Macintosh Folklore Radio

You Guys Are In Big Trouble!

Derek Warren — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:02:00 -0700

Steve gives the Macintosh team permission to destroy an annoying alarm system.

Thanks again to James and John at the Retro Mac Cast (www.retromaccast.com) for mentioning MFR. The Retro Mac Cast has a welcoming and relaxing feel, and is packed with enough Apple history to satisfy both new and long-time Apple cult members alike.

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Do It

Derek Warren — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:48:00 -0700

The team figures out why a user became flustered during a round of software testing.

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I Still Remember Regions

Derek Warren — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 01:05:00 -0700

The team almost loses Bill Atkinson to a car accident.

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Creative Think

Derek Warren — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:45:00 -0700

Notes from Alan Kay’s seminar, ca. 1982.

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Bob Hearn's "A Brief History of ClarisWorks"

Derek Warren — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:47:00 -0700

Bob Hearn details the rise and fall of ClarisWorks. Original text from http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bob/clarisworks.php.

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Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Derek Warren — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:34:00 -0700

Steve toys with a dull interview candidate.

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Signing Party

Derek Warren — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:15:00 -0800

The artists sign their work.

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Mr. Macintosh

Derek Warren — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:17:00 -0800

Steve comes up with a unique idea for an Easter egg.

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Desk Ornaments

Derek Warren — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 21:12:00 -0800

A brief history of desk accessories.

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Hungarian

Derek Warren — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:42:00 -0800

The Mac team borrows some code from the Lisa group and discovers that it is written in an unusual style of programming.

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Joining the Mac Group

Derek Warren — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:05:00 -0800

The Reality Distortion Field changes Bruce’s mind about working at Apple.

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Apple II Mouse Card

Derek Warren — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:52:00 -0800

Warning: heavy technical content. Burrell, Andy and Bill Budge create a full-blown graphical user interface environment for the Apple II. This story has been in production since September 2006 and has sat around long enough to witness the Studio C upgrade, four weeks of the flu, hours of re-reading… but finally, here it is. Happy New Year!

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Software Wizard

Derek Warren — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:35:00 -0800

The Mac group gets business cards. The version of this story featured in “Revoultion in the Valley” adds, “My nomination for the weirdest Apple business card title goes to Ed Tecot, whose title was ‘Not Andy Hertzfeld’. I never knew whether to take that as a compliment or a slur.”

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I Don't Have a Computer

Derek Warren — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:14:00 -0800

Bruce Horn runs into a minor problem when trying to write software for the Macintosh project.

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-2000 Lines of Code

Derek Warren — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 18:48:00 -0800

Bill Atkinson thwarts management’s attempt to measure developer productivity.

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Shut Up!

Derek Warren — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 01:04:00 -0800

July 1981. The first demonstration of the Macintosh to Microsoft. What are the chances that someone recently said, “We can ship a brown MP3 player before you can!” to Steve Ballmer?

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Donkey

Derek Warren — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 22:39:00 -0800

The team discovers who wrote an awkward game for IBM PC DOS 1.0.

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Calculator Construction Set

Derek Warren — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:19:00 -0800

Chris Espinosa tries to make a Steve-approved calculator.

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PC Board Esthetics

Derek Warren — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 12:14:00 -0800

Steve raises some concerns about the esthetics of the Mac’s motherboard.

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Diagnostic Port

Derek Warren — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:00:00 -0700

Burrell tries to sneak in some hardware expandability. Thanks for staying tuned while MFR recovered from a brutal flu.

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MFR Housekeeping, Sept. 2006

Derek Warren — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 21:21:00 -0700

Housekeeping for September 2006: Notes and answers to questions that have been popping up in Studio C’s inbox.

File Download (3:27 min / 2.5 MB)

Early Demos

Derek Warren — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 09:35:49 -0700

Early software demonstrations showed off what the Mac hardware could do.

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Square Dots

Derek Warren — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 01:30:00 -0700

The story of the Lisa’s vertical/horizontal resolution disparity. If you ever saw a Lisa whose display was “squished” vertically via the CRT adjustment knobs, this is why!

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Pineapple Pizza

Derek Warren — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 23:15:00 -0700

The team stays late to watch the first printed circuit board come to life.

