Byte Cellar

Apple's iPad: The Dynabook, And The Future Of Computing, Has Arrived

Look closely. The device you see above is the future of computing. And I guarantee it.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010. A day to remember. That is the day that Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and showed the iPad to the world for the first time. A man who has the prescience of vision to sense when he's about to make a dent in the universe, Jobs chose a center for the arts as the venue for the iPad's unveiling. A telling choice. You see, it turns out that the arrival of forces which will affect paradigm shifts in the way we live our lives seem to have a knack for entering the world through houses of the arts. So it was at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts on January 24, 1984 when Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh [ video ], completely changing the interface between man and machine, turning computers from cold command lines into approachable assistants for everyone. Many in the tech industry consider that date to be the most important in Apple's history -- the day upon which Apple made its biggest contribution to the world.

I am writing here today to posit that what Apple gave to the world over 25 years ago doesn't compare to what took place just four days ago at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Wednesday, January 27, 2010. Apple's single most brilliant moment. That is the day that everything changed, whether or not the world yet realizes it.

In 1968 a man called Alan Kay shared his vision of a personal computer of a tablet form-factor that was meant to be a true assistant. Easy to use and friendly for children, his "Dynabook" would feature a graphical user interface (which, at the time, did not yet exist) and would be nothing like any computer of the day. Shortly thereafter, when Xerox PARC came to be, Kay was given the opportunity to pursue his vision. To these ends he created an object oriented programming language (coining the term) called Smalltalk (which happens to be the basis of Objective-C, the native programming language of Apple's Mac OS X) as well as the graphical user interface, which could first be seen on the Xerox Alto in 1973.

Xerox PARC was perhaps the worlds most glorious research lab at the time, with much more of an academic than a corporate atmosphere. And, while many landmark technologies that shaped the world were created there, Xerox the corporation was not particularly interested and/or effective in bringing them to market. In December 1979 Steve Jobs famously visited PARC and, noting the obvious rightness of what was shown on the Alto, labored to bring the technology to the masses. This came first through the Apple Lisa and then through the Macintosh, which was the first personal computer with a graphical user interface targeting consumers.

At the time of the Macintosh's introduction, I recall reading a great many pundits denouncing the GUI as a gimmick, a toy. These people scoffed at the experience of using the Macintosh as an exercise in dragging around pretty pictures as opposed to getting real work done. Well, we see how that turned out, in the end. When is the last time you bought a computer that booted up to a command line?

Was it the Dynabook? Well, it was close on a number of counts. But the interface, for all its friendliness, was still less than ideal, as the late Jef Raskin, interface guru and initial head of the Macintosh project, would note.

Flash forward 23 years and Steve Jobs takes the stage once again, this time to unveil the iPhone, a communications device like no other, featuring a revolutionary multitouch display. (I was in the audience on that memorable day, as was Alan Kay.) Its intuitive interface and overall collection of technologies set it far apart from its "rivals." And, thanks to its rich, freely available development environment along with an excellent application distribution model built on Apple's long-running iTunes network, it's nearly impossible to walk down the street without seeing someone fingering that multitouch interface. It really is a game-changing device.

But it's quite small.

The diminutive size of the iPhone and its screen, while making it the ultimate app phone, locks it in a different realm than a user's "real" computer. Of the iPhone, Dynabook visionary Alan Kay said,

When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it's the first personal computer worth criticizing. So at the end of the [iPhone] presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you'll rule the world.

For the sorts of applications that people run on their laptop or desktop, the iPhone's small screen is a prison. Oh, how nice it would be to have that multitouch interface on a full-sized device. After all, we were all wowed by Microsoft Surface, weren't we? But that's more or less a tech demo. It's a table with a projector inside and it costs over $12,000.

And, so, this past Wednesday Steve Jobs showed us something new. "This will be the most important thing I've ever done," says Jobs of Apple's new offering. It's not an app phone. It's not a laptop. It's something in between, he tells us. But what it really is is a consumer-priced, full-sized multi-touch platform that is open to a massive audience of developers. Arnold Kim of MacRumors, who shares the sentiment, points to iPhone developer Joe Hewitt, author of the popular Facebook app, who gave up on the App Store. The prospects of the iPad, however, have Hewitt quite excited.

iPad is an incredible opportunity for developers to re-imagine every single category of desktop and web software there is. Seriously, if you're a developer and you're not thinking about how your app could work better on the iPad and its descendants, you deserve to get left behind.

