Woz Still Misses Homebrew Computer Club and Apple

UtahSaint writes "The Electronic Design site has nabbed a short interview with the Woz, where he waxes poetically about his time growing up as an Engineer and founding Apple. Even to this day, he says, he still misses the Homebrew Computer Club and his days running around Apple leading the technical teams. 'I miss the technical camaraderie ... The whole feeling of being on a revolution, on the edge. I miss the intuitive philosophies.'"

I wonder if he waxes poetic about Steve Jobs

[Jailbrekr]

Considering that Stave Jobs ripped him off in 1975 when he got the Woz to help him optimize Breakout at Atari, and then paid him 7% of what he made, instead of the 50% they had agreed on.

Re:WOZ I want to build my own mac like you can wit

[Guy Harris]

The reason IBM is outta the game is because OS/2 was originally available for IBM only (makes sense, it WAS developed by IBM)

Or, rather, by IBM and a certain other company [microsoft.com], the fact that they've obliterated it (and Xenix) from their annoyingly Flash-ridden history [microsoft.com] (unless I missed it) nonwithstanding.

Two words for you...

[PaulBu]

1) FPGAs,

and

2) Software (on network-connected rather powerful boxes).

You go second route, you can become the next Google (well, become => become part of :) ), you go the first one, you can become the next Apple (no, they did not start with replicating MOS Technologies fab line and taping out their own chips). If you have good ideas about processor architecture, prototyping them on $200-$1000 FPGA demoboard might be an interesting option nowadays.(Here I should probably quote the not necessarily reality supported, but popular meme how modern algorithms on ancient hardware run faster than ancient algorithms on modern hardware). Sky is the limit! :)

Paul B.

 

Re:Mybe he could find that in open source...

[RalphBNumbers]

...If he didn't totally trash it

The homebrew computer club was pretty close to the current Open Hardware movement.

Quoth Woz in the the article you refrenced:
"There's always a group of people that wants to undo the forces of industry that have given us so much in terms of wealth, and there's always people who want things to be free," ... "The open-source movement starts with those sort of people. But it still has such good points that have nothing to do with whether it's free or not. The idea of developing something and then making your solution known. Spread the information so the world can grow from it."

It sounds to me like he loves the idea of open source itself, and just takes issue with a lot of the other ideologies that are lumped in with it these days (anti-capitalism, the "free" software movement, etc). That sounds pretty reasonable to me, and certainly isn't "totally trashing [open source]".

Re:SuperHappyDevHouse

[dew]

As one of the co-founders of DevHouse, we are definitely trying to honor and encourage the spirit of Homebrew. In fact, Lee Felsenstein, who ran most of the Homebrew meetings, is now a regular attender (along with his lovely partner) and helps us shape the meetings to be maximally functional and useful. In a business cover article in the San Jose Mercury News, DevHouse was described as "resurrecting the spirit of the Homebrew Computer Club" (digg [digg.com]). We were flattered.

Re:I wonder if he waxes poetic about Steve Jobs

[Hal_Porter]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breakout&oldid=165719777#History_and_development [wikipedia.org]

Al Alcorn was assigned as the project manager, and began development with Cyan Engineering in 1975. The same year, Alcorn assigned Steve Jobs to design a prototype. Jobs was offered USD$750, with an extra $100 each time a chip was eliminated from the prospected design. Jobs promised to complete a prototype within four days.

Jobs noticed his friend Steve Wozniak - employee of Hewlett-Packard - was capable of producing designs with a small amount of chips, and invited him to work on the hardware design with the prospect of splitting the $750 wage. Wozniak had no sketches and instead interpreted the game from its description. To save parts, he had "tricky little designs" difficult to understand for most engineers. Near the end of development, Wozniak considered moving the high score to the screen's top, but Jobs claimed Bushnell wanted it at the bottom; Wozniak unaware of any truth to his claims. The original deadline was met, and 50 chips were removed from Jobs' original design. This equated to a $5000 USD bonus, which Jobs kept secret from Wozniak, instead only paying him $375.

Re:One hit wonder

[GreggBz]

I entirely agree. What he did was huge. He practically created the desktop computer as we know it

The HP 9100A [wikipedia.org], which hit the market long before the Apple, the Commodore PET [wikipedia.org], which was spearheaded a few years in advance by Commodore / MOS / Motorola engineer Chuck Peddle (who, BTW invented the chip that Steve used to build his Apple and a gazillion other devices) and the Datapoint 2200 [wikipedia.org], would kindly like to disagree with that glowing statement.

Dozens of people created the PC as we know it.

Steve Wozniac stood on Chuck Peddle's shoulders. The 6502 was cheap enough to make a cheap enough PC.

Although I think the GP was a little critical, I can see where someone might get annoyed enough to post like that. The PC arrived through a large complex evolution of many peoples innovations, and I don't even think Steve, engineering wise, was the most important one of that bunch.

Re:Your missing the point .

[vux984]

Its the same hardware whether you run mac, linux or windows. The same machines.

And those same machines are priced very nearly the same.

Re:Wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't specify the video chip in your laptop. And does your laptop have firewire 400 and 800 connectors ? These connectors can be a big deal to someone working with audio or video. High-end audio cards connect to these ports. Is the keyboard lighted ? You have to compare all the little features when comparing prices. What is more interesting with some pc manufacturers is that you can really pick just the features you want and save money this way.