5 ms·

When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's (BS before Steve) they lost $1B while I was there. I left and moved away because I didn't want to be there when it was so

When I worked at Apple in the mid-90's (BS before Steve) they lost $1B while I was there. I left and moved away because I didn't want to be there when it was sold or went out of business. Exactly one year later Steve came back. Oh well. Being there at the time not one person would have ever thought Apple could be viable much less worth $1T.

k__ 8y ago
Somehow I found it funny that companies like Microsoft and Apple basically survived because someone brought a new OS from the outside.
- arethuza 8y ago
  In the case of Microsoft they directly acquired the original DOS and the designers of Windows NT - so they've perhaps done that twice?
  - samstave 8y ago
    I didnt know this about NT - Where did they come from?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Jtsummers 8y ago
      NT has a lot of VMS roots.
      - arethuza 8y ago
        Probably a coincidence, but a lot of noticed that "WNT" is one letter on from "VMS". Mind you, HAL is one letter behind IBM.
        deelowe 8y ago
        Some claim the HAL/IBM connection was intentional (though Stanley denies it).
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        andyjohnson0 8y ago
        Coincidentally HAL is also Hardware Abstraction Layer, part of the WinNT kernel's architecture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction#Microsoft_Windows https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction#Microso...
    - barkingcat 8y ago
      Dave Cutler and his team of OS designers from DEC integrated with Microsoft software engineers to create the NT kernel. Cutler was a crucial figure in DEC, but was waysided by management so he jumped ship, and built the design he wanted to build at DEC (but never got management buy-in for) at Microsoft. All outlined in the book Show Stopper! THE BREAKNECK RACE TO CREATE WINDOWS NT AND THE NEXT GENERATION AT MICROSOFT Also, if you took a peek at his wikipedia entry, the guy is behind almost every large MSFT OS related initiative in the last few decades: NT, Azure, XBox hypervisor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_to_Present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_to...
      - simonebrunozzi 8y ago
        And if I remember correctly, NT's kernel was a microkernel. It seemed to be the best choice for the future, back then.
        DaiPlusPlus 8y ago
        Windows NT was a hybrid: the graphics and windowing system is in the kernel for performance reasons (try running X on commodity hardware in the early 1990s) whereas Windows CE was all microkernel.
        StillBored 8y ago
        I wish people would stop saying its a hybrid because of the graphics being moved into the kernel... That doesn't make it a hybrid anymore than having the filesystem in supervisor/kernel space does. Its a hybrid because its designed/layered like a micro-kernel with the individual subsystems appearing to do message passing and using subsystem managers (I/O manager, process manager, object manager, etc) which monitor/etc the message flows. Yet, instead of doing context/privileged switches when it passes messages/IRP's it simply makes abstracted function calls which hand ownership of the message to other subsystems that exist in the kernel's address space. This means you get a most of the abstraction/stability effect of having a micro-kernel without paying the context switch and message copy penalty. NT has a crazy awesome design, which is somewhat obscured these days, but has yet to really be surpassed by anyone (IMHO).
    - codetrotter 8y ago
      You can read more about it in a story from 1998 that was posted here two days ago (probably part of the reason that so many ITT know the story ;)) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652502
    - cjarrett 8y ago
      Show Stopper! is a great read. My copy is always lent around the office, especially to interns: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_
- pkaye 8y ago
  Which one did Microsoft buy?
  - mmanfrin 8y ago
    MS-DOS.
    - garagemc2 8y ago
      didn't actually buy it initially just licensed it. The underlying company tried to sell the license but Microsoft stopped it.
mrtksn 8y ago
Can you tell us a bit more about the morale and employees opinions back then? Was there a prevalent theory about what's wrong and how to fix it?
- coldcode 8y ago
  Press was brutal so it was pretty depressing, some people were still hopeful when Amelio came in, but after a month he vanished and we never heard much from him any more. They took away everything, plants, drinks, even the popcorn machine supplies to save money. Then we were building a new OS which everyone knew was a nightmare death march.
- coldcode 8y ago
  Best thing the CTO did (Ellen Hancock) was to kill the Copland OS project, which then led to the ultimate decision to buy NeXT, which led to Steve coming back, which lead to $1T. Props to her for doing the right thing.
  - brandall10 8y ago
    Back in '96 I was an assistant admin for a network of some 100 Macs in a biotech lab. My supervisor was a die-hard Apple lover, had a Newton, and a fair bit of Apple stock. They could do no wrong in his eyes. I was a Mac fan (had a Duo 280c, encouraged my folks to purchase 603 clones) but pessimistic about Jobs return. In my view at the time, he had done damage to Apple with the Mac intro and had failed w/ NeXT, even though I was huge fans of the hardware of each. I just didn't think he had the ability to scale a hardware company. I was hoping for BeOS to be the savior. Nonetheless, it was exciting to see him return as the interim CEO. My supervisor bought a bunch more stock, think it was something like $7/share, and I gave him alot of grief for being foolish. I'm sure he's living in paradise right now, lol.

