Good for you (sharing code). There’s nothing better and the reward stays with you until you die. Please don’t start conversing. I’m exhausted and in pain from 22 hours a day of email answering and I have hundreds stacked up still. Short comments I WILL READ, it only takes me a while if there are questions to answer.

Thanks, and best wishes.

The best jokes are the true ones…In my case it’s my wife who has looked it up…

The best jokes are the true ones…In my case it’s my wife who has looked it up…

This is a surprising and amusing story. The best ones are often the true ones.

I, myself, use a PowerBook. Recent PowerBook models, including the one I’m using right now, have NTSC out (U.S. version). Look how many marketing folks have to make presentations. Some are probably still done on TV’s. Also, TV’s are very popular for the teacher to present in classrooms, costing much less than computer quality monitors (which are smaller physically) and projectors.

Some appreciate quantity (of menu commands, for example) but others, like yourself, appreciate quality. In today’s computers, the sales game tends to favor quantity too often. Many miss the quality difference (of the Macintosh, for one thing) when they just read comparison charts and feature lists and think that’s the important measure. Good for you.

Apple got a lot of respect in the education market and one major reason was a program long ago in which we gave a computer to every public school in California. Actually, the state passed a law that year that made this very inexpensive for us, so you can thank the taxpayers even more. But I, individually, have given so many computers to schools around the country that I can’t keep doing it forever. It’s like I’ll run out, see? So, I’m glad that you want the iMac and I’m glad that you want to learn, but I’m not able to give you one.

You have to ask for such things sometimes, and it can pay off, so don’t feel like not asking others. I remember once when Steve Jobs needed some money and he called Bill Hewlett (or Dave Packard) directly and asked for it. He didn’t get the money, but they found a summer job for him.

Your question has more than a single answer. I don’t regret the fact that the Apple ][ was demised. Even I switched for good reasons. I do regret the fact that because there was superior technology, Apple gave up on the Apple ][ support too fast and drastically. It’s strong sales should have been supported and gradually switched to products like the Apple ///, the LISA, and the Macintosh. For the last 3 years that the Apple ][ was the best selling personal computer in the world, Apple had almost totally withdrawn from it.

I think that this might have been personally motivated. Everyone wants to claim credit for this marvelous invention and the most notable company formation of recent times. The best way is to invent another marvelous computer that overshadows the first. None of the people running Apple had really conceived or invented or designed the Apple ][. Naturally, they needed another good one to demonstrate their own prowess. In the case of the Apple /// and the Macintosh, those in charge didn’t want to support the Apple ][ much because it was strong competition with their own products. The LISA team really didn’t bring much conflict to bear, at least not that I perceived directly.

A lot of the problem in Apple bringing such satisfying products to market is that the personal computer market exploded, and products have to be rushed to market without the psychological research and product corrections to make them really nice and easy, the way it was supposed to be. I still believe in the LISA dreams of the software being so obvious to use that it was hard to make a mistake and that mistakes were clearly explained. These dreams, of a computer being so helpful to people, were carried over to the Macintosh. But time has proven that we didn’t do a very good job of appeasing the users. In my opinion, Windows did much worse, but to be fair it might be because there are so many more companies and companies making products for PC’s, with correspondingly more conflicts and artifacts that are impossible to handle properly. The Macintosh has the advantage of fewer options and therefore fewer conflicts. In these terms, you can see why the Apple ][ was so satisfying, it had very little that could mess you up.

Thank you. It’s been said that Apple and Macintosh carry different weights and feelings and associations. I agree with your observation. Although it’s not spelled out, you can’t always put such feelings into the right words. I’m surprised that people can see that there was a time that we stood for the average person more than for our own company’s growth and size and revenues.

It’s funny but there are a good number of people in Apple right now that still have these same sorts of feelings, about the soul of the company being important. It’s much harder to associate the soul of Microsoft with anyone. It’s hard to imagine the soul of Microsoft, right?

I can write a few people back, but not everybody. So far I’ve managed to read all my email but it gets very tough at times. I have other things that I used to do, like sleep and eat.

On a personal note, you’ll go further and be more motivated because of your reason, your bias against Microsoft. A lot of people can’t say exactly why they feel this way. Maybe it’s just because Microsoft was overly successful selling junk, while Apple would only sell good stuff. Microsoft has learned that you don’t have to make something good to sell it.

This is the best such story that I’ve ever heard. I have seen and taught and hired (for my teaching) many learning disabled people that can do amazing things with the computers. Also, the one year that the teachers of the local 5th grade class told me the students were mentally behind and slow, was the most outstanding year for my computer instruction. I’m not just saying this, many many other teachers have seen the same thing with computers in schools.

