Quotes from 1992 • Hacker News Board

Re: Quotes from 1992

#131

Post by AceJohnny2 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #130

The quote about reorgs practically gives me PTSD. Certainly irrational anger: > The rest of the company was as confused as its leadership. Somehow, early on, reorganizations - "reorgs" - became part of the Apple culture. they happen every three to six months and come from Apple's basic lack of understanding that people need stability in order to be able to work together. [...] Make a bad decision? Who cares! By the t…

And Apple's 3-6 months reorg cycle is insane! That sounds like organizational panic. Makes it all the more impressive that Steve Jobs pulled them out of that nosedive.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#132

Post by glhaynes » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #113

Stratoscope wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! I went into more detail in another comment in the thread, but going from one instruction set to another just felt like having more than one way to say the same thing. Every instruction was different, but the concepts and kinds of instructions were pretty much identical. Once you've seen an overflow flag and a carry flag and registers and bit shifts and memory load and store on one CPU, you'll certainly rec…

I guess Steve thought the CPUs really were different, like, say, the difference between a CPU and a GPU. There's a lot of revisionist history on the internet about Steve Jobs not being technical, but he had an incredibly detailed understanding of the 68000 by the time the Macintosh project was launched. Perhaps your encounter encouraged him to delve into that area of study.

Where did you hear he had such a deep understanding of the 68000? (Not questioning whether he did, just curious because I've never heard that.)

Re: Quotes from 1992

#133

Post by apenwarr » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 10:16 PM UTC

jordanlev wrote: post #28

Unikaca wrote: post #9

Apenwarr podcasts are really good, recommended to everyone.

Been reading his blog for a long time, but didn’t know there was a podcast. I’m unable to find it though — do you have a link?

He definitely doesn't have podcasts (though there are a few recorded talks). His blog posts seem popular though. :)

Re: Quotes from 1992

#134

Post by AceJohnny2 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 10:18 PM UTC

leoc wrote: post #124

sedachv wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Robert X. Cringely is often incredibly observant and accurate. Quite the opposite: http://www.digibarn.com/friends/jef-raskin/writings/holes.ht... Cringely is a good writer and storyteller. The stories he tells are often hearsay or wildly inaccurate recounting of events by third parties. His writings should in no way be treated as being accurate, and should not be referenced as historical sources or anything like t…

Oh, he's certainly sometimes observant (and indeed sometimes accurate), it's just that he's far from being particularly reliable .

Indeed, I recall the mid-00's when Cringely's predictions would show up on Slashdot to be roundly mocked. I think it was the first time I understood the practice of making outrageous claims just to drive traffic.

Thus, I only remember Cringely as a bloviating laughingstock. It's interesting to see where his authority came from, this book seems very interesting.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#135

Post by michaelt » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #105

simonh wrote: post #2

>On big things failing to scale down: It occurs to me that the same applied in the transition to mobile. Microsoft was obsessed with making hand-helds and phones into little PCs, keyboard and all. It actually required a radically new interaction model and interface technology to unlock the potential of the form factor.

Story I was told from someone who worked on the early-2000's "Tablet PC": Microsoft's team originally produced a new touch-first interface that wasn't entirely different from the eventual iPad. They took it to various corporate customers, and the response was unanimous: it needs to run Real Windows or it has no future. Facepalm. So they went back to Redmond and changed it to be Windows on a touchscreen. It met all st…

My work issued me a pre-iPad tablet computer, the NEC Versa Litepad.

I agree with what you said, but part of the problem was resistive touchscreens just weren’t very good.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#136

Post by hyperman1 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #114

cr0sh wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, the greatest difference between mainframes and minicomputers (and later, microcomputers), is that mainframes were batch-oriented machines, while minicomputers were interactive-oriented. Mainframes (pretty much "IBM only" today - I don't know of any other actual mainframe computer manufacturer; to be honest, I am not even sure if IBM is still making mainframes? Ok - just looked, I guess they do…

pretty much "IBM only" today - I don't know of any other actual mainframe computer manufacturer Does Cray count?

I heard a lot of Western European governements run on Siemens BS1000/BS2000/BS3000.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#137

Post by aeontech » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #21

aeontech wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libby app makes it trivially easy. * not affiliated in any way, just a happy user. https://meet.libbyapp.com/

Does it run under wine? https://help.libbyapp.com/6059.htm > If you have an Adobe-compatible ereader (like a NOOK or Kobo), you can download Libby ebooks on a computer, then use Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) to transfer them to your device: > 1) Open libbyapp.com on a computer and go to Shelf > Loans. > 2) Select Send To A Device. > 3) Click select your device, then choose Adobe-compatible ereader. Note: If you've sen…

Oh. I never actually looked into what it would take to read on a laptop, I read on my phone or tablet. This is definitely a lot more painful :(

Re: Quotes from 1992

#138

Post by bonestamp2 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 11:43 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #8

On the value of limiting yourself to standards: ...which was why the idea of 100 percent IBM compatibility took so long to be accepted. "Why be compatible when you could be better?" the smart guys asked on their way to bankruptcy court. It sounds a bit like a jab at Apple (or maybe even NeXT, which I believe was struggling in 1992 with its hardware releases). AFAIK neither company ever went bankrupt. Or was it referr…

Yes, probably a jab at Apple... although funny how the tides have turned (and likely the reason for this pull quote).

Re: Quotes from 1992

#139

Post by lenocinor » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 12:15 AM UTC

purplezooey wrote: post #47

It's weird seeing 1992 associated with some kind of far off distant time.

But it feels like that to me, even though I lived through it. Sometimes even a year ago can feel so far away.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#140

Post by int_19h » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #50

From Accidental Empires, which the article quotes: "Then there was Flight Simulator, the only computer game published by Microsoft". Even at the time (long before XBox), this wasn't true. Microsoft had published several games before Flight Simulator -- a version of the classic Colossal Cave adventure called "Microsoft Adventure", and "Microsoft Decathlon", an Olympic sports game.

If you're ever near the Microsoft Redmond campus, building 16 has an open courtyard with tiles on the ground, each corresponding to some Microsoft product that was released. I'd be surprised if most people here (or in the industry in general) recognized even half of the product names on the tiles.

https://i.imgur.com/meVHgYm.jpg