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Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

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Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#81

Post by icebraining »

zurn wrote: post #63
treblig wrote: post #33

Jobs, conceptually articulating what would become the Internet in 1985: "The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone."

These predictions were very commonplace by then. In 1983, TCP/IP came along and MILNET was split off. This is commonly considered to mark the start of the Internet. First .com domain was registered in 1985.

Not to mention other services like Minitel, which already had one million users in France.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#82

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #28
tdicola wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that prescient? By 1985 there were lots of BBSes you could dial into and connect with people from across the nation. In fact what would become America Online was just starting out as a BBS. The internet was available at most colleges, and tools like email and usenet were in full use. I think his statement is like someone right now saying electric cars will be a huge thing in the future.

> Is it really that prescient? By 1985 there were lots of BBSes you could dial into and connect with people from across the nation. Yeah, it's really that prescient. The fact that BBS existed and there was some networking in colleges is irrelevant. Most people didn't even think a PC would be important for everybody, much less internet. It was seen as a totally geek / big business thing. Read how the media pundits and…

[deleted]

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#83

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ihnorton wrote: post #12
tdicola wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that prescient? By 1985 there were lots of BBSes you could dial into and connect with people from across the nation. In fact what would become America Online was just starting out as a BBS. The internet was available at most colleges, and tools like email and usenet were in full use. I think his statement is like someone right now saying electric cars will be a huge thing in the future.

On the other hand, how long did it take Microsoft to figure that out - remember the Windows 95 TCP/IP stack? edit: note, Windows 95 originally didn't have a TCP/IP stack! The point is, plenty of smart people missed this boat for years , and I don't think it was at all obvious in 1985 that getting on a network would be the driving use case for widespread computer adoption by "non-techie" people.

It did have a tcp/ip stack but it wasn't installed by default, it was one of the optional extras.

What it didn't have was a web browser, you needed the plus pack for that.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#84

Post by ekianjo »

CmonDev wrote: post #78
ekianjo wrote: post #46

> Jobs: No, I’m afraid not in computers. And this puts a responsibility on Apple, because if there’s going to be innovation in this industry, it’ll come from us. Always like to see how pretentious Jobs has always been, thinking he was the only source of innovation in the whole world. He has been proven wrong many times.

But the strategy was right, the image of Apple as innovator still stands strong in consumers' minds, despite obvious incorrectness.

Perception bias. The strategy has failed for 20 years before it took hold on the mobile computer market (Smartphones / Tablets). So when do you decide that a strategy was right? Only when the tides turn around, ignoring the rest of time when the water was low?

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#85

Post by TorKlingberg »

joshvm wrote: post #6
ddebernardy wrote: post #2

Quite prescient: > Jobs: The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone.

He even alludes to smartphones: > Jobs: The developments will be in making the products more and more portable, networking them, getting out laser printers, getting out shared data bases, getting out more communications ability, maybe the merging of the telephone and the personal computer.

I think "telephone" here referred mainly to landlines. Mobile phones were rare in 1985, and completely analog.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#86

Post by melling »

ekianjo wrote: post #39

> Jobs: my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years. Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening. I'm very glad that IBM and its compatible equivalents won the market, we would certainly be in much Darker Ages should Apple have won the desktop war, with their close-minded view on the world a…

Yeah, imagine if the car market had been won by General Motors and 9 out of 10 cars was a GM. That's what happened in desktop computers. All other variants died. Apple was down to 4% at one point, and Microsoft extinguished all competition by requiring hardware makers to pay for DOS no matter what OS they actually shipped.

Anyway, don't you think we'd all be better off with 3 or 4 desktop and mobile choices?

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#87

Post by EarthLaunch »

judk wrote: post #47
enraged_camel wrote: post #43

>> [The telegraph] was an amazing breakthrough in communications. You could actually send messages from New York to San Francisco in an afternoon. People talked about putting a telegraph on every desk in America to improve productivity. But it wouldn’t have worked. It required that people learn this whole sequence of strange incantations, Morse code, dots and dashes, to use the telegraph. It took about 40 hours to le…

Cordata / Google Now / Siri People just gesture at the terminal, and the software interprets it.

> "For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive -- you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. [...] Zaphod waved a hand and the channel switched again."

-Hitchhiker's Guide (1979?)

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#88

Post by mironathetin »

Playboy interviews used to be great! There was no limit in length or content. The interviewer was allowed to ask whatever he wanted. If you get a Playboy from the 60s or the 70s, the interviews fill 20 pages and more. No pics, only text. Unimaginable nowadays in a printed product. I bought some old Playboys because of this (Castro, Connery, Dylan etc.)

There are also books with the interviews only [the directors (Clint Eastwood, Billy Wilder, Orson Wells etc.), larger than life etc.]. Great reads.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#89

Post by iopq »

tdicola wrote: post #11
ddebernardy wrote: post #2

Quite prescient: > Jobs: The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone.

Is it really that prescient? By 1985 there were lots of BBSes you could dial into and connect with people from across the nation. In fact what would become America Online was just starting out as a BBS. The internet was available at most colleges, and tools like email and usenet were in full use. I think his statement is like someone right now saying electric cars will be a huge thing in the future.

Well, right now Bitcoin allows you to pay anyone online without a centralized currency issuing authority.

This technology exists, but the people who are saying that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general will change people's lives are way ahead of the curve. People will look at quotes from 2012 and say "Bitcoin came out in 2009 so people were already aware of cryptocurrency for years"

But more than 99% of the population right now are completely missing the boat on cryptocurrency. I think in five years it's going to be bigger than most people imagine.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#90

Post by spain »

ekianjo wrote: post #39

> Jobs: my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years. Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening. I'm very glad that IBM and its compatible equivalents won the market, we would certainly be in much Darker Ages should Apple have won the desktop war, with their close-minded view on the world a…

> Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening.

It's funny because Apple is now in that same situation. Apple isn't exactly known for innovation anymore (as much as they would like to lead you to believe in their keynotes).

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