The New Inside Macintosh
The original Inside Macintosh library of books appeared in six volumes from 1985 to 1991. Those volumes each focused on a particular version of the system software, sometimes prompted by the release of new hardware configurations. Often, the later volumes of the original Inside Macintosh described only new system software components or changes to existing system software components.The new Inside Macintosh books are intended to replace the original Inside Macintosh books and to provide a more complete and more useful reference to the Macintosh system software. The most obvious improvement in the new books is that they are organized principally by topic. For example, the book Inside Macintosh: Files contains virtually all the available information related to files, including complete descriptions of the File Manager, the Standard File Package, the Alias Manager, and the Disk Initialization Manager. Similarly, the book Inside Macintosh: Text contains all information about handling text. This topic-oriented organization of books makes it easier for you to find the information you need. It also makes it easier for Apple to add books to the Inside Macintosh suite as new technologies emerge in the years ahead.
At the same time that the entire suite of books was reorganized, the chapters in the new Inside Macintosh books were completely rewritten. Information that may have been previously scattered across multiple volumes of the original Inside Macintosh is now combined into easily accessible chapters. Information that is no longer relevant or useful has been removed. Most importantly, the new Inside Macintosh provides far more explanatory material and source code samples than the original. Where appropriate, material from the Macintosh Technical Notes has been incorporated into the new Inside Macintosh. Finally, each chapter has been extensively reviewed by Apple engineers, testing personnel, and Developer Technical Support staff.