If things had turned out just a bit differently in the late 1990's, we might not be visiting Apple Stores. Instead, we'd be talking about the food we ate and the movies we watched at the Apple Cafe.

TUAW reader and Guifx Director of Operations Morgan Strauss told us about his post on the Guifx blog recalling a retail concept that Apple announced on November 12, 1996. No, they weren't planning on selling Macs, iPhones, iPods, and the occasional Apple TV -- instead, Apple announced that they were going to open a chain of Apple Cafes throughout the world.

The Apple Cafe was to be a high-tech cybercafe where you could order healthy food while videoconferencing with people at nearby tables, surfing the Web, and pulling up movies or TV shows on a small kiosk screen at your table.

Strauss owns two architectural paintings (below) that were produced by artists for Landmark Entertainment Group, which was partnering with Apple and a company called Mega Bytes International in the proposed venture. The paintings show the proposed 15,000 square foot Los Angeles location, which was to be the flagship of the chain.
The concept was quietly scrapped before it ever got off the ground, which is probably fortunate considering the dwindling popularity of other theme restaurants. Be sure to visit the Guifx Blog to see the paintings in detail.

I'm proud to count myself among InfoWorld's Tech cult No. 7: The Tao of Newton. I'll confess that my 2100 has seen less action since I bought my iPhone, but it'll never be relegated to my basement wasteland where various Palms, Visors and even a 3Com Audrey dream of more useful days.

Newton ownership is definitely not for everyone. it's big and takes some doing to get it to cooperate with contemporary hardware and software. But for the faithful it's a terrific piece of hardware. For more Newton information, check out The NewtonTalk mailing list.

People either have the love or they don't. You can have mine when you pull it from my cold, dead hands.

Luxo Jr. gets Academy Award nomination
Even though Steve Jobs is no longer with Apple, we're still interested in what he's doing. You'll remember that he bought a computer graphics company from director George Lucas last year (for a rumored $10 million), which he named "Pixar."

We don't know how many units of the $135,000 Pixar Image Computer they've sold, but Pixar animator John Lasseter has put it to good use. The short film he produced, "Luxo, Jr." has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Animated Short Film category. Good luck, Pixar!

Lisa gets the axe
After several revisions and price cuts, the Lisa has been officially discontinued by Apple Computer. When it was released three years ago with an astounding price tag of $9,995 (Heck, the Tandy 600 is only $1599!) we were blown away. Not only by the cost, but by the machine itself. The mouse, the icons on the screen, that awesome trash can!

Sales have declined over the past 12 months, and even a re-branding as the Macintosh XL last January didn't help. The Macintosh has been selling like hotcakes since its introduction two years ago, even though it lacks many of the Lisa's features, like protected memory, expansion slots and support for an impressive 2 megabytes of RAM.

Goodbye, Lisa! We'll remember you.

The AppleColor RGB Monitor is totally awesome at $499
There are now several monitors available from Apple, and the granddaddy of them all is the AppleColor RGB Monitor at $499. This 12" analog monitor was designed for the Apple IIgs, and supports a resolution of 640x480 (Nice!). Those of you with a Macintosh II can also use this monitor, provided that you have the Apple High Resolution Display Video Card.

The Apple Monochrome Monitor was introduced earlier this year for $129.

The Macintosh Plus rocks
Finally, we've got to talk about the Macintosh Plus. With a 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor and 1 megabyte of RAM (expandable to 4 megabytes), we're excited about this machine. Of course, the big news is the SCSI (or "Small Computer System Interface") peripheral bus and the new 3.5 inch double-sided 800 KB floppy drive.

The SCSI port will allow for a nice collection of new ad-ons, like hard disks and tape drives. Of course, the double-sided floppies have twice the storage capacity as their predecessors while the drive itself is backwards compatible with older disks.

Customers will find the software programs MacPaint and MacWrite bundled with their Macintosh Plus, which is great! You can pick up your very own for $2,599.


Our friend Hadley Stern at Apple Matters reminds us that that on this day in 1997 the Twentieth Anniversary Mac (or TAM) was offered for sale to a mystified public. Originally slated to sell for about U.S. $9,000 it was reduced at introduction to U.S. $7499.00. It was delivered and set up by a concierge, and at the time it was pretty radical, at least in looks. It was a thin, upright design, with an 800x600 LCD screen, a TV Tuner, and a Bose Audio system with a sub-woofer and power supply that sat under your desk.

