of that. Markola himself would step in as

610
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: the president of the company. Vice Chairman was a title

611
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: that had practically no actual responsibilities or power associated with it,

612
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,280
Speaker 1: so it's almost a title in name alone, and later

613
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: on that year Michael Scott would actually resign somewhat defiantly. Um,

614
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: it all seems very mel a dramatic to me looking

615
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: at it in hindsight. So Mike Marcoola, who was a

616
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: man who had retired at the age of thirty two

617
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: because he made so much money from stock options, he

618
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: had worked for fair Child Semiconductor in the marketing department,

619
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: and as a result of his work there, he had

620
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 1: been awarded stock options, and the stock options ended up

621
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: being worth millions of dollars because of the success of

622
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: fair Child Semiconductor, it's a good time to get into

623
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: semi conductors, just before the computer age dawned, and so

624
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:37,439
Speaker 1: he was a multimillionaire already. He had retired at age

625
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:43,320
Speaker 1: thirty two. That blows my mind. Now he becomes the

626
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: acting president of Apple, and Steve Jobs is acting as chairman. Now,

627
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: the reason I tell you all of this is not

628
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 1: just to give you a history lesson of Apple. It's

629
00:37:55,560 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: so that you understand how things happened. Next, you've got

630
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: Jeff Raskin, who was working on creating an affordable intuitive

631
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: computer for consumers, and his project had been on that

632
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: verge of cancelation a couple of times. You have Steve Jobs,

633
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 1: who was getting more and more involved in a project

634
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:20,760
Speaker 1: that technically wasn't his. Lisa was being spearheaded by other people,

635
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: but Jobs was getting more and more involved in it.

636
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 1: And you had Markola as the man who's leading the company.

637
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 1: And then things turned south a bit. Jobs as team

638
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 1: was in trouble largely because of Steve Jobs. He was

639
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: getting personally involved in the development of Lisa, and this

640
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:43,760
Speaker 1: was upsetting the managerial structure of the project as a result,

641
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: because it's you know, it's the guy who isn't in

642
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: charge who comes in and says, like, hey, I founded

643
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: the company. You should do things this way, not that way.

644
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 1: If you've ever worked on any project where someone who

645
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: was not in charge starts to try and take charge,

646
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: you've probably varience this kind of level of friction. Well,

647
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: this was that on a pretty grand scale, and things

648
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: were becoming really problematic as the project was progressing, so

649
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,760
Speaker 1: much so that Mark Coula made the decision to remove

650
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: Jobs from the team entirely, essentially saying you aren't allowed

651
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 1: to work on that project, stop bothering them, and put

652
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: him into limbo. Essentially, Steve Jobs had really nothing to

653
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 1: do at that point, and the control of the project

654
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: went over to a guy named John Couch. Jobs was

655
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:32,360
Speaker 1: left with no real position of his own, something that

656
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 1: would become a recurring theme with an Apple. If you've

657
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 1: heard our other episodes about Steve Jobs and Apple, you

658
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 1: know how at times in his career and Apple he

659
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: rubbed people the wrong way, and so the people in

660
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: charge would just kind of tell him, going to your

661
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: own office and do whatever you want to do, but

662
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,439
Speaker 1: stop bothering these people. And part of it was Steve

663
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: jobs fault. Part of it was the fault of the management.

664
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: It's no one is blameless in this. I'm not trying

665
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: to say say that Steve Jobs was a total nightmare

666
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: to work for. Some people felt that way, but I'm

667
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: not saying that that's definitively the case, rather than it

668
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:15,720
Speaker 1: was complicated. So Jobs is removed from the Lisa project,

669
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: he decides that he needs something else to do, and

670
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: then he takes a good look at the Macintosh project

671
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: and then says, ah, I want to work on this.

672
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. Jeff Raskin was working on that. That

673
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: was his project and his team, and Steve Jobs wanted

674
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:36,440
Speaker 1: all of it. He wanted to jump in there and

675
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 1: take over the Macintosh project and turn it into something

676
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: that it wasn't when it got started. At that time,

677
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 1: Raskin was really working hard with a small team to

678
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 1: develop a low cost consumer computer. Jobs immediately began to

679
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 1: make changes, demanding changes to the work and redesigning the

680
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: computer pretty dramatically changing it from the track it had

681
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 1: been on since nine Remember this is like two. This

682
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: was enough to exasperate Jeff Raskin, who ultimately decided to

683
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: resign his position in two after enduring multiple changes to

684
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: a project he had defended numerous times from cancelation. So

685
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: think about that for a minute. He had worked very

686
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: hard to keep this project alive, arguing for its viability,

687
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:25,919
Speaker 1: and then one of the founders that the company comes

688
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: in and starts making dramatic changes to his design decisions.

