
Inside Macintosh (1985) [pdf] - theBashShell
http://www.weihenstephan.org/~michaste/pagetable/mac/Inside_Macintosh.pdf
======
linguae
I miss the classic Mac OS. From time to time I turn on one of my classic Macs
and use Mac OS 8 or 9 for a while, going down memory lane. While the classic
Mac OS was unstable due to its lack of both memory protection and preemptive
multitasking, there's a certain simplicity to the interface, as well as a
near-universal adherence to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines by most
applications, that is unfortunately missing in today's desktop computing
environments. Modern GUI software has a lot of "bling", but I feel that Apple
got it right in the 1980s and 1990s, with less emphasis on slick, shiny
designs and more emphasis on the substance of building usable interfaces. I
wish more developers would learn from Apple's usability guidelines from the
1980s and 1990s.

~~~
pjmlp
What I kind of miss, was how Apple was into better languages for OS
development (Object Pascal, Hypercard, MCL, Dylan, NewtonScript).

I guess that with Swift and Playgrounds, they are kind of back on track.

~~~
linguae
There were a lot of really cool technologies developed during the
"interregnum" years between 1985 and 1997 at Apple. OpenDoc is one of the most
interesting technologies to be developed during this time period. OpenDoc
would have dramatically disrupted the desktop applications market; people
would have bought component-based software instead of monolithic applications
such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop. While it was canned when Steve
Jobs returned (I suspect the main reason for this is because Apple desperately
needed Microsoft's and Adobe's continued support for Mac OS back when Apple's
situation looked precarious), something that I've pondered a lot recently is
what would have happened had the free/open source software community had
developed something like OpenDoc to build component-based applications for
Linux, where the community could spend its time developing components, instead
of imitating the Mac and Windows approaches of building large, monolithic
applications, which unfortunately have resulted in a very long game of catchup
(compare GIMP to Photoshop, or compare LibreOffice to Microsoft Office).

~~~
twoodfin
Somewhat famously, the first question Steve Jobs took at his developer Q&A at
WWDC ‘97 was about OpenDoc & the bullet he put in its head.

[https://youtu.be/yQ16_YxLbB8](https://youtu.be/yQ16_YxLbB8)

Honestly, the “component software model” had at least hundreds of millions of
dollars in development thrown at it by all the major players and went
essentially nowhere at the application level.

It had some nice architectural properties for developers, and COM at least has
had a long and prosperous history as a building block. But it’s hard to
imagine any possible world where business or consumers spent a significant
fraction of their software dollars on components rather than full
applications. So Steve was probably right.

~~~
mistersquid
Thanks for linking to the 1997 WDC (only 1 "w"!) Q&A with Jobs. For those
hoping to cut to the chase, the timecode for Jobs' prompt and the hapless
attendee who asks "What about OpenDoc" is 4:26 [0]

The four and a half minutes prior are interesting (thoughtful introduction,
Jobs' framing of the session and his brief thoughts about Apple's current
position), but what he says in response to the questions following the OpenDoc
question is deeply thought-provoking.

Many of the ideas Jobs shares show the general shape of recent and current
Apple business decisions macOS and iCloud, for example. Especially interesting
are his discussions of NIH syndrome, networking, and more.

Thanks, twoodfin, for pointing to this session which punctuates Jobs' return
to Apple the year previous.

[0] [https://youtu.be/yQ16_YxLbB8?t=266](https://youtu.be/yQ16_YxLbB8?t=266)

