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Where did it come from ?
Early 1980s: Xerox PARC
- PS image licensed to various companies, including Apple
- Apple Smalltalk developed (never released)
Mid-1990s: Apple
- Alan Kay is research fellow at Apple
- Dan Ingalls, Ted Kaehler, John Maloney, Scott Wallace
- want development environment for educational software
- reusable/ programmable by non-technical people and children
- mass-access media: PDAs, Internet, diverse platforms, ...
- small kernel, rapidly adaptable to new platforms
- Java considered, and rejected
- Smalltalk chosen, but no suitable implementation
- graphics, portability, open system: freedom to change and distribute
December 1995: solution = build a new Smalltalk system
- Apple Smalltalk image + new VM starting from "Blue Book" spec:
- implemented as a working Smalltalk program
- then optimised for performance
- C translator developed in parallel
- completely redesigned object memory
- 32-bit, direct pointers
- compact object format (small image size)
- very efficient incremental GC (low overheads for real-time applications)
September 1996: released for public consumption
- Mac version with full source code
- Unix port ready 3 weeks later
- Wintel port shortly after that
- several other platforms followed
End 1996: mass exodus to Walt Disney Imagineering
- another shot at the Dynabook (see HOPL-II)
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