The Beginnings of Apple Computer 181
John Burek points out an article written by Stan Veit, former editor-in-chief of Computer Shopper magazine, and one of the first retailers to deal with the fledgling Apple Computer in the late 1970s. Veit describes his introduction to the Apple I and his early interactions with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as they developed their early models. Quoting:
"After Woz hooked his haywire rig up to the living-room TV, he turned it on, and there on the screen I saw a crude Breakout game in full color! Now I was really amazed. This was much better than the crude color graphics from the Cromemco Dazzler. ... 'How do you like that?' said Jobs, smiling. 'We're going to dump the Apple I and only work on the Apple II.' 'Steve,' I said, 'if you do that you will never sell another computer. You promised BASIC for the Apple I, and most dealers haven't sold the boards they bought from you. If you come out with an improved Model II they will be stuck. Put it on the back burner until you deliver on your promises.'"
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même (Score:5, Funny)
Priceless
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Plus ca change, plus c'est pareille.
If you whant to lok cool using foreign language at least google it right before posting.
And furthermore, if you want to be a pedant in regards to his French, make sure your English is accurate.
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Well the correct spelling is
Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil.
You don't know what you're talking about either.
And by the way we say more "Plus ça change, moins ça change" unless you're in Quebec.
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Interesting about Wozniak (Score:5, Insightful)
When Apple went public, Jobs would not give stock to several employees who made the Apple possible. My son gave them stock out of his allotment, or they would have never benefited from the long hours and devotion they put in to start the company. If you had given Jobs the money, he would have found a way to keep you from getting the stock.
I guess Wozniak is a class act. And as far as Jobs is concerned, well; I guess he and Gates are similar people. Actually, I don't think I've heard of Gates screwing employees out of stock.
Re:Interesting about Wozniak (Score:5, Interesting)
Paul Allen got pretty sick during the early years of Microsoft. According to Cringely, Allen overheard Gates and Balmer scheming to re-capture the portion of the company that he owned:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060330_000890.html [pbs.org]
Re:Interesting about Wozniak (Score:5, Informative)
You left off a significant detail. Allen overheard Gates and Balmer scheming to re-capture the portion of the company that he owned if Allen were to die.
From the link in your post:
Small and mid-sized companies with large non-involved owners who inherit stock are poorly structured. Any founders with a little experience or a little forethought set up buy-sell agreements for exactly this eventuality. Sounds like they didn't have the forethought to set it up at the time of the founding. And so they were working on how to deal with the reality that one of their largest shareholders was facing the real possibility of death.
Bill Gates has done some awful things, but I don't think this is one of them.
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In one of the startup companies I worked for, three of the founding directors attempted a coup to throw out the fourth founding director- they wanted to spend profits on new product areas, he wanted to concentrate on core business. Using the assistance of a lawyer, they worked out a way of forcing him to leave and hand over the shares in the company that he owned. So they launched their scheme. Unfortunately for them, the shares had been signed into ownership of his wife, and so he didn't have to hand them
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This is a conversation Allen should have started. It's a conversation that should begin the moment you start considering a partnership.
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Oh please, get over yourself. Out here in the real world, planning for death before it actually happens is called "smart". I suppose you would think that asking somebody beforehand whether they prefer cremation or burial to be too uncaring and calculating, and would prefer to wait for them to die before you ask how they want their remains to be treated!
Re:Interesting about Wozniak (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I don't think I've heard of Gates screwing employees out of stock.
Tell that to all of the MS permatemps before Vizcaino v. Microsoft.
The Microsoft Millionaires (Score:5, Informative)
From 1986 to 1996, Microsoft's stock soared more than a hundredfold as the company's Windows operating system and Office applications dominated the PC industry.
That explosive climb made millionaires of employees who had accepted options as a substantial part of their compensation for 60-hour workweeks fueled by a diet of Twinkies, Coca-Cola and marshmallow Peeps. The sudden riches led many to refer to themselves as "lottery winners.
"While the exact number is not known, it is reasonable to assume that there were approximately 10,000 Microsoft millionaires created by the year 2000," said Richard S. Conway Jr., a Seattle economist whom Microsoft hired to study its impact on Washington State. "The wealth that has come to this area is staggering."
The Microsoft Millionaires Come Of Age [nytimes.com] [May 29, 2005]
_____
Not everyone draws the winning hand, of course - some simply come into the game too late.
