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From: hooverb@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu (Bruce Hoover)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Tell me:  what was System 1.0 like?
Message-ID: <1515@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu>
Date: 10 May 91 05:33:08 GMT
References: <13942@ur-cc.UUCP>
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From article <13942@ur-cc.UUCP>, by hlsw_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Dave Hollinsworth):
> With 7-Day rapidly approaching, let's get nostalgic, shall we?
> 
> I've only had a Mac for 2 years, so I'll let the oldtimers answer the
> question:  What was the original Mac system (1.0) like?  (Note:  if 1.0
> wasn't stable, then what was the first stable system after 1.0 like?)
>

Well, for starters, in the begining Apple didn't give a single number to
the entire system software package. Thus you might be using finder 5.??
with system 3.?? but ImageWriter 2.?? etc. etc. It got fairly confusing
just trying to remember what went with what.

It is hard to remember just what has changed, but I remember
"mini-finders" for one. I don't know when they left, but the idea was
that if you had a (400K) disk with so much stuff on it that there was no
room for a finder (remember that we all had only one 400K drive) then
you put a mini-finder which just listed the available programs.

Of course HFS was a real treat after the original system where folders
were purely cosmetic. Whenever an open box etc. came up, every file on
the entire device was listed. It also meant that you could not have two
files by the same name in different folders. (That is why you still see
some folders with the option f character after the name of the folder.
This way you could name the folder "AppX f" and the application inside
could be named AppX.

There have been a myriad of small changes over the past 7 years. We used
to have Choose Printer instead of Chooser... the control panel looked
different (it was all on one "page" and didn't allow for Cdevs.) 

At first we only had MacPaint and MacWrite and the windows (especially
MacPaint) wouldn't resize. It also seems that the disk icons, etc would
zoom differently than now. Now they more or less zoom from where they
are, whereas in the early sysem, them seemed to sort of fly out toward
the middle of the screen, and then zoom (the reverse on close).

Another feature  was the fact that if you launched an application from a
desk with a system folder, then that disk became your new start-up disk.
I also remember when the 512k first arrived (we called them "Fat Macs').
We all wondered why it still took about 20 million disk swaps to copy a
400k disk, with all that 'extra' ram. A serious case of Mac Elbow...

I'm sure that I have forgotten a lot. Somebody else?...
Bruce