Macintosh UiO 1984–2010

A HISTORY OF DEPLOYMENT AND
MANAGEMENT OF MACINTOSH AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF OSLO
Macintosh
UiO
1984–2010
Steinar Moum
USIT–UiO
A4-16
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© Steinar Moum
Macintosh UiO 1984–2010
Written with MS Word 2004
Body text: Times 11/13
Headings: Ariel Black
Version: 1.0.3
Date: 01.03.2012
The web address of the History, copy the URL and paste into a browser.
http://www.usit.uio.no/om/it-historien/antikvariat/abc/macatuio-a4.pdf
http://www.usit.uio.no/om/it-historien/antikvariat/abc/macatuio-usletter.pdf (To come)
also
http://folk.uio.no/steinarm/history/macatuio-a4.pdf
http://folk.uio.no/steinarm/history/macatuio-usletter.pdf (To come)
Email: [email protected]
The picture on the cover page is a photo of a sign with a lamp inside.
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© Steinar Moum
Dedicated to
Professor emeritus
Rolf Nordhagen
IT–director at USIT 1972–1988
“He nurtured the flame”
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© Steinar Moum
Thank
I have many to thank.
The efforts of numerous people inspired this History; some are
mentioned in the document. Without their commitment and hard
work, the Macintosh deployment at the University of Oslo would not
have been possible.
Per H. Jacobsen has been invaluable in uncovering documents of
interest to the History. He has also been very helpful as a conversation partner in discussions about content and form.
I have twice distributed incomplete copies of the History for
comments. I followed some of the advice. The History would have
been more history like had I followed more of the advices. In the
end, I chose to do it my way. However, those who found time to give
feedback, deserve my deepest thanks. None is mentioned, none is
forgotten.
Gyda Kjekshus has been proofreading the manuscript. I am very
satisfied I succeeded in making her interested in the project.
Last but not least, I want to thank my wife, Gerd Torgunn
Solberg for her valuable suggestions and involvement during the
lengthy writing process.
Summer 2011
Steinar Moum
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© Steinar Moum
Contents
Summary
15 Introduction
Readers of the History
Links Used In the History
About the Writing Process
Structure of the Document
Sources Used
Mac Models, Specifications and Prices
Many to Remember and Thank
Special Thanks
Per Harald Jacobsen (PHJ)
Kolbjørn Aambø (KA)
Are Hansen (AH)
Dag Tore Antonsen (DTA)
Klaus Wik (KW)
15 16 16 16 17 18 18 19 20 20 21 21 22 22 Summing Up the Introduction
22 Pre–Macintosh Computers and Applications
CDC 3300
Network, What Network?
DEC 10
Pulling Cable!
DDPP, a Killer Application
Administrative Computing Services (ACS) and Their Computers
Early Eighties, the Mac is Closing In
The Growth of the University
23 23 24 25 26 26 28 28 29 Summing up Pre-Macintosh Computers
29 Mac at the UiO—Yearly Highlights 1984–2009
1984
January 22
The Early Rumors
1985
The Macs are Arriving
The Borrowed Macintoshes
“Love at First Sight!”
The Introduction of the LaserWriter and AppleTalk Network
The Discount
The Bookstore
1986
New Model—Macintosh Plus
A New Concept—Desktop Publishing
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1987
Apple in Norway
The Department of Mathematics
Applications Are Not Cheap
New Macintosh Models
Multitasking (sort of) On the Mac
Forum on Friday
MUG
Desktop Publishing—an Introduction
Macintosh and Communication with VAX
Macintosh and Communication with VAX
Center for Industrial Research (SI)
“Those Were the Days”
Programming Languages
1988
External Storage and Memory—a Scarce Good
USIT Moves to New Premises
USIT’s Macintosh Lab for Classes
HyperCard
Prices and Specifications in 1988
Center for IT Purchase
Macintosh, Local Area Network and File Services
Høyskoledata, a New Reseller of Macintosh
Bruce Horn Visits Norway
1989
ABC about Macintosh
Table of Contents for ABC of Macintosh
In the Publishing Business
The Service Area
The NeXT Come to USIT
Macforum (MUG), Meeting With Complications
Mac Virus
AppleTalk Zones Late 1989
Network Illustrations
Christmas Shopping
1990
Number of Macintoshes
Show-room for IT Development
The UiO—an Early LabVIEW Site
MacTjener (MacServer)
The Result of MacTjener (MacServer)
Connection to the UiO LAN
UNIX Username and Password
File Servers
Macintosh Services on Servers
Internet and Friends
SPSS for Macintosh
Manual for USIT’s Word 4.0 Class
Alan Kay Visits Norway
1991
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36 36 36 36 36 37 38 38 38 39 39 39 40 40 41 41 41 41 42 42 42 43 44 45 46 46 46 47 48 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 54 54 54 55 55 56 56 56 56 57 57 58 58 59 The JU§IT project—the Faculty of Law Goes for Macintosh
Communication Services for Macintosh
A Mini AUC at USIT
Mac OS 7 Released
The Ink Pot and the Tower of Babel
Project Ink Pot
The Tower of Babel
Project Mac-in-Net
1992
Structured Network on Campus
And Not So Structured!
1993
USIT—an Apple Service Provider (ASP)
The Struggle for the Soul of the PC
Into the Great Wide Open
The UiO in IDG’s Macworld Norway
Worth Knowing for LITA with Macintosh Users
1994
Drum Roll!—the PPC-Macintoshes Arrive—Drum Roll!
Modem Services for Macintoshes
The Distribution List for Local IT Staff
Some are Working Into Christmas
1995
Typical Macs and PCs in the Office—1995 and 2001
Apple’s Support for Developers
Cheap RAM and Hard Disks
The Price of a New Mac
Word 6.0 Localized for Norwegian Language
Mac OS—Copland
Fun With PRAM!
Site License for Graphic Converter (GC)
Mirror Archives for info-mac and umich (ftp Archives)
Troublesome Open Transport
Mac and PC Classes at USIT
Program Licenses
1996
Number of Macintoshes on UiO’s LAN
Networked Fax
The Macintosh-models of the Year
Filemaker and Common Problems
Cheaper RAM
New Administrative Applications—a Critical Stage for Macs
The Official Word
The Mac Clones
1997
Site License for Eudora 3.0 Pro
Site License for Mindvision Apps.
Help! Somebody Will Take My Mac…
Manual for Word 6 Class—“Large Documents”
USIT Buys a Site License for FileTyper
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59 60 60 61 61 62 62 63 64 64 64 66 66 67 67 68 69 71 71 71 72 72 73 73 73 74 74 74 74 75 75 76 76 76 77 78 78 78 78 78 78 79 79 80 81 81 81 81 81 82 USIT Buys a Site License for SAM 4.5.1
Training Sessions for Rhapsody
Mac OS 8 Released
The Start of a Tradition—It’s a Wonderful Machine by David Pogue
1998
New Layout of the MacUiO Web
Trouble With SAM 4.5.1, Mac OS 8 and Word 6.0.1
iMac—a New Era for Apple
ObjectSupportLib (OSL) and Mac OS 8.x
Leaving Some CPUs Behind
MS Office 98
Endnote Arrives.
InformINIT
US System and not US Letter
Apple’s E-mail Lists—hidden resources
Site License for Assimilator
Macintosh Online Product Guide
1999
Servers for the Administrative Applications
Modernizing of Servers for Macintosh
“Show- /service-room” with Macintoshes
Mac OS 9 System CD Distributed to LITA
Site License for ShareWay IP
Bye, Bye to Pre-PPC Macintoshes
“Happy Days Are Here Again”—SPSS for Mac is Back
A Web Page About Macadm
It is Yule-time
2000
First Generation of Power Macs—a Mixed Blessing
Even Older Macintoshes—pre-PPC!
Department of Mathematics (DM) Selected as Marie Curie Center
Old Mac display and a New PowerMac or PC
Old Macintoshes Good-bye, New Mac OS X Welcome.
Service-CD for Local IT Staff (LITA)
EtherShare (ES) 2.2/2.5
Transmission of MacWorld Expo, New York
The Writings of John Martellaro
Integrating UNIX and Mac OS X
USIT Opens a DV-Studio
2001
Transmission of MacWorld Expo, San Francisco
Mac OS X 10.0—Cheetah Released
Phasing Out AppleTalk Routing
gravenstein.uio.no Crash
More Mac Versed Local IT Staff
Some Vacation URLs for LITA
Deployment of Mac OS X 10.0
QuickTime Pro Licenses for the UiO Users
Mac OS X 10.1—Puma Released
2002
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82 82 83 83 85 85 85 85 86 86 86 87 87 87 87 87 88 89 89 89 89 89 90 91 91 91 92 93 93 93 93 93 94 94 95 95 95 95 95 97 97 97 98 98 98 99 99 99 100 101 Transmission of MacWorld Expo, San Francisco
Microsoft Office X Arrives
About the Macintosh Situation at the University of Oslo
eMac Released
Mac OS X 10.2—Jaguar Released
Dismantling of “Show/service Room”, Establishing “Houston”
The First Remote Desktop Connection—for Mac
Some Developer Documentation
Catalog of Mac OS X Programs
2003
Recommended Mac OS X Books
The Purpose of the Newsletters
X11 Server—Beta 2
Mac Relevant Web Pages at the Departments
The Application Repository macprog Will Use .dmg-format
No Mac OS X Server Allowed
Mac OS X 10.3—Panther Released
Am I Dreaming—Virginia Tech and 1,100 G5 Powermacs
2004
After MacWorld SF 2004
No More TSM Backup for Macintoshes
OSX-authentication and Mounting of Home Directory
Video Recording Of Lecture for Department of Informatics
Distribution of Security Patches, From rdist to Store
Move to MOSX 10.3, Please!
Site License for Graphic Converter v. 5
An Early Trojan on the Mac
Planning for Taking Mac OS 9 Macs Off the UiO Net
Apple and Microsoft
Endnote v.8 Expected In September
Deadtrolls
New iMacs With G5 CPU
Management Scheme—Status Early Fall 2004
Security Configuration Guide for MOSX 10.3 Server—From NSA
2005
SPSS v.11.0.3 Released
Mac Mini—and the UiO
New Xserve Cluster at University of UIUC, USA
The Free Lunch is Over: … About Concurrency
Mac OS X 10.4—Tiger Released
Introduction of MOSX 10.4 Tiger
Temporary Stop With Tiger Update
Apple + Intel = True
Pro-Mac, a Mailing List for Mac Professionals
SPSS V.11.0.4 Ready for Download
Apple Seminar About AD
Mac OS X Qualities In 5–10 Years
Only One Mac Reseller
The Yule Letter to LITA
2006
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101 101 101 102 103 103 103 104 104 105 105 105 105 105 106 106 107 107 110 110 110 110 110 110 111 111 111 111 111 111 112 112 112 112 113 113 113 113 113 114 114 115 115 116 116 116 116 116 116 117 Aperture v.1.0
News From MacWorld SF
MOSX 10.4.3 on the Software Repository
The 22 Years Anniversary of the Mac
Virginia Tech—Revisited
A Report on Mac Intel and Deployment
The Easter’s Letter
Update From 10.4.5 to 10.4.6
Print Authentication with Kerberos
Sophos Antivirus & Cisco VPN Client Ready for Intel Macs
A Summer Letter
Mac OS X Internals—a System Approach
News From the WWDC
17" iMac for Education
SPSS V.13 and Endnote X
Wanted: Test Users for the Forthcoming 10.5—Leopard
A Web Site for “Macs in Chemistry”
ZFS—a New File System for MOSX?
Macs With MOSX and Windows
Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year
2007
Mac OS X 10.5—Leopard Released
Bruce Tognazzini On the iPhone
Jobs on DRM
A New, Happy Mac User
MOSX 10.5—Leopard Certified as a UNIX
The Introduction of the iRack
No More Printing By Way of LPD
A Web Page About Spelling
Volume License for GraphicConverter V.6
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and HW Requirements
Endnote Free for All Users
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Released at the UiO
Leopard and Development Tools
To Write With Something Else Than MS Word
Yule Time Again!
2008
MS Office 2008
MacBook Air is Here
MS Office and Endnote X1, Not
Management Scheme for 10.5—Leopard
MS Office 2008 Available
MacWorld Website in Norway
MOSX 10.5 Leopard Are Unleashed
Apple, Microsoft, and 32/64 Bit Strategy
Are You a Champion of Terminal Window & Keyboard Shortcuts?
New Portables From an All-aluminum Chassis
NetRestore and USIT’s New DHCP Solution
Volume License for MOSX
The Christmas Letter
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117 117 117 118 118 118 118 118 119 119 119 119 119 120 120 120 120 120 121 121 122 122 122 123 123 123 124 124 124 124 124 124 125 125 125 125 126 126 126 126 126 126 127 127 127 127 127 127 128 128 2009
Mac OS X 10.6—Snow Leopard Released
129 129 Summing up Yearly Highlights 1984–2009
130 Mac Themes
Mac Themes—a Tecnological Note
AppleTalk
Kinetics Fastpath (KFP)
The File Server—EtherShare
The Summing Up of Technological Notes
Mac Themes—Departments and Faculties
Macintosh and the University, Still Together
The Strategic Plans for IT
Traditional Local Autonomy for Departments
Support, at Least Acceptance From Departmental Management
USIT as a System Provider
The NyST Project
Macintoshes at the Department of Informatics (IFI)
The Mac Collection at the Informatics Library
Kristen Nygaard
Macintoshes at the UiO, in Numbers.
Desktop Macintoshes at the UiO 1990–2010
Faculties: Number of Macs in Feb. 1996 and Sep. 97
Number of Macs in Feb. 1996 and Sep. 97 in Depts/Other Units
Departments With Macs in Mars 2009
System Versions September 2008, Mars 2009, January 2010
Laptops/ Desktop; PPC/ Intel in Oct. ’08 & Nov. ’09
The Mac Deployment—Surveys 2004–2010
The Mac Situation at the Other Major Universities
The Summing Up of Departments and Faculties
Mac Themes—USIT
The IT Directors
Rolf Nordhagen
Rune Fløisbonn
Andora Sjøgren
Arne Laukholm
Lars Oftedal
The Macintosh Activity in the Late Eighties
USIT’s Multimedia Lab
macadm—a Part of USIT
The Role of The Macintosh Managers
Able and Willing
“To Be Out in the Bushes”
The Mac Managers—a Group Within a Group
A Manifold Staff
Freedom
A Lost Possibility
The Mac OS X Management Group
The OSX-workshop—February 2011
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The Summing Up of USIT
Mac Theme—LITA
The First Phase of Local IT Staff
The Second Phase of Local IT Staff
The Third Phase of Local IT Staff
GLIT—Local IT staff From USIT
The LITAs and the Mac
The IT Conference—Mostly For LITA
Classes for LITA
Something to Regret?
The Summing Up of LITA
Mac theme—Apple Inc.
Apple—No Ordinary Company
Apple University Consortium (AUC)
The Meetings in Heidelberg (’88), Paris (’91), and Brügge (’92)
The Withering of AUC
MacWorld—San Francisco
The Letter to Avie
Old Macintosh Lore
Bill Atkinson—of Macpaint and HyperCard Fame
Susan Kare—Queen of Icons
Steve Jobs (SJ)
John Sculley (JS)
Bruce Horn (BH)
Jonathan Ive (JI)
The Creation of the Graphing Calculator
The Apple Logo
Apple Timeline 1976—1995
Clarus—the Dogcow
Apple—the New Microsoft?
More about Apple Inc
The Summing Up of Apple Inc.
Mac Theme—Apple Computer Norway
The CEOs
The Education Managers
The Social Events, and the Kickoffs
Promotional Objects—a Rarity
The Story of SIFT
The Norwegian Educational Conference (NUK)
Summing Up of Apple Norway
Mac Theme—Resellers
Apple Resellers
Høyskoledata—Mac Reseller 1988–1993
Third Party Resellers
An Example—Norgesdata as
The Summing Up of the Resellers
156 157 157 158 158 159 160 160 160 160 161 162 162 162 163 164 164 166 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 174 175 176 176 176 177 177 178 178 178 179 179 181 182 182 183 183 183 184 184 185 The End
186 Useful & Interesting Reading, Viewing, and Listening
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URLs, Macintosh Related
URLs, Not Computer Related
Macintosh Related Books
Background, Computer Related
Not at All Computer Related, but Very Readable
Films, not Computer Related
Good Music
Index—Mostly Persons, University Units and External Institutions
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187 188 188 190 191 192 192 193 Summary
This History deals with the introduction, deployment, and management of Apple
Macintosh computers at the University of Oslo (UiO) from 1984 to 2010.
Before the three main parts of the document, are you’ll find information about the
document, including this summary and the sources used. Together with this, due credit is
given to the many who have contributed to the long period of a viable Macintosh
presence.
The first of the three parts, sets the Macintosh era in perspective and include some
information about the computer situation before the introduction of the Mac.
The second part of the document is the yearly articles dealing with important parts of
the Macintosh system management through twenty-five years.
The third part of the document treats how relevant “themes” inside and outside the
University have influenced the Macintosh activity. Examples of such themes outside the
UiO are Apple Inc, Apple Norway, Macintosh resellers, and third party resellers. Within
the University, I will comment on USIT itself and the local IT support staff at the departments—the LITAs. A short summing up is at the end of part one and two and after each
discussion of the themes in part three.
Introduction
This is the History of Macintosh at the University of Oslo as seen and experienced by me.
More or less, I have been dealing with Macintosh computers and their users for more
than 25 years. In the beginning, I worked at the Department of Sociology, the last 20+
years at the Center for Information Technologies Services (USIT). Most of the time at
USIT, I have served as Macintosh coordinator. This includes documentation- and
information duties towards the Mac community, and general contact with this group. Part
of this job has also been to liaise with Apple Norway and different HW and SW resellers.
In the last decade, it has been increasingly important to participate actively in the Internet
and keep up with relevant sources of Mac information there.
I have my professional background from political science and sociology, and with
just enough classes in computer science to realize that programming and serious system
work are not for me. However, to cooperate with bright people in these areas has always
been very rewarding.
My backdrop- and reference group will be the IT community at the UiO. The
University was founded in 1811 and is the largest and oldest in Norway. By the year
2010, the University of Oslo has approximately 27,700 students and a staff of 5,900. In
this large organization, USIT is the center for IT planning, development, deployment, and
operation of infrastructure such as databases, applications and servers, network, and
telephone. USIT also includes sections doing for development work of administrative
applications for the other Norwegian universities and regional Colleges all over Norway.
In the spring of 2010, USIT employs more than 220 people. An organizational chart of
USIT, in Norwegian:
http://www.usit.uio.no/om/organisasjonskart/index.html
There are many stories on the web and in books about the creation of the Mac and
about developing great software, but not about how the Macintosh found its place at a
large organization.
Are our experiences unique? I don’t know; I doubt it. It seems, however, that similar
descriptions are few, if any exists.
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Let me add that this History does not deal with great sensations or bitter conflicts. It’s a
report of what took place during USIT’s Mac activity in the first 25 years. Some readers
will miss events from USIT’s history. Maybe they would maybe have wanted another
history. However, I have not seen it as my task to give an account on non Macintosh
events. The IT history by Per H. Jacobsen [Jacobsen, 2001] makes a very good job at
describing USIT’s history. A greatly enhanced web version of this is finished for the
University’s 200 years anniversary in 2011. See: http://www.usit.uio.no/om/it-historien/
The central IT–service at the UiO has not at all times been called USIT. However, I
have chosen to use the name “USIT” throughout the whole History, instead of at least
four names during the period. Moreover, the highest pre-PhD degree from the UiO has
not been master for the full period. Nevertheless, I have chosen to use the master
expression throughout the History.
Even if, the History is rather free of drama, I think the story of Mac activity deserves
to be told. I have followed the whole period of activity, in one organization, which is
quite unusual in the world of computing. In a way, I saw this historical account as a sort
of obligation.
Readers of the History
A writer ought to have an opinion of who his readers are. I hope this History may be of
interest to the regular Mac users at the UiO, especially those who have experienced a
greater part of the described period. My impression is that quite a lot of Mac users are
interested in their Macs, and may appreciate background information. They will find
much in this History.
In addition, it contains many Web addresses for those interested in the broader background of the Macintosh phenomenon and activity.
The History has many technical details. Most of these may only be of interest to local
IT staff or users with a special attachment to the Macintosh.
Personally I have always found it interesting to learn about how people at other Mac
sites are working, their problems and solutions in the daily Mac management. Other may
feel the same. These are some of the reasons for writing in English.
In short, I hope the History will give readers a feeling for of what it takes to manage
Macintoshes at a large educational site.
This History pays a tribute to Managers wherever they are, and whatever they
manage.
Links Used In the History
Throughout this document, I refer to numerous Web web pages. I have of course no
control over these, and they can disappear, move, or change name. At the time of
publishing this History, the web pages were all operative. Should you experience that
some web pages are missing, I can only suggest you try a Google search.
About the Writing Process
I could have written the History with notes and literature references. I have access to the
original documents, and with notes and references, the document would have looked
more like a formal history.
I will understand readers who say that this document is a story, and far from an
academic history. A subtle typographic indication in the name of the document implies
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this duality. The History includes historical, technical, and social parts and are very close
to what I had envisioned from the beginning.
I had the luck to be in the action of the described period and close to what is
described in the History. This gives me a unique point of observation. For better or worse,
this History and the assessments, would have been different with another author. In any
case, I succeeded in what I set out to do.
The History is written out of commitment and in my spare time. I wrote some initial
parts of the document in two weeklong periods at a mountain cabin in the fall of 2005 and
2006, using an iBook 12", and MS Word 2004. However, the main part was written at
home, with an old 867 MHz G4 Quicksilver. Towards the end of writing, I used one of
the last G5 models, a Dual 2.3 GHz PowerPC G5. The very last sentences are written
with an iMac 27”, 3,1 GHz.
Structure of the Document
In this History, I have described three parts of the Macintosh activity at the University of
Oslo. Before those three parts, is the Summary and the Introduction.
The first part includes brief moments of the pre-Macintosh time. The second part—a
large part—contains some of the documented yearly “highlights” in the management of
Macintosh at the UiO. The third part is my experience with, or assessment of, various
players, both within and outside UiO.
The major part of the remaining document is chronologically organized. This includes
especially part two, Mac at the UiO—Yearly Highlights 1984–2009.
Part of the document might have been written as a coherent tread—with considerable
difficulties. I decided, however, that the rather short articles gives a much better picture
of what really did happen. The trouble with this approach is that the progression of the
story will be disjointed. However, this is not far from the reality we experienced in our
Mac activity. The Macintosh related work at USIT, very rarely followed a strict master
plan for long. Of course, the long-range goal was to give the Macintosh users robust and
useful services, within the economic, human, and technological resources at hand. To
reach this goal, we took many small steps.
I have used (simple) tables in part of the document. Some of the data could have been
presented as graphs. However, I hope that everybody will understand the table
presentations used.
Some events, most personal names, and original photos, are mostly of interest to
readers at the University of Oslo. Even more local photos would have been both nice and
useful. Should any of the readers have UiO and Mac relevant photos, I would become
most happy to borrow these for copying, for a possible future update.
I can only regret that I have thrown much material away that might have been
informative, illustrative, and colorful. Moving of office is dangerous. However, done is
done!
Most of this History is concerned with “the University of Oslo”. I have, by and large,
chosen not to repeat this expression. In those few cases where the focus is outside the
University, this is explicit mentioned. I have used the acronym “UiO”, not “UoO” even if
I have written in English.
The term “group” is used many places in this History. Concerning the macadm group,
I have usually only used the term “macadm” or “we” meaning the Mac managers at
USIT.
Lastly, this History is initially written as a “paper document”. In the future, the
document might be converted to a web site.
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Sources Used
A small part of the “evidence” in the History is only based on memory. This is not the
most reliable of sources. Fortunately, USIT has, however, produced lots of written
material such as annual reports, case documents, magazine newsletters, books, booklets
and papers concerning the history of the organization at large, and of the Mac in
particular. This material has been very valuable to me in writing this History.
From the end of 1994, I have managed a distribution list intended for support
personnel in departments where Macintoshes are used. Annually I post between twenty to
sixty emails to this newsletter list. The emails include information about new hard and
software, prices and availability, recommendations—especially concerning hardware
models and configurations. Other topics may be Web rumors about products to come,
solutions to specific issues, fun stuff or links to technical articles, which in my view,
might be of interest to the members of the list. These numbers of these email newsletters
are far more numerous than the Macintosh articles in USIT’s printed newsletters. In this
History, however, only a small number of these emails are used.
IT-historien@UiO (IT history@UiO) written by Per H. Jacobsen is a gold mine of
historic material from the first forty years of USIT. Material I have copied or adapted
learned from this book is marked [Jacobsen, 2001] (Hello, HAL). A small bibliography is
included at the end of the document.
Most of the photos are from web sites. The name of the photographer (if known)
follows the local photos. Per H. Jacobsen made most of the scans.
The sources mentioned will, in addition to my own assessments, form the basis for
this History. Even if, the sources are from written material, I only refer to the information
I find relevant and typical. To give a complete representation of all things Macintosh
would be far outside my goal for this document.
Some words about conditions characteristic of the period—particularly prices and
qualities—are included. In retrospect, they may not be important in the big picture, but
form an interesting contrast to the same conditions today.
Some early stuff about Apple and Macintosh are also included, not because it has any
direct connection to the UiO, but because it may give a sense of the technology and
business attitudes in these early years.
Mac Models, Specifications and Prices
I have mentioned a number of Macintosh models throughout the text. Usually I will not
describe these in technical details. Readers undoubtedly know many of them well. When
in doubt, check with the excellent little application Mactracker, downloadable from:
http://www.mactracker.ca/
I have cited the UiO prices for some Apple products. These prices include the UiO’s
rebate discount at any time, and the Norwegian VAT. The VAT was 20 percent up to the
year 1993, then 22 percent until 1995, 23 percent to 2001, 24 percent to 2005 and for at
present, it is 25 percent. To reach the rough prices in USD, I have used an exchange rate
of NOK 6.50 to one US dollar. The prices give only an approximation since the dollar in
the last 30 years has fluctuated quite a lot against NOK.
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Many to Remember and Thank
The Mac activity has been neither a “one man show”, nor an effort by the few. Dozens of
people have participated and contributed to the Mac community at the University. Some
of those are from departments outside USIT or from organizations outside the University.
Many Mac users in the departments have acted as excellent ambassadors for the Mac.
They should all have been mentioned. The main scope of this paper is, however, the staff
at USIT and the role they and USIT as an organization were playing.
It’s a pleasure to give credit by name to many former and present “USITers”, some
from other UiO departments, and a few from outside the UiO—for their Mac relevant
efforts, competence and enthusiasm. Not everybody had any direct contact with the enduser, but played other vital roles. Names with an asterisk ’*’ in front, have at some time
served as members of macadm—the USIT based Mac Manager group. To be remembered
and thanked, are:
Kjell Andresen, Inger Arnesen, * Terje Bakka, Knut Borge, Kjell Åge Bringsrud, Bent
Brundtland, * Anders Bruvik, Per Bruvold, * Tony Bugge, Sinan Cobacioglu,
Cuong Chiem, Øystein Christiansen, Morten Dahl, Alv Reidar E. Dale, Sissel Drevsjø,
Kristen Døssland, Torsten Eken, Gunnar Evensen, Helge Falkenberg-Arell, Anne Ruste
Flø, Carsten Fløtaker, Rune Fløisbonn, Jørgen Fog, Ivar Frønes, Simen Gaure, Ernesto
Gonzalez-Benitez, Tyge Greibrokk, Per Grøttum, * Are Guldbrandsen, Mikal Gule, *
Lars A. Gundersen, Signe Marie Hernes, Ingvil Hovig, Lars Håkedal, Astrid Jenssen, *
Thomas Hansen, Kjetil Rå Hauge, Knut Hegna, * Kaj Hejer, Knut Hellem, * Bjørn
Hotvedt, Jørnar Heggsum Hubred, Håvard Hvassing, Cecilie Høigård, Ulf Jarre Jerpseth,
Ståle Askerød Johansen, Tove Strand Karlsen, Kjetil Kirkebø, * Jon Kleiser, Agnes
Kunszenti, Terje Kvernes, Stein Bruno Langeland, Fredrik Langfelt, Bjørn Hell Larsen, *
Øystein Larsen, Arne Laukholm, Torben Leifsen, Torill Linna, Mads Lomholt, Jean
Lorentzen, Espen Lund, Stein-Eirik Lund, Knut Lundby, Finn Mosti, Hans Munch,
Sigurd Mytting, Knut Mørken, Bjørn Ness, Erik Norderhaug, Rolf Nordhagen, Ragnar
Normann, Lars Oftedal, Kjetil Otter Olsen, Per Johnny Paulsen, Bjørn Pedersen,
Jens Rugseth, Terje Rydland, Robert Rødsten, Nina Røysland, Harald Sand, Tone
Sandahl, Torbjørn (Bobben) Severinsen, * Frank Paul Silye, Per Sira, Andora Fjeldsgaard
Sjøgren, Helge Skappel, Steinar Skogheim, Bjarne Skov, * Audun Brekke Skrindo, Knut
Skrindo, Berit Elisabeth Strange, Jo Størset, Erik Richard Sørensen, * Joakim Magnus
Taraldsen, Jens Thomassen, Håvard Tønnesen, Bibi Thue, Håkon Rian Ueland, Einar
Uggerud, Odd Richard Valmot, * Hans Peter Verne, * Erik Vestheim, Espen Vestre, Ole
Petter Vik, Anders Vinger, Frode Vogelsang, Øivind Waal, Geirr Wiggen, Øyvin
Wormnæs, Bent Aaby, Sven Ågren, Gunnar Åmlid
***
I fear that some persons are missing, which I regret. But they know who they are, and
they are most welcome to regard this History even as their history in the deployment and
support of Macintoshes at the UiO.
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Special Thanks
I must mention five other persons. Their involvement is partly on the technical side,
partly in policymaking, and in support, information and documentation services. It might
be unfair to select some and not others for their contributions. However, I really feel that
the following persons in their commitments to the Macintosh community at the UiO have
gone far beyond the call of duty
Per Harald Jacobsen (PHJ)
Per Harald Jacobsen, is USIT’s foremost
author of documentation and information about the services of USIT,
plans, and reports. He is not alone in
these matters, but the volume and diversity of his writing activity is unmatched
within USIT. He is USIT’s own historian.
For nearly ten years in the early Mac
period, he was the head of USIT’s Section for User Support. Today he is a
member of USIT’s Group for Scientific
Computing.
From 1985, he has followed the
Macintosh phenomenon both as a keen
observer and as a user.
His experience in the craft of writing
and his assessment of Mac relevant
documents and events has been invaluable to me in the work with this History. I
have learned much in our frequent
conversations.
Photo: S. Moum
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Kolbjørn Aambø (KA)
The USITer who started it all. KA had an excellent understanding of
both theoretical and practical factors in most things Macintosh. In
between the Mac activities, he got his Master’s degree in Computing
Science. His analytical and arguing powers, gave the Macintosh
movement a very healthy start. He worked in the Section of
Research and Development from 1985.
In the early nineties, Kolbjørn moved to National Library of
Norway where he among other projects worked with digitizing
photos, film, and audio and made the material usable through nifty
database solutions. As an example of this material, see:
http://www.nb.no/baser/morgenstierne/english/index.html
http://www.chart.ac.uk/chart2001/papers/noframes/witek.html
Photo: S. Moum
Are Hansen (AH)
AH worked as IT consultant at Department of Sociology before he
entered the community at USIT. Strangely enough, he never had
any permanent employment at USIT. However, he gave many
classes in general Mac usage, desktop publishing with Pagemaker,
and text processing, usually with his favorite WriteNow from
T/Maker. For a long, long time he refused to give classes in MS
Word.
His main and greatest accomplishment is nevertheless the
authorship of ABC of Macintosh, see the article from 1989 at page
46. He is very talented in both writing and design. He (and USIT)
received much praise for his book. It’s a pity that USIT never
found an opening for him.
In addition to his considerable Mac relevant skills, he formerly
even had pre Mac GUI like (Graphic User Interface) experience
with Xerox Star from summer jobs in 1983–85. Few Norwegians
had such experience at the time.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star]
Photo: S. Moum
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Dag Tore Antonsen (DTA)
DTA worked with Macintosh at USIT from 1999 to early
2008. He is very capable with issues concerning HW or
SW, a good writer, quite familiar with everyday UNIX
stuff, and very competent in user support.
In short, a typical jack of all trades. He was a member
of macadm and is almost irreplaceable.
He left USIT in January 2008 and is at present at the
Norwegian Broadcasting System, working at one of the
biggest and most competent Macintosh sites in Norway.
Klaus Wik (KW)
KW started his Macintosh work at USIT in the latter half
of the nineties as one of the chief custodians of the
student registration Macintoshes. See the article about
The NyST Project in Mac Theme—USIT and the
University at page 136.
Later on, he worked in Group for system management, to a large degree with the UNIX part of MOSX, but
also with other UNIX platforms. He is present at the
Department of Musicology.
He was a member of macadm and usually solved
even the trickiest cases.
Summing Up the Introduction
In the introduction I briefly present the background of this History. The sources are
discussed and the structure and some practical details of the document are presented.
It has been especially enjoyable to think back at the many people who committed
enthusiasm and resources on the Mac activity at the University.
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Pre–Macintosh Computers and
Applications
I think many readers of this History may benefit of a very brief look at the computer
infrastructure before the period with personal computers and Macintosh. The past can
make the present and even the future easier to understand.
This part of the History describes very briefly the two first “serious” computers at the
University. I call them mainframes even if they maybe were a bit on the small side for
such a designation. A mainframe was a computer with large computing powers used for
important work by big and powerful organizations. One can discuss whether the UiO is
fitting in with such a description, but in any way, it is a strong expression! More about
mainframes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainframe_computer
CDC 3300
The first mainframe at the University, was a CDC 3300 computer from Control Data
Corporation. The CDC 3300 had a 24-bit word length and was only capable of operating
with capital letters (four six-bits characters).
More about CDC 3300 at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_3000 and
http://www.cs.umass.edu/~verts/cmpsci201/spr_2004/Lecture_33_2004-04-30_CDC3300_and_6000.pdf
As a small, but quite interesting point, the following tells something about the
technology and the prices of computer equipment at the time. In 1969, USIT received a
quotation from Control Data for more hard disk space. The quotation was for an 841 disk
drive with removable disc packs with 107 million characters. The price was NOK
622,000 or about $ 96,000. In 2010 value, this is NOK 4,945,284 or about $760,780.
I’m sure that most of the people, who were on the scene around CDC 3300 at the
University of Oslo, will have fond memories of the experience. We were considerably
younger, and had a strong sense of participating in an important and innovative activity.
Computers were not a complete novelty, but had by this time reached a level of
usefulness not seen before. Most people did not know much about computers, and we—
who in reality knew very little—might well have been rather haughty. We felt like kings!
Another fact to remember is that with CDC 3300 “the EDP centre of the UiO”
(Electronic Data Processing) was exactly that—a centre. If you should use the computer,
you had to walk to the basement of the building of the Department of Mathematics, punch
your card deck, deliver it in the input job queue, and wait for the printout. It was
absolutely necessary to visit the EDP centre since no network or terminals existed.
After the delivering of the job to be processed, many stayed, mingling with other
users, waiting. Professional acquaintances were made, information was exchanged,
bright, and not so bright ideas emerged, and the project or the thesis moved maybe
another little step. The value of these social and professional encounters should not be
underestimated.
The mingling and social life among the staff at USIT and the users of the computer, is
not a typical topic for this History, but yes, the social life was there. Indeed!
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Dozens of these, and the older
IBM 026 cardpunches, were in
use at the UiO in the sixties
and well into the seventies.
The illustration is from an
interesting site. See the links
below.
An IBM 029 cardpunch.
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/029.html See also:
http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/History.htm
Photo: Inge Johansen
The author standing at the console of the Control Data 3300. From the early seventies.
Network, What Network?
It is important to realize that the first ten+ years of this pre-Macintosh period, was very
different from what the Macs and PCs later represented. No servers or network, and no
(computer) clients as we know them, existed. The line printers were in the computer
room, and operators placed your printouts in the printout shelves.
Data was moved to another computer by way of magnetic tape, punched cards or
paper tape. You might never see the computer if you did not know one of the operators.
Your only communication with the mainframe was through piles of 80 column punched
cards or paper tape rolls. At the UiO, the first and last cards were red, then blue control
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cards for allocating resources, the data cards were usually manila colored. This color
scheme was only to help the operator to separate the jobs; the card reader was colorblind.
USIT’s CDC card reader, the famous
CDC 405 (not 409!) was a terrific piece of
technology. As far as I remember it read
1,000–1,200 cards a minute. The 405 was
quite forgiving with messy card decks.
“they don’t make card readers like this
any more…”
CDC 405 card reader
More about punched cards at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_card
DEC 10
In the middle seventies, the CDC 3300 was 7–8 years old and long ago ripe for an
upgrade to a more modern computer. After a heated quarrel at USIT, a new mainframe
was bought.
A DEC 10 model 1080 from Digital Equipment Corporation replaced the CDC in
1976. The transition to DEC 10 and a more interactive workflow was a very controversial
issue within USIT. A greater part of the USIT staff wanted a new CDC computer.
Strongly simplified I think that the basis for the disagreement between the supporters
of a new CDC and the supporters of the DEC 10 computer was a paradigm shift in how to
use computer resources. In short, the communication tool between user and computer,
changed from batch mode (punched cards or paper tape) to use of terminals
(timesharing). Of course, the system managers knew the architecture of the CDC and
were not too keen on a change to a new DEC.
Few, if any, were comfortable with the process. The temperature of the discussions
was high, to some extent bitter, bordering on mean. However, Rolf Nordhagen—the IT
director at the time—argued forcefully for DEC 10 and the UiO’s executives approved
his view. History proved him right; in retrospect it’s easy to see that DEC 10 represented
the type of computing services needed in the coming years. USIT, however, paid a price;
the social climate was for some time quite strained, and a few System managers resigned.
The rest of the University community seemed to have understood little of the whole
affair. [Jacobsen 2001]
USIT upgraded the DEC 10 to a model 1099B in 1980. At this time, the machine had
doubled the initial memory to 500K 36-bit Words. An upgrade with a second CPU
(Central Processing Unit) gave the DEC 10 a SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing)
capability. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing
With DEC 10, the terminals invaded campus. The DEC 10 delivery in 1976 included
25 DECwriter terminals. (Video/Picture of DECwriter and VT terminal at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ1jkINFVho
http://celebritysite.110mb.com/?l=VT100
In a short time, USIT and the departments bought dozens of terminals, of both the
DECwriter type and VT100 compatible CRT terminals. A short Wiki article about TOPS
10, the OS of DEC 10 at:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECsystem-10
A more extensive article about the company Digital Equipment Corporation, at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation see also:
http://celebritysite.110mb.com/?l=Digital_Equipment_Corporation
Pulling Cable!
In the late seventies and most of the eighties the staff members at USIT were active in
building networks from the main computers at the Computing Centre, to the faculties at
the Blindern Campus.
The activity was not limited to making plans and hiring a company to do the job.
Money for establishing the network was hard to get, I think that the central management
at the University did not clearly see the point. USIT has a tradition of being quite
innovative and practical, and is in many ways, a can do organization.
On several occasions the USITers were summoned along the path of a heavy cable.
People were placed in tunnels and manholes and along cable gates and the order was
“Pull, pull!”
I remember well a thick 75-ohm cable—in fact a Video cable—transmitting signals to
boxes from Ungermann–Bass. This cable sneaked in and out of the basements of at least
4 buildings. From the basement, thinner cables followed cable gates up in the building. At
the head ends of these were NIUs (Net Interface Unit). From these boxes you could
distribute RS232-signals to single Macs and PCs.
Later on we pulled ordinary thick Ethernet, a yellow cable much simpler to handle.
Fiber cable was easy to pull, and USIT did everything apart from terminating the fiber.
Even a fishing rod has been used to pull fiber cable from roof to roof to span a road with
heavy traffic.
The surroundings of the cable pulling were often wet, dusty, dirty and some time
dark. In spite of this, I think most everybody at USIT participated, except the operators on
duty. Complaints from the USITers were very few, if any. I can’t remember if USIT
bought pizza, but I would not be too surprised, since USIT has a nice track record for
such rewards.
These stunts from USIT were mainly to establish infrastructure between the buildings.
The responsibility for the intranet in each building was a task for the faculty. In the years
1992 to 1994 USIT modernized and standardized distributed network within the UiO
buildings. See the two articles in the 1992 Yearly part, page 64.
Now, thirty–forty years later I can’t see USIT of today do the same thing. I think that
most people today would question whether pulling cable was their job. And, of course, it
isn’t. We, who lived through this time, may miss the “we can do it” attitude. But this
pioneering times are not to return. At that period it was necessary to do it yourself, today
there are routines for everything.
Both the old and the new way have their merits. However, the necessary early days
could not have worked without pioneers and enthusiasts. So, a toast to cable pullers of
all sorts and times.
DDPP, a Killer Application
The computer resources from late sixties to early eighties were not spectacular for a
university. I guess that quality and quantity were comparable with universities of our size
(in 1976 the UiO had 19,881 students and a scientific staff of 1,580), I have not found the
number of administrative and technical staff.
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By today’s standard, the lifespan of the mainframes was ridiculously long, but even
that was usual. What did the users of these mainframes do? Up to the late seventies, they
mainly computed. Physicists and chemists can usually use all the available computing
resources, and they did.
However, from the late sixties, USIT had something to offer the staff at the Faculty of
Social Science and the Faculty of Humanities. A homegrown program library for
statistical analysis, DDPP (Discrete Data Program Package) is, to a large degree,
responsible for this.
Arvid Amundsen from the National Institute for Alcohol Research designed the
program library and he, and staff at USIT, did the coding. The DDPP was developed from
1967 and into the seventies.
Due to a) DDPP, b) and locally developed programs for analysis of text corpora, and
c) the licensing of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), the staff outside the
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences early on became considerable users of
computer resources.
The picture shows
the cover page of
the fourth edition of
the DDPP user
manual.
Per H. Jacobsen
was the author of
all editions.
DDPP was applicable with very diverse forms of data. Most, of course, were traditional
survey data, but also data such as: Toxoplasmosis, suicide, geriatric patients,
osteoporosis, breast milk, pigeons dung, work experience, townships, data of twins,
dental health, athletic injuries, academics and much, much more [Jacobsen, 2001].
Whether computer assisted quantitative analysis is more advanced today in comparison to
the standards of the seventies and eighties, may in my view, be discussed.
DDPP’s user manuals were in the first 5–6 years plain printer output on fan fold
paper. In the year 1974 Per H. Jacobsen (PHJ) wrote a printed manual in A4 format, the
first of four editions.
The first edition was written with an IBM Selectric Composer with proportional
characters and some equation qualities—and the last in 1982 as a DEC 10 RUNOFF
document. The 1974 edition of the manual was written during PHJ’s civilian national
service at Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD).
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DDPP was converted to DEC 10 when this machine came on line in 1976 and
remained a valuable resource until DEC 10 was phased out in 1987.
