Revolution in the Valley: The Birth of the Mac Through an Employee's Eyes
This is more than the history of a computer's creation. It's the story of how a brilliant and passionate band of "pirates," led by a legendary visionary, challenged convention, upended an industry, and ultimately changed the world with a product that was "insanely great." Through the eyes of an insider, Andy Hertzfeld, we get a glimpse into those revolutionary times in Silicon Valley.
1979: What Hath Woz Wrought
In the summer of 1979, a young Andy Hertzfeld dropped out of graduate school to join the rising star that was Apple Computer. His first assignment was to write firmware for an inexpensive thermal printer called the Apple Silentype. The project perfectly embodied Apple's engineering philosophy. The interface board, designed by hardware lead Victor "Vic" Bull, was minimalist. The printer mechanism itself was a collaboration with a small company called Trendcom. The core concept, however, came from Apple's co-founder, Steve "Woz" Wozniak. Woz had pioneered the practice of replacing complex hardware circuits with clever software, drastically cutting costs in designs like the Apple II's floppy disk controller.
Andy was thrilled to realize he would get to "play the Woz software role" in this project. He had to write firmware in a tiny 2KB ROM that could directly control the printer's seven minuscule heating elements to print graphics or text from the Apple II. Andy quickly coded the low-level routines, allowing users to print a screen dump with a simple key combination. However, when considering what the printer's very first output should be, he wanted to go beyond the standard programmer's "Hello, World!" Inspired by a colleague, he recalled the first message sent by telegraph inventor Samuel Morse: "What hath God wrought?" In a stroke of genius, to pay homage to both Morse and Apple's legendary engineer, Andy decided the printer's inaugural message would be: "What Hath Woz Wrought?" When that line successfully printed, Andy treasured that slip of thermal paper for years; it was the symbolic start of his career at Apple.
On this project, Andy also got his first taste of Apple's freewheeling and sometimes wild engineering culture. Fearing that a software crash could cause the thermal printhead to overheat and catch fire, Vic had added a timed power-off circuit to the hardware. To test this mechanism, Andy wrote a mischievous program to run the heating elements at a 99% duty cycle, intentionally trying to set the paper ablaze. To his surprise, the paper began to smolder with an acrid smoke, then burned through, and even sprouted a tiny flame! Andy quickly smothered it with his jacket, though the printhead was ruined. This "little fire" not only proved the necessity of the protection circuit but also showcased a culture that encouraged engineers to boldly push technology to its limits. No one reprimanded him; instead, the incident became an office anecdote, and the printer was even occasionally used to "perform a flame show." Ultimately, the marketing department aptly named the quiet device the "Silentype," a pun that delighted the wordplay-loving Andy and brought his first Apple experience to a perfect close.
1979: I'll Be Your Best Friend
Just one week into his new job at Apple, a mysterious black binder appeared on Andy's desk. The cover was hand-labeled "Apple II Principles of Operation." The binder contained a brilliant analysis of the Apple II's clever hardware design, and the author was credited as Burrell C. Smith. Soon after, a young man with long blond hair and an expression of excitement mixed with shyness—Burrell himself—appeared at Andy's cubicle. He enthusiastically praised a technical article Andy had published and shook his hand ceremoniously, as if he had found a kindred spirit.
Burrell was Apple employee #282, a self-taught hardware prodigy. He had started as a low-level technician in the service department but was captivated by Woz's designs. By repairing returned Apple II motherboards, he not only mastered their intricacies but also began conceiving improvements of his own, compiling his insights into the binder he shared so openly with his new colleague. The two quickly became close friends, often grabbing lunch together. Andy discovered that Burrell's creativity wasn't limited to engineering; he was full of whimsical ideas in daily life, convincing restaurant waiters to make a single pizza with three or even five different toppings, or mixing Coke and Sprite in specific ratios as an experimental "cocktail." This exploratory spirit in life was an extension of his engineering genius.
Burrell's talent soon became undeniable. When the high-end Lisa team struggled with insufficient memory, he had a flash of insight: he could modify the Apple II's 16KB language card into an 80KB expansion card. Using a technique called bank-switching, he cleverly bypassed the Apple II's 64KB memory addressing limit. The idea immediately won the admiration of senior programmer Bill Atkinson. Burrell quickly soldered a prototype, Bill modified the software to support it, and it worked perfectly. The success of this "80KB language card" transformed Burrell from an unknown service tech into an in-house star, and it brought him to the attention of Jef Raskin, the "father of the Macintosh." It was Bill Atkinson who introduced Burrell to Raskin, declaring, "This is the kid who can design the Macintosh computer for you!"
