Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985 • Hacker News Board

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#41

Post by erikpukinskis » Sat, Nov 20, 2010, 8:17 AM UTC

epo wrote: post #19

brc wrote: post #8

I love the absolute irony of an article, printed in its day to carefully explain to people what Silicon Valley was, what a computer was, and what it was all about. Preserved for eternity on the internet and readable only on computers.

Sorry, that's not irony either, you perhaps mean an amusing coincidence. Not being a gramar nazi but the word "irony" has a very precise meaning, misusing it devalues the language. Explicit in the notion of irony is contradiction, e.g. saying one thing while meaning the opposite (such as saying about the Kin mobile phone "now there was a successful product"). Sorry, personal bugbear, my problem.

Are you trolling? Because your post is the very definition of irony.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#42

Post by erikpukinskis » Sat, Nov 20, 2010, 8:24 AM UTC

sudont wrote: post #22

patio11 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what better description than a dark age. The largest, fastest, most important rollout of technology in the history of mankind. Seriously.

Yeah, but .NET, IE6 and a lack of any UNIX underpinnings scares a lot of us. It was pretty impressive, though.

Actually, what scared me most was things like changing file formats and protocols to make their competitors' software incompatible and using their massive wealth to drive competitors out of business.

.NET, IE6, and Win32 aren't the most wonderful technologies in the world, but they're certainly not the reason for the "Dark Ages".

And re: patio12's point: Microsoft presided over a huge, fast, and successful technological expansion... it's just that it would've been bigger, faster, and more successful if they hadn't had such a "break their kneecaps" style of business strategy.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#43

Post by ma2rten » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 11:03 PM UTC

CamperBob wrote: post #34

mcav wrote: post #2

Interesting retrospective future-predicting-ish: Playboy: More important, are you ignoring your potentially biggest rival, A.T.&T.? Jobs: A.T.&T.. is absolutely going to be in the business. There is a major transformation in the company that's taking place right now. A.T.&T. is changing from a subsidized and regulated service-oriented company to a free-market, competitive-marketing technology company. A.T.&T.'s produ…

A.T.&T.'s products per se have never been of the highest quality. All you have to do is go look at their telephones. They're somewhat of an embarrassment Huh. That's weird. AT&T phones were built like brick shithouses, for the most part. I wonder what model(s) he had in mind when he said that?

He prolly meant in terms of design.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#44

Post by jamesbritt » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 11:47 PM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #43

CamperBob wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A.T.&T.'s products per se have never been of the highest quality. All you have to do is go look at their telephones. They're somewhat of an embarrassment Huh. That's weird. AT&T phones were built like brick shithouses, for the most part. I wonder what model(s) he had in mind when he said that?

He prolly meant in terms of design.

Because they didn't look like something from Braun?

The AT&T phones were simple and obvious to use. They did exactly what they were supposed to do, and did it well.

Re: Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

#45

Post by jamesbritt » Sun, Nov 21, 2010, 11:52 PM UTC

comatose_kid wrote: post #12

Talking about Commodore & Atari 8 bit machines: "I consider those a brochure for why you should buy an Apple II or Macintosh. I think people have already determined that the sub-$500 computers don't do very much. They either tease people to want more or frustrate people completely." Seems like he's believed that you can't make a good computer at the $500 price point for a long time now (his take on netbooks is pretty…

" I think people have already determined that the sub-$500 computers don't do very much."

They got a lot of people into the game.

I couldn't afford an Apple, but I could afford a C64.

Learned C on it.