The Eighties in America - Salem Press (2009)

Another option was to introduce low-cost Macs to
compete with the cheaper clone market. A third was
to create a version of the Mac GUI that could run on
Intel CPUs rather than the Mac’s Motorola-made
CPUs, so consumers could run Macintosh software
in IBM PC clones. This approach would have posed
problems, however, because PC clone manufactur-
ers were required to purchase MS-DOS for every
machine they made, whether they installed it or not,
so installing a Mac operating system would always
be more expensive. Recompiling Mac applications
for Intel processors would also have required time
and money. In the end, Apple dithered indecisively,
electing to protect its 50 percent margins while its
huge ease-of-use advantage eroded via the slow, im-
placable development of Windows.

The Microsoft Challenge Apple had provided pro-
totype Macintosh computers to Microsoft so Gates’s
company could write programs to run on Apple’s
computers. As a condition of this arrangement,
Gates had promised not to market GUI applications
that would run on competitors’ operating systems.
He never agreed, however, not to create an entire
competing GUI operating system. Thus, Gates com-
menced developing Windows, a GUI designed to
run on top of MS-DOS. He announced the new
product shortly before the Mac’s introduction,
brashly predicting that 90 percent of PCs would
adopt Windows before 1985.
Fearing legal action, Gates threatened to stop de-
veloping WORD and EXCEL for the Mac if Apple
sued Microsoft over the rights to GUI operating sys-
tems. Both applications were vital to the Mac’s sur-
vival. Although advised that Gates was bluffing, in
October, 1985, Scully foolishly agreed to allow Win-
dows to use elements of Mac’s GUI. Windows 1 was
crude, with tiled windows and ugly fonts. Windows 2
provoked an Apple lawsuit in 1988, based on the
claim that Gates was copying the “look and feel” of
Apple’s proprietary system. Most of the claims were
dismissed, however, when the judge found that
Microsoft had permission to copy Apple’s work as a
result of Scully’s 1985 agreement. Apple appealed
fruitlessly until 1995, as Microsoft copied its software
more blatantly. Windows 3 (1990) was the com-
pany’s first real success, largely closing the gap in
ease of use between Macs and PCs.

Impact Apple drew millions of consumers into per-
sonal computing by making it easier and more en-

gaging. The Apple II’s success inadvertently sim-

plified the fragmented microcomputer market by

attracting IBM. The Mac’s hardware innovations

and GUI revolutionized computing, but Apple exec-

utives—indecisive and transfixed by lucrative profit

margins—ceded most of the GUI franchise to Gates,

helping make him the world’s richest man. Free to

innovate hardware and software in concert, how-

ever, Apple remained one of the industry’s most cre-

ative companies.

Further Reading

Hertzfeld, Andy.Revolution in the Valley. Sevastopol,

Calif.: O’Reilly Media, 2005. Fascinating anec-

dotal account of the creation of the Mac.

Hiltzik, Michael.Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and

the Dawn of the Computer Age. New York: Harper-

Collins, 1999. Thorough coverage of the develop-

ments at the Xerox PARC labs.

Levy, Steve.Insanely Great: The Life and Times of

Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Ever ything.

New York: Penguin, 2000. Informative account

by a well-known technology journalist.

Linzmayer, Owen W.Apple Confidential 2.0: The Defin-

itive Histor y of the World’s Most Colorful Company.

San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2004. Best history

of Apple’s triumphs and failures; features coher-

ent topical organization.

R. Craig Philips

See also Business and the economy in the United

States; Computers; Information age; Inventions; Mi-

crosoft.

Archaeology

Definition Systematic recovery and analysis of

ancient and historic human cultural artifacts

American archaeology was characterized in the 1980’s by

increasing refinement of analytical techniques; emphasis

on women, racial minorities, and marginal communities;

and regulations curbing the activities of amateur fortune

hunters.

American archaeology entered the 1980’s with

trends already firmly established that shaped the dis-

cipline in the coming decade. Culture history, which

emphasized the physical evolution of particular

classes of artifacts, had given way to processual ar-

60
Archaeology The Eighties in America