True, but the IBM PS/2 line came out at the same time and ranged from $2500 for machines that few people bought (they had the XT chip in there) to upwards of $5k for the 386 chip. While dealers discounted these prices, the Apple dealers sold Macs at a little bit of a discount as well at that time (believe it or not).
9:10 and now there are lots of collectors out there re-capping these things, replacing tubes, converting the spinning rust to SD and CF cards, and turning completely busted ones into fish tanks.
"At the time, in 1984, we thought..." (it's 1987). Wow, back then 1 year was like 10 today... typing this on a 10-year-old laptop that still suits me pefrectly 😀
To be honest, at least in Europe, repair was FBR. Changing a complete board instead of individual chips was common. We should not be blinded by the fact that the internals of the "vintage" computers look so coarse. This was state of the art back then, and the right tools were extremely expensive as well as hardware guys were a very rare species - otherwise, Apple would have been dead on arrival. Today repair seems easy and obvious, back then it wasn't.
I have a Mac Plus which is upgraded from an older 128K. I love these little machines. Mine has been fully restored so it looks like it’s new and I have it hooked up so it can go online.
Don’t Forget that Gary Kildall was the inventor of CP/M and the owner of Digital Research, ao in many cases he was more knowledgeable than most of their guests.
7:33 Actually only 170K of the ROM was used. The other 80K had digitized pictures of the crew that created the product. To see the slideshow of the pictures, hit the interrupt button and, and the “>” prompt, type “G 41D89A”. Note that the only way to stop the slideshow is to reboot the machine.
Haha, love the, "Feature not a bug," spiel when attempting to sell them on (surely proprietary) multi-function cards, when they ask about there only being one slot. I definitely enjoy when companies try to sell me on overhyped kit, and then go on to backhandedly insinuate that I'm too dumb to know how to know how to fix any component, beyond dusting the screen.
@@JollyGiant19if people dont want it, don't sell it. If people are okay buying a pile of shit at crazy prizes and eating it up like a good little dog, companies will sell it. And as far as I've seen, most people with a computer even programmers don't know, don't care
I temember having to Travel to US around this time and added 1 week to my itenary so I could visit CONDEX FALL - VEGAS in November. Great memories, because I purchased a 386 PC that was shipped to me in Australia.
At 15:45 he says "it's a very complicated document" on a black and white screen. Has he ever seen an even modest Amiga running an Animation at 50 frames per second in Deluxe Paint? Now that's a "complicated document!"
The obvious reason for “open Macintosh”: no Steve Jobs. Everyone can debate which method was better. Nice to see an expansion board from General Computer. Those were the same guys who created Ms. Pac-Man and the Atari 7800.
It was also the demands of graphic designers. Apple had basically created an entire industry of computer based graphic design firms overnight, something Jobs acknowledged as needing a lot more power than the average user and Jobs did tell Andy Hertzfeldt they might need "an open model" for the graphics market. However I think he'd have likely made a very powerful macintosh for graphics users and standard mac for regular users. But Jobs at least discussed making some kind of open macintosh for graphic designers.
It's a bit ironic that Charlie says that there was no way to provide the internal hard drive as an upgrade path for the 512k & Plus, but GCC (General Computer, the company that made the very accelerator that he just demoed) DID exactly that ... and even did it long before Apple released the Macintosh SE. It was called the HyperDrive and the HyperDrive 2000. The HyperDrive could be installed on a 128k and 512k, and the HyperDrive 2000 on the Plus. On the 128k version, it upgraded the RAM to 512K and added an internal hard drive. On the 512k, it simply added an internal hard drive. Later, GCC provided the upgrade that Apple said they couldn't do on the Plus, the Hyperdrive 2000: a 12MHz CPU upgrade and internal hard drive. GCC wasn't the only one, they were just the first. Other companies released a slew of upgrade boards and efficient SCSI adapters for the 512k and Plus.
Very advanced for its time that macintosh II, but the best test for the math chip or "arithmetic co-processor" should have been with a vector analysis program like a CAD app, an AutoCAD R9 Demo should have work, because was the first to run with a math co-processor back in 1987
I don't think heat was the issue - older harddrives needed a positive air pressure inside them to keep the read/write heads inside the drive to barely hover above the drive platters=P
This was a big time because in the 70’s computers were not discrete in their operation but with this you could be completely in control of your reality practically invisibly and nobody would ever notice what you were doing. The biggest challenge would be limitations in storage capacity but if you wanted to keep your machine the 128MB of RAM would be more than enough to run a specialty operating system!