The Few, the Tech-Savvy Few: Option Millionaires [npr.org] [Feb 11, 2007]
For comparison's sake, Microsoft currently employs about 90,000 world-wide.
In 1990, around 6,000.
Re:Interesting about Wozniak (Score:5, Insightful)
My impression of Woz is that what he is at heart is an engineer. He wants to make stuff, and make stuff work, and make stuff do really nifty things, and create jokes and pranks. I think in his mind being rich is nice and all, but there are much more important things to worry about, like helping other people out and teaching kids about technology.
Hence his gift of stock to other employees: he has plenty for himself, so he decided to do the decent thing and help out some other folks he knew.
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My impression of Woz is that what he is at heart is an engineer.
I get the same impression - Jobs is the 'suit' and Woz is the 'Beard'. Yes, I've been reading Stephenson again this week, so sue me.
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Actually, I don't think I've heard of Gates screwing employees out of stock.
Not sure how much of a personal involvement Gates had with the Microsoft permatemp fiasco [nwsource.com] but at the very least you can say that HR tried their darndest to keep deserving people from getting stock.
An historic moment... (Score:5, Insightful)
"'...You promised BASIC for the Apple I, and most dealers haven't sold the boards they bought from you. If you come out with an improved Model II they will be stuck. Put it on the back burner until you deliver on your promises.'"
And lo, the hardware/software upgrade cycle was born.
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so people never upgraded hardware or software before Apple came along? what, did Steve Jobs invent software versioning too?
and that quote only refers to hardware upgrade, not a hardware/software upgrade cycle. the whole point of it was that they promised BASIC for the Apple I. so they're not going to make people buy an Apple II before they've delivered BASIC [wikipedia.org] on the Apple I. how is that a hardware/software upgrade cycle? they're not using hardware to make people upgrade their software. they're not even using software to make people upgrade their hardware.
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Maybe the anon got modded Troll because it was meant as a goddam joke. Next time I make a joke I'll make sure to edit it for historical and technical accuracy.
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Maybe the anon got modded Troll because it was meant as a goddam joke. Next time I make a joke I'll make sure to edit it for historical and technical accuracy.
Ohh, so your post was a joke (and modded +3 Insightful), and the ACs a troll, not the other way around? Thanks for clearing that up.
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No problem.
Another view of the birth of computing. (Score:3, Informative)
The movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/ [imdb.com] does a great job of showing the dynamics involved at the birth of the 'Personal' computer.
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Hmm, good movie, definitely worth a watch by all geeks, although the actor playing Gates looked way too sleazy. Whatever you think about Gates, at least on the outside he looks just nerdy and certainly not dangerous or sleazy - which I guess is an advantage if opponents lower their guard ;)
Re:Another view of the birth of computing. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, "Pirates of Silicon Valley" gave far more credit to Apple than they deserved in the early days, and is an example of some outrageous revisionist history. Remember that the battle was between Commodore and Radio Shack at the time. Apple was constantly playing catch-up, and by the end of the 70's remained far back in third place in terms of volume and sales in spite of their marketing claims.
Wozniak, Jobs, Peddle, and Tramiel all discussed a Commodore buyout of Apple in '78. The Steves were receptive, were it not for Tramiel's stubborn and short-sighted decision to walk away from the deal.
Apple has had some brilliant people in marketing and many of them are guilty of revising history to suit the company's expected image.
If you have any interest in the origins of personal computing, you should read about Chuck Peddle's first-hand account of the relationship between the Steves and Commodore in "On The Edge" by Brian Bagnall. It's an amazing account of those years.
Apple makes some great products, and there are some incredible engineers who have been with NeXT and Apple. But let's be truthful about the origins of the Personal Computer. Apple and Microsoft were sideshows at the time.
Oh, and apropos TFA: this guy misspells Mike Markullas name repeatedly. Not sure where that comes from; hopefully it's not in his book.
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Just to get your last "fact" out of the way first, Mike Markkula [wikipedia.org] isn't spelled how you think it's spelled.
Secondly, while Apple's market share in the late 1970's was low compared to the PET and the TRS-80, it's influence was substantial. Which is why Apple rapidly gained market share and was ahead of them by 1981. The VIC-20 and C-64 borrowed a lot of ideas from it when they came out in the 80's, but when the IBM PC came out it rapidly took the market share lead and never relinquished it.
