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EvenBob
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October 6th, 2011 at 3:13:21 AM permalink
I think we can safely compare Steve Jobs to
Thomas Edison, in that his products touched
and changed peoples lives all over the world.
Edison with the light bulb and phonograph, and
Jobs with his computers and communication
devices. Its a sad commentary when you can
have the wealth of Steve Jobs, and it can't help you
live past your mid 50's. John Rockefeller lived
to 99, its all about genetics.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
pacomartin
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October 6th, 2011 at 3:54:07 AM permalink


The guy was 2.5 years older than me.
Nareed
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October 6th, 2011 at 7:02:43 AM permalink
He'll be remembered best as the man who made Pixar what it is, and who managed to provide music and video online.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
thecesspit
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October 6th, 2011 at 8:12:29 AM permalink
For me, he's the guy that turned the mp3 player into something usable, desirable and everyday; turned around to failing companies into massive worldwide properties, and help create the worlds first rock and roll personal computer, the NeXT... Everyone using Apple OS today is using part of the old nextstep operating system, that dates back to 1986. Even in 1995 when I was working on my masters with them they were head and shoulders above almost everything else as far as usability.
"Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neither eaten, slept, thought nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his desire for a coup at trente-et-quarante" - Honore de Balzac, 1829
slyther
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October 6th, 2011 at 10:43:16 AM permalink
I learned how to program on an Apple IIe in 6th grade in Applesoft Basic or whatever it was called.
Paigowdan
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October 6th, 2011 at 10:49:00 AM permalink
Steve Job's first and great accomplishment was developing an inexpensive and easy to use home computer. Apple did so well in this area it forced IBM to develop and release the PC. IBM would not have done this unless as a response to the market that was essentially created by Apple.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes - Henry David Thoreau. Like Dealers' uniforms - Dan.
Wizard
Administrator
Wizard
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October 6th, 2011 at 11:11:58 AM permalink
Quote: slyther

I learned how to program on an Apple IIe in 6th grade in Applesoft Basic or whatever it was called.



Me too, but in 12th grade. Life changing experience. Half way through the class I knew I had found my calling in life. My teacher referred to the language as just "Basic." Not to be confused with the Visual Basic we have today. Apple basic was more like Fortran.

My father purchased an Apple II as well, and I spent most of my free time writing programs for whatever I could think of. I think I still have my old floppy disks of programs somewhere.
"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow." -- Ecclesiastes 1:18 (NIV)
zippyboy
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October 6th, 2011 at 11:25:14 AM permalink
Quote: Paigowdan

Steve Job's first and great accomplishment was developing an inexpensive and easy to use home computer. Apple did so well in this area it forced IBM to develop and release the PC. IBM would not have done this unless as a response to the market that was essentially created by Apple.


Hell, everyone copied whatever Apple released! Not just computer-related either. Microsoft copied every release of the Apple OS but did it terribly. When Apple unveiled the bondi blue iMac, then added the other colors couple years later, every manufacturer followed suit, not just computers, but TV remotes, microwaves, phones, etc all came out with similar pastel colors to select. The Diamond Rio mp3 player came out in 1996 or so, but the iPod made it fashionable and easy. Cell phones were around for years, but again, the iPhone set a trend, and every other cell maker tried to copy the look. All Apple products just exude quality and thoughtful design, unlike all the copycats with their plasticy crap. Jobs made Apple the most respected company in the world and the second most profitable (after ExxonMobil) so let's hope it continues.
"Poker sure is an easy game to beat if you have the roll to keep rebuying."
Nareed
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October 6th, 2011 at 11:30:25 AM permalink
Quote: Wizard

Me too, but in 12th grade. Life changing experience. Half way through the class I knew I had found my calling in life. My teacher referred to the language as just "Basic." Not to be confused with the Visual Basic we have today. Apple basic was more like Fortran.



I vaguely recall hearing about Fortran...

My first computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer. But my first real one was an Apple ][e. I ahd also used an Apple ][ plain at school. I learned a little Basic, later on some pascal, but programming never drew me in. At the office I worked on another Apple ][e for a few years before gradauting to a PC

That's the extent of my experience with Apple. Oh, I used a Mac once briefly back in the 80s, and recently an iPad for short periods. IMO after Jobs returned and Apple took off, starting with the iMac, there was a lot of hype. I remember the reviews of the iMac centered on "It's blue" and you could buy it in other colors, too. That and the design of the casing.

