Before ResEdit: Alert/Dialog, Font, and Icon Editors (1984)

[pl212]

Before ResEdit shipped as a unified application, Apple had smaller programs that could perform some of the same tasks:

• Alert/Dialog Editor
• Font Editor
• Icon Editor

These were part of a "Software Supplement" that seems to have shipped in the summer of 1984 - for the price of $100.

Below, a July 1984 article from the late, lamented St. Mac:



(And yes, I do believe the author is *that* Marc Benioff... he interned at Apple at about this time!)

A usenet chronicles a developer receiving these disks in October 1984.

I can't locate these utilities on either Macintosh Garden or on early Developer CD's. (Not surprising, since it would have launched a whole five years later - Phil & Dave's Excellent CD ships with ResEdit 1.2.)

We do see both Alert/Dialog Editor and Icon Editor on this disk, labeled "MacStuff 1 2/85". Unfortunately, "MacStuff 2" from February 1985 has not preserved as far as I can tell -- it would have contained Font Editor. All the items in this directory from Vintagecomputer.ca are worth a look, in my opinion.

What does Icon Editor look like? It's early enough to have the @ symbol, instead of the Apple menu:



The Creation and Modification dates are both February 1984, and the Get Info command preserves this tidbit:



I'd like to play around with it on my 512k at home with original ROMs -- I have a feeling Mini vMac's Plus emulation is not quite the right timeframe, especially for something so low-level.

How about Alert/Dialog Editor?



This software is one month newer, March 1984, and also includes a comment in Get Info:



As prototypes of what would become ResEdit, I think it would be neat to preserve these programs. The missing Disk 2 might be found in a developer's private collection of obsolete (and originally expensive) software; perhaps few of those have been comprehensively digitized...

One more thing -- ResEdit itself, from January 1985, is included on one of the February 1985 disks -- it presents itself as "Prototype #0":



With their replacement thus already available, I'm fairly certain the February 1985 disks are the last ones on which we could expect to find Alert/Dialog Editor, Font Editor, and Icon Editor.

 

[David Cook]

2/85 MacStuff 2 and MacStuff 5 (along with all the others) are posted here:

Macintosh, Lisa, and IIGS Dealer and Developer Floppy Disk trove

I know what I'm going to do this winter if I get snowed in and lose internet access. I just received a box of ~750 floppy disks circa 1984-1987. A couple of Apple tour disks. Looks like the IIcx one hasn't been uploaded yet. Below, Silver Surfer is the 4D database before Apple cancelled...

68kmla.org

 

[Mark Simonson]

Back in 1984, I registered as a developer in order to get developer tools, like ResEdit, etc., Inside Macintosh, various updates, etc. I was particularly interested in the Font Editor app, which I happened to see in the article cited above in St. Mac. I'm happy to see that someone has uploaded the disks from back then, as I no longer have them. I wanted to make sure I was running it with the system that was included on the disk with it.

I actually used Font Editor quite a bit in 1984 and 1985, making a bunch of bitmap fonts, which I developed further with Fontastic when that came out. I've attached a scan of an ImageWriter printout of a couple of screen grabs I did back in the day.

I recall it was a pain to work with (you had to assign the font ID in a separate resource editor since it wasn't possible to do it in Font Editor) and was prone to crashing. But it's also a significant app in the history of fonts on the Mac as it was used by Susan Kare to create the original Mac fonts and also by Zuzanna Licko for the fonts she made for Emigre magazine in the late eighties.

Anyway, what I'm wondering about is if anyone has any information about using the Font Editor app. It seems like there was documentation with it, but if there was I don't have it anymore. I still have a copy of it, but it doesn't seem to run very well in Mini vMac or even on a real Mac Plus. I've tried running it with systems as early as 1.0 (at least I think it's 1.0—it's dated 1/24/84), but it doesn't really work right and crashes a lot.

I suspect that it may only work on the original 128K/512K Macs (and associated ROM) or that something about the extra memory on the Plus may be a factor. I vaguely recall that it stopped working after I upgraded from 512K to a Mac Plus, but I could be wrong.

I tried using a variant of Mini VMac (for MacOS) that emulates the 128K (https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/dnld_128.html), but it's over ten years old and its certificate is expired, so it wouldn't run. (At least that seems to be the reason.)

Does anyone have any insights on how to get it to run properly?

