Computer History Museum makes original MacPaint source code available to public
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted July 20th 2010 2:59PM
posted July 20th 2010 2:59PM
With all the tricky Photoshoppery we do 'round these parts, it's easy to forget that once the only way to get Justin Bieber into a shot with Steve Jobs and Bill Atkinson involved an X-Acto knife and rubber cement. For a peek into that dark and distant time (the 1980s) check out the Computer History Museum website, which has recently posted the source code for both MacPaint 1.3 and the QuickDraw graphics library. It's pretty amazing to consider that software this cutting edge consisted of a single, 5,822 line Apple Pascal file (in conjunction with another whopping 3,583 lines of code in assembly language). If poring over twenty-six year old code isn't your bag, the museum's website also contains an oral history of the development of MacPaint and more. Hit the source link to check it out.
lol, Justin Bieber!
I wish I had the super awesome skill of being able to code stuff. It seems so interesting!
Plus, the ladies LOVE a good nerd.
:(
@Joseph9307 Re: "I wish I had the super awesome skill of being able to code stuff. It seems so interesting!"
It can be very interesting, and it's not really all that hard, especially now that there are all kinds of free SDKs, and all kinds of helpful web pages to get started and/or unstuck.
He would be wearing suede boots...
Did Jobs not have to sign off on this? Allowing innovative trade secrets like this out into the open doesn't exactly sound like Apple's MO.
@InspectorEngadget I'm sure after over two decades, they don't give a wet slap about that old code
@SExpress Obviously a joke. Good job, though.
@SExpress
You can't never tell with S.J
@Texasyoungin Really, because I can never tell.
@InspectorEngadget
Apple actually donated the source code, according to macrumors.com. Way to give kudos to Apple there, engadget.
Ha Ha. I remember when I was a kid and first saw MacPaint. It was some of the coolest shit I'd ever seen at that point.
My dad refused to buy me a Mac, so I ended up writing a version of my own for the Commodore 64. Since there was no mouse, I ended up using an old Atari 2600 joystick to control the app.
My little Commodore paint app worked pretty damn well.
Jobs has been wearing the same clothes for 35 years...magical!
@Rick Astley
and the same smug grin.
@nonexcludable
Smug perhaps but in my firmly masculine voice, I will say that is one handsome guy considering the field of work he's in.
Bizarre photo though. It kind of looks like he's chatting up the guy on the right who is very pleased about what Steve wants to do to him.
@TinWard The guy on the right looks like Bill Atkinson (sp?), the author or MacPaint.
Was Steve Jobs born wearing jeans and black sweaters?
@ghun
This is apple! They don't own suits!
If you want to wear a suit, maybe you should work at IBM!
(lol)
@ghun He's sporting a pretty sweet jacket and bow tie here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0FtgZNOD44
Source: john gruber tweeted this last night.
Back when overlord Jobs had hair -- good times.
Thank god for cancer and baldness.
Bill Atkinson is one of the true geniuses of the era. Besides Quickdraw, he created Hypercard in 1987. Although he didn't realize it at the time, Hypercard was basically the first world's first web browser and the only thing missing was a WAN to run it on.
If Apple keeps giving away 26 year old source code and cases for a pre-broken phone they'll never stay in business.
Is jobs checking that guy out? cough gay cough
Who's the dude on the right?
Weird Al?
So, is this the open source that everyone wanted?
Is that the same mock turtleneck and levi's jeans that Steve still wears?