Remembering the Apple I 153
harrymcc writes "This month marks the 35th anniversary of Apple--and the 35th anniversary of the Apple I, its first computer. It was a single-board computer that was unimaginably more rudimentary than any modern Mac — it didn't even come with a case and keyboard standard — but in its design, sales and marketing, we can see the beginnings of the Apple approach that continues to this day. I'm celebrating with a look at this significant machine."
ahh, the good ole days (Score:5, Informative)
When Apple hardware was open. Apple ][ computers had their wiring diagram on the inside of the lid (which required no screws to open!). 8 slots, baby, *eight*, to fill with whatever you wanted. No voiding the warranty by opening it up, etc. I later went Amiga and didn't look back until recently. I got a nice ROM 03 Apple //gs on eBay, and even got a nice TransWarp GS card for it. Hot stuff! :)
Never was a fan of Macs. *shrug*
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When Apple hardware was open. Apple ][ computers had their wiring diagram on the inside of the lid (which required no screws to open!). 8 slots, baby, *eight*, to fill with whatever you wanted. No voiding the warranty by opening it up, etc. I later went Amiga and didn't look back until recently. I got a nice ROM 03 Apple //gs on eBay, and even got a nice TransWarp GS card for it. Hot stuff! :) Never was a fan of Macs. *shrug*
I've owned a few Macs over the years and some models had slots, easy opening cases, no warranty issues with 3rd party cards, etc. This is still true for towers.
Other Macs are sealed boxes. Just like the laptop PCs that represent the majority of the computer marketplace. As a nerd I have an affinity for things I can tweak but I have to admit this represents a minority opinion and that sealed boxes make sense for typical users (cost reductions, simplified supply chain, etc).
Re:ahh, the good ole days (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, my first computer was a Power Mac 7500, with an outer case that slid off by pressing two buttons, and the power supply and drives tilted to the right to reveal the motherboard. Best case I ever worked with.
Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
Re:ahh, the good ole days (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, and the NeXT didn't have any slots, nor did it use standard tech (TCP/IP, Postscript, ...) to interact with the world.
Oh, wait...
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There was also the entire lines of PowerMac G3, G4s, G5s, and the current Mac Pros, that all have easy-open sides and standardized card slots.
But y'know, I'm sure there's a conspiracy somewhere.
Re:ahh, the good ole days (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
The tower form factor Power Macs (G3 and up) and the Mac Pros will open, have slots, etc. Jobs seems just fine with the models targeting "professionals" to be designed to be worked on by end users. Jobs' pre-Mac baby, the Lisa (1983), had slots IIRC. The Lisa was also targeted towards "professionals".
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Easy to open, perhaps, but open in the sense that they are expandable where also during his "first aera" available.
angel'o'sphere
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Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
Funny? I'm have trouble finding citation but, as I recall, one of the points of friction between Jobs and Scully at the time of Job's departure was over whether to open up the Macintosh. Jobs was against it. Despite putting slots in the NeXT cubes, I think he still prefers Macs be closed. The first Macs to show the Jobs influence after his return to Apple were the iMacs. Closed again.
Re:ahh, the good ole days (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
Funny? I'm have trouble finding citation but, as I recall, one of the points of friction between Jobs and Scully at the time of Job's departure was over whether to open up the Macintosh. Jobs was against it. Despite putting slots in the NeXT cubes, I think he still prefers Macs be closed. The first Macs to show the Jobs influence after his return to Apple were the iMacs. Closed again.
Here is a nice story told by Andy Hertzfeld (The main software developer for the macintosh's os) which clearly states that jobs did not want to have any expansion slots in the macintosh (funny read):
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Diagnostic_Port.txt [folklore.org]
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In Jobs' defense, he saw the personal computer in the same light as a toaster: an appliance for the masses, which the user need not know nor care how it works.
The iMac fulfills this role beautifully. Users buy them, take them home, and just turn them on to use them.
Regular people do not upgrade their toasters. They use them until they break, then buy a new one, plug it in, and make toast.
-dZ.
