Happy 25th Mac
Hard to believe the Macintosh was introduced 25 years ago, January 25, 1984 as this first Mac commercial points out. I remember it well. We bought one to see what it was and to see if there were product add-on opportunities. I instantly hated it… I was consulting for a product development organization… closed system, we couldn’t build or add 3rd party peripherals, closed OS, we couldn’t see anything but the presentation layer, the appearance of multi-tasking, but the virtual inability to run more than one task.
We started the SEER-SEM development 4 years later and choose Windows (2.03 to be exact) as our development platform…. Graphical like a Mac, open architecture, we could develop add-ons and peripherals. It still could barely runmore than one application, wasn’t as refined as Mac OS, yet it took parametrics to a whole new level.
Then the Mac started taking off in engineering environments. We actually released SEER-SEM for Macintosh in the early ’90s. Also we released SEER for Sun Solaris some time later. Both have been retired as Windows dominance increased. I must admit, in their day, I liked SEER for Mac better than SEER for Windows.
As I recall the costs of innovation on three platforms… It was miserable and costly. We made a change to the model, generally in the Windows version.. Then had to make in the SEER for Mac and SEER for Sun.
When we discarded the Mac version I was thrilled, it made development simpler, lowered product release time (we produced simultaneous releases for all three platforms) and generally made life easier. And it was nice to deal with the more open, lower cost architecture of Windows. Not that Windows was perfect. We also had a special Windows version for the Zenith 100. I still remember the resonating sound of the Z100′s hitting the bottom of the trash bin when we retired them, Priceless.
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Project Prediction Infographic
The summer before I graduated with my Industrial Engineering degree I helped design the Mac factory assembly line and automated storage and retrieval system for the parts. The summer after I graduated I ran the rework assembly line…
Those were the keg-on-Fridays, yatch-with-orchestra days of Apple, but also the expectation to do something different and stretch to make something really work well, in my case for the assembly workers.
The macintosh saved my career as a graphic artist and I will be forever grateful. With its growing popularity maybe SEER for the mac will make a comeback. I’m sure Steve Jobs would love to have you.
We also had a SEER-H on the Mac as well!
I’m curious:
What are your thoughts on the Mac today?
I guess I just don’t understand why you took the time to write this blog entry…
I wrote this BLOG entry because I have been involved in computing for 40 years and believe the introduction of the Mac was a key milestone in modern computing.
At the time of the Mac introduction I was consulting for a number of companies, one being Commodore. We bought one of the first Macs to see what it was. I personally did not care for the OS but did like the user interface. And Mac, along with Xerox on which Mac was largely based, advanced computing dramatically.
I love the design simplicity of Mac. I don’t like it being so closed.