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Just to get your last "fact" out of the way first, Mike Markkula [wikipedia.org] isn't spelled how you think it's spelled.
Touche; I was actually looking at his correct damn name when I wrote that. Age is a bitch.
Secondly, while Apple's market share in the late 1970's was low compared to the PET and the TRS-80, it's influence was substantial. Which is why Apple rapidly gained market share and was ahead of them by 1981. The VIC-20 and C-64 borrowed a lot of ideas from it when they came out in the 80's, but when the IBM PC came out it rapidly took the market share lead and never relinquished it.
I don't believe you are contradicting anything I've written, except perhaps you are suggesting that Apple had a very substantial influence back in the 70's. This seems to be Cringely's and Apple's opinion, which no one else seems to be able to corroborate, either in terms of eyewitness accounts to computer faires, or in raw sales figures.
Re:Another view of the birth of computing. (Score:5, Informative)
My understanding by reading "On the Edge" and looking at some microcomputer sales charts that used to be on the web is that Apple was in 3rd place behind PET and TRS-80 *until* the spreadsheet started to take off, around 1981.
This happened largely out of happenstance. The budget-tight VisiCalc programmers simply couldn't get access to PET's and TRS's at the time, but an Apple II was available for their use. Thus, they programmed VisiCalc on and for the Apple first. When VisiCalc started selling well, Apple was the only computer VisiCalc ran on. This is when Apple pulled ahead of PET (and prompted Commodore to produce the C-64).
VisiCalc was eventually ported to other computers, but Apple got a big boost for being first with it. VisiCalc (and later clones) had a huge influence on turning microcomputers from hobby machines into a serious market. Apple probably would not have the funds to produce the Mac if not for spreadsheet revenue, and flounder like most others when IBM PC clones commoditized the market. Apple is the only proprietary microcomputer vendor from the early years I know of to survive this commoditization. (There may still be some very nichy vendors around.)
Apple also rode a second software revolution: Desktop publishing. Commodore Amiga narrowly missed this opportunity.
Thus, luck played a large part in Apple's survival.
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It's a good thing then that Visicalc didn't come with any severe logic bugs, like the kind that would do equations improperly. Something like that would majorly set back the case for computerized finances.
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It's funny that after the Apple II, all the other computers looked like an Apple II. The Apple II was the first to use molded plastics instead of metal, and its technical design was ahead of its time. Don't get me wrong-- I owned the VIC-20, C-64, and even C-128; I didn't own an Apple under the Mac Plus. But considering most people my age got their first exposure to computers through their school's Apple II's, it's hard to underestimate its influence.
Microsoft was never a side show. (Score:2)
Microsoft was never a side show.
The PC without high level programming languages is the side show.
Microsoft was selling BASIC to clients like GE and Citibank in 1976. Applesoft BASIC, and BASIC for the Commodore PET and TRS-80 ship in 1977. MBASIC defines the eight-bit micro.
April 4, 1979, Microsoft 8080 BASIC is the first microprocessor product to win the ICP Million Dollar Award. Traditio
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Yes you are absolutely correct.
The incredible irony is that the only reason Apple are still around today is because they were so unpopular back then. Their computers were so overpriced compared to similar models - especially the Commodore PET - that they were simply not being bought or used. No-one wanted an Apple, everyone wanted a Commodore PET. To put this in perspective you need to understand the computer market of the late 70s, when they were being bought by students and hobbyists with super-low bud
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Which may actually be true, given their personalities. Woz was a kid in a garage with a non-functional board well after Peddle had designed the 6501 and 6502 microprocessors. Peddle actually assisted Woz in engineering the Apple I motherboard (using the same testing equipment designed for the PET), and they have remained friends throughout.
Maybe it was a weird soldering iron; maybe it was Chuck's. :)
Re:Another view of the birth of computing. (Score:4, Insightful)
<shrug> This is why you don't send engineers to negotiate arms-control treaties.
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As usual, though, the book is better. The Pirates of Silicon Valley is based on Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. It's out of print but your library probably has a copy. It's a very fun book.
The movie focuses on Gates/Jobs (because, hey, movies have to do things like that) and... well, not exactly "stereotypes" them, but certainly streamlines the personae. It also underplays the Digital Research history, for one thing.
But one of the illuminating
Another view of the birth of canning. (Score:2)
"I assume y'all know about the upcoming Rebooting Computing summit, which aims to put the magic back into our field."
