This informational card is printed on card stock and features a photo of two educators sitting in a library, both using iPad devices. It is printed with the text “Join a community of leaders and educators.” The URL education.apple.com is printed below.
The back of the card is white and includes the text (printed in black):
“The Apple Education Community is an online space where education leaders, educators, and IT professionals can connect, share, and learn. Engage in thoughtful discussions, ask questions, share stories, and find helpful resources to support your work every day.”
Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words is a book created by the Steve Jobs Archive. The book was offered as a free download on the Steve Jobs Archive and a hardcover edition was sent to Apple and Disney employees.
According to an article about the book at 9to5mac, the phrase “make something wonderful” was used by Steve Jobs at an internal meeting at Apple:
“One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.”
The Steve Jobs Archive described the book as:
“A curated collection of Steve’s speeches, interviews and correspondence, Make Something Wonderful offers an unparalleled window into how one of the world’s most creative entrepreneurs approached his life and work. In these pages, Steve shares his perspective on his childhood, on launching and being pushed out of Apple, on his time with Pixar and NeXT, and on his ultimate return to the company that started it all.”
Featuring an introduction by Laurene Powell Jobs and edited by Leslie Berlin, this beautiful handbook is designed to inspire readers to make their own ‘wonderful somethings’ that move the world forward.”
The physical book measures 21.1 cm x 13.3 cm, and is 2.2 cm thick. The dark gray hard cover has an uncoated paper texture and an embossed title. The front cover features a glossy Polaroid-style photo of Steve Jobs wearing a tuxedo with a crooked bow tie.
The Visual Almanac is the earliest Apple Education multimedia product in my collection. According to the kit’s Laser Disc, pictured on the Domesday86 website:
“The Visual Almanac is composed of 3 parts: the Visual Almanac Videodisc, the Visual Almanac software, and the Visual Almanac Companion (a book). This two-sided videodisc contains an Introduction, over 7000 images and 2 channels of sound organized into 12 collections. It is designed to be used under control of a Macintosh computer.”
The printed materials include a guide (First Steps in the Visual Almanac) and a spiral-bound book. Media includes three 3.5-inch disks: HyperCard 1.2.2; Visual Almanac Home (home HyperCard stack; Collections Directory (pre-made collections), and a CD-ROM. The kit also includes a cable.
The cable is described as a “LaserDisc Player Serial Lead,” designed to “connect a Pioneer player (with a 15 pin D-Sub connector) to the Apple Macintosh mini-DIN serial port.”
The box containing all the items in the kit measures 12.75 inches square and is 1.5 inches deep. The accompanying spiral-bound book is titled The Visual Almanac: An Interactive Multimedia Kit Companion, measures 11 x 8.5 inches, and contains 216 pages, printed in full color.
The Preface of the book contains a welcome message that states the resource’s intent:
“Welcome to The Visual Almanac! We designed the The Visual Almanac to give everyone a glimpse of potential computer-centered futures and have tried to show how current multimedia technologies might be used to do something new. We tried to make something that could be used now, but would also provoke the development of methodologies, technologies and pedagogies for the future. It is an interactive multimedia kit aimed at children and all their teachers—in schools, in homes and in various public environments—as well as business people, researchers and developers who make educational and other materials for our youth.”
Although the full package is dated January 1990, the accompanying CD-ROM is dated 1989 and the CD (as well as the Laser Disc) specifies that it was “Produced by the Apple Multimedia Lab.”
The box in my collection is missing the accompanying 2-sided LaserDisc that contains the primary content in 78 “collections” for the kit:
Side A Collections Animals and Plants Earth View Everyday Physics Solar System Sounds Side A
Side B Collections American History Around the World History of Daily Life Everyday Objects Historical Portraits Sounds Side B Studies in Time
Special thanks to the Domesday86 website for providing an excellent, detailed entry about this kit that allowed me to better describe this early educational multimedia example.
“In this catalog, you’ll read about a lot of tremendously useful products. Products that could change your life. You’ll also read about the way some people really did change their lives—and a lot of other peoples’ lives—in significant ways.”
The Table of Contents includes:
Color Classic—Introducing the Macintosh Color Classic computer
Color made easy—Scan it, display it, and print it—all in color
PowerBook computers—Macintosh power in a notebook size
PowerBook accessories—Carrying cases, batteries, rechargers, and more
Printers—StyleWriter and ImageWriter printers and accessories
Laser printers—Personal LaserWriter NTR and LS printers and accessories
Desktop publishing—New tools for the black-and-white publisher
Multimedia—Bring full-color video, sound, and animation to your Macintosh screen
Disability solutions—Tools for people with disabilities
Software—Word processing, drawing, page layout, presentations, and more
Learning and communicating—Self-paced training, technical support, and communications software
Networks—Networking software and cables
Compatibility—How Macintosh works with other systems: AUX, SNA•ps, and MacX
Macintosh security—Anti-glare filters, security kits, and system savers
Macintosh add-ons—Keyboards, mice, and disk holders
Desk accessories—Accents for the well-appointed office
Apple wear—Apple clothing and accessories
Apple II, too—Products and accessories for Apple II computers
The Apple II on Macintosh—Plus a library of useful manuals
The Apple Catalog from Spring 1993 measures 9.125 x 11 inches and is printed in full color on a matte finish paper.
