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2 Years ago30 Jan 2019 11:44 pm by Dog Cow

The original Macintosh of 1984 was an embodiment of Steve Jobs' vision of the personal computer as an appliance: an all-in-one machine with a standard configuration, like a telephone or microwave, that could be used for different tasks merely by inserting a different application disk.
For marketing and product positioning reasons, Macintosh did not feature an internal hard disk, for that was the domain of the Apple Lisa. Nor did Macintosh include any obvious provisions for attaching an external hard disk.
It would appear, then, that the Macintosh team had no plans for mass storage on Macintosh! Did Hertzfeld, Capps, Kenyon, Atkinson, Smith, et al. really intend to limit storage to 400 or 800K floppy disks? Did they overlook hard disk storage? The answer is no.
The Macintosh team's strategy for mass storage on Macintosh was unconventional, ahead of its time, and inspired by research at Xerox PARC. This Mac 512K Blog article is all about the AppleBus Network File Server that was planned for Macintosh in 1984.
It will be commonly known among readers of this Mac 512K Blog that research at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) greatly influenced the design of Lisa and Macintosh. The Xerox Alto featured Alan Kay's Smalltalk integrated programming environment which used overlapping windows, menus, and a mouse. The Xerox Star, a later computer, featured an improved user interface.

Xerox Alto, photo by Paul McJones
While the graphical user interface, developed at PARC and refined at Apple Computer, receives most of the attention, it is less commonly known that network file servers were also a subject of research and experimentation, both at PARC and at Apple.
Several key members of the Lisa and Macintosh teams formerly worked at Xerox, including Bruce Horn, Tom Malloy, Bob Belleville, Larry Tesler, Steve Capps, and Owen Densmore. The Lisa and Macintosh teams each expanded upon and refined earlier Xerox research, and made dozens of pioneering landmarks and innovations of their own.
Ethernet and FIle Servers at Xerox

Platformer Prototype (digifox08) Mac Os 7

Ethernet was invented at Xerox PARC in the 1970s by Bob Metcalfe and David Boggs. Early versions of Ethernet ran at 3 megabits per second to connect the Alto. Ethernet is one of the technologies that Steve Jobs and others from Apple witnessed on their famous tour of the PARC in 1979. Xerox developed and published a standardized networking protocol, XNS, as well as the specifications to Ethernet.
Researchers at PARC also developed email, print, and file servers to run on the network. There was even a network boot protocol! PARC's network file server was called IFS: Interim File System, and it ran on the Alto. The Alpine File System was designed to serve network databases in 1984, using an RPC interface to communicate with clients over the Ethernet.
Meanwhile at Apple: Hard Drive or No Hard Drive?
As stated earlier, researchers at PARC laid down a lot of the groundwork for both networking and network file servers. Some of these researchers later came to work at Apple. Bob Belleville, Macintosh Engineering manager, worked on the Xerox Star and a network-based PC called Cub. He joined Apple in 1982 to lead the development of Macintosh, AppleBus, and LaserWriter.
We covered the history of AppleBus, officially named AppleTalk, in an article last month. AppleBus was originally envisioned as not only a networking topology and protocol stack, but also as a way to connect and share intelligent peripherals among one or more Apple computers.
Now when it came to hard drives, Apple already had some experience in this area. Apple's first hard disk was the 5 MB ProFile, developed in 1981, and compatible with the Apple II, Apple III, and Lisa. Apple later had a 10 MB ProFile, in addition to the original 5 MB version, both of which used a custom Seagate mechanism. Around the time of Macintosh's development, Apple's disk division, responsible for the ill-fated Twiggy drive, also designed the Nisha and Widget hard disk systems. Nisha later evolved into the Macintosh Hard Disk 20, while Widget was the 10 MB internal hard disk used in the Apple Lisa 2/10.
In an mid-1984 interview with St.Mac magazine, Dan Kottke, a Macintosh hardware engineer, summarized Apple's hard disk plans:

Interview with Dan Kottke, published in St.Mac, August 1984, p. 20 wrote:

...of course, the whole point of our own ten-megabyte Widget project [Widget is Apple's name for the hard disk within the Lisa 2/10] was so that ultimately we wouldn't have to go outside the company to buy our drives. If we acknowledge that hard disks are desirable and here to stay, it makes good business sense to try and build our own. The other side of the issue is that hard disk drives are very difficult items to make reliably and in high volume.