This diverse use of the early computing resources in most parts of the University,
contributed in all probability to the later (relative) consensus to support an active and
centralized computing service. [Jacobsen, 2001]
Administrative Computing Services (ACS) and
Their Computers
The Macintosh prospered in the last half of the eighties. The University’s Administrative
Computing Services (ACS) choice of Macintosh was very important. In the second half
of the eighties, ACS went all out for Macintosh as the platform for development and
support of the administrative systems needed to run at the UiO. Up to the middle eighties,
most users communicated with the administrative computers with “dumb terminals”.
These computers were a CDC Cyber 171 from 1979 and a Cyber 835 from 1987.
Relevant URLs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_Cyber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_terminal
The Macintoshes were from 1987–88 the “terminal” to the Cybers. The Mac normally
used the terminal program Vistacom from Control Data. In reality, I do not think Macs in
this capacity had any great advantage over PCs. The price for a Mac or a PC was also
considerable higher than the price for a terminal, CRT, or a writing terminal with matrix
technology.
The Macintosh was attractive because of the GUI (Graphical User Interface) and its
innovative applications, not at least the different word processors and drawing applications like MacDraw and MacDraft. The platform choice by ACS was to a large degree
followed by the administrative units at the UiO. At a big university, the administrative
staff at faculties and departments constitutes a rather large group of users. I am dealing
more with ACS later. See page 79.
Early Eighties, the Mac is Closing In
In a way, the arrival of Macintosh at USIT had some similarity with the CDC–DEC
struggle of 1976. Both represented a change in the way to use computers. This time,
however, in the middle eighties, most users had grown accustomed to use of CLI
(Command Line Interface) at terminals. The switch to a self contained computing tool on
the desk was not a revolution. The Graphic User Interface (GUI) of the Mac was new for
most people, but turned out to be intuitive and easy to understand and use. More about
GUI, CLI and other relevant concepts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface#Precursors_to_GUIs
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Busy_Being_Born.txt
and
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_an
d_Progress.txt
I think that in the early eighties, most of USIT’s staff was rather “mainframe” disposed
and regarded any personal computer only as a useful terminal to the central recourses. Of
course, applications as word processing, painting and drawing, simple database work and
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so on might be suitable for these small computers, but real work, no way! To some degree
experience with the different PC platforms changed this attitude.
The Growth of the University
In this part of the History I have focused on the mainframes CDC 3300 and DEC 10 and
the infrastructure and user community around these. These machines were deployed in
1967 and 1976. The arrival of the Macintosh took place in 1985. Later we will see that
the number of Macintoshes peaked in 1995–1996. How big was the UiO at those times?
Number of students
Number of staff
1967
12,739
1,226
1976
19,881
1,580
1985
19,157
1,918
1995
36,603
2,705
Number of students and staff in selected years. Scientific staff only.
Summing up Pre-Macintosh
Computers
This section deals with the computational background of the well over fifteen years
preceding the arrival of Macintosh in 1985.
You’ll find details about UiO’s two first mainframes—CDC 3300 and Dec 10. In
addition to this, an article about the statistical program library DDPP, a homegrown and
very important resource for the professional staff at the University in the seventies and
eighties.
Some words are included about the heated discussion at USIT before the purchase of
the Dec 10. Lastly a short article about the size of the University in the last half of the
century.
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Mac at the UiO—Yearly Highlights
1984–2009
As the heading indicates, I have chosen to tell the history about “Mac at the UiO” by
focusing at what I am calling “Yearly Highlights 1984–2009”.
I have wanted the document to be based on written substance, and therefore most of
the consecutive yearly articles collect their contents from the many printed documents at
USIT. From late 1994, my own emails to the local Mac support staff at the departments
have been the most important sources.
Some years seem to lack spectacular events, or at least documented ones. Therefore
they are described rather scantily. I suppose, that these periods were more or less business
as usual.
1984
January 22
At the date above, Apple showed its famous 1984 during the Super Bowl. Ridley Scott—
of Alien fame—directed the commercial.
“Apple Computer runs its 60-second TV commercial during the 1984 NFL
(National Football League) Super Bowl XVIII football game, introducing the
Macintosh computer. Apple Computer runs the ad only once, but dozens of
news and talk shows replayed it, making it one of the most memorable ads in
the history of television. The ad cost $700,000 to produce, and $800,000 for TV
air time.”
Copied from: http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/applehis/ [A great resource of Mac
history] You’ll find the 1984 commercial many places, also at:
http://www.uriahcarpenter.info/1984.html
More about the background of 1984: http://www.duke.edu/~tlove/mac.htm.
See also: http://www.curtsmedia.com/cine/1984.html
A chapter from Ted Friedman’s book: Electric Dreams: Computers in American
Culture, gives a readable background of the pre 1984 status of personal computers, see:
http://tedfriedman.com/2011/02/12/electric-dreams-now-out-on-kindle/
In the US, with the enormous involvement in the Super Bowl game, the 1984 video was a
trailblazing event. At the UiO it was hardly noticed.
The very first Macintosh at the UiO is in all probability also the first in Norway. The
exact time is somewhat fuzzy, but it happened in 1984 between late spring and very early
fall. The story goes like this.
Trygve Reenskaug—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trygve_Reenskaug had visited the
USA and seen the Macintosh. Unable to resist the temptation, he bought a 128 KB Mac
and brought it to Norway. The University community for the first time got sight of the
Mac in the biggest auditorium at the Department of Chemistry. After the presentation,
Kolbjørn Aambø (see earlier in the History at page 21) asked Reenskaug whether he had
any good advice on how the Mac could be an alternative for the UiO. Reenskaug
answered very sensibly “Talk to Rolf Nordhagen, he has a good understanding about new
things and will surely be positive.” These were very wise words, and as they say—the
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rest is history. It must be added that at this time, KA was not an USIT employee. In a
short time, he was hired!
Kolbjørn Aambø tells that he was not at all surprised by the January introduction of
the Macintosh. As a subscriber of Business Week, he had in the October 3. 1983 issue
read about Apple’s coming Macintosh computer. In the article, which to a large extent
was concerned with the Apple II and the Lisa, you could read:
“…while Chairman Steven P. Jobs, the other co-founder, continues to supervise
the development of Macintosh—a smaller version of Lisa that is expected to
sell for $ 2.500 when it’s introduced in January.”
The first issue of
IDG’s Macworld. An
apparently proud Steve
Jobs, rather formally
dressed compared to
most of his later public
appearances.
A facsimile of Apple’s Macintosh Selling Guide (28 pages) can be found at:
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/marketingbrochures/?s=apple&type=all&t=o
bjects See half way down the first page. This is the description:
“The brochure is printed in red, black and white, and blue on white glossy
paper. The front and back covers are solid white with the company logo; the
front and back cover insides are solid gray. Front cover shows an abstract
design in red, yellow, and green and a small photograph of a finger on a mouse.
Throughout the inside pages are black and white photographs of people using
the computer in office settings, close up photographs of computer components,
screen shots of software applications, pull down menus, and graphics, charts,
tables, explaining processes and examples of printouts. Text contents include:
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Macintosh: the third industrial standard; Macintosh is for the people;
Knowledge workers: the target market; what is so special about Macintosh; The
Macintosh family; Apple family positioning; and Macintosh software.”
The Early Rumors
The first mentioning of Macintosh in USIT’s printed newsletter is an article about PC
compatibles. Even if the Mac was not at all PC-compatible, Macintosh was mentioned as
a machine of interest. Typically, the article was to a large degree preoccupied with the
ability of the different computers to run the terminal emulator Kermit. More about Kermit
at:
http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/
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1985
The Macs are Arriving
The very first “official” Macintosh arrived at the University in December 1984. USIT’s
newsletter 1985:1 described the machine.
The first Macintosh at the UiO was like
this. Complete with keyboard, mouse, an
external diskette drive (400 KB),
68000 CPU, 8 MHz, 9" Display
The Borrowed Macintoshes
The company importing the Macintosh to Norway (Computec AS) agreed to lend the
University six machines for evaluation. The Macs were three 512 KB models and three
with 128 KB. The distribution of these machines were to Department of Informatics (one
512KB); the section of Computing Science at Faculty of the Humanities (one 128 KB);
the section of Computing Science at Faculty of the Social Science (one 128 KB) and
USIT (two 512 KB, and one 128 KB). In addition some printers, external floppy drives
and software.
The Apple programs MacWrite and Mac Paint were included; the new Macintosh
user could be productive from the first minute. A qualified typographer would weep,
seeing the results of many writers not accustomed to the font possibilities in the new Mac.
I don’t remember whether these Macs were returned or purchased.
“Love at First Sight!”
I think the first major presentation of the Mac must have been spring 1985. At that time,
staff and students at Faculty of Social Science learned to know the Macintosh. Curious
people from other parts of the University found their way to the Social Science Building.
I let a colleague of mine tell what he found there:
“When I saw this computer it was completely different from everything I had
previously seen, and I had at that time been working with mainframes and
smaller boxes for more than 15 year. The screen was quite small, but WHITE.
With the little matchbox—the mouse—you could draw. In addition, you could
touch up the drawing by manipulating the single pixels. The printing was very
nice on the ImageWriter. How I wanted a Macintosh!”
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The Introduction of the LaserWriter and AppleTalk
Network
At May 21, 1985, Apple introduced their office printer LaserWriter, the AppleTalk
network, and a 20 MB hard drive. This event took place at the US Embassy in Oslo.
Kolbjørn Aambø attended the event. The LaserWriter was the first to have Adobe’s
Postscript, together with Local Talk cabling/ connector boxes. As a curiosity the
LaserWriter, a Canon engine with 300 dpi, and rather slow, was expensive—NOK 79,000
(Norwegian kroner) non-rebated, about $12,150.
The AppleTalk network, as shown, could support 32 nodes and was self-configuring.
Not a speed demon (320 Kb/sec), but it was shockingly simple to use, and cheap. The
Macintosh already had the network components on board, you only had to add a
transceiver and some cabling, and you were ready for action. The network parts for a new
node rarely did cost more than $100.
The early use of AppleTalk was mainly for sharing departmental laser writers. Soon work
group fileservers followed suit.
An informative presentation was held at MacWorld Expo 2004 by one of the co-developers of AppleTalk and later founder of Open Doors Network, Allan B. Oppenheimer:
http://www.opendoor.com/nethistory/MacWorld2004/pages/slide1.html
The Discount
Computec AS and the UiO reached an agreement in early June. The agreement implied a
43–46 percent rebate on Macintoshes. A single retail dealer, Programvarehuset AS,
should handle the business. In the following eight weeks, the University bought 55
Macintoshes.
Morgenbladet—the oldest
(1819)
existing newspaper in Norway,
carried the news about the Apple
deal between the University and
the importing agent—Computec
AS.
The Bookstore
The University Bookstore had numerous books about Macintosh and programming
languages for the Mac. Pascal, C, MODULA-2, ExpertLOGO existed as programming
languages.
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1986
New Model—Macintosh Plus
In January, Apple introduced a new model, Macintosh Plus. It had as standard one MB
RAM, an 800 KB floppy drive and, still the original 8 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU. The
memory was expandable to four MB. The price was NOK 23,500, about $ 3,600 with
rebate and 20% Value Added Tax (VAT).
MacWrite and MacPaint were not included any more, but did cost 2,900 NOK, about
$ 450. Some other prices: External 20 MB Hard drive NOK 7,100, nearly $1,100;
PageMaker NOK 5,300, about $ 800.
A New Concept—Desktop Publishing
During this year, Desktop Publishing (DTP) became a very familiar expression. I think
four
Size of the Mac Plus/SE/SE30/Classic display
512 X 342 pixels
Approx. 17,5 X 13,5 cm
conditions were decisive for this: The Mac Plus, Aldus PageMaker, and Adobe’s
Postscript, together with Apple’s LaserWriter. It is hard to understand today, that one
could do heavy DP on the small display of Macintosh Plus (512 X 342 points), but people
were, then and now, inventive and determined. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_publishing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldus and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems
The Seybold Report on Publishing Systems: Volume 15, Number 9, January 27, 1986
claimed that Apple in the last year had grown into being the second largest supplier of
computer technology for the typographical industry after Atex.
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1987
Apple in Norway
In the fall 1986, Apple established a subsidiary in Norway, Apple Norway AS. This new
company took charge of Apple’s activities. The University entered into an agreement
with Apple Norway. The agreement implied 37 percent rebate on all Apple hardware and
60 percent rebate on Apple software.
The agreement included participation for the UiO in Apple University Consortium
(AUC). The AUC membership gave a number of the UiO staff access to Apple’s
professional international gatherings for the educational sector. I will say more about
AUC later, see page 162.
The Department of Mathematics
In 1986 the Department of Mathematics started to plan for replacement of their old
computer equipment.
Per Sira at USIT wrote a document discussing different factors about computer
platforms, local network components and user needs. The document also considered ways
to connect the department to the University LAN (Local Area Network).
The conclusion of the document was a recommendation to choose Macintoshes. The
reasons were many, but access to local Postscript printers was very tempting to the
department. Another important need was the ability to write “difficult text” with Greek
letters and equations.
The result of this purchase plan was a department with nearly 100% Macintoshes, a
mix of Macintosh SE 20 and Macintosh II. To a large degree, the mathematicians used
some version of TeX.
Even in the year 2010, a mixture of Linux and Macintoshes make up a large part of
the desktop computers at the department.
More about TeX: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX
Applications Are Not Cheap
USIT’s newsletter gave a review of three word processors, MacWrite (NOK 720, $ 110),
WriteNow (NOK 2,300, $ 350) and Microsoft Word 3.0 (NOK 3,000, $ 460)
New Macintosh Models
Mars 1987 Apple introduced two new models. The Macintosh SE was sort of a
modernized Macintosh Plus with the Motorola 68000, 8 MHz CPU. The most popular
model had a 20 MB hard drive and an 800 KB (later 1.4 MB) floppy. The SE even had a
slot for an internal expansion card. Most users made do with the standard one MB of
RAM, some power users upgraded to two MB, a few big spenders filled up with four
MB. More about the Macintosh SE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_SE
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Not exactly a Mac SE, but…
In April, I bought my private SE (9"
display, one MB of RAM, 20 MB HD)
and an ImageWriter II. The bill was stiff,
NOK 32,000, - ($4,900)
Photo: S. Moum
The second model was Macintosh II. It had a Motorola 68020 CPU and a floating point
processor 68881, NUBUS architecture, and a processor speed at 16 MHz, twice what
Mac Plus, or Mac SE had. A real screamer! More about Macintosh II and NUBUS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuBus
Multitasking (sort of) On the Mac
The first Mac did not have
any multitasking capabilities. This feature was
introduced with version
5.0/ 6.0 of the system
software.
Andy Hertzfeld (AH, see
the article “Old Macintosh
Lore” at page 168) wrote
the application Switcher,
bundled with System version 4.4 - August 12,
1985. AH finished the
Switcher in April 1985
and the program was later
turned into MultiFinder
and included in later System software.
System 5 added MultiFinder, an add-on replacement for the Finder, which could run several programs simultaneously. Time was given to the background applications only when
the foreground (or “running”) applications gave it up (cooperative multitasking), but in
fact most of them did via a clever change on the OS’s event handling. Switcher and MultiFinder were not true preemptive multitasking but the simpler cooperative multitasking.
See the URLs below.
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The other significant change that System 5 brought to the Mac was Color QuickDraw,
which debuted with the Macintosh II. This significantly altered the extent and design of
the underlying graphics architecture (and its APIs), but it’s a credit to Apple that most
users, and perhaps more importantly, existing code, were largely unaware of this.
System 5 was also the first Macintosh operating system to be given a unified
“Macintosh System Software version number”, as opposed to the numbers used for the
System and Finder files.
Partly copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS 5.0/5.1
For details about the development of Switcher, look at:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Switcher.txt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MultiFinder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_multitasking#Cooperative_multitasking.2Ftimesharing
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=15582
Forum on Friday
From the second half of the eighties and into the nineties, USIT on most last Fridays each
month invited our users to a meeting or workshop. The meeting treated services or
projects of interest to the UiO community. More than 50 such meetings were arranged in
the period. The themes were very different, many treated network and server activity.
Mac stuff was also a popular theme.
As an example, the agenda for Friday, Mars 27, 1987 was:
•
TeX for Macintosh by Per H. Jacobsen
•
Macintosh Programmer’s Workbench by Bruce Horn
•
Lightspeed C compiler by Bruce Horn
•
“Design”, Program for structured graphs and documents by Kristen Nygaard
•
Mathematic oriented programs by Dag Kolsrud
•
Scanning, bit map graphics by Kolbjørn Aambø and Are Hansen
•
Spreadsheet programs by Arne Odden
These events were popular and the audience was very active.
MUG
The first Macintosh User Group in Norway (MacForum) was established. I do not think
this MUG is active any more, however, most of the meetings up to 2006 took place at the
University.
Desktop Publishing—an Introduction
In the paper newsletter from USIT one of the 1987 issues included 25 pages with
typographic theory, fonts, examples, different programming tools, techniques and a very
useful bibliography. In reality, it was a how to start and do it text. The author was
USIT’s Per H. Jacobsen.
The article started with a slightly modified text copied from Acronyms, a newsletter
from Michigan State University Computing Laboratory, Vol. 17, Number 7, written by
Marilyn Everingham.
Desktop Publishing spread like wildfire at the University. Most every department or
student associations were happily making booklets, papers and leaflets with a Mac and a
desktop program. Many, by curious ways, even used the expensive Aldus Pagemaker!
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Macintosh and Communication with VAX
The Kermit program was the main tool used for file transfer and emulation of a VT100terminal. In the USIT newsletter 1987:1, an article discussed the plans to communicate
between Macintoshes and a TCP/IP-equipped VAX.
Actually, in these years, officially opened in 1989, the Nordic multiprotocol network
NORDUNET began operating a TCP/IP service connecting the University network to the
Internet. Norway was after all the first country outside the US with an ARPANET node.
http://www.norsar.no/pc-5-30-NORSAR-and-the-Internet.aspx
Macintosh and Communication with VAX
The Kermit program was the main tool used for file transfer and emulation of a VT100terminal. In the USIT newsletter 1987:1, an article discussed the plans to communicate
between Macintoshes and a TCP/IP-equipped VAX.
Actually, in these years, officially opened in 1989, the Nordic multiprotocol network
NORDUNET began operating a TCP/IP service connecting the University network to the
Internet. Norway was after all the first country outside the US with an ARPANET node.
http://www.norsar.no/pc-5-30-NORSAR-and-the-Internet.aspx
Center for Industrial Research (SI)
SI is not a part of the UiO, but a research institute that in 1993 merged with the SINTEF
Group in Trondheim. The abbreviation SINTEF stands for The Foundation for Scientific
and Industrial Research at the Norwegian Institute of Technology. SI was located in Oslo,
and had professional connections to some of the University science departments. SI had
repair facilities for electronic equipment and did hardware service on Macintoshes sold
by Høyskoledata. See page 44.
SI early on had a lot of Macintoshes. Odd Richard Valmot was an enthusiastic, able
and convincing Information manager and Mac supporter at the center. He was and is also
a keen writer specializing on technical topics and engaged in the general Mac activity in
Norway. Together with Per H. Berrefjord he started the first Macintosh user group—
MacForum in Norway (see page 38 and 49). He was also involved in the startup of
HøyskoleData.
Odd Richard Valmot (2011)
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Among the IT-staff at SI, was Kaj Hejer. SI had Lisas, and Kaj was one of the few
Norwegians with experience from this platform.
See: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/lisainterview Later on, Kaj moved to
the UiO and is now a valuable staff member at USIT. At all times an eager and extremely
able Mac user.
“Those Were the Days”
The Purchase Department of the UiO offered double-sided 3,5" floppy discs (1.4 MB) for
NOK 16,00 ($2,50) a piece, a real bargain…
Programming Languages
USIT “sold” the compiler for SmallTalk-8. The payment was ten double-sided floppy
disks and one had to sign an agreement that the software was non-exportable to the Soviet
Union and a number of other countries.
Lightspeed Pascal from Think Technologies ($125) was at the time maybe the most
popular programming language for the Macintosh.
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1988
External Storage and Memory—a Scarce Good
In February 1988, I wrote six pages in the newsletter from USIT. A short extract from
this serious article:
“The main parts of system programs are System (v. H1-4.3), Finder (v. H1-6.0),
and MultiFinder (v. H1-1.0)
The newer system versions are very space requiring. Together with a selection
of fonts and Desktop Accessories, they use about 600 KB of RAM. Because of
this, it’s quite tiring to use a Mac with only one 800 KB floppy drive as external
storage space. At least two floppy drives or a 20 MB hard drive is a great
advantage.”
Another article in the newsletter, pointed at the limited effect of MultiFinder if the Mac
had only 1 MB of RAM. The sizes of the application programs had nearly outgrown the 1
MB of Ram found in most of the Macintoshes at the UiO.
USIT Moves to New Premises
In August, USIT moved three quarters of a kilometer into a new building with far better
facilities, but not with the geographically central location on campus as before. The new
building had Ethernet cabling in the walls and when buying new Macintoshes, they were
usually equipped with an Ethernet interface (NOK 2000, $ 300).
USIT’s Macintosh Lab for Classes
In the new building, USIT established two labs, one with eight Macintoshes and a
LaserWriter, the other with an equal number IBM PS/2.
The Lab Macintoshes were Mac II with 40 MB HD and 5 MB RAM. All displays
except one, were 12" B/W. The last display was a 13" color display. The displays all had
VGA-resolution—640 * 480 pixels. The most usual classes were quite elementary,
mostly introduction to Mac OS and MS Word. The lab was very popular and the classes
filled quickly.
Mac II with two diskette stations and a 13"
Trinitron Color Display.
68020 CPU, 16 MHz
The Keyboard is the first ADB (Apple Desktop
Bus) keyboard, not an Apple Extended Keyboard
(see later).
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HyperCard
HyperCard came to Norway some six months after the introduction in the US. HyperCard is not
easy to categorize. The user created HyperCard stacks. Many HyperCard stacks made by
pastime programmers, presented text and pictures used in education, product catalogs, games
and different sorts of lists. For many users HyperCard became their introduction to programming. More about HyperCard at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3848926
Prices and Specifications in 1988
Mac Plus 68000 CPU, 8 MHz
Mac SE w/ 2 floppy discs, 68000 CPU, 8 MHz
Mac SE w/ Floppy disc and 20 MB HD, 68000
Mac II w/o HD, 68020 CPU 16 MHz
Mac II w/ 40 MB HD, 68020 CPU 16 MHz
Mac II w/ 80 MB HD, 68020 CPU 16 MHz
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
NOK 13,381 $ 2,060
NOK 20,185 $ 3,105
NOK 24,720 $ 3,803
NOK 35,900 $ 3,523
NOK 45,600 $ 7,015
NOK 56,400 $ 8,677
The Mac II had a 16 MHz 68020 CPU, one MB of RAM, a 40 MB hard disc, and a
mouse. The keyboard, video card, and display were not included. Other vendors
could supply some articles, as video cards and displays. The Apple products had
these prices:
Extended keyboard—an outstanding product, see:
http://lowendmac.com/thomas/06/1013.html , NOK 2,640 $ 406 and
http://lowendmac.com/thomas/06/1019.html
I’m still using one of these keyboards on my Mac Pro, with an iMate ADB to USB
Adapter from Griffin. See: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imate
The adapter is discontinued by Griffin, but might be found at eBay.
12" (640 * 480) b/w display NOK 4,200 $ 646; 13" color display 640 X 480 NOK
9,840 $ 1,513; Video cards between NOK 5,000 – 6,600 $ 770 to 1,015.
A LaserWriter NT NOK 40,700 $ 6,261; an additional one MB RAM for Mac II
NOK 2,280 $ 350; an additional four MB RAM NOK 13,700 $ 2,107;
Fortunately, the RAM prices soon dropped radically.
Center for IT Purchase
USIT and the University Purchasing Section (PS) established a center where staff and
students might see and use the hardware (Mac & PC), and try the software.
The Macintosh hardware was: Mac SE, with standard ADB keyboard and a Mac II
with extended keyboard, Color display, and an external 5.25" diskette drive. The software
was: Aldus PageMaker, Appleshare, MacDraw, MacPaint, MacWrite, MS Excel, MS
Word, Multifinder, Superpaint, Word Perfect, WriteNow.
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WriteNow was by many early Mac users,
regarded as the best word processor of the
time. The program was lean and mean, very
fast (written in assembly language), and
filled the requirements of most users.
Read about WriteNow in this Wikipedia
article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WriteNow
The center operated twice a week, four hours each Tuesday and Thursday and was staffed
by Ingrid Arnesen and Torill Linna from PS and Jørgen Fog and myself from USIT. We
did not have any stock; the PS took care of the paperwork and forwarded the order to the
resellers, which had a contract with the University. The day-today head was Jørgen Fog.
Left: Torill Linna, the UiO Purchasing Section
Right: Jørgen Fog, USIT
Macintosh, Local Area Network and File Services
In the printed newsletter (1988:5), USIT published a report on Macintosh in a LAN
environment (project Bagatell). Kolbjørn Aambø the first person at USIT who worked
full time with Macintoshes at the UiO, wrote the report. Kolbjørn belonged in USIT’s
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Section for Research and Development. In the introduction to the report were the
following words:
“…In this project, we have emphasized to reach solutions, which are easily
accessible for the non-data-expert. Our impression is that most users of
Macintoshes at the UiO have other (and more important) tasks to do, instead of
becoming absorbed in computers.”
In my ears, these are wise words. Of course, they might be obvious, however one can
wonder whether the progress at all times is going from bad to better.
The report makes use of a hypothetical department at the UiO, the “Department of
Mouse Tail Research”, and discussed how the department in the easiest and most
economical way could satisfy its growing IT needs.
The reader finds in the report an exhaustive discussion of AppleTalk, a suite of
protocols for networking computers. More details about AppleTalk, see page 131. Other
topics were cable systems, LocalTalk versus EtherTalk, file sharing, file servers—hosted
on a Mac (AppleShare) or on a VAX/VMS 750 (AlisaShare). Further, the report referred
to shared Laser printers and routers between Ethernet and LocalTalk. The report offered
different solutions for different needs. The report represented a watershed in the
Macintosh growth at the UiO.
The report was part of the activity in the media lab at USIT. You’ll find more about
the lab in the section Mac Theme—USIT, see page 148.
Høyskoledata, a New Reseller of Macintosh
July 1, 1988 the UiO got a new reseller of Macintosh equipment. The company should
sell Apple goods to the total educational and scientific sector in the Oslo area. The
founders of Høyskoledata were Jens Rugseth, Gunnar Evensen, and Oddbjørn Lende (No
photo) all with background from Norwegian School of Management (Bedriftsøkonomisk
Institutt – BI).
Left: Jens Rugseth, Right:
Gunnar Evensen
Time goes by, two of the founders of Høyskoledata, many years later
As an example of the prices in the late eighties, let us see what Høyskoledata offered in
the fall of 1988:
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Macintosh IIx
Motorola 68030 16 MHz; 68882 MMU,
80 MB HD, 4 MB Ram, 1,4 MB Floppy
drive,
Extended Keyboard, 13" Color Monitor,
256 KB(!) expansion of display memory
UiO-price
NOK 73,472 ($ 11,303)
In 1993 Officeline—now Humac—acquired Høyskoledata.
Bruce Horn Visits Norway
As a member of the original Macintosh team, Bruce Horn contributed vital parts of the
Macintosh software. (More about Bruce later in the History—Mac theme—Apple Inc.
See page 173)
Bruce had been in Norway earlier, in 1980-81 implementing the Smalltalk-78 and
envir-onment on a Norwegian microcomputer, the Mycron-2000. He designed and
implemented a screen-oriented debugger for the 8086, rewrote an assembler to use 8086language and wrote many diagnostics and utility programs to help in the implementation
and the debugging of the 8086 Smalltalk interpreter, primitives, and memory manager.
Now in 1988, he was Research Assistant at the University of Oslo and worked with
Dr. Kristen Nygaard, co-inventor of Simula and the field of Object-Oriented Programming.
I think that the “Mac community” at the UiO could have “used” Bruce more during
his stay in Norway. However, many, at least myself, felt that this great guy could not be
bothered with our petty concerns. Kolbjørn Aambø had much contact with Bruce.
Bruce, being an enthusiastic biker during his stay, cycled a famous route in the high
mountains—“Rallarveien”. Some URLs about this scenery:
http://www.turistforeningen.no/english/trip.php?tp_id=9063&fo_id=3987
http://www.rallarvegen.com/index.php?m=aboutrallarvegen&lang=en
More about this route, in Norwegian: http://www.vg.no/reise/artikkel.php?artid=8377999
Rumors tell that his skiing skills were not tested because of very little snow in the
southern part of Norway during his stay.
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1989
ABC about Macintosh
Are Hansen wrote “ABC om
Macintosh” (ABC about Macintosh). In
the preface of the book he wrote the
following:
…it is due time that USIT presents a
written documentation of Macintosh as a
phenomena and as a tool in the activity
of faculty and students
Furthermore in the preface:
“…consequently we have chosen to focus on the conditions that make the
Macintosh a different computer. Not because a peculiar area of applications in
its self is a goal, but our daily contact with users of the Macintosh give us the
impression that these conditions are a very positive experience. What these
conditions consist of and why they time and again for most people makes the
Macintosh especially easy to use, are what we have tried to describe.”
Table of Contents for ABC of Macintosh
The main sections treated subjects as:
Chapters
What is Macintosh?
Hardware
Keywords of the content
A discussion of the Mac GUI, presentation of
terminology, and a first look at the
components of Finder.
HW-terminology, discussion of Macs and
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Chapters
The ideas behind the GUI
About programs
To make documents
Word processing
To Paint
Spreadsheet
About Virus
A sensible System
HyperCard (HC)
Statistical programs
The more we are together…
File converting
Tracing
Desktop Publishing
Instrumentation
Programming
Macintosh at the UiO
Keywords of the content
printers at that time, about Postscript/
resolution.
A short elaboration of the details that makes
up the GUI.
Technical and mercantile articles
Fonts/sizes/styles/effects. Typographical
details, figures, layout
Characteristics of your WP-needs. Doc.
formats, different programs (WriteNow,
MacWrite II, MS Word, Word Perfect,
FullWrite Professional)
Tools for bit-map- and vector graphics,
document formats, SuperPaint represented
the different applications.
What they do? Excel/Wings/Full Impact
A few Mac viruses existed. However,
Disinfectant by John Norstad was very
effective. Viruses of the late 80', were:
Scores, nVIR A, nVIR B, Hpat, AIDS,
MEV#, nFLU, INIT 29, ANTI, MacMag.
Versions, Font Install, Desktop Tools
What it is? How to program in HC?
StatView, Data Desk, SYSTAT, JMP,
Minitab, forthcoming SPSS
Different types of network, printer sharing,
printer server, file servers -among others the
“McEnroe”, bridges & “Kinetics Fastpath”.
3,5" vs. 5.5" floppies, Daynafile, MacLink
Plus, Apple File Converter.
Conversion of bit-map to vector graphics
Pagemaker & friends, Fonts, Type of HW,
Display, Scanner
History, Why Mac?, LabView, Some
technical articles
Different tools
USIT, Apple, Different providers, Printers &
Fileservers at the UiO, Commercial programs
at the UiO, TCP/IP, Internet programs
In the Publishing Business
Employees at the UiO received a free copy of “ABC om Macintosh”. I guess that the
ABC still might be found in many bookshelves in the offices of the staff. It was typeset
on USIT’s phototypesetter, a Linotronic 300 and printed and bound by a commercial print
shop.
A scanned copy of version 4 is linked up from:
http://www.usit.uio.no/om/it-historien/andre.html
Click on the thumbnail of ABC om Macintosh. The pdf-document is big, about 120 MB.
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Number of Books
ABC om Macintosh
ABC om Macintosh
Version and Number of
Pages
Aug. 89, 155 pages
Oct. 89, 159 pages
ABC om Macintosh
Dec. 90, 201 pages
1,000
ABC om Macintosh
May. 91, 201 pages
1,400
800
1,100
Total # of Books 4,300
Number of copies printed (ABC om Macintosh)
The Service Area
Early this year USIT equipped a large office as a service area for users. The users had
access to three VT320 terminals, one networked Mac with an external 5.25" floppy
station and with applications including MacLink Plus and Apple File Converter.
The companion PC had three floppy stations, a 3.5", a 5.25", and a station for 8"
floppies. Among the software for the PC, was PC-convert. The Mac and the PC could
with combined efforts read and write most any diskette- and document formats. This
format and document conversion service was for some time of great importance to many
users. The office was also equipped with a laser writer and a line printer. Consecutively
updating of equipment took place up to the year 1999.
In 1999 the office was upgraded with Macintoshes borrowed from our Macintosh
reseller, see “Show- /service room with Macintoshes at page 89 later in the History.
The NeXT Come to USIT
Early 1989 (or late 1988) USIT received the NeXT “Cube”. It happened this way:
Tor Sverre “Bassen” Lande from Department of Informatics (IFI) had a year long stay at
California Institute of Technology, Caltech. One of his colleagues there—Carver Mead—
was an acquaintance of Steve Jobs. Tor Sverre wanted to buy a few NeXT computers,
and three machines arrived at the UiO. IFI kept two, and USIT received one.
The NeXT Computer (often informally
referred to as “the Cube”) was made of diecast magnesium as a 1-foot (305 mm)
cube. It cost US$6,500.
The 68030 CPU (25 MHz) was supported
by a 68882 FPU for faster mathematical
performance, a 56001 digital signal
processor (DSP) for multi-media work and
two custom-designed 6-channel direct
memory access (DMA) channel
controllers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTcube
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The NeXT Cube
The Cube did not have a traditional HD, but a removable and rewritable optical disc.
This disc technology was, however, rather slow.
At the time, IFI was a UNIX shop and many were interested in this new architecture,
which apparently had traits from both UNIX and Mac. The boxes arrived in Norway
thanks to Bassen’s initiative. This operation is a tribute to the relatively easygoing
purchasing practice of the period. Today, it would have been harder to do.
The NeXT computers went online as soon as they arrived at the UiO. As far as
Bassen remembered, Jens Thomassen, an employee at the Department of Informatics,
was very active in connecting the NeXT machines to the Internet. IFI beat USIT with the
networking and setup of the first NeXT. If my memory does not fail me, USIT was
beaten with twenty minutes. Of cause, a pity, but after all it was IFI’s and Bassen’s credit
that the NeXT machines came to the UiO. It was only fair that the department succeeded
in getting the first NeXT operative at the University.
The final placement of IFI’s NeXT machines was in the electronics lab. In retrospect,
the fate of the machines didn’t turn out to be exotic research. In the end, the NeXT
became an ordinary workstation, with WriteNow as the word processor.
The famous NeXT Logo
Personally, I remember very well the arrival of the NeXTs, but I never had anything to do
with them. It is right to say that the story of the NeXT was short, both at the UiO and in
the marketplace. The software of the NeXT, WebObjects, and especially the OS,
NeXTSTEP should later save the Mac, but that is another story. The following URLs are
interesting:
http://www.logodesignlove.com/next-logo-paul-rand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb8idEf-Iak Interview with Steve Jobs about Paul
Rand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2003/09/26/webobjects.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebObjects
Macforum (MUG), Meeting With Complications
In early June, the main MUG in Norway—Macforum—held a meeting at the UiO
campus. The lecturer was Elin Husebø, the Education Manager at Apple Norway. The
main theme was (as far as I remember) the advantage of a consolidated user interface as
found on the Macintosh. Other GUIs were emerging and it was important to draw a line!
The audience present insisted in joining a student protest march to the Embassy of the
People’s Republic of China. The march was to protest against the massacre of the
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students at Tianmen Square at June 4. The Education Manager of Apple did not join the
march, but remained sympathetic. This delayed the arrangement for nearly two hours.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989
The Unknown Rebel – This famous
photo, taken on 5 June 1989 by
photographer Jeff Widener, depicts
an unknown student attempting to
halt the PLA’s advancing tanks.
Jeff Widener (The Associated Press)
From the above Wikipedia Article
The Unknown Rebel–Tiananmen Square 1989
Mac Virus
Late 1989 Rolf Nordhagen (RN) wrote a report on a virus attack on his personal Mac II.
Viruses existed at this early time, but had not caused any big problems.
RN had received the virus through an update of a popular program and he described
the fuss he had to go through to clean up. The virus—nVIR B—was not among the most
aggressive ones, but was a nuisance, and created quite a lot of work to those who had
infected Macs. John Norstad’s Disinfectant from early 1989 was, however, very effective.
I remember I one night visited all the offices of USIT’s Mac users and cleaned up. By and
large the viruses at the time were manageable. More about the nVIR-strain of computer
virus at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVIR_(computer_virus)
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-virus/macintosh-faq/ is an old FAQ about Mac
viruses. The latest is version 1.6b, dated January 7, 2000. David Harley maintained the
FAQ and it was only concerned with pre-MOSX Macs.
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AppleTalk Zones Late 1989
Faculties, Departments and sections with separate Zones and Kinetics Fastpath
router
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural
Department of Social Anthropology
Science
Department of Mathematics
Dental Faculty: Community Dentistry
Dept. of Mathematics: Branch of Logic
The Faculty of Law Library
Department of Informatics
Department of Criminology and Sociology
of Law
Department of Chemistry (3 zones)
Section for Preventive Medicine and
Epidemiology
School of Pharmacy
Institute of Basic Med. Science:
Department of neurophysiology
Dept. of Literature, Area Studies and
Budget Department
European Languages: Slavic/Baltic branch
Dept. of Culture Studies and Oriental
Purchase Department
Languages: Ural-Altaic
The Department of Culture Studies and
Information Department
Oriental Languages: East Asiatic Institute
Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Accounts Department
Languages: Indo-Iranian Institute
The Library of Humanities and Social
Technical Department
Science
Dept. of Musicology: Folk Music
Department of Financial Management
Collection
Department of Culture Studies and Oriental The Office of External Financed Activity
Languages: Institute of Semitic
Dept. of Literature, Area Studies and
The University Print Centre
European Languages: German branch
Dept. of Philosophy, Classics, History of
International Education Office.
Art and Ideas: Examen Philosophicum
Dept. of Media and Communication
University Library: Planning Department
Dept. of Linguistics and Scandinavian
Natural History Museum: Zoological
Studies
branch
Dept. of Linguistics and Scandinavian
Centre for Gender Research
Studies: Section of Computer Linguistics
Faculty of Social Science
USIT
Dept. of Sociology and Geography
Administrative Computing Services ACS
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Network Illustrations
In the late eighties and early nineties USIT’s newsletter displayed many drawings of the
IT infrastructure. It was important to teach the users about the network and the services of
the net. Bjørn Ness made this drawing.
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Christmas Shopping
On the morning of Christmas Eve—December 24 1989, Sven Ågren, the leader of the
Purchasing Section of the UiO, visited Høyskoledata, our supplier of Macintosh
equipment. He brought with him a 500,000 NOK ($75,000) check. He demanded a
receipt for miscellaneous Macintosh equipment, whished the staff at Høyskoledata a
happy Christmas and left for his office. The computer equipment would be ordered and
delivered in the New Year.
The University often had trouble with using the total governmental grant within the
present budget year. The University could transfer some unused funds to the next year,
other accounts with unused funds had to be returned to the Ministry of Education and
Research. This could lead to some creative practices. In the year of 2011 I doubt such
things could happen, the ordering, accounting and delivery procedures of today are in any
ways different. As a minor, but true legend this story is not without interest. Compared
with the procedures of today, I see the attitude of yesteryear as much more direct and
pragmatic, less concerned with red tape and bureaucracy, fast moves were easier
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1990
Number of Macintoshes
I found the first information about how many Macintoshes we believed existed on the
network at the UiO, in issue 1990:2 of the USIT newsletter. The number of Macs, about
1,500, seems to me a bit high, I would believe 1,200–1,300 to be more correct. Later in
the nineties, I collected information about networked Macs on the UiO-LAN, I’ll return
to this.
Show-room for IT Development
The previously mentioned Center for IT-purchase (see 1989, page 42) existed a little
more than six months before our two main resellers of PCs and Macs, moved into
convenient premises centrally situated at the University campus.
A Show room for IT development succeeded the Center for IT purchase. The room
was a place where USIT was showing the “bits and pieces” of computers and other
equipment necessary for building efficient networks at the departments. The head of the
show room was Kjetil Otter Olsen, later an efficient leader of the Section of Network and
Telephone.
The UiO—an Early LabVIEW Site
In the third and fourth edition of ABC of Macintosh see page 46, the book included a
chapter about Computers and Instrumentation, written by MD Torsten Eken (TE); at the
time employed at Department of Neurophysiology. He described the original setup with
an Apple II+ (1981) and additional hardware for registering of electrical signals. About
LabVIEW:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW
“In 1986, the Department of Neurophysiology purchased a Macintosh Plus and
in 1988 a Macintosh IIx. Especially the Mac IIx with many card slots was very
suitable for heterogeneous data capture with LabVIEW. With expansion cards
for both analog- and digital data and more “high level” control over physical
instruments (by way of GPIB), complex experiments were possible.”
For those unfamiliar with the LabVIEW solution, the chapter in ABC of Macintosh
went fairly deep into the techniques of instrumentation, with illustrations of results and
examples of experiments made possible with this equipment. Let me add that one of the
main benefits with this type of setup is the relatively simple procedure necessary for
altering an experiment. And, having a “virtual” instrument comprising of a standard
computer and relatively standard capture cards, one could quickly exercise another,
different experiment with the same equipment, without having to buy another instrument
setup. The LabVIEW software was of course of decisive importance.
Today, with our present Macintoshes with hard drives in the hundreds of GB and with
4 GB or more of RAM, one should be somewhat humble reading what TE wrote about
the Mac IIx doing valuable work in 1988:
“We are running LabVIEW on a Mac IIx with 4 MB of RAM. Then it’s
impossible to do anything sensible if you have the MultiFinder turned on;
LabVIEW needs 2 MB and likes 3,5 MB even better. Thinking of the coming
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System 7, we plan to expand the IIx up to eight MB of RAM. LabVIEW with
all extensions occupies 18 MB of hard drive space. In other words, it’s a
resource hog…”
MacTjener (MacServer)
The purpose of project MacTjener, was to place the user services of Macintoshes and PCs
on equal terms.
The project had a decent kick-off at October 22, with most of the participants present.
The project responsible said the usual introductory words, and the members were served a
light meal with cheese and biscuits, red wine and a glass of port.
The length of the project was planned to be eight month, with a finish at June 30 in
1991. The budget was estimated to be NOK 385,000 ($ 60.000). In the end the project
was finished December 1, 1991. The budget was severely reduced to only NOK 80,000
($12,300)
I regard the MacTjener project as an exercise to document bits and pieces already
existing and patch up possible weak points. I do not think the Macintosh users at the time
missed any services compared to the PC users, maybe quite the reverse. To sum up,
document the situation and put an official stamp on the result, are always important.