Steven Frank, co-founder of Panic and a long-time Newton aficionado says that the iPad (as well as the iPhone) represent the New World of computing. This, opposed to the Old World of computing, which is made up primarily of Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The Old World is one of dealing with a cluttered filesystem, multitasking (at the cost of performance and stability), and of the age-old desktop metaphor. The New World of computing, as Frank tells it, is one that is task-centric (which was Jef Raskin's idea of the UI Holy Grail). Pesky details like files are more or less hidden. It involves direct -- literally hands on -- manipulation of data. It brings with it stability and an ease of use so great that any child or elderly newbie can use it without a manual. As Frank tells it, the days of Old World computing are numbered. And he's absolutely correct.

Of this past Wednesday, Frank says

In that really incredibly short space of time we've gone from punchcards-and-printers to interactive terminals with command lines to window-and-mouse interfaces, each a paradigm shift unto themselves. A lot of thoughtful people, many of whom are bloggers, look at this history and say, "Look at this march of progress! Surely the desktop + windows + mouse interface can't be the end of the road? What's next?"
Then "next" arrived and it was so unrecognizable to most of them (myself included) that we looked at it said, "What in the shit is this?"

You probably can't feel it yet. I didn't really feel it until about 3:30am this morning, when it hit me. The iPad is cheap and elegant and promises to bring all that is good about the iPod touch -- and so much more -- to the user. You will buy one. It will be fun to look at pictures by swiping about, to watch high quality video on the go, to browse the web in a portrait orientation while sitting on the couch sipping coffee. And maybe you'll spend all of $9.99 on Apple's Pages, or maybe Keynote (thanks App Store, for the new application pricing paradigm). And maybe a couple of the five productivity apps that OmniGroup just announced. And maybe the amazing paint application Brushes. And, of course, a Facebook client and a Twitter client and an AIM client. And perhaps Quicken to help with taxes -- oh wait -- that's already web-based -- no sweat. And perhaps...

And perhaps you will realize that you really don't have a reason to fire up your laptop or desktop computer any longer. Perhaps, without even noticing it happen, you will find yourself standing firmly in the New World of computing.

Does that seem a bit much? Stop for a moment and ask yourself what it is that you need to accomplish on your current computer that cannot, with the quick and inevitable evolution of apps for this New World device once it hits market, be accomplished on Apple's new platform. For most users, there's not much -- if anything. Under typical use, you will bring your iPad anywhere you like, carrying out this task or that, using the onscreen keyboard when needed. And then in "serious mode," you will belly up to a desk and dock the device to a keyboard, an iPad accessory the importance of which can't be overstated, for it's the keyboard that allows the device to fully replace your general purpose computer. I am no typical user, certainly. But all I need out of a computer that won't almost instantly be available for the iPad is Photoshop and iMovie. But, surely, in time, these apps will come.

And, of course, as with the iPhone, the entire industry will scramble to follow Apple's lead, casting aside the existing lot of "tablet PCs" with their wholly inappropriate desktop metaphors. It's certainly unenviable straits in which all other PC makers will find themselves, without the well-entrenched iTunes network that is already trusted by millions of users, their credit card information safely tucked away in Apple's servers. Obviously Google with Android will have the best chance of competing but, well...have you spent any time with an Android device?

Now, of course there are naysayers out there, and a great many of them in fact, just as there were with the original Macintosh, the iPod, and the iPhone. But, they won't be saying "nay" for long. I will go out on a limb right now -- and I don't think I'm going all that far out there on this one -- and say that in five years, the "computer user" who calls Apple their brand of choice will be using an evolution of the iPad and not a Macintosh. Oh, the Mac will certainly stick around for quite some time, but the transition has begun. I agree with Steven Frank's sentiment that, although Apple is calling the iPad a "third category" of device, they're just doing so in order not to scare us by too clearly underscoring the change that they have wrought and will soon be deploying into the world. The iPad represents the future of computing and Apple knows it. I realized this at 3:30am this morning and, soon, the skeptics reading this post will come to realize it, as well.