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Round Rectangles Are Everywhere!

Derek Warren — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 23:53:00 -0700

Steve inspires Bill with detail from the real world.

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A Message for Adam

Derek Warren — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 15:51:00 -0700

The Mac team encounters Adam Osborne at the West Coast Computer Faire.

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He's Only in Field Service

Derek Warren — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:06:00 -0700

Burrell talks serial controllers with a Zilog representative. Contributed by Steve Blank.

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Bicycle

Derek Warren — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 20:06:00 -0700

Mac team engineering manager Rod Holt wanted to change the name of the project after Jef Raskin’s departure. Some genius did indeed reverse-engineer an acronym for “Macintosh”: “Most Applications Crash, If Not, The Operating System Hangs”. Likewise, we all know that Windows really stands for “Will Install Needless Data Over Whole System”, and that Vista stands for “Viruses, Infections, Spyware, Trojans and Adware”. Vista supposedly means ‘chicken’ in Latvian, so… long live Windows Chicken!

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More Like a Porsche

Derek Warren — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:35:00 -0700

The conception of the original Macintosh chassis. Naturally, I had to take a survey and ask how people preferred to say “Porsche” and “Cuisinart”... Thanks again for the cards and letters.

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Black Wednesday

Derek Warren — Fri, 26 May 2006 19:53:00 -0700

This is the highest-rated story at folklore.org, and for good reason—you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder how anybody ever got along with Steve Jobs. This episode has been the most fun to rehearse and produce so far and I hope it shows.

Not even 48 hours after I announced Macintosh Folklore Radio to the Mac press, I’ve had thousands of visitors from all over the world drop by and have pushed 20GB worth of stories. I started out with 6 people having listened to the welcome message and now over a thousand people have heard my floppy disk techno (thanks for the compliment, Edward).

I have been very, very touched by the few thank you e-mails that I received. I’m just getting started here!

File Download (9:20 min / 6.6 MB)

Reality Distortion Field

Derek Warren — Tue, 23 May 2006 21:39:00 -0700

Bud defines Steve’s unique talent for dealing with people.

The Reality Distortion Field can be experienced with or without Steve’s presence. Witness the number of Mac fanatics who have marched out and bought the new black MacBook, in essence paying an extra $200USD for a black paint job. I’m not wagging my finger at them—I want one too. Drink the Kool-Aid!

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Texaco Towers

Derek Warren — Tue, 23 May 2006 15:22:00 -0700

The office where the Mac became real. This is the last of the “building” stories.

File Download (5:10 min / 3.7 MB)

Good Earth

Derek Warren — Tue, 23 May 2006 02:01:00 -0700

The Mac team’s original office. Netscape’s campus may have had a parking lot dedicated to hockey, but daily Nerf-ball tag sessions seems like a lot of fun too…

File Download (5:18 min / 3.8 MB)

I Invented Burrell

Derek Warren — Thu, 18 May 2006 15:19:00 -0700

Burrell imitates Jef Raskin, the creator of the Macintosh Project.

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Scrooge McDuck

Derek Warren — Thu, 18 May 2006 14:07:00 -0700

The very first image displayed on the very first Macintosh.

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It's the Moustache that Matters

Derek Warren — Wed, 17 May 2006 20:00:00 -0700

Burrell figures out how to get promoted to engineer status. (And here I was feeling silly for not having a computer science degree…)

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We'll See About That

Derek Warren — Tue, 16 May 2006 16:09:00 -0700

Bill Atkinson introduces Burrell to Jef Raskin, who initiated (and then was kicked out of…) the Macintosh project.

Macintosh Folklore Radio is now a needle in a haystack—that is, we’re listed in the iTunes podcast directory now. Tell your friends!

File Download (3:24 min / 2.4 MB)

I'll Be Your Best Friend

Derek Warren — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:13:00 -0700

Burrell Smith, the Macintosh team’s hardware wizard, was creative at more than just engineering.

Burrell later co-founded Radius with Andy. Some of the advanced products that Radius produced include the famous Pivot Display, and the Rocket series of accelerator cards which could be run in parallel with one another. Cluster-in-a-box, anyone?