------
bsenftner
I was in a pre-release Macintosh Processional Developers Seminar at Harvard
University summer of '83\. Because the OS was still in development then, each
class would receive photocopy handouts of the pages of Inside Macintosh
written the day before, with programmer's and editor's pen and pencil
corrections on the pages. I bound them all together into a phone book thick
binder, put them into a lockbox and forgot about it until a few years ago.
Just last year, I visited a rare book collector and showed it to them - it is
apparently in the "priceless" range and they want me to donate it to the
Computer Museum in Boston. I've not made up my mind yet, but am thinking I
should scan the entire thing and put it online.

~~~
honopu
Yes, scan it then donate it, or keep it. Something like this should be shared.

------
dazzawazza
My first job was making multimedia CDROMS for Macintosh 6/7 and Windows
3.11/95\. The Inside Mac books were simply amazing compared to the Windows
documentation.

I still prefer to code with book in front of me and I don't subscribe to the
Stack Overflow is better mindset. You move more slowly at first but a much
much deeper knowledge is gained from well written books. I also get a much
deeper sense of satisfaction which enhances my life.

------
TMWNN
From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Macintosh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Macintosh)
:

>Bruce F. Webster in _BYTE_ in December 1985 described _Inside Macintosh_ as
"infamous, expensive, and obscure", but "for anyone wanting to do much with
the Mac ... the only real [printed] source of information". He quoted Kathe
Spracklen, developer of _Sargon_ , as saying that the book "consists of 25
chapters, each of which requires that you understand the other 24 before
reading it". "The best guide to the Mac's ROMs is _Inside Macintosh_ ", Robert
C. Platt said in August 1985. "Unfortunately, _Inside Macintosh_ is also the
most incomprehensible documentation ever written".

A reason why it was so infamous
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh#1984.E2.80.9390:_Des...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh#1984.E2.80.9390:_Desktop_publishing)
:

>Developers were required to learn how to write software that used the
Macintosh's graphic user interface; despite standardizing on Pascal for
software development Apple did not release a native-code Pascal compiler.
Until third-party Pascal compilers appeared, developers had to write software
in other languages while still learning enough Pascal to understand _Inside
Macintosh_.

As a result,

>Although outselling every other computer, it did not meet expectations during
the first year, especially among business customers. Only about ten
applications including MacWrite and MacPaint were widely available ... After
one year, [the Mac] had less than one quarter of the software selection
available compared to the IBM PC—including only one word processor, two
databases, and one spreadsheet—although Apple had sold 280,000 Macintoshes
compared to IBM's first year sales of fewer than 100,000 PCs.

~~~
GeekyBear
>Apple did not release a native-code Pascal compiler.

Originally, an Apple Lisa computer was used to develop Macintosh software. A
Pascal compiler that ran natively on the Mac came later.

>Macintosh development in the early days (circa 1983-1985) was done using the
Apple Lisa computer and its Lisa Workshop development environment.

The Lisa Workshop hosted a command line interface which accessed a wonderful
mouse based editor, a Pascal compiler, a 68000 macro assembler, an object file
Linker, the RMaker resource compiler utility program, and the MacCom Lisa-to-
Macintosh utility communications program.

[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=3rd_Party_Develo...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=3rd_Party_Developers_and_Macintosh_Development.txt)

~~~
lisper
One compiler that was available very early on was Coral Common Lisp, which ran
on a 1MB Mac Plus. It was a real native-code compiler. It lives on today as
Clozure Common Lisp [1], and I can still run some of the code that I wrote
back in the mid-80s on it today.

[1] [https://ccl.clozure.com](https://ccl.clozure.com)

~~~
lispm
Coral Common Lisp was so useful that Apple at one point bought the
team&product and distributed the software via their developer channel.

It had a nice programming interface to the functionality described in Inside
Macintosh.

~~~
lisper
> It had a nice programming interface to the functionality described in Inside
> Macintosh.

It still does:

[https://ccl.clozure.com/docs/ccl.html#the-objective-c-
bridge](https://ccl.clozure.com/docs/ccl.html#the-objective-c-bridge)

------
hammerbrostime
As a teenager when these books were in use, they were frustratingly expensive
and unobtainable. I've since then always put great weight on the accessibility
of documentation. E.G., MDN is a treasure for all.

~~~
jnwatson
I distinct remember the joy of finding a set of Inside Macintosh for cheap,
and then the regret when I found several hundred pages repeated due to a
printing error.

------
rgacote
Inside Macintosh is a beautifully written piece of work (contrary to some
other statements in the thread). No mention of Inside Macintosh should exclude
the amazing Caroline Rose: [http://www.storiesofapple.net/interview-with-
caroline-rose.h...](http://www.storiesofapple.net/interview-with-caroline-
rose.html)

------
slavapestov
One of the neat things about the original Inside Macintosh was that in
addition to describing the toolbox APIs it also explained the hardware found
in the original Mac with enough detail that one could write a driver (or an
emulator).

There’s a Wikipedia article with a summary:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K/512K_technica...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K/512K_technical_details)

Subsequent volumes did talk about the additions and changes in the Mac Plus,
SE and II but not in as much detail.

------
pcunite
From Page 37:

 _The Macintosh is designed to appeal to an audience of nonprogrammers,
including people who have previously feared and distrusted computers. To
achieve this goal, Macintosh applications should be easy to learn and to use.
To help people feel more comfortable with the applications, the applications
should build on skills that people already have, not force them to learn new
ones. The user should feel in control of the computer, not the other way
around. This is achieved in applications that embody three qualities:
responsiveness, permissiveness, and consistency._

I think the past is wanting to speak to us.

