Advent of Computing - Episode 29.5 - A Guided Tour of the Macintosh

Episode Date: May 10, 2020

In this byte sized episode I take a look at a pack in that came with the first Macintosh. Along side Apple stickers, manuals, and the computer itself there was a single cassette tape labeled "A Guided Tour of the Macintosh". The purpose? It's a strange addition to the Mac's packing, but a great example of Apple's attention to detail and ingenuity. Like the show? Then why not head over and support me on Patreon. Perks include early access to future episodes, and stickers: https://www.patreon.com/adventofcomputing Important dates in this episode: 1984: A Guided Tour of the Macintosh Released

Apple has always been meticulous in everything they do, at least product-wise. Their machines have been constructed with a special eye for detail from day one. Even the packing of each of their products is well thought out and designed. And sometimes that can go a little bit further than you'd expect. The packing for the original Macintosh is a great example of this. If you picked up one of these machines on release day in 1984, you were in for a real treat. The machine was packed up carefully in custom-formed styrofoam, with little cutouts to fit all the various parts and doodads that came with your new

computer. There was, of course, the Macintosh itself. Next to that were smaller boxes for the custom keyboard and the ever-important mouse. It even came bundled with an Apple-branded power cable. But the first thing that any proud new Mac owner saw was what came at the very top of that box, tucked into a tiny insert in the foam packing. You had the user manual, a package of floppy disks, and a single cassette tape. Now, that last item there should seem a little bit out of place. Loading the tape into a cassette player, you'd be greeted by this. of Macintosh and insert it into the disk drive below the screen. Put it in with the metal end first and the label up. Push it all the way in. Welcome back to Advent of Computing. I'm your host, Sean Haas, and this is a bite-sized episode, a guided tour of the Macintosh. Today, we're looking

at one of Apple's more esoteric products. It's a 60-minute long cassette tape and accompanying program that introduced new users to their Macintosh. It's one of those things that just seems odd on the surface. When you look at it a little more closely, there are some good reasons for its creation, but when listening to this tape today, I can't help but chuckle at how anachronistic it all seems. So let's take a look at what possessed Apple to produce an hour-long audio experience to ship alongside the Macintosh. No matter how you look at it, the Macintosh was a groundbreaking computer. Sure, it wasn't the first machine to sport a graphical user interface, but it would thrust the technology into the public eye. For most users, it was the first

time they would see graphics of any kind on a computer, and it was the first time they would see graphics of any kind on a computer, and it was the first time they would see a mouse. What's more, for a lot of consumers, it was their first experience with a computer of any kind. Nothing quite like it had broken out into the market before, and at the time, no competitor made anything close to the Macintosh. The best comparison to a contemporary machine would have to be the IBM PC. Released just three years prior, the PC is another pivotal home computer. It was an almost overnight success, quickly finding its way into homes and offices around the world. And in a lot of ways, IBM was able to really crack the code for creating a truly personal computer. Despite being hugely successful and hugely influential,

IBM's new machine wasn't all that user-friendly. The machine came with a copy of Microsoft DOS, a text-based operating system, and that was the only way to really use the computer. For the technically inclined, it wasn't that hard to learn how to get the most out of their purchase, but it wasn't for everyone. And partly this was by design. The PC was intended as a computer that was accessible enough to be in the home or in the office. To quote one of IBM's magazine ads from 1982, quote,

It's a tool that could soon be on your desk, in your home, or in your child's school room. It can make a surprising difference in the way you work, learn, or otherwise approach the complexities and some of the simple pleasures of living. End quote. The PC was put forth as a tool, albeit one that's cheap and simple enough to bring into the home. It's a serious machine for serious business. After all, the B in IBM does stand for business. And that means that it had

some serious documentation to go alongside it. The manuals that came with the PC are two-inch thick hard-bound spiral binders. Each even come in their own little cardboard sleeve. A set of three came packed with the computer. One for DOS, a guide to operations, and a basic manual. Not really the most approachable start to learn computing. Fast forward to 1984, and Apple's approach couldn't have been more different. Release day ads touted the Macintosh as, quote, the computer for the bemused, confused, and intimidated, end quote. The whole point of the computer was to be a useful tool for anyone, not just existing computer users. A graphical interface, a mouse, and all the little touches that Apple put into making the Mac approachable, well, they went a long way towards that goal.