Burrell's humor also infused the team with energy. He was fond of saying, "I'll be your best friend!" as a way to ask for a favor. He even developed a geeky theory of a "Best Friend Relationship" (B.F.R.), claiming it was highly dynamic with an average duration of only three to five milliseconds. This blending of technical jargon into everyday banter was a vivid snapshot of the team's culture. They were casual, egalitarian, and even gave themselves fun titles on their business cards; Andy called himself a "Software Wizard." This "pirate culture" encouraged creativity and self-deprecation, laying the cultural groundwork for the "insane" innovation of the Mac team.
1979: We'll See About That
In late 1979, Apple was secretly planning an inexpensive, easy-to-use computer for the masses—the initial concept for the Macintosh. The project's originator, Jef Raskin, had authored a series of papers outlining his vision for an ideal computer costing "no more than $500" and had named it after his favorite variety of apple (McIntosh). However, Raskin lacked the hardware engineer to turn his dream into reality.
This was when Burrell Smith, fresh off the fame of his 80KB language card, entered the picture. Bill Atkinson brought the 23-year-old Burrell, who had no college degree, to Raskin's home and solemnly recommended him: "Jef, this is the guy who can design the Macintosh for you." Raskin was skeptical of the young prodigy. His response was measured and meaningful: "We'll see about that." That phrase was both a challenge and the starting gun for the Mac project's journey from concept to reality.
Burrell accepted the challenge. Working day and night over the 1979 Christmas holiday and using an Apple II as his development platform, he designed the very first Macintosh prototype by January 1980. It wasn't a standalone computer, but an interface card equipped with a Motorola 6809E processor and 64KB of RAM. It communicated with the Apple II host via shared memory and output a 256x256 pixel monochrome image to a small 7-inch display. The design was a testament to Burrell's "hardware/software trade-off" ingenuity, achieving functionality with minimal hardware.
The hardware was ready, but it needed software to be validated. Andy Hertzfeld again stepped up, writing a test program in his spare time. However, the biggest challenge was loading the software into the running Apple II without shutting down and rebooting the prototype. Just as Andy was stumped, early Apple employee Cliff Huston confidently declared he could "hot-plug" the disk controller card. As everyone held their breath, Cliff inserted the card with lightning speed and precision. Miraculously, the Apple II didn't miss a beat and recognized the new hardware. Andy immediately loaded and ran his program, and it worked on the first try! A clear image appeared on the prototype's tiny screen.
This marked the Mac's leap from non-existence into being. The team was ecstatic, and Burrell excitedly showed the result to every colleague who passed by. While Raskin was pleased, he was slightly annoyed by this "unauthorized" hacker-like programmer. Nevertheless, this success had already brought a passionate group of young engineers together. A team that would change the history of personal computing had been formed. The prophecy of "We'll see about that" was being fulfilled faster than anyone could have imagined.
1980: Scrooge McDuck
The first time the Macintosh "opened its eyes" to the world, the image it displayed was a whimsical Disney cartoon: Donald Duck's wealthy uncle, Scrooge McDuck, grinning as he played a fiddle atop a mountain of gold coins. This became the very first image ever displayed on a Mac, and its creation was a story filled with drama.
On that pivotal night in January 1980, after Cliff Huston's amazing hot-plugging feat, Andy loaded his test program. He had chosen the Scrooge image serendipitously from a floppy disk of Disney characters, feeling its depiction of a rich but happy miser ironically suited Apple's status as a wealthy yet challenging company. To give his friend Burrell a surprise, Andy cleverly used the extra space at the bottom of the screen to write a greeting in a beautiful 24-point font: "Hi Burrell!"
The next day, Burrell was ecstatic when he saw the image and the greeting, proudly showing off "the Mac's first picture." This breakthrough quickly caught the attention of upper management; Vice President of Engineering Tom Whitney was impressed and became more confident in the project's viability. Project originator Jef Raskin, however, was still slightly displeased with Andy's unauthorized demonstration to management, seeing him as a "hacker" who didn't follow the rules.
Unlike the cautious Raskin, another of Apple's soul figures—Steve Jobs—sensed the revolutionary potential in this achievement. An inexpensive computer with such powerful graphics capabilities was exactly the future he envisioned. It's said that Jobs laughed heartily when he saw the Scrooge image and quipped, "We can't let the Mac become a miser!" He appreciated the humor but also used it as a reminder to the team that the Mac's mission was to be a tool of revolution, not a keeper of the status quo.
This successful demonstration was a synthesis of clever hardware design, efficient low-level programming, and audacious on-the-spot maneuvering, fully showcasing the Mac team's early "renegade" brilliance. It didn't just light up a screen; it ignited the entire team's belief and cohesiveness. The image of Scrooge McDuck not only prompted Jobs to eventually take personal control of the Mac project but also reappeared as an Easter egg at the official 1984 launch, a tribute to those passionate, formative days.