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Yeah, but the original Mac did not fulfill that role adequately, and the engineers knew it.
128k was barely enough to run the OS and a single application - which was by design; multitasking was a hack added on with Switcher before Multifinder was even conceived.
There was no way to add a hard drive to the 128k Mac, and it put you through hell when you had to copy a floppy. You had to swap it out about 50 times because there was not enough memory to buffer the whole thing in one step.
If it weren't for Burre
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In other words you're saying "In Steve Jobs defense, he was either short sighted or a true believer in planned obsolescence."
People regularly use the same toaster for decades. People don't go and buy a relatively expensive toaster model with a plan to replace it in a couple of years.
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Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
Funny? I'm have trouble finding citation but, as I recall, one of the points of friction between Jobs and Scully at the time of Job's departure was over whether to open up the Macintosh. Jobs was against it. Despite putting slots in the NeXT cubes, I think he still prefers Macs be closed. The first Macs to show the Jobs influence after his return to Apple were the iMacs. Closed again.
Here is a nice story told by Andy Hertzfeld (The main software developer for the macintosh's os) which clearly states that jobs did not want to have any expansion slots in the macintosh (funny read):
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Diagnostic_Port.txt [folklore.org]
Quote from that page:
Jef Raskin had a very different point of view. He thought that slots were inherently complex, and were one of the obstacles holding back personal computers from reaching a wider audience. He thought that hardware expandability made it more difficult for third party software writers since they couldn't rely on the consistency of the underlying hardware. His Macintosh vision had Apple cranking out millions of identical, easy to use, low cost appliance computers and since hardware expandability would add significant cost and complexity it was therefore avoided.
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He puts slots in NeXT cubes, but changed the form factor of the NuBus slots so that you couldn't use standard NuBus cards. So "open" but you had to use NeXT specific cards (and thus it didn't help out the NuBus market).
The NeXT was just a weird machine in many ways in that it just refused to be easily expandable or open, including a NeXT specific printer, and it didn't come with "options", and just like most products that Steve Jobs touched, it was one-size-fits-all. Also like many Steve Jobs' products, i
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Jobs wanted to sell Macs to people who didn't care about what went on on the inside. There's more money to be made selling to the masses than to the technogeek.
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Apple customers are people who usually don't know much, if anything, about the technology inside the box; more significantly, they don't *want* to know, and don't care about it.
Sorry, you are dead wrong.
Not only am I an embedded developer with over 30 years of experience; but I also know several EEs who are Mac-only. And yes, they are EEs with digital expertise.
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Macs have always had interesting third party upgrades. When I retired my original 800mhz Quicksilver it had a dual 1.8ghz CPU in it and a number of other modifications.
The upgrade market would let you keep many Macs going for 10 years with a minimal investment. Not sure how the Intel switch has affected that, though.
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Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
ISTR the pattern in the Scully years was pretty much the same as today - minimal internal expansion and screwed-tight cases for the low/middle-range desktop models c.f. clip-open access for the top-of-the-range (often tower) models with NuBus.
The Centris and early PowerMacs were not remarkably easy to get into, and the only expansion was an optional Ethernet card.
Also, remember that, to balance the lack of internal expansion, Apple have been pretty pro-active in pushing external expansion - first SCSI, th
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Yeah, I remember my uncle's Mac. Looked like a giant tower of crap, piled 8 pieces high.
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The current iMac form factor was reasonably open until 2005, i.e. you could open it up and access the internals pretty easily. Starting in 2006 though, it became a nightmare to self-service, because you now had to get at things from the front, instead of from the back. Getting at the hard drive (it was fine, but bad capacitors rendered the system itself dead) required removing just about every damn component first, when it should be one of the easiest things to get at.
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Funny, though, those 'open' Macs only appeared after Jobs was gone!
Even more funny, the idea od non-expandability was the main concept of the Macintosh before Jobs even heard of the project.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663212/the-untold-story-of-how-my-dad-helped-invent-the-first-mac [fastcodesign.com]
There were to be no peripheral slots so that customers never had to see the inside of the machine (although external ports would be provided); there was a fixed memory size so that all applications would run on all Macintoshes; the screen, keyboard, and mass storage device (and, we hope
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(cost reductions).