That would have been a compelling argument, had I been looking to get an ornament or some other tcotchke, but for a computer it fell far, far short. Since then I just can't take the Mac as a serious computer. And all I do with mine is email, web, games and word processing (and BOINC).

I've no idea how much Jobs, or Apple, had to do with the spin at that time, but that doesn't diminish Jobs' genius at business. If he sold the sizzle rather than the steak, and people kept coming back again and again, then he was a consumate salesman. And I suppose if apple were all sizzle and no steak, then repeat busines would have been small indeed. The numbers hint otherwise.

If nothign else, though, we have Jobs to thank for Pixar. The technological aspects aside, Pixar has produced some really good movies, like Toy Story 2, Ratatouille and The Incredibles, that are a lot more than mere animation eye candy.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
LowPingBoy
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October 6th, 2011 at 11:49:22 AM permalink
We would not be in space were it not for FORTRAN and to this day nearly all NASA mission critical code is FORTRAN. Maybe not the best for GUI, but if you need to crunch numbers it is hard to beat. Really nice for those 1+ million trial simulations. 64 bit, Core i7 processor, all running off an SSD or in ram, blink your eye and have the result. Just updated my compiler to the 2011 version, - somebody other than me must be using it.

LPB
Doc
Doc
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October 6th, 2011 at 1:22:50 PM permalink
Quote: Nareed

I vaguely recall hearing about Fortran....


The first computer I programmed was an IBM 1620 mainframe using Fortran II-D. That was in college. I took every computer-related course the school offered -- all 1 semester hour. Had a summer job at a Navy facility programming an IBM 1401 using 1401-SPS. See! I don't really go back to the days of ENIAC!

As for personal computers, the first one I owned was a KayPro II (CP/M operating system), followed by an IBM-PC "Portable" (DOS). Then in 1988 I bought an Apple Mac-SE, and I've used the various versions of the Mac OS ever since. I have been pleased with each of the Mac products that I have owned and have felt no urge to return to DOS or to the Windows impersonation of Mac OS.

On the other hand, I have never owned an iPod or any other MP3 player beyond a mobile phone. I have not developed any interest in an iPhone, though I might have given it a try if it had been offered on my preferred carrier. And I haven't felt any urge to try an iPad. My desktop Mac serves me well; I have a Mac notebook that I don't even bother to take on trips any more (my wife uses it on her desk), and my mobile phone serves as my "computer" while I am on travel (changed about five months ago from a Palm-OS phone to an Android phone).

In summary, I am very glad that Jobs/Apple turned out their product line, I have enjoyed many of those items and continue to use them, but I am not such a fanatic that I rush out and buy any ol' thing that Apple wants to sell. I hope that the structure is in place for Apple to create innovative products for a long time into the future.
Nareed
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October 6th, 2011 at 1:32:57 PM permalink
Quote: Doc

The first computer I programmed was an IBM 1620 mainframe using Fortran II-D.



I learned Basic in school, then logo and a little Pascal. if pressed, I can write a very simple program in Basic.

Quote:

In summary, I am very glad that Jobs/Apple turned out their product line, I have enjoyed many of those items and continue to use them, but I am not such a fanatic that I rush out and buy any ol' thing that Apple wants to sell.



Even if the casing is cute and blue?
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
ncfatcat
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October 6th, 2011 at 1:48:34 PM permalink
MS Windows is run on 93% of the PC operating systems Apple OS on 5% with the rest Linux etc. I have the running arguement in the office with one Apple user (who by the way suffers from Apples fatal flaw - Jobs wouldn't make his system compatible with any non Apple hardware/software) If Apple is so good why don't free market economics make it the biggest gorilla on the block?
Gambling is a metaphor for life. Hang around long enough and it's all gone.
Nareed
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October 6th, 2011 at 2:01:39 PM permalink
Quote: ncfatcat

If Apple is so good why don't free market economics make it the biggest gorilla on the block?



For a long time Apple's computers were more expensive than PCs and wholly or almost incompatible with much common software. So few poeple bought them, though they've always been popular with graphics designers. There was a simple reason for this: lots of PC mannufacturers made PCs, but only Apple made Macs. This has roots in IBM's decision to lat Microsoft keep title to the original PC DOS, and it's a very long story.

Anyway, Apple is still the only one who makes a Mac, as far as I know, but their computers have dropped in price and there's more software available to run on them, including MS products.

But it's just too late. While there's nothign wrong with buying a mac, I don't want to learn a whole new operating system and diferent ways of doing things, no matter what the advantages, if any, of switching (and if I did I'd probably get a Linux variant anyway). and that goes for untold hundreds of millions of people who already can handle Windows in some form.