1981: Texaco Towers
In early 1981, the Mac project reached a decisive turning point. Steve Jobs officially took over from Jef Raskin, elevating it to a core strategic priority for Apple. He moved the small team from the main Apple campus to a nondescript office building nearby that had once been an office for the Texaco oil company. The team affectionately nicknamed it the "Texaco Towers." As Andy later recalled, "It was in that building that the Mac became real."
This move symbolized the Mac team's transition into a new, independent phase of development. Jobs began to assemble a small, elite, interdisciplinary "dream team." He recruited top talent from all over Apple: analog genius George Crow to design the power supply, systems software expert Bud Tribble as software manager, and a group of artists and young engineers like icon designer Susan Kare.
Within the Texaco Towers, a unique "pirate culture" began to flourish. The team hoisted a pirate flag—hand-drawn by engineer Steve Capps with a skull and a rainbow Apple logo for an eye patch—on the roof, signaling their rebellious spirit and their mission to challenge the "navy" (a reference to IBM or the company's internal bureaucracy). The office was messy but crackling with energy. Engineers often worked through the night, catching a few hours of sleep on the office floor. Jobs acted as a demanding but charismatic captain, roaming the cubicles, proposing bold ideas, and motivating everyone with his famous mantra: "Real artists ship."
It was in this humble building that the Mac's technical development went into high gear. On the hardware side, Burrell Smith designed five different prototype architectures over two years, constantly seeking the optimal balance between performance and cost. On the software side, Andy Hertzfeld worked closely with Bill Atkinson and others, slimming down and optimizing graphics routines from the Lisa project to create the efficient QuickDraw library. Their greatest challenge was to implement Jobs's vision of a fluid graphical interface and mouse control within the severe constraint of just 128KB of RAM. The building witnessed countless technical debates, late-night debugging sessions, and cheers of triumph. They even created T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "90 Hours A Week And Loving It," embracing their insane work schedule with a mix of humor and pride. The Texaco Towers was the Mac team's "garage," where the soul of this revolutionary product was forged.
1981: A Message For Adam
The West Coast Computer Faire in April 1981 was a major event for the personal computer industry. It was here that the fledgling Mac team faced its first public taunt from a fellow industry player. Adam Osborne, founder of the world's first successful portable computer, the Osborne 1, was known for his outspoken style. When he learned Apple was developing a small, graphical computer called the Macintosh, he accosted Jobs and several team members with a dismissive jab.
Wielding his 24-pound "luggable" computer, Osborne scoffed, "That tiny screen you're using on the Mac, what's it good for? A paperweight?" He argued that no user would ever want a "little toy" with a 9-inch display. Faced with this ridicule, Jobs remained surprisingly calm, simply smiling and telling Osborne to "wait and see." But the words stung the Mac team members who were present.
Back at the office, they vowed to "make Osborne eat his words." Andy posted a cartoon on the team's bulletin board depicting a muscular figure holding a small-screen computer, about to smash a chattering, big-mouthed bird (a caricature of Osborne). The title was written in bold letters: "A Message For Adam." This dark humor became a powerful motivator. Jobs also used the incident to rally the troops: "Maybe Adam is right. If we don't make something amazing, it really will be the toy he says it is."
Osborne's criticism wasn't entirely baseless; the small screen was a huge design challenge. The team worked tirelessly to create a useful graphical interface within the limited 512x342 pixels. Bill Atkinson's QuickDraw library was heavily optimized for it, Susan Kare's icons and fonts were designed for clarity, and the innovation of placing the menu bar permanently at the top of the screen was a key strategy to maximize every pixel of usable space.
They were convinced they were on the right path. As Jobs later said, "Our screen may be small, but every pixel is exquisitely crafted." History delivered the final verdict. In 1984, when the elegant Macintosh was successfully launched, Osborne's computer company had already filed for bankruptcy due to mismanagement. The Mac team had delivered its message to its one-time challenger in the loudest way possible: with undeniable success.
1981: Pineapple Pizza
One Friday afternoon in May 1981 marked a milestone for the Mac team: the first Printed Circuit Board (PCB) sample arrived from the manufacturer. This signified a major step for the Mac's hardware, moving from a tangled wire-wrapped prototype to a stable, reliable integrated board. Hardware genius Burrell Smith and designer Collette Askeland had poured weeks of effort into it.
