CompuServe Messages

Well, as a former developer of Macintosh software, what you are saying is just not the case (I was working on Mac stuff back in 1984 when the machine first came out–then jumped to the Amiga when it finally came out). Sure, the documentation on the Mac was minimal to none back then, just like it was for the Amiga in its first year or so of life. But to say that Apple was restricting information is nonsense, its just that this stuff was difficult to find because it wasn't written down anywhere! This idea that the Mac was a closed machine is primarily due to the way the machine was marketed in those first years–it was supposed to be the first "appliance" machine, so I can see how non-users would get this impression. But to developers this was just not the case.