In any case Apple's market is more the handheld devices now than their desktops or notebooks, even if that segment has grown, too.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
thecesspit
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October 6th, 2011 at 2:05:20 PM permalink
Apple is the developer machine of choice for a lot of the new edge of technology development. Mostly because it's well polished, light weight and effective, and then OS runs on a Linux like back end, meaning it's incredibly easy to do things that developers like to do for client/server work.

I'm the odd one here... I use a PC, but that's good as most of our end users are PC users at heart, and and that's who I care about.
"Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neither eaten, slept, thought nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his desire for a coup at trente-et-quarante" - Honore de Balzac, 1829
Doc
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October 6th, 2011 at 2:51:32 PM permalink
Quote: Nareed

While there's nothign wrong with buying a mac, I don't want to learn a whole new operating system and diferent ways of doing things, no matter what the advantages....


I may have posted this experience once before, but it's relevant here...

Back in the days when I worked for a living, we had a new student employee start work for us. In her resume, she had described a fairly extensive computer background. Her first day, I mentioned that most of us in the office were Mac users. She immediately had a panicky look on her face, wondering whether she had oversold her computer skills. I told her not to worry and started to show her how to use a Mac. By the next afternoon, she was using it like a pro. And that was changing from DOS to Mac-OS. If you know how to use Windows, changing to Mac would be a breeze. If you don't know how to use a computer at all, learning to use a Mac is easy. Don't sweat it, Nareed, if you are interested in giving a Mac a try.

Now, programming a Mac is quite another thing, I understand, but I am not a developer of commercial software. I haven't had real responsibility for writing programs since that Navy job back in the 60s. In fact, I haven't written a computer program in any language since the 1980s. I found that most of the problems I would previously solve by programming a computer could be solved readily with a good spreadsheet. I used that technique for simulating a number of industrial automated material handling systems, product distribution systems, and the like.
Nareed
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October 6th, 2011 at 3:13:40 PM permalink
Quote: Doc

If you know how to use Windows, changing to Mac would be a breeze.



I first, and last, used a Mac long before the word windows had anything to do with computers. I found it easy enough to use. So of course I believe your claim (at that I spent nearly 20 minutes trying to eject a floppy, but that's antoher matter).

Quote:

Don't sweat it, Nareed, if you are interested in giving a Mac a try.



Not really. I don't foresee changing my vintage 07 PC for a year or two more, if then, but I'll likely (ie 99.999% certainty) buy another PC. I have a lot of old software, mostly games, I've mananged to get to run on Vista and which might run on Win 7 or whatever exists then. I'm sure they won't run on Mac, or not without getting a Windows emmulator. And if I do the latter, why bother with a Mac at all? I may even get a custom built PC and physically move the old HD to the new one so I won't have to move all my files again.

Besides, I don't like Safari.

Quote:

Now, programming a Mac is quite another thing, I understand,



That woulnd't be a factor. I don't program. Period. I'm sure I didn't even use the right word to describe what programming a computer is called. The last program I ever wrote was a clock/timer in Basic, for an Apple ][e at school. That was in the final exam.

Unless you count figuring out a formula for the payroll program to apply new taxes, which I did in 1996. Or getting the print editor for the admin package to print an invoice in a new format, which I did in 1995 or so. Back in DOS days the most complicated "programming" I did was a list of .BAT files to enable the PC to run the programs I wanted without having to type C:\WORDPERFECT [ENTER] WP, or copy my files to a disk without having to type the command.

Quote:

I found that most of the problems I would previously solve by programming a computer could be solved readily with a good spreadsheet.



One of the hardest things for me to learn was that spreadsheets were good for something :)
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
boymimbo
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October 6th, 2011 at 4:18:23 PM permalink
Most if not all of my work today is on a PC, but Macs are cool. MicroSoft took a very long time to catch up to Mac's features, and Mac I still think is much more elegant than PC. That said, because most of the world's businesses run on PC and those who have an office job use PCs, home computers went the PC route as well. Competition for chips, motherboards, graphic cards, and other PC components kept (and keep) prices very low, making PCs cheaper as well. Software for PCs was easier to pirate because there were, well, more of them. Inotherwords, early in the Mac/PC war, PCs reached a tipping point where Macs would never catch up. Since then, Mac has controlled a niche market, especially in the graphic design, publishing, and arts world.

I first started programming computers back in Grade 7, when we had a Commodore PET in our classroom. In grade 10, my parents went over the border and picked up our first family computer, the Radio Shack MC-10, for I think $200. It connected into the television, came with a very cheap keyboard, and a cassette drive. On board memory totalled I think 64 or 128k at most.

