32by32 - Macintosh History from the 1980s

Macworld Expo 1988 San Francisco

Trade Show

Dates: January 15-17 1988
Cost: $15 Exhibits
Exhibitors: 350
Attendees: 45,000

Keynote

Day 1: John Sculley (Chairman & CEO, Apple): The Journey Continues

In his keynote speech, Sculley stressed Apple’s commitment to networking and connectivity advancements, and introduced the zippy Laserwriter II family, with up to 8 pages per minute of printing power.

Day 2 – Gary Tooker (SEVP & COO, Motorola): At the Core of Apple
Day 2 – Jean-Louis Gassée (SVP R&D, Apple): How Can We Keep Japan Inc. From Eating Our Sushi?

In that speech, delivered at last January’s Macworld Expo,
Gassee maintained that the unwieldy nature of the Japanese language prevents
that nation’s programmers from developing their own operating system.
Moreover, open standards like DOS and UNIX have helped the Japanese in their
assault on world markets.

Day 3 – Alan C. Kay (Fellow, Apple): Predicting The Future By Inventing It

Themes

• Programs re-written to take advantage of the Mac II’s color screen
• NuBus cards emerge as a new market

The arrival of a slew of Mac II boards ushered in a new age of color desktop publishing and desktop video production.

• HyperCard stacks as a software commodity

Quotes

The Macintosh emerged as a legitimate corporate computer at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, but i hasn’t forgotten its roots.

Apple Product Introductions

Apple subsidiary Claris demonstrated the programs it inherited from the mothership, including MacPaint 2.0, MacDraw, MacProject and MacWrite.

Word Processing

Desktop Publishing

Spreadsheets

WingZ, a legendary spreadsheet application, was introduced by Smart Software. Matching Excel’s $400 price, WingZ aimed to deliver next-generation features, such as 3D graphing as well as word-processing and database features. Although reaching back as far as the Mac 512K, it was one of many apps at Macworld this year that fully exploited the new color capabilities and larger screen of the Mac II.

Graphics

Adobe introduced a color version of Illustrator (Illustrator 88) and also gave the first public demonstration of Display PostScript. (The latter technology, of course, would never find a home on the Mac, ending up instead as the display layer of NextStep.)

Claris’ MacPaint 2.0 also demonstrated color capabilities.

Silicon Beach Software introduced Digital Darkroom for $200. A mix of object-oriented and pixel-based tools, it was designed primarily with greyscale (not color) editing in mind.

Aldus was showing off the color capabilities of PageMaker 3 and Freehand.

PixelPaint, mentioned below in the NuBus section, was one of the few color-enabled software packages actually shipping at the time of the Expo.

Peripherals: NuBus Video Boards

SuperMac introduced their 24-bit NuBus video card, the Spectrum•24. RasterOps and SuperMac had been early leaders in the so-called “True Color” market, temporarily eclipsing the previous king of external video, Radius. The Spectrum•24 set you back $3,000, but included a copy of PixelPaint in the bargain. RasterOps’ Colorboard would be marketed both by that company as well as Jasmine, a large hard drive vendor in those days.

The subtlety of shading that can be done with that many colors exceeds the eye’s ability differentiate among hues. The 24-bit boards from SuperMac and RasterOps generated enthusiasm from everyone passing by their booths.

Productivity

Games

An actor dressed up as a ‘dumple’ from Crystal Quest walked the aisles to promote Casady & Greene’s game.

Utilities

Attendees noted PowerSTation and DiskTop as good Finder replacements.

Pyro! garnered a lot of notice as one of the first graphical screen savers. I remember this showing up on university computers around the same time.

Suitcase and Font/DA Juggler were popular Font/DA Mover replacements.

Peripherals

DataDesk was selling their Extended Keyboard for ADB systems, featuring 15 function keys. I remember using one of these on a professor’s Mac SE at UC Berkeley — it had a lot of extra keys, and was I think cheaper than Apple’s Extended Keyboard, but also had a real PC Clone feel.

Networking

User Groups

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MacToberFest 1987

BMUG Expo

This all-day (11am to 7pm) BMUG exposition was held on Thursday, October 22nd in Pauley Ballroom at the MLK Student Union on the UC Berkeley campus. Seminars were held, and refreshments offered to the expo attendees. Tournaments were held for the games Mazewars and Strategic Conquest, and door prizes worth $5,000 were given away. After the exposition, Bill Atkinson demonstrated HyperCard at 7:30pm in the Physical Sciences Lecture hall.

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Macworld Expo 1987 Boston

Trade Show

Dates: August 11-13 (Tuesday-Thursday), 1987
Location: Bayside Exposition Center
Exhibitors: 270
Attendees: 25,000

N.B. — In 1987 Macworld Expo was often referred to as “Mac Expo,” in sources both informal (user group newsletters) and professional (the pages of MacWeek magazine). The official Program Guide used “Macworld Exposition.”

