The story of Apple

Until the end of 1989, Apple evolved their Mac II and Lac SE lines. These revisions brought essentially new expansion bays and faster clock speeds.

But the biggest new product at the end of the 1980’s was the arrival of the Portable Mac. Portable, the word is perhaps a little exaggerated, the computer weights 7.2 kg with its hard drive, and is hardly compact. However, the computer is very autonomous compared to the portable PC’s and is screen is actually readable, thanks to its active matrix. In hibernate; this portable lasted for about 1 month!

1989 also marks the end of Lisa. The final versions are transformed into Mac and finally buried in a field.

The releases by Apple are less prolific in the following years despite the rise in power of the personal computer, which are also cheaper. Apple (again) revises its classic Mac II (Mac IIsi and II fx) and decides to release a more affordable Macintosh, the classic, that cost around $900.

Alas, a menace to Apple becomes apparent in this decade. Microsoft had been working for a long time on its operating system, “Windows”, also using the graphical interface system and windows. The first versions are a flop. Initially, Microsoft released a windows system that “arranged”: it was not possible to put a window over the top of another; they had to all be side by side.

One of the reasons for this mode was an agreement signed with Apple: Microsoft would not engage to copy the Mac interface in their Windows system 1.0. This bolding is very important: version 2.0 was a system that was a direct copy of Apple’s. Apples lawyers had a lot of trouble to change this agreement…Notice, in 2006 we still compare the graphical interfaces of the Apple OS (MacOS X Tiger) to that of Microsoft (Windows Vista)!

Windows 1.0 was a flop when coming out in late 1984. Windows 2.0 did not really take off either. However, Windows 3.0 arrived and its now time for Apple to react. The company releases with the help of Novell and Intel their “Star Trek” project, to “go where the Mac has never gone before.” The “trekkies” are the programmers of this very special project. The goal is to take the Mac system (which was called at the time “system [version number]”) onto an Intel platform.

The tidal wave that is Windows 3.1 (released at the same time as System 7) confirms this goal to Apple.

System 7

The trekkies quickly advance and present to Apple a OS earlier then envisioned. Alas, although it was possible to get this system onto a Pc in 1994 (before the release of Windows 95) and that it was a lot more powerful then that offered by Microsoft, Apple decides to abandon the project as it is going to announce it transition to the PowerPC processors (in place of the Motorola 68000 processors). This made it un-economical for them to fight on two fronts...

Motorola 68000 next to a PowerPC