- WriteNow! a very nice word processor that was originally developed for Next computers, before word took over it was the favorite.
- ClarisWorks/AppleWorks - One of the better pre office integrated apps - the database was REALLY easy to use, and interfaced well with the vector graphics module, spreadsheet, and word processor...
- FoxBase+/Mac - Before Microsoft bought Fox Software they got "Mac religion" and it shows in the incredible FoxBase+/Mac its amazin how much capability fits in a floppy.
- SuperPaint - great bitmap paint program though not as accurate as later graphics apps. (fractional/grid positioning was an issue)
- Ready,Set,Go! A great alternative DTP program to PageMaker/Quark. Never used others but I hear I think it was FrameMaker that had some sort of template/database feature to manage/generate catalogs. There were some interesting things back in the day.
- Stepping out - virtual larger desktop
- PowerPrint - Hook into epson compatible parallel printers with serial->parallel adapter.
- Comic Strip Factory - way before there was ComicLife there was Comic Strip Factory - a nice clipart based comic strip compositor.
- HyperCard - Never got into it but it had quite a community.
- Of course programming languages like Pascal, Logo, and BASIC in various flavors.
Of course you have the early greats like the Adobe programs and Microsoft Word/Excel/Office.
I’m really sad about the loss of HyperCard (and HyperCard like things.) I worked in a musical instrument store in the early 90s and my boss had a Mac SE (maybe an SE/30 like in TFA?) tricked out with an entire custom set of HyperCard stacks designed to run his business, everything from inventory to accounting to instrument rental. Every now and then we’d need something and one of us would code up a new feature. My wife is starting a business today and I’m dreaming of having something as great as HyperCard to help her script up what she needs, but nothing commercial seems nearly as cool.
Thanks for that info! I'm keen to get stuck into HyperCard stacks running on their native environment (not in an emulator) - so many people love HyperCard and miss it, so I look forward to seeing what the fuss is.
It's interesting how more "amateur approachable" both old cars and old computers are. Old cars can be worked on by anyone with some basic tools and know-how, and old computers could be understood and programmed the same way. MacPaint was made by one employee.
I think this is partially why people want these types of objects. You can actually own them. You can understand them. You can mod them.
Modern cars, games, computers, etc. aren't owned anymore. They always have updates, and could be bricked at any moment if the manufacturer wishes, gets bought or goes out of business.
There's nothing preventing this from being the golden age of computers. The capabilities of the hardware are near magical. We just need to bring back the concept of ownership.
What really disheartens me with modern cars is that electric cars are much simpler than than cars powered by combustion engines, which could be a huge boon to the fix-it-yourself crowd, but car manufacturers now lock customers out of their cars, so electric cars don't have the opportunity to become hobbyist friendly.
There are small electric-car companies that let customers do what they want, like Edison Motors, but they make industrial-sized work vehicles. It would be nice if a similar small company started selling consumer cars, but the automotive industry is heavily plagued by bikeshedding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality) to the point that large trucks and busses are allowed to do their thing, while subcompact vehicles have been effectively regulated out of existence.
Contrary to popular belief, EVs really aren't that much easier to repair, that's just a logical expectation from people without service experience based on the idea of less moving parts, but that omits that fact that electronics die too and EVs have more of them and under more strenuous loads.
Most of the faults on EVs come from dead electronics like a fried MOSFET or PCB trace, and coolant leaks inside the motor due to gasket failures derived from race-to-the-bottom cost cutting designs to save money, which your average user won't be able to repair themselves unless maybe we're talking about completely swapping out the entire ECU/motor/battery/assembly with a brand new one instead of repairing it, parts which haven't been designed for easy repairability. And that's excluding DRM issues and the fact that those parts aren't sold to consumers and even if they would, stuff like ADAS sensors, motors and batteries still require calibration with dedicated equipment during installation and can't be plug&play like a laptop battery swap.
Check out EV clinic(no affiliation) for horror stories on EVs and hybrids failures. Due to poor design, a lot of EVs (maybe excluding Teslas) are reliability ticking timebombs whose failure is a matter of WHEN not IF.