This is Apple we're talking about.
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(cost reductions)
This is Apple we're talking about.
Cost reductions not price reductions. Costs are what Apple pays for components, assembly, shipping, etc. :-)
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I should have quoted more;
make sense for typical users (cost reductions)
Though I guess it may make sense in the sense that "We're consumers, it's only natural companies are screwing us".
Other good reasons for closing the box... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an affinity for things I can tweak but I have to admit this represents a minority opinion and that sealed boxes make sense for typical users (cost reductions, simplified supply chain, etc).
Of course there are other good reasons for "closing the box"... The original Mac, the first iMac and several models in between had built-in CRTs and the associated high-voltage circuitry, so you really, really didn't want users poking their fingers inside.
Most subsequent consumer Macs have been "small form factor" (and usually much smaller form-factor than competing SFF computers). If you make something as tiny as the Mac Mini or a slim as a modern iMac, you're gonna end up with "no user servicable parts inside". The advantage for Apple is that ultra-slim systems can sell for a premium *useful if you're trying to develop your own platform), rather than trying to compete in the low-margin mini-tower and boxy laptop market.
As you point out, Apple tower systems are still clip-open (swapping drives or adding memory to a Mac Pro is a breeze).
The other thing is, the motive and opportunity for tinkering has reduced. In the 80s any self-respecting geek would have lost the lid of their computer and have all manner of internal expansion - even on systems that didn't support it there would be boards piggybacked on chips and flying wires soldered to pins on the motherboard. Not so easy on a modern multi-layer motherboard with surface-mount components. I haven't felt the need to go near a computer with a soldering iron in years... There's also less need - the main reason I ever went delving in a Mac (apart from memory and HD upgrades) was to fit ethernet cards - these days, you'll find at least one ethernet port (probably plus WiFi) built in to any half-decent board, and anything else can be fitted via USB. The only PC with an internal add-on card I have now is my MythTV box - and I'm planning to replace that with a smaller box + USB tuner (having found that there are few linux-supported PCIe tuners and that the most suitable dual tuner PCI card is actually a USB tuner stuck on a card with a PCI-USB bridge...)
Apple have also pushed external expansion - first SCSI, then Firewire, then the iMac pulled USB out of the doldrums, now they're pushing ThunderBolt...
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I think it is fair to say that Apple see servicing as a source of revenue for most of their devices, high end professional systems excepted.
To be fair they have got a lot better in the last few years. Until a few years ago MacBooks were a real pain to service, requiring you to remove the motherboard to swap the HDD if it failed. Newer models make common faults like the HDD much easier to change but there are still lots of difficult bits. MacBook keyboards that are part of the case come to mind. Some people
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I can't decide if they just want to make money out of repairs or if they want to make the price so high you just go out and buy a new machine.
"A little from column A, a little from column B..."
That's really the answer. For some things (like back when the iMac had everything crammed into a shell with a built in CRT and you didn't want the user killing themselves accidentally touching a high-voltage capacitor while trying to attach a PCI card) there were user-reasons to not have end users taking them apart.
Fo
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For this reason I'd look very carefully at the cost of spares, and/or the cost of extra-l
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I have actually found more reason to add expansion cards in the past couple of years because USB serial converters fail with some serial devices (this seems to be getting worse) and what do you do for your second ethernet port? Or
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Don't disparage minority opinions. Very often, they're right.
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I guess you miss the days when you had to flip DIP switches or jumpers to set IRQs, DMA channels, IO memory and memory maps, then edit cryptic configuration files and environment variables setting to configure it correctly. Then hope all the software actually accepted such settings or end up rearranging a
Re:ahh, the good ole days (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple ][ computers had their wiring diagram on the inside of the lid
WTF are you smoking, and can I have some?
Apple ][ computers NEVER had a schematic (or anything else) on the inside of the lid. The schematic was in the "Red Book"; but not on the lid.
