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50 Things We Miss About Old-School Apple

Michael Simon — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:36:13 -0500

Just because we love our iPods, iPhones and Intel-powered Macs doesn’t mean we don’t still pine for the days of old, when our Apple logos had a bit more pizzazz, we were encouraged to venture outside the lines, and Steve’s wardrobe had more than just turtlenecks in it. So take a trip with us down memory lane as we relive everything that was great about Apple--and keep your eyes peeled for turtles, dogcows and toasted bunnies.

1. It's a dog... it's a cow...

What started as the glyph for the letter "z" in the Cairo font became the universal paper orientation icon for anything printed in the classic Mac OS and the official mascot for Mac geeks everywhere. We're not sure where Clarus went, but wherever she is, we're sure she's moofing happily.

2. How does your garden grow?

While Steve Jobs was away, Apple planted some very low-res seeds at 1 Infinite Loop that sprouted into a garden of larger-than-life sculptures designed to look like popular Mac OS icons. The display attracted Mac fans from near and far, but was removed for "restoration" shortly after Jobs returned. Just how long does it take to refurbish eight two-dimensional statues anyway?

3. Pirates of Silicon Valley

Not to be confused with the less-than-flattering TNT movie starring Noah Wyle, Steve urged his fledgling 1983 Mac team back to embrace their inner, rebellious pirates. Taking the notion to heart, programmer Steve Capps sewed a crude skull and crossbones and hung it above Apple’s Bandley 3 building, where it flew proudly until its sudden disappearance shortly after the Mac made its debut.

4. EmotiMac

Before OS X v10.2 Jaguar introduced a dull, gray Apple logo, we were greeted with a smiling fellow based on the original Macintosh 128K (in OS 8 beta builds, the little guy winked, too). And when things went horribly wrong at startup, instead of an unsettling flashing prohibition symbol, a sickly Sad Mac let you know you your Mac was just as depressed as you.

5. Woz Up?

Apple's other founder stopped working as a full-time employee around the same time Steve Jobs left, but his impact could hardly have been more profound. The brains behind Apple I and II and a consummate professional, Steve Wozniak laid the groundwork for every great Apple product and let Steve get all (or most) of the attention. Plus he still gets "a small salary" from Apple. How cool is that?

6. The rainbow connection

Commissioned with the task of improving Apple's elaborate Sir Issac Newton painting, PR art director Rob Janov created a simple, clean image that became one of the most identifiable logos in the world--and took a bite out of it "to prevent it from looking like a cherry tomato." The rearranged spectrum was inspired by the Apple II's color capabilities and was originally drawn with thin black separation lines--which Steve wisely removed.

7. Punch line

When Apple unveiled the iMac in 1998, it shocked the world by leaving out the 3.5-inch floppy disk drive in favor of a CD-ROM drive--and we've never looked back. But those of us who remember the mid-80s share a certain nostalgia for using a hole punch to turn a single-layer 5.25-inch floppy into a double-layer, which served our Disk II well.

8. Tangerine dream

Upon his return to Apple, Steve Jobs brought a whole palette of colors with him and wasn't shy about breaking out his brushes, beginning with the Bondi Blue iMac and tangerine iBooks that gradually gave way to blueberry, strawberry, grape, lime, graphite, ruby, sage, snow, indigo, Blue Dalmatian and Flower Power. Sure, aluminum is nice, but it can't wake us up in morning like our clamshell iBooks did.

9. Revolution No. 9

The best Mac OS without an "X" in its name, Mac OS 9 didn't bring the multitasking that we were promised, but it was a perfectly fine appetizer before Cheetah. Besides, OS 9 helped us ease into Aqua by quietly running our non-OS X apps in the background while we blindly fumbled around for the Chooser and Control Strip.

10. Crazy like a fox

Who wouldn't want to be in the company of Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali and Albert Einstein? Apple's greatest slogan and ad campaign revolved around two simple words--Think Different--and made us all feel like we were standing on the shoulders of giants. (No disrespect to Justin Long.)

