While initially unhappy with the device, he’s changed his mind:
So, to wrap up: despite myself, despite my initial impressions and despite my expectations, I love my iPad mini and I find it’s really working well for me. I’m a much heavier iOS user than most people and it has handled everything I’ve thrown at it. I have no doubt that it will work perfectly for a huge number of people. I remain a bit sceptical about pupils using it all day every day in a 1:1 situation in schools. For that application, I still think a 9.7" iPad will be easier and more comfortable to use.
In July, I launched System Extension, a magazine-like counterpart to 512 Pixels. It’s been a moderate success, but as this is the week for such news, I’m announcing today that I’m putting the project on ice.
It’s been a lot of fun covering oddball stuff for the magazine, but everyone is better served to have that content on the site itself. (In fact, my Pippin article was slated to be in this month’s edition.
It was a fun experiment, and to those of you who downloaded System Extension, thank you.
With the Wii U’s release this weekend, I thought it would be fun to look at Apple’s foray in to the gaming console market. Long before the iPod touch was the “funnest iPod ever,” Apple tested the waters with the PiPP!N project.
(For sanity’s sake, I’ll be using the far-easier-to-read “Pippin” nomenclature.)
History
In 1994, Bandai, a Japanese game maker approached Apple about partnering on a scaled-down Mac for CD-ROM based gaming. The company asked for a stripped-down Classic II, with the ability to play Macromedia Director-based games. Bandai suggested that Apple build the internals, and that they would handle the casing, controls and packaging.
Bandai’s previous game console, the Playdia was on the market already, but failing. The company looked to Apple to supply its hardware expertise to make something more powerful and ultimately more fun.
Less than a year after the initial meeting, a prototype was shown off in Monterey, California to some thirty or so companies writing CD-ROM games at the time. The 68K-based machine was somewhat underwhelming, as as Apple was already working on the PowerPC project at the time, the two companies changed gears and re-worked the machine. (Unsurprisingly, moving to the newer silicon to power the console cut profits severely.)
When it was released in 1995, the Apple Bandai Pippin was up against stiff competition in the forms of the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. At $599, less than 45,000 were sold, with production being halted in 1997 when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Roughly 100,000 units were built, but Bandai continued to support until December 31, 2002.
The Pippin’s controller featured a trackball, 4-way pad and a collection of buttons:
In addition to the wired controller, Apple built a wireless version that used IR to communicate to the console, as well as these accessories:
Pippin keyboard with drawing tablet
Pippin Modems (14.4, 28.8, 33.6 kbit/s)
Pippin memory (2, 4, 8, 16 MB)
Pippin Floppy Dock
Pippin MO 256 MB optical disk
Apple also built adaptors to connect the Pippin to a Macintosh via ADB.
Software
The base of the “PippinOS” was stripped-down version of System 7.5.2. As the machine was not a Macintosh, Apple developers had to modify the software fairly heavily. Here’s a bit from the Pippin’s Wikipedia page:
On a typical PowerPC-based Macintosh system, the boot process includes loading a bootstrap loader from ROM, loading the Process Manager stored in the boot blocks of the startup device, locating a “blessed” System Folder on the startup device, and then loading Finder. However, because the Pippin platform ran only on non-writable CD-ROM, a modification to the boot process had to be made. For developers who were using standard 7.5.2 system software, a “PippinFinder” was installed into the System Folder, allowing the CD-ROM to be bootable on a Pippin-based system. Once development was finalized, PippinFinder was removed from the System Folder, and the Pippin-specific system software was placed onto the build. In addition, an alias of the main executable was placed into the Startup Items folder, so that upon bootup, the application will launch automatically.
Good times, right?
The news on the non-OS software front wasn’t much better.
The vast majority of titles were built by Bandai. Less than 80 titles were released, with just 18 available at launch in the US. You can download some examples even today.
To build a game, developers had to “Pippinize” their CD-ROM discs, a process that included using a test Pippin system, the Mac software “Toast Pro” and a Power Macintosh.
RSA’s public/private key system was used to sign the CDs, and non-signed discs would not boot the Pippin. That said, Macs and PCs could read the contents of a Pippinized CD-ROM without issue.
Wrap-up
The Pippin is maybe the finest example of the bonkers projects Apple was trying the mid 1990s. Instead of focusing on its core product, Apple let the Macintosh grow stale and bloated while putting untold hours and money behind things like the Pippin and other dead-end technology.
Today, of course, Apple is a very different company. While it’s hard to tell if Apple knew how successful gaming on iOS would become, it has worked to take advantage of it.
If you’re looking for a neat (and unabashedly geeky) way to keep tabs on how active you are, the Fitbit One is a wonderful choice — as long as you don’t mind keeping track of all those accessories too.
I’ve been wearing mine since Friday, and it just reinforces my thoughts on the Nike+ Fuelband.. While I’m working on a review, I’ll go ahead and spoil it now: I really like my Fitbit One.
Nintendo’s facing an unfortunate chicken-and-egg problem. Developers won’t devote the time to making their Wii U games sing unless a lot of people buy the console, and plenty of shoppers will skip over the console unless the games are great. Nintendo can’t rely on its lead-in, either: Wii sales have plummeted in the last year, falling at a much faster rate than its even-older Xbox and PlayStation competitors. The novelty factor of the Wii may have worn off, as customers demand more media features and a better gaming experience — Nintendo has to prove once again that it’s a real competitor.
I don’t know which future awaits the Wii U. But until it’s obvious, I’m not buying one.
But the best thing we can say about the Wii U, that it will have a strong first-party presence, is also its biggest problem. We are cautious and indeed, somewhat pessimistic, about what the future holds for Nintendo’s new system. With Microsoft and Sony expect to announce new, significantly more powerful systems within the next six months, Nintendo has only a short amount of time to establish the Wii U. We are concerned about its ability to be more than a box for Nintendo first-party releases. Nintendo has always delivered on that, but it’s promised more, and that’s what we expect.
Nintendo promised consumers a modern HD gaming console, and the Wii U – what’s there of it thus far – delivers on that promise. Games look gorgeous (HD Mario!), the risky controller is another successful control innovation and there’s a ton of promise on the horizon. What’s missing, sadly, is a huge part of the puzzle – so huge, in fact, that it’s impossible for us to pass judgment on the whole package just yet.
Seems like a real “wait and see” scenario with the Wii U. With next-gen consoles coming next year from Sony and Microsoft, that’s not the situation Nintendo needs to find itself in.
