Category: Apple History

Mac OS X Installation Documentation

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I was recently digging around a bunch of old Mac OS X installers, and thought it would be fun to share Apple’s installation documentation for a bunch of releases.

All of these links are to PDFs. Right-click to download. The entire group can be downloaded as a .zip here.

Rhapsody

Developer Previews and Beta

Mac OS X Releases

OS X Lion was the first version of Mac OS X purchased and downloaded via the Mac App Store. It and all later versions do not include this type of documentation.

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Mac OS X Welcome Videos

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Up until Snow Leopard, new versions of Mac OS X would play a welcome video during installation. These helped set the stage for the new operating system.

Cheetah, Puma and Jaguar shared a video that highlighted the new Aqua interface. Panther’s featured the bright blue background with nice, crisp, white text. Tiger brought Spotlight, and as such, the welcome message was highlighted by a moving light. Leopard and Snow Leopard shared a darker clip that is reminiscent of the initial Time Machine interface.

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PowerBook to MacBook Pro⇢

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Jason Snell, at Macworld:

In a moment of somewhat unexpected nostalgia at its most recent media event, Apple pointed out that it was the 25th anniversary of the PowerBook. (It’s good to know that, 27 years later, Apple still would rather nobody remember the Mac Portable.) I’ve been a Mac laptop user since the original PowerBook era. That ancient history is my history. Since 1991, Apple has gone through seven distinct eras when it comes to its laptop strategy and design.

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Video: ‘Designed by Apple in California’ Book With Actual Products⇢

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Apple’s new coffee table book “Designed by Apple in California” features many products the company has produced over the last 20 years. Turns out, most of what it is in the book is a part of my collection. Here are the actual products alongside the book:

I’ve zipped up all the photos used in the video and have uploaded them here for your wallpaper-setting pleasure:

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On Apple’s Nostalgia

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In the wake of this morning’s news, I thought it would be worthwhile to talk a little bit about how Apple treats its past.

There’s no doubt that Steve Jobs didn’t like to look back. He donated Apple’s historical library to Stanford:

“The Apple collections, gathered by Apple’s impressive library and archival staff, reflect what amounts to the Apple crusade, as led by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula and John Sculley,” said Michael A. Keller, Stanford university librarian, director of Academic Information Resources and publisher of HighWire Press. “Stanford is proud to have received this well-organized and complete record of the Apple story to date.”

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On Apple Celebrating the Past⇢

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Jonathan Zufi:

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 he shut down the internal Apple museum and moved everything to Stanford. So Schiller’s comments are in line with this stance. Yet we can find several recent examples of Apple taking the time and effort to resurrect and create new imagery of several of their older machines to support the narrative of the product or service being introduced.

Zufi’s post is full of example’s changing stance on its past. It probably comes as no surprise, but I’m a fan of this change.

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An Ode to the Apple Studio Display (17-inch ADC)

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This is a guest post by Thomas Brand, my friend who blogs over at the Newton-themed Egg Freckles. This is my favorite Apple display ever, so I was thrilled when he sent me this article.

If anything on Twitter is to be believed, Apple is out of the standalone display business. Turning the page of history on a product line almost as old as Apple itself. From the Monitor // with its internal vertical-swiveling frame, to the AudioVision Display that combined video, audio, and ADB under one cable, Apple has often used the latest advancements in ergonomics and connectivity to differentiate their standalone displays.

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With the new MacBook Pro, the Startup Chime is Dead

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As noted by Dan at Pingie, the new MacBook Pros do not chime after having their NVRAM reset.

Apple outlines this in a new kbase article. This has been in the directions forever:

Hold these keys until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for a second time.

There’s now a new section just for Late-2016 MacBook Pros with this subtle change:

Hold these keys down for at least 20 seconds to ensure that your Mac completes the process correctly.

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