Starting in Grade 10, I took on a summer job as a computer programmer working weekdays. I did this during the summer and then on weekends over 5 years. We worked with 8088s and graduated to the 80286s. We worked with TRS-80 5 Megabyte and 10 Megabyte hard drives that were the size of a desktop today. I had some interesting projects. My first real good drunk was when my boss took me to a client site in Toronto (we stayed in a hotel) and fed me B-52s. I wrote (from scratch) a set of programs for Pigeon racing. I wrote a General Ledger program. I was severely underpaid, but I learned alot. All of my programming was in Basic, and we used compilers to made the code unreadable to our customers.

Despite all of this, computers have only gotten faster, but the components are all still the same as they were 20 years ago. You install memory cards, graphic cards, hard drives, and all that into the motherboard. You have ports for sound, USB, keyboard, and mice. Computer textbooks written 20 years ago would still apply somewhat today.

Now, and for the last 10 years, I work with computers every day, implementing and upgrading financial software for various customers throughout North America. I still use my coding knowledge from years back to fix issues and to customize the software.

Steve Jobs, along with Bill Gates shaped the computing world that we live in today. In many many ways, Gates emulated the Mac to become successful, and it was because of the early business process of having open competition and business adoption that the PC won the war. But Jobs won the small device war with the very cool I-Pod, I-Pod Nano, and shuffle. The wide adoption of the I-Phone and spread of the I-Pad is making mobile phone makers scramble to catch up, and is killing Research in Motion's Blackberry and ill-advised PlayBook. Jobs was creative, and innovative, and will be sadly missed.
----- You want the truth! You can't handle the truth!
AZDuffman
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October 6th, 2011 at 4:46:02 PM permalink
Quote: ncfatcat

MS Windows is run on 93% of the PC operating systems Apple OS on 5% with the rest Linux etc. I have the running arguement in the office with one Apple user (who by the way suffers from Apples fatal flaw - Jobs wouldn't make his system compatible with any non Apple hardware/software) If Apple is so good why don't free market economics make it the biggest gorilla on the block?



Way, way back Steve Jobs stated that, "whoever controls the education market in the 1980s will control the business market in the 1990s." But two things happened that he did not count on.

First, IBM was more powerful than he gave it credit for, and the MS-DOS OS was adopted widely since Microsoft was allowed to sell it to whoever they pleased as IBM at the time believed "the real money is in making the hardware." For those not around in the early 1908s, the market was wide open, and no computers "talked to each other." Pre-1983 or so there were many computers to choose from. But by 1983 the term "IBM Compatable" was what you looked for, unless you bought an IBM. Apple had a shrinking share of a growing market. Same as the Beta/VHS War, the "better" system was owned by one company and that company simply could not fight off the rest of a still-fragmented market.

Second, while all those kids were learning how to use Apple machines at school, purchasing managers were giving the IBM and Compatables a huge installed base. Even if they used Apple machines for 6 years of pre-college then 4 years of college, as college grads they would have several more years before they could impact corporate purchasing decisions. By the time they would be ready to "make the office switch to Macs" there was too much of an installed base to switch everything over. If you doubt that I can tell you of many "terminal emulation" programs I have had to use in my time. People say "that is on DOS" but in reality they were written before we would know what a PC was. Yet they still are used as to switch would be so much disruption.

The attitude to Apple Computers was best summed up by my first computer teacher when he told me, "Apples are good for education, but an IBM is a man's computer."
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
ncfatcat
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October 6th, 2011 at 5:06:03 PM permalink
So is this mistake by Jobs concentrating on the education end and letting the Microsoft/PC market whip him in business why he was fired as CEO?
Gambling is a metaphor for life. Hang around long enough and it's all gone.
AZDuffman
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October 6th, 2011 at 5:20:10 PM permalink
Quote: ncfatcat

So is this mistake by Jobs concentrating on the education end and letting the Microsoft/PC market whip him in business why he was fired as CEO?



No, he was fired by the CEO Mr Sculley (Jobs was not CEO IIRC) because while he was brilliant he was impossible to work for or with. His temper tantrums were legendary. Steve was one of those very smart guys who was nearly incapable of dealing with people below his level.

Word was Jobs was so against putting a floppy drive on the Mac (he thought there were better ways to transport your files computer to computer) that they had to literally sneak a supplier into the campus in the middle of the night so the supplier could see the machine and get manufacturing specs. That is one example.
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
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