 

[Mark Simonson]

After a bit more investigation, I was able to use the Variations service at gryphel.com to create a 128K vMac that would run (had to make it executable in Terminal), and I was able to confirm that it does run correctly in that configuration. Probably 512K, too, but I haven't tried that.

At this point, though, I still don't remember how to do much with it, other than open and edit resident fonts from the System file. I'm running it from the "MacStuff 2 2/85" disk image, which has some version of System 1. I don't remember how to save changes or save to anything but the System file itself. Part of the problem is that the disk image is locked, but I'm sure there is a way around that. And there are many ways to make it crash the system. That part I remember. But I also know I learned how to avoid crashes. I just don't remember that part yet.

I guess I'll keep plugging away at it. Maybe my know-how from using it 40 years ago will come back to me. Otherwise, if anyone else has any insights, please share.

 

[dcr]

Before ResEdit shipped as a unified application, Apple had smaller programs that could perform some of the same tasks:

• Alert/Dialog Editor
• Font Editor
• Icon Editor

Are you saying ResEdit has some font editing capabilities I've overlooked all these years? Could it be used to create fonts or just edit?

I actually used Font Editor quite a bit in 1984 and 1985, making a bunch of bitmap fonts, which I developed further with Fontastic when that came out. I've attached a scan of an ImageWriter printout of a couple of screen grabs I did back in the day.

Wait . . . Are you the Mark Simonson? Of Changeling Neo and Proxima Nova?

 

[robin-fo]

Are you saying ResEdit has some font editing capabilities I've overlooked all these years? Could it be used to create fonts or just edit?

You can edit bitmap fonts with ResEdit. It has a nice editor for this IIRC.

 

[dcr]

You can edit bitmap fonts with ResEdit. It has a nice editor for this IIRC.

You know, I've seen the font resource show up when I've opened things in ResEdit, but I don't think I ever thought to try to edit a bitmap font in it. Not that I remember anyway.

But, I think I had a copy of Fontographer before I ever used ResEdit, so I probably would have never bothered trying to do anything with fonts in ResEdit anyway.

Still, good to know and might be interesting to play around with sometime.

 

[Mark Simonson]

Wait . . . Are you the Mark Simonson? Of Changeling Neo and Proxima Nova?

Yeah, that's me.

I'm making progress by trial and error working out how Font Editor works and how to use it. Probably the same thing I went through back in '84. Although it does work, it's very crude and fragile. If you do anything it doesn't expect, it just crashes the system instead of reporting an error. Very little support for normal Mac conventions, like undo, clipboard, opening and saving files. Definitely not something anyone would want to use to make classic bitmap fonts. Better tools (like Fontastic Plus) have long existed. I'm doing this partly to examine my early font dev process on the Mac and partly because of its historical significance as the tool used by the Mac development team (especially Susan Kare) to make all those fonts with city names. If someone wants to see what it was like, I want to make that possible.

Ultimately, I'm going to create a how-to guide for it and maybe (I hope) make a YouTube video demo showing it in use.

 

[cheesestraws]

That would be really cool. I think people overestimate how refined the early development tools were, and how far they came on and how rapidly.

 

[dcr]

Yeah, that's me.

Cool. I've seen your posts on TypeDrawers but I don't think we ever interacted there, mostly because I don't post there that often.

I'm doing this partly to examine my early font dev process on the Mac and partly because of its historical significance as the tool used by the Mac development team (especially Susan Kare) to make all those fonts with city names. If someone wants to see what it was like, I want to make that possible.

Ultimately, I'm going to create a how-to guide for it and maybe (I hope) make a YouTube video demo showing it in use.

That would be awesome. And that kind of work needs to be preserved for people to appreciate how it was done.

 

[Mark Simonson]

Here is the Font Editor how-to guide...

There are still some unanswered questions.

Like, who wrote it? I would guess Bill Atkinson or Andy Hertzfeld. Atkinson is the only programmer at Apple who contributed one of the core fonts, Venice. (Susan Kare did the rest.) OTOH, Hertzfeld wrote the font manager.

The other big question is how to make fonts with it from scratch. I figured out most of how the app works except for this. I have to imagine there is some documentation floating around somewhere that would provide the answer, or that someone somewhere remembers.

I welcome any questions, corrections or additions.

Anyway, enjoy!

 

[dcr]

The other big question is how to make fonts with it from scratch. I figured out most of how the app works except for this.

