Talk:Macintosh Classic/Archive 1

Archive 1

Misleading link

The simulation is not "running system 7" or anything vaguely close - it's just a bunch of web pages made to look like a an old Mac.

Are you refering to the webpage or the Flash simulation? The Flash simulation wouldn't load in my browser, so I can't comment on that, but if you removed the link solely based on the website's apperance, I would appreciate it if you could go back and check the Flash simulation and decide from it whether or not the link warrants inclusion.

Darrien 23:37, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)

Neither the website nor the flash animation (which loads for me) look or feel anything like a real Mac with System 7. The link was labelled "For a virtual mac SE running System 7, click here". This is misleading, it's not an emulation, not even close. The "simulation" is actually pretty inadequate in the way it works - icons don't highlight, the menu items are there to serve the animation and do not match a genuine system 7 installation, and they don't work correctly, where they work at all. Alerts are wrong. Other messages and things appear that you would never see on a real System 7 install. The overall look is based on System 7, but that's about all you can say for it. If anyone who had never seen the real System 7 came to this article (or one of the many others where the link had been added) and followed the link in good faith they would get a completely false impression. WP stands for accuracy so such links are not encyclopedic. Besides, the guy added it to so many pages with minimal relevance one might draw the conclusion he was doing it to promote the site (maybe his own). That's also something WP isn't for. Graham 04:11, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough, I just wanted to make sure you weren't removing it based solely on the website as your edit summary indicated.

Darrien 08:38, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Boot from ROM disk ...How?

"One unique feature of the Classic was the ability to start from a ROM disk by holding down the ⌘⌥XO keys during the boot process." Could somebody please supplement those symbols by spelling out what they are, in case their system isn't showing those characters? Like mine, for example. Castlan 13:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Command (Apple key) + Shift + X + O on a Macintosh keyboard. — Wackymacs 14:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Command *option* X O. Also, I just fixed the statement about the machine's heritage - it's more like an SE than a Plus. 70.225.163.11 22:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The version of the System in the ROM disk was 6.0.6. This System version was not released for other Macs, but the only reason for that is that after the ROM images were finalized, the decision was made internally to continue to fix a bunch of bugs before doing another incremental System release. Hence the System version released on disk jumped from 6.0.5 to the long-lived 6.0.7; the only 6.0.6 version that was released was in the ROM of the Mac Classic. And that version was never a recommended version; it would always be better to use 6.0.7 instead because of the bug fixes. Tempshill 18:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Screen

Even though the Macintosh Classic had no brightness knob, you could still change the brightness and contrast of the Classic. How? Through a control panel named "Screen".

AppleMacReporter 17:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

External Links

I removed a link that advertises someone's Mac repair business and another one that was broke. At the time of writing, the remaining links don't seem to add much other than repeating the information already here. Is it really worth having these links? --Kesfan 19:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

VIDEO CARDS

you can have a video card in a classic i have one it clips over the 68000 and allows the monitor to do greyscale

Features section

I had a couple of small notes about this section as I left it. First, I put in (ROM) and (CPU) after the spelled out words. Does that seem like a possible help for the reader, or is it more likely to be insulting? Also, the sequence of keys that must be held when booting to get to System 6.0.3 is long and likely to span lines (as it does right now, at least on my screen). Is this OK, or should non-breaking spaces be used anywhere here? --AnnaFrance (talk) 16:11, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, I added non-breaking spaces to the keyboard shortcut. One little thing: I think the SmartBundle thing was only sold separately, and not with the computer. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 16:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Question about Random Access Memory. In the features section it is only referenced as memory. In the specifications it is only referenced by its technical name. Do people ever use the technical term, or do they use and better understand the term RAM? Would the average person have to pause to think about the technical term? Should the term memory be linked to Random Access Memory or followed by (RAM)? Either way it should be consistent throughout.--Mac128 (talk) 23:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Price