Wonder if the founders of the canning industry could put the magic back in their profession?
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--Wow - I haven't seen your name in years, but I do remember reading your articles in CS. :-) That mag is only a -shadow- of its former self now; back in the day, you almost had to have a special mailbox for it.
Hope you're doing well - best wishes!
I liked my old Apple II..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I liked my old Apple II..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft knows they can't go "We no longer support anything from before Windows 2000" because EVERYONE will be pissed. From corporate accounts who can't use their ancient printers to Joe Sixpack who has a scanner from 1992.
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Well, you are right and you are wrong. Wrong thing is that me and my customers really get advantage of backwards compatibility. If I write my stuff following the rules written in MSDN, my apps work just fine on (almost) any Windows version.
Where you are absolutely right is this driver thing. I've written NDIS intermediate network drivers for Windows 98, NT, 2000, XP and CE. I did everything by the books and the dri
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You've raised something I've been wondering about for years.
I don't understand why MS hasn't developed a current multitiered approach to OS development. The old NT/Xp should be kept going for what is now becoming legacy systems and something like W7 or better with no backwards compatibility for newtech systems.
There would be a clear choice for consumers. It's almost there now with the infamous Vista Ready and Vista capable hardware.
I suppose pressure from manufacturers to provide 2 classes of hardware may b
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If you had said that about Windows XP I would agree with you, but Windows Vista has a different driver model that is focused around
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A lot of the security issues in Vista today are there because drivers used those holes to work. People still use hardware that uses those broken drivers, and the companies who released the products stopped supporting them years ago.
Actually Vista addressed the driver issues with new driver models and which broke compatability [microsoft.com] with many older drivers. The link has the details but a lot of restrictions were created specifically against older drivers and holes. That's exactly why everyone so pissed about Vis
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Yes, it would have been so much better if Apple had decided to preserve backwards compatibility at any cost and ended up with a "turtles all the way down" situation like the PC!
the real money quote... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Apple users were much more oriented toward software and graphic applications. They were more interested in what a computer did then how it did it.
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and it still is that way to this day...
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meh, i prefer to look at them as a toolbox. the programs installed is the real tools.
if you want real computer tools, you go for single use appliances (very rare these days of value add via software feature creep).
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Depends on whether you are just a home hobbyist or someone who needs to actually get work done. There are places for both types in the world, luckily.
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true, i just wish that big papa corp didnt try so hard to turn one of them into the other all the time...
Car methaphor for Slashdot (Score:2)
This is not necessarily a bad thing. To most people (The 99.whatever% who don't use linux) a computer is a tool, not a project. There's nothing wrong with either view to be perfectly fair, but it's unfair to come down on people just because they want to get things done (or don't - whatever).
You don't need to be a mechanic to get your driver's license...
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The Apple users were much more oriented toward software and graphic applications.
Partially wrong. What you say only happened when Macs started to replace the Apple series. This was because Mac Basic was hard to get. Borland and other development houses turned Macs to C at a very expensive price. Other programming languages like Hypercard, Logo, etc didn't cut the cake. It was because of this that a lot of in-house development slowed to a crawl and there was a movement away from Apple to the PC as the prog
deliver on your promises? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Apple I and II BASIC were basically the same thing and the project was never put on hold. The Apple II had very little extra code, only for handling character I/O differently, some color graphics commands that I added, and the slot-directed character I/O commands (PR #6). If there was some trying to back out of implementing this BASIC on the Apple I, it was never communicated to me. I never spoke to Stan Veit myself about this.
In fact, I definitely had the completed Apple I BASIC running Star Trek on a dozen Apple I's in a store in Orange County, long before BASIC was adapted for the Apple II.
Bottom line is...it's news to me although it makes some sense (the push to support the Apple I).
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BASIC - A programming language, originally designed for Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which has since become the leading cause of brain-damage in proto-hackers.
;)
A little corny, but... (Score:2)
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Have you ever considered publishing the Integer BASIC source code? I remember reading the system ROM source code in my old Apple ][ manuals, but I don't recall seeing Integer BASIC.
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Not exactly, on a couple counts. Word has it (and I don't know if it's true or computer folklore) that Woz assembled Integer BASIC by hand. That is, it's written in assembly code, but the wasn't assembled by a computer.