I guess that was from before the classic Mac's legendary "ease of use" kicked in.

I was able to get it to run in my version of Mini vMac. I'm not sure what Mac mine is configured to emulate, but it boots from the "MacStuff 2 2/85" disk image okay. And Font Editor launches and runs.

I tried creating a font from scratch with no luck. It seemed obvious to me that, once you "create" the font by naming it, the first thing to do would be to go under the Edit menu and Insert a new character. I started with 65 (A). And then it sort of freezes. You can move the mouse but nothing else. Only way to get out of it is to quit from Mini vMac and reboot the virtual machine. I thought, well, maybe it expects you'll start with 0, since that's what shows on the screen. Nope. Same thing. I tried 1. No. I tried saving the font first. It apparently saves the font. Where? I have no idea. Maybe it doesn't save it at all because there's nothing to save. Anyway, save then insert character. Nope.

I tried some other things that didn't make sense because why not? If what makes sense doesn't work, time to try things that don't make sense. Regardless, no luck there.

Also, I note that the Font Editor is version 2. I wonder what version 1 was like. Then again, maybe I don't want to know.

 

[Mark Simonson]

Also, here is a .zip with two disk images containing everything you need to run Font Editor on a real or virtual 128K/512K Macintosh. (Hopefully, Apple won't mind.)

The 800K one is preferable, especially if you're using it with an emulator. It contains a lot more fonts (including some of mine) and more free space.

The 400K image is for people who have a real 128K/512K Macintosh with the original 400K internal disk drive and no 800K external drive. There is still enough there to try it out.

 

[Mark Simonson]

I guess that was from before the classic Mac's legendary "ease of use" kicked in.

I was able to get it to run in my version of Mini vMac. I'm not sure what Mac mine is configured to emulate, but it boots from the "MacStuff 2 2/85" disk image okay. And Font Editor launches and runs.

I tried creating a font from scratch with no luck. It seemed obvious to me that, once you "create" the font by naming it, the first thing to do would be to go under the Edit menu and Insert a new character. I started with 65 (A). And then it sort of freezes. You can move the mouse but nothing else. Only way to get out of it is to quit from Mini vMac and reboot the virtual machine. I thought, well, maybe it expects you'll start with 0, since that's what shows on the screen. Nope. Same thing. I tried 1. No. I tried saving the font first. It apparently saves the font. Where? I have no idea. Maybe it doesn't save it at all because there's nothing to save. Anyway, save then insert character. Nope.

I tried some other things that didn't make sense because why not? If what makes sense doesn't work, time to try things that don't make sense. Regardless, no luck there.

Also, I note that the Font Editor is version 2. I wonder what version 1 was like. Then again, maybe I don't want to know.

(Sorry, I thought I'd posted the disk images already, but I hadn't pressed the button.)

Font Editor will sort of run on a Mac Plus, which is what Mini vMac emulates by default. But it won't work right. You may notice that if you load a font the character spacing will be wonky, with extra space on the right sides of characters. Some features that do work on the 128K/512K don't work on anything else. The problem seems to be with the ROMs. It seems to need the original ROMs from the 128K/512K models.

 

[Mark Simonson]

Also, I note that the Font Editor is version 2. I wonder what version 1 was like. Then again, maybe I don't want to know.

That's the only version I've ever seen. I guess there must have been an earlier version inside Apple that was never distributed.

 

[dcr]

The problem seems to be with the ROMs. It seems to need the original ROMs from the 128K/512K models.

If I had more free time at the moment, that would be an incentive to finish assembling my 128k Mac.

 

[Mark Simonson]

You can make a 128K version of Mini vMac on gryphel.com on the Variations Service page: https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/var_serv.html

Specify a Macintosh 128K, 512 x 342 screen, black and white. The subscriber code is available by clicking the link on that page. Note: 512Ke won't work. On my Mac, to get it to run, I also had to make the downloaded app file executable using "chmod -R +x" on the file in Terminal. You'll also need the 64K ROM.

 

[dcr]

Note: 512Ke won't work.

Of course not. That's my earliest working physical Mac model.

 

[LaPorta]

This is a good drive for me to eventually get my 128k backdated from 512ke status.

 

[Mark Simonson]

Here's a new version of the how-to guide. I realized that the FONT ID section was a bit muddled. I've edited parts of it to make it clearer.