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Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

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Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#51

Post by SanjayMehta »

ghaff wrote: post #25
SanjayMehta wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mighty Mouse (the one with the little trackball on the top) was so much better except for the weekly cleaning required. My last one died a few months ago. I still use the first generation Magic Mouse when I have to, and I hate its sharp edges. I don't know anyone who likes it, they usually say they prefer the trackpad.

It helps that non-Windows trackpads were the first ones I could really use. (Deliberate phraseology; trackpads on Thinkpads running Linux worked pretty well for me too.) Interestingly, seem to work better on Windows these days as I've discovered inadvertently. Bought a cheap used/surplus Thinkpad to install Linux and discovered it came pre-installed with Windows 11 and it actually works well. Depends what I'm doing.…

I have a Thinkpad style USB keyboard meant for server racks. Has a trackpad and that little joystick. It's only flaw is it that it's too old for that windows key.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#52

Post by WillAdams »

felixding wrote: post #42

In case you don't know yet, there is a project that tries to bring the NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace

I wish that all of these sort of efforts would be folded into GNUstep:

gnustep.org

and that we would arrive at something useful and easily installed and widely accepted.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#53

Post by endemic »

dmazin wrote: post #5

If you want more on this, I recommend Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing by Stross. I’m not sure, but it might be the only extensive book about Next other than this new one. Though it’s essentially a long hit piece. The author really had it out for Jobs. In fact it’s a completely uncharitable book now that I think about it. Hopefully this new book will be a lot less biased.

Jobs really did make a lot of boneheaded decisions when running NeXT; this book just calls him out on it.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#54

Post by thesuitonym »

felixding wrote: post #42

In case you don't know yet, there is a project that tries to bring the NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace

Interesting, this seems to have been around for quite a while, though not as long as AfterStep and Window Maker. I wonder why the author decided to write their own version instead of helping out with one of those projects.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#55

Post by WillAdams »

redanddead wrote: post #35
dmazin wrote: post #5

If you want more on this, I recommend Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing by Stross. I’m not sure, but it might be the only extensive book about Next other than this new one. Though it’s essentially a long hit piece. The author really had it out for Jobs. In fact it’s a completely uncharitable book now that I think about it. Hopefully this new book will be a lot less biased.

Why did the author have it out for him? Jobs' life story makes me reflect on the choices we make in life. My impression is that yeah he changed the world, but he was really embattled with himself and the world, and he made a lot of enemies, partly because he stood on his principles and beliefs, come what may, but I'm sure there's more to the story

One can see a little bit about this in the stories from Folklore.org, e.g.,

https://www.folklore.org/Tell_Adam_Hes_An_Asshole.html

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#56

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

ktallett wrote: post #3

They are hardly forgotten considering the OS was a key influence of Mac OS X and you can see clear features of it today. It was hugely important in the mid 90's graphics and 3d animation era too. Such a fabulous piece of design, both software and hardware. I would much have prefered a world where Next and Mac OS never combined and we had both, as the Mac O7-9 were also a real treat to use.

It's enough of an influence that macOS APIs had (or still have) "NS" prefixes to many functions.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#57

Post by WillAdams »

dosisking wrote: post #47
WillAdams wrote: post #13

Presumably, the book goes into depth about the folks who actually did the work: - Susan Kare and Keith Ohlfs who did the UI design - Caroline Rose (Author of _Inside Macintosh_) who wrote the documentation - Avie Tevanian (the most heavily recruited CS student at that time w/ job offers from Apple, AT&T, IBM, and Microsoft) who wrote the Mach Micro kernel - Brad J. Cox (author of https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/sho…

- Steve Naroff who basically hacked together Objective-C++ in a few weekends. His interview with the Computer History Museum is worth a watch.

Caroline Rose also has an interview there, and it was also well-worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RikO_3jedlY

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#58

Post by blipvert »

jazz9k wrote: post #17
yardie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not be overly dramatic about that period. Apple was not days away from going bust. They were months away from filing bankruptcy. They were still a multi-billion dollar company even then. They just had very bad supply chain management. A bunch of old Macs sitting in warehouses not selling and too many people on payroll without any clear objectives. As Steve put it, "the ship was sinking and Gil (D'Amelio) was wo…

It's funny how many people Jobs had to fire during this period, but is still seen as a good guy to many in the tech community. Not that different from when Musk took over Twitter.

I must have missed the bit where Steve Jobs was trying to create “legion” of his offspring, supported far-right parties in Europe and tried to foment civil war in the UK.

Guess I’ll have to buy the book

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#59

Post by rbanffy »

WillAdams wrote: post #29
jorisw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird to state all these details, leading with 'presumably'

I don't have the book, and I don't have much faith in writers, esp. when writing about NeXT, e.g., David Pogue writing in his column in _MacWorld_ and noting that Steve Jobs used a ThinkPad (correct) running Windows 95 (incorrect) since he couldn't be bothered to check that the ThinkPad model in question (I believe a 760C) was of course on the NeXTstep Intel compatibility list, and so, was of course running NeXTstep…

Wasn't PowerPoint also based on an application initially made for NeXT?

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#60

Post by redanddead »

WillAdams wrote: post #55
redanddead wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did the author have it out for him? Jobs' life story makes me reflect on the choices we make in life. My impression is that yeah he changed the world, but he was really embattled with himself and the world, and he made a lot of enemies, partly because he stood on his principles and beliefs, come what may, but I'm sure there's more to the story

One can see a little bit about this in the stories from Folklore.org, e.g., https://www.folklore.org/Tell_Adam_Hes_An_Asshole.html

I've seen variations of this line so often from incumbents

  "Oh, some Apple folks", he addressed us in a condescending tone"
I remember reading an account about NVIDIA from its Riva-128 days very early on where the incumbent 3DFX (later acquired by NVIDIA) came over to their booth with a condescending tone, and the Riva made 3DFX's flagship product look like a toy

It's always the damn condescension, it seems to trigger greek tragedy endings and honestly world changing products -- the Mac, the GPU, it's always some asshole disrespecting an underdog to the point of rage

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