What we have available to us are the Apple I and Apple II Integer BASIC program images. (Cassette dump for the Apple I, ROM dump for the Apple II.) These are the machine code images for the two programs. They can be disassembled to show us the instructions, but that doesn't tell us anyth
Woz impressing? Hmmm (Score:2, Informative)
That's a shock. Woz tends to be overly frank. But based on the article, Jobs acted in an impulsive kind of way, and stuck the author with big shipping bills without asking.
Replica 1 (Score:4, Informative)
Marriage made in hell: inventor and entrepreneur (Score:5, Interesting)
Wozniak just wanted to innovate and see how he could push the technological envelope. Jobs just wanted to see how far he could push his financial envelope... at the expense of the Woz and anyone else he could manipulate.
The glaring contrast between Wozniak and Jobs was one of the earliest influences that led me to despise manipulators of all varieties. I admired Woz and hated Jobs.
Re:Marriage made in hell: inventor and entrepreneu (Score:2)
But people like Jobs start industries which lead to cool toys for good prices, available for the masses.
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No:
Those industries exist to concentrate wealth into the hands of people like Jobs. The fact that we get new toys to play with is almost incidental... witnessed by the fact that CEOs routinely jump ship from one corporation and even one industry to another! The primary purpose of "industry" is to concentrate wealth for those who control and operate it; the product is merely the vehicle that enables the concentration to proceed. Captains of industry don't care what product or service "their" companies off
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Those industries exist to concentrate wealth into the hands of people like Jobs. The fact that we get new toys to play with is almost incidental...
They go hand-in-hand.
Economy of scale. Hobbyist pursuit vs wide-market pursuit. The fact is Woz hanging out at a computer enthusiasts group doesn't get his machine into millions of homes without somebody like Jobs to expand the vision, get investment, hire other people, etc.
I know it's easy to hate rich business people, and there's a lot of bad with the good, but there are tangible benefits.
because of his leech-like attachment to Wozniak and his ability to manipulate him.
Woz made his choices. He was an adult. He seems to have done ok by Jobs. Maybe you should ask Woz himself if he a
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Since he clearly pays attention, I expect that if he disagrees strongly and thinks it's worth the time to set me straight, then he'll do so. I didn't mean to imply that Wozniak was oblivious to the manipulation; he was no doubt aware of it and tolerated it when it suited his goals. Nevertheless, the conclusion I draw from Jobs' behavior over the last four decades is that he takes more from the world than he contributes to it personally;
Re:Marriage made in hell: inventor and entrepreneu (Score:2)
Without people like Jobs, Woz would have been "that guy who built his own toy computers" and we'd probably still be using remote terminals to telnet into some gigantic mainframe.
And lest anyone think I'm leaning too far the other way, without people like Woz, Jobs would have been "that asshole who used to hack the phone system" and we'd also probably still be using remote terminals to telnet into some gigantic mainframe.
I don't understand at all why you call this a "marriage made in hell". Seems to me that
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I can't cite some dubiously funded study to prove it to you, but my intuition screams that this is not a wise arrangement long-term and that in the end we all lose a little bit more ground to a controlling minority.
What good does all this mass-produced stuff do us if we're increasingly unable to afford to possess it because the predominant flow of money and resources is IN TOWARD that wealthy controlling minority and not OUT FROM them? The majority is slowly but increasingly disadvantaged to their benefit;
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What good does all this mass-produced stuff do us if we're increasingly unable to afford to possess it because the predominant flow of money and resources is IN TOWARD that wealthy controlling minority and not OUT FROM them? The majority is slowly but increasingly disadvantaged to their benefit; though it's happening so slowly that many people are oblivious to the effect, it's significant and detrimental and something Hari Seldon would recognize. It's what causes exoduses and revolutions.
I have to wonder if you're living in the same world I am. Computers and electronics in general have become steadily more accessible and more affordable over the past decades. In the 70s only big companies, universities, and crazy hobbyists had computers. In the 80s, people with a lot of money and a real need had them. In the 90s owning a computer ceased to be a mark of wealth or a technical trade and became somewhat commonplace. Now, not owning a computer is nearly as bizarre as not having a telephone.
