Macintosh Folklore Radio

The story behind Apple’s big RISC. Written by Steven Levy, The Iconoclast, Macworld, May/June 1994. Watch a special Christmas message from MFR. The Alberta Goat Breeders Association (and the reason for linking to them) Half-Moon Bay Review article on Jack McHenry Apple’s extremely terrible internal marketing video for the Power Mac The Digital Antiquarian’s take on the PowerPC transition Gary Davidian Oral History (video 1, 2; transcript 1, 2) Richard Lary’s highly entertaining (but not Mac- or PowerPC-related) career highlights (video, transcript) Metrowerks CodeWarrior for PowerPC was ready in late 1993. Eat that, Symantec! CPUShack: A look back at the Motorola 88000 family The Computer Chronicles visits the Somerset Design Center Andy Bechtolsheim on Motorola’s slow development cycle (CHM video, transcript) Rich Siegel: interview podcast with iMore and The Mac Observer; Apple’s “Meet the Developer” on Rich; Rich on Twitter, still developing for the Mac 36 years on Intro from Power Mac Reseller

A shakeup in Apple II engineering frees up Andy Hertzfeld to work on the Macintosh. Original text from folklore.org. Jef Raskin and Andy Hertzfeld audio excerpts from “The Macintosh at 20” panel hosted at Macworld Boston 2004. Highly recommended!

The Newton MessagePad soap opera from product launch to cancellation, and all that could have been. Check out “Love Notes to Newton” for even more history, interviews, and a great soundtrack. The director, Noah Leon, was interviewed on embedded.fm #262 and the RetroMacCast #440. Steve Jobs quotes: WWDC 1997, EDUCAUSE 1998, Borg-like compliance and audience hissing at Internet Explorer at MWNY 1998 Hermann Hauser on Intel inadvertently inspiring the ARM: video, transcript Avie Tevanian on the business decision we didn’t want to hear: direct quote, video (1, 2), transcript (1, 2) Bob Supnik on Dan Dobberpuhl’s brilliant StrongARM: video (1, 2), transcript (1, 2) On the memory leak that caused higher than normal recognition failure rates in early OS releases: “I can’t even get my unit to recognize the word ‘Newton’”

The very first image displayed on the very first prototype Macintosh, an Apple II expansion card with a Motorola 6809E. Original text at folklore.org. Audio excerpts from Andy Hertzfeld’s keynote speech at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) 2000. Listen to the full keynote, preserved in 2004 by yours truly from a long-gone RealAudio streaming server.

“Mask ROM” means something a little different in 2020. E-mail your article and topic suggestions to derek at macfolkloreradio.com.

Surf the Web, deal with e-mail, crunch spreadsheets, write real documents, and keep your life together with this 1.4-pound wonder. Written by Jeff Pittelkau, MacUser June 1997. Text available in HTML and ePub.

Of Newton and Magic Link, Marco and Envoy. The Newton and its competition continue to make progress… sort of. Written by Steven Levy, The Iconoclast, Macworld April 1995. Text available in HTML and ePub.

Newton will be great if it can live down its beginnings. Written by Steven Levy, The Iconoclast, Macworld January 1994. Text available in HTML and ePub. Audio from the Newton TV Commercial Collection.

From the days before flash ROM and easy firmware updates, the tale of Landon Dyer’s accidental inspiration for what to do when your ROMs are truly read-only. Non-techies may wish to skip the middle bit and go straight to Landon’s Newton post-mortem at 12m10s. Original text from dadhacker.com. Intro audio clip from Michael Tchao at the Apple User Group Breakfast, Boston MacWorld 1993. Patch talk from the Q&A section at 1h23m25s. Outro audio clip of Steve Capps (ex-Newton) and Donna Dubinsky, former CEO of Palm and ex-Claris VP, from the Computer History Museum’s Computing In Your Pocket panel discussion.

Landon Dyer describes how he made the Newton storage architecture crash-resistant at the last minute before the Newton shipped. Original text from dadhacker.com.

Steve Chamberlin tells the story of the birth, death, and afterlife of the slickest shareware Tetris for the Macintosh. Hear Steve’s interviews about Floppy Emu, Tetris Max and more on the RetroMacCast episodes 317, 351, and 358. More about Steve’s various projects and items for sale at bigmessowires.com: Floppy Emu, Mac ROMinator II, Plus Too FPGA Macintosh, and homebrew CPU. Visit famed Tetris Max music composer Peter Wagner and check out his 2020 remake of Bricklayer/T-Maxx. Original story text from Steve’s web site.

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Why did the original Macintosh team disband immediately after 1984–and where were they five years later? Checking in on Steve Jobs, Burrell Smith, Andy Hertzfeld, Randy Wigginton, Steve Capps, and Bill Atkinson. From Macworld February 1989. Text available in HTML and ePub. Andy Hertzfeld’s Frox Demo (1990) Bill Atkinson talking about PhotoCard Buy gorgeous nature photography work by Bill Atkinson Atkinson Interview - Triangulation 244, 247 Don Melton Safari stories: text, podcast Andy Hertzfeld demonstrating Eazel’s file manager for Linux The Machine that Changed the World - The Paperback Computer General Magic Documentary Love Notes to Newton

Douglas Adams’ delightfully irreverent take on HyperCard from MacUser December 1987. Text available in HTML and ePub.

As elegant and intuitive as the classic Mac environment may have been, life went downhill fast if you needed more than two serial ports or your SCSI chain went south. The one and only Douglas Adams shares a personal horror story. Source: MacUser, November 1991. Full text available at Douglas’ website.

From Doug Clapp’s The Macintosh Reader, PDF page 171-176, a rare interview with original Macintosh hardware designer/wizard Burrell Smith. An extra special thanks to vintageapple.org for scanning and uploading this and many other old Macintosh books. Text available in HTML and ePub. Burrell’s contrary statement on PC Board Aesthetics at folklore.org.

A bonus episode to keep my tiny listener base company while they’re stuck inside because of you-know-what. Stay safe. From folklore.org: I’ll Be Your Best Friend, We’ll See About That, and Pineapple Pizza. Interview with Collette Askeland, PCB design and layout sorceress, at Drop III Inches.

Steve Jobs threatens to pull the sound hardware out of the original Macintosh design. Original text available at folklore.org. Download SoundLab, Talk Demo, and Hendrix at Macintosh Garden.

R.I.P. Larry Tesler, 1945-2020. With audio from Larry’s presentation on the development and testing of the Lisa user interface, and Bill Atkinson speaking about making modal interfaces useful. You can hear more about Larry’s days at Apple from the Steve Jobs Legacy Panel, 2011. Written by Larry Tesler, Macworld September 1985. Text available in HTML and ePub.

Bonus video! Watch Bill Atkinson demo HyperCard live on stage in 1987. The problem with HyperCard isn’t HyperCard, it’s what people are saying about it. Written by Steven Levy, The Iconoclast, Macworld February 1988. Text available in HTML and ePub.