Within the Macintosh team were differing opinions as to how the Macintosh should support a hard disk. After Macintosh shipped in January 1984, Burrell Smith began work on the Turbo Mac project, a machine which featured a fast interface for an internal hard drive. But Bob Belleville, Macintosh engineering manager, did not think that Macintosh should have an internal hard disk.
As Andy Hertzfeld recalled in his Folklore blog, 'He [Burrell Smith] thought that Bob didn't really want to add a hard drive to the Mac, favoring the development of a Xerox style 'file server' instead, and was therefore trying to surreptitiously kill the Turbo project.' Turbo Mac eventually became the Macintosh Plus, released in January 1986 with SCSI, but without an internal hard disk.
Managers at Apple in 1983 and 1984 decided that Apple needed to differentiate Lisa from Macintosh, and one of the ways to do that was that Lisa had a 5 or 10 MB hard disk, and Macintosh would have no hard disk.
With this decision handed down to them, the Macintosh team had only one option for mass storage: a network file server using the AppleBus RS422 serial ports.
Bob Belleville's Three Memos
In late September 1983, just three months before Macintosh was announced, Bob Belleville wrote three memos expressing his vision for networking at Apple. These three memos expressed his goals for AppleTalk (then called AppleBus), the LaserWriter printer, and a network file server.
Bob's vision for AppleTalk networking was different than what was ultimately developed. He had conceived an external system called AppleBus for interconnecting intelligent devices to a Macintosh computer. It was Gursharan Sidhu who approached Belleville in January 1984 to describe a much broader networking protocol.
About 3 weeks after Belleville wrote his three memos, Sidhu wrote his Functional/Global Description of the AppleBus File Server. In this nine-page memo, he outlined a file server which would be directly compatible with the Apple IIe, Lisa, and Macintosh on a local network. IBM PCs and other non-Apple computers could connect remotely through a telephone modem connection, or through an interconnected networking protocol. This file server would facilitate information storage and retrieval, using a hard disk to store many megabytes of files and documents.
This diagram, shown below, was probably made in LisaDraw, and appeared on page 1:
Following pages described the three types of disk servers: information system servers that provide access to a database, servers that expand the local computer's disk space, and file storage/retrieval servers. To provide modern-day examples, MySQL is an information system server, NFS is a server that expands local disk space, and FTP is an example of a file storage/retrieval server.
In describing this third type of server, the memo shows the differences in desktop metaphor between Lisa and Macintosh. It is interesting to see that these concepts had not yet crystalized in fall 1983:

AppleBus File Server Description, November 1983, p. 2 wrote:

Lisa and Mac users deal with the concept of an object (tools, folders, etc.) and not of a file. Objects can consist of several files and are put on the disk and retrieved from it for use. This extends easily to disk servers that let the user store/retrieve objects on their disk in a User File Archive.

