Simple Beep

e5 – At Ease

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We revisit At Ease, the multiple user management system in System 7. Our discussion of its interface leads us on a historical journey through Apple's 22-year quest to perfect a grid of buttons.

Links for this episode:

  • At Ease
    • Wikipedia
    • Apple wikia
    • info and screenshots
  • BeOS
  • pegman


  • System 7.1P
  • Extensions Manager
  • At Ease FAQ
Students are holding down the space bar at startup to open the Extensions Manager. Then they disable (deselect. At Ease Startup. The next time the computer restarts, it goes straight to the Finder. How can I prevent my students from getting access to the Finder, yet still run System 7.5 and At Ease?
  • At Ease for Workgroups
  • AppleCD Audio Player
  • Number Munchers [playable Apple II version on archive.org!]
  • Slug-Man: The Video Game
    (No link, sadly. It was a skinned version of Joust)
  • RescueTime
  • Simple Finder (still exists in OS X)
  • Panels view in Mac OS 9

Non-sponsor: Ram Doubler 2 by Connectix

  • Other grid-of-buttons Apple interfaces
    • Launcher (good info, bad formatting)
    • Pop-up windows in Mac OS 8 [Google Books]
    • View as buttons in Mac OS 8.5
    • Launchpad
      • (not to be confused with Launchbar, Launch Center Pro, etc.)
      • comparisons to At Ease [1] [2]
    • Springboard
    • F4 Launchpad key on current Apple keyboards
...more
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Simple BeepBy Ed Cormany and Brian Sutorius
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