In the lead it states that 'it was the first Apple Macintosh sold for under US$1,000' and later 'Apple released two versions that ranged in price from $1,000 to $1,500'. So which is true? Nothing seems to support the sub-$1000 pricing, other than the ref title. --Stephen 03:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Advertised retail was usually $995. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 07:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Congrats on Feature Article listing

Great job!!!!! Nice to see an article from WikiProject Macintosh making the Featured Article. Groink (talk) 02:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Congrats; excellent article! — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 08:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I just read the article, and wanted to come and voice my happiness for you guys. Good article, or should I say FEATURED article! Nice job guys. Beam 20:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Very strange vandalism

... appeared when coming to this article from main page (shock ASCII image). Tried to revert, but the vandalism wasn't in this article, so I reverted myself. --Janke | Talk 21:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Ruining good prose

Wackymacs tells me that in this series of edits I ruined good prose. My sense of prose style must have plummeted. Sorry! Morenoodles (talk) 11:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Some of the edits were clearly improvements. Using big words when smaller ones will do should be a goal of every editor. I can't say I'm completely successful at this myself (see?), but I felt your edits were a step in the right direction. Maury (talk) 12:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I just think that some of your edits made unnecessary changes to perfectly good prose. And I have always believed its best to use fewer, longer words rather than more, shorter words to improve readability. This article was copyedited at least four times before it was brought to FAC for reviewal. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 18:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There's copyediting, and then there's copyediting. Anyway I've just gone through it again, in the quest of fewer, shorter words. 393 bytes shaved off. Morenoodles (talk) 07:06, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Featured Articles

It almost seems like there have been more edits today alone than for the rest of the editorial history of the article. I would recommend in the future that when an article is featured on the main page that it be locked by an administrator for the duration of it's featured appearance. Such a distinguishing acknowledgment only seems to encourage widespread vandalism. If someone really wants to edit it, they will come back after the moratorium. Or is it something about JUST this article?--Mac128 (talk) 00:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I think I've read that its preferred to keep the FA and other front page content editable to support the idea that it really is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". – ɜɿøɾɪɹℲ _{( тɐʟк • ¢ʘи†ʀ¡βs )} 05:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

This happens every time an article is featured on the Main Page, and I think they should be locked (or at least semi-protected). — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 06:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Me too, on balance. But Wikipedia insists that if newbies don't get immediate gratification they'll be disheartened and drift elsewhere instead of staying to knock out articles like Franz Liszt (rumored soon to be available as a hardback). And I have to say that this particular article acquired a lot of interesting new content during (or shortly after, I didn't check) its day of mass exposure. Morenoodles (talk) 07:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Granted, there was some much needed historical perspective added, however, having gone through the FA process for the first time on this article, it seems to me much of the new material is not properly sourced and falls well below the standards the FA star previously signified about this article.--Mac128 (talk) 18:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately the new content doesn't meet the FA criteria, but I'll hopefully be able to improve it soon. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 19:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, this article should have never made FA in the first place. The Classic came about after a multi-year battle between product development and engineering, that split the company across upper management and the rank-and-file. When Gasse was eventually forced out, it resulted in one of the biggest turnarounds in product direction in the company's history. The Classic is the personification (prodification?) of all of this history. Yet none of this was mentioned, and the first historical note was a speculative (and wrong) MacWEEK article printed immediately before release. There was absolutely nothing on the history of the product. Something had to be done about this, and all I'm getting in return is complaints. Maury (talk) 13:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Maury, your background history is good—but some of it is simply off-topic (such as the prices of the other Mac models), and half of it is unreferenced. As already said, the content you added does not meet the FA criteria in terms of citations and prose. For example, the paragraph starting with "Although these machines were successful in generating..." is entirely unreferenced. And to be honest, I'm not 100% sure what "High-right" and "Low-left" mean, I assume you are talking about product positioning in the marketplace. A statement such as "The introduction of the Intel 80486 processor and machines based around the VESA Local Bus in 1989 performed well against even the highest-end machines in the Apple lineup, as well as generally costing much less." is outright POV without citations. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 15:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I just forgot to mention... This paragraph: "The low-cost system, known as "XO" or "Civic" during development,[8] was heavily influenced by the earlier all-in-one designs, dating back to the Macintosh 128k of Jerry Manock's and Terry Oyama, and especially the recent Macintosh SE design. However, the front bezel was given a slight curve, in keeping with the industrial design of the other two machines in the new low-cost lineup. Like the SE, the XO included a built-in hard drive, and also needed a case cooling fan. The XO circuit board was completely redesigned to lower chip count, simplify manufacturing, and lower price." is repetition of the already existing 'Design' section. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 16:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't make a difference if the recent additions to the article meet FA or not. As I stated above, I don't believe the article deserved FA in the first place, given that it was clearly missing the entire reason this machine was built. Completeness is requirement 1(b) of the FAC, and this article clearly failed it. I don't know what else to say. Every single reader who came to this article as a result of the front-page listing was being given half the story, precisely what the 1(b) is supposed to ensure doesn't happen.