Most readers should see this and recognize that 'objects' is not a Macintosh concept. Lisa, as a multitasking office appliance, was a document-centric system. In Lisa, you worked on documents directly. Macintosh, on the other hand, was a single-tasking, application-centric system. In Macintosh, you need to first load an application before you could begin editing a document. Macintosh had files and applications, while Lisa had objects and tools.
Gursharan's memo then went on to describe a file cabinet metaphor for the File Server. As there could be multiple file servers on the network, the cluster as a whole was termed a File Archive, while a specific server was known as a File Cabinet. Within each cabinet were one or more File Drawers which contained objects (a group of related files) or documents.
It was all very mundane and predictable, a direct translation of real-world filing methods to the world of computers. The file server had functions for opening cabinets and drawers, moving files between drawers or cabinets, and other management operations such as backup and repair.
Privacy and access control was only briefly touched upon, with a note boldly stating 'This will not be implemented in the restricted prototype version of the server, but can be added later.' This mentality of security as an afterthought to be added later, which was prevalent 30 years ago and is sadly still prevalent today, is responsible for the bewildering array of insecure protocols and systems in the world. Everything from TCP/IP to telnet were designed without any serious consideration to security, among the worst mistakes in the development of the information age from the 1970s to today.
Hardware and Software
The file server hardware was to be a stripped-down Macintosh 128K. The main logic board would be identical to Macintosh, with 128K of RAM and a 64K ROM. The memo noted that a DMA hard disk interface (that would communicate directly with the 68000 CPU) would greatly increase performance of the server, though at increased cost. To add such a hard disk would require a redesign of the Macintosh motherboard.
The hard disk was to be a 20 MB Widget. The Sony 3.5' drive would be retained. Jerry Manock was to design the case, which probably would have resembled a Macintosh Hard Disk 20 with a floppy drive opening on the front and serial ports on the back. The diagram below shows the logical configuration of the proposed file server. Note that the hard disk interface is not defined, but it could have been connected to the IWM floppy disk controller just like the Macintosh Hard Disk 20.
Software for the AppleBus file server was to consist of a File Server Control Program loaded from 3.5' disk and accessed remotely through a serial port; Work Station Access Software for Macintosh, Lisa, Apple IIe, and Apple IIc (referred to by its codename Lolly); Server Configuration, a Backup system to 3.5' disks, and diagnostic modules.
The file server would run the standard Mac OS with additional drivers for AppleBus (to be written by Larry Kenyon) and the hard disk. Client Macintosh computers would access the file server through an icon on the Finder desktop.
AppleBus File Server Takes Shape
The first prototype AppleBus File Server was a Macintosh with an external Sony disk drive, according to Gursharan Sidhu's November 1983 document. The underlying file system was to be MFS with no access control, supporting 4 simultaneous users over an AppleBus network. The Macintosh server would boot from a floppy in the internal drive, and serve files stored on an external floppy.
The implementation schedule was to have a working AppleBus network with two Macs and two Lisas by the end of November 1983, have an external 3.5' floppy drive by December 1983, and have the prototype software completed in January 1984. Plans next called for working prototype server hardware in early January, a hard disk driver in February, and software released for final testing in June 1984.
Hindsight is 20-20 and looking back at it today we know that this schedule never would have happened. In December 1983 the Mac team were up to their eyeballs trying to get the Finder, MacPaint, and MacWrite debugged for release, along with everything else that was necessary to launch an entirely new computing platform. Moreover, AppleBus as a networking protocol was still incomplete, both its link-level hardware and protocols were still being developed and debugged!