The board arrived unexpectedly early. Burrell and his assistant planned to start debugging it the following week. But Steve Jobs, unable to wait, rushed into the lab and asked, "Can we get it running tonight?" Burrell explained it would take at least a few hours, and it was already late. Unwilling to wait, Jobs knew Burrell had recently become obsessed with pineapple pizza. He smiled and made an offer: "If you get the board fired up tonight, I'll buy pineapple pizza for everyone who stays!"
This simple but enticing incentive worked. Burrell, Andy, and a few other core members decided to stay and work late. The lab was filled with a tense but excited energy as everyone gathered around Burrell, watching him as if witnessing the birth of a new life. After hours of careful soldering and assembly, around 8 PM, Burrell took a deep breath and applied power to the new board for the first time.
The screen lit up, but instead of the expected greeting, it displayed a garbled checkerboard pattern. After a moment of silence, Burrell broke into a smile. "That's not so bad," he said. "It means the memory and video are mostly working. We're close." He then turned to Jobs and announced, "But I'm too hungry. I think it's time for that pineapple pizza!"
Jobs laughed, acknowledging the team's partial victory. The group drove to a famous local Italian restaurant and feasted on delicious pineapple pizza. At the table, Jobs raised a glass to thank Burrell for bringing the board to "life," to which Burrell humorously retorted, "And thank the pizza for bringing me to life!"
This "Pineapple Pizza Night" vividly illustrates the Mac team's culture: work hard, and celebrate hard. Jobs's unique leadership style, replacing harsh demands with just the right incentives, fostered an atmosphere of trust and camaraderie. It was countless nights like this—forged by friendship, passion, and pizza—that ultimately built the incredible machine that was the Macintosh.
1981: Round Rects Are Everywhere!
In the development of the Macintosh graphical interface, one seemingly minor element profoundly reflects Steve Jobs's aesthetic obsession and the team's fanatical attention to detail: the rounded rectangle. At the time, nearly everything on a computer screen was composed of stark, right-angled corners. But Jobs believed that a product's friendliness was conveyed in every detail. He wanted the Mac's windows, buttons, and dialog boxes to have smooth, rounded corners, imparting a softer, more approachable feel.
This seemingly simple request was a significant technical challenge. The genius programmer behind the QuickDraw graphics library, Bill Atkinson, poured immense effort into solving the problem. Through clever mathematical optimizations and lookup tables, he wrote an algorithm that could rapidly draw smooth rounded corners without slowing down the system.
When Bill first showed the result to Jobs, he was ecstatic. He grabbed Bill, exclaiming, "Look, round rects are everywhere!" He began pointing out examples of rounded corners in the real world—from street signs to television casings—and used them to stress to the team that computer interfaces should also possess this natural, curved aesthetic.
The "rounded rectangle" quickly became a design principle for the Mac team. Andy Hertzfeld made full use of the feature when writing interface code; designer Susan Kare deliberately used rounded borders in her icons to maintain stylistic consistency. The design philosophy even extended to the hardware, with the physical casing of the Mac also being designed with soft, rounded edges.
This story perfectly illustrates the tight integration of design and engineering on the Mac team. On one hand, Jobs, with his extraordinary aesthetic intuition, pushed for seemingly "fussy" visual requirements. On the other, the engineers, with their exceptional talent, transformed these artistic visions into reality. They would debate for hours over a single pixel's difference just to find the most visually pleasing curvature. This shared obsession with perfection gave the Mac's interface a sophistication and elegance that was years ahead of its time, and it profoundly influenced software design for decades to come.
1981: PC Board Esthetics
Steve Jobs's pursuit of beauty was all-encompassing, extending even to the parts a user would never see. In mid-1981, when the first version of the Mac's printed circuit board (PCB) was completed, he made a request that left his engineers dumbfounded: redesign the layout to make the circuit board itself look "beautiful."
Jobs was a firm believer that great craftsmen use fine wood even for the back of a cabinet. Holding the functionally perfect circuit board, he pointed to traces that took the shortest path for performance and said, "These lines are all crooked. It's bothering me." He then pointed to the arrangement of components: "These chips aren't neat. Move them so they line up."
Initially, hardware designers Burrell Smith and George Crow tried to explain that a PCB's layout is dictated by signal integrity and performance, not aesthetics. But Jobs was insistent: "I don't care how you do it. The final product has to be visually pleasing in my hand." He even quoted his father's lesson: "You know whether or not you've done it right."
Reluctantly, Burrell and PCB designer Collette Askeland spent an extra week on a "cosmetic optimization" of the board, without sacrificing core performance. They slightly enlarged the board, straightened many signal lines or gave them graceful curves, and rearranged the chips and components for a more symmetrical and harmonious visual order.