You c
I was so pissed off at Apple back then... (Score:5, Interesting)
An associate of mine opened the first retail computer store in Anchorage selling the Apple II and the Commodore PET and hired me (supposedly on a share of the profits) to run it for him. I could have sold at least one Apple II each day, but the distributer in Seattle was hording the inventory and distributing it to local stores. I could only get one Apple II per week. I called Apple, talked to Steve Jobs, and he passed me off to someone else who flat-out told me they depended on the distributor so much that they couldn't do anything to make the distribution more fair, and I couldn't order directly from Apple because they had a territory agreement with the distributor. (I felt that orders should be filled on a first-ordered, first-filled basis, and we were paying cash up front for our inventory, so there was no credit problem. Dumb move; the distributer was probably using the money we sent with the order to finance their friends' stores.) It got worse when Apple came out with the hard drive. I was selling accessories, but they weren't moving very fast when nobody could get the computers to attach them to. I remember ordering a digitizer tablet from Houston Instruments, and how surprised I was that I couldn't just plug it into the computer and make it work. There was no interface, and I ended up buying the parts and soldering them together to make a serial port. (Lucky background in connecting modems, teletypes and CDC 160A and 160G systems earlier in my career.) Then I had to write the software: I tried to write it in the BASIC that was included on the Apple, but a couple of conversations with Bill Gates and he convinced me to write it assembly language. I spent many hours after work writing, first the communications code (which we would now call drivers), and then a small application to draw geometric shapes using the tablet. I had some help from Steve Wozniak and a lot of help from a guy named Chris Espinoza who was absolutely brilliant at explaining things over the phone. I was also lucky that I had a good background in assembly language programming from the Army and subsequent stints with CDC and Honeywell writing things like light pen interfaces. I managed to write the software and sell both tablets and two Apple II's to a couple of Burroughs guys for enough money to keep the store open a little longer.
As bad as my experience with Apple was, my relationship with Commodore pissed me off each time I had to deal with them. We had to buy 5 Commodore PET systems at a time. We had to put up $5000, which gave us a "credit line" of $5000 dollars, and which was enough to buy 5 systems (which sold retail for $1499). However, the manufacturing of the PET was sloppy, to say the least. I've had as many as 4 of the 5 in my order come in DOA. So I had to RMA the defective systems for repair. Then, in order to get more inventory, I had to put up another $5000 to "increase my credit line". In order to keep enough stock to sell, we ended up letting Commodore have $15,000 of deposit money. This shouldn't have been news to me: Before I worked for Honeywell in 1968, I sold business machines in Minneapolis. The guy I worked for sold Commodore calculators. Commodore actually came out with the first truly programmable calculator, which used a Nixie-tube display and magnetic cards to preserve the programs. (Marchant and Friden also had "programmable" calculators, but neither of them did recursion and both of them were twice the size of the Commodore.) My boss used to complain about the way Commodore treated him, for the same reasons. In 1990, in Houston, the vendor I worked for who sold the Amiga was still complaining about the same problems. (Rumor has it that Commodore was a Mafia-owned company and very risk-aversive while not being particularly customer-sensitive.)
Eventually, the owner/investor of the store decided that there was no point in keeping it open since there was not enough saleable stock to satisfy the customers or make a profit.
13-year old story is old (Score:3, Informative)
Steve Wozniak at Gnomedex 4.0 (Audio) (Score:3, Informative)
In 2004, Woz gave a great presentation about his early work at Gnomedex 4.0.
"The Gnomedex Geeks-Gone-Wild crowd was fixated on this rare and brilliant presentation by Steve Wozniak, a true geek's geek. His playing started with games and pranks, crystal-set radios, reading Popular Electronics. Then he met Captain Crunch and got into telco-busting Blue Boxes.
Woz wanted to be an HP engineer forever and never thought he'd start a company, but his friend, Steve Jobs, said, "Let's sell it!" at every opportunity. Good thing he did, and good thing HP turned down Woz's offer for the rights to build what would become Apple's first computer. You'll enjoy this -- one of the best from Gnomedex 4.0."
The recordings are still available in MP3 form:
Part 1: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail214.html [conversationsnetwork.org]
Part 2: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail215.html [itconversations.com]
Direct links to the MP3s:
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/audio/download/Steve%20Wozniak%20Part%201%20-%20Gnomedex%204.0.mp3 [conversationsnetwork.org]
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/audio/download/Steve%20Wozniak%20Part%202%20-%20Gnomedex%204.0.mp3 [conversationsnetwork.org]
Too painful to remember (Score:2)
I went to Homebrew Computer Club meetings (Score:2)
Re:Figures. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't imagine that Woz isn't happy. He has money, time to play, time to spend time on whatever he wants without deadlines, and even a fan following.