And I think I know from experience. Not only do I OWN an Apple 1; but the first Apple ][ I ever saw/programmed was s/n 0013 (!!!). It was part of the first production run. So old it didn't even have the "cooling slots" in the top!
And subsequently, I sold Apple ][s for a couple of years, and they didn't have a schematic on the lid, either...
I'm not sure what computer you are think of; but it is not an Apple ][.
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My dad had an Apple ][ plus, and I remember distinctly that it had the schematics on the lid. Though that might be different for the earlier models.
Sorry, false memory. I have a ][+ in quiet repose in my "computer museum" (read: "pile of old computers") in the next room. Nothing on the inside of the lid but beige paint.
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ahh, the good ole money. (Score:1)
That's what you get when you keep the glorified salesman rather than the technical genius.
A successful company worth billions and a product others are still playing catchup with? Never mind NeXT with a computer ahead of it's time.
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A successful company [with] a product others are still playing catchup with?
Don't make me laugh. The only one playing catchup in the PC market today is Apple.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-has-91-share-of-premium-computer-market-research-firm-says-2009-7
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BUt they have 95% of the $1000 and over PC market.
How do you even make a meaningful metric for that? If I was going to spend $1k for a PC, I'd probably build it part by part, or get it custom, and not buy it as-is from a company. If your willing to spend that much, you probably want some control over the actual components too. Hell, if I spend over $700 for a PC, I'll hand build it, since at that cost, I obviously care about quality.
And if I hand build my PC, how the hell will anyone know it cost over $1k? My main PC, right now, is probably around $80
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A successful company [with] a product others are still playing catchup with?
Don't make me laugh. The only one playing catchup in the PC market today is Apple.
Are you insane, or just Trolling?
Let's just examine Thunderbolt. Or howabout the Unibody construction? Still no? Howabout illuminated keyboards, Firewire Target Disk Mode (which is REALLY quite nice!)? Not there yet? I won't even go into the fact that Apple completely revolutionized the Smartphone, and broke the backs of the Cell carriers.
Then there's the Macbook Air. Not my cup of blood; but still revolutionary when it was released.
And then there's that whole tablet thing. No one even comes close to
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Nice Examples! Besides Thunderbolt, they also popularized USB, and to a certain extent Firewire
Actually, they created FireWire in a partnership with Sony, just like they created Thunderbolt in a partnership with Intel.
I forgot those accomplishments.
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Riiight. Apple is the world's second-largest corporation. Microshaft is 3rd? That's the kind of "catchup" I can believe in .
I'm pretty sure that MS isn't 3rd. More like 5th [theonlineinvestor.com]. Chevron is right behind Apple.
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And when NeXT's time finally comes, I'll be ready. I've got a turbo NeXTCube in a box in the garage for when that great day comes.
Hardly used.
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There was, however, an electrical diagram in the red book....
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I had one of the first Apple ][s. There was no wiring diagram on the lid.
It was on the inside lid of my Apple //e (first version, not second with the numeric keypad).
The //gs was far, far removed from the Apple ][. You sir, are a poser.
True, but it was very compatible with the 8-bit Apple 2s. When assembling my 8 and 16-bit computer collection over the last couple of years, I went for computers I didn't have back in the day, rather than the ones I did. So, no 8-bit Apple ][ or //s, and no Amiga 500. But I do now have an Apple //gs, Amiga 1000, Tandy Coco 3, Tandy 102, Commodore
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It was on the inside lid of my Apple //e (first version, not second with the numeric keypad).
Sorry, I worked in a H.S. computer lab with a PILE of Apple //e computers.
Not ONE of them with a schematic on the lid.
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I remember that the manual that came with the ][+, anyway, had a fold-out schematic, which I thought was neat.
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Considering the size of the wiring diagramS for my Osbourne, I'm kinda doubting that. Also my ][e had no such info. Clarification please? Like was it a block diagram for the slots 'n' ports or suchlike?
I have no idea - I couldn't then (and can't now) read wiring diagrams. *shrug* It was an Apple //e - the first version, not the later one with a numeric keypad.