k__ 8y ago

Somehow I found it funny that companies like Microsoft and Apple basically survived because someone brought a new OS from the outside.

arethuza 8y ago
In the case of Microsoft they directly acquired the original DOS and the designers of Windows NT - so they've perhaps done that twice?
- samstave 8y ago
  I didnt know this about NT - Where did they come from?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jtsummers 8y ago
    NT has a lot of VMS roots.
    - arethuza 8y ago
      Probably a coincidence, but a lot of noticed that "WNT" is one letter on from "VMS". Mind you, HAL is one letter behind IBM.
      - deelowe 8y ago
        Some claim the HAL/IBM connection was intentional (though Stanley denies it).
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - andyjohnson0 8y ago
        Coincidentally HAL is also Hardware Abstraction Layer, part of the WinNT kernel's architecture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction#Microsoft_Windows https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction#Microso...
  - barkingcat 8y ago
    Dave Cutler and his team of OS designers from DEC integrated with Microsoft software engineers to create the NT kernel. Cutler was a crucial figure in DEC, but was waysided by management so he jumped ship, and built the design he wanted to build at DEC (but never got management buy-in for) at Microsoft. All outlined in the book Show Stopper! THE BREAKNECK RACE TO CREATE WINDOWS NT AND THE NEXT GENERATION AT MICROSOFT Also, if you took a peek at his wikipedia entry, the guy is behind almost every large MSFT OS related initiative in the last few decades: NT, Azure, XBox hypervisor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_to_Present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#Microsoft_(1988_to...
    - simonebrunozzi 8y ago
      And if I remember correctly, NT's kernel was a microkernel. It seemed to be the best choice for the future, back then.
      - DaiPlusPlus 8y ago
        Windows NT was a hybrid: the graphics and windowing system is in the kernel for performance reasons (try running X on commodity hardware in the early 1990s) whereas Windows CE was all microkernel.
        StillBored 8y ago
        I wish people would stop saying its a hybrid because of the graphics being moved into the kernel... That doesn't make it a hybrid anymore than having the filesystem in supervisor/kernel space does. Its a hybrid because its designed/layered like a micro-kernel with the individual subsystems appearing to do message passing and using subsystem managers (I/O manager, process manager, object manager, etc) which monitor/etc the message flows. Yet, instead of doing context/privileged switches when it passes messages/IRP's it simply makes abstracted function calls which hand ownership of the message to other subsystems that exist in the kernel's address space. This means you get a most of the abstraction/stability effect of having a micro-kernel without paying the context switch and message copy penalty. NT has a crazy awesome design, which is somewhat obscured these days, but has yet to really be surpassed by anyone (IMHO).
  - codetrotter 8y ago
    You can read more about it in a story from 1998 that was posted here two days ago (probably part of the reason that so many ITT know the story ;)) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652502
  - cjarrett 8y ago
    Show Stopper! is a great read. My copy is always lent around the office, especially to interns: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_
pkaye 8y ago
Which one did Microsoft buy?
- mmanfrin 8y ago
  MS-DOS.
  - garagemc2 8y ago
    didn't actually buy it initially just licensed it. The underlying company tried to sell the license but Microsoft stopped it.

mrtksn 8y ago

Can you tell us a bit more about the morale and employees opinions back then? Was there a prevalent theory about what's wrong and how to fix it?

coldcode 8y ago
Press was brutal so it was pretty depressing, some people were still hopeful when Amelio came in, but after a month he vanished and we never heard much from him any more. They took away everything, plants, drinks, even the popcorn machine supplies to save money. Then we were building a new OS which everyone knew was a nightmare death march.
coldcode 8y ago
Best thing the CTO did (Ellen Hancock) was to kill the Copland OS project, which then led to the ultimate decision to buy NeXT, which led to Steve coming back, which lead to $1T. Props to her for doing the right thing.
- brandall10 8y ago
  Back in '96 I was an assistant admin for a network of some 100 Macs in a biotech lab. My supervisor was a die-hard Apple lover, had a Newton, and a fair bit of Apple stock. They could do no wrong in his eyes. I was a Mac fan (had a Duo 280c, encouraged my folks to purchase 603 clones) but pessimistic about Jobs return. In my view at the time, he had done damage to Apple with the Mac intro and had failed w/ NeXT, even though I was huge fans of the hardware of each. I just didn't think he had the ability to scale a hardware company. I was hoping for BeOS to be the savior. Nonetheless, it was exciting to see him return as the interim CEO. My supervisor bought a bunch more stock, think it was something like $7/share, and I gave him alot of grief for being foolish. I'm sure he's living in paradise right now, lol.