Only 12,000 were made, but many remained unsold. The price soon dropped to $3500.00 and in March of 1998 it was closed out at $1999.00. That outraged original owners, and Apple responded by giving them a new Apple laptop.

I was able to grab one of the TAMs at $1600.00 and at that price I thought at least it would make a nice music system and second computer. Unfortunately, the system developed a nasty audio buzz. I wasn't alone, and many of the units had to be returned for a fix.

Performance specs weren't too great. It was limited to 128 MB of RAM. Most of the internals were similar to the components of the then current PowerMac 5500 and 6500, although the TAM had a custom motherboard.

I added a processor upgrade sold by Newer Technology, which kicked the speed from 250 to 400 MHz. That helped, but the upgrade required a new back for the TAM that didn't enhance the slim profile.

Of course the TAM was a statement computer, not a howling fast desktop. Here is a link to the specs. Although Steve Jobs was said to have hated the TAM (he was in exile from Apple at the time) you can see some of the early evolution of the iMac in the design.

There are still quite a few of the TAMs out in the world, and there are some web sites dedicated to keeping the flame alive. You can't run OS X on them, so you had to max out at OS 8 or 9.

Jerry Seinfeld had one, and it could be seen on the set of his TV show in the final season.

I parted with mine long ago, but it was always a good conversation piece when people dropped by, and the 90's ultra-modern design doesn't look out of place at all today.

Thanks to Apple Matters for reminding us about the TAM.

Each year, a crew of Newton users, developers and devotees gathers to celebrate the little green device, discuss projects, share resources and generally have fun. As a Newton owner myself, I've wanted to attend one of these for years.

This summer's event features sessions by Grant Hutchinson, Ryan Vetter and (tentatively) Paul Guyot, who will discuss NPDS, modern uses of the Newton and the Einstein Project, respectively. You can get a full list of presentation topics here.

One topic that I'm sure will be on everyone's mind is the 2010 bug. Briefly, the Newton's clock has a 17-year life, which was born in 1993 and ends in 2010. January 5, 2010 to be exact. Some users have reported erratic behavior when they've tried to schedule calendar events after that date, sometimes requiring a hard reset to escape. This seems to be limited to Newton OS 2.1 devices only.

Eckhart Köppen is working on a fix, but it won't be easy, as a system patch will be required. Former Newton team engineer John Arkley had this to say in 1999:

"...Building and testing a System Update is complex and expensive process and no single engineer could do it. The Newton OS only supports ONE system patch, so ALL the existing 'fixes' and any new ones have to be combined together to combined to create the 'next' System Update."

Still, Eckhart feels it can be done. From what I know of him through the NewtonTalk mailing list, I'm inclined to believe him. In the meantime, check out the "Ramp Up Clip" to get yourself in the mood. WWNC '09 will take place from July 31st - August 2nd in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Sure, the Mac made a big splash back in January of 1984, but that didn't make it a popular desktop computer for the enterprise. Most companies looked at the Mac the same way they do now; as an overpriced toy that wasn't compatible with the IBM PCs of the day.

What started sneaking Macs into corporations wasn't the color Mac II or the original Microsoft Excel. No, it was the Apple LaserWriter, which was introduced on March 3, 1985 at the everyday low price of $6,995. For the first time, companies and individuals could get high-quality black and white printouts of their documents from a fast, 300 dpi printer.

The LaserWriter also introduced Adobe Postscript to a wider audience, as it was embedded in the raster image processor for the printer. The LaserWriter was the first printer to feature the AppleTalk Personal Network, so the expensive 8 page per minute printer could be shared with a workgroup.

When you use your little sub-$100 black and white laser printer today, remember those hardy pioneers of the Mac world who sacrificed their wallets to eventually bring you low-cost laser printing.

Thanks to Hadley for the tip!

[via Apple Matters]

Apple co-founder, Segway polo player, date to the stars and über-nerd Steve Wozniak has accepted a position at Fusion-io. Specifically, he'll be the company's Chief Scientist.

Fusion-io uses densely-packed clusters of flash memory chips in servers to enable them to find data very quickly. Woz has been serving on the board at Fusion-io, and recently asked for a larger role. "In this case, I like the people and the product, and said I would like some greater involvement," he told The New York Times. This will be Steve's first full-time job since he shut down Wheels of Zeus in 2006.

Good luck, Steve! We're looking forward to seeing what's next.

[Via Ars]

It's almost time for the annual tech event we all know and love. Not Macworld Expo, the World Wide Newton Conference! Started in 2004, the WWNC is a gathering of the most vocal and prolific members of the Newton Community. Projects that have come out of the WWNC include Einstein, a Newton OS emulator for Linux-based PDAs, and Newton WaveLAN drivers.