1984 AppleBus File Server
As 1983 came to a close, the file server project likely stalled in the haste to complete more important parts of Macintosh for its release in 1984. Amidst all the fanfare, publicity, and marketing materials proclaiming Macintosh were a few small mentions of networking and a file server.
Meanwhile at Apple, a small team of engineers were still working at completing AppleBus and designing the file server. Gary Marten circulated a File Server memo dated January 10th which summarized the characteristics, applications, packaging, and schedule for the AppleBus File Server.
Some details of the server were now resolved since November 1983. The file server would remain 68000-based with AppleBus connectivity, 128K of RAM upgradable to 512K, and a 3.5' Sony floppy drive. The ROM would not be the standard Macintosh 64K ROM, but would be 16 or 32K in size.
The hard drive was to be an internal 20 MB Widget hard disk, the same used on the Apple Lisa 2/10. Finally, an optional internal expansion slot could be provided. This slot would provide a direct interface to the 68000 'for use with such things as a large hard disk interface [beyond the 20 MB Widget], laser printer interface, or an interface to another computer network.'
Having two serial ports, powered by the Zilog SCC chip, one would be for attaching a modem or printer, the other for connecting to the AppleBus network.
Gary outlined several applications for this server beyond just files: it could be used as a communications server without a hard disk, a printer server (probably for the Imagewriter), and with an expansion slot it could be used as a Laser printer server or 'most anything else.'
Scope creep had set in.
The Small File Server (SFS)
The file server was beginning to be more than just a file server. In late February 1984, a meeting was held on the Small File Server, as the product was now called, to report on status.
Gary Marten planned to review the hardware design of the Small File Server to make it as similar as possible to the Macintosh. Recall that in Gursharan's plan for the file server in November 1983, it was going to be a stripped-down Macintosh with the same motherboard, ROM, and Mac operating system. But in Gary's January 1984 outline, the server hardware began to diverge from the standard Macintosh.
After this meeting in February, the plan was to have a working prototype by May 1st. This new prototype was to have a fast parallel port for the Widget hard disk, a DB9 AppleBus connector, and a DB25 port (same as the Lisa's port A).
George Crow reported on the status of AppleBus, stating that the electrical specifications were complete. He expected to have all specs for AppleBus tap boxes and cable components approved by March 13th.
The file server enclosure was still in the concept stage. The design team's guidelines were 'to house a drive with the same dimensions as the current Widget, a power supply with the same area as the ProFile supply, and a logic board with about the same dimensions as the ProFile controller card.'
Several questions were still outstanding, including: is 10 MB of storage enough, what is the availability of the 20 MB Widget drive, how do we expand the file server's storage, is a 3.5' Sony drive necessary, and could the system design be closer to Mac to ease ROM development?
In March 1984, the Macintosh was off to a slow start as the initial excitement died down. The external floppy drive was still two months away from public availability. Finder 1.0 was slow and took an excruciating amount of floppy swaps to copy files. The number of commercial software packages could be counted on the fingers of a single hand. There was little else beyond MacPaint, MacWrite, Microsoft Multiplan, and Microsoft BASIC.
Eric Harslem, part of the file server development team, wrote two, single page memos dated March 19, 1984. One was Small File Server: Status and Issues. The other was Small File Server: One Page Overview.
There was no doubt about it: in the intervening six months since Bob Belleville's original three memos for AppleBus, the file server had grown in scope. The One Page Overview's introduction read thus:

