Macintosh Design

Bruce Tognazzini in 2000 on the evolution of the Mac’s interface.

A couple of UC Berkeley kids took the bus down to Apple to show the core Mac team a Mac Plus running MacWrite. We were not impressed. We’d seen MacWrite before. But when they shrank the MacWrite window that filled the screen, suddenly we could see the Finder running beneath. Apple’s best and brightest gawked, gasped, and then broke into excited chatter. We’d never thought of such a grand illusion. When the two students returned to Berkeley late that afternoon, it was in the back of a stretch limo, and today’s MultiFinder was born.