The future is here. Apple showed it to us four days ago in a center for the arts in San Francisco. And, from where I'm standing, it looks rather promising.

Yes, at long last, 42 years years after he envisioned it, Alan Kay's Dynabook has finally arrived. Welcome to the New World.

::: digg :::

Other iPad-related articles Well Worth a Read:

The iPad Is The Gadget We Never Knew We Needed
Thoughts on the iPad from Owen Goss
Same Ol' Same Ol'... by Jeff Lamarche
The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This

There's A New Amiga On The Way...And It's A Monster

When I was in college as a CS major I spent a great deal of time in the Sun lab. It was filled with, unsurprisingly, various Sun workstations (and even a few Tatung Sun clones). But over in the corner was something special: a MasPar fronted by a Vax. The MasPar is a massively parallel SIMD computer featuring a large number of CPU cores. The unit at Christopher Newport University, where I graduated, contained 1024 cross-linked cores in a toroid configuration (though the cabinet would accomodate 2^14 cores -- 16,384). Who would've thought that in 2010 you could put a massively parallel system on your desk...in the form of an Amiga?

A-EON started teasing the Amiga community not long ago with hints at a forthcoming new workstation capable of running AmigaOS 4.1. Recently the company ended the torment and announced the AmigaOne X1000, named in tribute to the Amiga 1000, the first Amiga, which debuted 25 years ago in 1985.

While a number of post-Commodore machines capable of running AmigaOS have come and gone from the market -- AmigaOne, Pegasos, SAMiga -- A-EON's forthcoming workstation is not just another moderately-powered PowerPC-based motherboard capable of running AmigaOS. It brings much more to the table.

What really set the original Amiga 1000 apart from the comparatively weak computers of the day, aside from its light-weight, multitasking operating system, was the set of custom chips that allowed the machine to deliver stunning graphics, full-screen animation, and high-quality, sampled, stereo audio -- firsts, on all fronts. Today, every PC has "custom chips" driving their graphics and audio. Any modern Amiga utilizes such technologies as a matter of course. What sets the AmigaOne X1000 apart from the rest is its use of customizable co-processors.

A-EON's forthcoming machine features a dual-core PowerPC on a custom motherboard known as "Nemo" (AmigaOS 4 is PowerPC-based) in a custom case featuring the classic Boing! ball, but that's not so very interesting. Of far more note is the unit's co-processor. The engineers at A-EON decided to utilize an XMOS Xcore processor, which they have dubbed "Xena," in the design of this latest Amiga. As Wikipedia describes the device,

It is a 32-bit quad-core processor, where each core runs up to 8 concurrent threads. It was available as of Autumn 2008 running at 400 MHz. Each thread can run at up to 100 MHz; four threads follow each other through the pipeline, resulting in a top speed of 1.6 GIPS for four cores if 16 threads are running. The XS1-G4 is a distributed memory multi core processor, requiring the end user and compiler to deal with data distribution. When more than 4 threads execute, the 400 MIPS of each core is equally distributed over all active threads. This allows the use of extra threads in order to hide latency.

A single unit sounds rather interesting from an architectural standpoint, but given the parallel nature of this architecture, additional cores can be chained together to deliver phenomenal computing power -- reference boards have chained together 256 cores, delivering a theoretical 102,400 MIPS. Chaining together more of these cores can be done by way of the AmigaOne X1000's Xorro slot, a PCIe x8 form factor that provides access to Xena's 64 programmable I/O lines.

The dual-core PowerPC (reference systems are being run at 1.6GHz, but the specific chip has net yet been revealed) already puts the AmigaOne X1000 far beyond any other Amiga -- such as the SAM440ep-Flex that I picked up recently -- in terms of performance, but it's really the potential of Xena that makes this system exciting as well as notably more powerful, in theory, than today's high-end Macs and PCs.