Keynotes

Day 1 – John Sculley (President & CEO, Apple): The Second Generation: The Revolution Continues…
Day 2 РJean-Louis Gass̩e (EVP, Apple): Are Personal Computers There Yet?
Day 3 – William Campbell (President & COO, Claris): Success in Software: The Next Decade

Hardware

In the run-up to the summer exposition, MacWEEK described Apple as hoping to “solidify its new-found success in the business community with the release of a strong line of peripherals, communications products and systems software.” As Apple slowly began to work through production delays with the Mac II, it could begin to place more emphasis on the open, expandable system — previous trade shows had focused on the much simpler (and more available) Mac SE.

Indeed, some vendors couldn’t contain their excitement at the new hardware expansion possibilities of the SE and II:

SuperMac Technology continues its innovation with exciting new hardware and software for the Macintosh family. Come by our booth and see! Now shipping: Spectrum and SuperView high resolution graphics boards and monitors for the Mac II and SE; DataFrame 40 XP and 20 XP, our 20 and 40 SCSI Hard Disks.

Sigma Designs pitched monitors at both the Mac II and SE as well:

Sigma Designs will exhibit its LaserView Display System, the highest resolution (1664 x 1200) monitor and display board system available in non-interlaced mode for Desktop Publishing and Engineering. LaserView monitors come as 15″ or 19″ landscape models and provide useful features such as dual resolutions, multiple cursor sizes, switching between screens, screen-save timer, and others. The LaserView Display System works with both Macintosh SE and Macintosh II.

Yet Macworld Boston did not turn the Mac II into an open platform overnight, despite expectations. “One of the more disappointing aspects of the MacWorld Expo held in Boston last August”,” wrote Macweek, “was a lack of NuBus product introductions, aside from color video and the data acquisition boards. It appears that Mac II users aren’t exactly clamoring for specialized hardware capabilities quite yet, and vendors aren’t rushing to introduce products.” With the benefit of several decades’ worth of hindsight, it’s clear that costs and complexities of next-generation card development hit both Apple and IBM as they tried to lure 3rd-party products to NuBus and MicroChannel, respectively.

Upgrades for the Mac SE, taking advantage of that machine’s processor direct slot, were on offer from Radius, General Computer, Levco and Peak Systems. But perhaps the most ambitious product aimed at SE owners was from Austin-based Second Wave Inc:

Second Wave, Inc. announces ExpanSE and ExpanSE II, expansion chassis systems for the Macintosh SE. ExpanSE expands the power of your Macintosh SE by providing a chassis with four expansion slots for Macintosh SE cards. ExpanSE II provides eight expansion slots for Macintosh II cards to operate with your Macintosh SE. Second Wave expansion systems include an SE interface card, cabling, and the expansion chassis which contains a power supply, fan, and external expansion brackets. The ExpanSE case (13″xl0″x8″) can be positioned vertically or horizontally on your desk. ExpanSE II is the same size as the Macintosh II. Expand the functionality of your Macintosh SE with an expansion chassis system from Second Wave!

Even the lowly Mac Plus had something to look forward to, as Radius (a company founded by ex-Apple hardware engineers) targeted it for the same big screen and acceerator that it offered for the much more expandable SE:

Radius, Inc.will show the Radius Accelerator and the Radius Full Page Display for both the Macintosh Plus and SE computers. The Radius Accelerator is an enhancement board which is capable of quadrupling the speed of the Macintosh. The Radius Full Page Display (FPD) is a 15 inch large display screen. The Accelerator and FPD transform the Macintosh Plus or SB computer into a professional desktop publishing system by adding greater processing speed and a larger display.

Apple announced a number of new physical products:

1. ImageWriter LQ
2. AppleFax Modem
3. AppleShare PC
4. HyperCard
5. MultiFinder
6. EtherTalk NuBus Interface Card

Of these, the ImageWriter LQ would not ship until the end of 1987.

Apple was still several years away from the Mac Portable, so show-goers had to make do with two third-party options: DynaMac and Colby. Both re-purposed a ROM chip that was only obtainable from a retail Mac, which made them expensive machines indeed.

As hard drives became more mainstream, companies such as Tecmar saw an untapped market for backup devices:

The Tecmar QT-Mac 40, a portable 40 MB tape backup system, is designed for use with all SCSI-based Macintosh systems. Combining the high speed flexibility of SCSI with industry standard QIC-100 compatibility, the QT-Mac40 makes the task of maintaining reliable backups quick and easy. Because of its unrivalled small size, the QT-Mac40 is portable and can easily serve the backup and archival needs of several users. The QT-Mac40 is the perfect complement to all Macintosh SCSI hard disks.

SuperMac’s software introduced Tapes Fit, a tape back-up system for the Macintosh that presumably worked with 3rd-party tape drives.

Apple Software New Versions

1. MacDraw 1.95
2. MacWrite 4.6
3. MacProject 1.2
4. MacTerminal 2.2

Hypercard

The big software story of the show. MacWeek was filled with articles about the new platform in the weeks leading up to the expo. Some of this speculation was prescient: “Apple’s decision to bundle the program will pay off in resulting sales,” while some was later proven wrong: “HyperCard in ROM is a tantalizing possibility for next year.”

