WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.060 In 2002, Steve Jobs stood on a stage in front 00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:05.299 of thousands of developers right next to a stained 00:00:05.299 --> 00:00:08.580 glass window and a literal physical coffin. A 00:00:08.580 --> 00:00:10.880 real coffin. A real coffin. Right. And he then 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:13.359 proceeded to deliver of solemn eulogy for his 00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:15.839 own software. Right. So today we are exploring 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:18.539 exactly why Apple had to publicly execute their 00:00:18.539 --> 00:00:21.699 own operating system just to survive. We are 00:00:21.699 --> 00:00:24.719 bringing you along on a deep dive into this this 00:00:24.719 --> 00:00:27.879 fascinating stack of historical Wookie data and 00:00:27.879 --> 00:00:30.539 engineering notes. all about the classic Mac 00:00:30.539 --> 00:00:33.789 OS, spanning from its genesis all the way to 00:00:33.789 --> 00:00:36.609 2001. And really, the overarching mission of 00:00:36.609 --> 00:00:39.170 our deep dive today is to examine the actual 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:42.350 cost of hiding the machine from the user. Because, 00:00:42.409 --> 00:00:44.450 you know, we take it for granted today that computers 00:00:44.450 --> 00:00:46.090 are just these seamless pieces of glass that 00:00:46.090 --> 00:00:48.750 do magic. Right. Exactly. But Apple's early obsession 00:00:48.750 --> 00:00:50.810 with creating that seamless user experience, 00:00:50.810 --> 00:00:54.570 it resulted in some incredibly unique, almost 00:00:54.570 --> 00:00:57.329 bizarre architectural quirks, quirks that were 00:00:57.329 --> 00:00:59.109 absolute genius when computers were in their 00:00:59.109 --> 00:01:02.100 infancy. But. Well, they eventually became a 00:01:02.100 --> 00:01:04.680 massive technological trap. Yeah. We're talking 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.780 about the operating system that popularized the 00:01:07.780 --> 00:01:11.140 graphical user interface for the masses. It relied 00:01:11.140 --> 00:01:14.140 on brilliant assembly code hacks. It survived 00:01:14.140 --> 00:01:17.040 a near -death corporate experience through a 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:19.879 completely ruthless legal loophole and, like 00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:22.159 you said, ultimately had to be destroyed by its 00:01:22.159 --> 00:01:25.560 creator. OK, let's unpack this. So to understand 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:27.780 the trap they built, we really have to look at 00:01:27.780 --> 00:01:30.739 the genesis of the project right around between 00:01:30.739 --> 00:01:34.019 1978 and 1984. The very beginning. Exactly. The 00:01:34.019 --> 00:01:35.879 original vision actually started with an engineer 00:01:35.879 --> 00:01:38.620 named Jeff Raskin. And his entire philosophy 00:01:38.620 --> 00:01:41.439 was to build a low cost, easy to use computer 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:44.439 for the average consumer. And to do that, he 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:47.000 deliberately thought to minimize the user's awareness 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.379 of the operating system itself. Which, I mean, 00:01:49.379 --> 00:01:51.700 that was a massive fundamental departure from 00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:54.379 the norm back then. completely. At the time, 00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:56.859 if you were using a standard MS -DOS machine, 00:01:57.200 --> 00:01:59.379 you were just staring at a black screen with 00:01:59.379 --> 00:02:01.799 a blinking green or white cursor. You had to 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:04.019 type in these terse abbreviated text commands 00:02:04.019 --> 00:02:06.120 just to see what was on your disk. You had to 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:08.659 learn the computer's language. But Raskin... 00:02:08.330 --> 00:02:10.530 And later, Steve Jobs, when he took over the 00:02:10.530 --> 00:02:13.389 project in 1981, they wanted the computer to 00:02:13.389 --> 00:02:15.270 speak your language. Right. They wanted to use 00:02:15.270 --> 00:02:18.349 visuals. And this brings up a piece of tech history 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:21.129 that frequently gets misunderstood, which is 00:02:21.129 --> 00:02:24.250 the connection to Xerox PR. Oh, right. The famous 00:02:24.250 --> 00:02:27.330 heist. Exactly. The enduring myth is that Apple 00:02:27.330 --> 00:02:30.629 just walked into Xerox, saw their graphical interface, 00:02:30.629 --> 00:02:33.449 and just copied their homework. Right. But the 00:02:33.449 --> 00:02:35.590 reality in the historical notes is much more 00:02:35.590 --> 00:02:37.689 nuanced than that. I mean, Jobs did famously 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.219 trade a chunk of Apple stock options just to 00:02:41.219 --> 00:02:43.979 get his engineering team in the door