Specs of the AmigaOne X1000 as listed by A-EON:

ATX Formfactor
Dual-core PowerISA™ v2.04+ CPU
"Xena" XMOS XS1-L1 128 SDS
7.1 channel HD audio
4x DDR2 RAM slots
10x USB 2.0
1x Gigabit Ethernet
2x PCIe x16 slots (1x16 or 2x8)
2x PCIe x1 slots
1x Xorro slot
2x PCI legacy slots
2x RS232
4x SATA 2 connectors
1x IDE connector
JTAG connector
1x Compact Flash

The AmigaOne X1000 is set to arrive sometime before summer at a cost less than that of the original Amiga 1000 which, in '80s dollars, retailed for $1295. (Developer units will be available prior to that at a higher price-point.) Will I be buying one? I might let the dev units pass me by but, given the fun I've had with my SAMiga running AmigaOS 4.1 even with the rather limited free time in my life, I can say: definitely. (After I get the Minimig core installed on my C-One, that will make the AmigaOne X1000 the sixth Amiga in my collection.)

What can I say? Only Amiga makes it possible! I can't wait to get my hands on one.

The Soul of a New 16-bit Atari Micro

Some of you out there have likely read Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Soul of a New Machine, an inside look at the experiences of a group of Data General engineers in creating a new minicomputer back in the '70s. I only discovered this book, myself, four or five years ago. It's an extremely enjoyable read that set me searching for similar, up-close looks at the creation stories of some of the microcomputers that I know and loved in my youth.

I've managed to find a few such titles that I've enjoyed greatly, including:

The Little Kingdom by Michael Moritz -- An inside look at Apple in the early '80s, very similar in style to Kidder's work.
Steve Jobs & The NeXT Big Thing by Randall E. Stross -- A look at Steve Jobs' creation of NeXT Computer after his ousting from Apple in 1985. The book provides a detailed look at the company but, interestingly, was published in 1993, before NeXT took over Apple and NEXTSTEP became Mac OS X.
On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore by Brian Bagnall -- A behind-the-scenes look at the creation stories of Commodore computers, from the PET to the Amiga.
Dealers of Lightning: Xero PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age by Michael A. Hiltzik -- A close look at the creation of so many key computing technologies that sprang from a little research lab set in the hills of Palo Alto, back in the '70s.
Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made by Andy Herzfeld -- A series of short anecdotes that together provide an interesting look at how the Macintosh came to be.
Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything by Steven Levy -- The author's account of his first experiences with the prototype Macintosh and a look at its first 10 years.
The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven L. Kent -- A rather detailed look at the pinball and early arcade and home console video game scene, and the companies behind it.
Revolutionaries at Sony by Reiji Asakura -- The story that is the making of the Sony Playstation.

Some of these are out of print and required a little digging to get my hands on, but all are well worth a read. These books touch on many of the systems that I spent real time with over the years, but conspicuously absent is a look at the creation of the Atari ST, a machine with which I spent most of my free time during '86 and '87. I've never seen the saga of this fast-tracked, 16-bit Atari told in any detail. That is, until I ran across a series of posts on the unassuming blog of a man who was a member of the Atari ST design team.

Landon Dyer ended up working for Atari in the early '80s thanks to entering an Atari-sponsored programming contest in which he submitted an assembly-based Centipede clone written on his Atari 400 hooked to a black and white TV. (The author of Atari's "official" Centipede cartridge called Dyer's version better than his own.) Flash forward a few years -- Jack Tramiel buys Atari and Dyer finds himself one of the lucky few not laid off, and on the Atari ST team.

His two-part blog post gives some very nice details regarding just what was going on behind closed doors while the Atari ST was in the oven.

Before the ST hardware started to work, we had to use existing 68000-based systems for cross development. The graphics guys had Apple Lisas that were running CP/M-68K; the Lisas had nice bitmap displays which we used as "practice" STs. The disks on these machines took forever to come back after a crash (tens of minutes). For some reason the boot code on these machines had been written to display a bitmap of a fish. You'd hear a mutter or curse from down the hall (crash), then the creaky footsteps of someone walking around, cooling their heels and waiting for their "God damned" Lisa Profile drives to boot, then a triumphant yell "CarpDOS!" and typing sounds.

Don't miss this very enjoyable read or Dyer's blog, DadHacker (which has been online since mid-2002), chocked full of excellent geek content. Hats off, Landon.

Links: The Atari ST (part 1), The Atari ST (part 2)

My Awesome '80s Retro Swatch Watch

So, I got a new watch, and it's pretty awesome.

