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‘The Apple Jonathan: A Very 1980s Concept Computer That Never Shipped’

Stephen Hackett, writing at 512 Pixels:

The backbone of the system would need to accept modules from Apple
and other companies, letting users build what they needed in terms
of functionality, as D’Agostino writes:

(Fitch) designed a simple hardware “backbone” carrying basic
operations and I/O on which the user could add a series of “book”
modules, carrying hardware for running Apple II, Mac, UNIX and
DOS software, plus other modules with disk drives or networking
capabilities.

This meant that every user could have their own unique Jonathan
setup, pulling together various software platforms, storage
devices, and hardware capabilities into their own personalized
system. Imagining what would have been required for all this to
work together gives me a headache. In addition to the shared
backbone interface, there would need to be software written to
make an almost-endless number of configurations work smoothly for
the most demanding of users. It was all very ambitions, but
perhaps a little too far-fetched.

I’d go further than “never shipped” and describe this is a concept that never could have shipped. It was a pipe dream. The concepts sure did look cool though.

 ★ 

Stephen Hackett, writing at 512 Pixels:

The backbone of the system would need to accept modules from Apple
and other companies, letting users build what they needed in terms
of functionality, as D’Agostino writes:

(Fitch) designed a simple hardware “backbone” carrying basic
operations and I/O on which the user could add a series of “book”
modules, carrying hardware for running Apple II, Mac, UNIX and
DOS software, plus other modules with disk drives or networking
capabilities.

This meant that every user could have their own unique Jonathan
setup, pulling together various software platforms, storage
devices, and hardware capabilities into their own personalized
system. Imagining what would have been required for all this to
work together gives me a headache. In addition to the shared
backbone interface, there would need to be software written to
make an almost-endless number of configurations work smoothly for
the most demanding of users. It was all very ambitions, but
perhaps a little too far-fetched.

I’d go further than “never shipped” and describe this is a concept that never could have shipped. It was a pipe dream. The concepts sure did look cool though.

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