to see the 00:02:43.979 --> 00:02:47.740 Xerox Alto computer and their small talk development 00:02:47.740 --> 00:02:49.840 tools. So they essentially bought a peek behind 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:51.360 the curtain to see what the future looked like? 00:02:51.500 --> 00:02:53.860 Yeah, they saw the potential of overlapping windows 00:02:53.860 --> 00:02:56.960 and a mouse. But Apple's engineers actually had 00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:59.900 to invent many of the core elements of the graphical 00:02:59.900 --> 00:03:01.979 user interface that you still use every single 00:03:01.979 --> 00:03:04.939 day. Like what? Well, Xerox didn't have a menu 00:03:04.939 --> 00:03:08.250 bar, for one. Apple created the drop -down menu 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:11.169 bar across the top of the screen, and Apple engineers 00:03:11.169 --> 00:03:13.530 invented the very concepts of drag -and -drop, 00:03:13.770 --> 00:03:16.509 and the direct graphical manipulation of files. 00:03:16.650 --> 00:03:19.509 It makes me think of an analogy. The early macOS 00:03:19.509 --> 00:03:22.229 was essentially designed to be a graceful swan. 00:03:22.590 --> 00:03:25.310 To you, the user, it's just gliding smoothly 00:03:25.310 --> 00:03:27.669 on top of the water, and that's the graphical 00:03:27.669 --> 00:03:29.810 user interface with the drop -down menus and 00:03:29.810 --> 00:03:31.810 the mouse pointer. I like that. But underneath 00:03:31.810 --> 00:03:34.409 the surface, where you can't see, there's just 00:03:34.409 --> 00:03:36.949 frantic, invisible patterns. happening to keep 00:03:36.949 --> 00:03:38.689 the whole thing afloat. And what's fascinating 00:03:38.689 --> 00:03:40.990 here is how they achieve that frantic paddling 00:03:40.990 --> 00:03:43.050 on such limited hardware. Yeah, how did they 00:03:43.050 --> 00:03:46.050 do it? Well, they had to squeeze the core operating 00:03:46.050 --> 00:03:48.909 system and the Macintosh Toolbox, which is the 00:03:48.909 --> 00:03:51.349 software that drew all those windows and menus 00:03:51.349 --> 00:03:56.069 into a tiny 64 kilobyte ROM chip physically soldered 00:03:56.069 --> 00:03:59.680 onto the motherboard. Oh, wow. 64K. Yeah. For 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.180 context, 64 kilobytes is smaller than a single 00:04:02.180 --> 00:04:05.580 low -resolution image on a modern website. An 00:04:05.580 --> 00:04:08.159 engineer named Andy Hertzfeld wrote that core 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:10.979 code in assembly language, which is, you know, 00:04:11.139 --> 00:04:14.180 just one step above raw machine code. And he 00:04:14.180 --> 00:04:18.000 used incredibly clever programming hacks to optimize 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:20.720 every single byte of space. And putting the core 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:23.500 system software directly into physical hardware, 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:26.819 like into that ROM chip. That fundamentally changed 00:04:26.819 --> 00:04:29.000 how the machine booted up compared to those MS 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:31.759 -DOS computers, didn't it? Oh, absolutely. It 00:04:31.759 --> 00:04:34.160 meant the computer could communicate graphically 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:37.160 from the absolute second it was powered on. It 00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:39.600 completely bypassed the need for a text -only 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:41.899 command line. Right. If there was a hardware 00:04:41.899 --> 00:04:43.839 error when you booted up, say, it couldn't find 00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:47.160 a startup disk, it didn't spit out lines of hexadecimal 00:04:47.160 --> 00:04:50.000 error codes. It communicated graphically. It 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.339 threw up an icon of a floppy disk with a blinking 00:04:52.339 --> 00:04:54.680 question mark or used the distinctive Chicago 00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:57.439 bit... map font, or even played a specific sound. 00:04:57.540 --> 00:04:59.879 Like the chime of death. Exactly, the infamous 00:04:59.879 --> 00:05:02.579 chime of death series of beeps to signal a hardware 00:05:02.579 --> 00:05:04.680 failure. So it was graphical down to its bones. 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:07.720 And we really can't talk about those early graphics 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:09.339 without mentioning Susan Kerr. Oh, definitely. 00:05:09.459 --> 00:05:11.279 She was the artist who designed the original 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:13.459 icons representing folders, documents, and the 00:05:13.459 --> 00:05:16.220 trash can. Oh. She gave the machine its personality. 