WOW! a 75w power supply! Stack on the peripheral cards! The original IBM PC was 65w, but that did not carry the CRT/monitor load like the MAC does. XT machines went to 130w power supplies IIRC.
The thing that burned power was the hard drive, which the IBM 5150 and the original Macs didn't have. The 5 MB ST506 weighed 7 pounds, drew 47 watts spinning up and 23 watts in use.
I thought the monitor just used AC hotwire bypass and thus didn't carry any load on the power supply itself. Those old power supplies got 60% efficiency, at best, so their actual DC output quite a bit lower than today's power supplies that are in the 80-90% range.
1.2MB/SEC transfer on highend SCSI drive, wow those times back then 😂 I do remember that in 1995 our veterinary customers had “high end” workstations for their practice and they had 40MB SCSI hard drives and a 60MB backup tape and backing up before taking the system apart was the procedure and the backup took 5-10 minutes. These days we download 1GB in less than a minute 😂
@@TechRyze Good point, they didn't explicitly mention safety as an issue, let alone the primary one, for not wanting users to open up the Mac SE themselves. It was probably taken for granted, but watching it now I just assumed the caution was with regard to the customer potentially damaging components out of inexperience. With the Mac II it wasn't an issue of course, not having the CRT built into the computer.
@@JaredConnell Speak for yourself. The day our $2000+ Leading Edge Model D showed up the first thing we did was tear the thing open, to see how the insides were setup. What you should have said is computer/tech illiterate consumers, who were the core customer base for CrApple™ products were afraid to open a computer case.
@@looneyburgmusic i said most home users, not people like us who are watching decades old computer shows so we are obviously more technically literate than the average Joe. Most home users are tech illiterate and don't want to open their brand new machine even to install ram or something we all find simple and mundane. Just because you feel comfortable doing it doesn't mean that everyone else does. Just like most people don't feel comfortable working on their cars even doing something simple like changing spark plugs or replacing a belt, they don't want to even attempt it because they don't want to mess it up and cause more damage. Is that really so hard to comprehend? Or you just wanted to share how adept you are at using a screwdriver with strangers on the internet?
Not really arrogance, I think, but a combination of a market, as Apple sees it, for having people pay for these services. Also, more users back in that time wouldn't have been comfortable with opening up their machines.
PSA to all clueless Apple haters: CRTs store high voltage, you will get a shock if you touch the proper parts inside. Maybe you should try it, it will shut your stupid mouth!
John Scully added all the add on slots in the Mac 2. Jobs would have gone ape-sh*.T over that idea. Jobs did not want expansion slots. BTW the early Mac's crashed more than Windows 3.0 and 3.1, 3.11 as I had both.
What is the FPU testing software shown at 16:17? Seems to say "Sambrera 161" or perhaps "Sombrero 161" but Googling the names yields nothing. Nothing on Macintosh Garden by that name either.
“Sombrero 161” is the name of the graphing file being demoed. The equation being drawn resembles a Mexican sombrero hat. You can see a few other demos in the drop-down menu when he goes to run it again after applying the arithmetic chip @16:39 That said the app splash screen does show for a second but it’s impossibly blurry. Now I’m on a quest to figure it out…
Geoff Graham Yes, although they were insanely expensive then! Thankfully my university had a room full of them. I remember programming in HyperCard then 😁 , Photoshop 1.0 and MS Word 😉 Ahh, nostalgia
The Mac II looks great, but you got to look at the price tag, as the woman says. I'm sure other companies could have made impressive computers for that price.
There were plenty of other powerhouse x86 machines at that time. The problem wasn't the hardware, it was the software. You simply couldn't find any alternative GUI based system as elegant as the Mac was at that point in time. And so that was the market Apple specifically catered to.
And what you mean with that? Look example the Macintosh G4 with the side opening door... That got people wild in the presentation, that you could so easily just open the computer and have easy access to everything... And now, Apple has soldered everything in the M1 and M3 machines, even the SSD is decoded that when it dies, you can't replace it as machine doesn't accept new drive and all your data is gone, as is your computer.
