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.
The 3.5-inch floppy disk was used in the very first Macintosh computer in 1984 after its initial introduction by Sony in 1981. By 1992 the format had evolved several times and was used as a relatively inexpensive and reliable way to share digital files before the Internet. At the time, the CD-ROM was gaining popularity, but most users had access to 3.5-inch floppy drives.
This Macintosh Educational Software Guide from 1992 contains a compressed HyperCard Stack.
HyperCard was a software application and development kit for Apple computers that allowed users to create and/or read hypermedia documents, a format that was used before the World Wide Web. The system was developed and used extensively between 1987 and 1994, and retired in 2004.
According to its accompanying envelope—found digitally, but not a part of my collection:
The “MacEduGuide ’92” compressed HyperCard stack on this floppy disk includes information about more than 1,300 software programs for students, teachers, and administrators in K-12 schools. Each product listing includes the following information:
Product description
Publisher’s name, address, and phone number
Education pricing (when available)
Grade range
System requirements
Additional items included with the software
Product review citations in educational software journals
Publisher’s policies (copy protection, site licensing, 90-day free trial, and so on)
The special features of this stack allow you to search for information using any combination of elements: title, publisher, subject and topic, specific grade or grade range, and system requirements.
You can print any or all of the product lists and product information. The “mailer” button that appears with each product description allows you to print a letter to the publisher requesting additional information.
Further, the HyperCard Stack was compressed using the .sea compression method popular at the time for Macintosh computers. While Windows primarily used .zip for compression, Apple used .sea (Self Extracting Archive). The format was built into the Macintosh Operating System at the time and did not require a “helper app” to open and decompress the file.
This Apple Education brochure was printed on heavy matte paper and featured an idealized message aimed at educators to introduce a vision of a digital-age classroom. All photography in the book features real students in classroom environments and is printed using full-page bleeds (all photos go all the way to the edge of the pages with no borders).
The cover begins with the text “We only get one chance,” and the first two-page spread continued, “to engage them, to set them on the right path, and to prepare them for a world none of us can possibly predict.” The next spread begins with the question “So, what will we do with this chance?”
The next pages are two-page spreads with a full-bleed photo on one side and information on the facing page discussing several categories including Mobile Computing, Wireless Networking, Digital Media, PowerSchool (a student information system no longer owned by Apple), and Apple’s Comprehensive Services.
The final page features a green Apple logo with contact information.
This brochure measures 8 x 11 inches and has 16 pages.