I have to say that it was just luck that I saw a low cost computer in the keyboard-display paradigm. It was more of building a computer into a TV terminal than of including a TV Terminal in a computer, based on what I’d built just before the Apple I. To be honest, the rest of the world might have figured this out in a lot less time than you’re suggesting. But my motivations were to make a usable product for the simplest user at the lowest cost, and that included you. I had to think of what I wanted for myself and keep my head vacant of what a computer was and looked like and how you made it usable. I did that and went for it in the Apple I. The Apple ][ was merely the chance to add to that concept with some great features and good engineering, at very low cost. It was still aimed at normal people, whereas computers before it were primarily targeted at business clients with lots of money.

Again, your story is so good that it makes my eyes water. I hope that many hear it.

In Apple I could predict a year ahead because I could see it in the labs there. But whenever I predicted 2 years out, I was way off. Too many unexpected advances or new approaches showed up. Even what made sense to do changed many times. What’s worth doing today, could change tomorrow. All the efforts that solve today’s problem might be futile if people don’t need those solutions next year, either because the problem is gone or because there’s another type of solution. Today’s Iridium phones might be an example of this.

I hope not. I’m very precise about many things and only want them done the correct way when there is a correct way. Many engineers notice such mistakes all the time, like the State of California using 2 rear license plates instead of one rear plate (with month and year sticker icons) and one front plate. But engineers can’t easily nail down everything in the future. Our Macintosh was never designed to address more than about 56 MB of RAM until we fixed it. In computers, a year is a long time, 2 years is almost too hard to predict what will happen, and 10 years is infinity. I hope that I’m better than others most of the time.

Also, all the software that has problems has managers that are more responsible than the engineers for quality and features. They are normal, non-technical people. Yet they let the 2K problems get by also. I guess there aren’t very many people that take care of such matters well. But even if we extend all dates in all software to 4 digits for the year, we’ll get nailed in the year 10000. And we aren’t necessarily wrong. It’s just amazing that so much software didn’t get corrected for Y2K much longer ago.

It’s only been Apple ][ and Mac for me. I used a little UNIX in the far past, and have to touch on it for some of the network equipment that I administer.

Over the years I met so many people doing things with Atari computers, particularly the Amiga, that were not easily doable with Macs or any other PC, that I was very impressed. Many of the best people (‘best’ meaning those that want things other than normal and that can’t stop moving and all) are into Linux so I admire it. But with all my time consumed with a large family and many computers to maintain and a network too, and mail and magazines and updates and all, I won’t have time for things like Linux for quite a while. I actually look forward to my children being gone.

In very early Apple ][ days, Bell & Howell saw it as a good supplement to their school product line that included projectors and such tools. As you say, theirs were made in a black case, but were otherwise identical to the other Apple ][‘s. It was a pretty impressive machine. Many may never have seen one. But, Bell & Howell already had respect in the school sales arena. The had salespeople that would be trusted by buyers. So this product was easier for them to sell into many schools. They just had to size up the market and earn money for selling. Thank you, too.

I’m baffled by the amount of email saying the same things you say. Also, in my travels I continually run into individuals that learned so much about the guts of the hardware and software. I had learned about hardware and software very much the same way, finding manuals and schematics and listings for minicomputers and studying them and dissecting them and eventually looking for better ways. So I very much wanted the Apple ][ to include enough documentation for people to learn this way, as had I. It was very lucky that we were so small at first that we did this. It was an ‘open’ approach. Now, you could never imagine even Apple being this open about what’s inside the box.

A lot of other things changed in this way too. When I developed the Apple computers, TV’s came with schematics. Many radios did too. Now, everything is inside a chip. There was only a short period in history that such openness could have overlapped hugely successful computers, the same short window where only a few people could develop such products. It was 1975-1977. Then the window closed.

The eMate solved a lot of problems that I had for years teaching 5th graders with PowerBooks. It survived rough treatment and drops, the way a laptop shoud. It didn’t have constant hardware and sofware failures. It was easy to do many of the things students have to do in class. It was even easier than any computer to transfer files between students and teachers, with “Send” and “Receive” buttons that worked. Sort of like the simple syncronization of the Palm Pilot that made it so accepted.

Thinking about the prior customers as part of our loyal family, we should have been more loyal to them. Apple should not have discontinued the slightly profitable line until someone was found to license the technology to, even if for free. That way, some other company or companies could support it and provide replacements for the future, even if the Newton and it’s great technologies weren’t right for Apple to continue with.

My time is pretty short and these are just my opinions:

The answer is possibly in what you need to do with the computer. Different platforms might have an advantage for certain tasks. Assuming that the PC and Mac both qualify here, the answer is in your own psychology. Do you want to be a part of the Mac struggle. We are a closely knit group that tries to help each other a lot and find solutions when they are needed. Because it’s more important to us, we are extremely passionate about our platform. You might prefer the safety of the most (not best) software selections or the most friends to help you fix things. It’s no fun to fix any computer problem, but from what I hear, PC’s are much much worse here.

I hope that this helps you. It’s strange, asking ME to advise you for or against the Mac.

I’m not formally involved with the Macintosh today, but I represent it informally and unofficially on occasion. I keep up with a lot of Macintosh equipment, first hand, and generally know more about what works and what doesn’t and what’s available and what’s not than people inside of Apple

I talk to Steve Jobs on occassion but not too often.

