bitsavers.orgI just downloaded the latest epub version of Buck's Apple ATG book "Inventing the Future Bit by Bit" It is somewhat better than the original because he has talked to more people, but it still really needs to be gone over by an editor.
https://books.by/john-buck/
I also just had the chance to spend three hours with Joe Britt, who I met when working on Apple's RISC cpus, and there is a huge undocumented story about all of the startups that spun out of early 90s Apple after the downsizing and big layoffs
J. Peterson@bitsavers So many ex-Apple employees then.
Those who can't remember George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" in 1905
will claim this was written in the 19th century.
I have been told Apple doesn't actually speak of the "between times" in their internal museum that starts with His return in 1997.
Jobs had an exhibit destroyed that used to live in a display case that was near Town Hall when he returned that contained an Apple I, Lisa and the wooden mockup of the Apple III case.
and his destruction of the Apple Library
https://annamancini.substack.com/p/how-the-apple-archive-ended-up-at
Ken McLeod@bitsavers @isonno As late as the summer of 1999 (judging by the iBook poster taped to the glass in the background), this small "museum" existed inside Apple, between Caffe Macs and the ATM. The Mac on the right was special for some reason. I don't think it was the first off the line, but it was some significant number. All of these just disappeared one day, and nobody could ever tell us what happened to them.
that's the display and the story I heard was Jobs saw it and ordered it gone. It existed all the way back to the Mariani 1 days when I started in 1986
@bitsavers @isonno I heard the same story. He must have passed by it many times between 1997 and 1999 before finally pulling the trigger. Same thing happened to the Icon Garden sculptures: there one day, gone the next. The story was that they'd been put into storage in an unnamed warehouse. I'd like to think both the display machines and the sculptures were preserved by whoever was tasked with their removal, though reality is probably different.
@bitsavers @isonno Ironically, in IL2, there was a similar mini-museum on the 4th floor with every NeXT machine running every release of NeXTSTEP, set out on long wood tables like an Apple store. Eventually those went away too, but not for a few years. Someone probably told Steve they were needed for compatibility testing.
IL2 was also the home of the arcade with machines from employees
VG5 had an amazing arcade in the Jaguar days with many machines from my collection.
Alex Rosenberg@bitsavers @_the_cloud @isonno The arcade was moved a few times by Celia’s team. I got a rude call a few years later demanding I collect my two MK cabinets from a copy room in DA6 because they needed the space for interns. They’d been aggressively broken into and modified. One had the wiring harness all cut up and had been made into a MAME box but was now missing the PC they’d added. At least the original boards were still in it.
Jim Luther@alexr @bitsavers @_the_cloud @isonno The custom MAME cabinet built by @Stattenf disappeared when CoreServices engineering was moved from IL2 to IL3 to make room for the new secret iPhone team. Because they had to double us up in offices for a while, non-essential things were put into storage. Some of those things were never recovered.
@jimluther @alexr @bitsavers @isonno @Stattenf I think it ended up on the 4th floor for a couple of years. Here's a picture from 2007, after they got rid of the ping pong table and the folding partitions and filled in the end walls of the common area. The machine being played at the far left was a MAME cabinet. Around 5 years after this was taken, the whole space got turned into offices.
@jimluther @alexr @bitsavers @isonno @Stattenf This picture always makes me chuckle. After unpacking a lot of new Macs, the cardboard packing boxes would end up in a giant pile near the stairwell. I think Grace Breyley made these signs but was never completely sure. This was one of the first photos I took with the brand-new iPhone.
@_the_cloud @alexr @bitsavers @isonno @Stattenf Keith’s cabinet was a sit down version with the monitor pont #bg directly up IIRC
@jimluther @alexr @bitsavers @isonno @Stattenf Ah, in that case, it wasn't one of those on the 4th floor.
@_the_cloud @jimluther @bitsavers @isonno @Stattenf Yeah, that’s my MK cabinet that was hacked up, despite having my phone number and email taped to the glass. The Rampart was a treat for the QuickDraw GX team.