------
lioeters
My favorite part so far:

> Every application must have a unique signature by which the Finder can
> identify it. The signature can be any four-character sequence not being used
> for another application on any currently mounted volume (except that it
> can't be one of the standard resource types).

> To ensure uniqueness on all volumes, you must register your application's
> signature by writing to: Macintosh Technical Support Mail Stop 3-T Apple
> Computer, Inc. 20525 Mariani Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014

So one had to correspond by mail to get a unique application ID issued
manually. Makes sense, considering the technical limitations at the time, but
it makes me wonder whether other PCs/OSes had a better solution. Also, I see
that the application approval process has always been a pain to this day..

~~~
buserror
You didn't /have/ to really. I was a mac developer for 20+ years, and I never
did 'register' them officially... even pretty big commercial apps wouldn't --
it was easy enough to have a unique sequence; one of the basic rule was that
all lowercase ones were Apple.

I always thought that the 'creator codes' and other use of that four character
sequence system was a great feature. It was gradually lost with osx.

Fun fact: All compilers for Mac had language extensions to deal with four
character sequences, like 'AbCd' in C would be an integer with
('A'<<24)|('b'<<16)|('C'<<8)|'d'. Beats 0xdeadbeef and 0xcafef00d!

------
buserror
I've learned English _just_ to be able to read Inside Macintosh. I was 14 at
the time, with just primitive 'school' english that was completely useless in
the real world. I started to read novels, SF books and all I could find to get
better _just_ so I could read Inside Mac. In fact, I probably have to thank
Inside Mac from most of my English basics as it also taught me a lot :-)

So I'm a bit 'branded' \-- mind you, I still stopped developing for Mac a long
while back now. At the time when the company tech was made by bearded cool
people for Doctors and Lawyers to the time the company tech is made by Doctors
and Lawyers for bearded 'cool people' with a latte :-)

------
pjmlp
Ah, the pleasure of Object Pascal for systems programming.

~~~
mojuba
Looks so weird by today's standards. I can't believe it was once such a cool
language for me. I did write some code for MacOS 6 back in the day.

~~~
pjmlp
The rise of languages with ML/Pascal inspired syntax means that it will be
common again. :)

------
knolax
I wonder what they used to typeset it.

~~~
RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u
Possibly FrameMaker. I read later editions of the series from my local library
ages ago, and IIRC there's a note at the beginning stating so.

~~~
wsh
The Wikipedia article about FrameMaker says it was first released in 1986, and
for the Mac in 1990, five years after the original _Inside Macintosh_ books
were published.

FrameMaker was used for the new _Inside Macintosh_ series, starting in 1992.
From my copy of _Inside Macintosh: Overview_ , on one of the last pages:

    
    
      THE APPLE PUBLISHING SYSTEM
    
      This Apple manual was written, edited,
      and composed on a desktop publishing
      system using Apple Macintosh
      computers and FrameMaker software.
      Proof pages were created on an Apple
      LaserWriter IIɴᴛⅹ printer. Final page
      negatives were output directly from text
      files on an AGFA ProSet 9800 imagesetter.
      Line art was created using
      Adobe™ Illustrator. PostScript™, the
      page-description language for the
      LaserWriter, was developed by Adobe
      Systems Incorporated.
    

The same page acknowledges, by name, the members of the writing, editorial,
and production team.

------
RodgerTheGreat
Does anyone know where I could find volumes IV and V as PDFs? Apple appears to
have taken down or moved most of their legacy reference documentation. The
internet archive has some CD-ROMs from the 90s, but they all contain reference
documentation in an "Apple Doc Viewer" format that I would be hard-pressed to
decode.

~~~
duskwuff
I'm not aware of any official PDF editions of those volumes -- they primarily
consist of updates to the first three volumes, and were incorporated into
other documentation before Apple started releasing electronic documentation.
However, there are scans at:

[https://vintageapple.org/inside_o/](https://vintageapple.org/inside_o/)

DocViewer is a weird format. :) It's like an early version of PDF based on
PICT graphics. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to convert. However, a
lot of Apple's legacy documentation is still available if you have a deep link
to its location, e.g.

[https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/ma...](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/mac/QuickDraw/QuickDraw-2.html)

There are also some third-party mirrors of Apple's old documentation site,
like:

[http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/ind...](http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/index.html)

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
Thank you- that first link has exactly what I need!

------
Taniwha
I still have the "telephone book" edition in my library (the version printed
on fine newsprint all in one)

------
dang
Url changed from [https://maeda.pm/2019/02/09/inside-
macintosh-1985/](https://maeda.pm/2019/02/09/inside-macintosh-1985/), which
points to this.

