But the Macintosh itself was changing in 1987: the introduction of the Mac II broke with the all-in-one design which had characterized the computer since its unveiling in 1984. The new, modular architecture (and its multiple open slots) was expressed in a much larger case design — almost IBM PC-like in its dimensions. As a custom piece of furniture designed for Apple’s flagship, the MacTable would have to change along with it. Thus in September of that year Scandinavian Computer Furniture, Inc. announced that Denmark had re-thought the computer table — again:
MacTable advertisement in MacWeek, September 1987
Instead of the original, one-size-fits-all cutout for the original Mac lineup, the MacTable delivered a series of variously-sized surfaces that could accommodate anything from a 128k to a fully-loaded Mac II, all the while providing the variable tilt motion the original table was known for. Now,the angle of separate desktop cases, two-page displays, and other items could be adjusted the same way the original Mac could.
The company also proudly announced that they were even switching the color of the desktop laminate, from beige to “Platinum Gray, same as the new Macintosh line.” (This may be the closest that Frog Design’s “Snow White” design aesthetic ever came to expression in office furniture.)
MacTable in MacWeek, June 1987. Photo Paul Morrell
MacWeek’s June 1987 “Snapshot” on the revised MacTable is the one of the earliest appearances of the new version in the press. At this point the company is described as ScanCoFurn, operating out of a Redmond, Washington address. The table itself cost $269, while the laser printer cabinet went for $129. The photo (shown above) depicts a relatively rare variant of the basic table, in black and white, which bore a higher price tag of $335 and a later ship date of late July. (I haven’t ever seen this type in the wild, and it was never mentioned in advertisements, so it’s hard to know if they’re very rare or were ever even produced.) The black-painted wood in the picture above is more in line with certain 1980s aesthetics, but loses a bit of the charm of the natural-beechwood finish that most people are familiar with in a MacTable.
Though well-known today as part of the Microsoft Office suite, PowerPoint started life in 1987 as a piece of software originally known as “Presenter”, from a company called Forethought.
Forethought updated the program to support color after the release of the Macintosh II, and Microsoft acquired them soon afterwards for $14,000.000. What justified that high price? According to the New York Times‘ coverage of the acquisition,
Some industry officials think such “desktop presentations” have the potential to be as big a market as “desktop publishing,” which involves using computers to lay out newsletters and other publications.
In his 2001 article about the software for The New Yorker, Ian Parker makes a point that many forget — this was the era where the end result of work in PowerPoint would be a set of physical slides or laser-printed transparencies, rather than anything that could be displayed on a LCD projector:
It generated text-and-graphics pages that a photocopier could turn into overhead transparencies. (This was before laptop computers and portable projectors made PowerPoint a tool for live electronic presentations. Gaskins thinks he may have been the first person to use the program in the modern way, in a Paris hotel in 1992…)
Three very indistinct video-captures of the Macworld show floor
Dates: January 8-10 1987
Cost: $40 Conference and Exhibits, $15 Exhibits only
Exhibitors: 250
Keynote
John Sculley on Intelligent Documents
Sculley made the claim that the industry was moving away from data and towards intelligent documents. He named what he called ‘second-generation’ DTP products such as Adobe Illustrator
Intelligent documents will have as much impact in changing the environment of the business world as the telephone had at the beginning of the century or the Xerox machine has had in the last two decades.
For the first time in our history, we know what our products will be, not just in 1987, but in 1988, 1989, and on into the 1900s. Our Cray is being used to simulate the products we will put into silicon and bring into the marketplace in the 1990s. We have a clear vision of where we want our company to go.
It’s not completely what Sculley meant by “intelligent documents,” but one is tempted to think about a feature which would ship in 1991 in System 7: Publish and Subscribe. At any rate, Sculley also mentions “Intelligent Documents” in his 1988 book Odyssey, which is a source I’ll read in the future for clues to this concept.