00:05:16.569 --> 00:05:20.170 And her work is so culturally significant that 00:05:20.170 --> 00:05:23.730 in 2025, her classic Mac icons were actually 00:05:23.730 --> 00:05:25.769 featured in a museum of modern art exhibition 00:05:25.769 --> 00:05:29.129 in New York called Pirouette, turning points 00:05:29.129 --> 00:05:32.149 in design. Which is amazing. Her icons literally 00:05:32.149 --> 00:05:34.990 hang in a museum because they changed how humans 00:05:34.990 --> 00:05:37.569 interact with machines. They made the abstract 00:05:37.569 --> 00:05:40.350 concepts of digital storage feel physical and 00:05:40.350 --> 00:05:43.209 familiar. Yeah. But, and this is the trap, maintaining 00:05:43.209 --> 00:05:46.769 that beautiful, familiar graphical illusion required 00:05:46.769 --> 00:05:49.129 a completely unorthodox way of saving files. 00:05:49.290 --> 00:05:51.050 You couldn't just use standard industry file 00:05:51.050 --> 00:05:53.230 systems to pull this off. Which leads us into 00:05:53.230 --> 00:05:56.350 the unique file architecture of the Mac OS. Originally, 00:05:56.470 --> 00:05:58.850 they used the Macintosh File System, or MFS. 00:05:59.050 --> 00:06:01.370 And the funny thing about MFS is that it was 00:06:01.370 --> 00:06:04.250 a flat file system. It presented you with folders 00:06:04.250 --> 00:06:06.610 on the screen, but those folders were essentially 00:06:06.610 --> 00:06:09.920 fake. Totally fake. Under the hood. All the files 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:12.100 were just dumped into one massive directory, 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:14.459 and the operating system was just using visual 00:06:14.459 --> 00:06:16.139 tricks to make it look like they were organized 00:06:16.139 --> 00:06:18.500 into folders. Yeah, and they quickly hit the 00:06:18.500 --> 00:06:20.579 limits of that illusion. So they replaced it 00:06:20.579 --> 00:06:24.339 in 1985 with the Hierarchical File System, HFS, 00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:28.860 which had true nested directory trees. But the 00:06:28.860 --> 00:06:31.399 truly radical departure was how they structured 00:06:31.399 --> 00:06:34.139 the individual files themselves. The classic 00:06:34.139 --> 00:06:37.160 macOS used a dual fork file system. Yeah, dual 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:40.680 fork system. If you look at files in DOS or Windows 00:06:40.680 --> 00:06:43.680 or Unix, they generally have only one fork, like 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:46.680 a single continuous stream of data. But the macOS 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:50.220 split files into two distinct compartments, the 00:06:50.220 --> 00:06:51.980 data fork and the resource fork. Great. So if 00:06:51.980 --> 00:06:54.620 I'm understanding the mechanism here, they basically 00:06:54.620 --> 00:06:57.860 physically split a file in two. The data fork 00:06:57.860 --> 00:07:00.939 held the raw unstructured information. So if 00:07:00.939 --> 00:07:03.899 you were writing an essay, the actual alphanumeric 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:05.759 characters you typed lived in the data fork. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:08.300 Exactly. And the resource fork held the structured 00:07:08.300 --> 00:07:10.620 data. This is really where the magic of the graphical 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:13.540 interface lived. The resource fork contained 00:07:13.540 --> 00:07:15.980 the menu definitions, the graphics, the sounds, 00:07:16.100 --> 00:07:18.439 the window sizes, the font styling, and even 00:07:18.439 --> 00:07:21.420 the executable programming code segments for 00:07:21.420 --> 00:07:24.420 applications. So a word processor file would 00:07:24.420 --> 00:07:28.399 keep your raw essay text in the data fork, but 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:31.040 all your bolding, your italics, and your specific 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:33.360 font choices, those were kept in a completely 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:36.540 separate bucket, the resource fork. And an actual 00:07:36.540 --> 00:07:38.879 software application might have a completely 00:07:38.879 --> 00:07:41.720 empty data fork because its entire existence, 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:44.540 all its code and interface lived in the resource 00:07:44.540 --> 00:07:46.600 fork. Right, and the brilliance of this design 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:49.139 was that if an older application didn't understand 00:07:49.139 --> 00:07:51.560 the complex styling stored in the resource fork, 00:07:51.980 --> 00:07:54.600 It could simply ignore it and still cleanly read 00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:56.639 the raw text from the data fork without crashing. 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:58.939 Oh, that's clever. It allowed for incredible 00:07:58.939 --> 00:08:02.160 flexibility within the Apple ecosystem. But there 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:04.500 is a massive catch to building a beautifully 00:08:04.500 --> 00:08:07.160 isolated ecosystem. I'm going to refine my analogy 00:08:07.160 --> 00:08:09.459 here. Go for it. It's like buying a beautiful 00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:12.120 designer jacket, but the buttons and the fabric 00:08:12.120 --> 00:08:15.389 are shipped in two separate boxes. Mac OS is 00:08:15.389 --> 00:08:17.889 the tailor, so it knows exactly how to sew them 00:08:17.889 --> 00:08:20.009 together instantly the moment you open your closet. 