"Good Land": some details of the development of the first Mac

Macintosh project was launched in the development at the end of 1979. Many believe that this is the first personal computer that was equipped with a graphical user interface. But not everything went smoothly in the Macintosh project from the very beginning. This story tells about how and by whom the first Mac was developed at an early stage, when Steve Jobs was not the project manager.

In 1979 and 1980 the project Macintosh Jeff Raskin developed the efforts of only four employees. This project was not considered an important part of Apple, but several times he was nearly canceled. Macintosh still was canceled during the reorganization of the fall of 1980, but in the end, Jeff persuaded Mike Scott and Mike Markulla give his men more time to show what they are capable. Macintosh team in the face of Jef Raskin, Brian Howard, Burrell Smith and Bud Tribble moved into a small office building a few blocks from the main Apple campus. Later they were joined by Joanna Hoffman.

The new office on Stevens Creek Boulevard was called the good land because of the eponymous restaurant, which is located nearby. In fact, it was the company's first office in Cupertino after Apple moved beyond the parental home of Steve Jobs. In it is also based engineers Lisa project. Macintosh team moved there with a lot of variety of toys.

Jeff desire to encourage his team through games gradually turned the engineering lab at this kindergarten. Periodically the work stopped, and all the staff involved in any new organized a game that could be involved in any visitors.

The most popular game, which is played at least once in the afternoon, there was a skirmish colored balls Nerf. Dozens of bright multi-colored shells were scattered around the office, which was turned into a maze of cardboard shelters and barricades.

Jeff and Brian were serious musicians, so the work became an integral part of the spontaneous concerts. The office was literally littered with various musical instruments. In addition, Jeff was fond of aircraft modeling and radio-controlled cars. Toy car under the table or view the next test aircraft model in the street were commonplace.

Jeff wrote his «Macintosh Book" most of the 1979 and all of 1980, in formulating his vision of the smallest detail. It was supposed to use the processor 6809 based on Burrell's prototype, but in the end most of the developments was transferred to the Apple II project. In early 1980, Jeff has hired Marc Lebrun to create software, but Mark was more interested in the development of Lisp machines, so it was soon replaced Bud Tribble in September 1980.

Bad was familiar with Jeff since studying at California University of San Diego. As graduate students, they worked in a firm Synaptic Systems, were perfectly familiar with Bill Atkinson. Bill and Jeff Bada persuaded to interrupt their studies for the medical program at the University of Washington to go to Apple and to begin work on the Mac. Bad breath new life into the project and began writing new graphics routines by the processor 6809.

Thus, given the fact that work on the Macintosh project lasted more than a year, the last couple of months have been very interesting: they began to appear new views and ideas, develop new software security. But while working in the office of the good land was short-lived.

Two months after the move, Bad convinced Burrell to use 68000 instead of 6809. Burrell came up with a stunning design that caught the attention of Steve Jobs. Steve quickly took the lead in the project, quickly lured most of the Apple II team, including Steve Wozniak and Rod Holt. Very soon all the staff moved into the office in the Texaco Towers, where he continued to work on a stormy Macintosh.

via Folklore.org