Over the weekend, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber linked to a fantastic collection of early Macintosh programming books (via Michael Tsai). It is a carefully assembled catalog of more than 150 books from as early as 1983, covering everything from AppleSoft BASIC, to gaming programming for the Mac.
Even if you weren’t around for any of that, believe me: this will be worth your time.
A great collection of 150+ early Mac books
Here’s how VintageApple.org describes how the Vintage Macintosh Programming Book Library came to be:
“Nick R. was generous enough to send me his entire vintage Mac programming library to be destructively scanned and shared with the community. We’ve added a few of our own for a pretty huge collection (over 150) of vintage Mac programming related books. Enjoy!”
The gallery currently offers 158 books, including Apple-issued ‘Inside Macintosh X Ref’, Steve Chernicoff’s ‘How to Write Macintosh Software’, and a 1992 edition of Apple’s ‘Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines,’ which is a blast to scroll through.
There is also a 1986 title called ‘Artificial Intelligence Programming on the Macintosh,’ by Dan Shafer, which is a treasure trove, considering everything that has been going on.
If you’re like me and didn’t live through this era sitting in front of a Mac, this project offers a great insight into how users, developers, and even Apple, were discovering together how to best make use of the nascent era of personal computing.
If you did live through this era, I’m sure it will be an interesting exercise to go through some these books and unlock a few forgotten memories.
Did you own any of these books? Let us know in the comments.
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