The Swatch 'A Thousand Crossings' (SUIB 100) is the first Swatch I've worn in over 15 years. I saw it online and instantly fell in love with its powerful, glowing aura of the '80s. It's a great addition to my small collection of geek watches.

Can't you just hear the Thompson Twins and Men Without Hats playing in the background?

Can A Computer Make You Cry?

I started life on a TI-99/4A. After a year or so I sold it and got what I considered my first "real" computer, the just-released Apple //c in the first half of 1984. (No offense to TI-99 aficionados intended.) In that time, the most compelling home computer game studio was Electronic Arts. Back then they spoke of their developers as "software artists" and produced a series of ads that depicted them as rockstars. Their game packaging even looked like an LP sleeve. I recall those ads well and they fed into the mythos that was the Electronic Arts game studio. I had so much fun with Archon, Pinball Construction Set, Music Construction Set, and Seven Cities of Gold in those days it's silly.

I recall the ads in magazines of the time. EA was such a great force in the home computing scene back then. Neil Young of major iPhone game studio ng:moco often invokes those heady days of garage programmers and true, indie, creative gamemaking.

Three or four years ago I decided I really wanted to grab one of the EA rockstar / "We See Farther" / "Can a video game make you cry" ad posters for the wall of my own personal Byte Cellar. I looked high and low for quite a while, but found none. Until, one day, I learned that a regular on the Macintosh IRC channel I've frequented for the last 11 years had just such a poster. I attempted to purchase it from him repeatedly, but he never wanted to sell.

Until recently.

Thankfully, he was willing to part with the poster. I jumped at the chance. The poster came as a fold-out in the November 1983 issue of Electronic Fun with Computers and Games magazine. He sent me the poster and the magazine it came with.

I was quite happy to finally have acquired said poster and was quick to get it framed and hung on the wall. It was several weeks before I took a look at the included magazine, however. But the magazine, it turns out, might be the biggest treasure of all.

I mentioned that I started out on the TI-99/4A. It was my first computer and the one on which I learned BASIC. I used to buy this or that computer magazine at random, hoping to find a TI-99 game to type in and play. I was 11, way back when.

One day I bought this magazine that had a pretty solid side-view shooter involving aircraft and an aircraft carrier. It was known as Pearl Harbor by Jerry Hunter. I was quick to type it in, save it on tape, and spend hours enjoying its arcade action. Good times, way back when.

Imagine my surprise when I began thumbing through the pages of the magazine sent to me by this IRC pal and recognizing articles and advertisements. And right there, at the end, was the program listing for Pearl Harbor. This is that magazine -- the only issue of that particular magazine that I ever purchased -- which contained the game I so enjoyed in my meager, early days of computing, back when typing it in was half the fun.

I paid dearly for said magazine and poster, but feel it was well worth it. I consider the pair to be one of my most precious retro finds. It seems it's all about getting back to those golden days. Here, it seems, I struck a goldmine of nostalgic bliss.

Interesting Computer Ads From 25 Years Ago

Every so often I'll grab a computer magazine from days past off my shelf at random and thumb through it while waiting on a download. Just the other day I did so and ended up with the June 1983 issue of Creative Computing magazine. It's a great issue that took me back to my very early days dabbling with computers (I got my first computer for Christmas 1982).

One of the most interesting aspects of this magazine is the collection of advertisements over 25 years old. From the overall style, to the products themselves, these ads provide a true glimpse into a whole other era of technology.

I've scanned a few of the more interesting ads found in the issue. Have a look, and I hope you enjoy.

Right Now, I'm All About the Amiga (Again)

So, I got my first back Amiga in 1985. October 1985. I bought the first Amiga sold in Virginia (USA). I loved it.

I sold it not too long after, but that was just because of a youthful brainfart. In the following years I grabbed a number of other Amigas and enjoyed the innovation that they offered. The Amiga was so far ahead of its time it was ridiculous. And Commodore management along with good ole' Irving Gould were quite inept enough to drive the company to bankruptcy in 1994. (Read about it.) The tech world's loss, it was.