But here's where you run into a problem. The Mac was a totally new kind of system, and it was marketed to people who had never used a computer before. It may seem weird to think about it today, but in 1984, no one outside of Apple, Xerox, and an assortment of labs knew what a computer mouse was. And describing how to use the new system with just a block of text in a manual could only go so far. Apple had to get a little bit inventive to make it as approachable as possible. This is when we arrive at the guided tour of the Macintosh. Loading up the tape introduces users to their new computer with plenty of accompanying music. To start with,

it walks you through the setup of the system. Turn it on, load in a floppy disk. Specifically, it instructs the user to load a disk labeled Guided Tour of the Macintosh, the accompanying software. From there, things start to get a little more interesting. To start the first session, without touching the mouse button, position the pointer to point inside the box that says, Show me my electronic desk. Don't click the mouse button yet. In a moment, you'll hear a series of three tones. By clicking the mouse button, as soon as you hear the third tone, you'll synchronize the actions on your Macintosh to the words on your tape. If you make a mistake in synchronizing the two, don't panic. Don't try to stop the Macintosh. Once everything's synced up properly, the computer will play back a recorded series of mouse movements with the tape acting as narration.

When it lines up, it's a really neat effect. When it doesn't, it's a little bit useless, but I think that can be forgiven for the constraints that Apple is working with. What makes it so interesting is that it's such a strange way to work around the limitations of the Macintosh. It would have been ideal to have something like a video or an interactive demo with narration play on the computer itself. But in 1984, that simply wasn't an option. The original Macintosh just wasn't capable of rendering a video long enough. The floppy disk drives couldn't even store enough data for an audio track of that length. The effect of the computer doing the work on its own is accomplished with a feature the Mac team called journaling. It's a neat trick. It records a user's actions on the computer, saves that down to a file,

and then lets you replay those actions at a later date. This was developed specifically for the guided tour disc, and it's a pretty neat trick. Each part of the tour just plays back a journaled session that lines up with narration from the cassette. When you get down to it, though, the guided tour is still pretty buggy, as neat as it may seem. For instance, you can drop out of the recorded tour to use pretty buggy, as neat as it may seem. For instance, you can drop out of the recorded tour to use the actual Finder desktop. Once loaded up, you can move, delete, and edit files as you see fit. It's easy to get the disk into a state where the journal tour simply doesn't work anymore. Another oddity is the About the Finder box reports the system as Finder 1.0, with a build

date of December 1983, so it seems that the tour shipped with some weird pre-release build of Mac OS. But despite all the flaws, this is a very interesting piece of Apple history. That's it for a quick look at the guided tour of the Macintosh. It's a strange cassette and a strange program, but it made for an effective tool in teaching a new user about the machine, and likely it worked a lot better than the diagrams and text that came in the accompanying manual. Thanks for listening to Advent of Computing.

I'll be back soon with a normal-sized episode. And hey, if you like the show, there are now a few ways you can support it. If you know someone else who would like the show, then why not take a minute to share it with them? You can also rate and review me on Apple Podcasts. And if you want to be a super fan, then you can support the show through Advent of Computing merch or signing up as a patron on Patreon. Patrons get early access to episodes, polls for the can support the show through Admin of Computing merch or signing up as a patron on Patreon. Patrons get early access to episodes, polls for the direction of the show, and

other assorted perks. You can find links to everything on my website, adminofcomputing.com. If you have any comments or suggestions for a future episode, then go ahead and shoot me a tweet. I'm at adminofcomp on Twitter. And remember, don't panic. Don't try to stop the Macintosh.