In theory they can be mechanically, in practice high ADAS standards and functionality like regenerative breaking make it feel like a pretty high risk proposal to allow an end user in.
> It's interesting how more "amateur approachable" both old cars and old computers are.
Right.[1]
I think of those guys at the Computer Museum who took years to repair an IBM 1401. They even had the assistance of some of the designers and retired IBM field engineers.
Comparing this mac that can be found on ebay at any given time with a 1401 feels a bit like comparing it with getting one of the first steam trains. I am surprised they made 12000 (according to wikipedia).
Old cars are wonderful except for one thing: safety. Modern cars are just so much safer with crumple zones and airbags. I would never want to use an old car as a daily driver.
The best thing about old computers is they're so damn simple, and there are a ton of projects out there to enhance them - for $50 you can get a BlueSCSI which gives you hard drive/optical/network emulation on many machines.
Also, new tools are way more capable and cheap - all you need to fix an old computer with a sub-50mhz bus clock is a multimeter/scope, soldering iron, and other bits, which can easily be purchased new for $200.
Old cars are even like that in performance. My son and I just bought a 1979 Ford Thunderbird which has a 5ℓ V8 engine but doesn't accelerate as well as a modern compact with a 1.5ℓ Inline 4.
It is simple though, it doesn't have a lot of complex parts to repair.
My family had a '79 Thunderbird that was our main driver from 91-97. I haven't seen any of them on the road in over a decade. I have several memories of that car.
- The water pump going out, as we drove up a mountain, and rolling back down into the drive way of a converted apple barn. Where we found a nice cleaning lady who took my dad the 20 miles into town to get a new water pump, which he replaced in that driveway and got us back on the road.
- The rear diff throwing a bearing well after midnight in the middle of nowhere west Texas. The car limped a few miles down the road to a surprisingly still open gas station. My uncle, a mechanic, happened to have the necessary parts to fix it on him. So when he picked my dad up an hour later, they went ahead and spent the rest of the overnight hours replacing it in the parking lot of that middle of nowhere gas station.
- Spending several days at various salvage yards looking for rear tail lights. They are just the right height to be taken out by shopping carts. Unfortunately the 79 is the only year that didn't have a connecting strip that goes between the left and right hand sides. In the 90's they were very hard to find, I can't imagine they are any easier today. Seriously, buy an extra set even if you don't need them.
If you ever want a to move to a modern V8, Ford's panther platform from '02-'11 are just as big, roomy, and easy to work on as that Thunderbird. Plus you'll get modern conveniences like anti-lock breaks, air-bags, and good part availability.
Ha! I had one of those in the late 90's. My father had it first and I inherited it when he passed. A couple of months after he bought it, I bought a 1985 LTD, which was basically a 4 door Mustang GT. He asked me if I wanted to race, I said it wouldn't be close. He said "Both cars have the same engine." Yeah, not quite. The Thunderbird had like 120hp, no fuel injection and bogged down to meet emissions, while the LTD had close to 200hp and was several hundred pounds lighter. Another person up the street had the same vintage Thunderbird with the 350ci and had done some work to it. That one went pretty good.
I've been slowing working on a hobby project to 3D print a lookalike Sony PVM with a computer inside. There is a joy in knowing exactly how something works, and to be able to fix it intuitively.
Take an SE/30, add some mass storage (something above 20MB), plug in a postscript printer, add ClarisWorks, maybe Filemaker, and you have something that, even today, would do 80%+ of what human beings use computers for.
Outside of the internet.
Get a network adapter (which pretty sure exists for the SE/30), and, like, Eudora(?), and you MIGHT even get email. Struggle there is everyone (rightly) does email over TLS, so there’s that.
BUT, add a raspberry pi as an email gateway, telnet to it for some Lynx love, and, boy, that’s a lot of computer utility.
Glaring gaps are anything graphic intensive, notably photos, and graphical internet.
Betting there’s some nice games that run on the SE.
would do 80%+ of what human beings use computers for.
Outside of the internet.
The internet is what 80% of people use computers for. They probably spend more than 80% of their computing time on it.