689
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: It was very frustrating, and so ultimately he decided to resign.

690
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 1: And in the book Becoming Steve Jobs, they publish a

691
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: memo that was written by Raskin upon his resignation, and

692
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:43,839
Speaker 1: it reveals some of the issues. The passage reads, while

693
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 1: Mr Jobs as stated positions on management techniques are all

694
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: quite noble and worthy, in practice, he is a dreadful manager.

695
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: He is a prime example of a manager who takes

696
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: the credit for his optimistic schedules and then blames the

697
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: workers when deadlines are not met. He also said that

698
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs miss his appointments, does not give credit, has favorites,

699
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 1: and doesn't keep promises and In another interview, Jeff Raskin

700
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: said that Jobs would have made quote an excellent King

701
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: of France end quote. That is a sick burn. I'm

702
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: assuming that Raskin was specifically meeting the kings of France

703
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:29,800
Speaker 1: who were in power directly before the French Revolution. That's brutal.

704
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,959
Speaker 1: Raskin would actually go on to found a company called

705
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: Information Appliance, Incorporated, and later would teach computer science at

706
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago, and after that, after the Macintosh debut,

707
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: he would be kind of referred to as sort of

708
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 1: an eccentric uncle to the Macintosh, not the father of

709
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 1: the Macintosh. And the reason for this is because the

710
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: Macintosh that debuted was so dramatically different from the one

711
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 1: that he had been designing since nineteen seventy nine. It

712
00:42:56,920 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: had changed enough so it was no longer really the

713
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: same computer. Raskin himself passed away in two thousand five,

714
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: and I am sad that I never had a chance

715
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: to meet him, as he does sound like he was fascinating.

716
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: Now back to the Macintosh team, Jobs wanted to overhaul

717
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: the computer's aesthetic design, both from a hardware and a

718
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: software level. He wanted something sleek and different from previous computers,

719
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: and he really wanted a design that would set the

720
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: Macintosh apart from IBM's personal computers. IBM PCs started hitting

721
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: store shelves in one and they poisoned direct threat to

722
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 1: Apple's position, particularly among businesses. IBM had that reputation and

723
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: was leveraging it, and Jobs wanted his team to finish

724
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 1: their work before the Lisa team finished their work. Now

725
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: that he had been removed from the Lisa team, that

726
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 1: last part didn't happen, though Lisa would launch a year

727
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 1: ahead of Macintosh. Lisa came out in three but the Lisa,

728
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 1: unlike the mac did not see much success. It was

729
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: just too expensive, it had too limited UH software. It

730
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 1: just didn't have a lot of applications developed for it,

731
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: so there wasn't much of a reason to buy one.

732
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: It would like it would be like buying a very

733
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:20,479
Speaker 1: expensive video game console, but there are no games out

734
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: for it yet that would be a problem. So very

735
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 1: few of them were sold. I mean there were ten

736
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 1: thousand dollars apiece. The Lisa won the race to the

737
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: finish line. It was ready before the Macintosh was, but

738
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: it it lost the long game. UH. Apple didn't give

739
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: up on it right away, they launched the Lisa. It

740
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: didn't see a whole of success. They then designed and

741
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: launched the Lisa too, so the second computer in this

742
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: line at a slightly lower price point, actually significantly lower

743
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: price point, with some new UH hardware, some of it

744
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: taken from the mac Tosh computer to make it less expensive,

745
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: So instead of using more expensive components, they used the

746
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: components that kept the Macintosh below that exorbitant price point. UH.