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Considering the size of the wiring diagramS for my Osbourne, I'm kinda doubting that. Also my ][e had no such info. Clarification please? Like was it a block diagram for the slots 'n' ports or suchlike?
I have no idea - I couldn't then (and can't now) read wiring diagrams. *shrug* It was an Apple //e - the first version, not the later one with a numeric keypad.
Are you sure it wasn't a clone? There were NO Apple ][, ][+, //c, //e or IIgs computers with a schematic, block diagram, or anything else for that matter, on the lid, or anywhere else. Schematics were in the owner's manual (and I think that even disappeared with the //c or //e).
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Are you sure it wasn't a clone? There were NO Apple ][, ][+, //c, //e or IIgs computers with a schematic, block diagram, or anything else for that matter, on the lid, or anywhere else. Schematics were in the owner's manual (and I think that even disappeared with the //c or //e).
No, I'm sure it wasn't a clone, and who knows, I may be misremembering - I sold that thing in 1986 to buy an Amiga 500 (took that long to pay it off!). I don't know what else I would be thinking of - I certainly couldn't open my Amiga 500 (other than the little trap door in the bottom). *shrug* Who knows. I'm probably just getting senile. It's to the point where with my home projects, I want to check out even older tech than I once had - I want to get an old Altair 8800 or IMSAI 8080 to play with, and figu
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Are you sure it wasn't a clone? There were NO Apple ][, ][+, //c, //e or IIgs computers with a schematic, block diagram, or anything else for that matter, on the lid, or anywhere else. Schematics were in the owner's manual (and I think that even disappeared with the //c or //e).
No, I'm sure it wasn't a clone, and who knows, I may be misremembering - I sold that thing in 1986 to buy an Amiga 500 (took that long to pay it off!). I don't know what else I would be thinking of - I certainly couldn't open my Amiga 500 (other than the little trap door in the bottom). *shrug* Who knows. I'm probably just getting senile. It's to the point where with my home projects, I want to check out even older tech than I once had - I want to get an old Altair 8800 or IMSAI 8080 to play with, and figure out how those monsters worked. Definitely before my time, but they look like a lot of fun. They are sadly expensive these days - so few are still working. :(
Not as expensive as my Apple 1... ;-) I keep threatening to fix it up and sell it; but so far...
The problem with old S-100 bus systems would be getting one to WORK. They hardly worked reliably when they were new, let alone after al the timing gimick capacitors have aged for 40 years...
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Considering the size of the wiring diagramS for my Osbourne, I'm kinda doubting that. Also my ][e had no such info. Clarification please? Like was it a block diagram for the slots 'n' ports or suchlike?
I have no idea - I couldn't then (and can't now) read wiring diagrams. *shrug* It was an Apple //e - the first version, not the later one with a numeric keypad.
We had Apple ][s at high school. I made a joystick for it by interfacing to an IC socket at the back of the motherboard. I don't recall where I got the information but I am certain it didn't come from google ;)
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I had a late model Apple II+ (Revision 7 motherboard). Loved the machine.
The System Manual for the Apple II (forget the exact designation) had a fold-out circuit diagram of the entire system.
One of the other manuals also provided a significant amount of assembly code (relating to some aspect of the system). I don't remember the exact nature of the code provided.
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Someone went as far as to stick a 170MB IDE drive [guillard.free.fr] on an Apple ][e... DIY guide in the link.
That's nothing!
Woz told me about a year ago that Wendell Sanders (STILL working for Apple!) boots his Apple 1 off of his iPod!!!
Yes, I said Apple ONE.
Still around today (Score:2)
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Replica I [brielcomputers.com]
Pfft!
I am the original owner of a REAL Apple 1, from 1976. The first computer I ever saw...
A machine ahead of its time (Score:4, Informative)
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The other computers that could be purchased at that time had rows of LEDs and switches on their front panels, and they needed them. The Apple was quite sophisticated for a single board computer - Altair and IMSAI used that many ICs just to make a CPU chip talk to a bus.
