CLImax: yet another shell before Mac OS X
There are many misconceptions about the Macintosh before the arrival of Mac OS X. One of them is the absence of a shell, a command line interface.
Although it is true that until 2001 Apple never provided one out of the box, there have been many ways to obtain such an interface, including Apple’s own MPW package for developers and a plethora of third parts applications and utilities. Among these was an AppleScript command interface for the System 7 called CLImax that was developed around 1996 by Drew Thaler.
Since we interviewed Drew a while ago about his work for Apple we also asked him to tell us the background story about this peculiar shell for the so-called “Classic” Mac OS.
Drew Thaler: I was in university at the time, and everyone in the engineering department spent a lot of time using the command-line interfaces on Unix systems. (SunOS, HP-UX, Apollo, etc.) The Mac had a few types of command-lines — MPW, MacPerl, and so on – but there was no reason to use most of them, because really the way you interacted with the Mac was through GUI apps and that’s where your data was kept.
But there was a text-based way to talk to the GUI applications on your Mac: AppleScript.
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Apple’s software lineup in 2001
In 2001 Apple was still at the beginning of its slow transition from the Mac OS 9 era into the X one and also building up what would become a prominent role in the desktop video market.
In may of that year a promotional video was released in which Steve Jobs showed off the first Apple Store: in the last part the camera pans on the aisles and we can take a look at the main software offerings from Apple, still a mix of classic product lines and solutions coming from the NeXT acquisition.
From left to right you can see boxes of Mac OS X 10.0, Mac OS 9, AppleWorks 6, Final Cut (Pro) 1.2.5, AppleShare IP, AppleCare while in the lower part are Apple Media (blank) CDs and WebObjects 5.
More hands of Cupertino
In “The hands Cupertino” it’s been stated that notwithstanding Apple’s long and heterogeneous output there is a constant in its promotional iconography: the use of hands.
To make the point more clear here are more examples, taken from a very wide spectrum of Apple products, strategies and eras.
Captain Crunch on Apple – original audio recording available
Just a short update to let you know there is also an unedited audio recording of the chat with Mr. Draper on which the “Captain Crunch on Apple – An interview with John Draper” piece is based.
You can find it in MP3 form in the Document Archive section of the Stories of Apple website together with other files and material of historic importance pertaining to Apple’s history, design, imagery, sales and legal matters.
Enjoy!
Captain Crunch on Apple – An interview with John Draper
Nota: l’intervista è disponibile anche in una versione tradotta in italiano su Storie di Apple.it
At the MOCA2008 “hacker camp” in Italy I had the pleasure to meet and speak with John T. Draper. Draper is better known as Captain Crunch a man whose work and life are deeply intertwined with the history of hacking, phreaking and the personal computer industry.
Here’s the transcription of the short chat we had, which verged mostly on his interactions with Apple, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and also his use of Macs.
Stories of Apple: What’s the story behind you doing the Apple II phone board?
John Draper: Let’s start talking a bit about how I met Steve Wozniak. [...] He contacted me when I was a DJ at KKUP radio. He asked whether or not I could come down and see his bluebox. He wanted me to show him how to use it. I was very suspicious of him. It was at a time during which there was a lot of busts going on and I thought this might have been a setup.
So I made my arrangements to go see him without having anything on me and illegal things not being there. When I saw him he showed me the bluebox: I was not impressed.
The problem with this bluebox was that it had a square wave instead of a sine wave: the tones are not pure, They sound crappy and anybody using one of those Woz’s blueboxes would often drop a trouble card in the switch because the switch wouldn’t recognize tones and wouldn’t accept them.
[...] As my relationship with him grew [...] he introduced me to Steve Jobs. (more…)