Furthermore, for business use you need to run the latest Office 365 applications. While an SE/30 could probably give a modern computer a run for its money at actual productivity, it’s not going to cut IT compatibility-wise. Plus there’s the whole PDF issue.
There is certainly a nostalgia that I feel about tech from when I was 8 until 15 years old. This corresponded with Radio Shack 100-in-1 electronics kits, the Mattel Big Trak programmable vehicle, Mattel handheld electronic games, the Vectrex gaming system, the ZX-81 and the Commodore Amiga 500 computer. And I will throw in old Edmund Scientific catalogs for good measure. I was pre-Nintendo and Sega and certainly pre-Playstation and Xbox by a generation
I imagine the current crop of college students that I teach today will feel the same about Minecraft, Angry Birds and the original iPad when they reach their 40s or later.
I returned the MacSE30 that I bought at the Apple Store back in 1989 or 1990 when I went into grad school. Compared to the Epson that I bought at the same time it was a fantastic machine that would do almost everything that I needed to do out of the box whereas for the Epson I needed to buy other software. It helped that I already had Mac software though.
I returned it because I couldn't afford it. The cost with peripherals was almost 3X the price of the Epson so I took advantage of Apple's return policy and let it go.
I still have my original computer though, a 128k Mac that I upgraded to 512k within a couple months of getting it back in January 1985. I have the printer, an external floppy drive, and maybe something else. I used it to introduce my kids to computers, teaching them to type and use a mouse and to play the one or two games that I have for it. I have several software applications that are not Apple software including one with capabilities that I made good use of back in the day. It was mathematical software that I could feed the software points defining a line and it would compute the equation defining that line out to the nth order polynomial. It understood linear, logarithmic, and exponential scales so all you needed as input were the points in x,y space and the scale for each variable. It was very powerful and there was nothing like it in DOS land or in early Winland. I used it find the equations of lines in published nomographs and then used those equations to write and debug QuickBASIC software to calculate reservoir properties on an old Compaq 286 (later a 386 and 486, etc).
I don't remember the name of the software but it was very a good mathematical application. I still don't think there is similar software for Windows unless Wolfram Alpha can do the same thing. I haven't needed to try in a long time.
I just went through the Internet Archive's issues of MacWorld from back in the day and think I found the software.
On page 9 (10 in the archive) of the April 1988 issue there is an advert for Eureka: The Solver by Borland International (Of course! They had such excellent software for years.)
There is a writeup about it on pages 191-192 (pages 192-193 in the archive).
One of the tools available is a polynomial finder. That is the tool that I used.
I will look around to see whether I still have the disk.
Have 2 Apple ][e, Lisa, Apple NeXT Cube, Fat Mac 512K, Mac IIci, Mac LC and an Apple Xserve, as part of my Apple collection. Along with Sinclair ZX81 and an Atari 800. Many decades of collecting and maintaining them. Unfortunately kids are not interested in inheriting them after I'm gone, even as I have shared with the some of the great origin stories behind some of these machines. They don't see the value. Their logic is that they can always spin up an emulator and try the software, instead of keeping these old dinosaurs around.
I also have a collection of Macs and NeXT computers, including a Macintosh SE and a NeXT Cube. I was just a baby when these computers were being manufactured; I first learned about these computers in high school when Mac OS X was new and when I was completely taken by the idea of a Unix with a nice GUI, coming from the world of Windows 9x.
While emulators are definitely convenient (especially when living in apartments), there is something about using physical hardware from the era and appreciating their technological limits compared to modern hardware. I also feel it is beneficial for young people who weren’t around to experience these machines during their heydays to experience them, to get a feel for what computing was like and how things have changed, for better and for worse. I miss the Living Computers Museum in Seattle, which was in operation before the COVID-19 pandemic and the passing of its owner, Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft.
Also, I love my mechanical keyboards from the era! I have a few old mechanical Apple keyboards (including the legendary Apple Extended Keyboard II) and two non-ADB NeXT keyboards.
I wonder if my kids will feel the same about their iPad 8 or whatever version this is... My guess is not.
