Thanks for sharing this. This morning I was reading Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs and the Canon Cat was mentioned on page 113. Great to see a demo of it.
I wonder if the Cat could have benefited from better marketing. I remember seeing the print ads when it came out, and thinking "you've gotta be kidding!" It just seemed that by 1987, it was a Microsoft and Apple world, and any effort to break into the market with a whole new system was anachronistic, by at least five years. Maybe if they had better demonstrated what the Cat could do, they would have had a shot. It is reasonable to surmise that Canon just wasn't willing to back it up with an aggressive marketing campaign?
I think the machine would have had to come out 3-4 years earlier for this to have worked. People were hungry for new developments in text-based interfaces in the early 1980s, but by late 1987-88, I think it was clear that the mouse oriented GUI was eventually going sweep all before it. I was still a perfectly content DOS jockey in '87, but I kinda knew what was coming even if I didn't want to admit it. In 1981 when Raskin was still working on the Macintosh, there was still a hunger for innovative text-based interfaces. If this machine had been realized in '83 or '84, I think it could have meaningfully extended text-oriented paradigm up against the Amiga or whatever Ur-Macintosh had come out.
I had one. The motherboard died and the service rep told me that affected most units. The best I can say about having one was that it was better than nothing.
Would it be possible to remake this video? The camera moves away from the keyboard when he’s showing different commands to type. It’s low resolution so I can’t see what the keys say, and what’s happening on the screen. Also you’d be able to turn off the various ringers and stuff. I want to build a custom computer with a microcontroller running Forth and I was thinking of using ideas for the keyboard from this. I’ll look for a manual.
Hi. This proves though that Steve Jobs was the father of the Macintosh which gave us the mouse. It's not good to memorize a lot of keyboard shortcuts in a very abstracted environment. God bless, Proverbs 31
OK. No need to remember keyboard shortcuts and therefore your performance stays near ZERO. Better to have slightly more complex interface and HIGHER performance for trained people. Say THANKS they didn't throw away keyboard at all, mouseweed :-)
Jef Raskin - who came up with the name Macintosh - came up with the desktop and drag'n'drop concepts for the Macintosh, right? - before Steve Jobs took over, I mean.
Yeah. AFAIK Raskin simply couldn't say yes to the GUI he himself wanted since the Apple hardware he was given was low-end and locked by his superiors :( - he followed "orders".
@@DavidFilskov "[Jef Raskin] became increasingly alienated from the team, eventually leaving entirely in the summer of 1981, when we were still just getting started, and the final product utilitized very few of the ideas in Raskin's Book of Macintosh. In fact, if the name of the project had changed after Steve took over in January 1981, and it almost did (see Bicycle), there wouldn't be much reason to correlate it with his ideas at all. So, if not Jef, does anyone else qualify as a parent of the Macintosh? Bill Atkinson is a strong candidate, since he was almost singlehandedly responsible for the breakthrough user interface, graphics software and killer application that distinguished the Mac. A case could also be made for Burrell Smith, whose wildly creative digital board was the seed crystal of brilliance that everything else coalesced around. But ultimately, if any single individual deserves the honor, I would have to cast my vote for the obvious choice, Steve Jobs, because the Macintosh never would have happened without him, in anything like the form it did. Other individuals are responsible for the actual creative work, but Steve's vision, passion for excellence and sheer strength of will, not to mention his awesome powers of persuasion, drove the team to meet or exceed the impossible standards that we set for ourselves. Steve already gets a lot of credit for being the driving force behind the Macintosh, but in my opinion, it's very well deserved." - Andy Hertzfeld, part of the original Macintosh team
So you mean like "A crank belief is so wildly at variance with those commonly held that it is considered ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making any rational debate a futile task and rendering them impervious to facts, evidence, and rational inference." - wikipedia
@@DavidFilskov absolutely. i mean look at some of the marketing videos. all these fancy, extensive machines which could be expanded and multi task and such with WYSIWYG word processors including fancy fonts and format and then you see this clunky looking machine and it's asking price. and yes i blame canon overall for it, it is no Macintosh ii nor ibm PC and it is not meant to be, but the fact raskin thought it had a place in the market, and that all the public could see was a word processor does say something. Jeff Raskin was great but he essentially was releasing an early 80s if not the late 70s machine in 87. we had amigas with video toasters by 87 for god sake. compare that with "it has leap keys"
I see you guys' points - but I'm not sure that Jef actually thought there was a market for it as such - he was approached by Canon and hired to create a cheap and simple electronic typewriter afaik - a word-processor device - nothing more - and he did criticize Canon for not making it extremely cheap. Also I'm not sure that people actually worked faster typing on Amiga. WYSIWYG is important - agreed - and I'm quite sure the Cat had that for text but no images as Jef was hired to do text only :)
Thanks for sharing this. This morning I was reading Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs and the Canon Cat was mentioned on page 113. Great to see a demo of it.