11. A Style all its own

Apple’s foray into the dot-matrix printing fold may have been short-lived, but its series of color StyleWriters certainly made our Print Shop masterpieces look more professional than our DeskJetting friends. And who doesn't miss waiting an hour for a completed banner, then spending another 20 minutes carefully tearing away nine feet of perforated holes?

12. Modem operandi

Always-on Internet is nice, but that screeching modem noise sure does bring back sweet memories of our GeoPort-enabled Quadra towers. And the waiting... my God, the waiting.

13. You have died of dysentery

We doubt we’d have quite so much knowledge of Conestoga wagons, Independence, Mo., the Willamette Valley, Kansas River or really much of anything about 19th-century pioneer life without our Apple IIs and the Oregon Trail. Plus, we couldn't type "BANG" nearly as quickly.

14. How LOGO can you go?

Back when the Mac was still a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye, Apple made serious education inroads by partnering with LCSI on one of the earliest (and most successful) implementations of the Logo programming language, better known to students as a well-behaved, easily trained turtle graphic. And we've heard if you look closely enough, it was actually carrying a tiny pair of nunchucks.

15. Your basic, average symbolic instruction code

Since Apple couldn’t figure it out on its own, a deal was struck with Microsoft in the late ’70s to provide a version of its Altair BASIC for Apple II coders, resulting in the curious amalgam Applesoft. It wasn’t as fast or bug-free as we would have liked, but GOTO programmers accepted no substitute--just as long as they stayed away from ONERR.

16. Clothes make the man

You may not believe it, but Steve's attire wasn't always so darned predictable. Suit vest anyone?

17. Boom Boom Pow

There was a time when we didn't need to plunk down $50-$100 to make our Mac sound respectable (and no, we're not talking about TAM's custom-made Bose system). Six months earlier, the Performa 6400 included a kick-ass integrated subwoofer that let the neighbors know every time we had to restart.

18. The price of power

We know it's all quad-core and everything, but we really wish Apple still offered an expandable tower that didn't have to set us back two months on the rent. Remember when $1,599 bought you a ticket to the future?

19. That was easy

Rather than fumbling in the back of our iMacs or reaching around to the left side of our Mac Pros, we'd like to see a return to the days of the Bondi Blue iMac, when Apple was kind enough to put a bona fide power button right at out fingertips. Of course, we only used it once or twice a year, but that’s beside the point.

20. Puck of the draw

OK, the cord could have been a little longer, but something about Apple’s first USB mouse just clicked with us. Carpal tunnel be damned!

21. Keys to the kingdom

When Apple removed the closed Apple key from the right side of the keyboard when Lisa made her debut, we were fine with that. But when the logo was stripped altogether from alongside the Saint John's Arms and replaced it with the word "command," a little piece of us died with it.

22. Have keynote, will travel

Boston? New York? Tokyo? Paris? San Francisco ... sigh.

23. Surprise witness

It’s not so much that Steve doesn’t still pull out his patented "one more thing" at the conclusion of his keynotes, but it seems to have lost quite a bit of its cachet. Case in point: In 2000, Steve's one more thing at Macworld New York was the Power Mac G4 Cube; last October, it was the redressed, FireWire-less MacBook. And don't even talk to us about Phil Schiller's iTunes Plus shenanigans in January.

24. I hate you so bad

On the heels of its Pentium-bashing snail ad, Apple took another humorous shot at Intel with a 30-second spot that publicly apologized for exposing Intel's sluggish chips and setting fire to its bunnies (named for the protective suit Intel’s microprocessor engineers wore). A toasted rabbit even PETA could love.

25. Cash for Goldblum

Our favorite beige-hating, iMovie loving, e-mail promoting, iBook seducing, two-step voiceover hacker hero who may or may not have been drunk.

26. Easy-bake love-in

It probably wouldn't quite have the same effect today (what with Intel inside and all), but Steve and Phil's public showdowns between Macs and PCs made for great drama--even if the outcome was never really in doubt.

