Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
A bit of motivational background
The Apple 3
The Lisa
“local integrated systems architecture”
Lisa: invented stupid acronym.
The Goal
• To create an inexpensive computer for the
masses that offered the best experience
possible.
The Original Scope
• To create an inexpensive,
transportable, and
efficient computer that
would work with other
apple technologies.
• Would use a low
powered processor,
require command
prompts, and essentially
use already established
means just in a more
compact package. The
price range would be
aimed at below $1000.
The Requirements
Graphical User Interface (GUI)
Relatively inexpensive ($2,495)
Small
Simple
Unable to be tampered with
Powerful
Play sound
Achieve a wide range of characters and
graphics
Run animations/video
Required a mouse
Used windows
Drag and drop files
Couldn’t rely on command prompt
Run only apple software
Outcompete IBM, the Apple 3, and the
Lisa.
The Mac’s Development Plan
Or rather……
Resources
Steve Jobs
A team assembled of
highly creative and
imaginative engineers.
Money
Key Players
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Steve Jobs
Jef Rashkin
Andy Hertzfield
Bill Atkinson
George Crow
Joanna Hoffman
Burrell Smith
• Jerry Manock
Working the job with Jobs
He is a dreadful manager. . . . I have always
liked Steve, but I have found it impossible to work
for him. . . . Jobs regularly misses appointments.
This is so well-known as to be almost a running
joke. . . . He acts without thinking and with bad
judgment. . . . He does not give credit where due. . .
.Very often, when told of a new idea, he will
immediately attack it and say that it is worthless or
even stupid, and tell you that it was a waste of time
to work on it. This alone is bad management, but if
the idea is a good one he will soon be telling people
about it as though it was his own.
Schedule
.........goddam it Steve we said 15 months, not minutes.
Now you broke the clock function…..
16 months.
The closest thing to a “schedule”
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Planning:
Fall 1979: Jobs and Atkinson are shown Xerox’s small talk, showing them the starting potential for
the future of computers.
May 1980: The Apple 3 flops, Jobs becomes more determined to make a better computer.
September 1980: Jobs removed from the Lisa Project, jumps onboard the Macintosh project.
Discusses ideas with Rashkin on what he wants in the computer.
Development:
• December 1980: Jobs starts to take control of the project by reworking the prototype to use the
Motorola 68000 processor.
• 1981: Rashkin leaves and Jobs controls the project. Jobs begins a trend of hiring on imaginative and
innovative engineers.
• May 1983: Hard drive developed for the Macintosh by Sony.
• January 1984: Software for the Macintosh is completed days before launch.
Marketing:
• 1982: Berry Cash hired as a market strategist.
• 1983: Jobs starts to mention the Macintosh in interviews and panels. Begins pitching the
prototypes to the board.
• January 22nd 1984: Big brother ad is released during the super bowl.
“Good artists copy, great artists steal” ~Picasso
“It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.”
Why 1984 won’t be like
View video here Macintosh commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
It is now 1984. It appears that IBM wants it
all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer
IBM a run for its money. Dealers, after initially
welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBMdominated and-controlled future and are turning
back to Apple as the only force who can ensure
their future freedom. IBM wants it all, and is aiming
its guns at its last obstacle to industry control,
Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer
industry? The entire information age? Was George
Orwell right?
January 24th, 1984
The Macintosh says
So what were the messages from
Mac?