Small File Server: One Page Overview, March 19, 1984 wrote:

This product, while primarily an AppleBus file server, is really 3 products. 1) A small file server (SFS) providing entire-file-at-a-time storage and retrieval on 10 mBytes; 2) A direct connect device to Macintosh providing a personal, 10 Mbyte rigid disk; 3) A product to which a larger disk drive(s) and tape drive can be added to provide 70 mByte and larger file servers. The target date for 1 & 2 above is 4CQ84.

The original file server functionality was the same as outlined in fall 1983, while the new direct connect functionality was to allow the hard disk to be directly connected to one of the Mac's serial ports operating at one megabit.
Two applications were specified in this one page overview: SFSAccess, to access files stored on the hard disk; and SFSMaintain for installation and maintenance functions. The Small File Server itself was to be 'built on a variant of the Mac OS ported to the SFS hardware.'
Hardware specifications for Small File Server looked more like Gursharan Sidhu's November 1983 outline: a 68000 CPU, 128K RAM (upgradable to 512K), 64K ROM, a 10 MB Widget hard disk (upgradable to 20 MB in 1985), power supply, SCC controller, and a status light. The footprint of the server was to be 240x220mm, roughly the same footprint as the Macintosh.
Eric's second document, Status and Issues, reveals that SFSAccess was written and running on a Mac, though it wasn't integrated with the Finder. The file server software was running on a second Mac with 3.5' floppy drive, though with limited functionality. File server protocols still had not been finalized. The plan was to have the file server running on a Lisa 2/10 by April for alpha testing within the Apple 32 department.
On the hardware design, a strawman design for the server's digital board called for a parallel interface to the hard disk. Several Widget interface options were being considered, as well as how to connect larger hard disks to expand storage.
Frog Design, the West-German design firm responsible for the iconic look of the Macintosh SE, Apple IIc, Apple IIgs, and ImageWriter II, were tasked with developing models for the enclosure.
There were still a handful of unresolved issues, such as what interface to use for larger disks and tapes, what sort of file system to use, whether to include a DB25 serial communications port, and how direct-connect functionality (that is, using the server as a hard disk directly attached to only a single computer) would work.
Of these issues, perhaps the most pressing that had yet to be addressed was the file system. MFS, the flat file system predating HFS, wasn't going to cut it.
A better file system was required.
Augmented File System
First mentioned in May 17, 1984, Product Description for the File Server/Personal File, by Eric Harslem, the Augmented File System was a precursor to HFS. It was a hierarchic file system designed for 100 MB volumes and 10,000 files. In this document, it was described thus:

File Server/Personal File Product Specification, May 17, 1984, p. 13 wrote:

Augmented File System - This file system replaces the Macintosh File Manager (which was not designed to support large disk volumes nor structured file directories). Its design center is for 100+Mbyte volumes containing 10,000+ files. It uses extents (start block, # blocks) pairs to describe free space and files on the disk. It stores file information in a B*tree-structured directory which provides a hierarchically-structured file name space.

Two weeks later, on June 1st, 1984, Eric Harslem, Gursharan Sidhu, Ron A, Bill Bruffey, and Chris McFall completed a 16-page document describing the workings of the Augmented File System (AFS). The AFS was to be an extension of the Macintosh File Manager which at that time was used to store data on 400K floppy disks, and had no support for nested folders. The AFS introduction outlined the motivation for a better file system:

Augmented File System, June 1, 1984, p. 1 wrote:

The immediate motivation for AFS is to provide support for very large disk storage volumes (on the order of 100Mbytes) and the large number of individual files (on the order of 10,000 files) that will be found on such volumes. Since the development of AFS is a significant effort, it should address future expansion to handle even larger volumes - 500Mbytes and 50,000 files. (Note that volume here does not have to be a single disk drive. What logically appears to be a volume could, via software, be constructed out of several physical volumes.) The first use of AFS will be in the AppleBus File Server. In the future AFS might be the integral file system for the Big Mac (or used as an External File System on 512K Macs).

This brief introduction has a few interesting points, first being the concept of a logical 'super-volume' constructed from many smaller physical volumes. The Big Mac referenced in the second paragraph was a prototype 68020 system that eventually morphed into the Macintosh II. Finally, it is worth noting that the Mac 512K was not officially announced until fall 1984, about three months after this document was written.
The AFS document continues by listing several shortcomings of the current MFS file system provided by the Macintosh File Manager: inefficient block allocation scheme, fixed file directory size, non-hierarchical directory, and inadequate support for disk caching.
The remaining pages outline the data structures of AFS, and readers who are familiar with HFS will find that these file systems are nearly one in the same. AFS had a hierarchical B*tree directory that stored thread, directory, and file records. This design and document referenced Knuth, vol. 3, Multiway Trees.
I believe that Augmented File System was renamed Turbo File System in August 1984, as there are no more references to this name in any documents or source code available to me. According to comments in source code, the Turbo File System (TFS) was developed beginning in August 1984, and was renamed Hierarchical File System (HFS) in fall 1985 prior to its introduction with the Hard Disk 20.
File Server/Personal File (FS/PF)
As design of a robust file system got underway, progress continued on finalizing the hardware and software design of the AppleBus File Server.
This File Server changed names again, as a May 17, 1984 Product Specification now called it the File Server/Personal File. Its scope was ostensibly simplified down to a file server only, either as a node on an AppleBus network, or directly connected to a single computer. However, midway through the overview, it was revealed that there were plans to allow applications to execute on the server's CPU, such as a mail server or print spooler.