747
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: They also rebranded the Lisa too. They gave it another overhaul,

748
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:16,839
Speaker 1: really kind of. They spruced it up a little bit,

749
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: and they renamed it the Macintosh XLI. But none of

750
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:25,760
Speaker 1: this really kept the Lisa treading water. So ultimately Apple

751
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: pulled the plug figuratively and literally, I guess, since it

752
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:33,879
Speaker 1: was a computer now. Jobs version of the Macintosh incorporated

753
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: a graphics user interface because he had been so impressed

754
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:41,959
Speaker 1: by Xerox's computer. Raskin's original design had, like I said,

755
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,279
Speaker 1: stuck with the text based approach. That this was a

756
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: big change. It required a lot of work on the

757
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,320
Speaker 1: part of the team to go from text base to

758
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:54,319
Speaker 1: graphic user interface. Raskin really felt that it was appropriate

759
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: to go with text base to keep the price down,

760
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:59,879
Speaker 1: although he did eventually endorse the use of a comp

761
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:04,399
Speaker 1: a her mouse. Raskin's goal was to make sure that

762
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: the Macintosh debuted at a price of around five dollars,

763
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: between five hundred and a thousand dollars. As it turns out,

764
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:16,320
Speaker 1: that did not happen, but we'll get to that. He did, however,

765
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 1: think you know, jobs, Jobs didn't wanted to go super

766
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: expensive like Lisa, but he did want to have this

767
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 1: graphic user interface and mouse in it because he felt

768
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: that it was just worthwhile. He ultimately came to the

769
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: conclusion that incorporating those while it would mean a price

770
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: hike in the mac it would be worth it. People

771
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: would see the value of the graphics user interface in

772
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: the mouse, and so it would make the final product

773
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,240
Speaker 1: more expensive than what Raskin then OpEd, but it would

774
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: be a justifiable expense because of the nature of computing.

775
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 1: On that team were several people here are just a

776
00:46:54,360 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 1: few of them, Daniel Cottke Rod Holt, Mark Lebrun, Larry Tesler, Ramnach,

777
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: among others, and in various interviews they said their goal

778
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: was to create a computer that they themselves would want

779
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: to own, which to me, seems like a really good

780
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 1: strategy if you're developing anything. I think that developing something

781
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 1: that you yourself would want to use is important. If

782
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: you're just throwing in features and stuff in order to

783
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: make it shinier, you're probably on the wrong track. If

784
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: you're incorporating stuff that you yourself would want to use,

785
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,879
Speaker 1: you're probably on the right track. And I see this

786
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: in all areas, not just in technology. The Monty Python

787
00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: crew were famous for saying that they wanted to make

788
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: sure the stuff they wrote made each other laugh, and

789
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:43,800
Speaker 1: if when they got together and they read out the

790
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,760
Speaker 1: stuff they had been working on, if other people were laughing,

791
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:48,319
Speaker 1: they knew they were on the right track, and that

792
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: stuff would go in the yes pile. Stuff that might

793
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 1: be amusing but isn't really getting a good response might

794
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:56,759
Speaker 1: go into maybe pile, and stuff that wasn't landing winning

795
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: a no pile. So whether it's high tech or low

796
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: brow comedy, you should follow the same general philosophy. At

797
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 1: least that's my view and the view of the Macintosh

798
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: team now. Developing that graphic user interface was actually a

799
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: really painstaking process because this was a whole new thing

800
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: for personal computers. No one had done it. Xerox Park

801
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 1: had done it for their in house computer system, but

802
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: no one had done it for a personal computer. So

803
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:26,840
Speaker 1: it required a lot of trial and error designing the programs,

804
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,240
Speaker 1: testing them, debugging them. In fact, some of the designers

805
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: would say that the mac operating system got debugged into existence,

806
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,320
Speaker 1: that essentially they started with a bunch of different code,

807
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 1: much of it didn't work, and then they eliminated the

808
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: stuff that didn't work until they willed it around down

809
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: to a workable operating system. Seems like it worked out

810
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:55,399
Speaker 1: for them. It had to be programmed and debugged over

811
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 1: a long time, but they still had a real goal

812
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 1: to get McIntosh shout as soon as possible, even though

813
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: the lease had come out in and really jobs had

814
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: gotten really involved in in Macintosh. At the end of

815
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: and into two, they knew they wanted to debut by

816
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: and they did. And we'll go and more into what

817
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: happened next in our next section, but first let's take

818
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:32,400
Speaker 1: another quick break to thank our sponsor. The Macintosh was

819
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: finally ready for its unveiling, and it had taken a

820
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: bit longer to come out than Lisa and the Macintosh

821
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: team had to contend with jobs, making lots of demands

822
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 1: and changes, but in the end they were able to

823
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:46,800
Speaker 1: create a computer design for the average consumer. The specs

824
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: of the machine were impressive for the time, not for today.

