61–70 of 163 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The motivation for the article was to investigate Steve Jobs' claim, so it would be strange to remove that.
I do wish your blog articles had the published date at the top.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do wish your blog articles had the published date at the top.
It's my subtle protest against the HN belief that people need to be warned against articles from previous years. That said, it's a bit alarming to realize I wrote the article 9 years ago.
Just look up "Apple PowerSupply Recall" and you will see they are just repeating their cost saving success/failure.
Same story as with hard drive based audio players. I've been using one (if I remember correctly) from Creative long before iPod materialized. All was quiet but suddenly as iPod came it was of course called revolution.
Seriously, those MP3 players were nothing like the iPod. This is a bit like people going on about smart phones before iPhone. I had a couple of those and the iPhone was just so far ahead, that we are not really talking about the same category of products. A product isn’t merely checking some boxes. Checking the “has hard drive” box doesn’t make any it an iPod.
Same story as with hard drive based audio players. I've been using one (if I remember correctly) from Creative long before iPod materialized. All was quiet but suddenly as iPod came it was of course called revolution.
Apple invented one people actually wanted to buy
Interesting deep dive on switching power supplies. I didn't see the need to frame it by attacking Apple.
The article is debunking this claim by Steve Jobs: "That switching power supply was as revolutionary as the Apple II logic board was," Jobs later said. "Rod doesn't get a lot of credit for this in the history books but he should. Every computer now uses switching power supplies, and they all rip off Rod Holt's design."’
Same story as with hard drive based audio players. I've been using one (if I remember correctly) from Creative long before iPod materialized. All was quiet but suddenly as iPod came it was of course called revolution.
Seriously, those MP3 players were nothing like the iPod. This is a bit like people going on about smart phones before iPhone. I had a couple of those and the iPhone was just so far ahead, that we are not really talking about the same category of products. A product isn’t merely checking some boxes. Checking the “has hard drive” box doesn’t make any it an iPod.
The first "box" I used to check when buying things like that is that PC sees it as a hard drive to which I can copy files. That horror they called iTunes would not be let anywhere close to my computers.
I know someone who was an exec at Astec in the 90s and Apple was notable for being willing to pay a premium for their power supplies (I think for better efficiency and miniaturization).
Apple did revolutionize power supplies, but not in the way that is claimed: They made it a marketing stratjey to ship utter garbage, like the Appple III, and the "Hindenbook" along with the most inexpensive, cost cutting, garbage known in the industry, until Dell and eMachines decided to use the same model: Just look up "Apple PowerSupply Recall" and you will see they are just repeating their cost saving success/fail…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not looking to argue over the meaning of "invent" or "personal computing", but I'll point out that Alan Kay wrote a 1972 paper "A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages" that pretty much describes the modern laptop or tablet. (He even mentions ad blockers!) Xerox PARC went on to implement a lot of this in the Xerox Alto. It's worth taking a look at the paper to see how many "modern" ideas were described in 19…
I don't remember exactly when, but maybe around 2007, my cousin sent me a video where a man was essentially interacting with a tablet that was sitting on a table. It had an assistant that was helping him with everyone - he was putting together a presentation about a forest (I believe), I think he asked it the weather, set up meetings, etc. It was an amazing thing to watch unfold. To this day, I can't for the life of…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Navigator https://youtu.be/umJsITGzXd0