SpressLoves WonderGirls I'm literally on the same page with you :p
Same here
me too
funny, I am also reading this book now and went to UA-cam to look at this computer
Welcome to the club
I wonder if the Cat could have benefited from better marketing. I remember seeing the print ads when it came out, and thinking "you've gotta be kidding!" It just seemed that by 1987, it was a Microsoft and Apple world, and any effort to break into the market with a whole new system was anachronistic, by at least five years. Maybe if they had better demonstrated what the Cat could do, they would have had a shot. It is reasonable to surmise that Canon just wasn't willing to back it up with an aggressive marketing campaign?
I think the machine would have had to come out 3-4 years earlier for this to have worked. People were hungry for new developments in text-based interfaces in the early 1980s, but by late 1987-88, I think it was clear that the mouse oriented GUI was eventually going sweep all before it. I was still a perfectly content DOS jockey in '87, but I kinda knew what was coming even if I didn't want to admit it.
In 1981 when Raskin was still working on the Macintosh, there was still a hunger for innovative text-based interfaces. If this machine had been realized in '83 or '84, I think it could have meaningfully extended text-oriented paradigm up against the Amiga or whatever Ur-Macintosh had come out.
no it just wasn't very good the creator thought mice were just a fad not very smart i am surprised they even bothered
I had one. The motherboard died and the service rep told me that affected most units. The best I can say about having one was that it was better than nothing.
Jef Raskin is genius as Steeve Wozniak
This is very interesting. It would be nice is you made a more in depth video.
Would it be possible to remake this video? The camera moves away from the keyboard when he’s showing different commands to type. It’s low resolution so I can’t see what the keys say, and what’s happening on the screen. Also you’d be able to turn off the various ringers and stuff. I want to build a custom computer with a microcontroller running Forth and I was thinking of using ideas for the keyboard from this. I’ll look for a manual.
Nice .
Hi. This proves though that Steve Jobs was the father of the Macintosh which gave us the mouse. It's not good to memorize a lot of keyboard shortcuts in a very abstracted environment. God bless, Proverbs 31
OK. No need to remember keyboard shortcuts and therefore your performance stays near ZERO. Better to have slightly more complex interface and HIGHER performance for trained people. Say THANKS they didn't throw away keyboard at all, mouseweed :-)
Jef Raskin - who came up with the name Macintosh - came up with the desktop and drag'n'drop concepts for the Macintosh, right? - before Steve Jobs took over, I mean.
Yeah. AFAIK Raskin simply couldn't say yes to the GUI he himself wanted since the Apple hardware he was given was low-end and locked by his superiors :( - he followed "orders".
@@DavidFilskov
"[Jef Raskin] became increasingly alienated from the team, eventually leaving entirely in the summer of 1981, when we were still just getting started, and the final product utilitized very few of the ideas in Raskin's Book of Macintosh. In fact, if the name of the project had changed after Steve took over in January 1981, and it almost did (see Bicycle), there wouldn't be much reason to correlate it with his ideas at all.
So, if not Jef, does anyone else qualify as a parent of the Macintosh? Bill Atkinson is a strong candidate, since he was almost singlehandedly responsible for the breakthrough user interface, graphics software and killer application that distinguished the Mac. A case could also be made for Burrell Smith, whose wildly creative digital board was the seed crystal of brilliance that everything else coalesced around. But ultimately, if any single individual deserves the honor, I would have to cast my vote for the obvious choice, Steve Jobs, because the Macintosh never would have happened without him, in anything like the form it did. Other individuals are responsible for the actual creative work, but Steve's vision, passion for excellence and sheer strength of will, not to mention his awesome powers of persuasion, drove the team to meet or exceed the impossible standards that we set for ourselves. Steve already gets a lot of credit for being the driving force behind the Macintosh, but in my opinion, it's very well deserved."
- Andy Hertzfeld, part of the original Macintosh team
Kind of cool, until one realizes that computer was from 1987! Raskin was a crank. RIP.
You mean that because it's from 1987 it should be different?
So you mean like "A crank belief is so wildly at variance with those commonly held that it is considered ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making any rational debate a futile task and rendering them impervious to facts, evidence, and rational inference." - wikipedia
@@DavidFilskov absolutely. i mean look at some of the marketing videos. all these fancy, extensive machines which could be expanded and multi task and such with WYSIWYG word processors including fancy fonts and format and then you see this clunky looking machine and it's asking price. and yes i blame canon overall for it, it is no Macintosh ii nor ibm PC and it is not meant to be, but the fact raskin thought it had a place in the market, and that all the public could see was a word processor does say something. Jeff Raskin was great but he essentially was releasing an early 80s if not the late 70s machine in 87. we had amigas with video toasters by 87 for god sake. compare that with "it has leap keys"
I see you guys' points - but I'm not sure that Jef actually thought there was a market for it as such - he was approached by Canon and hired to create a cheap and simple electronic typewriter afaik - a word-processor device - nothing more - and he did criticize Canon for not making it extremely cheap.
Also I'm not sure that people actually worked faster typing on Amiga. WYSIWYG is important - agreed - and I'm quite sure the Cat had that for text but no images as Jef was hired to do text only :)
i hope it wasn't very expensive
cool
This little thing is fascinating. I'm a UNIX nerd who always likes little out of the ordinary computers and technology. Thanks.
Reminds me of Emacs.
Thanks for sharing.