825
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 1: The Motorola processor they were using as the CPU ran

826
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: at a blistering six Mega hurts, which they cranked up

827
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:01,839
Speaker 1: to seven point eight may hurts, and they marketed as

828
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: an eight Mega Hurts machine. The nine inch screen a

829
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: massive nine inch screen on this computer, which was an

830
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 1: all in one by the way. You had the computer

831
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,760
Speaker 1: body and the monitor all in the same form factor,

832
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 1: although the keyboard was separate. It was a monochromatic nine

833
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,839
Speaker 1: inch screen and had a resolution of five twelve by

834
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 1: three hundred twelve pixels, so only slightly better than the

835
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 1: Apple to monitor resolution. The name for the graphic user

836
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: interface operating system was called System Software one point oh.

837
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: Later on they would call it mac OS, but it

838
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 1: was System Software one point oh in the early days.

839
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:49,359
Speaker 1: Unlike the Apple Too, which had a separate display from

840
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,319
Speaker 1: the computer itself, this one, like I said, was incorporated

841
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:54,840
Speaker 1: directly with the machine, so the whole thing was in

842
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:57,720
Speaker 1: a big plastic body and you had computer and monitor

843
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 1: right there, including a disk drive but then you would

844
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: connect the keyboard to it. It had a three and

845
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 1: a half inch disk drive, so they had advanced beyond

846
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 1: the five and a quarter inch discs. Now you were

847
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: in the the more firm, plastic of the three and

848
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 1: a half inch discs. People started calling those hard disks

849
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 1: because they didn't know what a hard disk drive was.

850
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: That's not a hard disk. It was still a floppy disk.

851
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:23,919
Speaker 1: It was just a different form of a floppy disk.

852
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 1: It also had a handle. The Mac had a handle

853
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: on it so you could carry it around, making it

854
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 1: a semi portable machine. It was really a bit heavy

855
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,720
Speaker 1: and bulky for toting it around everywhere. It weighed about

856
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 1: sixteen and a half pounds or somewhere around seven and

857
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: a half kilograms, so that's kind of hefty. You don't

858
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 1: want to carry that around very far. But it did

859
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: have a handle so you could if you needed to.

860
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:52,280
Speaker 1: The original Mac had two serial ports. You might remember

861
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:56,759
Speaker 1: I talked about Cereal ports in the USB episodes, so

862
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:59,840
Speaker 1: that is Sereal as an S E R I A L.

863
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about Captain Crunch. If you want to

864
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 1: hear about that, go back to the earlier part of

865
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,319
Speaker 1: the episode where I was talking about phone freaking, had

866
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:11,879
Speaker 1: no modem, had no microphone. Sound was in glorious eight

867
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: bit format, so whenever you hear chip tunes, that's the

868
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: good old eight bits sound. For the most part, you

869
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: could upgrade the RAM to twelve kilobytes. But when I

870
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: say you could upgrade the RAM, I really mean a

871
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: reseller could upgrade the RAM. The mac was designed in

872
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 1: a way where you were not, as a user, supposed

873
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: to make any alterations or change it or upgrade it yourself.

874
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: Like you couldn't just crack open the case and put

875
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: in an expansion slot. That's not how it worked. And

876
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:47,040
Speaker 1: anyone who's used Macintosh computers since that day can tell

877
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: you this is kind of how Apple likes it. They

878
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,319
Speaker 1: really like to create a closed off system that you

879
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:57,360
Speaker 1: aren't supposed to mess with, so it became a recurring theme. Also,

880
00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:00,759
Speaker 1: it had no hard drive, so anything had to run

881
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 1: off a disk drive. If you wanted to boot up

882
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 1: your computer, you had to put the system boot disc

883
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 1: into the disk drive, turn your machine on. It would

884
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 1: read the operating system from its boot disc, launch into it,

885
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:14,839
Speaker 1: and then if you want to change another you know,

886
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:17,840
Speaker 1: to another software, another piece of software you would go in,

887
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,879
Speaker 1: you would activate it, you would be prompted to put

888
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: in the appropriate disc. You'd pull out the system operations disc,

889
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,480
Speaker 1: put in your application disc. Then you could use your application.

