From "Warhol Project" to QuickTime: the history of the media "apple"

Although QuickTime name all makovodov on hearing the story of this application, few people know - especially the fact that at the very beginning, back in 1989, it bore the code name "Warhol Project". :) To learn how to develop this product, it is told in a small chapter of a book series "Timeline" by John Buck.

May 1990.

For its annual developer conference in San Jose, Apple Computer is preparing a number of decisions, which were to spur sales and attract third-party developers. Among the hot topics were the object-oriented programming, the creation of projects CD-ROM, HyperCard software environment and the new Finder. However, Apple CEO, and now the head of R & D-department, John Sculley wanted to show anything beyond scheduled.

Tyler Peppel led the development of new Apple products, including the concepts of sports watches, desk phone with a touch-screen e-book, on which the "EPL" worked with "Toshiba". Peppel persuaded Scully to move in the direction of the media, which allowed him to knock out a few resources for "Warhol Project".

A few weeks before WWDC Apple vice president of network and multimedia products Donald (Don) Casey instructed the marketing department to develop a profile for "Warhol Project". But the product, which was to become one of Apple's most high-profile success, it is crucial to get an official and a recognizable name. on the Apple product manager and one of the first evangelists of Duncan Kennedy says:

Tyler Pepper assembled a group to test different names with the prefix Quick (from the English. "Fast" - a comment. trans.), and one of our favorite choices became the QuickTime, because the project really created under the planned events. But with this title was the problem.

American of Tektronix, which at that time was one of the largest manufacturers and research measuring technique (mulimetrov, analyzers, signal generators, and so on. d.), has already registered the name Quicktime. Tyler Peppel recalls:

"Tektronix" owned QuickTime name, and we began talks with her about buying the name.

Kennedy continues:

At the same time, we came to our lawyers with an alternative - QuickStream. Tyler rolled his eyes and said, "Sounds like a urine stream» (quick stream is literally translated as "fast jet" - a comment. trans.) - but the program had the name for a few days, until Don Casey has not concluded an agreement to purchase QuickTime name.

A few weeks later started WWDC, and participants learned about Apple's plans for the next year. Everything went according to a pre-planned program, and then came on stage Don Casey and introduced a new product called QuickTime. He told the astonished audience that Apple has created a new architecture of media files:

... operating system-wide time coding, which provides synchronization of sound, animation, and other processes are performed in strict time frame.

QuickTime was designed to provide developers with a common interface to manage media devices and a number of methods for forming media streams, and Casey had hoped that the new architecture will be available to developers by the end of of the year.

Casey said that QuickTime allows Macs to become the best platform for digital media, thus leaving behind the release of Microsoft multimedia extensions for its Windows 3.0.

His speech at WWDC John Scully finished with these words:

... the next generation of revolutionary applications will come to Mac.

Scully did not mention that the work on QuickTime has not even begun.

Recalls Eric Hoffert, one of the authors of the "Warhol of the Project", the chief engineer and the owner of the patents on many software image compression algorithms:

I well remember how, after the WWDC, where Don announced the QuickTime, many of us wondered in surprise: "So what exactly we need to do?"

— From the blog Timeline.

P. S. By the way, QuickTime Player program was completed a long time imidzhevym short videoclip, the first version of which explicitly allude to the technology roots, when it was called "Project Warhol ".