The Result of MacTjener (MacServer)
Both the Macs and the PC were linked up to the UiO LAN. The PCs used PC/NFS. The
Macintoshes used AppleTalk, AppleShare and MacTCP. For more details about
AppleTalk, see page 131. I will not tell much about PC/NFS, Google is as always your
friend. Both Mac and PC-users had access to file servers, network printers and to the
Internet. In retrospect one may really discuss whether the two platforms were unequal in
offering services.
What USIT wanted to achieve by the project MacTjener, can be summarized in the
following table of services:
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Connection to the LAN and the different UiO–
services by help of AppleTalk and MacTCP
Registration of domain name and IP-address in the
naming directory
UNIX username and password to all users at the
University
e-mail address
Network drives; sharing of
files, programs on local or
central servers by way of
EtherShare
Access
to
fileservers
MacMekker, MacPub
Communication services with
MacTCP
Printing by way of PRISS
Connection to the UiO LAN
The major part of the Macintoshes and laser printers were at this time connected to local
AppleTalk networks, by way of Farralons PhoneNet cabling. These AppleTalk networks
were connected to the Ethernet LAN with AppleTalk to Ethernet bridges, usually a
Kinetics /Shiva FastPath box.
More and more Macintoshes were purchased with Ethernet interfaces and these
Macintoshes were independent of the local AppleTalk network. Since very few laser
writers at the time had Ethernet connections, all Macintoshes regardless of network type,
did their printing on printers hanging on AppleTalk’s PhoneNet-cabling.
UNIX Username and Password
All employees at the University received their UNIX username, password and email
address. Those working with administrative applications were issued a separate username
and password for these applications.
File Servers
The relevant file servers for most Macintosh users were at this time UNIX machines
running EtherShare from Helios. Macintosh-based fileservers existed for years in smaller
“pockets” of users, but EtherShare soon became the preferred Mac server at the Faculty
level.
Macintosh Services on Servers
All Mac users had their personal home directory at the file server. The department had
common areas for the staff. Other cooperating work groups could establish areas only
accessible by the work group. However, the impression was that many Macintosh users
mostly used their local hard drive. Some copied documents to their server area in a more
or less structured manner, often after having experienced a disk crash.
USIT managed three software volumes for Macintosh-users:
Volume name
MacPub
USIT Free Software
USIT Licensed Software
Content
Free-, shareware, demo, documents, sounds,
pictures, HyperCard-stacks, and so on
Recommended Software, especially Internet app.,
site license software
Software with payable license
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Internet and Friends
In the Internet program suite all programs were (of course) utilizing MacTCP. The UiO
had a site license for this system component. The communication software were:
Service
E-mail
Application name
Eudora
News
Newswatcher
Information Services
TurboGopher
Catalog services
File transfer
Terminal, library and
administrative services
AddressFinder
TCP/Connect, Fetch
TCP/Connect,
Telnet,
Connect
Remarks
The official E-mail client from
about 1989 to 2005
See autobiography of John
Norstad under the table.
Very little used at the UiO.
Superceded by NCSA Mosaic
some years later
Vistacom
The Terminal application Vistacom was bought from Control Data, thousand copies!
Together with the contract, and the master floppy, CD delivered 1,000 physical preprinted diskette labels. These old computer companies had a certain style.
About Eudora and the developer, Steve Dorner, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_%28e-mail_client%29 and
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/012197eudora.html
About the developer of Newswatcher, John Norstad, see:
http://homepage.mac.com/j.norstad/autobiography.html
About Gopher, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher
SPSS for Macintosh
The statistical package SPSS was released for the Macintosh. This was good news. At a
university, tools for computations and production of statistics are vital. SPSS is a huge,
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integrated program collection. Researchers should be hard-pressed if their data could not
find a suitable statistical interpretation within SPSS. Some relevant notes about SPSS at
page 26. More about SPSS at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPSS MacSPSS (SPSS v. 4)
was not 100 percent equal to the PC-version, but the differences were tolerable. The
newsletter summary:
“…the problem we had with smooth inclusion of SPSS tables in MS Word 4.0
is regrettable—usually our intension with using SPSS is to produce reports
based on SPSS tables. SPSS is not as innovative and elegant as JMP, nor as
“Mac-alike” as StatView, and SPSS is highly CLI-driven. On the other side,
SPSS’ rich arsenal of methods and possibilities is a “rock” within statistical
Software.”
SPSS for Mac existed until version 6, in the middle of the nineties. Then it disappeared as
Macintosh software. It surfaced again as v.10 in 2001 and is present in version 19.
Manual for USIT’s Word 4.0 Class
Are Hansen (AH) wrote a manual for the Microsoft Word. The booklet had 55 pages and
was printed twice, in 1990 and 1992. Total numbers printed were 400.
For a long time he had been very reserved in relation to this program. However, USIT
persuaded him to give classes in MS Word. They were, as usual, excellent.
Alan Kay Visits Norway
Alan Kay visited Norway in 1990. A meeting took place at The Norwegian School of
Management, at that time a rather big Macintosh site, located at Sandvika about ten miles
from Oslo. About the present Norwegian School of Management at:
http://www.bi.edu/
A group of Mac enthusiasts from the UiO took the train to Sandvika and trooped to
the auditorium. Alan Kay was dressed in black pants and black leather jacket. I do not
remember the topics of his speech, he could have talked about whatever he liked, and we
would still have cheered. It’s fun to have experienced one of the founding fathers of the
theoretical framework of Macintosh. Alan Kay was at the time an Apple fellow.
This picture shows Alan Kay in his late
thirties (I guess!)
More about Alan Kay at:
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/GASCH.KAY.HTML and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay
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1991
The JU§IT project—the Faculty of Law Goes for Macintosh
The acronym was a combination of part of the everyday name of the Faculty of Law—
JUS—and USIT, with a § thrown in for good measure.
“In this year, the JU§IT project was completed. The process was an all-out
effort (and a successful project) by the Faculty of Law, the Purchasing Section
of the UiO, and USIT. The aim of the combined effort was to upgrade the
Faculty of Law regarding modern IT infrastructure. All members of staff should
receive new Macintoshes, everybody should have net-access, and all should
attend an elementary class to learn to use the new tools.”
An interesting aspect of JU§IT, was that the faculty’s local server should be a UNIX-box.
More precisely, it was a Sun SPARCstation II with two GB of disc-space. The SUN
should run EtherShare software. EtherShare is software that makes the UNIX-based
server function like an AppleShare-server. [Jacobsen, 2001] For more details, see page
133.
The Faculty of Law had at that time still many dedicated text processors operated by
secretaries. This was to change with the JU§IT project. The purpose of the JU§IT project
was to make the staff write their own lectures and books. By and large the project
succeeded with this. However, among the staff, especially the senior staff some found it
difficult to write their manuscripts with the same high standard as delivered by the
secretaries.
The JU§IT project started in the fall of 1990 with preliminary work, and quotations
for machines, software, and network. The efficient project head was Morten Dahl from
USIT. Sven Ågren was at this time the leader of the Purchasing Section and took well
care of the mercantile parts of the project. A mild mannered man, but with iron in the
gloves and determined that the Faculty of Law should make a good bargain. The Faculty
made a good deal!
“However, usually very calm jurists became lyrical in describing the JU§IT
project. ‘The delivery of the machines was a beautiful sight. Handsome and
smiling young men in purple sweaters, well organized and in the corridors big
piles of boxes with apple pictures.’ [Described by Cecilie Høigård, at the time
the leader of the IT committee at the Faculty of Law]”
Most of the Macintoshes purchased in the JU§IT project, were Macintosh LC and Mac II
SI models. Introduced in October 1990, their prices were rather lower than previous
models. Many of the displays purchased in the project, were Macintosh Portrait Displays.
This display showed a full page of an A4 (or US Letter) document. The A4 display was
very handy with word processing applications.
Personally, I had the pleasure of giving a two-day class for every staff member. Many
of the “students” were well-known participants in the social, legal and political debates in
Norway, familiar faces in newspaper and television. Close to 100 employees of the
Faculty of Law finished the class. They were very bright people, however, hardly more
disposed to learn these new tools, than more “ordinary students”. Nevertheless, it was
great fun.
The whole JU§IT project comprised of about 200 Macintoshes with displays, applications, laser printers, network, file server, and additional equipment.
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Communication Services for Macintosh
Early in 1991 Bjørn Ness (BN) wrote a manual describing the Internet programs in use at
the University.
The manual explained the different parameters and “building blocks” necessary for using
the Internet programs.
The
Control
Panel
MacTCP formed the
basis for these programs.
Many users found it
difficult to master the
configuration of Mac
TCP.
BN therefore entered into
details to explain the
different parameters.
The MacTCP Control Panel
In addition to a thorough review of MacTCP Control Panel, the manual described how to
start NCSA Telnet for terminal access and file transfer, Eudora for electronic mail and a
client, TheNews for USENET. Later, different versions of NewsWatcher became the
regular news client among most of the Mac users at the UiO.
A short Wikipedia stub at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacTCP
A Mini AUC at USIT
In late spring, USIT organized a meeting with Mac managers from the other universities
in Norway. The Apple University Consortium (AUC) held at Easter 1991 in Paris
inspired the meeting. The Paris-meeting had Mac OS 7 as one of the main themes. About
AUC, see the article in section: Mac themes—Apple Inc at page 162.
As far as I can remember, about 20 people participated. Some from USIT, others
from the University of Bergen, the University of Science and Technology (Trondheim),
the University of Tromsø, and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Even a guy
from our Macintosh reseller—Høyskoledata—was present.
Many had prepared reports on the Mac state of affairs at their own university. It was
interesting to exchange experiences. We had a decent lunch and in the afternoon, traveled
to a Mongolian restaurant where we had “hot” food and some beers. Not exactly Netter’s
Dinner at the Hunan, but close enough.
What came out of the meeting? As I see it, close to nothing, we had no vision about
cooperation among the Universities or at least to establish a personal network among
ourselves.
On second thought, this meeting should of course have been used to establish some
sort of semi-formal cooperation among the participants on behalf of our organizations.
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In a way, this—partly—followed twenty years later, see the article at page 155 about
the Mac OS X Workshop.
Mac OS 7 Released
The release date of Mac OS 7 was May 13 on 800K or 1.4 MB floppy disks and
optionally on CD-ROM.
System 7 was a version of
Mac OS, the operating
system of the Apple
Macintosh computer, used
in the early 1990s up until
1997, as the successor to
System 6.
It featured built-in cooperative multitasking, virtual memory, personal
file sharing, a slightly 3D
looking interface taking
advantage of colors,
QuickTime for video
capture and playback,
and QuickDraw 3D for
3D graphics
It was still used up to the late nineties by many Macintosh users who owned Apple
hardware of similar vintage.
The “System 7” term describe all the 7.x versions. The codename used for System 7
was “Big Bang”, which reflects the considerable changes that came with it. System 7
offered a number of system enhancements that were either previously not available, or
were optional extensions to the operating system.
The consumer version of OS 7 was not released to USIT on a CD, so a picture of a
beta release CD have to do.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS 7 See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_7
The Ink Pot and the Tower of Babel
The JU§IT project was the predecessor of two similar projects, Project Ink Pot—at The
Central Administration of the UiO, and The Tower of Babel—at The Faculty of
Humanities.
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Project Ink Pot
This project included structured Ethernet cabling with about 300 Ethernet wall sockets
and modernization of the computers. The new models were Macintosh LC, II SI, and
some Mac II CIs. Part of the project included deployment of a number of new
Macintoshes; most were, left for the departments to buy the following year. Printing
services were improved and software purchased more in accordance with the real need.
Totally 196 Macintoshes and 25 DOS PCs were connected to Ethernet, together with
about 15 Laserwriters.
The Central Administration got a dedicated server. This was a DECStation 5240 with
64 MB RAM and five GB disk.
USIT organized some simple application classes and a permanent help desk was
estab-lished. Later you will find a section about the LITAs (Local IT staff). The help desk
at the Central Administration Building, was among the first at the UiO, it was then and
now staffed by employees from USIT and is still an important and necessary part of the
support for the users.
Sorry to say, today the number of Macintoshes at the Central Administration is very
small.
The project head was Morten Dahl from USIT.
The Tower of Babel
This project included the departments in the buildings of Faculty of the Humanities.
The Faculty was in the finishing phase of redecorating the buildings and establishing
the structured cabling. Therefore, the time was suitable for upgrading the computers with
Ethernet interfaces and to install a suite of Internet programs and offering classes for
using the applications.
In addition, it was a goal to establish a service, which should function as a first line IT
support for staff, and students.
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I have not succeeded in finding information worth mentioning about this project. The
project’s finishing report is missing. It seems the project never lifted, possibly because of
a shortage of funding at the time. The activities planned for the project, took place later.
However, the name of the project was among our better ones!
Project Mac-in-Net
As a follow-up to the network and server parts of project Mactjener (see the activities for
1990), USIT launched a new project, Mac–in–net. The project’s sanctioning was April
29, and it should last eight month.
The original project plan shows a fourteen-point activity list. Among ongoing
activities as “Communication services”, the work was basically refinements and
improvement of existing services. As the activity introduction wisely said: “… to a
certain extent this sort of work is never finished…”
However, some activities represented potentially new services for Mac users at the
UiO. The most important ones, were testing and evaluation of: a) MacX, b) A/UX 3.0, c)
Modem-connected AppleTalk on a rather large scale, d) a better arrangement around the
fileserver MacPUB, a one GB HD (with a cost of NOK 30,000 ($4,600) was suggested
purchased, e) modernizing of our class facilities, f) brushing up the applications for the
administrative tasks at the University.
Regrettably the written notes, especially the final project report, are missing, but for
the above-mentioned activities, I think the result were the following:
a) MacX was tested and was reasonable usable, but did not became a great hit among
the UNIX-users. To some degree the Department of Informatics (IFI) used MacX up to
the late nineties. About MacX: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacX
b) As far as I remember A/UX was only evaluated at USIT, and never used in “real
life”, neither there nor elsewhere at the UiO. AU/X was based on UNIX System V and
not the more “university-oriented” BSD UNIX. About A/UX at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/UX and http://www.applefritter.com/node/19999
For information about System V, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V
Bjørn Hell Larsen (engineer in USIT’s Group of System Management) tested both
MacX and AU/X. We even received a Mac IIfx (the one with the black SCSI–terminator!) for the testing. I don’t think the IIfx was free, but the cost was very reasonable.
f) Much of the work on this activity, were documentation and making of startup-files
for many of UiO’s central computing resources. Our main program for this was
TCP/Connect.
The project’s other possible results, the points c), d), and e) are hidden in the shadows.
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1992
Structured Network on Campus
In the 1992–1994 period, USIT upgraded the computer cabling on Campus. USIT has at
all times had the responsibility to establish connections between buildings and the
Computing Centre. Early on with different types of copper cable, later with fiber optic
cables. These “trunk lines” were terminated in suitable rooms in the university buildings,
often in telephone closets.
From these closets, the faculty or local departments in a rather ad hoc manner did
their own cabling.
A commercial firm did the cable effort in 92–94. Ethernet HUBs distributed signals
over twisted pair cabling to all rooms in the buildings. The volume of the project was
about 900 Km cable and about 7,500 endpoints for local users. Most of earlier cabling in
the buildings was removed and the final result looked very nice.
The physical cable followed the Cat 5 standard. Early in the cabling effort, wall
sockets for Cat 3 cable was used. Those were later exchanged with Cat 5 sockets.
The campus at Blindern includes the main part of the UiO. However, smaller
satellites exist on many other places. Mostly in Oslo and the surrounding area, but the
UiO also has a station in the high mountains, a station at the seaside, and even one in
Rome, Italy. In the following years, all buildings outside Campus received adequate
cabling and network facilities. Today, the number of endpoints are considerable greater.
The network is modernized consecutively, and being redundant to most University
buildings, very seldom gives any trouble.
Working with computer network cabling has been an activity for many kinds of
people, look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phoc96v1.jpg
And Not So Structured!
The above procedure was of course the way to go, even if it did cost quite a lot of money.
The general understanding of how important the network was going to be, was not
universally widespread even in the early nineties. I recall that The Norwegian
Meteorological Institute wanted a single RS232 connection. Since the cable had to be at
least 800 meters long, we asked if we should lay a cable with bigger capacity, suitable for
5 or 10 terminals. We were politely told that this was not at all necessary. Therefore, a
cable with five conductors was duly laid.
In the late eighties, I was working many weekends in different departments with keys
to building and offices, rolls of cable, PhoneNet wall connections, drill, electrician’s
snake (“fish tape”), hammer and material to secure the cable to the wall.
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© Steinar Moum
Picture from one of the
cable closets at the
Faculty of Humanities.
Note
the
IKEA
bookcase, I think it’s the
IVAR.
The two white
boxes—top and low—
are Net Interface Units
(NIU–180)
from
Ungermann-Bass.
The input of each
box is a thick, yellow
Ethernet cable, and the
output is eight RS232
connections.
In the middle are
two Kinetics Fastpath
boxses with Ethernet
in and Localtalk out.
This is a terrible
cable closet, however I
am sure at the time
you would find many
like this all over the
University.
Today,
such rooms are tidy
and clean.
By courtesy of: Kjetil
O. Olsen.
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1993
USIT—an Apple Service Provider (ASP)
USIT was authorized to repair all Apple equipment in early 1993. Later in the year, USIT
was also authorized to repair under warranty (the first year).
As a side effect of the repair activity, USIT was able to offer practice for
apprenticeship contracts for 3–4 youngsters. The staff manning the repair shop, was not
afraid of the soldering iron, much component replacement was done. This saved the
University for quite a lot of money, and most importantly, saved time. The following
table shows the Hardware Service activity from the start. Joakim Magnus Taraldsen was
head of the service activity in the first years, later Gia Cuong Chiem served as head
[Jacobsen, 2001].
Type of equipment
# Macintoshes
# PCs
# Printers
# Other Equipment
# Total
1993
135
85
71
83
374
1994
210
97
95
160
562
1995
367
140
120
245
872
Internal repair activity for the years 1993–1995
1996
800
1997
740
1998
620
1999
520
2000
390
The total repair activity for the remaining nineties [Jacobsen, 2001]:
Macintosh laptops were for some time not repaired in Norway. An extra irritation was the
occational trouble with the custom declarations when laptops had to be sent to the
Netherlands for repair. Norway was not, and still is not a member of the European Union
(EU), and I guess that some extra clearance could make troubles. Of course, this might
not be Apple’s fault, but the users waiting for their repaired Macintoshes knew where to
put their blame.
The authorization as an Apple Service Provider continued for about 7 years and was a
well-functioning service for the University. Apple then terminated the arrangement. As
far as I know, this happened to many organizations. I think Apple had their reasons, but
the termination was destructive to Apple’s goodwill among many Macintosh users at the
UiO. They had been looking at the local Service solution as a “safety assurance” and a
sign that Apple backed their users in “high ed” with flexible and local support.
When USIT was an ASP, Macintosh spare parts were as usually received within three
days. In addition to this, the repair service kept a rather well stocked inventory of spare
parts and could in many cases fix the Macintoshes in a few hours. I am quite sure that the
termination of the ASP-status played an important part in the later declining numbers of
Macintoshes at the UiO. At this time—the late nineties—the interesting, but unproven
Mac OS X was emerging and many old Macintoshes had to be replaced. In this situation,
with many elements of uncertainty, I think quite a lot of old Mac hands, switched plat-
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form to something which did not look too attractive to them, but after all seemed safer
than the future with Macintosh.
The Struggle for the Soul of the PC
Bjørn Ness wrote late in 1993 an article in USIT’s newsletter where he discussed the
successor of the DOS OS. His main point was that DOS did not utilize the Intel CPU well
and DOS was in itself starting to be long in the tooth. He listed the following options as
the successor to DOS and Windows 3.1: Windows NT, OS/2, Mac OS on Intel, and
UNIX for Intel processors. I will not dive deep into this, we know what happened;
Windows 95, 98 and 2000 entered the scene. The funny detail is the rumors in 1993 about
Apple’s Star Trek project. This became reality thirteen years later. For more info, see:
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/0613.html
It might be an urban legend, but there is a story that when Apple considered the shift
from the PPC (PowerPC) CPU to an Intel based Mac, the company did not any longer
have the original code from the Star Trek Project (…to boldly go where no man has gone
before). Luckily, an external hard drive with the old Mac OS Intel version was found on
the attic of one of the original engineers.
A rather in-depth review of the history of the many different Apple OS, actually used
or considered in the last thirty years, can be found on the 12 WebPages:
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/oshistory/
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/oshistory/11.html
The web site http://kernelthread.com belongs to Amit Singh, the author of Mac OS X
Internals: A Systems Approach. This book might not be for the casual reader. However,
for the technical informed Mac enthusiast, it’s an extremely interesting volume.
Into the Great Wide Open
USIT initiated a video production presenting what Internet technology could offer an
institution like the UiO. The result was a video, 20 minutes long. The actors were from
the University. USITers played vital parts in the production. The production was
conceived, written and supervised by Jorid Bodin, Astrid Jenssen and Alexandra T.
Szefler. Tone Sandahl was the narrator in the video.
Much of the production was staffed by technicians from other part of the UiO or from
outside the University.
From the blurb on the video case.
“Into the Great Wide Open” presents and explores some of the possibilities provided by computers connected to a network. Active users of the network
facilities at the University of Oslo describe how the available services have
been vital to them in their daily work.
When computers are connected to a network, a number of new possibilities are
presented to the users. By being connected to a worldwide network, like the
Internet, a unique potential for fast and efficient communications with millions
of people all over the world is made available. Access is gained to people all
over the world, such as—databases, libraries and conference systems. In
addition resources available on distant computers can be exploited.
This video is intended primarily for presentation of the services at academic
institutions engaged in education and research, but should also be of general
interest to any networked institution requiring easy-to-use services which
facilitate internal and external exchange of information.
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The video has been produced as part of a distance education program based on
extensive use of network services at the Center for Information Technology
Services (USIT) in cooperation with the Department of Special Education
(DSE-TV), University of Oslo.
Duration 20 minutes, Oslo 1993.”
The video was shown to hundreds of UiO employees during 1993 and the following 2–3
years. Looking back at the video after close to 15 years, it completely lacks the somewhat
aggressive pace found in many videos of today, but it was a very useful tool in the early
or middle nineties.
When looking at the video, you will ask yourself, where is the Web? The answer is
that the Web was invented when the video was planned, but browsers were still very
scarce when it was shot. The first versions of the Mosaic browser for all common
platforms: X, PC/Windows, and Macintosh were released by NCSA (National Center for
Supercomputing Applications, at the university of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) in
September 1993.
Some URLs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Petty
http://www.w3.org/History.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreessen
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5046297730700144952#
See also the Mosaic browser plaque at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mosaic_browser_plaque_ncsa.jpg
Most of the displays to be seen in the video are from Macintoshes. A Powerbook is also
in the picture, a model 170 if my memory does not fail me.
From the beginning, the video was on VHS-tape, but was converted to a QuickTime
video. This conversion implies a loss of quality. Two versions exist, one with Norwegian
speech and one dubbed to English. To look at these versions, copy and paste the
following URL into the QuickTime Player. Only to double-click might not work.
rtsp://lillestroem.uio.no/usit/intotheGWO_800.mov (800 Kb/sec. version)
rtsp://lillestroem.uio.no/usit/intotheGWO_320.mov (320 Kb/sec. version)
In Norwegian: rtsp://lillestroem.uio.no/usit/IGWO_norsk_800.mov
The UiO in IDG’s Macworld Norway
Are Hansen (see page 21) worked as a freelance writer for MacWorld Norway in the
early nineties. In the first issue of 1993, he had an in-debt four pages article (Anatomy of
a Big Network) about the Mac network at the UiO, its components, and what services it
brought to the users.
At this time, the transition from Macintoshes with Localtalk network to Ethernet was
progressing nicely. Departments with many Macs of the Plus, SE, and Classic families,
usually continued with Localtalk for these Macs. More modern models like CX, CI, SI,
LC, and LC II typically had Ethernet connection. At this time, new Laserwriters came
equipped with Ethernet interfaces, but the UiO had hundreds of well functioning
Localtalk models in use for both Mac and Windows users, and in general, these
Laserwriters used Localtalk until they were phased out. The Macworld article also treated
the different Internet programs made possible by the network; these are mentioned in
other articles in this History.
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© Steinar Moum
The article was illustrated
with a photo. From the
left: Morten Dahl, myself—Steinar Moum, and
Kjetil Kirkebø. We are
standing in front of some
of the servers in our computer room.
The photo is scanned from
a rasterized page and is
therefore of low quality.
An early Star Team!
Photo: Are Hansen
Worth Knowing for LITA with Macintosh Users
As mentioned earlier, USIT has quite a good record toward the University community for
writing booklets, manuals and other informative documents.
In December, I myself finished a booklet intended to support the Macintosh efforts of
the local IT staff. The booklet had about 85 pages and was a late coming result of the
Mac-in-Network project.
The document was well received by the intended users. The content addressed topics
like:
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© Steinar Moum
Table of Contents, level 1, 2, and 3
Purchase equipment
Choice of Mac and printer
Macs
Printers
Network
Network terminology
Cable systems
10baseT and EtherTalk
10base2
Software for Ethernet
Application Software
Word Processing
Spreadsheet
Utilities
Purchase of Software
Net services
User registration
UNIX user name
User name for Library
User name for adm. appl.
PRISS - printer services
Fileserver MacMekker
Free Software
Local file servers
Change UNIX Password
Daily use of servers
Communication solutions
Different Comm. SW
Update of SoftWare
Newest program versions
System software
Communication software
Information and LITA
Information & News
/info/it/uio - USIT’s n-lett.
PortaCOM- Conference
Useful Books
Useful Magazines
Error situations
Network errors
Checklist for netw./services
Services from USIT
Help from USIT
What is USIT?
USIT’s Sections
LUKA—a support wicket
FMS—fault notification
Users service room
The Class facilities
USIT’s services for LITA
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© Steinar Moum
E-mail cont. pnt. to USIT
Accounts for ACS
Repair of Macs/Printers
Selfrepair/upgrading
Maintenance of equipment
Distrib. of commercial SW
System SW
Office Apps.
Communication Apps.
Statistical Apps.
Distribution of Apps.—
morals/ethics
Miscellaneous Utilities
Network time
Correct e-mail addresses
Newswatcher preferences
Correct IP-addresses
The Ping Command
Traceroute Command
E-mail addresses, dept.
wise
E-mail, not in office
Forwarding of e-mail
Start without syst. additions
Restart of Mac
Restore the desktop file
Restore Parameter RAM
Add more RAM to Apps
Disinfectant - Antivirus
DiscCopy
1994
Drum Roll!—the PPC-Macintoshes Arrive—Drum Roll!
[Listen to http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/tagsViewSingle.php?id=2839]
The introduction of the first PowerPC-equipped Macintoshes took place in Mars 1994.
The PPC-CPU succeeded the Motorola-made CPU 680xx. This new CPU was a result of
the Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance (AIM). More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance
Key-ring glued under the
chairs at the Keynote at
MacWorld SF in 1993 (or
1995)
Photo: S. Moum
Modem Services for Macintoshes
In the fall of this year, some of the Mac Managers at USIT wrote an introduction to
modem use for Macintoshes. At the time, the most advanced modems were the models
using the V.34 protocol. These had a top speed at 28.800 b/sec and were of course a
fantastic piece of technology.
The introduction dealt with PPP-connection (Point to Point Protocol) or ARA (Apple
Remote Access). The first one useful for all Internet applications, the second, was the
choice for using resources found in the Macintosh’s Chooser. In other words, network
printers, Appleshare servers, or to use file sharing on Macintoshes you could access.
Connections with ARA required an ARA Script adapted to the modem. To produce
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© Steinar Moum
scripts for a multitude of modems were not among the funniest of jobs. Therefore, USIT
wanted the user to chose among a few models.
I guess many young computer users today never have seen an external Modem. At USIT,
we for years had giant modem banks, and many of staff and students had private modems
at home.
USIT had an agreement with two suppliers of modems. Our recommendations were for
an US Robotics Sportster 14.4 (V.32bis) at a price of NOK 2,245, about $345, and the
Multitec MT2834 28.8 (V.34) at a price of NOK 5,490, about $845. Today, you could
buy an introductory Mac for the latter price! More about modems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem
The Distribution List for Local IT Staff
In late fall USIT established a distribution list for direct one-way contact between USIT’s
Mac Managers and LITAs in departments with Macintoshes. This was part of my
responsibility. I did not want to push anybody, so IT staff interested in Mac information,
had to contact me to be added to the list. During December, the list already counted 76
participants. One year with another the list had 120 to 140 members. In the fifteen years
from 1994–2009 the list volume was:
Year
#
94
2
95
43
96
35
97
40
98
67
99
72
00
58
01
38
02
43
03
68
04
48
05
40
06
34
07
25
08
30
09
29
Yearly messages sent to local IT staff with Mac users
Some are Working Into Christmas
During December 21–23, I let Apple’s Interpoll-application generate a list of active, networked Macintoshes in the period. The result was about 1700 Macs. Quite a decent
number that close to Christmas. The Interpoll was an orphaned program, not upgraded
since 1989, but it worked reasonably well to at least 1999.
A facsimile of InfoWorld Mars 7, 1988 presents Interpoll. See:
http://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=inter
poll+apple&source=bl&ots=je2LTG4jg7&sig=HjHf1Qorih2OTeq2Im3t1z1TVR4&hl=e
n&ei=rIjdS4f8K4KUOJGlvKgH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0C
CYQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=interpoll%20apple&f=false
Results from Interpoll is used a number of times in this History.
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1995
Typical Macs and PCs in the Office—1995 and 2001
'95/'01
Mac
/PC
'95–Mac
'95–PC
'01–Mac
'01–PC
'01–PC
Model,
CPU
speed,
7500/100/PPC601
-/75/Pentium
PM/466/G4/FW
Low-end
Higher-end
RAM, MB
16
16
128
-
HD,
GB
CDRom
y
0,5
0,54
30
-
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
17"Col.
17"Col.
19/21"Col.
19/21"Col.
19/21"Col.
Displa
NOK
$
30,000
24,850
21,000
13,000
16,500
4,615
3,820
3,230
2,000
2,540
Typical Macs/PCs in 1995 and 2001
Apple’s Support for Developers
Apple had from the early eighties made good contacts with many programmers who
wanted to develop programs for the Mac. This contacts were in the late eighties formalized in APDA, an acronym (I think!) for Apple Professional Developers Association.
The APDA Tools Catalog and Apple quarterly technical journal, Develop (see:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/index.html were at all times booklets with lots
of compiler and programming tools, and interesting articles. APDA was terminated by
Apple in 97–98.
From the late nineties to the millennium, the developer activity was in a “pre-Mac OS X
state”. No more technical journals from Apple, but a steady increase in web-based
information. Apple’s yearly World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) is a very
important part of Apple’s total developer activity with yearly 4,000–5,000 participants.
More about WWDC at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Worldwide_Developers_Conference
In addition to the later Develop and The APDA Tools Catalog, Apple had from 1983
documented their new Macintosh models in a series of books called “Inside Macintosh”.
More about Inside Macintosh to be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Macintosh and:
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Inside_Macintosh.txt see also:
http://www.13idol.com/mac/
Connected to the program development activity, we also find “Macintosh Evangelism”.
More about this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_evangelist
In the spring 1995, APDA released a CD with 25 volumes of “Inside Macintosh”. By and
large I think Apple had a rather consistent and well-written technical description of
system software up to the late nineties. A Google search gives the URLs to a few legacy
documents about APDA. Take a look at:
http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/mac/QuickDraw/QuickDraw-8.html.
The magazine MacTech has compiled developer relevant stuff from many sources on
their “MacTech DVD Complete Archive”, as of today (late 2009) in version 25.07.09.
The DVD can be ordered from http://www.mactech.com/dvd/
Developers of today should look at: http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/
http://developer.apple.com/mac/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/A_To
ur_of_Xcode/000-Introduction/qt_intro.html
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APDA seems to has fallen off the radar around 1997.
Cheap RAM and Hard Disks
USIT offered 4 MB 30-pins RAM for NOK 1,040 ($ 160), 4 MB 72-pins for NOK 1,365
($ 210) and a 540 MB HD for NOK 2,500 ($ 385).
The Price of a New Mac
In spring, I got a new Mac at my office. The Macintosh was a: Power Macintosh 9500 w/
a PPC604 CPU—120 MHz, 2 GB HD, 48 MB RAM, 4X CD, and 20" Apple Color
display. The price? NOK 74,000 or $ 11,400.
Word 6.0 Localized for Norwegian Language
Word 6.0 arrived in a Norwegian version early 1995. This version of MS Word was not
creating much enthusiasm among the Macintosh users. The program’s predecessors Word
5.0, 5.1, and 5.1a, were terrific programs, lean and mean and with enough options to
easily satisfy close to 100% of the users of 2010. Read an interesting and candid blog
written from a long time Mac programmer at Microsoft:
http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/archive/2004/02/26/80193.aspx Another interesting
blog by the same writer, is “Anatomy of a software bug” at
http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/archive/2004/05/19/135315.aspx
The trailing comments are very interesting. Code-writing people should read it all.
Another interesting background article about Microsoft’s software development for the
Mac, at:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/11/12/road_to_mac_office_2008_an_introductio
n.html
Mac OS—Copland
For some time Apple had worked on a successor for Mac OS 7. The code name for the
new system was “Copland”. This effort was high time. Microsoft made progress with
Windows 95 and Apple had to counter the competition. In the June issue of Byte, (not the
typical pro-Mac magazine) was a preview of Copland:
“Copland provides a much-needed revision of the Mac OS. It offers speed,
reliability, and modern OS services through its native code, preemptive
multitasking, I/O concurrency, and memory protection. The compromises made
in task scheduling and memory protection are reasonably ones, particularly
since they protect your software investments by allowing existing software to
run. Reliability should not be a concern, because part of Copland, such as the
emulator and PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) expansion-board
drivers, will be field-tested in staged phases of the Mac OS release.
In the inevitable comparison to Windows 95, we have to say that Copland is
better. It offers Window 95 services while still providing better features. Some
of these features, such as network support through Open Transport and the use
of Open Firmware to implement plug and play for expansion cards, are based
on industry standards.
Furthermore, Copland offers hardware abstraction, a feature currently found
only in Windows NT. This capability will help foster a growing clone marked
without incurring the compatibility nightmare of supporting diverse hardware—
a problem that delays the release of Windows 95.
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While these are important technical issues, there is also the issue of the user
who will be sitting in front of the machine. Copland’s scalable UI ensures that
experts and novices alike can use a Mac to their best advantage.”
Jim Buckley, president of Apple Americas, delivered the Keynote at MacWorld San
Francisco (MWSF) in January 1996, and gave a brief demonstration of the first public
appearance of Copland. The preview was only a small part of the OS, focusing on
extensive intelligent agent searching.
Well, this looked good. In reality, the Copland efforts were in a bad shape. A Business
Week URL gave a sobering picture of Apple’s general position after the release of
Windows 95: http://www.businessweek.com/1995/51/b345595.htm. A Wikipedia article
offered a frank description of Copland and the prevailing mood at Apple:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_%28operating_system%29
and http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/1108.html In August 1996, Apple officially
cancelled Copland. In late 96 Apple acquired NeXT. By this Apple got hold of
NEXTSTEP and Steve Jobs in the bargain. Components originally prepared for Copland,
were to a certain degree used in Mac OS 7.x, 8 and 9. An article about the NeXT
Software, at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent
Fun With PRAM!
At one special occasion, when I needed to move some Macintoshes from one physical
location to another, I discovered that they belonged to a different net zone. After the
relevant network information was changed, they all worked perfectly with Internet
applications. The Chooser-window however was empty, and choosing “EtherTalk” in the
System Preferences only told me that something was wrong and no network was
available.
I did everything, even deleted the system, and loaded a brand new system. No success.
Luckily, I called a guy, Stener Widnes at Connect AS, our provider of products from
Kinetics and Asante, and he recommended flushing the Parameter Ram. This worked like
a charm. Only one Mac, a Mac II SI did not work. The solution to this was that the
Asante Ethernet Interface in the SI, even if it should be binary compatible with Apple’s
software, needed the real Asante software to work. Other SIs with the same Ethernet
Interface, made do with Apple’s software.
To restore the Parameter Ram (command + alt+ p + r at boot time; for 3 ’pings’) was
an action that as by magic solved some incomprehensible issues. Another technique,
which many used as standard procedure once or twice a month, was to rebuild the
desktop (command + alt at boot time.
Site License for Graphic Converter (GC)
I guess that many of the readers know this application. Contact with the developer—
Thorstein Lemke resulted in a site license of GC for all Mac users at the UiO.
The total price at the time was $ 1500. Other departments were asked for going
Dutch, but nobody volunteered and USIT had to foot the bill alone. The application was
well worth the money and the UiO still has a volume license for GC. The license was
renewed in 2002, 2004, 2007, and in 2010.
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Mirror Archives for info-mac and umich (ftp Archives)
In late 1995 USIT established Norwegian mirror archives of the above two repositories of
Macintosh share- and freeware. These archives resided on a PPC-box. Though, not a
Macintosh, but an:
IBM 7009-C20 with a 120 MHz PPC604, AIX 4.1.3, with 128 MB RAM and 19 GB HD
The server was very stable and was updated from the mother archives once a day and
with only a few hours delay. The users of the archives were accessing the archives with
anonym ftp, usually with an ftp program like Fetch or Anarchy. Stuffit Expander
unpacked the downloaded files. Late in the nineties, services like Version Tracker and
MacUpdate in most, if not all ways, became a service with a greater appeal to the users.
Umich closed down round the millennium, info-mac some years later. See remarks by
Adam Engst at: http://db.tidbits.com/article/8375
The interested can google for “info-Mac” and “umich macintosh”, and might still (spring
2010) find the archives.
In addition to hosting the ftp archives, the server, named gravenstein.uio.no
(gravenstein is a delicious apple of Danish origin) hosted the program library for the Mac
users at the UiO. More about the apple at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravenstein
Troublesome Open Transport
Apple in May released the PowerMac 7200, 7500, 8500, and 9500 with Mac OS 7.5.2.
These models were the first Macs to use a PCI-bus and the TCP-stack Open Transport
(OT). See:
http://kb.iu.edu/data/aahe.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Transport
OT was not ready for prime time and many users had problems with communication
applications, especially in connection with modem use. Some printer issues were also
making problems in this system version. A method for replacing OT with the old
MacTCP was developed and Apple was active in releasing patches. Mac OS 7.5.3 mostly
solved the problems. A Wikipedia article gives a rather extensive overview of Mac OS
7.x. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_7_%28Macintosh%29
Mac and PC Classes at USIT
USIT’s Mac lab consisted from 1988 to about 2001 of 8 to 12 machines. In this thirteenyear period, the lab used Mac II, PowerMac 7100, and the original iMac upgraded to 64
MB RAM. The iMacs were removed in early 2001, and from that time, no Mac lab has
existed at USIT.
Type of Class
Mac class students
Win class students
Total
1993
151
148
299
1994
195
190
385
1995
213
211
424
Participants in Mac and PC classes at USIT
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© Steinar Moum
'93 –'95 #
559
549
1,108
Program Licenses
Registrations of software licenses at the UiO at year-end 1995:
Access
155
Filemaker
455
Office
suite
2,336
Word
Excel
1,412
293
Powerpoint
55
Word
Perfect
1,884
SPSS
& SAS
300
Other
137
Number of program licenses at the UiO in the middle nineties.
I have tried to find the “raw data” for this table, but have not succeeded. The table is
copied from an old annual report from USIT and tells that 47% of the licenses are for
Win-users, 43% for Mac users, and 10% for DOS-users.
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1996
Number of Macintoshes on UiO’s LAN
February 12–14 Interpoll was run and collected 2,187 Macintoshes and close to 600 laser
writers.
Networked Fax
In Mars USIT deployed a networked fax. In the mail program, Eudora, the user could
now send an attachment to an external fax machine.
The setup worked quite well for close to 15 years, however the use of this technology
has decreased and the network fax was taken off line in the year 2009.
The Macintosh-models of the Year
Introduction of new models, April 22, specification and prices.
Model, speed, CPU
7200/ 90/PPC601
7600/120/PPC604
8200/100/PPC601
8200/120/PPC601
8500/150/PPC604
9500/150/PPC604
Ram, MB
16
16
8
16
16
32
HD, MB
500
1200
1200
1200
2000
2000
CD-Rom
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
NOK
14,675
26,519
16,592
20,705
38,147
43,111
$
2,260
4,080
2,552
3,185
5,870
6,632
Typical specifications of Macintoshes in the spring 1996
Filemaker and Common Problems
In spring, one of the articles in the newsletter was about different issues concerning use of
the database program Filemaker Pro (FMP). At the time this program was a popular
application and even today (2010) a program with hundreds of users. The gist of the
article was that:
•
The machine hosting the database should not at the same time be some one’s
workstation.
•
All database tables should reside on the same machine.
•
It should be mandatory to have a structured scheme for backup.
•
Application versions should be at parity.
Even if Filemaker Pro for a long time has been very useful for the staff at the UiO, from
2005–2006 new users are not encouraged to plan for new Filemaker projects. Many have
argued that FMP is not a real database as Oracle. Of course this is correct, but, many
tasks do not need the heavy tools. Today FMP is still in use, but from late 2008 USIT’s
Filemaker hotel is closed and no support is given or classes held.
Cheaper RAM
The prices of RAM decreases, our users could buy RAM from a dealer in Trondheim,
Wave Technologies, and the prices were:
8 MB SIMM 2x32 = NOK 750 ($ 115), 16 MB SIMM 4x32 = NOK 1,905 ($ 293)
8 MB DIMM 1X64 = NOK 1,215 ($ 187), 16 MB DIMM 2X64 = NOK 1,710 ($ 263)
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New Administrative Applications—a Critical Stage for
Macs
In the middle nineties, the UiO faced the challenge represented by the new generation of
administrative applications under development by USIT’s section of Administrative
Computing Services (ACS), The Macintoshes at the time did not have client software to
execute these applications. Since a university has to solve tasks as keeping tracks (for
decades) of students, their classes, exams and grades, and schedules, terms of
employment and salary for the permanent and part-time employees, this had serious
consequences for the Macintosh deployment at the University.
Because this happened during Arne Laukholm’s directorship, some were blaming him
for the gradual decline of the Macintosh at the University. I don’t think this is fair. The
introduction of modernized administrative applications had to take place some time.
Responsibility for the lacking software on the Macintosh, should fall on other shoulders.
When all is said and done, I’ll quote Ol’ Blue Eyes—It’s just one of those things.
These new applications were Oracle-based. They should have two modes, one for
updating and management of the applications and the other a search mode for users who
only needed to browse the content. The latter mode was to be a web application, in
principle platform independent.