When the new version was finished, Jobs nodded in satisfaction. This incident sent shockwaves through the team. Some initially complained about Jobs's "nitpicking," but afterward, even they had to admit the redesigned board looked like a meticulously crafted work of art. This "PC board esthetics" affair sent a powerful message to the entire team: Apple's pursuit of excellence was not just skin deep. It ingrained a "design-driven" philosophy into the company's DNA and ultimately forged the legendary image of Apple products being exquisite, inside and out.
1981: Shut Up!
In July 1981, in an effort to build a future software ecosystem, Apple invited executives from Microsoft—then far from a giant—for a top-secret demonstration of the Macintosh prototype. Jobs hoped to persuade Bill Gates to develop applications for the Mac and decided to show them its revolutionary appeal.
The demo was led by Jobs himself, with Bill Gates and his key developers in the audience. As Jobs used a mouse to fluidly draw, erase, and undo actions on the screen in a "what you see is what you get" fashion, the Microsoft engineers, accustomed to command-line interfaces, were deeply impressed.
However, a developer on Microsoft's team named Charles Simonyi, acting on technical instinct, repeatedly interrupted the presentation with sharp questions about technical details like memory usage and multitasking. Jobs initially answered patiently, but as Simonyi's interruptions became incessant, he finally lost his temper. The next time Simonyi cut in, Jobs whipped around and snapped, "Shut up!"
The room fell into a dead silence, the atmosphere suddenly tense and awkward. Bill Gates quickly smoothed things over, asking Jobs to continue. Despite the unpleasant incident, after the demo, Gates gave the Mac high praise and promised on the spot to develop new versions of a spreadsheet (which would become Excel) and a word processor for the machine.
This dramatic demonstration marked the beginning of the early partnership between Apple and Microsoft, and it also foreshadowed their complex future rivalry. Jobs's powerful "Reality Distortion Field" and his absolute control over his product were on full display. For the Mac team, they not only witnessed their creation's power to captivate a future industry leader but also felt from their leader that unwavering, die-hard determination to defend his dream. The demo also served as a catalyst for Microsoft, spurring them to take graphical interfaces more seriously and indirectly leading to the development of Windows.
1981: Donkey
In the summer of 1981, the launch of the IBM PC created immense competitive pressure for Apple. Jobs immediately bought one for the Mac team to study the competition. While exploring this new machine, Andy Hertzfeld discovered a simple, clumsy little game called DONKEY.BAS. In the game, the player controls a car to dodge a donkey on the road. The graphics, sound, and gameplay were all remarkably crude and amateurish.
The Mac team members played it and laughed. "My god, this is so bad! Who wrote this?" Out of curiosity, they looked at the source code and were stunned to find two names credited as the authors: Neil Konzen and—Bill Gates.
The discovery sent the entire Mac team into hysterics. The great titan of the software industry, Bill Gates, had written such a terrible game! It was likely a quick demo program he had slapped together while rushing to finish the BASIC interpreter for the IBM PC. When Jobs heard about it, he laughed and said, "Looks like Bill doesn't have much talent for game design."
The incident quickly became an inside joke. "Watch out, don't get hit by the donkey!" became a popular quip, used to poke fun at crude technology or mistakes. This little episode greatly boosted the Mac team's sense of superiority and confidence. Even though the IBM PC was powerful hardware, they were convinced that the Mac would ultimately win with a superior software experience.
The story of "Donkey" serves as a lighthearted footnote that highlights the Mac's forward-thinking approach to user experience and software creativity. It motivated the team to create applications that were truly polished and fun, far beyond what their competitors were offering. Years later, when Bill Gates was asked what the worst program he ever wrote was, he admitted with a wry smile that it was probably that "donkey game." And so, that little pixelated donkey left a hilarious mark on the legend of the Mac's creation.
1982: The Signing Party
In February 1982, Steve Jobs came up with a brilliantly creative idea to commemorate and honor the hard work of the Mac team. Inspired by the tradition of artists signing their work, he decided that every core team member would leave their signature on the inside of the Macintosh's case. These signatures would be etched into the injection mold, so that every mass-produced Mac would forever carry the mark of its creators.
The team held a unique "Signing Party." On a sheet of plastic that would be used to create the mold, Jobs was the first to sign his name. He was followed by Andy Hertzfeld, Burrell Smith, Bill Atkinson, and 44 other engineers, designers, marketing staff, and managers, each carefully finding a spot to add their signature. The atmosphere was both lighthearted and sacred. They joked with each other, and some added little doodles next to their names, like Susan Kare's smiley face, which would later inspire the iconic "happy Mac" startup icon.