00:08:20.350 --> 00:08:23.449 So it looks like one perfect jacket. But if you 00:08:23.449 --> 00:08:26.350 mail that jacket to a friend using a Windows 00:08:26.350 --> 00:08:29.949 or DOS machine, their operating system only accepts 00:08:29.949 --> 00:08:32.789 the fabric box and throws the button box straight 00:08:32.789 --> 00:08:35.679 in the trash. The jacket becomes completely unwearable. 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.519 Exactly. It was an absolute interoperability 00:08:38.519 --> 00:08:42.360 nightmare. Non -Mac systems had no concept of 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:44.799 a resource fork at all. So if you transfer a 00:08:44.799 --> 00:08:47.500 Mac file to a PC, the PC would simply strip the 00:08:47.500 --> 00:08:51.100 resource fork away entirely. And since Mac programs 00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:54.080 kept all their actual execution code in the resource 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:56.120 fork, transferring a program to a non -Mac server 00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:58.360 and back would render the program dead on arrival. 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:01.080 All the con was just gone. So how did anyone 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:03.629 ever share files across different networks? Well, 00:09:03.690 --> 00:09:05.789 they had to create complex software utilities 00:09:05.789 --> 00:09:09.029 like Binhex or MacBinary. These utilities would 00:09:09.029 --> 00:09:11.509 take both forks, the fabric and the buttons, 00:09:12.070 --> 00:09:14.549 and translate all that complex binary data into 00:09:14.549 --> 00:09:18.029 a single continuous stream of plain text characters. 00:09:18.070 --> 00:09:20.870 That sounds exhausting. It was. But it allowed 00:09:20.870 --> 00:09:23.389 the file to survive transit through standard 00:09:23.389 --> 00:09:26.309 email servers or non -Mac networks without getting 00:09:26.309 --> 00:09:29.350 mangled. And then a utility on the receiving 00:09:29.350 --> 00:09:31.909 Mac would decode it back into the two separate 00:09:31.909 --> 00:09:35.179 forks. It was a clever workaround, but as the 00:09:35.179 --> 00:09:37.200 world became increasingly networked and the internet 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:40.360 really took off, this closed -off architecture 00:09:40.360 --> 00:09:43.860 foreshadowed severe growing pains. Yeah, that 00:09:43.860 --> 00:09:45.899 isolation became a straight jacket, especially 00:09:45.899 --> 00:09:48.259 when users started wanting their computers to 00:09:48.259 --> 00:09:50.539 do more than one thing at a time. Which brings 00:09:50.539 --> 00:09:53.360 us to the multitasking treadmill. Yes. Early 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:55.700 versions of the macOS could literally only run 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:57.950 one single application at a time. If you were 00:09:57.950 --> 00:10:00.230 typing a document and needed to use the calculator, 00:10:00.730 --> 00:10:02.549 you had to completely close your document, open 00:10:02.549 --> 00:10:04.610 the calculator, do your math, close the calculator, 00:10:04.730 --> 00:10:06.830 then reopen your document. Which sounds painful 00:10:06.830 --> 00:10:09.850 now, but as memory and hardware improved, Apple 00:10:09.850 --> 00:10:12.169 developed an extension called the Switcher that 00:10:12.169 --> 00:10:14.389 loaded multiple programs into the computer's 00:10:14.389 --> 00:10:16.769 RAM, but you could still only view and interact 00:10:16.769 --> 00:10:20.970 with one at a time. Then, in System 5, they introduced 00:10:20.970 --> 00:10:24.149 MultiFinder, which finally allowed for overlapping 00:10:24.149 --> 00:10:26.309 windows from different applications on the screen 00:10:26.309 --> 00:10:28.210 at the same time. But the way it handled that 00:10:28.210 --> 00:10:30.690 multitasking was inherently flawed, right? It 00:10:30.690 --> 00:10:33.149 used something called cooperative multitasking. 00:10:33.389 --> 00:10:36.490 Yeah, cooperative multitasking. Which means the 00:10:36.490 --> 00:10:38.570 operating system itself is not acting as the 00:10:38.570 --> 00:10:42.200 boss. It simply sets up a queue, and time on 00:10:42.200 --> 00:10:44.840 the computer's processor is only given to background 00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:47.019 applications if the application currently in 00:10:47.019 --> 00:10:49.779 the foreground politely decides to yield control. 00:10:50.179 --> 00:10:51.720 It's like running a meeting where there's no 00:10:51.720 --> 00:10:54.200 moderator. Everyone just has to trust that the 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:55.679 person holding the microphone will eventually 00:10:55.679 --> 00:10:57.940 put it down. Exactly. And if you have a poorly 00:10:57.940 --> 00:11:01.519 coded app that just hogs the microphone or the 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:03.879 processor, the entire machine freezes. Right. 