The Macintosh did not at the time support Oracle and other necessary software. The
users doing the “heavy lifting”, updating and managing the databases, therefore had to
use Win machines. This wiped out hundreds of Macintoshes and their users received new
Windows computers. The actual introduction of the new applications had of course to be
planned. In 1995, Arne Laukholm, in an interview with the Norwegian edition of
Computer-world, could tell that - “We have about 3000 PCs and the same number of
Macintoshes, but are now strongly considering a transition to only PCs. It takes too long
to convert PC applications to the Mac. Eight to ten month before a Windows application
is usable on a Mac, is too long for us”, he adds.
http://www.oslo.net/historie/CW/utg/9522/cw952202.html
As one could expect, the new Oracle based systems had many teething problems and
frequent patching errors and updating of new application functionality, could be quite
problematic. The applications were large, and the client machines were of different age
and quality. Therefore, some years later, USIT deployed a number of fast application
servers. The administrative applications were executed on these servers and the client
Win machines only accessed the servers by the way of MS Remote Desktop Connection
(RDC). As far as I know, Macintosh Citrix Metaframe at this time existed for Macintosh,
if not Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) from Microsoft. Few, if any departments chose
to return to use Macintosh for accessing the administrative applications.
The Official Word
In the USIT newsletter 1996:3, one could read the following recommendations
concerning purchase of new computers:
“[…] These conditions make us recommend that all desktop computers
purchased for administrative duties down to summer 1996, should be based on a
technology usable for Windows 3.x or Windows 95. Groups seeing big
advantages by a continued purchase of Macintosh should postpone their
investments in new computers as long as possible. In this way they will be best
prepared to judge the pro and cons by different combinations of computer
platforms. Mac based groups must be prepared to meet issues with the
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administrative applications for a rather long transitional period. These
guidelines will not influence the University’s general support for both PCs and
Macintoshes as local workstations.”
It could have been worse. A somewhat greater problem was that many office managers,
as leaders of the department’s administrative staff, conscious or unconscious missed the
words purchased for administrative duties, and included the recommendation for all
computers purchased by the department. “Old” Macintosh hands among the faculty
usually succeed in purchasing a new Macintosh; newcomers often did not get any choice,
but received a PC. In the later half of the nineties, I received many emails and telephones
from old contacts that were surprised to hear that Macintosh was still a supported
platform at the UiO.
In addition to our local problems, I have later often wondered if the Mac community
at the UiO was fully aware of Apple’s terrible financial and operational state from the
middle nineties and the following 2–3 years. The pundits of the computer magazines
often mentioned Apple as the “beleaguered company”. In any way, this was a time when
your good humor and optimism were put to the test.
The Mac Clones
In the fall, the newsletter had a short article about the Mac clones and their possible
arrival in Norway. It is safe to say that the clones did not make a mighty splash in the
Macintosh marketplace in Norway.
Seen from Apple’s point of view, the clone-makers hardly contributed to a larger
market share of machines using the Mac OS. Apple experienced an erosion of Apple’s
own sale, especially of high-end models. The clone-makers—Power Computing,
Motorola, and Umax, sold these machines cheaper than original models from Apple.
When Steve Jobs became Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Apple, he quickly terminated
the clone-makers licenses. An interesting presentation of the rise and fall of Power Computing at:
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/07/0220.html
As far as I know, machines made by Power Computing were the only one of the
clones imported to Norway. The company behind this was lead by the first CEO of Apple
Computer Norge, Stein Terje Skaar. Personally, I never saw a clone at the University, but
the UiO being a big organization, some departments might have bought a couple. If so,
they did not make any noise about it.
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1997
Site License for Eudora 3.0 Pro
This year USIT bought a site license for Eudora. This was the first paid version of Eudora
used at the UiO. Up to this time, we had used the freeware versions. The site license
included versions for both Mac OS and Windows 95.
Site License for Mindvision Apps.
We needed an installer maker and bought MindVision VISE Installer 4.2 and Updater
VISE 1.3 for internal use.
In addition, the newsletter informed our users that MacSPIRS 2.4 now functioned
with Mac OS 7.5.5. MacSPIRS was an application for accessing SilverPlatter databases.
More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilverPlatter and
http://www.ovid.com/site/products/tools/silverplatter/access_tools.jsp
Help! Somebody Will Take My Mac…
Early this year Steinar Skogheim (SS) wrote a short document to help the people who had
to give up their Mac and start using a PC.
The document gave guidance in how to convert files from the Mac and making them
readable on the PC. The procedure used the user’s home directory on a UNIX server as
an in-between storage space. A program made the necessary conversions and archived the
files on the PC-user’s home directory. The document also described a procedure for
saving the user’s Eudora Mailboxes.
SS was and is an engineer
mainly working with PCs at
USIT, but the document ended
with the following figure,
which shall symbolize the exMac users enthusiasm for their
new PC. I think SS precisely
described the sentiment of
many former Mac users.
Manual for Word 6 Class—“Large Documents”
From the late eighties and up to the millennium, USIT gave elementary classes in how to
use the Mac and PC. I took care of most of the Mac classes, especially introduction to the
Mac Operating system and MS Word. The classes were elementary; most of the
participants were new, both to the Mac and to MS Word.
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In 1997 I wrote a short manual for USIT’s classes in the spring semester. The content
of these classes were for more experienced learners and the class included two-sided
printing, dividing a manuscript into sections, use header and footer and how to use
different text and fonts in header/footer for each section. Other topics were page
numbering, titles, table of contents, and making an index.
It was always a pleasure to give this class not least since the participants often were
quite demanding in learning what they regarded as most important!
USIT Buys a Site License for FileTyper
Files created by pre-Mac OS X applications had Type and Creator Codes as metadata in
the data structure of the file. Now and then one had a reason to manipulate these codes.
Filetyper was a tool for this.
This program was capable to alter Type, Creator and some other attributes for folders
and files. Mac OS X mostly wiped out the need for this program. More about Type &
Creator codes at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creator_code
USIT Buys a Site License for SAM 4.5.1
This license was a way to tell the University community that USIT was taking the
security of Macintoshes seriously. The Macintoshes have been fortunate not to have any
viruses since the early nineties. Nevertheless, knock wood; I guess some sort of
preparedness is desirable. More about SAM (Symantec Anti Virus for Macintosh) at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_AntiVirus
Training Sessions for Rhapsody
In the email newsletter, the Mac Managers accounted for Apple’s plan for the next
version of Mac OS. After Apple’s acquirement of NeXT (fall 1996) and that company’s
Operating System—NextStep—as basis for the coming Mac OS, Apple used the
Developer Conference (WWDC) to present the OS plans.
The future OS had the code name Rhapsody, and Apple announced the shipping
version of Rhapsody in spring 1998. This turned out to be far too optimistic. The original
plans implied heavy rewriting of existing user applications. Most developers were
naturally quite negative to this. Apple therefore presented a new strategy at WWDC 1998
and launched a new API, Carbon. Let me borrow a paragraph from Wikipedia’s Carbonarticle:
“Carbon is Apple’s procedural API for the Macintosh operating system, which
permits a good degree of forward and backward compatibility between source
code written to run on the older and now dated Classic Mac OS (Version 8.1
and later), and the newer Mac OS X. It’s one of five major APIs available for
Mac OS X; the others are Cocoa (for the OpenStep environment), Toolbox (for
the Classic environment), POSIX (for the BSD environment), and Java.”
Also, take a look at a Webpage from David K. Every. This page gives insight to why
Apple had to create the Carbon API:
http://www.mackido.com/Opinion/RhapsodyDead.html
Even if this is more than ten years old, it’s as relevant as ever.
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The first Mac OS X version was Mac OS X Server 1.0 released in March 1999. More
or less this was almost a proof of concept, however many Mac users at USIT used it as
their default OS. Some Web pages about Rhapsody are:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/1q99/os-x-first-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Server_1.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(operating_system)
Mac OS 8 Released
Apple released Mac OS 8
on July 26, 1997 and 8.1
on January 19, 1998;
Mac OS 8.1 was the
last version to run on
both m68k- and PPCbased Macintoshes.
It introduced the new,
optional HFS Plus file
system
format,
also
known as the MacOS
External Format.
The new format supported large file sizes,
longer file names and
made more efficient use
of the space on larger
drives due to using a
smaller block size. To
upgrade, you had to wipe
out the contents of your
entire hard drive before
upgrading to HFS Plus,
although some third-party utilities later appeared that held your data steady while
upgrading silently to HFS Plus. Mac OS 8.1 also included an enhanced version of PC
Exchange, allowing Macintosh users to see the long file names (up to 255 characters) on
files from PCs running Windows 95. It is the earliest version that can run Carbon
applications. The picture of the CD shows the version 8.1.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS 8.1. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_8
The Start of a Tradition—It’s a Wonderful Machine by
David Pogue
At December 23, I for the first time sent the Web address to this story to the subscribers
of the email newsletter. This has been repeated every Christmas since. I think it is among
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the best David Pogue stories and it might move even the toughest Mac user. What about
you?
http://www.usd.edu/~bwjames/humor/wonderful.html
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1998
New Layout of the MacUiO Web
In the middle of January, three USITers returned from MacWorld in San Francisco
(MWSF) filled with enthusiasm and in a few weeks a new website for the Mac users had
been established. The URL is http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/maskin/macosx/
By the years the site has been changed 3-4 times, but January 29, 1998 is the birth
date for a design with which we were reasonably satisfied. However, in the spring 2010,
the University’s web pages were radically changed and even the old birth date disappeared.
In the first year or so, we insisted on an URL like http://mac.uio.no/ but had to give
in for a more “standardized” address.
We have tried to write some web pages in English, but it is troublesome to keep them
up to date and we have given it up.
Trouble With SAM 4.5.1, Mac OS 8 and Word 6.0.1
In the late nineties we used Symantec Antivirus for Macintosh (SAM). Users with the
combination of Word and SAM 4.5.1 were forced to start Word twice. This problem in
SAM was not a showstopper, but a source of irritation. Luckily the problem was solved
when Symantec distributed a patch with a modified version of the System item “SAM
Intercept”. The patch was saved at our program repository for users to pick up. The
malfunction was not an issue under Mac OS 8.1 and was also permanently fixed in a later
version of SAM.
iMac—a New Era for Apple
May 7 Apple introduced the first iMac, a model in which the “system box” and monitor
were contained in one enclosure. The iMac shipped August 15 and instantly attracted
much atten-tion. An excellent article about this first model and later iMacs at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac
The first iMac. Wow! No diskette
station, all-in-one form factor, and
probably the world’s most lousy
mouse!
USIT quickly ordered 16 iMacs, 12 for the class lab, the rest for evaluation among the
staff.
Among the most debated characteristics of the first iMac, were the left out floppy
drive and the supplement of the (relative) new USB-interface. The latter had existed on
PCs (Windows 95) for some years, but not become particular popular. I think it’s safe to
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say that Apple’s use of the USB-interface made USB a mature technology. The iMac’s
missing floppy drive turned out to be a non-issue. The very few who had any use for the
floppy disc, bought a floppy drive with USB-interface. The price for the drive was only $
50–70.
In the coming years, Apple released different versions (and colors) of the original
iMac. The model was for a period the bestselling overall computer worldwide.
The iMac Flat Panel (desk lamp) was released in January 2002 and iMac G5 in
August 2004.
The present top model (Fall 2011) has about the same physical appearance as the G5model, but is using the Intel Core i7-CPU and has a 27" LCD display. Few Mac users
would turn down this Mac!
The iMac was in reality the first major desktop computer without a floppy drive.
Jumping to the year 2008 Apple, sort of, did an encore. The MacBook Air was released at
Macworld SF 2008. The MacBook Air was without a built-in drive for reading CD/DVD.
Apple was not the first manufacturer to get rid of the drive, but the Air was among the
very first portables with a possibility to become more than a niche super portable for the
few. The MacBook Air was introduced as the lightest full format laptop in the world.
This might be true; at least it’s a laptop with a standard keyboard and a useful 13"
display. After a few hardware updates, the MacBook Air is in the fall 2011 one of
Apple’s most popular portable models.
ObjectSupportLib (OSL) and Mac OS 8.x
Not among the most important issues in 1998, but old Mac hands might remember the
word ObjectSupportLib (an AppleScript Extension). To brush up the memory, OSL was
before Mac OS 8.x, residing in the Extension folder. In System 8.x, OSL became
included in the System. However, some program installers still wrongly placed OSL in
the Extension folder and trouble was near. For those extraordinary interested:
http://kb.iu.edu/data/aczd.html
Leaving Some CPUs Behind
Apple was usually doing a great job in being backward compatible. However, Mac OS
version 8.1 (January 1998), was the last version for Macintoshes not using the Power PC
Processors (PPC) or 68040/68LC040. But even the high-end 68040 from Motorola fought
a loosing battle, in October 1998, with Mac OS 8.5; the Mac OS could only be used with
a PPC-Mac.
MS Office 98
In April Microsoft’s new Office suite arrived in Norway. Very soon, the UiO had an
agree-ment with a reseller, and all Mac using employees could download the program.
Office 98 did not work on pre-PPC Macintoshes. A pity of course, but for users with a
PPC-cpu, Word 98 was after all a considerable improvement compared to Word 6.
We strongly advised at least 32 MB of Ram on a Mac using Office 98. If the Mac
running Office 98, and also used SAM Antivirus, SAM 3.5.3 or newer was necessary. A
review of Office 98: http://www.macwindows.com/office98.html
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Endnote Arrives.
USIT was considering getting a volume license for Endnote, a tool for publishing and
managing bibliographies. I remember using the mail newsletters and asking for feedbacks
of such a purchase. A response from a user was typical:
“…Endnote 3.0 is tightly integrated with MS Word, but above all with Medline
(and other texts on Internet). You chose Endnote in the Word-menu; there you
can search Medline and drag references directly into the Endnote database.
Extremely surprising, revelations like this are few and very far between.”
Endnote, together with Reference Manager and Pro Cite, were quickly purchased and
soon widely used at the UiO.
InformINIT
In spring that year, USIT paid for InformINIT, a very useful document for users of the
Mac OS. Today, InformINIT is not actively supported any more, but Dan Frakes has
many thankful users around.
http://www.danfrakes.com/ and http://homepage.mac.com/frakes/InformINIT/
US System and not US Letter
During the non-MOSX period (up to 2000–2001), Mac users had to choose whether to
use the Mac OS localized to Norwegian or to find a version in another language. The
most common alternative was English.
Some of the Mac users preferred the English version, especially since the Norwegian
version was lagging the English one with weeks, if not months. This was a permanent
concern because, we seldom had access to generic English versions. What we had, were
model specific system CDs, usually not useful for other models.
However, A4 paper format was not standard in the US-version. In the email
newsletter, we repeated the procedure to make A4 the default paper size.
Funny enough, a slightly similar issue appears in MS Word before Word 2008. Many
times new users who wrote Norwegian, complained about not being able to write “i” (In
Norwegian a single i means “in”.) A tiny alteration in the AutoCorrect menu choice, fixed
this.
Apple’s E-mail Lists—hidden resources
In fall, the e-mail newsletter informed about the different mailing lists for users and
developers. Some already had discovered these. They were valuable resources. The URL
about the lists http://www.lists.apple.com/ —is still the same as in 1998.
Site License for Assimilator
Assimilator was a useful tool for administration of Macintoshes in a lab environment. In
the introduction at http://www.stairways.com/main/assimilator the first paragraph is:
“Assimilator is designed for situations where you wish to make a large number
of Classic Macintoshes look virtually identical. Typically, this is in an
educational laboratory situation but Assimilator has other uses, such as testing
software or setting up demo machines.”
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Assimilator was not a MOSX application and was only usable for Macintoshes using Mac
OS 7–9. USIT bought a volume license for Assimilator, the system was used at Faculty of
Law, USIT’s own Mac Lab, and likely, also at other departments.
Macintosh Online Product Guide
A contact inside Apple Belgium tipped us about the Macintosh Online Product Guide. If
interested, look at: http://guide.apple.com/ However, medio June 2011 the URL is
redirected to a site with info about the Mac App Store.
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1999
Servers for the Administrative Applications
The application servers (see page 79 arrived early in 1999. The servers replaced the local
database applications on the users computers. Application upgrade was easy on the
relatively few servers. Citrix Metaframe or RDC, a Windows application, were the client
software on the hundreds of computers in faculty and departments. See articles at page 79
for more details about the Administrative Applications.
Regrettably, this possibility for the Macintosh to execute the administrative applications on equal terms with the Windows PC, was not leading to a Macintosh revival. The
main reasons for this, may be found among the following:
• Most former Mac departments, didn’t find enough compelling reasons to go through
another platform shift, even if a return to Macintosh was a technical possibility.
• Return to Macintosh for the administrative staff would cost quite a lot of money for
new Macintoshes.
• Testing of Citix Metaframe on the Mac was encouraging, but not as smooth as
“Terminal Server Client Access License” (TS CAL) on the Windows PC.
• The solution with Citrix Metaframe, implied a Citrix Server and the cost for this
server was about NOK 3,000, some $450 for each concurrent client.
Modernizing of Servers for Macintosh
The official Macintosh servers at the UiO were UNIX machines running EtherShare (ES)
from Helios. At most about 40 servers delivered file services to the Macintosh users.
This year USIT started to phase out many of the oldest servers, substituting old and
weak machines with fewer and faster ones. USIT upgraded most of the old ES software
from version 2.2 to 2.5.
Some years later Mac OS X totally replaced Mac OS. By this time, USIT could leave
ES behind, and use UNIX machines running SAMBA, or Windows servers running
SMB. More about SAMBA and SMB at:
http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/SambaIntro.html
“Show- /service-room” with Macintoshes
In February 1999, USIT established an office where staff and students could try out a
Power Mac G3/350, an iMac G3/266 and an Agfa Snapscan scanner. The Power Mac had
a 21" Eizo display and an Imation “Superdrive” for reading and writing ordinary Floppy
disks. The applications were Office 1998 and programs for WWW-browsing, ftp,
terminal use, scanning, OCR, and digital imaging.
The hardware was on loan from one of our Macintosh suppliers. New models
replaced older equipment with each new Mac release. This continued for nearly four
years and became a very useful service to our users.
Mac OS 9 System CD Distributed to LITA
The new volume Mac OS license we made with Apple, included a number of “Physical
CDs”. Local support staff at the University Departments could order these, and
everybody else at the UiO-staff might register for a downloadable copy. USIT also had a
considerable number of the CDs, at least 100. Two thirds of the System CDs were
localized to Norwegian, the rest were International English.
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Mac OS 9, introduced by
Apple on October 23, 1999
is the last version of the
“Classic” Macintosh Operating System (Mac OS) released before being succeeded by Mac OS X.
Upon introduction, Mac
OS 9 was advertised as
having “50 new features,”
including 128-bit encryption capabilities and Sherlock 2. Codenamed Sonata
and originally intended to
debut as Mac OS 8.7, Mac
OS 9 is considered by
some, the most functional
version of the original Mac
OS.
While Mac OS 9 did not include such modern operating system features as protected
memory and pre-emptive multitasking, lasting improvements include the addition of an
automated Software Update engine and support for multiple users.
Apple billed Mac OS 9 as “best Internet operating system ever” and heavily marketed
its Sherlock 2 software, an improvement over the original Sherlock, which extended the
tool to many online resources. Sherlock 2 boasted a ’channels’ feature for different kinds
of searches and had a QuickTime-like metallic appearance. Mac OS 9 also featured
integrated support for Apple’s suite of Internet tools then known as iTools (now known
as .Mac) and included improved Open Transport networking. The picture shows the 9.1CD ROM.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS 9. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_9
Site License for ShareWay IP
In May, the license for ShareWay7 IP Personal edition was ordered. A short program
description from ShareWay’s fact sheet:
“Macintosh file sharing over the Internet or your intranet. Macintosh users have
come to expect the ease of use and simplicity of the Mac’s built-in file sharing
through AppleShare. As Macintosh networks move from AppleTalk to Internet
protocols (TCP/IP), and as more and more Macs get on the Internet, ShareWay
IP lets Mac users keep sharing files the same way they always have. ”
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Bye, Bye to Pre-PPC Macintoshes
USIT ceased all support on machines with the CPU-family 680xx in January 2000. The
users received this information in October 1999. Hopefully this was not too brutal, it
related after all to Macintoshes older than spring 1995.
“Happy Days Are Here Again”—SPSS for Mac is Back
SPSS Inc. announced in September that the statistical program package SPSS would reemerge as a Macintosh solution. The program was fading from the Macintosh market in
the middle nineties. I heard the first rumors of the program’s re-emerge in January at
MacWorld SF 1999. The official announcement nine months later was excellent news for
many of the Macintosh-using staff and faculty who were users of statistical program
tools.
A Web Page About Macadm
Or “come in like a lion and go out like a lamb”. In late 1999 the Mac Managers at
USIT—macadm—finished a web page describing the macadm group, the members, the
group’s day-to-day routine tasks, and the projects we hoped to get under way.
A summary of the original web page of what macadm was and what we did:
“Macadm is on-call for Mac problems which the USIT helpdesk is not able to
solve. The group consists of engineers from different sections of USIT. The
members have as a group considerable competence in many of the problems the
Mac user might come up against. However, our main strength is within networking and communication, web development and web applications. In addition, hardware service, Mac OS, assessment of Mac equipment. The members
have quite a bit of knowledge of the standard SW used at the UiO, but are
stressing that the total SW-use at the University was far too extensive for the
group to completely master.
Macadm has established a mailing list for use by the USIT helpdesk and the
Local IT staff at the departments. The group consists of ten members, among
those; six participates in a standby, each from Monday to Friday in a six-week
round.”
Further on, the web pages described in detail some of the resources available for the Mac
users and lastly, some future projects the group would look into.
The existing resources described were:
• About the User area—a showroom/workplace (see page 89)
• About the reseller of the Mac equipment in the showroom
• About the classroom with Macs at Kringsjå
• About MacUiO—the web server for Mac users at the UiO
• About the SemReg Macs
• About macuio—the software repository
•
•
•
Among more future projects were mentioned:
About Mac OS 9—what’s new since Mac OS 8.6?
About the coming UiO CD-ROM and Macintosh users
About the 2000K and Macintosh (Y2K)
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
About Palm Pilot and the Macintosh
Mac OS X, is it important to the UiO?
About Web sites and documentation for Mac users at University
About Mac and personal conference system (H.323)
About Mac and ADSM system for backup
About Mac as a wireless network client (IEEE 802.11)
About Ongoing support on the Macintoshes at the classroom at Kringsjå
About Ongoing support on the Macintoshes at the showroom
About Video-facilities at the showroom
About finishing the support for non-PPC Macintoshes.
About relevant distribution lists and the members of those
About the routine meetings among the macadm members from Section of
System management
Lastly, we gave an account of the routine meetings among all the macadm members.
Even if the purpose of macadm was to serve the USIT Helpdesk and the local IT staff at the
departments, it was impossible to deny help to individual users. We did not even try to do so.
I have to admit that I had forgotten this web page, even if the group planned and made it
together. I am sorry to say that the good intentions to keep this page updated and a (hopefully)
useful source for the Mac community was not followed up. Much of the relevant information
reached the Mac users by other ways, but nevertheless we were failing to follow up our own
webpage.
It is Yule-time
The Christmas story of David Pogue http://www.usd.edu/~bwjames/humor/wonderful.html
becomes a tradition, for the third time I am referring to it in my Christmas letter. It has become
a nice way to wish the members of the mailing list a very happy Christmas.
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2000
First Generation of Power Macs—a Mixed Blessing
Macintoshes were aging. At the UiO, the first PPC-Macintoshes model 6100, 7100, and
8100 by this time were 5-6 years of age. Many departments had bought these in the
middle nineties and they were now offered to the staff as home-Macintoshes.
Alternatively, offered to departments with “simple needs”—only some text processing, a
little web-surfing or sporadic email use. These “simple needs” might not be so simple
after all.
At USIT, we were not too fond of having hundreds of these models on the net. Many
were without CD-ROM players, had small SCSI hard drives quite expensive to replace
and little memory—as little as 8 MB RAM. Expansion cards were of the NUBUS-type,
not widely produced at this time.
The recommendation concerning these vintage Macintoshes, was that if they
remained on the UiO-network, qualified staff should give them proper attention. Macadm
also pointed out that the present machines in 2000, for instance the iMacs, were vastly
better suited for modern IT work than the pioneering PPC-models of the nineties.
Even Older Macintoshes—pre-PPC!
During this History I have mentioned Interpoll a number of times. This article describes a
counting in late 1999, but is placed here in the articles of 2000 because of the relevance
with the above article. The recommendations above, were based on the Interpoll results
from 1999.
In late fall 1999; macadm used Interpoll to add up the number of active, networked
Macintoshes on the UiO LAN. The numbers were approximately 1,500 Macs. Of those,
about 500 were not even early PPC-models, but Macintoshes with CPUs of the Motorola
68xxx-family. They must have been at least 6 years old; some were nearly 10 years old!
These machines would in all probability not be able to run Mac OS X, and the users
were strongly encouraged to jump on the PPC-bandwagon. Our advices were to purchase
the PPC-equipped PowerMac G4/400 MHz with at least 19" display for ordinary office
use and the iMac for light use. The “power users” never needed any advice!
Department of Mathematics (DM) Selected as Marie Curie
Center
In the spring, Department of Mathematics (DM) was selected by The European Union as
a department with very high scientific standards. As we remember from the “account” of
1987, DM at that time established a nearly 100% Macintosh-only personal computer
setup.
The Macadm-group at USIT used this opportunity to promote the quality of the Mac,
of course without claiming that the Macs caused the honor. However, we implied that
they surely had played an important role!
Old Mac display and a New PowerMac or PC
The local IT staff (LITA) was informed that old Apple displays up to late 1997 could be
used only on a pre PowerMac. If an old Apple display was to be used with PowerMacs or
a PC, an adapter had to be used. From this time displays for Macintoshes were identical
to displays for PCs.
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Old Macintoshes Good-bye, New Mac OS X Welcome.
September 19, well over a dozen Quadra 700 Macintoshes (25 MHz 68040) were moved
to the disposal container. These machines had until the spring semester 2000, been used
by students to register their stay at the University. From fall 2000, a new web-based
application took care of this, and the custom-built Mac applications were no longer
needed.
The Quadras were at this time between 6 and 9 years old and the need for HW/SW
support had slowly increased. This was expected, the Macintoshes were extensively used
and the Quadra’s durability were impressive. Klaus Wik, Jørnar Heggsum Hubred and
Stein Bruno Langeland did a magnificent job in keeping them operative. More about
these machines and the service they offered, at page 136.
Our work with the beta-version of the coming Mac OS X lessened the melancholy of
the disposed Quadras. I remember that we even bought 5 copies of Inside Mac OS X—
System Overview from Apple Developer Connection. We were going to be prepared!
Mac OS X Public Beta was released in September 2000. It was
the first public look at the client
version of Apple’s long-awaited
next generation operating system.
It was based on the Developer
Preview 4 (DP4) of OS X and was
still very buggy. However, it
demonstrated the strength of Apple’s new system software like the
new Aqua interface or the Quartz
drawing engine. It was sold for
$29.95 U.S. at the Apple Store and
was available in English, German
and French.
The Public Beta still had the Apple logo in the center of the menu bar, but due to many
user complaints, Apple moved the logo back to its original place on the left side of the
menu. The picture shows an earlier version, Developer Preview 3.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X Public Beta.
Service-CD for Local IT Staff (LITA)
Late in the fall, macadm released a customized CD for support staff in departments with
Macintoshes. The CD could start a Mac (was bootable) and consisted of Mac OS 9.04 in
Norwegian or US versions. In addition were MS Office 2001, Internet programs, Graphic
Converter, Citrix Terminal Client and some Utility tools. Dag Tore Antonsen did most of
the Mac work on the CD.
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EtherShare (ES) 2.2/2.5
Most of the Mac users had their home directories on some UNIX servers running
EtherShare. Since many of these servers were owned and partly also managed by the
different departments, the ES-versions used were not always in parity.
The ES versions most used, were 2.2 and 2.5. Since only version 2.5 could be
accessed by way of Modem or ISDN, USIT wanted as many as possible to use servers
with ES 2.5. But many departments did not have any service contracts on EtherShare and
hesitated to pay for the upgrade.
Therefore, USIT installed EtherShare 2.5 on a powerful server, called ulrik. Users
wanting the different benefits of ES 2.5 could from now on export their home directories
to ulrik. This operation was as done by the department’s local IT support staff (LITA).
Transmission of MacWorld Expo, New York
Apple Norway announced that video transmission from Steve Jobs’ keynote would be
shown at entertaining rooms called Månefisken (The Moonfish). Food and drinks would
be served. The keynote was transmitted by communication satellite and even if it was in
the middle of the main Norwegian vacation month (July), many showed up. The
Managing Director of Apple Norway, Arne Odden, gave a short introduction and then
Mr. Jobs filled the screen.
The Writings of John Martellaro
Among the regular themes of the e-post newsletters, were URLs from writers who had
something interesting to tell. This time, in august, I picked John Martellaro, with
professional background from US Air Force, Lockheed Martin Astronautics and Apple.
Martellaro has comprehensive knowledge about the computer industry in general and
Apple Computer especially. You do not have to agree with him, but his columns most of
the time will make you think. He writes at different sites, a place to reach both old and
new stuff, is:
http://web.mac.com/utopia_planitia/iWeb/home/index.html
Two URLs I found intriguing, are:
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/hiddendimensions/2006/12/08.1.shtml
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/hiddendimensions/2007/06/21.1.shtml
Integrating UNIX and Mac OS X
Another writer of interest, but not a columnist like Martellaro, is Wilfredo Sánchez. The
following talk was delivered at USENIX2000 conference.
The title is: The Challenges of Integrating the Unix and Mac OS Environments. It is
from the year 2000 and now, more than ten years later, it seems that the integration has
been quite successful. The article can be found at:
http://www.wsanchez.net/papers/USENIX_2000/
More about USENIX at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USENIX
USIT Opens a DV-Studio
While not a pure “Macintosh shop”, Macintoshes and Apple software plays an important
role in the USIT photo and video studio. The facilities were quite simple at the start, but
have expanded during the years. For many years we have remotely controlled DVcameras in one auditorium, for mixing signals from three cameras and one Scan converter
with video from the lecturer’s laptop. These four signal sources plus sound are manually
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mixed. The mixed result is uploaded automatically to a standalone FireStore Disc. A Mac
Pro is used for the final touch-up in Final Cut Pro and thereafter compressing in V.264format. The finished film is downloaded to a Linux-box running QuickTime Streaming
Server.
Magnus Taraldsen and Per Sira were the chief characters behind the establishing of
the Studio and the later management of the studio.
In spring, 2008 a similar setup was established to another auditorium half a mile
away. Video, audio and the remote control signals to this auditorium, use the ordinary
UiO network.
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2001
Transmission of MacWorld Expo, San Francisco
Steve Jobs’ Keynote at MacWorld at San Francisco was transmitted by communication
satellite to Månefisken. The event followed the same procedure as the transmission from
the Macworld New York in 2000. Personally I witnessed the Keynote at Moscone Center
in San Francisco.
Mac OS X 10.0—Cheetah Released
The first user version of Mac OS X was released in the US on Saturday, Mars 24, I think
at 9 AM PST. Many felt this to be a second Christmas. A delivery service brought the CD
to USIT on Friday 23. I had to sign a statement that the package should not be opened
until midnight. It turned out to be impossible to keep this promise!
The version was absolutely a version .0; it was rather slow and had quite a few
glitches. However, Apple stuck to the promised release date and followed the old Apple
saying “Real artists ship”. An in dept review of 10.0 at:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/01q2/macos-x-final/macos-x-1.html
More about Ars Technica: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArsTechnica
March 24 2001, Apple released the first (official)
version of Mac OS X. The
first release could hardly be
called finished, but Apple
felt that it was more important to meet the schedule.
Mac OS X 10.0 was still
very slow (much slower
than Mac OS 9). Especially
window resizing was extremely slow. It also lacked
some important features
such as data CD burning or
DVD video playback.
Nonetheless, it showed
many improvements over
the Public Beta and it also
proved that Apple was listening to the comments and
criticism of the users.
The lack of available software was the main problem. The first apps to appear were
mostly shareware software and only later the first major applications were ported to run
natively.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X 10.0
An overview of Apple OS X, before the final MOSX 10.0 see:
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http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2001/04/macos-x.ars
An interesting Wikipedia article about System software as such, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operating_systems
USIT tried to cast a certain damper on people’s wishes to upgrade, we would like to have
some testing done and build more services for the daily management. However, new
Macintoshes were delivered with Mac OS X, and it’s difficult to stem the tide. The
upgrades followed quickly with versions 10.0.1–10.0.4 and were September 29 replaced
by Mac OS X 10.1—Puma.
Phasing Out AppleTalk Routing
USIT upgraded the UiO LAN and installed new network routers. A consequence of this
was that AppleTalk trafic could not cross from one subnet to another. As an example,
users could not send a document by way of AppleTalk for printing on another subnet.
This turned out to be a minor problem. Most networked printers had at this time TCP/IP
interface in addition to AppleTalk.
Since a sizable part of our users might have felt this as “an attack” on the Mac, we
tried to lessen the fear. After all, even Apple had some time ago started a withdrawal
from AppleTalk in favor of TCP/IP.
gravenstein.uio.no Crash
In May, the server ’gravenstein’ (see 1995) had a disk crash and being an old machine,
the content was loaded on a new server. The ftp-archives were not restored because the
use of these had grown quite small.
The UiO program library changed name from the long “UiO programdistribusjon” to
the snappier “macprog”.
More Mac Versed Local IT Staff
In late June, the newsletter discussed how the local IT support staff might become even
more capable in supporting their users. This is of course an important theme for all of us.
In Norway, formal Macintosh classes are nearly non-existent; it’s very far from the
numerous Microsoft Certified Support Center (MCSC) classes. Some schools might have
Macintosh relevant classes in Video editing, Graphical design and similar professions.
Even if these classes can be valuable for UiO-users in these fields, they are not especially
relevant for general user support and Mac Management at a university of our type.
The conclusion, as I see it, is that it is far more difficult, than it should be, to build
competence as Mac Manager in Norway if you do not have any prior knowledge about
the Mac. This knowledge, the local IT staff has to build more or less by his/her own.
The local IT staff has an important role at the University. Their services are necessary
for faculty, staff and students. Their services to their users should be as good to their Mac
and Windows users alike.
In the newsletter (2001) I mentioned a few “rules” the local IT staff should be aware
of, concerning their support of the Mac users in the department. A more thorough
discussion about LITA and the LITA role are to be found in the Mac Theme—LITA part
beginning at page 157.
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Some Vacation URLs for LITA
July is the main vacation month in Norway. Most of the activity comes to a standstill. As
a scaling down to the vacation, I sent two URLs for “somewhat light summer reading”.
The URLs were:
http://applelust.macosjournal.com/oped/Loop/Archives/loop_24_macphil.html
The first volume about “Steve Jobs’ Philosophical Background” A mandatory article?
A more technical text is the following comparison between Intel's P4 and Motorola's G4.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/p4andg4e.ars
Deployment of Mac OS X 10.0
At September 4, information was given that users could start to use Mac OS X on the
UiO network. At this time, MOSX 10.0 had matured to version 10.0.4. Many had
already—somewhat “irregularily”—used MOSX for some time; new Macintoshes were
from late spring delivered with Mac OS X.
From this time, USIT introduced a management scheme for the Mac OS X. A
typically “version one” and quite like the scheme for other UNIX machines. We
recommended a separate swap-partition and were rather positive to many separate
partitions on the HD. Later, we changed this and we have no longer any partition
recommendations.
QuickTime Pro Licenses for the UiO Users
In late autumn USIT bought a license of QuickTimeT Pro v. 5. The number was not high;
I think it must have been 50 copies. The licenses were for developing media rich material;
USIT had a few months earlier established a small studio for digital video. Ever since,
USIT has upgraded to the newest QT Pro. Today, in 2010 we have 150 licenses for QT
v.7. The licenses are for combined use by Mac and Windows.
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Mac OS X 10.1—Puma Released
Released in September
2001, Mac OS X 10.1 was
a major step from MOSX
10.0.
While Mac OS 10.0
felt like another beta, 10.1
was the first OS X release,
which could actually be
used by “rank and file”
users.
Launch time, window
re-sizing and menus were
sig-nificantly faster, the
Dock was moveable, and
had a more customizable
interface, enhanced 3D
graphics
per-formance,
hundreds of driv-ers for
third-party printers, cameras, Camcorders, MP3
players, storage devices,
and additional network
integra-tion just to name a
few of the new or improved features.
Mac OS X 10.1 was a free upgrade for owners of Mac OS X 10.0. Due to its size it was
not available via Internet download, but could either be order directly from Apple for $20
or was available in the Apple Stores on burned CD-Rs.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X 10.1
Puma was a vastly more refined version with more features, overall more snappy, a fullblown version for the public. Five more versions followed up to 10.1.5, another Ars
Technica review about 10.1, at:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10-1.ars
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2002
Transmission of MacWorld Expo, San Francisco
This year Apple Norway once more time invited Mac enthusiasts to the show room
Måne-fisken to witness Steve Jobs’ keynote on satellite transmission from Macworld SF.
As far as I remember this became the last time. Later transmissions have been using a
satellite positioned too far west for transmission to Norway.
Microsoft Office X Arrives
On January 3rd the brand new Microsoft Office program suite was uploaded to the
application library for Macintosh. Office X was a suite tailor-made for Mac OS X, but the
properties were rather like its predecessor—Office 2001. Office X was only for users
with Mac OS X 10.1 or newer. Those still using the older Mac OS v. 9.x, had to use
Office 2001. Some months later, Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Office X.
About the Macintosh Situation at the University of Oslo
Early this year, Bjørn Ness (BN) wrote an important article in USIT’s newsletter. The
article summarized in rough terms the Macintosh history, emphasizing the period from
about 1996, the year of the deployment of the new administrative applications (see New
Administrative Applications—a Critical Stage for Macs at page). These applications
made it nearly impossible to use Macintoshes in administrative line of work.
Somewhat simplified, the article recognized the familiar strength of the Mac in the
eighties and first part of the nineties: the qualities of the Mac OS’ GUI, well-written
software following the guidelines of the GUI, for the first time programs for “ordinary
users” in image processing, multimedia and generally creative work.
On the other side, the Macintosh platform was not among the first to envision the
Internet and the emerging possibilities. Does anyone remember AppleLink?
However, the Macintosh community was not ignorant of the Internet. At least from
1988 the platform had a working TCP/IP stack, properly named, MacTCP. Lots of good
Internet applications emerged, as Eudora, NewsWatcher, and Fetch. I think it is fair to say
that the users of the Mac was quite awake concerning the Internet. Apple seemed for
some time to have been rather uninterested. But, the MacTCP was after all an Apple
product.
BN emphasizes the importance of Windows 95. He says:
“Even if the Mac users looked at Windows 95 as something leprous, for most
other Windows 95 had a great impact. Windows 95 reduced the difference
between Macintoshes and Windows machines from an essential one to a matter
of preference.”
My comment to this is that in addition, and most important, the users were satisfied with
the improvement. It was good enough.
Later on, in 1996, the new administrative client/server applications, required software
which at the time was not available to Macintoshes. From the year 1996 to 2000 the
number of Macintoshes at the UiO was falling from 2,200+ to 1,500. The reasons for this
were not only the local problems with the applications for administrative use. At this time
Apple had problems with the whole computer operation. But at the UiO, I think the
declines were mostly caused by local circumstances.
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Further in the article by BN, the Mac received full credit for outstanding qualities
concerning personal computing. Factors in favor of future Macintosh use were the
transition to web based clients for (many) administrative systems and the use of terminal
servers. On the other hand, Macintosh had up to the era of Mac OS X, no notion of secure
identification. Authentication and authorization was not an integrated part of Mac OS
before Mac OS X. This was however a shortcoming at USIT, traditionally a rather
centralistic site. With the increasing attention from hackers, illegal distribution of SW by
way of Macintoshes, and similar annoying acts, this was a serious shortcoming.
The article continued with another sore point, the scanty tools for establishing regular
support routines, software distribution, and inspection.
Let me comment on this. At a small site, with a dozen or two of Macintoshes, these
needs might not be too important. At a big site with thousands of computers of different
platforms and age, maintenance routines and general overview of the computers are
paramount. Windows and the different Linux/Unix platforms all have a maintenance
scheme. In addition, and very important for System managers who already have enough
to do, the Macintoshes should more or less use the same tools as the other platforms to
solve this task. A Mac only tool would not do.
Bjørn Ness ends his article with the wish that Mac OS X with its UNIX foundation
shall make it easier to establish a suitable management scheme on equal terms with the
other platforms at the UiO. The article ends with:
“Throughout the years the Macintosh has given the users many happy moments
and the support organization many gray hairs. We now hope that Mac OS X can
provide the users with at least as many happy moments as before, but also
provide fewer gray hairs among the System managers.”
I have referred to this article in some detail. One reason is that as far as I know, this
article is the first official comment from USIT since 1996 concerning the past, present and
future of the Macintosh at the UiO. The article was a precise description of some of the
most important pros and cons of the Macintosh deployment at the UiO.
The circulation of the USIT newsletter was about 5,000 and reached all employees at
the UiO. An official article in this publication would reach most of this group and could
be potentially important.
eMac Released
In late spring iMac’s big brother appeared. This “oversized” iMac had a 17" display and
more or less the same specifications as the iMac. The main difference was the eMac’s
greater display resolution—1280 X 960. This machine was early on infamous for a
considerable noise level, and was not a big success at the UiO. I think the eMac fit the
song of Barenaked Ladies: Too little too late.
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Mac OS X 10.2—Jaguar Released
MOSX 10.2 Jaguar was
released August 23. The code
name of this version of Mac OS
X became publicly known long
be-fore the release of 10.2, and
therefore Apple de-cided to
officially refer to this version of
Mac OS X as Jaguar.
Jaguar
improved
the
performance of Mac OS X by
featuring Quartz Extreme, a
new version of Quartz that took
ad-vantage of the graphics accelerator cards on the modern
Macs. The Mail application now
had a built-in Spam mail filter,
which was considered one of
the best available.
Furthermore, Apple added handwriting recognition called Inkwell. Inkwell was based on
Apple’s Newton handwriting recognition. New applications were also introduced such as
iChat, QuickTime 6 and Sherlock 3 (and also adding a classic-Mac OS-like quick search
to the Finder). Apple also added Bluetooth support and introduced Rendezvous. Another
feature that was included on the demand of the users, were the spring-loading folders,
which were available under Mac OS 9, but were missing in the first two releases of Mac
OS X.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X 10.2
Eight more versions followed up to 10.2.8. An Ars Technica review about 10.2, at:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2002/09/macosx-10-2.ars
Dismantling of “Show/service Room”, Establishing
“Houston”
The Show room opened in February 1999 and was accessible to staff and students (see
article, page 89). Now, 3.5 years later, we removed the equipment. The room soon reemerged as USIT’s new support center, named “Houston”.
The First Remote Desktop Connection—for Mac
In June, Microsoft released their first version of RDC Client for Mac. The RDC for
Macintosh seemed very stable. I believe that most users were using the program in rather
simple ways. The present (Fall 2011) version is v.2.1.1.
The client for Citrix Metaframe had up to now been the only way to use terminal
servers for the Mac. Now Citrix had a competitor.
