Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made (51 page)
Read Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made Online
Authors: Andy Hertzfeld
Tags: #Business & Economics, #General, #Industries, #Computers & Information Technology, #Workplace Culture, #Research & Development, #Computers, #Operating Systems, #Macintosh, #Hardware
Jef did not want to incorporate what became the two most definitive aspects of Macintosh technology - the Motorola 68000 microprocessor and the mouse pointing device. Jef preferred the 6809, a cheaper but weaker processor which only had 16 bits of address space and would have been obsolete in just a year or two, since it couldn't address more than 64Kbytes. He was dead set against the mouse as well, preferring dedicated meta-keys to do the pointing. He became increasingly alienated from the team, eventually leaving entirely in the summer of 1981, when we were still just getting started, and the final product utilitized very few of the ideas in the Book of Macintosh. In fact, if the name of the project had changed after Steve took over in January 1981, and it almost did (see
bicycle
), there wouldn't be much reason to correlate it with his ideas at all.
So, if not Jef, does anyone else qualify as a parent of the Macintosh? Bill Atkinson is a strong candidate, since he was almost singlehandedly responsible for the breakthrough user interface, graphics software and killer application that distinguished the Mac. A case could also be made for Burrell Smith, whose wildly creative digital board was the seed crystal of brilliance that everything else coalesced around. But ultimately, if any single individual deserves the honor, I would have to cast my vote for the obvious choice, Steve Jobs, because the Macintosh never would have happened without him, in anything like the form it did. Other individuals are responsible for the actual creative work, but Steve's vision, passion for excellence and sheer strength of will, not to mention his awesome powers of persuasion, drove the team to meet or exceed the impossible standards that we set for ourselves. Steve already gets a lot of credit for being the driving force behind the Macintosh, but in my opinion, it's very well deserved.
Table of Contents
It's The Moustache That Matters
First day with the Macintosh team
The Grand Unified Model (1) - Resources
The Grand Unified Model (2) - The Finder
Close Encounters of the Steve Kind
How to Hire Insanely Great Employees
90 Hours A Week And Loving It!
3rd Party Developers and Macintosh Development
It Sure Is Great To Get Out Of That Bag!
