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He said, "I wrote a BASIC for the very first Apple II computer".

by 10ren 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago
He (or someone in his company) wrote a BASIC for the second Apple II computer. The original II could be made to run it through a language card.
- lanstein 16y ago
  You're really on a roll today.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Slow day here. I also have a personal dislike for Gates (nasty software, bad attitude) and some knowledge on early 8-bit personal computers (I collect, preserve and, when the technology allows, restore them). Bill won't get away with that while I watch ;-)
- 10ren 16y ago
  Hmmm, you seem to be right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#Apple_II_Plus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#Apple_II_Plus I guess there's not much difference between the Apple II and the Apple II Plus, except that it's not the "very first Apple II". And also, the emphasis on "very first" is a slightly odd way to talk about the "II" of anything. So maybe you're right that Bill still has something to prove (or, likes to put himself in the best possible light, a business/marketing quality?), it's just that you also misquoted him slightly inaccurately... in support of your own point... ;-) I remember reading that Wozniak didn't write a floating-point BASIC, though it's not clear why; and it's not clear who exactly at Microsoft wrote it. Undoubtedly, it wouldn't be done totally by one person in isolation, both Bill and Paul would have had a hand in it. It's odd: because it was the first floating-point BASIC for apple, I tend to think it was the first floating-point BASIC for microsoft, as if they were in competition. But they'd written several basics before then (and I'm sure some of them were floating-point). So much of that code and wisdom would be reused; hard for Wozniak to compete with that!
  - KC8ZKF 16y ago
    According to Woz, Jobs was concerned about the progress he was making on FP BASIC: "Steve Jobs got concerned that I wasn't making enough progress. He even accused me of slacking and coming in at 10 AM in one staff meeting, but I pointed out that I'd been laying out our floppy PC Card [...] and that I'd been leaving at 4 AM every morning, long after even the Houston brothers, Dick and Cliff, had left. " http://www.woz.org/letters/general/03.html http://www.woz.org/letters/general/03.html
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      In the end, it was a Very Bad Decision, as it gave Microsoft a critical leverage during the early Mac days when the Apple II was still the revenue driver at Apple. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacBasic.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...
      - 10ren 16y ago
        Wait! According to that it was on the very first Apple II (as Bill said)! > [The Apple II] also came with Microsoft's Basic interpreter, dubbed "Applesoft Basic", on cassette tape. BTW: Sculley seems villainous in that, too. Then again, what about that story Woz tells, of Jobs lying to him about how much he'd get for their project, so that Woz's "half" was less. You know, I tend to see business as a partly adversarial/competitive game. That's not something I cope with well personally, but that's how I see it. From that perspective, Bill's opportunistic exploitation seems well-done, even talented. Personal story: in one deal I negotiated, with a very cool and impressive biotech company that I admired greatly, was with their lawyers. I was warned about them by other members of the company, but I have a law degree myself, so I thought ha ha I'll be fine. But what they did was to smother the contract with typographical changes, so that in the diff, the genuine changes were hidden - and they made a substantive change that they didn't tell me about, and that we hadn't discussed. I was outraged, so I cut off the negotiations. I felt seriously unsettled that I was destroying the value that the transaction would have created, but my key realization was that in dealing with people like that, sooner or later they'd catch me out. So I guess I'm not really OK with Bill's approach at all. I draft my contracts very defensively, but most people aren't like that company (or like Bill), so it's quite possible I miss out on fruitful collaboration because of my "safe" approach.

He said, "I wrote a BASIC for the very first Apple II computer".

by 10ren 16y ago

He said, "I wrote a BASIC for the very first Apple II computer".

He (or someone in his company) wrote a BASIC for the second Apple II computer. The original II could be made to run it through a language card.

lanstein 16y ago
You're really on a roll today.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Slow day here. I also have a personal dislike for Gates (nasty software, bad attitude) and some knowledge on early 8-bit personal computers (I collect, preserve and, when the technology allows, restore them). Bill won't get away with that while I watch ;-)
10ren 16y ago
Hmmm, you seem to be right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#Apple_II_Plus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_series#Apple_II_Plus I guess there's not much difference between the Apple II and the Apple II Plus, except that it's not the "very first Apple II". And also, the emphasis on "very first" is a slightly odd way to talk about the "II" of anything. So maybe you're right that Bill still has something to prove (or, likes to put himself in the best possible light, a business/marketing quality?), it's just that you also misquoted him slightly inaccurately... in support of your own point... ;-) I remember reading that Wozniak didn't write a floating-point BASIC, though it's not clear why; and it's not clear who exactly at Microsoft wrote it. Undoubtedly, it wouldn't be done totally by one person in isolation, both Bill and Paul would have had a hand in it. It's odd: because it was the first floating-point BASIC for apple, I tend to think it was the first floating-point BASIC for microsoft, as if they were in competition. But they'd written several basics before then (and I'm sure some of them were floating-point). So much of that code and wisdom would be reused; hard for Wozniak to compete with that!
- KC8ZKF 16y ago
  According to Woz, Jobs was concerned about the progress he was making on FP BASIC: "Steve Jobs got concerned that I wasn't making enough progress. He even accused me of slacking and coming in at 10 AM in one staff meeting, but I pointed out that I'd been laying out our floppy PC Card [...] and that I'd been leaving at 4 AM every morning, long after even the Houston brothers, Dick and Cliff, had left. " http://www.woz.org/letters/general/03.html http://www.woz.org/letters/general/03.html
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    In the end, it was a Very Bad Decision, as it gave Microsoft a critical leverage during the early Mac days when the Apple II was still the revenue driver at Apple. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacBasic.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...
    - 10ren 16y ago
      Wait! According to that it was on the very first Apple II (as Bill said)! > [The Apple II] also came with Microsoft's Basic interpreter, dubbed "Applesoft Basic", on cassette tape. BTW: Sculley seems villainous in that, too. Then again, what about that story Woz tells, of Jobs lying to him about how much he'd get for their project, so that Woz's "half" was less. You know, I tend to see business as a partly adversarial/competitive game. That's not something I cope with well personally, but that's how I see it. From that perspective, Bill's opportunistic exploitation seems well-done, even talented. Personal story: in one deal I negotiated, with a very cool and impressive biotech company that I admired greatly, was with their lawyers. I was warned about them by other members of the company, but I have a law degree myself, so I thought ha ha I'll be fine. But what they did was to smother the contract with typographical changes, so that in the diff, the genuine changes were hidden - and they made a substantive change that they didn't tell me about, and that we hadn't discussed. I was outraged, so I cut off the negotiations. I felt seriously unsettled that I was destroying the value that the transaction would have created, but my key realization was that in dealing with people like that, sooner or later they'd catch me out. So I guess I'm not really OK with Bill's approach at all. I draft my contracts very defensively, but most people aren't like that company (or like Bill), so it's quite possible I miss out on fruitful collaboration because of my "safe" approach.