27. Go-go-gadget grip

There was a time when Apple really catered to Mac users on the go, building handles into just about every one of their products. Sure the Mac Pro still has one, but where are we going to take a 40-pound cheese grater?

28. Stop the Unsanity

It's not that we don't like playing with our Dock's slow-motion genie effect, but we really miss minimizing our unused Windows into unobstructive strips that stayed where we left them. Thank goodness for small Haxies.

29. I can see clearly now

Sure it was a cheap gimmick that reinforced the form-over-function argument, but we liked looking into our iMacs and 17-inch Studio Displays.

30. Back to the Drawing Board

One of the nice things about OS 9 was its built-in library of themes that added more personality to our desktops than simply changing the wallpaper. While it wasn't all it could have been (Gizmo anyone?), it put Resexcellence on the map and was more fun than a barrel of limes and lollipops.

31. It was a bug, Dave

Everyone remembers 1984, when the greatest commercial of all time aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, and most can recall the following year, when the dreadful "Lemmings" ad debuted. But when Apple returned to the big stage in 1999 with its Hal 9000 Y2K spot, we had high hopes for another. Ten years later, we're still waiting.

32. Laser tag

Hewlett Packard gets all the credit for desktop publishing, but our first PostScript laser printer was dressed in platinum gray, spoke the Snow White design language and was made in Cupertino.

33. Yo-Yo Mac

We could never get it to perform any actual tricks, but Apple’s yo-yo adapter was a thing of beauty that turned as many heads as the PowerBook it was attached to. Who knew Steve’s Reality Distortion Field applied to clunky power bricks, too?

34. Membership had its privileges

We couldn’t be happier for Apple and its string of record-breaking quarters, but all these new members have made Club Apple feel a whole lot less exclusive. It’s gotten so bad that only three people eyed our MacBook Pro at Starbucks the other day... what gives!?!

35. Toppled Secret

A casualty of the Asteroid fallout, Nick dePlume agreed to close his popular Think Secret rumor site in 2008 after a closely watched court battle with Apple over publication of "trade secrets." But weren't we, the faithful readers who hung on Nick's every word, the real victims?

36. Taking stock

It wasn't too long ago when you could buy a few shares of AAPL for less than the cost of a shuffle, but Apple's success seems to have gone to its head. Despite a robust ROI, shareholders haven't seen a stock split since 2005, and you'd have to go back another 10 years to find the last dividend payout.

37. Of course I'll bring it back

Apple’s Test Drive a Macintosh program may have been a disaster for the company--as most people used and abused them without buying--but it was great for anyone who wanted to use and abuse a Mac for a day without paying for it... ahem... we mean try out a Mac before spending $2,500 on one.

38. Tools of the trade

We liked MobileMe a whole lot better when it was called iTools and was free to anyone running OS 9.

39. The world is yours

Before Safari there was eWorld, a Mac-only online service not unlike AOL or Prodigy that attempted to connect a virtual neighborhood replete with a post office, Community Center, and Arts & Leisure Pavilion. Apple's bumbled strategy and stubborn pricing kept it from taking off, but mostly it was way ahead of its time.

40. An inconvenient Trudeau

Doonesbury’s mad hatter has always been an Apple devotee, so it came as some surprise when Garry Trudeau took the Newton to task in summer 1993 with its iconic “Egg Freckles?” strip poking fun at Newton’s handwriting recognition. Apple was so flattered they included it as a Newton OS easter egg a few years later. Guess the iPhone works too well, eh Garry?

Photo by tarop/Flickr

41. Theater of the mind

When the first Apple retail stores opened their doors, they weren’t just places to max out your credit cards. Those lucky to live close enough got to watch Steve’s keynotes beamed live on a big-screen projector while a small crowd piled into comfy theater seats to oooh and aaah along with each announcement. All that was missing was the popcorn.

42. A switch in time

Even without Ellen Feiss, the switcher ad campaign will forever be remembered for its catchy, then annoying background music, simple presentation, diverse spokesmodels and YouTube parodies. Oh, and Will Ferrell, porn actor.