00:11:04.340 --> 00:11:06.500 But here's where it gets really interesting. 00:11:07.169 --> 00:11:11.230 Apple did try to modernize. In 1991, they released 00:11:11.230 --> 00:11:14.870 System 7, which was a massive foundational leap. 00:11:15.350 --> 00:11:18.269 They built multitasking right into the core system 00:11:18.269 --> 00:11:20.250 rather than making it an optional extension. 00:11:20.769 --> 00:11:23.490 They introduced virtual memory, which basically 00:11:23.490 --> 00:11:26.549 let the computer use a chunk of the hard drive 00:11:26.549 --> 00:11:29.549 as fake RAM when it ran out of actual memory. 00:11:29.649 --> 00:11:31.330 Right, it slowed the machine down but kept it 00:11:31.330 --> 00:11:34.139 from immediately crashing. Exactly. They added 00:11:34.139 --> 00:11:37.139 32 -bit clean memory addressing, which finally 00:11:37.139 --> 00:11:39.679 allowed the Mac to utilize massive amounts of 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:42.580 RAM beyond the old hardware limits. They introduced 00:11:42.580 --> 00:11:45.259 aliases, which were just shortcuts to files. 00:11:45.639 --> 00:11:47.799 And they finally made it so the trash can didn't 00:11:47.799 --> 00:11:50.320 automatically empty all your deleted files the 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:52.559 second you shut down the computer. So System 00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:55.639 7 is a huge leap forward. But despite all these 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:57.960 updates, if the Mac was supposed to be the absolute 00:11:57.960 --> 00:12:00.759 pinnacle of the user experience, how did they 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:04.049 end up so far behind Linux Windows NT and OS 00:12:04.049 --> 00:12:07.389 2 in basic memory management throughout the 1990s. 00:12:07.590 --> 00:12:10.230 It really came down to a fundamental architectural 00:12:10.230 --> 00:12:13.169 trap built around legacy support. Those contemporary 00:12:13.169 --> 00:12:15.049 operating systems, they were being built with 00:12:15.049 --> 00:12:17.429 preemptive multitasking. Right, unlike the cooperative 00:12:17.429 --> 00:12:20.870 multitasking. Exactly. In a preemptive system, 00:12:21.149 --> 00:12:24.309 the operating system is a strict manager. It 00:12:24.309 --> 00:12:26.649 forcibly interrupts applications and dictates 00:12:26.649 --> 00:12:29.669 exactly how many processor cycles each app gets. 00:12:30.110 --> 00:12:33.039 No one can hog the microphone. Furthermore, they 00:12:33.039 --> 00:12:35.480 used protected memory, meaning they sandboxed 00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:38.100 every application into its own isolated memory 00:12:38.100 --> 00:12:41.379 space. Oh, I see. So if one app crashed, it couldn't 00:12:41.379 --> 00:12:43.440 overwrite the memory of another app or take down 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:45.460 the whole system. But Apple couldn't do that 00:12:45.460 --> 00:12:47.840 because they had a massive commitment to making 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:50.860 sure everyone's old software still ran. They 00:12:50.860 --> 00:12:53.779 were haunted by the ghost of that original 64K 00:12:53.779 --> 00:12:56.139 ROM hack. Yeah, the underlying foundation just 00:12:56.139 --> 00:12:59.090 wasn't built for a strict manager. The Macintosh 00:12:59.090 --> 00:13:01.330 relied heavily on system extensions, which were 00:13:01.330 --> 00:13:03.470 little pieces of code you'd manually drop into 00:13:03.470 --> 00:13:05.690 the system folder to add functionality, like 00:13:05.690 --> 00:13:08.190 connecting to a network or using a new CD -ROM 00:13:08.190 --> 00:13:10.889 drive. These extensions loaded directly into 00:13:10.889 --> 00:13:13.169 the system memory space. Because there was no 00:13:13.169 --> 00:13:15.610 protected memory, these extensions would constantly 00:13:15.610 --> 00:13:17.730 bump into each other in conflict. Just chaos. 00:13:18.009 --> 00:13:21.269 Total chaos. A bad memory pointer in a random 00:13:21.269 --> 00:13:24.169 extension would crash the entire operating system, 00:13:24.470 --> 00:13:27.129 leading to the infamous bomb error screen. Oh, 00:13:27.269 --> 00:13:29.730 with a little drawing of a fuse bomb. Yes, the 00:13:29.730 --> 00:13:31.830 little bomb forcing you to completely restart 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:34.649 the machine. And this systemic instability, combined 00:13:34.649 --> 00:13:37.710 with falling behind on modern OS features, fueled 00:13:37.710 --> 00:13:40.470 a full -blown business crisis. Apple's market 00:13:40.470 --> 00:13:42.990 share severely declined in the mid -1990s, dropping 00:13:42.990 --> 00:13:46.710 us into a wild chaotic era of clones, legal loopholes, 00:13:46.789 --> 00:13:49.779 and pirates. Apple became desperate. To increase 00:13:49.779 --> 00:13:53.039 their market footprint from 1995 to 1997, they 00:13:53.039 --> 00:13:55.320 did the unthinkable and officially licensed their 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:57.759 precious mac roms and operating system to third 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:00.659 party manufacturers like Power Computing and 00:14:00.659 --> 00:14:03.860 Motorola. Wow. This created the Macintosh clone 00:14:03.860 --> 00:14:06.279 era. And I found a detail from the sources amazing 00:14:06.279 --> 00:14:08.789 regarding this era. Apple introduced the Mac 00:14:08.789 --> 00:14:11.870 OS name and that smiling two -faced Picasso -style 00:14:11.870 --> 00:14:15.629 logo in systems 7 .5 .1 and 7 .6. Right. And 00:14:15.629 --> 00:14:18.169 they did it specifically to visually disassociate 00:14:18.169 --> 00:14:20.169 the operating system from Apple's own hardware. 