It is a real pleasure and a distinct honor to have been invited to write this introduction. You see, if it weren't for Dr. Dobb's, there probably would have been no Macintosh. In fact, there might not be an Apple Computer Inc. today. A bit of history will explain why this is so.
In 1976, Jim Warren, founder and then editor of Dr. Dobb's, sent a budding, free-lance journalist and programmer to interview two guys who had been making a bit of noise at the legendary Home-Brew Computer Club. He gave me a phone number and an address. The journalist was me, and the two guys were both named Steve, though one was always referred to as "Woz." They were working on the Apple I, and I thought it had some of the slickest hardware ideas I had seen in the two-year-old personal computer industry. I still have my Apple I, and it still works.
I did the interview and offered to write the manuals for the early Apples. Soon my newly-formed company, Bannister & Crun, and I ended up writing a lot of the early Apple manuals, and eventually my whole crew was hired by Apple Computer (in 1978) as their Publications Department. I was employee No. 31 and I loved the Apple II, especially its pre-decoded bus. I own Apple II serial No. 2 (on which I tested the manuals and early software), and it still works, too.
By 1979 the company was gung ho on two projects spearheaded by Steve Jobs, the Apple III and Lisa computers. I was worried that the Apple was not forward-looking enough and that Lisa was too big and expensive for Apple's customer base. So I created a project to make a small, relatively inexpensive, small-footprint machine inspired by the screen architecture and some of the interface elements I had come to love at Xerox PARC (at which I was a regular visitor in the early '70s). I named the project after my favorite apple, the McIntosh, and changed the spelling to avoid (so I hoped) conflict with the hi-fi manufacturer of that name.
Thus Dr. Dobb's certainly deserves the credit for making a connection that led to the creation of the Macintosh. And if Apple didn't have the Mac, would it be in business today? Nobody can say for sure.
As the following articles prove, the Macintosh has become a complex, intimidating monster, requiring the same kind of convoluted understanding as did the mainframes of a decade or two ago. We have reached the age of the megamicro. Since "mega" stands for 106 and "micro" stands for 10(-6) this term equals 1. In other words, we have canceled one of the advantages that originally sparked the growth of microcomputers: Simplicity. We are back to where we started. The other major advantage, namely low price, has also eroded, but not to nearly the same extent, although the magazines once devoted to "personal" computers no longer blush at prices easily exceeding $10,000 for a single-user system.
On the other hand, we are exploring new ways to use computers. The Xerox/Apple interface, and the growing understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP) all lead to at least an external simplicity from the user's point of view. We must learn to match it with internal simplicity as well. Some claim that our brave, new graphic world is inherently complex. This is not true, but if we believe it to be true we will not be able to do better.
In the meanwhile, articles like those in this issue will act like a guidebook to an adventure game, and lead you ever deeper into the innards of Macintosh software. Don the robes of a software wizard and you will find treasure here.
Copyright © 1989, Dr. Dobb's JournalEnough History