43. Ultimate Driving Machine

Made entirely using QuickTime technology, BMW and Apple teamed up in 1997 to create CyberDrive, a monthlong Web project featuring virtual roller coasters, space flights, test drives and various other interactive "adventures."

44. Pencil it in

OK, it's nowhere near as cool as Wall-E, but this was done in 1988 to show off the graphics power of the Macintosh II. QuickTime didn't drop until 1991, people. Think about it.

45. Y ask Y?

Remember Dec. 31, 1999, at around 11:59:59, when people were huddled in their bunkers with stacks of toilet paper and hoping the world's computers didn't accidentally destroy the world? Yeah, we don't either.

46. MythBusters

It wasn't easy convincing the masses that an 800 MHz PowerPC processor was faster than a 1.7 GHz Pentium 4 chip, so Steve quantified it with an easily understandable catch phrase. We're not really sure it worked ─ but it sure was fun to watch PC makers stammer and squirm whenever he said, "Megahertz myth."

47. I've got the Power

Things are all messy now with Pystar, but back in 1994, Apple abruptly opened up the Mac and its OS to clone makers, the first of which was a small start-up founded by an engineer named Steve Kahng. His company, Power Computing, may have saved Apple from ruin with its aggressive, irreverent ads that re-energized the base and kept everything simmering until Steve came back home.

48. Merch and destroy

Long after its catalog faded into lore, Apple kicked off the 2002 holiday shopping season by selling a variety of branded merchandise (pens, clocks, keychains, etc.) at its retail stores. Perfect for the Mac user who has everything, the Cupertino line of merchandise vanished as quickly as it arrived, leaving eBay and Red Light Runner to reap the profits.

49. Still Life with Mouse and Fruit

The Mac was such a monumental product for Apple, it had its own logo. Inspired by Pablo Picasso, it consisted of a rudimentary sketch of the computer, its mouse and an apple, simply stated and lightly colored. It would greeted Mac users for the next decade, when the smiling, two-faced Mac took over.

50. Bomb's away

While crashes are fewer and farther between with OS X, the ugly multi-language kernel panic screen that appears on our screen scares the heck out of us — so much so that it actually makes us long for the little bomb that ruined so many of our OS 9 projects (even though we never understood why he always yelled "Stack ran into heap" at us).

Is there something you miss that we didn't mention? Drop it in the comments and we'll relive the good ol' days together.

Woz Survives DWTS Dance-off

Leslie Ayers — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:41:35 -0500

Man, he looks good in pink satin!

On Tuesday night, we had more than just the iPhone 3.0 announcements and St. Patty's day to celebrate, especially after learning that, despite a tie with Belinda Carlisle in a dance-off between the two contestants with the lowest combined judges' scores, Woz will stay to dance another night on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Woz's saving grace was his lead in viewer votes--clearly a case of Mac geeks joining forces to support one of their own.

To keep Woz in the game as long as possible, be sure to vote for him every Monday night while the show is airing and up tp 30 minutes after it ends by calling (800) 868-3410 or texting 3410 from your iPhone or other AT&T phone up to 13 times. You can also vote online until noon Eastern the following day.

Woz Hurts Foot, Nation of Nerds Holds its Breath

Roberto Baldwin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:47:12 -0500

ABC reports that our favorite nerd has injured his foot. NOOOO!!!!!!

Woz went to Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles with dance partner Karina Smirnoff because he was suffering from foot pain.

An MRI showed that Steve "Mad Teletubby" Woz had fractured his foot. Not one to give up in the face of adversity, Woz will continue to dance! He just needs to wear a removable cast and keep an eye on his foot.

Woz told doctors the reason he plans to continue his domination of 'DTWS' was that he, "loves being a part of such a good and important thing." We believe in you Woz!

Woz went on to say that his next dance will be, "wild and fast and all-over and crazy and fun, just like the first one."

Our prayers have been answered.

Podcast #80: Woz Gets Down and Gets Our Vote

Susie Ochs — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:06:00 -0500

The staff discusses the Woz DWTS appearance and we share our tips on how to vote for our favorite super-nerd. Vote early and often people! Plus, the NetBook rumors never seem to end.

