[NTLK] Museum of Failure as Journalists

[Larry Yaeger]

On Jan 27, 2024, at 3:32 PM, Forrest <newton_phoenix at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Larry, you were part of the design group, and you mentioned finally convincing management to move to a smaller form factor. Do you recall any discussion in the direction of a color display?

I wasn't part of the design group.  I was part of ATG, the Advanced Technology Group in Apple, not Newton, originally.  All the "Print Recognizer" stuff I worked on was done there.  The only reason I was able to impact future design plans is because when ATG was laid off en masse, before Jobs' return, I decided to accept my surprisingly generous layoff package and try to license my software from Apple and make a go of it as a private company.  But when Apple refused to license "one of its crown jewels" after six months or so I agreed to have a talk with the Newton group about returning to continue the handwriting recognition work.  As part of those negotiations I met with both Steve Jobs and the then head of Newton (sadly can't remember his name now), and managed to get the Newton chief to agree to pursue a smaller form factor.  Unfortunately, it wasn't long after I officially rejoined Apple/Newton that Steve decided to close down Newton and roll those engineers back into Apple proper.  (That's when I began work on "Inkwell".)

I don't recall discussing color, but I'm sure the issue would have come up.  The reason I decided to join Apple in 1987, besides the fact that Alan Kay was trying to bring me in, was that during the interview process I found out about the impending Mac II, that was going to at last have color, have an expandable architecture, and provide "the power of a Vax 11/780 on your desktop". :)  As demonstrated with the Lisa, the early Macs, and NeXT, Steve Jobs apparently had a blind spot concerning the importance of color displays, but I always thought it was important.  Though I loved the UI of the Lisa and early Macs, I didn't buy one until the Mac II.  (Though, to be fair, I couldn't afford the $10K Lisa when it came out or I probably would have owned it.  I happened to luck into seeing it's earliest public demo down in LA, oddly -- Pasadena, I think? -- and was completely blown away by that first experience with a graphical user interface.)

- larryy