As Steve Jobs almost managed to settle the mysterious Mr. McIntosh in every Mac
Makradar Technologies / / December 19, 2019
This is one of the craziest ideas of Steve Jobs: a mysterious cartoon character, who would live inside each Macintosh computer. Unfortunately, some of our dreams are not fated to be realized - the computers of the time simply could not be a home for Mr. McIntosh. However, the legend continues to live to this day.
February 1982, Steve Jobs literally bursts into the office, Andy Hertsfelda, senior software architect a new generation of Apple computers called the Mac (a few days ago this computer celebrated its 30th anniversary). His eyes literally lit and everything in it gives incredible excitement. Waving his hands, he began to cry out: "Mr. McIntosh! We need Mr. Mac! "
Hertsfeld stared at Steve Jobs: "Who is Mr. Mackintosh?"
"Mr. McIntosh - the mysterious little man who lives in every Mac computer!" - said Jobs.
He appears from time to time, when you did not expect, it just flashed before you, and disappear again. This will happen so fast that you do not understand - you've seen it or not. We will make the instructions allusions to the legend of Mr. Mac, but no one will know - it's true or fiction!
Almost trembling with excitement, Steve Jobs continued to represent a lot of fun and surprising ways in which Mr Mackintosh will remind users about themselves:
Of thousands of times, when you open the menu once or twice, you will see a side of Mr. Mackintosh, he seemed to lean against the menu bar! He will wave his hand to you quickly and immediately disappear! And no matter how much you did not try to get him back - will not work!
What I imagined Jobs reminded the digital equivalent of the history of the orchestra of the Lilliputians, who live within each radio - this tale Parents sometimes tell their children. But Jobs did not want to just "tell a story", he wanted to put it into practice. Inspired by the graphical user interface, which was created in Xerox PARC, Apple employees have spent 3 years to build a computer that was designed to change the world. And suddenly, there is Steve Jobs with a crazy idea to build an 8-bit character right in the heart of the operating system.
Hertzfeld felt this idea... stunning.
"We, the engineers have always dreamed secretly add to our software some small hack - says Herzfeld - but suddenly in front of me is co-founder and president of the company, which offers something completely insane! "
Working on the operating system for the Macintosh, and continued with her work continued Herzfeld and Jobs on the implementation of the dreams of Mr. Mac. Jobs descended to the marketing department and ordered to start giving hints of the existence of Mr. Mackintosh in official materials. He even hired a Belgian artist Jean-Michel Folona - known cartoonist who created poster for "Purple Rose of Cairo" by Woody Allen. Folona task was to create an image of Mr. MacIntosh. Continuing the game in association with a computer name, the artist has depicted the mysterious character in a raincoat and hat mac-fedora.
Hertzfeld also continued to create "hooks" into the code, which would add to Mr. McIntosh in the system as soon as it completed work on its animation. For this task, Herzfeld took command Susan Caire, which they studied together at the university. Subsequently, its contribution to the creation of the Macintosh operating system has become legendary - that it belongs to a series of Mac icons, which are now known to the whole world. It is the work of Mr. MacIntosh was its debut in Apple.
Everyone wanted to Mr. McIntosh has become a reality. Despite this, when Apple began selling Macintosh computers (24 January 1984), Mr. Mack did not appear on any of them. You might have to click the mouse a thousand times, but by the end of the day it became clear - the harsh reality of the emerging world of computers has killed Mr. Mackintosh, and not allowing him to see the light.
According to Herzfeld, put an end to Mr. Macintosh 128K memory of the original Mac: "In the end, we realized that we will never be able to build a bitmap Mr. Mackintosh in ROM". I had to literally disassemble the entire operating system and gather again to add a small man, who appeared extremely rarely and quietly - in fact, it was not worth it. However, Herzfeld says he left some clues that make modern programmers could "revive" Mr McIntosh.
Since the debut of Macintosh past 30 years, and about Mr. Mac forgotten, despite the fact that the computer, which was to become his home, still managed to change the world. You can find Mr. Mack is just one of the quirks of the young Steve Jobs, but a small man in a raincoat deserves much more attention. Mr. Mac - is the embodiment of the other, much more ambitious ideas Jobs: artificial intelligence that lives inside your computer, which makes working with them more enjoyable and easy. Heirs of Mr. Mackintosh can be called Clippy, Rover, Siri and Her. He - the absolute pioneer, whose descendants will determine how the user interface will be tomorrow.
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