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Some Developer Documentation
In autumn, we referred to an Apple webpage with pointers to lots of URLs for developers
or power users. This page is still on line. The URL to this treasure:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/index.html
Catalog of Mac OS X Programs
In late September, the email newsletter pointed to an URL with a catalog of Mac OS X
applications. You can still check out the catalog at: http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/
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2003
Recommended Mac OS X Books
January started with recommendation of the following books.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mac OS X Unleashed
Mac OS X—The Missing Manual
The Robin William’s Mac OS X Book
Mac OS X Pocket Guide
Macintosh Troubleshooting, A pocket Guide of
Essential System Administration, Pocket Reference of
Norwegian books on Mac OS X scarcely exist.
In addition to these recommendations of books, an URL with “Good advice for
Apple” was in the newsletter. The website has a different address now, you can find it on:
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=257 It still has good advice for Apple.
Another URL from David K. Avery’s old website igeek.com,
http://www.igeek.com/articles/Humor/Political/Japanese+American+History.humor
Not hilariously funny, but a smile in the workday.
The Purpose of the Newsletters
The members of the newsletter’s distribution list are of course not a “fixed” group, they
now and then leave the University and new people fill their positions. An article on the
purpose of the letters is therefore appropriate.
The main reason for the newsletters is to give macadm at USIT a channel to the Local
IT staff, and other de facto resource staff. The newsletters have varied contents, such as
specific information about coming products, prices and specifications, and recommendations to consider. Some letters deal with technical web pages, some soft-, and other rather
hard core. In addition, some humor stuff. Infrequently we ask for answers on specific
matters.
In the newsletter, I also suggested that the recipients should feel free to distribute the
text, partial or complete, to their local users.
We received little specific feedback on the newsletters. However, many of the
recipients said that they were appreciating the letters.
X11 Server—Beta 2
In the middle of February, Apple released a new beta version of the X11 server for
MOSX. [A Beta 3 followed in the middle of March] Initially we had been quite
enthusiastic about an X11 server coming to Mac OS X. We believed that X11 for Mac
would give access to important software, missing on the Mac. We knew that some
interest for X11 existed at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. And it did,
but it turned out that only few of our other users saw any need for it.
More about X11 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
Mac Relevant Web Pages at the Departments
The Mac managers at USIT did not know much of the web based documentation
developed locally at the departments.
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In April, I used the newsletter to ask whether the departments had any such locally
developed Mac information on the web. I received a few answers, but found that the
information often were tailor-made to local needs. This was not surprising. However, we
received valuable suggestions for new web pages.
The Application Repository macprog Will Use .dmg-format
For some time the staff working with the application repository had planned to convert
the “Finder-copied” application-CDs to objects in dmg-format. This is a more robust
solution, with check summing. Our recommendation is always to download the dmg
archive to the local Mac, make a CD/DVD “original” and perform an ordinary install
from the CD/DVD.
To control access to the repository, the users were enrolled in application specific AD
(Active Directory) groups. In addition to the applications with such single users licenses,
we have many site licensed applications. These are free for all users with a valid UiO
username. More about the dmg-format:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Disk_Image
No Mac OS X Server Allowed
The reports from the Management Scheme showed that a number of Macintoshes were
running Mac OS X Server. This had not been formally sanctioned by USIT. The
departments were on the contrary told to inform USIT and discuss the case if they wanted
to use a Mac OS X Server. USIT’s arguments for this strictness, were the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
USIT did not have a robust solution for backup of MOSXS machines
We had no competence or, at the time being, resources to manage MOSXS
USIT’s ordinary server farm had capacity to spare for new tasks.
Our other servers had a proven Management Scheme, with personnel resources
sufficient to cope with vacations, illness etc.
Departments largely lacked sufficient personnel resources to manage the servers
and applications.
Departments with needs USIT could not meet with existing servers, were encouraged to contact USIT for discussions.
We had some incidents. A few users enabled services they should not use, but most
followed our recommendations. Some years later, a few very Mac competent departments
are running their own Mac OS X Servers for rather special use.
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Mac OS X 10.3—Panther Released
At WWDC 2003 (October 24), Apple announced
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.
Panther introduced lots of
new features such as the
new window management
Exposé, improved Finder,
AES-128 encryp-tion for
personal files, enhanced
version of Preview, faxing, faster Mail, and Font
Book; a font management
tool.
In addition, the iDisk
access and synchronization was significantly improved. Two new features
got most attention:
Fast User Switching and Xcode. Fast User Switching was one of the most eagerly
awaited features that enabled users who shared a Mac to switch between accounts without
quitting applications and logging out.
Xcode was a new development tool for Mac OS X applications. It improved the speed
of compiling applications significantly, for instance by distributing compile workload
across idle computers on a network.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X 10.3
Another MOSX version, another Ars review:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2003/11/macosx-10-3.ars
Am I Dreaming—Virginia Tech and 1,100 G5 Powermacs
HPC or high performance computing is hardly a familiar Macintosh activity. Some background for HPC can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_computing
It is an unconventional idea that Macintoshes are a suitable platform on which to build an
HPC cluster. Especially in competition with field proven equipment from Dell, IBM,
SUN, and HP.
This project becomes near mind-boggling when you learn that the whole venture from
the first idea, through fierce discussions, formal decisions, planning and ordering of
equipment, delivering of equipment and computers, installing the cluster with secondary
technology and testing, was done in less than 9 months. Some work took place in the
spring, Apple released the G5 on June 23, and testing at Virginia Tech started in early
October 2003. Let me present a paragraph by Srinidhi Varadarajan the driving force of
System X at Virginia Tech. The paragraph is from:
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http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2003/10/29/osxcon_g5cluster.html
“On June 23, Apple announced the G5. Varadarajan said that contrary to
rumors, it was the first that they had heard about it as well. On June 26, they
told Apple they were interested in placing a “fairly large order”. A day later, he
flew to California and met with Apple. One of their first questions was how
long he had been a Mac owner. Varadarajan said he never had one. Twenty-four
hours later Apple committed. Starting on September 5, the G5s arrived in
Virginia. An audience member asked if he had made the purchase through the
Apple store. Varadarajan smiled and said that actually, yes, he had.”
I have my doubts about the last sentence above, but it’s a good story. Another wellwritten article, in MacTech Volume 22, Issue 2:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.22/22.02/OSXBasedSupercomputer/index.
html
You will find more at Virginia Tech’s web pages:
“The supercomputer’s name (pronounced “System Ten”) originates from the
original goal of 10 teraflops on the high performance LINPACK benchmark.
On November 16, 2003, it was ranked by the TOP500 list as the third-fastest
super-computer in the world—and “the world’s most powerful and cheapest
homebuilt supercomputer.”
System X was constructed in a few months with a relatively low investment of $5.2
million, using souped up off-the-shelf G5 computers with dual-2.0 GHz processors. (By
comparison, the Earth Simulator, the fastest supercomputer at that time, cost
approximately $400 million to build.)
In early 2004, Virginia Tech upgraded its computer to Apple’s newly-released Xserve
G5 servers; the upgraded version was #7 in the 2004 TOP500 list, and cost one-fifth as
much as the second least-expensive system in the top 10.
In October of 2004, Virginia Tech partially rebuilt System X at a cost of about
$600,000. These improvements brought the computer’s speed up to 12.25 Teraflops,
which placed System X #14 on the 2005 TOP500 list.”
Let me add that the performance of the SYSTEM X was very impressive in 2003 and still
very decent in November 2006. Yet another factors, like the unconventional choice of
equipment and the very fast planning and building process, impressed me more. In
addition, Jason Lockhart, director of the College of Engineering’s High-Performance
Computing and Technology Innovation group stated very sensibly:
“This project never would have been possible at this price, while getting this
per-formance, with any other [platform],” Lockhart finishes. “So here’s my
advice to anyone else who’s thinking about building a supercomputer: Know
that the experience will be very taxing, both mentally and physically. However,
if you make your choices wisely, and engage the vendors who will support you
at every step, you’ll find it to be an amazingly bonding experience. Everyone
should build a supercomputer!”
The official Virginia Tech’s web pages:
http://www.arc.vt.edu/arc/SystemX/ and further traversing. Do not miss the photo
galleries: http://www.arc.vt.edu/arc/SystemX/initial_gallery.php
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http://www.arc.vt.edu/arc/SystemX/upgrade_gallery.php
and the FAQs: http://www.arc.vt.edu/arc/SystemX/System_X_Hardware_FAQ.php
http://www.arc.vt.edu/arc/SystemX/System_X_Usage_FAQ.php
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2004
After MacWorld SF 2004
The keynote, by Steve Jobs, started at 18 o’clock local time in Norway on January 5. The
news were not overwhelming—iPod Mini, a keyboard and an Xserve with a G5 CPU.
The RAM in the Xserve was of the EEC type, as a server should have.
The iLife suite update was presented, including the music program Garageband. The
iPod Mini should turn out to be one of Apple’s most successful iPods, but the new
products were not of much interest to the Mac community at the UiO.
The keynote included as usual some television ads, even the original, fantastic 1984
with hammer-throwing girl wearing an iPod. This use of the iPod made no great
impression and Apple’s link to this ad, active after the keynote, is no longer to be found,
No More TSM Backup for Macintoshes
Some years ago USIT offered a central backup service using TSM (Tivoli Storage
Manager). The service was primarily for servers, but a few users of the workstations, both
Mac and Win, also used the service.
The number of Mac users was low, and many of them were still using Mac OS 9. In
spring we discontinued this service and from this time the user’s home directory on the
server, has been the only way to centralized backup.
OSX-authentication and Mounting of Home Directory
In February we released a new version of user authentication together with automatic
mounting of the user’s home directory. This service was for Macs using our management
scheme, used MOSX 10.3.2 or newer, and only for desktop Macs. Portables have at all
times been more difficult to manage.
Video Recording Of Lecture for Department of Informatics
In Mars the newsletter informed of USIT’s recording activities of lectures in computer
science.
As an example of these recordings, we gave the URL to a class in Communication
theory, held in spring 2004. If interested (Norwegian only), take a look at
http://www.ifi.uio.no/~inf3190/Video/.
This example includes an excellent webpage presenting the video. To have an
introductory webpage, was not obvious. Many recordings were very poorly presented (if
at all) and difficult to find. Missing, or strangely placed information about the video
recording, was rather frustrating for us who worked with this service, not to mention
students, staff, and the professional interested public searching for the lecture.
Distribution of Security Patches, From rdist to Store
In spring we informed members of the distribution list that we would change from rdist to
Store for our centrally managed security updates. More about Store, see:
http://www.pvv.org/~arnej/store/storedoc.html
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Move to MOSX 10.3, Please!
In late spring more than 400 Macintoshes used our Management Scheme. Nearly 120
(30%) still used MOSX 10.2.x—Jaguar.
USIT had not identified any important application for the UiO that failed to work
with 10.3, with a slight uncertainty concerning SPSS 11.0.2. Therefore the Managers
argued that the Jaguar users should upgrade to MOSX 10.3—Panther.
We stressed that USIT would not invest resources in Jaguar and added that we had no
information about how long Apple would provide security patches for MOSX 10.2.x. So,
the message was: Move to MOSX 10.3 Panther. Those who did would as an extra bonus
have their UiO username authenticated at login and their home directory mounted.
The users were also reminded that to upgrade to Panther using the MOSX disk
images from our AMP license, required registration of the end-user.
Site License for Graphic Converter v. 5
In May our license of Graphic Converter was updated. Our first license of this very handy
application was purchased in 1995. The license was renewed in 2002, 2004, 2007, and
2010.
An Early Trojan on the Mac
MS Office 2004 was released on May 11. At this time a Trojan masquerading as a demo
version of the application was discovered on the net.
The Trojan was destructive; the reports mentioned that it deleted the users local home
directory. Whether this malware ever hit the UiO, I don’t know, causalities were not
reported. About malware, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware
Planning for Taking Mac OS 9 Macs Off the UiO Net
May 18 the local IT staff (LITA) was briefed about our plans to shut down the use of Mac
OS 9.x Macs on the UiO network. No date for this was given, and we asked for feedback
about whether this shut down would create big local problems. We pointed out that Macs
from 1999 or newer could use our present MOSX.
Less than a dozen enquires about this were received, to a large degree about Macs
connected to some sort of data logging equipment. The solution was simply to put these
Macs behind a firewall if the equipment or software in question could not run on a
MOSX Mac.
Apple and Microsoft
In the summertime and in the vacation periods the email newsletters were somewhat
“softer” than usual. In July an article by John Gruber was the recommendation. The
article discussed the old saying; If only Apple had licensed the Macintosh, the company
could have been Microsoft. The article is still worth reading, take a look at:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/08/parlay
Endnote v.8 Expected In September
Endnote is among the most popular application for many at the UiO. Therefore it was a
long-desired piece of news that the newest version, validated for Tiger, was imminent.
Some weeks later we received a new message about the new Endnote. The
introduction was postponed, due to “…delays with the Window version in connection
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with MS Windows XP Service Pack 2”. The new estimate for delivery was in November.
About Endnote, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EndNote
Deadtrolls
It is summertime, you should experience the actors at:
http://www.deadtroll.com/index2.html Try the videos “Every OS Sucks” and “Welcome
to the Internet Helpdesk”. Is it only me, or has the lead actor some similarity to Bruce
Willis?
New iMacs With G5 CPU
New iMacs were introduced in August. The form factor was new, only a “display”, 2
inches thick. This design is still with us in 2010. The cheapest 17" model with 1,6 MHz
CPU, 256 MB RAM, Combo drive, and 80 GB HD did cost NOK. 11,600 included VAT
($1,788).
Management Scheme—Status Early Fall 2004
At this time about 550 Macintoshes were running the Management Scheme. Of these, approximately 160 had Active Directory authentification, as we had recommended some
time ago.
In the email newsletter the local IT staff was warned that USIT would soon start to
“hunt down” Macs not running the Management Scheme. If somebody could prove that
the Management Scheme was making their job harder or impossible to do, they might be
permitted to run without. Some developers turned out to be very skeptical to the Scheme,
insisting they wanted full control of their Mac and of updates and application-versions
saved on their Macs. In any case, they were eminently capable professionals and
represented no security problem.
After all, we did not use a lot of resources on the “hunting”!
Security Configuration Guide for MOSX 10.3 Server—From
NSA
We had not expected to see a publication from NSA about security on the Mac OS X
Server version 10.3, but here it was: http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/os/applemac/I331003R-2005.pdf
I must confess I have not read it in-dept, but it seems to be a document well worth
reading if you are interested in the security topic. The URL above might not function only
by double clicking. You may have more success if you copy the URL and paste it into a
web browser.
A more recent paper, or brochure is:
http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/factsheets/os/applemac/I331-003R-2005.pdf
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2005
SPSS v.11.0.3 Released
This version of SPSS was validated for MOSX 10.3.x. In addition, it included numerous
error fixes. It had to be installed running as administrator, and not as most applications,
prompt the user for the administrator account and password. This rather unusual and
cumbersome procedure was in use up to SPSS V17. However, from version 18 of SPSS
the installer of SPSS prompts the user for the administrator account, like all decent
installers should do.
Mac Mini—and the UiO
The first Mac Mini was introduced at Macworld SF in January. With a 1,2 or 1,4 GHz G4
CPU, and a 40 or 80 GB hard drive, the Mini—at the time—was a decent, little Mac. At
the introduction the Mini had only 256 MB of RAM. This was increased to 512 MB half
a year later.
In a newsletter to the Mac community, the macadm-group concluded that the model
might suit many of the users at the University. The power users would of course not be
impressed, but lots of people could get their job done with a Mac Mini. However, my
qualified guess is that most of them in the end selected the iMac. An exhaustive review of
the first Mac Mini, can be found at:
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2328&p=1/
The later Mac Minis have of course much more impressive specifications and are for
many users quite usable hardware. However, they should have been 100–200 dollars
cheaper.
New Xserve Cluster at University of UIUC, USA
In early February a newsletter informed about an Xserve cluster established at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Somewhat smaller than the Virginia Tech
cluster (see the article for 2003 at page 107). However, the cluster is still impressive with
640 two-CPU G5 Xserves.
I don’t know whether the Xserve cluster at UIUC is still operative, HPC equipment
seldom grow old. However the website is reachable (August 2011) and is well worth a
visit. Take a look at: http://www.cse.uiuc.edu/turing/
Another HPC site using 224 Xserves, is at Bowie State University, see:
http://www.macworld.com/article/43550/2005/03/xseed.html
The Free Lunch is Over: … About Concurrency
As a reading tip for the weekend, I recommended an article by Herb Sutter. His message
is that the yearly speed increase of the CPUs is mostly over, and what are programmers to
do about this?
The article can be found at: http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj.htm At
Sutter’s site you may find many interesting articles.
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Mac OS X 10.4—Tiger Released
Mac OS X version 10.4
“Tiger” is the fifth release
of Mac OS X. Tiger was
released to the public on
April 29, 2005 as the successor to Mac OS X v10.3
“Panther”, released 18
months earlier.
Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” after 30 months superseded Mac US X Tiger
on October 26, 2007. This
made Mac OS X 10.4 the
longest running version of
the Mac OS X operating
system.
Some of the new features include a fast searching system called Spotlight, a new version
of the Safari web browser, Dashboard, a new ‘Unified’ theme, and improved support for
64-bit addressing on Power Mac G5s. Mac OS X 10.4. “Tiger” was included with all new
Macintosh computers, and was available as an upgrade for existing Mac OS X users, or
users of supported pre-Mac OS X systems. The server edition, Mac OS X Server 10.4,
was also available for some Macintosh product lines. Tiger is also the first version of any
released Apple operating system to work on Apple-Intel architecture machines (Apple
machines using x86 proces-sors.)
The Apple TV, as released in March 2007, ships with a customized version of Mac
OS X v10.4 branded “Apple TV OS” that replaces the usual graphical user interface with
an updated version of Front Row. Six weeks after its official release, Apple had delivered
2 million copies of Tiger, representing 16% of all Mac OS X users. Apple claimed that
Tiger was the most successful Apple OS release in the company’s history. At the World
Wide Developers Conference on June 11, 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that
out of the 22 million OS X users, more than 67% were using Tiger.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X 10.4
Once again Ars Technica gave us an in dept review of the new MOSX version, 10.4—
Tiger.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2005/04/macosx-10-4.ars
Introduction of MOSX 10.4 Tiger
Due to our AMP license agreement for Mac OS X, macadm at Friday April 29, 2005 at
18.00:06 local time, opened for downloading Tiger. Among our 550+ managed Mac
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users, 219 had been pre-registering into a license group giving access to the Tiger disk
image/dmg.
Our testing indicated that Tiger without big troubles should fit in to our management
scheme and work with most of our applications. We warned about using Tiger on
production use with multimedia applications. In addition, the existing Cisco VPN-client
was not yet validated for Tiger.
Our initial optimistic view of Tiger in the infrastructure of UiO turned out to be a
mistake.
Temporary Stop With Tiger Update
At June 1, macadm had to put a stop to Tiger updates on Macs running the Management
Scheme. The reason for this was, somewhat simplified, certain incompatibilities between
Panther and Tiger especially within Active Directory, portable machines, and the use of
symbolic links. Where Panther had functioned well with our management, Tiger had
problems. Users, who had started to use Tiger, were advised to upgrade to MOSX 10.4.1.
We wrote the following in the newsletter:
“The (partly) solution with the symbolic links we have arrived at is so
complicated that we hesitate to recommend it to our users. Moreover, our hope
is that the coming system update 10.4.2 will take care of the problem.
The issue with AD and portable machines is completely outside our control and
can be dramatic if our users do not concur in this temporary halt of 10.4
installing.
Even if it should be possible from our side to circumvent the issues or by way
of “administrative commands” ban portable machines with Tiger on the UiOnetwork, such measures would be so “hairy” or difficult to enforce, that we will
not follow this way. The problems are caused by Apple’s software and it must
be Apple’s responsibility to find satisfactory safe and permanent solutions.”
Luckily we were not alone with our Tiger problems. Other big Mac sites also reported
about less than stellar integration of Macs in heterogeneous computer environments. I
guess that Mac homogenous sites had far less problems.
During this tiring period, the users with 10.3.x Panther were advised to continue using
Panther. Those who planned to buy new Macs were asked to delay the purchase. We had
however, no way to prevent new Macs with Tiger on the UiO net, and many, somewhat
in “secrecy”, used their new Macs with Tiger and local accounts.
Apple + Intel = True
At Apple’s Developer Conference (WWDC) at June 6, Steve Jobs announced that Apple
would switch from Power PC to Intel CPU technology. Some rumors about this had been
heard, but by and large the news was a big surprise.
The reasons for the choice were plausible; the PPC technology was rather energy
hungry, especially for portable computers. At this time the portables made up for about
50% of Apple’s yearly production of Macs. Today the transition seems very sensible.
More about this technology switch at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intel_transition
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Pro-Mac, a Mailing List for Mac Professionals
In June we introduced Pro-Mac, a forum for Mac administrators at big sites. We wanted a
forum where technical opportunities and issues could be discussed. Being a bit
overconfident, we chose to use English as the language of the forum.
It turned out that the interest for such a forum was small. Perhaps because most of the
potential members had already joined Macenterprise.org. If that was the case, I do not
blame them. So, Pro-Mac had a short history, not very glorious, and the list closed down
after a few months. We discovered that much work was necessary for such a venture to
be a success.
SPSS V.11.0.4 Ready for Download
SPSS—validated for MOSX 10.4 was in November uploaded to USIT’s SW repository.
Apple Seminar About AD
Very surprisingly macadm received an invitation from Apple Norway to a seminar about
Active Directory. We were notified a few hours before the event, and as far as I
remember none of us had the opportunity to attend. Likely it seemed we were close to be
forgotten.
A bit annoying, since Active Directory often had been troublesome for us in the work
for a well-functioning management scheme. We might have needed some good advise
from the visiting expert.
Mac OS X Qualities In 5–10 Years
As mentioned before, the newsletter now and then recommended articles with limited
immediate value, but they are articles that in the long run might be of value for the local
IT staff. Four articles from our friends at Ars Technica are as always well worth reading:
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2005/09/27/
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2005/09/30/
http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2005/10/03/ And, five years later:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/copland-2010-revisited.ars
Only One Mac Reseller
In November the new agreement between the UiO and the resellers of Macintoshes and
PCs to the University was signed. According to the new agreement only one reseller—
Office Line (later Humac)—should supply Macs to the University.
The departments, which had used the other reseller, Top Nordic, had to get used to
new sales staff, but this led to few, if any problems.
The Yule Letter to LITA
The last newsletter before Christmas contains links to the traditional Yule story by David
Pogue and a historic overview of Apple’s troublesome years in the nineties. Two URLs:
http://www.usd.edu/~bwjames/humor/wonderful.html
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/gil-amelio-apple.html
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2006
Aperture v.1.0
John Siracusa at Ars Technica gave a review of Apple’s new application for administrating digital photos. The first version of this application turned out to be a resource hog,
and many photographers were very critical to Aperture. Siracusa saw the application in
light of version 1 of Final Cut Pro. FCP v1.0 was not hailed as a winner, but turned out to
be one of Apple’s most valued applications. He predicted that the same might happen to
Aperture.
In retrospect I am thinking his prediction can be discussed, but Aperture has been
refined and is today a very robust performer. However, Aperture quite early got a rival—
Adobe’s Lightroom. The two applications are catering to the same group of users.
News From MacWorld SF
In his Keynote at the MacWorld Expo in January, Steve Jobs as usual presented the new
edition of iLife. This year iWeb, an application for simple web design had been added.
Of grater interest for the users at UiO was another application suite, iWork. In the
suite, we find Pages, for document production, and Keynote, an elegant competitor to
Microsoft’s PowerPoint. Both applications had existed for some time, but now they were
bundled in iWork and released in new versions. Especially Keynote has quite a few
supporters. Some even claim that PowerPoint has improved because of Keynote’s
qualities.
Final Cut Pro and DVD Pro were announced as Intel-ready applications, with
delivery in the spring.
The big news was the introduction of the first two Macintoshes with Intel-CPU.
MacBook Pro replaced the PowerBook and an Intel iMac followed the G5 iMac. The
appearances of the new Macs were not very different from the former models.
Many had feared that the new Intel Macs would function only with application designed
for the Intel CPU, but Apple’s Rosetta technology was surprisingly effective. Even if
some old applications did not run at their old speed, and those few applications, which
needed a G5 CPU, did not work at all, most worked at acceptable performance. About
Rosetta, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
MOSX 10.4.3 on the Software Repository
January 17 USIT uploaded both DVD and CD versions of version 10.4.3 of Tiger. This
version had important bug fixes and most of our problems with Tiger were fixed and
slowly we were relaxing.
We argued that the users should make, and keep a DVD copy of Tiger. If not for any
other reason than to reset the administrator password when or if they forgot it. From a
dialog box we quoted:
“To open Reset Password, you must start up your computer using the Mac OS
X Install Disc. To do this, double-click the Install OS X icon on the disc. When
the installer open, choose Reset Password from the Utilities menu.”
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The 22 Years Anniversary of the Mac
At January 24 we reminded our users of the anniversary of the Mac. In a rather low
quality video you will see a well-dressed Steve Jobs, a little (very little) shy, but very,
very proud. You will find the video at many sites, but apparently they are of the same low
technical quality. Enjoy!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1866806258911594844
Virginia Tech—Revisited
We reported in 2003 on the original Mac G5 HPC site at Virginia Tech. Now, we
suggested that those interested in the theme should read an article in the February edition
of the MacTech Journal. The article was written by Emmanuel Stein and could be found
at the archive of MacTech, see:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.22/22.02/OSXBasedSupercomputer/index.
html
A Report on Mac Intel and Deployment
A summary of the situation concerning Intel-Macs and the management Scheme was
distributed on Mars 7, encouraging our Mac users to delay purchase of Intel-Macs to
Mars 17, or later, planning to have a usable alpha-version ready. A more official betaversion of the Management scheme was planned for the first week after Easter, from
April 18. The finished scheme would not be finished till late summer.
The summary warned against using Intel-Macs with the alpha- or beta-version of the
Management Scheme for critical applications and stressed the need for a well-planned
backup routine.
In addition to this, Sophos Antivirus, and Cisco VPN Client did not work with the
Intel-Macs, but new updates were expected in a few weeks. We also mentioned that up to
date, no Universal (Intel and PPC compliant) applications existed on the application
server for Macs. However, Apple’s Rosetta technology made it possible to use most PPCapplications on Intel-Macs, with only a little speed reduction.
The Easter’s Letter
The newsletter discussed briefly the newly announced Boot Camp application from
Apple. At UiO we have later banned use of Boot Camp if the Mac is on the UiO-LAN.
The main reason for this is that the Management Scheme for Win-machines does not
install the Windows security patches to a Boot Camp machine. Windows on a Mac
running Boot Camp cannot at the same time run Mac OS X. Cut and paste between a Mac
and a Window application is not possible. Because of this, and for security reasons,
Parallels is the recommended solution at the UiO. More about Boot Camp in a later
newsletter, see page 121.
The Management Scheme named “osx-daily” was progressing nicely and we
expected to have a beta version in late April. Some URLs is well worth seeing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0 (a wonderful one!)
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/1984-apple-superbowl-ad.html
Update From 10.4.5 to 10.4.6
The users of PPC-Macs were informed by a newsletter that we were going to upgrade
Macs to MOSX 10.4. 6. Usually we did not give any notice. After this update, the Macs
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did reboot twice and this was unusual. Even if the update took place in the middle of the
night, we notified our users in case they were burning midnight oil.
Print Authentication with Kerberos
The student’s printouts on the printers of the University were to be counted. Each student
received a quota for each semester, and could purchase additional prints. The Kerberos
protocol is an important component in this printer solution. More about Kerberos in the
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_(protocol) and external links
from the Wikipedia page.
This policy shift and the necessary software modifications in our management
scheme accompanied by this were not straightforward.
Sophos Antivirus & Cisco VPN Client Ready for Intel Macs
In late April these two applications were ready for Intel Macs. The VPN client was
without any doubt the most important of the applications, Sophos was a sort of assurance,
at the time Mac users had not been troubled by malware.
A Summer Letter
In a short letter in early July, we wished the Mac users a happy summer. We even implied
that it might not be catastrophic to leave the keyboard unused for some weeks. To enter
the typical Norwegian vacation month (July) without a (slightly) relevant URL was of
course impossible. For a surprising experience, look at:
http://lowendmac.com/sable/06/0706.html
Mac OS X Internals—a System Approach
Usually the local IT staff was not very interested in programming and internal system
components of Mac OS X. This was not surprising, in the role as LITA, few needed this
competence.
However, a few like to know something about the core of things. Our newsletter
presented the book Mac OS X Internals—a System Approach by Amit Singh. It is a
heavyweight in the field, in more than one way. The number of pages is 1,680 and the
weight is close to 2,5 kilogram.
At http://osxbook.com/ you can find links to a blog and forums connected to the
book, interesting stuff!
News From the WWDC
Apple’s Developer Conference took place in San Francisco from August 7 to 11. The
most important theme at the conference was a preview of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Each
of the participants received a DVD.
The most popular HW-announcement was an Intel version of Mac Pro. By this, and
an announcement of an Intel Xserve (Apple’s only pure server), the complete Mac
product line was using Intel CPUs. This transition did happen in little more than a year,
amazing! A review at: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/reviews/2006/08/macpro.ars
Fast forward to November 5, 2010 when Apple announced that the company was
“transitioning away from Xserve”. In short, they would discontinue the Xserve from
January 31, 2011. This decision is not of vital importance to the University, but might be
a sign of Apple’s diminishing interest for Enterprise and big institutions with hundreds or
thousands of Macintoshes.
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17" iMac for Education
The newsletter reminded the readers that Apple offered a 17" iMac especially for EDU
users. The specifications were not overwhelming, a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo, only 512
MB RAM, an 80 GB HD and an Intel GMA 950 graphics adapter. The price was $ 1,366
or NOK 8,870. My impression was that the users at the University in a way had outgrown
the 17" display and wanted a display of at least 20".
SPSS V.13 and Endnote X
SPSS V.13 was not a Universal application and could not be used by an Intel Mac. This
was not very impressive by SPSS/MacKiev. SPSS V.15 for Mac was expected in the first
half of 2007, but this version was not finished and SPSS launched V.16 even later. V.16
turned out to be rather problematic for Mac and Windows users alike.
Endnote X was expected in the middle of September and was to be a Universal
Application.
Wanted: Test Users for the Forthcoming 10.5—Leopard
In late fall an article in the newsletter was used to hire volunteers to test Leopard. We had
expected this version in spring 2007, but it turned out not to be released until October 26,
2007. The testing was not a great success. We got very little feedback. If I should be
somewhat mean, I suspect that a substantial part of the testers saw an opportunity to get
hold of a Leopard DVD a long time before the official UiO-rollout of MOSX 10.5 and
distribution of the Leopard disk image.
A Web Site for “Macs in Chemistry”
The newsletter pointed at a dedicated site for Macintoshes at departments of Chemistry.
The URL is: http://homepage.mac.com/swain/Macinchem/default.htm The site offers
lots of information about applications, software reviews and blogs about Macintoshes in
Chemistry. Very interesting, even for a non-chemist!
I asked the receivers of the newsletter about similar pages from other academic fields,
but received no feedback. Apple has a version, but from my point of view, even if it’s
very slick, it is far from the above “down to earth site”. It might be a start, take a look at:
http://www.apple.com/science/
ZFS—a New File System for MOSX?
In late 2006 you could find reports on the net about the file system ZFS from Sun
Microsystems. ZFS was reported to be an optional alternative for Mac OS 10.5—
Leopard.
ZFS had many attractive qualities, but regrettable, as of November 2009, Apple
discontinued their activity with ZFS. See:
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/10/25/apple_drops_zfs/
Rumors have it that the discontinuing had something to do with commercial right to
the file system. Technically I think the ZFS solution would have been a great file system
for the Mac.
More about ZFS and HFS Plus, the present file system of the Mac, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_File_System
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Macs With MOSX and Windows
In April Apple announced a solution for using both Mac OS X and Windows on the same
Intel Mac. The solution was named BootCamp. Similar functionality was a month later
offered by Parallels, Inc. with their Parallels desktop for Mac.
The users showed up to be moderately interested in this technology and macadm
received few inquires about these two solutions. A newsletter in late 2006 tried to give
some answers.
BootCamp on an Intel Mac does not have a protective MOSX between itself and the
surroundings. Because of this, the user has the full responsibility to see about security
patches. For the Windows boxes at the UiO this is done automatically. We had no plans
to do the same for a few Macintoshes running BootCamp.
Concerning security, the solution from Parallels was different because it resided
within MOSX and used the network of MOSX. The MOSX’ security updates are patched
by USIT.
Another and important difference between Parallels and BootCamp was Parallel’s
ability to cut and paste between a Windows- and a Mac application.
In any case the user had to obtain a copy of Windows, our agreement with Microsoft
did not include using existing licenses for neither BootCamp nor Parallels. USIT’s firm
recommendation was to go for Parallels. In fact we banned BootCamp on the UiO LAN.
More about BootCamp and Parallels Desktop for Macintosh, at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Camp_(software)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_Desktop_for_Mac
Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year
The Christmas letter dealt with the coming Leopard, Adobes Creative Suite CS 3 in the
first half of 2007, about our plans for booting Macintoshes over the net and install system
software, and last, of course the traditional Yule story by David Pogue.
In addition to Pogue’s story at: http://www.usd.edu/~bwjames/humor/wonderful.html
you’ll find Jobs’ Stanford speech at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
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2007
Mac OS X 10.5—Leopard Released
Mac OS X version 10.5 “Leopard“ is the sixth major release of
the Mac OS X operating system
for Apple’s Mac line of personal computers, and is the
successor to Mac OS X v10.4
“Tiger“. Leopard was released
on October 26, 2007.
According to Apple, Leopard contains over 300 changes
and enhancements, covering
core operating system components as well as included applications and developer tools
Leopard introduces a significantly revised desktop, with a redesigned Dock, Stacks, a
semitransparent menu bar, and an updated Finder that incorporates the Cover Flow visual
navigation interface first seen in iTunes. Other notable features include support for
writing 64-bit graphical user interface applications, an automated backup utility called
Time Machine, support for Spotlight searches across multiple machines, and the inclusion
of Front Row and Photo Booth, which were previously only included with some Mac
models.
Apple missed Mac OS X v10.5’s release period as originally announced by Apple
CEO Steve Jobs. When first discussed in June 2005, Jobs had stated that Apple intended
to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007. A year later, this was amended to
“Spring 2007”; on April 12, 2007, Apple issued a statement that its release would be
delayed until October 2007 because of the development of the iPhone.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X 10.5
The Leopard is here, and with this a new ars-review:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5.ars
Bruce Tognazzini On the iPhone
The first newsletter in 2007 discussed the just released iPhone. B. Tognazzini, a former
Apple employee for fourteen years, is often critical to many of Apple’s user interface
solutions. About the iPhone he was rather positive in his evaluation, even if he did not
endorse all the details. He has a long career in user interface activities, and he was a
member of Apple Human Interface Group (HIG).
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Tog’s first iPhone impression at:
http://asktog.com/columns/070iPhoneFirstLook.html
Jobs on DRM
In February Steve Jobs made a splash into the music business with his open letter about
the role of Digital Rights Management (DRM).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
Apple success with the iTunes Music Store had made many users skeptical to the
relatively tight connection between the iTunes Store and Apple’s iPod. Jobs’ statement
that he looked forward to the day when DRM was gone, was of course well received by
iTunes’ customers. Jobs’ letter is linked up from: http://db.tidbits.com/article/8856
A New, Happy Mac User
In the Norwegian newsgroup for Macintosh users, a Windows user for many years shared
his first Macintosh experiences with the other members of the newsgroup. His
experiences were, as I see them, not unique. A quick translation seems the right thing to
do!
“I have used Windows for many years, but took the plunge to Mac a few month
ago.
Daily I discover new characteristics, elegantly executed. Very seldom I meet
irritating solutions. As a Windows user, it was the opposite.
Often I press cmd j in Finder. By this I create a window and can modify icon
size and preview pictures. I needed to find one picture in a folder among many
other pictures. I needed it quick and increased the font size to 120 * 120 pixels,
and chose Show icon preview. Immediately I saw the picture I needed, and
dragged it into Word.
So far, so good, but I had to close the just opened “cmd J-window”. Cmd W
does not work; I had to click the red button in the upper, left corner. Irritating! I
tried cmd J once more, and the window closed. After all, this is logical.
I come across so many details in Mac OS X, which delights me, and stimulates
me to use them in my work. I am often positively surprised and happy with a
tool like MOSX. The use of the Mac is (at most times) very logical and with
lots of advanced options. Because of this I will work with MOSX and only
MOSX in the foreseeable future, unless I should land a job at Microsoft. By the
way, I have not applied!”
This person might not know that Microsoft is said to have the largest group of software
developers for the Mac, outside Apple. I would guess that Microsoft’s Macintosh
Business Unit could be an interesting place to be working. About Mac BU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Business_Unit
MOSX 10.5—Leopard Certified as a UNIX
This piece of news might not be of interest for the usual Mac user at the UiO. For those of
us who have to defend the minority computer platform, it’s nice to have the background
straight! UNIX has a rather good reputation at universities. I guess most Mac Managers at
all times have regarded MOSX as UNIX based. It is nice to have this confirmed. See:
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http://sillydog.org/forum/sdp_96118.php
The Introduction of the iRack
Most of the world’s Mac users missed the introduction of the iRack. Luckily, Youtube
was there and the Mac community at the UiO was quickly updated. For the event, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE
No More Printing By Way of LPD
In September we briefed the Mac users that the Line Printer Daemon protocol on October
1 would be replaced by another printing utility. You can find more about LPD at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Printer_Daemon_protocol
The new utility used Kerberos authentication. The reason for the technology change
was the wish to monitor the printer usage by the students. They received a print quota and
if this was spent, they had to pay for an increased quota.
The Kerberos solution was included in the management scheme, mandatory for all
desktop Macs at the UiO. Macintoshes using Wi-Fi, had to use VPN to reach the central
printers at the University. This was still the situation in 2010, and an unfortunate solution.
Later in 2010 we switched to Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) which is working well.
A Web Page About Spelling
Even at a university spelling can be a problem. A valuable resource for writers in
Norwegian is to be found at: http://www.korrekturavdelingen.no/
Volume License for GraphicConverter V.6
USIT bought a license for the new version of GC. For financial reasons we settled for a
Volume license instead of the former Site license. To download the GC, users had to
register as a member of the proper file group. When this was done, the license string
could be down–loaded. The GC proper was best downloaded from the developer for the
most up to date version.
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and HW Requirements
In late September we announced the requirements for desktop Macintoshes using the
coming MOSX. They were: Minimum G4 CPU; Minimum 800 MHz CPU (later
increased to 867); DVD-ROM; Built-in Firewire; at least 512 MB RAM.
The specification above includes by and large all desktop Macs produced since 2000
and they ought not to be difficult to upgrade. The Macs, which could not upgrade to
Leopard, were G3 models, mostly portables. The latest G3 iBook was discontinued in the
fall 2003 and was at the time about four years old.
Endnote Free for All Users
In early October we announced that we had changed the agreement with the developers of
Endnote. All users with a valid UiO user name, employees and students, could without
any registration download Endnote and Reference Manager from our software repository.
The application was ready as version X1.
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Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Released at the UiO
In late October we followed up the release with a review by John Siracusa (JS) from Ars
Technica. JS has been informing us after each new version of MOSX and the present
review was as professional as ever. You can find it at:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5.ars
The review is 17 pages long and a must for sharp IT!
We followed up with more local information about our plans with Leopard. The most
important and what many readers noticed with irritation, was that we would not deploy
the OS before we were sure it had the functionality we wanted.
In a later part of this History at: Mac Themes—USIT and the UiO, you will find a
relevant table: System Versions September 2008, and Mars and January 2010 at page
143.
Leopard and Development Tools
Few of the Mac users at the University are developers. Those who are, have no trouble
with finding relevant information for their professional work. For the rest of us, it might
be interesting to get a glimpse of the present and former tools for developers.
Our old friends at Appleinsider has an interesting article about Apple’s developer
tools at:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/11/01/an_introductory_mac_os_x_leopard_revie
w_developer_tools_html (you might have to copy the URL and paste it into a webbrowser)
To Write With Something Else Than MS Word
At the University I am sure that most Mac users are using MS Word, even if simpler tools
might have been quicker and easier to use. In early December we informed our users
about an article at the Norwegian Mac site Mac1 about alternative writing tools. The
URL for the site is http://mac1.no and the article:
http://mac1.no/artikkel/5929/universitet-oppgaveskriving-p%C3%A5-mac
This site has turned out to be sort of a “meeting place” for Mac users in Norway, and
the address deserves a bookmark.
Yule Time Again!
In our yearly Christmas letter we discussed our problem with Leopard and Authentication
with Active Directory. This held up our rollout of Leopard. Some sort of comfort was the
fact that we were not alone with this problem, but this issue was increasingly irritating.
We wished the users a merry Christmas and a happy new year, and we reminded the
readers of David Pogue’s http://www.usd.edu/~bwjames/humor/wonderful.html
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2008
MS Office 2008
We announced the coming of the new MS Office to the Mac users. The application was a
“Universal Binary” and it should run native on both PPC- and Intel Macs. Office 2008
should also share the XML format with Office 2007 for Windows.
Up to this time the Mac users had, without big troubles, been using Office 2004. The
new 2008 version had some bugs and three or four updates followed rather quickly.
MacBook Air is Here
Apple’s smallest and lightest laptop was released at the MacWorld. I looked at it, lifted it
and was quite impressed. Much hype was made of the form factor, but the computer was
in my eyes remarkably thin, 0.16–0.76 inch (0.4–1.94 cm). The weight was only 3.0
pounds (1.36 kg).
MacBook Air was not from the start Apple’s most popular laptop, but it has over the
years grown in popularity. Personally I would at the time rather have chosen the
MacBook. Today (summer 2011), the new 13" MacBook Pro would be my choice. And,
our friends at Ars have the review:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2008/02/macbook-air-review.ars
MS Office and Endnote X1, Not
In early February we mailed a newsletter about the trouble Endnote had with trying to coexist with new versions of MOSX and new versions of MS Word. SPSS often had similar
issues.
In late June we got a confirmation of a patch for the issue with Endnote X1 and
Office 2008. Endnote X2 for Mac was scheduled for release in August–September.
Management Scheme for 10.5—Leopard
February 22 we announced a first version of the Management scheme for Leopard. Macs
still running 10.3.x or 10.4.x should continue with this until further notice. Users, who up
to date had used local accounts on their Leopard Macs, should update to at least 10.5.2
with all patches from Software Update, and follow the instruction for the Management
scheme.
This version of the scheme was not perfect, the users had to authenticate each time
they wanted a printout on the network printers. However, it was a start.
MS Office 2008 Available
After waiting for the most important bug fixes, we uploaded Office 2008 to the repository
in April. But some users had obtained the application from other sources.
Word 2008 was a very slow starter, even slower than Word 2004, which was not
written for Intel Macs, and on Intel Macs had to use the “Rosetta” technology. Some
words about Rosetta at: http://www.apple.com/rosetta/ The Office 2008 performed OK,
but few users found any reason to celebrate. The word from Ars:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/mac-office-2008-review.ars
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MacWorld Website in Norway
Many years ago IDG’s MacWorld had a Norwegian edition. When numerous computer
magazines folded—often caused by the expanding WWW—the Norwegian MacWorld
was discontinued.