A Northern-Ireland blues-rock band is chosen for our weekly, "Keep or Delete." Each week we download and review the free iTunes song of the week and decide whether we're going to keep or delete the file. This week's artist:

The Answer - Demon Eyes

Don't forget, the Mac|Life staff would love to hear your thoughts, comments and ideas for the new podcast. Just leave a message on the Mac|Live question/comment line: (877) 404-1337, extension 622. Please limit the length of your messages to 1 minute max. We'll review these calls each week and feature our favorites, along with responses, on that week's podcast.

To subscribe to the Mac|Live podcast series through an RSS feed, click here; if you want to subscribe through the iTunes Store, click here.

Woz on Dancing with the Stars!

Susie Ochs — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:35:31 -0500

Ahhhh!!! How great was that, seriously?!

If you missed it, Dancingwiththestars.net claims to have the whole episode, but we're not having any luck getting it to work. (And the site has that super-annoying auto-playing music, which we hate.) Hrmph.

YouTube to the rescue! Here's his whole lovely, amazing segment for you to watch in amazement since it's so amazing.

Eeeeeeee! We really ain't seen nothing yet, ain't we? No, no we ain't.

If you want to see how the other, non-Woz contestants did, check out YouTube user DWTS2009, who has all the dances posted.

Oh, and VOTE FOR WOZ!!! (Yes, DWTS is one of those shows where the people vote for who's the most awesome.) Here's how it works. Online voting closed at Noon EST, so since we're out here on the Left Coast, we missed it. But hopefully you guys are TV- and/or Woz-obsessed enough to have voted already. (Isn't everyone? Just us? Oh. I see.) Ray dutifully voted 13 times!

Be sure to set your TiVos, DVRs, EyeTVs, BitTorrent clients, or whatever to catch the Dancing with the Stars judging show tonight, and more Dance Dance Woz-alution next week. Oh, by the way, it's not in the iTunes Store, even though lots of other ABC shows (including that awful, awful Bachelor) are. Go figure. THEY CAN'T HANDLE THE WOZ!!!

Apple Big Shots Take Over Reality TV (In My Dreams)

Susie Ochs — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:41:20 -0600

I know you're excited about Woz's upcoming appearance on "Dancing With the Stars," (premiering March 9 zomg!), and so am I. Seriously, I watch a lot of TV, and an embarrassing amount of that slo-mo train wreck known as reality TV. And although DWTS hasn't been on my Season Pass list before (how will I ever catch up?!?!), you know the addition of the ever-charming Woz will have me tuning in, like a nerd.

But then I got to thinking...what other reality shows would be made a million times more awesome with the addition of an Apple bigwig to the cast? Um, yeah, that would be all of them. Like these here. (Got more ideas? Comment away!)

Steve Jobs
"Survivor"

Look, it's no question that El Jobso would be a natural for "Survivor," and not just because he is an actual survivor, having beaten pancreatic cancer. He's definitely outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted in his professional career -- his triumphant return to Apple, the sweet, sweet deal he got for Pixar? Come on!

And as someone who's watched every season of "Survivor," I can tell you he's got the charismatic leader thing down as well as any of the show's winners. The guy's got the genius of Yul plus the toughness of Tom and the coolness of Earl, all wrapped up in a sassy black turtleneck. (That's another thing! Sensible clothing! No wearing a suit for 39 days for him, although we'd recommend pants that dry a little quicker than Levi's, in case he has to wrestle an alligator or something.) Can't you just see him putting the Reality Distortion Field on the jury members at the final tribal council? They don't stand a chance.

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Tim Cook
"Top Chef"

If Apple were a restaurant, Steve Jobs would probably be the owner or maitre d' -- something high profile, front of the house, out in the spotlight. Chief Operations Officer Tim Cook would be in the back, firmly in charge, making sure the products being delivered -- the food, duh -- lived up to the high standards and creative vision that keeps the diners coming back for more.