00:14:20.250 --> 00:14:22.429 Right. They're preparing consumers for a world 00:14:22.429 --> 00:14:24.889 where you'd run Mac OS on a beige Motorola box 00:14:24.889 --> 00:14:27.429 instead of an Apple Macintosh. But the strategy 00:14:27.429 --> 00:14:31.240 completely backfired. In 1997, Steve Jobs returns 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:33.679 to the company he founded. He immediately looks 00:14:33.679 --> 00:14:35.940 at the financials and recognizes that the clone 00:14:35.940 --> 00:14:38.940 program isn't expanding the market. It is actively 00:14:38.940 --> 00:14:42.120 cannibalizing Apple's own high margin hardware 00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:44.519 sales. People were buying cheaper clones instead 00:14:44.519 --> 00:14:47.779 of Macs. Exactly. He knows he needs to kill the 00:14:47.779 --> 00:14:50.600 clone market to save Apple, but the company had 00:14:50.600 --> 00:14:53.360 signed legally binding contracts with these manufacturers, 00:14:53.620 --> 00:14:56.320 allowing them to use and distribute System 7. 00:14:56.700 --> 00:14:59.840 So Jobs executes this incredibly ruthless legal 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:03.580 maneuver. Apple software engineers were already 00:15:03.580 --> 00:15:05.980 deep into developing the next major update, which 00:15:05.980 --> 00:15:08.299 was internally slated to be released as Mac OS 00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:11.279 7 .7. Right. But Jobs looks at the vendor contracts 00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:14.539 and realizes a massive loophole. The third -party 00:15:14.539 --> 00:15:16.980 licenses exclusively cover updates within the 00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:19.559 System 7 generation. So he simply orders the 00:15:19.559 --> 00:15:21.720 engineering team to renumber the upcoming release 00:15:21.720 --> 00:15:24.360 to Mac OS 8. Yeah, by changing a single digit 00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:26.759 on the box, he completely bypassed the licensing 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:29.200 agreements, terminated the ability of third -party 00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:31.580 manufacturers to ship current software, and effectively 00:15:31.580 --> 00:15:33.799 shut down the Macintosh clone market overnight. 00:15:34.139 --> 00:15:38.000 That is wild. It was a brutal existential business 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:41.139 move. And Mac OS 8 itself brought some heavily 00:15:41.139 --> 00:15:43.840 needed features to the table. It introduced the 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:46.220 platinum grayscale theme, giving everything a 00:15:46.220 --> 00:15:48.820 more modern 3D beveled look. Which looked great 00:15:48.820 --> 00:15:51.539 at the time. It really did. It featured a multi 00:15:51.539 --> 00:15:53.500 -threaded finder, which meant you could finally 00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:55.799 start copying a massive folder of files in the 00:15:55.799 --> 00:15:58.460 background and still use your computer for other 00:15:58.460 --> 00:16:01.440 tasks without the interface locking up. And in 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:05.100 version 8 .1, they introduced HFS Plus Say, also 00:16:05.100 --> 00:16:07.639 known as Mac OS Extended, which restructured 00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:10.220 the file system to handle much larger hard drives 00:16:10.220 --> 00:16:13.000 and smaller file blocks efficiently. But if we 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:15.340 connect this to the bigger picture, the real 00:16:15.340 --> 00:16:18.679 legacy of Mac OS 8 wasn't the code. It was the 00:16:18.679 --> 00:16:21.399 culture and the timing. How so? Well, Apple was 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:24.100 practically bankrupt, yet there was this massive 00:16:24.100 --> 00:16:26.980 organic grassroots movement among Mac users to 00:16:26.980 --> 00:16:29.500 go to physical stores and buy the new operating 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:31.620 system just to inject cash into the company. 