File Server/Personal File Product Specification, Overview, May 17,1984, p. 4 wrote:

As its name suggests, the File Server/Personal File (FS/PF) is a product with two similar but distinct product applications. It can be configured as a node on an AppleBus and shared by a number of users (workstations) - access is at the nominal AppleBus speed of 230.4Kbps. It can also be directly connected to a Macintosh as a dedicated, intelligent, highly-buffered external file system - communication with the Macintosh is ~900Kbps. The basic, online storage capacity is 10Mbytes and can be expanded to 67Mbytes. (A follow on product, the Expansion File, would permit online storage of over 200Mbytes.) The FS/PF hardware consists of four components: 1) an industry-standard, 5.25' rigid disk drive (10 or 67Mbytes), 2) an Astec power supply, 3) a digital board, and 4) chassis and plastic case. The digital board design is similar to that in the Macintosh with superfluous functionality removed (such as the video support) and functionality added to support the FS/PF such as a DMA rigid disk interface and an interface allowing the addition of tape backup units and additional disk units. The software which runs in the FS/PF and provides its functionality is based on the Macintosh Operating System. The Macintosh file system is not used since it was was not designed to support large capacity disks - a new file system is being developed. In addition to providing the functionality of a shared file server and a dedicated, external file system for Macintosh, the software allows 'applications' to be added for co-execution in the memory of the FS/PF. This will be used to provide mall server or print spooling functionality, for example. Additional FS/PF file software runs in each Macintosh (or other AppleBus-connected workstion) desiring to use this functionality. For the File Server this software allows the user to store and retrieve files between the Macintosh and the File Server. For the Personal File, there is a small software module that maps file system requests into commands across the ~900Mbyte connection to the Personal File. Finally, the SF /PF Install/Maintain software runs on the Macintosh and is used to perform initial installation and configuration. This software is also used to perform routine maintenance such as backup, as well as diagnostic functions. All software interfaces to the FS/PF will be published. This will allow third parties to develop applications that use the file server in either mode. It will also be possible for third parties to develop applications and have them execute on the FS/PF.

In Personal File mode, the server acts as a directly-connected hard disk for use with a single Macintosh or Lisa computer. Its icon appears on the Finder desktop like any other disk. In AppleBus mode, the server is a network hard disk. The server would automatically detect whether it was connected to a network or a single computer and configure itself accordingly.
The logic board was to be identical to the Macintosh where possible, except that unnecessary circuits such as sound and video were to be removed. The 32K of ROM would 'contain those parts of the Macintosh OS relevant to the FS/PF (ie, not QuickDraw) as well as additional code to support booting from the rigid disk and over AppleBus (eg, during installation) and code germane to a file server.
The 3.5' floppy drive was eliminated in favor of network booting, or booting from the internal hard drive. The hard disk interface still had not been determined. It was to be either an Apple Widget, ESDI, or perhaps SCSI. At this time, Apple engineers were considering this emerging standard called SCSI for attaching hard disks and other peripherals.
Internally, the File Server/Personal File was a full-fledged computer with 128K of RAM meaning that it could run other software besides the OS and file server software. These applications could run through a task scheduler to do things such as provide a full-text index for keyword search, distributing electronic mail, or spooling documents for an attached printer.
Widget and Nisha
Towards the end of 1984, development work began on the Nisha, a new 20 MB hard disk designed to replace the 10 MB Widget drive used in the Apple Lisa 2/10. Nisha was slated to be used in the Apple File Server, according to an April 1985 File Server Theory of Operation document, as well as the Macintosh Hard Disk 20.
But 1985 wasn't a good year for Apple. The Nisha project was scrapped in May and Apple used a third-party supplier for its hard disks, as it had originally done with ProFile which used a Seagate drive.
Apple's Public Strategy
So far we have looked at the development of the network file server from within Apple, using Apple confidential memos and documents. How did things look outside of Apple? What was Apple's publicly-stated strategy or plans for mass storage on Macintosh?
In early 1984, Steve Jobs said in an interview that Apple was working on a disk server for Macintosh. Softalk's magazine for Macintosh, St.Mac, reported in its February 1984 issue that