And, so, the Amiga has always had a special place in my heart. I've long owned an Amiga 2000 and a towered Amiga 1200 '060, both of which are great for games and demos, but as I have no modern graphics card for either, they've been nothing close to "serious computers" to me. But I've certainly had fun with them.

As both of my regular readers surely know, I spend a fair bit of time scanning eBay's vintage computer areas looking for must-haves. A few weeks back, while browsing the site, I saw a near-mint Amiga 1000. I'd long wanted a really clean A1000 to add to my collection, but they're really not somehing you come across. (I purchased a used A1000 back in 1994 -- 15 year ago -- and it looked like it had been found in a bog.) So, I laid down $350 or so and it became mine. And it turned out to be an excellent and rare find. It really is like new.

This got me into the Amiga frame of mind in a way I've not been in more than 20 years, give or take. I've been spending lots of time in the Amiga.org and AmigaWorld.net forums lately, and it was there that I learned about the SAMiga. That is to say, the AMCC 440EP SoC-based PowerPC motherboards manufactured in Italy and capable of running PowerPC Linux and, more interestingly, AmigaOS v4.1.

Developed by ACubed Systems, the SAM440ep boards are rather modest in power as compared to modern Macs and PCs, but are the only computers currently in production that are capable of running the current Amiga operating system, AmigaOS 4.1.

In recent years I had toyed with the idea of adding a PCI bus-board to my towered Amiga 1200 '060 in order to be able to run the latest Amiga operating system with a proper, modern video card, but the cost and somewhat cumbersome overall nature of such a setup kept me from going down that road. And, a few years back I even spent a full day trying to track down a reasonably priced AmigaOne system on which to do the modern Amiga thing (right after production of those boards had ceased), but it didn't pan out.

But now, here I am, the envy of many a long-time Amiga faithful, with the latest Amiga iron. But, as I mentioned, not such powerful iron as compared to modern machines. The board I purchased (from AmigaKit) is the SAM440ep-Flex based around a PowerPC 440 CPU running at 733MHz, overclocked (quite safely, in the factory) from 667MHz. That's roughly equivalent to a typical 700MHz G3, I gather. (Note, the AmigaOne boards used actual G3s and G4s.) Not a powerhouse, but let's remember that the first Amiga ran a preemptive multitasking operating system in 256K of RAM on a 7.16MHz 8/16-bit 68000 CPU. I've fitted the system with 512MB of RAM and a PCI Radeon 9250 128MB graphics card, the most advanced card currently supported by AmigaOS 4.1.

It's been a lot of fun getting the SAMiga up and running. It's certainly not a process without its hitches, but in a way that's part of the fun. You see, the thing that pushed me over the line into getting the new Amiga was one particular paragraph at the end of Jeremy Reimer's ArsTechnica review of AmigaOS 4.1.

Whatever the ultimate fate of AmigaOS, it has been a privilege and a joy to use it. I still use my AmigaOne on a daily basis, and consider it my "fun computer." Whenever Windows or OS X annoys me, it's right there, fast and friendly and accessible. It feels like a personal computer in ways that computers haven't felt like in over a decade.

The appeal of a modern computer that feels like a "personal computer" was too much to resist. After all, when the era of "personal computers" dried up, so did that magic that was learning the ins and outs of a system that you had chosen to truly make part of your life. Back then most every computer was its own situation -- OS, hardware -- it was all proprietary and specific to the box. Things were a lot more fun way back when, and my new SAMiga is giving me a lovely, daily fix of "how things used to be."

It's certainly not for everyone, but if this little adventure gives you a tingle, maybe you too should make an Amiga part of your life.

Oh, and this entire post was created using my SAMiga. :-)

'MYST' for the iPhone and iPod touch Hits the App Store

I apologize for the lack of posts of late. I've been focusing enormous energies towards Touch Arcade, the iPhone game review site that I run with Arnold Kim of MacRumors (and now Eli Hodapp). It's rather taxing work, given the traffic in the App Store. Apple recently saw the billionth iPhone app download and there's no sign of things slowing down. The Newton's gone, but it looks like, at present, Apple has the most compelling PDA on the market. Go figure.

One of the most recent and notable games we've seen hit the App Store is the iPhone port of Cyan's 1993 release, MYST. As regular readers are aware, I'm a huge MYST fan. I played and solved the game in 17 hours across a rainy Saturday and Sunday with my then-girlfriend, Molly. It was, and is, an amazing game. I consider it to be one of the five best games I've ever played.