This Snow Leopard brochure, titled “Mac OSX Snow Leopard: Installation, features, and refinements” describes the 2-step installation process and outlines the main features of Mac OS X, Version 10.6.
Features that are described include:
Exposé
Safari 4
QuickTime X
Microsoft Exchange Support
Universal Access
Several different “Refinements” to its Leopard predecessor
Each of 5 panels are square and measure 125mm. Folded out, the entire brochure is 625mm long. The brochure is primarily white and printed in full color.
This set of two book covers were presumably created for the education market for students to use to cover their textbooks (of the heavy, printed variety).
The book covers measure 10.75 x 26.25 inches and feature the original Macintosh “Picasso” logo on the front side, and the 6-color Apple logo on the back with the tagline “The power to be your best.”
The center of these book covers that would fall along the spine of the textbook have an Apple logo printed sideways and labels for “Name” and “Class” (with lines on which to write). All text is printed in the Apple Garamond font, Apple’s corporate font used between 1984 and 1993.
Apple’s Personal Internet Solution Bundle is a 3-ring binder containing 3-hole-punched, 8.5 x 11-inch pages and is part of the Apple Education Series from 1995.
The design of the binder uses a beige-on-beige background accented with gold and teal graphics—all using a woodcut-style design. This design was used throughout the mid- to late-1990s for Apple Education products.
The binder is a professional learning resource for educators to teach them the basics of using tools on the World Wide Web. The four major sections include:
Getting Started—Step-by-step instructions for getting connected to the Internet
Internet Provider Connection—from Portal Information Network
Each printed section in the binder is separated by dark green tabs for easy navigation.
Some of the highlights of this resource include the title of the Netscape Navigator section, “a friendly handbook on the coolest way to explore the Internet,” and the 151-page manual about how to use email!
This Apple Education Series booklet, titled Out of the Box and Onto the ’Net: The Internet, Teaching, and Mac OS 8 was written to explain to educators how to use Internet in school with the Mac OS 8 operating system.
The Table of Contents included the following sections:
Welcome
The Internet in Education
The Internet: an introduction
How the Internet is transforming education
Uses of the Internet in education
Communication and collaboration
Conducting research
Publishing on the World Wide Web
Getting ready to go online
Preparing students to go online
Learning activities and teacher resources
Mac OS 8 Internet Features
Mac OS 8 overview
Setting up your computer to access the Internet
Registering with an ISP
Adding or changing LAN or ISP settings
Creating and importing settings information
Connecting to and disconnecting from the Internet
Disconnecting from the Internet
Using the Connect To command
Sending e-mail with Mac OS 8
Personal Web Sharing
Mac OS Runtime for Java
Using the PointCast Network
Using the Mac OS Info Center
The book measures 8.5 x 11 inches with a full-color cover. The interior is printed in black.
This Media Arts CD is presented as a digital magazine. The cardboard folder serves both as printed content overview and as packaging for the CD. The folder measures 5.5 x 7 inches and contains a CD-ROM. The interior and exterior of the folder and the CD use a matching design. The package is clearly branded using the Apple Garamond font and a translucent blue Apple logo.
The full title of the package is Apple Media Arts News for the Creative Community, and the interior text conveys:
“Apple Media Arts presents news for the creative community. Profiles of innovators, iconoclasts, and industry leaders. The latest developments in design, publishing, and digital video. Apple tools and technologies that help you create your best work. With this edition, Apple Media Arts moves to the World Wide Web. Our focus: digital video production.”
This Media Album is a white vinyl 2-ring binder that measures 135mm x 185mm x 40mm. It contains 7 plastic CD pages, CD-ROMs, and 2 card stock inserts (1 folds out into 3 panels).
The interior card stock page includes the welcome message:
“Check out all of the cost-saving, high-impact Apple marketing materials on your three new CDs-especially the new lifestyle images!”
Each of the plastic CD pages contains a CD-ROM on one side and a paper insert on the other side that describes the contents of the CD. CDs include a Marketing Toolkit for the Performa line of Macintosh computers, Product Photo Libraries, Media Toolkits, and 3 Media Image Discs. All CD-ROMs are from 1994 and 1995.
The CD-ROMs contain a variety of file formats and applications designed to run on Macintosh Systems of the time (many do not open or run on modern macOS computers). Several of the images are compressed with now-defunct file concatenation formats (e.g., Stuffit). Other images appear to be in a now-unreadable Kodak PhotoCD format. However, a few folders contain JPEG images that can be opened (in 2023)—after manually appending each file name with “.jpg” so it can be recognized.
