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 p.10 #19 · Steve Jobs passed away earlier today | |
LeifG wrote:
I agree with the last post by CGrindahl.
I wrote my PhD thesis on a Mac, almost 30 years ago. That was the first mainstream machine with an easy to use graphical user interface.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K
The alternative, DOS, was atrocious, as I later found out when I went to work as a software engineer on Windows machines. Even the Cray XMP supercomputer I used did not have anything but a basic user interface. Jobs and Wozniak took something they had seen in a research lab (Zerox Park, Palo Alto) and put it into a PC with a slow (by modern standards) processor, which was quite an achievement. The Mac I used was self contained, including screen, hardware and disk drive, in one box. It was well made, and so easy to use. No viruses, very reliable, fast boot, but expensive. My two iPods are beautifully made too, and very well designed.
One key reason why Macs are more reliable than PCs is that Apple control the software and the hardware, so they can make absolutely sure that they work together. The Windows OS has to cope with goodness knows how many versions of hardware, and that means that stability is dependent on third party hardware drivers (software) that run in kernel mode, which means they can cause system crashes if they are not written well, and most do have bugs.
I don't see Apple continuing as they have, as Jobs was such a driving force. I hope I am wrong. Jobs was lucky as he met a hardware genius in the form of Steve Wozniak, but people like Jobs do seem to create their own good luck.  ...Show more →
Hmm and what about stuff like AmigaOS? GUI, powerful UNIX-like shell as well that they didn't try to hide away, pre-emptive multi-tasking (yes back in 1985! when the other could only dream of even simple hog switching for the still distant future) and innards more modern than ancient Linux, running on hardware far, far more powerful and advanced than the MAC (auto-config bus already back in 1985, custom graphics bus separate from main memory bus, custom chipsets for audio/graphics/storage/input, etc. 4096 colors at once as opposed to 2, etc. 512K as the LOWEST configuration, 880K on 3.5 floppies, direct DMA to storage, etc.). And again it came out 1985, just a year later (the engineers had been pushing for it much sooner but they sadly had very non visionary very non genius very poor leaders heading up their companies). It is such a fallacy that without Apple there never would have been anything else but crummy DOS for ages. It is kind of a shame that the press has totally forgotten much of actual history of computing.
Wozniak gets a lot of credit for Apple I and bringing something like that to the home for the first time in any real sense and sure most people could not just up and design a PC then but that said his designs were pretty kindergarten when it comes down to it and he was no genius engineer compared to people such as Jay Miner, who few ever mention, even though any modern home computer these days is a heck of a lot more fashioned over the sort of stuff he did than any crappy old Apple II, MAC or IBM clone box hardware (in fact, Microsoft and I think also Apple, actually use to use some of these alternate brand hardware and OS under the table to run their own trade shows since their own stuff wasn't as good  while at the very same time presenting to the press that they made the only tech that counted and the only 'real', 'serious' computers and OS ). But as they say the victors write history (and buy out and control the press) so all most know about are Apple and Microsoft and IBM even though they had the least tech back then and the true geniuses of tech are but little known or mentioned and all they accomplished and brought forth painted over. Much of success is whether the CEO is any good and has vision mixed with a bit of luck (MS certainly lucked out to say the least) and sadly not based on the quality of the tech.
Anyway he certainly did rescue Apple and entirely upturned the music distribution industry and has had quite an influence on hand-held computing/music. He did instill a lot of elegance in his more recent stuff, his portable iProducts (although I do wish he had been more of a true computer enthusiant hacker type and not insisted on locking things down so much, the one thing that I think has been really bad about his more recent products).
He has certainly left a tremendous influence and even in the early days his skills did help move the PC into the home even if far superior home PCs soon came out it does take a certain something to do it the first successfully.
But there are many who really dislike his locking down of everything and it's rather ironic considering their old 1984 commercial. And it made his products and what could be put on them noticeable worse.
Edited on Oct 09, 2011 at 01:33 AM · View previous versions
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