MYST for the iPhone [App Store] is, well, MYST...for the iPhone. The touch interface in this version is great and I'm thrilled that a new generation of gamer will be more easily able to experience the magic that is MYST. Not long ago, I purchased the game for the PSP, but, of course, I never have it with me and so my efforts to relive the magic floundered. That is soon to be corrected, as I go nowhere without my iPhone (I feel truly naked without it) and will finally have the opportunity to again work through the game, here 15 years later.

See our Touch Arcade MYST gameplay video and release story.

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch and have or have not experienced this game, you owe it to yourself to pick it up. MYST is gaming excellence. Yesterday, and today.

The Woz on Dancing with the Stars

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, was on "Dancing with the Stars" last night.

And he danced. And he wore a pink boa.

Enough said.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

Entertainment News provides a little background. This guy is a machine.

Happy 25th Birthday, Macintosh!

On this day twenty five years ago, January 24th, 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh personal computer to the world. It was the first computer sporting a graphical user interface that was remotely affordable to individuals. (Apple's Lisa, which preceded the Macintosh by a year, was the first commercial computer with a GUI, but it retailed for $10,000 while the faster Macintosh debuted at $2495.)

My original 128K Macintosh

Seventy-four days after the introduction of the Macintosh, 50,000 units had been sold. The Mac didn't exactly fly off the shelves, but it's impact on computing was profound. And, what's more, in case you hadn't noticed, the Macintosh is still around. In fact, earlier this week Apple, who has $28 billion in the bank, reported its first $10 billion revenue month.

Today, the Macintosh is stronger than ever.

This seems an ideal time to head over to key Macintosh system software developer Andy Hertzfeld's Folklore.org, "Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it." If you've an interest in the genesis story of the Macintosh, it's wonderful reading.

I will also point readers to a 10-minute Apple video from 1983 that introduces the Macintosh and includes commentary from key members of the Macintosh team. Posted by mac512.com.

As both of my regular readers are likely aware, I have a sizable collection of vintage computers in my own "Byte Cellar" (or basement computer room). I spend considerable time both using and maintaining these units and I love to post photos of the collection to my Flickr account. This being the case, I was recently encouraged by a friend on IRC to answer CNN's call for Macintosh photos and stories at iReport. I went ahead and posted a few photos and--long story short--ended up live (via phone) on CNN's Headline News with Chuck Roberts discussing my retro computer collection, here at the 25th birthday of the Mac.

Have a look at the piece, which includes a slideshow with several photos from my collection as well as those of other "Mac heads."

But, enough about my 15 minutes of fame. This day is about the Macintosh. And I certainly offer a warm wish of Happy Birthday to this technological phenomenon that has played so large a role in the greater portion of my life.

Thanks Steve.

Playing Around with Windows 7 Beta

So I installed the Windows 7 beta (build 7000) on my Shuttle XPC this weekend. It's a box that used to be my media center PC, but due to frequent motherboard failures, I've pulled it and have been using it mainly as a retro emulation system running XP. (My main workstation is a Mac Pro running OS X.)

I took a video that shows me fiddling about with the system, just to give a taste of Windows 7 for those who haven't had a chance to try it out.

To help with estimating performance with this video, the specs of the Shuttle:

Shuttle XPC SB86i purchased November 2005
Pentium 4 3.2GHz (Hyper Threading support)
1GB PC3200 DDR RAM
GeForce 6600 GT on 16-lane PCI Express

I actually like the feel of Windows 7. XP feels pretty antiquated now and Vista, well, you can't really run Vista, now can you? And performance on this system feels pretty snappy. We'll see how it looks in the final release.

WANTED: Mockingboard for Apple II

I like to keep the stories interesting here at Byte Cellar. This is a strictly "for fun" site, so there's a certain freedom I enjoy here as compared to the other sites with which I'm involved. And so I must apologize for using this site, briefly, as a personal soapbox. But use it, I must. Because, you see...

I am in desperate need of a Mockingboard sound card from Sweet Micro Systems for the Apple II.