St.Mac, February 1984, p. 54 wrote:

Apple has many peripherals planned in support of Lisa and Macintosh. AppleBus is Apple's peripheral-sharing scheme, designed to connect the entire Apple family of products together to allow them to share resources such as hard disks and printers. The unofficial word is that Apple plans several new peripherals for mid- to late-1984 release, among them an intelligent seventy-megabyte hard disk for the AppleBus costing less than $100,000.

In November 1984, rumors were that Apple would announce its Office and File Server System in January 1985 that would be 'essentially a box with a hard disk designed to be attached to the laser printer and Appletalk.' Dick Kalagher reported on the Info-Mac mailing list in mid-November 1984 that an Apple representative had visited his local User Group to discuss AppleTalk.

Dick Kalagher in fa.info-mac, 15 Nov 1984 wrote:

He [the Apple representative] said that Apple realizes they have to penatrate the business market in order to be truly successful. As part of this strategy, they will have a network called 'Appletalk' in January. It will connect up to 32 Macs with twisted pair cable. He thought that the interface would cost about $50, but it had not been priced yet. Initially the network will only allow Macs to send files to each other. In 1st qtr 85 they will release a 20MB hard disk that can act as a file server on the network. He also thought that the Corvus hard disk would be cabable of acting as a file server. Apple will also have a laser printer for the network. Cost will be $7000 and speed is 8 pages/minute.

Sure enough, at Apple's January 1985 Shareholders meeting, Steve Jobs announced AppleTalk, the file server, and the LaserWriter printer. AppleTalk was demonstrated by showing a letter icon being inserted into an envelope icon and conveyed across the wire to the destination Macintosh. The LaserWriter was demonstrated on stage by printing a transparency.
Apple's official Macintosh Office Press Release for 1985 described the file server briefly:

Apple Computer, Inc. Introduce the Macintosh Office, January 1985 wrote:

Work groups sharing a network need centralized storage for files and electronic mail. Apple's file server will be just one of many file and disk servers on the market for The Macintosh Office. The file server, with 20-megabyte and 40-megabyte capacities, will be Apple's hard-disk electronic communication solution for work groups. It will have a built-in computer; software that provides file transfer, electronic mail and print-spooling; and built-in file-management software that will form the basis of multiuser applications to be developed by third parties. The file server's design encourages development of both hardware and software products. It contains a standard SCSI peripheral interface to support hardware add-ons such as tape back-up and additional storage. Also, it uses the Macintosh operating system and development environment, making it easy for third-party software developers already familiar with Macintosh to write applications for the file server.

