[Infowarrior] - OT Nostalgia: MacPaint Source Code

[Richard Forno]

Ahh, memories .... and 'old world' programming style.  :)     -rick


http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2010/07/apple_donates_macpaint_source_code_to_computer_history_museum.html

Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on July 20, 2010

Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum

One of the earliest bits of software that made the original Macintosh computer so interesting to use and unusual for its time was a drawing program called MacPaint.

Released in 1984 with the Mac, it is fondly remembered not only by those who used it, but also by computer scientists for numerous first-of-a-kind innovations. Those who spend a lot of time using Adobe Photoshop constantly use such features as the lasso tool for selecting non-rectangular shapes, and the paint bucket for filling closed areas with a pattern, and later, color. Both first appeared in MacPaint. The program was unique at the time for its ability to create graphics that could then be used in other applications.

Apple is today officially donating the source code to the Computer History Museum in San Jose, California. You can read more about the donation on the Museum’s website here.
(http://www.computerhistory.org/highlights/macpaint/)

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What you’ll find are actually two files, one containing the source code of MacPaint itself, the other containing QuickDraw, which Hertzfeld calls “the single most important component of the original Macintosh technology.” It was a key enabling technology not only for MacPaint but for the entire Mac interface, and by itself amounts to about one-third of the source code for the original Macintosh operating system.

MacPaint was last updated in 1988, with version 2.0. Apple, and later its software subsidiary Claris continued to sell it until 1998. Hertzfeld has much more to say about MacPaint here, on his fascinating Mac-history site Folklore.org. And there are some interesting screenshots of MacPaint in action here.