Jobs clear gave and continues to give Apple a customer-focused vision - something that almost every other company fails at - to the level of a fault.
It is one thing to design an awesome computer - its another to take one that propels a multi-billion dollar industry forward.
Re:Figures. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Figures. (Score:5, Funny)
C'mon. You think if that really was Jobs, he'd post anonymously? And miss another chance to have his name appear somewhere?
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Yes. Because if he posted a trollish post it would spread like wildfire.
Re:Figures. (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is one thing to design an awesome computer - its another to take one that propels a multi-billion dollar industry forward."
Apparently it always takes a raving ego maniac to do it, however. And I'm not just talking about Steve Jobs. The world is run by the nearly and the wholly sociopathic. One could argue that those types drive progress, but there is plenty of wreckage left in their wakes. And in the end it might be that some people who got screwed over by people like Jobs refused to see him--and others like him--for what he was simply because they got dollar signs in their eyes.
Re:Figures. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that I'm disagreeing completely with that statement but I don't think Jobs is anything like sociopathic. Egotistical and obsessive, perhaps, maybe narcissistic as well, but not sociopathic.
He is inarguably brilliant, in any case--not that I'd want to work closely with him.
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Not that I'm disagreeing completely with that statement but I don't think Jobs is anything like sociopathic. Egotistical and obsessive, perhaps, maybe narcissistic as well, but not sociopathic.
He is inarguably brilliant, in any case--not that I'd want to work closely with him.
Most of the truly sociopathic CEOs tend to ultimately destroy their companies in an unending quest for personal aggrandizement. Sociopathy is also a spectrum, ranging from mild to murderous.
The problem is, when a large corporation falters (as Apple has, more than once) it is often difficult to determine if it was because of incompetence or sociopathy at the top.
Re:Figures. (Score:4, Insightful)
It takes someone willing to take the risk, somone who can herd all the right cats, someone willing to endure scorn that comes with success, someone who loves their dreams more than their social life. That such people tend to be egotists and jerks is not at all surprising. Look at the people running free software projects: Linus, Richard, Theo, etc. They tend to be egotists and jerks too, for exactly the same reasons.
Figuring the Figures (Score:3, Interesting)
"Look at the people running free software projects: Linus, Richard, Theo, etc. They tend to be egotists and jerks too, for exactly the same reasons."
So what does that make the leader of the most trafficked site? [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see anything sociopathic about Steve Jobs. He's just deadset in his opinions enough to overrule any sort of committees or focus groups that might play a bigger part in the design of his competitors' products. This gives Apple a narrow but clear focus.
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Engineers are not good marketers.
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Re:Figures. (Score:4, Informative)
There are a number of characteristics of good managers (risk taking, the ability to give negative feedback, and the drive to leverage other peoples work) that sociopaths are pretty good at. That's not to say that only sociopaths are good managers, but they are better managers than the average Joe.
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The main characteristic of a sociopath is a disregard for the rights of others.
Visible symptoms include physical aggression and the inability to hold down a steady job. The sociopath also finds it hard to sustain relationships and shows a lack of regret in his or her actions.
AResearch has shown that the sociopath is
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I fail to see the connection to your shopping habits and Steve Jobs's personality.
Is there some kind of grudge where if someone who acts like a dick ever gets associated with a product, you will never buy it?
Cause that rules out Windows and all Microsoft products, most Chinese made products, most Korean made products, most Japanese products, etc.
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I think your parents were the true heroes here. Anything else is sort of lame. Buy what works well that you can afford. Anything else is just pride.
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So, did you buy a Macbook or an iPhone yesterday?
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Don't confuse name dropping for honesty.
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The call that changed a life ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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It becomes damn sad when we find ourselves reminiscing about Apples et. al.
Just shows that we're becoming a bunch of geezers.
'And you try to tell the young kids that and they won't believe you!'
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That this has been modded insightful boggles the mind...
The Osborne Effect (Score:2)
It's called the "Osborne Effect":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect [wikipedia.org]
The funny thing is that Apple probably puts more effort than any other major computer manufacturer into making sure it DOESN'T suffer from the OE. Yet they still get stuck with it (thanks to speculation.)