4 ms·
I had the same fascination and tracked down the patents which explains it all clearly. It's took a bit of work but wasn't super hard: https://www.google.com/pa
by FullyFunctional 9y ago
I had the same fascination and tracked down the patents which explains it all clearly. It's took a bit of work but wasn't super hard: https://www.google.com/patents/US4210959 https://www.google.com/patents/US4210959 and https://www.google.com/patents/US4742448 https://www.google.com/patents/US4742448
IMvhO, the genius wasn't so much the implementation (which in hindsight follows the essence of the function), but the boldness that enabled him to even look for such a simple implementation. However from what little I've read about him in those days, that was the way I thought. Maybe it's a odd distinction.
EDIT: I do have to wonder about the survivor bias in the CNET story. If Apple had crashed and died like it almost did, we would never have see stories like this.
- Someone 9y agoYou may also be interested in http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/apple-ii-dos-source-code http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/apple-ii-dos-source-cod..., which, among others, points to https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3data.computerhistory.org/atchm/documents/102723983-05-01-acc.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3data.computerhistory.org/atchm/do.... I think that PDF has the design on page 4.
- Waterluvian 9y agoYeah. I've read all of folklore.org and I bet there's an equal set of fascinating stories that were never written by all the companies that failed to do what Apple did. It's a shame.
- stmw 9y agoRight, reading about the Alto is one example - or even Atari lore - at least those are still out there..