For now, the website has launched and a call for participants has been issued. If you're interested in attending or presenting, you can contact the folks in charge at the official website. WWNC '09 will take place from July 31st - August 2nd in Vancouver, BC, Canada. If you attend, please let us know. Have fun!

Alfred DiBlasi is at it again. A few months ago, he impressed us with the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh he found on ebay. What's impressive about that? It was still factory sealed. Never opened, never booted, never used. That's the kind of find that makes my beige, vintage heart flutter.

This time around, he's playing with a vintage Lisa in an exhaustive demonstration video. Before booting it up, he takes it apart and discusses the innards, piece by piece.

Next is the money shot as the computer boots up, and Alfred moves through the UI. It's a pretty cool demonstration of a nice piece of Apple history.

Thanks for sharing, Alfred. What's next?

Reader and Flickr user ismh has posted a series of screenshots of Mac OS 10.0 to our Flickr pool. It was just seven years ago -- March of 2001 -- that Mac OS 10.0 was released to the waiting masses. I distinctly remember driving to my local authorized retailer to buy a copy, and then quickly rushing home to install it on my 333mhz G3 iMac.

What I apparently fogot was how different the UI was. Remember the pinstripes? How about Sherlock? And don't miss the list of supported hardware, including the iBook, the PowerBook G3, The Power Macintosh G3 and the good 'ol Power Mac G4.

I also remember slower-than-molasses performance and aqua lozenge buttons everywhere. Oh, Mac OS X. How you've changed.

TUAW reader Gabriel Moore runs an Apple Certified Sales and Service store called Computer Evolution in Davenport, IA. He sent us a short note and link to a MobileMe Web Gallery with several pictures of a strange, Apple-labeled wooden box (picture above).

Gabriel writes "One of our customers noticed that we have a small collection of Old Macs in my service department and thought That he would give me something to add to the collection... Problem is I have no idea what it is or why it has the Apple name. Is this an after market fan boy box or a real product from Apple Computer? Any help from the readers or you would be awesome."

It looks like the 1980's Apple logotype, but I don't remember seeing a box like this anywhere. It's small enough that it could only contain something like an Apple IIc. Do any of you wonderful TUAW readers know what this box was used for? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Thanks to Gabriel for today's stumper!

Earlier this week, we pointed out an unboxing video of a pristine 20th Anniversary Mac. Of course, they're underpowered by today's standards, but many Apple collectors love them. To find one still sealed in its original factory box is a rare indeed.

During the video, we got a look at the obnoxious introductory QuickTime that shipped with these things, which begins, "There are some things in life which capture one's soul." Capture my soul? You mean the TAM is a ghost trap?

Check out the fancy CG graphics, self-important narration and the glinting TAM itself. Many thanks to propstoyou22 for sending us the video.

It was ten years ago today, February 27, 1998, that the Apple Newton was officially killed. During the five years that the Newt was in production it garnered nearly as many detractors as admirers, was the butt of jokes and set the ground work for Palm, Handspring and the like.

There's still an active community of Newton users out there, and they've made some incredible accomplishments in those ten years, like:

• iTunes synchronization
• Web server
• Native sync with Mac OS X
• Blogging software
• WiFi support
• Phone

It beat the Windows UMPC in CNet's head-to-head battle, and there's even been a successful port of the Newton OS to other handheld devices. The Newt is gone, but not really. Long live the green PDA!

Here's a nice find. Peter Merholz recently got ahold of an original Mac User Manual from 1984 and has posted a bunch of pics along with commentary. The most interesting thing, of course, is seeing them trying to explain basic computing GUI concepts like click-and-drag and scrolling that we take so much for granted. Like Peter, I love the helpful simile that the "Finder is like a central hallway in the Macintosh house." You know, just looking at the thing makes me want a Mac classic!

[via Digg]

Everyone loves a good list. The folks at Macworld have identified 30 significant Apple products. The top five contain no surprises, of course: The Mac 128k, the iMac, the iPod, the Apple II and the iTunes Store.

There are some unexpected choices as well, like item number 18: The Apple logo sticker. Before you scoff, consider that people are willing to buy these things from Ebay and Red Light Runner. When I bought my car three years ago, I brought a white sticker with me so I could affix it to the window before I even drove the car home. But that's me.

Also on the list are the ill-fated Cube and Newton, the 20th Anniversary Mac and the great Hypercard. Check it out.