Technology feels so "all worked out" today, with the right to repair out the window, everything is fused, and just dies one day and that'll be it.
I do fantasise about being reunited with my 386 DX 33, 4MB of ram and 40MB of hdd! It was the cream of the crop. Oh, that reset button has seen some action.
Readit News
- WriteNow! a very nice word processor that was originally developed for Next computers, before word took over it was the favorite.
- ClarisWorks/AppleWorks - One of the better pre office integrated apps - the database was REALLY easy to use, and interfaced well with the vector graphics module, spreadsheet, and word processor...
- FoxBase+/Mac - Before Microsoft bought Fox Software they got "Mac religion" and it shows in the incredible FoxBase+/Mac its amazin how much capability fits in a floppy.
- SuperPaint - great bitmap paint program though not as accurate as later graphics apps. (fractional/grid positioning was an issue)
- Ready,Set,Go! A great alternative DTP program to PageMaker/Quark. Never used others but I hear I think it was FrameMaker that had some sort of template/database feature to manage/generate catalogs. There were some interesting things back in the day.
- Stepping out - virtual larger desktop
- PowerPrint - Hook into epson compatible parallel printers with serial->parallel adapter.
- Comic Strip Factory - way before there was ComicLife there was Comic Strip Factory - a nice clipart based comic strip compositor.
- HyperCard - Never got into it but it had quite a community.
- Of course programming languages like Pascal, Logo, and BASIC in various flavors.
Of course you have the early greats like the Adobe programs and Microsoft Word/Excel/Office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCard?wprov=sfti1
I think this is partially why people want these types of objects. You can actually own them. You can understand them. You can mod them.
Modern cars, games, computers, etc. aren't owned anymore. They always have updates, and could be bricked at any moment if the manufacturer wishes, gets bought or goes out of business.
There's nothing preventing this from being the golden age of computers. The capabilities of the hardware are near magical. We just need to bring back the concept of ownership.
There are small electric-car companies that let customers do what they want, like Edison Motors, but they make industrial-sized work vehicles. It would be nice if a similar small company started selling consumer cars, but the automotive industry is heavily plagued by bikeshedding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality) to the point that large trucks and busses are allowed to do their thing, while subcompact vehicles have been effectively regulated out of existence.
Most of the faults on EVs come from dead electronics like a fried MOSFET or PCB trace, and coolant leaks inside the motor due to gasket failures derived from race-to-the-bottom cost cutting designs to save money, which your average user won't be able to repair themselves unless maybe we're talking about completely swapping out the entire ECU/motor/battery/assembly with a brand new one instead of repairing it, parts which haven't been designed for easy repairability. And that's excluding DRM issues and the fact that those parts aren't sold to consumers and even if they would, stuff like ADAS sensors, motors and batteries still require calibration with dedicated equipment during installation and can't be plug&play like a laptop battery swap.
Check out EV clinic(no affiliation) for horror stories on EVs and hybrids failures. Due to poor design, a lot of EVs (maybe excluding Teslas) are reliability ticking timebombs whose failure is a matter of WHEN not IF.
Right.[1]
I think of those guys at the Computer Museum who took years to repair an IBM 1401. They even had the assistance of some of the designers and retired IBM field engineers.
[1] https://freefallmirror.com/ff300/fv00214.gif
Also, new tools are way more capable and cheap - all you need to fix an old computer with a sub-50mhz bus clock is a multimeter/scope, soldering iron, and other bits, which can easily be purchased new for $200.
It is simple though, it doesn't have a lot of complex parts to repair.
- The water pump going out, as we drove up a mountain, and rolling back down into the drive way of a converted apple barn. Where we found a nice cleaning lady who took my dad the 20 miles into town to get a new water pump, which he replaced in that driveway and got us back on the road.
- The rear diff throwing a bearing well after midnight in the middle of nowhere west Texas. The car limped a few miles down the road to a surprisingly still open gas station. My uncle, a mechanic, happened to have the necessary parts to fix it on him. So when he picked my dad up an hour later, they went ahead and spent the rest of the overnight hours replacing it in the parking lot of that middle of nowhere gas station.