Those S-100 bus computers WERE all trying to be PDP-8 clones. The only one that wasn't was the Processor Technology SOL-20. Pretty slick for an S-100 bus system, actually.
But you are right; the Apple 1 was pretty much the first computer where you could sit down, flip on the power, and start computing!
Makes me wanna get my Apple 1 fired up again...
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Wrong. From wikipedia:
"However, to make a working computer, users still had to add a case, power supply transformers, power switch, ASCII keyboard, and composite video display."
It didn't have a power switch to flip. And Wozniak couldn't even get the thing to work properly without help from MOS/Commodore's Chuck Peddle.
As always, Apple's contribution to early computing is severely overblown by revisionists.
For a good history of early personal computers (particularly those where the 6502 is involved), check out the book "Commodore: A Company on the Edge"- the first half is basically about the father of personal computers, Chuck Peddle.
Ok, I'll give you that it was just a motherboard. However, once a user hooked up a power supply, keyboard, and composite monitor (or RF modulator and TV), then they instantly had a working system, which didn't require toggling in a bootloader everytime the power was removed.
So, Woz asked for some help with something that was ultimately due to an errata in the MOS Technology 6502 datasheet. So?
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f Chuck helped Woz with this problem he never came up with a good solution because the problem was finally solved by the availability of 2Mhz DRAMS that permitted the seamless interleaving of CPU and refresh cycles.
Right.
And now that I think about it, the GGP was conflating the Apple 1, which had no video interleaving, because it used a "glass TTY"-type display, using SHIFT REGISTERS for the "video RAM", vs. the Apple ][, which used the system DRAM in an "interleaved" timing fashion.
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Indeed, computers back then didn't come with any kind of permanent storage. With the Altair you had to manually enter software byte by byte with the 8 switches on the front, one for each bit. To write software in BASIC you had to write it out by hand, convert it to binary, enter the BASIC interpreter manually and then finally enter the binary program manually.
People who grew up with computers in the 80s remember how dodgy audio tapes were for storing programs but compared to the Altair tape was a huge leap
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Indeed, computers back then didn't come with any kind of permanent storage. With the Altair you had to manually enter software byte by byte with the 8 switches on the front, one for each bit.
If you were REALLY cool, you had an ASR-33 with a Paper Tape reader, so, after you toggled the bootloader into RAM, you could spend the next 10 minutes (re)loading MS BASIC from paper (or mylar) tape.
THEN you could start programming.
Yay new media! (Score:2)
Article: 13 pages! Oh, good, some content!
10 words and a pic, NEXT. 13 words and a pic, NEXT. 10 words and a pic.
Close.
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To be fair, most of the images contain some text. Often the text in the images is denser than the text in the article.
Apple 1 can be seen this spring .... (Score:1)
My favorite Apple contribution to society is (Score:2)
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(heresay following, I may be wrong) At one point Steve Jobs said it is cool for 3rd party developers to make applications.
And followed it with "But we'll take 30%".
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And decide which applications 3rd party developers can and cannot make.
applefritter.com (Score:2)
Apple ][ responsible for Bender (Score:3)
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http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/the-truth-about-benders-brain [ieee.org] I didn't realize that Apple would be responsible for Bender's MOS 6502 brain. Apparently David X Cohen programmed assembly for the Apple ][ in high school.
There are ALWAYS tons of Apple/Mac/6502 jokes and references in Futurama.
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I had a different 6502 system. It came with a one page rundown of 6502 machine code. With that information I taught myself to hand assemble machine code. I doubt I could have done that on a Z80. The 6502 was a fantastic proto-RISC processor.
Most Hackable Computer (Score:4, Interesting)
I had schematics for the ][ and the entire annotated source code for that and Apple DOS 3.2/3.3. And these weren't pirate, Apple happily published them. Woz was a freaking genius with how much he did with so little hardware.
You wanted to add lower case? Just run this wire here. Optionally bypass the write protect for floppies? Just put a three pole switch here. You want to extend the BASIC? Sure, here's these hooks (and Beagle Brothers made insane use of that).
The Apple I was the prototype for that and I salute it. I never had one, though of course now I wish I did!
