When launching Performa Basics on the Performa 200, a message appears stating that the Performa 200 cannot be set to 16 colors, so the application will NOT run. It seems that Performa Basics requires a color monitor.
Performa Basics would not be useful for a Performa 200 user. Basic operation of the computer is thoroughly outlined in the User’s Guide.
The Performa 200 was the only model to use the classic compact Mac design, hence the lack of a color screen.
Before this, I had not run across Performa Basics, and honestly, there’s not much out there about it. It was bundled with the Performa-specific versions of System 7,1 bundled with other tutorials like Mouse Basics:
I also found a reference for it in a PDF of a resume by Melissa Sleeter, who worked on the project. She mentions it as part of her job duties at Apple in the mid 1990s:
As a developer of multimedia tutorials, created storyboards, scripts, and graphics using electronic authoring tools. Designed and developed the Performa Basics and OpenDoc tutorials using Macromedia Director. Designed, scripted, and tested, the SimpleText Guide. Revised the online Macintosh Tutorial using Apple Guide.
This poster is also on her website, which is pretty cool:
I developed this poster to replace a setup booklet for the Apple Performa computers.
The poster cut support calls and reduced Cost of Goods Sold for Apple Performa computers by $0.11 per unit.
The next iteration of the setup poster was a graphic-only version—eliminating the cost of translating into 5 languages.
Ok, I’m off-track now.
- Which is a story for a different time. ↩