The Apple Jonathan: A 1980s concept computer that never shipped

In his book Inventing the Future, John Buck writes about the concept, which was led by Apple engineer Jonathan Fitch starting in the fall of 1984. A lot of the people working on the Mac wanted to stick with it, just go onto the next iteration of the Mac, because they saw it as "Growing," and they didn't want to go do something that might never see the light of day. A small team worked on the concept for about eight months before engaging Frog Design - yes, that Frog Design - to work on a prototype design to show the idea to Apple brass. With the Macintosh division developing its own high-end concepts - Big Mac and a modular CPU that would eventually become the Mac II - Fitch's concept would need a totally different architecture to distinguish it from the Mac. Fitch's design called for the backplane and track to support book-shaped modules, each containing circuitboards and chips for running the Mac OS, Apple II software, DOS, Windows, or Unix operating systems, plus other modules for connecting disk drives, modems and networking hardware, all plugged into the same track. Fitch expected IBM users to buy a Jonathan with individual DOS and Apple software modules, then grow tired of Microsoft's UI, and eventually opt for Apple's OS full-time. Jean-Louis Gassée delivered the first hit by observing that Apple would have to sell two or three Jonathans to equal the profit of a single Mac II. Others complained that Jonathan would compete with the Mac II. Then Sculley delivered the coup de grâce - voicing the fear that once the Mac and DOS were offered on the same platform, more Mac users might move to DOS then DOS users would move to the Mac.