And I, for one, believe that mentioning the ever-increasing price of Mac models leading up to the Classic's introduction absolutely vital to understanding why the Classic was such a change in plans. Don't you? Maury (talk) 16:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

No. Content added to an FA should meet the standards. If it doesn't, then you're basically lowering the standards. What you added does not meet criteria 1a and 1c. The content you added is poorly sourced (the paragraph I mentioned still needs sources). I've removed the paragraph which repeated the 'Design' section (Low End Mac is deemed an unreliable source for many valid reasons). Also, please add ISBNs to the books you've used. As I said on your own Talk page, if you can contribute to articles, then please spend some time at WP:FAC to do your part instead of complaining about FAs afterwards, when you could have taken part in the reviewal process. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 16:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Rewriting part of 'History'

I am reorganizing and rewriting the "High-right" strategy of the 1980s" and "Low-left" and the mass market" sections added by Maury. The information is good, but the prose is full of POV and uncited statements. I would appreciate it if other editors could hold off for the moment. Thanks. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 16:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Code Name

I'm not sure exactly why the code name is included in the lead right after the name of the machine. Who cares? The code name is trivial, especially to those who are not avid Mac fans, and should be included within the history or somewhere else in the body of the article.--Mac128 (talk) 17:30, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I have moved it to the bottom of the Specification table. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Screen Resolution

I own a Macintosh Classic. Its screen resolution is not 512×384, it is 512×342. I know that 384 is a more computery number than 342. I know that Apple's documentation says 384 as well, but the fact is that its screen is 342 pixels high. It is worth noting that that Apple article also says "Notes: Screen size is 512x342" just underneath its erroneous table. If you look at a screen-shot (here's the first screen-shot of System 6 I found, and it was uploaded by someone else) you will see that 342 is the true height. I will now correct the article. I just thought I'd explain why.

⫷ SkiSkywalker ⫸ (talk) 00:00, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

See also Low End Mac ⫷ SkiSkywalker ⫸ (talk) 13:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 4 external links on Macintosh Classic. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100416042541/http://docs.info.apple.com:80/article.html?artnum=10193 to http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=10193
• Attempted to fix sourcing for http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=112176
• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100416042541/http://docs.info.apple.com:80/article.html?artnum=10193 to http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=10193
• Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080724112639/http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/Macintosh_CPUs-68K_Desktop/Mac_Classic.pdf to http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/Developer_Notes/Macintosh_CPUs-68K_Desktop/Mac_Classic.pdf

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FAR needed

This 2008 FA promotion has numerous areas not in compliance with WP:WIAFA, including uncited text, WP:MOS issues, and possible breach of WP:NOTPRICE. Unless someone is able to bring the article back to standard, it should be submitted to Featured article review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:42, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Spoken article

I plan to record a spoken version of the article soon. Any feedback is welcomed. 0101Abc (talk) 00:44, 11 September 2022 (UTC)