Simple Beep

Douglas Adams is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but he was also a huge fan of the Macintosh. We discuss his many Macs, interactive fiction, and his extremely astute vision of the future of technology, both fictional and real.

“I love deadlines, I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: 'Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end.'

There were no big "end of an era" announcements at WWDC, but a few 30-year-old technologies are now officially on their way out. We say goodbye to catalog B-trees, naming everything after NeXTSTEP, and more.

On the eve of WWDC 2016, we look back at the history of the event: its role in the community, major past announcements, and Steve Jobs' most candid hour.

Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels and Relay FM joins us again to discuss his complete iMac G3 collection and the history of the computer that saved Apple.

A one, a two, a one, two, three, four... @thehenryford ❤️🍏

cc @ismh pic.twitter.com/GQ6miZpny1

The Macintosh has had a voice since it was first introduced. This episode, we cover over 30 years of talking to Apple devices and having them talk back.

Links for this episode:

This episode is all about the Control Strip and its many uses on the classic Mac, from early PowerBook power management to silly games. We also discuss its successors and how they got from the bottom left corner of System 7 to the top right of OS X today.

Links for this episode:

We're going to Release Notes in September!

In a special episode, we cover Apple's "40 years in 40 seconds" video in 40 minutes. It's a whirlwind tour, with nearly 100 Apple products, slogans, and references, and more than a few typos.

As @siracusa noted on ATP, Apple’s 40 in 40 video is definitely not chronological. The trendline is…OK. pic.twitter.com/NINE4e9i25

We discuss one of the defining pieces of early Macintosh software, HyperCard. We cover the application's origins and ambitious vision, the HyperTalk scripting language, our own creations, and the absence of HyperCard-like tools today.

What was the state of independent Mac software before iOS? We find out by returning to the 2006 competition My Dream App, featuring productivity plants, syncing in space, and meteorological eye candy.

I, for one, can't wait to use the winning apps from the exciting "My Dream App" competition!

@SolarCreative each of the three developers signed on to develop each winning app dropped out one after another until it died

We compare our current setups with how we worked and played on the classic Mac. Along the way we praise modern backups, pay for our previously pirated software, and Brian accidentally downloads malware.

Links for this episode:

now: Safari [Ed], Adamant [Ed], Ghostery [Brian]

now: Gmail [Brian], Airmail [Ed]

now: iTunes [Brian and Ed]

now: OmniFocus [Ed]

now: TweetBot [Ed]

now: TextEdit [Brian], Atom [Brian], TextWrangler [Ed]

now: TextExpander [Ed]

now: iStat Menus [Ed]

now: Transmit [Brian and Ed]

now: Lightroom [Ed], Photos [Brian]

now: Ø

now: Google Docs [Brian and Ed]