On: Mac System 1.0 (1998)

[nine_k]

Did you have a chance to compare it to Apple II? My memory is fuzzy already but I vaguely remember it to be significantly more open?

[mcculley → nine_k]

The Apple II was definitely more open. It was physically open in the sense that one could pop open the top and add cards to it. It was also open in the software sense as one had to write 6502 assembly code to get the most out of it.

[Someone → mcculley]

You have to write assembly code to get the most out of any computer, but getting the most out of a computer has become less necessary over time.

The Apple ][ was also open in the sense that it shipped with full schematics and an annotated listing of the ROM (https://archive.org/details/applerefjan78)

Inside Macintosh had a high-level description of the hardware, explained the memory map and how to call OS calls, and had good descriptions of the various data structures, but didn't go as far as including full schematics or a full listing. It also was a separate thing to buy, so most users wouldn't have it.

[mwcampbell → nine_k]

The Apple IIGS was an awkward collision of the Apple II and Macintosh approaches.

Edit: This comment originally went on to briefly describe the Apple IIGS, then tell a long-winded personal story. But I've moved that to its own blog post:

http://mwcampbell.us/blog/apple-iigs.html

[colanderman → nine_k]

CALL -151 dropped you into a debugger. Later Apple IIs even had a (rudimentary) built-in assembler.