- Spending several days at various salvage yards looking for rear tail lights. They are just the right height to be taken out by shopping carts. Unfortunately the 79 is the only year that didn't have a connecting strip that goes between the left and right hand sides. In the 90's they were very hard to find, I can't imagine they are any easier today. Seriously, buy an extra set even if you don't need them.
If you ever want a to move to a modern V8, Ford's panther platform from '02-'11 are just as big, roomy, and easy to work on as that Thunderbird. Plus you'll get modern conveniences like anti-lock breaks, air-bags, and good part availability.
Outside of the internet.
Get a network adapter (which pretty sure exists for the SE/30), and, like, Eudora(?), and you MIGHT even get email. Struggle there is everyone (rightly) does email over TLS, so there’s that.
BUT, add a raspberry pi as an email gateway, telnet to it for some Lynx love, and, boy, that’s a lot of computer utility.
Glaring gaps are anything graphic intensive, notably photos, and graphical internet.
Betting there’s some nice games that run on the SE.
Outside of the internet.
The internet is what 80% of people use computers for. They probably spend more than 80% of their computing time on it.
Furthermore, for business use you need to run the latest Office 365 applications. While an SE/30 could probably give a modern computer a run for its money at actual productivity, it’s not going to cut IT compatibility-wise. Plus there’s the whole PDF issue.
I imagine the current crop of college students that I teach today will feel the same about Minecraft, Angry Birds and the original iPad when they reach their 40s or later.
https://generalatomic.com/teil1/index.html
If you work through the base kit and the sequels, it offers a complete undergraduate course in electronics, minus the math.
I returned it because I couldn't afford it. The cost with peripherals was almost 3X the price of the Epson so I took advantage of Apple's return policy and let it go.
I still have my original computer though, a 128k Mac that I upgraded to 512k within a couple months of getting it back in January 1985. I have the printer, an external floppy drive, and maybe something else. I used it to introduce my kids to computers, teaching them to type and use a mouse and to play the one or two games that I have for it. I have several software applications that are not Apple software including one with capabilities that I made good use of back in the day. It was mathematical software that I could feed the software points defining a line and it would compute the equation defining that line out to the nth order polynomial. It understood linear, logarithmic, and exponential scales so all you needed as input were the points in x,y space and the scale for each variable. It was very powerful and there was nothing like it in DOS land or in early Winland. I used it find the equations of lines in published nomographs and then used those equations to write and debug QuickBASIC software to calculate reservoir properties on an old Compaq 286 (later a 386 and 486, etc).
I don't remember the name of the software but it was very a good mathematical application. I still don't think there is similar software for Windows unless Wolfram Alpha can do the same thing. I haven't needed to try in a long time.
Thanks for this reminder.
On page 9 (10 in the archive) of the April 1988 issue there is an advert for Eureka: The Solver by Borland International (Of course! They had such excellent software for years.)
There is a writeup about it on pages 191-192 (pages 192-193 in the archive).
One of the tools available is a polynomial finder. That is the tool that I used.
I will look around to see whether I still have the disk.
I may need to scan old MacWorld magazine images to find it.
While emulators are definitely convenient (especially when living in apartments), there is something about using physical hardware from the era and appreciating their technological limits compared to modern hardware. I also feel it is beneficial for young people who weren’t around to experience these machines during their heydays to experience them, to get a feel for what computing was like and how things have changed, for better and for worse. I miss the Living Computers Museum in Seattle, which was in operation before the COVID-19 pandemic and the passing of its owner, Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft.
Also, I love my mechanical keyboards from the era! I have a few old mechanical Apple keyboards (including the legendary Apple Extended Keyboard II) and two non-ADB NeXT keyboards.
Wish you could swap innards like you can swap engines with (some) cars.
Technology feels so "all worked out" today, with the right to repair out the window, everything is fused, and just dies one day and that'll be it.
I do fantasise about being reunited with my 386 DX 33, 4MB of ram and 40MB of hdd! It was the cream of the crop. Oh, that reset button has seen some action.