Tim handles the company's "worldwide sales and operation, including end-to-end management of Apple's supply chain," which frankly sounds a lot harder than, say, opening a restaurant overnight in the famous "Top Chef" Restaurant Wars challenge. So if he can oversee the creation of technical wonderproducts like the iPhone, iPod, and those computers Apple also makes, I bet he could whip up some tasty fois gras nachos with bacon foam, prepared in 10 minutes using only a single propane burner. Plus, um, his last name is Cook. So there's that.

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Jonathan Ive
"Top Design"

Apple's senior vice president of industrial design has already won numerous design awards -- the dude was named Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of the Arts! That sounds impressive, having two "royals" in there like that. So it's a no-brainer to let his talents crush all comers on "Top Design," a competition for interior designers.

Although Ive is one of the more mysterious members of Apple's upper-uppers, it's cool -- "Top Design" is a little boring as a show, so he'd totally stand out, class it up, and keep everyone (OK, especially Apple geeks) capitvated. Plus, don't you want to see how he'd incorporate touchscreens, clickwheels, and iSights into the ultimate living room?

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Scott Forstall
"Big Brother"

Scott is the senior vice president of iPhone software, and he would completely rule on "Big Brother," no questions asked. First he'd write some crazy iPhone software that can remotely control all 9 million cameras installed around the "Big Brother" house. Then he'd hack into the control room's operating system to delete any unflattering footage (like there would be any -- the man is good looking and that's all there is to it), and then just for kicks he'd overhaul the "Big Brother" website's horrible UI. And that's just on the first day. Hopefully being surrounded by more typical "Big Brother" contestants won't cause Scott's big old brain to shrivel and die...

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Phil Schiller
"The Amazing Race"

Phil is the senior vice president of worldwide product marketing -- that's WORLDWIDE, my friends. Who knows how many languages this man can speak, what kind of air-travel ninja skills he possesses, or how beloved he is by the indiginous peoples of Burkina Faso or wherever he's sent by Phil Keoghan on the rrrrrrace around the world.

OK, and check out those guns in the picture. Plus, after the way he rocked Apple's last Macworld Expo keynote ever, don't you think he'd fly through whatever Road Blocks and Detours the show could throw at him?

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Katie Cotton
"Deal or No Deal"

Katie Cotton at Macworld Expo 2007; Creative Commons-licensed image by Violet Blue.

Sure, it's more of a game show, but Katie's got game. As Apple's vice president of worldwide corporate communications, she's the main gatekeeper between a world that can't get enough inside info on Apple's products and business, and the tight-lipped company itself. This kind of tightrope act would make her an excellent "Deal or No Deal" contestant: all business, not prone to embarrassing bursts of emotion, and able to shut down Howie Mandell's incessant yammering with a steely "No comment," while she quietly goes about the business of "no-dealing" every crappy offer, bringing the banker to his knees, and winning the million without breaking a sweat.

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Bertrand Serlet
"American Idol"

Honestly? I adore his charming French accent and think he'd have a lovely singing voice. And that's it.

DWTS - Not the First Woz Pic with a Hot Chick

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:06:09 -0600

Yeah, Woz has been the golden nerd of celebrities for what seems like an eternity. Here is a sweet pic of Woz with "Diamond" David Lee Roth from, we're guessing, the US Festival in 1983.

Quick bit 'o history, Woz put together two musical festivals in the early 80s known as the US Festivals. Woz put tons of his own money into the events. That's dedication. We're guessing this pic was taken before Van Halen's swear-filled appearance at the 1983 US Festival.

Anywho, Woz and Dave look especially awesome in this pic, and check out the guns on Woz.

Dancing with the Stars Woz Promo Pic

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:09:35 -0600

The most important event of the year is quickly approaching. The arrival of the new iPhone? No way! Woz's appearence on Dancing with the Stars.

ABC has released the DWTS promo pics today. We pretty much don't care about anyone else on the show, so here is Woz's pic.

Mac|Life DWTS expert, Leslie Ayers says that Woz is lucky to get Karina Smirnoff.

Yes, yes he is.

Via ohnotheydidn't