Graphics Software

Perhaps the first 256-color paint program for the Mac, PixelPaint was developed by Pixel Resources and published by SuperMac. It was positioned as a software showcase for the latter company’s new Spectrum 8-bit color video card for the Mac II and accompanying 19″ monitor. Journalists noted that besides SuperMac, vendors such as PCPC (Personal Computer Peripherals Co.) and Mitsubishi were also shipping large-screen displays that would show off the software to good effect.

T/Maker released ClickArt PostScript Images, a $130 collection of 125 vector-based clip art images for laser printers, as well as a “vertical” product aimed at a specific demographic: ClickArt Christian Images.

A graphics product nevertheless aimed squarely at the DTP market, Symmetry Corp featured the PictureBase Art Management System, “designed for Desktop Publishers who incorporate graphics into documents they prepare. PictureBase is the first and only complete system which allows users to manage Macintosh graphics in an easy to use Library file system.”

MacroMind showed a category-defining product — although they themselves may not have known it at the time:

VideoWorks II — A new, more versatile and more powerful version of the acclaimed animation tool VideoWorks. Its new Over View window is an easy to use front end that adds slide show sequencing of animations and/or illustrations to the original animation system. The animation program features two ways to animate (real-time and cel), color capabilities (for the Macintosh II), and a unique scoring system. Animations may include elaborate sound effects including Macintalk, sampled and synthetized sound. VideoWorks II comes complete with everything you will need to leam the product; interactive tour disk, written tutorials, sample animation and art disks, and an extensive manual.

VideoWorks would of course grow into MacroMind Director, one of the behemoth multimedia authoring packages of the 1990s.

Word Processing Software

Ann Arbor Softworks showed off FullWrite Professional to big crowds (see photo above) but had no software to sell — the release date slipped to mid-September.

WordPerfect Corp had announced the Macintosh version of their leading software back in May, and was promoting it at the expo:

Wordperfect for the Macintosh includes features such as macros, merge, footnotes/endnotes, table of contents/index generation, paragraph/outline numbering, onscreen text columns, 115,000 word spelling checker, thesaums, and is file compatible with Wordperfect 4.2 for the IBM. Conversion from other word processing formats is provided, as well as support of the DCA format.

The software wouldn’t ship till April of 1988, however.

Microsoft showed Word 3.01, Works 1.1 and Excel 1.04, “working together in an office scenario on an AppleShare network.” New features in these products included Mac II compatibility and the removal of copy protection.

Symmetry Corp showed off their outline processor Acta, “designed for people who use the Macintosh to write. Use Acta to prepare and organize manuscripts, reports, journals, etc., and for almost any other kind of writing.”

T/Maker promoted WriteNow in the Program Guide as “one of the leading word processors available today.”

Desktop Publishing Software

The MACazine was eager to demo their own internal processes for desktop publishing the magazine itself:

The MACazine will be demonstrating the desktop publishing system used to put together our page layout. Our editorial staff will be available for questions and comments.

Letraset unveiled Ready, Set, Go! 4.0 with style sheets and text wrapping features.

Springboard Software introduced its own DTP package:

NEW! Springboard Publisher is an integrated desktop publishing program that offers page layout, word processing and graphics creation all in one program. Springboard Publisher is designed for people in home, school and business environments, enabling them to create professional looking pages quickly and easily. Springboard Publisher offers total page layout control, allowing users to change their design as easily as they change their minds. Text and graphics can be placed anywhere on the page.

Software Supply introduced Suitcase, a ‘long-awaited’ font management utility that would go on to play a large role in enabling Mac users to load and unload fonts as needed.

Quark XPress 1.10 was announced, featuring PostScript color separations and TIFF support, together with Works and WriteNow import. Quark promoted the following unique features in XPress:

word processing-includes auto-hyphenation, 80,000 word spelling checker global search and replace.

typography-auto or manual keming increments .01 em-space, leading to .001 of an inch, font sizes from 2 to 500 points, tracking and horizontal scaling.

page layout-hierarchical box system, precision placement, text pipelining, columns, continued to/from messages, auto pagination.

test runaround-automatically runs text around irregularly shaped graphics.

Multimedia Software

MaacroMind showed off VideoWorks II, featuring color support.

Games

Spectrum Holobyte showed off two simulators for the Mac:

Spectrum HoloByte will be showing the two latest additions to their simulation product line. Falcon is the F-16 fighter simulation that puts the user in the cockpit to perform fighter maneuvers while engaging enemy MiG’s in dogfight battles. Sound and digitized airplaine images lend to realism and playability of Falcon. Another new product PT-109, the torpedo boat simulation, takes you to battle on the seas. Enemy attacks will come not only by sea, but from the air as well, so the user must be prepared to make most effective use of his arsenal of weapons consisting of torpedoes, depth charges, rockets, and machine guns. GATO, ORBITER, and TellStar, are other products being displayed.

Silicon Beach presented “three new games for the Macintosh: Apache Strike, which features 3-D air-to-air combat, Android Arena, in which users program robots for battle, and Beyond Dark Castle, the much anticipated sequel to the most popular game of 1987.”

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Macworld Expo 1987 San Francisco

Trade Show

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:

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.

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.

Peripherals

Supermac introduced both tape backup drives as well as external hard drives.

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.

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