We’re aware that there are drawbacks to open source software, but we’re convinced that setting GraphSketcher free is the best option going forward. We’re proud of the work that we did on OmniGraphSketcher, and we’d love it if as many people as possible were able to use it. In fact, the support that we received for OmniGraphSketcher after we discontinued it is one of the reasons we think this project will work well.
Will Scullin’s Apple ][js and Apple //jse are Apple ][ and Apple //e emulators written entirely in JavaScript and HTML5 (via Bill Budge). They include lots of interesting disk images that you can load. See also Joshua Bell’s Applesoft BASIC in Javascript and Applesoft BASIC Quick Reference.
Adele Goldberg (via Lambda):
It was a different user interface. Ultimately, it was the very first spreadsheet where the spreadsheet was an object, where all the cells were objects, and therefore a cell could be a spreadsheet. In those days they didn’t have that. It was all hooked to a database and it was all getting CIA data coming down and it was a remarkable tour de force. And I said to him, “I don’t understand how you did that.” I mean I just couldn’t believe this non professional. He said, “Well, I’ll show you.” And so I said, “Okay.” “Hit Control-C,” which is how you then get into the code and interrupt it. I remember saying to him, “That is the ugliest piece of code I’ve ever seen.” And he said, “Oh that’s okay, because it does what I want it to do and the professionals down at XSIS are going to rewrite it all. This is the spec.” Suddenly the prototype became the spec and it didn’t matter how. What mattered was “what.” Talk about learning from your customers! That was the beginning of my getting interested in having customers. Alan never wanted to have customers because you have to support them. If you support them, you’re going to do what they need and not what your vision is. I’m sure to this day he is livid angry with me because I marched down to software engineering row and got customers.
When Apple introduced AirPrint to iOS, they made it incredibly easy to send files right from your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad to any compatible Wi-Fi printer in the vicinity. Unfortunately, what Apple didn’t do was bring Print to PDF (Export as PDF) along for the ride. At least, not yet...
One of the great features of OS X on the Mac is exactly that — the ability to export almost anything and everything quickly and easily to a PDF file. It’s something I’ve mentioned in the past when discussing OS X Mavericks features that’d be great to see in iOS 8. It’s my understanding Print/Export to PDF was in the pipeline years ago, but simply never got polished and pushed out.
David Smith wrote a DTrace script for observing CFPreferencesServer.
Update (2015-04-07): David Smith has posted a newer script.