Yeah, it turns out the new Mac SE is not actually open at all since you still have to take it to a dealership for service and upgrades, just like the old ones. 🤔
Around 2:00 Gary basically says that Apple learned about open architechture (expandable Mac II) from IBM. Totally respect Gary and know about his work since PL/M, CP/M, etc.. But, for once he is dead wrong. IBM learned from Apple; namely the Apple II. Introduce in 1977 and a total success due to this very expandability. The engineers of the original IBM PC (1981) even quote it as an inspiration, and many of them used Apple IIs personally.
I disagree. In 1987 (when the Mac II was introduced) the Apple II line was still in full-scale production and still responsible for most of Apple's income. Expandable models of the Apple II (all except the //c) was introduced in 1977(ii), 79(ii+), 83(iie), 86(iigs), neglecting model updates (iie-platinum in 87, etc..). The series was not terminated until 1993. Apple was into expandability from the beginning; just not the Macs.
All the way back to the Altair, an expansion bus was standard. All the S-100 computers were actually just a bus with cards on it. The Apple II wasn't the first.
Remember also there was a counter-culture going on with Apple when Jobs was around. He hated expandability and ensured the original Mac had no such options. Prior to his departure, a secret team in the Mac division began forming to start initial development on what would become the Mac II line, including expansion ability and something consumers were begging for but Jobs firmly was against - color. They had to operate in secret since if Jobs found out what they were doing, they would be instantly fired.
@@BlownMacTruck ok fair enough. Always knew motherboards were the main one and logic board were called stuff like vga and other cards that they go on the motherboard. Obviously i was wrong.
24:17 One of the first remote hacking? Did those West-German hackers dial into those NASA computers or did they use the (early) internet, back in 1987???
Back then most cities had dialup access into a network called Tymnet, and through Tymnet you were able to access all sorts of government and other sites. I remember randomly trying different addresses and being told I had just connected to NASA, and I needed to disconnect immediately. Tymnet was also used as a means of getting into some of the larger networks like The Source.
@@madigorfkgoogle9349 go do some history and do not think about Amiga 500 i am talking hi end custom workstation class the Amiga 3000 1990 -1992 around it could cost you around 18-25k fully custom maxed. mac 2? haha that normal pc compared to that
@@dmtd2388 are you able to understand a written text, I know my English is not perfect. So again and s l o w so even Amiga fanboy can understand, this video is from 1987 not 1990 nor 1992. Where was your Amiga 3000 in 1987? Or all those fancy addons you talk about? Besides the PC in 1990-1992 had already i486DX at 25-50MHz, 25MHz about twice fast as 25MHz A3000 and 50MHz 486DX up to 4 times faster... The add on cards you could buy for PC at that time surpassed A3000 in every possible way, graphics and music including. The only workstation use worth mentioning A3000 saw in that time was Lightwave rendering for Babylon V and Seequest series, which later was finished on PC instead of A3000 for obvious reasons. Even Apple Mac Quadra was faster then A3000, and the NeXT had its NeXTcube with 68040 and DSP56001 totally wiping the floor with A3000. But then again, this video is from 1987! 3 years are a very long time in PC history. And myth Amiga just got born in 1987... So using your words, in 1987 when Mac II came out, the Amiga was like office calculator/home console when compared to Mac... You should really study the history, I dont have to, I lived those times, owning Atari ST and A1000 until I got Pentium (waiting for Apple Performa 5300 with PPC603 nobody could deliver).
