Michael Crichton used the Button matrix of the screen Map as inspiration for the ui of the computer systems in Jurassic Park while writing the book on a Mac.

Of course, in the movie it was “Unix! I know this!”

true – and also Macs, specifically Macintosh Quadra 700.

This movie brought me to Linux ("The Free Unix") and Mac.

It's not a Mac (in the "I know this!" scene), it's a Silicon Graphics workstation.

Although a Quadra running A/UX would have been a legitimate Unix at the time, too.

Correct, it's a SG Crimson (there's also an Indigo somewhere). But the other computers are Macintosh Quadra 700 – and 8 Connection Machines (CM5, so no XMP Cray as in the book) in the background providing the blinkenlights.

I am always amazed how much usability fit into these low resolution screens. Today's software designer really struggle in usability although they have enough space.

Brevity is the soul of wit. Efficient design takes serious discipline - hard when optional but forced when resource constrained.

Heh. I worked on GEIS AppleLink. It was my first Mac job.

Was this using GEnie as the back end? When I first got my modem, I was on both CompuServe and GEnie before moving on to local BBSes.

(author) Both GEnie and AppleLink used the same backend, which GE called the Mark III network, so there were some operational similarities.

Possibly. That sounds familiar. Most of the backend folks actually worked on EDI stuff. Lot of money movement, so we weren't involved that much.

(author) Front end or back end? Anything interesting about its operation or the protocols?

Front end. I was a Mac programmer.

It was basically AOL. I am pretty sure that AppleLink became the basis for the first AOL clients (or vice-versa). We had the exact same "You've Got Mail!" sound, and a lot of the same graphic assets.

My claim to fame, was disassembling Finder, to nail a mistake in Apple documentation.

Back then, processes could communicate directly with each other. Security folks would absolutely defecate masonry, if they saw what it was like.

The issue was that we used Pascal strings, and one of the structures that was used to share information between processes, had a Pascal string (one-byte length, followed by up to 255 bytes of ASCII string).

Their docs said it was optimized (no padding beyond word), so a 2-character string would take 4 bytes (1 length, 2 string, 1 pad).

In fact, they always reserved the entire 256 bytes, and ignored the bytes beyond the end of the string.

I had to actually disassemble Finder, to figure that out.

This is neither here, nor there, but GEIS was the most dysfunctional organization I ever worked for. In the 18 months I worked for them, they had 3 reorgs.

Wow, cool to hear stories like this.

> $16,150 … in 2024 dollars

The self-reinforcing improvement loop that is technology is absolutely magical. So many things get better and cheaper, faster and faster.

It’s true but a lot of the reduction in price is having a mature manufacturing industry that the components can be sourced from.

Maturing industry is a form of technological development. Better tech = better manufacturing techniques, from resource gathering up to the retailing system. Mining and manufacturing are more and more mechanized and automated, and lots of the retail end is online, complete with automated logistics.

To say nothing of the fundamentally better chip designs we have.

We're making better things, in a better way, faster and cheaper; and each improvement reverberates through the system making everything else cheaper, better, and faster.

Snow White Apple was the best Apple

Will you image the drive anywhere? It sounds like a ticking time bomb, and it's so interesting it'd be cool to be able to look through it/through the beta System 6.0.6 software

Use the rolling ball from mac portable since 1990s d never looked back. Mouse on its back I call.

It’s GE ad