Shop E Store What is the MAC app that was included in the first Macintosh in 1984, long before the internet, and although it is by another name, exists on today’s machines?
Not only did designer and author Marcin Wichery track the first 20 years of development for the app, it also includes an emulator that you can experience for yourself.
App in question: Control Panel, which has recently been renamed Settings.
It may not sound like the most engaging app to track over time, but Witcherry disagrees.
After all, the Mac settings have a much more attractive life than I had imagined, and have been redesigned many times, and tell us a lot about the early history and problematic nurturing of this interesting machine.
He provides an emulator that allows you to play with many Mac generations on your own. These have hidden Easter eggs!
Steve Jobs is making a loud voice to Andy Hertzfeld, “Shut up!” and giving Bill Gates.
We showed the gate how the Macintosh Mouse Cursor moved smoothly in a flickerless way.
“What kind of hardware do you use to draw the cursor?” he asked. Many modern personal computers have special hardware that draws small bitmaps called “sprites,” and he thought we might be doing the same thing.
Of course, the Macintosh used no special hardware at all. It did everything about the software, but eliminated the possibility of flickering during the flexible vertical blanking interval anyway. In fact, Barrel and I recently got a smooth working mouse on the Apple II using a similar technique (see Apple II Mouse Card).
“There’s no special hardware!” I blurted out, sneering proudly at my voice. “In fact…” I was about to mention that Steve ran it on an Apple II, one tenth of the Macintosh’s processed horsepower, when he speculated what I was saying.
“Shut up!” he cried out as loudly as he could, looking directly at me.
CNET Jeff Carlson said he ended up spending hours on the site.
I didn’t think I’d put any rivets on the history of the Macintosh control panel, but an article on the evolution of its design brought me to Apple History Nerd. And I especially didn’t think it was absorbed for hours in the way it was presented.
Try it yourself with the frame you like.
Highlighted accessories
Photo: Maxime Bober (Extended with Photoshop AI)/cc2.0