In the fall it surfaced as a web site. The URL was http://www.macworld.no and in a
way it was like meeting an old friend. Definitely deserving a bookmark.
MOSX 10.5 Leopard Are Unleashed
The official deployment of Leopard is finally rolling. Version 10.5.3, released in late
May, more or less solved the latest issues and at June 18 we could tell our users with
10.3.x or 10.4.x that they could register for Leopard and download the dmg-object.
We made it clear that they needed a Double Layer DVD-burner, and more
problematic, they needed Double Layer DVD discs. The departments had to buy their
own DVD discs; USIT had none to spare. Of course we received many telephones calls
with inventive explanations about the problems this Double Layer discs made for the
users. We had to “be flexible” and a dozen or two got their DL discs. The majority of the
departments had to buy their own.
Apple, Microsoft, and 32/64 Bit Strategy
Apple has for many years been concerned with 64-bit computing. Many have questioned
the relevance of this for “mainstream applications”. In any case, 64-bit computing is
advancing. An interesting discussion about the strategies of Apple and Microsoft can be
found at:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/06/17/myths-of-snow-leopard-2-32-bit-support/
Are You a Champion of Terminal Window & Keyboard
Shortcuts?
For those of us who are not, inspiration can be found at the following blog. In Norwegian:
http://gjemmesiden.blogspot.com/2008/06/ekspert-tips-for-leopard.html
New Portables From an All-aluminum Chassis
In two October newsletters, we took a look at Apple’s new portables milled off a single
aluminum block. Apple makes very professional videos, the following is no exception:
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/design.html
The electronic parts were also upgraded; a nice Mac had just become even better!
Daring fireball had this to say: http://daringfireball.net/2008/10/contains_spoilers
NetRestore and USIT’s New DHCP Solution
The Mac Managers at USIT had for some time prepared routines to put Macs on the UiO
LAN and boot the machines while keeping the “n” key down. This procedure searched
the LAN for a server offering a downloadable image of MOSX.
This was a nice way of updating the OS, and quite fast, usually no more than 15-20
minutes. This procedure could be expanded and also install the common standard applications. The NetRestore process depended on a new centrally organized DHCP service.
Quite a lot of the departments used their own DHCP servers and could not utilize the
NetRestore service.
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The transition to the new DHCP happened rather slowly and we had lots of emails
complaining about the failing NetRestore service. If USIT had informed better about
which part of the UiO was using the new DHCP solution and which was not using it, the
NetRestore solution might have been more successful. From late 2010 we are using
DeployStudio instead of NetRestore.
Volume License for MOSX
In late November we wrote about the existing licensing scheme for Mac OS X and
empha-sized that all users with 10.5 Leopard on their Macs, should register this. The next
version of MOSX—10.6 Snow Leopard—was expected in the fall 2009 and meant
another registration. Some users found this registration business unnecessary, but we
always stressed that we wanted tidy routines for licenses.
The Christmas Letter
In mid December Apple broke the news that MacWorld SF 2009 would be the last
Macworld Apple would participate in. Phil Schiller would deliver the opening Keynote,
instead of Steve Jobs.
Many were disappointed. Later on Steve Jobs announced that he would take six
months sick leave from the CEO position. In the Christmas Letter I gave mine opinions
about these events pointing at possible reasons why Apple wanted to stop participation in
the Expo.
And, of course, even this year, David Pogue’s Yuletide story is recommended. As
ever at: http://www.usd.edu/~bwjames/humor/wonderful.html
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2009
Mac OS X 10.6—Snow Leopard Released
Steve Jobs first announced Snow Leopard
at WWDC on June 8,
2008, and Senior Vice
President of Software
Engineering,
Bertrand
Serlet, privately demonstrated it to developers.
Senior Vice President of
Worldwide Marketing,
Phil Schiller and Bertand
Serlet gave a first public
demonstration at the
WWDC in 2009.
Snow Leopard will ship
on August 28, 2009 and
an upgrade will be available for existing Leopard
users for $29 U.S., or up
to five com-puters with
the family pack at $49
U.S. For a qualifying
computer bought after
June 8, 2009, the upgrade
will cost $10 U.S. (with
proof of purchase).
Tiger users may upgrade by purchasing the Mac Box Set, a single package that will
include Snow Leopard, iLife '09, and iWork '09. The update to Mac OS X will focus on
improving performance, efficiency and reducing its overall memory footprint, rather than
new end-user features. This will also be the first Mac OS release dating back to System
7.1.2 that does not support the PowerPC architecture as Apple now intends to focus on its
current line of Intel-based products.
Copied from MacTracker’s description of Mac OS X 10.6
Even for Mac OS X 10.6—Snow Leopard, Ars has a review.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/
A summing up from John Siracusa, ARS:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/05/mac-os-x-revisited.ars
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard
The article about Snow Leopard is the only one for 2009.
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Summing up Yearly Highlights 1984–
2009
This part of the History gives many snapshots of the Mac activity at the UiO during the
twenty-five years since the introduction of the Macintosh. Many projects or other
milestones are described. As well as in any way possible, I have told about the ups and
downs of the Mac Management. Most of the articles are neither about victories nor
defeats, but rather matter-of-fact information to the Mac community at the University.
Typical of the pre-MOSX time, was that information services were vital. Since the
Mac users more or less were their own administrators with nearly total control over their
Mac, good advice and useful tools were important.
In the MOSX-era, more of the articles are about the difference between the versions
of Mac OS X and how this influenced on our work with Management scheme for the
Macin-toshes.
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Mac Themes
The following Mac–themes are mainly concentrating on different aspects of the
Macintosh activity at the UiO/USIT. Moreover, Apple itself and the resellers to the
University and their unquestionable importance to all Mac activity at the UiO, are
described. Nevertheless, the very first theme is a bit different. It deals with three
technological solutions, all important to the Mac deployment at the University.
Others might have preferred other themes, but these are from my point of view, the
most representative and relevant.
Mac Themes—a Tecnological Note
The Mac activity at a large institution is a result of many sources, technological and
human, products and organization. I will emphasize three technological products,
AppleTalk, Kinetics FastPath, and EtherShare. The first is an Apple product; the last two
are third party products.
AppleTalk
At the UiO, AppleTalk (AT) was a fully supported network up to the middle to late
nineties. Since Macintoshes from the Mac Plus model have included hardware support for
AppleTalk, it has been cheap and simple to establish networks for sharing printers and
servers. Today this is a matter of course, not worth mentioning. At the time, it caused
quite a sensation to many users.
It might be an exaggeration to say that the PC-users in the late eighties or early
nineties could not share a common printer and access a fileserver; however, the Mac had
the great advantage that it was delivered with the network built-in. On the PC-side, there
were competing solutions, but they were, compared to the AppleTalk, expensive and
complex to install. Not to forget, at a large site, as the UiO, it was time consuming to
learn and test the different solutions before choosing and deploying the one best suited
our requirements. The choice ought to be future-oriented, as well. Meanwhile, our
AppleTalk networks, although not the fastest, just worked!
As mentioned in the article about the project MacTjener (1993), local AppleTalk
zones were widespread.
AppleTalk had a somewhat ambiguous standing at USIT. Most all were very
impressed with AT’s self configuring qualities, and how easy and cheap it was to place
new Macintoshes on the network. However, was it a real network? It did not have the
speed of Ethernet, and many argued that AT was a very talkative network. In 1989, Apple
modified the original AppleTalk from 1984 into AppleTalk Phase 2. This apparently
made AT less talkative. Personally I think that the reputation for chattiness was of no
consequence at the kind of network existing at the UiO. John C. Welch comment on this
“chattiness” at
http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1060/
More about AppleTalk in Wikipedias article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleTalk
From this article:
“The system was slow by today’s standards, but at the time the additional cost
and complexity of networking on PC machines was such that it was common
that Macs were the only networked, personal computers in an office.”
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The rumor for chattiness followed AT until TCP/IP mostly replaced it at the UiO in the
last half of the nineties.
A modern variant of AppleTalk is Zerokonf. I quote a line from the Wikipedia’s
article about Zerokonf:
“Zeroconf or Zero Configuration Networking is a set of techniques that
automatically create a usable IP network without configuration or special
servers.”
It does smell like AppleTalk. Apple’s implementation of Zerokonf is Bonjour. Up to this
day, I think the most common use of Bonjour has been to reach network printers.
However, at the UiO it has not been used apart from some testing. More about the
technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroconf
Kinetics Fastpath (KFP)
In early 1992, the UiO had about 80 (up from just over 40 in late 1989) AppleTalk zones
on the LAN. Each of these zones usually served one department. Nevertheless, some
included two or more departments. Typical for the departments served by these zones,
was the department’s extensive use of Macintoshes with LocalTalk connection to the
LAN Ethernet. The bridge between LocalTalk (Apple’s physical layer for AppleTalk) and
Ethernet was the Kinetics FastPath (KFP).
The Fastpath was a rather expensive device. As far as I remember the price was
aproximately NOK 25,000 or $3,850. I would guess that the UiO was one of Kinetics’
better customers!
A short presentation of LocalTalk and the KFP at: page 52 (in the lower, right corner)
Below is a screenshot of Chooser, the Macintosh’s tool for choosing networked
printers, servers and in a segmented LAN, other AppleTalk zones. The Chooser below is
from fall 1988, and the Chooser remained almost unaltered in the complete pre-MOSX
period. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chooser_on_Mac_OS_9.png
for Chooser twelve years younger, little difference.
Velger (Chooser) 1988
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In the lower, left corner you select the AppleTalk Zone. In the upper left corner, one
select the resources present in the chosen Zone. If you select AppleShare or LaserWriter,
the right upper corner presents the servers or printers in the Zone. Pay attention to the tool
BroadCast. This small utility listed all present Mac users in the Zone and could send
short messages to the displays of individuals chosen or to all individuals in the Zone.
Many users new to email often talked about email when they meant BroadCast. A short
notice about BroadCast at:
http://www.stg.com/employees/sbytnar/projects/Broadcast.html
The latest version of the Kinetics
Fastpath (KFP). The golden age of the
Fastpath, was from, 1986–87 until
1992–93.
After this time, most Macintoshes
relevant at the UiO included on-board
Ethernet interface.
FastPath version 5
An increasing number of the departments deployed Macintoshes with Ethernet interface.
Existing KFPs were often kept for serving older Macintoshes with no Ethernet
connections or as gateways (expensive ones!) between the Ethernet and laser printers
with only Local-Talk cabling.
The File Server—EtherShare
In 1993, the number of Macintoshes at the UiO had grown to approximately 2,000. In the
late eighties and part of the nineties, some departments and groups managed their own
AppleShare server hosted on a Mac.
These, did not scale very well, because the server had no tools to communicate with
our NIS user database. It was absolutely out of the question to establish and maintain
AppleShare accounts to the UiO’s thousands of users, in addition to, their ordinary UNIX
user account. With Mac OS X, this limitation is no longer relevant; USIT has
nevertheless chosen to stick to non-Apple server hardware. An elaboration of this policy
can be found in the Yearly Highlights for 2003—No Mac OS X Server Allowed, see page
106.
In the early nineties the EtherShare (ES) server software became the Mac server of
choice at the University. ES took care of the server services and assumed no special
software on the client Mac. The EtherShare users authenticated their server with their
ordinary UiO username and password. For details—medio 2011, see:
http://www.helios.de/web/EN/products/HELIOS-EtherShare.html
ES was an UNIX application and was mostly hosted on SUN machines, and some
ULTRIX-machines from Digital. More about SUN and ULTRIX:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrix
In the late nineties, USIT operated close to forty EtherShare servers. The reason for
the substantial number of servers, was partly that some departments wanted to have their
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server at their own premises, and partly that the network made local placement rational.
The period from 1991 to the millennium was the decade of EtherShare. In the first years
after 2000 USIT replaced most ES servers with a few heavy servers running Samba or
Windows Server 2003.
One advantage, to me personally, with the EtherShare server over the former USIT
AppleShare server, was that backup from now on was done, on a regular basis, by the
staff running the central Computer facilities. Up to now it had usually been one of my
duties to back the content of our own AppleShare server (a Macintosh IIx) up to tape. As
far as I remember the tapes were of some Super 8 variety, and I do not miss them.
The EtherShare server was not a popular piece of software among some of the UNIX
System Managers. The licensing procedure made it a bit complicated to move the server
to another UNIX box. The license string also had to be made according to the serial
number of the new machine and the necessary communication with the Helios Company
in Germany could be troublesome. The personal chemistry between the System managers
at USIT and the EtherShare people was not stellar. For the end-users EtherShare was a
good solution.
The Summing Up of Technological Notes
This part of the History deals with decisive technologies of importance for the
deployment of the Mac at large sites.
Not least at a university, excellent communication qualities among peoples are
important. In the early years of the Mac era, AppleTalk and Kinetics Fastpath served the
Mac users well. Some years later EtherShare did the same for file serving.
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Mac Themes—Departments and Faculties
This Mac theme includes articles about the Mac activity in departments and faculties.
Macintosh and the University, Still Together
In this History, we follow Macintosh in glorious growth, in the late eighties and early
nine-ties, to nearly extinction in the late nineties. Well, this might be to push things to
extremes, but Macintoshes are today not as present in people’s consciousness as in the
late eighties or early nineties. This is not specific to the UiO; many other universities left
the platform in the second half of the nineties.
One might wonder whether Macintosh will remain a supported computer platform in
the future. During the next five years, ten years—another 25 years?
My crystal ball is fuzzy, but some conditions seem necessary for a viable future of the
Macintosh. Of course, these conditions concern both future development at the UiO, and
what’s happening within Apple.
A decisive condition for keeping the Macintosh as a viable computer platform at the
UiO is of course the existence of scientific and technical staff that wants to use the Mac—
considering it as the best tool for their work. In early 2010, the number of employees
using Macs at UiO is more than one thousand. I think it would cause noticeable stir
within this group if somebody tried to swap his or her Macintosh for a Windows
computer.
Another important factor is an increasing number of students using a Mac. A
sufficient number of involved users are of course a necessary condition for the future
presence of Macs at the University. Given this user base, some other conditions are also
needed. To me, the following three factors are conclusive.
The Strategic Plans for IT
The IT activity has in the “Mac period” (1984–to date) been founded on Strategy Plans.
These plans have more or less been the guide to the most important decisions in the IT
politics and have at all times defended the platform diversity.
The plans are assuming that the desktop platforms at UiO should include machines
using Windows, the Mac OS, and later also Linux.
Traditional Local Autonomy for Departments
The University of Oslo (a public University) has—as most universities—traditionally
considerable freedom in choosing the direction for their professional activity.
Among the important de facto privileges, which almost all of the professional staff
have benefited by, is the possibility to chose the tools they feel effective in their research
and teaching. Whether freedom is still present in 2011, may be discussed. The future
direction of the University is not only debated internally but is also a dispute between the
University and the authorities. Terms like LEAN and New Public Management (NPM)
are part of this debate. This might not all be negative, but a university is a special form of
organization and care should be taken not to lose the free creativity, competence, loyalty
and enthusiasm of staff and students. More about LEAN and NPM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_public_management
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Support, at Least Acceptance From Departmental Management
The employees’ possibility to have a decisive word in choosing tools and methods,
presupposes that the department “allows it”.
Sorry to say, this is today not the reality at all departments. Using both Mac and
Windows machines alike among the professional and the technical staff, ought not to be
problematic. In some, but I think few cases, dual computer platforms may be a challenge.
Such cases are usually solvable, if the will to solve them is present.
To my knowledge some departments have almost forbidden the purchase of new
Macintoshes. Not necessarily formally, but a Mac interested staff member might risk
being advised from buying a Mac.
The scientific staff has their focus on doing research and teaching their students (as
they should). Disengagement in other parts of departmental activity may be leading to
loss of influence on important needs. If the management of the department doesn’t look
upon their role as support staff for the scientific personnel, this is a worrying trend.
USIT as a System Provider
To all times the UiO—as well as other universities—has an on-going need for complex
IT technology to manage the University. These technological solutions are often developed at USIT, either from scratch or modified based on integrated business software. See
page 28.
Most of these systems are not a theme for this History. However, one application,
using Macintoshes only, ought to be mentioned.
The NyST Project
The purpose of this project was to offload to the students most of the work connected
with registration of the student’s classes and study groups. The acronym NyST denotes
New Student Services. The SemReg-project (Semester Registration) was part of NyST and
was, including the registration in study groups, mainly for students of the Faculty of
Mathematics and Natural Sciences. The Macintosh part of the SemReg project lasted
from about 1992–2000.
From the middle of the nineties, the project operated close to fifty Macintoshes. Most
of the SemReg stations were built into kiosks made of chipboard and plywood. The
Macintoshes and printers were inside the kiosks, with the keyboard on a shelf outside and
a window for the display. A laser writer was also inside the kiosk because the students
required written confirmation of the class or work groups chosen. The output from the
printer came through an opening in the kiosk wall.
The Macintoshes and printers were all surplus equipment; the project was quite
inexpensive. In early 1999, the project operated the following models of Macs and
printers.
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Type
PowerMacs 7200
Quadra 650/700
Centris 610/650
LC 475
Mac II VX/SI
Mac II FX
Mac II CI
∑
Laserwriter 12/640 PS
Laserwriter 360
Laserwriter 300
∑
#
6
8
4
9
11
1
8
47
25
4
19
48
SemReg equipment in 1999
The oldest Macintoshes were vintage equipment; the first Mac II CI was made in
September 1989. The “youngsters”—the PowerMacs 7200 were from 1995.
The kiosks were placed for a limited period at the start of each semester. The Macintoshes was connected to an ANAT server (Apple Network Administrator Toolkit)—a
Centris 650—at USIT’s server room. The client Macs used Apple Network Administration Toolkit v.1, Cron, Darkside screensaver, and the SemReg application, developed by
members of the Multimedia Lab and supported by the ACS-group at USIT. Assimilator
made by Stairways Software was also in the application tool kit, but had some missing
features, which made the application a bit troublesome to use. See:
http://www.stairways.com/main/assimilator
An old Mac was running Intermapper (See http://dartware.com/), and the custodians
of SemReg received SNMP warning ever when a Mac crashed, or a router erred. It was
very satisfactory telling the complainers that the error was recognized, and the equipment’s recovery was imminent.
The computer and printer equipment were old and needed support. In addition, the
kiosks were not built “for eternity”; after some time many needed carpenter services. The
placing of some of the kiosks were not far from the cafeterias. There, they received their
doses of beer, when the students had their after-study parties. As a part of the SemReg
project, NyST-Macs were also placed in the gyms.
The USITers managing the SemReg in the last part of the nineties, Stein Bruno
Langeland (SBL), Klaus Wik (KW) and Jørnar H. Hubred (JHH), often had to turn out to
fix something. Among the common problems, were to fix paper crashes in the printers.
The paper used was rather special, thicker, preprinted on the backside, and stiffer than
ordinary paper.
Department of Student and Academic Affairs (DSAA) owned the SemReg project. In
principle, DSAA should have briefed and trained local staff to operate the kiosks. Now
and then, the person in charge was not up to the task. For this reason, the SemReg’s staff
many times had to act as “firemen” for keeping the kiosks operative.
As far as I know the setup was exported to the universities in Bergen and Trondheim,
and used there.
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Some
NyST
Macintoshes in the
gym.
By courtesy of: Per H.
Jacobsen
A student starting her
registration session.
By courtesy of: Per H.
Jacobsen
The information in this article is based on an old SemReg webpage written by Klaus Wik
and a report written by Jørnar Heggsum Hubred in 1998.
Looking back at the project, it’s a bit strange that the SemReg project seems to be
nearly forgotten. After all, it was playing an important and visible part on campus. My
theory for this is twofold: a) The people running it were focused to give good user
support and did not prioritize emphasizing themselves and their task, and b) to deliver
good user support has seldom been looked upon as something outstanding, when things
work, all is well.
Lastly, peoples’ memory is short, and some new and fresh solutions for old tasks take
most of the attention.
Macintoshes at the Department of Informatics (IFI)
IFI is the department graduating students in computer science and is in charge of research
in the field. It is a large department, with quite a bit of professional cooperation with
other departments. USIT and IFI have been localized in the same building from 1988 to
2011. Many of the employees of USIT have also in their career worked at IFI, and vice
versa.
IFI was among the first departments joining the Macintosh bandwagon. The
department had a few Macintoshes as early as 1986. In the following years, the number of
new Macs multiplied.
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From the beginning, nearly all of the staff at IFI were users of UNIX workstations. In
the first deployment phase, the Macintosh was regarded as a secondary computer. Later,
in the early nineties, the MacX—an X11 server implementation—made many of the IFI
staff dispose of their UNIX box and do most of the work on the Mac.
The students had during the late eighties theirs main Macintosh resources in the
Apple Orchard, a lab with Fat Macs, Mac Plus, and some Mac IIs.
The administrative section at IFI became a Mac only section in the fall 1992. The
Mac II CI was their model of choice. The department had about 40 Macintoshes. Later
on, even more Macintoshes were bought and deployed; the number peaked at about fifty
desktop Macs, and a significant number of portables. One should not forget that even the
early Mac portables were well designed and differed positively in form factor and
ergonomics from the DOS-portables. I guess many remember the PowerBooks 100, 140
and 170.
The number of Macintoshes at IFI was more or less increasing up to late 1996. At this
time, the new signals from USIT were that in the future Windows machines would be the
only machine usable for the new administrative applications. This led to a fast
replacement of the Macintoshes in favor of Windows machines by the administrative staff
at IFI and, in fact, all over the University. You’ll find more about this in the “New
Administrative Applications—a Critical Stage for Macs” at page 79.
In late 1997, IFI had only one single persevering Mac user—Ragnar Normann.
Ragnar has been a 100% Mac user since the early nineties. In the recent years he
fortunately again has many fellow Mac users at his department.
Because of IFI downsizing the number of Macintoshes, the Mac support was
terminated in 1997. However, a small number of Macintoshes was bought in the period
1997–2007, almost all portables, and a minor support readiness existed in these ten years.
Up to this time, Øystein Christiansen was the leading Mac Manager.
From early 2007, IFI has once again established their Mac Support, and the number
of Macintoshes at the department is increasing. In general, the most popular models are
Mac Mini, iMac, and especially, portable models. Mac Pro is much too expensive.
Early 2011 IFI moved to a new building and will concentrate all their activity there.
About 100 new Macs will find a home in this building. Today Thomas Hansen is the Mac
Manager at IFI.
The Mac Collection at the Informatics Library
The library at IFI is of course first and foremost an excellent library for students and staff
at the Department of Informatics and the other departments of the UiO.
Up to 2010 the IFI library was also home to a collection of Macintoshes which had
been used at the UiO. The better parts were from the time 1984 up to the iMac period.
Though the collection was not complete nor organized as a museum might do, I believe it
was the finest collection of vintage Macintoshes “semi-open” to the general public in
Norway. The head of the library, Knut Hegna, did a very nice job.
Regrettably, few of the exhibits could be kept when the library in 2011 moved to new
premises in IFI’s new building.
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Kristen Nygaard
Professor Kristen Nygaard (1926–2002) professor at
Department of Informatics (IFI) was a very competent and
professional Mac user. However, his drive for making the
Macintosh a relevant computer platform at IFI was not at all his
most important struggle. He really was in the “top team” among
computer scientists. In 2001, he received the Turing Award
together with Ole-Johan Dahl, for their work on Object-oriented
programming and the SIMULA programming language. More
about Kristen Nygaard at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristen_Nygaard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simula
Macintoshes at the UiO, in Numbers.
Many have been wondering, during the twenty-five years long Mac period at the UiO,
about the number of machines, Macs and PCs, at the University.
We have tried with some surveys towards the departments, but the results have never
really given us what we looked for. Moreover, it has never been too important to have
very accurate numbers of computers on the LAN.
I have tried to keep some “qualified guesses” on the numbers. Let me first disprove
the rumor that the number of Macintoshes at some time was greater than PCs. (Sorry
about that!) The PCs after all had a head start on the Macintosh, and IBM PCs and
compatibles were in the hundreds when the first Macs arrived in 1985.
The following tables are of two kinds. The following five tables are based on logging
Macintoshes on the UiO-net. The sixth table is based on surveys among a simple random
sampling of the employees at the University. Staff at USIT and Department of Informatics is not included.
Desktop Macintoshes at the UiO 1990–2010
In the table below, I have used various data sources. Figures marked with the ≈ sign,
represent qualified guesses. Other parts come from counting, such as the numbers for the
years 1994–1997, 2003–2009.
Figures marked with *, represent Mac OS X Macs in our management scheme. Not
all Macs participated in this. Especially in 2003 rather few of our Macs were running Mac
OS X and the scheme. This means that, in the years 2003–2006, hundreds of Macintoshes
using the old Mac OS are not accounted for. The number for 2010 is not a counting, but a
firm estimate. All numbers are at some time published in our newsletter or in emails to
the Macintosh contacts at the departments.
1990
≈1,250
1994
1,710
1996
2,187
1997
1,843
2000
≈1,500
2003
*286
2006
*833
2008
*900
2009
*1,000
2010
≈1,200
Number of desktop Macintoshes at the UiO 1990–2010
It’s easy in the table to see the impact of the warning against using Macintoshes for the
administrative staff. For a background on this, see the articles “New Administrative
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Applications—a Critical Stage for Macs” and “The official Word”, both at page 79 in the
1996 part.
I have a memory of a counting in 1995 or early 1996 with a number of Macintoshes
at the UiO being 2,373, but regrettably I have not found any written report on this. I
might have been dreaming, but that would have been the first time I have been dreaming
about Macs.
In addition, the Mac is rather popular with students who use the Wi-Fi at campus.
These portable Macs may very well be in the thousands and are not accounted for in our
tables.
Faculties: Number of Macs in Feb. 1996 and Sep. 97
The table below is pointing out the distribution of Macs at the faculties winter 1996 and
fall 1997. The table is a result of counting.
Faculties
Faculty of Humanities
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Mathematics and Science
Faculty of the Social Sciences
The University Library
Faculty of Theology
Faculty of Medicine
Total in Faculties
Outside Faculties
% Feb.96
13,9
11,8
15,5
6,5
6,0
2,6
11,6
67,9
32,1
N=2,187
% Sep. 97
15,6
12,4
14,3
10,0
7,3
4,2
12,7
76,5
23,5
N=1,883
Large Mac sites at UiO-faculties 1996–1997
Number of Macs in Feb. 1996 and Sep. 97 in Depts/Other Units
Some Departments/Others
Department of Geosciences *
Department of Biology *
Department of Mathematics *
Department of Chemistry *
Institute (Dept) of Theoretical Astrophysics *
USIT
The Central Administration
% Feb.96
2,1
4,1
3,5
3,1
2,7
3,4
8,6
N=2,187
% Sep. 97
1,9
4,9
2,1
3,0
2,4
2,9
3,0
N=1,883
Large Mac sites at UiO-departments 1996–1997
Beware: the departments marked with * are also included in the Faculty table above. Note
the dramatic decline in the number of Macintoshes at the Central Administration.
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Departments With Macs in Mars 2009
The table below shows the number of Macintoshes mainly in the same departments and
faculties as the table above. The entities in 1996/1997 and 2009 are not 100% identical,
because of changes in the organizational structure. The numbers are a result of counting.
Faculties
Faculty of Humanities
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Matematics and Natural Science
Faculty of Social Sciences
Faculty of Theology
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Dentistry
Other units
Total
%
32,2
2,7
33,4
4,7
0,7
7,3
0,3
18,7
100,0
N=913
Macintoshes at UiO faculties in Mars 2009
The table has summed up part of the registered number of Macintoshes at the UiO for the
departments in the Faculties of the Humanities, Law, Mathematics and Natural Science,
Social Science, Theology, Medicine and Dentistry.
In 2005, Rikshospitalet and The Norwegian Radium Hospital merged into the
Rikshospitalet–Radiumhospitalet Hospital Trust (RRHT). The combined numbers from
the university part of these two hospitals and some other smaller medical departments, are
in the table above, as Faculty of Medicine.
The table shows that more than 33% of the registered Macs belong to departments at
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. For many years, these departments have
been among our largest Mac departments. Department of Biology for instance, early on
started to use software solutions that hardly were present on other platforms. The other
large Macintosh sites at the faculty, Department of Chemistry, Department of Physics,
Department of Informatics, and Department of Mathematics all have a long Macintosh
history at the UiO. Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics is more of a latecomer, but has
today a very professional Mac group.
The Department of Sociology and Human Geography, and the Department of Social
Anthropology are the Macintosh strongholds at the Faculty of Social Science.
At the Faculty of Humanities, the Macintoshes are widespread within the Department
of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, the Department of Literature, Area Studies
and European Languages, the Department of Media and Communication, and the
Department of Musicology.
Departments not mentioned have few Macintoshes. Nevertheless, even in heavily PC
dominated departments, you’ll often find the odd Mac.
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Some Departments with Macs
Department of Biology
Department of Mathematics
Department of Chemistry
Department of Physics
Department of Informatics
Institute (Dept) of Theoretical Astrophysics
Nordic Gender Institute
International Summer School
USIT
Other Departments and units
%
14,1
3,7
2,5
3,0
3,2
6,9
1,3
2,6
2,1
60,6
N=913
Macintoshes at some UiO-departments in 2009
The International Summer School is a nearly 100% Macintosh site and undoubtedly
among the departments with largest ratio of Macintoshes per employees.
System Versions September 2008, Mars 2009, January 2010
Three times in the last two years I have sifted out different system versions numbers from
the Macintoshes in the OSX daily management scheme. The result is the following:
September ’08
Mars ’09
Jan ’10
% With
10.3.9
4,5
3,0
2,0
% With 10.4.x
82,6
58,0
49,9
% With
10.5.x
12,8
39,0
48,2
Total %
99,9
100,0
100,0
Mac OS X-versions in Sept. 2008, Nov. 2009, and Jan. 2010
Reading this, you may wonder whether we are completely incompetent; so few machines
running Leopard more than two years after the release. No sight of Snow Leopard! Well,
you pay a price for fitting in to a management scheme. After all, we felt that the Leopard
upgrades at least had to reach version 10.5.3 before we could recommend MOSX 10.5.
The roll out of Leopard took place at June 18, 2008.
Before this, we could not bind the Leopard machines to Active Directory and printing
was quite troublesome. To put this in some perspective, I’ll just add that USIT did not
roll out Vista to Windows desktop users before late 2008. Vista for portables followed in
Mars 2009. Vista was released from Microsoft, January 30, 2007.
Laptops/ Desktop; PPC/ Intel in Oct. ’08 & Nov. ’09
The Macintoshes registered in the management scheme in late October 2008 (N=824) and
November 2009 (N=986), had the following attributes.
October 08
January 10
Laptops
34%
40%
Desktops
66%
60%
PPC-CPU
44%
33%
Lap-/desktop; PPC/Intel Oct. ’08 and January ’10
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Intel-CPU
56%
67%
The Mac Deployment—Surveys 2004–2010
In 2004–2007, and 2009–2010, USIT carried out a net-based survey among the scientific
and technical/administrative staff at the UiO. The table below shows a selection of UiOemployees and their computer platform. It is drawn as a randomized selection based on
UiO’s user database containing all registered employees. Employees at USIT and Department of Informatics are left out. Between 44–49 percent of the invited respondents
answered the surveys, this is acceptable for a net survey.
It is important to remember that the table below is the result of a survey; it is not a description of the total number of Macintoshes. However, the percentage numbers ought to
give a good picture of the spreading of Macs among the scientific and technical/
administrative staff at the whole UiO.
# Mac Only
% Mac Only
# PC and Mac
% PC and Mac
# With Mac
% With Mac
# Total in survey
2004
52
5,6
35
3,8
87
9,4
933
2005
93
6,7
66
4,8
159
11,7
1389
2006
108
7,8
69
5,0
177
12,8
1384
2007
114
8,2
90
6,5
204
14,7
1393
2009
92
6,5
184
13,0
276
19,5
1421
2010
103
6,3
228
14,1
331
20,4
1613
Number of Macintoshes according to net surveys 2004–2010
The number of respondents in the row “# Mac Only” comprise staff with a Mac both at
the office and at home. The row “# PC and Mac” are those who are using a Mac at home
or at the office, but not at both places. The row “With Mac” is the sum of the two
subgroups above.
The questionnaire was identical for 2004–2007 but slightly different for the period
2009 to 2010. I can’t fully understand the dip from 114 “pure” Mac users in 2007 to 92 in
2009, considering the steady growth in 2004–2007. It might after all be due to the slight
alteration of the question from 2007 to 2009.
The combined number of respondents with Macs both at the office and at home, and
those with a Mac either at the office or at home show a nice increase from 2004 to 2009
and even a further small increase in 2010. Very well, numbers are numbers. The four
shaded cells might be the most interesting. A reasonable conclusion is that at least 20
percent of the UiO-staff in 2010 has personal experience with the Mac. My guess is that
quite a few have a Windows machine at the office, and a private or USIT purchased
portable Mac at home.
The Mac Situation at the Other Major Universities
Concerning the number of Macintoshes at the other universities in Norway, such as in
Bergen, Trondheim, and Tromsø, my best answer is that it plays a minor role among the
staff. Among the students, the Mac might have a far stronger position.
It might be surprising, but the truth is that the Mac group at the UiO at all times have
had little contact with their opposite numbers at the other universities. Of course, I know
a few persons working with Macs at the universities at Trondheim and Bergen, but any
coordinated efforts have been very few. Among the universities, as far as I know, the UiO
has the most centrally organized IT activity of all. This might actually have been a benefit
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for the Macintosh activity at the UiO, where the Central IT organization takes the
responsibility to support the Mac users.
A simple search on “Macintosh” at the official web pages of the other main Norwegian universities, does not show much recent Macintosh activity, so it’s difficult to estimate the present activity.
Nevertheless, see the article at page 155 about OSX Workshop—February 2011. It
might after all be a growing activity and cooperation among Mac managers in higher
education institutions in Norway.
The Summing Up of Departments and Faculties
In this part of the History I have brought up conditions of interest to the number of
Macintoshes at the University. Some projects of direct importance to the departments and
the faculties are discussed.
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Mac Themes—USIT
This theme is mainly a description of how USIT “found” the Mac and how the platform
became accepted at the University.
The IT Directors
The different leadership at USIT through the early years up to date, has always been of
great importance to the “IT politics at USIT”. This influence was important to a relative
small computer platform as Macintosh.
Period
1972–88
1988–91
Title
IT director
IT director
Who
Rolf Nordhagen
Rune Fløisbonn
1991–91
IT director
(constituted)
IT director
IT director
Andora Sjøgren
Alma Mater
The UiO (Dept. of Physics)
The Norw. Univ. of Science
& Tech. (NTNU)
UiO
Arne Laukholm
Lars Oftedal
NTNU
UiO
1992–2007
2007–to date
Rolf Nordhagen
Rolf Nordhagen (RN) had been serving thirteen years as IT
director when Macintosh arrived at the UiO. The Mac and
Mac OS represented a great change from the technology that
most people at the UiO were using.
The personal computers in due time established their own
territory, resulting in a splitting of labor between central computing resources and the Personal Computers. In these early
years, RN was open and willing to give those small computers
favorable growing conditions. Maybe he was experiencing
some parallel with the technology shift the UiO was going
through in 1976. See page 25.
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Rune Fløisbonn
Rune Fløisbonn (RF) was IT director from 1988 to 1991.
In matters concerning the Macintosh activity at USIT and the rest of
the UiO, it’s fair to say that RF did not have any causes to reinforce or
alter the Mac activity at USIT. His years were still part of the somewhat
“glorious days” when the Mac resources were many, and the activity
was very high.
The situation above was the Macintosh backdrop RF faced.
Andora Sjøgren
Andora Sjøgren (AS) was constituted IT director in 1991. She was the
former manager in UiO’s Administrative Computing Services (ACS),
which became a part of USIT from the beginning of 1991.
ACS and USIT had cooperated for many years. In most ways, AS
continued the Macintosh policies from her predecessor Rune Fløisbonn.
Since ACS was a nearly 100 percent Macintosh shop, this was not
surprising, and the Mac activity was also still blooming.
Arne Laukholm
Arne Laukholm (AL) was IT director from 1992 to 2007. In his first
2-3 years as IT director, he continued the Macintosh policy of his
predecessors.
The Macintosh activity entered rough weather from 1995 and
towards the millennium. This influenced the priorities done by AL,
and in reality, the resources and interest for the Mac activity was
given a lower priority than in earlier years.
In many ways, these years were difficult not only for the Mac
activity at the UiO, but also for Apple Computer.
Lars Oftedal
Lars Oftedal (LO) joined USIT’s Section of Development
in 1981.
Moved to Section of System Management (SYDR) in
1984, responsible—among many other things—for man–
aging a DEC 20. Head of Section at SYDR in 1988.
Assisting IT director in 2000. IT director in 2007. He has a
lengthy experience with IT policy for the UiO community.
Photo: J. M. Taraldsen
The Macintosh Activity in the Late Eighties
I think that many of the UiO employed outside USIT in the last half of the eighties and
into the nineties, regarded USIT as a hotbed of Macintosh activity. Yes, the activity was
considerable. A large part of the staff used Macintoshes, some as their only computer,
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other, if necessary for their line of work, with an additional PC, or UNIX box. Many of
them were busy with preparing infrastructure and services for the rest of the University.
Even so, the resources used for the PC activity were probably even larger than the resources used on the Mac.
The University outside USIT kept up with this activity. As we read about before, in
the early nineties many departments had their own local AppleTalk networks, sharing
printers, file servers, and connection to the Internet.
In these years when the Mac activity was at its peak, USIT launched several
important initiatives. Among these were the NyST project, described in The Mac
theme—Departments and Faculties (see page 136); the great network upgrade not at least
favorable for the Mac users, see the Yearly articles for 1992 at page 64, and the
establishment of the Multimedia Lab.
USIT’s Multimedia Lab
The term “Multimedia” was a much-used buzzword in the late eighties. Wikipedia is
using the following description:
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content
forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms)
or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The
term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or
hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still
images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.
The Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was established in 1985
and served as an inspiration to USIT. About the MIT Medialab, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Media_Lab
The Multimedia Lab at USIT (MML) was opened in 1989 and staffed by the
Development Section. Ingvil Hovig became the project leader of the lab. The MML was
at the premises of USIT and was a professional multimedia offer to the departments of
the UiO.
The main purpose of MML was to give access to equipments and competence
suitable to create digital material comprising different data types and requiring equipment
not easily accessible to the faculty. At the time, this implied focusing on equipment like:
Computers, video equipment, grab cards in the computer, digital pictures, network,
printers, high definition color monitors, CD-ROM, and software.
The computers included PCs, Macintoshes, a UNIX machine, and a NeXT box. From
the beginning in 1989, the Macintoshes were the centre of the Lab. The rest of the
machines were not completely misplaced in this context, but the Macintoshes were at the
time the leading computers for multimedia activities.
MML was an important part of the dawning of media rich data. The most important
might be the inspiration and professional support the lab was giving to visitors and users
of the lab’s equipment and applications. The lab made many interested in USIT, not
necessarily because of the primary activity in the lab, but because of USIT’s ability to be
forward looking, and modern. So to a certain degree, the lab was a magnet pulling people
into new computer driven activities.
The lab was an early development site for Video Conferences and Digital Whiteboards. Per Sira was instrumental with the former and Geir Pedersen with the latter.
Among the greater single efforts in the lab, was the creation of a Mac mail client called
MacEAN. The protocol suite X.400 was the basis for MacEAN. As far as I know,
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MacEAN was finished and worked reasonably well. Geir Pedersen was the developer of
MacEAN. X.400-applications became less relevant at the UiO and other universities in
Norway because of the rapid development and deployment of TCP/IP and the Internet.
More about X.400 at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.400
Geir Pedersen was also engaged in developing an electronic whiteboard and marker.
Pål Kirkebø developed the first registration application for the SemReg project with
SuperCard as the development environment. More about SuperCard at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperCard
Per Siljubergsåsen wrote Addressfinder, an application based on the X.500-protocols.
More about X.500 at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.500 All the people mentioned above were USITers.
macadm—a Part of USIT
When the term macadm was born, is, I am sorry to say, rather uncertain. My best guess is
in the early nineties. The de facto Mac managers came from several of USIT’s formal
sections, such as Section of User Support, Section of Research & Development, Section
of System Management, and Section of Development of Administrative Applications.
(The section names above might have been changing at the time but give a hint of the
parts of USIT involved in Mac activity.)
Seven to eight persons staffed—part-time—macadm in the nineties and took care of
System management and day-to-day user support. I addition to these, 2–3 persons in the
Section of System Management and Section of Network and Telephone managed the Mac
relevant server, printing and network issues. Neither these nor most of the members of
macadm, worked anything like a full time with Mac relevant duties. I’ll say that for
many, if not all, the allocated time of macadm duty was not more than five to twenty percent of a full time job. Macadm was a unit consisting of individuals with comprehensive
and varied competence within different fields.
We were loosely organized with no formal leader. This was quite different from the
activity concerning Windows machines. The Windows activity was incorporated in the
formal section and group structure at USIT, with a group leader.
The Role of The Macintosh Managers
The computers using the UNIX operating system have from the late eighties, at
universities world wide, been the platform of choice in the technological infrastructure
necessary in the daily work. Because of this, the UNIX and later LINUX managers at
many sites have become managers of high status. By and large, this is not undeserved.
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Let me add that expressions as “smug” and “condescending” are far from what I would
call our UNIX System Managers, although they from time to time might have been
showing a kind of arrogance towards their more common colleagues. They are forgiven,
skilled professionals as they are.
The task of the System manager includes all necessary work to do with keeping the
central computers running and deliver their respective services to the university
community. This is a common goal for all system managers no matter what computer
platform they are managing.
During the years, many have asked me what a Mac manager does. The answers might
have been a little fuzzy. It’s easy to ask, but the answer includes quite a lot of diverse
efforts, tasks, knowledge and a genius for finding solutions. In short, the Mac managers
are trying to keep the Mac users happy with their Macs and the relevant services at the
University, like what other managers with other IT platforms do towards their users.
Each machine platform at the UiO is managed by its own managers. As well as the
machine platforms are different, the work routines—how to solve the task—are different.
Even if, the solutions of similar problems are related, each platform usually has their own
tools to solve the task. These tools might be applications purchased or different types of
applications developed at the local site. Locally developed tools, might often be relevant
to solve site-specific issues. The services created by the managers are common for some,
or all computer platforms.
The amount of machines and software at a large site like the University, together with
the necessity of meeting the increasing demands for advanced services, has made
managing of Macs a necessity.
• Properly managed machines are more predictable for the users, for LITA, and for the
managers at USIT. Much less need for further adjustments by anybody.
• It is usually easier to identify and solve a problem if it turns up on a managed machine with many standardized characteristics (also known as Managed Preferences).
• The University has decided that certain applications should be standardized to all
users, and Managed machines make this easier to do.
The future for Mac users at the UiO is with managed Macs. The Managers at USIT are
dealing with central and Campus-wide resources. LITA is working locally, with the
professional and administrative staff and students. Even when the Macintoshes are
managed, the LITA often has locally adoptions to do.
