The Apple IIsi
Codenamed “Centossa”, the Apple IIsi was the swan song of the Apple II line: dating back to the first half of 1988 and envisioned as an heir of the IIgs.
The Apple IIsi predates the Mac IIsi with whom it shares not only the name but also some form elements and is probably one of the lesser known Apple products of the Eighties. Its mastermind is Jean-Louis Gassèe, head of R&D after Jobs departure and it si just one of the many projects which were started after the successful launch of the Mac II in 1987.
The industrial design of Apple IIsi is of course heavily based on the form factor of the Apple IIgs for hardware reasons, but also shines on its own, thanks to the work of Ken Wood and Robert Brunner of the Palo Alto studio Lunar Design. In fact this was proably one of the jobs that helped Brunner later becoming the head of a reformed Apple IDG (Industrial Design Group), envisioning new guidelines and a brand new direction after the frogdesign era.
Meet the Apple 32 SuperMicros
In the original press release from January 1984 one could read that the
Macintosh, along with three powerful new Lisa 2 computers, forms the basis of the Apple 32 SuperMicro family of computers. All systems in the family run Macintosh software.
and that
“We believe that Lisa Technology represents the future direction of all personal computers,” said Steven P. Jobs, Chairman of the Board of Apple. “Macintosh makes this technology available for the first time to a broad audience–at a price and size unavailable from any other manufacturer. By virtue of the large amount of software written for them, the Apple II and the IBM PC became the personal-computer industry’s first two standards. We expect Macintosh to become the third industry standard.”
This was actually a marketing attempt Apple made to capitalize on the distinction between the old 8 and 16 bit and the newer and more powerful 32 bit microcomputers and at the same time a way to present the Mac and the Lisa together to help a bit with the (poor) sales of its’ first computer with a GUI.
The “Apple 32 SuperMicros” monicker was actually used internally at Apple since November 1983 and than used in some of the promotional material the following year, grouping the Mac with three Lisa configurations (without an external hard drive, and with a 5 MB or 10 MB ProFile drive).
The brochure scans are taken from ballistikcoffeeboy ’s photostream on Flickr.
Happy birthday, Macintosh!
The motherboard pictured was gently provided by Maurizio Buso
Ten years ago: the Power Macintosh G3 Blue & White
Jan. 5, 1999 was also the date on which Apple introduced the new Power Macintosh G3, a new Macintosh line which, according to Steve Jobs, was meant to “crush the competition with its raw power, graphics performance and industrial design”.
The new Power Mac G3 featured new copper-based PowerPC processors from 300 up to 400MHz (later upgraded to 450), an ATI RAGE 128 16MB video card, two USB and two 400 Mbps Firewire ports (an industry first), retained an ADB legacy port, and most of all was housed in a striking translucent blue and “ice” (white) minitower enclosure.
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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…)