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:35.120 Apple sold 1 .2 million copies in the first two 00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:37.879 weeks and an astonishing 3 million copies within 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:40.600 six months. And here is the detail that blew 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:45.159 my mind. Software pirates, people whose entire 00:16:45.159 --> 00:16:47.940 identity in the tech world revolves around stripping 00:16:47.940 --> 00:16:50.679 copy protection and illegally distributing software 00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:53.740 for free, they actually bought retail copies 00:16:53.740 --> 00:16:57.220 of Mac OS 8. Even major pirate release groups 00:16:57.220 --> 00:16:59.580 publicly refused to distribute the cracked OS 00:16:59.580 --> 00:17:02.059 because they knew Apple desperately needed the 00:17:02.059 --> 00:17:05.200 revenue to survive. That is an incredible level 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:07.440 of loyalty for a software product. It really 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:10.500 is. Mac OS 8 was a crucial financial and cultural 00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:12.599 life raft. Under the hood, it was still heavily 00:17:12.599 --> 00:17:14.779 reliant on that same fragile foundational architecture 00:17:14.779 --> 00:17:17.299 from the 1980s, but it brought in the cash and 00:17:17.299 --> 00:17:19.240 bought Apple the time they needed to completely 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:21.240 reinvent themselves. Which brings us to the final 00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:23.519 chapter, the mock funeral and the ghost in the 00:17:23.519 --> 00:17:26.329 machine. Because Mac OS 8 and subsequently Mac 00:17:26.329 --> 00:17:29.410 OS 9 in 1999, which added features like the Sherlock 00:17:29.410 --> 00:17:32.130 search engine and early multi -user login support, 00:17:32.450 --> 00:17:34.589 these were really just temporary bridges. Yeah, 00:17:34.690 --> 00:17:37.430 just bridges. The underlying architecture, with 00:17:37.430 --> 00:17:39.769 its cooperative multitasking and lack of memory 00:17:39.769 --> 00:17:42.390 protection, had reached its absolute logical 00:17:42.390 --> 00:17:46.089 limit. To survive the modern internet era, Apple 00:17:46.089 --> 00:17:48.410 had to destroy its own creation. They needed 00:17:48.410 --> 00:17:51.410 a rock -solid modern foundation. So they purchased 00:17:51.410 --> 00:17:54.509 Steve Jobs's other company, NeXTee, and integrated 00:17:54.509 --> 00:17:57.609 their advanced technology. This integration ultimately 00:17:57.609 --> 00:18:01.589 became Mac OS X in 2001. Right. On the surface, 00:18:01.730 --> 00:18:04.170 it retained familiar user interface elements 00:18:04.170 --> 00:18:06.670 like the menu bar and the trash can, but underneath 00:18:06.670 --> 00:18:09.049 it was a completely different beast. It was built 00:18:09.049 --> 00:18:11.950 on a Unix foundation, specifically utilizing 00:18:11.950 --> 00:18:14.730 the XNU kernel. The kernel being the literal 00:18:14.730 --> 00:18:17.250 core traffic cop of the operating system that 00:18:17.250 --> 00:18:19.710 handles the fundamental translation between the 00:18:19.710 --> 00:18:22.680 hard Exactly. The ex -NU kernel and the next 00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:24.700 -step architecture finally brought the industrial 00:18:24.700 --> 00:18:27.180 -grade protected memory and preemptive multitasking 00:18:27.180 --> 00:18:29.220 that users and developers had been begging for. 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:31.640 The swan was no longer frantically paddling, 00:18:31.720 --> 00:18:34.720 it had an engine. But Mac users are famously 00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:37.740 stubborn. Because older hardware drivers and 00:18:37.740 --> 00:18:39.759 classic applications weren't immediately compatible 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:42.500 with this brand new Unix foundation, a lot of 00:18:42.500 --> 00:18:44.920 people just refused to upgrade. Right, they cloned 00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:47.839 to Mac OS 9. Yeah, they cloned to it. And Jobs 00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:51.359 realized he had to push them. heart. Which leads 00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:54.140 us back to our opening hook. At the Worldwide 00:18:54.140 --> 00:18:57.759 Developers Conference in 2002, he literally staged 00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:01.059 a fake funeral. He brought a coffin on stage, 00:19:01.599 --> 00:19:04.519 played dramatic music, and gave a eulogy for 00:19:04.519 --> 00:19:07.319 Mac OS 9, telling developers that development 00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:09.700 for the classic system was officially dead and 00:19:09.700 --> 00:19:11.880 they had to move on. It was a highly publicized 00:19:11.880 --> 00:19:13.880 execution, but you can't just flip a switch and 00:19:13.880 --> 00:19:15.740 strand millions of users. They had to create 00:19:15.740 --> 00:19:18.240 a software afterlife. Apple built the classic 00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:20.279 environment directly into the early versions 00:19:20.279 --> 00:19:23.200 of Mac OS X. Originally