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Apples mac still influences 30 years after debut

Apple didn't invent these tools, nor was the Mac the first to use them. Xerox Corp.

Apple’s Mac still influences, 30 years after debut

It's impossible to say what would have happened if those machines hadn't flopped with consumers or whether others would have come along if the Mac hadn't. The Mac owes much of its success to the way Apple engineers adapted those pioneering concepts. For instance, Xerox Corp.

Apple settled on one, allowing people to keep their eyes on the screen without worrying about which button to press. Apple insisted on uniformity, so copying and pasting text and deleting files would work the same way from one application to another. That reduced the time it would take to learn a new program. And Apple put a premium on design. Early Macs showed a happy face when they started up.


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Icons and windows had rounded corners. Such details made computers appear friendlier and easier to use -- at least subconsciously, Myers says. Early computers generated text the way a typewriter would -- character by character, one line at a time.

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Users had a limited number of characters, with no variation in appearance. The Mac was one of the first to approach displays like a TV: Text gets incorporated into a graphic that the computer projects on the screen pixel by pixel. With those tools, would-be publishers could change fonts, adjust typeface sizes and add attributes such as italics.

They could also mix images with text.

Apple's Mac still influences 30 years after debut

Instead of going to a professional printer, anyone could simply design and print newsletters on a Mac. Initially, many people "thought it was a waste of time and a gimmick," says Dag Spicer, senior curator of the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

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He says long-time computer users already knew how to perform computing tasks "very efficiently with just two or three keystrokes. It might have been more efficient for them than to use a mouse.


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  • Apple's Mac still influences 30 years after debut.
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  • The Mac didn't run software for the company's Apple II computer, so there was little people could do with it until Aldus -- now part of Adobe -- released PageMaker publishing software in The original Mac had little memory and a small screen, and it lacked a hard drive. Although the Mac's processor was fast for its time, much of that power went to the graphical interface instead of tasks common for research and commerce. With the Mac came "the dawn of the notion of we can waste computing power to make it easier for people," says Jim Morris, who worked on the Xerox Alto before joining Carnegie Mellon by the time the Mac came out.

    Tim Bajarin, a Creative Strategies analyst who has followed Apple for more than three decades, says he was baffled, yet intrigued when he saw the Mac's unveiling at an Apple shareholders meeting in In fact, despite its radical interface, sales were lukewarm. For years, it was mostly a niche product for publishers, educators and graphics artists. Corporate users stuck with IBM Corp. There were years of lawsuits, capped by a settlement. Now the world's most valuable company, Apple Inc.

    After a year exile from Apple, Jobs returned in to rescue and head the company. Xerox Corp. Get Talking Points in your inbox:. Sign Up. Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here. Loading comments Most Popular in business Right Arrow.

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