ORIGINAL MAC CALCULATOR DESIGN CAME FROM LETTING STEVE JOBS PLAY WITH MENUS FOR 10 MINUTES

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

In 1982, Apple developer Chris Espinosa addressed Steve Jobs' ongoing critiques of the endless calculator by creating a tool that allowed Jobs to adjust every visual parameter himself through menus. Jobs spent just 10 minutes tweaking settings and arrived at a design he liked, which shipped with the original Mac in 1984 and remained virtually unchanged for 17 years through macOS 9. The approach was an early example of parameterized design tools and revealed Jobs' preference for direct manipulation over verbal articulation of his preferences.