To reach a level of cooperation useful for both the Mac managers at USIT and the
LITAs, the communication between the two groups ought to be strengthened. The
managers have to listen more thoroughly to the needs of the LITAs. The LITAs must be
introduced properly to the possibilities of Mac management, within the existing borders
of resources and technology at hand. A bit flowery we may say that the managers at USIT
are the first leg in a relay race, delivering the baton to the LITAs; together they both
might win the race.
The Mac management described above has been consecutively developed in the
period of Mac OS X. It might be useful to take a short look at the management in an
earlier period.
In the pre-MOSX time, The Mac user was to a large degree left to him-/herself to
administrate their Macintosh.
The most relevant tasks for the managers at USIT at that time were the following:
• Build a physical network suitable (also) for Macs
• Establish file servers for the Mac users
• Deploy networked printers usable for Mac users
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•
•
Contribute to establishing mercantile agreements for hardware and applications
Keep up information services towards the Mac users about relevant news.
Particular to this early period, were also the activity to keep our users up to date on
new information, services and products from Apple or third party suppliers. Today the
extensive information on the web, to a large degree has taken over part of these duties.
The tasks were also including application services as purchase, deployment, and
documentation of user applications. This is still an important job to do and is an effort,
which never ends.
In this period, we quite often visited our users when they got problems. Nowadays,
we seldom do that. This visiting role of the USIT Mac Managers is more or less taken
over by the local IT staff. In a way, this is a relief, but by this, we also miss valuable
contact with our users. Telephone and email cannot at all times replace personal contact.
Those of us, who have experienced both the former and the present management, may
appreciate both. The “old way” was more laid back, more based on our own experience
and intuition, less based on systematic, previous knowledge about the present machine
with problems. The whole management activity was, in short, less organized. This could
not last.
Mac OS X brought with it a more complex reality and a far greater preoccupation
with systems and infrastructure. Because of this, the Managed Preferences became a
necessity.
Able and Willing
People with dedication and competence is necessary for maintaining a healthy Macintosh
community.
At USIT, we have luckily at all times had people wanting to work for the Mac
community at the UiO. Not in the number we would have wished, but sufficiently to give
the Macintosh users a basic support. Most new managers are recruited from inside USIT
itself. Students have at all times filled a large part of the positions at USIT, often in some
phase of their science or math education. From the outset of the computer era, often as
computer operators, Help Desk personnel, programmers, and other roles in the running of
a computer centre. Among these, some gravitated in the direction of becoming managers
of the University’s Macintoshes.
USIT’s ability—up to now—to fill openings in the macadm is no guarantee for this
continuing into the future. The staffing is fragile and very sensitive to all sorts of absence.
To employ a new person on a permanent basis may take between three to nine months, or
more. A period of overlapping with the person leaving his/hers position is not possible.
Newcomers is rarely completely filling their role for some time, even if the professional
backgrounds may be the very best.
Almost all recruits for Mac Management at USIT were Mac users long before they
came to USIT. Some might even have Mac experience from their high school days. A
good competent knowledge about Mac and an eagerness to work with Macs is a healthy
start for any Mac manager.
The level of our support to our users is of a permanent concern. For the last 2–3
years, I have been seriously concerned about our future ability giving our Mac users the
necessary support they are asking for. Only by great loyalty, enthusiasm and hard work
it’s still possible—barely—to keep a sufficient standard of user support.
A public university cannot fully compete with private enterprises regarding salary,
though the wage differentials ought to stand some comparison with each other to recruit
and keep competent professionals. Inspiring work tasks, up to date computer equipment,
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specialist literature, and participation in professional conferences are important
motivating factors. Even when such conditions are present, as they truly are at USIT (up
to this day), the necessary basis for a professional Mac activity in the future, is a
coordinated and steady interest and engagement from USIT’s own management.
Macintosh management in Norway is hardly a career booster. However, this line of
work brings you into contact with many interesting users who know to appreciate your
efforts. You feel you are making a difference.
“To Be Out in the Bushes”
In the early times, the Mac Managers at USIT often visited users who had problems. In
the last part of the eighties and most of the nineties, one or several daily expeditions out
of the office to desperate Mac users rather were the rule.
The exact extent of such visits is difficult to estimate, we did not have a registration
system for these trips. Some managers on duty were more “outgoing” than others. It is
difficult to deny when people in distress is begging you to help. These visits brought us
many places we did not know. We found ourselves in offices with books and reports
everywhere, only room for a bicycle and a Mac, in basements, labs and rooms in
hospitals, and even in private homes. Not everything was fun and unproblematic.
However, usually the problems were solved; we left a pleased user.
In these early days, many users were calling us. Often they might by and large knew
how to use their Mac, but did not understand some options. In those cases, it was very
satisfying to guide the user to a solution, without leaving the office. All help desk staff
will recognize this happy feeling.
The Mac Managers—a Group Within a Group
The Mac Managers have for 25 years worked within the organizational framework of
USIT. In some periods with bold initiatives, at other times we have been living a more
secluded life. In the last decade, the focus for most of our activities has been guided by
the demands for routines and management schemes as we find for UNIX- and Windows
machines. This has been a necessary and a sensible process at our place of work.
Looking back at the whole period, with Macintosh activity at the UiO, from the
beginning in the middle eighties up to these days, our efforts have mostly been day-today activities, or at least with a relatively short time span. I am quite sure that none of us
ever wondered what the future of Mac at the University would be in five or ten or fifteen
years. Mac management was nearly a lifestyle and might continue forever. In retrospect,
this is a strange point of view, especially in the computer business.
The Mac Managers were of course not alone in making the Mac platform a viable
one. Others were doing their necessary and very important parts. To a certain degree the
Mac platform has been included in the design of new services for the UiO IT users. Sorry
to say, you’ll also find services with few thoughts about usability for the Mac user.
I have earlier in the History discussed important characteristics for a good Mac
Manager. It is important to stress that without a heart for working with Macintoshes, and
their users it may be difficult to fulfill a manager position. I think one also has to tolerate
some headwinds and some times be prepared of feeling just like David against Goliath.
OK, this is maybe somewhat exaggerated. In difficult times, you will most likely be able
to continue with work and plans rather undisturbed, getting your evaluations,
contentment, and rewards from your nearest colleagues and not at least from your users.
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A Manifold Staff
USIT’s more than fifty years history is divided in several periods. From the pioneering
time to the much more established situation of today. In between there have been other
periods. The development and activity at USIT has not been linear. Parts of USIT might
have been pioneering, while others are busy with day-to-day activities, necessary for the
UiO community, but with little attention from anybody not engaged in these activities.
Moreover, USIT has grown. Today (spring 2011), more than 220 persons are full time
employed. We are located at four buildings, and USIT’s activities are much more varied
than they ever were in the nineties and before.
Of course, USIT has not been an organization without conflicts. From time to time
there have been quite a lot of them—some of them quite exhausting. With great freedom,
great responsibility, and an organization with great expectations from the rest of the
University, this may be inevitable. Even with the best of planning, in a way, walking
makes the road.
For many years, the USITers had a saying that something was due to “the rough tone
at USIT”. From time to time, people outside USIT might have had an even better reason
to say so. Now we are just nice and service minded!
After all, given these conditions, I believe that USIT has a staff rich on creativity,
imagination, and considerable independent working skill. These are invaluable qualities
for any healthy organization.
Freedom
A main strength of USIT is the relatively free hands the organization is offering the staff.
This is based on my own observations from within UiO, first as a student and then as
employee for a total of nearly forty years, for more than half of this time I have been
working at USIT.
Of course, our work is defined and guided according to USIT’s duties within the
Univer-sity structure. At all times, we have to fulfill our main tasks. Usually, we are
given the possibility to find our own way to solve the tasks and add some icing on the
cake. I am convinced that many USITers have a strong ownership to the finished results
of their work.
Many are also proposing projects rather far from their main tasks, but close to their
heart. If, it in any way, might be squeezed into a definition of USIT’s relevant activities,
it is hardly ever denied.
This sort of freedom is based on responsibility and mutual trust. Some may think that
this picture of USIT is too glorifying. Maybe it was even more relevant ten to fifteen
years ago, when USIT was a much smaller organization. What we may call “relevant
freedom” is still an important part of the culture at USIT, still quite satisfying, and still
providing a rather strong esprit de corps.
A Lost Possibility
In retrospect, what we as Mac managers ought to have done in the late eighties or early
nineties, were to have argued for the establishing of a formal Macintosh group, included
in the executive structure at USIT. This would, in all probability, have given a much better focus on the Mac platform. The group would have gotten a voice in USIT’s management, a voice mainly concentrating on Mac relevant questions. Frankly, at the time, we
did not have the imagination to think along these lines. The different sections at USIT
were also rather general. Dedicated groups for more narrow, permanent management
tasks were not a subject.
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Later on, USIT has been establishing many such groups, but at the time, when the
Macintosh activity at USIT was particularly more extensive, the thought of a dedicated,
professional unit concentrating on Macintosh activity was not on the agenda. This has
indeed changed, in the summer 2010 USIT has nearly twenty such groups.
Since the millennium, USIT’s Mac activity is administratively mainly rooted in two
groups with their main activity quite far from Macintosh management. The Mac activity
being a very tiny part of the groups’ total activity, the focus on the Mac is not great.
In spite of this, when looking back at the different forms of Mac management, I dare
to say that our down-to-earth activities hopefully solved many problems for our users,
and established robust services. The most important result might after all be the fact that
the Mac platform still is relevant at the UiO.
Then, something happened.
The Mac OS X Management Group
In spring 2010, USIT’s management established a “Mac OS X management group” with
members from different parts of USIT.
What is the difference between this new group and the old macadm? Macadm was
very loosely organized with no formal leader and to some extent dependent on “mild
gifts” from the other sections of USIT. The executive management at USIT had few
formal opportunities to deal with the old macadm and pay attention to its activities. It is
reason to believe that the structured organization of the new group, together with an
expansion of the number of members, may lead to a much more effective and visible
team.
The members of the new management are from different sections. Some are even
from departments outside USIT. The competence of the members is also broader. The
members are not full-time engaged in the Macintosh management, but the total personal
resources are larger than in the old macadm. The engagement of the Management
members is between 20–50% of full time work, this is the rule for all Management
Groups. The resources are much smaller than what you will find in the ordinary groups
with a group leader with a responsibility for the staff. The members of these groups are
occupied full time. An URL showing the sections and groups at USIT (not the
Management Groups) are at:
http://www.usit.uio.no/om/organisasjonskart/index.html
However, the establishing of this Mac OS X Management Group is clearly showing
an increased willingness to commit resources on the Macintosh activity. I strongly
believe that better support may be visible to the Mac community at the UiO. More about
the Management group (in Norwegian) at:
http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/maskin/macosx/tjenestegruppen/
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From left: Audun Brekke Skrindo, USIT; Hans Peter Verne, USIT; Anders Skolseg Bruvik
USIT; Steinar Moum, USIT; Thomas Hansen, Dep. of Informatics; Tony Bugge, USIT;
Gundersen, IT section–Faculty of Humanities; Øystein Larsen, USIT; Erik Vestheim, USIT
present at the time of photography. Audun Brekke Skrindo left the group January 1, 2011. He is
by Frank Paul Silye, Department of Sociology and Human Geography.
Photo: J. M. Taraldsen
The OSX-workshop—February 2011
In 2010 the Mac managers at USIT and IFI at UiO and the IT department at the
University of Bergen (UiB) had a meeting discussing a possible cooperation in building
software infrastructure and planning a workshop with participants from the other
universities and the Regional Colleges in Norway.
Based on the preliminary meeting in 2010, the managers from UiB and UiO (mainly
Anders Bruvik and Thomas Hansen from the UiO and Jan Ivar Beddari and Bjørge Solli
from the UiB) created the agenda for the workshop in the early 2011. The focus was to
demonstrate techniques to package and deploy the system and application software. In
addition to this, generally manage preferences on user Macs. Those familiar with
Window’s Group Policy Objects (GPO) may recognise the similarity with many of the
themes of the workshop.
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(leader),
Lars A.
was not
replaced
By word of mouth the workshop in a short time had thirty participants from several
Norwegian universities and Regional Colleges. Hopefully the workshop may become an
annual gathering.
The Summing Up of USIT
In this part, I have described different Mac relevant activities with USIT as the center of
planning, deployment and support. The Mac managers at USIT, their work and
recruitment, are also mentioned in broad outline.
Some articles about USIT as a whole are included, and the part concludes with the
establishing of Mac OS X Management Group and the OSX-workshop for the higher
education institutions in the spring 2011.
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Mac Theme—LITA
We met LITA, the local IT staff, in the Introduction. This chapter shall take a look at the
growth of the IT staff at the University and the role of LITA from the late sixties up to
date.
Some numbers of de facto local IT staff at the UiO, give an impression of the
situation in the first half of the nineties [Jacobsen, 2001].
1991
130
1992
169
1993
181
1994
188
1995
206
Number of persons in formal or informal IT support role at the departments
The number of local IT personnel is not necessarily full-time positions. The numbers
above are from an early mailing list managed by Per H. Jacobsen.
The First Phase of Local IT Staff
The concept of local IT–support at the University has evolved in three phases. The first
period lasted from the time of early mainframes in the late sixties up to the early eighties.
This period was untypical compared to the later ones. It was rather ad hoc, with few
positions officially dedicated to IT support.
Helpers and assistants have followed the IT–activity at the UiO back to the first
computers. Some were quick to learn the tricks and were, more or less voluntary getting
the role as “experts”.
To get hold of the necessary IT competence, some departments employed finished
master candidates. The actual intention was to give the candidate time—three to six
years—to qualify for University positions or even a Ph.D. However, many ended up
acting primarily as the local “IT–consultant”, and when their time was up, had little to
show in the way of more formal academic results after the initial master degree.
The early “IT–support pioneers” did not care about PCs or Macs. These computers
did not really exist for most of this period. The user applications were residing on the
mainframe, and they were relatively few and usually not user friendly. The users,
therefore, often had to write or modify the applications themselves. The applications were
almost always coded in FORTRAN, at the time the most widespread programming
language for scientific applications. About FORTRAN, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran
The local IT–staff generally acted as middlemen between the computing needs of the
faculty and the central computer with its staff. Of course, many among the faculty,
especially within science/math, became gradually quite proficient in practical computer
science. However, even these departments made use of an “IT–expert”.
In nearly all parts of the University, the local IT–person became a very necessary
resource. Since the local IT–staff more often than not was recruited from within the
department, he or she quite often had knowledge of statistics and methodology relevant to
the department. Later LITAs may not to the same extent have these skills, even if their
knowledge of computers, network and applications may be more profound.
My own way into “academic IT” may in this context be of some interest and is, as I
see it, quite typical at the time. I did my military service in 1967 and took a basic course
in political science in the late sixties. In 1970, together with 3 other students, I started
working on a vast data collection of all students who had completed the examen artium
back to year 1720. From Wikipedia:
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“Examen artium was the name of the academic certification conferred in
Denmark and Norway, qualifying the student for admission to university
studies.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examen_artium
The data collection was established years earlier on punched cards and should be
“cleaned”, documented and saved on magnetic tapes in a useful form. The project head
was Steinar Wigtil from Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD)
http://www.nsd.uib.no/nsd/english/ansatte.html
From 1971 to 1978 I managed the Oslo branch of NSD and worked with a small staff
on different data collections, preparing the data for secondary analysis with application
libraries like SPSS or DDPP, about DDPP, see page 26. In the late seventies, I took a
minor degree in sociology and some classes in computer science. In the first half of the
eighties, I was the IT–consultant at Department of Sociology, and worked part-time as
computer operator at USIT, and then became permanently employed at USIT thereafter.
In the seventies, eighties and into the nineties, an academic background like mine,
was quite usual among the staff at USIT also as IT–staff at the departments. In this first
phase, and part of the second phase, the acting forces for most of the local IT–staff, was
dedication, enthusi-asm and simply to learn by doing. Many had a professional background within different university courses, but most did not have a finished degree.
This has changed since then, by 2011 few, if any new USITers lack a degree.
The Second Phase of Local IT Staff
The second period in the story of the LITAs was a little bit more structured. This period
took place from the middle eighties up to about 1997. Many departments hired IT–
personnel, some in part-time jobs, many, even with formal computer background, but not
necessarily a full master’s degree in Computer Science.
In this period, the local IT staff still operated rather independent within the
departments, with little organized cooperation with USIT. The informal contact was
considerable. Already before the web, USIT’s role as a Center of IT–competence sharing
news and competence was of great importance.
Many of the faculties were building up small IT groups, this in addition to the
departmental local IT staff. The formal connection and division of responsibilities
between these faculties’ groups, the local IT staff at the departments, and USIT was at
this time not clearly established.
USIT early developed a list with the email addresses for the different de facto IT staff
at the University. This mailing list was initially created rather informally as a tool to bring
the news to the support staff and to invite interested users to our Forum on Friday, see the
article in the 1987–chapter on page 38. An important side effect of this mailing list was
that the members of the list increasingly were looked upon as a group USIT should have a
special responsibility towards. Some even argued that they should be employed at USIT.
This would probably neither have been a possible policy decision, nor a desirable one.
Many people outside USIT at that time regarded USIT as a big enough organization at the
UiO.
The Third Phase of Local IT Staff
During the nineties, USIT pushed for a more structured and professional IT–role in the
departments.
In the middle nineties, the University hired the management consultant firm, A. T.
Kearny, to examine whether the IT–resources were used in an optimal way to the best of
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the University. Part of this study, included the IT–activity at the departments, the
faculties and at USIT. Among the most relevant recommendations were the following
suggestions:
• IT support should not be organized with more than two levels. USIT as one level; the
department or the faculty as the other level.
• The equipment and applications, should, to a high degree, be standardized.
• The local IT staff should be professionalized with formal IT background. USIT
should be responsible for UiO–specific updating and support.
In the middle to late nineties‚ and even more after the millennium, local IT staff were
recruited from regional colleges or private schools with a relevant curriculum. These
schools are giving a practical, professional education, in many ways well suited for the
needs of a department. Macintosh specific knowledge is hardly a part of this education.
In the summer of 2010, the number LITAs were about 250. Some faculties have
organized the LITAs in local IT–groups, which in some ways functions as a “MiniUSIT”.
The LITA employees are in most departments administratively placed under the head
of section, serving both the students and the administrative and professional staff.
When the “LITA concept” was launched in the middle to late nineties, the LITA-role
was not meant to have any decision-making authority in the choice of computer platforms
for the department. A LITA employee should act as a person with qualified competence
in technical matters of importance. The computer policy was for the management to
decide.
At some of the departments, this policy seems, for reasons unknown to me, to have
changed with LITAs more or less functioning as local “IT directors”. I doubt these are
wise moves. Questions about choice of computer platform have important implications
for all work and affect both administrative and professional employees. At least,
professionals having a Mac on their priority list, should get one.
GLIT—Local IT staff From USIT
In the article The Second Phase of Local IT staff, I briefly mentioned the idea that USIT
generally should employ and supervise the local IT staff. Few people at the time thought
this was a good idea. However, in 2006 USIT established GLIT, Group for local IT
support.
GLIT should not replace the local IT staff, but be a resource for various groups and
centers without local IT staff.
In the last 10 to 15 years, the University has been reorganized with fewer, but larger
departments and with many new centers outside the traditional department framework.
These centers differ greatly in number of employees and are not necessarily situated at
the campus.
GLIT is offering IT support to many of these groups also to some of the “traditional”
departments, to the central administration of the UiO, and even to USIT itself.
GLIT has by all accounts been a considerable success and a very cost-effective
solution. The group supported in early 2011 totally 21 units, spanning from 4 to nearly
700 users. In 2010 more than 5,000 requests were solved.
The level of support to the participating units is very flexible. Many have chosen to
have one of GLIT’s staff visiting once or twice a week for necessary “hands on” work on
specific problems.
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For the time being, two of the centers are mainly Macintosh ones. Some of the others
might only have a Mac user or two. GLIT is now testing the use of Apple Remote
Desktop (ARD) in support of the Mac users.
The testing with ARD is part of the activity in the Mac OS X Management Group.
About this group, take a look earlier in the History in the Mac themes—USIT, see page
154. In any case, GLIT secures that all of GLIT’s users receive the necessary support.
The LITAs and the Mac
In Norway, there is no formal way learning to use and manage Macintoshes, you have to
learn it by yourself.
For this reason, some LITAs obviously do not have a sufficient Mac knowledge when
starting as local IT staff. By their own initiative and interests, the majority is obtaining
the necessary knowledge, but regrettable, some do not. This seems especially worrying in
departments with few Macintoshes.
In departments with a considerable number of Macs, this problem is far less. The
reason for this might be that these departments more easily inspire and encourage
learning about Macs. Last, but not least, it may be easier to establish dual platform
conditions in a larger department.
To point at LITA alone in those departments where the Mac users are not receiving
equally support as Windows users, is too easy. It is the department itself which ought to
have the responsibility that their Mac users are getting a satisfactory support.
The IT Conference—Mostly For LITA
From the year 2001, USIT has been arranging a yearly 2-3 days conference for Local IT
staff and employees from USIT. Wanting to provide for the informal discussions and the
important social mingling in the evening, the conferences are usually arranged outside
Oslo.
The speakers at the conferences have usually been from the staff at USIT who is
giving information and lectures about present and future procedures and plans relevant to
the IT activity. Representatives from our computer resellers have also usually been
present. Altogether the conferences have become important forums and very popular
among both local IT staff and employees at USIT.
Year
# of Participants
2001
88
2002
95
2003
118
2004
133
2005
130
2006
—
2007
175
2008
145
2009
142
2010
165
Number of participants at the yearly IT conferences
Classes for LITA
USIT is offering classes for new LITAs, and these classes have become mandatory. The
first class was given in 1997. The focus of the classes is, on the UiO’s IT infrastructure,
network, and administrative and technical routines, and is rather general. Sufficient
knowledge about Windows, as well as Mac OS, is taken for granted.
Something to Regret?
In retrospect, I think that we, the Mac Managers, in the last years of the nineties failed to
understand that the mere volume of computers at the University, caused the necessity of a
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far more structured way to manage Windows and Mac computers alike. The managers of
Windows machines foresaw this and started to build Management schemes. We, the Mac
managers, did not see this as clearly.
About 1995, the PCs had been deployed and used for at least 10-12 years, the Macs a
little less. The management for both platforms was slowly developing but was yet not
particularly established. Windows 95 was released in August 1995, and quickly turned
out to be very popular at the University. This popularity formed the basis for a more
comprehensive and systematic work. The purpose was to create a management scheme,
which scaled well, even in the future, for many thousand Window PCs and without
demanding an enormous staff of support personnel. This was the beginning. See also
Bjørn Ness at page 101.
Of course, all bits and pieces were not present from the start. The Windows managers
put a lot of work into developing a Management scheme including deployment of system
software. Configuration of the different Windows machines to the relevant printers at the
department was also high on the whishing list. All or most of these actions on the local
computers should be done silently, this means that the local IT staff at most has to start
the process, and don’t have to stay to the installing or update is finished. Often this is
done directly from USIT, completely without any involvement from local IT staff.
In 2011, the Windows management is even more advanced and is today a smooth
operation.
The Mac managers did not follow the initiative of the Windows managers. A reason
for this may be the lack of focus on managing Macintoshes at big Mac sites, not only in
Norway, but worldwide. Apple had a software product—Macintosh Manager (MM). MM
was not widely known, in the US it was mostly regarded as a tool for managing
Macintoshes in classrooms and K12 schools. Whether the system was capable of serving
1500+ Macintoshes, I don’t know. The Macintosh Manager was also rather expensive,
and it was only for managing pre-Mac OS X Macs. Knowing that the University in a few
years would only be using Mac OS X, we never considered MM as a relevant solution.
If we had chosen this solution, we would have learned about the pros and cons of
such a tool. We didn’t and remained unprepared for an early establishing of a management scheme.
A stub about Macintosh Manager at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Manager A Google search will give more info.
The Summing Up of LITA
I have frequently in this History “visited” LITA and their IT support role towards the
faculty and students. In the recent chapter, I have described the growth of the LITA
personnel. They make up a sizeable part of the total IT activity at the University. So, even
if some departments should be much more considerate in their hiring policy, and deliver
equal support to Windows and Mac users alike, the existence of LITAs, has been a
success.
USIT’s duties towards the LITAs are described, and the establishing of the GLIT—
Local IT staff from USIT—is presented. The situation concerning the Management
scheme for Windows machines is briefly commented; the same is the missing similar
activity for the Macintosh users at the time.
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Mac theme—Apple Inc.
Without Apple, no Mac! Therefore, almost everything Mac, sooner or later return to
Apple. What the company does or doesn’t, decides to a greater degree what the
University, USIT and the Mac managers may do.
Apple—No Ordinary Company
The Mac users have often been looked upon as a sect with a religious or sectarian
behavior. I have never liked this point of view. I understand that it may be difficult to
understand the affection many Mac users are showing upon their Macs. The Macintosh
phenomenon seems to breed extremes, either to place the Macintosh on a pedestal or rob
the platform for all qualities. As usual, the reality seldom is black or white.
I have several places in this History mentioned the importance of well informed and
visible Mac Managers. To be a talented programmer is of course not a handicap, but this
talent ought to be added some ability for understanding the needs of the Mac users. The
Mac Manager who is living up to this is on the right track.
I hope this part of the History might give readers a feeling of what sort of company
Apple is. The many links are a valuable addition to the text.
Apple University Consortium (AUC)
From 1984 and onward, Apple and Universities in at least three continents—North
America, Europe, and Australia—formed the Apple University Consortium (AUC). The
first meeting in the european AUC, took place at Lund University, Sweden in 1985. The
purpose of this alliance was hardly altruistic, but Apple and universities were considering
mutual benefits in a sort of cooperation. A brief presentation can be found as part of:
http://www.caudit.edu.au/educauseaustralasia/1999/program/educ0005.htm#E11E185
“Back in 1984, Apple and a group of Australian Universities formed the
Australian Apple University Consortium. Similar consortia were formed around
the world, including New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Substantial price advantages were provided, in return for a volume commitment
and visible support of the Macintosh in University computing. AUC members
collaborated extensively and shared results freely, including software developed
with assistance from the Apple University Development Fund. Much, though
not all, of the AUC’s attention was focused on the challenges of the purchasing
relationship and the running of on-campus computer shops—the shops were at
the time a condition of membership.”
Together with Apple’s establishment in Norway, in 1986/87, the UiO automatically
became a member of AUC.
Wheels for the Mind was AUC’s newsletter. The
logo was at the time quite familiar to many Mac
users in academia.
By courtesy of: Carsten Fløtaker
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For some reason, it seems that the AUC faded away in 1993–94, at least in Europe. In
Australia, the AUC has prevailed. It is unclear to me whether Apple any longer has
anything to do with the AUC. Since the period of the AUC is rather pre–WWW, little
about this consortium can be found on the Web. A web page from Down Under does
exist, take a look at: http://www.auc.edu.au/
The Meetings in Heidelberg (’88), Paris (’91), and Brügge (’92)
The AUC meetings in Europe took place once a year, usually at Easter time. I had the
great pleasure of attending the meetings in 88, 91, and 92. The AUC meetings were 100
percent paid by Apple, covering travel, hotel, and meals. The standard was quite high, no
cheap hotels in the back alley. All my papers concerning AUC have regrettably vanished,
but I think at least 300-400 participants from European universities usually attended.
The Keynote was given by one of Apple’s top executives. I am fairly sure that, in
1991, it was John Sculley, he might also have been the speaker in 1992. For 1988, my
memory is blank. The lecturers usually were a mix of high level product managers from
Apple and participants from the universities. At the Brügge meeting, one of the engineers
from USIT, Morten Dahl, gave a lecture titled: “The Role of Apple Macintosh in a
Heterogeneous Computing Environment”.
Kolbjørn Aambø (KA), former USITer, gave a lecture with the title: “Media-Finder—
What the Apple Macintosh Finder should be today”. As he said in his written manuscript,
“This chapter is a description of a HyperMedia system, called Media-Finder,
which retrieves media objects in a predictable way. ”
About HyperMedia, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermedia
An example of a collection of picture developed with Media-Finder, is the Photographic
Archive of Fritjof Nansen’s Life and Work: http://www.nb.no/baser/nansen/english.html
The lectures—as I remember them—were quite relevant to the participants. Those
attending the meeting in general were either faculty professors or IT staff from the
Computing Services of the participating universities. The lectures were mixed, so
everybody found something of interest.
The next three photos are from the Brügge meeting in 1992
Left: Rune Relling, education
manager at Apple Norway.
Right: Morten Dahl, USIT.
Photo: S. Moum
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Left: Øivind Revang, Norwegian School
of Management;
Right: Morten Dahl, USIT
Photo: S. Moum
From left: Anne Cathrine Seland, Høyskoledata; Kolbjørn Aambø, USIT; Jens Rugseth,
Høyskoledata; Jørgen Fog, USIT Photo: S. Moum
The Withering of AUC
As far as I know the last European AUC-meeting took place in England in 1993. I do not
know the reason for terminating the AUC. This year Michael Spindler succeeded John
Sculley as CEO at Apple. This might have been a factor. Without any firm facts from
Apple the reason for the closing down may be little more than speculation.
I found the AUC a very convenient meeting place for Macintosh engaged scholars
both within and between countries. The possibility to mingle with representatives from
Apple was a valuable bonus.
MacWorld—San Francisco
MacWorld in San Francisco dates from 1985 and must be among the most long-lived of
the many computer trade shows from the 1980s.
In spite of what many think, MacWorld SF is not an event organized by Apple Inc.
The IDG (International Data Group) is behind the Expo. Of course, it was obvious that
Apple had considerable influence on the focus of the Expo. Apple always had the biggest
stand. The CEO of Apple delivered the opening Keynote usually also introduced one or
more new Apple products. At Apple’s stand, you could try out the new products.
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MacWorld Expo is more than Apple. Many hundred businesses have their stands,
some lavish, other only, a table and a chair in 2–3 m2 of floor space. In 2007, over 40,000
people attended the MWSF.
The activities are “mirroring” the development in the Macintosh world. In the later
years, themes like digital photography, audio, and digital video have become popular
conferences or workshops at the Expo. Managing Macintoshes in Enterprise or higher
education have also been popular themes. You learn to master the new techniques.
Therefore, the expo has changed over the years—a necessity for survival.
The Expo offers different Conference Tracks, labs and other professional offerings.
The problem is not that you cannot find anything interesting, but instead that you have so
many parallel activities you want to attend.
Personally I have been lucky to visit MacWorld SF many times. The first time was in
1988, and at writing this, I have just returned from Macworld 2012. I am very grateful to
USIT for the generosity that made this possible. For a couple of times, I have also participated for my own account.
Past the keynote, the conferences, and the possibility to walk on the Expo floor
looking at products you never might find in Norway, it’s a great “emotional kick” to
sense the atmosphere among the thousands of participants. The perspective on your own
activity at home recieves a real boost!
During MWSF 2007, I found the following text in San Francisco Chronicle (SFC),
and I think the reporter is onto something.
“Somewhere between the migration instinct of the salmon and the cult
following of the Grateful Dead are the Apple Macworld true believers. Once a
year they sell out San Francisco hotels and parking garages, swarm the
convention centre and fill the air with the clatter of tapping laptop computer
keyboards. There are times when they seem to be operating in a parallel
universe. [San Francisco Chronicle, January 10, 2007]”
Whether this guy was a fan of Grateful
Dead, I do not know. He looked nice and
focused at a presentation. (2007)
At the Expo, you find all sorts of
people, fat and skinny, young and old, fit
or physically disabled, all with an interest
in all things Macintosh.
Even if, males still are in the majority,
the women are catching up.
Photo: S. Moum
In late 2008, Apple announced that the MacWorld 2009 would be the last with
participation by Apple. Whether this was a clever move by Apple, remains to be seen.
Apple is arguing that more people are daily visiting the 330+ Apple Stores (fall 2011),
than the total number of visitors to Macworld San Francisco. This is surely right, but the
two alternatives cannot be compared. What you experience by a visit (or five visits) to
Apple Stores is extremely different from participation at a MacWorld Expo. For more
about the Apple Store, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Store
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The organizers of the expo are still seeing a future for the Expo. In the SFC for
Friday, February 12, 2010 a headline says: “Show goes on even without Apple, Jobs”. In
the article,
“…But even without the show’s original reason for existence, fans flocked to
the gathering, some out of true devotion to Apple, others out of habit, like
migratory birds. Still other came to see how the new format will work, giving
the show a one-year grace period before they decide whether they’ll come
back.”
The Macworld General Manager, Paul Kent, say it like this:
“We know there’s a cloud of doubt over us, but this is the center of the universe
for this ecosystem. It’s a fun vibe for everyone that loves Apple products. When
you think about it like Comic-Con or a ’Star Trek’ convention, it becomes
obvious there is a value in that.”
Even more directly, quoting a participating Web designer:
“I think it can survive because the fans want it. Macworld is our mecca, so we’ll
keep coming back.”
In the SFC of Thursday 27, January 2011 we can read:
“The show has changed in a healthy way,” said Kent who has been with
Macworld since the beginning. “Before, it might have answered the question:
What’s Apple’s newest thing? Now it answers the question: What do I do after
I’ve bought my Apple thing? When you walk out of an Apple store, how you
find things to add on to it. You learn to use it better.”
Maybe, but I’m still quite uncertain whether MWSF will exist in 2–4 years time. In any
way, as said by the Beatles, Let it be!
More about MacWorld Expo at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macworld_expo
The Letter to Avie
In January 2000, the macadm group at USIT sent a letter to Senior Vice President Avadis
Tevanian at Apple Computer. It was not an email, but a real letter, sent by registered
mail. Based on what we had learned from Mac OS X Server 1.0 and Developer Previews
of the client version, we wanted more information about what to expect in certain areas of
the OS, and if possible, an information channel to Apple.
The letter presented USIT’s function at the University and continued with details
about the problems we had with authenticating our large NIS database with 43,000 user
accounts.
The letter continued with a brief summary of problems we had met with testing of the
developer versions of MOSX and MOSXS.
“Our user database is today organized as a NIS database. We have looked at
other solutions and might in the future integrate NIS with LDAP. From spring
1999, we have experimented with Mac OS X Server. However, the fileserver’s
tools for authenticating the users against our central NIS database were neither
fast, nor simple to use when the number of users and daily changes are on the
scale we have at the UiO.”
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We asked whether Apple planned an industry strength file server with a flexible authentication mechanism. We were also interested in their activity on backup solutions for
servers. Our last question was whether solutions for distribution, backup, archiving, and
monitoring like the products from Tivoli Systems Inc might be expected.
In addition, the letter continues:
“Our appeal to you is primary to “let us in” in the developing loop for “server
features” in Mac OS X through a mailing list or something like that. We feel
sure we have something to offer as a resourceful test-site with enthusiastic
engineers. Our down to earth attitude that the Macintosh user at the UiO should
be a well regarded net citizen, but also that the Macintosh must be a wellbehaved platform among others, will be a good starting point for being a
creative and resourceful test-site.”
The letter had an addendum, referring to a technical meeting with Apple Norway and
Ragnar Sundblad, a specialist from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology. This
addendum is the following text:
Mr. Sunblad’s description follows.
Questions regarding MacOS X Server AppleShare and Macintosh Manager
“Background:
The University of Oslo, Norway, has some 40,000 (yes, 40K) in their NIS
database. The users are also sorted in groups and net groups. Now they want to
use this information with MacOS X Server and Netboot and/or Macintosh
Manager.
The obvious way to make the MacOS X AppleShare server use the NIS info
is to set up lookupd to use NIS—either via YP—or by dumping the YP
databases into flat files. It seems that the AppleShare server does not use
lookupd, at least not in the usual way. It seems that the AppleShare server looks
for user info *only* in local and parent netinfo domains, not in, for example,
files (via FFAgent) or NIS (via YPAgent).
Other kinds of access control (as telnet, (locally ported) ssh etc) work with
the YP database, but not AppleShare. They have currently solved it by
importing the YP database into netinfo, but the import occasionally has failed
and takes several hours to complete. They can work out an incremental update
mechanism, if they have to, but it would be much nicer if the MacOS X
AppleShare server just could fit in with YP.
Their question #1:
Is it correct that the AppleShare server looks only in the netinfo databases, and
can that change to include NIS?
They also want to use the Macintosh Manager login system. We have
guessed that it is not possible today without:
1. Importing all the users (regularly) into Macintosh Manager
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2. Give all users a new, Macintosh Manager specific, password.
Neither can be done since, 1.) Macintosh Manager has a max of 8,000 users,
and 2.) They do not want the work of giving 40,000 users a new, extra
password.
Possible solutions:
1. Use current Macintosh Manager and identify subsets of the users that
must be included in different locations/buildings/labs. Combined with a Mac
Mgr-API to, for example, make a UNIX application that makes the users able to
set new Macintosh Manager passwords themselves.
2. A not too hard way to cover their needs is to rework Macintosh Manager
to authenticate against other, possibly pre-defined list of AppleShare servers
instead of a special user database. This could be done as a plug in to the new
Directory Services, or a special Macintosh Manager thing. Macintosh Manager
could also store the user’s prefs and data on that server. Macintosh Manager
could have default authorization of users depending on which AppleShare
server the user utilized for authenticion. Such an authentication scheme would
probably be quite useful at a number of installations where there are any
number of AppleShare servers as AppleShare IP, MacOS X AppleShare,
EtherShare, CAP, Netatalk, WindowsNT etc available, and user & group info
could not easily be imported due to incompatibility and/or live sources (which
is often the case!).”
We never got a reply. Maybe we were naïve. However, we felt enthusiasm for Apple and
Mac and believed and behaved that everything was possible, but The Times They Are AChangin’. This episode was a real reality check.
Old Macintosh Lore
There are many written stories about the development of the Mac and the system- and
applications for the machine. In Andy Hertzfeld’s Revolution in the Valley, (RITV),
[Hertzfeld 2005] you’ll find stories well worth reading. Some are very funny, others are
of a more technical nature and suitable for the geekish person. Hertzfeld himself was a
main contributor to system software of the Macintosh.
The book is based on a website—http://www.folklore.org The site is by nature more
living than the book. It’s still growing and readers can comment on the stories. To know
and use the site and own the book, is of course the way to go.
Andy Hertzfeld, 2001.
You will find Hertzfeld’s story about the making of the book at:
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http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Revolution_in_the_Va
lley.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date
The presentation from the publisher is at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/revolution/
Do not miss the readers reviews.
Also, a dialog with AH: http://news.oreilly.com/2008/08/the-mac-at-25-andy-hertzfeldl.html
Not to forget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Hertzfeld
In a video, from 1985 you are meeting a few of the computer personalities of the
eighties, talking about the Apple Macintosh. The most prominent are Johanna Hoffman,
Gary Kindall and Larry Tesler. Take a look at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8436507320571888533#0h4m54s
A picture of Larry Tesler can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/draket/534888910/
Pictures of many in the Macintosh Team at:
http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&gallery=1
Bill Atkinson—of Macpaint and HyperCard Fame
Bill Atkinson (BA) became an Apple employee (#282) in February 1979. He worked on
different projects at Apple.
Among the main developers of the Macintosh User Interface, he is maybe one of the
most creative ones.
Bill Atkinson, in the early eighties.
He wrote the QuickDraw routines, MacPaint and later HyperCard. Readable URLs
about BA:
http://www.savetz.com/ku/ku/quick_genius_behind_hypercard_bill_atkinson_the_novem
ber_1987.html
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=I_Still_Remember_Regions.t
xt&characters=Bill%20Atkinson&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium
BA has been a professional photographer since 1996. Take a look at his web site:
http://www.billatkinson.com/Homepage.pl
You will find an interesting interview with Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson at:
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/10265800
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Susan Kare—Queen of Icons
I guess that most of the team behind the creation of the original Macintosh “deserves” a
presentation. I can only once again point to references in Andy Herzfeld’s book,
Revolution in the Valley. Not all of them will be mentioned in the History, although they
ought to, but Susan Kare (SK)—creative director at Apple 1982–85, really deserves some
words.
SK designed many of the icons used in Macintosh-applications, keyboard, or
documentation. A Google search on SK is showing many articles; I’ll quote some
paragraphs in an article published by Michelle Quinn in San Francisco Chronicle in,
1995,
“During the past 10 years, she has drawn more than 2,000 icons for computers,
coming up with dozens of symbols representing the commands “print,” “merge”
and “quit.” Her clients have included the leaders of the computer age—Apple
Computer, Autodesk, Electronic Arts, IBM, Intuit, Sony Pictures, Motorola,
and Microsoft.
Now that, big software makers have enlisted academics and artists to devise
homey, no-threatening graphics such as Microsoft’s ballyhooed Bob, Kare said
she senses some vindication. When Kare worked on the original Macintosh,
which was shipped in 1984, computer geeks denounced her work as too cute
and “a crib toy” for its whimsical graphics.”
“It’s gratifying to see everyone else get on the bandwagon,” she said during
an interview in her San Francisco office.
Some of her creations—such as a phone to represent instructions for dialing
up a modem—may seem like no-brainers. However, Kare said making icons for
computers is more complicated than it appears.
“Some icons are easy because they’re nouns—a calendar, for example,”
Kare said. “But verbs are hard to do. Undo is especially hard. I struggle year in,
and year out about undo.”
Execute, she said, is another difficult one. “Some people have guns for
execute, which doesn’t seem good. I had dominoes falling over and have tried
running shoes.”
The trend away from esoteric computer commands and manuals has helped Kare’s career
and those of other computer artists, said RitaSue Siegel, chairman of RitaSue Siegel
Resources, a New York consulting firm that finds jobs for designers. Computer interface
design is a growing field, Siegel said, and companies are realizing “the danger that
engineers and programmers will do to these things without thinking of the aesthetic.”
Three URLs about Susan Kare:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1995/01/25/BU30113.D
TL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare
http://library.stanford.edu/mac/primary/interviews/kare/index.html and further traversing.
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Susan Kare, picture from
http://www.folklore.org
Some time into the history of Macintosh, Apple established Human Interface Group
(HIG). The activity in this group was partly related to the early work of Susan Kare.
About HIG, see:
http://duncanwilcox.com/2008/the-hig-is-still-good/
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuideline
s/XHIGIntro/chapter_1_section_1.html See also: http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
Steve Jobs (SJ)
I doubt that Steve Jobs knew much about The University of Oslo or of Norway as such.
As far as I know he only visited Norway once. The visit occurred in connection with
former Vice President Al Gore received the Nobel Peace price in 2007. Gore is a member
of Apple’s board of directors.
Jobs is without any reservation the most important character in the Apple history. He
became CEO of Apple when he succeeded Gil Amelio. Many claim that without SJ at
Apple’s helm since 1997, Apple surely had folded and products like the later iMacs, iPod,
iPads, iTunes, and iPhone might never have been developed, produced, and sold. An
interesting view on Jobs:
http://www.cultofmac.com/20172/20172
An interview from 1985 with SJ from the archives of Newsweek, is very readable:
http://www.newsweek.com/1985/09/30/jobs-talks-about-his-rise-and-fall.html See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs and http://www.bloomberg.com/video/66625228/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
(The Stanford Commencement
Address)
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/08/the-end-of-inno/ Two parts)
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/the-tale-of-steve-jobs-and-the-fivedragons/1890?tag=content;siu-container
He stepped down as CEO of Apple Inc, Wednesday, August 24, 2011.