@@madigorfkgoogle9349 you should study better cause i am not someone new i grown in those times i still own those machines and you keep talking about 1987 i did not mention anything about 1987 and you compare really a stupid 486 to a custom 68040 a3000 you really must be joking even with crappy software on pc it was nothing used to then office use or dos games, back then even they used the a3000 for pre render scenes for Jurassic Park and then final render farms for silicon graphics mac even copied much of the amiga special on Next tech. I seen all machines tell me back then in 1990 1992 a machine capable of high end 3d render and video editing besides the amiga or sgi none cause my ucle had a studio and had those machines 3000s and 4000s with 68060 even and the mac 2 i seen it and was nothing special then a waste of money if amiga really did not go bankrupt they would had the place of apple now
@@madigorfkgoogle9349 Everything that a Mac did, a PC did for much less cost and that relationship still exists, what the Amiga offered was much more fun at the time, and still has strong support today, I can assure you that today you cannot easily get an Amiga 3000 to buy because they are treasured and used. Who remembers what NEXT was?, it was a failure. Unfortunately Commodore went bankrupt, (and partly because the "market" leaned towards the "professional") but the Amiga was a success, and if there is a great gaming industry today, it is also due to Jack Tramiel's idea "computers for the masses, not the classes"
It's why I went bald. I thought to myself: "Who do you think you're fooling. Certainly not yourself". I do get that the struggle is real though. Not everyone looks good completely bald. I was lucky.
Apple was doing plug and play in the Mac II in 1987, whereas Windows didn't have plug and play until 1995 and still was having problems. One possible correction: the Apple guy said that the Mac II's graphics system was the best by displaying 256 colors on screen at one time out of a palette of 16M colors. The Amiga 2000 from 1987 could display 4096 colors on screen at one time albeit using HAM (hold and modify) mode.
Mac computers were even more advanced than Microsoft when I was in school early 2000s. Nowadays everything has caught up with it now, so it's not really all that amazing.
I met my brother's favorite college professor in the late 1970s / early 1980s and he showed me his Apple //e computer which was one of the forerunners to the Macintosh computers. I liked what I had seen, but I found out that those would always be way out of my price range!!!
@@McVaiohowever Apple did start with the original Apple computers (later referred to as the Apple 1 computers) were the forerunners of both the Apple // computers and the Macintosh computers.
@@wallacelang1374 That's not the definition of a forerunner. The Macintosh was a completely different architecture than the Apple I, II and III (which were also different from each other). Also, the Apple II line and the Macintosh line ran parallel to each other.
@@McVaio if you are going to knitpick about the technical architecture differences between various Apple branded computers (e.g. Apple I, Apple II, Apple III, Macintosh) than why not gripe about how things have changed for Texas Instruments from their desk calculator to their pocket calculator to their TI 99/4a computer system. The technical architecture will always change over time but a computer will still be a computer regardless of what its capabilities are over the years. 🤔
I think people may have been earning more back then, relatively speaking. Pay has been stagnating for a long time, probably in large part due to the downward pressure on the prices of goods we have seen during the same period (thanks to ever cheaper foreign manufacturing).
That's one thing I don't miss about this past era. Computing was very expensive and difficult to deal with if you didn't have enough money for such things. Most of us "normal folks" were relegated to 8 bit floppy disk only machines hooked up to our TVs.
@@oldtwinsna8347 Must have been the early 90s when that started to change. That is when my family, by far not a wealthy one, got a Macintosh. It was an LC. I loved it to bits back then and used HyperCard on it to make a ton of cartoons.
@@ericwood3709 That was a figure that meant that only relatively well off people were ever going to buy an Apple Mac. Computing was terribly expensive, and therefore people were having to settle for an Atari ST, C64 or a games console.
How did anyone ever use a computer with a tiny 9 inch screen like the Mac SE was equipped with? That's just stupid. The first "real" computer my father bought back in the 80's, (Leading Edge), came with a 12 inch monitor; by the time that computer was retired a few years later the 12 inch had been replaced by a 15inch.
I spent hundreds of hours programming on a classic Mac mate, and frankly though a little extra space is useful, it was pretty darn good and still would be perfectly adequate for many tasks. It was a reasonable resolution for the time. 512x342. Love the classic Macs. Very elegant. Shame we've so much bloated garbage today...
It was all about resolution. The PC usually came with an MDA card which could do 720x350 but that was pure text, not graphics. It would stay at 320x200 for graphics until the EGA card came out and it was expensive so not mainstream. The Mac's resolution was always graphics mode so even though it spec'd lower than the tex mode of the PC, it was far better than graphics mode. And the entire GUI on the mac was built on graphics mode which made it suitable for desktop publishing at the get-go. In general, if you needed to do spreadsheet, database, and non-typesetting word processing then the PC was a much better setup and we saw the PC dominate in those areas. It wasn't until graphics tech got much improved and cheap enough where the PC swallowed everything up whole.