In 1984, Jobs and Wozniak Talk About Apple's Earliest Days 74
harrymcc writes: In 1984, Apple launched the Apple IIc computer. As part of its promotion, it produced a video with Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and other employees talking about company's founding and the creation of the Apple I and Apple II computers. Over at Fast Company, I've shared this remarkable, little-seen bit of history. It's full of goodies, from images of Jobs and Wozniak wearing remarkably Apple Watch-like timepieces to evocative photos of early computer stores.
Remarkably Apple Watch-like for a reason (Score:3, Insightful)
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Can't we just agree that everyone in this thread is whining, with only the OP making decent arguments in that whining?
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Actually it's because of AC's, though I like to leave my settings so that I can see AC's, sometimes they are the most insightful.
Not you though.
Yeah, the watch does suck, but we all knew that it was going to didn't we? Doesn't seem like anything Jobs would have let out.
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And then I screwed Daniel Kottke out of stock... (Score:1)
"Oh, the people I fucked over back then...such good times," reflected Jobs.
Re:And then I screwed Daniel Kottke out of stock.. (Score:4, Funny)
"Ha, Bill Gates is a pussy!" responded Jobs. "That weak little pansy didn't even have the balls to deny his daughter's paternity and make her live on welfare."
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Steve Jobs continues, "One more thing. I still had the balls to name my $10000 computer after her!. I'm awesome."
Apple ][ was a great product (Score:5, Interesting)
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Worst part of the Apple line? The sound. Beep, borp, blip. . The design of the future was to use all "off the shelf" components without any custom hardware? Fuck you. Nothing unique about it, except the high price tag
Well the Apple line wasn't really intended for home use, after all the first Apple killer app was Visicalc. Later on they did the school donation thing hoping it would also stimulate sales to the home.
But as we know, as a "home computer", the Apple II line was not quite as successful (or good) as the Atari 8 bits and Commodore's Vic 20/C64. Both of which were derived from designs for video game consoles. That made them cheap, and with the graphics and sound for games.
One could play games on an apple II,
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But as we know, as a "home computer", the Apple II line was not quite as successful (or good) as the Atari 8 bits and Commodore's Vic 20/C64. Both of which were derived from designs for video game consoles.
Not to mention that they came out years later.
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That's partly my point, Apple didn't adapt to what Commodore and Atari were doing. They saw themselves as IBM's competitors, when their competition with the Apple II line was Atari and Commodore.
Re:Apple ][ was a great product (Score:5, Interesting)
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Old Apple II tech here. I can confirm. No seals on Apple II's. EVER.
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Indeed, the original Apple II user guide [classiccmp.org] includes instructions on how to install your own RAM.
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It must have been the first Mac then. Hey, it's been a few years.
Re:Apple ][ was a great product (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Apple ][ was a great product (Score:2)
Though there was a good reason for the original compact Macs to discourage users from opening them up -- there were exposed high voltage monitor electronics in there which could give you a hell of a zap of not properly discharged.
The later all in one Macs of the 90s were better in that regard. Their user suitable parts (motherboard, drives) all were easy to get at, but the monitors and power supplies were fully enclosed.
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It must have been the first Mac then. Hey, it's been a few years.
Yeah. They had to re-seat a RAM chip on an original Mac - which had soldered RAM. I fully believe your little story.
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Know why it's the "Apple II"? 'Cause the first iteration, the Apple I, was a *kit*. That's right, you built it yourself.
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The Apple ][ was initially available the same way, as a bare prebuilt motherboard, in addition to completely packages (except monitor).
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Not enough that programs didn't crash all the time though.
Hey maybe using cheaper "identical" hardware sometimes doesn't work.
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which made the II far more expandable and flexible running factories banks and your home office, and frankly I never saw an atari (in that day and age) that wasn't a video game console with a unused keyboard, hell I didnt even know they made a disk drive for the things until I was in middle school in the early 90's
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The ATARI 800 was far superior. It had dedicated chips for graphics, sound and I/O. Much like computers today. The Apple ][ relied on the 6502 for most everything.
The 800 also came out over 3 years later.
shitty music, too fast image switch, ruined video (Score:1)
why the fuck someone decided to put this fucking background music on top of this video ? same volume, chitty notes. why ?
Old (Score:2, Funny)
Wow, this is old. I thought Slashdot usually ran a day or so behind, but 21 years!?
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He must be using one of those newfangled Pentium processors.
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Video was posted in 2011. That's par for the Slashdot course.
Wow (Score:1)
Came away from that with fond memories of Defender, and that it's always more interesting to see what people do with the tech (the computer in a briefcase and other "redesigns") than what's released by a corporation.
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Naked Steve Wozniak?
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Dammit, man. I was eating lunch.
[puts away carnitas and rice bowl]
Nostalgia (Score:1)
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compaq
Don't you BLASPHEME in this house, young man!!
The watch (Score:5, Informative)
Since a lot of your folks are too young to remember...
The watch Jobs is wearing appears to be an LED digital watch. Because LED displays drained the battery a lot quicker than LCD watches (which came later), you had to press a button to see the time. In retrospect, this is kind of a feature, because when the display was off the face was completely dark and mysterious. It was like Darth Vader's watch.
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Who still wears LED digital watch? I still wear my Casio Databank 150 [casio.com] watch.
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It's called a Reality Distortion Field (RDF).
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The leech always finds the innocent creature, not the other way round.
BTW, not only was The Woz a super cool computer nerd, he was and is a heck of a nice guy -- to have put up with what he put up with from Jobs, and still like and promote Apple products to this day? Saintly.
Yeah, can't have anything to do with the fact that, unlike you, he actually knew Jobs.
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A master brain plus a master liar, perfect tech biz combo.
Woz has money & fame up the wozu, you have shit. So where is the "astounded" exactly?
That's a stretch (Score:1)
Wow, someone really went out of their way to mention the iWatch!
>remarkably Apple Watch-like timepieces
Well, I guess they do have wristbands and faces. My bad...
VisiCalc stories (Score:2)
I've read 3 different explanations of why VisiCalc was done on Apple first.
1. The dev TRS and Pets were tied up on other projects.
2. Jobs promised free hardware if they targeted Apple first.
3. Apple had more potential RAM ability.
I don't know which is true or if it's a combo. Either way, Apple would probably be dead if not for VisiCalc. VisiCalc sales gave Apple just enough money for R&D into GUI's (Lisa/Mac), and those were relatively slow sellers until desktop publishing kicked in.
Without the VisiCalc
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Dan Bricklin programmed his prototype for VisiCalc on an Apple II lent by Dan Fylstra, who published the program after Frankston delivered the production version. Jobs had no idea the program was even in development, let alone that it would be a "killer app."