Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 60 posts

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#41

Post by ern »

ajross wrote: post #29
rbanffy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today Of course there is an user experience element on an Apple II. You just have to put the II in the context of the microcomputers if its time. It came in a plastic box, you could hook up your TV and you could display color and make music and sound effects in the speaker. You turned it on and you got a BASIC language interpreter instantly. Yo…

I guess this is true, but it's seems like a needless digression. Woz did all that stuff. The power-on prompts (both monitor and BASIC) were his. TV output certainly wasn't a Jobs innovation (nor was it Woz's, he just did it better with a staggeringly low part count). My point earlier was that attributing this to Jobs purely because of an intuition that "Jobs does UX" is incorrect, and speaks more broadly to my point…

Not to diminish the genius of Woz, but it should be pointed out that in a design book (I think it was The Design of Everyday Things) his CORE universal remote was singled out for harsh criticism because of its overly complex UI.

Based on this, there may be some truth in the idea that he lacked some UX finesse.

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#42

Post by michaelbuckbee »

JunkDNA wrote: post #6

Reminds me what an incredible guy Woz is as well. Makes me wish I could have been there as the two of them debated the future of the personal computer in their garage.

Here is the next best thing: video of Woz talking about the early years with Steve and how things came about - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tENeGiaLXA

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#43

Post by CamperBob »

javert wrote: post #39

How does Woz saying that Steve Jobs was incredibly kind, sync up with the statment on Jobs' Wikipedia page that Jobs stole thousands of dollars from Woz when they were both at Atari [1]? Is there something more to this story? [1] search for $700 on Jobs' wikipedia page

People change.

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#44

Post by scelerat »

redthrowaway wrote: post #10
davi wrote: post #3

watch 'til the end, Woz chokes up (and made me do the same)

I actually found that distasteful. They kept the camera rolling after they told him it was over, specifically to catch that kind of a moment. It strikes me as dishonest and sensationalistic. Give the man his privacy.

nah. it's okay to cry when your friend dies. it's okay for journalists to show people being human.

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#45

Post by arethuza »

ajross wrote: post #18
vecter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we're talking past each other. It would be ridiculous to claim that Steve would've said "Woz, you should consider this design pattern or abstraction to solve that problem you're having". I imagine it would have been more general points about the user experience he hoped for.

But that's the thing: the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today. You turned it on and got an Integer BASIC prompt (or the monitor). That software was a stripped down version of BASICs that existed elsewhere, not something meaningfully "improved" by Apple (except in the sense of running amazingly well in 8kb of RAM) it was hand written (hand assembled I believe) by Woz. Eventually,…

The first computers I used were an Apple II and a ZX-80 - the "user experience" of the Apple was infinitely better than the Sinclair machine.

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#47

Post by keenerd »

rbanffy wrote: post #31
ajross wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is true, but it's seems like a needless digression. Woz did all that stuff. The power-on prompts (both monitor and BASIC) were his. TV output certainly wasn't a Jobs innovation (nor was it Woz's, he just did it better with a staggeringly low part count). My point earlier was that attributing this to Jobs purely because of an intuition that "Jobs does UX" is incorrect, and speaks more broadly to my point…

> Woz did all that stuff. While I agree the II is not a Jobs-only product, I can't imagine Jobs sitting quietly letting Woz make all the decisions. I can't picture Jobs sitting quietly at all.

Woz put up a serious fight to make the Apple II as powerful as possible.

Jobs wanted it to be as cheap as possible. Jobs planned to sell two expansion cards, so the Apple II only only needed two expansion slots. Woz refused to hobble the machine when he could easily make it have seven expansion slots.

The Apple II had seven, and within a year there was a flourishing third party market providing all sorts of expansion options.

The Apple II was the last product where Woz had any serious amount of input and (if you had any interest in technology) it was Apple's peak.

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#48

Post by Poiesis »

enry_straker wrote: post #17
ajross wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure that would have been as enlightening as you think. They worked together on the Apple II, not the Mac. And the 6502 boxes were all Woz on the inside. His design, his software. Jobs added the box, the polish and the marketing. But all the look and feel wizardry and attention to detail was still in his future. Apple bootstrapped by selling a machine that was fundamentally the work of a single hacker. Edit: I sh…

You have put into words my thoughts exactly. To be sure, i am a bit of a woz fanboy, having lived through the 80's and poring over his work. Though i don't begrudge Jobs the fame and fortune, i do think a lot of people overlook woz. To me, he is probably the single most influential pioneer in the history of personal computing.

It is illuminating to compare Apple's priorities then and now. You can easily see the common obsession with design and the drive to make it affordable. Despite Apple's early reputation, it's clear that they were still trying to keep the cost down so the experience could be shared by more people. Jobs was different, though, in that he would aggressively cut costs and just as aggressively not compromise on the user experience. Better a few things well than many poorly.

Apple then and now was able to make these "insanely great" products by attracting the absolutely best engineers. Yes, Jobs without [a] Woz is not successful. But Woz without [a] Jobs is equally so. And while brilliance in either slippery is rare, I don't doubt it's still easier to find someone with Woz's kind of talent than Jobs'.

Finally, even supposing that both skill sets are equally rare--who's going to be better at attracting new talent? One of the nice things about being able to persuade people to buy stuff is that the skill translates nicely to persuading people to share your vision and work for you.

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#49

Post by yters »

javert wrote: post #39

How does Woz saying that Steve Jobs was incredibly kind, sync up with the statment on Jobs' Wikipedia page that Jobs stole thousands of dollars from Woz when they were both at Atari [1]? Is there something more to this story? [1] search for $700 on Jobs' wikipedia page

I've read him say that he didn't think it was a big deal. Woz seems a pretty forgiving guy.

Me, I'd be pissed b/c people like Jobs always seems to think engineers are just sitting around waiting to get punked. I hate that someone has to be like Jobs to do so well. But, I also recognize he was successful and had a great vision, I won't begrudge him that.

Why can't goodness and success go together more often, without good people just looking like patsies?

Re: Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

#50

Post by option1138 »

rbanffy wrote: post #26
ajross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing: the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today. You turned it on and got an Integer BASIC prompt (or the monitor). That software was a stripped down version of BASICs that existed elsewhere, not something meaningfully "improved" by Apple (except in the sense of running amazingly well in 8kb of RAM) it was hand written (hand assembled I believe) by Woz. Eventually,…

> the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today Of course there is an user experience element on an Apple II. You just have to put the II in the context of the microcomputers if its time. It came in a plastic box, you could hook up your TV and you could display color and make music and sound effects in the speaker. You turned it on and you got a BASIC language interpreter instantly. Yo…

I have to disagree. I used the Apple IIe and the TRS-80 extensively during this period. I coded games and other software in BASIC and assembly on both machines. I poured over the schematics of both machines for hours at a time. You could literally say that I knew those machines inside and out.

What you refer to as "user experience" was not at all uncommon. The TRS-80, the Sinclair, and many other computers shipped in plastic boxes. I don't recall the Apple natively supporting a hookup to a TV (the TRS-80 did not), but this was certainly not a positive at the time... TVs were far more difficult to read and work on than monitors.

Both the TRS-80 and the Apple shipped with BASIC and connected to a cassette recorder.

There were dozens of other computers, but there were just a few that were commonly used.

Post reply on HN