Graphing Calculator escapes

[mmcirvin]

Ron Avitzur tells the astonishing story of how he created Graphing Calculator. Brad DeLong wonders if it is completely true. Graphing Calculator was the killer app that finally clinched my decision to buy my first Macintosh in 1995, and led to my continuing use of Macs today. If Avitzur's story is true, it's hard to imagine it happening anywhere but at Apple; had he tried this at most firms, he'd probably have gone to jail.

Later, in need of some symbol-processing horsepower, I also bought the academic edition of Mathematica 2.2.2. Avitzur mentions that at one point late in the process, after it had become an official product, Wolfram Research had tried to squelch Graphing Calculator's development as a patent infringement. If the bid had succeeded, it would have been both ludicrous and unfortunate; the Mathematica of that era could do many things GC couldn't, but it had nothing like GC's marvelous equation editor and animated 3D graphics interface—Graphing Calculator's learning curve to get to the eye candy was almost nonexistent, something you certainly couldn't say of Mathematica. They were really constructed for quite different purposes.

Comments

[darius.livejournal.com]

Avitzur's account says Wolfram was not the company claiming a patent; they made a separate attempt to squelch it.

That article made me try this program for the first time -- neat interface!

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to see that he finally got around to porting GC to OS X. For a long time he said it would take more effort than it was worth to remove the dependencies on the dead QuickDraw 3D API and port it to OpenGL. But there are OpenGL-based QD3D emulators, and it's possible he just used an existing one. I haven't used the OS X version yet, though; the old GC actually runs pretty well in OS X's Classic emulation box. I've seen attempts to do something like it open-source in an X11/Unix environment, but they're nowhere near as slick.

Meanwhile, I've heard rumors that Apple went to somebody else to do a completely new Graphing Calculator implementation to ship with Tiger. I wonder how that's going to work out given the continued existence of the original.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

What an amazing story. I loved the subversive, anti-corporate politics, the dedication and generosity of all those people who helped them, and the hilarious situations in which they became entangled.

Engineers aren't allowed to talk with the press! -- Why?

This is my favorite quote:

Sitting behind a one-way mirror, watching first-time users struggle with our software, reminded me that programmers are the least qualified people to design software for novices.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Engineers, on average, have the speaking skills of a spastic child.