100
votes
Accepted
How was it back then in 1984, when the Apple II had color, and the new Macintosh didn't?
I was working in software development at the time, and this wasn't seen as a problem. Colour monitors were expensive and not usually high-quality.
In PC-compatibles, the Colour Graphics Adapter (...
- 9,903
70
votes
Accepted
How did Woz write the Apple 1 BASIC before building the computer?
TL;DR:
As explained on Steven Weyhrich's great and authoritative Apple II History Site, Wozniak simply sat down and wrote his Integer-BASIC (*1) on paper, while assembling it at the same time by hand. ...
- 199k
50
votes
Accepted
What is the source of the Apple logo?
This seemingly well-researched article from a design magazine says
According to Janoff [designer of the logo], the reason for choosing this bitten apple logo is to prevent people from confusing the ...
- 1,653
45
votes
How was it back then in 1984, when the Apple II had color, and the new Macintosh didn't?
The Mac was designed from the start to be a GUI-based machine so clear, high-resolution graphics were a requirement. At the same time available memory was extremely limited due to cost considerations....
- 9,240
38
votes
How did Woz write the Apple 1 BASIC before building the computer?
One thing is certain: Steve Wozniak was very good at hand assembling 6502. Instead of writing assembler mnemonics he could simply type in the necessary hex code.
I realize this isn't a proper answer ...
- 7,301
37
votes
Why didn't Apple sue Commodore over the Amiga's GUI?
While some lawyers do occasionally file lawsuits based mainly on their targets having "deep pockets", like Microsoft had, this is not generally successful. In order for a typical corporate lawsuit to ...
- 59.5k
36
votes
Accepted
Was Objective-C really a hindrance to Apple software development?
Objective-C was by all accounts a nightmare to work with
I loved it. Loved it.
Some background: in the 90s I worked for a developer here in Toronto with a Mac and Win app. I wanted to work on the ...
- 18.5k
35
votes
How was it back then in 1984, when the Apple II had color, and the new Macintosh didn't?
I imagine it being a huge downgrade for some, not to have color on the Macintosh. Macintosh games were black and white in the beginning, while Apple II had color.
For back then the whole assumption ...
- 199k
34
votes
What is the source of the Apple logo?
According to official sources, the name Apple came first. In an interview with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, recorded to an internal Apple video, it is explained that the name just… appeared. The ...
- 20.5k
28
votes
Why are the homing bumps on D and K on Apple keyboards?
The official answer (at https://support.apple.com/kb/TA34988?locale=en_US) is that they pretty much made it up as they went along:
At some time in Apple's history it was decided to put the "bumps" ...
- 8,962
24
votes
Was Objective-C really a hindrance to Apple software development?
Swift was introduced only in mid-2014 so I think perhaps some of those people's beards have greyed out very rapidly! That aside, Objective-C attempts to fuse two different languages: Smalltalk and C. ...
- 34.4k
23
votes
Accepted
Were there any commercially available graphical interfaces before the apple Lisa?
Update April 2019
It looks as though the Three River PERQ was the first commercial machine, as per @MrTelly's answer.
Original Answer
I hate to quote Wikipedia as a source of truth, but I had a ...
- 2,044
23
votes
Why are the homing bumps on D and K on Apple keyboards?
Personally I know this from a typewriter course in school (ca. 1973). The machines we used hat slightly different cavity on D/K to support touch-typing. we were supposed always rest our middle fingers ...
- 199k
22
votes
Accepted
What do the '80/40' and 'keyboard' buttons on my Apple IIc do?
Keyboard Switch
On the International version Apple IIc the keyboard switch
swiched between a country-specific layout and and a standard U.S.
layout. On the USA version it switches between the standard ...
- 23.9k
19
votes
Accepted
How did Apple's 'CYA' chip function to "Control Your Apple"?
The "Control Your Apple ASIC" (CYA) was part of the "Apple IIGS 1 MB" introduced in 1989, which had 1.125 MB of DRAM and twice the ROM space of previous IIGS models. The CYA was much the same as the "...