890
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:35,240
Speaker 1: Such were the dark days of the personal computer industry. Now,

891
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:41,239
Speaker 1: eventually you could end up buying a secondary drive that

892
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 1: would be dedicated solely to the system boot disc, which

893
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:47,839
Speaker 1: meant that you could use the other drive for all

894
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: your applications. But that cost extra. So let's talk about cost.

895
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 1: Remember Raskin wanted his machine to cost between five hundred

896
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:57,400
Speaker 1: and a thousand dollars. So how much did the original

897
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 1: mac cost when it went on sale? The original Macintosh

898
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: cost two thousand, four hundred nine five dollars. If you

899
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:10,879
Speaker 1: were to adjust that for inflation and say how much

900
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:14,400
Speaker 1: would I need to spend today to be equivalent to

901
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:18,240
Speaker 1: the spending power the purchasing power of that two thousand

902
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 1: four money. The answer to that is nearly five thousand,

903
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars. So that translates into saying that the

904
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: first Macintosh computer would have cost you about the same

905
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:33,600
Speaker 1: as five thousand, seven hundred bucks in today's money. Pretty

906
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:39,440
Speaker 1: expensive computer, extremely expensive, about honestly. Now, eventually, like I

907
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:42,239
Speaker 1: said they would release the hard disk twenty that was

908
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:45,839
Speaker 1: the drive that would be the sole purpose of keeping

909
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:49,040
Speaker 1: the system to itself, so that you could use the

910
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 1: other drive just for your applications. That was an additional

911
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 1: one thousand four d dollars, so very expensive, more than

912
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:03,880
Speaker 1: half of what the computer itself cost. Uh, not exactly

913
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:09,800
Speaker 1: a budget machine. On the software side, the coding side,

914
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:12,360
Speaker 1: who had Bill Atkinson who had coded a method for

915
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:16,759
Speaker 1: displaying overlapping windows to make it smooth and useful for

916
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:20,040
Speaker 1: Apple users. That allows you to actually have numerous applications

917
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: open at the same time and you could navigate between them.

918
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 1: Anyone who's used a Gooey based computer system and at

919
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 1: all is familiar with this. That you can have multiple

920
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:33,879
Speaker 1: windows open and switch between them. That was new back

921
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 1: in something that you you know, normally you would have

922
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: to quit out of an application and open a new

923
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: application if you want to do something different on the computer.

924
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 1: You couldn't just switch back and forth. So this was

925
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:49,000
Speaker 1: a new thing and very innovative. Meanwhile, you also had

926
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:52,480
Speaker 1: other designers who are working on the iconography for the

927
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: operating system, so the different little icons you would see,

928
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: the designs that would pop up whenever the machine was

929
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 1: processing information. All of that went through rigorous design before

930
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 1: it ever launched with the Macintosh, and it made the

931
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:11,799
Speaker 1: computer more appealing to use, as like it was a

932
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:16,320
Speaker 1: more friendly type of machine than the cold text based

933
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,760
Speaker 1: devices of the past. Oh and there was a commercial

934
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:22,799
Speaker 1: that didn't hurt too much either. It was the infamous

935
00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: Apple nineteen eight four commercial and it was directed by

936
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:30,760
Speaker 1: the famed director Ridley Scott. So, yeah, the same guy

937
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: who directed Blade Runner directed an Apple commercial in that

938
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:41,840
Speaker 1: blows my mind. I mean, this is a visionary director.

939
00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:46,359
Speaker 1: And if you watch that commercial, it's very powerful. It's

940
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: an incredible ad. It has often been listed among the

941
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 1: best commercials of all time, and I think it's still

942
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 1: holds a place up there just for its dramatic impact.

943
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 1: So in the commercial, uh, and it was all a

944
00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:03,239
Speaker 1: matter of timing. It was so well done. We see

945
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: a dystopian futuristic society, kind of like a bunch of

946
00:57:06,760 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 1: people dressed in gray shaved heads, staring straight ahead, marching

947
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 1: down the hallway into like a lecture hall, taking seats

948
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 1: in a in almost like an auditorium setting, staring at

949
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:22,959
Speaker 1: an enormous screen where there is the very large face

950
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:26,200
Speaker 1: of a man. The man's face is probably normal size,

951
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: but the image makes it look huge, yelling out various

952
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:35,880
Speaker 1: authoritarian nonsense, stuff like you will conform and you will

953
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: obey that kind of thing, very big brother ish and

954
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 1: dictating to the group how things must be. And you

955
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:48,360
Speaker 1: also keep cutting back over to this woman in a

956
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:51,960
Speaker 1: colorful outfit as she's jogging down the hallway and she's

957
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: carrying a massive hammer, like a like a big warhammer

958
00:57:56,320 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: style hammer, and she runs. It's really an Olympic hammer.

959
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:03,479
Speaker 1: I guess she runs into this this lecture hall does

960
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 1: a spin throw and throws the hammer into the screen,

961
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:11,960
Speaker 1: destroying it, and it shows this beautiful bright light, and

962
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 1: the the people snap out of their dystopic funk and

963
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 1: they look around, and then you get hit by the

964
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:23,960
Speaker 1: tagline which says, on January, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh

965
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 1: and you'll see why nine eight four won't be like

966
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 1: Night four. So what they mean is the year nine

967
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:37,080
Speaker 1: eight four won't be like the classic George Orwell novel four,

968
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 1: which features Big Brother in this authoritarian government that dictates

969
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:44,959
Speaker 1: everything has to be a very specific way, the message being, hey,

970
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:47,760
Speaker 1: the Macintosh breaks free of the mold you get to

971
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 1: be you. You aren't some drone, You're not some just

972
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:56,080
Speaker 1: faceless entity inside a larger company or corporation. You are

973
00:58:56,120 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: a person. That was the message. So it's really selling

974
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 1: the idea, uh that the Macintosh was all about individuality

975
00:59:03,440 --> 00:59:07,800
Speaker 1: and not about conformity, and it was incredible. I didn't

976
00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 1: own the Macintosh. I had an Apple to E and

977
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 1: then we switched over to IBM compatible machines in my house,

978
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 1: so I don't have any personal steak. I have no

979
00:59:18,440 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 1: nostalgia for the Macintosh computer as a thing, but I

980
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:27,400
Speaker 1: certainly think the marketing scheme for the Macintosh was nothing

981
00:59:27,480 --> 00:59:33,680
Speaker 1: short of a masterpiece. Jobs really loved the ad, and

982
00:59:33,760 --> 00:59:36,320
Speaker 1: so did John Scully, who at that time was the

983
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 1: president and CEO of Apple. Mark Coola had stepped down

984
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 1: John Scully, who had come from PEPSI, had now taken

985
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:47,480
Speaker 1: the helm of Apple, and Scully and Jobs both thought

986
00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 1: the ad was tops. They showed it off to the

987
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 1: board of directors and they were less happy with it.

988
00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: They thought it was too oppressive, too dark, too gloomy,

989
00:59:57,040 --> 00:59:59,760
Speaker 1: so they wanted to scrap the ad and Jobs and

990
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 1: Only really didn't want that to happen, so they kind

991
01:00:02,720 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 1: of dragged their feet a little bit and there uh

992
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 1: their ad agency, the Commission. The commission the add from

993
01:00:10,920 --> 01:00:13,520
Speaker 1: said eventually, you know, we can get rid of most

994
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:16,920
Speaker 1: the ad spots, but there too, we cannot offload. One

995
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: of them was in Idaho. The other was a national

996
01:00:21,280 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 1: spot during the Super Bowl, right we we can't. We

997
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: can't drop that one. It's no one's gonna buy it.