I do feel ‘pushed back’ into the spotlight right now. Way too much email. I have to handle and turn down lots of reporters. I like a low profile better, it gives me more time to do what I really want to (which might be as simple as taking a child to school).

In third grade I was the only boy that could do flash cards as fast as the girls. In 4th and 5th grades I built electronics projects for science fairs. By 6th grade I could build and design many simple electronic circuits and had a ham radio license. I built my Hallicrafters receiver and transmitter as kits. In 6th grade I also built a tic-tac-toe computer out of hundreds of transistors and diodes on a 3′ x 4′ piece of plywood, using nails for connectors to solder to. I almost finished this computer, based on logic gates. In 8th grade I built a 10 bit parallel adder/subtractor and did very well in the local science fairs. The Air Force gave me their special award for the best electronic project in the Bay Area Science Fair, even though as an 8th grader I was competing with up to 12th graders.

I constructed house to house intercoms in my neighborhood as a kid and read Popular Electronics, along with Tom Swift. I once won a soldering iron from Popular Electronics Magazine for submitting a joke. Occassionally I could ride my bike all the way to Sunnyvale Electronics and buy enough parts to build some small project, most often for a school prank.

In high school I got my first minicomputer manual. I know how logic worked and I’d already sketched out many pages of a calculator design. Now I worked out a design for the PDP-8 computer based on my knowledge of logic. I started getting more and more computer manuals to practice my designs. Also I kept up with the latest chip catalogs. Every time I redesigned a minicomputer, I tried to use fewer chips than before. My design skills got better and better and I started getting very tricky on occassion. I would first look for the best chips that did the job at hand, but then would spend many more hours trying to find one chip intended for something else, that would do the job with fewer chips than normal. I found that I could often win at this game.

It was only a game. I had no friends or relatives or teachers that did this design stuff with me. I had nobody to even show my designs to. I’d be embarrassed if anybody watched me designing them while in classes. It was an advantage for my shyness that nobody knew what I was doing.

I was a math and science and electronics star in Junior High School and in High School, winning many honors. I was also a good math and science student, achieving many 800’s on my college entrance exams. I didn’t apply to any prestigious colleges because I visited the University of Colorado in Boulder and saw snow for the first time. That was the only place I’d go after that.

I kept up my designs in college. I took a year off to pay for my third college year, programming for a local computer company. I took some real computer courses my third year, at Berkeley. I loved these courses so much that I’d sometimes finish the course bookwork in 2 weeks.

I took off a year to earn money for my fourth college year. I wound up working on calculators at Hewlett Packard as an engineer. As my career progressed, I didn’t have a chance to complete my degree. I worked on countless interesting computer projects outside of work. I also ran my dial-a-joke in this time frame. Eventually, we started Apple.

You may have some answers in this long discourse, but mainly it boils down to my having been mostly self taught and not formerly educated in computer areas.

I barely used the IBM compatables in early times. I kinda’ liked the “junior” or something but nobody else did. I use them once in a while these days, when they are needed for my network administration. But I work around them as much as possible. I have a friend who has to use them and develop for and on them and he hates them just as much and always uses a Mac if there’s any way. In his case, he’s definitely expert enough on both platforms, the PC’s are just more difficult.

I talked myself into some very strong religious beliefs around the start of college, and before too. I was very good and pure and generally only crossed streets at the corners and didn’t drink or smoke or use drugs or participate in wild things. My religion was a pact with myself. I was very independent and had been strongly influenced by writers like Emmerson and Thoreau. I wasn’t to be a follower. I wouldn’t conform to my peers and do things just because they did them. If I was to get drunk it would have been alone only, because I had a reason and not just to follow others. I wouldn’t join any church because then you’re just going along with a bunch of other people. Is it that hard to figure out what’s good and bad? I had nothing against the bible but didn’t really read it. I admired Jesus. He must have been great to be so well remembered 2000 years later, and his turning the other cheek meant something akin to being good to those who are bad to you or say bad things about you. I picked up a lot of my internal religion cues from Dylan songs and Paul Simon songs (the “Boxer”) and Dave Mason (“We just Disagree”) and others to this day. I love popular music for these sorts of insights.

My favorite religious person was an engineer at Hewlett Packard who was also a Mormon (but not the former Mormon who was the lab manager and who turned down the idea of a computer, not as the movie shows but rather because he couldn’t justify it as an HP product despite the fact that he loved it very much). Bill said that when people say that they have inner goodness, how can you tell if they’re telling the truth. Outer things like the clothes they wear or the college they graduated don’t mean as much as how they feel about and treat people, what’s in their heart. He explained that he didn’t forego coffee and other things because they were evil or bad or unhealthy. But these sorts of sacrifices are on the outside where everybody can see. Others can’t see your inside but they can see these things. If you make such sacrifices for you religion and never waver, people can see that you hold true to your religion’s tenets and beliefs, they can see that you must be true to these other tenets of being good as well.