MacWrite

MacWrite

Screenshot of MacWrite
Developer(s)	Apple Computer, Claris
Initial release	1984
Stable release	Pro 1.5 / 1994
Operating system	System 1,2,3,4,5 System 6 System 7
Type	Word Processor
License	Proprietary

MacWrite was a word processor application released along with the first Apple Macintosh systems in 1984. It was the first such program that was widely available to the public to offer WYSIWYG operation, with multiple fonts and styles. Together with MacPaint, it was one of the two original "killer applications" that propelled the adoption and popularity of the GUI in general, and the Mac in particular.

History

Early versions

When the Mac was first being created it was clear that users would interact with it differently from other personal computers. Typical computers of the era booted into DOS or BASIC, requiring the users to type in commands to run programs, or even type in the programs themselves. On the Mac, users would instead be expected to stay in the GUI both for launching and running programs.

This presented a problem to Apple: the Mac was due to be launched in 1983 (originally), but no third-party software would be available for it, nor could users easily write their own. Users would end up with a computer that did nothing. In order to fill this void several members of the Mac team took it upon themselves to write simple applications to fill these roles until third-party developers published more full-fledged software. The result was MacWrite and MacPaint, which shipped free with every Macintosh from 1984 to 1986.

The three-member MacWrite development team was led by Randy Wigginton, one of Apple's earliest employees, and included Don Breuner and Ed Ruder (both of whom had also worked for Apple in its early years). Wigginton had left Apple in 1981, but was still involved with many members of the Mac team and was coaxed into leading MacWrite development on a semi-official basis. It appears that Steve Jobs was not convinced of his team's abilities, and secretly started up another project just to be sure; its development was eventually released as WriteNow.^{[citation needed]}

The first version of MacWrite was actually rather limited, and could handle only a few pages of text before running into performance problems. Nevertheless, it increased user expectations from a word processing program. Similar word processors followed, including WriteNow, which fixed the limitations while adhering to much the same user interface, and the first GUI version of Microsoft Word. MacWrite also established the conventions for a GUI-based word processor, with such features as a toolbar for selecting paragraph formatting options, font and style menus, and a ruler for tabs, margins, and indents.

The original Mac could print to a dot matrix printer called the ImageWriter, but quality was only adequate. The later LaserWriter laser printer allowed dramatically better output, at a price. However, the possibilities of the GUI/MacWrite/LaserWriter combination were obvious, and this in turn spurred the development of desktop publishing, which sealed the future for the Mac and GUI.

Third-party developers were upset by MacWrite's success which, they felt, made it impossible for their own programs to compete, stifling the market for Mac software. Apple was seriously concerned about this problem and initially unbundled the software with the introduction of the Mac Plus, requiring customers to purchase it for the first time, presumably giving them the option of selecting a competing product instead. However, their notoriety, combined with point-of-sale purchase, led to continued strong sales and Apple eventually let both products languish with no development resources assigned to improving them.

Unfortunately this plan backfired. Users flooded Apple with complaints, demanding newer versions that would keep pace with new features in the Mac, while at the same time developers flooded Apple with complaints about there being any possibility of an upgrade.^{[citation needed]} Apple finally decided the only solution was to spin off the products as a separate company, Claris.

At first it seemed Claris was as uninterested in developing MacWrite as Apple had been. It did not appear to be concerned about upsetting third-party developers, but instead that the product was free and seemed to have limited commercial potential. Several minor upgrades were released to allow MacWrite to run on newer versions of the Mac OS, but few other problems were addressed.

MacWrite II

Things changed in the later 1980s with the introduction of MacWrite II. The main changes for this release were an updated user interface, a number of new "style" capabilities, and the inclusion of Claris' file translator technology, XTND.

MacWrite II was the first really new version of the software. By 1989 Word already dominated the Mac with about 60% market share, but the introduction of MacWrite II changed things dramatically; by 1990 Word had dropped to about 45% of the market, and MacWrite about 30%. This seemed to demonstrate that it would be worth developing further, but Claris did not respond quickly with updated versions.

Microsoft, on the other hand, did, and soon introduced Word 4.0. MacWrite's share once again started to erode.

MacWrite Pro

In the late 1980s Claris started a massive upgrade series to produce the "Pro" line of products. The main change would be to integrate all of their products with a consistent GUI based on that of FileMaker, notably a control bar running down the left side of the screen. The result would be a complete suite of high-end products that all looked and worked the same way, and would be able to read and write each other's formats.

For some reason, development of the Pro series took a long time; one developer claimed it was primarily due to extremely demanding quality assurance requirements.^{[citation needed]} By the time MacWrite Pro was released in 1992, Word completely dominated the word processor market. There was simply no way for any other product, no matter how good, to make a dent in what had become a de facto standard among Mac users.

While the new user interface was a dramatic improvement over earlier versions, the program continued to lack a number of obvious "high-end" features, and was unable to compete in a checkbox comparison with Word and other Mac products. Performance was also poor. Sales were apparently dismal, and it was one of the first products Claris abandoned in the mid-1990s.

The word-processing module of AppleWorks is very similar to MacWrite Pro. While it was written entirely from scratch [1], it retained some of the design limitations of MacWrite Pro. However, later versions of AppleWorks are unable to read older MacWrite Pro files.

Version history

See also

• List of word processors
• Pages, the word processor in Apple's iWork suite

External links

• Mac 512: MacWrite
• Word processors (shows a chart indicating MacWrite II's brief but meteoric rise in market share)
• The Vintage Mac Museum: 1-bit Screenshot of MacWrite