Also funny how it's utterly unlike the Apple of today. I remember when the first Mac came out, completely unexpandable, and The Steve declared that it would never have more than 128K of RAM because that was more than enough for anyone. Which was ridiculous, because my Apple ][ had 16x that much already.
Yes I'm old.
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I had schematics for the ][ and the entire annotated source code for that and Apple DOS 3.2/3.3.
I can go one better: I actually assembled DOS 3.3 on a regular basis, and made several, several modifications to same, all the way down to the RWTS (Read-Write Track and Sector) and Nibble-handling routines.
In fact, I created a custom version of Randy Wigginton's TED-II Weekend Assembler that could assemble to and from disk; because that was the ONLY way you could assemble something as huge as DOS...
And these weren't pirate, Apple happily published them.
BZZT! Wrong! Apple didn't sue the shit out of the people who DID publish the source. I think it was the App
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Yeah, looking back, I wouldn't have had one till 1986, two years after the Mac launched and by then you already had the Fat Mac at 512K.
Here's the InfoWorld review of it at the time: http://tinyurl.com/3wgx76z [tinyurl.com]
I must have been thinking of the Mac Plus, which finally upgraded the Macs to a megabyte.
Beginnings of the Apple style... (Score:3)
... including the claim that its 16 bit address bus allowed expansion to 65K of memory. /me didn't realise the use of decimal rather than binary capacity multipliers in marketing claims was so old.
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Just as 65K didn't mean 65000 bytes, there's no reason why 8K would have to mean 8000 bytes. It's called rounding.
And if it wasn't for some help from Chuck Peddle (Score:3, Informative)
it may not have been completed.
http://www.commodore.ca/history/people/chuck_peddle/chuck_peddle.htm [commodore.ca]
Apparently when he turned up to help them out, he ended up doing a lot of analysing of what they were doing and helping them understand how the 6502 worked and what they were doing wrong.
You have 650 Advanced Orders for Apple II? Right. (Score:2, Interesting)
My earliest memory of meeting Steve Jobs was, IIRC, at the Atlantic City Microcomputer Festival in August 1977. He gave me a pitch about the Apple 1 and explained why people wanted color computers, even low resolution, instead of the state of the art monochrome displays. He told me, confidentially, that Apple already had 650 orders for the unannounced Apple II computer. I walked away thinking he was a misguided huckster. 650 advanced orders? Yeah, right, will never happen. I finally decided to buy an Alpha
Nostaliga! (Score:3)
I didn't realize that Apple was still selling Apple I's after they introduced the Apple II. I thought they has sold out the entire first (and ONLY) run of Apple 1 boards before the II was introduced. What the story didn't mention was the fact that Apple ALSO sold the Apple II as just a bare board sans case, just like the Apple I. They didn't offer this option very long, but I do remember it being available. Perhaps they thought that Apple I owners who had built the I into a custom case would want to upgrade? I think the two boards were about the same size, but the II had to be mounted with the short dimension front to back (if you wanted the expansion slots in back).
Stan Veit operated a NYC computer shop (in the back of a toy store) and carried the Apple I. I remember seeing it AND the Apple II when they first came out. I worked at a rival computer store, but we didn't carry Apple or Altair. The place I worked at had SWTP, Processor Technology, and Imsai computers.
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What the story didn't mention was the fact that Apple ALSO sold the Apple II as just a bare board sans case, just like the Apple I. They didn't offer this option very long, but I do remember it being available.
In fact, you are correct.
:
When I saw a site a few weeks ago with some early Apple ][ documentation, it mentioned what specifications you'd need for your OWN power supply.
I emailed Woz about it, and he replied with the following (reprinted without permission)
Yes.
I [Woz] had visited a few tech types at Hughes in Orange County, CA, and told them we'd probably sell the Apple }{ board for $500 or $600. Our investor and marketing head, Mike Markkula, wanted to only sell fully built Apple }{'s for a muc
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first!
fail.
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Wait a minute when was Linux written? Never mind.
Linux kernel 0.01 was released September 1991.