Summary
“MacWorld Expo had the enthusiasm we used to see at all the computer shows but now is only for the Macintosh, Atari and Amiga.” — Jerry Pournelle
Seminar Topics
Business Applications of Macintosh Graphics
Desktop Communications
Maximizing Macs in the Office Environment
Apple
No major Apple hardware announcements, but the AppleShare software made its debut, together with the AppleTalk PC Card (really a LocalTalk hardware interface with a AppleTalk protocol stack). Rumors of the upcoming Apple File Server placed it at between $500 and $1000, and whispers placed its introduction at the Seybold Seminar in the coming weeks. (It never actually shipped, and was a major reason why the “Macintosh Office” concept was more vapor than reality.)
Word Processing
The line between word processing and DTP begins to blur as Word, FullWrite and WordPerfect adopt layout features such as hyphenation and wrapping text around irregular objects. (See, however, the continuing delays which plagued FullWrite after its promising introduction at this Expo.) The idea that word processors would expand into the DTP market was current at this time — in February, Computer Chronicles quoted no less a source than Steve Jobs as saying DTP would soon cease to exist as a distinct market.
Desktop Publishing
Despite the encroachment of word processors, dedicated DTP software maintained a presence at the Expo. ReadySetGo 3.0 beat out PageMaker 2.0 in terms of size and scale of demonstrations and public attention. According to some attendees, Aldus gave no public demo of their product, but was showing it to the press behind closed doors. I don’t know if the following video was the result of such a press briefing, or if it actually shows version 1.0 running:
Computer Chronicles — Jan 15 1987
The fact that PageMaker 2 would ship on the PC before the Mac heralded Adobe’s increasing cross-platform focus, much to the dismay of show attendees.
Spreadsheets
Excel 1.03 jumped on the bandwagon of larger-screen support, reflecting the reality of a marketplace where external displays from companies such as Radius had helped transform the reputation of the Mac from toy to serious tool.
Trapeze, from Data Tailor, got a lot of attention during this Expo as a kind of next-generation spreadsheet — I’ll try to write up a separate post on this app in the future. In the meantime, read this review of version 2, released 9 months later.
Graphics
Illustrator, the brand-new vector drawing tool from Adobe, made even sophisticated raster programs such as SuperPaint look like yesterday’s news. Yet people weren’t really sure how an object-oriented drawing system would work: there was as much emphasis on tracing an outline of scanned artwork as there was on creating drawings from whole cloth.
Computer Chronicles — Jan 15 1987
As seen in the above video, Adobe was showing off their new program at both their booth and at that of Radius — again showing the importance of that hardware company in the Mac marketplace.
Productivity
Living Videotext upgraded its MORE outliner to 1.1 — now with Undo! It’s striking to run across the Dave Winer of 24 years ago: he was then president of the company. MORE 1.1 also offered styled text and hierarchical outlining, two features we take for granted today. Also fascinating that there was a market for $300 outliners back in 1987. But MORE wasn’t even the only such product — Symmetry likewise showed off Acta 1.2 (now with printing!). And Borland showed off an their PIM product, SideKick.
Utilities
This might be a record for a product’s longevity: CE Software introduced DiskTop at this Expo, which as of 2011 was still for sale and working (at least in Classic and on PowerPC Macs). You can read a review of the modern version DiskTop from 2000 (when it was already considered a miracle of survival) from TidBits.
In keeping with the DTP theme of the show, Think Technologies was selling a $100 print spooler called LaserSpeed.
A company called Lodown (?) also showed off a 32-shade greyscale SCSI scanner for a mere $1,300.
Networking
In keeping with Macintosh Office fever, Kinetics showed off a SCSI/Ethernet adaptor for the Mac Plus. (Can you just imagine how slow that would be?) At least the price was reasonable, only $1,250. Reading these stories really makes you realize how much different the world was in ’87: getting a faster network to the slowest machine Apple sold was worth an investment of well over a thousand dollars. This tells you something about the costs of faster and more capable systems.
Think Technologies showed off Inbox for Mac, one of several LAN-based email systems that would briefly flourish, before dying off in the Internet era. Hard to believe the per-seat cost was $125.
MacTable
Forethought PowerPoint
Macworld Expo 1987 San Francisco
John Sculley on Intelligent Documents
