The Apple Macintosh Book

The Apple Macintosh Book is a reference book about the classic Macintosh written by Cary Lu. The book covers not just basic Mac beginnings (operating system, how the Mac works), but also dives into peripherals, application programs, troubleshooting, and even networking and multimedia.

Editions
The first edition of the book (1984) covered only the Macintosh 128K (the original Macintosh). The second edition of the book expanded coverage to the Macintosh 512K.

Six Macintosh models made up for the coverage in the third edition; the fourth edition (1992) covered 21. System 7, Macintosh Classics, Macintosh Quadras and PowerBooks were also covered.

In page xiii of the 4th edition, Lu stresses that computers should work like people, pretty much reflecting on the human-centric Macintosh, which was made for people. Lu writes:


 * Computers are supposed to help you get work done quickly, easily, and effectively. So why have they become cloaked in mystique? Because most computers are difficult to use. So difficult, in fact, that you hear about "computer literacy" as if everybody had to learn a new language. Computer enthusiasts haven't helped by speaking computer jargon that obscure rather than clarifies. And so the mystique has grown: To work with a computer, you must think like a computer.


 * Nonsense. Computers should work the way people do.


 * The Apple Macintosh has changed people's minds about how computers should work.

Sources and references

 * Quote taken from The Apple Macintosh Book, 4th edition, page xiii.