Has the Mac Hit Raskin’s Ideal?

The Mac started out as a request for a game console, morphed into a low-cost computer and finally became a full fledged but underpowered PC with a nine-inch screen. The man most responsible for the Mac’s early direction was Jef Raskin; the man most responsible for the Mac’s final form is Steve Jobs. The friction between the two provides an interesting lesson about what the future might bring.

Steve Jobs had asked Jef Raskin to outline what he wanted a Mac to be, and he further instructed Jef to disregard cost. Seeing this as a chance to make the point that the price was just as important as the capabilities, Jef wrote a scathingly sarcastic memo specifying exactly what he wanted out of a Mac.

Jef wanted the Mac to sport a very thin 96 character by 66 line monitor. The request seemed silly when cathode ray tubes dominated (even orange plasmas were quite a few years away), but the idea made a certain aesthetic, if not practical, sense. If the display requirements seem puny by any normal standard remember that this was a text-based machine, 66 lines was a ton compared to contemporaneous machines and 96 characters would have been a boon for programmers in 1979. (Note that Apple’s first monitor came out in 1980 and displayed 80 24 characters).

As of this writing Apple’s largest all in one computer features a 24 inch display with an ample 1920 x 1200 display. That certainly meets Jef’s requirement of 96 characters by 66 lines. The screen is also very thin, so again Jef would be sated. From the perspective of the monitor, any 2006 iMac exceeds Jeef’s requirements/

Jef was also desirous of pocketable memory. Of course not just any pocketable memory would do. Jef wanted pocketable memory that would cost 50 cents a megabyte in quantity. Using Apple’s standard markup in 1979 that means Jef would have expected the memory to sell for $2.50 per megabyte.

If you’re wondering if today’s pocketable storage can meet Jef’s specs, grasp your handiest USB thumb drive or flash card. Gaze in wonder at the tiny proportions of the miniscule repository of digital files. Finally, reflect on the price you paid for the thing and realize that, if you had waited another month, you could’ve got it even cheaper. For example, a GB of flash memory goes for $29.95 and a 1 GB JumpDrive will set you back $42.99. Running the numbers we see that memory is going for some where between three and four cents a megabyte. Recalling that Jef expected the memory to retail for $2.50 a megabyte we can see modern memory bests Jef’s ideal by two orders of magnitude.

Jef also wanted software and lots of it. An “unexcelled collection of application programs” is the term Jef used. He wasn’t done, he also wanted to include six programming languages and an emulator for every processor since the IBM 650. Taking iLife into consideration, and spending a few moments surfing the net most of the requests can be easily fulfilled. Score one more for the modern Mac.

Jef was a musician as much as a computer guru and his love of music shone brightly in his final request. Jef wanted the Mac to synthesize music up to and including the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing backup to Caruso (not the annoying CSI guy, this one). Welcome to the world of GarageBand.

There was one thing Raskin wanted that hasn’t happened and that concerns printing. Raskin wanted a printer built right into the Mac, a printer that printed anything on the screen (no problem), featured a resolution of 1000 by 1200 (cake), printed one page per second (imagine the paper cuts) and never needed a ribbon. Obviously, the printer requirements are complete fantasy, everyone knows the profit in a printer is with the continuing sale of ink!

Finally, the cost issue must be addressed. Jef wanted, badly, for the original Mac to cost $500. There is not a single Mac, let alone one with a screen, that retails at that price point. But recall that Jef was thinking in 1979 dollars. $500 in 1979 is about $1350 in 2006 dollars and if you’ve got that much to spend Apple will be happy to sell you a Mac. All in all, it seems that the aughts have ushered in the era of Jef’s ideal Mac, but the printer makers need to get on the stick.

Obviously the preceding exercise tells us that Jef Raskin was prescient even when being sarcastic but it also tells us something more: computers haven’t fully matured yet. Looking at the strides computers have made over the last thirty years and comparing them with other areas where engineers are always trying to push the boundaries computers have advanced much more quickly. Take cars for example. Thirty years ago people wanted a car that got 150 mpg, had 600 horsepower, offered room for ten people and had plenty of cup holders. Today we have cars with plenty of cup holders. The other things are stuff we are still waiting for.

What does the next thirty years of computer innovation hold? Hard to tell, write something snarky and chances are you’ll be right more often than not.