The gesture deeply moved every member of the team. In that era, engineers were often unsung heroes, their names rarely associated with the final product. But Jobs, in this way, gave them the highest form of honor and recognition. At the party, he said, "Someday in the future, when the Mac is everywhere, you can tell your family and friends: open this computer up, my name is inside." Many were moved to tears.
This signing ceremony was more than just a morale booster; it was a perfect embodiment of the Mac team's culture. It symbolized that the Mac was the product of collective genius, a unique team honor. After the Mac was released, geeks who took their machines apart discovered these hidden signatures, and the story quickly became a media sensation, spreading the legend of the Mac "pirates" around the world. These signatures were not just etched in plastic; they were engraved in the hearts of every team member, an eternal testament to the history they made together.
1982: And Another Thing...
Inside Apple, the Mac was not the only graphical computer in development. The Lisa project, which started earlier and had a much larger budget, was positioned as a high-end business machine and existed in parallel competition with the Mac team. As the Mac project, under Jobs's leadership, progressed rapidly and proved to be more revolutionary, friction between the two teams intensified.
The Lisa team felt that Jobs and his "pirates" were stealing the resources and glory that should have been theirs. During a heated internal product strategy meeting, Lisa's hardware manager, Rich Page, angrily told Jobs, "The stuff we're slaving over on Lisa, your Mac is just a toy!" Jobs retorted without missing a beat, "The Mac is the future."
The argument escalated, with Page suggesting that the Mac should be canceled to protect Lisa. The meeting ended on a sour note. As he was leaving, Page turned back and added bitterly, "And another thing... I'm sick of you telling us what to do!" The phrase perfectly captured the tense, combative relationship between the two sides.
Behind this conflict lay a fundamental divergence in technical roadmaps and market positioning. Lisa aimed for comprehensive functionality, but this made it expensive (it ultimately priced at nearly $10,000) and somewhat bloated. The Mac, in contrast, pursued a philosophy of simplicity, striving to achieve the best possible user experience with limited resources and cost.
This internal competition, while stressful and causing friction, also acted as a catalyst, forging an even stronger fighting spirit within the Mac team. They felt a sense of urgency, "We're not just fighting IBM, we're also fighting the Lisa guys downstairs." They were driven to prove that a "small team could do great things." They obsessively optimized the graphics response speed and system stability, aiming to outperform the "big brother" Lisa in every metric. This period of "us versus them," though full of pressure, sharpened the Mac team's extraordinary creativity and execution. In the end, the market made the final choice: the expensive Lisa was a short-lived wonder, while the accessible Macintosh ushered in a new era of personal computing.
1983: Too Big For My Britches
As Mac development entered its final, frantic stretch, management issues began to surface within the team. In early 1983, Andy Hertzfeld, a core software engineer, experienced a heartbreaking performance review. His direct supervisor, Bob Belleville, a software manager hired from Xerox, delivered a surprisingly harsh evaluation in a long-overdue meeting.
Belleville's management style was traditional and authoritarian, clashing with the free-spirited "pirate" culture of the Mac team. He felt that Andy, by reporting directly to Jobs, was "disrespecting the management structure." In the review, he told Andy bluntly, "You've gotten too big for your britches lately. You're not as humble as you used to be." He accused Andy of overstepping his role by getting involved in hardware discussions and used this as a pretext to deny him a promotion and a raise.
The conversation left Andy feeling deeply wronged and betrayed. He felt he had given his all to the project, making significant contributions, only to be deliberately suppressed by his manager. Belleville's final words, "Either accept it or leave," were the last straw. The incident caused a stir within the team, with most colleagues siding with Andy, feeling that Belleville's management style was petty and bureaucratic.
This unpleasant review exposed a conflict between two different cultures transitioning within the team: the founding culture, driven by contribution and passion, versus a more traditional management style emphasizing hierarchy and control. For Andy personally, this event became the catalyst for his eventual decision to leave Apple. Shortly after the Mac's launch, he resigned to pursue new dreams. The incident also became a case study in Apple's management history, a lesson on how to effectively motivate and retain brilliant core talent within a great project.
1983: Quick, Hide in This Closet!
In the latter stages of Mac development, the team faced a tricky hardware problem: the Apple-developed Twiggy floppy disk drive they planned to use was unreliable and performed poorly. Hardware engineer George Crow knew that the best solution was to use a new 3.5-inch drive developed by the Japanese company Sony. However, Steve Jobs, out of a sense of pride in Apple's self-developed technology, was initially dead set against it and explicitly forbade the team from contacting Sony.