I recently setup an Apple IIe system in "the Byte Cellar" and am quite eager to hear the sweet six-voice (with two noise channels) sound of the Mockingboard sound card.

If anyone has a suggestion as to where I might find one, please let me know! And thanks.

A Brick for Some Bytes: My First Hard Drive

The first hard disk I ever owned was a MiniScribe. It was a "hard card" arrangement from some mail order place with a shamrock / Irish themed magazine ad. The 30MB drive cost, I think, $350 and was for my Tandy 1000TL. I managed to convince dear old ma' to order it for me as a Christmas ('88) present. It arrived in early December and had been sitting under the tree for a week when I mentioned how hard it was to wait until Christmas to open that lovely piece of tech porn on a local BBS, The Blues Exchange in Williamsburg, VA.

The SysOp, a guy by the name of John Trindle or "The Bluesman," laughingly suggested I go ahead and open it, remove the drive, place a brick in its place, close the box, and rewrap the lot. Who could tell I'd gotten the goods early? It was a perfect plan and I set it in motion at once. Less than an hour later I was installing XTree Pro onto my capacious storage device. (And no, mom was never the wiser!)

So the other day I was CoolIrising my way through a few retro computing photo pools on Flickr when I ran across an image of an old MiniScribe hard disk. This triggered all the above memories and I wondered just whatever happened to MiniScribe. I hadn't seen a sign of them in years. So I hit Wikipedia and what I found just made me laugh out loud.

It seems the company went bankrupt in 1990 and was subsequently purchased by Maxtor. But the circumstances surrounding the company's demise are rather bizarre. And particularly amusing to me, given the method of deception I employed in order to gain early access to that lovely Christmas present.

The primary scandal erupted in the final weeks of 1989, when after failing to procure short-term financing, the company executives decided to embark upon a fraudulent course of action to bring in the financing unwittingly from their customers. As each unit sold was tracked via serial numbers and also sat uninspected for some weeks inside warehouses in Singapore awaiting use in production, the decision was made to ship pieces of masonry inside the boxes that would normally contain hard drives. After receiving payment, Miniscribe then planned to issue a recall of all the affected serial numbers and then ship actual hard drive units as replacements, using the money received to meet financial obligations in the short term.

Astoundingly, Miniscribe embarked upon a round of layoffs just before their Christmas shutdown, including several of the employees that were involved in the packaging and shipping of the masonry. These people immediately called the Denver area newspapers, which broke the story during the holiday season. Following immediate investigations in Singapore and in Colorado the fraud was confirmed. Miniscribe lawyers filed for bankruptcy within minutes of the start of business on January 2, 1990.

So there it is. I snuck down to swap in a brick for the real goods when there was a half decent chance that MiniScribe's execs had already done me the favor!

Flight Simulator: The Difference 25 Years Makes

Ever since I first booted up subLOGIC's Flight Simulator II on my Apple //c back in 1984, I've been a flight simulation fan. No mission or point other than to just fly.

Of course, it was a somewhat crude affair back then. Flight Simulator II came on a 140K floppy disk and ran in 64K on the Apple II's 8-bit 1.02MHz 65C02 processor. With 6 on-screen colors in high-res mode. It wasn't what you'd call "photorealistic," but it was fun.

I recently reviewed X-Plane 9 for the iPhone, and this made me realize it had been a while since I spent any real time with a desktop flight simulator. So I went out and picked up Microsoft's Flight Simulator X for my relatively meager (by current standards) XP box: a Shuttle XPC with a 3.2GHz P4, GeForce 6600 GT, and 1GB of RAM. It comes on two double-layer DVDs and is a 14GB install--the complete app is about 105,000 times larger than the Apple II version.

Flight Simulator X runs very smoothly on the box.

Flight Simulator X is an amazing application. I've had great fun flying about since picking it up and it occurred to me that the difference in realism and complexity between Flight Simulator X and Flight Simulator II really illustrates just how far computing technology has come in the last 25 years.

I thought a little comparison video would convey what I'm speaking of to those who've never spent any time with Bruce Artwick's 1983 classic.

My Flickr Favs

Images I dig. Highly retro. Pretty.

( click )

Like? I encourage everyone to use PicLens for the proper in-browser viewing experience, by the by.