
The Making of Macintosh
100
Canon Cat
Jef Raskin got another chance to realize some of his original Macintosh
design goals with a “work processor” he designed at his 14-person rm,
Information Appliance, founded in 1983. On July 7, 1987, after four years
of development, Canon introduced Raskin’s Cat, part personal computer,
part electronic typewriter. Although based upon a 5MHz 68000—the same
type of processor at the heart of the classic Macs—the Cat did not have a
mouse or icons. Instead it used “Leap’’ keys below the spacebar to gracefully
move between tasks and portions of the screen; hence the name “Cat.” It
came with word processor, spreadshee ...