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Steve Jobs with an early iPod.
He died October 5, 2011
(Jonathan Mak, Hong Kong)
John Sculley (JS)
John Sculley was CEO of Apple from 1983 to 1993. He was hired by Steve Jobs from
Pepsi-Cola with the famous words: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your
life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”
His leadership at Apple was in dispute and Apple’s board forced him out in 1993.
Apple participated in the AIM alliance, with IBM and Motorola, to create a new type of
CPU, to be used in Macintoshes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance He also
initiated the Performa brand of Macintoshes, intended for the Mac home user. This turned
out to be a doubtful success. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Performa He
was a visionary in his interest with The Knowledge Navigator from 1987. Even twentyfive years later the technology is not ready for this. However, Apple’s Siri-technology
introduced in the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011 is an interesting start. A technically bad
video about The Knowledge Navigator at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=8mLqJNDWx-8
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Left: Steve Jobs
Right:
John
Sculley
Time:
About
1983-84
Jobs hired JS as
CEO of Apple
Computer in
1983.
Sculley
fired
Steve Jobs from
Apple in 1985.
Informative articles about JS and his career, are to be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sculley
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/06/06/why-i-fired-steve-jobs.html
Bruce Horn (BH)
As, Adam Engst says it in http://db.tidbits.com/article/07516
“At Apple, Bruce was responsible for the design and implementation of the
Finder (oh, that!), the type/creator metadata mechanism for files and
applications, and the Resource Manager (which handled reading and writing of
the resource fork in files. A note in Apple’s technical documentation at one
point exclaimed, ’The Resource Manager is not a database!‘). The Dialog
Manager and the multitype aspect of the clipboard also appeared thanks to
Bruce’s ingenuity.”
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Bruce Horn, photo from
http://www.brucehorn.com/
For some very interesting web pages, see:
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Joining_the_Mac_Group.txt
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=The_Grand_Unified_
Model.txt&characters=Bruce%20Horn&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium
http://mxmora.best.vwh.net/brucehorn.html and http://www.brucehorn.com/
Jonathan Ive (JI)
JI may represent the generation of Apple executives made famous after Steve Jobs’ return
to Apple in 1997. He is Senior Vice President of Industrial Design and is connected to
Apple successes like iPod, iPhone, iPad and various desktop and portable computers.
After a short time, at the
London design agency
Tangerine, Ive gained his
current job title upon the
return of Steve Jobs in
1997, and since then has
headed the Industrial
Design team responsible
for most of the company's
significant hardware products.
(From Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive http://designmuseum.org/design/jonathan-ive
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002414.htm
The Creation of the Graphing Calculator
The story by Ron Avitzur of how the Graphing Calculator was made is a story from the
early PPC-period. Whether the story is 100% true, I don’t know, and I don’t care. Do
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yourself a great favor and read the story at: http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ I very seldom
read something which makes me roar with laughter, but this is a fantastic story and even
has some lines which are pearls of prose.
The Apple Logo
The Apple Logo has evolved through three versions. The first lasted only a few months.
The second—the famous Bleed Six Colors—lasted for more than 25 years. In the last
years, the present one in different Aqua-colors. The logo has ended up in silvery chrome
finish.
You can find some background for the logos in:
http://www.logoblog.org/apple_logo.php and http://www.edibleapple.com/the-evolutionand-history-of-the-apple-logo/
Also take a look at:
http://www.macworld.com/2006/03/features/appleconfidential20/index.php?pf=1
After about 18 paragraphs, you’ll find the story about the Apple Logo. The whole article
is an excerpt from Linzmayer’s Apple Confidential 2.0. The chapter (and the book) is
very interesting; here, I only copy the Logo part.
“While nobody could hold a candle to Woz’s engineering skills, Jobs
understood that form was as important as functionality. He hated the crude
metal cases of the hobbyist computers of the time and insisted that the Apple II
have a professionally designed plastic enclosure that would appeal to
consumers. Furthermore, he felt that Wayne’s logo was too cerebral and not
easily reproduced at small sizes. In early 1977, Jobs hired Regis McKenna
Advertising, which defined a new logo and logotype (Motter Tektura) and
created Apple’s first professionally produced ads.
Working under account executive Bill Kelley, art director Rob Janoff, started
with a black and white silhouette of an apple, but felt something was missing. “I
wanted to simplify the shape of an apple, and by taking a bite—a byte, right?—
out of the side. This prevented the apple from looking like a cherry tomato,”
explains Janoff. Furthermore, the lowercase company name could snuggle into
the bite. At Jobs’ insistence, Janoff added six colorful, horizontal stripes that
paid tribute to the Apple II’s impressive color capabilities. Although separating
the green, yellow, orange, red, purple, and blue bars with thin black lines would
have reduced registration problems during reproduction, Jobs nixed the
proposal, resulting in the world famous Apple logo, which Apple’s CEO
Michael Scott called ‘the most expensive, bloody logo ever designed.’ ”
An interesting, but a bit confusing account of the different font families used by Apple,
can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography_of_Apple_Inc
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Apple Timeline 1976—1995
A timeline of Apple’s first nineteen years:
http://www.macmothership.com/timeline.html
Clarus—the Dogcow
Among the odd parts of Apple legends are the story about Clarus–The Dogcow. Those
who have believed that the activity at Apple was all work and no fun can take a break and
look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow
In the Wikipedia article, you’ll find more external links and references to this rather
special creature. Clarus’ sound “signature” on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHT-CmzzfI
Apple—the New Microsoft?
Apple’s impressive success, growth and an increasing tendency for arrogance in the last
decade, has made many self-appointed experts declare that Apple has become the new
Microsoft.
Suffice to say, but Apple’s handling of the iTunes’ App store for iPod, iPhone and
iPad have been annoying to many “wise guys”. These are blaming Apple for ambiguous
and inconsistent rules for accepting applications into the App Store. In short, these selfappointed experts have been accusing Apple of being rather heavy handed in their
administration of the App store.
Personally, I am not too impressed about these accusations. Apple wants to sell lots of
“iGadgets” and the App Stores are a vast repository of software, many of them for free or
very cheap. The App Store holds applications of almost every kind. You may find silly
and embarrassing applications, but also useful and advanced ones of great value, but with
a low price.
Though Apple might have been handling their more serious complainers in a better
way, I’m guessing that most of millions of the users of the App Store are rather thankful
for Apple’s effort to keep the store reasonably clean and serious. The note below from a
blog at npr.org, is, in my opinion, really to the point.
“It’s an interesting paradox... seems to contradict laissez-faire, free market,
open source religious dogma but there, it is. The “regulated” or controlled
marketplace established by Apple led to the growth of its platform... to
proliferation of devel-opers... and the largest number of apps for a mobile
device.
That’s not to say that the iPhone will always be on top. The success of this
more controlled model is not what you’d expect to listen to all the doom and
gloom and free market theory from people who don’t like Apple for whatever
reason”.
A related view, at a more businesslike angle:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy-an.html and
http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/04/five-reasons-iphone-v-android.html
The App Store for Macs came online in early 2011. I’m not yet quite sure how to assess
this service. It might be a boon to many smaller software developers and home users. It
remains to be seen how larger institutional users and the big software developers will
react. The Mac App Shop might be another success for Apple, but an even more strongly
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binding between Apple and their customers is for some users disturbing. About the Mac
App Store:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_App_Store
More about Apple Inc
You’ll find lots of books and articles about the company. A comprehensive Wikipedia
article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer
The article includes many references and other pointers. A good read!
The Summing Up of Apple Inc.
This part of the History looks at Apple’s history and especially some of the persons
whom have left their mark on the company. The Apple University Consortium is
mentioned together with Apple’s long relation with the MacWorld Expo.
The Mac Managers sent a letter to Avie Tevanian about the problems we had with the
early versions of Max OS X, part of this letter is summarized and discussed.
It has been especially enjoyable to write about some of the persons from the early
Mac history. This part holds many URLs. I hope the reader will enjoy these, and I’m sure
it may be something to learn by many of them.
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Mac Theme—Apple Computer Norway
Apple was established in Norway in fall 1986. The company never was overstaffed;
however, the staff has been reduced over the years. The staff number has changed from
approximately fifteen to twenty employees at the start, down to less than ten employees
in the last part of the nineties and the beginning of the new millennium. In the company’s
first 10–12 years, you could also find technical expertise among the staff.
As of writing—spring 2011—Apple’s Norwegian staff has been growing up to about
twenty persons. This increase is partly because of brisk sale of iPods, iPads and iPhones
in many chain stores primarily selling electrical equipment, but also an increase in the
sale of Macintoshes.
The IDG-based publication Computerworld Norge, announced in the issue of April 8,
2011, a considerable increase in Apple’s sale in Norway. In the period from 2001 to
2010, the sale of Macintoshes had increased from 1,6 percent of the total yearly computer
sale, to 7,8 percent. Last year (2010) the sale of Macs and Windows machines together
totaled 1,429,925.
The staff at Apple Norway today is mostly a sale force or supporting the mercantile
activity and the stores dedicated to sale of Apple and third party products. As far as I
know Apple Norway has been profitable since 1986.
From my point of view, the modest in-house technical staff at Apple Norway may be
a handicap in dealing with existing and potential customers. Relevant technical
competence useful for larger sites has today to be obtained from abroad or from resellers.
This is in my opinion not an ideal situation if you want to sell to large, rather advanced
and complex organizations, such as a university. In addition, not to forget, the
competitors of Apple, are very technically competent. I would not be surprised if Apple
Norway during the years has lost large, potential customers because of sparse technical
know-how. Such customers especially value suppliers with a good technical competence.
The CEOs
Since the start in Norway, six CEOs have been the head of Apple Norway. These are
Stein Terje Skaar (86-89), Jan Erik Standahl (90-94), Tom Hauge (95-96), Odd Martinsen
(97), Nils Roe Fjørtoft (97-99), Arne Odden (99 till date).
I am in no position to “grade” these leaders. The company they have been leading has
transformed quite a lot and seems today nearly to be a branch of Apple Sweden. This
might have been inevitable. Norway is (in spite of what many Norwegians seem to
believe), a rather small country.
The Education Managers
Apple Norway has from the start had dedicated Educational Managers (EM). If my
memory does not fail, the following persons have acted as Educational Managers: Elin
Husebø, Knut Risung, Rune Relling, Verner Hølleland, and Jon Aalborg. Jon Aalborg
was the last EM at Apple Norway.
I have often been thinking that Apple’s EM might have been feeling many of the
meetings with “their opposite numbers” at the UiO being somewhat difficult. One of
them once told me “After meeting with you guys, I often feel depressed”. Looking back, I
may understand him. In meetings with us, the EM was usually alone; from the UiO we
often were two or three, and rather outspoken.
Our needs for new IT equipment had to fit in with the IT infrastructure. Very seldom,
if ever, you could deploy hardware without considering existing infrastructure. In
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addition, the numbers were usually large, thousands of staff, students in ten of thousands,
some hundreds of departments and different groups, great diversity in application use.
Apple’s view of “a Macintosh site” seldom included sites with hundreds or even
thousands of Macintoshes. The creative office with five to ten Macintoshes or a classroom with 10-15 Macintoshes seemed more within Apple’s experience and tradition. The
University system can be difficult to grasp, even for insiders.
In addition, Apple’s record of accomplishment in dealing with enterprise and big
organizations was somewhat vague and indecisive in the early years and, even today.
At USIT we more often than not were quite well informed about future technologies
and rumors of Macs and software. However, up to 1997 when Steve Jobs became CEO at
Apple Computer, the staff of Apple Norway rather early had news and information of
forthcoming Macintoshes and even pre-production copies of new Macintoshes. We at
USIT or IT staff from other departments at the UiO, received many invitations to Apple
Norway, where we signed NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreement). Technical competent
guys at Apple Norway, like Knut Haug, Arne Heier, and Staale Olesen, often did the
briefing on future computers. After the return of Jobs, I believe that the national Apple
organizations, seldom knew more about new releases than what everyone may find on the
rumor sites covering Macintosh and Apple. This might be one of the reasons we these
days have very little contact with Apple Norway. Most regrettable, I guess they do not
have much information we do not already know.
The Social Events, and the Kickoffs
Apple Norway was arranging their “Kickoff” once a year. At this event, the company was
presenting coming products. Their CEO gave an inspiring speech. Good artists and
musicians took care of entertainment and food and drinks were free. The guests were
mingling, and all seemed to have a very good time. For some, the day after may have
been hard. The event gave the participants an excellent opportunity to meet new Mac
users and the Apple staff themselves and learn by the experiences of others.
From about 1997–1998, Apple Norway has, to my knowledge, ended such arrangements directed towards their technical and business contacts. After 2002–2003, I have
neither heard nor read about any major professional or social gatherings organized by
Apple Norway.
On the other hand, the Macintosh market has grown to be a mature “community” and
more well informed than before. Whether Apple’s old and new “guests”, any longer
would have a wish for using their time in a sort of partying, that’s a question.
It must be admitted; in the age of the Internet, the reasons for such gatherings are not
as convincing as they were 15–20 years ago. Nevertheless, something is missing with
only “faceless” information.
Promotional Objects—a Rarity
Not among the most important things, but I miss the inexpensive, small objects Apple
now and then was giving to their cooperating partners. Such as coffee mugs, pens,
buttons, my favorite—real key chains, and other small gadgets.
Even if, Apple these days enjoys business success, they might benefit by a more generous
attitude towards their customers.
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Would it be impossible to put
a coffee mug in the box of an
iMac or Mac Pro and a Key
Chain in the box of the portables?
Most of the promotional objects were articles used worldwide. However, Apple Norway
made two items especially for the Norwegian marked. In 1988–1989, they published two
audio CDs.
One CD with Kari Gjærum and Marius Müller (see
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Gjærum
http://www.marius-muller.com/infoinenglish.html
and another with Vazelina Bilopphøggers ≈ Vaseline Auto Wrecker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vazelina_Bilopphoggers , http://www.vazelina.no/
http://www.vazelina.no/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG4Y02mnfAQ
Song: Kari Gjærum
Music: Marius Müller
Text: Lasse Moe
The CD has two songs:
Pek og klikk (Point and click) &
Apple Computer blues.
Produced for the 1988-kickoff
held at the Jar film studio outside
Oslo.
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“Kom og sett oss fri” (Come
and set us free); 1989
The “Apple-related” song is in
two versions with different duration. The remaining tracks (8)
are from Vazelina’s ordinary
repertoire.
The CD was handed out at
the 1989 Kick-off and intro of
the Portable.
The Story of SIFT
In 1991, we tried to make Apple interested in a Norwegian application package named
SIFT, an acronym for Searching In Free Text. SIFT was elaborated from a Master thesis
in Computer Science from the University. The search package used advanced B–tree
technology. A Wiki-article about this technology at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-tree
SIFT was in short an “engine” for updating and searching in very large quantities of
text, both free and structured text. Among other features were
• In addition to traditional Boolean search, SIFT made use of “class search”, utilizing
search results in subsequent searches, a strong combination.
• A robust data entry/ free text editor with dynamic interaction towards the database.
• Programming hooks—API—towards various programming languages.
• A JCL-like language for programming complex algorithms for Batch Mode
searching.
• Database updating was extremely fast; truncated search was also in the very fast lane!
Tore Haraldsen (ex. USIT) developed the PC-version of SIFT in 1990. SIFT would have
been a very suitable engine for today’s applications as “Google Desktop”, only “much,
much better” as one of the developers told me.
The information above is from another member of the SIFT team, Tore Syvertsen
(ex. USIT). He has not been involved in SIFT for many years, but this dive into the past,
made him exclaim: Boy, were we good! In addition, it should definitely be remembered
that SIFT was developed and deployed more than 20 years ago.
We never missed an opportunity to tell Apple Norway that they ought to take a
serious look at SIFT. The application belonged at the time to SDS—Statens Datasentral The Federal Data/info Central in Norway. We even wrote a letter (in English) to Apple
Europe in Paris, and tried to describe SIFT and the application’s potential on the Mac. At
a meeting we had with the CEO of Apple Norway, this letter was read aloud. The meeting
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room suddenly became rather chilly. Apple Norway was not happy about this letter, but a
meeting between SDS and Apple Norway eventually took place.
This meeting gave no visible result; and we never got any summary of what took
place at the meeting. We dropped the case; there were no more possibilities to push it
further. It might be that the concept about searching in text, was premature, or maybe
SDS were not interesting in licensing the product. Whether Apple Norway really
understood SIFT’s potential, we will never know. In addition, in 1991 Apple was still a
company influenced by the NIH-syndrome. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Invented_Here
The Norwegian Educational Conference (NUK)
In 1992 Apple organized a conference for teachers and staff in elementary school and
high school. The name of the conference was Norsk Utdannings Konferanse (NUK)–
Norwegian Educational Conference. Apple’s Educational Manager Rune Relling was the
prime mover in the arrangement. Two other resource persons were Kjell Askeland and
Bjørn Nørstegård, both from Lillehammer Regional College. Also, representatives from
Ministry of Education and Research participated. I believe Apple Norway footed most, or
the entire bill.
The conference treated experiences and potentials in using modern computer
equipment in school. Not surprisingly Macintosh computers and applications played a
major part in the conference, however, as far as I remember even experiences with PCDOS computers were on the agenda.
The number of participants was about 200. After three years at Lillehammer, the
conference is now a yearly event at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Today, the scope is somewhat broader; the conference is called Norsk
Konferanse for Utdanning og Læring (NKUL)–Norwegian Conference for Education and
Learning. The conference has grown a whole lot, now 1,000–1,200 persons usually participate.
Apple is now only one of the partners in the conference. Apple’s intention with the
1992 initiative was, of course, to expand the use of Macintoshes in the Norwegian school
system. I doubt the result lived up to Apple’s expectations; Norwegians seem rather
conservative about choosing computer platforms in the public sector.
An URL about NKUL 2009—in Norwegian—is at
http://www.skolemagasinet.no/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2
4&Itemid=2
Summing Up of Apple Norway
This part deals mostly with the contact between Apple Norway and managers at USIT in
the fifteen years from 1985 to 2000. Our contact with Apple Norway has been very
sketchy after the year 2000.
The CEOs and the Education Managers at Apple and important meeting places like
product presentations, Apple University Consortium, the Norwegian Educational Conference, and the yearly Kickoffs are mentioned. The story of Sift deserved an article, even if
it didn’t lead to anything.
Apple Norway has not prioritized technical competence among the staff; this has
made the company less interesting as a discussion partner to the Mac Managers at USIT.
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Mac Theme—Resellers
The UiO has purchased Apple products, and through resellers, equipment and software
from other companies.
Apple Resellers
Our resellers of Macintoshes have during the twenty-four years from 1985, been these
companies: Computec, Programvarehuset, Høyskoledata (later Officeline), SioData,
Computer Resources International (CRI), Humac (former Officeline), Eplehuset.
The first four companies were single Mac resellers to the UiO. CRI and Officeline
(now Humac) shared the distribution to the UiO for 5-6 years; Humac alone from 2005 to
2010; from 2010 Eplehuset is the single reseller to the University.
Høyskoledata—Mac Reseller 1988–1993
I want to take a closer look upon our resellers trying to add some reflections about the
characteristics of a computer reseller, typical for the period.
Below are some photos from Høyskoledata, probably from 1989.
Left: Jens Rugseth—those difficult telephone calls!
Right: Gunnar Evensen—what’s the fuss?
Photo: Carsten Fløtaker
The founders of Høyskoledata, Gunnar Evensen, Jens Rugseth, and Oddbjørn Lende (no
photo) were students at The Norwegian School of Management when they started Høyskoledata.
The founders and the staff at Høyskoledata fit into my view of the “typical” Mac
startup. Three to four years had passed since the introduction of the Macintosh, and quite
a lot of people had experience with the Mac and learned to appreciate the GUI. Some
were business oriented and eager to try out the stuff learned at school. “Let us try to be
the biggest reseller of Macintosh in Norway!” With competence, long workdays, and
some luck, they may succeed.
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Left: Jon Kleiser—Are you looking for trouble?
Right: Oddbjørn Lende or Gunnar Evensen—Look right into my face!
Photo: Carsten Fløtaker
Third Party Resellers
In addition to these Mac resellers, the UiO entered into agreement with resellers of
software, and additional hardware equipment as displays and display cards, scanners,
hard drives, memory, network cards and so on.
Macintoshes have generally been well equipped with network connections and built
in connectivity for external devices. Even if many users experienced no reason to upgrade
their Macs after the purchase, those who did, contributed to a healthy business for many
com-panies. Over time, I think the most successful resellers have been the companies
distributing software.
An Example—Norgesdata as
Carsten Fløtaker
Carsten Fløtaker was for many years
Managing Director of Norgesdata.
He has to represent the nonApple resellers to the UiO.
Norgesdata has been reseller of
Adobe and Filemaker products.
Photo: S. Moum
The University has different agreements with companies developing software.
Applications like the Office Suite from Microsoft or the Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS) and many more, are purchased with central funds. Some are free for all
employees, others are internally invoiced from USIT to the users department.
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Both the free software and software that has to be ordered from the reseller are hosted
on USIT’s servers. Free or internally invoiced software is ordered directly from the
Software Group at USIT. Other software products e.g. Adobe applications, are ordered
from the reseller. Even Adobe applications are hosted on USIT’s servers, but the ordering
and invoicing is between the department and the reseller. The prices are heavily
discounted compared to the ordinary commercial price.
The departments have ordered applications by way of fax, from early 2008 by way of
email. By receiving the order, the reseller contact the Software Group at USIT. The user
is given access to the relevant software. The reseller bills the user’s department. This
system works well. The user can download and use the software within a few hours, if the
reseller is quick in resending the order to USIT. The Software group at USIT receives the
software media shortly after it reaches the reseller. The software CD/DVD is converted to
dmg archives (see page 106) and uploaded to the SW repository. The users can choose
whether they will download and mount the archive at the desktop and install, or if they
want to make an “original” CD/DVD. Of course, they can also choose to receive the
software on CD/DVD directly from the reseller. The media have a small cost, and the
delivery takes a day or two.
The resellers all have to be trained in how we want to do things. To a large degree,
they also have to learn that a university is quite differently organized than other large
customers. Therefore, to change reseller is a mixed blessing, the price of the products
they sell to the University, are for a new reseller, at most, usually only a few percent
lower than the old one. I now and then question the wisdom of always choosing the
reseller with the lowest bidding price. A slightly lower price may be much less important
than having a creative, efficient and service minded reseller who has learned how to do
business with the University.
The Summing Up of the Resellers
The resellers have been very important to the Mac community at the University. In the
early period—the last half of the eighties—the possibility to buy hardware and software
from abroad, was not developed, as it would be in the nineties. Competent resellers in
Norway were necessary if the Mac community should expand. Moreover, the UiO has
only with great difficulties been able to use credit or debit cards. To receive a traditional
paper invoice has been (close to) a necessity.
After the year 2000, face-to-face contact with most resellers is a rarity. WWW is of
course the main cause for this change. Before the Web, real meetings with people were
important sources for information about new products and techniques. In the Internet
world of today, factual information about products and often reviews of the products are
quickly followed on the net after the product introduction somewhere in the world. By
this, you’ll gain useful theoretical information, but might of course miss hands-on
experience and the direct communication with people who have actually used the
products.
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The End
My main purpose with this History has been to describe one way to manage Macintoshes
at a large educational site. It is not the only way, and might not be the best way; it is,
however, our way. It has been great fun.
The author, fall 2009
Photo: J. M. Taraldsen
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Useful & Interesting Reading,
Viewing, and Listening
This part of the document is my attempt to make something like a bibliography. Not a
very strict and academic one, but stuff I have enjoyed reading and seeing, and which
maybe will be interesting to others.
The entries explicitly used or mentioned in the document, are marked with (*) in
front. The rest are books, URLs or films I believe many of the readers will find
stimulating, enlightening and in some cases, provocative. I would guess many of the
readers are quite familiar with parts of the ‘bibliography’. Those who are not might have
tidbits to find.
URLs, Macintosh Related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/10/22/road_to_mac_os_x_leopard_server_collab
orative_info_sharing_services.html
http://www.usit.uio.no/om/it-historien/
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/past-present-future-file-systems.ars
http://apple.doit.wisc.edu/pdf/llnl.pdf
http://discussions.info.apple.com/index.jspa
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/hiddendimensions/2006/10/11.1.shtml
http://www.mactracker.ca/
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM/1350A705-DE80-429A-BDC0AE9272C1555E.html
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/AppleAdvertising.html (From September 1994)
http://www.tedfriedman.com/electricdreams/2005/02/apples_1984.php#_ednref22
http://osxbook.com
http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html
http://managingosx.wordpress.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/01/business/an-unknown-co-founder-leaves-after-20years-of-glory-and-turmoil.html
The next six articles about Apple Marketing should be of interest to all Apple
watchers.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/9FD12E37-8DC7-4AD1-872F2021BEDE6D96.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/469013E9-454C-42F0-AFB1FA75871A028B.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/8F4B780E-674F-4421-A44D7B1EAE9C1BA6.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/4BC7D963-7B31-47B7-A6ED2706BD472377.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/1DDD598A-7CE0-479E-A6F9912777CAB484.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/D61CFB13-4A09-4F0A-9B5A4DCB8977503C.html
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
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http://www.welcometomacintosh.com/Welcome.html for ordering an interesting DVD,
named “Welcome to Macintosh”. A review of this DVD at:
http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2009/03/06/review-welcome-to-macintoshmovie/#more-2845
http://macenterprise.org/
http://afp548.com/
http://www.macsurfer.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
http://people.csail.mit.edu/tromer//shelf/soul-machine.html
http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0316491977
http://itc.virginia.edu/students/inventory/2008/
http://www.spike.com/video/cat-herding/2666557
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=257
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT
http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
http://applemuseum.bott.org/ (older stuff)
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/02/documents_offer_glimpse_into_apples_ea
rly_days.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/macintosh.html
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0
http://www.projectcartoon.com
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/marketingbrochures/
URLs, Not Computer Related
http://www.quiller.net/
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
http://www.chart.ac.uk/chart2001/papers/noframes/witek.html
http://www.nb.no/baser/morgenstierne/english/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird
http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-world-war-ii-luftwaffe-general-and-ace-pilotadolf-galland.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Bader
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Clostermann
Macintosh Related Books
(*) Hansen, Are: ABC om Macintosh, USIT/UiO, 1989
(*) Herztfeld, Andy: REVOLUTION in The Valley, O’Reilly 2005,
ISBN 0-596-00719-1
Isaacson, Isac: Steve Jobs, Little, Brown 2011, ISBN 978-1-4087-03748
Kahney, Leander: The CULT of Mac. No Starch Press 2004, ISBN 10 1886411-83-2
Kahney, Leander: Inside Steve’s Brain. Portfolio 2008, ISBN 978-1-159184-198-2
Kunkel, Paul: Apple Design: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design
Group, Graphics Inc., New York 1997, ISBN 1-888001-15-9
Kare, Susan: ICONS–Selected ICONS 1983–2011, Kareprints.com 2011
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(*) Lindgren, Rolf: Typografi og Macintosh, Spartacus Forlag 1992,
ISBN 82-430-0014-3
(*) Linzmayer, Owen W.: Apple Confidential 2.0, No Starch Press 2004
(2 Ed.), ISBN-13 978-1593270100
(*) Marczak, Edward & Neagle, Greg: Enterprise Mac Managed Preferences,
Apress 2010. ISBN13: 978-1-4302-2937-7
(*) Singh, Amit: Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach. Addison-Wesley Professional
2006, ISBN 13: 9780321278548
White, Kevin M.: Mac OS X Deployment V10.6, Peachpit Press 2010,
ISBN 10: 0-321-63531-0
(*) Williams, Robin: The MAC is not a TYPEWRITER
Peachpit Press 1990, ISBN 0-938151-31-2
Wozniak, Steve: iWoz. Headline Publishing Group, 2006,
ISBN 10: 0 7553 1406 9
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Background, Computer Related
Harris, Robert: ENIGMA, Arrow Books Limited, 1996,
ISBN-10: 0099992000
Friedman, Friedman: Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture,
New York University Press 2005, ISBN 0814727409
Glieck, James: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
Hodges, Andrew: Alan Turing—the enigma, Vintage 1992,
ISBN 9780099116417
(*) Jacobsen, Per H.: IT-historien@UiO, USIT 2001. [In Norwegian]
(*) Jacobsen, Per H.: Håndbok i DDPP, Universitetsforlaget. 1982 [In Norwegian]
Johnsen, Ben: Kryptografi—Den hemmelige skriften, Tapir Akademisk
Forlag, Trondheim 2001 [In Norwegian], ISBN 82-519-16836
Kidder, Tracy: The Soul Of A New Machine, Modern Library Edition
1997, ISBN 0-679-60261-5
Reid, T.R.: The CHIP. Random House, 2001, ISBN 0-375-75828-3
Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh: Enigma—the Battle for the Code, John Wiley
& Sons, 2000, ISBN 0-471-49035-0
Stoll, Clifford: The Cuckoo’s Egg, Doubleday 1989, ISBN 0-38524946-2
Tufte, Edward R.: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out
Corrupts Within, Graphics Press LLC, 2006, ISBN 09613921-6-9
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Not at All Computer Related, but Very Readable
Aid, Matthew M.: The Secret Sentry (NSA), Westchester Book Group, 2009, ISBN 978-159691-512-2
Applebaum, Anne: GULAG: A History, Doubleday, Random House Inc,
2003, ISBN 0-7679-0056-1
le Carré, John: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. 1974, Bantam, ISBN-10: 0553136321
le Carré, John: Smiley’s People,1978, Schribner (2002), ISBN-10: 0743455800
Clostermann, Pierre. The Big Show. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
2004. ISBN 0-29784-619-1.
Crickmore, Paul F.: Lockheed SR-71 Operations in Europe and the
Middle East. Osprey combat aircraft # 80. ISBN 978-1-84603418-5
Crickmore, Paul F.: Lockheed SR-71—The Secret Missions Exposed.
Osprey aerospace, a division of Reed Books Limited. ISBN 185532-681-7
Feynman, Richard P.: Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman!,1997,
W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-31604-1
Forsyth, Frederick: The Fist of God. Bantam, 1994, ISBN10: 0553091263
Forsyth, Frederick: Icon. Bantam, 1997, ISBN10: 0553574604
Forsyth, Frederick: Avenger, 2003, Thomas Dunne Books,
ISBN 0-312-31951-7
Frankson, Anders & Zetterling, Niklas: Slaget om Kursk — historiens
største panserslag. Spartacus, 2006, ISBN 82-430-0388-6
Guderian, Heinz: Panzer Leader, 2002, Da Capo Press, ISBN-10 0-306-81101-4
Hall, Adam: The Tango Briefing. FONTANA/Collins, 1974
ISBN 0-00-613525-0
Muller, Richard A: Physics for Future Presidents, W.W. Norton &
Company, 2008, ISBN 978-0-393-06627-0
O’Brian, Patrick: The Aubrey–Maturin series. Harper Collins Publishers
Petroski, Henry: To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in
Successful Design, Vintage Books, Random House, New
York, 1992, ISBN 978-0-679-73416-1
Reeves, Richard: Daring Young Men (…the Berlin Airlift). Simon &
Schuster, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4165-4119-6
Rich, Ben R.: Skunk Works, Little, Brown and Company, 1994,
ISBN 0-316-74300-3
Shute, Nevil: Round the Bend, William Morrow & Co, New York, 1951
Smith, Starr: JIMMY STEWART—Bomber Pilot, Zenith Press, 2006,
ISBN-13: 978-0-7603-2824-8
Taylor, Richard L.: The First Unrefueled Flight Around the World,
Franklin Watts, 1994, ISBN 0-531-20176-7
Trevor, Elleston: The Flight Of The Phoenix, Harper Entertainment;
Reisue edition (Dec 2004), ISBN-13: 978-0708911471
(*) The University of Chicago Press: The Chicago Manual of Style, The
Univ. of Chicago Press, 2003 ISBN-10: 0-226-10403-6
Veronico, Nicholas A.: World War II Shipyards By The Bay, Arcadia
Publishing, 2007, ISBN10 0-7385-4717-4
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Films, not Computer Related
3 Days of the CONDOR (1975)
1900 (1976)
Alien (1979)
Annie Hall (1977)
Apollo 13 (1995, BD)
Bagdad Café (1987)
Blade Runner (1982, 2007)
Bullit (1968)
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Das Boot (1981, BD)
Enemy of the State (1998, BD)
Firefox (1982)
Flight of the Phoenix (1964)
I’ve Loved You So Long (2008)
Kelly’s Heroes (1970, BD)
Lemon Tree (2008)
Maria Larssons evige øyeblikk (2008)
Master & Commander (2003, BD)
Nikita (1990)
Pale Rider (1985)
Patton (1970)
Space Cowboys (2000)
Spygame (2001, BD)
The General (1927)
The Package (1989)
The Postman (Il Postino) (1994)
The Train (1964)
von Ryans Express (1965)
Good Music
Balladen om Fredrik Åkare och Cecila Lind
(Cornelis Vreeswijk)
The Doors—the whole CD (The Doors)
California Dreamin’ (Mamas & the Papas)
Carry that Weight (Beatles)
Dueling Banjos (Weissberg & Mandell)
Hotel California (Eagles)
In The Summertime (Mungo Jerry)
Let it Be (Beatles)
Lily Was Here (C. Dulfer & D.A. Stewart)
Michelle (Beatles)
Summer in The City (Lovin’ Spoonful)
Summer Afternoon (Kinks)
San Francisco—Be Sure… (Scott
McKenzie)
The Ballad of John & Yoko (Beatles)
The Lion Sleeps Tonight (The Tokens)
The Long And Winding Road (Beatles)
(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay (Otis
Redding)
Stagger Lee (Lloyd Price)
Son Of a Preacher Man (Dusty Springfield)
Yesterday (Beatles)
You’re in the army now (Status Quo)
Mannenberg (Abdullah Ibrahim)
Requiem (Mozart K. 626)
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Index—Mostly Persons, University Units and
External Institutions
A Aagren, Sven christmas shopping · 53 Ju§IT project · 59 Aalborg, Jon educational manager at Apple Norway · 178 Aambø, Kolbjørn · 21 Apple event at the US Embassy · 34 at AUC 1992 Brügge · 164 AUC and Media-­‐Finder 1992 · 163 department of mouse tail research · 43 forum on Friday · 38 project Bagatell · 43 the first Mac at the UiO · 30 Amelio, Gil CEO at Apple 1996–1997 · 171 Amundsen, Arvid developer of DDPP, Discrete Data Program Package · 27 Antonsen, Dag Tore member of macadm · 22 the USIT service CD 2000 · 94 Apple Logo bleed six colors · 175 Arnesen, Ingrid center for IT purchase · 43 Atkinson, Bill Quickdraw, MacPaint, HyperCard · 169 AUC Apple University Consortium · 162 UiO in the · 163 Avitzur, Ron the creation of the Graphic Calculator · 174 B leader of the Mac OS X management group · 155 Buckley, Jim keynote MWSF 1996 · 75 Bugge, Tony member of the MOSX management group · 155 C CDC 3300 UiO's first "main" computer · 23 Chiem, Gia Cuong hardware service · 66 Christiansen, Øystein the first Mac manager at IFI · 139 Clarus the Dogcow · 176 Computec the first importer of Macs · 33 D Dahl, Morten head of the House of Ink project · 62 speaker at AUC 1992 · 163 the project head of JU§IT · 59 DDPP Discrete Data Program Package · 27 DEC 10 UiO's second "main" computer · 25 Dept. of Mathematics selected as a Marie Curie center · 93 Dorner, Steve the Eudora developer · 57 E Beddari, Jan Ivar among the main administrators of the MOSX Workshop 2011 · 155 Bodin, Jorid Into the Great Wide Open · 67 Bruvik, Anders among the main administrators of the MOSX Workshop 2011 · 155 Eken, Torsten UiO—an early LabVIEW site · 54 Engst, Adam of tidbits.com fame · 76 EtherShare Helios the first EtherShare server · 59 Page 193 of 198
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Evensen, Gunnar Høyskoledata · 44 Every, David K. about Carbon API · 82 Examen artium http //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examen_artiu
m · 158 F Fjørtoft, Nils Roe CEO at Apple Norge 97–99 · 178 Fløisbonn, Rune IT director at USIT 1988-­‐91 · 147 Fog, Jørgen at AUC 1992 Brügge · 164 center for IT purchase · 43 Frakes, Dan author of InformINIT · 87 G Gjærum, Kari Apple CD 1988 · 180 GLIT Group for local IT support · 159 Gore, Al former Vice Precident of the USA · 171 Gundersen, Lars A. member of the MOSX management group · 155 H Hansen, Are · 21 ABC about Macintosh · 46 at last, a MS Word class · 58 forum on Fiday—scanning, bit map graphics · 38 freelancing for Macworld Norge · 68 Hansen, Thomas among the main administrators of the MOSX Workshop 2011 · 155 member of the MOSX management group · 155 the present Mac manager at IFI (2011) · 139 Haraldsen, Tore SIFT-­‐developer · 181 Haug, Knut technical resource at Apple Norway · 179 Hauge, Tom CEO at Apple Norge 95–96 · 178 Hegna, Knut · 139 Heier, Arne technical resource at Apple Norway · 179 Helios updating of EtherShare servers · 89 Horn, Bruce at the UiO · 45 forum og Friday—MPW, Lightspeed C comp. · 38 of the early Mac team · 173 Hubred, Jørnar H. the SemReg project · 137 Husebø, Elin educational manager at Apple Norway · 178 Mac User Group and the Tianmen demonstration · 49 Høigård, Cecilie leader of the IT commitee at the faculty of Law · 59 Hølleland, Verner educational manager at Apple Norway · 178 I Ive, Jonathan the chief product designer at Apple · 174 J Jacobsen, Per H. · 20 DDPP user manual · 27 Desktop Publishing article · 38 forum on Friday—TeX · 38 the IT-­‐history · 18 Jenssen, Astrid Into the Great Wide Open · 67 Jobs, Steve born 1955, died 2011 · 171 Co-­‐founder and CEO of Apple 1997-­‐2011 · 171 Macs change CPU to Intel · 115 the DRM-­‐letter · 123 the Stanford Speech · 121 Page 194 of 198
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K Kare, Susan Queen of Icons · 170 Kay, Alan visiting Norway · 58 Kent, Paul Macworld EXPO general manager · 166 Kinetics FastPath MACIP to TCP/IP router · 132 Kirkebø, Kjetil · 69 Kirkebø,Pål developed the first Registration app for SemReg · 149 Knowledge Navigator see John Sculley · 172 L Lande, Tor Sverre The NeXT Cube Come to USIT · 48 Langeland, Stein B. the SemReg project · 137 Larsen, Bjørn Hell test of MacX and AU/X · 63 Larsen, Øystein member of the MOSX management group · 155 Laukholm, Arne IT director at USIT 1992-­‐2007 · 147 Lemke, Thorstein of GraphicConverter fame · 75 Lende, Oddbjørn Høyskoledata · 44 Linna, Torill center for IT purchase · 43 M Mactracker showing the specs of Macs · 18 Martellaro, John a columnist of interest · 95 Martinsen, Odd CEO at Apple Norge 97 · 178 Mead, Carver http //en wikipedia.org/wiki/Carver_Mead/ · 48 Moum, Steinar member of the MOSX management group · 155 Müller, Marius Apple CD 1988 · 180 N NCSA National Center for Supercomputing Applications · 68 Ness, Bjørn communication services—a manual · 60 Drawing of network early 1989 · 52 Macintosh at the UiO—2002 · 101 the struggle for the soul of the PC · 67 Nordhagen, Rolf a virus attack · 50 CDC or DEC computer · 25 IT director at USIT 1972-­‐88 · 146 Normann, Ragnar a “stubborn” Mac user · 139 Norstad, John Developer of Disinfectant—an anti virus app · 50 developer of Newswatcher · 57 Nygaard, Kristen forum on Friday—the Design program · 38 the Turing Award, SIMULA · 140 O Odden, Arne CEO at Apple Norge 99 till date · 178 forum on Friday—Spreadsheet programs · 38 Oftedal, Lars IT director at USIT 2007– · 147 Olesen, Staale technical resource at Apple Norway · 179 Otter Olsen, Kjetil Show Room for IT infrastructur · 54 P Pedersen, Geir developer of MacEAN · 149 Pogue, David It’s a Wonderful Machine · 84 Page 195 of 198
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Programvarehuset the first Mac reseller to the UiO · 34 R Reenskaug, Trygve the first Norwegian to touch a Mac? · 30 Relling, Rune at AUC, Brügge 1992 · 163 educational manager at Apple Norway · 178 The Apple Educational Conference (NUK) · 182 Revang, Øivind at AUC 1992 Brügge · 164 Risung, Knut educational manager at Apple Norway · 178 Rugseth, Jens at AUC 1992 Brügge · 164 Høyskoledata · 44 Skrindo, Audun Brekke member of the MOSX management group · 155 Solli, Bjørge among the main administrators of the MOSX Workshop 2011 · 155 Spindler, Michael CEO at Apple 1993–1996 · 164 SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences · 27 Standahl, Jan Erik CEO at Apple Norge 90–94 · 178 Statens Datasentral SIFT (Searching in Free Text) · 181 Syvertsen, Tore SIFT-­‐developer · 181 Szefler, Alexandra T. Into the Great Wide Open · 67 T S San Francisco Chronicle Macworld San Francisco · 165 Sandahl, Tone Into the Great Wide Open · 67 Sculley, John at AUC · 163 CEO at Apple 1983–1993 · 164 Seland, Anne C. at AUC 1992 Brügge · 164 Siljubergsåsen, Per developer of Addessfinder –X.500 · 149 Silye, Frank Paul member of the MOSX management group · 155 Singh, Amit The Internals of Mac OS X · 67 Sira, Per an important report · 36 USIT’ video studio · 96 video conference · 148 Sjøgren, Andora IT director at USIT 1991 · 147 Skaar, Stein Terje CEO at Apple Norge 86–89 · 178 the Mac Clone—Power Computing · 80 Skogheim, Steinar Somebody will take my Mac… · 81 Taraldsen, Magnus hardware service · 66 USIT’s video studio · 96 Tevanian, Avadis the letter to Avie · 166 Thomassen, Jens put the NeXT on line · 49 Tognazzini, Bruce on the iPhone · 122 V Valmot, Odd Richard Information manager at SI · 39 Varadarajan, Srinidhi System X at Virginia Tech · 107 Vazelina Bilopphøggers Apple CD 1989 · 180 Verne, Hans Peter member of the MOSX management group · 155 Vestheim, Erik member of the MOSX management group · 155 Page 196 of 198
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W Welch, John C. chattiness of Appletalk · 131 Wigtil, Steinar of Norwegian Social Science Data Service · 158 Wik, Klaus member of macadm · 22 the SemReg project · 137 Wozniac, Stephen co-­‐founder of Apple · 175 Page 197 of 198
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