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Why does a date entry device need a banner?
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And Apple still does not provide a keyboard standard. You have to pay to get one. At least it comes with the case.
The only Apple computer that doesn't come with a keyboard is the Mac mini.
Stop trolling, fucktard.
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* made by Apple that is not an iPhone.
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The 68000 in the Mac was PDP-11 like.
6502 was my first assembly language, 68000 my second and then I had the assembly language class at the university and we used the PDP-11. Afterwards I did x86 (16-bit). I expect that if I had started with x86 I would have hated assembly language like everyone else. For those of you thinking x86 is not so bad, let me guess, you started in the 32-bit era?
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The 6502 processor was fast, clean and easy to program. My first assembly programs were on it. The assembly language was simpler and almost as fast as Z-80, and the apple BIOS permitted much more elegant control of the screen. It was so nice, it persisted into the Vic 20s, a much newer machine with a tidier construction and layout. The 6502 was eventually surpassed by the 6809, which lead into the notorious 8088 and then x86 range. None of them beat the 6502 for intuitive assembly code. It was almost as clean as the PDP-11.
I can't tell you how many tens-of-thousands of lines of 6502 assembly I wrote for the Apple 1, Apple ][, Commodore 64 (6510, but still the same core), as well as a bunch of my own embedded designs.
I also wrote a lot of assembler for 6801, 6805, 6809, 68HC11 (6801 core) and some 8085 and 8048/8051 stuff, too.
Other than a "6" at the beginning, the 6809 really has more in common with the 68000 than the 6502. Quite the cool beast; I really wish that Mot. had made some microcontrollers based on the 6809. REA
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The 6502 processor was fast, clean and easy to program. My first assembly programs were on it. The assembly language was simpler and almost as fast as Z-80, and the apple BIOS permitted much more elegant control of the screen. It was so nice, it persisted into the Vic 20s, a much newer machine with a tidier construction and layout. The 6502 was eventually surpassed by the 6809, which lead into the notorious 8088 and then x86 range. None of them beat the 6502 for intuitive assembly code. It was almost as clean as the PDP-11.
Not sure what you mean by surpassed. They are not related in any way. And since the 6502 was also used in the Commodore 64, the best-selling single personal computer model of all time (6510 was a 6502 with just additional IO ports integrated), it was't surpassed in sales or use before long into the growth of the x86 PC era.
Do agree that the 6502 was a nice and simple processor to program with assembly.
What's amazing is that the 6502 core lives on in many custom and semi-custom microcontrollers. For example, a LOT of webcam controllers are actually 6502-based (with a BUNCH of specialized hardware around the core).
In fact, I read somewhere a few years ago, that the 6502 was actually the largest-selling CPU core in the world.
Too bad the 65816 never caught on. I actually have a 65802 (the 8-bit bus version of the 65816) in my Apple ][.
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Re:Who's not a geek (Score:4, Insightful)
Steve is not really selling so much, he is only selling at most ten days of the year and not even full days, in fact he spends most of the days running a company where he oversees design and production of both software and hardware, that is not the job of a salesman.
I do not think Steve Jobs would be happy doing whatever makes him rich, remember what he said to John Sculley in 1985 "Do you want to sell sugarwater the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?" is a pretty strong indicator that Steve was not in it just to make money (but I wouldn't fault him if he saw money as something entirely positive). Jobs most likely sees himself as a visionary or an artist, perhaps even a philosopher, he probably is an "architect" archetype where he wants to leave a lasting legacy (see his Stanford Commencement speech where he hints at this).
Prophet (Score:2)
"Jobs most likely sees himself as a visionary or an artist, perhaps even a philosopher..."
From what I've seen of how he talks, how he treats customers, and how fans follow him, I would say "prophet" would be more apt.
(And like most prophets, he's invented his own religion.)
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He wouldn't have said that in '85, by '85 the board had ousted him from Apple. IIRC Sculley came in in 1983. Jobs left in '84, not too long after the launch of the Macintosh.
True, the quote is from 1983 and Jobs was ousted in 1985, I got them mixed up.
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No.