32by32 - Macintosh History from the 1980s

1985 Shareholder Meeting

On January 24, 1985, at the annual Apple Shareholder’s meeting, Steve Jobs previewed to an amazed audience an even more amazing piece of code that let Macintosh users switch between different applications almost instantly.

That software was, of course, Switcher — written by Andy Hertzfeld and the origin of an idea which would result in MultiFinder. What is interesting about this particular software demo is that Jobs himself showed off software which was written outside the offices of Apple, and by an engineer who was in the process of separating himself from the company.

Further, despite “dazzling the crowd,” according to InfoWorld Switcher was an unquestionable move away from the one-screen simplicity of the original Mac.

We can trace Steve’s interest in one-task-at-a-time computing to the abandoned “Single Window Mode” of Mac OS X Public Beta, to the iPhone and iPad, and finally the Full-Screen mode of OS X Lion.

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MacVision

Digitizer

Koala MacVision was a $400 combination hardware/software interface to digitize still frames from a video camera or VCR. The MacVision box plugged into either the Printer or Modem port. Data streamed in somewhat slowly: small frames took about six seconds to appear, whereas a full-screen image took 22 seconds. Obviously, one needed either a still subject or a device with good freeze-frame capabilities, such as a VideoDisc player.

Software authored by Bill Atkinson, and probably contained an early implementation of the “Atkinson Dithering” which would reappear in the software for Thunderscan. Curiously, the About Box for early versions credited Apple Computer — it’s possible that some of Atkinson’s work on dithering algorithms was done while he was still full-time at Apple:

Initially the software shipped as a Desk Accessory, so that it was available from other programs. Version 2.0 and above were standalone applications.

BMUG Fall 1985 Choice Product

“It’s fast and it can digitize 3D images from a video camera or videotape. Its resolution isn’t quite as good as the Thunderscan.”

Driver

Link to versions 1.4, 2.0 and 3.0 from the Mac Driver Museum.

Manual

Scan of the v3.0 manual, circa 1990.

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ThunderScan

Printing in reverse

BMUG Fall 1985 Choice Product

“Has the best resolution, but it’s slow. Can only digitize objects by reading into the Imagewriter I (only) printer.”

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Finder 1.1

System Software

Mac programmer Bruce Horn explains that Finder version 1.1 decreases the number of swaps required for normal file copying by increasing the size of the buffer… The revised Finder will also include an option in the Special menu that enables users to specify an initial program load. “You will be able to boot right into an application such as MacPaint. When users exit the application program, they will return to the Finder,” explains Capps.

— Macworld 1.2

This was the Set Startup… command.

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