998
01:00:30,640 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: You would lose a huge amount of money because the

999
01:00:32,680 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 1: ad space is so expensive. Whether that was true or

1000
01:00:36,120 --> 01:00:38,720
Speaker 1: whether this was all an attempt to kind of get

1001
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 1: the ad to the public despite what the Border directors

1002
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:46,480
Speaker 1: had said, who's to say. But ultimately Apple went ahead

1003
01:00:46,560 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 1: and ran the ad during the Super Bowl, reaching more

1004
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: than ninety million people in the process, and it was

1005
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: an enormous impact. News agencies ran stories about this ad

1006
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: because it was just so effective, and they called it

1007
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 1: a groundbreaking commercial, which gave Apple even more marketing reach

1008
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:10,360
Speaker 1: that they didn't pay for. Because news agencies were talking

1009
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: about a commercial for them. It was a gold mine

1010
01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:17,560
Speaker 1: for Apple, and they were able to sell more than

1011
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:22,040
Speaker 1: seventy thousand Macintosh computers within a couple of months of

1012
01:01:22,080 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 1: it debuting. It debuted late January by March, they had

1013
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 1: sold more than seventy thousand computers at more than two

1014
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:34,840
Speaker 1: thousand bucks a pop. That was a really expensive computer

1015
01:01:34,920 --> 01:01:38,680
Speaker 1: in and selling seventy thousand of them was a huge

1016
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:42,440
Speaker 1: success story. And it was just the beginning for the Macintosh.

1017
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 1: And there's so much more I could say about this computer,

1018
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:49,520
Speaker 1: but for today, I'm gonna call this a close. I'm

1019
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 1: gonna bring this to an end because this was the

1020
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:55,360
Speaker 1: birth of the Macintosh, it's debut to the world. I

1021
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 1: think it makes a good ending for this part of

1022
01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:01,120
Speaker 1: the story. And in a future episode, I'll explore how

1023
01:02:01,200 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 1: the Macintosh evolved into the Mac and the trials and

1024
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 1: tribulations of its evolution, how it changed so dramatically, how

1025
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:16,480
Speaker 1: Jobs being forced out of his own company effectively changed

1026
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 1: the way that the Mac developed, How the mac almost

1027
01:02:19,160 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 1: perished before Jobs came back and changed things dramatically. Again.

1028
01:02:24,240 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 1: So love him or hate him, jobs got results done

1029
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 1: and he sold a lot of computers. Uh, So that's

1030
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:35,959
Speaker 1: another story. I'll probably take that on. Who knows, maybe

1031
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:38,640
Speaker 1: that will be my next episode. I have not decided yet,

1032
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:42,800
Speaker 1: but maybe next episode will be the Macintosh Story Part two,

1033
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:46,360
Speaker 1: where I talk about how it changed from its initial

1034
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 1: version over the years to turn into things like the

1035
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:53,080
Speaker 1: iMac and that'd be kind of fun. But for now,

1036
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:57,040
Speaker 1: I gotta go. If you guys have any suggestions for

1037
01:02:57,240 --> 01:03:00,600
Speaker 1: people I should have on the show topics I should cover,

1038
01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 1: questions or comments about anything I've chatted about, you can

1039
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:07,400
Speaker 1: write me. My email address for the show is tech

1040
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or you can

1041
01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:13,080
Speaker 1: always get in touch over social media. The handle for

1042
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: the show on Facebook and Twitter is tech Stuff h

1043
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:19,760
Speaker 1: s W. Remember you can go to twitch dot tv

1044
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: slash tech stuff to watch me record these shows live.

1045
01:03:23,360 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 1: There's a chat room you can actually engage in chat

1046
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:29,640
Speaker 1: while I'm talking, uh as the people who are there

1047
01:03:29,720 --> 01:03:31,720
Speaker 1: right now can tell you I am happy to chat

1048
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:35,720
Speaker 1: with folks whenever I'm not directly recording my from my notes,

1049
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:38,439
Speaker 1: but yeah, check that out. Go to twitch dot tv

1050
01:03:38,560 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff. You'll be able to find a schedule

1051
01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 1: of my appearances there and find out when you can

1052
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:45,960
Speaker 1: tune in to hear me record these shows. You get

1053
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:49,560
Speaker 1: to see everything, including all the mistakes. There aren't a

1054
01:03:49,560 --> 01:03:51,960
Speaker 1: whole lot of them, but they do happen, and if

1055
01:03:52,040 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: you are there, you'll get to enjoy that Also, you'll

1056
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 1: hear shows about a month before they publish. And until

1057
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:02,360
Speaker 1: next time, I'll tell if you guys again really soon.

1058
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:10,680
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it,

1059
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 1: how stuff works? Dot com, wh