[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Apple II SwyftCard
March 30th, 2015 by Benj Edwards
Paid for by SwyftCard Veterans for Truth
From the land of exotic Apple II accessories comes the Information Appliance SwyftCard, a plug-in peripheral card that gave the Apple IIe a built-in suite of ROM-based productivity tools, all unified around a novel scroll-based [PDF] user environment called SWYFT.
SWYFT was the brainchild of former Apple employee Jef Raskin, who originally spearheaded the Macintosh project. After disagreements with Steve Jobs over the direction of that project, Raskin left Apple and founded Information Appliance, Inc. (consequently, Jobs took the Mac project in a completely new direction).
The SwyftCard originated as an Apple IIe-based prototype for a dedicated machine centered around Raskin’s SWYFT environment, but it proved so effective and compelling that it became its own product. The dedicated concept would later emerge as the Canon Cat in 1987.
SwyftCards are very rare (I’ve never seen one in person over 20 years of collecting Apple II hardware), so Apple enthusiast Mike Willegal has provided instructions for building your own. Pretty neat!
P.S. I emailed this ad to Steve Wozniak (who is featured in the ad) and he said, “Cool reminder!”
Discussion Topic of the Week: Jef Raskin vs. Steve Jobs: Who do you identify with the most?
April 2nd, 2015 at 10:14 am
Jef Raskin vs. Steve Jobs: Who do you identify with the most?
Steve Wozniak
April 2nd, 2015 at 11:09 am
^ What he said.
April 2nd, 2015 at 3:19 pm
I am still amazed by the variety of products for the Apple II and how resourceful the designers of these products were. Looking back it’s interesting to to see how designers would get around the hardware and software limitations through add-on cards, yet make it work seamlessly inside the regular operating environment. The “emulators” which contained the equivalent of a stand alone pc also amuse me.
April 2nd, 2015 at 4:20 pm
^ I third that
April 3rd, 2015 at 3:41 am
What everyone else said.
I don’t know much about Raskin.
The more I learn about Jobs, the more I dislike him, and I wasn’t a fan in the first place.
But Wozniak is my kind of people.
April 4th, 2015 at 9:14 am
Why do I get an uneasy feeling when people agree with my opinion?
April 5th, 2015 at 6:04 pm
Raskin vs Jobs? Neither.
Doug Engelbart 🙂
April 11th, 2015 at 8:18 am
Jistuce++