By March 1985, rumors had spread that Apple's announced, but as yet unreleased file server would use SCSI, and would be able to run applications.
Cancellation, Demise, and Aftermath
The rumors were true. The latest File Server document available on the Bitsavers archive is dated April 3, 1985. Its 67 pages describe a machine with one or two 20 MB Nisha hard disks, 1 MB of RAM, 64K of ROM, an 8 MHz 68000, two serial ports, and a SCSI port.
More than a year after its introduction, Apple still did not have any adequate hard disk solution for Macintosh, except for the Lisa running MacWorks, which had a 5 or 10 MB hard drive. A handful of third-party hard drives were available by spring 1985, but they all relied on MFS and had various downsides.
The original release of MacWorks in 1984, which allowed an Apple Lisa 2 to run Macintosh software, did not support the Lisa's hard disk. By fall 1984, MacWorks 2.0 allowed the Macintosh environment to use Lisa's hard disk, but not boot directly from it. Finally in January 1985, Apple renamed the Lisa 2 as Macintosh XL, and later that summer released MacWorks XL 3.0. This new version of MacWorks at last supported booting from the hard disk, thus qualifying the Macintosh XL as the first Mac to fully support an internal hard disk!
In Apple's January 23, 1985 press release, Mike Murray, director of marketing for Macintosh, was quoted as saying, 'Many people have asked when Apple will introduce a Macintosh that has a built-in hard disk.... We already have such a Macintosh. It's called the LISA 2/10....'
The Cancellations Begin
But by late April 1985, Apple announced that the Macintosh XL was going to be discontinued June 1st. That meant there would no longer be a Macintosh model with an internal hard disk. However, accompanying this news was a statement that Apple was planning to release a 512K Mac and 20 MB hard disk in September. This was to be the Hard Disk 20.
Later that summer, Andy Hertzfeld stated in an online interview that 'Apple was developing a file server that had some form of password protection in the system, but it was recently cancelled and I'm not sure what the current strategy is.'
The May 23, 1985 edition of the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple may have canceled plans for its previously announced file server. The article on page 2 read, in part:

WSJ, May 23, 1985, p. 2 wrote:

...[Apple will close a factory] that made prototypes of products the company had intended to introduce this fall. Those products under development, a file server and a 20-megabyte hard-disk dirve, are important parts of Apple's office-equipment line [called] the Macintosh Office. When the line was introduced, Apple officials said the two products probably would be on the market by fall. Apple now says it is negotiating contracts with other manufacturers to supply a file server and the necessary disk drives. Apple said the equipment will bear its label. ...Despite the closing of the San Jose plant, Apple intends to continue interal research efforts into hard disk products, [a spokeswoman] said....

Things were looking bad indeed. Apple had now canceled:

Platformer Prototype (digifox08) Mac Os X

• Macintosh XL
  
• the Nisha 20 MB hard disk mechanism
  
• its Network File Server

With its disk manufacturing division now gone, Apple had to work with a 3rd-party vendor to source a hard disk mechanism for the upcoming Hard Disk 20, as the cost of trying to develop Nisha was proving too great. The File Server hardware was canceled in favor of an all-software solution.
Chris Espinosa spoke at the Cornell MacAdemia conference in June, where he said 'that the Mac Hard Drive would be out in September, be an external drive that connects to the disk drive port, and will be self-bootable. ... He also mentioned that this would be the basis for the new developer's system'
When the Hard Disk 20 was announced and demonstrated in September 1985, users were told that a server program would allow the disk to be shared on AppleTalk.
But it took over a year until AppleShare and AFP were released in 1987. In the meantime, third party server solutions such as Centram TOPS and InfoSphere's MacServe filled the need for network storage and file sharing.
Despite never being released, eagle-eyed users spotted what appeared to be Apple's file server in a photo on the new AppleTalk Connector Kits package in August 1986. It was described as looking like a LaserWriter, but with no place for paper to come out; a plain white box with an Apple logo.
Andy Hertzfeld summed up the state of affairs well in January 1986:

Andy Hertzfeld at Princeton Mac Users Group, as recorded in MacUser, January 1986, p. 22 wrote:

Developing the Mac: 'Our biggest mistake was not enough attention to the needs of a hard disk user...because of Lisa being the hard disk system.'

That's all for this Mac 512K Blog article. The next one will be about the first TCP/IP stack for Macintosh, written in 1984!

The Mac 512K Blog wrote:

This blog chronicles the Macintosh 512K and my projects with it. We will test software, fix hardware, program it, hack it, and generally take the 512K Macintosh to its limits. Do leave any feedback you may have, either to my email dog_cow@macgui.com or by posting a comment to this article.

Platformer Prototype (digifox08) Mac Os 11