- 400
19
votes
What publication published an early version of the Apple Monitor by Woz?
Ok, I found the image I had formed in my mind - it was from Dr. Dobbs Journal, Volume 1, Number 8, 1976. - But my memory was wrong about pre-dating Apple. The article is actually titled "A 6502 ...
- 8,901
17
votes
Accepted
Was it Microsoft that started the war between Application and OS vendors?
It could be argued that the “war” started with the creation of the software industry, when IBM unbundled its software and services in 1969. Before then, you’d lease a computer and get the software and ...
- 113k
17
votes
Accepted
Has any major corporation ever successfully sued Microsoft for intellectual property theft?
Alcatel-Lucent won a lawsuit against MS in 2008 on a patent for audio file playback. That was later overruled by a higher court.
Bristol Technology attacked MS for not revealing needed Windows ...
- 30.7k
17
votes
What do the '80/40' and 'keyboard' buttons on my Apple IIc do?
According to the Wikipedia article:
The keyboard layout mirrored that of the Apple IIe; however, the “Reset” key had been moved above the “Esc” key. Two toggle switches were also located in the ...
- 467
16
votes
Accepted
A good method for formatting a modern device in HFS (Not HFS+)
If you have a system running on your IIci you could presumably use that to format your drive, but I'm guessing that's not the case.
To build a working image on the SD card, there are two things to ...
- 113k
16
votes
Accepted
Unknown Apple to VGA adapter
I think this page (on archive.org) is about that adapter, which it calls the "AR5328 Apple to VGA monitor adapter." Other sources call it a "Mac to VGA adapter." It works with the Mac LC "pizza boxes,"...
- 17.3k
16
votes
Has any major corporation ever successfully sued Microsoft for intellectual property theft?
Stac Electronics obtained a 1994 judgment against Microsoft for patent infringement, based on Microsoft's use of knowledge it had learnt from Stac's source code for Stacker, which it had obtained ...
- 34.4k
16
votes
How was it back then in 1984, when the Apple II had color, and the new Macintosh didn't?
I believe the assumptions of the question are wrong. We did not buy the Mac to play games, it was more or less strictly a business machine. Main usage in the beginning around me was creation of ...
- 339
16
votes
Accepted
Was it true that Microsoft actually created software for early Apple devices?
Microsoft Excel was originally written for the Mac, and released in September 1985 (see Wikipedia article here). It was released for Windows 2 in 1987 (and was in fact bundled with a version of ...
- 276
15
votes
Accepted
How do I run PowerPC Applications on an Intel Mac
You can "bring Rosetta back" by installing an older version of Mac OS X which supports it — Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard (on the latter it's an optional component). Rosetta was removed from later ...
- 113k
15
votes
Accepted
What are the differences between the versions of AppleSoft BASIC?
The Wikipedia entry is a bit jumbled, ambiguous, and in some cases wrong.
Perhaps it makes more sense to list changes by Apple II model, as documented by the fantastic Apple II History site. (The ...
- 7,158
14
votes
Accepted
Apple II GS versus Mac Plus cost
The Macintosh sold for more because — as the shiny new thing — it could be sold for more. It was marketed as an aspirational product, not sold as a reasonable markup on an engineering BOM.
The IIgs ...
- 19.3k
14
votes
Accepted
Questions about Security over Using an Ancient Mac Computer on The Internet
Risk assessment is, of course, subjective, but I wouldn't worry too much if you're behind a firewall, or a router with NAT and no ports forwarded to this Mac.
In that case, the only danger comes from ...
- 8,962
13
votes
Accepted
Why did some Mac computers have two names?
Many, if not all of the Performa and Quadra systems seemed to have two names.
In the early 1990 Apple (re)named their machines as different lines, according to capabilities, to target different ...
- 199k
13
votes
How was it back then in 1984, when the Apple II had color, and the new Macintosh didn't?
I personally agree with all of the answers that say something like “High quality bitmapped monochrome displays beat low quality PC color/character graphics.” E.g. for things like preparing documents ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible