As a successor to “Image” Rasband set out to build a program that would provide the same utility but could be used on the desktop computers that were just becoming widely available, chief among them the Apple Macintosh (Mac) II (Apple Inc.) The Mac II with its relative low cost of adoption, widespread use, easy graphic interface and good developer support provided the ideal program for a new “Image” program. The Mac II had several key additions over the earlier Mac that made his vision of NIH Image possible 1) expansion slots- the ability to add third party acquisition boards 2) Advanced Graphics- the ability to handle not only color but most importantly 8 bit 256 grays, the mainstay format of light microscopy 3) support for the Pascal programming language to allow third party developers to easily develop their own applications.
