This is a disk containing Finder 1.0 (bootable) and Macwrite 1.0, to
be used to work with later releases either in Mini Vmac or on real
hardware (Macintosh SE or earlier, *SE/30 does not apply*)
First upload: zipped 400K MFS .dsk for use with emulators. Bootable.
Works in Mini Vmac.
Second Upload: raw DiskCopy 4.2 .image (rename to .image)
Third upload: Stuffit 3 .sit archive containing the disk image, for
copying, extraction and writing on a real Compact Macintosh. The
machine and floppy disk drive will need to be capable of writing 400
Kilobyte MFS formatted floppy diskettes.
Macwrite 1.0 is necessary for modifying and saving a file called
"QD.text", which will be on two of the later "BS Disks" (Bachelors of
Science- the people we got these from claimed they met in college in
Cupertino in the early 1980s, while one was doing a computer science
degree, and working for Apple or a closely associated company on the
Macintosh project).
Later versions of Macwrite will only open QD.text as read-only, and
can only save a copy, and cannot save it in text format that "talk
demo" and "MacTalk" (the earliest versions of Macintalk) require to
function. This has been heavily tested on my part. So, to play with
QD.text (and hear it's easter egg message at the end if you modify
it), you need to open it with Macwrite 1.0, and save a copy elsewhere
on a disk named QD.text as "text" format (NOT Macwrite), and then put
it in a folder ("Demo" on BS Disk II), replacing the original.
QD.text is the separate file that contains the phoneme script that
talk demo/MacTalk read in this video at around 2:20-
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtyFg2GsRCY>
Finder 1.0 is included because some of the later disks, particularly
"BS Disk II", are not bootable, and use direct, undocumented hardware
access to operate. "Talking Head" seems to be one. On my real hardware
it crashes/malfunctions if launched under OS 1.1g, but functions
normally from the real disks, when booted off of OS 1.0.
Please use this disk and boot off it, to work with the following
releases.
How we determined some of this is from the below.
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
My contact found this:
"Well, I went digging on Google Groups and found some highly relevant
information... in a net.music thread about Kate Bush.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/net.music/qGwCIRQTn7I/d70TeusiNrcJ
\-----
J. Eric Roskos (May 17, 1985):
This reminds me of a question that has been bothering me for a long
time. Back when the Apple Macintosh personal computer first came out,
there was a demo disk distributed to various dealers, etc., of a voice
synthesis program (it's the one that had different names over the
early part of the product life, names like MacinTalk, MacTalk, etc.,
and I don't know the name it has now or had then). Included with it
was a little demo that recited the well-known "In the olden days,
before 1984, not many people used computers, and for a very good
reason: not many knew how, and..." story.
Well, if you looked in the text file that contained the text of this
message, there was a delimiting string at the end of the message,
something like "#####", and then some more phonetic text. If you took
out the "####", after it got through telling you about Apple, it would
start giving you a little talk about how the Fairlight CMI worked! Why
is this? Was that voice synthesizer made by the same people who make
the CMI? Or is there a version of it that runs on the CMI? or what?
\-----
[
[email protected]][1] (May 20, 1985):
The name of the program was indeed Macintalk. It fell into obscurity
after last spring when it first released, was re-released (with better
sound) in December to a few developers, including myself, and is now
on the verge of falling into obscurity again. I really hope that Apple
finally finishes off the contract work on this thing and releases it
completely.
Macintalk was written by the same people who wrote SAM (Software
Automated Mouth) for the Atari and Apple II. They were commissioned
early on by Apple to do a Mac port, and it appeared in the original
Mac demo in January, '84 (on a 512K Mac!) Over the past year, I have
been able to collect bits and pieces of old Macintalk junk including
the Mac/Fairlight script mentioned earlier. The New (December '84)
Macintalk sounds a lot better. It sounds like a computer in its mid
30's rather than an old man whose false teeth are out for repair.
\-----
I had no idea that MacinTalk was developed by outside contractors.
There's another thread where one of those contractors, Joseph Katz,
tries to clear up its history. He says that Apple never actually
possessed the MacinTalk source code, because they refused to pay any
money for it!
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.sys.mac.system/BOekHR6KGvg/-_OBQaXQAeMJ
Anyway, both MacinTalk and Macintosh Pascal were developed for Apple
to publish, so it makes sense they'd turn up in a set of disks from
inside Apple."
Compatibility
Architecture: 68k
Mini Vmac, if using real hardware, 68000 based machines only.
(Macintosh SE and earlier).
[1]: mailto:
[email protected]