For the sake of the final product's quality, George and a few other engineers decided to "act now and ask for forgiveness later." Behind Jobs's back, they began secretly evaluating Sony's drive. A dramatic scene unfolded during one of these clandestine meetings: just as a Sony engineer, Hideaki Kamoto, was demonstrating a sample in the Mac lab, Jobs unexpectedly returned to the office early.
In a moment of panic, George Crow and his colleagues thought fast. They whispered to the startled Sony engineer, "Quick, hide in this closet!" They swiftly ushered the small-statured Mr. Kamoto, along with his materials, into a storage closet. Jobs came in, looked around, seemed slightly puzzled by the closet, but left without investigating further.
This nerve-wracking "hide-the-engineer" incident later became a legendary tale within the Mac team. It perfectly encapsulated the team's "pirate spirit": in their pursuit of an excellent product, they were willing to challenge authority, even at the risk of being fired. Ultimately, the engineers' persistence was proven right. The Macintosh adopted Sony's 3.5-inch drive, which not only dramatically improved the product's reliability but also helped establish that format as a global industry standard. This comical yet significant episode showcased the extraordinary courage, wisdom, and conviction of engineers fighting for engineering truth.
1983: Steve Wozniak University
Burrell Smith, the genius who single-handedly designed the Mac's hardware, had a "shortcoming" that seemed increasingly out of place in the rapidly formalizing Apple Computer: he didn't have a college degree. Some of the newly hired managers took issue with this, questioning his lack of a formal educational background.
To push back against this pedantic credentialism and to celebrate Burrell's phenomenal talent, Andy and the team came up with a respectful joke. They claimed that Burrell had graduated from a unique institution: "Steve Wozniak University." The meaning was clear: Burrell's talent was mentored by the legendary Steve Wozniak, who himself had not finished college yet created the Apple II. This kind of real-world knowledge, gained through practice, was far more valuable than any paper diploma.
The joke quickly spread throughout the team. When an internal publication interviewed Burrell, he answered with a straight face that he had graduated from "Woz U," leaving the reporter and his doubters speechless. Apple's other co-founder, Steve Wozniak himself, roared with laughter when he heard about it. He even signed a certificate of honor, awarding Burrell a degree in "self-taught engineering" as a sign of his support.
The story of "Woz U" powerfully defended the Mac team's core value that ability and contribution trump all else. They revered true talent and despised bureaucracy and formalism. It was this unconventional, meritocratic culture that allowed a raw gem like Burrell to shine so brightly. In the end, based on his undeniable contributions, Burrell was promoted to "Apple Fellow," the company's highest technical position. The facts proved that true creativity cannot be measured by a degree.
1983: Make a Mess, Clean It Up!
Amidst the intense development work, the Mac team also needed to unwind. Burrell Smith became obsessed with an arcade game called Defender. He played with incredible passion, but his skills were mediocre. Every game was a flurry of frantic joystick movements and loud exclamations, always ending in a "chaotic" defeat.
However, a curious detail caught his colleagues' attention. After "making a mess," Burrell would immediately take out a tissue and meticulously wipe the game console's control panel and screen clean before resetting the joystick. He explained, "I made such a mess, I have to clean it up. Otherwise, the next person can't play properly."
This small act stood in stark contrast to his wild gameplay. His colleague Donn Denman saw it as a perfect metaphor for Burrell's character and wrote a humorous anecdote about it titled "Make a Mess, Clean It Up!" The story quickly circulated and resonated with the team.
They realized this was a perfect description of how Burrell, and indeed the entire Mac team, worked. In the R&D process, they were fearless in trying crazy new ideas, unafraid of temporarily "making a mess" of the system or "creating trouble." But more importantly, they held themselves to a high standard of responsibility. When a problem arose, they would personally fix it, never leaving a mess for others. This culture of "permission to fail, but responsibility to fix" encouraged innovation while ensuring the quality of the final product. This simple philosophy, born in the office arcade, vividly illustrates the courage and accountability that defined the Mac team's pursuit of breakthroughs.
1983: 90 Hours A Week And Loving It
By the fall of 1983, the development of the Macintosh had reached a fever pitch. Team members were practically living at the office, with 80- to 90-hour workweeks becoming the norm. Yet, in this state of extreme pressure, the prevailing atmosphere was not one of complaint, but of pride and passion.
The perfect embodiment of this spirit came from a DIY sweatshirt created by Burrell Smith. He took a standard Apple T-shirt, cut off the sleeves, and scrawled a slogan across it with a marker: "90 Hours A Week And Loving It!"
This seemingly self-deprecating motto instantly ignited the entire team. It perfectly captured their current lifestyle and inner feelings—though physically exhausted, their spirits were soaring from the excitement of creating history. When Jobs saw it, he loved it. He immediately had the company produce a batch of T-shirts with the slogan and distributed them to every team member.