codenamed the Blue Box, 00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:26.240 it essentially ran a nearly complete hidden instance 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:28.940 of Mac OS 9 as an application layer inside OS 00:19:28.940 --> 00:19:31.759 X. Your old software launched and ran just as 00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:34.180 it always had, completely unaware it was operating 00:19:34.180 --> 00:19:36.779 inside a virtual container. And beyond Apple's 00:19:36.779 --> 00:19:39.220 own efforts, the community refused to let it 00:19:39.220 --> 00:19:43.390 die. Third -party developers built complex emulators 00:19:43.390 --> 00:19:46.950 to keep the classic OS alive on entirely different 00:19:46.950 --> 00:19:50.509 computer architectures. Today, open source emulators 00:19:50.509 --> 00:19:53.849 like QEMU can run classic macOS at full speed. 00:19:54.349 --> 00:19:56.829 In the 90s, there was even a commercial product 00:19:56.829 --> 00:19:59.970 called Executor that was 100 % reverse engineered 00:19:59.970 --> 00:20:03.029 to run Mac apps without using a single line of 00:20:03.029 --> 00:20:05.730 Apple's proprietary code. It speaks to how beloved 00:20:05.730 --> 00:20:08.410 the interface was. It's like moving into a futuristic, 00:20:08.849 --> 00:20:11.220 state -of -the -art smart mansion. but insisting 00:20:11.220 --> 00:20:13.420 on building a perfect functioning replica of 00:20:13.420 --> 00:20:15.539 your 1980s childhood bedroom in the basement, 00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:17.960 just so your old mechanical toys will still work. 00:20:18.099 --> 00:20:19.700 That's a great way to put it. So what does this 00:20:19.700 --> 00:20:21.539 all mean? When we look back at the wiki data, 00:20:21.819 --> 00:20:24.019 what is the ultimate legacy of the classic Mac 00:20:24.019 --> 00:20:27.160 OS? The legacy is that it was an incredible 17 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:29.900 -year -long high -wire balancing act. It accomplished 00:20:29.900 --> 00:20:32.539 its primary mission. It popularized the graphical 00:20:32.539 --> 00:20:35.539 user interface, successfully hid the complexity 00:20:35.539 --> 00:20:38.099 of the command line, and fundamentally changed 00:20:38.099 --> 00:20:41.579 how everyday people view computers. But its eventual 00:20:41.579 --> 00:20:43.960 death proves a universal rule of technology. 00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:47.579 Even the most beloved, intuitive user interfaces 00:20:47.579 --> 00:20:50.039 must eventually be torn down and rebuilt from 00:20:50.039 --> 00:20:52.500 the bedrock up when the underlying architecture, 00:20:52.619 --> 00:20:54.859 the invisible part, doing the heavy lifting becomes 00:20:54.859 --> 00:20:58.500 a trap. You can only hack a 64 kilobyte ROM and 00:20:58.500 --> 00:21:01.940 rely on cooperative systems for so long before 00:21:01.940 --> 00:21:03.880 the technical debt comes due. And that brings 00:21:03.880 --> 00:21:06.140 it right back to you listening to this deep dive. 00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:08.779 Yeah. Every time you casually drag and drop a 00:21:08.779 --> 00:21:10.559 file on your laptop, every time you pull down 00:21:10.559 --> 00:21:13.099 a menu on your tablet or appreciate a perfectly 00:21:13.099 --> 00:21:15.660 designed icon on your smartphone screen, you 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.839 are interacting with direct DNA. of the classic 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:22.700 Mac OS. You're feeling the echoes of Andy Hertzfeld's 00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:25.099 assembly code hacks and Susan Kerr's digital 00:21:25.099 --> 00:21:27.859 artistry. The swan is still gliding. And this 00:21:27.859 --> 00:21:29.400 raises an important question, something for you 00:21:29.400 --> 00:21:32.049 to ponder long after we sign off. Today, our 00:21:32.049 --> 00:21:34.089 modern operating systems are increasingly cloud 00:21:34.089 --> 00:21:36.789 -based. They rely on vast remote server forms 00:21:36.789 --> 00:21:39.809 to process our data, hiding the true messy physical 00:21:39.809 --> 00:21:41.990 nature of the machine even further from us than 00:21:41.990 --> 00:21:44.670 Jeff Raskin ever could have dreamed back in 1978. 00:21:45.109 --> 00:21:47.470 Decades from now, will future historians look 00:21:47.470 --> 00:21:50.829 back at our current seamless multi -device ecosystems 00:21:50.829 --> 00:21:54.190 and wonder what fragile, invisible hacks were 00:21:54.190 --> 00:21:57.109 secretly holding our entire digital world together? 00:21:57.230 --> 00:21:58.910 Are we just building another beautiful jacket, 00:21:58.990 --> 00:22:01.069 trusting the cloud to quietly sew the the fabric 00:22:01.069 --> 00:22:03.490 and the buttons together every time we tap the 00:22:03.490 --> 00:22:05.950 glass. It's something to think about the next 00:22:05.950 --> 00:22:08.690 time your seemingly perfect seamless device suddenly 00:22:08.690 --> 00:22:11.529 refuses to sink. Thank you so much for joining 00:22:11.529 --> 00:22:13.609 us on this deep dive. We'll catch you next time.