"90 Hours A Week" became the Mac team's unofficial motto and a badge of honor. Wearing this "battle uniform," they conquered countless technical hurdles in those final months: squeezing space for applications out of the 128KB of memory, debugging the LaserWriter communication protocol through the night, and drawing thousands of Japanese characters for the font library. They weren't being forced to work overtime; they were choosing to, reluctant to leave the lab for fear of missing an opportunity to make the Mac even better. This period of insane dedication forged a group of individuals into an unstoppable collective. Their spirit of sacrifice is what ultimately made a great product possible.
1983: A Rich Neighbor Named Xerox
As the Macintosh launch neared, Microsoft's announcement that it was developing Windows 1.0 sent Steve Jobs into a fury. He saw it as blatant plagiarism and summoned Bill Gates to Apple headquarters for a confrontation, demanding to know why he was "ripping us off."
Faced with Jobs's volcanic anger, Bill Gates's response was calm and historically ironic. He delivered his now-famous metaphor: "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way to look at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."
Gates's implication was that Apple's own graphical interface was inspired by the work done at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and therefore Apple had no right to claim a monopoly on the idea. The statement enraged Jobs but also hit a nerve, pointing to the complex and subtle lineage of technological innovation.
It was true that Jobs's 1979 visit to Xerox PARC was a key catalyst for the Lisa and Macintosh. However, the Mac team believed they had transformed Xerox's crude lab prototypes into an elegant, usable, and affordable product for the masses, which was a revolutionary innovation in itself. They saw Microsoft's move as opportunistic imitation.
This "rich neighbor Xerox" argument marked the turning point in the Apple-Microsoft relationship, shifting it from collaboration to all-out competition. It also served as a profound lesson for the Mac team: innovation is a relentless relay race. If you don't keep running, you too could become the next "rich neighbor" to be surpassed. The challenge from their competitor only hardened their resolve to stay ahead.
1983: Steve Capps Day
In late 1983, a talented software engineer named Steve Capps joined from the Lisa team to work on key applications for the Mac, including the crucial Finder. He had a lively personality and a signature look: functional overalls and a baseball cap. To welcome this important newcomer and continue the team's tradition of pranks, they planned a surprise.
A day before Christmas was declared "Steve Capps Day." Every member of the team, including Steve Jobs, secretly came to work dressed exactly like Capps, in blue overalls and baseball caps. When Capps walked through the door, he was stunned—dozens of his "clones" were sitting there, smiling at him.
The office erupted in deafening laughter and cheers. Jobs clapped Capps on the shoulder and said, "Welcome to Steve Capps Day!" This elaborate joke instantly broke the ice, making the new member feel welcomed and accepted as part of the family.
The event vividly showcased the Mac team's unique culture: even under intense pressure, they maintained a sense of humor and childlike fun, knowing how to find joy amidst the struggle and build team spirit. Jobs was happy to participate, shedding his CEO persona to share a laugh with his employees. This atmosphere of egalitarian fun was crucial for fostering the team's cohesion. It was more than just a prank; it was a celebration of each team member's personality and contribution.
1984: The Mac Is Born!
On January 24, 1984, on the stage of the Flint Center, Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh to the world. After showing the groundbreaking "1984" Super Bowl commercial, he pulled the compact Mac computer out of a canvas bag.
Before an audience of nearly three thousand, Jobs conducted a series of dazzling demonstrations. Finally, he smiled and said, "Now, I'd like to let Macintosh speak for itself."
With the tap of a key, text appeared on the Mac's screen, and simultaneously, a clear, synthesized voice emerged from the machine: "Hello, I am Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag…"
The hall fell silent for a beat, then erupted in thunderous applause and cheers that went on and on. The audience rose to its feet. Jobs, with tears in his eyes, looked proudly toward his team in the audience. In that moment, all the hard work, the arguments, the sacrifices, and the dreams coalesced into a single, shining moment of triumph. Down in the audience, the members of the Mac team hugged each other and wept. They knew they had truly changed the world.
The launch was an unprecedented success. With its friendly graphical interface, innovative mouse control, and revolutionary design philosophy, the Macintosh heralded a new era of personal computing. After the event, the Mac team returned to Apple headquarters and hoisted their famous pirate flag over the building to celebrate their great victory.
This journey, from 1979 to 1984, was filled with technical breakthroughs, team conflicts, management gambles, and countless moments of individual heroism. The Mac team, with its extraordinary talent, rebellious "pirate spirit," and obsessive pursuit of perfection, overcame every obstacle. They not only created a great product but also forged a unique culture of innovation whose influence is still felt today. As they believed: The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. And they did.
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